| 02-17-2007 |
Tariq Ramadan |
In late September, I finally received a response to the question I...
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Tariq Ramadan |  |
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In late September, I finally received a response to the question I
had been asking the Bush administration for more than two years: Why
was my work visa revoked in late July 2004, just days before I was to
take up a position as a professor of Islamic studies and the Henry Luce
chair of religion, conflict, and peace building at the University of
Notre Dame? Initially neither I nor the university was told why;
officials only made a vague reference to a provision of the U.S.
Patriot Act that allows the government to exclude foreign citizens who
have "endorsed or espoused terrorism." Though the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security eventually cleared me of all charges of links with
terrorist groups, today it points to another reason to keep me out of
the country: donations I made totaling approximately $900 to a Swiss
Palestinian-support group that is now on the American blacklist. A
letter I received from the American Embassy in Switzerland, where I
hold citizenship, asserts that I "should reasonably have known" that
the group had ties with Hamas.
What American officials do not
say is that I myself had brought those donations to their attention,
and that the organization in question continues to be officially
recognized by the Swiss authorities (my donations were duly registered
on my income-tax declaration). More important still is the fact that I
contributed to the organization between 1998 and 2002, more than a year
before it was blacklisted by the United States. It seems, according to
American officials, that I "should reasonably have known" about the
organization's alleged activities before the Homeland Security
Department itself knew!
I believe the administration refuses me
entry into the United States because of my criticism of its Middle East
policy and America's unconditional support for Israel, which has led it
to acquiesce in flouting Palestinian rights. And undeniably, some
American groups that strongly support Israel and will allow no
criticism of American foreign policy toward it have been highly
critical of me. But academics, intellectuals, and organizations that
have supported me -- like the American Civil Liberties Union, the
American Academy of Religion (I presented a keynote address to its
annual meeting late last year by videoconference, since the
administration would not let me enter the country to speak in person),
the American Association of University Professors, and the PEN American
Center -- have understood that the real issue is my freedom of speech,
and they have continued to lend their weight to my legal appeal of the
decision. |
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Tariq Ramadan, "What the
West Can Learn from Islam," The
Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb 16, 2007, B6.
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| 02-05-2007 |
American Civil Libe... |
“The government is excluding Professor Ramadan from the United States no...
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American Civil Liberties Union | |
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“The government is excluding Professor Ramadan from the United States not
because he is a threat to national security but because of his politics, and
that has been clear since the government first revoked Professor Ramadan’s visa
in 2004,” said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Director of the ACLU’s National Security
Program and lead counsel in the case. “The government is using the immigration
laws as a means of censoring academic and political debate inside the United
States.” |
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ACLU, "US Groups Renew Legal Challenge to Lift Ban on Muslim Scholar," press release, February 5, 2007
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| 02-05-2007 |
Kroc Institute |
Following Tariq Ramadan’s resignation from the Notre Dame faculty, the...
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Kroc Institute | |
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Following Tariq Ramadan’s resignation from the Notre Dame faculty, the Kroc Institute has re-opened the search for a Henry R. Luce Professor of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding. The professorship, awarded by the Henry Luce Foundation to the Kroc Institute in 2000, is designed for an expert in one of three related fields: religion and conflict resolution, religion and human rights, and inter-religious and intra-religious dialogue. The Luce Professor will direct the institute’s program of conferences, courses and publications that examine contemporary challenges to religious and ethnic peacebuilding.
Ramadan, a Swiss scholar, resigned in December, after the U.S. government revoked the visa that was necessary for him to work in the United States.
“We were tremendously disappointed, of course, that Professor Ramadan’s visa was revoked and never reinstated,” commented Kroc Institute director Scott Appleby. “We are equally grateful to the Luce Foundation for its unwavering support of our efforts to secure his appointment.”
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"Institute Resumes Search for Luce Professor," John B. Kroc Institute for Internaitonal Preace Studies, http://kroc.nd.edu/colloquy/issue7/luceprofessor.shtml.
