oD: When did it occur to you that an independent European Islam was the project?
oD: Of course there had been Muslims in Europe for centuries… but this coincided with the emergence of a sizeable Muslim population in Europe who were becoming citizens in those countries for the first time?
TR: Yes. All the questions I had, that we still have, were not those of the primary migrants, but of the second generation onwards. (As we have the fifth generation now in France and maybe even more here in Britain, the second generation we always speak about is now quite a distant phenomenon!) But that is the point. After all these people have come over for generations, we are still referring them to ‘your countries of origin’ and always labelling them, ‘French of an immigrant background’. But who you are, when it comes down to it, is simply a question of time. Indigenous people are just older immigrants, so everything depends only on the scale on which one is measuring this. And by the second and third generation, I think it is quite clear that now they are at home.
But there are discrepancies, and this is what I felt we needed to understand. How could we cherish our Muslim legacy, and at the same time be totally confident in building a European Muslim personality which could be accepted at one and the same time for being totally Muslim, and totally European. This now became my aim.
oD: This project has led quite swiftly in two different directions. Firstly, it involves some reforms which you would like to see in western countries. But you have also come up with an auto-critique of the Muslim ‘way of life’ in its broadest sense. So this is a rather complex path you are taking, in which you risk alienating people on all sides?
TR: This is what is happening by the way!
But my main critique was not directed against European society. In all my study of their legislatures and constitutions I can find no obstacle to Muslims remaining Muslim in these societies.
No, my main concern was that as Muslims, our behaviour is governed by scriptural sources and a legal legacy which now have to be revisited. How should we read this legacy, these sources? We, the Reformist trend within the Islamic diversity of thinking, are arguing that we have at one and the same time to consider the texts and the contexts.
The Reformist school of thought to which I belong is not the literalist school, or the traditionalist one, or the rationalist one, or the Sufi version of the reformist path. Our central argument is that because we live in a new context, it is imperative that we reconsider our sources.
This is what I have been working on for more than fifteen years, trying to assess the latitude we have within the Islamic legacy, the room for manoeuvre for extracting new thoughts and new interpretations. I am totally committed to respect for our Qur’an and prophetic tradition. But I insist that we have not yet discovered everything there which can be revealed by our creativity. This is why I am calling for a new rationality to be applied to our scriptural sources.
And I believe that this is coming from God. There is this silence, coming from God which encourages us to be creative. I am not the first person to believe that, by the way: there is a whole religious and prophetic tradition telling us that it is out of mercy that God remains silent on some subjects, where it is our creativity that is called for.
Moreover, our new environment helps us to re-read the sources in a certain way. Why should I care so much about this? Because if I am able to speak convincingly from within, the Muslims in America, say, or in Europe, may be prepared to follow. Even in my case, they might think, ‘OK, you are out to westernise Islam’. But until now, fortunately, in the discussions I have held with scholars, ulama, and with people within the Muslim communities, I have been able to ask them to think again, saying, ‘OK. Tell me now – where is this laid down, according to our sources?’ They cannot dismiss me so easily. And that matters to me, personally as well.
For as I see it, I am translating sharia, the way towards faithfulness, searching out how to remain faithful. This is not a matter of law for me, but a way of remaining faithful to my beliefs and to my principles. This is my first and main concern.
My second task also has nothing to do with being critical of western mores. That is not my approach. What I am saying, however, is that this new phase for Muslims in Europe is not only a question of integration into our societies. What I want to know is: how could we be a richness for our societies? How could we make a contribution? This could so easily be turned into yet another old-style dogma or platitude in our European public spheres. Truly, that would be a retrograde step and is not what we are asking for. But, when you have principles, you also have an ethical code which arises from those principles. If we can bring those ethics into our societies, as active citizens, who can help work for the future betterment of ‘my society’ – then at last, we are making a real contribution.
In that respect, the legal framework of western societies is not the problem. What actually prevents us from becoming totally involved in our societies today, comes down to a question of perception. The way that people read the law is determined by what amounts to a very bad perception of what Muslims are! If that perception were only different, there really is considerable latitude in European countries for respecting Muslims, including their belief in their worship, and their practice.
oD: Just go back to the question of text and context. How do you see a pluralist society that could accommodate the kind of latitude you are talking about? At one point in ‘Western Muslims’ you argue that Muslims in the west must reject ‘relativisation’, but that nevertheless they must also explain how they respect diversity and relativity. This is rather difficult to most of us to grasp. Can you explain?
