Harry’s Place

Great - a government-sponsored panel to give people religious advice. I hope Hazel Blears is involved. Her tour of imams to give them the correct line on extremism was such a fantastic success. Can we have a panel to tell the Catholic Church not to be so extremist and to get a more “moderate” Pope?

I think we’d see just that if the Pope was promoting violent extremism, or was connected to a terrorist movement.

There is, as I said, a precedent for this. Henry the VIII. Worked out ok.

Oh hang on … I didn’t realise you were an RCP-er

Sorry - I should have ignored you!

My apologies for appearing to be interested in what you have to say. I won’t make that mistake again.

Be interesting to see how they manage to get Sufis, Sunnis and Shias to work together on this, not to mention cultural traditions as diverse as you get from the Pacific to the Atlantic via the Middle East. There could be a problem with it trying to speak to everyone, and ending up being ignored by everyone because of it.

The purpose of the Church of England is, and always was, to destroy any meaningful role formerly served by Christianity in England (and empire), and to gild the machinations of the power-elite with a fake air of sanctity. Henry VIII was not a “decent” you know - look at the treatment of his wives, never mind the monasteries.

So, if we agree that the role (quite successfully acheived) of the Church of England was to destroy Christianity in England, why don’t you just come out and say what you mean - that you wish to destroy Islam too?

Meanwhile there are those of who working to return this god-forsaken land (god-forsaken in no large part because of the idolatories and cruelties of Henry VIII) to the Dowry of Mary.

What next: praise of Olly Cromwell?

I’m generally unhappy about state interference in religion.

Amen. But Islam is politics disguised as religion, and government is about politics. Ramadan is certainly a politician - Catherine Fourest sees him as unreconstructed MB in moderates’ clothing, and accomplished doublespeaker. Avoid.

The trouble with all such initiatives is finding leaders that both we and the true moderates (if there are any) can trust. Personally I cannot think of any. We cannot trust the MCB, MAP, MPAC, HuT etc, and they are unlikely to trust Ed Husain, Shiraz Maher or Hassan Butt. Another problem is that even if you can set up such an organisation, it will get infiltrated and probably subverted. A long shot, perhaps worth another try. More to the point is that government should strongly oppose Muslim institutions like the Deobandi seminary in Bury.

There is a BBC forum on this. Responses are mostly strongly negative.

There is a BBC forum on this. Responses are mostly strongly negative.

Really?! I’m shocked!

[i]What next: praise of Olly Cromwell?[/i]

Well, he did end the (official) ban on Jews, which had been in effect for 360 years.

stupid html tags

David T’s swivel eyed obsession with Muslims continues.
What does this have to do with you?
In any case its a total failure from the start -it will have little credibility, is state interference in religion (I thought “secularism” forbade that?) and is singling out and treating Muslims different from everyone else. I thought David T disapproved of that- or is it only when its against Muslims he does?

Ministers say the board’s membership will “reflect the diversity of Islam and Muslim communities in the UK” and the work will include seminars around the country.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We felt we needed something of this nature to help create a better structured approach to how we are educating our children

MCB???????? They have got it wrong AGAIN!!!!!

MCB are NOT ordinary every day muslims. They are Hamas supporters!!

OMG!!!!

This is a waste of time. Extremists already dismiss theological advice from moderates. A board set up by the Government will have absolutely no credibility, unless it produces theologic advice that contradicts the government and who knows where that would lead.

gild the machinations of the power-elite with a fake air of sanctity

The Catholic church has never suffered from that, has it, no siree!

The purpose of the Church of England is, and always was, to destroy any meaningful role formerly served by Christianity in England (and empire), and to gild the machinations of the power-elite with a fake air of sanctity.

It’s debatable how meaningful Christianity had been in England, pre-Reformation. After periodic Saxon and Viking re-paganising of chunks of the land, the Normans essentially used the church as another means of imposing control on the population. (Or do you think there were sound theological grounds for Stigand being booted out of the see of Canterbury?).

Apart from such deeply spiritual and in-no-way political events as Thomas Beckett’s spat with Henry II, the Interdict and Adrian IV’s dodgy dossier which granted Ireland to the English crown (and look how well that worked out), England’s main contributions to European Catholicism were Wycliffe and the Lollards a popular movement which attempted to reclaim (or claim, more accurately, the Church for the masses).

I’d argue that Christianity in England has always been something of an imposition which has served “to gild the machinations of the power-elite with a fake air of sanctity”, though I wouldn’t have put in quite those terms.

It’s a question of what they want its function to be. Having heard them say on the Today Programme this morning that it was aimed at guiding young British Muslims about what Islam “really” says about various issues, I thought that was unacceptable. After all, there is a Church of England, but its role isn’t to tell all English Christians what Christianity has to say about the issues of the day. Just as well, given the Archbishop of Canterbury. And I would be indignant and outraged if the government set up an English council of rabbis to put out a definitive line in what Judaism has to say about this and that. That is of course something Napoleon imposed on French Jews with his Consistoire in France, and I don’t think any Jewish community has ever wanted to establish a replica in any other country.

What I could see the point of is a council of any religious group that works together to explain what the religion has to say. It wouldn’t be practicable for the Jewish faith in England, because the orthodox wouldn’t agree to recognise and share this undertaking with the reform and other movements which don’t accept the central tenets of orthodoxy. And I find it difficult to imagine that the Roman Catholics would work together on defining Christianity with other churches. Just imagine what their situation would be re divorce, abortion, the family, gay unions etc.

So why will it be different for Muslims? It already looks as if that community is being singled out, in a way that other religious communities are not. The issue of terrorism is of course the underlying issue, but i doubt if this political ulterior motive will be make it acceptable to the UK-wide Muslim communities. For a start, how can Shias, Sufis, Ismailis and Sunnis all function in one college? It will be interesting to see which branches are included and which not. But again, it seems very likely that it will be dominated by clerics and scholars from those Islamic movements most likely to be attached to particular political and entryist agendas. I hope I’m wrong.

At best, it will achieve nothing. Assisting moderates in the market-place of ideas is not the issue. The problem stems from (a) the tolerence of organisations that support violent Islamism both at home and abroad and (b) the factors that prompt young Muslims in the UK to be attracted to such groups. Terrorism legislation against designated foreign terrorist groups has not been fully enforced - that is, it has not attempted to clamp down on their activities and fronts in the UK; the British Muslim Initiative is an example. And rather than fund scholars, the government should be funding youth workers and community projects that assist in the integration of young Muslims into society by supporting their skills and working towards greater community cohesion (ie by ensuring that schools have pupils of different backgrounds, instead of the de facto segregation that Oona King has written about in relation to the East End: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jun/06/guardiansocietysupplement.communities)

Academics have little impact on the young. Oxbridge initiatives will achieve nothing but provide expensive junkets for academics. Sure, the ESRC should sponsor research on political Islam, but this is not a panacea since the issue is not about presenting moderate ideas on Islam but ensuring that economically and socially marginalised youth are not drawn towards political extremism.

All of the establishment and in particular the Left are responsible. Powell told us years ago that we were creating a nation which would be dominated by the politics of communslism. Forget his racialist rantings, he saw the Oxbridge conference coming decades ago. He was absolutely clear that this was going to be the future, and no one listened. We should have dealt with these identity issues decades ago.

I agree with Tory. This is just too fucking late to make any difference to the curent crop of young British islamists. And really if they are going to include Tariq ramadan then they might as well get Bin laden on this committee as well.

I’m totally sure young people will be glad to follow the lead of government approved religious leaders.

