Claim: Oxford professor of Islamic studies Tariq Ramadan said "we are here to colonize the U.S. and Canada" with Sharia law.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Faisal Kutty
text: recommended that the Ontario government permit the adoption of sharia tribunals for Muslims who wished to have family arbitration disputes settled in that manner. Kutty commented on this report on behalf of various Muslim groups. Kutty wrote that the purported banning of faith-based arbitration was a delayed opportunity for the indigenization of Islamic law in the North American context. Some critics claim that he is an Islamist supporter and terrorist sympathizer. He has acted for or represented many individuals and groups accused of terror connections. IRFAN-Canada, an organization that had its charitable status revoked was represented by another lawyer associated

title: Tariq Ramadan
text: been arbitrary and myopic. But I am encouraged by the unwavering support I have received from ordinary Americans, civic groups and particularly from scholars, academic organizations, and the ACLU. I am heartened by the emerging debate in the U.S. about what has been happening to our countries and ideals in the past six years. And I am hopeful that eventually I will be allowed to enter the country so that I may contribute to the debate and be enriched by dialogue." On 17 July 2009, the US federal appeals court reversed the ruling of the lower district court. The three-judge

title: Sharia
text: federal ban on sharia law. The issue of "liberty versus Sharia" was called a "momentous civilisational debate" by right-wing pundit Diana West. In 2008 in Britain, the future Prime Minister (David Cameron) declared his opposition to "any expansion of Sharia law in the UK." In Germany, in 2014, the Interior Minister (Thomas de Maizière) told a newspaper ("Bild"), "Sharia law is not tolerated on German soil." Some countries and jurisdictions have explicit bans on sharia law. In Canada, for example, sharia law has been explicitly banned in Quebec by a 2005 unanimous vote of the National Assembly, while the province

title: Tariq Ramadan
text: the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center – three groups who had planned on meeting with Ramadan in the US – for revoking Ramadan's visa under the "ideological exclusion provision". The ACLU and NYCLU argued that the ideological exclusion provision was in violation of the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment rights of those three groups and that the government's actions violated the Administrative Procedures Act. After two months had passed without a decision being made, the plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. Pursuant to the injunction, the United States District Court for the Southern

title: Political positions of Newt Gingrich
text: he stated: "The fight against sharia and the maddrassas and mosques which teach hatred and fanaticism is the heart of the enemy movement from which the terrorists spring forth. ... One of the things I am going to suggest today is a federal law which says no court anywhere in the United States under any circumstance is allowed to consider Sharia as a replacement for American law." During a town hall meeting in South Carolina, after being asked whether he would endorse a Muslim for president, he replied that he would only do so if the person denounced sharia law

title: Tariq Ramadan
text: ACLU National Security Project and lead attorney in the case, stated: "The government's shifting positions only underscore why meaningful judicial review – the kind of oversight that the district court failed to provide – is so important. In Professor Ramadan's case and many others, the government is using immigration laws to stigmatize and exclude its critics and to censor and control the ideas that Americans can hear. Censorship of this kind is completely inconsistent with the most basic principles of an open society." Ramadan himself remarked: "The U.S. government's actions in my case seem, at least to me, to have

title: Application of Islamic law by country
text: against it in 2005 by the National Assembly of Quebec, while the province of Ontario allows family law disputes to be arbitrated only under Ontario law. The country has a common law system. The country has a civil law system. In the United States, various states have outlawed sharia, or passed some form of ballot measure which "prohibits the states courts from considering foreign, international or religious law." these include Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee. Criminal law in Afghanistan continues to be governed in large part by Islamic law. The Criminal Law of September 1976

title: Tariq Ramadan
text: held a lectureship in Religion and Philosophy at the University of Fribourg from 1996 to 2003, something the University publicly denied in 2018. He was appointed a professor at the University of Notre Dame in the United States in 2004 before his visa had been revoked by the Bush administration because of the Patriot Act. In October 2005 he began teaching at St Antony's College, Oxford on a visiting fellowship. In 2005 he was a senior research fellow at the Lokahi Foundation. In 2007 he successfully applied for the professorship in Islamic studies at the University of Leiden. This led

title: Faisal Kutty
text: vice-chair of the Canadian Council on American Islamic Relations and general counsel for the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberties Association. At the one-hour meeting at the Royal York Hotel, they were told that "Canada is neither a breeding ground nor a safe haven for terrorists." Kutty told Robert Benzie of the Toronto Star that "we basically said you have to look at the root causes of these things." He added that you can have security concerns,"but if you don't (act) within the confines of the rule of law and due process and within a democratic model, you're going to breed more

title: Ban on sharia law
text: of shariah law. During the lead-up to Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign 2012, he described sharia law as a "mortal threat" and called for its ban throughout America. Sarah Palin has been quoted as saying that if shariah law “were to be adopted, allowed to govern in our country, it will be the downfall of America.” At a press conference in the U.S. Capitol, some Republican members of the United States Congress endorsed a new memorandum, based on a Center for Security Policy (CSP) report, "Shariah: The Threat to America". A 2013 report by the Brennan Center for Justice warned that

title: Mohamed Elmasry
text: for Jews and Christians in the process. Regarding the opposition of moderate Muslims to the introduction of Sharia tribunals in Canada, Elmasry wrote that Canadian Muslims should not "make a cause of publicly deriding their religion, badmouthing the Prophet, ridiculing the Qur'an and mounting uninformed crusades to smear their Islamic Law, the Shariah". The Muslim Canadian Congress demanded that the CIC apologize for "false" accusations that those who criticize sharia are "smearing Islam, ridiculing the Koran [and] badmouthing Muhammad". The MCC stated that Elmasry accused the group of blasphemy, a crime that carries the death sentence in several Islamic countries.

