Islamophobia Watch

As a generalisation, when you see a bearded Muslim, dressed in the "traditional" garb, make no mistake: he is bad news and stands in vehement contradiction to practically everything the Left stands for (this is a fact that the American Right understood well when it recruited and trained Islamic fundamentalists in the fight against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s). There is unfortunately now an awful lot of such bad news in many of Britain's towns and cities acting as a serious obstacle to progressive thinking and practice.

Rumy Husan, documented on the What Next? website

A new study reveals one in four Americans still hold stereotypes of Muslims. The study, sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, found many Americans still believe Muslims teach their children to hate and that they value life less than others.

Daily Vidette, 29 October 2004

Angry cries from several far-left and Jewish student groups demanded Tariq Ramadan's removal from the European Social Forum (ESF), which was held two weeks ago in London.

Muslim News, 29 October 2004

John Rosenthal takes issue with the New York Times.

Transatlantic Intelligencer, 22 October 2004

Swiss Muslim intellectual Tariq Ramadan is at the center of a vile campaign by rightist French magazines and newspapers, which accuse him of spearheading what they called the political Islam drive in Europe.

Seeking to blemish his reputation after he had been catapulted into the limelight as a paradigm for moderate Muslims, L’Express magazine ran a front-page photo of Ramadan titled, "The man who wants to establish Islamism in France". The ferocious attack came hard on the heels of Ramadan’s success in grabbing the attention of the third round of the European Social Forum, which concluded on October 17.

Islam Online, 19 October 2004

Interview with Tariq Ramadan in Egypt Today, October 2004

"At a convention on the subject of 'Pluralism in Islam' which took place in late August, 2004 at the Egyptian Journalists' Union in Cairo, Sheikh Dr Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and one of the most important religious authorities in Islamist circles, issued a religious legal opinion permitting the abduction and killing of American civilians in Iraq in order to pressure the American army to evacuate its forces."

For MEMRI Special Dispatch No.794, "Reactions to Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi's Fatwa Calling for the Abduction and Killing of American Civilians in Iraq", see here

For an article by Egyptian journalist Fahmi Hawaydi exposing the falsity of the charge against Qaradawi, see here

Portrait of Tariq Ramadan

New York Times, 6 October 2004

The 5 October 2004 meeting of the National Union of Students executive adopted a resolution calling for Tariq Ramadan's invitation to speak at the European Social Forum to be withdrawn. It's worth noting that Alan Clarke of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, who moved the motion, justified his call for a ban by citing the fact that Professor Ramadan's US visa had been withdrawn. This was of course due to an intervention by the Department of Homeland Security – an organisation created by George W. Bush as part of the "war on terror". Sometimes you think the AWL can't possibly sink any lower – only for them to prove you utterly wrong.

NUS NEC minutes, 5 October 2004

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi should be congratulated, not branded "extremist".

BLINK editorial, 1 October 2004