Tariq Ramadan

The American Prospect has a short essay by Lee Smith on the European Islamist Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan is a fascinating figure who has generated more than his share of polemics over the last year. But why in the world would the American Prospect publish an article which concludes on this note:

"That Ramadan believes Islam will replace Judaism and Christianity may come as a surprise to those who thought he was just saying Islam is compatible with liberal values (it will certainly surprise the fathers at Notre Dame). Rather, Ramadan is a cold-blooded Islamist who believes that Islam is the cure for the malaise wrought by liberal values. His revision of the jihadist paradigm -- peaceful but total -- is brilliant in its way, and he may well turn out to be a major Islamist intellectual, far surpassing even his grandfather's influence. His cry of death to the West is a quieter and gentler jihad, but it's still jihad. There's no reason for Western liberals to try to understand that point of view."

While Smith goes out of his way to point out that Ramadan does disavow violence and is no bin Laden, in virtually the same breath he elides the differences to declare Ramadan just as great a threat, if not greater. His "quiet jihad" can only mean "death to the West." Liberals, therefore, should adopt the Daniel Pipes standard - there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist - and fear the nonviolent Islamists even more than the violent ones. Ramadan's rejection of violence only makes him more dangerous, because he might pull the wool over the eyes of gullible liberals.

Deciphering Smith's polemic isn't easy. It's possible that he just doesn't know enough about Islam to realize that many of the views that cause him (Smith) so much anguish are fairly generic Muslim views. Take the breathless realization that Ramadan considers Islam to be a religion which completes and replaces the other monotheistic religions. This is one of the fundamental, basic precepts of Mohammed's revelations, not a cunning new innovation of Ramadan's. I would submit that a Muslim believing that his religion is true does not differentiate him greatly from, say, a Christian or Jew or any other person of faith who, presumably, holds his faith because he believes his religion to be true. Smith's first charge against Ramadan, then, is simply that he believes in his religion. I'd say any jury would convict on those grounds, as Ramadan would happily confess. But is faith really a crime for Smith?

Smith's second charge, that Ramadan sees the West as a prime arena for proselytizing and spreading Islam - in Smith's breathless prose "It's not just that the West is the future of Islam; Islam is the future of the West." But again, what is so frightening about this? Islam is a proselytizing religion, and the dawa - outreach - is fundamental to most Muslims' conception of the good life -- and not only Muslims: any Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door lately? Been invited to church by any born again Christians in the last few weeks?

If Ramadan explicitly disavows violence, and hopes to persuade people in the West to embrace Islam, then so what? If Smith doesn't want to become a Muslim, is Ramadan compelling him to do so? More broadly, what exactly is Smith afraid of? If Ramadan is right that given the choice, many spiritually deprived Westerners will turn to Islam, then isn't that their choice? And if Ramadan is wrong, and most Westerners will not choose to become Muslims, then what's the harm in his peaceful outreach?

These two charges reflect some combination of ignorance or paranoia, about Islam and about Ramadan specifically, which reminds me of Paul Berman more than anyone else. Smith references Ramadan's book, but I wonder if he actually read it, or any of Ramadan's earlier writings. Ramadan certainly is an Islamist, no question about that. But he explicitly rejects the closed-minded literalism of the salafis and insists on a rationalist, flexibile, modernist reading of Islam. On the question which so vexes Smith, Ramadan explicitly states: "individuals, innocent and free, have to make their choices (either to accept or reject the Revelation); there will necessarily be diversity among people." (p.202) He rejects repressive readings of Islam, especially towards women - he is particularly insistent that women must play a central role in the Islamic public sphere (p.142). He endorses a dialogue among civilizations in which Muslims should participate as confident and assured equals (p.33).

At the end of the day, I return to Smith's conclusion: "His cry of death to the West is a quieter and gentler jihad, but it's still jihad. There's no reason for Western liberals to try to understand that point of view."

No reason to try to understand? Really? I find myself almost speechless in the face of that kind of arrogant disregard for the ideas of others. Is this where Smith - and the Prospect - want to take American liberals: to a rejection of dialogue with Islamists? To what end? If Ramadan is as influential as Smith claims among European Muslims, then how exactly is our willful ignorance of his ideas going to either diminish his influence or help us to formulate effective approaches to coexistence with Muslims? Allow me to give Ramadan the last word: "Difference might naturally lead to conflict; therefore the responsibility of humankind is to make use of difference by establishing a relationship based on excelling one another in doing good. It is vital that the balance of power be based not on a tension born of rejection or mutual ignorance but fundamentally on knowledge." (p.203) Why do I have to go to a European Islamist to hear what I should be hearing from a magazine professedly the voice of American liberalism?

Comments

[Ittef]

Can you recommend some of Tariq Ramadan's books/writings in english?

[Lee Smith]

Dear Abu Aardvark--thanks for your respectful criticism of my American Prospect piece. If I may, I just wanted to briefly address what I think are your two main points.

