With a Grain of Salt: Poor Tariq Ramadan

Hi: Sen Gupta:

Excellent writing indeed. - something I have been looking for some time. It is well researched, analyzed and with well presented arguments. It spared me lots of time to have a good understanding of Tariq Ramadan. (TR)

But I have few observations of my own about him after actually listening one of his talks at Queens University- one of the leading Universities of Canada. He had been invited by the Theological College of the university. I was in the country during the winter months. Attendees in the audience were mostly Canadians aged 40 years and above - polite, proper and courteous to outsiders.

TR had also given a little talk at the Royal Military College before he addressed this bunch. The topic was,” The Creative Contribution of Islam within Canadian Self-Understanding “. I thought that it wasa bit pretty wishy-washy about how Canada can learn from Islamic idea of tolerance or something along the line. How disingenuous it was, I thought, to give a lecture about Islamic tolerance to Canada. He never mentioned about so called Islamic tolerance towards non-Muslims in the very heartlands of Islam like Saudi Arabia , Iran , Pakistan or Egypt. It was a lecture of denial: Huddod laws, laws of Blasphemy etc don’t exist. Rest of world knows that in ‘tolerant’ Saudi Arabia, one can not even display a cross, and non-Muslims are forbidden even to build a place of worship etc. In Egypt, Coptic Christians need permission from the state to repair even the toilet in their church.

He can fine-tune his lecture to suit the listeners. He did selectively quote Quranic passages and from Hadiths. His smooth and polished language can mask these darker sides of Islamic practice. Take for example: During the entire history of Islam, the statement, ‘Dar ul Islam and Dar ul Harb ‘ has been defined as ‘land of Islam and land of war by lay Muslims and scholars alike. ‘ Theoratically Canada falls into the category of Dar ul Harb! But during this talk, he changed it to as the ‘land of Islam and land of conflict’. It was quick and brief so as not to draw attention. Clever indeed.

Most Canadians have little understanding of History of Islam and no questions were posed except a lady who asked him if there was any difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims. So within 15 minutes, Q & A period was over and every body went to lunch. My friend and I thought we heard a fine piece of ‘Sanitized version of Islam and rushed out to make sure that there was still time in the parking meters.

So now do you thing Tariq Ramadan is reformer or just a modern Muslim intellectual?

Kamath

#PM

This is a very encouraging development, christians are treated like crap in muslim countries. I think that to meet their demand for labour western countries should concentrate on the christian communities in muslim countries. most of them are in a wretched state and there is NO HOPE for there betterment as long as the followers of the quran are ``FORCED`` to vent out their anger on the closest infidel they can find. Through a long term strategy the unthankful horde of british muslims should be replaced by these untouchbles of the muslim countries.

Following as link from this article, I came upon this, which i reproduce as it is of relevance to this topic:

The Vatican Confronts Islam

07/07/06

``Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It`s our duty to protect ourselves.`` Thus spoke Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, secretary of the Vatican`s supreme court, referring to Muslims. Explaining his apparent rejection of Jesus` admonition to His followers to ``turn the other cheek,`` De Paolis noted that ``The West has had relations with the Arab countries for half a century…and has not been able to get the slightest concession on human rights.``

De Paolis is hardly alone in his thinking; indeed, the Catholic Church is undergoing a dramatic shift from a decades-old policy to protect Catholics living under Muslim rule. The old methods of quiet diplomacy and muted appeasement have clearly failed. The estimated 40 million Christians in Dar al-Islam, notes the Barnabas Fund`s Patrick Sookhdeo, increasingly find themselves an embattled minority facing economic decline, dwindling rights, and physical jeopardy. Most of them, he goes on, are despised and distrusted second-class citizens, facing discrimination in education, jobs, and the courts.

These harsh circumstances are causing Christians to flee their ancestral lands for the West`s more hospitable environment. Consequently, Christian populations of the Muslim world are in a free-fall. Two small but evocative instances of this pattern: for the first time in nearly two millennia, Nazareth and Bethlehem no longer have Christian majorities.

This reality of oppression and decline stands in dramatic contrast to the surging Muslim minority of the West. Although numbering fewer than 20 million and made up mostly of immigrants and their offspring, it is an increasingly established and vocal minority, granted extensive rights and protections even as it wins new legal, cultural, and political prerogatives.

This widening disparity has caught the attention of the Church, which for the first time is pointing to radical Islam, rather than the actions of Israel, as the central problem facing Christians living with Muslims.

