Counterterrorism Blog

Tariq Ramadan is an enigma. The grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al Banna and the son of the late top Brotherhood leader in Europe, the Swiss academic is the probably the most celebrated Muslim public "intellectual" on the planet today. He is no longer welcome in France or Egypt, and his appointment to the faculty of Notre Dame is very much in doubt, based on the Department of Homeland Security's denial of his U.S. visa. The denial is premised on his financial support to Hamas, which Ramadan claims was - ha! - inadvertent. There is now the first book-length English biography of him, a translation of Caroline Fourest's Frere Tariq (in English, Brother Tariq). My review of it can be found on the website of the Investigative Project on Terrorism .

Fourest persuasively describes Ramadan's doublespeak, painting a picture of a radical ideologue with puny academic credentials that would put him squarely in the camp of religious extremists (Muslim and Christian alike) who believe they are divinely inspired to take us back to pre-Enlightenment days. This is no small feat, for Fourest is a feminist and part of a leftist milieu for whom Ramadan's anti-globalist worldview is generally attractive. If she concludes Ramadan is deceptive, we should take notice.

A guilty confession: part of me hopes that hard-headed American polemicists have the opportunity to see Ramadan live in South Bend, where the result would be good theater. Imagine a televised debate pitting Ramadan face-to-face against Steve Coughlin. The U.S., I am proud to say, is not Western Europe. We know religious extremists, and how to counteract them when they occassionally worm themselves into polite company. The good news is that this may be true of Australia as well (see this article from today). The biggest danger in letting Ramadan migrate is that he would waste the time of our nation's best Catholic students, whose future FBI careers are better served at football tailgates. However, I seriously doubt that the litigation challenging his exclusion will succeed. I do not credit the claims of Ramadan’s American supporters that their First Amendment rights to associate with this guy are legally cognizable. If these supporters really want to "dialogue" with someone who thinks the woman's place is under a veil and in the home and that gays should be cured or executed, they'll undoubtedly be able to find someone closer to home. (Something tells me that Indiana might have a few). In the meantime, if it's any consolation, I'm sure Tariq, from Geneva, would be glad to personally review their book and video choices for Muslim palatability. After all, we wouldn't want to offend him.

I commend Encounter Books and Roger Kimball et al for publishing Fourest's important book. Perhaps they'd like to parlay this righteous act by rescuing Alms for Jihad from the burning embers of Cambridge University Press?

Irrespective of their obvious brilliance, neither my comments here nor my review of the book reflect the views of the Department of Justice.