Templeton Prize Committee Postpones Granting Religious Prize to Moslem

Charges of anti-Semitism against a Moslem leader awarded a religion prize have forced an indefinite postponement of the granting of the award, reportedly at the recipient’s request.

The award was announced in New York March 2. Last week, following charges by the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith that Dr. Inamullah Khan, secretary-general of the World Muslim Congress, had long promulgated anti-Semitism, sponsors of the Templeton Prize postponed the award’s presentation in order to investigate the Jewish groups’ accusation.

In addition, an independent investigation by New York Times reporter Peter Steinfels has uncovered additional damaging material on Khan and the World Muslim Congress.

Rabbi A. James Rudin, interreligious affairs director for the AJCommittee, said he had enough evidence of “hostility toward Jews” to cause him to send a cable to Sir John Templeton, founder of the prize, protesting the award. Rudin said the AJCommittee was “appalled and shocked” at the award to Khan.

“We are dealing here with a person who should clearly be disqualified from receiving the prize because of his public record of continued hostility toward Jewish people and the State of Israel,” Rudin said. “I really welcome the postponement.”

Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL, sent a letter to Templeton saying Khan heads “an openly anti-Jewish organization” that has espoused the revisionist theory that the Holocaust never occurred.

The ADL confronted the World Muslim Congress in 1982 for its revisionist publication, “Six Million Reconsidered,” Foxman said.

Foxman also charged that Khan had “consistently denied Israel’s right to exist.”

DENIES ACCUSATIONS

Khan denied the accusations. In a cable, he said, “I can never support anti-Semitic feelings because I am myself a descendant of Semitic ancestors from the Middle East.”

But, he added, “My difference is with the Zionists because the U.N. General Assembly has declared Zionism a racist creed.”

Khan, 73, lives in Karachi, Pakistan, headquarters of the Saudi-financed organization that claims to promote Moslem unity and defend the rights of Moslem minorities. The World Muslim Congress also holds a position as a non-governmental organization at the United Nations.

Both Rudin and Foxman said the Templeton Prize had in the past always been awarded to outstanding people. Well-known recipients of the prize include Mother Teresa, Billy Graham and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This was the first time the award was to go to a non-Christian recipient.

Templeton, a very successful financier from Tennessee who has a personal interest in religious affairs, lives in Nassau, the Bahamas, from where he administers the award. He is reported off the island until June and not available for comment.

Rudin and Foxman praised the Templeton Prize and said this error would ensure that the foundation more carefully research its award candidates.

The award is chosen by a panel that includes the British royal family, with the Prince of Wales topping the list. Former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William Simon is also a member of the panel. The award was to have been presented May 10 in London by Princess Alexandra.

The newsletter of the World Muslim Congress, The Muslim World, devotes considerable space to anti-Jewish and anti-Israel diatribes. In 1972, it reprinted material by Gerald L.K. Smith, a virulent anti-Semite and founder of the Christian Nationalist Crusade, a right-wing racist organization. Smith wrote about a “Zionist stranglehold” on the news media and American politics.

More than 10 years ago, it carried a promotion for two major anti-Semitic tracts, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and Henry Ford’s “The International Jew.”

The newsletter in which the announcement appeared bore the line “edited and published by Inamullah Khan.”