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The European Union is preparing to provide €10 million in funding for a scientific research project aimed at highlighting the contribution of the Qu’ran and the Muslim religion to European civilisation. The influence of the Muslim Brotherhood is evident behind this undertaking.
The objective of this programme, entitled ‘The European Qur’an,’ the idea of which was launched six years ago and which is due to last until 2026, is to “challenge traditional perceptions of the Qur’anic text and well-established ideas about European religious and cultural identities” through travelling exhibitions, conferences, and book publications. The starting point of the project’s initiators is that the influence of Islam on European culture is greatly underestimated. “Our project is built on the conviction that the Qur’an has played an important role in the formation of medieval and early modern European religious diversity and identity and continues to do so,” reads the website homepage. The project aims to cover a chronological span of seven hundred years, from 1150 to 1850, from the Iberian Peninsula to Hungary.
All of this could be part of a field of scientific research (almost) like any other, if a clearly militant design were not at work in the background, as revealed by an investigation conducted by the French conservative newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche: several academics involved in the process are notoriously close to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The French academic Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, known—and persecuted—for her work on the entryism of the Muslim Brotherhood into both academic and political circles, warns against this organisation, which has gradually established itself as an essential “institutional interlocutor,” particularly in its interactions with European programmes, as she explains in an interview with Le Figaro.
Following the investigation published in Le Journal du Dimanche, several MEPs expressed alarm at the colossal sums allocated to the initiative: it is, in fact, one of the largest European Union subsidies granted to a scientific programme within the framework of the European Research Council, a body created by the European Commission and financed by the EU budget.
The conditions for the allocation of funds are astonishing. The European Qur’an project is part of the EU programme entitled ‘Scientific Excellence,’ which officially aims to make up for the “delay in the race for cutting-edge scientific production and excellence” compared to the United States. It is not very clear how research on the importance of the Qur’an in European identity would enable us to compete with ‘cutting-edge’ American scientific research.
Le Journal du Dimanche reveals that since 2007, 17,000 projects have been subsidised, but The European Qur’an is one of those that have received the largest envelope—on par, for example, with a project on quantum computing, which received €15 million in 2013. Since then, the total amount of grants awarded by the Research Council for a single project has been capped at €10 million. For The European Qur’an, we are talking about €9,842,534—just below the limit.
French Les Républicains MEP Céline Imart, a member of the EPP, has sent a letter of protest to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to protest against “the lack of control of European funds and this waste of resources,” which would be better used to support researchers to “develop our competitiveness” rather than to fund “studies conducted by people close to the Muslim Brotherhood.” A similar letter was sent by Rassemblement National MEP and former Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri, in which he criticises “ideological excesses contrary to the values of the Union.”
In an interview with Le Figaro, Leggeri expressed alarm at the very clearly militant dimension of the project, dressed up in supposedly scientific garb. According to him, the programme promotes “a rewriting of the religious and cultural history of Europe, because it tends to demonstrate that between 1150 and 1850, Europe always developed with Islam. To make people believe that Islam has always had considerable importance in Europe is a falsification of history financed by public money.”
The scientists involved in the project defend themselves by arguing that they are taking a dispassionate and rigorous approach, “contrary to the radicalism of the Wahhabis and Salafists,” according to John Tolan, a professor at the University of Nantes associated with the research programme. “Naivety!” replies Leggeri, with regard to other initiatives launched in the same spirit and supported by the European Union—such as, in 2021, a “Freedom with hijab” ad campaign, or more recently, an Erasmus programme with a pro-Hamas Turkish university.
The objective of this programme, entitled ‘The European Qur’an,’ the idea of which was launched six years ago and which is due to last until 2026, is to “challenge traditional perceptions of the Qur’anic text and well-established ideas about European religious and cultural identities” through travelling exhibitions, conferences, and book publications. The starting point of the project’s initiators is that the influence of Islam on European culture is greatly underestimated. “Our project is built on the conviction that the Qur’an has played an important role in the formation of medieval and early modern European religious diversity and identity and continues to do so,” reads the website homepage. The project aims to cover a chronological span of seven hundred years, from 1150 to 1850, from the Iberian Peninsula to Hungary.
All of this could be part of a field of scientific research (almost) like any other, if a clearly militant design were not at work in the background, as revealed by an investigation conducted by the French conservative newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche: several academics involved in the process are notoriously close to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The French academic Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, known—and persecuted—for her work on the entryism of the Muslim Brotherhood into both academic and political circles, warns against this organisation, which has gradually established itself as an essential “institutional interlocutor,” particularly in its interactions with European programmes, as she explains in an interview with Le Figaro.
Following the investigation published in Le Journal du Dimanche, several MEPs expressed alarm at the colossal sums allocated to the initiative: it is, in fact, one of the largest European Union subsidies granted to a scientific programme within the framework of the European Research Council, a body created by the European Commission and financed by the EU budget.
The conditions for the allocation of funds are astonishing. The European Qur’an project is part of the EU programme entitled ‘Scientific Excellence,’ which officially aims to make up for the “delay in the race for cutting-edge scientific production and excellence” compared to the United States. It is not very clear how research on the importance of the Qur’an in European identity would enable us to compete with ‘cutting-edge’ American scientific research.
Le Journal du Dimanche reveals that since 2007, 17,000 projects have been subsidised, but The European Qur’an is one of those that have received the largest envelope—on par, for example, with a project on quantum computing, which received €15 million in 2013. Since then, the total amount of grants awarded by the Research Council for a single project has been capped at €10 million. For The European Qur’an, we are talking about €9,842,534—just below the limit.
French Les Républicains MEP Céline Imart, a member of the EPP, has sent a letter of protest to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to protest against “the lack of control of European funds and this waste of resources,” which would be better used to support researchers to “develop our competitiveness” rather than to fund “studies conducted by people close to the Muslim Brotherhood.” A similar letter was sent by Rassemblement National MEP and former Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri, in which he criticises “ideological excesses contrary to the values of the Union.”
In an interview with Le Figaro, Leggeri expressed alarm at the very clearly militant dimension of the project, dressed up in supposedly scientific garb. According to him, the programme promotes “a rewriting of the religious and cultural history of Europe, because it tends to demonstrate that between 1150 and 1850, Europe always developed with Islam. To make people believe that Islam has always had considerable importance in Europe is a falsification of history financed by public money.”
The scientists involved in the project defend themselves by arguing that they are taking a dispassionate and rigorous approach, “contrary to the radicalism of the Wahhabis and Salafists,” according to John Tolan, a professor at the University of Nantes associated with the research programme. “Naivety!” replies Leggeri, with regard to other initiatives launched in the same spirit and supported by the European Union—such as, in 2021, a “Freedom with hijab” ad campaign, or more recently, an Erasmus programme with a pro-Hamas Turkish university.