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| 02-04-2007 |
Ian Buruma |
Ramadan denies being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood — one of whose c...
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Ian Buruma | |
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Ramadan denies being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood — one of whose credos is
“God is our goal, the Prophet our model, the Koran our law, holy war our way and
martyrdom our desire” — but is proud of his illustrious background. To many
Muslims al-Banna is still a very great man. When I met Ramadan later in the week
at the gigantic East London Mosque, I heard him being introduced, with a tone of
reverence, as al-Banna’s grandson. “With older people it lends authority to what
I’m saying,” Ramadan told me, as we walked through the mosque, where the main
languages were Bengali and Urdu, apart from quotations from the Koran, which
were in Arabic. |
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| Ian Buruma, "Tariq Ramadan Has an Identity Issue," New York Times Magazine, Feb 4, 2007. |
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| 02-04-2007 |
Ian Buruma |
Speaking about his grandfather, Ramadan observed: “People say that his i...
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Ian Buruma | |
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Speaking about his grandfather, Ramadan observed: “People say that his ideas formed the basis of Al Qaeda. This is not true.” The spiritual father of revolutionary Islam, according to Ramadan and others, was another Egyptian Muslim Brother, Sayyid Qutb, who advocated a holy war against the idolatrous West. Ramadan pointed out that “Qutb actually joined the Muslim Brotherhood after my grandfather was killed. They didn’t even know each other. My position on Hassan al-Banna is that he was much closer to Muhammad Abduh. He was in favor of a British-style parliamentary system, which was not against Islam.” This may or may not be an accurate representation of Hassan al-Banna, but it tells us a lot about the way Ramadan presents himself.
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| Ian Buruma, "Tariq Ramadan Has an Identity Issue," New York Times Magazine, Feb 4, 2007. |
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| 02-04-2007 |
Ian Buruma |
Some of Ramadan’s critics, most notably the French journalist Caroline F...
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Ian Buruma | |
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Some of Ramadan’s critics, most notably the French journalist Caroline Fourest, who wrote a sharp attack on him titled “Frère Tariq” (Brother Tariq), draw a direct line from Hassan al-Banna, through Said Ramadan and Tariq Ramadan himself, to the militant Islamism threatening the West today. Such was the disquiet in France about Islamist violence that Ramadan was barred from that country in 1995. The ban was eventually lifted. Ramadan prefers to see the family legacy in terms of “Islamic socialism, which is neither socialist, nor capitalist, but a third way.” In this reading, his father’s friendship with Malcolm X is much more significant than any Saudi Arabian connection. This is why Ramadan was a popular speaker with African-American Muslims before his visa was revoked. |
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| Ian Buruma, "Tariq Ramadan Has an Identity Issue," New York Times Magazine, Feb 4, 2007. |
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| 02-04-2007 |
Ian Buruma |
Ramadan is in fact one of the few Muslim intellectuals to speak out agai...
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Ian Buruma | |
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Ramadan is in fact one of the few Muslim intellectuals to speak out against
anti-Semitism. In an article in Le Monde, he wrote: “We have heard the cries of
‘down with the Jews!’ shouted during protest demonstrations, and reports of
synagogues being vandalized in various French cities. One also hears ambiguous
statements about Jews, their secret power, their insidious role within the
media, and their nefarious plans. ... Too rarely do we hear Muslim voices that
set themselves apart from this kind of discourse and attitude.” |
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| Ian Buruma, "Tariq Ramadan Has an Identity Issue," New York Times Magazine, Feb 4, 2007. |
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| 02-04-2007 |
Ian Buruma |
Ramadan’s attack [on French intellectuals in October 2003, published a...
