hardcover
156 pages
ISBN: 1-59403-215-7
$23.95 List price
Buy from Amazon.com:
Buy from Barnes and Noble:
“Islam’s Future” or the Future of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Tariq Ramadan was born in 1962, in Geneva, into a family of Egyptian origin that had been exiled to Switzerland on account of their Islamist activities. He makes no secret of it: his parents were the first to have given him a taste for a political Islam. His father, Saïd Ramadan, was, up to his death, in charge of propagating the Muslim Brotherhood’s brand of Islam throughout Europe. His mother, Wafa al-Banna, was none other than the favorite daughter of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, whom all Islamists, including the most extreme, consider a seminal figure. Tariq Ramadan dislikes it when his family origins are held against him, considering it a form of persecution. “I am exasperated to have to reply to these accusations!” Yet he himself boasts of his descent. In the course of the TV program Noms de Dieu [In the Names of God] that was devoted to him, he was proud to exhibit the photograph of his grandfather to illustrate his background. In an interview for Journal du Mardi, he objected to those who had the temerity to accuse him of a “genetic offense,” while at the same time stating: “I lay claim to this heritage since, if today I am a thinker, it is because this heritage has inspired me.”
What are we to make of this? Is he a faithful heir to the Muslim Brotherhood or a man who has kept aloof from al-Banna’s ideology? “Angel or Demon?” was the title of an article on him that appeared recently in a Moroccan magazine. The Boston Globe, the New England daily, preferred not to take sides: “The reformer to his admirers, Tariq Ramadan is Europe’s leading advocate of liberal Islam. To his detractors, he’s a dangerous theocrat in disguise.” Where does the truth lie? Until recently, when he became more provocative, the press was inclined to grant him the benefit of the doubt. He was even presented as one of the most promising Muslim leaders of his generation. In December 2000, Time magazine named him as one of the six religious figures that could contribute to the renovation and revival of the Muslim religion in the coming century. Yet, in the mid-1990s, Hassan al-Tourabi, the high priest of Sudanese Islamism, whose regime had at one point offered Osama bin Laden asylum, thought fit to declare: “Tariq Ramadan? Why, he’s Islam’s future!” Can one individual simultaneously embody the hopes of an Islamist high priest and the promise of Time magazine? Is the American press better equipped than Hassan al-Tourabi to understand Islam and to situate Tariq Ramadan—to know what sort of Muslims he will be turning out? The only way to get a clear picture is to examine the ways in which Tariq Ramadan has transmitted the philosophy and the methods of his grandfather.
Hassan al-Banna as a model
Hassan al-Banna is a figure revered by Islamists the world over. In the early years of the twentieth century, this Egyptian preacher developed a program for reasserting social and political control that has served as a model for all those engaged in the fight to extend the reign of a form of political Islam that is both archaic and reactionary. He oversaw the birth of a diabolical machine—the Muslim Brotherhood—that to this day grinds out its fundamentalist message, spreading it to the four corners of the world. Even Al-Qaeda is no competitor in terms of the scope of this negative force. Al-Qaeda militants were often fascinated by al-Banna before they crossed the line into bin Laden-type terrorism. Given the nature of al-Banna’s influence, which remains a constant threat, citizens of Muslim origin are often uneasy when they see Tariq Ramadan continue his grandfather’s work in the very heart of the West.
