Saudi businessman Abdallah S. Kamel has donated $10 million to Yale University Law School to establish a center for the “Study of Islamic Law and Civilization.” In doing so, Yale joins Harvard, Georgetown, UC Berkeley, and other American universities in accepting Saudi largesse that, experience tells us, often results in Middle East studies centers and academics producing apologias for Islamism. In this case, the focus is on Sharia (Islamic) law, which, as noted by the Independent Journal Review, is “antithetical to the classical and modern liberal traditions of Western Civilization.” The fact that Yale Law School Dean Robert C. Post described Sharia, a pre-modern, barbaric legal code that proponents are seeking to expand into the West, as having “a long and proud tradition, which encompasses great intellectual achievements” does not bode well.