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Ian Buruma | |
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Ramadan’s attack [on French intellectuals in October 2003, published at Oumma.com under the title “Critique of the (New) Communalist Intellectuals”] was unfair. The intellectuals he mentioned had all championed many causes other than Israel, including putting a stop to the mass murder of Muslims in Bosnia. And by compiling this blacklist of Jews and placing a philosopher whose name merely sounded Jewish among them, he opened himself to the charge of anti-Semitism. The response was shrill. André Glucksmann wrote: “What is surprising is not that Mr. Ramadan is anti-Semitic, but that he dares to proclaim it openly.” Bernard-Henri Lévy compared Ramadan’s article with “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the vicious Russian forgery about Jewish world domination. It all was vastly overblown, but these labels have a way of sticking to their target. When I asked the British Labor politician Denis MacShane, one of the few British politicians with a deep knowledge of France, about Ramadan, he repeated all the allegations about Ramadan’s religious bigotry but said that the “fundamental dividing line is about Israel and the Jews.”
Ramadan himself says that it was because of his views on Israel and on U.S. policy in Iraq that he was deprived of his visa to teach in the U.S. He told me: “I was asked to take part in a dialogue in Paris with representatives of American Jewish organizations, including Jack Rosen, head of the American Jewish Congress. It turned out to be less of a dialogue than an interview about my opinions on the Palestinian conflict. Rosen promised to talk to President Bush. But after this interview, I knew I would never get a visa.”
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| Ian Buruma, "Tariq Ramadan Has an Identity Issue," New York Times Magazine, Feb 4, 2007. |
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| 02-04-2007 |
Olivier Guitta |
Ramadan has multiple links to terrorism. In 1995, in the midst of terror...
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Olivier Guitta | |
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Ramadan has multiple links to terrorism. In 1995, in the midst of terrorist attacks in Paris orchestrated by the Algerian Islamist group GIA, Jean-Louis Debré, French interior minister, denied Ramadan entry to France because of his links to the group. According to Roland Jacquard, who runs a terrorism watchdog website, Ramadan is not directly involved in terrorist activities, but many of his supporters are. For example, Ramadan greatly influenced Djamel Beghal, a French citizen arrested for plotting to bomb the U.S. embassy in Paris and sentenced to 10 years in jail in March 2005. Sylvain Besson of the Swiss daily Le Temps quotes court papers showing that Beghal "was a speechwriter for Tariq Ramadan." Ramadan denies ever meeting Beghal, although Beghal was living in Leicester in 1998 while Ramadan was studying there. |
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Olivier Guitta, "The State Department Was Right," Slate, Oct 16, 2006. |
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| 10-16-2006 |
George Packer |
It has taken two years of repeated applications and inquiries, as well a...
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George Packer | |
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It has taken two years of repeated applications and inquiries, as well as a lawsuit by American civil-liberties, academic, and literary organizations, for Ramadan to receive an official explanation: between 1998 and 2002, he donated about seven hundred and seventy dollars to a pro-Palestinian French charity that was suspected of channelling money to Hamas, and which did not appear on the State Department’s blacklist until 2003. Ex post facto, Ramadan has run afoul of the Patriot Act.
It’s hard to shake the suspicion that what has really kept Ramadan out is his ideas. State and Homeland Security have interpreted the language of the Patriot Act so loosely that, according to official documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, anyone who is guilty of “irresponsible expressions of opinion” can be refused entry to the United States. |
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| George Packer, "Keep Out," The New Yorker, Oct 16, 2007. |
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| 10-16-2006 |
George Packer |
The United States should grant Tariq Ramadan a visa, not because he has ...
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George Packer | |
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The United States should grant Tariq Ramadan a visa, not because he has an
inalienable right to one but in the interest of the national good. The
continuing effort to keep him out is a strategic mistake, and it shows a
depressingly familiar failure on the part of the Administration to grasp the
nature of the conflict with Islamist radicalism. It is a struggle of ideas,
played out around the world, and a figure like Ramadan, who can appeal to young
Muslims on the basis of both group identity and tolerance, is a valuable
interlocutor. Allowing him to assume his position at Notre Dame as Luce
Professor of Religion, Conflict, and Peacebuilding would not necessarily improve
Muslim-Western understanding (interfaith dialogue is overrated, as the Pope
recently demonstrated). But it would reduce the “habits of hypocrisy and
meanness” that Jefferson identified as the result of legislating against
thought. Barring Ramadan makes the country that claims to represent the side of
freedom in this struggle appear defensive, timorous, and closed. |
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| George Packer, "Keep Out," The New Yorker, Oct 16, 2007. |
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| 11-15-2004 |
Olivier Roy |
For me, Tariq Ramadan is not a terrorist. He is not a political activist...
