Tariq Ramadan and the Three Public Faces of Islam
There are three images of Islam competing for space in the public mind.
One portrays Islam as a violent and predatory religious force seeking to overthrow the West by fire and sword. The standard bearers of this version are the orthodontic disasters we see in the media from time to time, screaming into the camera, hoisting placards promising death to America and setting bonfires in which American, British, and Israeli flags are reduced to char.
Another and more heraldic image depicts Islam as a noble and courageous faith, born in the harshest of environments, which it overcomes through the exercise of the manly virtues and a sense of heroic style mediated by the romantic aura of the flowing galabieh, a revered tradition, and elegant rituals of hospitality. We see this fetishizing of the Arab and his faith at its most flamboyant in T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and at its most insidious in Robert Kaplan’s The Arabists.
The third and perhaps most pervasive mental icon of the faith today is that of a socially and spiritually liberating institution whose ancient pedigree is not only capable of doctrinal flexibility and modernization but offers a vision of stability and assurance in an increasingly chaotic world. The most conspicuous representative of this perception of Islam is Tariq Ramadan, an erudite, supple, and persuasive Western-tailored “intellectual” whose soothing rhetoric operates as an ideological narcotic. For in reality he is the most deceptive and oleaginous of Islam’s new breed of warrior, who penetrates our defenses from beneath our historical ramparts. In the words of French social critic Caroline Fourest, from her La tentation obscurantiste, “Tariq Ramadan est devenu un virtuose du désamorçage rhétorique et sémantique.” (“Tariq Ramadan has become a virtuoso of rhetorical and semantic defusing” — in the sense of downplaying a crisis.)
Ramadan’s grandfather Hassan al-Banna was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. His father Said founded the World Islamic League and later established the Islamic Center of Geneva, whose function was to bring Islam to the West. His brother Hani chairs the board. As Robert Sibley writes in the Ottawa Citizen, “Normally, you don’t hold a man’s family against him. In Ramadan’s case, however, it is permissible because he makes so much of his heritage.” And this heritage encloses within its core the central principle of the grandfather, who believed, as Nick Cohen puts it in What’s Left?, that “only a restored and pure Islamic Caliphate could end the humiliation of the Arabs.” Al-Banna then organized “his followers into ‘falanges’ modeled on General Franco’s, and admiring Hitler’s brown shirts.”
The crucial element in this campaign against the cultural integrity and, indeed, the ultimate survival of the West is the subterranean agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, which since its formation in the Egyptian city of Ismailia in 1928, has been at the source of internecine violence, assassinating two prime ministers, Mahmoud Fahmi Nokrashi and Anwar Sadat — in the latter case, via its offshoot Islamic Jihad, despite its verbal renunciation of violence in 1970. The Brotherhood’s emblem is a Koran with crossed swords. In an interview reported by the Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI), in the organization’s General Guide, Muhammad Mahdi Akef, who resigned in 2010 (to be replaced by the equally hard-core Muhammad Badee), affirmed that “the movement supports martyrdom operations in Palestine and Iraq in order to expel the Zionists and the Americans.”
Those who try to launder the Brotherhood’s infusorial project might be advised to study its 1991 memorandum, the “General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” which proposed a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” and stated that Muslims “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house.”
Islam seeks to undermine other societies exactly like other totalitarian ideologies. This is what Nazis did & this is exactly what Communists did (and, evidently, still doing). The stealth Jihad is just another part of the war against non-Muslims everywhere in the world. Leftists are allies of the Islamists, enablers who see Islam as an ally to bring down Western civilization which they hate so much.
Dear Dr. Bones,
Here I was about to make a joke about “_jihád_ careerism meets Qannádî Lit.” — and it turns out that Neocomrade E. L. Ormsby has moved on:
“a longtime resident of Montreal, where he was the Director of University Libraries and subsequently a professor of Islamic thought at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. Presently, he lives and writes in London, England, where he is Professor and Chief librarian at the Institute of Ismaili Studies.” [*]
Oh, well!
