Less than half a year ago, Tariq Ramadan was still the golden boy of Islamic apologists, offering his suave taqiyya on behalf of Islam to European audiences from his prestigious post as a professor at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, with a chair funded especially for him by the Emir of Qatar. And at the same time, he held a second important position (and received, no doubt, an even larger salary than he was already getting at Oxford) as the head of the Islamic Law and Ethics Research Center, his own academic fiefdom, in Qatar.
Then it all came crashing down. In October, a Muslim woman, Henda Ayari, accused Ramadan of inviting her back to his hotel room in 2012, where he suddenly turned into a violent sexual predator, and raped her. She had written about him even before making her public accusation, in her book I Chose To Be Free, but there she had not named him, simply referring to Ramadan by the alias “Zoubeyr”:
“This man, Zoubeyr, transformed before my very eyes into a vile, vulgar, aggressive being – physically and verbally,” she wrote. And then she explained that she was now giving him, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, his real name: Tariq Ramadan. “For modesty, I will not give the precise details here of the acts he made me submit to. But it is enough that he took great advantage of my weakness and the admiration I felt for him. ”
“He allowed himself gestures, attitudes and words that I could never have imagined.”
“And when I resisted,” she writes, “when I cried to him to stop, he insulted and humiliated me. He slapped me and attacked me. I saw in his crazy eyes that he was no longer master of himself. I was afraid he would kill me. I was completely lost. I started crying uncontrollably. He mocked me.”And she described his violence: “He choked me so hard that I thought I was going to die.” She also described him as threatening that her children might be harmed if she were tell anyone.
A second Muslim woman in Paris also accused Ramadan of raping her in a hotel room in 2009. The unnamed 42-year-old, who is reported to have disability in her legs, said….that the professor had subjected her to a terrifying and violent sexual assault. The French edition of Vanity Fair magazine, whose staff met the 45-year-old woman, said her lawsuit against Ramadan described “blows to the face and body, forced sodomy, rape with an object and various humiliations, including being dragged by the hair to the bathtub and urinated on.”
A third complainant, identified as Yasmina, told Le Parisian in an interview that Mr Ramadan sexually harassed her in 2014 and blackmailed her for sexual favors.
A fourth woman was also reported to have accused Ramadan of similar behavior, but has still not publicly revealed her name.
At Oxford, after this initial group of accusers came forward, it seemed that Ramadan might weather the storm. The head of Oxford’s Middle East Center at St. Antony’s College, Eugene Rogan, at first was unwilling to take forceful action against Ramadan, but made clear that he would continue to teach and meet with students as if nothing had happened, declaring that:
“It’s not just about sexual violence. For some students it’s just another way for Europeans to gang up against a prominent Muslim intellectual. We must protect Muslim students who believe and trust in him, and protect that trust.”
Why Oxford needed to “protect Muslim students” who “believe and trust in him” by essentially ignoring the serious allegations made against Tariq Ramadan was entirely unclear; there was no groundswell of support for him among Muslim students, who appeared as disturbed by the accusations against him, the Muslim “intellectual” who used to speak about the “morality of Islam,” as were the non-Muslims.
Then came a second set of accusations, even more disturbing, from Switzerland. In the Journal de Geneve, four women claimed that when Ramadan was their teacher at a high school several decades ago, and they were all between the ages of 14 and 18, he had sexually assaulted them. This was too much for the University of Oxford to overlook, and it issued this statement:
“The University has consistently acknowledged the gravity of the allegations against Professor Ramadan, while emphasizing the importance of fairness and the principles of justice and due process.”
But Oxford had not “consistently” acknowledged the gravity of the allegations against Tariq Ramadan. The initial reaction, by the director of its Middle East Centre, it bears repeating, was not to focus on the allegations, but to come to Ramadan’s defense, declaring that Muslims might see the accusations as “just another way for Europeans to gang up against a prominent Muslim intellectual.”