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Olivier Roy | |
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For me, Tariq Ramadan is not a terrorist. He is not a political activist. But he is a fundamentalist...He is a fundamentalist. And he’s defining fundamentalism, I would say, in modern terms. So the idea that Ramadan is a liberal— no, he’s not. He’s definitely not a liberal. He is a modern and a Western fundamentalist. He’s not the only one, by the way. We have many modern and Western fundamentalists in any religion, you know, not only in Islam, but also in Christianity, and specifically in Protestantism. What he’s trying to do is to combine an [inaudible] view of religion with political citizenship, now, and it’s a challenge, not only for Muslims but for many Christians, too.
But he is doing that, I would say, the Christian way. So for me, what we see with Ramadan is the emergence of some sort of [inaudible] fundamentalism, you know. And the question he’s expressing is how to be a total believer, you know, and to be a loyal citizen. For me, there is some sort of a contradiction in that. |
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Olivier Roy, "Islam in a Changing World" (Council on Foreign Religions transcript), Nov 15, 2004.
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| 11-00-2004 |
Tariq Ramadan |
FP: How do you think the Palestinians should resist the Israelis?
T...
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Tariq Ramadan | |
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FP: How do you think the Palestinians should resist the Israelis?
TR: I think it's a legitimate resistance, but they have to use legitimate means. [The Palestinians] need a determined nonviolent resistance. I condemn suicide bombings; it's not acceptable as a Muslim to kill innocent people. It's explainable. But explainable doesn't mean justifiable. |
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"Who's Afraid of Tariq Ramadan?" Foreign Policy (Nov/Dec 2004).
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| 11-00-2004 |
Tariq Ramadan |
FP: You’ve said that you believe that Israel has the right to exist. D...
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Tariq Ramadan | |
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FP: You’ve said that you believe that Israel has the right to exist. Do you hope that one day, Israel will become part of a broader Middle Eastern common market? Is that the solution?
TR: My point is that Israel is here. I hope beyond that. I want [Israel] to be an open society where there is equal citizenship for all people. This is what I am advocating, and in that way, of course, it will be part of an open market. It will be part of the reality of the region. But my hope is not just for Israel. I want Egypt, Jordan, and other countries to promote the same universal values…. In every country it shouldn’t be [that] if you are a Muslim or Jew, you have more rights than others. Let us be consistent. When I say there are second-class citizens in Israel, I can say exactly the same for Egypt…. And I’m saying it for Saudi Arabia, where there are not even citizens who are not Muslims. |
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"Who's Afraid of Tariq Ramadan?" Foreign Policy (Nov/Dec 2004).
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| 11-00-2004 |
Tariq Ramadan |
When I criticize Saudi Arabia, I’m not Islamophobic. And when I criticiz...
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Tariq Ramadan | |
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When I criticize Saudi Arabia, I’m not Islamophobic. And when I criticize
Israel, I’m not anti-Semitic. |
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"Who's Afraid of Tariq Ramadan?" Foreign Policy (Nov/Dec 2004).
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| 11-00-2004 |
Tariq Ramadan |
FP: How do you feel when Islam is
used to justify terrorism?
TR: Horri...
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Tariq Ramadan | |
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FP: How do you feel when Islam is
used to justify terrorism?
TR: Horrified. But responsible. When the Luxor terrorist
attack took place [in Egypt] eight years ago, long before 9/11, I wrote a letter
from a Swiss Muslim to his fellow citizens saying that this is not acceptable….
We have to condemn this as Muslims and as human beings. And we have to do
whatever possible within Islamic communities to spread better understanding
about who we are and what we can do to deal with other people. We can have a
legitimate resistance to oppression, but the means should be legitimate.
