Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan (19 page)

i Islam is not a political system. Along the lines of the analysis developed by Abd alRaziq in Islam et lesfondements du pouvoir [Islam and the Origins of Powerj, liberal
reformism points to the fact that Mohammed never set up a government during his
lifetime and made no provisions for designating a successor or instituting a political system that would survive him. We are also reminded that the great majority of
the verses of the Koran (more than 70 percent) deal with questions that are strictly
religious and not social. Regulations such as those concerning the wearing of the
veil are altogether trivial matters by comparison with the overriding importance
that the Koran accords to the five pillars of religion: the profession of faith, prayer,
pilgrimage, the observance of Ramadan, and the obligation to give alms (zakat).

2 Islam is compatible with secularism and democracy. The Koran, in a sura entitled "Consultation" (choura), explicitly proposes that "men consult between themselves on
their affairs." Which indicates-even more conclusively than the Biblical phrase
"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's"-the extent to which Islam is
open to the idea of a democratic dialogue separate from the realm of the sacred.

3 Islam calls for recourse to reason and thus for adapting to changing times. Islamic jurisprudence (filth) provides for account to be taken of commonly held opinions (ijma)
to allow for evolution and adaptation to the times. Liberal Muslims encourage
efforts at interpretation and personal reasoning (~tihad).

4 Islam is not intent on proselytizing. Liberal reformism considers that religious faith is
not something to be forced on others, in accordance with the verse of the Koran that
explicitly bans proselytizing: "If your Lord had so willed, the whole of the universe
would have espoused the faith. Is it then for you to force men to believe?"

On all these points, the Salafist reformism of the Muslim Brotherhood is
totally opposed to the liberals. They sometimes cite the same references and
the same verses, but ascribe to them a totally different meaning. For them, religion and politics are inseparable, practically indistinguishable, to the extent
that they often attach more importance to campaigning on social issues, such
as the Islamic headscarf, than to questions of ritual or theology. According to
the Muslim Brotherhood-which is the principal school of Salafist reformism-the call for "consultation' is not to be taken as acceptance of the principles of secularism or democracy, but as a call for pluralism in terms of
religious obedience. They use it as a pretext in pleading for political representation when confronted by one-party systems that block their access to power
in certain Arab/Muslim countries, but they dream at the same time of reducing this pluralism, once in command, to a dialogue between Islamist scholars. When that day comes, the law will be based on the sharia and there will
no longer be any question of taking "commonly held opinions" into account,
but only of being as faithful as possible to the Koran and the Surma (made up
of the hadiths or words spoken by the Prophet and taken down by his companions). The Salafist reformers often express a certain disdain for Islamic
jurisprudence, which has enabled Islam to evolve over the last fourteen centuries, since they want to return to a pure, original Islam. To have their way,
they are prepared to use any means-though they often repeat the passage
from the Koran that condemns proselytizing, in order to prove that Islam
is tolerant, they never actually take it into account. On the contrary, they are
obsessed with the idea ofthe dawa, that is to say the transmission of the faith,
and conversion.

Far from being complementary, the progressive and Salafist reformers
have been at war for almost a century-perhaps even from the very beginnings of Islam. The vicissitudes of history, the Crusades, and the colonial context have, until today, benefited the latter to the detriment of the former,
preventing Islam from pursuing its aggiornamento. So, even today, Salafist
reformers have an easy time discrediting reason and modernity as Western and thus enemy qualities; only a return to the foundations of Islam will
restore the vigour and cohesion of the early days-that is to say, revive the
Golden Age of the caliphate and Muslim expansion. Liberal reform symbolizes for them subjection to the Western colonizer, whereas the Salafist
reform will re-establish a Muslim world that is strong and triumphant-in
short, a colonizing power.

