From The Ottawa Citizen
Radical or reformer?
Muslim intellectual Tariq Ramadan is described by many as a reformer, but the Swiss-born academic, who will be speaking Friday at Carleton University, has troubling allegiances to Islamist extremists, writes Robert Sibley.
By Robert Sibley, The Ottawa CitizenMarch 18, 2010
President of the European Muslim Network, Tariq Ramadan, has said his dream is to create a ‘European Islam’ where the continent’s Muslims can find a proper place. But lately many question the intellectual’s seemingly moderate stance.
Photograph by: Dominique Faget, Agence France-Presse, Getty Images, The Ottawa Citizen
Tariq Ramadan is often held up as the kind of Muslim intellectual able to build bridges between Islam and the West. The Swiss-born academic — “one of the most important intellectuals in the world,” says Slate magazine — is widely lauded as a “moderate,” a “reformer.”
Ramadan, a research fellow at St. Antony’s College in Oxford who lectures on Islamist thought, among other positions, is best known to North Americans for being denied a U.S. work visa in 2004 to take up an appointment at the University of Notre Dame. In Europe, though, he has spent much of the past two decades telling Muslims they need to modernize and trying to convince westerners they need not be suspicious of Islam. His purpose, he says, is to foster a “European Islam” where the continent’s Muslim population can find its proper place.
Ramadan will bring that message — or a variation on it — to Ottawa on Friday when he delivers the 26th annual Davidson Lecture at Carleton University’s Minto Centre. His talk, sponsored by the College of the Humanities and the Carleton Centre for the Study of Islam, is entitled “Identity and Engagement: Western Muslims and the Public Sphere.”
On Ramadan’s previous visits to Ottawa, he’s praised the capital as a place where “there is goodwill and a better understanding of immigrants” than elsewhere. During a 2005 visit, he lamented the us-versus-them psychology that often characterizes relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. “If we are each obsessed with the extremists on the other side we are not going to build together.”
Such sentiments are always worth considering, of course. The question for Friday’s audience, though, is whether they are believable.
Ramadan’s reputation as a “moderate” has come into question in recent years, with some reputable commentators suggesting Ramadan is a master practitioner of the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya, or dissimulation. Continue Reading →
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