Terrorism, which kills innocent people, is not Islamically acceptable. Within
Islam there is an accepted diversity—you can be a literalist, a Sufi mystic, or
a reformist, so long as you don’t say others are less Muslim than others—and we
must never say that terrorism or violence is part of this accepted diversity. |
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"Who's Afraid of Tariq Ramadan?" Foreign Policy (Nov/Dec 2004).
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| 11-00-2004 |
Tariq Ramadan |
FP: Would you prefer that the Israelis not build their security fence?...
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Tariq Ramadan | |
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FP: Would you prefer that the Israelis not build their security fence?
TR: Of course…. It’s against all that we are speaking about. What does it mean? You know, we are all happy in Europe that the Berlin Wall was destroyed and we are [one] people.… What do I want for the future of Israel and the Muslims and the Arabs? It’s to live together. It’s to promote the society where we are equal citizens. Then we live together. What does it mean, this wall? It means that you are not me and this is just a symbol of two fears living together, not two people…. The best way to protect the Israelis is to understand that the Palestinians have rights and we have to respect them.… I condemn all the suicide bombings…. But I can understand that in this context, something is happening here [that] is explainable…. But explainable doesn’t mean justifiable…. When exactly did this start?… It was in [19]94. For more than 50 years, these people were just trying to resist. It means that after we started this Oslo peace process, three years later they felt there is no hope. So when there is no hope they are just acting as people without hope. And the best way to come back to a kind of hope for the Palestinians is not to build the wall—it’s exactly the opposite—it’s to give them hope again.
FP: How do you think the Palestinians should resist?
TR: It’s really difficult. In my view, it’s a legitimate resistance, but they have to use legitimate means to do that.…a kind of determined nonviolent and primarily organized resistance.…
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"Who's Afraid of Tariq Ramadan?" Foreign Policy (Nov/Dec 2004).
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| 08-31-2004 |
Tariq Ramadan |
Pipes claims that I have praised the brutal Islamist policies of the Sud...
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Tariq Ramadan | |
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Pipes claims that I have praised the brutal Islamist policies of the Sudanese politician Hassan al-Turabi.
Nothing of what I said about al-Turabi’s policies is remotely favorable. After visiting Sudan in 1994, I wrote: "Nonetheless, one must clearly say that the present regime does not offer minimal guarantees for political pluralism, that opposition parties are muzzled and that cronyism is the rule. Muslims are called to remain vigilant, for the opposition of the United States and Israel is not enough to support the `Islamic’ character of a project."
Pipes notes that I was banned from entering France in 1996 on suspicion of having links with an Algerian Islamist who had recently initiated a terrorist campaign in Paris.
Yes, I was indeed banned from entering France between November 1995 and April 1996, but a reason was never given for this ban, and it was later revealed to be a case of mistaken identity. I challenged the ban and won the case in 1996. Any assertion that this ban was for having "links with an Algerian Islamist" is baseless.
Ahmed Brahim, an Algerian indicted for Al Qaeda activities, had "routine contacts" with me, according to a Spanish judge in 1999.
I was asked about contacts with this individual last year and I unequivocally denied ever meeting or speaking to him. This was investigated by Frederic Chambon, a reporter for the French daily newspaper Le Monde, who on Dec. 23, 2003, issued reports that Brahim’s daughter was able to confirm from her jailed father that he did not have contacts with me.
Djamel Beghal, leader of a group accused of planning to attack the American Embassy in Paris, stated in his 2001 trial that he had studied with me.
When Djamel Beghal was first arrested in Dubai, he claimed that in 1994 he was attending my course and wrote my speeches. He changed his story when he was extradited to Paris and only claimed to have attended the course in 1994. That, too, was inaccurate since my courses did not start until 1997.
Along with many Islamists, says Pipes, I have denied that there is "any certain proof" that Osama bin Laden was behind Sept. 11, 2001.