After the Geneva revelations, Oxford put him on a “leave of absence,” which the university claimed had been “by mutual agreement.” This fooled no one; Ramadan was in disgrace, at least in England. It did not help his case that a former official, Bernard Goudard, the “Mr. Islam” in the French Ministry of the Interior, commenting on Ramadan, said that the French government had always known about Ramadan’s exceedingly dissolute life behind a facade of “Islamic morality,” but hadn’t realized just how bad his behavior was: “That he had many mistresses, that he consulted sites, that girls were brought to the hotel at the end of his lectures, that he invited them to undress, that some resisted and that he could become violent and aggressive, yes, but I have never heard of rapes, I am stunned.”
Whatever happened at Oxford, Ramadan could still count on his fabulous sinecure in Qatar, and no doubt expected he could always make that his permanent base. Wasn’t Ramadan “Europe’s leading Muslim intellectual”? And wasn’t he the grandson of Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was still welcome in Qatar?
But the arrogant Tariq Ramadan assumed his different Muslim claques would continue to stick by him. Ironically, it has been the generous financial the support he has received from the Qatari royal family, who bought-and-paid for his Oxford professorship (even though Tariq Ramadan did not have the usual qualifications or degrees for a university professorship, having previously only been a teacher in a girls’ school in Geneva), and who arranged his second post as head of the Islamic Law and Ethics Research Center in Doha, that worked against him with his former admirers among the young Muslims in France. Ramadan’s swanning around with the plutocrats of the Gulf apparently does not sit well with the boys from the Parisian ‘hood, in such places as Seine St.-Denis. And what did Ramadan do, in order to hold onto that set of former admirers, the young, down-at-heels young Muslims? He decided to distance himself from Qatar:
“Faced with a real decline in popularity in the French suburbs because of his links with an oil monarchy and extreme wealth, the Islamologist tended to distance himself — at least in the press — from Qatar. This adept at double-talk had declared on the program of Jean-Jacques Bourdin on RMC: “Neither Qatar is close to me, nor am I close to Qatar.’”
But instead of the Qatari rulers being understanding about this (“he doesn’t mean it, he just said that for his admirers in Seine St.-Denis”), they were furious. His remark was that of a colossal ingrate, since his professorship of contemporary Islamic sciences at Oxford is sponsored by “His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani,” the father of the current Emir. Indeed, it was Qatar’s willingness to endow a chair for Ramadan that ensured that Oxford would hire him. “The chair was created essentially for him,” Ghanem Nuseibeh, co-founder and former president of the Middle East students union in the UK, told The National. “He does not necessarily qualify as the most suitable person for that chair – it is a political chair that was created for political reasons, not for academic reasons.”
When your chair at Oxford is paid for by Qatar’s Sheikh Hamed bin Khalifa al-Thani, when a Qatari foundation paid for your second sinecure in Doha as head of the Islamic Law and Ethics Research Center, you should watch what you say about Qatar. But Ramadan was no longer thinking straight.
The ruling family in Qatar did not take kindly to Ramadan’s latest remarks. And it no doubt realized, as since June 2017 it has been faced with the open hostility of its neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, that being represented — in Europe, in the Gulf — by such a dissolute figure as Tariq Ramadan was not wise.
Now Ramadan has been warned, by the government of Qatar, not to dare to “step foot” in Qatar. No more sinecure in Doha. No more directing a “research center” on Islamic law and ethics. No more traipsing about the Gulf states, pocketing fat honoraria. And he did it entirely to himself.
And that wasn’t the last of Tariq Ramadan’s woes. He may no longer have a job, or a salary, or more exactly, be out of two jobs, or two salaries, but at least he’s still out of prison. For now.
But everything became much, much worse for Ramadan when, on January 28, 2018, he was required to appear before a French magistrate in Paris to be interrogated about the accusations against him of sexual violence, including rape, blackmail and death threats.
For now, it’s hard to see what Tariq Ramadan can do to save himself. Yes, for a while his followers have muttered darkly about a “Zionist plot,” but what kind of “Zionist plot” would include both the young Muslim thugs of the French suburbs, many of them now disaffected, and the royal family of Qatar, now deeply unhappy for other reasons, with Tariq Ramadan? There is no “making up” between Ramadan and Oxford University; his “leave of absence” is permanent. Nor is there any likelihood that Ramadan, having been banished from Qatar, will ever be allowed back.