Ramadan is not a theologian. He has no academic qualifications of note in Islamic theology. I expect, given his presence at Oxford, that he will be on this board, but he shouldn’t be.

Ramadan’s ramblings are indecipherable, at least to this Oxbridge graduate, so what the target market will make of them I have no idea.

Does the government have the expertise to decide sensibly whom to include?

And as Judy says, what happens if and when they go a little off-message?

Ramadan may be silver-tongued, duplicitous and Janus-faced, but he is well-qualified to speak about and teach theology. Theology covers a multitude of sins, and includes ecclesiology as well as well as religious philosophy in its more ontological and epistemological forms.

Ramadan’s aims are very clear.

He wants to create a Muslim parliament of Europe.

In other words he wants a traditional council of Mulim jurists (with himself being the most pre-eminent there is a genetic fallacy in Islam where religious power and authority are inheritable) given a ‘modern’ structural role as a quasi political body.

Oxbridge would be quite the stepping stone he wishes for (though his English is still apalling) as the French and Swiss have always seen him for wwhat he is.

Strikes me that this could give the MB the big in they have been scheming for.

Sufis I am afraid fold before the MB when it comes to the written word (their power and prestige come from the other more mystical vein of religious observence).

The Islamist jurist pedants will flay them and use their hides as book covers.

The problem stems from (a) the tolerence of organisations that support violent Islamism both at home and abroad and (b) the factors that prompt young Muslims in the UK to be attracted to such groups.

Wrong.

The probleme stems from Islam’s core texts which condone violence against non-muslims.

but this is not a panacea since the issue is not about presenting moderate ideas on Islam but ensuring that economically and socially marginalised youth are not drawn towards political extremism.

So why don’t economically and socially marginalised….say…..Buddhist youths blow up the tube?

Islam is violent and Muslims are violent because Islam’s founder, Mohammed, was violent chauvinistic murderer and because Islam’s texts promote violence and chauvinism.

We tender-footed westerners just can’t bring ourselves to believe that a ‘religion’ could be so ugly, repulsive and inherently violent.

So we mistakenly commit to Islam qualities and properties and sanctities it doesn’t have, never did have and never will have, in an effort to render it familiar and understandable

We’ll even go to the extreme of adding whole wings to the Louvre in a vain and futile effort to imbue islam with artistic finesse, all the while ignoring the glaring fact that Islam’s jihadists were and are art vandals par-excellence.

What a howler!

When Blears was asked what the gvt would do if the group rules that suicide bombing was not OK in the UK, but was OK in Israel- she was disappointingly dismissive, saying repeatedly that Islam was a religion of peace, and that any such interpretation would be political, not religious.

Tamimi of course just repeated the mantra that the gripe of Muslims in the UK was not about religion but about UK foreign policy

Well obviously this board could do some substantive good if they’re given sanction to takfir all of the extremists and pronounce death fatwas on them all. That would steal their thunder as the tough guys wouldn’t it?

Isn’t Timothy Winters (Shaykh Hakim Murad) already at Oxbridge? This sounds like his sort of deal. Yahyah Birt might be involved too…

Winters was amongst the Muslim clerics who signed the recent letter to the Pope and Christian leaders.

I don’t like the man. He’s a misery, and a woman-hater. But apart from being a dreary conservative I’d be surprised if he’s an Islamist. I have seen him in Islamist company though (like Tamimi) but maybe that’s just a professional hazard if you’re a leading Muslim theologian.

Ramadan’s academic credentials remain a slight mystery, don’t they?

His own website describes him as “Professor of Islamic Studies (Faculty of Theology at Oxford)”.

Yet the faculty website, while listing him as “Prof.”, lists no lectures nor research interests for him.

St Anthony’s College website lists him as a “visiting fellow” - not what you would expect for a full professor?

Is he a “theologian” at all?

Sorry - my mistake.

St Anthony’s in fact lists him as a “Research Fellow” - he describes himself as “Senior Research Fellow” - and as “Dr.” not “Prof.”

If he is what we normally understand to be an Oxford University Professor then I will eat my hat!

I thought that Ramadan’s tenure at Oxford was over and that he recently took up a post at Leiden or Utrecht (can’t remember which; I think Leiden). I seem to recollect he left Oxford under a bit of a cloud but I was given to understand that the ‘post’ he had there was just an honourary one.

Oxford’s theology faculty lists Ramadan as “Prof.”, so I would imagine that he has been awarded a “personal chair” on the basis of his academic standing. Ramadan is also a Research Fellow of St Antony’s College Oxford. An Oxford fellowship should not be confused with a senior postdoc position. It can be “honorary” or “visiting”, but it is still regarded as a professorship.

There is plenty to criticise in the man and his ideas, without calling Ramadan’s academic credentials into question.

“but it is still regarded as a professorship”? I don’t think so.

In any event the college seems content to refer to him as Dr. not Prof.

Would it surprise you at all if he had chosen to big-up his academic status?

A research fellowship is a time-limited appointment and relatively (in the scale of these things) junior, is it not?

Hardly the status a college would give to a professor of the university?

Ramadan may be silver-tongued, duplicitous and Janus-faced, but he is well-qualified to speak about and teach theology.

Well it depends what you mean by well-qualified. He spent a year or so in Cairo receiving private tuition from an al-Azhar scholar (as opposed to the lengthy process of education offered by the University itself) and a year at the Islamic Foundation in Leicester. His PhD from the University of Geneva was actually a hagiography of his grandfather that was initially rejected by the University. His initial academic training was in philosophy and most of his professional life has been spent as a social and political activist.

The appointments at St Antony’s and the faculty are two different things, even though both institutions are part of the federal University of Oxford. As for time-limited or otherwise, this is completely irrelevant.

Ramadan is clearly a conceited individual, so of course he “bigs-up” his status. He’s not the only professor to do so.

Trad Catholic - Meanwhile there are those of who working to return this god-forsaken land (god-forsaken in no large part because of the idolatories and cruelties of Henry VIII) to the Dowry of Mary.

Idolatories - would have thought his theism was anything but idolatrous…wasn’t that one of the very tenets of the Proto Reformation?

“His PhD from the University of Geneva was actually a hagiography of his grandfather that was initially rejected by the University.”

Ramadan is not the only holder of a doctorate who had to re-write his thesis in order for it to be passed. Hagiography it may have been in many respects, but the thesis was still a scholarly work that was deemed worthy of a doctorate.

And of course he’s qualified to teach theology at university level. For goodness sake, I was seen as qualified to teach undergraduate physics before I’d even written up my PhD thesis.

Ramadan is a knowledgeable man, and from his writings it is clear to me that he knows a thing or two about philosophy, both secular and religious. As I said before, we should engage with the man and his ideas.

Alcuin - isn’t the seminary in Yarkshire…Batley way?

Kudos to you though…can we exclude the Barelwis, the Ayatollah al-Khoei Foundation and the Ahl ul-Bayt League…

What about Irsh Manji, Ellen Degeneres….and let’s say Lyndsay Lohan?

John P.

You come out with a lot of shit but this takes the cake:

We’ll even go to the extreme of adding whole wings to the Louvre in a vain and futile effort to imbue islam with artistic finesse, all the while ignoring the glaring fact that Islam’s jihadists were and are art vandals par-excellence.

This is akin to arguing that because some Christians burn Harry Potter books we shouldn’t put the works of Da Vinci in the Louvre. In other words, completely retarded.

How does the existence of art vandal jihadists (or, indeed, the Bamiyan Budda-destroying Taliban) negate the existence of Islamic art worthy of exhibition?

Unfuckingbelievable stupidity.

has he published any research papers, which have been peer reviewed?