TR: I am not sure it is so difficult. Some people say, ‘The only way for us to respect each other is to admit that everything is relative!’ In my opinion, this universal relativity is not going to help us. We have to understand, quite simply, that people are going to believe in all sorts of things, it might be God, it might be other values.
The right sort of pluralism has nothing to do with this ‘relativisation’. It is, rather, to accept that people have convictions, and that out of these very convictions, they can respect the Other – or each other. This is exactly my point. Some Muslims in western society are convinced that to be open-minded must mean to forget our values and betray our convictions. I am saying exactly the opposite: ‘OK – you can express your doubts about some of the values which prevail around you. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t be open-minded’.
There is a big difference between this and being able to say, ‘ From my belief, I respect you and I accept that you have another stance, another set of thoughts.’ You don’t have to be narrow-minded in your rejection of others. Muslims wish people to understand that they have their own convictions. ‘OK, this is your belief.’ But, your belief in God is telling you to respect the Other. Your very conviction should give strength to mutual respect.
oD: Is this, then, your definition of a pluralist society?
TR: What a pluralist society means to me is that we respect all the convictions, beliefs, and forms of worship amongst us; that there is freedom of worship and freedom of conscience. Moreover, equal citizenship. This is really important when you are dealing with an Islamic society, for example, which accepts the notion of pluralism but which has double standards when it comes to the situation of the ‘protected people’, the Jews, Christians and others.
None of these conditions – religious pluralism, mutual respect and equal citizenship – can thrive, without education. There is no pluralism without education to pluralism. It is a dream to say, ‘OK – I’m open-minded!’ When there is the slightest new setback within a society, without knowledge of the other, it is so easy to fall back on old enemy images. This is my concern for our societies in the west today. We may speak about ‘pluralism’ and mutual acceptance all we want, but if there is no effort to educate people, a very superficial perception of the others will prevail. You can go through the motions of pluralism, but it is not rooted in reality.
oD: You talk a lot about dialogue. How essential for you is it that there has to be real exchange between Muslims and non-Muslims, as within the Muslim community? Is it the basis of your criticism of faith-based schools?
TR: I learnt one thing from working with Marxists, Christians, Jews, and people following traditional beliefs in South America and Africa: if you are unable to out-centre yourself from your own viewpoint and grasp from whence you are speaking, and if your interlocutor is unable to do the same, there is no point in going any further.
I am totally against the concept of tolerance. People say, ‘I accept that you are here, because I have no choice.’ You can tolerate someone out of ignorance, ‘I ignore you, but I accept that you are here. I suffer your presence.’ It is, I believe, only the first step in an unlikely progress. Respect means mutual knowledge. Dialogue is based on that premise. This is the way to know about the other, and not only what you can glean from out of his or her Book. I don’t think that someone can ever ‘know’ me by reading the Qur’an.
Some Muslims just glance at the Bible and say, ‘Look at their book! There are so many discrepancies and things that are really horrible.’ To which I have to say, ‘That’s not the point. The book is the book. The reading of the book is something else.’ Bin Laden, for example, is reading the same book as me: but not in the same way!
So dialogue has its own preconditions. These include the willingness to be out-centred and to understand the other viewpoint from where you are. It requires an effort. There is no dialogue or pluralism without effort. Then we have to go still further: interaction through activity is essential. All too often, the Muslim perception is, ‘They don’t like us. They don’t like me’. Not surprisingly, perhaps, when they look at the mainstream school system, they can only see that ‘Everything is wrong in it.’ So, from this they conclude that we have to build our own schools.
I am not against the principle of separatist schools if you have something really creatively new to offer. But look at these ‘faith schools’: the only thing which seems to matter is that you come first. It is exactly the same system. They are not promoting something different which can add value. So, you must gather the Muslims together and say, ‘OK. If we go down this route, at best we are just promoting and protecting our teaching amongst ourselves. But, my Islamic teachings are not best protected by my keeping company only with Muslims. This is wrong, especially when we are in a western society.’
oD: Where then do you place yourself in relation to the account of Abdelwahab Meddeb in his book, ‘Islam and its Discontents’, when he locates a wrong turn in Islamic thinking in the 1920s. He describes this as the period when a new Islamist movement turned away from ‘modernising Islam’, and began instead to work on the ‘Islamicisation of modernity’? Do you recognise this account?
TR: Absolutely not. We have a big problem with people like Abdelwahab Meddeb. He says that he is not a practising Muslim. He doesn’t believe in God. Having accepted this point, I wanted to meet him for discussions on two or three occasions: but he refuses to talk with us.
