The International Institute of Islamic Thought, a nonprofit research group based in Virginia, has revoked its large $1.5 million offer for an endowed chair in Islamic studies to honor respected Temple religion professor Mahmoud Ayoub, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Negotiations for the offer, which came last spring, were derailed when university trustees and others were suspiscious of the group’s involvement in a government probe into the funding of suspected terrorists back in 2002.
In a university statement, President Ann Weaver Hart said that “Temple decided to neither accept or reject this generous offer,” instead waiting to hear the federal investigation is completed.
IIIT revoked the offer late last month.
“There’s no reason to believe there’s an investigation of IIIT,” the group’s attorney, Nancy Luque, told the Inquirer.
IIIT was one of 20 nonprofits investigated by the government almost six years ago regarding their relationship with Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor suspected of funding Palestinian terrorists.
However, IIIT was never prosecuted, nor was anyone directly affiliated with the organization. No assets were frozen, according to Luque.
The group approached Temple initially because of Ayoub, a highly respected scholar born and educated in Lebanon before coming to Philadelphia for a master’s degree in religous thought from the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s. The group itself has Temple ties, considering Ismail Al-Faruqi, who founded Temple’s Islamic studies program, cofounded IIIT. Al-Faruqi and his wife were stabbed to death in their Wyncote home in 1986. It is a case that has never been solved.
Anti-Islamic sentiment has raged over the decision in some sectors. In a letter to President Hart from late December, Professor Lenoard Swidler, who teaches Catholic thought for Temple’s religion department, called the situation shameful, the result of Hart absorbing pressure from, “Islamophobic persons on the board of trustees,” according to the Inquirer.