Dan - but why is there this segregation in the first place?

There are pockets of exclusively Caribbean cultural areas, but not like the Pakistani, Indian and Bengali Muslims…

Isn’t Magaloof pretty Anglocentric?

What is it about principlly Muslim immigrants that make them so impervious to integration? Is it culture, religion, numbers, government policy?

If more ‘natives’ married those whose ancestors came from the sub-continent I feel Islam would be less of a problem in the UK…provided of course that the ‘natives’ didn’t have to ‘revert’ to their ar-Rahman worshipping embryonic alter-egos…

What say you sir?

I agree

And by “engage” I mean “engage properly”.

Until recently, there was a - frankly Islamophobic - tendency among many on the left to treat Ramadan as the most incredibly progressive forward looking and liberal Muslim that there could ever possibly be.

On that basis, Ramadan has tended to be co-opted by the Government, on the basis that he’s “the Muslim who doesn’t say that you should blow yourself up on public transport”.

I think it would be good to see Ramadan’s ideas pinned down, and considered in detail. At present, there’s a tendency to allow his obscurities to pass with out comment.

There is a good review of Ramadan’s writings by Paul Berman in New Republic (which is on-line). The main point Berman brings up is the classic charge levied at all Islamists - that they disguise their real agenda behind pliant eloquent lofty abstract talk that sounds liberal and progressive, but isn’t once you try to pin them down.

The charge that Caroline Fourest made in Brother Tariq was that amongst western liberal intellectuals he says - or appears to say - one thing, but amongst his own following, and in Arabic, he says quite the opposite - a charge of ‘double discourse’.

I can’t agree with Francis Sedgemore. I think we should be wary.

What on earth does he mean by a phrase like ‘universal values’? Can he be a little more specific? Give particular examples? This sort of phrase can mean just about anything without context. It’s part of his techniques of bewitchment and obfuscation.

Timothy Garton Ash was Ramadan’s colleague at St Anthony’s.

Francis - On what level should the government engage with Prof. Ramadhan? Has his scholarly training involved preparation in the traditional Islamic sciences of Arabic grammar, rhetoric, composition, poetry, Qur’anic commentary, Hadith and principles of jurisprudence?

I very much doubt he was able to cram much in the way of substantial textual scholarship during his year in Cairo…’internships’ for Imams at al-Azhar last a minmum 5 years and this presupposes that the student has a substantial grasp of Arabic…

The only ‘respected’ Islamic scholars, outside of the European oriental scholars were historically and still are those who have had a profound grounding in the traditional Islamic sciences. I guess it depends on what level the government hoed to engage with him? He doesn’t have the authority to issue religiously-binding edicts

When does the Blears report come out?

I’m rather fond of Tim Winters’ pet ’scriptural reasoning’ project…seems a step in the right direction to me

Are their any concrete suggestions on the rumour mill about whose likely to take part? What about young Muslim ladies? My wife says she’d like to be included if at all possible…

“I can’t agree with Francis Sedgemore. I think we should be wary.”

Are you under the impression that I’m a supporter of Tariq Ramadan? If so, I suggest you re-read my comments.

David T has interpreted correctly what I mean by “engage”. One last comment on Ramadan’s qualification (and nor more from me on this subject)…

Ramadan is a philosopher-theologian, not a cleric-jurist. He has taught, and continues to teach, Islamic studies in western universities. And he he perfectly qualified to do that. Ramadan is a product of the western academic system, and he continues to serve that system.

I think it inevitable that Ramadan will be invited to sit on the new government-sponsored board of Muslim theologian. That is what I wrote on my own blog this morning (“UK government to establish Good Islam franchise”). I endorse neither the government’s plan nor Professor Ramadan.

‘Universal values’.

Would stoning women for adultery not be contrary to ‘universal values’ of human rights, for instance? To the UNDHR 1948?

Yet on French TV in 2003 in a debate between Sarkozy and Ramadan, Sarko brought up the position endorsing stoning that Hanif Ramadan, R.’s brother, had published, and challenged him on this particular point. Ramadan obfuscated.

‘We could always hold a moratarium on stoning…’

Sarko pressed on. ‘A moratarium? Surely the stoning of women for adultery is intolerable?’

But Ramadan would not condemn lapidation. I think what he was trying to say, in an extremely convoluted way, was that since authority in Islam is essentially democratic, (or ‘totalitarian’?) any authority to dismiss this Quranic injunction would require the entire umma to agree that it be rejected forever but that until then, a ‘moratarium’ on stoning could be agreed.

Sarko on the other hand saw the matter as intrinsic. So how can Ramadan’s ‘universal values’ be our ‘universal values’?

Good for Sarko for pressing on. But this is precisely the kind of specific engagement that is required.

The Labour Government should start its own education on Islam here, with this full-length Video:

“Islam: What the West Needs to Know”

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-871902797772997781

Francis - I might be wrong, but, and this would be in the interests of Uk Muslims, in the eyes of a Muslim, a cleric-jurist-theologian caters to the same audience. Whilst devout Muslims seeking spiritual and temporal deen guidance are unlikely to take what Mr Ramadhan says seriously in terms of religio-practical matters, he is probably influential in terms of a new generation of contemporary Islamic commentary. If he makes clear, unambiguous statements and had helps to rid Islam of the attachment to stultifying primitive dogma in which it is ensconced.

There is a precedent for a Ramadan-esque figure as a new face for Muslims…in Egypt, Amr Khaled is still popular as the ‘modern’ face of Islam. Alas, he is also largely derided for his lack of traditional scholarship and myriad ‘appearance fee requests’…not to mention his hilarious antidrug campaign. Given the contemprorary interest in ‘reviving’ traditional Islam, can Ramadan play a role even on a ‘Western’ intellectual level?

Do you think Tim Winter will be involved Francis?

The Bewleys…surely their Norwich Muslim collective would generate Kudos, at least with ‘home-grown’ Muslims. But are they too apolitical?

I’m not sure the Bewleys are ‘apolitical’. OK they are not openly pushing for political Islam and are content to live quietly. But the recent Quran that they produced alarmed Patrick Soodheo and their ultra conservative mentor, Ian Dallas, hates Jews and wants the King of Morrocco to be the new Caliph.

Their Islam is very English (in the worst possible sense - rather frigid). I can’t see it connecting with Asian Muslims.

One name who ought to be at the top of the appointments is Dr Taj Hargey, founder of the excellent Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford http://www.meco.org.uk/

Ok, so he is a bit of a demagogue against the Iraq intervention (but then it is hard to find a British Muslim that isn’t), but he is certainly a progressive in his theology, and committed to secular democracy.

Does Taj ud-Deen disavow all the violent verses revealed in Madinah?

Is he willing to allow Muslim girls to marry non-Muslim men?

This is the sort of ‘demagogue’ we could do with…

Devorgilla…where can I find out more on Ian Dallas?

Does Taj ud-Deen disavow all the violent verses revealed in Madinah?

Is he willing to allow Muslim girls to marry non-Muslim men?

MECO allows not just men and women but non-muslims into their services.
http://www.meco.org.uk/charter.htm

Dr Hargey is a founded of British Muslims for Secular Democracy.
http://www.bmsd.org.uk/

I would think he would affirm both your suggestions above.

It’s debatable how meaningful Christianity had been in England, pre-Reformation. After periodic Saxon and Viking re-paganising of chunks of the land, the Normans essentially used the church as another means of imposing control on the population. (Or do you think there were sound theological grounds for Stigand being booted out of the see of Canterbury?)