We are working hard to promote a reformed intra-community dialogue. But such people have no respect for such a process. All they want to do is to talk to non-Muslims about other Muslims – saying that ‘they are so and so’. I shared one platform with him, at the end of which, he told me, ‘Your ideas are very creative and you are coming up with a lot of real innovations here.’ Three weeks later he told some paper, ‘ He is a crypto-Islamist!’ What is that all about? Does he do it to appeal to the people around him, so that all they have to say is, ‘This is what we want from you!’?
If you are not culturally committed to Islam, this is your right. But please don’t interfere with our attempts to launch an intra-community dialogue. Such intellectuals have one prepared script for a non-Muslim audience, but they are no help at all within the community. Their books might please you. But they are not speaking to the Muslims: they give them nothing. When it comes down to it, they behave in exactly the opposite manner to the one I have just advocated. Meddeb was in Canada while I was there last week, and he did not come to speak with us. But he did take it upon himself to pronounce on us to others. He promotes, not a dialogue, but a monologue. He is outside. This is damaging for all of us.
oD: So, you see what he was saying as a caricature?
TR: With respect to this accusation of ‘Islamicising modernity’ – would you agree that it makes no sense to talk about western, universal values? You are from the west, in a specific tradition, and universal values always do arise from out of a specific viewpoint. But you are trying to extract from your tradition something which in your view, is universal.
Alternatively, you are a woman, and I am a man. But what happens when we agree on common values which transcend our specifically female or male values? We say, don’t we, that this is a truth held in common?
It is exactly the same with western values. Some of them, even I as a Muslim, can see are universal. Equality, for example, is not an Islamic value. But nevertheless, in and from Islam, I can find something of universal value in these concepts of equality, justice or citizenship. I am not Islamicizing these concepts. I am saying that they are universal values, and that I can find in them a common ground between us.
Meddeb accuses me of forgetting that these values do not come from Islamic thinking! Does he ever forget that he is coming from the west? Certainly not. Indeed he goes further, he says that universal values only exist in western rationality. What does ‘western rationality’ mean? Is there such a thing as ‘eastern irrationality’?
So there are people like Meddeb, who allege that because I come from an Islamic viewpoint and say, ‘This is universal’, I am trying to Islamicise modernity. No. For me, modernity is a place we have in common, where everyone can bring something from their own specific background, and try to extract universal values for our common good.
There is not, for example, any such thing as Islamic justice. Is there an Islamic feminism? Yes, there is. But what I mean by this is not that there is an Islamic feminism on the one hand and a universal feminism on the other. No, quite the opposite. What I am saying is that from their own tradition, Muslim women can find values to act upon which move them towards equality from within their own teaching – values which allow us to move towards feminism. This means that this thinking is Islamic in its source, and feminist in its purpose. It is not confined to its specific source.
Do you understand the point? This is really difficult to grasp, because when you speak as a Muslim and you try to extract universal values – they never forget that you are a Muslim. I never forget that I am a Muslim either! But the point is, I think we have something to say, to contribute, to the common ground. Exactly this.
oD: But which take priority, for example when there is a contestation between Islamic values and the human rights principles enshrined in some European constitutions?
TR: When you reach the level of universality, you don’t have to put an adjective in saying that this is ‘western’ or ‘Islamic’: this is universal. Priority or precedence doesn’t work at this level.
So, if you ask me whether or not the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is as universal as these Islamic values we are talking about – I will tell you ‘Yes!’ – I have no problem with the Universal Declaration because it goes beyond the fact that it is coming from the west. The problem you will find among Muslims is not the universality of the principles, it is the way you phrase them and translate them into words. As to the principles and their content – no problem.
I was against the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. I had to ask, ‘What is that? What are you doing? Especially when you say at the end of every paragraph, “according to the sharia” – what do you mean by the sharia?’ Having two Universal Declarations does not work. At the level of universality, ‘western’ and ‘Islamic’ values are converging. For me, justice, equality and so on, come from my Islamic teaching: it has reached the level where these universal values are the same for you as they are for me.
The Universal Declaration specifies that someone can change his or her religion. People often query me on this, saying that it is not permitted in Islam. I say quite the opposite. Of course in Islam you have some people who say that this is the case: but you have other scholars and ulama saying that this is possible. I am saying that this is possible. So, to my mind, you do not have to label or categorise universality.
oD: Aren’t you avoiding dealing with some of the crunch questions of legality here, in which Islam as a political system, including the sharia, conflicts with western values?
