Radical Middle Way Transcripts

Professor Tariq Ramadan on:

‘Living as British Muslims in the 21st Century’

15th November 2007, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London

[Opening du’ā]

Al-Salām ‘alaykum

Sisters and brothers, I am happy to be here this evening, especially after the three
first presentations, dealing with the local dimension of the Muslim presence, like
what you are trying to do here with the Muslim Forum; it’s part of what I want to
deal with here tonight and the whole global picture of dealing with our society in
Britain, and of course about the creative dimensions that you’re promoting through
your work. Brother Peter Saunders and I think this is also part of the way we have to
deal with being Muslim in the 21st Century.

As I think it’s important to have time for questions and answers, I will try to keep it
as short as possible and to just highlight some of the points I wanted to make this
evening.

I have been thinking about being Muslim in the 21st Century and facing challenges
not only here in the West but also in the Islāmic majority countries and for years
when I was in Egypt and sitting with scholars for hours and hours, going through all
the Islamic Sciences, going from the ‘Ulūm Al-Qur’ān and ‘Ulūm al-Hadīth and Fiqh,
which I started to specialise in.

The point was always clear – that we have this very important and deep legacy, but
we also face current challenges and must find a way. We rely on the past and also
great Scholars, but we have challenges, and it’s up to us to try and find a way towards
faithfulness.

The first thing that became clear for me, having spent hours with Scholars, the
Muslim Community and the surrounding society, is that we have a great problem of
knowledge, but also terminology; the way in which we translate Arabic references
and Qur’ānic references. Translation is not just about the translation of words, but
also the multi-dimensional reality, when it comes to the religious references, the
spiritual dimension, and also the way we are dealing with the surrounding society.
Translation isn’t just one language to another; it’s the concepts within the language
that help us understand Islam. For an Arabic audience, or even an English audience,
a French audience – the way we translate is conveying the way we understand. And
it’s clear that because we don’t always know how to deal with all the pressures, we
produce something that is a very reductive way to translate words and terminology. I
think the way we translate the concept of Islām is wrong, as well as the
interconnections and the priorities.
I really think that if there is a challenge for us in the 21st Century, it’s something that
must come not only from Scholars, but every single man and woman; our religion is
not a religion of elites; it’s the religion of every single mind and every single heart.
It’s to come back to the understanding of the terminologies, the objectives and the
priorities – the higher objectives of our religion. Why are we here? What do we want
to achieve? What do we want to achieve in this world and in Britain? In fact it’s to
come back to our roots, not only to tell people about what Islām is not, but what
Islām is about: the multiple dimensions.

Of all the problems we face – radicalisation, isolation, integration – are part of a

psychological crisis because of the lack of knowledge and the lack of deep
understanding of our religion. The whole process of this religion is about liberation
from all kinds of alienation. And the first enemy is your own ego. The second is that
you view the world from your own personal viewpoint – which is a lack of humility.
The first sin in Islām is not a mistake, it’s a state of mind; a state of heart. It’s
arrogance.
We need to come to this spiritual dimension for us to be able to contribute to our
society and spread what the Prophet (saw) was spreading ‘ifshū Al-Salam beynakum’
spread peace between you and the people and everywhere. At the end of the day, the
highest objective of Islām is peace, and Islām there is salām and istislām. But there
are conditions to get that inner peace, social peace, collective peace – starting with
the peace within; to be at peace with Him, to be at peace with our own selves, and
then to be at peace with the people around us.

The first challenge is this one. It’s really this introspection that we need today. To
come to deep faith from a very critical understanding of our religion; the concepts we
are using, the objectives we are trying to achieve, and what we have to contribute in
our societies.

Having said that, we are always speaking about the social dimensions and what we
have to promote, but we all know that the priority is the spiritual dimension.

