Oxford University Professor Tariq Ramadan, who was barred for six years from entering the United States, is now in the country on a two-month lecture tour where he has been urging Muslim Americans to be more active in American society.

In 2004, the Bush Administration slapped a ban on Ramadan, prohibiting him from entering the country. Initially, Ramadan was banned under a provision of the Patriot Act that allows the United States to keep out anyone suspected of any links to terrorism. Soon after, the Bush administration backed away from that reasoning, but later said Ramadan contributed to an organization that funneled money to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization.

Ramadan, a professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies at Oxford University, denied allegations that he had any links to terrorism, and said he never intended for any of his donations to be transferred to Hamas. His supporters also noted that the United States had not designated the charity as a terror group until after Ramadan donated to it.

The 47-year-old Ramadan was born in Switzerland of Egyptian parents. He is known for calling on Muslims living in the West to integrate themselves into Western culture and society. An outspoken critic of terrorism, Ramadan has also spoken up about his qualms with some U.S. policies.

"Many U.S. organizations believe that I am being barred from the country not because of my actions but because of my ideas. The conclusion seems inescapable," Ramadan wrote in a 2007 opinion piece for the Christian Science Monitor.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took up Ramadan's case. In January, about six years after he was first banned from entering the country, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed orders ending his exclusion.

Philip Crowley, a spokesman for the State Department, said, "We want to have the opportunity potentially to have Islamic scholars come to the United States and have dialogue with other faith communities and people here in our country."

Ramadan has been touring the United States since April 8, giving lectures urging the Muslim American community to engage with, not segregate itself from, American culture. He is giving six lectures in April and May in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Anaheim and two in Washington, D.C. Ramadan is descended from a line of religious thinkers and activists – but also with Islamist political credentials; his grandfather founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, and his father was exiled by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. After his father relocated to Switzerland, Tariq Ramadan was born in Geneva in 1962.

Ramadan has been vocal about rising anti-Muslim feelings, especially in Europe, such as the November 2009 referendum banning minaret construction in Switzerland.

Ramadan said that for some Europeans, "the only accepted Muslim seems to be the invisible Muslim," and the problem will in the short term get worse. "The situation is quite bad for the time being," he said, adding, "The Muslims in all Western countries are abiding by the law. At the end of the day, we're seeing that the Muslims aren't the ones changing the laws," he said, pointing to the fact that it was Swiss voters who passed the minaret ban and French voters want to pass a burqa ban in France. Quebec and Belgium are also currently debating a ban on the burqa and niqab in public places.

But Ramadan says most Westerners fail to understand how well the Muslims around them are already integrated into their societies. He told National Public Radio (NPR), "The perception is that Islam is not a Western religion and Muslims are still to be integrated and they have to integrate. I'm saying it's exactly the opposite. Millions of American Muslims, Canadian Muslims, European Muslims are already Western by culture, Muslim by religion. They abide by the laws of the countries. They speak the language of the countries. So the point here is we should go beyond integration. Now we should speak about contribution. A Muslim citizen should contribute to his or her country – and this is the way forward."

After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Geneva, Ramadan studied Islam at Al Azhar University in Cairo. Now, Ramadan is passionate about reformist Islam and seeks to create a bridge between the West and Muslims.

Discussing the Obama Administration, Ramadan said many foreign policy issues affecting Muslims have not changed. Addressing the recent tension between the White House and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Ramadan said, "Are these tensions leading towards new policies for Israel, and for Israel to change its policy? This is not happening, not yet. And to tell you, I'm not expecting for anything under this first [Obama term]."

Ramadan has been vocal about his belief that, "the great majority of the people are already integrated, so we should not look at tiny groups at the margin as a symbol that people are failing to integrate."

Ramadan has his critics, including Bernard-Henri Lévy, who has argued that Ramadan is an anti-Semite. Another critic is French President Nicolas Sarkozy – who, as a minister of the interior in 2004, charged that Ramadan excused the stoning of adulterous women in Muslim majority countries. Ramadan had responded, saying that he had called for a "moratorium" on the practice – and all capital punishment – as the first step towards further debate within the Muslim community.

While Ramadan is no longer banned from the United States, he says he is banned from six Muslim majority countries.

Ramadan concluded his April 8 lecture entitled, "Secularism, Islam and Democracy," by calling for a modernization of Islam. "We have to come back to our texts, our sources. We may have to reassess our understanding in light of the new times," Ramadan said.