Tariq Ramadan
Tariq Ramadan
Tariq Ramadanis a Swiss academic, philosopher and writer. He is the professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at St Antony's College, Oxford and also teaches at the Oxford Faculty of Theology. He is a visiting professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies, the Université Mundiapolisand several other universities around world. He is also a senior research fellow at Doshisha University. He is the director of the Research Centre of Islamic Legislation and Ethics, based in...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth26 August 1962
CountrySwitzerland
We've got to get away from the idea that scholars in the Islamic world can do our thinking for us. We need to start thinking for ourselves.
The great majority of Americans do not know much about Islam but nonetheless fear it as violent, expansionist and alien to their society. The problem to overcome is not hatred, but ignorance.
It is like using a smoke screen, the same thing for an individual. The topic here is Islam. If French politicians are no longer talking about Islam, they know they will have to talk about something else, which brings the spotlight on their inefficiency. They will have to talk about domestic social and economic issues and they will have to justify their foreign policy, which is obviously something they need to avoid at all costs.
It is important that the Muslim leaders, scholars, and intellectuals are much more vocal and explain what Islam is.
IS [Islamic State] has played a major role in helping Bashar al-Assad to reposition Syria on the international scene. Now, it is almost impossible to come up with a solution that would exclude him. The political game appears to be very cynical indeed.
Greek philosophy departs from the assumption that we can understand the world autonomously using our rational faculties. Islam is not saying this.
Saying that the origin of the Islamic State (IS) is within the Muslim Brotherhood organisation only strengthens IS.
In fact all the Islamists, that is the reformists not the Salafis, now they all say that they want a civil state, a civil state with Islamic reference points. They are not talking about an Islamic state, or sharia in the way this was once understood in the fight against the colonisers, or just afterwards in the 70's, 80's and 90's.
An 'Islamic economy' or 'Islamic finance' doesn't mean anything to me. But I do think that in the multi-polar world, it is time to find new partners, to find a new balance in the economic order. And this could help you to find an alternative way forward.
The suicide bomber who blows up Israeli children cannot transform himself into a martyr. The Palestinian problem is not an Islamic problem.
Emancipation can only come from within; it cannot be dictated by someone else. A law banning the wearing of headscarves changes nothing, except perhaps external appearance. Naturally, Islamic feminism must also include the right to education, to work and the freedom to select one's own husband.
The message of Islam asks you to be intellectually, spiritually, socially, and politically independent
We want to tell people how great Islam is yet we are not great Muslims.
The philosophical connection between the Islamic world and the West is much closer than I thought. Doubt did not begin with Descartes. We have this construction today that the West and Islam are entirely separate worlds. This is wrong.