Humphrys in Search of God

Religion & Ethics     Humphrys in Search of God

John Humphrys as you’ve never heard him before – talking with religious leaders about his unfulfilled desire to believe in God.

How is faith possible in a world of suffering, much of it arguably caused by religion or religious extremism and to which God seems to turn a blind eye? Is there a place for religion in an age dominated by science?

His guests are the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams; Professor Tariq Ramadan, Muslim academic and author; and Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi.

You can listen again to the interviews as broadcast or listen to extended versions of the interviews here

 

    Transcript  :

 

Broadcast interview

7 November 2006

John Humphrys: Last week at this time I talked to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. His job was to try to persuade an old sceptic like me that God exists, to convert me if you like. In a way it was the easiest of the three interviews in this series because I was brought up in his church, believing in Christianity. This interview’s a bit trickier, I’ve had to do a bit of a crash course in Islam to get any sort of a grip on it and it hasn’t been easy. How to reconcile the Muslim’s merciful God with the fanatics that kill in his name. And there’s something else: when you raise doubts about Christ with a Christian leader like Dr Williams you can expect a gentle, reasoned, entirely civilised argument. There seem to be plenty of Muslims out there who take a rather more militant view of any sort of challenge to their faith. And that was the first point I raised with Professor Tariq Ramadan who is a leading Muslim academic.

 

Tariq Ramadan: I think you have to be er careful not to confuse all the reactions you can get. Of course if we just look at what happened during the last months with the cartoon issues and now with the Pope statement. In the Islamic majority countries you can be scared about the fact that er you know the reaction are very very harsh and I I think…

 

John Humphrys: Threatening.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Threatening yes. I think that many Muslims, er you know and and I am among these Muslims, think that this not the the right way. We’re not used by the way to laugh at religion, it’s not something which is part of the culture among Muslims.

 

John Humphrys: But it goes rather beyond not used to having a religion laughed at, it’s as though your religion looks for offence.

 

Tariq Ramadan: It’s not true, what we are expecting from ourselves and from the people who are we talk to is really mutual respect, out of mutual knowledge. Now in fact today because of er the perception that Islam is under pressure and stigmatised, the reaction is really emotional and the Muslims are very often overreacting. But I don’t think that you can say you know you are looking for that.

 

John Humphrys: If I were, and I have absolutely no wish to be, disrespectful to Mohammed during the course of conversation, some of your co-religion, some of your fellow Muslims will be not just offended, of course they are perfectly entitled to be offended, but they will be angry with me, some of them may even threaten me violence.

 

Tariq Ramadan: It could happen, I cannot deny this, and this is why having a kind of discussion with you, if it happen, it’s really important for me also to turn towards my own community and say look we need to take an critical intellectual critical distance because it’s a debate and the people want to know. And sometimes they are critical and they can ridicule the religion of their counterpart of their er fellow citizens.

 

John Humphrys: Mmm, some of the things they say about Jews and about Christians, it’s hugely offensive.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Exactly, and so. But it’s really you know when during the cartoons issues, what I said to the Muslims and I was in Denmark and then here, it it was really take an intellectual critical distance. Don’t over react, it’s not an emotional discussion that we have. So, I think that you also have to put things into context, you know I am in a situation where I am in a democrative society, I can speak and listen to me, I can listen to you, we can take a distance. I know this culture, I know the western culture, I know in which we are dealing with such issues, and it helps me to react in the right way. I can understand that the people who are not used to that, who are under political pressure, or sometimes they have even nothing to survive with.

 

John Humphrys: But some of these people that you refer to are not under pressure are they?

 

Tariq Ramadan: I’m not saying that this dogmatic approach is only coming from the people that are, you know, marginalised or socially er facing difficulties. You are right some are nurturing this mind set and they have this mind set “if you touch my religion, if you insult or if you laugh at it or say something which is wrong according to me, I can just be violent with you and insult you and I can threaten your own life”.

 

John Humphrys: They claim to find plenty of justification for that in the Qur’an, they will quote you plenty of chunks from the Qur’an which entirely in their eyes justify them doing it.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Yes er this is right, and this is why we have to respond that the quotations they are er making are wrong and they are not put in the global message of Islam, so we need this intra community debate among Muslims. But it’s also very important for me and for the Muslims, for you not only to be obsessed by the few who are vocal and visible and forget the many who are nurturing this understanding of the Islamic teachings open to the other, referring to verses of the Qur’an, at the end of the day they are the great great great majority. You have to listen to this silent majority of people telling you look for example myself, I will not accept just to promote tolerance between you and me, it’s much more than that, tolerance is not enough. There is something which is a kind of a superiority relationship when you tolerate me because you cannot just remove me from you know your own society. Tolerance is something which is not enough. In Islam if we go to the deep teaching of this religion is respect, and the difference between tolerance and respect is that you can tolerate me without knowing me, but you can’t respect me without knowing me, so it’s knowledge and respect. And this is the message that the great majority of the Muslims are promoting and are faithful to, so you also have to listen to this.

