Tariq Ramadan To Appear With Dalai Lama At World Religions Conference

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Tariq Ramadan

According to the conference website, Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Tariq Ramadan will join the Dalai Lama and other notables in speaking at the Second Global Conference On World’s Religions After September 11 to b eheld in Montreal on September 7 of this year. According to the announcement:

The Dalai Lama returns to Montreal later this year on September 7, to address the Second Global Conference On World’s Religions after September 11, which will meet at the Palais des Congrès, almost after a decade following the events of 9/11. Other renowned speakers include Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, world-famous author Deepak Chopra, Professor Tariq Ramadan, and Professor Robert Thurman. Professor Gregory Baum, recipient of the Order of Canada and Swami Dayananda Saraswati will also participate in the conference. Under the theme of ‘Peace Through Religion’, the one-day event will include the unveiling of the latest version of a proposed Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the World’s Religions, which has been on the anvil since 1996 and which is designed as a complement to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. ‘The aim of the conference is to bring together the various religions of the world in an ecumenical spirit to address the many issues facing the world today, in the hope that this will help all of us become better human beings’, emphasized the convenor of the event, Arvind Sharma, Birks Professor of Comparative Religion at the Faculty of Religious Studies of McGill University. Panel discussions with the speakers will seek to generate consensus around two fundamental social and religious issues: Should a course on world religions also be taught whenever the confessional study or religion is carried out? and Should violating the sanctity of the scripture of any religion be considered tantamount to violating the sanctity of the scriptures of all religions? The Conference is co-sponsored by McGill University and Université de Montréal.

A previous post reported that the Dalia Lama met with the PResident of Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) during his visit to the US last year. ISNA is an important part of the U.S. 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 criticsof 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. A ban on Ramadan traveling to the US was lifted in January 2010 and several posts have discussed his recent visits to the US where he appeared at various US Muslim Brotherhood venues including giving the keynote at the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)-Chicago annual banquet in April 2010. He was scheduled to give the keynote address at the 16th annual CAIR banquet in October.

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