Tariq Ramadan

Dr. Tariq Ramadan, whose full name is Tariq Said Ramadan, is an Arab Muslim thinker, born on August 26, 1962, in Geneva, Switzerland, to Egyptian parents.

As a child, he played soccer: first for the Swiss team Star Sécheron, then for Collex-Bossy in the second division of the Swiss soccer league, before moving to FC Perly, which he later went on to coach. At the end of the 1980s, he gave up soccer to devote himself fully to his academic studies.

He studied French and philosophy at the Collège de Saussure in Geneva between 1988 and 1992. He then earned a master’s degree in philosophy and French literature, followed by a doctorate in Islamic and Arabic studies from the University of Geneva. Between 1992 and 1993, he received in Egypt intensive training in classical Islamic texts from the professors and sheikhs of Al-Azhar University, who granted him their ijazah in this field.

He took part in debates on contemporary Islamic issues through meetings and lectures in Switzerland, France, the United States and elsewhere. He was professor of contemporary Islamic studies at the University of Oxford in England, and professor of interfaith dialogue in the theology department of the same university. He was also a visiting professor at a number of Arab and Western universities, including the Faculty of Islamic Studies in Qatar, Perlis University in Malaysia and Doshisha University in Japan, and he headed the Center for Legislative Studies and Ethics in Doha.

He has published a number of books on culture, pluralism, minority rights, and individual and religious freedoms, including “The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy of Pluralism” (2010) and “Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation,” which was translated into Arabic in 2008. Many of his lectures and debates have been recorded in audio and video.