Islamization of Yale: A Partial Chronology

No, I have not just raised the curtain on a new Mel Brooks musical number, with the “imam,” center stage, about to break out singing: “Autumn ... at Ya-le ... means Ram-adan....”

Behold Yale’s Coxe Cage where in October 2008 hundreds of area Muslims, including Yale students, gathered for an Islamic service. (Story and slide show here.) I found this stunning East-meets-absorbs-West image while researching this week’s column in which I make the case that Yale probably censored the Motoons in accordance with Islamic law to please potential Muslim donors who fund the extension and entrenchment of such law.

Along the way, I found a bumpy trail of disjointed factoids that, even though they don’t all connect, nonetheless mark an increasing accommodation of Islam, including jihad and sharia culture, at Yale. It is a progression that is impossible to assess without also assessing Yale’s disgraceful pursuit of money from the bastions of sharia -- namely, from some of the world’s leading, if super-wealthy, Islamic villains, including UAE’s Maktoum family, & Saudi Arabia’s Talal bin Alwaleed -- which I have also tried to track.

This Islamization of Yale is perhaps best captured by the absolutely surreal picture above. I call it “surreal” because there is a science fictional and, indeed, cartoonish aspect to this mass importation of a non-Western, anti-liberty society right smack into the middle of a once strongly defined and, by definition, extremely exclusive bastion of Western, pro-liberty society -- Yale’s Coxe Cage, not only an athletic center since 1915, but also site of alumni luncheons in the fall.

Here is a partial, random but not unrelated chronology of events preceding Yale’s decision to bow to sharia norms regarding Mohammed imagery:

December 2005: Saudi Prince Talal bin Alwaleed passes over Yale and bestows $20 million apiece on Georgetown and Harvard. Yale President Levin tells the Yale Daily News that Yale had been in the running with two proposals.

January 1, 2006: Yale VP and Secretary Linda Lorimer in Dubai to address Zayed University’s Centre for Business Excellence forum in Dubai Media City. Remember Zayed? But I digress: “I would not suggest what might be the appropriate direction for you; that would be presumptuous,”said Lorimer.However, this country should enter into partnerships with leading universities rather than “importing wholesale centers,” she said. Very subtle.

October 2006: Lorimer and President Levin go to UAE -- Abu Dhabi and Dubai -- to discuss an arts partnership

February 2007: Abu Dhabi arts project talks continue in earnest.

April 2007: Modern Middle East Studies Major added to Yale curriculum.

May 2007: Yale Arab Alumni Association forms. Former PLO spokesmanRashid Khalidi heads the advisory board.

April 2008: Yale -- Abu Dhabi talks fall through

UPDATED 8.22.09: July 2008: Grand Mufti of Bosnia Mustafa Ceric, advocate of a sharia-based “imamate” for Muslims in Europe, who made news this week by calling for sharia to be incorporated into Bosnia’s constitution (while officiating at a mass sharia wedding, AKI English writes, that was reportedly paid for by Libya’s Qadafi), delivers a keynote address at a Muslims-Christian conferenceat the Yale Divinity School.

March 2009: Islamic Awareness Week at Yale features talk by Mahdi Bray.

April 2009: The Mohammed bin Rashid Maktoum Foundation announcesagreements with several business schools in the US, including Yale’s. The Maktoum family, of course, has a history of supporting jihad causes, from OBL to MB, but Yale’s Lorimer gushes: “We at Yale are inspired by the work of the Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum Foundation. … We look forward to continue partnering with the Foundation for years to come.”

Fiscal year ending June 30, 2009: Yale’s endowment is down by about 30 percent.

July 2009: Yale and Yale University Press inform Motoon book author Jytte Klausen the Motoons are hereby censored for fear of “violence.”

August 1, 2009: Arab News reports that Yale has selected a new “Yale world fellow” -- Muna Abu Sulayman, who -- mirabile dictu and what a kwinydink -- is general secretary of the charitable foundation of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. “It is extremely useful to have an international team working on their leadership skills,” Arab News reports Yale Prez Levin as having said.

“Extremely useful” for putting the touch on the old Saudi moneybags, anyway. All Yale has to do now is follow-up with pics of Ramadan at Coxe Cage.

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