Rumblings of this could be heard already in John Paul II`s time. For example, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican equivalent of foreign minister, noted in late 2003 that ``There are too many majority Muslim countries where non-Muslims are second-class citizens.`` Tauran pushed for reciprocity: ``Just as Muslims can build their houses of prayer anywhere in the world, the faithful of other religions should be able to do so as well.``

Catholic demands for reciprocity have grown, especially since the accession of Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005, for whom Islam is a central concern. In February, the pope emphasized the need to respect ``the convictions and religious practices of others so that, in a reciprocal manner, the exercise of freely-chosen religion is truly assured to all.`` In May, he again stressed the need for reciprocity: Christians must love immigrants and Muslims must treat well the Christians among them.

Lower-ranking clerics, as usual, are more outspoken. ``Islam`s radicalization is the principal cause of the Christian exodus,`` asserts Monsignor Philippe Brizard, director general of Oeuvre d`Orient, a French organization focused on Middle Eastern Christians. Bishop Rino Fisichella, rector of the Lateran University in Rome, advises the Church to drop its ``diplomatic silence`` and instead ``put pressure on international organizations to make the societies and states in majority Muslim countries face up to their responsibilities.``

The Danish cartoons crisis offered a typical example of Catholic disillusionment. Church leaders initially criticized the publication of the Muhammad cartoons. But when Muslims responded by murdering Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria, not to speak of scores of Christians killed during five days of riots in Nigeria, the Church responded with warnings to Muslims. ``If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us,`` said Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican`s Secretary of State. ``We must always stress our demand for reciprocity in political contacts with authorities in Islamic countries and, even more, in cultural contacts,`` added Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, its foreign minister.

Obtaining the same rights for Christians in Islamdom that Muslims enjoy in Christendom has become the key to the Vatican`s diplomacy toward Muslims. This balanced, serious approach marks a profound improvement in understanding that could have implications well beyond the Church, given how many lay politicians heed its leadership in inter-faith matters. Should Western states also promote the principle of reciprocity, the results should indeed be interesting.

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#2 i thought the authors sister laughed at wiki reference..so the authors family consider it laughable.

your interest in political islam is commendable however to pick up from the opening salutation of nasah `` powerfully researched article``..........my rear-end........since when did wikipedia count as a reliable source? ....anyone who has written anything seriously academic will know that a wikipedia reference is as good as plagiarism.....its simply not credible and not accepted.....reason being....anyone can edit or change it......so i wish you would not begin with wikipedia......

Re: # 2
Rezwan
If you will read the article you will find two mentions of wikipedia, not as a reference for the research conducted but merely to show that you can find a list of Islamic reformers there and that Mr.Ramadan is missing.
The references given were Tariq Ramadan`s website and a his book.

Now read the artiicle again.

A powerfully researched article -- Bhaskar knows his subject and presents it with great eloquence -- the Achilles heel of the Muslims of the Muslims is correctly described as the following:

``Hudud laws are Islamic laws, which define punishments for certain gravely sinful activities. So for example, if you steal something - your right-hand is amputated; if you commit adultery - you are stoned to death etc. etc. This is a massive simplification as there is a huge corpus of law behind these, but the result are these punishments in certain cases``

````The Hudud are a part of the religion, they are Quranic, and they can be neither subject to debate nor discussion,`` ( therfore subject to no reform no change) said Mustapha ash-Shuk`a, one of the muftis on Egypt`s Al-Azhar``

And -- ``Whoever denies the Hudud recognized as revealed and confirmed or who demands that they be cancelled or suspended, despite final and indisputable evidence, is to be regarded as somebody who has forsaken a recognized element which forms the basis of the religion.`` (in short is NOT Muslim...!)

And these are exactly the Muslim`s undoings -- as long as they don`t detach ourselves -- from these self-styled interpreters of Quranic `laws` -- that are nothing more than the Jehovah Witnesses living by the Bible beliefs -- and if you don`t live by the Bible you aint a Christian garbage -- us Muslims are doomed to remain confined to the retrograde dungeons of total infantile cultural and intellectual regression -- till eternity.

About 9/11 -- I would have to admit that the whole goddam community of mine -- from Morocco to Mauritius to Mauritania to Moro Islands in Philippines -- is in DENIAL from day one.

I have some Nigerian, some Lebanese and some Chinese Muslim patients -- they don`t know each other -- but they sing the same goddam identical song -- the Muslims did not do it -- the Jews did it -- or the CIA did it.....at there is this one area where they all agree..

Great column Mr. Dasgupta.....I wish there was an entity called the ``Western Muslims`` -- or a reformed religion that we could address as ``Western Islam``.....