I was born in Europe; I went back to my country of origin, Egypt, just to be far from
the world and close to knowledge, which is what I needed. I needed this, and I know
how many, many young Muslims need exactly the same. Sometimes they feel lost in
this Universe of materialistic dimensions, consumerism and lost identities – I went
through all this; not being representative of what was happening at a grass roots
level. Why? Because I came from a family where knowledge was everywhere. I was
born in a family where there were no walls; everything was books – books
everywhere, and still, books were nothing if you didn’t have this psychological
strength that came from spiritual peace. This is the way I understood it and this is
why I went back to get this knowledge and understanding. And now when I’m in
Europe I’m dealing with the Communities, travelling around everywhere and the
same spiritual crisis, psychological disturbances and questions are there. The same.
The younger generations are asking us, ‘how do we deal with this?’ and then we have
to face the reality of the first main crisis, ‘How to be a Muslim in the 21st Century.’ We
need to think about how to transmit the spiritual message of our religion, how to
spread peace and confidence and trust in our societies. The starting point is
confidence. And confidence is what? It’s not just to not be scared of the people first,
but it’s also a matter of trusting Him in a spiritual sense: tawwakul ‘alā Allah. It’s to
know that if he can do it, you can do it, and at the end of the day, you have to do
whatever you can. For the Muslims living in our communities in the UK, it’s about
not waiting for someone to come with the answers to our questions; it’s about asking
questions but saying we have the knowledge and the skills and the people who are
able to respond to our questions. We have to do what we have to do, to face up to the
challenges of our time.

We need to look at the past – for example what you said about the Muslim
contribution in Europe is essential – but there are two ways to deal with the past, one
is to rely on the past and tell ourselves how great we were. The other way is to look at
the past and use it to reconcile with ourselves today. The past is not an excuse for our
current failures. It should be something inspiring what we have to do, and this is
confidence. This is something that today, is a challenge everywhere within European
and Western societies. So we have to ask ourselves, how can we do that?

It’s not only through national discourses – these lectures are very important – but at
the end of the day it’s a daily process. To deal with the communities, deal with the
people, listen to their questions. You showed us the photographs that were
representative of our society in Britain, and I think there are many people working at
the grass roots level, who are very anonymous. They’re not here to speak, but there
are people who speak too much and don’t do enough.

You mentioned Sharifa and how she has been working for years with the Muslim
Youth Helpline, and I have been there. I’ve listened to people who say that the
problems are deep. The problems aren’t only about fatwa’s, this is halāl, that isn’t
halāl – it’s not like this. People don’t want to feel guilty after asking their questions;
they want to be heard and the problem is we are building a community on the
defensive, obsessed with ‘norms’ and forgetting meanings. We have to reconcile
ourselves with meanings, and through those meanings, we can understand what is
meant by ‘norms’. We have norms without meanings, and meanings without the right
norms.

This is the first challenge for Muslims in the 21st Century, and then we have the
pressure of radicalisation and terrorism. We are so under pressure that we become
defensive, when the Islāmic discourse should be about responding to questions from
people who are already judgemental. This is the liberation that is needed now. We
need to say that we are going to answer the legitimate questions of the people around
us because they are legitimate questions – of course they are. When people look at
the Muslim communities and what they see on television in their living rooms every
day about violence and discrimination against women, they do ask legitimate
questions. But we have to try and liberate ourselves of this pressure to come forward
with a deep, spiritual and psychological message, with which we are able to say what
we stand for and what we want. We need to be able to deal with this transmission of
the values that are promoted by our religion.
We don’t speak enough about love, or learning to love. When you come to the Islāmic
Message, you need to attain peace, but to get peace is to learn to love. It’s not enough
to love your father or mother; there is one way to love them but you have to learn to
love them more. You follow in the footsteps of the Prophet and you hear about him –
you say sall Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam – but the words are not enough. You have to
come back to yourself and ask ‘is he dear to my heart?’ Am I missing him? Am I
following him? Because in the Qur’an, the connection between love and him and even
God, is referred to through a comparison of the way you can love your fathers and
mothers, your relatives, because this is something which is quite natural. But from
natural it has to become spiritual. And the difference between a natural love and a
spiritual love is that the spiritual love is a constant exercise – deeper and deeper and
deeper.

