This interview with renowned Muslim scholar, Tariq Ramadan, continues the series introducing leading religious thinkers who attended the Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne in December 2009. It was recorded for Eureka Street, and is sponsored by the Asia-Pacific Centre for Inter-Religious Dialogue at the Australian Catholic University.
Ramadan speaks about the need for Muslims to be open to other faiths,
and about one of his passions — education, particularly Islamic
education. As a former high school teacher and headmaster, and now
Professor in Islamic Studies at Oxford University, he sees education as
crucial in overcoming problems in this era of inter-religious conflict.
(Continues below)
I first met Tariq Ramadan in his hometown, Geneva, in Switzerland, in 2003. He was one of the interviewees in a documentary I was working on for Compass called 'Tomorrow's Islam'. It featured progressive Muslim leaders and thinkers from around the world. Then, as now, he struck me as a highly appealing and charismatic character.
But in the meantime, serious allegations have been made against him, and opinion about him is divided. To his fans and supporters, he is an articulate reformer, or, as he calls himself, an 'activist professor', who works tirelessly around the globe building bridges between the Muslim community and broader Western society. But his detractors have labelled him 'dangerous' and 'double-faced'.
The criticisms of him are reflected in two major incidents. First, in 2004 he was appointed to an academic post in America at the Catholic University of Notre Dame. Just a week before he was due to arrive in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security revoked his visa. Its only explanation was that he was a threat to national security.
His appeal to overturn the decision failed, but it revealed the only specific charge against him was that he had made a few donations to Palestinian charities with links to Hamas.
Second, in 2005, French investigative journalist, Caroline Fourest published a book critical of Ramadan, more recently published in English with the provocative title, Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan. Fourest's most serious charge is that while Ramadan speaks in benign progressive tones to non-Muslim Western audiences, he says the opposite to Muslims.
While it's difficult to fathom the degree of angst and opposition he has provoked, they are explained partly by his family background, and his political agenda.
His parents were political refugees from Egypt, fleeing to Switzerland in the early 1950s after