 

John Humphrys: And yet most Muslims, many Muslims,

 

Tariq Ramadan: It’s not the same, it’s very important.

 

John Humphrys: Yes, of course it’s very important. Many, let’s say many Muslims, er you yourself obviously accept that the Qur’an is literally the word of God. It was not what Mohammed interpreted God as saying and wrote it down, because he was illiterate wasn’t he, he was reciting the literally over a period of twenty three years the word of God. So what you read in the Qur’an you believe to be quite literally the word of God.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Yes but you have to be very very precise. The fact that it’s literally the word of God doesn’t mean that I have to read it literally, it’s not the same. It’s the word of God sent to a human being, a prophet, in a specific historical context.

 

John Humphrys: But how am I as somebody… let’s remember that this series is Humphrys in search of God. I mean, I turn to the Qur’an because I am told by your Imams, by the leaders of your religion, that this is the word of God. So I read it and I read things that strike me as being not just extraordinary but rather dismaying. And I see things that calls for you know the dissertation of death for non believers, uh yeah and I’m appalled by that.

 

Tariq Ramadan: No no but yes, you can be appalled by that.

 

John Humphrys: But that’s the word of God.

 

Tariq Ramadan: No, the word of God is something which is exactly this, it’s God revealing a text. At the end what we have as a word in the Qur’an is that this is a kitab, it’s a book, a book to be read.

 

John Humphrys: Written by God.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Writ yes.

 

John Humphrys: I keep coming back to this.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Exactly but but be careful. From the very beginning this was understood by the Muslims as the eternal word of God revealed in the specific history. And from the very beginning you have some verses of the Qur’an that you cannot understand if you don’t put them into context. For example some of the principles er revealed in the Qur’an are immutable, not going to change. The first one is the oneness of God, the second is all what are the pillars of the Islamic faith, and then the practices we pray as they are praying. But we have in the Qur’an many many verses dealing with specific historical situation. You cannot take these and read them in an absolute way.

 

John Humphrys: You are a moderate Muslim. There are plenty of people who can turn to exactly those words and take from them the justification for the most appalling behaviour.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Exactly but let me tell you, let me tell you something, if you are an atavist, are you for example?

 

John Humphrys: I don’t think so.

 

Tariq Ramadan: You can be an atavist or you can be a Marxist, how many people were reading the words of Marx literally.

 

John Humphrys: It’s different, Marx wasn’t God.

 

Tariq Ramadan: It’s… no he was not God, but the question is not the source of the text, the question is the way to you read it. So for example we have Marxists saying like you are saying, as you are saying now, it was, he was not God but they were reading his text in a dogmatic way. So with God or without God you can have a dogmatic mind, meaning by that when you read a text you take it literally. Now what we have to say is that the text has been revealed and there is a global message, and then they are verses. What we are asked to do is to come with our intelligence, our mind, to try to understand their meaning.

 

John Humphrys: All right.

 

Tariq Ramadan: So there are things that we have to put into context, and things that we cannot put into context. But if someone is coming to me and he’s reading the text literally, and telling me for example because of these verse I can kill a Jew, a Christian, a non Muslim, only because he or she is Jew, Christian and non Muslims. I will say look this is not an accepted reading because in you…

 

John Humphrys: In your view.

 

Tariq Ramadan: No not only in my view, in the way you read this specific verse is a betrayal of the global message. The text is what, at the end of the day, it’s a pedagogy. It’s the divine, pedagogy yes pedagogy, helping the Muslims in a specific period of time to understand what are the objectives of the religion. Helping us to use our mind, to read the sources, the scripture sources, to understand the context and then to try to implement our principles in a specific context.

 

John Humphrys: Alright, I thought er the Qur’an was rather more than that.

 

Tariq Ramadan: It’s this when we speak about rules, of course it’s more than that when it comes to morality, ethics, and to remind us of the presence of God.

