Karen Armstrong reviews Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad!
Karen Armstrong's second hagiographical and highly selective (i.e., quasi-fictional) biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad appeared around the same time as my book The Truth About Muhammad. Armstrong, however, declined all invitations to debate me, turning down, among others, an O'Reilly Factor segment. (The truth-challenged Edina Lekovic of MPAC ultimately appeared with me, using her time to get in as many lies about me as she could.)
However, Armstrong has let loose in the Financial Times (thanks to Katherine), in a review almost as concocted and fantastic as her own book.
...The criminal activities of terrorists have given the old western prejudice a new lease of life. People often seem eager to believe the worst about Muhammad, are reluctant to put his life in its historical perspective and assume the Jewish and Christian traditions lack the flaws they attribute to Islam. This entrenched hostility informs Robert Spencer’s misnamed biography The Truth about Muhammad, subtitled Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion.
Spencer has studied Islam for 20 years, largely, it seems, to prove that it is an evil, inherently violent religion.
Silliness. I am not out to prove anything except what Islam is. If it teaches warfare against unbelievers, as all its orthodox sects and schools of jurisprudence do, then it does no good for anyone except the jihadists to ignore or deny or minimize that fact.
He is a hero of the American right...
Uh-oh, "the American right." That's mainstream media code for "a bad guy who should not be accorded respect or taken seriously."
...and author of the US bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam. Like any book written in hatred, his new work is a depressing read.
This is, of course, a familiar tactic of Leftists, jihadists, and those who sympathize with them: characterize any accurate report of their activities as "hatred." Never mind that my book works strictly from the earliest extant Islamic sources, and only reports what they say. If there is any "hatred" in it, it comes from those sources, not from me.
Spencer makes no attempt to explain the historical, political, economic and spiritual circumstances of 7th-century Arabia, without which it is impossible to understand the complexities of Muhammad’s life.
Reading this, I doubt Armstrong actually read the book. Or maybe she just wants to make sure no one else reads it. In fact, anyway, the beginning of chapter three, and many other passages throughout the book, are devoted to explaining "the historical, political, economic and spiritual circumstances of 7th-century Arabia."
Consequently he makes basic and bad mistakes of fact. Even more damaging, he deliberately manipulates the evidence.
The traditions of any religion are multifarious. It is easy, therefore, to quote so selectively that the main thrust of the faith is distorted. But Spencer is not interested in balance. He picks out only those aspects of Islamic tradition that support his thesis. For example, he cites only passages from the Koran that are hostile to Jews and Christians and does not mention the numerous verses that insist on the continuity of Islam with the People of the Book: ”Say to them: We believe what you believe; your God and our God is one.”
Oh, Karen. Do you really think no one will check your work? Not only do I mention the verse you claim I don't mention (Qur'an 29:46), but I do so twice, on page 17 and again on page 51.
Islam has a far better record than either Christianity or Judaism of appreciating other faiths. In Muslim Spain, relations between the three religions of Abraham were uniquely harmonious in medieval Europe. The Christian Byzantines had forbidden Jews from residing in Jerusalem, but when Caliph Umar conquered the city in AD638, he invited them to return and was hailed as the precursor of the Messiah. Spencer doesn’t refer to this.
Of course I don't. And why not? Because my book is a biography of Muhammad. Muhammad died in 632. Thus events of 638, and of hundreds of years later in Spain, are beyond its purview. But in fact I discuss Muslim Spain at some length in my book Onward Muslim Soldiers, and Islamic and Christian anti-Semitism, also at length, in my forthcoming book Religion of Peace?.
Jewish-Muslim relations certainly have declined as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but this departs from centuries of peaceful and often positive co-existence.
As long as the Jews knew their place. Watch for Andrew Bostom's new Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, which provides a superabundance of evidence that Jews never enjoyed equality of rights with Muslims in Islamic societies.
When discussing Muhammad’s war with Mecca, Spencer never cites the Koran’s condemnation of all warfare as an ”awesome evil”, its prohibition of aggression or its insistence that only self-defence justifies armed conflict. He ignores the Koranic emphasis on the primacy of forgiveness and peaceful negotiation: the second the enemy asks for peace, Muslims must lay down their arms and accept any terms offered, however disadvantageous. There is no mention of Muhammad’s non-violent campaign that ended the conflict.
I don't know to which Qur'an verse Armstrong is referring. Perhaps someone can help me out here. I've read the Qur'an innumerable times, but don't recall any verse saying that all warfare is an "awesome evil." I looked around in it just now, and searched through the helpful Index of Qur'anic Topics by Ashfaque Ullah Syed, but came up empty. Search here for "warfare and evil" and "war and evil," and you don't come up with anything like that. There is this, but it is hardly the same thing: "Fighting is prescribed for you, and ye dislike it. But it is possible that ye dislike a thing which is good for you, and that ye love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knoweth, and ye know not" (2:216).
