Intercultural Dialogue Tariq Ramadan says Islam in Europe needs to be redefined. With Islamophobia passing the dinner-table test, his message is more urgent than ever.One of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential thinkers of the 21st century, Tariq Ramadan says Islam in Europe needs to be redefined. With Islamophobia passing the dinner-table test, his message is more urgent than ever.
According to a recent study carried out at the University of Leipzig, more than a third of Germans believe Germany would be better off without Islam. Last week Europe’s foremost Muslim thinker, Tariq Ramadan, spoke to a captive audience in Berlin about the tide of Islamophobia sweeping Europe and his own vision of a « shared pluralism. » A professor of Islamic Studies at Oxford University, Ramadan is also president of the European Muslim Network. He is a polarizing figure, seen by some as the « Muslim Martin Luther » and by others as a master of doublespeak. He spoke to Deutsche Welle about western perceptions of Islam today and the need for Muslims to become full partners in democratic societies.
Is it Germans’ job to understand Islam better, or is it Muslims’ job to explain Islam better?
Islamophobia and rejection of Muslims is everywhere in Europe today, and Germany is no exception. It is a two-way process. We have to change our way of talking about Islam, our way of creating and building the ‘Other.’ To this end, it’s important to work on education and a better understanding of what Germany and Europe is today and to accept that Islam is a European religion, because we have millions of citizens who are French, British, German and Muslim. But Muslims as citizens have to be more vocal and assertive by explaining their religion and the way they deal with it in their daily lives, so that it is not only perceived as a problem but as a gift and a positive presence.
They also need to avoid the victim mentality that might be nurtured by this atmosphere and to avoid identifying as a minority, saying: we don’t want to be targeted, so we will isolate ourselves. No, they should do the opposite, even though to withdraw from being visible would be a natural psychological reaction.
In your book « What I Believe, » you say that the debate about integration borders on the obsessive and that what we need now is a ‘post-integration’ approach based on contribution.
We need to stop referring to integration. By ‘post-integration,’ I mean that we need to come to an understanding that the success of integration is to stop talking about it. If we keep on repeating year after year, generation after generation, that ‘they’ need to integrate, we imply that there is a host country, and they are its immigrants. It’s over! Muslims are not immigrants in Germany. They are German, they are European.
Then, what we need to do is ask: as a member of this society, what is my contribution going to be? If you are always perceived as ‘to be integrated,’ the question is: where do you come from? We have to stop asking: where do you come from and ask: where are we going – together?
We have to be visible and vocal not only in the religious field but everywhere. Our contribution can be philosophical, artistic, and as I advocate in my book, creative! To be a Muslim isn’t just to say: Islam is not violent, it is not discriminatory – no, it’s more than that. It is architecture, books, imagination, ethics. And the more you give to society, the less you will be perceived as a negative factor.
But when you have public and institutional hostility to Muslims, it restricts the scope of their participation in social, economic, political and cultural life. How can we break this deadlock?
When I come to Germany and other European countries I can see that, yes, there is a trend to Islamophobia, racism and a rejection of Muslims, but lots of people are not happy about it and know there’s something wrong.
So you are right, a fracture within society is possible. But what I see behind the scenes at the local level are a lot of Europeans willing to listen. This should be the driving force of change: not Muslims on their own, but Germans from different backgrounds sharing the same principle: we are not going to allow racism to return to this country in a way that is very, very damaging for all citizens.
According to the surveys, what Germans are most bothered by is the way they see women treated in Islam: You believe that a woman can find liberation in Islam, that Islam was originally a feminist religion. Germans see it as patriarchal and oppressive in its practice. How do you explain this gulf?
Because both are right. When you study the scriptural sources then you understand that there is a message of equality and liberation. But when you look at what Muslims are doing, Germans are not completely wrong to see a problem. In Muslim communities, I can see myself that there is a lot of discrimination; women are not involved in education, the mosque, not always respected as human beings and within marriages. There is a problem. I constantly repeat: Islam has no problem with women, but Muslims do. This is why I train Muslim women in the way they deal with the scriptural sources and they way they deal with the community.
The missing discourse in Islam is about women: not as mother, not as daughter, not as sister, but woman as woman. What does spiritual liberation of the being mean? What do we mean by femininity and liberation? As a woman, I don’t want to be reduced to my body but you have to accept that I have a heart, I have a soul.
Then there is the question of commitment within the community, in mosques, in the scholarship and the legal Islamic authority. Women need to be involved. We can’t just repeat: we are equal before God and complementary in society. The relationship between the master and the slave is complementary, but the master is the master, and the slave is the slave.
