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The Iconoclast
Saturday, 17 May 2008
MB Supporter Louis Cantori Dies

Baltimore Sun: Dr. Louis J. Cantori, a Middle Eastern scholar, author and former professor of political science who taught at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County for more than three decades, died of heart failure Monday at his Hunting Ridge home. He was 73.

Dr. Cantori was born and raised in Haverhill, Mass., and served in the Marine Corps from 1951 to 1955, where he attained the rank of sergeant. He earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1961.

He was a graduate of the University of Chicago, where he earned a master's degree in political science in 1962 and his doctorate in political science in 1966. He continued his education at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, where he studied Islamic philosophy.

According to the Global Muslim Brotherhood report, Dr. Cantori was a supporter of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood:

Omitted from this information is Dr. Cantori’s extensive affiliations with the U.S. Brotherhood. Perhaps the most prominent of these affiliations was serving as a founding board member of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID. Dr. Cantori was also a faculty member of the Cordoba University, headed by Taha Jabir Al-Alwani who has played a major role in multiple U.S. Brotherhood organizations such as CSID, the Graduate School of Islamic Social Sciences, the International Institute of Islamic Thought, and the Fiqh Council of North America. Both Dr. Cantori and Dr. Al-Alwani were also member of the Steering Committee of the Circle of Tradition and Progress (COTP) described as a:

…unique international association was established in 1997 consisting of distinguished Christian and Muslim scholars of conservative or traditionalist inclination committed to a common investigation of the permanent things. The association, the Circle of Tradition and Progress, recently held its second international symposium in London. The objective of the research, conferences and publications which the Circle projects is to reintegrate Mediterranean and Arab Islam within that Western world of which it long constituted an important part.

Members of the COTP Steering Committee included:

Sheikh Youssef Qaradhawi (most important leader of the global Muslim Brotherhood)

Dr. John L. Esposito (Georgetown University academic and Muslim Brotherhood supporter)

Rachid Ghannoushi (Tunisian Islamist associated with Brotherhood networks)

Bashir Nafi (Palestinian Islamic Jihad)

Posted on 12:56 PM by Rebecca Bynum
Comments
17 May 2008
Send an emailHugh Fitzgerald

When Sami Al-Arian was arrested and charged with his support for terrorism, a number of professors championed him. Martin Kramer gives pride of place to Esposito; Cantori is listed next:

"John Esposito, director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, has been Al-Arian's most distinguished academic champion. Early last year, he wrote a letter to the president of USF, professing to be "stunned, astonished, and saddened" by moves to dismiss Al-Arian, whom he described as a "consummate professional." The university had to resist the "pressures" of "biased, inflammatory" media. (Esposito specifically mentioned the journalist Steven Emerson, who was the first to establish Al-Arian's links to Islamic Jihad.) USF's actions would not only "reflect on the University's reputation but also send a clear message to your students about what American democracy and academic freedom mean." Last September, after another move to dismiss Al-Arian, Esposito cancelled a lecture appearance at USF, which he denounced as "a university that so clearly violates the academic freedom of one of its professors." (Esposito has also employed Al-Arian's daughter, a Georgetown undergraduate, as a research assistant.) It's all confirmation of the obvious: Esposito never met a Muslim extremist he didn't like. Esposito has another, more remote connection to yesterday's arrests. He still sits on the board of a London institute run by his Hamas friend, Azzam Tamimi. Another board member, Basheer Nafi, was indicted yesterday along with Al-Arian. I urged Esposito to resign from this board back in September. How many more indictments will it take for Esposito to realize that he's been running with funders and apologists for the worst suicide terrorism? Other Middle East profs supported Al-Arian. The University of Maryland political scientist Louis Cantori complained to USF's president that Al-Arian was being "pursued as a political radical. This he is not. Period."