A distinguishing attribute of Dr. Ramadan is that he speaks from inside the faith. Although his genealogy generates attention, his words speak from the perspective of a believer. His ability to address the discontent of Muslims and rechannel frustration away from extremism and towards moderation is because Muslims know him to be one of their own. At a basic level, Ramadan shares the beliefs and practices of the common Muslim. It is a position which grants his voice privileged access to the hearts and minds of those he seeks to influence. His approach is in marked contrast to the emergence of self-styled Muslim reformers rapidly gaining attention in the North America. Chief amongst this group is Irshad Manji, a 35 year old Canadian journalist, who recently became ubiquitous on talk shows, newspapers, radio shows and at various universities since the release of her book The Trouble with Islam. Manji is in fact more in line with the Martin Luther analogy misdirected at Ramadan. Her approach advocates a wholesale break from orthodoxy. In contrast to Ramadan who speaks from a more traditional vantage point, Manji argues for the removal of verses from the Qur’an that can be misinterpreted by extremists to advocate violence. The implications of her arguments are as dramatic as they are drastic. She understands those Muslims who consider the Qur’an to be infallible to be exhibiting a strain of “extremism.” However, to ask a Muslim to believe otherwise would be no different than asking a Christian to believe that Christ did not die on the cross. The fact that Manji’s voice remains loud and clear in the U.S., while Ramadan’s is essentially silenced, is an important reality in the rapidly developing landscape of Islam in North America. The juxtaposition of these two approaches alludes to what kind of Islamic reformation policy makers are willing to advocate for. The contrast is also important because in an article published in the New York Post in September of 2003 Daniel Pipes refers to Irshad Manji as a “courageous, moderate, modern Muslim.” It is clear that for Pipes, Manji has what Ramadan lacks: a true “moderate” orientation.

DANIEL PIPES VS. THE ISLAMISTS

Daniel Pipes is an important figure in Washington DC. He is often called upon to give expert testimony on Islam and Islamic extremism on Capitol Hill. As the director of the Middle East Forum and its web based offshoot, Campus- Watch.org, he wields a considerable amount of influence. An academic by training, of late Pipes’ occupation can be more accurately described as a columnist or ideologue. Within the past few years his publications almost entirely present a specific, focused viewpoint regarding terrorism, extremism, Islam and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Although Pipes maintains no official relationship with DHS, his corpus of writings, lectures and expert testimony have significantly influenced the academic and policy environment surrounding Middle Eastern and Islamic studies in the United States. Understanding Pipes’ perspective as one of Ramadan’s main detractors may yield some important insights into why a reformer like Ramadan is transformed into a persona non grata. Pipes’ support of Irshad Manji is important in that it reveals Pipes’ threshold for what should be considered a “Moderate Muslim.” Pipes is rather selective when it comes to vocally supporting Muslims of any variety. He casts a wide net with regards to classifying scholars, activists and academic departments as either extremist or apologists for militant Islam. Pipes argues that fundamentalists —–or “Islamists”—–who politicize Islam represent a threat to America and are antithetical to American values. In a Special Policy Forum Report for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in April 2003, Pipes argued that “there is no such thing as a moderate Islamist, for all Islamists share the same long term goals; they differ only over means. For example, the Justice and Development Party in Turkey is very different from the Taliban in its means, but not so different in its ends. If the party gained full control over Turkey, it could be as dangerous as the Taliban were in Afghanistan.”

Dr. Pipes’ criticism extends directly into the academic realm. The primary function of Campus- Watch.org is to criticize academics involved with Middle Eastern or Islamic studies programs with the expressed aim of improving, or influencing their perspectives. Whosoever is determined to be an Islamist is routinely criticized for mixing politics with academics. The site encourages students to monitor professors who might espouse dangerous, or what Pipes considers Islamist, sentiments. However, in order to better understand Pipes’ criterion for distinguishing between moderate and Islamist, it is necessary to investigate his broader understanding of the religion. An article published in July 2003 by the Religion News Service quotes Pipes’ understanding of Muslim culture: “I have enormous respect for the faith of [Muslims]. I note how deeply rewarding Muslims find Islam as well as the extraordinary inner strength it imbues them with. Having studied the history and civilization of the classical period, I am vividly aware of the great Muslim cultural achievements of roughly a millennium ago.” In fact, Pipes goes on to acknowledge many of the significant cultural achievements attributable to Islam and Islamic civilization. This insight into Pipes’ understanding of Islam serves to further clarify where he believes moderation ends and Islamism begins. It also demonstrates that his criticism of Islam is not indiscriminate. In an interview with Pipes published in the Boston Phoenix in December of 2001, Pipes states that “the enemy is militant Islam, and the policy goal should be to weaken militant Islam and strengthen moderate Islam.”