And this is something that is really, really important.

When someone had a problem with this father, the Prophet said ‘anta wa māluk li
abik - You and all your money belong to your father’. It’s a spiritual journey to love
your father and mother – it’s not easy. It’s as difficult as it is to come to your spiritual
meaning. And this is why we have to promote all of this – it’s essential in our daily
religion. So when we speak about spirituality in our daily life, and when we speak
about love, we speak about brotherhood. When Muslims are in their community they
are always speaking about brotherhood. But it is one thing to speak about
brotherhood, and it’s another to experience brotherhood. Sometimes when people
listen to me, they think it’s a modern way to speak about brotherhood. In Nawawi,
the Ahādīth speak about the Prophet (saw) having said ‘you will not complete your
faith as long as you don’t love for your brother what you love for yourself- La
yu’minu ahadukum hata yuhib li akhihi ma yuhibu li nafsihi. He also mentioned
that the meaning was for your brother in humanity, Al-Akhuwa Al-Insāniya means
not only your brothers and sisters in Islām. You have to spread this beyond the
community. It’s a personal message of love, not a community message of love merely
saying ‘we love each other’ inside and not outside. You may dislike what your brother
or sister in humanity is doing but you have to love who she is and who he is. Because
beyond everything he or she is doing, he or she are signs of God, in front of you.
You may not like what Einstein was saying when he denied God, but in his mind you
can see a powerful message of God, because he was so bright and contributing to our
humanity. These are challenges today. And it’s not far from our daily life – it’s how to
be a British Muslim. It’s the way to be a British Muslim – the way we deal with
spirituality, the way we deal with love, and with brotherhood. And to be able to
liberate ourselves from this defensive attitude and come to a more peaceful, open
attitude out of our message of Islām.

The last point of this positive message of Islām is to contribute. I’m sorry, but I’m no
longer speaking about integration. I speak about integration to deny integration
because integration is a success when we stop talking about it. You stop talking about
integration; it means that we are beyond something. The most important thing of the
picture that we saw is that every man and woman is giving something to his or her
community. The central word is contribution.

Li tukūnū shuhadā’ ‘alā Al-Nās in order for you to bear witness to your message in
front of people, this is what you have to do; a witness gives something. It could be a
question, it could be a gift, and he or she gives something to the society.

At the end of the day, the future of Britain, the future of our Western Societies, are all
one society of the same hopes the same dreams. What we want is peace, justice,
human dignity, we want to be treated with dignity, and this is what we all want. And
the point is to ask ourselves what we are doing to contribute to the future of our
society. So I should not accept someone pushing me to be a potential suspect every
time, no. It’s to be free, it’s to be a citizen, it’s to struggle for our rights, and to be able
to say that what we want is to be treated with respect, and we will be treating others
with respect because this is all part of the Islāmic Message.

This is the starting point of this challenge is a state of mind; it’s building an attitude,
confidence, spirituality, giving to people. ‘I may disagree with what you are doing
but I will respect who you are and I will give to this society.’ We need to be able to
read our tradition and add to this tradition things that were possible to be thought of
in previous times because people weren’t dealing with the same challenges. This is
our contribution, not only to our societies, but to all the Islāmic traditions. We have
to come with new ideas and be creative, we have to come with new understandings
when it comes to new challenges.

We cannot sit here and say we’re not imitators, but at the end of the day, we imitate.
And we don’t come with something that’s a new dimension. Let me give you an
example, for the last few months, I’ve been working on Islāmic ethics. And just
before this I wrote a book on the Prophet’s (saw) life and I changed my mind on
something. For years I was saying that the main concept of Islām and today I know
that justice is just a condition of peace. The highest level is inner peace, which we are
all struggling to reach.

