Tariq Ramadan

There’s been a major development in a story I’ve commented on many times in this blog and its predecessor, the refusal of entry to Tariq Ramadan, one of Europe’s leading scholars on Islam, and particularly it’s evolution due to the influence of Muslims in the West.

Six years after using the Patriot Act to revoke the visa of a prominent Muslim academic, the United States State Department reversed itself and said Wednesday that it would no longer bar the scholar from entering the United States.

The decision came in the form of an order signed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.  —January 20, 2010, The New York Times

In 2004 Ramadan had been granted a visa so that he could take a position as a tenured professor at Notre Dame University.  Only a few months before his departure  the visa was revoked, without explanation, under the terms of the “PATRIOT Act.”  Eventually an explanation was provided and Ramadan has been fighting his exclusion in court ever since.  The irony of the situation is that Ramadan is a very highly regarded scholar.  In 2004 TIME Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world and after it became clear he would not be able to take up his position at Notre Dame, he went to that hotbed of Islamic radicalism, Oxford University to take a position as Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies.

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Perhaps the most amazing thing about this case is that he still wants to come.

“I am very happy and hopeful that I will be able to visit the United States very soon and to once again engage in an open, critical and constructive dialogue with American scholars and intellectuals,” Professor Ramadan said in a statement.

I’m happy too.  Welcome Professor Ramadan!  Indeed, I hope we will see you very soon.

Welcome to also Professor Habib, previously barred from entry for being critical of US policy. So much for dialogue, right? Well no longer.

The State Department’s order also applies to Adam Habib, deputy vice chancellor at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. Mr. Habib, who has publicly criticized American foreign policy, was refused admission to the country in 2006 and has been barred from traveling there since. A State Department spokesman said that should Professor Ramadan or Mr. Habib apply for a visa again, “They will not be found inadmissible on the basis of the facts that led to denials when they last applied.”