GENEVA, 15 December 2004 — A prominent Swiss-based Islamic scholar yesterday gave up plans to teach at a leading US university after waiting in vain for a visa and accused the Bush administration of trying to silence him.

Tariq Ramadan, an intellectual influential among Muslims throughout Europe, said he had sent a letter of resignation earlier this week to University of Notre Dame in Indiana, where he had been due to take up a tenured post as professor of religion.

Ramadan was issued a US visa last May, but it was revoked with little explanation in early August — days before he was to move to the United States — after the Department of Homeland Security changed its position.

Notre Dame, a Catholic university, said then it was “deeply disappointed and concerned”, but was optimistic the issue would be resolved and Ramadan would be allowed to take up his post.

The withdrawal of the visa triggered protests in intellectual circles, and Ramadan said the US authorities had encouraged him to re-apply.

He was interviewed in early October at the US Embassy in the Swiss capital, Berne, but had heard nothing since then and had now given up, he told Reuters.

“I sent a letter of resignation. ... This has been extremely difficult for my family,” said Ramadan, speaking in Geneva where he has lived in limbo with his wife and four children since their furniture was sent to South Bend, site of the university.

“The US administration does not want my voice heard. I consider this an attack on academic freedom,” he added.

A University of Notre Dame official was told recently by a contact in the State Department that no decision on the visa was in view, leading him to abandon his plans, he said.

Ramadan, who is the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, the Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, has condemned the use of violence in the name of Islam.

Nevertheless, he is a controversial figure even in Europe. Critics in the media in France — home to some five million Muslims and where Ramadan is particularly well known — have portrayed him as two-faced, preaching a moderate Islam in French but a radical Islam in Arabic.

Yesterday he said his aim was to promote dialogue and build bridges. “I am a voice for dialogue, for reconciling universes. It is the basis of my work.”

In revoking the visa, the US authorities merely cited the Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law adopted by Congress in October 2001.

“I expect the US authorities to clear my name because there is nothing in my file (to justify that),” he said.

He was named head of the program in religion, conflict and peace-building at the Joan Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame. It was set up by the billionaire widow of Ray Kroc, founder of the fast-food chain McDonald’s.

He was also named professor in Islamic studies in the university’s classics department.

“We have seen no evidence that he poses any threat to our national security. In fact, we believe the world could be a safer place if he is allowed to continue his work,” Scott Appleby, director of the Kroc Institute, said in a letter posted on its Web site in late August.

“Tariq Ramadan is a strong but moderate voice in a world plagued by extremism,” he added.