“Two weeks ago I heard Condoleezza Rice say, ‘We must expand dramatically our efforts to support and encourage the voices of moderation and tolerance and pluralism within the Muslim world.’ Yet, such a person, Swiss Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan, slated to teach at Notre Dame this fall, was denied entry to the United States by the Department of Homeland Security.”
Diana Eck in the Boston Globe, 4 September
Britain’s largest Muslim group called yesterday for the sacking of the Sunday Telegraph newspaper’s editor over a series of articles attacking “the black heart of Islam”.
The author of four opinion pieces in the traditionally conservative newspaper described Islam as a “supranationalist army and state” and compared Muslims to dogs.
A media hunt for the author, who penned his views under a pseudonym, led to the communications office in London of the British Council, a state-funded body that aims to promote British culture abroad.
The British Council said yesterday it had sacked the author of the articles, Harry Cummins. The MCB, an umbrella body for over 400 Muslim groups, called for the Telegraph Group to follow suit by sacking editor Dominic Lawson.
“We are dismayed that the Telegraph Group have yet to take any action against the editor of the Sunday Telegraph,” said the MCB’s Abdul Bari in a statement.
One article said Britain feared Islam. “It is the black heart of Islam, not its black face, to which millions object,” Cummins wrote.
“It is mind-boggling that some are still ignoring the facts and falling for the smooth double language of a dangerous fanatic.”
Olivier Guitta in The American Thinker, 1 September 2004
“Readers of my previous comment on Tariq Ramadan will no doubt have come away with the impression that I don’t much like Daniel Pipes. This is not an entirely accurate assessment of my opinion of him. I think Pipes is an unreconstructed bigot and xenophobic fanatic whose academic work fails to meet even the lowest standards of scholarship, whose career has been built on politically driven attacks, and who has set up with his ‘Campus Watch’ as a terrorist front designed to intimidate academics and ensure that there is as little debate, discussion or rational thought on Israel, US foreign policy or Islam as possible. His research and scholarship are not intended to better inform action but to support specific agendas, usually revolving around hating some foreign force or people. Instead of fostering debate, his work is intended to intimidate. Pipes advocates religiously targetted surveillance, he supports making federal university funding conditional on ideology, and he has helped to terrorise professors who are named on his website. In short, I think Pipes is swine.”
Scott Martens demolishes Daniel Pipes.
“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, without offering an explanation, has revoked a visa that was granted to me to teach at the University of Notre Dame. In Sunday’s Chicago Tribune on the Commentary page, Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, provided his ‘explanation’ for this action. In what follows I respond to his unfounded allegations.”
Tariq Ramadan in the Chicago Tribune, 31 August 2004
“The accusations made against me, leading to my US visa being revoked, are based on repetition not on facts.”
Tariq Ramadan on his exclusion from the US in the Guardian, 31 August 2004
Geneva-born Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan has said he is “in shock” that he will not be able to take up a teaching post in the United States after his visa was revoked. The US State Department said it had cancelled the visa at the request of the Department of Homeland Security.
“Muslim WakeUp! reports that Tariq Ramadan has been denied a visa by Homeland Security, and will not take up his teaching post at Notre Dame…. this a shameful, terrible decision, which will have wide ranging implications in American (alleged) attempts to reach Muslim moderates. When the United States attacks Islamist moderates like this, it does Osama bin Laden’s work for him. Well done.”
“Expose the subversive activities of Islamist extremists around the world or in the United States, and speedy CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) pops up with accusations of Islamophobia.”
Arnaud de Borchgrave in the Washington Times, 19 August 2004
“Qaradawi – an al-Jazeera regular who recently turned down the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood because he felt he could be more influential as an independent thinker – has spent the last thirty years presenting a sustained and coherent argument for a moderate approach to Islamism. He has routinely and consistently denounced terrorism and intellectual extremism.”
Abu Aardvark replies to Lee Smith, outlining the views of Yusuf al-Qaradawi and other advocates of democratic Islamism: here.