But our fellow citizens also have a responsibility not to essentialize the Islamic discourse and say: all Muslims are like this or this. There are very practicing Muslim women liberating themselves from cultural oppression and literalist understandings.
Interview: Jane Paulick
Editor: Nancy Isenson
Source: [DW-WORLD.DE
Where muslim countries often exaggerate differences between men and women (to the point that for instance women are not allowed to drive a car), western societies sometimes simplify social affairs by ignoring differences, and have tricked people into denying their identities.
Asalaamalaiku dear Professor Ramadan,
« Islamophobia » is a word coined by Muslim political activists to persuade non-Muslims that their concerns about Muslim practices and intentions are ill founded. But such concerns are not ill founded. Nor are they based primarily on fears about Islamist terrorism. Here are a few of the many reasons why the growing Muslim presence in Europe should make non-Muslims nervous.
1. Muslim men are permitted to marry non-Muslim women, but Muslim women
cannot marry non-Muslim men. Muslims practice polygamy.
It is difficult to imagine what could scream “colonization” more loudly than an immigrant group which proclaims: “We can marry your women – a LOT of them – but you can’t marry ours.”
2. Muslims segregate themselves from non-Muslims.
Non-muslims are barred from entering mosques. The Qur’an states:
« Believers, know that the polytheists are impure, so they should not
approach the Sacred Mosque after this year onwards. » [Qur’an 9:28 ]
Although this verse pertained to banning Arab polytheists from the Ka’ba during the lifetime of Muhammad, the Saudis and many other Muslims have interpreted it to mean that all non-Muslims should be barred from all mosques. Today, no non-Muslim can enter the precincts of the Sacred Mosque in Mecca. In France, Le Grande Mosquée de Paris also bans non-Muslim visitors. Since, throughout Christendom, the doors of churches are open to all seekers, westerners find this attitude to be plainly rude and insulting.
A superstitious fear of being tainted by the « impurity » of nonbelievers is deeply imbedded in Muslim consciousness, aided by the above verse and by this oft-quoted saying of The Prophet Muhammad: “Whoever imitates a people is one of them. » For many, rejecting foreign culture is viewed as a religious obligation. To avoid being seduced into « imitating » non-Muslims, many adherents actively avoid association with non-Muslims. For example, because Muslims do not drink wine or consume non-halal meat, many Muslims go so far as to refuse to dine at any venue which serves such things. Of course, that would include the homes of most non-Muslims.
3. Muslims believe they are the best community on earth.
Despite the fact that Muhammad preached a message of religious pluralism and racial equality, most Muslims proudly maintain that Islam is the best religion, that Muhammad is “the best of creation,” that The Qur’an supercedes all other spiritual texts, that Arabic is the most beautiful language, and that Islamic culture (read: Arab culture) is superior to all others. In support of this prejudice, Muslims will quote from the Qur’an: “You are the best community raised for mankind” [Qur’an 3:110] (They usually omit the inconvenient qualification in the verse’s continuation: “… you order what is right, forbid what is wrong, and believe in God. » ) History has demonstrated abundantly that a community’s belief in its inherent superiority encourages an imperialistic mentality.
4. Muslims practice gender apartheid.
Even in The West, almost all Mosques are gender segregated, with large halls dedicated to men and dingy screened alcoves, balconies and basements allocated to women. Social life, including lectures and social events organized through mosques and Islamic schools, are also gender-segregated. Many Muslims continue to support the belief that men and women should be segregated in the workplace, that women should not hold elected office or speak in public, that a woman’s religiously prescribed duty in life is to bear children and take care of them.
Today, with the Muslim population in Europe approaching 7%, we are beginning to see Muslim gender apartheid being practiced on university campuses. Muslim students practice self-segregation in courses and club meetings. Lectures and other events on university campuses, sponsored by Muslim organizations, offer segregated seating, with separate doors for men and women. Organizers will tell you that the students do it willingly, that no one is forced. They ignore the high degree of coercion. A Muslim woman will be expelled from her community if she refuses to marry or marries a non-Muslim. In order to be considered marriageable by potential husbands and their families, she must submit to gender apartheid and don the symbol of her submission, the hijab.
Hijab is correctly viewed by most non-Muslims as a symbol of gender apartheid and imperialism. Banning hijab is Europe’s way of demanding that Muslim immigrants reconsider interpretations of Islam that promote apartheid, gender apartheid and imperialism. The Islamic Empire once stretched from Southern Europe and North Africa, through northern india to Western China. It carried gender apartheid and other evils with it. Recognition of that historical fact does not constitute a phobia.