Tariq Ramadan

The rise and fall of Tariq Ramadan

From our UK edition

There has been so much news of late that stories which might once have caused a splash have sailed by all but unnoticed. One in particular seems worthy of bringing into a greater light, not least because it has been almost entirely ignored by the English-language media. Tariq Ramadan is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. In recent years he was probably the most famous Muslim intellectual in the West. Last month, a court in Paris found him guilty of the rape of three women and sentenced him to 18 years in prison. To Islamic audiences he preached one message, to western audiences he told another The case is the culmination of several trials since allegations were first made against him in 2017.

Sharia law and the relative mercies of French justice

For many years, the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Tariq Ramadan, has been one of my closest enemies. In Switzerland and France this Islamist dauphin had a slightly hard time establishing his reputation. This was not just due to his poor scholarship (the basis of which lay in a fawning book about his grandad) but also to his double-speak in public debate and (at best) borderline Islamist views. In France these views were most famously exposed in a television debate with Nicolas Sarkozy in which Ramadan infamously could not bring himself to condemn the stoning of adulterers outright, merely calling for a ‘moratorium’ on the punishment.