Pipes distorts the facts by selective references. My post-Sept. 11 stance is clear. On Sept. 13, 2001, I put out an open letter to Muslims calling for them to unequivocally condemn these acts and wrote: "Do not hide yourself behind conspiracy theories: Even if we don’t know who did it, you know as I know that some Muslims can use Islam to justify killing an American, a Jew or a Christian only because he/she is an American, a Jew or a Christian; you have to condemn them and to condemn these attacks." On Sept. 20, when investigations were still ongoing, I said: "The probability [of bin Laden’s guilt] is large, but some questions remain unanswered. ... But whoever they are, bin Laden or others, it is necessary to find them and that they be judged."
I refer, Pipes claims, to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Bali and Madrid as "interventions," minimizing them to the point of near-endorsement.
The term "interventions" was not mine, but was used by journalists in the French magazine Le Point (April 22, 2004) following a phone interview with me. I have always condemned the terrorist attacks in New York, Bali, Madrid and elsewhere in the strongest terms.
Intelligence agencies suspect, Pipes charges, that I coordinated a meeting at the Hotel Penta in Geneva for Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy head of Al Qaeda, and Omar Abdel Rahman [the blind sheik, now in a Minnesota prison].
This is nonsense. The Swiss intelligence cleared my name of these accusations when it publicly confirmed that Ayman al-Zawahiri had never entered Switzerland. I never met him or Omar Abdel Rahman.
My address, Pipes avers, appears in a register of Al Taqwa Bank, an organization the State Department accuses of supporting Islamist terrorism.
In fact, neither my name nor my address appears in a register of Al Taqwa Bank. I never met nor talked to its director.
There is the "intriguing possibility," Pipes speculates, that Osama bin Laden studied with my father, Said, who founded the Islamic Center of Geneva (Switzerland) in the early 1960s.
My father did not know bin Laden and I have neither met nor talked to bin Laden. It is possible, however, that Pipes is confusing Osama with his half-brother, Yaslem bin Laden, whom I met once for exactly five minutes after a lecture I gave in Geneva in 2003 and who also is known to be in contact with high-level American politicians.
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| Tariq Ramadan, "Scholar under Siege Defends his Record," Chicago Tribune, Aug 31, 2004.
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| 08-27-2004 |
Daniel Pipes |
A review of the press, however, gives an idea of what the [visa] probl...
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Daniel Pipes | |
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A review of the press, however, gives an idea of what the [visa] problem is. Here are some reasons why Mr. Ramadan might have been kept out:
He has praised the brutal Islamist policies of the Sudanese politician Hassan Al-Turabi. Mr. Turabi in turn called Mr. Ramadan the "future of Islam."
Mr. Ramadan was banned from entering France in 1996 on suspicion of having links with an Algerian Islamist who had recently initiated a terrorist campaign in Paris.
Ahmed Brahim, an Algerian indicted for Al-Qaeda activities, had "routine contacts" with Mr. Ramadan, according to a Spanish judge (Baltasar Garzón) in 1999.
Djamel Beghal, leader of a group accused of planning to attack the American embassy in Paris, stated in his 2001 trial that he had studied with Mr. Ramadan.
Along with nearly all Islamists, Mr. Ramadan has denied that there is "any certain proof" that Bin Laden was behind 9/11.
He publicly refers to the Islamist atrocities of 9/11, Bali, and Madrid as "interventions," minimizing them to the point of near-endorsement.
And here are other reasons, dug up by Jean-Charles Brisard, a former French intelligence officer doing work for some of the 9/11 families, as reported in Le Parisien:
Intelligence agencies suspect that Mr. Ramadan (along with his brother Hani) coordinated a meeting at the Hôtel Penta in Geneva for Ayman al-Zawahiri, deputy head of Al-Qaeda, and Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind sheikh, now in a Minnesota prison.
Mr. Ramadan's address appears in a register of Al Taqwa Bank, an organization the State Department accuses of supporting Islamist terrorism.