 

John Humphrys: Right well I want to come onto that. But first of all what is God, there is no God but Allah, Mohammad is the messenger of Allah, that that is absolutely clear. And if I say that twice in the presence of two witnesses I am a Muslim, that’s right isn’t it.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Depending on on the state of your heart.

 

John Humphrys: Right, er, alright.

 

Tariq Ramadan: It’s not something you say. So the way you are now is not enough.

 

John Humphrys: Oh what what what do you mean the way I am now, I am being denied this access?

 

Tariq Ramadan: No you are not denied this, that it’s sure out of our discussion that you are not saying this from the bottom of your heart. It’s something…

 

John Humphrys: How do you know?

 

Tariq Ramadan: I don’t know, it’s out of your questions.

 

John Humphrys: But if having talked to you at the end of it I am persuaded that you are right, and I have a faith now. If I come to believe in God, upon the recitation of those two sentences, in the presence of witnesses, I am a Muslim, that is all it takes.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Yes exactly.

 

John Humphrys: And what do I then believe in. What sort of God do I then believe in. What am I required to believe, because as you say I have to come to it with my heart and not just with my lips.

 

Tariq Ramadan: First there is something which is the essential point, the oneness of God, he is only one, this is something which is the unity of God. The second point which is really important is that you cannot imagine how he is and you cannot define him. The only thing you can say about him is what he’s saying about himself, so no image, no representation, his name everything. You know there is a Chinese proverb saying when er the wise man show you the moon the foolish is looking at the finger. And this is why we avoid representing any prophet because they were just men, messengers coming to show us the road towards the one.

 

John Humphrys: But if I say to a devout Muslim oh Mohammad was just a messenger, doesn’t he say no no he was more than that, else why should we treat him with such reverence.

 

Tariq Ramadan: No no he was a messenger, he would not say anything else, and this is the right way to speak about him, he was a messenger. Now the relationship between me as a believer and him, it’s a relationship of love, and this is the way he was speaking about himself. Your faith is complete the very moment you love me more than yourself, meaning by that there is something which is a relationship to the prophet which is based on not only knowing what he did, knowing what he said, but loving who he was. So there is something which is a deep relationship, so this is why you know we pray on him every time his name is mentioned. We have a relationship of someone we love, and this is why we have to be very very respectful towards who he was and what we came with.

 

John Humphrys: If I become a Christian, if I am a Christian, I observe broadly speaking the pieties. In the case of Islam you surrender your life to Islam, Islam directs determines the way you live in every respect.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Yes, you know, my life belongs to him, you know, we have a verse telling us to say when someone passes away is, er in the (name) we belong to him and to we to him we are going back, that there is something which is belonging to him. Now it means that in which way am I belonging to him. There is something which are the pillars of Islam, so the fact that we are praying, the fact that we are fasting, these are you know the practices showing that we are with him in in our daily life. So it’s not something which is a blind you know submission. When the people are translating Islam by submission that is wrong, so there is something which you know what we seek, what we are trying to get at the end of the day is what, is peace, to be in peace with ourselves and with him. So to get that peace there are conditions, one of these conditions is to be at peace with yourself, and to be at peace with yourself is to use everything that we have in the right way. So it’s doesn’t mean a blind completely submission with no use of what you have, no.

 

John Humphrys: But again that is your interpretation, if if you speak to many devote Muslims they will tell you, and I have a little list in front of me, that Islam is a complete way of life, and let me give you the list. Governing dress, economics, business ethics, rates of taxation, justice and punishment, weights and measures, politics, war and peace, marriage and inheritance, family and domestic life, care of animals and livestock, sexual relations within marriage, education, diet, cookery, social behaviour, forms of greeting, rules of hospitality, even I am told the way in which a glass of water is to be drunk, and, which fascinated me I have to say, and on and on and on. Islam is a complete way of life.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Yes but be careful, once again it’s not wrong to say it’s a complete way of life. Now in your way of life not everything is at the same level. For example you have ethics, you have some convictions, you have rules in your life, these rules are…

 

John Humphrys: Self imposed.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Self imposed, it’s not the problem. The problem is: where do they lie in your life? Are they on the margin of your life? For example, when for yourself you are trying not to lie, it will direct your whole life.

 

John Humphrys: Slightly different from telling me how to drink a glass of water.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Yes once again, you have some details here for example, you know, why is it, is it so it’s just when you drink to remember when you take it with your right hand to remember him. It’s a question of remembrance.

 

John Humphrys: Do you do that, as a matter of interest?