Ramadan, who was seen joking and laughing at Oxford after the first set of accusations were made public, still may not quite comprehend the deep hole he has dug, and from which nothing and nobody can rescue him. He could now try to save his reputation among the young Muslim males in France, letting it be known that while he accepted funding from the Qatari rulers, he has always remained his own man, defender of ordinary Muslims, just like the boys in the ‘hood, that is, the suburbs around Paris, and insisting he owed nothing to the plutocrats of the Gulf. But then he might think to himself, “if I say that, then there is no chance I can get back in the good graces of the ruling Al-Thani family,” and in the end, isn’t that what Tariq Ramadan wants? That Oxford professorship, that Doha research center directorship?
And now, beyond the spectacle we have already enjoyed, of Tariq Ramadan being accused of very serious sex crimes in two different countries, so far by eight different women, and having had snatched from his grasp two prestigious sinecures, and being investigated for months by French magistrates, and then taken into custody, and arrested, and finally, on February 2, charged with the rape of two Muslim women, with more charges, involving other women, to come, we are likely going to witness a fitting denouement for this leading “Muslim intellectual,” he of the Hallmark card banalities and “the morality of Islam” — one which could scarcely have been dreamed of just a few months ago.
That Tariq Ramadan goes to jail.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
==QUOTE== just how bad his behavior was: “That he had many mistresses, that he consulted sites, … I am stunned.” ==UNQUOTE==
What does it mean to “consult a site”? And what’s so bad about site-consulting?
And how can Tariq Ramadan be guilty of rape without four male Muslim witnesses? But see http://muslimgirl.com/6728/do-women-need-to-provide-four-witnesses-to-prove-rape/ .
StellaSaidSo says
Maybe you should read the article again. You seem to have missed most of it.
Terry Gain says
Maybe you should work on your sense of humour, Stella, Terry says so.
StellaSaidSo says
Maybe I’ve been talking to lebel too much, LOL.
Jack Diamond says
He is not being tried in an Islamic court, Mark.
The quote by Bernard Goudard is just damning for the French government:
“that girls were brought to the hotel at the end of his lectures, that he invited them to undress, that some resisted and that he could become violent and aggressive, yes, …but I have never heard of rapes.”
“That he could become violent and aggressive (if they resisted)”… but rape?
We’re shocked, shocked to find that rape is going on in here!….
Peter says
That makes it patently obvious that they are completely unconcerned or even comfortable with the violence and aggression he used.
Yeah, right , that’s OK.
J D S says
Violence and rape allowed in islam??? I’m shocked! Just shocked!!
Of course this is no joking matter..How many other Muslim professors are doing the same thing and girls and women aren’t speaking out. YET that is???
gravenimage says
Jack, Mark is being sarcastic.
Phil Copson says
“…“That he could become violent and aggressive (if they resisted)”… but rape?
We’re shocked, shocked to find that rape is going on in here!….
“With friends like that – who needs etc…..?”
On the bright side, the Qatari government have already paid for his chair, so if the French government stump-up for a hard bed and a steel bucket, he’ll be set for life !
Loathsome behaviour by Oxford to take the money in return for giving this unqualified huckster a professorship, followed by lying about the motives of those who exposed him, followed by yet more lying to cover themselves over not having acted sooner.
Of what value are the qualifications of anyone he taught ?
Another questionable British muslim academic is muslim-convert, Matthew Wilkinson of the London School of Oriental and African Studies – (whose students have been making fools of themselves by invading a Winston Churchill-themed cafe with claims that “Churchill was a racist.” (Given that the groups’ leader comes from world-class racist, misogynist, supremacist, recent slave-trading nation and current piracy-specialists Somalia, that is quite some crust….))
