Law as a vanishing mediator in the theological ethics of Tariq Ramadan
| Author | Andrew F. March |
| Published date | 01 April 2011 |
| Date | 01 April 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1474885111395475 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
European Journal of Political Theory
10(2) 177–201
!The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1474885111395475
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Article
Law as a vanishing mediator
in the theological ethics of
Tariq Ramadan
Andrew F. March
Yale University, USA
Abstract
Tariq Ramadan’s recent book, Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation, boldly pro-
claims the need for Muslims to completely rethink the very meaning of Islamic law,
traditionally the preeminent Islamic normative discourse and a primary distinguishing
feature of Islam from other religions, replacing it with a more ecumenical applied ethics.
He begins the book by rejecting the moderate reformist methods adopted in his pre-
vious books as insufficient for the ‘radical reform’ of their epistemologies and mental-
ities which he believes contemporary Muslims must undertake. It is tempting, therefore,
to see this work as a radical break with Law. In this article, I offer a different interpre-
tation. On my reading, throughout his previous works Ramadan systematically advanced
and elevated a certain interpretation of Law, based on an appropriation of certain
concepts taken from mainstream Islamic legal theory and crucial to the efforts of all
reformist thinkers. It is these concepts, which he retains but completely recasts, which
mediate his move to a post-legal Islamic ethics. I argue that Ramadan’s long-term project
neither merely abandons Islamic law, nor merely reforms it, but dissolves the frame-
work of Law through its own devices.
Keywords
Islamic ethics, Islamic law, Islamic political thought, Islamic reform, Tariq Ramadan
Introduction: The Ramadan wars
Islam is a religion of Law.
1
All of the normal caveats apply to this statement, of
course;
2
however, it is beyond serious dispute that Law (shari’a,fiqh
3
) maintains a
powerful claim to the expression of normativity for believing Muslims. The claims
of Law may be taken more or less seriously and the Law’s rulings may be more or
less practiced across various Muslim communities, especially with regards to spe-
cific areas of human activity. Nonetheless, the idea that Law remains central to
Corresponding author:
Andrew F. March, Department of Political Science, Yale University, USA
Email: andrew.march@yale.edu
Muslim self-understanding and self-identification, and that many if not all norma-
tive questions arising from living and acting in the world admit of answers artic-
ulated according to the forms and contents of Islamic legal reasoning, persists
despite the assaults on this idea in the colonial period and the ongoing era of
post-colonial Western hegemony.
The problem of Law for contemporary reformist thinkers, especially those living
in western secular societies where it is extremely difficult to imagine a fully auton-
omous space to apply Islamic law, presents two broad possibilities: either (1) reject
the constraints of Law in a ‘decisionist’ way, including by merely ignoring it, or
focusing on other values or aspects of religion; or (2) to reform or redefine the Law
and thus to redefine one’s own behavior or institutions as in conformity with
the Law.
Few scholars engaged in the second type of project have received as much
popular, political, and journalistic attention as the Swiss intellectual Tariq
Ramadan. The prominence of Ramadan in this discourse is understandable. He
is, on the one hand, a scion of political Islam. His grandfather, Hasan al-Banna,
was the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the wellspring of many of Islamism’s
20th-century tendencies. His father, Sa’id Ramadan, was one of the most promi-
nent mid-century figures in the ‘Islamist International’ comprised of exiles from
Muslim countries, local grassroots movements (from the Brotherhood to more
radical ‘Salafi’ groups), and the conservative oil monarchies. On the other hand,
he is an outspoken advocate of the notion that European Muslims can be both in
equal measure. He calls on Muslims to be active and engaged citizens of European
countries, faithful to their constitutional systems, yet insists that this can be done
without adopting a diluted, ‘liberal Islam’ in matters of social and personal moral-
ity. On top of this, Ramadan is telegenic, articulate, multilingual, and charismatic.
For a western audience he is a unique Muslim media figure: neither a radical
bogeyman a
`la Bin Laden or Khomeini (or one of their myriad imitators such as
Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Masri or even, significantly, Ramadan’s own brother Hani),
nor an outright secular liberal (ex-)Muslim a
`la Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, or
Salman Rushdie.
Much of the journalistic and popular debate over Ramadan takes the form not
so much of a close reading of his published works, but of an attempt to answer
the question ‘Who is the real Tariq Ramadan?’ This trope, which resembles the
parlour game of speculating on the true intent or motivations of political office
holders with the aim of deciding whether they are worthy of trust (think: Yasir
Arafat, Gerry Adams, or Vladimir Putin), assumes that Ramadan is either a
sincere proponent of integration into Western societies or a ‘crypto-Islamist’
engaging in double-speak. Yet, it is doubtless precisely because Ramadan’s
thought does not fit neatly into the mould of more conventional radical
Islamist ideology, or even conservative Islamic jurisprudence, that he generates
so much anxiety on the part of those with only the slightest expertise in Islamic
legal and political discourses, yet ideologically predisposed to seeing Islamic
thought in crude, Manichaean terms. However, it is sufficiently obvious to any
178 European Journal of Political Theory 10(2)
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