Pre-Reformation Catholicism was popular, vital and growing, as Eamonn Duffy’s monster of a book demonstrated. The Reformation was a full-on revolution from above.

‘Devorgilla…where can I find out more on Ian Dallas?’

He’s got a web-site under Abdulqadir as Sufi (or is it Al Sufi?) and he has a wikipedia entry under ‘Ian Dallas’ that gives you that link.

He’s currently praising David Cameron. He’s now based in S Africa where he’s trying to convert blacks to Islam.

He’s an old true blue Tory from Ayr. (Used to be aTory stringhold).

Berman’s article on Ramadan here

‘Devorgilla…where can I find out more on Ian Dallas?’

Enjoy! He’s a real fruit loop!

Posting for Reality salts

Thanks old labour! Let’s hope he does and that he is indeed on the panel!

Thanks for the other link MarkT…

Dallas sounds like a pseudonym. I’ll google it.

“Do you think Tim Winter will be involved Francis?” [Great Gaon of Vilna]

I’m not sure how to answer this, as all we have so far is a broad statement of intention. Yes, we can say that Ramadan will almost certainly be a member of this board of theologians, but that is down to his very high public profile. Those who put together the board will have an eye on PR, but the question is whether they will pack the body with media tarts such as Ramadan.

Timothy Winter is another intellectual, but he comes across as more typically ‘academic’ than Ramadan. As an atheist I can only look at this as a detached and somewhat cynical observer. But from what I know of Winter, he is an obvious choice for such a project.

Posting for the Gaon

Yes, Winter certainly fills the tick boxes as far as traditional Islamic study, profound Arabic knowledge etc. is concerned. Indeed, more so than Ramadan, who has never translated any Islamic literature as far as I’m aware…perhaps into French?

Let’s nominally posit Tim Winter, Ramadan and Taj Harigey for roles…how about female academics?

This move is far more dangerous than a bomb on a packed tube. This is striking at the very hear of our culture.

Firstly we have our pre-eminent educational institutions involving themselves in the promotion of a totalitarian ideology. It’s really taking us back to the bad old days of the Cambridge communist cells seeking to subvert the country by infilitrating various key organisations.

Secondly, in order for the scheme to work Hazel Blears (and the rest of the Government) has to peddle the lie that Islam is a “religion of peace and compassion”. There is no evidence for this whatsoever. Nearly everywhere you look in the Muslim world there is war and strife. Wherever Muslims are a substantial minority they are a disaffected and dangerous minority. As for compassion, the Islamic countries have some of the most savage criminal codes on the planet and some of the least effective provision for welfare or charity.

This project is of course doomed to failure. It will further confirm borderline militants in their belief that there is a conspiracy to neuter real Islam (and they are more or less right of course) and thus alienate them further, possibly pushing them into active Jihadism. The only people it will satisfy are the Taqiyya merchants of the MCB and the burgeoning class of well paid Islamo-Quangoites that serve up the required blandishments. It won’t free Muslim women from male tutelage . It won’t stop the teaching of hate in the Mosques. But it will further erode our defences.

Well “Prof” Ramadan
(a) lies about his academic status - he holds no Chair at Oxford, nor anywhere else
(b) talks in such a way (I saw him at an Intelligence Squared debate - it was impossible, literally, for any of his opponents to grasp any of his arguments) as to render anything he says (perhaps deliberately?) meaningless.

So - he’s perfect!

Let’s nominally posit Tim Winter, Ramadan and Taj Harigey for roles…how about female academics?

Mona Siddique at Glasgow University would be high up the list, though her academic credentials are less than those of Winter and Ramadan (her only published book is a quick intro to the Quran).

There seems to be some confusion over Ramadan’s actual official position.

The Oxford Faculty of Theology website lists him as a ‘Prof.’, yet I cannot see that he holds any chair. ( http://resources.theology.ox.ac.uk/staff.phtml?lecturer_code=tramadan) St Antony’s College website lists him just as a ‘Research Fellow’, not even eligible to sit on the governing body. Probably worth someone contacting the Faculty to see what entitles him to call himself a professor.

See Ibn Warraq’s excellent critique of him here:
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/bc0229iw.html

On this list, Ramadan is not included on Oxford’s list of Theology Faculty Professors:
http://www.theology.ox.ac.uk/prospective_students/undergraduates/prospectus/guide_to_teachers.htm

Perhaps some of the Radical Middle Way scholars will get involved: http://www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk/scholars.php

It will be interesting to see who ends up on the panel - given the brewing row over government funding, I wonder if some of the attendees will hold back till the last minute before throwing their hats (turbans?!) into the ring. Trust New Labour to make a dog’s dinner of the announcement.

The real difficulty is that the West is only just beginning to produce Islamic scholars of sufficient calibre to enter this kind of debate. A Ph.D. from a European university is fine to discuss these matters at an abstract level but without a thorough grounding at a traditional university, they can’t begin to make a proper contribution to the discussions raging on these issues.

A Ph.D. from a European university is fine to discuss these matters at an abstract level but without a thorough grounding at a traditional university, they can’t begin to make a proper contribution to the discussions raging on these issues.

Unfortunately, a whole generation of British academics who did have such credentials, from John Wansborough to Patricia Crone and Michael Crook, who made extremely significant contributions to scholarship on Islam, were ostracised as Orientalists or left these shores for the United States.

Even Timothy Winter doesn’t have a doctorate.

The really disturbing thing about the present approach, is the idea that one has to be a Muslim to be an academic postholder on Islam these days. This is extremely dangerous, since it will block serious critical scholarship and entrench the current reactionaries.

Perhaps some of the Radical Middle Way scholars will get involved: http://www.radicalmiddleway.co.uk/scholars.php

The so-called Radical Middle Way scholars include Tariq Ramadan. Nuff said.

Franciis Sedgemore

Of course it is legitimate to question Ramadan’s academic qualifications as well as his personal connections with prominent Islamists.

In a Western sense Ramadan is a Muslim theologian in Islam this is called a jurist (the scholars at Al-Ahzar are jurists rather than Clerics (a western concept not clearly applicable in Islam)

There is a lot of information on Tariq Ramadan much of it gushing ‘engagement’ stuf from mostly british commenters (Timothy Garton Ash, Buruma etc).

A more systematic and fair broadly positive piece here sets out the criteria by which we may fairly judge the degree of real consensus to political democratic liberalism Ramadan claims he supports;

http://www.cceia.org/resources/journal/21_4/essays/001.html

<<<<

Against Ramadan the following are useful;

….In defence of Ayan Hirsi Ali against the Pro Ramadan Iain Buruma and Timothy Garton ash

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1146.html

…EXPOSING CULTURAL JIHADIST TARIQ RAMADAN

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/03/exposing-cultur.html

Some of the most explosive criticisms of Ramadan are to be found in

Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, by Caroline Fourest

She has analysed the majority of Ramadan writings speeches and also investigated his connections to more extreme islamists and Jihadi contacts.

A review by IBN WARRAQ :The Pious Fraud
Tariq Ramadan, Islamist and equivocator
29 February 2008 is here;

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/bc0229iw.html

Some of the most serious allegations include;

• Ramadan claims that he accepts the law in Western democracies—so long as the law “does not force me to do something in contradiction with my religion.”

• He calls the terrorist acts in New York, Madrid, and Bali “interventions.”

• He claims to be a “reformist,” but defines the term to exclude the concept of “liberal reformism.”

• He tells a television audience that he believes in the theory of evolution, but neglects to mention that his book, Is Man Descended from the Apes? A Muslim View of the Theory of Evolution, argues for creationism.

