Interview: Tariq Ramadan
Named as a "spiritual leader" in Time magazine's 'Next Wave' of 'global innovators', Tariq Ramadan is currently a Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford. Previously, he taught Islamic Studies and Philosophy at Freiburg University in Switzerland. A prominent critic of the 'war on terror' policy, Ramadan is one of the most influential Muslim voices in western society — a profile that has regularly gotten him into trouble. Political commentators accuse him of being anti-Semitic and of varying his message according to his audience. In 2004, he was forced to resign as professor of Religion, Conflict and Peace-building at the University of Notre Dame, when the US government suddenly revoked his visa. Since then, Ramadan has been banned from traveling to the US under a Patriot Act provision that bars entry to those who endorse or support terrorism. Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Egypt have acted similarly, for his proposals to suspend Sharia Law, corporal punishment, beheadings and stonings in the Islamic world. On the suspicion of his ties with terrorist groups, he was banned from entering France between 1995 and 1996.
Tariq Ramadan spoke to Subindra Bogati in London on the issues of Muslim integration, the recent controversy over cartoons depicting Islamic subjects, and Southasian migrants in the UK.
Ramadan's grandfather was Hasan. Al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic-revival movement that began in Egypt and opposed the dominance of secular and Western ideas. When the organisation was outlawed in Egypt in 1954, his parents and their six children fled to Switzerland. As he grew up, he became determined to figure out how simultaneously to be both a Muslim and a Westerner. Since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, scholars and others have increasingly discussed what is referred to as a 'clash of civilisations'. On the contrary, Ramadan emphasises the possibilities of reconciling Islamic and Western values.