Articles

Questions for Tariq Ramadan

By Henrik R Clausen

For this conference (Vienna, Nov 11th 2008) we had expected a special guest, the honoured Mr. Tariq Ramadan, son of Saïd Ramadan and grandson of Hassan Al-Banna.

Unfortunately, in the last minute he chose not to come, with no reason given. We took the opportunity instead to give the participants a brief written overview of his background and upbringing. This essay is an edited and extended version of the paper.

The subject of the event is discussing the possibility of a particular European kind of Islam, also known as ”Euro-Islam”. The concept was originally conceived by Bassam Tibi, but is better known for being used by Tariq Ramadan. While there has been much talk about such a democracy-compatible version of Islam, preciously little substance has been presented yet. The panel will take care of this question.

In the absence of Tariq Ramadan in person, I would like to explain some fundamentals about Ikhwan (the Muslim Brotherhood) and how Tariq Ramadan is connected to it. Thus, I'd like to dive a bit into history to provide relevant background and scarcely known details, including that of his father Saïd Ramadan, in whose honour Tariq a few days ago awarded a prize.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 as a reaction to the abolition of the Caliphate by Kemal Atatürk in 1924. The goal of the Ikhwan is to restore the Caliphate, by whatever means it deems necessary. Initially that included any form of violence, but the Brotherhood has since renounced the use of violence, and is instead pursuing its goal by other means.

The credo of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. (MEForum)

The Brotherhood's stated goal is to instill the Qur'an and Sunnah as the "sole reference point for ... ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community ... and state". (IkhwanWeb)

The objective is overtly totalitarian, in that the Islamic scripture is seen as a guide to every aspect of the life of the believers. Other totalitarian ideologies have come and gone, Islam is, by any measure, the most persistent of them all. The Muslim Brotherhood remains intensely loyal to the Islamic message.

Initially, the Ikhwan was a small group, centered around the founder Hassan Al-Banna and his loyal friends, such as Sayyid Qutb, Saïd Ramadan and others. It worked to restore awareness of Islam in Egypt, and as such is a classical Islamic reform movement, similar to the Wahhabi in Arabia.

The breakthrough of this Islamic revivalist movement came with the great Arabic uprising in Palestine from 1936 to 1939. This Intifada-style revolt caused Ikhwan membership, branches and institutions to grow at a rapid rate, turning Ikhwan into a mass movement over a few years.

The revolt was sponsored with German money, materials and weapons, and caused much trouble for the Jews in Palestine, as well as the British rule of the area, which was established as a League of Nations mandate following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The revolt lasted three years, but eventually, in 1939, it was crushed by superior British military force.

The link and the gratitude to Germany was not forgotten, though, and was soon followed up. For many years it had puzzled me why the German general Rommel would pursue a campaign in North Africa, far from the main battles in Europe. Egypt is the key to this puzzle.

For at the time of the battle at Al-Amain, where Montgomery finally defeated the German force, Cairo was already decorated for the welcome of the German troops. The intention was to give Germany troops and then access to Middle East oil of Arabia, Iraq and Iran, thus giving a great boost to the German war effort. Fortunately, Montgomery prevented that from happening.

After the war the Ikhwan, in consort with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who was otherwise indicted for war crimes on the German side, continued its efforts. One of the great issues was the Arab response to the founding of Israel. The question was: War or peace? The response from the Mufti and the Ikhwan was 'War', and so it was. This laid the foundation for the Arab refugee problem and the seemingly endless struggle in the area.

In Egypt, the Ikhwan continued under the organisational leadership of Hassan Al-Bannah and the ideological guidance of Sayyid Qutb. Saïd Ramadan was close to Al-Bannah, who in gratitude gave his daughter in marriage to him. Thus, the reason Tariq Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan Al-Bannah is the deep loyalty of his father to the ideology and goals of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood kept up its efforts to destabilize the Egypt government, but eventually its leaders were jailed, killed or exiled. Saïd and his family went to Switzerland, where they set up an Islamic center in Geneva, which is also where Tariq Ramadan was born.