TR: What is this, ‘Islam as a political system’? You really must try and understand the global message I am bringing. All the concepts I am using have a very specific definition. Sharia, by my definition, is not law – it is a way towards faithfulness. We have, of course, to think about the law when we try to be faithful to a specific goal. But, as I have spelt out at length in my most recent book, sharia is something that has been extracted by human rationality in order to pave the way for us towards our ideals. So don’t now take sharia as a set of laws. In stressing that sharia is a way towards faithfulness and our ideals – I am expressly turning away from the notion of our laws and the legal system as ‘fiqh allah’ (?) – ‘the law is first’. It is not first for me.
For example, one interpretation of our laws asserts that during a famine, while people are starving, it is not possible to apply the law of cutting off of hands. Some Muslims see in this an exemption and say, ‘You see, we too can adapt, improve and change!’ My point is not this. It is that this ruling was saying that in the name of our goals, the literal understanding of this rule was wrong: that the universality of our goals means that the specificity of this particular ruling cannot be enforced. My point is that all this is a system of values, and not a political system.
Within this whole system, I have to differentiate between principles and models. For example, behind the concept of democracy coming from the west – from the Greek tradition – we have at least four principles: state of law; equal citizenship; universal suffrage and accountability. These are the main universal principles coming from the western model of democracy.
These four principles can now be extracted from Islam and merged at that point with the universality of this system. I am not going to idealise models. I want to keep faithful to the four principles, but I am saying, what we need now in the Islamic world is specific models which respect these principles. In Britain you have a specific model which is not the French or Danish or American model. Every society should respect its culture, its memory and its collective psychology. If we do so, this gives us a specific model, but the principles are respected. I have no problem with this.
There is no Islamic political system. This is what I have to say to the literalists and to the Hizb al-Tahrir (one of the two best known literalist movements in Europe), ‘What are you saying? What is this political system you talk about?’ Even, you know, when my grandfather was speaking about an Islamic state, I would say, ‘What does it mean this Islamic state?’ For me, we have to respect some universal principles, but there is no Islamic state. To imitate what was done in Medina in the 7th century is not only a dream. It is a lie. You cannot do that now.
I invite you to give me one example out of my global perspective, the way I am putting it now, which suggests to you that there is this contradiction in terms you are invoking.
oD: For many Europeans, our western democratic tradition was precisely born out of a confrontation with religion, the Judaeo-Christian tradition. True – ‘Sharia’ may indeed have become something of a western scapegoat: but however laudable we think it is that you speak out against the more autocratic regimes in the world of Islam, and the more literal readings of sharia law… can you really deny this? Don’t you just plunge your own followers into an ongoing dilemma?
TR: I am not sure that you are right, and that it is quite so straightforward that the democratic system was constituted in opposition to religion. That seems to me to ignore, for example, the part played by the Protestant tradition, which Weber foregrounded. Western democracies were indeed all founded through a reaction against religion, but religions were feeding into this reality as well. We don’t have time, perhaps, to discuss this in much more detail now.
What I am telling you is this: any attempt now or in the future to cut Muslim communities off from their religious frame of reference will fail. Look at Europe and America today. When these people started arriving, we entertained the illusion that it would take no more than two or three generations for them to be totally assimilated and forget all about religion. Exactly the opposite is happening now. People are returning to their religious roots. So, face the reality.
If you want to, you can try to deal with people who say, ‘I am a Muslim and I want to remain a Muslim’ by telling them that if they really want to live in a democracy, they have to put their religion aside. But they will tell you that they are not ready to do that. I am not ready to do that. I was born here. I have studied western philosophy. I feel myself totally integrated into western society. But I don’t want to forget my tradition.
Is it possible for me to come up with a new account, new answers helping me at one and the same time to be totally Muslim and totally a citizen? I am saying, yes. How? Not by describing my involvement in society as based upon religion. But by recognising that it is based on a specific ethics.
The Europeans you invoke are actually doing the same thing. They could be agnostic, atheist, Marxist, Christian, Jewish or whatever: in your daily life as a citizen you are nourished by your convictions. So am I – what is the problem? I am trying to take from my convictions, values and ethics that help me to be totally involved in my society. That is what I mean by the ethics of citizenship. Let me give you an example.
