A U.K. newspaper has reported that the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, whose advisory council includes prominent individuals tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood, has allocated £550,000 for interfaith work and may be funded in part from “benefactors” in the Middle East. According to the report:
The potent mix is already paying handsome dividends. Recently filed accounts for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation reveal that the charity, which aims to promote greater understanding between religions, received donations of £3.6m in its first year of existence.It is an impressive amount for an organisation that was established less than two years ago, although the accounts do not reveal who donated the money. However, there is speculation that some of the money flooding into the foundation is coming from wealthy benefactors in the Middle East. The accounts reveal that £550,000 has been ring-fenced for promoting the foundation’s work with the Islamic, Christian and Jewish faiths.
According to its website, the Foundation’s International Religious Advisory Council is composed of “individuals from each of the six faiths with which the Foundation initially intends to work” and includes the following individuals of interest.
- Dr Ismail Khudr Al-Shatti, (Advisor to the Prime Minister of Kuwait)
- Mustafa Ceric (Grand Mufti of Bosnia -Herzegovina)
- The Reverend David Coffey (President of the Baptist World Alliance)
- Rabbi David Rosen, (Chairman of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations)
- Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, (Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth)
- The Reverend Rick Warren (Founding and Senior Pastor of Saddleback Church)
According to his resume, Ismail Khudr AL-Shatti has been a leader in the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM), the Kuwaiti branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mustafa Ceric is tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood through his membership in the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), headed by Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi and by his participation in the U.K.-based “Radical Middle Way” consisting of a wide range of associated scholars representing the global Muslim Brotherhood.
As an earlier post reported, Rabbi David Rosen is an Israeli with dual Irish citizenship who is associated with the American Jewish Committee and who attended a Saudi-sponsored interfaith conference last July that included many individuals tied to the global Brotherhood.
Interestingly, Rich Warren gave the invocation at the Obama presidential inauguration, which took place on January 20, 2009.