by Louise Daly
CHICAGO, Aug 24 (AFP) - A reknowned and sometimes controversial Islamic scholar has been blocked from taking up a US teaching post after the US government revoked his work visa, officials said Tuesday.
Tariq Ramadan was appointed Henry Luce Professor at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana earlier this year, and was scheduled to start teaching this week.
The 41-year-old Swiss national was granted a work visa in February and had even shipped his furniture across the Atlantic when he was informed that the US State Department had revoked his work permit late last month, university officials said.
Officials with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, (ICE) on whose recommendation the State Department yanked the work permit, declined to comment in detail on the reasons for the last minute flip-flop.
"Generally speaking, the criteria for revocation is public safety or national security," said Russ Knocke, a spokesman for ICE, a division of the US Department of Homeland Security.
Ramadan, reached at home in Switzerland by the Chicago Tribune, refused to comment on the matter.
But officials at the Catholic university in South Bend, Indiana, said they were dumbfounded and dismayed by the decision, and a leading Islamic advocacy organisation called on US authorities to rethink the move.
The decision "sends the wrong message to the Islamic world about America`s willingness to listen to what Muslims have to say," the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement.
"The best way to improve deteriorating relations with the Muslim world is by listening to mainstream Islamic political and religious voices, not by censoring respected scholars whose views are apparently feared by those who seek a monopoly on intellectual debate," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.
Ramadan`s appointment caused something of a stir in fringe Jewish circles this side of the Atlantic -- the author has been accused of anti-Semitism by Jewish groups in France -- and some see the hand of his critics in the latest development.
Several US academics told the Tribune they suspected that Jewish groups that have waged a campaign against scholars and public intellectuals whose views on Islam and the Middle East conflict with their own, might have had a role in Ramadan`s visa being rescinded.
"At the heart of it, people refuse to distinguish moderate Muslims from extremists," John Esposito, an expert on Islam at Washington`s Georgetown University, told the daily.
The author of several books, including "Western Muslims and the Future of Islam," Ramadan has called for greater assimilation of European Muslims and has been an outspoken critic of the Muslim community`s inclination towards insularity.
But he has also been accused of anti-Semitism by French Jews, stung by his criticism of what he called their "blind support for Israel," while others have reportedly claimed he has ties to Al-Qaeda.
He comes from a line of Muslim thinkers: his grandfather founded the Muslim Brotherhood Movement, an Islamic fundamentalist movement, in 1928.
Notre Dame had hired Ramadan to teach a course on Islamic philosophy and ethics, and officials stood by him Tuesday.
"Professor Ramadan is a distinguished scholar and a voice for moderation in the Muslim world," said Notre Dame spokesman Matthew Storin. "We know of no reason his entry should be prevented."
Storin said officials were completely blindsided by the latest turn of events, and even suspected at first that the July 28 visa cancellation had been a mix-up, possibly arising out of a case of mistaken identity.
"It`s a very unfortunate personal and professional situation," said Storin, noting that the last-minute refusal had left Ramadan and his family in "in a state of flux."
"His furniture is here ... his children were going to be enrolling in high school."
But more worrying, said Storin, were the implications for "academic freedom and independence."