Free Republic

London, August 27: A Muslim scholar banned from the United States is to take up a post at Britain's prestigious University of Oxford, his college said today. Tariq Ramadan has been elected to a visiting fellowship (general) at St Antony's College for the coming academic year and is expected to begin work in October. "Professor Ramadan is an internationally-recognised scholar," St Antony's College, Oxford, said in a statement. "He was named by Time magazine as one of 100 innovators of the 21st century for his work on creating an independent European Islam. "He was recently appointed to a prestigious chair...

Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, by Caroline Fourest; foreword by Denis MacShane (Encounter Books, 262 pp., $23.95) In the 1990s, Western liberals, alarmed at the presence of Islamic fundamentalists in their midst, turned in desperation to Muslims whom they dubbed “reformers” or “modernizers.” They hoped that these figures would have a moderating influence on disaffected Muslim youths who refused to integrate into Western society. One such “reformer” is Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss-born academic. Ramadan has won the confidence of many in the West, including the British government, which asked him to serve on its task force for...