Tariq Ramadan, Your Grandfather Was a Colonialist

By Published On: February 18, 2011

In a recent article appearing in The New York Times, apologist for the Muslim Brotherhood Tariq Ramadan portrayed his grandfather, Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood as an anti-colonialist.

This is simply not true. Al-Banna was a self-proclaimed colonialist. His own writings prove it.

In an essay titled “Our Mission” written to describe the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Banna described how the adherence to true Islam fulfills the impulse embodied by a number of different “patriotisms” offered by propagandists who compete with Islam for humanity’s allegiance. In the essay, translated by Charles Wendell and published by the University of California Press in 1978 (Five Tracts of Hasan Al-Banna), the author lists a number of patriotisms whose impulses are better fulfilled by authentic Muslim practices. After detailing the problems of the “Patriotism of the Sentiment” and the “Patriotism of Freedom and Greatness” al-Banna writes

Or if they mean by “patriotism” the conquest of countries and lordship over the earth, Islam has already ordained that, and has sent out the conquerors to carry out the most gracious of colonizations and the most blessed of conquests. This is what He, the Almighty, says: “Fight them till there is no longer discord, and the religion is God’s” [Q.2.193].

This is support for religious colonialism pure and simple. Readers will have to decide for themselves if Ramadan is either misinformed about his grandfather’s beliefs, or if he is willfully mischaracterizing al-Banna’s teachings.

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