Some Muslims are saying to other Muslims in this country that they have to vote for Muslims: no-one else. This communitarian approach, you might say, is very common throughout Europe and America. But I argue the exact opposite. I say that in the name of your tradition, you have to find those people who are most competent, have the deepest integrity, and who are accountable. These values are not in contradiction with Islam, but more than that, they are totally rooted in the tradition of citizenship in this country. So you have to vote for a Muslim or non-Muslim having these qualities. This is what an ethics of citizenship is.
You might respond, ‘Wow, how can he propose this from an Islamic tradition?’ The problem is not where I am coming from, but where
I am leading these people to. And where I am leading them to is the understanding that they are part of these societies, and that they are speaking from the same song sheet that you are speaking from.
This is what you have to understand. Now, when you are quoting the Qur’an to me and saying, ‘Look, this is in the Qur’an!” – you cannot just take this verse on the punishment of thieves without understanding the way that I am reading it. I do not hear it the way you are quoting it. This verse exists – true – but must be understood in its objectives, the context in which it was uttered, and the conditions of existence at the time. In my viewtoday – and this is why I am asking for a moratorium on all the corporal and capital punishment in Islam – this is not now applicable. If I am willing to do that, then my perspective, my reading is something else that you have to take into account. This is also something to take into consideration.
oD: By emphasising that you can be a good Muslim and a good citizen at one and the same time, aren’t you bringing in by the back door the privatisation of religion which is standard in western societies but not in Muslim societies? Doesn’t at least this put you at odds with a lot of Islamic teaching?
TR: Your perception of private and public spheres, I am sorry to say, is not mine. I have spoken quite a lot about this in my most recent book. In the public sphere in the West today, you cannot say that no religion is visible. It is visible, and, by the way, should it be less visible? You have values, dogma, practises pertaining to the most intimate aspects of your private life which need to be respected. Then you also have a public life that could be nourished by these convictions. But at the same time, you have to respect the collective rationality which is the public sphere.
There is absolutely no problem with Islam in that regard. None. You suggest that in Islam the two are collapsed into each other. But this is a caricature, not a reality. From Islam’s very beginnings, you will find a clear distinction between the sphere of worship – the relationship to God; and the relationship to people – the public. There is a distinction in Islam, but there is no divorce.
So, when I am living as a European citizen, I respect the public sphere; and in that public sphere, I am nourished and inspired by my own convictions and try and be faithful to this. I am with God on Friday, but also on Saturday, on Sunday and on Monday – in which way? Not by imposing dogmas, but by having a certain way of life which is faithful to my ethics. I am speaking from within and trying to be consistent. That is exactly like you, isn’t it? You are trying to be consistent. Consistency is the best way to live.
So this is not a problem for Muslims. The problem for them now is that their practises are more visible than those of the Christians and the Jews. Take Ramadan – if we were to meet next October or November, it would not be possible for me to sit with you here. It is visible that I am practising my religion. Am I then a threat to the public sphere? Not at all. The public sphere, after all, is not telling you that you should be invisible. It is saying only that you must respect the collective rationality organising our sphere – and I am doing that. So, where is the problem? Let me tell you something – within the Islamic tradition, it is not a problem.
Next, you tell me, ‘But you can be criticised by Muslims!’ I am, but the challenge and opportunity for me is to speak to the Salafi, the traditionalists or some other radical groups, from within. I invite them to tell me their problems, so that I can quote our references, the verses of the Qur’an, the hadith, to them, and ask them to give me their further proofs. Today, the credentials I obtain within the Muslim community come directly from that encounter. I am speaking from within and trying to be consistent.
But do you really have to raise these questions from what looks suspiciously like an ‘Orientalist stance’? Can’t you accept what I say: that this contradiction between private and public is not one that we Muslims suffer from within this society. It really isn’t. I do not live this contradiction in my daily life. And I was born here in the west!
oD: You talk about various traps including ‘the dualist or binary approach’; ‘minority thinking’; and ‘integration as adaptation’… could you say a little bit more about those?
TR: Certainly. We do find in our tradition an emphasis on ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ which was perfectly normal during the Middle Ages. This was the geo-strategic reality. Now, I think this is the wrong approach in our world, and moreover that the main message from our sources suggests that this is not the right way to go. So if you compare models, societies, dress even, you can always cite this ‘Us ‘ versus ‘Them’. But I think it is the wrong way to go about things. My reading of the source when I go right back to the principles, is that such principles could be exactly the same, even though the way to translate these into any given culture or any given language might be different. So – the superficial approach – models and so on – could lead us to the conclusion that we have this binary vision of the world. But if we go back to the principles, we find that we have something in common.