• He criticizes Saudi Arabia as “traditionalist and reactionary,” but fails to mention that his own revered father helped the Saudis become the sponsors of Wahhabism.

• according to the Belgian Permanent Committee for the Control of Intelligence Services, “State security also reported that the moderate speeches that Tariq Ramadan gives in public do not always correspond to the remarks made in confidential Islamic settings, where he is far more critical of Western society.”

• Nor is he a professor at Geneva, especially not at the university there. He was a teacher at a sub-university level in the Collège Saussure, and he served as a “scholarly associate” at the University of Fribourg, teaching a two-hour course every two weeks, “Introduction to Islam.”

• That Ramadan is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna—founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a fundamentalist fanatic who wanted to impose Islamic totalitarianism on the world—would not be fair to hold against him if not for his laudatory writings on his grandfather.

• In television interviews, Ramadan proudly displays a photograph of al-Banna. “I lay claim to this heritage since, if today I am a thinker, it is because this heritage has inspired me,” he told the Belgian Journal du Mardi in 2004.

• He was even more explicit in his interview with Alain Gresh of Le Monde diplomatique: “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 to me his qualities of heart and mind. . . . His commitment also is a continuing reason for my respect and admiration.”

• In fact, Ramadan wrote a university thesis on al-Banna that was nothing short of hagiography. The jury at the University of Fribourg rejected it for being too partisan and unscientific.

NB this was not resubmitted he later received a Phd from the university of Geneva not Fribourg
• In November 2003, in a televised debate with Nicolas Sarkozy, then France’s interior minister, Ramadan was asked about his brother Hani, who had justified stoning adulterous women to death. Instead of condemning the custom outright as barbaric, Ramadan replied, “I’m in favor of a moratorium so that they stop applying these sorts of punishments in the Muslim world. What’s important is for people’s way of thinking to evolve. What is needed is a pedagogical approach.”

• .Fourest provides many examples of Ramadan’s brazen lies, but one stands out. It involves the al-Taqwa bank—founded by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, and shut down by the Swiss government in December 2001 for sponsoring terrorism, with links to Hamas, al-Qaida, and the GIA in Algeria. Ramadan claims that his family had no involvement with al-Taqwa: “We never had any sort of contact with the bank. The fact that our name appears in its address file doesn’t mean a thing.” This is untrue; Said Ramadan, Tariq’s father, was one of the founders of al-Taqwa. (Other al-Taqwa founders were active supporters of Hitler during World War II.)

• Does Ramadan condemn terrorism? Again with much ambiguity, he claims that terrorist acts are justified “contextually.” At the height of the riots by young Arabs in France in 2005, Ramadan told the television channel France 5, “The violence is legitimate.”

• Though Ramadan has always denied having any contact with terrorists in Europe, Jean-Charles Brisard, an international expert on terrorism financing, has gathered evidence suggesting otherwise. Brisard cites a 1999 Spanish Police General Directorate memo, for example, that states that Ahmed Brahim (now serving a ten-year sentence on charges of inciting terrorism) maintained “regular contacts with important figures of radical Islam such as Tariq Ramadan.” Brisard also points to Djamel Begal, who in his first court appearance after his indictment by a French judge for participating in a foiled terrorist attack against the U.S. Embassy in Paris, stated that before 1994, he “attended the courses given by Tarek Ramadan”—an indication of the influence that Ramadan’s teaching has had on budding Islamist radicals. Beghal was sentenced to ten years in prison in March 2005. Brisard cites prosecution documents chronicling Beghal’s interrogation by UAE authorities in which Beghal states that “his religious engagement started in 1994,” when “he was in charge of writing the statements of Tariq Ramadan”—by which he meant, according to a translation from the Swiss daily Le Temps, that he helped prepare Ramadan’s speeches.
• Finally, Brisard cites a Swiss intelligence memo of 2001 that states that “brothers Hani and Tariq Ramadan coordinated a meeting held in 1991 in Geneva attended by Ayman Al Zawahiri and Omar Abdel Rahman.” Al Zawahiri is a major al-Qaida leader and one of Osama bin Laden’s lieutenants; Rahman was the planner of the 1993 World Trade Center attack, now serving a life sentence in the United States.
(Since 1998, Ibn Warraq has edited several books of Koranic criticism and on the origins of Islam, including Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism, and Which Koran? (forthcoming).)…………

Indeed - Ramadan is not even mentioned on the Oxford Theology website where you think he might be:

“There are also four Oxford Centres, affiliated to the Faculty which have resources, including tutors, to support the study of religions. These are the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies (Miri Freud-Kandel teaches modern Judaism and Martin Goodman teaches the History of Judaism); The Centre for Islamic Studies (Yahya Michot teaches Islamic Theology); the Centre for Hindu Studies (Gavin Flood teaches Hindu Theology) and the Centre for Buddhist Studies (Richard Gombrich is the director).”

‘Dallas sounds like a pseudonym. I’ll google it.’

It’s not a pseudonym. It’s an old Scottish Highland name. (I don’t know how it ended up becoming the name of a major US city but I suspect through 19th century Scots settlers). Ian Dallas is Abdulquadir as Sufi’s real name.

The bit about his anti-semitic comments occurred as a throw away remark on one of the videos on his website where he talks of the former King of Morrocco having to sell all his palaces. ‘It was the Jews, you know; it was the Jews who bought up all the palaces’.

Saw Ramadan on the BBC’s Newsnight a month or two back on a link from Leiden or somewhere, having a go at Douglas Murray. He had the unctuous manner of that ladies’ man with the fake Spanish accent in the coffee advert on the other channel. As the fireworks started, his poor English deteriorated and the fake charm evaporated into crude invective towards Murray. If he gets onto the panel it will be the definitive confirmation that the whole enterprise is a waste of time and money.

http://resources.theology.ox.ac.uk/staff.phtml?lecturer_code=tramadan

Francis, I also gave this link above, but it doesn’t say what chair Ramadan holds - he isn’t included on the list of Oxford Theology Professors in the second link I provided from the Faculty webpage, nor is he listed as a Professor on the webpage at St Antony’s College.

It may just be that all staff are asked to submit their name to the Faculty secretary for listing on the webpage, and these are the details Ramadan gave. Or it may just be an honorary title from some foreign university that he continues to use (isn’t professor the bog-standard academic title in some countries?) Would be worth investigating.

Well investigate it, if you feel so inclined! Alternatively, you can cross my palm with silver, and I’ll put my journalist hat on and do the job for you.

As I wrote above, Ramadan does not need to hold a named chair in order to be recognised as a full “Professor”. It could be a personal chair, or even a relatively informal visiting professorship, where the university is happy to recognise Ramadan as a “Professor” given his perceived stature as a scholar. British academia may not use the “bog-standard academic title” of “Professor”, to denote everyone from lecture hall cleaner up, but it’s not as rigid as you may think. This is England, not Germany.

That second link you gave looks like a list of subject heads, not a full faculty list.

I know of a number of people in my old research field who have been promoted to unnamed, personal chairs, yet don’t know their arses from their elbows, and whose publication records are unimpressive.

If I were the theology dean of Oxford University, I’d definitely want to have Ramadan as a full professor. Even if I despised every single word the man has ever written.

Forget the silver, Francis, I’ve done my own sleuthing.