Wilkinson’s evidence on the meaning of “tacquiya” contributed to the conviction and imprisonment of Tim Burton of Liberty GB in a case regarding e-mails (!) he had exchanged with Fiyaz Mughal, the permanently-offended leader of public-funds Hoover “Tell Mama”. The following comes from an account on “Fahrenheit 211”
“… the Jury only had the prosecution’s take on the definition of the word ‘taqiyya’, which Dr Wilkinson gave and there was no opportunity for the defence to have their own expert to challenge the assertions about the doctrine of Taqiyya made by Dr Wilkinson.
Since the trial there have been a number of developments, including the revelation that the Crown’s expert witness on the subject of Islam, Dr Matthew Wilkinson was the founder and senior officer of a pro-Islam group called Curriculum for Cohesion, that not only had a serving Crown prosecutor serving as a patron but also shared patrons with one of Fiyaz Mughal’s own groups. This connection between organisations that the expert witness runs and the complainant’s organisations, looks dodgy even if it isn’t.”
Lia says
I don’t think any of this could have happened to a more deserving person.
Anne Smith says
Yes, quite funny really, his timing is terrible, he has got the brunt of the “metoo” backlash and despite his good points for being a saintly Muslim and Oxford Professor (God knows how) the feminist “metoo” backlash is at present carrying all before it.
You would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
Terry Gain says
🙂
mortimer says
Stella, with respect the MAIN POINT (imho) is that Tariq Ramadan was the head of the ‘Islamic Law and Ethics Research Centre’ !!!
Ramadan showed just WHAT those ISLAMIC ETHICS were … amorality, violence, torture, opportunism.
StellaSaidSo says
Yes, I am familiar with TR’s history, Mortimer, and have posted frequently on the subject.
Thomas Kimball says
Headline states ” no light at the end of his tunnel” but how about a broken mop handle?
Buraq says
@ Mark Spahn
Secular law does not require 4 witnesses to prove rape, you clown. TR will be tried in a secular court, not according to the misogynistic criterion of Shariah!
Now, Mark, repeat this famous French saying 1,000 times: “The more Islam changes, the more it stays the same.”
StellaSaidSo says
‘For pride goeth before, and shame cometh after.’
Jack Diamond says
Maybe his good buddy Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens when it comes to raising money from infidels, can do a benefit for him now that he is so hard up.
http://www.egards.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Ramadan-+-Cat-Stevens.jpg
(with other his other pally Qaradawi)
Westman says
Looking at the photo, Stevens is the only one beaming admiration at Ramadan. The rest seem more interested in being seen.
Stevens killed his own career in 1989 with: “[Rushdie] must be killed. The Quran makes it clear: If someone defames the prophet, then he must die.” Later he claimed he didn’t agree with the fatwa but it should be carried out! As if that makes a difference….
Now the ambient panache of Ramadan has become a coxcomb, his followers must feel he left them a slime patina, like the contents of exploded entrails, that demands an immediate shower. The water is running.
gravenimage says
Yes–just hideous.
Carol (the 1st) says
Ramadan has an odd smirk on his face. I wonder if the beauty next to him has any idea of what lurks in his heart!
Max Publius says
Tariq is getting some of his own medicine; he spread inhumane sharia law, now he’s caught by humane universal law. He might keep his head.
Gjallarhornet says
So … the wolf-looking Ramadan turns out to be a… ehm… wolf.
No disrespect to actual wolves out there in nature intended. In fact, I rather meet a pack of them than islamist who’s smugged himself up in French intellectual garbs. The latter is far more scary.
Terry Gain says
Comparing Muslims to animals, barbarians, wolves and savages is unfair. To all of the aforementioned.
Gjallarhornet says
RIght. I kind of like wolves, and I more than kind of dislike Ramadan.
Still, he will be perfect as the Wolf in a French Jail staging of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.
– Sacrebleu, Grandma. Why is your mouth so big?
– So that the Qatari sheiks can better EAT YOU!