For example, I am saying that the west today – and not only the west but the whole world – is Dar-Al-Shahada (the space where we bear testimony). Remain a Muslim if you want to and bear witness to the message of your religion before people. This is as urgent a requirement in Europe as it is anywhere else! S0 – I want to go beyond this perception that I am different from you, or that differences are the beginning and the end. Yes I am different. But let us understand that we have to go beyond that. It is simply not sustainable to live with this notion that as citizens we differ more than we have in common.
Within the Muslim community, it is my profound experience that this leads to psychological problems. Young Muslims are told in European literalist groups today, ‘It’s not your home. It is Dar Al-Harb (the realm of war). They are not Muslims’. These people are defining Muslim identity in opposition, so that the less you are westernised the more you are Muslimised. Do you see? You are required to build your identity versus the others, not relying first and foremost on your own principles.
This is why it is so important to be able to say that the Muslim identity, for example, is not based on superficial principles. This is why, in my earlier book, “ To Be a European Muslim’, I showed how the four principles of Islamic identity are totally open: grace, practice and spirituality; religion – understanding the text and the context; education and transmission; and the last one, action and participation. This means that you can have any cultural dress – European, African, American or Asian – but the principles are open. So with these principles, I can come to Switzerland, and learn everything that belongs to this culture, or the French culture or literature – and I can take ownership of everything which does not contradict my principles. So this is not a binary vision any more. This is what I refer to as the ‘principle of integration’ – everything which is good is mine. If you have a bad idea – it remains yours!
The source of a good idea doesn’t matter: what matters is that it is a good idea. That is what should be important. And this is the first level of what we need to understand about our practical and daily lives.
oD: One of the criticisms that Dyab Abou Jahjah said he had with your work was that he felt you neglected ‘ethno-cultural identity’ and that this was a route to assimilation. He of course talks a lot about the Arab nation. I wondered what your relationship was to that strain in Arab thinking?
TR: What I have understood about him and the other people I met from that part of Europe, is that he is much more nationalist in his thinking. It is as if they have to spend their time promoting and depending on our Arab culture. I have never said anything against that in itself. But there is one problem. If this culture is going to be protected as if it contained nothing but difference from the surrounding culture – then this will not help anyone.
I am Egyptian. I took my kids with me to Egypt, and I consider my culture a richness. But we do not only have one culture. We are not either Arab or European. I was born in Switzerland, but I am very close to my Egyptian culture, which is a richness for me. We have multi-dimensional identities. Not only one. So let it be a richness and not an oppression.
He speaks about the culture of ‘Arabness’ almost obsessionally, as if he and it were at risk in European society. My reply would be, ‘No, we can keep our culture. But let the people understand that you are not the less a Muslim because you are less strongly linked to your culture of origin. For example, you are no less Muslim, indeed no less a blossoming personality.’ If this is the feeling he is giving the people, at the very moment when you might feel most in accordance with the society you are now living in, it means that you must feel that you are somehow forgetting or betraying your legacy. That is wrong.
oD: Is that what you mean by minority thinking?
TR: It could lead to that. Take the European Council for Research and Fatwas set up in 1997. They have been proposing something called ‘fiqh al-aqalliyyat’ – ‘the law and jurisprudence of minorities’ – and I have a real problem, a doctrinal problem, with this notion.
When you come to understand the European landscape and its social fabric through living in such a country, you are not a minority citizen. You are, simply, a citizen. This is precisely the point where we must say, ‘We have values coming from the Islamic tradition’, and these values we hold in common with our fellow-citizens, and the whole of society. When I call for social justice to remove racism and discrimination from these societies, I am invoking majority values, not minority values. I spend quite a lot of time with green parties, discussing bio-ethics, social justice, discrimination and racism – because I can understand these problems we have in common. So don’t tell me that I am speaking as a Muslim. I am speaking as a citizen, the same as you, as much as you.
So let us have no more of this talk about ‘minority belonging’. To tell you the truth, I think that governments and indeed the majority, often try and push Muslims into speaking and feeling as minorities. But we have to stop this, and to speak as citizens.
It is moreover, no accident that my latest book is entitled ‘Western Muslims and the Future of Islam’. What we are coming up with, as European Muslims, as European or American citizens, is going to help Muslims in general in the future. Even if we speak from the places where we are numerically in a minority, we are coming up with new answers which can really help people in Morocco, Indonesia or Jordan, three places I visited this last summer. It is very useful for the Muslims there. There is no such thing as a minority answer, and a majority answer which is different. Let us be consistent.