Ramadan is certainly NOT a full Professor at Oxford, but uses the title while a visiting fellow at St Anthony’s College as a result of already holding a chair at Erasmus University in the Netherlands in something called ‘Identity and Citizenship’. This specially tailored post requires him to do the equivalent of four days work a month during term time.

http://www.tariqramadan.nl/

Ramadan LIES on his website about being ‘Professor in Islamic Studies’ at the University of Oxford - he holds no such position.

http://www.tariqramadan.com/spip.php?article11

So keen are the Dutch to shower this man with accolades, he was presented last year with a chair in Islam at Leiden University, generously paid for by the Sultan of Oman. Unfortunately, he failed to tell his employers at Oxford and at the Erasmus University, who it seems were not best pleased, and he was forced to decline.
(information here: http://canadianinfidel.blogspot.com/2007/11/tariq-ramadan-declines-seat-at-leidse.html )

“The really disturbing thing about the present approach, is the idea that one has to be a Muslim to be an academic postholder on Islam these days. This is extremely dangerous, since it will block serious critical scholarship and entrench the current reactionaries.”

I don’t think anyone is suggesting this - in fact the opposite has been and is still the norm in Theology Faculties in the UK. My point was that scholars with traditional education are more likely to be familiar with the finer points of the Quran and the hadith and would probably carry more weight than European-trained PhDs - as you say, Tariq Ramadan is more of a thinker than a theologian.

Comparing these scholars with Patricia Crone and Michael Wanborough is contrasting apples and oranges; they are more interested in applying techniques of Biblical criticism and archaeological evidence to make historical arguments, rather than seeking Islamic solutions to the day-to-day problems of Muslims in Britain today.

And another thing…

Has anyone on this thread actually read the books of Tariq Ramadan? All I have seen on this blog is comments about his command of the English language, his “unctuous manner”, some unsubstantiated rumours about double-speak and the nature of his academic titles.

Surely we should be judging him on his work. I am as guilty on this as everyone - I read and enjoyed his “The Messenger” but have to admit I have not read his other books. Does anyone have a view on these?

Well let’s recall our current list of academics shall we;

1)Ibn Warraq al-Murtad

2)Gert Wilders

3)Irshad Manji

4)John Damascene

5)Al Kindi

6)Dante Alighieri

7)Ignaz Goldziher

8)Robert Spencer

9)John Gilchrist

10)Sam Shamoun

11)Serge Trifkovic

12)The Ram Bam

13)The Teacher

14)YHWH aka ‘I am’

15)H. A. R. Gibb

16)Alfred Guillaume

17)Joseph Schacht

18)Arthur Jeffrey

19)Gerd Puin

20)Christoph Luxenburg

First reserve - Maimonedes and Ibn kammuna for moral support.

Any further suggestions? Think that about covers it…

Here’s the thing El Gordo: if you read the Qur’an with a respected Sunni tafsir companion like Ibn Kathir’s Tafsir al-Akbar or Tabari’s Tafsir, explaining the context of each verse and chapter, combine this with the most authentic biographies of Muhammad (Tabari’s Tarikh ar-Rasool wa’l-Mulook or Ibn Hisham’s Sirat Rasullallah), you will come arrive at the most complete picture of Muhammad bin ‘Abdullah and his god Allah possible. If Ramadan, or indeed any other scholar since the 9th century can provide a more authentic picture of Islam, Muhammad and doctrine then I’d be pleased to read it.

Any sources other than the Qur’an, these books and the 30 odd collections of hadith paint the most authentic picture possible of the Sultan of Saints.

Anything Ramadan brings to bear on Islam which contradicts these texts or departs from them can only e wishful thinking on his part. He’s unlikely to cultivated a more accurate portrayal of Muhammad some 1300 years after Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham?

…they are more interested in applying techniques of Biblical criticism and archaeological evidence to make historical arguments, rather than seeking Islamic solutions to the day-to-day problems of Muslims in Britain today.

Unfortunately Ramadan also makes historical arguments, based on much weaker foundations, along the lines of ‘Islam provided the most perfect democracy ever instituted’ and ‘the west owes most of its learning to its islamic heritage’. The disturbing question which needs to be asked is why our Universities should be applying ‘Islamic solutions’ to anything. Our secular academies are supposed to be places of scholarship, not propaganda tools for various religions to indoctrinate the youth. We should be encouraging them to think critically, moving them beyond the commonplace assumption, a result of the Orientalist myth, that one has to be a Muslim to contribute anything of worth to our understanding of Islam and its history.

Surely we should be judging him on his work. I am as guilty on this as everyone - I read and enjoyed his “The Messenger” but have to admit I have not read his other books. Does anyone have a view on these?

An academic needs to be judged by much more than his books, especially since in this case it is their teaching abilities that are being promoted. Interviews, lectures, journalism, and speeches all help to reveal the immediate context in which an author works through his ideas. For example, when Ramadan called for a boycotting of the Paris and Turin book fairs because they had chosen to celebrate the Israel’s 60th anniversary by inviting some of that nation’s greatest living writers, including Amos Oz, David Grossman and Etgar Keret, we get a very clear idea of the anti-Zionist thread underpinning Ramadan’s work. But all said, books certainly are a major, and probably the most major part, of any assessment.

If you can read French, I recommend Aux sources du renouveau musulman (1998) in which Ramadan explores and promotes the reformist legacy of Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is fortunate indeed this work has not yet been translated, since it means Ramandan rarely is called to account for his most explicitly Islamist work. While discussing al-Banna, Ramadan explains that so ‘fundamentally democractic’ a religion is Islam, a national Islamic council could adequately replace a multi-party state.

In English, another work worth perusing is Western Muslims and the future of Islam (2004) in which Ramadan describes various currents in contemporary Islam, most approvingly Salafi reformism. This branch, including Mawdudi and Qutb (and we know what they inspired), Ramadan suggests is the most useful for generating a truly Western Islam, since they understood the way in which modernity really had its roots in seventh-century Islam. Muslims should, therefore, engage with the political process, but never at the expense of sacrificing the doctrines of Islam. “I will abide by the laws, but only insofar as the laws don’t force me to do anything against my religion … If any given society should take this right away, I will resist and fight that society,”

Ramadan LIES on his website about being ‘Professor in Islamic Studies’ at the University of Oxford - he holds no such position.

Indeed - such a position does not appear to exist.

The only person mentioned in connection with Islamic Studies is someone called Yahya Michot.

At the college level - to repeat - he is listed as a “research fellow” - and as Dr. not Professor Ramadan - defined as

The college has a number of “visiting fellows” including people such as Prof Norman Davies.
If the college held him in any kind of academic esteem he would be in that list.

“If you can read French, I recommend Aux sources du renouveau musulman (1998)”

Just to clarify, this book is said to be the public version of Ramadan’s PhD thesis. And yes, it is Ramadan’s oeuvre as a whole that needs looking at, not just the books.

I haven’t read “Aux sources du renouveau musulman” in the original, so I’m not in a position to comment on the specific “national Islamic council” reference flagged by old Labour. However, in many places Ramadan and others have discussed the concept of the national Islamic council as an interlocutor with government. Such a body could be seen as bypassing the institutions of civil society, and that’s certaintly how I read it. But none of the references to national Islamic councils I have seen have advocate them as replacements for multi-party states.

How does the existence of art vandal jihadists (or, indeed, the Bamiyan Budda-destroying Taliban) negate the existence of Islamic art worthy of exhibition?

Have you ever wondered, even in passing, just why there are no Louvres in the Muslim world, Mephisto?

There are no opera houses in the muslim world either, so perhaps The west could, at tax-payers expense, build new wings onto all of its operas so that islam could have opera too!

And the fact there are no opera houses in the Muslim world doens’t negate the fact the islamic world has no opera.

It just means………they have no opera!

