Thursday, May 5, 2005
Check out this federal grant. The US Government is providing $300,000 for an exchange program of Muslim "scholars and clerics" between here and the Middle East. Honest questions: Does the government do this for any other religion? Would they? Will this program really accomplish the lofty goals wished for in its description, or is it just a chance for some dawa at government expense?
The short description is here: Islamic Life in the United States
The Office of Citizen Exchanges of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State, announces an open competition for one grant to support an international exchange project under the rubric "Islam: Scholarship and Practice in the United States." Public and private non-profit organizations or consortia of such organizations meeting the provisions described in Internal Revenue Code section 26 USC 501(c)(3) may submit proposals to develop and implement a multi-phased exchange involving the travel of scholars and clerics from Egypt, Jordan, and one or more additional countries of the Middle East to the United States and of reciprocal visits to the Middle East by American scholars of religion, scholars of Islamic studies, and clerics.
The longer description is here at the State Department's site.
You know, if they were doing something like this for Christians there would be an outcry.
If they were doing something like this for most other faiths there would be an outcry.
If they were doing this for atheism there would be applause. But for Islam, their is silence. What gives?