Tariq Ramadan

As-Salamou 'Alaykoum wa rahmatoullahi wa barakatouhou

Tariq Ramadan is an example for us, Muslim Europeans.

Tariq Said Ramadan (born 26 August 1962 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a Swiss Muslim academic whose views on Islam reflect a reformist perspective. He advocates the study and interpretation of Islamic texts, and emphasizes the heterogeneous nature of Western Muslims.[citation needed] He emphasizes the necessity for their contribution to European society.
The British Prospect and the American Foreign Policy magazines ranked him in 2008 at number 8 in a list of the world’s top 100 contemporary intellectuals. [1] He is regularly called Islam’s ‘Martin Luther' in the West for his controversial views that challenge the mainstream Islamic beliefs.[citation needed] Many Arab intellectuals disagree with this assessment however, including Egyptian intellectual and reformer Tarek Heggy.[2] He does not have a wide audience base in countries with Muslim majorities. Tariq Ramadan teaches theology at the University of Oxford.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Ramadan

Professor Tariq Ramadan is the grandson of Hasan El Benna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ihvân-ı Müslimîn). He holds a MA in Philosophy and French literature which he completed about the German thinker Nietzsche. Furthermore Ramadan holds a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Geneva. Between 1988 and 1992 he was appointed as Dean of the Geneva College. In 1992 he received one-on-one intensive training in classic Islamic scholarship from Al-Azhar University scholars in Cairo, Egypt.
Despite his young age, he spent large part of his life by supporting the struggle for independence of underdeveloped countries in Africa, South America and Asia.
He is Professor of Islamic Studies (Faculty of Theology at Oxford). Professor Ramadan is also a Visiting Professor (holding the chair: Identity and Citizenship) at Erasmus University in Netherland.
He is currently Senior Research Fellow St Antony’s College (Oxford), Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan) and at the Lokahi Foundation (London).
In October 2007, he was offered a Professorial Chair in Islamic Sudies at the University of Leiden. He decided to turn down the offer.
Through his writings and lectures he has contributed substantially to the debate on the issues of Muslims in the West and Islamic revival in the Muslim world. He is active both at the academic and grassroots levels lecturing extensively throughout the world on social justice and dialogue between civilizations.
Professor Tariq Ramadan is currently President of the European think tank: European Muslim Network (EMN) in Brussels.
Professor Ramadan speaks French, English, Italian, Finnish and Spanish. His book ‘Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity’ has also been translated into Turkish.
http://www.uniday2009.org/en/programme/prof-dr-tariq-ramadan.html

Here is an extract of an article written by him about Islam and European citizenship:
Hence, it will not be enough to repeat obsessively that we want to promote common citizenship and that we respect people’s identities. These theoretical discourses, full of good and humanist intentions, will be neither heard nor trusted by the citizens if they are not part of a prospective vision and concretely translated into effective multidimensional policies. We need a holistic approach based on a vision, overall objectives and practical steps to follow. It is crucial to understand, upstream from the problems we are facing on the ground, that solutions will be reached though a two way process. Our democratic societies, without changing their laws, must reconsider their traditional and inherited narrative to make it more inclusive. Inclusiveness is the key when it comes to teach the official History of a country. The western populations have changed tremendously and it becomes important to think about, and shape, a more comprehensive and consistent common History of memories. We must be willing and able to integrate in our official curricula a self critical discourse as to what have been done to previous colonised people who now have become our fellow citizens : to speak about the two sides of our past, the light one as well as the dark one. A positive discourse on the immigrants contributions to our societies and a better knowledge of the cultural and religious diversity should go along all the social policies promoting civil engagement and social cohesion.

Our requirements towards the new citizens or the residents with diverse cultural backgrounds must be clear with no compromise. They have to know, and abide by, the laws, respect the institutions and accept the cultural Western environment (they may be selective for their own sake and behaviour but they have to be inclusive as well and make the national culture theirs). It is important that they refuse to feed a kind of ?victim mentality? and start addressing, not as potential-suspect-on-the-defensive, but as fellow proactive citizens some of the legitimate concerns and fears people might have around them : on violence, women, cultural heritage, etc. This should be the intellectual and social attitudes the new citizens have to promote by being in the mainstream debates regarding common values, national identity and domestic issues: they must refuse to create a new kind of citizenship which is a psychological alienated ‘minority citizenship’. It does not exist in our legislations but it may be created in some minds (this is one of the reasons why the legal approach is necessary without being sufficient and exclusive).

to read all the full article here is the link:
http://www.euro-muslims.eu/menu-vertical/emn-members-articles/detail/news/citizenship-and-identity-old-concepts-and-new-challenges/?tx_ttnews%5Byear%5D=2008&tx_ttnews%5Bmonth%5D=09&tx_ttnews%5Bday%5D=12&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=404&cHash=a5d12510d4

I‘ve found some comments about him that really sum up what I think about him:

‘professor tariq ramadan is an activist-intellectual of the first order. he thinks; therefore, he is viewed as a threat to those who do not. and the greatest ‘threat’ he presents, especially to the sinecurist scholars, is simply that he has respect for them, but, not fear of them.’

‘MashaAllah! I believe he should be one of the role models for today’s soicety. His ideas, perspective and work are quite impressive…if only more people implement the holistic nature of Islamic life, Muslims would no longer be viewed as a threat or as vermin to the society. When we have muslims being the greatest contributors to the progress of society, they will be looked up to by non-musmlims too. The situation would then be one in which the student getting the highest marks is a Muslim, the person volunteering at the welfare home is a Muslim, the lady helping out at the orphanage is a Muslim, that diligent, innovative worker is a Muslim, the scientist who just invented a cure for some rare disease is a Muslim,etc….you get the picture. That’s how Muslims should be and that’s the state of society we should strive towards.

http://www.halaltube.com/performing-good-deeds-in-our-society-as-means-of-getting-closer-to-god#comment-1087#comment-1087

May Allah bless him and give him the full reward here and in the hereafter.

Ameen
Imane