Ren says
Tariq Ramadan the golden body will be soon put in a shithole and forgotten.
kabooooooooooooooooooooom says
Ramydan must be denied access to a drivers licence upon release lest he get ideas about doing some revenge ramming during the next ramadan-dan-dan. He is in Paris after all.
Phil Copson says
“Tariq Ram-a-van” you say ?
Marina says
Good. May he see eternal darkness The End Of His Tunnel
Terry Gain says
May he soon be in Hell with Muhammad.
LeftisruiningCanada says
There’s no light because he hasn’t finished digging it yet.
LeftisruiningCanada says
We should alert the Israelis, they’ll be able to pick him up once he breaks through.
Probably headed for the nearest girls orphanage so it shouldn’t be hard to find him.
Gjallarhornet says
What to they say in that movie ‘Seven’ …
“Besides, he still has hell to look forward too”.
When I read that he was busted the feeling was something of “Hey, look at that. The world is not all bad news”.
Z says
Our crimes catch up to us eventually. His caught up to him and crushed him. I hope he burns
Peter says
“The chair was created essentially for him,”
I guess that a cashed up corrupt regime such as Qatar who didn’t find it too hard to find “on the take” corrupt officials in FIFA, wouldn’t find it all that hard to find those of a similar ilk even in the “supposed” hallowed halls of Oxford.
eduardo odraude says
He used the clever ambiguities of certain strands of French philosophy to camouflage his Islamic agenda while appearing intellectually fashionable to the gullible.
Lavéritétriomphera says
Perhaps, but we are not religious people. If Muslims want to worship their god by lying on the ground, that’s their problem. By definition french people is sceptical.
Westman says
Looking at the photo, Stevens is the only one beaming admiration at Ramadan. The rest seem more interested in being seen.
Stevens killed his own career in 1989 with: “[Rushdie] must be killed. The Quran makes it clear: If someone defames the prophet, then he must die.” Later he claimed he didn’t agree with the fatwa but it should be carried out! As if that makes a difference….
Now the ambient panache of Ramadan has become a coxcomb, his followers must feel he left them a slime patina, like the contents of exploded entrails, that demands an immediate shower. The water is running.
Westman says
A browser crash caused the above comment to appear in the wrong place. Ignore this duplicate.
Peter says
Oh damn
I Ignored the first one
And NOW ………. I’ve gotta ignore a second one
You’re making things difficult Westman.
Westman says
Sorry, Peter. I’ll make it up to you with a joke:
Q: How does every joke about Islam start?
A: By looking over your shoulder.
LeftisruiningCanada says
it’s no joke
round the more ‘enlightened’ and ‘progressive’ crowd here, the next part would be
Q.How does every joke about islam end?
A.In silence, with everyone thinking how superior they are.
Gjallarhornet says
It ends … not with something happening to the joke teller …. but with with some muslim feeling ‘offended’ in another city, another country, who, when he hears there is a joke out there making fun of the prophet somewhere …so he takes a truck and moves down 77 people. Because ‘allah commanded him to do so’.
LeftisruiningCanada says
” I saw in his crazy eyes that he was no longer master of himself. I was afraid he would kill me.”
And you did not (rape) them, but it was Allah who (raped) them.
11B40 says
Greetings:
When this story first broke, I commented, somewhat skeptically, about how it might be covered on France24. So, I would just like to mention that the France24 English language broadcasts seem to be giving it ample coverage and continuing to follow it.
Allons, enfants.
StellaSaidSo says
French media have covered this story from the beginning. Apart from the impressionable youths in the banlieues, Tariq Ramadan has few fans in France.
Terry Gain says
I am always delighted to see Muslims exposed as Muslims.
LeftisruiningCanada says
We just need the mayor of london to be exposed for what he is to make the set 🙂
gravenimage says
Hugh Fitzgerald: Tariq Ramadan: No Light At The End Of His Tunnel
………………….
So it seems. It couldn’t happen to a “nicer” Taqiyya artist.
And now that they details are coming out, this is *just horrifying*. This is far worse than sexual agreesion.