Of course I don’t have to explain to *you*, sir, about Ismailis, but for those of them at Rio Limbaugh, maybe [http://tinyurl.com/y4z72pm] ?
Healthy days.
___
[*] (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Ormsby
(2) http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_person.asp?ID=100450&type=user
It’s incredible???
Open letter to Tariq Ramadan
http://whatibelieve.blog.co.uk/
thank you David. An excellent description of the problem we face,
That the left ally themselves with Islam is perhaps the strangest thing. It is seriously seeking suicide. The heads of these useful idiots will be the first to adorn the pikes. Can the left be so stupid (well yes apparently the can).
The left espouses all that Islam claims to want to destroy. So good luck with that.
Supreme Allied Commander:
Case in point . . .
http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=21427
ROFLMAO
I am not aware that Tareq Ramadan is himself a member of the Muslim Brotherhood (international branch). You are indeed blaming him for the sins of his family. I am indeed uncomfortable with some of Tareq Ramadan’s views, but this is no reason in the absence of evidence to the contrary, for associating him with either the Muslim Brotherhood or violent movements. The recent election of Badie at the helm of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is indeed worrying, so were the pronouncements of his predecessor Muhammad Akef. Gamaa Islamiyah and Islamic Jihad precisely left the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood because the latter had abandoned terrorism as a means (but not its fundamentalist ideology, of course). Even Gamma Islamiyah now professes to have abandoned terrorism. Every time the US attempts to have the Mubarak regime amend its nondemocratic ways, Mubarak makes the point that we can have either him or the Muslim Brotherhood. Obvisouly we don’t want the latter, but this sort of blackmail shouldn’t stand either. Unfortunately the Oabama administration has abandoned its predecessor’s push for democracy in the Middle East and has reverted to business as usual. Some would argue that “business as usual” is exactly the policy that props up the Muslim Brotherhood.
PS: While there is no denying the malfeasance of the patically defunct Al-Taqwa Bank of Lugano, whose shariah adviser was Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, there is doubt about the authenticity of “The Project”. The Muslim Broterhood actaul plans are indeed anti-democratic and anti-Western. I suggest you concentrate on the Muslim Brotherhood (international) plans fully to take over editorial control of TV channel Al-Jazeera, with the help of Qaradawi, with the Emir of Qatar playing both ends against the middle. This is much more important than Tareq Ramadan’s pronouncement and activities.
Ramadan’s smooth line about the compatibility of Islam and the West falls apart every time an interlocutor asks for Ramadan’s take on some aspect of Islamic law that contradicts Western human rights.
One example was when Sarkozy asked Ramadan his opinion on the stoning of women adulterers. The resulting squirming by Ramadan and his refusal to condemn stoning revealed the hard line Islamist disguised in reformer’s clothing.
In Ian Buruma’s New York Times portrait, Ramadan said “We’re for integration, but we must decide what that means for ourselves. I obey the laws, but only insofar as they don’t force me to do anything against my religion.”
In other words, Islamic law tops all. The classic Islamist position.
WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN FOR ANYONE TO UNDERSTAND. MUST 1 1/2 BILLION MUSLIMS TAKE UP ARMS SIMULTANEOUSLY. CAN IT BE THAT PEOPLE ARE SO DENSE, THICK, AND STUPID TO BOOT THAT THEY CANNOT CONCLUDE THAT UNLESS THIS DISEASE IS ERASED, JUST LIKE POLIO, IT WILL KILL EVERYONE.
Tariq Ramadan has become a virtuoso of rhetorical and semantic defusing…the svelte ruminations of Western-seeming Islamic intellectuals such as Tariq Ramadan who work like sappers beneath a mantlet of calming assurances and exquisite manners.
Essentially, a soothing dissembler. A liar.
“only a restored and pure Islamic Caliphate could end the humiliation of the Arabs.”
Humiliation, imagined or actual, is a central tenet of Arab culture. So-called honor killings are centered on righting a perception of humiliation in a family, a father may not even be above slaughtering his own daughter to make that come to pass.
