Tariq Ramadan: The Muslim Martin Luther?

February 19, 2002 4:09 PM

Tariq Ramadan: The Muslim Martin Luther? Tariq Ramadan is not a household name in the United States, but the Swiss professor could be one of the most important intellectuals in the world. Ramadan's thinking, his methods and his personal history are all connected to the same question: Islam's encounter with the modern world. Can the youngest of the world's three great monotheisms co-exist harmoniously with the Western world and its Enlightenment legacy? Or is it fated to be reactionary, closed off from the world, an excuse for terrorism and failure? (From alt.muslim, Salon Premium required to read full text)
posted by laz-e-boy (12 comments total)

damn thee, salon premium. Does anyone actually pay for that? someone find a link to a free article.
posted by th3ph17 at 4:26 PM on February 19, 2002

I'm sure it's a good article but I have to question the wisdom of posting a link to a site that hardly anyone will be able to read.
posted by cell divide at 4:26 PM on February 19, 2002

Well, to his credit, it is "laz-e-boy" :) and never, ever pay for Salon premium, they suck.
posted by bittennails at 4:36 PM on February 19, 2002

Whoops. I thought more people were subscribers. My bad.
posted by laz-e-boy at 5:25 PM on February 19, 2002

maybe not martin luther, but he is one of time's innovators :)

looks like he has a webpage, too except it seems like it's not quite finished yet. but it is in english, yay!
posted by kliuless at 5:42 PM on February 19, 2002

Salon premium articles sometimes end up on usenet. Part of the interview has shown up. I hope the rest is more interesting than that excerpt.
posted by euphorb at 7:25 PM on February 19, 2002

geeez...I post such articles at my site and offer to send a copy, cut, paste of the piece to those alas who have not made it in The American Captialist Mainstream, ie, losers. But since so many badmouth Salon and the poster, no freebies from me here! nah, nah, nah!
posted by Postroad at 4:08 AM on February 20, 2002

Another alternative to Salon.com Premium: I e-mailed the Seattle Public Library, asking that the book be purchased or borrowed from another library.
posted by Carol Anne at 5:21 AM on February 20, 2002

Hey kids, guess what your Uncle Dan found for you: The Muslim Martin Luther?. We all love Uncle Dan, don't we? It's the full article, and it's fully legal.

(Buzzle syndicates some of the Salon Premium content, with no way to predict in advance.)
posted by dhartung at 6:53 AM on February 20, 2002

It would appear that Salon is is being Napstered
posted by BentPenguin at 7:22 AM on February 20, 2002

If I'm speaking to Muslims today, and tell them that we have to imitate Western society, the Western models, they're not going to listen because they are still in the binary perception of reality. I have to come back to find something from within, and promote this kind of contextualization and promoting of Islamic values.

it seems like he's talking about a sort of reverse orientalism, like you project on your enemies that which you despise in yourself or something :) applied reverse social-pscyhology!
posted by kliuless at 9:26 AM on February 20, 2002

The March Atlantic had a review by Walter Laqueur (not online) of Gilles Kepel's Jihad. Laqueur believes that Kepel is right to foresee the disintegration of bankrupt Islamism, but he argues that Kepel was far too optimistic about how soon this will come. Partly because Kepel put stock in marginal figures like Tariq Ramadan, of whom Laqueur says:

Even Tariq Ramadan, of whom Kepel expected so much, was a conservative, closed in his views to the fundamentalists. If he favored a modest opening to modernity, was this not because he was a citizen of Switzerland, teaching at a Siwss university? How relevant was such a thinker to what went on in the Muslim world? Little more relevant than the publications of relatively liberal journals in "Londonistan," the world's center of both fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist Arab immigration.

A figure who has much more plausibly been suggested by Western journalists as a Luther-like reformer of Islam is the Iranian Shiite Abdolkarim Soroosh [search these pages for Soroosh: 1 2 3]. The fact that so much political, cultural, and religious ferment is underway in Iran is a damn good reason to be sorry that we're rewarding hardliners with all the "axis of evil" rhetoric...

And if it's post-suicide bomber non-violent alternatives to the Palestinians' legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation you want, maybe Mustafa Barghouthi 1 2], Kifah Jabarineh, or his colleague Samar Abu Aysheh is your man...we can only hope.
posted by Zurishaddai at 1:03 PM on February 20, 2002