Tariq Ramadan, an influential Islamist speaker and writer, is to move from the UK to the Netherlands, it was announced on Tuesday.
The University of Leiden, the leading Dutch university, has offered Ramadan a chair in Islamic studies. The position is funded by the Sultan of Oman.
Ramadan came to the UK in 2005 to take up a fellowship at Oxford University. Initially acclaimed as a reformist who could help the British government tackle Islamic extremism, he will leave the UK having failed to meet these high expectations.
After the 7 July bombings, Ramadan was invited to sit on a government taskforce to tackle extremism - even though he had on many occasions defended Islamic suicide attacks against civilians in Israel and the West.
He was however publicly defended from his critics by liberals such as David Goodhart, the editor of Prospect, who wrote in June 2006 that "we need Tariq Ramadan, indeed we need many more Tariq Ramadans, if a true Euro-Islam is to take root."
By 2007, however, many of Ramadan's supporters were tired of his double-speak; his refusal to condemn either Islamic terrorism or the stoning of adulterous women.
In June 2007, Goodhart, disillusioned to find that Ramadan was not the "Muslim Martin Luther" which some had believed, wrote:
"You, I thought, were different. You were modern, confident, educated, in favour of Muslim integration against religious and ethnic balkanisation ... I was wrong about you."
Before coming to the UK, Ramadan, a Swiss national, was based in France where he gained great influence before the French intelllengsia analysed his message and found it wanting.
Caroline Fourest, a French writer who analysed 15 of Tariq Ramadan's books, 1,500 pages of his interviews, and approximately 100 recordings had concluded: "Ramadan is a war leader".
Malek Boutih, the former head of the French antiracism organization SOS Racisme, told Ramadan after talking with him at length: "Mr. Ramadan, you are a fascist".
Ramadan came to the UK promising to bring communities closer together. It will be interesting to see if he will be any more successful in the Netherlands.
Hugh Fitzgerald has a comment about this:
" A Chair for Tariq Ramadan, bought and paid for ":-
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/11164
well iam a women and i have adegree in islamic study and i like the philosophy of dr TARIQ RAMADAN
Thank you for your skewed article of hate and lies about Mr. Ramadan! and thank you for relaying Malek Boutih a nobody and Caroline Fourest's opinions, a known lesbian and feminist and an ardent muslim hater.
Additional information on Tariq Ramadan:
The particular chair offered to Tariq Ramadan in Leiden is funded by the Sultan of Oman. It is not in the Department of Oriental Studies, but in Religious Stuidies.
Anyway, Ramadan declined, for reasons that are not entirely clear. In his place a Dutch Arabist, Maurits Berger was appointed.
It should be noted that Ramadan holds at present a temporary part-time professorship at the Erasmus University at Rotterdam.