Global media is reporting on a “Charter for Compassion” launched in connection by former nun and writer Karen Armstrong and whose council includes global Muslim Brotherhood leader Tariq Ramadan. According to one report:
Religious leaders from around the world joined a former nun on Thursday to unveil a Charter for Compassion that urges people to embrace understanding and shun violence. A charterforcompassion.org website that sprang from a wish Karen Armstrong was granted in 2008 at a prestigious Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference went live Thursday. “It requires you in your own sphere to work for a more compassionate world,” Armstrong told AFP. “The terrorists and extremists are all highly organized and networked; we must do the same.” The charter’s growing list of “affirmers” includes the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, Queen Noor of Jordan, Grand Mufti of Egypt Sheikh Ali Gomaa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu; author Sir Ken Robinson, and musician Paul Simon.
Previous posts have identified Ms. Armstrong as a participant in several events and organizations involving the global Muslim Brotherhood.
Tariq Ramadan is perhaps best described as an independent power center within the global Brotherhood with sufficient stature as the son of Said Ramadan and the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood to challenge positions taken by important Brotherhood leaders. His statements and writings have been extensively analyzed and he has been accused by critics of promoting anti-Semitism and fundamentalism, albeit by subtle means. On the other hand, his supporters promote him as as example of an Islamic reformer who is in the forefront of developing a “Euro Islam.” Ramadan is currently professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford’s Faculty of Theology and senior research fellow at St. Antony’s College (Oxford), Dohisha University (Kyoto, Japan) and at the Lokahi Foundation (London).