 

Tariq Ramadan: Yes of course, for me it’s really important to understand the secret er dimension of my life, it’s really to put my ethics into action in motion in my life, and this is consistency. But once again if you whatever is your belief, you try to be constant with your values and your ethics, it mean that your values and your ethics are everywhere in your life.

 

John Humphrys: If I were to talk to you er about Islamic punishment, the death penalty, corporal punishment, stoning to death, removing of limbs, amputation of limbs, you would call as I have read you’ve done, for a moratorium on Islamic punishment. Now if even you cannot say there must be an end to it then one wonders how great the zeal for reform is.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Look I’m a believer, and I really think that the the Qur’an is the the very word of God as we said. So in the Qur’an we have reference to you know corporal punishment and er death penalty, and in the prophetic tradition we have something about stoning. These are the texts and as I’ve told you my understanding and the understanding of the great majority of the Muslims throughout the the Islamic history is that we have to put things into context, and we have to come with conditions, and to understand the context within which this could be implemented. So I’m talking to Muslims okay look it’s in the text, but the way you read the text and you want to implement this literally is betraying the very objective of the text.

 

John Humphrys: But you don’t call for an end to it.

 

Tariq Ramadan: My point is to talk to Muslims, say okay look come to the meaning of this text, come to the reality of this text, and open a debate on which way and how we can integrate the text.

 

John Humphrys: Why can you not say it is wrong, it is wrong to stone people to death, full stop.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Look look look. No, it is not the way, it’s not the way you are dealing with belief, you are dealing with people believing in the text. Islam is a simple religion, my life is complicated, and you cannot just ask simple question dealing with your complicated life.

 

John Humphrys: What is complicated about stoning somebody to death?

 

Tariq Ramadan: No no, about text, the relationship with the text. It was revealed like this. We are believing in the text, how are we dealing with this. Is it an immutable, non disputable text that we have to implement or is there something we have to understand out of our reading.

 

John Humphrys: Stoning to death. This for me you see, in my search for faith, this would be an absolute stumbling block. If I were persuaded that Islam was the path for me to follow and somebody…

 

Tariq Ramadan: You want also that yes…

 

John Humphrys: I want to know that my fellow Muslims do not believe that it is right to stone somebody to death, I want absolute assurance on that.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Look when it happened in Nigeria, when it’s happening now in Saudi Arabia, I condemn that, it’s not, it’s not implementable, it’s not…

 

John Humphrys: So it is wrong to stone people to death.

 

Tariq Ramadan: I said that.

 

John Humphrys: Right.

 

Tariq Ramadan: My position as a believer, I want to open a debate, I’m not alone, we have, this is my personal conviction, but I I’m dealing with Muslims. I want to open a debate, and to open a debate I have to do something which is really important. Stop using intrumentalising Islam to kill poor people and woman because they are the victims of what we’re doing now. So stop to do that and open a debate. You know what am Amnesty International is doing in the States, they are against this penalty. But in some States they cannot say that, it’s not possible, it’s not going to be accepted. So what’s the first step of the discussion, moratorium. Do you understand that.

 

John Humphrys: Alright, I’ll accept that.

 

Tariq Ramadan: This is the point.

 

John Humphrys: Let me turn in the last stages of this conversation to another huge stumbling block that I have, and this may be the biggest, and it is the notion of the merciful God. You describe Allah as all merciful, and this is an entirely predictable question, forgive me for asking it, and it’s crucial, and it may even be simplistic but there we are. Why does Allah allow suffering in the way that he does?

 

Tariq Ramadan: There are limits between what we understand and what he wants. And then here what we are asked to do is to deal with our reality as much as possible to the limit of what is possible.

 

John Humphrys: God created the reality.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Yes, it he created the reality. So we were born, this is the difference between the Jewish, the Christian and the Muslim tradition. We were born innocent, and we became responsible and we have to deal with our own responsibility, so we are responsible at a certain age. You know, all the kids, all the children are going to paradise according to the Islamic tradition because they are innocent.

 

John Humphrys: So it’s all right if they suffer on this earth in the knowledge, in your knowledge, that they will go to paradise.

 

Tariq Ramadan: No, to my intelligence, to my understanding it’s difficult to accept it as something which is intellectually understandable. But this is life, we are going to suffer because at the end of the day life is suffering.

 

John Humphrys: But why did God want that to happen, why did Allah want that to happen?