Saïd Ramadan had close connections to the House of Said and the variant of Salafist Islam known as 'Wahhabism'. He was a staunch supporter of the ideas that Saudi Arabia should export this strain of Islam worldwide, and took many initiatives in that direction. For the first 11 years, his Islamic center was funded by Saudi money. Saïd was rejected from several conferences during the time for his overt fundamentalism.

It's worth saying a bit about the meaning of 'Salafi' and of reforming Islam. 'Salafi' means 'literal' and constitutes a return to the fundamentals of Islamic scripture, and thus an abolishment of the 'traditionalist' Islam of the Ottoman Empire and the like. Salafism is fundamentalism, in all the variations Salafism comes in. Common to all variations is the understanding that the Islamic scripture is unconditionally divine and not subject to modification, as a whole.

For those wondering if Islam is in need of a Reformation similar to that initiated by Luther in Christianity, there is no need to worry. The Reformation started eight decades ago and its name is 'Muslim Brotherhood'. Just as Luther, the Muslim Brotherhood advocates a return to the fundamentals, as given in the original scripture. It has nothing to do with discarding inhuman elements of the religion.

It has been mentioned often that Tariq is the grandson of Hassan Al-Bannah. Now, we all have grandfathers, which doesn't always signify much, as their ideas and influence is not always strongly present two generations later. What matters is the environment one grows up in, and this is clear: Tariq Ramadan grew up in a Wahhabi-funded Islamic center of deep fundamentalism, led by his father, Saïd Ramadan.

Today, this center is run by Tariq's brother Hani. It used to be that Tariq would say that his brother and him were executing different aspects of the same activity. While Tariq doesn't work openly with his brother at this time, it might still be true. We have no way of knowing for sure. Tariq is not officially representing the Islamic Center of Geneva, but on the other hand never does anything that contradicts the center or cause difficulties for its activities.

One thing important that is by now quite well know is that Tariq Ramadan speaks differently to different audiences. Those who have compared his lectures in French with those in Arabic have found this to be very clear. Yet, he does not contradict himself, but instead relies on subtle rhetorical tools to divert attention from what he states in his lectures in Arabic language, usually available on cassette tapes or CD's. One thing is for sure: He never, ever openly contradicts the ideas of the Ikhwan.

I had the interesting experience of meeting Mr. Ramadan in Denmark last year, talking about the need for a Reformation of Islam. In the questions and answers session, he tended to use much time seemingly getting to the point, but eventually not really doing so.

After the lecture, I presented him with a well-known book, the History of Islam by Al-Tabari, which is part of the Sirat, the original Islamic biography of Muhammad. Ramadan immediately exclaimed: ”That is a very problematic book!”. Indeed it is, for the Islamic sources known as the Sirat describe the life of Muhammad with great honesty, and many acts of his that are obviously uncivilized.

Interestingly, Tariq Ramadan has published a book justifying these rather violent acts. Nowhere does Ramadan declare any of these acts unconditionally ”not holy”. That would include starting battles, taking booty, trading slaves and killing prisoners of war.

This is a problem, for Quran 33:21 sets Muhammad and his behaviour as good examples for Muslims, now and forever. If unprovoked violence and plunder are good examples, how are we going to modernize Islam without discarding at least some of the ancient scripture as unholy?

I wanted to ask Mr. Ramadan about this, but was obviously out of luck this time, thus the questions we had in mind will be presented here, to inspire others and in the hope that they will get the opportunity to ask them to Mr. Ramadan at some other opportunity. Since Tariq Ramadan is known for dodging difficult questions, it is good to make them as short and clear as possible.

Given his background, it makes sense to assume that he has a fundamentalist agenda, and phrasing the questions in such a way that he will need to answer them clearly and assertively, in case he wants to avoid having the image of a fundamentalist stick to him.

There are many questions that might be well worth asking, such as: