T&#803ariq Ramad&#803an

Role box
- Swiss-Egyptian professor of Islamic Studies
- Trend setting and controversial proponent of a “European Islam”
 
Education, Career and Personal Background
 
Ṭāriq Sacīd Ramaḍān was born in 1962 in Geneva, Switzerland. He is the grandson of Hasan al-Bannā, the founder of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization. His father, Sacīd Ramadān, was also a prominent member of the Brotherhood, who fled to Switzerland in the 1960s after being expelled by President Nāsir and following the death sentence of Sayyid Qutb, a leading ideologue of the illegal Brotherhood organization. Sacīd Ramadān continued to work for the Muslim Brotherhood from abroad, while Tāriq, publicly refuses to have any official affiliation to the group. However, he does not dissociate himself from his ancestors either. Tāriq Ramadān is a controversial religious and political figure partly due to his ancestry but also because of his reformist thoughts on Islam as expressed in his many publications and appearances in the international media. Tāriq Ramadān currently lives in London.

Academic career
Ramadān has an M.A. in philosophy and French literature and a Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies, both from The University of Geneva. Additionally, he has received private teaching in Arabic and classical Islamic scholarship from the Azhar University. From 1996-2003 he was lecturer in Religion and Philosophy at the University of Fribourg and at the College de Saussure in Geneva. Ramadān is now the professor of Islamic Studies, and in 2005, he was given the position of Senior Research Fellow at St. Anthony’s College at Oxford University, Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, and at the Lokahi Foundation in London. Furthermore, he is a visiting professor at Erasmus University, Holland, and holds the Identity and Citizenship Chair.

Ramadān has published several books and hundreds of taped lectures, which are very popular amongst young European Muslims, especially in France. His most referenced work in Europe, is the book: 'To be a European Muslim' which was published 1999. This is not an academic work, but rather a proposed reformist theology and teaching for Muslims living in Europe.

 

 
Memberships
• Since February 2005, president of the European think tank: European Muslim Network (EMN) based in Brussels. 1
• In September 2005 he was invited by the UK Government under Prime Minister Tony Blair to join a task force of 13 people, who advised on how to prevent the mobilization of Muslim terrorists in Britain. 2
 
 
Political/Religious Involvement
Ramadān’s name is linked to rumors of supposed affiliations with extremist Islamists and terrorist organizations, however these affiliations have never been proved. In 2004 the American authorities revoked his work visa for a one year assignment at the Catholic University Notre-Dame, Indiana, due to such suspicions. An article in The Islamica Magazine3 points out that many of his supporters believe that he is subjected to character assassination, including amongst large parts of European academia. The article further states that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security [DHS] has failed to present solid evidence regarding the accusations, as most information was kept confidential, and that it seems that the fact that Ramadān is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood is enough to label him an extremist. Even the Washington Post and Chicago Times questioned the fact that his visa was revoked.

Other figures, like the Middle East scholar and Islam critic, Daniel Pipes, agree with the decision because he regards him a dangerous propagator of radical thinking and find the evidence against him convincing. 4

In Egypt, Ramadān has become a persona non grata, and in France he did not obtain a residence permit. Both countries fear his supposed links to the Islamist wing. He has allegedly been connected to both the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and the Algerian terrorist-convict Ahmad Brahim by authorities of different countries (Brahim was convicted by Spanish authorities in 2002 for financing al-Qācidah in Spain). 5 None of the accusations of extremist religious or political activities have ever been proved or led to any conviction.

