Harvard Divinity School May Return Gift From Arab Leader

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (RNS) Harvard University is discussing whether to give back a $2.5 million gift from the president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), citing “extremely offensive” statements from a center that the president’s son directs. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who is the son of the UAE president and deputy prime minister of […]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (RNS) Harvard University is discussing whether to give back a $2.5 million gift from the president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), citing “extremely offensive” statements from a center that the president’s son directs.

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who is the son of the UAE president and deputy prime minister of the country, leads the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up, which is an Abu Dhabi-based organization that sponsors lectures and reports on topics involving Islam, Israel and the Arab world.

The UAE president, who is also named Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, approved the founding of the organization in 1999.


A group of Harvard Divinity School students and professors complained to Dean William A. Graham in March about the organization, saying the Zayed Center’s Web site contained anti-Semitic and anti-American material.

The center’s Web site says the group aims to “to promote solidarity and cooperation among the Arab nations in the light of the principles and objectives of the League of Arab States.”

The site also contains a news release, “In Reply to Zionist Falsities,” which accuses critics of the center of being part of “Zionist propaganda,” adding that the center’s “major concern is sponsoring the Arab rights in Palestine.”

The Harvard Crimson reported that links on the Web site lead to the writings of Holocaust deniers and several writers who have been accused of anti-Semitism.

A divinity school spokesperson says that school’s acceptance of the gift, which was from the president and not the Zayed Centre, and which was to endow a professorship in Islamic religious studies, predates the existence of both the center and its Web site.

The gift was presented to the school in the late 1990s, and the final terms were accepted by Zayed in June 2000. The center formed in 1999, but it did not launch its Web site and begin many of its public activities until the fall of 2001.


While the professorship has officially been established, the money has not yet been spent by the divinity school. Graham has said that he was aware of concerns about the center before he was approached by the student and professor group.

The Harvard Divinity School spokesperson said all gifts are accepted and processed at the university level, and so Graham, who is a scholar of Islam, and the divinity school will not have the last word on whether the gift is returned.

The school released a statement May 16 calling some material on the center’s Web site “extremely offensive.”

“Both the Divinity School and the University as a whole have historically sought to embody religious tolerance and diversity, and take this issue very seriously,” the statement said.

The school hired an independent researcher who has submitted a report to a university committee that is considering the gift return.

A decision is expected in the next few weeks.

_ Holly Lebowitz Rossi

CAD END RNS

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