title: Human rights complaints against Maclean's magazine
text: of the Maclean's case] reflects their presence over there" and that "In the eyes of the Ontario human rights commission, the only good Muslim is an Islamist Muslim. As long as we hate Canada, we will be cared for. As soon as we say Canada is our home and we have to defend her traditions, freedoms and secular democracy, we will be considered as the outside." As reported by an article from Barbara Kay in the National Post, Fatah stated in a press conference (on October 2, 2008) that the OHRC has been "infiltrated by Islamists" and that some of

title: Khaleel Mohammed
text: has stated that in some cases foreign-born Imams "are a threat to Canada" and that "They come from Bangladesh, South Africa, Guyana, Egypt and Syria etc. and they bring their cultural baggage with them." He has also suggested that the fact that immigrants native languages are used in Canadian mosques is a problem and that "They (Canadian imams) have to speak English...All mosques I've been to -- give or take five per cent -- have been using an overwhelming amount of Arabic". Mohammed has been both praised and lambasted by far right and Zionist publications such as Campus Watch and

title: Prayers for the Assassin
text: claims. Hawaii is described in the same context as Canada so could be independent. Alaska and the most Northerly New England States are not described. Canada has snatched some of Minnesota and Wisconsin as "ancestral lands" for its native population. Additionally, Southern Florida has become its own state, using a flag similar to Puerto Rico or Cuba. The Islamic Republic has long been suffering an internal war between its moderate/modern wanting to preserve its democratic traditional government and fundamentalist factions wishing to create a fundamentalist Islamic State under the strict form Sharia law. Publisher Charles Scribner's Sons hired interactive design

title: Mohamed Elmasry
text: workers" and that "Some interpretations of Sharia call for apostates to be killed. Such views have forced many Muslims to flee their countries of birth and take refuge in tolerant Western nations such as Canada. To now find ourselves harassed in Canada by some Muslims here is alarming and ironic." Elmasry has asserted that the war against terror is actually being used to oppress Muslims as a whole saying that: Right wing Canadian politicians and their parties consider the "war against terror" to mean the same as "war against Muslims." On the Bush Administration's intentions in the Middle East, in

title: Multiculturalism in Canada
text: story in 2016 praising Canada as the most successful multicultural society in the West. "The Economist" argued that Canada's multiculturalism was a source of strength that united the diverse population and by attracting immigrants from around the world was also an engine of economic growth as well. In a 2002 interview with the Globe and Mail, Aga Khan the 49th Imam of the Ismaili Muslims described Canada as: Aga Khan explained that the experience of Canadian governance – its commitment to pluralism and its support for the rich multicultural diversity of its peoples – is something that must be shared

title: Tariq Ramadan
text: group debated the lengths to which Western nations should go to accommodate their Muslim populations. Ramadan works primarily on Islamic theology and the position of Muslims in the West and within Muslim majority countries. Generally speaking, he prioritizes Qur'anic interpretation over simply reading the text, in order to understand its meaning and to practice the tenets of Islamic philosophy. Referring to himself, Ramadan has at times used the construction "Salafi Reformist" to illustrate his stance. He rejects a binary division of the world into "dar al-Islam" (the abode of Islam) and "dar al-harb" (the abode of war), on the grounds

title: Tariq Ramadan
text: outraged. Ramadan later defended his position arguing that, because it involved religious texts that Muslims take seriously, the law would have to be properly understood and contextualized. Ramadan argued that in Muslim countries, the simple act to "condemn" won't change anything, but with a moratorium, it could open the way for further debate. He thinks that such a debate can only lead to an abolition of these rules. On 16 July 2016, Ramadan was denied entry to Mauritania at Nouakchott International Airport. He had been invited to give lectures in the country. He claimed the decision "came directly from the

title: Ban on sharia law
text: leaving other religious conciliators free to continue their work. "Any reform would have to impact equally on all faith communities, and it is not only Muslims who would object if federal legislators presumed to do that." Sharia law is explicitly banned in Quebec, upheld by a unanimous vote against it in 2005 by the National Assembly. In Ontario there was a "heated 20-month controversy" after Toronto lawyer Syed Mumtaz Ali declared in 2004 that an “Islamic Institute of Civil Justice” would begin "arbitrating family matters on the basis of sharia law", accompanied by a warning that Muslims who did not

title: Tariq Ramadan
text: that such a division is not mentioned in the Qur'an. He has been also known to cite favourably the "dar al-da‘wah" (abode of preaching). For him the "Islamic message" to which Muslims are expected to bear witness is not primarily the particularist, socially conservative code of traditionalist jurists, but a commitment to universalism and the welfare of non-Muslims; it is also an injunction not merely to make demands on un-Islamic societies but to express solidarity with them. Ramadan has voiced his opposition to all forms of capital punishment but believes the Muslim world should remove such laws from within, without