Tariq clearly belongs to the second tradition, rather than the first. In one
of his most recent books, Les musulmans d'Occident et l'avenir de l'Islam [Western Muslims and the Future of Islam], published in 2003, he openly attacks "liberal reformism' that is based on reason and that is progressive in spirit.2 It is
not the first time that he has dropped his mask. The outspoken hatred of liberal Islam is already to be found in Etre musulman europeen [To Be a European
Muslim], written while attending the Leicester Islamic Foundation, and published by Tawhid in 1999.3 In these two works, Ramadan makes no secret
of his disdain for "liberal reformism," which, he tells us, "resulted from
the influence of Western thought beginning with colonialism. ,4 In order to
equate the liberals with secular atheists, he includes in the liberal camp the
advocates of the secularization project of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey,
whom he obviously detests as much as did his grandfather. Above all, he
accuses the European theoreticians of liberal reformism of being "assimilated": "In the Occident, the supporters of liberal reformism advocate the
integration of Muslims, which they expect will result in the adoption of Occidental styles oflife." s He clearly has in mind the official representatives of the
Muslim faith, such as the mufti of Marseille (Soheib Bencheikh) or the rector
of the Paris Mosque (Dalil Boubaker).

According to Ramadan, three facts illustrate the assimilation of the liberals. First of all, they do not "insist on the daily practice of religion' but rather
on "a form of spirituality that is experienced individually and in private or else
as an attachment to one's native culture. ,6 This statement reveals the extent
to which Tariq Ramadan refuses to envisage any way that religion can develop into an individually held faith that is not to be forced on others, or into a culturally based faith that is to be shared as a source of enrichment instead of
being instituted as an ideology. Ramadan is even more explicit on the subject
of the two other characteristics that supposedly condemn liberal reformism.
He reproaches the liberals for not considering the Islamic headscarf an obligation and for combating fundamentalism: "Most of them," Ramadan says
of the liberals, "are opposed to any difference in people's way of dressing,
which they consider synonymous with sequestration or even fundamentalism." Which makes of them traitors, corrupted by the influence of Western
rationalism. "Taking the evolution of society into account, they consider that
the Koran and the Surma can no longer serve as a guide for proper behavior;
it is the exercise of reason that henceforth sets the criteria for social conduct."
The moral of the story? "The term liberal refers here to the meaning that the
term has taken on in the Occident; it privileges rationality and is founded on
the primacy of the individual." Thus Tariq Ramadan, speaking as a professor of philosophy, openly accuses the Muslim liberals of promoting rationalism and individualism. In other words, if Muslims attempt to reform their
religion-bringing it up to date in an intelligent manner, so as to encourage
the development of an individual faith more cultural than political-instead
of sticking to a dogmatic Islamist view, then they have automatically become
renegades who have sold out to the West. As a way of finishing them off
once and for all, Ramadan explains that, although the liberals are "a minority
within the Muslim world," they have intermediaries in Europe because "their
rhetoric is immediately picked up by Western ears."

These extreme and fraudulent accusations appear not to have the slightest effect on those who insist on seeing Tariq Ramadan as the representative
of an open-minded Islam. But they have been picked up by truly liberal Muslims, such as Leila Babes: "By treating this school of thought as radical secularists, and by ignoring the intellectual work being accomplished within the
Muslim faith-as in the case of Ali Abd al-Raziq, Mahmoud Muhammad
Taha and Muhammad Sa'id al-Ashmawi, whom he never mentions-he is
suggesting that the liberal Muslims are Muslims ... without Islam. ,7 This
analysis is most accurate. In a cassette, "Islam and the West," Tariq Ramadan refers openly to "Muslims that are "secular" as "Muslims without Islam."8
He effects a skilful shift of meaning, by which the Islamists-the fundamentalist Muslims-become simply Muslims, and the others, the secular or
liberal Muslims, become sub-Muslims, or even non-Muslims. Whilst he is
openly critical of the liberal Muslims, he never utters a word against the fundamentalists. A "fundamentalist" or "Islamist" is one who makes use of religion for freedom-destroying political ends. However, Ramadan never uses
the term in speaking of Islamists. As long as they are close to the Muslim
Brotherhood, the most radical of theologians and militants-from Yusuf alQaradawi to Sayyid Qutb and al-Banna-are always referred to in flattering
terms, such as "political Muslims" or "scholars." This is a way of denying
their fundamentalism that fools those who dorit know how to differentiate
between a Muslim and an Islamist.

