The funding comes in the form of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, for a total of $1,080,997, covering the period from September 2014 to June 2017.
One of the project leaders for the grant is Ghaffar Hussain, a former managing director of the Quilliam Foundation. Hussain is no longer formally employed by Quilliam, however. Today, he manages the government’s Preventing Violent Extremism (Prevent) programme in the London Borough of Newham.
Templeton, the Christian right, and anti-science
In 2014, ‘New Atheist’ icon Sam Harris donated $20,000 to the Quilliam Foundation. Harris has advocated “war with Islam,” including defending regime change in Iraq, advocating torture, and promoting mass profiling of Muslims “or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim.”
Despite his engagements with Nawaz, as exemplified in their co-authored book, Islam and the Future of Tolerance, Harris has never renounced such views, and Nawaz has not challenged them.
Ironically, a recent investigation commissioned by Harris concluded that the John Templeton Foundation, which now funds Quilliam, had a worrying “history of funding what could be seen as anti-science activities and groups.”
The John Templeton Foundation specialises in funding programmes that bring science and religion closer, including in some cases sponsoring dubious pseudo-scientific projects on ‘faith healing.’
For that reason, the Foundation is shunned by many prominent scientists, including for instance the well-known biologist Richard Dawkins. These scientists criticise the foundation’s promotion of conservative Christian religious ideology and right-wing causes.
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