But to return to Dyab Abou Jahjah – the problem I have with his kind of pastoral attitude is that it keeps alive a feeling of unease: it stokes it. He is always speaking about culture as a problem. And I am speaking about culture and cultures as a richness.
Of course, culture is a problem as well. It is sometimes hard to know how to deal with it. But the principles behind our cultures of origin are a richness. However, if you become obsessed by these cultures, your fellow-citizens begin to wonder whether there is some risk involved for them. Everyone gets jumpy. On the contrary, people need to understand that the presence of all these north Africans, or Pakistani people amongst us are not going to be any kind of risk for the dominant culture, but a richness: because diversity is vital.
oD: One of the reasons why Abou Jahjah takes the stance that he does is that Antwerp is a pretty tough place to be for the Muslim community. So a ‘militant multiculturalism’ – a phrase he is willing to espouse – will come fairly naturally.
In your own experience you are not uncontroversial, even in the places where you are deeply respected. In France, for example, you have been under attack from sections of the intelligentsia, including Jewish intellectuals.
TR: (Laughs mordantly) You are following this – huh?
oD: Trying to… I suppose what I want to say is that in these societies in Europe, there is a gathering movement towards official ‘monoculturalism’ – the attempt to preserve a homogeneous national identity, coupled with the exclusion of all sorts of people. So in this increasingly acute situation, is it not difficult for you to persuade the people who are listening to you and who are eager to work out what they can expect in terms of their future, that they are not actually involved in a battle…?
TR: Yes. I am controversial. I take that for granted, because I know why I am. It is because so many of my ideas are new for Muslims, but also quite new for European society. Europeans today have the feeling that they are no longer at home, with all the millions of Muslims coming and asking for rights and demanding to be visible. My deep feeling is that the questions that arise do so from a psychological problem and a fear.
There are two options. The first is to withdraw from society and try to organise yourself at the margins. But I would counter this by saying that if you yourself wish to remain in these countries where there is fear and misunderstanding, you have to face up to these challenges and try and do your job.
With what happened to me in the last five months, many Muslims are thinking and saying to me, ‘If they don’t want to speak to you – they won’t want to speak to all of us!’ They know, you see, how much I am criticised within the Muslim community by the more literalist. But the point is that this is a transition period. An identity crisis within the European psyche is coinciding with exactly the same kind of crisis within the Muslim communities. We have two identity crises: who are we and who are we? What do we want – what will be our future – and what will be our future? So exactly the same questions.
To create bridges between these two realities, you put yourself in a very specific situation. The risk is to be criticised by both sides, which is happening now. And some Muslims do indeed have the feeling that there is no point, that it is not going to work. But the great majority of Muslim organisations (this is why I refer to it, by the way, as a silent revolution) face up to the challenges and know what they have to do, among them, many Muslim women.
When people like what I am doing they say to me, ‘ Oh, your ideas are great. But you are alone!’. When they don’t like it, they say, ‘Be careful of this man because behind him there are huge numbers of people.’ And the reality is that I am just at the forefront of something which is coming from the Muslim leaders themselves.
During this last year, I trained more than three hundred Muslims leaders, many of them women. It is going to be difficult, but the future is this. They are working on the ground, and here also in Britain, over the last year, we have tutored upwards of a hundred leaders, and met with many more during our seminars in which we prepare them for this work of building these bridges.
I think it will be a very slow process. Some of them have the impression that we are totally misled and misleading the community. And others, who are now a majority among the Muslim organisations, see that it is really the only way to go.
In America, I am working with students in 28 universities. These people are trying to do the same thing. But this is also something we are doing in the South. In the end of July, we will be in Africa, with more than 24 delegations coming from every corner of Africa, helping them to understand that this is what we are trying to do.
It is difficult yes – and the Salafi, our literalists – are saying that this is totally wrong and they don’t want us to do that and we don’t need to be integrated. But this is not a path designed primarily to please them. This is a path which we are taking because it is the way to respect ourselves and the Other too. It works. In my mind really, it will be the future.
oD: When you published your statement, ‘Criticism of the New Communitarian Intellectual’, did you feel that there was a new concerted campaign, ostensibly against ‘anti-Semitism’, which you had to address? What is your reading of the barrage of criticism directed against you in France? Was it designed to alienate your partners in the anti-globalisation movement? And how do you see this discussion shaping up, if at all?