Francis Sedgemore

You say…………….
..However, in many places Ramadan and others have discussed the concept of the national Islamic council as an interlocutor with government. Such a body could be seen as bypassing the institutions of civil society, and that’s certainly how I read it. But none of the references to national Islamic councils I have seen have advocate them as replacements for multi-party states.

But as you also say ‘this is England not Germany’

And Oxbridge is a very English institution isn’t it?

I don’t want to trigger the usual debate of being called an Oxbridge basher ( although reading the thread on Seymour below one is tempted) but if we try to look a little more objectively at the centrality of Oxbridge to England’s religious, Social, Cultural and Political life then the power of these universities is empirically observable not merely symbolic.

Gordon Brown is the only Prime Minister in over a 100 years who went to University (Callaghan and Major did not) who did not go to Oxford.

In a very real sense Oxbridge like its twin sister the Church of England do by pass democratic representative political and participation in this country.

The very fact that this body has been appointed (effectively as a Quango) by the government to address a set of political issues relating to Islam and society speaks volumes.

As you have indicated the criteria that will be applied to select these individuals, who will in effect form an advisory council to the government, are neither transparent nor particularly related to academic ability, more to their ‘celebrity’ status’ ‘reputation’ or God alone knows what.

Certainly there is not even the slightest suggestion shall be open to any kind of participatory democratic revue or discussion, let alone decision making power.

How very, very English!

In fact the whole thing stinks and is further evidence of England’s reversal to a pre-mass franchise politics of patronage model of rule.

in fact the whole language of ‘engagement’ is redolent of this.

If it weren’t for the very good anti-Semitic ‘engage’ I would argue for the abolition of this word from our political lexicon.

‘We should engage with them’

The ‘we’ in such a statement is certainly not the ‘we’ of the ordinary British citizen nor the ‘them’ of the ordinary British Muslim.

Let’s be quite clear of what’s going on here. The government by its huge inchoate powers of patronage, with a quasi-Royal imprimatur, patronage, is appointing (co-opting) a group of theopolitical ‘scholars’ to the ‘sanctum sanctorum’ of English cultural power.

This body, having acquired the imprimatur of Oxbridge with all its cultural and political soft power, will then ‘advise’ (kind of like a Muslim privy council, which is why the appointment of a non-Muslim is unlikely) the Government.

How very, very English.

There is an inevitable English cultural logic to this that is playing out. The ruling elite (and I mean this quite precisely) are incapable of seeing how to deal with Muslim political and political demands than in this crypto-Anglican neo-feudal way.

As long as there are Muslim scholars punting along the Cherwell and the Cam inside the cloistered walls of the English establishment then all will be well.

The institutional thought style of English politics is as always undemocratic, but worse it cannot conceive of there not being a ‘moderate’ ‘Anglican’ Islamism

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chief Justice and Oxbridge all ‘engaging’ with Islam, how very reasonable.

Of course the final piece in the logic (it may not be Gordon Brown’s reflexive solution but it will be that other PPE product Cameron) will be the expansion of the Lords Temporal to include a few Muslim theologian peers.

Oh and where might they be chosen from (of course with a ‘system’ of informal soundings)?

Well from the Oxbridge Islamic Advisory Forum, obviously enough.

Well done the Muslim Brotherhood game set and match, it’s not that hard for an outsider to see how England works.

Of course what this culturally entrenched model of ‘indirect rule’ necessitates of course is a system of indirect rule.

The inescapable logic of this is Sharia as seen by the Archbishop and Lord Chief Justice see clearly.

Any Oxbridge Islamic council will also end up recommending ‘Sharia’ they cannot do otherwise, it is the Sine Qua non of Muslim theology/jurisprudence (in Islam the two are not separable ever only heretics try that.

Of course it will be a liberal and reformed Sharia (Ramadan favours a moratorium on Koranic punishments).

It will even be voluntary and subordinate to the higher civil and criminal courts (as it is in most Muslim majority dominant countries) but it will be there.

This is the inevitability that the Archbishop sees and is presumably discussing (Prince Charles has already indicated that he favours such an English constitutional settlement).

This Oxbridgeisation of moderate Islamism is just so depressing, it is the relentless English logic of ‘engagement’ with Islam; it’s the same story as IslamExpo and Demos more of the same but worse.

The fight against Islamism in the UK is as much (more in fact) a relentless battle against the forces of ‘liberalism’ (in the sense of the muddle and fudge and patronage that is this countries ‘Anglican/political liberalism).

This process of rewarding political Islam started with the Rushdie affair.

The exhausting thing is that each exposure of the agenda of supposed Muslim ‘moderates’ as Islamist activists results in the demands of political Islam being met with greater inclusion, larger rewards and more ‘engagement’.

The only other country that behaves remotely like this is the Netherlands which also seems to be hard wired for embracing communalism.

I would like to think that the strength of British democracy will resist the cultural determinism of its ancient political institutions.

The fact that after over a hundred years of debate we can just about get our heads around the idea that the House of Lords should not be determined by a principle of inheritance but when successive governments cannot fully accept the principle of election over selection, I remain pessimistic.

As long as there are Muslim scholars punting along the Cherwell and the Cam inside the cloistered walls of the English establishment then all will be well.

The institutional thought style of English politics is as always undemocratic, but worse it cannot conceive of there not being a ‘moderate’ ‘Anglican’ Islamism

mettaculture - the most delightful and disturbingly accurate analysis of this whole sorry affair I have read.

John P.

There are no opera houses in the muslim world either, so perhaps The west could, at tax-payers expense, build new wings onto all of its operas so that islam could have opera too!

And the fact there are no opera houses in the Muslim world doens’t negate the fact the islamic world has no opera.

With all due respect, this is a load of tosh.

http://www.cairoopera.org/
http://www.opera-syria.org/

More on its way:
http://www.dexigner.com/architecture/news-g6370.html

“If it weren’t for the very good anti-Semitic ‘engage’ I would argue for the abolition of this word from our political lexicon.”

I humbly apologise for my use of the word “engage”. This is almost certainly a residual legacy of my time in the Communist Party of Great Britain (Fluffy-Eurobunny).

Sorry I did a spell-check edit but missed out on the sense edit there.

The most egregious being ‘the anti-Semitic’ engage.

It should, of course, have read ‘anti anti-Semitic’ (a reminder to never use the Word grammar checker)

and of course Lords Spiritual not Temporal

“This Oxbridgeisation of moderate Islamism is just so depressing.” Mettaculture has nailed it.

Two years ago my college offered alumni a lecture entitled “Hamas in the Middle East” by an alumnus who was a member of an Islamic society at the University. The underlying reason for the lecture was to request donations to the college.

When I and some others wrote to complain that it had been just over a year since the London suicide bombers’ videos made under Hamas banners, the alumni director wrote back to say I could attend another lecture if I wanted, (I think it was on astrophysics) refusing to address the reason for the complaint.

Wonder about the extent of donations that year and whether the University will soon be establishing “Nasrallah College.”

“Here’s the thing El Gordo: if you read the Qur’an with a respected Sunni tafsir companion like Ibn Kathir’s Tafsir al-Akbar or Tabari’s Tafsir, explaining the context of each verse and chapter, combine this with the most authentic biographies of Muhammad (Tabari’s Tarikh ar-Rasool wa’l-Mulook or Ibn Hisham’s Sirat Rasullallah), you will come arrive at the most complete picture of Muhammad bin ‘Abdullah and his god Allah possible. If Ramadan, or indeed any other scholar since the 9th century can provide a more authentic picture of Islam, Muhammad and doctrine then I’d be pleased to read it.”

