Tariq Ramadan - The Warm and Fuzzy face of Islam

Tariq Ramadan wants us to like him. He is full of reasonable and well thought out statements. He wants us to love Islam by loving him. And indeed, who wouldn't want to agree with Tariq Ramadan in these times of hostility and suspicion of Islam that border on Islamophobia.
In fact Christopher Hitchens makes the valid point that "phobia" implies an irrational fear. My personal fear of Islam isn't irrational, it is based on extensive study and believe it or not, an attempt to understand Islam.
I make no excuses for the fact that I don't like Islam. This is not an irrational opinion because I have enough information at my disposal to make a rational judgement. I try my best through this blog to disseminate that information without descending into invective and bitter statements.I think the facts themselves are enough to allow people to form an opinion as to whether they want Islam to enter their neighborhood, their country and their lives.

So what do we make of Tariq Ramadan? Warm and fuzzy and cuddly...
There is enough information about him on Wikipedia if you click the link and are prepared to read about him.
Or you can read Paul Berman's book The Flight of the Intellectuals. I haven't yet because in Australia there is always a delay in the supply of interesting books and I can't afford the freight charges imposed by Amazon.
Of course reviews of Paul Berman's book (and criticism) are already available online. See here

No doubt we are faced with two very different faces of Islam, the scary Mullahs and their stranglehold of countries such as Iran or the fanatical Saudi Arabia regime and on the opposite side the intellectual, articulate, and warm and fuzzy Tariq Ramadan.

I deciding which face of Islam I should deal with, I would say that I would go with the face that wields power and influence and has substantial presence in world affairs. This is the mad mullahs, the Taliban and the Saudi financed madrassas and mosques that are spreading throughout the western world.

Tariq Ramadan, you might be warm and fuzzy and lovable but you are extremely irrelevant.