TR: For the last ten years what I have been doing at the grass roots level was to criticise every slightest appearance of a discourse supporting anti-Semitism in the name of Islam. This is what I have done, and what I am doing. There are three journalists who have taken a particular interest in me. The only American journalist, who spent one week with me, said at the time, ‘At the very moment when they are saying that he is ‘anti-Semitic’, I have seen him with my own eyes speaking to thousands of Muslims and saying that this is un-Islamic.’
It is really important to say this. It must be possible for us to be critical towards Israel, as we are critical towards Saudi Arabia – without it meaning that we are Judaeo-phobic or anti-Semitic, or Islamaphobic. I can’t stress this more than I am doing. We give no support towards any kind of anti-Semitism or racism. There is no hierarchy between racisms. We have to struggle against all this kind of stuff, every manifestation.
So what was I trying to do when I published this piece? I knew I would provoke a reaction, although I had no idea that it would be so extreme – five months of barracking day in day out without pause. By the way, my title was the following, ‘A Critique of the New, Communitarian Intellectual’. Nowhere in this title did I mention the word, Jewish, because when I wrote I already knew that at least one of these people was not Jewish: that was Tagiev?, the person who had declared that, ‘Three million Muslims represent three million potential extremists.’
What I wanted to point out was that these erstwhile universalist intellectuals were now becoming communitarian in a specific way – they were targeting the Muslim community as the source of a new anti-Semitism in Europe. The last sentence of my concluding paragraph was quite clear: ‘The future belongs to those who from the Jewish, Christian, Muslim or atheist agora will rise up from their respective communities, and come together on a common ground against any and every form of racism’.
This, by the way is what I personally am trying to do. This was my last sentence. Immediately this was published, I was targeted for two weeks as ‘anti-Semitic’. Let me tell you, it did not achieve its purpose with my anti-globaliser partners: it didn’t work. They said, ‘No, this article is not anti-Semitic’.
So when that didn’t work, they cast around for some fresh ammunition, and finally turned their attention to my grandfather and to my brother. Then they moved on to my views on women and feminism, and ended up casting aspersions on what they pinpointed as my relationship with radical groups! They wanted to destroy me and not to answer my challenge to them. So, when ‘anti-Semitism’ didn’t do its job, then I was ‘the grandson of …’. When I was invited to discuss secularism with Nicolas Sarkozy, all of a sudden he turns on me with, ‘Your brother said this…’. The trouble with this is that the Muslim communities see this treatment and hear the allegations that they are being labelled potential anti-Semitic extremists, and this can only contribute to a downward spiral in relations. They no longer want to talk to anyone. This is the situation we have to deal with now.
How can we move away from this new image of ourselves as ‘potentially anti-Semitic’ and ‘potentially extremist’? That is the question now. In the past five or six months by the way, this article has proved quite helpful in allowing me to enter the Muslim community with some clarifying distinctions and formulations, and also an idea of a bottom line at which point we have to stand up and ask for our rights, and not just let ourselves be victimised. This was a really formative experience: a great experience in many ways!
oD: You are about to embark on a new professorship at Notre Dame University in the USA. This removes you a little bit from the European stage. What new chances does that afford you?
TR: It is not so new. For the last five years I have been involved in American Muslim organisations, and particularly in Afro-American organisations. These are very important for me and every month or six weeks, I am there.
Part of my work as Director of a new programme, called, ‘Religion, Conflict and Peace-building’, will be to remain close to Europe. I will keep my office in Paris and continue that work, even though my base moves to Notre Dame. Now I will be coming back to Europe every month or six weeks.
Indeed it is vital that these contrasting western experiences are put side by side. We need to gather some people together, and this is what I want. I want a Permanent Standing Committee in Notre Dame, let’s say, bringing people from Europe together with those in North America two or three times a year to study in this field and arrive at a shared understanding of what is going on and how we can change things. So it is not at all an abandonment of the reality of Europe. Exactly the opposite is what is expected of me, and what I want to do.
This is the future! Of course, I don’t know how long I will stay, because it is not necessarily that easy for a Muslim to live in North America nowadays. I will see how it goes.
oD: And you are still involved in organising the European Social Forum in London this autumn?
TR: Yes indeed: I’ll be back here for that.
Tariq Ramadan. Until accepting his recent professorship at Notre Dame University, Professor of Philosophy at the College of Geneva and Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. Author of numerous books including ‘To be a European Muslim’ and in 2004, ‘Western Muslims & the Future of Islam’ (OUP). In 2000, named as one of Time‘s 100 most important innovators for the twenty-first century.