Dear Ayatollah,

I was a bit confused about this. Are you saying that Quran + early tafsir + sira gives an accurate picture of the Prophet Muhammad? Surely you’d have to look at all the hadith collections too? Would you not also at least need to look at one of the madhhabs?

While the work of al-Tabari and other early commentators are important, don’t we also need people who can explain Islam for today? It also seems a bit much to suggest that we should disregard all the learning that has emerged since the 9th century: the 4 schools of fiqh, Ibn Rushd, Al Ghazali, Ibn Khaldoun… unless you’re a salafi. Are you a salafi?

“Two years ago my college offered alumni a lecture entitled “Hamas in the Middle East” by an alumnus who was a member of an Islamic society at the University. The underlying reason for the lecture was to request donations to the college.
When I and some others wrote to complain that it had been just over a year since the London suicide bombers’ videos made under Hamas banners, the alumni director wrote back to say I could attend another lecture if I wanted, (I think it was on astrophysics) refusing to address the reason for the complaint.”

I think if they had been raising funds for Hamas then there would have been cause for complaint. But giving a lecture on Hamas? Do you think that we shouldn’t even study these people?

Trad Catholic on 18 July 2008, 11:02 am

I think you’re being a bit soft on the second-last English King, Henry VIII.

He
1) was a multiple wife murderer
2) sponsored pirates and slavers
3) dissoluted the monasteries.

There are people who think that 3) is still having a bad effect on Education and is one reason why England is behind Scotland and Wales.

El Gordo. It is true that “we” should study our enemies. Field Marshall Lord Montgomery did have a picture of Rommel on his wall, but he did not invite Oswald (or the young Max) Moseley round to give a biographical lecture to his staff and ask them to pay for it soon after some of the Desert Rats had been killed.

Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation involved in killing civilians and associated with the deaths of British people in London and should not be given the academic prestige and imprimatur of an Oxbridge lecture about it, let alone be used by a college as a fund-raising incentive. That is what is so depressing about the Oxbridgeisation of Islamists.

“Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation involved in killing civilians and associated with the deaths of British people in London and should not be given the academic prestige and imprimatur of an Oxbridge lecture about it, let alone be used by a college as a fund-raising incentive. That is what is so depressing about the Oxbridgeisation of Islamists.”

I think perhaps we should consider what this means. Despite its violent methods and ideology, Hamas is an important player in the region whom we need to understand. The same goes for other violent organisations like Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda. These are important and worthwhile objects of study, and certainly should be studied in Oxbridge and elsewhere.

Are you suggesting that because the speaker was a “member of an Islamic society”, that he/she could not be objective about the subject? There are plenty of Muslims who are critical of Hamas’ methods and aims.

Even if the speaker was not critical - even if it was Azzam Tamimi himself - don’t you think that this would have provided an opportunity for some close questioning? Tamimi has often claimed in public that Hamas does not target civilians. It would be good to hear someone make the counter-argument that, during the Second Intifada, Hamas claimed responsibility for a number of attacks against cafes, restaurants and buses, and has subsequently continued rocket attacks against civilian areas. This is in clear breach of international law. This is well-documented by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, the BBC etc - not “Zionist” sources. Not everyone in the audience may be aware of this, so just having one well-placed question from the public could at least bring this to people’s attention. On the other hand, if the audience consists only of the less well-informed and of the “usual suspects”, then such a claim might go unchallenged.

Could you explain how Hamas is linked with the death of British people in London?

“Hamas is an important player”; undoubtedly, all the more important that it be comprehensively and unconditionally defeated - rather like Montgomery and the Germans at Luneberg Heath.

“Are you suggesting that because the speaker was a “member of an Islamic society”, that he/she could not be objective”; absolutely. He was an Islamist and Islamists are objective about nothing; they are fanatics with murder in mind for non-Islamists.

“Azzam Tamimi himself” is just such a fanatic and every Oxford or Cambridge man or woman worth their salt would know it, without wishing to pay for the privilege of an argument with him. Anti-Islamists can achieve that sort of cat-calling for free by being part of a BBC Question Time studio audience. Alternatively they can save themselves the trouble and write a book, like Ed Hussain and Nick Cohen at IslamExpo.

“Could you explain how Hamas is linked with the death of British people in London?” Already explained. If you wish, please see Tanweer and the others’ videos; watch him speak as the green flag of Hamas flutters above his head. Doubtless it is on YouTube.

RD Dahl, thank you, that’s very interesting. I appreciate that the defeat of Hamas is the aim but I think it’s very important to have clear thinking on this.

An “Islamic society” could be anything - it could be an political; it could be non-political; it could be pro- or anti-Islamist. You could categorise the Sufi Muslim Council, the Centre for Islamic Pluralism or the Muslim Brotherhood as “Islamic societies” of one kind or another, despite their vastly different agendas.

“He was an Islamist and Islamists are objective about nothing; they are fanatics with murder in mind for non-Islamists.”
“Islamism” refers to political organisations which have Islam as their guiding principle. As you will know, this can vary from the extremely murderous, such as al-Qaeda or the Algerian GIA, to the non-violent moderates, such as the Moroccan PJD or the Turkish AKP. There are certainly good questions we might ask about the limits on personal freedom in states run by Islamist parties but to characterise them all as “fanatics with murder in mind” is not something many serious commentators would agree with.

I still don’t see the link between Hamas and 7/7. Tanveer Hussain’s video shows no Hamas flag as far as I can make out: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5154714.stm It bears the production mark of As-Sahab; it’s an AQ video and not linked to Hamas.

Perhaps you were thinking of Asif Hamif and Omar Sharif who appeared in a Hamas video http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3543269.stm

“Being a lefty, I’m prepared to accept that the Government does have a small role to play in addressing theological “market failure”. “

Being a liberal I find the whole idea ridiculous and though not one to agree with Tammini, thought he made a reasonable point when he said that a government run theological directive factory sounds unlikely to carry much credibility. They privatise every other damned thing, after all – why try and nationalise Islam?

Metta –Your analysis is interesting – Pub Philosopher has covered something of the same ground - http://pubphilosopher.blogs.com/pub_philosopher/. I thought it was the English habit of masticating everything, until every former red rad is chewed up and swallowed until he or she has a knighthood and damehood.

“This process of rewarding political Islam started with the Rushdie affair.
The exhausting thing is that each exposure of the agenda of supposed Muslim ‘moderates’ as Islamist activists results in the demands of political Islam being met with greater inclusion, larger rewards and more ‘engagement’.”

Yeah, but then Rushdie was knighted himself, which was a signal that the wilder fringes weren’t going to have it their way. Possibly the first chew and swallow of what will be a long mastication.

Sorry, Tamimi, not Tammini.

El Gordo, you are quite right and my memory has failed me. I seem to remember a TV journalist telling me three years ago that the Arabic in the bottom right of the Tanweer and Siddique Khan videos was associated with Hamas and I had also seen the Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif videos. I must have inadvertently amalgamated the two gangs of bombers.

Nevertheless, it does seem, from the Sunday Times, that Mohammad Siddique Khan trained with and associated with Asif Hanif and Omar Sharif, who bombed Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv. So we do appear to have had a number of home-grown British Islamist murderers of civilians all linked to Hamas.

I do not speak or read Arabic and think it best to leave it to the serious commentators to strip out the non-murderous Islamists from the murderous ones you say exist. Meanwhile, leaving nothing to chance, I might steer clear of future lectures about Hamas in the Middle East. Accidents will happen. Perhaps I can pass my ticket to you for any similar future college events. You won’t be forced to contribute and the college may give you tea and biscuits, but, of course, no cheese and wine. Does La Gorda have a hijab in her wardrobe?