Tariq Ramadan
Tariq Ramadan
Tariq Ramadanis a Swiss academic, philosopher and writer. He is the professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies at St Antony's College, Oxford and also teaches at the Oxford Faculty of Theology. He is a visiting professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies, the Université Mundiapolisand several other universities around world. He is also a senior research fellow at Doshisha University. He is the director of the Research Centre of Islamic Legislation and Ethics, based in...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth26 August 1962
CountrySwitzerland
Because ethics is fundamentally about questioning the ends, the goals and aims of our actions, we must come back to the rules and ask why. So we must return to the philosophy of law, the raison d'etre and the point of what we're asked to do. It's not easy, it's very demanding and it needs intellectual courage.
If you read the Qur'an with your head, you find repetition. If you read it with your heart, you find depth.
A true teacher doesn't teach you to think like him, but to think without him.
There is nothing more Islamic than critical thinking.
Pray in the night so that you can change the world in the day
We should say to the West: "You have been supporting dictators for too many years. Don't expect the people to introduce democracy over night. It is going to take time." It took time with the French revolution, it took time with the Eastern European revolutions. And it is going to take time there.
The very moment you understand that being a Muslim and being American or European are not mutually exclusive, you enrich your society. Promote the universal principles of justice and freedom, and leave the societies elsewhere to find their model of democracy based on their collective psychology and cultural heritage.
Arabic is the language of the Qur'an, but Arab culture is not the culture of Islam.
We should not treat people as they treat us, we should treat them better.
The most dangerous prisons are those with invisible bars
Modesty is the way you deal with beauty not the way you avoid it.
Stand up for your values, be courageous and humble
The West hasn't been naïve, it has been patronizing the South by imposing its own views on what should be done - ironically after having been so close and so supportive of dictators who were not respecting the people.
Compelling a woman to wear a headscarf is against Islam, and compelling her to remove it is against human rights.