Said Ramadan

Egyptian political activist (1926-1995)

Said Ramadan (April 12, 1926 – August 4, 1995) was an Egyptian political activist and humanitarian, and one of the preeminent leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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  • Four have pleaded not guilty while four are being tried in absentia. The Chief accused, Saeed Ramadan, is among those not in court and he is now living outside Egypt. Khattab said it was Ramadan who contacted him through agents to draw up the plans to assassinate President Nassor and carry out the acts of sabotage. He said he had pretended to agree in order to obtain as much money from Ramadan as he could. The prosecution has alleged Ramadan received money from the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and sent it to Khattab in Alexandria.
  • One of the leaders, according to Eisenhower’s appointment book, was “The Honorable Saeed Ramahdan, Delegate of the Muslim Brothers.”* The person in question (in more standard romanization, Said Ramadan), was the son-in-law of the Brotherhood’s founder and at the time widely described as the group’s “foreign minister.” (He was also the father of the controversial Swiss scholar of Islam, Tariq Ramadan.) Eisenhower officials knew what they were doing. In the battle against communism, they figured that religion was a force that US could make use of—the Soviet Union was atheist, while the United States supported religious freedom. Central Intelligence Agency analyses of Said Ramadan were quite blunt, calling him a “Phalangist” and a “fascist interested in the grouping of individuals for power.” But the White House went ahead and invited him anyway.
  • One of the more extensively researched episodes in this early relationship revolves around Muslim Brotherhood figure Said Ramadan (al-Banna’s son-in-law and father of European Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan). As chronicled by Ian Johnson, the CIA saw in the Brotherhood a potential lever against communism and worked to bolster Ramadan’s prominence, particularly among Europe-based Muslims. Drawing on interviews with former colleagues and associates of Bob Dreher, the CIA’s point man on the outreach, as well as reports from European intelligence agencies, Johnson concludes that “short of a CIA pay stub, every other indication points to the fact that Dreher and Amcomlib were using financial and political leverage to give the Brotherhood’s man in Europe (Said Ramadan) a leg up.”
  • He founded the Islamic Society of Munich in Germany and headed it from 1958 to 1968. He also participated in the establishment of the Muslim World League
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