From studying Islāmic ethics and looking at what the scholars have been trying to
say for years, we can say that from looking at the world today, don’t we have to
reassess the whole apparatus when it comes to the Islāmic ethical challenges of
today? Why is it so important? Because scholars in the 12th Century – and you
mentioned Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali – was one of the greatest scholars that we had. His
teacher was Al-Juwaini and after him Al-Shattabi. Al-Shattabi was a European
Scholar. And they were trying to deal with the principles of Islām. They way they
used to try and extract the principles of Islam was through the texts and to
understand only from the texts. If you look at the punishments in the Qur’an and the
Sunnah, there are some very strong ones in different areas. By induction, they tried
to extract the highest objective of Islam by reading where the Islamic punishments
were. For example, they said that if you are dealing with someone who is leaving his
or her religion (which at the time was the majority’s understanding of the
consequences of changing religion) the first principle to be protected, is the dīn, your
religion. And then you can’t drink alcohol. You can’t go against something that is part
of your personal integrity, which is the second principle.
The principles they set were in response to the punishments we are given when we
betray them. This was done from the 12th century to before the 14th century. It’s clear
that today, the principles are still the same. But look at our reality today, and look at
all the discussions about global warming. Look at our nature and God’s creations,
asking for more respect. We know the Qur’an says this, and that the Prophet (saw)
was so, so strong on this; respecting the cats, respecting dogs, fruit trees, respecting
nature. One other is respecting water: when making ablution Islam asks that we
respect the water and not waste it. This was the main principle of Islām.

We live in a time when nature is asking us ‘how are you treating me?’ and this is the
Book of God, the Revelation. The World and the Universe is a book, it is in fact the
first Revelation.
We are even wrong in the way we translate ayah in Arabic; we say in English that
this is a verse, but the word ‘verse’ comes from versification – the Bible has been
versified. This is not the Arabic. In the Arabic ayah means signs. And signs is exactly
the word we are using for the world. There are signs in the world and there are signs
in the book, and there are two books and two revelations if we understand the
holistic meaning of Islām.

The world is talking to us and telling us we need something that is applied ethics.
Where are the Muslims? Where are the western Muslims who should be here
answering these questions? It’s not going to come from Africa, it’s not going to come
from poor countries – it’s going to come from people living in the more industrialised
societies. But we are lacking confidence, so we don’t have the answers to deep
questions. And we expect someone to come and to give us this.

We have lack of confidence, lack of knowledge, and we’re therefore not dealing with
the current, deep questions – which are universal questions. So we have to decide
with all these dimensions: the spiritual which is concerned with contribution, and the
highest principles of Islām.

The conclusion here will be that in Britain, we are part of global message that is part
of our daily lives. This other discussion is over – are we law abiding? Yes. Are you
accepting the British culture? Yes. Are you integrating? Yes. Are you selective with
the British culture? Yes – just as every other British citizen is. What is good for me, I
will take, what isn’t good for me, I won’t take. Every single British person is doing
that.

All of these types of discussions are over. Now we have to go with a dynamic,
offensive message – offensive in the positive, constructive sense – exacting what we
want and what we stand for.
One other thing that I keep repeating to every other European citizen, but on one
occasion I was saying to people in the United States a few years ago, is that our
loyalty to our countries should not be disputed or disrespected; we are loyal to our
countries because we are loyal to our principles. But we know something that is
everywhere within the Islāmic community, as well as what is outside the community:
the only true loyalty is critical loyalty. It’s not my community that is right or wrong –
this is the beginning of nationalism and fascism, its yes, I am with my community
when my community is right. I will be against people of my community if they are
wrong. I am for my country and my society, if they are doing right. But I will stand up
in the name of my principles if my country is doing something wrong. And the
dignity of my society is the ability to say ‘no’ when my society are doing wrong. This
is critical loyalty. This is the future. The true meaning of being an active, dynamic
citizen – is that I belong to my principles and I am with my country every single time
it promotes justice. But I have to stand up for the sake of my country and say, ‘what
you are doing is wrong’. It’s not that I want to be against my country, it’s that I want
the best for my country. And some Muslims should stand up against other Muslims
who stand up and say things which are completely wrong in the name of Islām. To
kill innocent people – NO, to say to people when they disagree with you that they are
outside the realm of Islām – NO, to show disrespect when trying to show people
‘there is only one way to be, and that is to be like me’ – that is not our message, so we
have to stand up and say it. A critical mind and critical loyalty is something which is
something that is part of the true integration discourse, which contributes to the
better of our society.
It’s based on confidence, and this is something we have to promote. It’s based on
consistency- which is really the basis of what I call the critical loyalty. Consistency
means that we abide by these principles in ourselves and with others.

