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Jewish World Review August 27, 2004 / 10 Elul, 5764 Prominent Islamist scholar banned from America — but for how long? By Daniel Pipes
The Department of Homeland Security is revoking a visa issued to a man Time magazine named as one of the world's top hundred scientists and thinkers. But the State Department is encouraging him to reapply in a different manner The Swiss scholar is Tariq Ramadan. He is Islamist royalty - his maternal grandfather (Hasan al-Banna) founded the Muslim Brotherhood, probably the single most powerful Islamist institution of the twentieth century, in Egypt in 1928. Tariq is a Swiss citizen because his father (Sa'id Ramadan), also a leading Islamist, fled from Egypt in 1954 following a crackdown on the brotherhood. Sa'id reached Geneva in 1958, where Tariq was born in 1962. Thanks to his pedigree and his talents, Tariq has emerged as a significant force in his own right. Symbolic of this, Time magazine in April named him one of the world's top hundred scientists and thinkers. And so, when Notre Dame University went looking for a Henry R. Luce professor of religion, conflict and peacebuilding, it unsurprisingly settled on Ramadan. Its offer was made and accepted by the beginning of 2004; a work visa followed in February. Ramadan bought a house, found schools for his four children, and dispatched his personal effects to South Bend, Indiana. He was supposed to start teaching a few days ago. But on July 28, just nine days before the Ramadans were to leave for the United States, Ramadan was informed that the DHS had revoked his work visa. A DHS spokesman, Russ Knocke, later explained this had been done in accord with a law that denies entry to aliens who have used a "position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity." The revocation, Knocke added, was based on "public safety or national security interests. Of course, Ramadan dismisses the revocation as "unjustified" and due to "political pressure." (He even blames me for the DHS decision.) What's up? The DHS knows much more than I do, but it is not talking. A review of the press, however, gives an idea of what the problem is. Here are some reasons why Ramadan might have been kept out: And here are other reasons, dug up by Jean-Charles Brisard, a former French intelligence officer doing work for some of the 9/11 families, as reported in Le Parisien: Ramadan denies all ties to terrorism, but the pattern is clear. As Lee Smith writes in The American Prospect, he is a cold-blooded Islamist whose "cry of death to the West is a quieter and gentler jihad, but it's still jihad." These reasons explain why Americans should thank DHS for keeping Tariq Ramadan out of the United States. But the story is not over: the State Department has in effect encouraged Ramadan to reapply for a different type of visa, making the recent developments probably just round one of a drawn-out match.
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JWR contributor Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and the author of several books, most recently, "Miniatures: Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.).
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© 2004, Daniel Pipes
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