In a collection of interviews with Alain Gresh, editor-in-chief of Le Monde diplomatique, Tariq Ramadan made no secret of the fact that he had taken Hassan al-Banna as a model: “I have studied Hassan al-Banna’s ideas with great care and there is nothing in this heritage that I reject. His relation to God, his spirituality, his mysticism, his personality, as well as his critical reflections on law, politics, society and pluralism, testify for me to his qualities of heart and mind.” And he added: “His commitment also is a continuing reason for my respect and admiration.” This admission is in itself terrifying. Every word was chosen to play down the fanaticism and totalitarianism advocated by al-Banna, a man for whom “the Islamic banner must wave supreme over the human race.” His name still fills any Muslim who is modern and liberal—or simply healthy-minded—with rage over the crimes that have been committed in the name of Islam. Yet his grandson finds nothing wrong in all this. On the contrary, in a book written for a popular audience, he fully accepted his role as one whose mission it was to continue in the footsteps of his grandfather, whom he presented as a model of “spirituality” and of “critical appreciation of society.” By extolling his grandfather’s “critical reflections on pluralism,” essentially he was praising the virtues of al-Banna’s totalitarian outlook.
Well aware of the negative effects that an admission of this kind could have, al-Banna’s grandson took the precaution of adding: “I put Hassan al-Banna in the context of his period and his society, and I take that context into account in analyzing his objectives and the means he used to achieve them.” In effect, Tariq Ramadan does not repudiate al-Banna’s objectives and methods as such; he only says that he is prepared to adapt them to a changed environment: not Egypt in the early years of the twentieth century, but the West at the beginning of the twenty-first. In other words, what is involved is a strategic adaptation, designed to be more efficacious in this new “field”—and not a true rejection. One could, however, be tempted to think otherwise when reading the rest of the interview in L’Islam en questions [Questioning Islam]: “I don’t consider anything in al-Banna’s way of thinking to be sacred: my approach is to make a selection, keeping what remains interesting and well advised for today, leaving aside what is dictated by the context and the strategy of his time, and leaving aside all sorts of judgments that I don’t agree with.” Even if this does not amount to an outright condemnation of al-Banna’s philosophy—one may well wonder what is to be considered “interesting” about it—such statements have sufficed to convince a good number of people that Tariq Ramadan is capable of taking a critical view of his heritage. At any rate, that’s what he claims. However, if one listens carefully to his lectures and reads his writings attentively, it becomes evident that exactly the opposite is true.
If he had really wanted to adopt a critical perspective in regard to his heritage, and not simply transmit it, Tariq Ramadan would not have been content to simply sift through al-Banna’s program, but would have clearly denounced what he found to be negative in it and in that of the Muslim Brotherhood. But he has never done so. When speaking to a Muslim audience, in particular young Muslims under his guidance, Tariq Ramadan never criticizes Hassan al-Banna or the Muslim Brotherhood in any way. He does, of course, emphasize certain aspects, but he remains true to the doctrine of the Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood’s leader is clearly identified as a model to be imitated.
He has converted a whole generation of French-speaking Muslims to Hassan al-Banna’s brand of political Islam, thanks to a series of cassettes, of which tens of thousands have been sold by Tawhid, an Islamist publishing house with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. In these cassettes—which are, in effect, taped lectures—Tariq Ramadan begins by introducing the Brotherhood’s ideology and its theoreticians. Two of the first three cassettes—which are intended as training material for Tawhid’s audience—are entirely devoted to Hassan al-Banna’s philosophy, presented as the culmination of “contemporary Muslim thought,” and as a turning point in the “Muslim renaissance.” Far from expressing any reservations regarding the fanaticism that is an integral part of al-Banna’s ideology, he accuses those who would point to the unsavory aspects of his political and family heritage of conspiracy or post-colonial racism. He then invites his audience to disregard such caricatures and witch hunts; on the contrary, they should take inspiration from al-Banna’s message—which he describes as “a step-by-step philosophy,” “a profound philosophy,” “a philosophy without violence,” but “a demanding philosophy.” This unquestioning acceptance sometimes even finds its way into articles written for the general public. In a glossary that figures as an annex to the French edition of Etre musulman européen [To Be a European Muslim]—which was originally intended as part of a special issue of the weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur—his grandfather is presented in these terms: “Hassan al-Banna: founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, often cited but seldom read. In the West he is known by what his political enemies have to say about him, in particular English colonialists and Zionist militants.” This description merits a closer look.