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Daniel Pipes, "Why Revoke Tariq Ramadan's Visa?" New York Sun, Aug 27, 2004. |
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| 04-00-2004 |
Tariq Ramadan |
There are many ways and strategies to try to face the problems of anti-S...
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Tariq Ramadan | |
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There are many ways and strategies to try to face the problems of anti-Semitism
and racism in our societies, but one can say that at the global level there are
two main choices: either to let the Jews alone struggle against anti-Semitism
while advocating that every ethnic or religious community should protect itself
(even though it is against the others), or to call on all people of goodwill,
from every community, to commit themselves within a global movement, acting
against all kinds of racism in the name of common universal values. The latter
perspective is, in my view, the only efficient way, even though it is a very
demanding task at both intellectual and practical levels. |
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Tariq Ramadan, "Muslims Against Anti-Semitism: Ways to Promote Common Values," UN Chronicle Online Edition (Apr 2004).
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| 04-00-2004 |
Tariq Ramadan |
Nothing in Islam can legitimize xenophobia or the rejection of a human b...
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Tariq Ramadan | |
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Nothing in Islam can legitimize xenophobia or the rejection of a human being due
to his/her religious creed or ethnicity. One must say unequivocally, with force,
that anti-Semitism is unacceptable and indefensible. The message of Islam
requires respect of Jewish faith and spirituality as noble expressions of “The
People of the Book”. During the initial phase of the Prophet’s settlement in
Medina, prior to the conflicts of alliances, the Prophet Muhammad sternly
admonished: “He who is unjust with a contractor (Christians and Jews of Medina),
I shall bear witness against him on the Day of Judgment”. Later, during a period
of extreme conflict [between Jews and Muslims], eight Qur’anic verses were
revealed to absolve a Jew who had falsely been accused of a crime by a Muslim.
Mohamed constantly taught respect for all human beings, with all their
differences. One day, he stood up out of respect when he saw a funeral
procession nearby. When told it was that of a Jew, he replied, “Is it not a
human soul?”
One cannot simultaneously neglect these teachings and
continue to feed a tainted portrayal concerning Jews. It is the responsibility
of Islamic organizations and Imams to send an unambiguous message about the
profound link between Islam and Judaism; the recognition of Moses and the Torah
as part of Islamic teachings; the necessary contextualization of certain
equivocal texts within the Qu’ran; and on mutual respect and the rejection of
all forms of explicit or implicit anti-Semitism. This also means to acknowledge
the horrors of the Holocaust by studying its ramifications and respecting the
pain and suffering which have shaped the Jewish conscience in the twentieth
century. |
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Tariq Ramadan, "Muslims Against Anti-Semitism: Ways to Promote Common Values," UN Chronicle Online Edition (Apr 2004).
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| 04-00-2004 |
Tariq Ramadan |
Malicious words, cries of “down with the Jews” shouted during protest
d...
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Tariq Ramadan | |
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Malicious words, cries of “down with the Jews” shouted during protest
demonstrations and, in a few cities in France, reports of synagogues being
vandalized. One also hears ambiguous statements about Jews, their “occult-like”
power, their “insidious” role within the media and their “nefarious” plans.
After September 11th, the false rumour that 4,000 Jews did not show up for work
the morning of the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center was relayed
throughout predominantly Muslim areas.
It is very rare to hear Muslim
voices that set themselves apart from this kind of discourse and attitude.
Often, one will try to explain away these phenomena as being a result of extreme
frustration and humiliation. That may be true, but one must be honest and
analyze the situation deeply. This is the real meaning of self-criticism. Much
like the situation across the Muslim world, there exists in the West today a
discourse which is anti-Semitic, seeking legitimacy in certain Islamic texts and
support in the present situation in Palestine. This is the attitude of not only
the marginalized youth but also of intellectuals and Imams, who see the
manipulative hand of the “Jewish lobby” at each turn or every political setback.
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Tariq Ramadan, "Muslims Against Anti-Semitism: Ways to Promote Common Values," UN Chronicle Online Edition (Apr 2004).
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