According to reporting in Arab media, Ramadān has been critical of Israeli policies in the Palestine conflict, and especially of French Jewish intellectuals, whom he accuses of supporting Israel for religious reasons. For such statements he has been called a racist and fundamentalist. Ramadān deems it very problematic, that one cannot publicly criticize Israel without being called an anti-Semite. He thinks that the conflict should be dealt with in political and not religious terms. 6

In the 2005/2006 crisis in Arab-West relations that sprang from a Danish newspaper’s cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, Ramadān called for a more sensible way of dealing with the assault amongst Muslims and firmly rejected all violent reactions to this in the media. He emphasized that Muslims have to understand freedom of expression in Western countries and their different approach to religion, although he does not approve of using freedom of expression as a right to insult others. 7

Ramadān is a political player on the European scene, and an eager debater of issues like citizenship and minority rights concerning Muslims living in Europe. Complementary to political solutions to problems related to this is, for Ramadān, reform of Islamic thinking in the West. His contextual approach to Islamic sources has led him into recent scholarly controversies with religious authorities in the Azhar. (See below)

The Moratorium of the hudūd penalties
In 2006 Ramadān was involved in a controversy with the grand imām of the Azhar, Shaykh Muhammad Sayyid Tantāwī over the application of hudūd punishments (Muslim code of penalty). 8 Ramadān called for a moratorium [temporary suspension] of the harshest penalties like stoning and decapitation, and is cited as calling them "repressive measures and penalties". Ramadān believes that the application of these punishments does not create a more Islamic and pious society. In the moratorium, he claimed that the application of the hudūd is seen on the popular level in the Muslim World, more as an opposition to the West, than a real concern for the principle of justice, which is essential in Islam. 9

Reception
Ramadān's critics often claim that he is a man with two faces, meaning that he has different positions and attitudes for different audiences. More specifically he is accused of having one "Arabic/Muslim" agenda and one "Western".

In the Egyptian Coptic newspaper Watani International, the journalist cAdīl Jidāni has criticized Ramadān on several occasions. He thinks Ramadān propagates the discourse of the Muslim Brotherhood in an elusive way, because he is simultaneously appearing to be a moderate thinker. For Jidāni there seems to be no doubt about Ramadān's relationship with the Brotherhood10. Jidāni places Ramadān ideologically in line with Hasan al-Bannā, Sayyid Qutb and Mawlāna Mawdūdi, who are all radical islamist thinkers of the past. He claims that the term "reformer" sometimes labeled on Ramadān, can only be ascribed to a marketing campaign by his sympathizers11.

The French press has shown considerable skepticism toward Ramadān. In the magazine L'Express he is described as the father of a new Islamic trend, which attracts younger Muslims in Europe. According to this magazine, however, this trend is only outwardly moderate and liberal, and conceals its truly restrictive character for political reasons12.

Ramadān's work has been recognized by many different parties in the Western world as building a bridge between Western and Muslim cultures. It should be mentioned that Ramadān was chosen as Non-EU citizen of the Year by the Magazine, European Voice in November 200613, and that also the American magazine Time honored him by choosing him as one of the most important innovators of the 21st century14.

Acknowledging his reforming efforts, the writer Paul Donnelly called Ramadān “a Muslim Martin Luther” in an article in the web magazine, Salon.com15.

 

Involvement in Arab-West/ Inter-Cultural and Inter-Faith Relations

Dialogue with the “Other”
The Arab-West dialogue that Ramadān is involved in, mainly takes place in Western contexts. He seeks to consolidate Muslim and non-Muslim citizens of Western nations instead of thinking of their relationship in terms of opposition. He represents this pluralistic stance in his personal life, saying:

"I am European. I grew up here. I do not deny my Muslim origins, but I do not deny being European, too." 16

Ramadān encourages both parties to change their discourse, giving way to a more open and nuanced approach. He says, "Muslims must realize that they live in an environment that they can participate in and that they can change. But the [editor: British] government must see also that it cannot stop terror with a security policy. That someone must speak to the 'literalists' in the Muslim community, because they are there, and they are powerful and will become more so if society splits down binary routes." 17

For his fellow Muslim he has two messages, expressed in interviews in Arab and Western media. First, Muslims have to present Islam in a more open way to diminish Westerners fear of their religion. Second, they have to stop victimizing themselves and distinguish between social and political problems on one side and religion and religious discrimination on the other. Ramadān stresses that the victimization discourse does not help their integration18.

European Islam
Ramadān believes that Muslims in Europe should find a way between assimilation and isolation to integrate and be able to contribute to their society.