It should not surprise us, though.
al-uzza bint allaha says
this is poetic justice at its best.
let’s hope rapist ramadan and his freedom go separate ways for a very long time.
jewdog says
That leftist intellectuals would defend this guy, while Muslim women feared and hated him just goes to show how detached from reality and human concern those intellectuals really are. No wonder those SOBs coldly rationalize terrorist attacks against innocent Israelis. All they care about are their idiotic notions of anti-colonialism and racism and Third World victimhood. They inhabit a self-absorbed world of abstract ideas, imagining that Muslims are all mindless puppets whose strings are pulled by their Western puppet-masters. No wonder they dismiss Islamic ideology as unimportant. Muslims may have a lot of bad ideas, but they are their ideas.
StellaSaidSo says
Few intellectuals of any stripe defend Tariq Ramadan. Even Leftists wake up eventually. Tariq Ramadan wore out his welcome in French (and Dutch) intellectual circles years ago. If Qatar had not funded his Oxford gig, Tariq might have spent the best part of the last decade teaching in an obscure high school in Switzerland.
mortimer says
How was Oxford’s Eugene Rogan going to ‘protect’ student from a VIOLENT and SADISTIC TORTURER by the name of Tariq Ramada?
The responsible thing to do is to give a teacher a leave of absence until the allegations are determined to be true or false.
mortimer says
So…. Tariq Ramadan was head of the “Islamic Law and Ethics Research Centre” … ah so.
He has certainly illustrated by his ACTIONS what Islamic Law and Ethics actually are:
Islamic Law and Ethics mean the ABSENCE of law and ethics.
ISLAM IS COMPLETELY AMORAL and OPPORTUNISTIC.
Thomas Kimball says
The West for mudslimes is nothing more than a target rich environment , “with benefits” !
Zippy McFadden says
Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.
RichardL says
He will not sentenced. France is not Sweden. But his “academic” career is over and with it his huge importance to stealth jihad. Great article!
StellaSaidSo says
What exactly do you mean, RichardL? Are you saying he won’t be charged? Or that, if charged, he will be found ‘not guilty’? I agree, ‘France is not Sweden’. Which is why I think there is every chance that TR will be charged.
Infidel says
“This man, Zoubeyr, transformed before my very eyes into a vile, vulgar, aggressive being – physically and verbally,… this is how most Muslim males behave towards women, esp non-Muslim women. They are all sweet talk and taqiyya glib till the women victim falls into their nets.and then the real satan comes out!! That is why, I never get carried away by the sweet words of any Muslim. Most are Jekyl and Hyde types… In front of U, they will talk of secularism and how they respect all faiths and later in the privacy of their homes and mosques.. completely opposite…. seen too many Muslims behave like this..
CRUSADER says
**********************
It’s time to ACT!
Form an action team in your area based on :
http://www.ACTforAmerica.org/Issues
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Mike says
Congratulations Mr Fitzgerald ! It is a pleasure to read your articles.Always based on facts and delivered in a rational way . To someone who would not know Tariq ,he can jumpin and follow you all the way . Keep your style .
Mike says
The most pleasant part of the Tariq Ramadan dossier is that the “Oxford ” professor now with a criminal record fixed to his name , this will make his international moves a little bit more difficult .
He was in a procedure asking to become a french citizen. I guess it will not come.
StellaSaidSo says
Tariq Ramadan’s application for French citizenship was declined in 2016. Ramadan’s wife has French citizenship, and his children were born in France, but he is NOT French. He was born in Switzerland to Egyptian parents.
The French have known for years that Tariq Ramadan is an Islamic supremacist whose views are a threat to the Republic. Apart from the impressionable youths from the banlieues, Ramadan has few friends in France. Or, it appears, anywhere else, as of Nov 2017, when the scandal broke.
dumbledoresasrmy says
I’d like to see someone – someone experienced in investigation of mind-control cults, especially those that involve sexual exploitation – taking a good, hard, long look at Fethullah Gulen and his many western convert-to-Islam groupie girls.
I have a feeling that there might be a whole seething, squiggling can of worms within the much-touted “Gulen Movement”.