US media is reporting that global Muslim Brotherhood leader Tariq Ramadan will open his upcoming US tour with a panel discussion in New York that is to include Obama administration faith adviser Dalia Mogahed. According to a New York Times report:
A prominent Muslim scholar barred from the United States for six years under the Patriot Act will speak on a panel at the Cooper Union next month, his first public appearance in this country since the restriction was lifted. The scholar, Prof. Tariq Ramadan of Oxford University, will take part in a panel discussion on “Secularism, Islam and Democracy: Muslims in Europe and the West,” to be presented on April 8 by the American Association of University Professors, the American Civil Liberties Union, PEN American Center and Slate….The panel, at the Cooper Union’s Great Hall, will also include the journalist Ian Buruma; Dalia Mogahed, director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies; and Joan Wallach Scott, a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study and the author of “The Politics of the Veil.” The panel will be moderated by Jacob Weisberg of Slate.
The discussion is scheduled for April 8. Previous posts have discussed other venues for Ramadan’s tour such as keynote speaker at the Center for the Study of Islamic and Democracy (CSID) where State Department adviser Farah Pandith and possibly Senator John Kerry are also scheduled to attend. Other known venues for Ramadan’s tour include the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Chicago and the Shura Council of Southern California. All of these organization are known to be tied to the US 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). Previous posts discussed his dismissal from his positions as an adviser on integration for the city of Rotterdam and from a Dutch University over his role as a talk show host on Iranian TV. An earlier post discuss the recent lifting of the ban on Ramadan traveling to the US.
Ms. Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and lived in the U.S. since the age of 5, is the daughter of Elsayed Mogahed, an Egyptian immigrant who is a former engineering scientist at the University of Wisconsin and director of the Islamic Center of Madison (ICM). The website of the ICM links mainly to U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organizations and Souheil Ghannouchi, the President of the MAS was ICM Imam and President for several years. In 2003, Ms. Mogahed was identified in 2003 as the Outreach Coordinator for the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh (ICP) whose co-founder recently lost a DOE security clearance and whose Imam will probably be deported on immigration violations. Ms. Mogahed is currently the executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies that also includes Georgetown University academic Dr. John Esposito and she also co-authored a book with Dr. Esposito suggesting that majority of the world’s Muslims support some form of democracy. Dr. Esposito, in turn, is a long-time supporter of the global Muslim Brotherhood , has espoused views consistent with Brotherhood doctrine, and has at least a dozen past or present affiliations with global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas organizations.