Muslims in the West should try to break loose from their Muslim home countries, politically and religiously, in order to integrate into their new societies; and they must read and interpret Islam in light of the European context and culture while preserving the fundamentals of Islam. Islam promotes universal values which should be shared by all human beings, and these universal ethics are something that Muslims are obliged to promote in their society, whether they are a majority or minority population. Thus, the main idea of his "European Islam" is that it is possible to be a true and authentic Muslim and a European citizen at the same time. There is no contradiction in that, according to Ramadān.

Ramadān believes that strengthening the self-consciousness of Muslims in the West is an important way to improve dialogue with the West and non-Muslim Westerners. He believes that promoting the Islamic history of philosophy in European languages in order to give the public a more nuanced picture of Islam would help the situation19.

In his latest book, 'Western Muslims and the Future of Islam', Ramadān anchors his thinking in the early Salafī reform movement initiated at the end of the 19th century by Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghāni. Scholars and others have debated whether this background makes him a fundamentalist or whether it is possible to combine this reformist but still orthodox view on the scriptural sources of Islam [the Qur'ān and the Sunnah] with a truly modernist approach.

In 2005, the director of the French Research Institute in Cairo [CEDEJ], Alain Rousillon, published a book entitled ’La pensée islamique contemporaine’[Contemporary Islamic Thinking, Teraedre Publishing 2005], in which he places Ramadān in the category of modernist Islamic thinkers, as opposed to the post-modernist thinkers. Rousillon believes that the modernist thinkers make use of new hermeneutical tools in their work compared to the established methods of interpretation, and that they are critical of the Islamists' rigid understanding of their religion, but on the other hand they are critical of the Western concept of secularism as well. Ramadān's polemics toward the French absolutist secularism, la laïcité, fits this image well20.

Marie Lunddahl, February 2007.

 
 
Additional Information on Other Issues
1. http://www.euromuslim.net/
2. AWR 2005, 36, art.12
3. http://www.islamicamagazine.com/content/view/96/62/:
4. http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2043
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Ramadan; AWR, 31, art.25
6. AWR 2003, 47, art.28
7. AWR 2006, 10, art.13
8. AWR 2005, 15, art.17
9. http://www.tariqramadan.com/call.php3?id_article=264&lang=en; AWR 2005, 14, art.26
10. AWR 2005, 17, art.11
11. AWR 2005, 44, art.43
12. AWR 2003, 19, art.28
13. http://www.tariqramadan.com/article.php3?id_article=878&lang=en
14. http://www.time.com/time/innovators/spirituality/profile_ramadan.html
15. http://dir.salon.com/story/people/feature/2002/02/15/ramadan/index.html
16. RNSAW 2000, 50, art.1
17. http://www.newstatesman.com/200509120007
18. AWR 2004, 4, art.18; http://www.newstatesman.com/200509120007
19. RNSAW 2000, 50, art.1
20. http://www.dedi.org.eg/Dansk/02%20Religion%20og%20Reformer/Hvem%20er%20de%20nye%20muslimske%20intellektuelle.asp

 

 
References
Biographical references
RNSAW/AWR
http://www.tariqramadan.com
http://hebdo.ahram.org.eg/arab/ahram/2007/1/10/visa0.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Ramadan
http://www.newstatesman.com/200509120007
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/671/op3.htm
http://dir.salon.com/story/people/feature/2002/02/15/ramadan/index.html

Further reading
Books by Tāriq Ramadān:
• Western Muslim and the Future of Islam, Oxford University Press 2004
• To Be a European Muslim, The Islamic Foundation 1999
• Muslims in France – The way towards coexistence, The Islamic Foundation 1999

For a wide range of articles and interviews given by Tariq Ramadān visit his Web site: www.tariqramadan.com

 
Contact Information:
http://www.tariqramadan.com/contacter_en.php3
Or:
[email protected] (staff address from the official website of the University of Oxford)
Comments:

Position towards dialogue
Open and actively involved

Marie Lunddahl, February 2007.