The Flight of the Intellectuals

The Flight of the Intellectuals: The Controversy Over Islamism and the Press by Paul Berman, Melville House, 2010. 

Cowardice

This book is about how many Western public intellectuals have been afraid to oppose political Islam. It focuses on the Swiss-Muslim intellectual, Tariq Ramadan, and the Western intellectuals who have embraced him as a proponent of moderate Islam. European intellectuals have embraced moderate Islamist Tariq Ramadan, rather than Enlightenment champion Ayaan Hirsi Ali, because European intellectuals are cowards. Berman points out that Tariq Ramadan has lived a sheltered life, raised in Switzerland, while Ali grew up in poverty in Africa. Ayaan saw Islam in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya. So she has first-hand knowledge of what living under Islam is like, while Ramadan just sits in his comfortable armchair in Europe reading books about Islam.

Voltaire

Tariq Ramadan became famous in 1993 for opposing the production of Voltaire’s play: Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet.

Hassan al-Banna

Tariq’s father Said Ramadan was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Said Ramadan married the eldest daughter (Wafa) of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus, Tariq Ramadan’s grandfather was Hassan al-Banna. Hassan al-Banna was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hassan al-Banna supported the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, in the 1936 Arab Revolt against the Zionists and the British in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood extended the rioting against the Jews to Cairo. The reason that Tariq was raised in Switzerland, was that his father Said had fled there to avoid persecution by the government of Egypt for being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi

Tariq Ramadan is a fan of the writings of his grandfather, Hassan al-Banna, and also of religious scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Qatar. Berman points out in an amusing aside that Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi once issued a fatwa saying that it was permissible for women not to wear the hijab when being a suicide bomber.

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali

Tariq Ramadan admires Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, a Persian Muslim thinker who discouraged his fellow Muslims from studying the ancient Greek philosophers. Tariq Ramadan favors Islamic biology over Darwin.

Sayyid Qutb

Tariq Ramadan blames Arab terrorism not the Muslim Brotherhood, but instead on another writer, Sayyid Qutb.

Stoning Women

During a televised debate in 2003 with French politician Nicolas Sarkozy, Tariq Ramadan stated that he favors a moratorium on stoning women, so that Muslim religious leaders can discuss whether to continue or abolish the practice. Any man with a genuine respect for women would have instead called for the immediate and permanent elimination of the stoning of women. Tariq thus accidentally revealed his true colors.

Wearing the Veil

On civil libertarian grounds, Tariq Ramadan holds the opinion that women in France should be free to decide for themselves whether to wear head scarves or not. But only if wearing scarves in public places is made illegal, will Muslim women be able to stand up to pressure from their families to be a good, submissive, modest Muslim woman.

Western Supporters of Tariq Ramadan

• Timothy Garton Ash (historian of Eastern Europe)

• Stéphanie Giry (editor at the International New York Times)

• Ian Buruma (Dutch historian, specializing in Asia)

Western Critics of Tariq Ramadan

• Caroline Fourest (author of Frére Tariq)

• Paul Landau (author of The Saber and the Koran)

• Pascal Bruckner (author of The Tears of the White Man)

• Ulrike Ackermann, political scientist

• L’Antoine Sfeir, Franco-Lebanese journalist

• Nick Cohen, British journalist, author of What’s Left?

• Daniel Pipes, American scholar of the Middle East