Tariq Ramadan at the Book Festival

From 11 August. Originally published in ThreeWeeks.

Controversy follows Tariq Ramadan to an almost baffling degree. Born and educated in Switzerland, Ramadan is probably the best-known Muslim scholar in Europe. Famously denied a visa to work at an American university, he now studies at Oxford. Ramadan's latest book, 'The Messenger', is a biography of Muhammad. He says that for interfaith dialogue we need "a revolution of trust - to be able to say, I have a question". For the duration of the reading there was this trust, and plenty of questions. His answers were patient and articulate, covering everything from a conversation with the Dalai Lama, to the intrinsic pluralism in Islam, to the role of Muslim scholars in the "western" Enlightenment, to the importance of re-interpreting religious texts. Fascinating.