Tariq Ramadan to address Muslim conference in Ottawa

Three points about the Ottawa Citizen story excerpted below:

1) The article is about a Muslim association called ISNA. Daniel Pipes calls this group "a leading organization in the Wahhabi lobby's American division."

2) One of the speakers will be Tariq Ramadan. Ramadan presents himself as a moderate, but not everyone agrees. See these articles: A tribute to Tariq Ramadan and Tariq Ramadan's Two-Faced Islam. In 2004, Ramadan was hired to teach at Notre Dame University but his appointment was controversial and Washington denied him a visa.

3) The article doesn't mention that both ISNA and Tariq Ramadan are controversial, to say the least. Instead the reader is treated to a puff piece about Muslims who like hockey and maple syrup.

From the Ottawa Citizen (On being Muslim in Canadian society by Charles Enman, May 18, 2007):

About 3,000 Muslims from across Canada and beyond will be in Ottawa Saturday and Sunday, focusing on issues of how to be fully Muslim while remaining fully Canadian. Those Muslims, as well as people of other faiths and some of no faith, will be attending the 33rd Annual ISNA Canada Convention.

ISNA Canada, the Canadian arm of the Islamic Society of North America, is an umbrella group that represents many Muslim associations and supports mosques across the country.

ISNA spokesman Iman Faris says the discussions really can only come to one conclusion.

"Of course, one can be fully Muslim and fully Canadian - and I can know this because I am fully Muslim and fully Canadian - true to my faith and yet a Canadian who loves to go to Ottawa Senators games, loves maple syrup, loves this country.

[Michael says: Maple syrup and the Sens are all well and good but what does he think of Don Cherry?]

[. . .]

Topics to be addressed include Islamic financing, balancing family and work, Muslims and the media, rethinking multiculturalism, interfaith collaboration, relations between Muslim men and women, and Muslims and the arts.

Speakers will include Ingrid Mattson, the Canadian-born president of ISNA, the American organization based in Plainfield, Indiana; Tariq Ramadan, a British-based scholar who believes Western Muslims should be engaged in their societies; Idris Tawfiq, a former Catholic priest, now a Muslim, known for his gently written introductions to Muslim belief and history; and Sophie Harkat, wife of Mohamed Harkat, whose appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada on security charges resulted in a declaration that security certificate processes were unconstitutional.

[. . .]

Read all of Charles Enman's article.

See also:

A lengthy New York Times article about controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan

New York Times review of Tariq Ramadan's biography of Muhammad

Jamaican-Canadian convert to Islam banned from Australia, but apparently still welcome in Canada