this is about a charity owned by a business man . may be he wants some publicity for himself? i dont know but it has nothing to do with islam . Wanna sue the guy prince waleed ibn talal? be my guest!!
Just because a guy boasted wrongfully about a medal from, the pope doesnt in any sane way mean that this guy’s faith is engaged in acocnspiracy to attract other religions followes to it!!
I hate to ruin a good argument/rant with facts and analysis but here goes:
The ad was placed by Saudi royals in 4 international papers.
The charity was founded by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, a nephew of King Abdullah and the world’s 13th-richest person. No business man seeking publicity he.
Directly under a Koranic passage on tolerance, the headline declared: “Alwaleed bin Talal Humanitarian Foundation, representing Kingdom Foundation, awarded the Pontifical Medal by Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.”
The Papal coat of arms was under the image of the medal.
The Medal is one given to anyone who has an audience with the pope. It can be purchased in the vatican bookstore.
The picture in the ad was doctored to show the pope presenting the medal.
This clearly reflects a policy of the Saudi royal family. It could be that the Saudis want to legitimize their grants to major universities by making them seem less political. Nina Shea (the author of the article I posted above and the source of the above) suggests that
…if the ad’s immediate purpose may have been to cast the appearance of a papal blessing over the growing Saudi presence on Western campuses, it also served a larger Saudi aim. The Saudi monarchy has begun using the model of the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church to position itself as the authoritative voice of Islam worldwide. This is new…In 2006, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, in a letter to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, quoted the king as referring to his government as the “Vatican of Islam.” …The recent ad directly supports this power play. It sets up visual parallels between the pope and the king, the Vatican and Mecca.
The implication of the Saudis becoming the Vatican of Islam is unnerving and has great consequences. Though the Middle East is not my area of expertise, I would suggest that it is dangerous, given the general decentralization of Islam. I note that the President of Iran has been chastised by the Iranian Imams for meddling with Islamic theology and he has backed down on several occasions. In short, the May 8 ad is a reflection of deeper political issues,
Nina Shea concludes her article: * A slogan at the bottom reads, “Two great faiths, Sharing one cause: humanity.” Using its control of the hajj and the vast wealth it pours into foreign evangelism, funding mosques, schools, libraries, and academic centers worldwide, the House of Saud is patiently pursuing its quest to make the Saudi variant of Islam–Wahhabism, with its warrant for the murder of heretics, apostates, and infidels–the Muslim norm. This is the ad’s chilling subtext.
The latest Saudi publicity stunt should not be dismissed as merely a boorish hoax. It offers a useful glimpse of the ambitions and methods of the Saudi state, which deserve to be taken seriously.* I agree.
