IEP21 Forum

The modern Muslim Controversial scholar Tariq Ramadan explains why Mohammed had progressive views of women, the Quran is a prescription for peace — and why he is banned from Saudi Arabia and the U.S. By Steve Paulson Feb. 20, 2007 |

Why are there so few moderate Muslims speaking out against Islamic terrorism?

That’s a common complaint heard in the West, but in truth, plenty of Muslims are critical of suicide bombers. What’s harder to find are Muslim leaders who condemn terrorism while also maintaining credibility among disaffected Muslims, and intellectuals who can appeal to both secular Europeans and Middle Eastern imams. That’s why the Swiss-born Tariq Ramadan is such a compelling figure. Ramadan has been called the Muslim Martin Luther King, and he’s often described as Europe’s most important Muslim intellectual. He has no shortage of charisma — a quality that serves him well as he reaches out to various constituencies. There’s no doubt that Ramadan commands a large following. Hundreds of young Muslims turn up at his public talks, and tapes of his lectures are widely circulated. He travels frequently throughout the Islamic world, trying to build bridges between European Muslims and conservative clerics.
But there are some countries Ramadan can’t visit. The United States, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have all banned him — each for different reasons. In 2004 Ramadan was all set to move his family to Indiana, where he’d accepted a teaching position at Notre Dame. But the U.S. State Department revoked his visa — though exactly why remains a mystery. Ramadan says it’s because he’s an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy. His critics say he has ties to Muslim terrorists. No evidence of a direct link to terrorism has ever surfaced, though plenty of people have looked for one. Yet his most vocal critics are in France, where Ramadan is a prominent public intellectual.

The French journalist Caroline Fourest even wrote a book-length attack on Ramadan, titled “Brother Tariq.” One reason Ramadan garners such close scrutiny is his distinguished — some would say notorious — family background. In 1928 his grandfather, Hassan al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — the group that later spawned al-Qaida’s Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Banna was murdered in 1949. Ramadan’s parents fled Egypt and settled in Switzerland, where his father, Said Ramadan, emerged as a major Islamic thinker. Tariq Ramadan resists simple labels. He’s a devout Muslim, but one who wants to loosen the strict interpretations of Islamic law. He embraces the Western values of pluralism and democracy, while also retaining the anti-colonial mantle of his grandfather. Ramadan is often accused of being two-faced, making nice with Western journalists while giving fiery speeches to young Muslims. Ramadan says his tone may change, but he insists that his message is consistent.

I had the chance to see Ramadan last summer in Cambridge, England, where he spoke to a small group of journalists. (After his job at Notre Dame fell through, he took an academic position at Oxford University.) In person, Ramadan was elegantly dressed and quite dashing. Now, at the age of 44, he’s just come out with a book about the life of Mohammed, “In the Footsteps of the Prophet.” Ramadan recently went into the BBC studios in London, where he spoke to me about his efforts to reconcile Islamic values with Western secularism, his difficulties with the U.S. government, and his new reading of the life of Mohammed.

There have been many books about Mohammed. Do you see your book as a corrective to what other scholars have written about the Prophet?

No. The purpose of the book was not to correct or to come with new revelations about his life. It’s really a rereading of his life, stressing two dimensions. The first one is spiritual. We can extract from his life the spiritual lessons for now and forever. And the second dimension is about contemporary lessons as to our relationships with our neighbor, with nature, with people from other religions. So it’s really to come back to the teachings, the lessons and the meditations.

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[Author: Dr. Irfan Ahmad Khan. Dr. Khan is founder of the World Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations (WCMIR). He serves as Chair of the Interreligious Engagement Project (IEP21). He is a renowned Quranic scholar and philosopher, with a long history of commitment to interreligious understanding and cooperation.]

The answers to the two questions by our distinguished participants have further strengthened my claim that the main source of confusion lies in people’s mixing up ‘ideals’ with ‘realities’.I say to all Westerners:

If we are proud of the ideals to which the people of the West aspire – closing our eyes to the failure of many of us in living up to those ideals – then we should also be able to appreciate Islamic ideals, without being obsessed by the destructive action of many so-called Muslims.

Likewise, I very clearly see the fallacy of those Muslims who speak against ‘the West’ with great irresponsibility – who would even see the West as criminal. They would say:

Earlier, the Western powers colonalized the whole world, killed millions of innocents citizens in the First and Second Great Wars and in the Holocast. They invented nuclear bomb and used it on innocent citizens. And today also the West wants to dominate the whole world. It would keep its huge stock of nuclear weapons but would not let other nations develop any ability to produce nuclear weapons.

(And they would add many other charges which will be true of only of some – but never universally true of all – westerners).

So far as reality is concerned, both the Westen World and the Muslim World conduct themselves alike – like degenerated faith communites – always making high claims but remaining below the mark, in their actual performance. Our conduct is full of contradictions.

The job to be done is, therefore, quite clear:

We need a strategy and a plan to answer the following question:

How can conscientious people in both the parties work together for common ideals, counteracting these realities and save the world which is moving toward self-destruction?

This should be the next item in the agenda of the Global Dialogue of Civilizations.

A theological note

In closing, I also to make a theological observation that can provide great inner strength.

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Pseudo-religiosity is leading human civilization toward suicide
In the following few pages, an effort is made to workout an agenda for true religiosity. True religiosity, is seriously concerned with human destiny and it invites all conscientious people _ even those who have, apparently, rejected all religion _ to work together to save humankind. True religiosity is both progressive and authentic. Religion and Science are good friends.

Part I
What is the real issue?

I do not think there is war between the East and the West or between the “Muslim” World and the Non-Muslim World. Nor does there exist, in the real world, such an issue as “Clash between Two Civilizations” i.e. between Islam and the West _ as is some time very ignorantly proclaimed. Rather, the ideals and the higher values in Islam and the ideals and the higher values in the West are very much the same. It is so because Islam stands for the Divine Guidance revealed to Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and other messengers of God; while “the West” expresses the yearning, in modern times, of the human mind and spirit toward very similar higher concerns. The West as such is a movement which was initiated as an awakening in the geographical west, at a time when the followers of these messengers were failing in their duty to liberate humans from their mutual slaveries and to lead the world toward peace, prosperity and progress.

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