Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, one of the world's richest men, has embarked on a marketing campaign to promote his combined $40m donation to bolster the Islamic studies programmes at Harvard University and Georgetown University.

The extravagant two-page advertisements - which have run in The New York Times, The Washington Post and this newspaper among others - introduce the new programmes under the banner headline: "We share the same world." Georgetown is renaming its Islamic studies centre after the prince, and Harvard is naming its programme after him.