 

Tariq Ramadan: I don’t know you, I don’t know why even he wanted me to be here, or you to be here. I don’t know why sometimes he makes me happy or sad, but this is life. The only thing which I know is that I have responsibility trying to do your best with what you do and what you are facing, that’s it. We have a verse in the Qur’an – he creates death and life in order to put you in a test, it’s to test you, this is test. You are a test for me, because you are not me, you are different from me. So our encounter is full of happiness, potential happiness, and a possible threat, a possible sadness and possible difficulties, because diversity is a gift and a problem at the same time. Suffering is a gift and a problem, is very often of course for us a problem, we we live with this with great difficulty. And sometimes out of our suffering we become better, we become wiser, we become more knowledgeable about life.

 

John Humphrys: We might, you and I, but our children?

 

Tariq Ramadan: Maybe not, and this is this is you know when I’m I’m travelling in these southern countries and I see what I see and you know, these children and these kids dying, it’s very difficult. But at one point I am not dealing with it on an exclusively rational way. Not everything is rational, I can don’t worry you can like you or love someone, it’s not everything should be put in our logic, sometimes we have to be. This is why humility means exactly this, you don’t know everything, you don’t understand everything, but deal the best way you can with what you know, what you understand.

 

John Humphrys: So it is blind faith in the end.

 

Tariq Ramadan: Sometimes sometimes people are saying you have double talk. And the problem I have with some is the double hearing. I said exactly the opposite of what you heard. I said…

 

John Humphrys: You said you look at the suffering child and you do not know why that child, paraphrasing, you don’t know why that child is being allowed to suffer, but in the end you have to accept it. But if that is not blind faith I don’t know what is.

 

Tariq Ramadan: No it’s not blind faith. I said something else which you didn’t quote right now. I said you have to do your best with what you know and what you can. This is exactly the opposite, it is not blind faith.

 

John Humphrys: Is it?

 

Tariq Ramadan: You are dealing, we are dealing with people who are suffering. What you can do when are a doctor, when you are a social worker, do your best to make them suffer less. You know you are comparing what I am saying with passivity, it’s exactly the opposite. And I refuse passivity and fatalism in order to say you have to do what you can do to change the morality of this world for the better. And in the end every human being is a reformer, you reform your own self, you reform you family, you reform your society, you reform around you. Whatever you can do do it, this is the least you can expect from you. But at one point remain humble, because at the end you cannot change everything and you have to accept the reality of life.

 

John Humphrys: If I as a non Muslim fail to find a faith, fail to believe in god, if I fail to achieve that blessed state, what happens to me? You will go to paradise.

 

Tariq Ramadan: I’m not sure.

 

John Humphrys: You may.

 

Tariq Ramadan: I may, I may not.

 

John Humphrys: You’ve got a pretty good chance if you’re a decent bloke and you do the right things and you pray and all that there’s a fairly good chance that you will. Can I as a non believer according to your religion go to paradise, go to heaven?

 

Tariq Ramadan: To someone who at the end of his quest or her quest say there is no god, what isn’t in the text and what was revealed in all the religion is that here there is a rapture between he or she and God. Now at the end the only thing that I can say to this – it’s in Arabic or in English.

 

John Humphrys: I’d prefer the English.

 

Tariq Ramadan: “Allah, God knows best.” I don’t know. I don’t know where you’re going to be because I cannot assess your sincerity. If out of your sincere quest you have an answer that is yours, that you are sincere in getting it, what I know in my text that he’s very close to the sincere people, so I don’t know where you are going to be. But more than that, even if I I just spend my time to do the best that I can in the end, I’m trying but I don’t know where I’m going to be. So, to this at that level humility among human being is to say I don’t know, he knows, I don’t. What does it mean at the end of our discussion here is that I have to respect your quest, respect your sincerity, and never judge you in a different because I don’t know.

 

John Humphrys: And what about some of your fellow Muslims who behave in ways that you personally deplore, calling for the death of the Pope, bombing the world trade centre, flying the planes into the World Trade Centre – will they go to heaven?

 

Tariq Ramadan: I don’t know.

 

John Humphrys: They might.

 

Tariq Ramadan: I don’t know, I don’t know if er two minutes before dying something happened. I don’t know what could happen to any one of us, the only which can say, and this is the limit of what I can say – I condemn what they are doing. And at the end it’s really important in our life sometimes to understand that we can be very harsh, and we must be very harsh on some actions done by people, but sometimes we have to be very humble not to confuse the actions with the being of the people. So you may do things that are very very bad and still there is something which is light in you. The final judgement is not in my hand.

 

John Humphrys: Tariq Ramadan thank you very much.

 

 

 

Source : BBC