Ramadan belongs to the category of reformers from “within”, in the sense that he considers it possible and necessary for the newly arrived, especially followers of Islam who have emigrated to Europe, to adapt and “be at ease with” liberal and democratic constitutions, which also have their origins and roots in their culture and faith of origin. He believes that many of the principles of the democratic, liberal and pluralist state of law can be found in the Koran and that it is necessary to reactivate them.
Tariq Ramadan is a successful, brilliant European Muslim, modern in his judgements of public life, socially committed and, above all, a believer. And he would like to pass on to his European fellow believers a model of integration and not one of counter-position between these different elements. His message is one of integration, allowing children to grow up attending school with everyone else, committing to learn the language of the country one lives in, voting in elections and fighting for one’s rights, because “Islam is above all a message of justice.” They must also respect the rules.
According to Ramadan, Europe also offers Muslims an important opportunity to reform Islam, through real and practical freedom of worship and the principle of pluralism. Furthermore, distance from many of the Arab and Muslim world’s traditions and power restrictions, paves the way for accessing an Islam not compromised by corrupt power. By opening the so-called “gate way of igtihâd”, the ancient tradition of debate and critical thinking in the Islamic tradition (with this he basically refers to shari’a, on which the door closed following the golden age of Muslim critical thinking), Ramadan intends to reactivate an intellectual reform on the basis of the principles of the Koran and characterised by a spirit of freedom.
On the controversial subject of human rights in Islamic contexts, Ramadan believes that corporal punishments imposed by the Koran for hudud crimes are no longer tolerable. What makes him different to more radical secular positions is that he considers it impossible to ask Muslim theologians to delete the word of God or embark on the excessively long and burdensome path, undertaken by others as we have seen, of a historical and critical reinterpretation of the Holy Book. Hence he instead proposes a theological moratorium on this prescription, eliminating this practice where is still exists, such as for example in Saudi Arabia.
Many in the West and many secular Muslims consider this solution excessively tepid and bland as far as inhuman punishments are concerned, but this is the dilemma, or the choke point, that the believer Ramadan is facing compared to others who also share his faith. He is greatly criticised on this point, although often his position is distorted in a partisan manner, neglecting that his opposition is not to the abolition of hudud punishments, or the stoning of adulteresses, but only to the theological path followed to neutralise them.
Further criticism of a political nature is addressed at him on the subject of Israel and language that, according to his opponents, changes depending on the audience he is addressing. Such accusations often lead to intense disputes concerning his alleged anti-Semitism. It happened in France when Ramadan held a very lively debate on television with Sarkozy following a disagreement with Bernard Henry-Levy and other intellectuals, and in the United States where, at a critical moment, he was denied a visa (also following the effects of a disparaging campaign by Daniel Pipes and on the basis of the Patriot Act).
These events have mostly been overtaken by facts. Ramadan was summoned by Tony Blair as a consultant in the battle against terrorism, he has for some time been a professor at Oxford and has already returned to the United States to take part in public debates.
A well-known personality, in particular for Reset’s readers, Tariq Ramadan was once again the target of controversy from Berman, who wrote a book (The Flight of Intellectuals, New York 2010) accusing him of being an extremist because he is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan Al Banna. Various authoritative intellectuals responded these allegations in the New York Review of Books, among them Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash. From these same pages Andrew March replied in an analytical manner, instead presenting Ramadan as an example of the contextualisation of liberal culture within the framework of an understanding doctrine such as the Islamic one, according to John Rawls’ political liberalism process.
Ramadan’s ideas are not set out according to the agenda of a specific political and theological theorisation. There is, however, no doubt concerning his approval of the separation of powers, democracy and European constitutions, liberty for women and the importance of human rights. He supports the promotion of change, reform, an increase in free organisation from the bottom up and the possibility of a positive encounter between democracy and Muslim culture. In this sense his ideas can coherently be compared to the Turkish experience of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and can be set among those that have influenced the ‘Arab spring.’
Regards to his undeniable kinship with Hassan al Banna, the grandfather who dreamt of an Islamic State in which shari’a was to be the constitution, Tariq does not share these ideas and has also stated that he has never been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, about which he insists on emphasising the differences between the more traditionalist and dogmatic older generations and the new ones more inclined towards reformism. Reset has analysed this subject in depth in a book by Nina zu Fürstenberg published in Italian: Chi ha paura di Tariq Ramadan? I Libri di Reset, 2007.