And this is something that we are missing. The problems some Muslims have in
British Society, and other European Societies, have nothing to do with laws or
legislations, but very often with a lack of consistency. We have very nice values, but
we’re not implementing them at a local level or social level. And what we have to
promote is consistency. Justice means justice for all, equality means equality for all
and we have to work for that. But it also means being consistent with our discourse
towards what is happening in Islāmic majority countries.

Where could we do this? The answer is in what you said at the beginning of this
evening: local dimensions, working at the local level, grassroots, being involved with
the people, building spaces of trust. Look at our room here – it’s filled with people
coming from different backgrounds, religious backgrounds, all in the same area. But
we all need to know each other, to build a future together. So it doesn’t mean
forgetting who you are to be able to with others. We’re saying, be who you are in
order to build trust with the people who are not like you. And this will help us get this
confidence and spiritual knowledge, and trust among the people.

So the local level is essential – based on confidence and knowledge because we need
that. But we also need creativity. Not only intellectually speaking, but also religiously
speaking. Religion is not only about faith and prayers. It’s about culture, poetry and
creativity - in all these dimensions. Here what we need is British Muslims being able
to write poetry in English – part of the English literature for today and for tomorrow.
To have all these kinds of photographs and things like this – I know some Muslims
disagree with this, but the only thing I’m asking these Muslims to say is that there are
many views in Islām, and that I’m not less of a Muslim than them. It’s a question of
respecting each other.

You may think that photographs and movies and music are all harām – that’s fine. I
respect you, you respect me. You’re not more Muslim, and I’m not less Muslim.
These are views and you should respect that. But on the field, when we’ve accepted
that this all has something to do with culture, and creativity and art, let us come
together and promote something which is a new sense of belonging through a very
dynamic sense of creativity through our communities.

Spirituality, love, confidence, brotherhood, critical loyalty, creativity, and still being
able to reach out to people at the local level to be able to create these spaces of trust
and a new ‘we’ for British citizens for today and for tomorrow. Thank you.

[Audience applaud]
About Professor Tariq Ramadan

Professor Tariq Ramadan holds an MA in Philosophy and French literature and PhD in
Arabic and Islamic Studies from the University of Geneva. In Cairo, Egypt he received one-
on-one intensive training in classic Islamic scholarship from Al-Azhar University scholars.

Professor Tariq Ramadan taught Islamic Studies and Philosophy as a professor at Freiburg
University in Switzerland for many years. He held the post of Professor of Islamic Studies in
the Classic Department and Luce Professor of Religion Conflict and Peacebuilding at Kroc
Institute in 2004 at University of Notre Dame in the United States. He had to resign that
post due to visa revocation by the USA administration.

Professor Ramadan lectures at academic institutions and civic organizations around the
world. He is a member of multiple international organizations and steering committees. He
has authored and co-authored over 20 books and over 700 articles including ‘Western
Muslims and the Future of Islam’. Through his writings and lectures he has contributed
substantially to the debate on the issues of Muslims in the West and Islamic revival in the
Muslim world. He is active both at the academic and grassroots levels, lecturing extensively
throughout the world on ethics of citizenship, social justice, and dialogue between
civilizations.

Tariq Ramadan is Professor of Islamic Studies. He is currently Senior Research Fellow St

Antony’s College (Oxford) and at Lokahi Foundation (London).

Professor Tariq Ramadan is also President of the European think tank, European Muslim
Network (EMN) in Brussels.

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