Major Islamic scholar faces sex assault claims

Amid a recent outpouring by Frenchwomen reporting episodes of sexual harassment and naming their aggressors, two women have accused a renowned Islamic scholar of violent sexual attacks.

The French activist and author Henda Ayari filed a police complaint 10 days ago accusing the wellknown, Swiss-born Islamic scholar, Tariq Ramadan, of sexually assaulting her in 2012.

Then on Thursday, a second woman filed a complaint in Paris against Mr. Ramadan, accusing him of rape and assault in a hotel room in Lyon, France, in 2009.

Mr. Ramadan’s lawyer has issued a categorical denial about the first accusation and said that Mr. Ramadan would sue his accuserfor defamation.

The explosive accounts came in the aftermath of accusations that the powerful Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein had engaged in decades of sexual harassment and assaults against women like the actressRose McGowan.

In the aftermath, many women, and some men, around the world added their voices to a wave of complaints on social media, including under the hashtag #BalanceTonPorc, or Expose Your Pig, in France.

Among the figures accused by Frenchwomen in recent days are Pierre Joxe, aformer top Socialist leader and minister under François Mitterrand. Mr. Joxe, accused of groping a woman sitting next to him at an opera in Paris in 2010, told the French radio station Europe 1 that the accusation was completely unfounded.

Soon after, a 29-year-old woman told Franceinfo radio that she had filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment by Christophe Arend, a lawmaker in President Emmanuel Macron’s governingparty.

Mr.Arend has denied the allegations.

Mr. Ramadan, 55, is a revered Islamic scholar and the grandson of Hassan alBanna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt the 1920s. The group has become one of the most influential transnational Sunni Muslim movements inthe world.

He teaches contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University and is the author of a dozen books in English on modern Islam andthe Western world.

A well-known figure at conferences and in the media, he is also a major presence on social media, with 2 million Facebook friends and more than 200,000 followerson Twitter.

Neither Mr. Ramadan nor his lawyer has responded to the accusations by the second woman. In a video posted on Twitter that he made several days ago after the first complaint, Mr. Ramadan said that he would not comment.