It never ceases to amaze me how a preacher who is so adamantly opposed to
liberal Islam can pass himself off as a modern, enlightened Muslim in the
eyes of observers. By way of excusing them, it must be said that Tariq Ramadan relies on a multiplicity of rhetorical tricks to maintain this ambiguity.
He constantly takes advantage of people's lack of knowledge of the Muslim
world to present a vision of Islam in which he ends up by representing a sort
of middle ground-even if this middle ground is a million miles from a progressive, enlightened Islam. In To Be a European Muslim (iggg) and in Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (2003), Tariq Ramadan readily assumes
his role as supporter of the Salafist reformism of al-Banna, Mawdudi, and
Qutb, but he does so in such a way that this school of thought is not immediately recognized for what it is, namely a movement firmly opposed to liberal
reform.' He takes advantage of the fact that he is one of the few Islamist intellectuals listened to and read in Europe to propose an interpretation of Islam
divided into six major currents:

• Scholarly traditionalism (linked to one of the four great schools of
thought of Islam)

• Salafist traditionalism (a "literalist" fundamentalism inspired by
Arab traditions not necessarily Islamic

• Salafist reformism (fundamentalist, but not literalist, the reformism of the Muslim Brotherhood

• Literal political Salafism (a literalist political current, openly
jihadist)

Liberal reformism

• Sufism (a mystic Islamic school).

This way of breaking Salafism up into three currents out of six is pure politics. To be truly pedagogical, one should distinguish four principal schools:
the scholarly tradition, the liberal reformist current, Sufism and Salafism,
within which coexist three tendencies: reformist Salafism, literal Salafism
and traditional Salafism. Literal Salafism is most simplistic: it consists of
simply applying to the letter the Koran and the Surma. Traditional Salafism is
hardly more developed, since it combines the defects of literalism and those
of archaic non-Islamic traditions-such as forced marriage and female circumcision. In comparison to these two Salafisms, the third-that is to say
reformist Salafism-obviously stands out as more moderate. Indeed, by
advocating a reform that consists of returning to founding principles, it rids
Islam of certain traditional customs without necessarily being literalist. This
categorization explains how a militant Salafist reformer such as Tariq Ramadan can reject both Saudi Wahhabism and the traditionalism of the Taliban,
and vehemently criticize literalism without himself being a modern, liberal
Muslim. Presenting Islam as formed of six different schools reduces liberal Islam to the smallest possible share (one sixth) on the fringe, and situates Salafist reformism in the middle ground, equidistant from both the
"excesses" of rational reformism, considered as too Western, and of literalism or traditionalism, seen as too archaic.

While accepting his role as heir to Salafist reformism, Ramadan bristles
with anger when he is suspected of being influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood's philosophy: "My way of thinking draws on interaction and dialogue
with all tendencies, and I do my best to propose a theoretical development that takes account of this diversity by combining reformists (including the
Muslim Brotherhood among other groups), the Sufis, the rationalists and
embracing even Salafist traditionalism and the Tabligh."10 One understands
why Ramadan chooses to bury the reference to the Muslim Brotherhood in
the avalanche. But the statement is troubling. Note that it does not specify
the proportions of the mix. In reality, Tariq Ramadan draws principally on
the philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood, but sprinkles his theory with a
minimum number of references to the other sources-all of them, with the
exception of Muslim rationalism, apparently far too radical for him. When
he quotes "rationalism," Ramadan is speaking not of Muslim rationalismwhich he loathes-but of non-Muslim rationalism, which he cites here and
there to avoid being suspected of Islamism, and only then when the reasoning in question is in line with his own thinking. He does not repudiate Sufism,
which also influenced his grandfather, so long as it is orthodox Sufism and
not a Sufism that would allow for innovation regarding the basic principles of
Islam. As for the other two references, the Tabligh and Salafist traditionalism,
there's nothing to be proud of. The Tabligh-often called the Jehovah s Witnesses of Islam-is an Islamist pietist movement, obsessed by the dawa (in
other words by proselytizing), that is responsible for the many conversions
to Islam that have taken place in France over the last few years. It is understandable that Ramadan, whose mission is dawa for Europe, should take the
Tabligh as a model, butwhy cite them? As for Salafist traditionalism, this is the
most reactionary and fundamentalist ideology of Islam, and Ramadan claims
to be combating it in order to appear more moderate. To this extent Ramadan
is right: his way ofthinking is, in effect, based on this patchwork. But once we
take account ofthe relative weight attached to each ofthe schools, and once we
correctly identify them, we realize that these multiple influences have nothing very reassuring about them. But never mind. The preacher has developed
thousands ofways ofthrowing any accusers offthe trail.