WHAT IS MILITANT ISLAM?

The impetus for Daniel Pipes’ attacks on Islam and Muslims are strategic and targeted. He is concerned primarily with making the promotion of Islam as a socio-political reality in the West and particularly in America an unacceptable proposition. Pipes is not bothered by religious Muslims who pray, fast and go for pilgrimage. He is concerned with those Muslim academics, intellectuals and activists who advocate for and are capable of empowering Muslims in the West, and ultimately around the world, to actualize their tradition in the sociopolitical realm. Anyone who advocates for this or finds potential for cooperation with Islam’s sociopolitical impulse is identified as a militant Islamist. That is to say, for Pipes and others who follow his line of thought, the question is not finding moderate voices within Islam to facilitate dialogue and understanding, it is finding and amplifying voices that separate and secularize Islam from its historical sociopolitical reality to merely a culturally religious one. In this sense, Pipes is not advocating against Tariq Ramadan because he is an extremist, but precisely because he is a moderate. What Ramadan offers is dangerous because it empowers Muslims from within their own tradition. The Islamic reformation often alluded to since 9/11 is already understood by Pipes and policy makers who follow him as the secularization of Islam. Whosoever deviates from this normative understanding of moderate may find him or herself listed on Campus-Watch.org as an “extremist” or “extremist apologist.” However, Pipes is neither rigorous nor credible enough to accomplish this process on his own. Although Campus-Watch.org and the Middle East Forum serve as important clearing houses for anti-Islamist opinion pieces and articles, credible arguments for a secularized reformation of Islam require academic gravitas the likes of which Pipes can scarcely garner. The need for establishing a theoretical framework to support such a worldview cannot be understated.

Along these lines, venerated orientalist and historian Bernard Lewis, the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Oriental Studies at Princeton University, has published a series of books over the last three years advocating, amongst other things, the need for secularized Islam. In one of these books, titled The Crisis of Islam, he draws on over 50 years of research and writing on the Middle East to argue that the downfall of Islam was due in part to the integration of church and state within the religion. Dr. Lewis skillfully acknowledges the fact that Islam, in all its sociopolitical manifestations, was an integral component of the great civilizational flourishing that took place in the Muslim world during the Middle Ages. He recognizes how the religion granted people greater freedoms of thought and expression than ever before. However, Lewis further argues that the bifurcation of religious and secular authority in Europe and North America during the advent of modernity created a context where a religiously based state could no longer progress. Thus, what made Islam great, a religio-political public conscience, is what in part led Muslims to their downfall in the modern age. That is to say, Islamic civilization cannot revive itself except through adoption of the dominant secular realities of the modern age. Lewis presents Islam at a civilizational crossroads, with two particular paths garnering widespread support. The first path “attributes all evil to the abandonment of the divine heritage of Islam and advocates a return to a real or imagined past. The other way is that of secular democracy, best embodied in the Turkish republic founded by Kemal Atatürk.” Lewis provides Muslims with a fork in the road, whereas in reality shades of grey abound between Taliban style regression and Ataturk style secularization. However, the argument set forth underlies the perspective articulated by Pipes and others. Its ramifications are also very clear for policy makers dealing with the Middle East: support Ataturk style secularization above all else.

Pipes and Lewis are of course not alone in advocating for the secularization of Islam. A cadre of academics, intellectuals and writers all share similar sentiments. Campus-Watch.org in fact provides a list of professors who are in line with Pipes perspective on Islam and Islamism. However, policy is not executed in universities or think tanks. Ramadan’s visa was not revoked by Daniel Pipes. In the struggle for the soul of Islam, U.S. policy makers may be hedging their bets on a western style Protestant reformation. In a report released by the Rand Corporation titled “Civil Democratic Islam,” the author, Cheryl Bernard, argues for Islam’s transformation: “It is no easy matter to transform a major world religion. If ‘nationbuilding’ is a daunting task, ‘religion-building’ is immeasurably more perilous and complex.” The report goes on to classify Muslims from secularist to modernist to traditionalist and everything in between. In doing so it details each group’s views on a range of issues including the establishment of an Islamic State, and whether or not it is permissible to beat women. In her recommendations, Bernard selects particular groups within Islam to be supported by policy makers and played against one another in order to achieve the desired transformative balance—–a Muslim community that seamlessly blends into the cultural melting pot of America.

It is also important to note that the Rand Corporation is a very influential non-profit think tank that policy makers often rely upon for analysis of national security issues. Its Board of Trustees includes representatives from the media, Wall Street, large corporate law firms, leaders from the medical, defense, real estate, and auto industries, think tanks, and university professors. In an article published in April of 2004 on the American Daily website, Pipes expressed his “delight” upon reviewing the Rand report and was especially inspired by Bernard’s recognition of the “awesome ambition required to modernize Islam.”