CHARLOTTE, North Carolina - America is gradually being "Islamized" even while Islamic countries squelch religious freedom within their borders, evangelist Franklin Graham claims.
Graham spoke in an interview published Thursday by the Asheville Citizen-Times. Graham, 50, is the son of well-known evangelist Billy Graham and is his father's named successor.
"Our country is slowly being, very quietly, being Islamized by huge contributions from Saudi Arabia to our universities to pay for Islamic studies, to support Islamic causes in this country," Graham told the paper's editors. "I don't have a problem with that, but I can't go to Saudi Arabia and take even a Bible. I can't go to Saudi Arabia with a Bible. They will confiscate it."
A Temple University professor of Islamic studies and comparative religion expressed concern about the comments.
"It's really the tone of Mr. Graham's remarks and his general kind of sweeping statements that are most disturbing," Professor Mahmoud Ayoub said Thursday.
Saudi money donated to American universities usually comes from individuals who have studied in the United States and is not directed at spreading Islam, said Ayoub, a native of Lebanon.
"In fact, I have argued to donors like the Saudis and others that they should have a little more say in how their money is spent," Ayoub said. "They don't have any say."
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Franklin Graham has made repeated comments on Islam, calling it "a very evil and wicked religion."
Last month, in a radio interview, he questioned why Islamic clerics have not apologized to the American people for the Sept. 11 attacks.
In Tuesday's interview with the Citizen-Times, Graham spoke at length about Islam, apparently angered by a recent bombing near a hospital in southern Sudan run by his Samaritan's Purse relief organization.
Sudan's Islamic government is engaged in a long-running war on the country's southern population, which is primarily Christian.
Graham said the bombing occurred just before a Sudanese diplomat invited him to participate in peace talks there. Graham said he asked the diplomat to deliver a message to the Sudanese president to stop attacking civilians.
"They will lie to you at the same time talking peace: 'We want you to be part of the peace process,' Well, thanks a lot for dropping a bomb on my hospital," Graham said.