Is Tariq Ramadan Too Beautiful to be True?

In “Who’s Afraid of Tariq Ramadan?” (The New Republic 6/4/07) Paul Berman implies that all of us should be. Ramadan responded to the article on the phone from England to the editors of Tikkun. Tariq Ramadan is a controversial Egyptian-Swiss philosopher who promotes a vigorous European Islam. But what kind of Islam? Every article about him seems to involve question marks: what does he really believe, and why do different writers have such opposite takes on him? Some believe him when he preaches to large crowds of young Muslims that they should respect European political processes, vote, support female autonomy, and reject violence. Others, like Berman, fear it is all a front. Berman relays to American readers the severe criticisms of Ramadan that have appeared in Europe over the last decade. The charges are that Ramadan is a “moderate” only in quotes, and is, in fact, a Trojan horse for some version of the Islamo-fascist ideas popularized by his grandfather, Hassan al-Banna. Al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood from which various current Islamist movements descend, including those as disparate as the Iranian regime and al-Qaeda. His ancestry continues to give Ramadan superstar status for many Muslims. Ramadan himself is accused of anti-Semitism, of saying contradictory things to Muslim and non-Muslim audiences, and of not standing up against abusive practices in the Muslim world. For example, in one televised debate, Ramadan refused to condemn the stoning of women: he only called for a “moratorium” on the practice. Berman castigates the British writers Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash for giving Ramadan an essentially free pass on such issues, while criticizing Ayaan Hirsi Ali (see page 29), who is uncompromisingly feminist and rationalist. The United States refused Ramadan a visa in 2004 to take up an academic position at Notre Dame University. J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 0 7 W W W. T I K K U N . O R G T I K K U N 23 Is Tariq Ramadan Too Beautiful to be True? Swiss professor Doctor Tariq Ramadan, right, Professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford College, in front of Swiss journalist Massimo Lorenzi, left, speaks about the construction of minarets in Switzerland, during a debat of the television show "Infrarouge" at the Swiss Television, in Geneva , Switzerland, Tuesday, May 8, 2007. KEYSTONE/SALVATORE DINOLFI 6Religion+jumps_final.qxd 6/7/07 10:45 AM Page 23 In a New York Times review of Ramadan’s book In the Footsteps of the Prophet, Stéphanie Giry casts the central issue as one of trust. She questions whether Muhammad was quite as liberal as Ramadan portrays him, but asks, “why take issue with this portrayal if it can help reconcile Islam with Western liberalism today? [This] project that Ramadan states is his own is worth pursuing even if, for some, Ramadan himself cannot be entrusted with it.” Does it come down to whether Ramadan personally can be trusted? Or is there much more opposition than Giry imagines to the project itself? The project may not merely be a matter of reconciling Islam with Western liberalism, which conjures images of turning Islam into something inoffensive like the Church of England. Rather, it may be a project of infusing Western politics with strong ethical imperatives that arise from religious belief (a project that is increasingly being undertaken by the Church of England itself). For some, this appears to attack the heart of the Enlightenment and secular society. Do the charges against Ramadan come from people who have no understanding that believers can bring their ethics, rooted in religion, into politics, without trying to impose their religion on others? Is it so hard to see that his moratorium on stoning was an issue of strategy and tactics, not goals? Ramadan describes it to us as a matter of the way he engages with the Islamic world, for his ambition is not just to Europeanize Islam, but to give reforming leadership to the entire Islamic world. On the phone from England, he has a slight Swiss-French accent and touches of French grammar in his fluent English. His gentle manner was...