The Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS) has announced that it awarded the Foreign Affairs Minister of Turkey with its 2010 Building Bridges Award. According to the announcement:
AMSS (UK) 2010 Building Bridges Award given to Professor Ahmet Davutoglu, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Turkey. The AMSS UK is pleased to announce that its prestigious 2010 Building Bridges Award has been awarded to Professor Ahmet Davutoglu, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Turkey in recognition of outstanding scholarly service, exceptional work on building bridges between communities and nations, and developing peaceful solutions to conflict. The Award will be presented at a ceremony to take place soon.
No mention was made of what work was done by Professor Davutoglu which served as the basis of the award which was likely related to the growing importance of Turkey to the Global Muslim Brotherhood. Previous posts have described the significant role played by the Global Muslim Brotherhood in the recent Gaza flotilla crisis.
The AMSS was founded in 1972 as an outgrowth of the Muslim Student Association by important members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood including Jamal Barzinji, currently a leader of IIIT, and the late Ismail Faruqi, a pivotal figure in the “Islamization of Knowledge” project. AMSS has sponsored annual conferences and publishes a journal entitled American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS) in conjunction with IIIT which plays host to the AMSS. Ahmet Davutoglu is currently a member of the international Advisory Board of the AJISS which also includes other members and supporters of the Global Muslim Brotherhood including Taha Al-Alwani, Sayyid M. Syeed, and John Esposito.