Saudi prince promotes agenda for peace and religious understanding

Marshall Ingwerson

Written for the Sentinel

Former President Jimmy Carter and Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, Chairman of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation

The Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation/Cheryl Richards

Saudi Arabia is not exactly famous for religious tolerance. Saudi outreach, in fact, often takes the form of promoting its radically conservative Wahhabi sect that has little tolerance even for other traditions of Islam.

But a prominent member of the Saudi royal family is putting his considerable fortune behind an effort to build bridges between the Muslim and Christian worlds.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was in Boston recently meeting with the directors of the six study centers his foundation has established and funded at major universities, including Harvard. The charter of these centers is to promote better understanding between the Islamic world and the West—through Islamic studies at Western universities and American studies programs in Cairo and Beirut.

A dinner he hosted during his visit featured a conversation between the Prince and former President Jimmy Carter. Both men spoke mainly of the importance of religious understanding to world peace and progress. All the major religions, noted Mr. Carter—not just Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but also Buddhism and Hinduism—expound the same set of moral values ranging from justice to alleviating suffering. Overcoming the conflicts based on religious differences is the most important issue of our time, Carter said, and one he prays about regularly.

Mary Trammell, a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors, was a guest at the dinner, as were several Christian Science Monitor editors, along with many Boston-based academics, journalists, and others.

Prince Alwaleed is one of the richest men in the world. Forbes magazine recently reported his net worth at nearly $20 billion and that much of that fortune was self made through savvy investments. He owns major positions in Citigroup, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., a couple of hotel chains, and most recently a $300 million stake in Twitter, the social networking platform.

Some regard the prince’s investments and outreach efforts with suspicion—as a Saudi effort to buy influence in the democratic West. Certainly he has influence in mind. But the agenda he describes is peace based on a wider understanding of what major religions hold in common.

He is an outspoken social liberal in the ruling family of one of the least democratic and religiously conservative nations in the world. In a country where women aren’t allowed to drive or appear in public less than totally covered, he is known for promoting women as managers in his companies. His foundation sponsors programs promoting the education and advancement of women and girls in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. And his wife, Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel, is vice chair of his foundation.

Marshall Ingwerson
Managing Editor, The Christian Science Monitor

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