1) My concern over Ramadan's idea that Islam replaces the two other monotheisms. It may have been as you write "one of the fundamental, basic precepts of Mohammed's revelations," but it's not the way that every Muslim has understood Islam. Taha Hussein for instance writes in The Future of Culture of Egypt that "Islam...came to complete and confirm the Old and New Testaments." Hussein's confirmation and Ramadan's replacing are two different ideas-- the former is inclusive and the latter is exclusive. I should add however that Ramadan's view is not exclusively Islamist, since this is how many Christians regard their faith--that Christ's life and death replaced the Jewish covenant. Christ may himself believed it, I don't know. What I do know is that liberal discourse in the West has moved away from this idea and instead put it in terms of a Judeo-Christian heritage. If Tariq Ramadan wishes to extend this and talk, as many Muslims do, of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic heritage then I welcome it. But I don't see it in his published writing.

2) I have no problem with dawa in the US or anywhere in the West. My feeling is that anyone who is looking for spiritual direction, a thriving community of faith and a remarkable philosophical and theological tradition couldn't do better than accepting Islam. But you're right, I don't think liberals should waste their time trying to engage Islamist discourse. And since you mention it, I also don't think think liberals should engage Mormon, born-again Christian or Jehovah's Witness discourse. And indeed to the extent born-again beliefs have been given a place in US politics, it is important that liberals stand against them. Their ideas about religion, and the political beliefs that issue from their faith, are exclusivist. They may be right that their faith is the only path, I don't know. The problem is that it leaves a lot people out in the cold who believe something else, like Muslims.

So, finally, I'd just say I don't think people should be wilfully ignorant about Ramadan's ideas, which is why I wrote the article. I just believe liberals shouldn't waste their time trying to accomodate those ideas.

Yours, Lee Smith

p.s. By the way, I liked your article criticizing the US and the IGC for closing al-Arabiya's Baghdad bureau. I did a similar piece for Slate, where I also however criticized the PA for harrassing and bullying an Arabiya correspondent.

[Ikram]

I also found Smith's article confusing, and had thought of writing a review, but you've done it better than I could. Smith's line There's no reason for Western liberals to try to understand that point of view is really bizarre, and I don't think his clarification in the comments (there's no reason to try to understand any relgious person's point of view, including, I suppose, George W. Bush) gives any additional succour.

But I thought Smith's biggest failing was identifying Ramadan as something other than a westerner. Ramadan wrote 'to be a european Muslim' -- to the extent Smith recognizes Europeans as westerners, Ramadan is one (as am I). Notre Dame is engaging a leading western relgious thinker, not an avatar of "the East".

Looking at it that way, his prescription -- engage liberals from muslim countries, is entirely besides the point. If ND wants 'balance', it ought to look for a secular european to counter Ramadan's religious European identity.

I don't think Smith was being intentionally Pipesian. Let's give the benefit of the doubt: maybe he is just an awoved secularist and a man confused by western Muslims.

(I note that Smith is apparently, after two years in Cairo, going to write a book on Arab Culture. A quick study, I guess)

[the aardvark]

Lee - thanks for the thoughtful response (and apologies for any overly purple prose in my original post... you know how people get carried away when writing blogs in the 15 minutes before going to teach class).

I think that your clarification makes your argument stronger - specifically, that you would want liberals to contest political religion in all contexts, in the US or in the Islamic world. But in other ways, your more clear argument becomes more troubling. One of the things that makes the American experience of liberalism work has been the ability to maintain political discourse across different beliefs and faiths. Given the proportion of Americans who do profess a serious religious faith, I would be troubled by a liberalism which would exclude them from the bounds of reasonable political argument.

I would hesitate on both normative and pragmatic grounds: normatively, a representative democracy which shuns the deeply held beliefs of a significant portion of its people loses much of its claim to democratic legitimacy; and pragmatically, shunning such groups will encourage their own tendency to hunker down into a narrow, isolated, and more extreme identity based on persecution and resentment.

The same applies, I think, to American dealings with Islamists. Since you lived in Cairo, you know that a very large stratum of Egyptian society takes Islamism seriously. Ignoring them as a matter of principle, or shunning them as beyond the pale, will not make them go away, nor decrease their influence... but it could shape the direction in which these movements develop.

Unlike you, I see considerable room for dialogue with some - but certainly not all - trends within Islamism. The distinction isn't only to do with their views on violence, although that's important. It also has to do with their attitude towards what I would call the application of public reason: do they accept the principle of internal critical argument, or do they insist on a literalist, authoritarian mode of discourse?

What bothers me about your perspective on Tariq Ramadan is that he seems to me to be very much in the former tradition: an important voice against literalist, authoritarian Islam. Like Yusuf al Qaradawi or Khalid Abou el Fadl, Ramadan has taken quite bold stances against the salafis, and has consistently advocated open public argument and debate. That's what makes him a "moderate" - not any particular political positions. And that's what makes him a potential partner for dialogue.

Let's face it - if you accept that the future of the Islamic world matters for Americans, as you clearly do, then American liberals just can't afford to adopt the kind purist position that you incline towards. By all means, we should talk to and encourage the kinds of secularist, cosmopolitan Muslims that you mention - but that should be in addition to, not at the expense of, talking to the most powerful social force in the Islamic world today.