The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) has announced the death of Louis Cantori, a professor of Political Science at the University and a prominent supporter of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. According to the announcement, Dr. Cantori died on May 12 and provided the following biographical information:
Lou joined UMBC’s Department of Political Science in 1972, and served as Chair from 1979 to 1985. He was an internationally recognized expert on Middle East politics and policy, and over the course of his career he lived in the region for a cumulative total of seven years. Lou was the author, co-author or editor of four books and over 40 articles on the Middle East and other subjects. His Op-Eds and commentary appeared on NPR, C-SPAN, and Salon.com, and in USA Today, The Baltimore Sun, and other media outlets. Lou was a Sergeant of the U.S. Marine Corps from 1951-55, an affiliation in which he took great pride. He was a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer on the Middle East at the U.S. State Department and Adjunct Professor at Marine Corp University in Quantico, Virginia. Lou also taught at West Point, the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Marine Corps University. He founded or was heavily involved with various Middle East policy groups, including The American Council for the Study of Islamic Societies and The Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy. Lou received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, and his B.A. in Political Science from University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He studied Islamic philosophy at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.
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)
Discussion
IIIT has posted an obituary for Dr. Cantori praising his role at IIIT.