Agencies Posted online: Saturday, August 27, 2005 at 1042 hours IST
London, August 27: A Muslim scholar banned from the United States is to take up a post at Britain's prestigious University of Oxford, his college said today.
Tariq Ramadan has been elected to a visiting fellowship (general) at St Antony's College for the coming academic year and is expected to begin work in October.
"Professor Ramadan is an internationally-recognised scholar," St Antony's College, Oxford, said in a statement.
"He was named by Time magazine as one of 100 innovators of the 21st century for his work on creating an independent European Islam.
"He was recently appointed to a prestigious chair in Islamic studies in the University of Notre Dame in the US."
In late July 2004, Ramadan's US visa was revoked and he was forced to return to his native Switzerland.
Britain's Interior Minister, Home Secretary Charles Clarke, set out Wednesday a list of "unacceptable behaviours" designed to combat Islamist extremists.
The measures could lead to Clarke banning or deporting foreign so-called "preachers of hate".
"We do not comment on individual cases and we cannot give details on who is on the home secretary's list," facing a ban or deportation, a home office spokesman told AFP.
St Antony's College said: "Ramadan is a regular visitor to Britain and the other states of the European Union, without exception."
The grandson of Hassan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ramadan was born in Geneva.