Insane.
Hamas exists to eradicate the Jewish state. No compromise touches that agenda. The differences are irreconcilable, despite dissemblers all over the world constantly talking in an attempt to convince you otherwise.
And despite the verbal meanderings of all the Tariq Ramadans of the planet, there is no way to reconcile “belief” in Islam with notions of liberty and individual freedom.
…a tired, self-indulgent, and oblivious civilization that appears — to use Arnold Toynbee’s formulation — to have no response to the challenge which confronts it.
It is flaccidity and weakness of that is enabling Islamists to make inroads into “the west” these days.
Isn’t it time to call the liars out and stop beating about the bush in some absurd politically correct pas de deux ? Grow some spine à la Churchill’s observations, over 100 years ago ?
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!
Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as
hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The
effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly
systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of
property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A
degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the
next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every
woman must belong to some man as his absolute property (either as a
child, a wife, or a concubine) must delay the final extinction of
slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among
men…No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from
being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith…”
Has anyone sat down and seriously analyzed exactly how Tariq Ramadan’s campaign might affect Americans? I don’t think for one moment it would succeed in converting significant numbers of spoiled, lazy Americans to Islam. Rather, it would convince cowards in our political class to continue tolerating the spread of Islam in our prisons, treating opposition to jihad as racism, keeping our borders open to “students” who should be kept out, and other measures that will lead to violence and death of non-Muslims. Any notion that Tariq and his ilk will actually get Americans to give up booze, memorize the Koran, pray five times a day, etc. is wrong. No, instead I think we face horrid shootings and bombings and other acts of terror.
…and you think he is here to convert the masses. no he doesn’t need to. just a few will suffice.
the muslim brotherhood is most active in prisons.
Iran is not held in check by the masses ..but by a few, maybe 10% the rest find it easier to just get along. those few will kill you.
it is time for the west to do away with all special considerations for all religions. it is discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Islam should also be singled out for monitoring as almost all violence (non criminal) is manifest by the followers of Islam. (I wont get into a discussion regarding whether or not Islam is criminal)
I have long thought of (too many of the) Islamists moving into Western nations in terms of a group of people advancing on a flock of birds while holding a net; making soft, reassuring noises to calm the ones who are about to be snared and eaten.
“By any means necessary” Malcom X
And they keep coming. I’m sure its all only for our good.
I call this fellow… Tariq Ramadan, Master of Taquiya. He sounds like a reasonable fellow, but when you really analyze what he is saying, he is calling for Shariah Law in Europe, and Islamic Supremacy, the colonization of Europe. He is an Islamist. Also, his language changes depending on the crowd, Europeans, Muslim Europeans, and so on and so forth. The man speaketh with a forked tongue.
Tariq and Barack are cut from the same cloth……says one thing, believes another.
Islamists have an adgenda to change the world to fit their seventh century life stile. Are we going to let it happen to us ? Our own president is part of the adgenda !!
I have read Ramadan’s Radical Reform and it is clearly not Muslim fundamentalism that he advocates. He says that women should be involved in legal determinations, calls for widespread distribution of condoms and clean syringes to combat AIDS, condemns female genital mutilation and forced marriages, and for study of modern sciences by males and females. He does not go far enough to suit me, but few religious people do since all religions discriminate against women. Most also have little tolerance of sexual minorities. I do not see Mr. Ramadan as being quite so devious as many of his detractors suspect; however, I do not believe Muslims can take the actions he advocates in his latest book and still remain Muslims. Bassam Tibi discussed this in his book Islam and the Cultural Accommodation of Social Change and he felt that Islam is not merely a religion but a cultural system which is resistant to change because it sees the Quran as the final word on everything. I would like to hear Ramadan and Tibi go at it sometime – that might be an exchange worth hearing (I think I know who would win that debate).
Muslims have always been the most treacherous creatures in this world. And they remain the same as the time goes by. I think that he may declare whatever he wants in his book but the results will be the same.