Iran Promotes Establishment of Islamic Faculties World-Wide

By The Media Line Staff

The Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology is looking into ways to help establish Islamic studies departments in universities around the world.

"The ministry is currently studying proposals by numerous world academic centers and universities, including several universities from Britain, the United States and Germany," Gholam Reza Khajesarvi, an official at the ministry's Culture Department told Iran's official news agency IRNA.

Khajesarvi did not name the universities that were interested in establishing Islamic studies departments.

"The departments will be set up to train and educate experts on Islam, so as to assist in the introduction of Islam and its realities to the world in a proper academic setting," the official explained.

The guidelines for this plan were recently signed by the minister of science, research and technology, said Khajesarvi, adding that they had been submitted to "all the academic centers to announce ways and means of cooperation."

Last April, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFC) conducted a meeting, during which it discussed the issue of Islamic studies in British universities.

The meeting was called for amid concerns that Saudi and Muslim organizations exerted much influence over British universities "as a result of donations that dwarf government funding," the British daily Guardian reported on April 17.

The paper quoted academics, who said they were "nervous of the threat to their academic freedom," as a result of these foreign private donations.

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