Having exposed in The Truth About Muhammad Armstrong's misrepresentation of Tabari's evidence about Aisha's age when she married Muhammad (see page 170), and seeing her false statement above about my not quoting Qur'an 29:46, I am not inclined to take her word for the existence of this verse. Anyone who has an idea of what she's referring to, please let me know. And "Muhammad’s non-violent campaign that ended the conflict" is not a specific reference to anything -- which conflict? But if she means his conquest of Mecca, when there was little resistance, I discuss it on pages 145-147.
But in any case, the existence of this verse, if it exists, doesn't negate the fact that Armstrong's assertion that "only self-defence justifies armed conflict" and that the Qur'an directs Muslims to "lay down their arms and accept any terms offered, however disadvantageous" is wholly false. In fact, as I outline in the book (pages 76-78), Muhammad's earliest biographer, Ibn Ishaq, traces three stages of development in the Qur'anic doctrine of warfare, culminating in offensive warfare to establish the hegemony of Islamic law by force of arms. That has been understood throughout history by mainstream Islamic teachers (Ibn Kathir, Ibn Juzayy, As-Suyuti, Ibn Qayyim) as the Qur'an's last word on jihad. Contemporary jihad theorists have picked up on that and used it to revive jihadist sentiments among peaceful Muslims today.
People would be offended by an account of Judaism that dwelled exclusively on Joshua’s massacres and never mentioned Rabbi Hillel’s Golden Rule, or a description of Christianity based on the bellicose Book of Revelation that failed to cite the Sermon on the Mount. But the widespread ignorance about Islam in the west makes many vulnerable to Spencer’s polemic; he is telling them what they are predisposed to hear. His book is a gift to extremists who can use it to ”prove” to those Muslims who have been alienated by events in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq that the west is incurably hostile to their faith.
Ignorance? I'd be happy to debate Karen Armstrong anytime. But I will not allow her false statements to go unchallenged. And that is why such a debate will probably never happen.
UPDATE: In the comments field below, Jihad Watch reader "Great Comet of 1577" has found the Qur'an verse to which Armstrong was referring. It's Qur'an 2:217:
"They question thee (O Muhammad) with regard to warfare in the sacred month. Say: Warfare therein is a great (transgression) [or an "awesome evil"], but to turn (men) from the way of Allah, and to disbelieve in Him and in the Inviolable Place of Worship, and to expel His people thence, is a greater with Allah; for persecution is worse than killing. And they will not cease from fighting against you till they have made you renegades from your religion, if they can. And whoso becometh a renegade and dieth in his disbelief: such are they whose works have fallen both in the world and the Hereafter. Such are rightful owners of the Fire: they will abide therein."
Thus, contrary to Armstrong's statement that this verse refers to "all warfare" as "an 'awesome evil,' in fact the verse refers only to warfare during the sacred month as evil at all, and then goes on to say that "persecution is worse than killing."
In context, this verse was revealed to justify a Muslim raid on a Quraysh caravan: the raid took place during a sacred month, during which war was forbidden. But the Quraysh were allegedly persecuting the Muslims, so this verse absolves the Muslims of guilt for the raid -- since "persecution is worse than killing."
So in fact, the verse that Armstrong is using to argue that the Qur'an teaches that war is an "awesome evil" actually teaches that moral precepts, such as the prohibition on fighting during the sacred month, may be set aside to benefit the Muslims.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
gawker.com
Ed. note: As we mentioned a few weeks ago, we're doing away with our semi-regular "Everybody's A Wenner" feature, in which we would analyze Rolling Stone's famed review section; not only was "Everybody" running out of steam, but we wanted to spread the love to the other music magazines on the newsstand. And so we're happy to introduce Rock-Critically Correct, a recurring write-up that will take the current issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Spin and Vibe to task. In order to avoid conflicts-of-interest with your Idolators, the column will be written by an anonymous music scribe--one who just happens to contribute to several of those titles. Or maybe all of them! We're not saying. After the click-through, our first installment cover, which covers the just-released fortieth-anniversary issue of Rolling Stone.
Greetings.
Your correspondent begins the first installment of Rock-Critically Correct by taking a look at the May 3 edition of the big ma-moo of popular music publications, Rolling Stone, which also happens to be the 40th anniversary edition. Jann Wenner, you see, has a thing about anniversaries (as do his advertisers), and no American magazine holds celebrations for itself as often as RS. Last year saw the release of the 1000th issue, which employed boundary-pushing 3D technology in order to evoke the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a cultural artifact that RS never, ever tires of reminding us is the GREATEST ALBUM EVER.
And so we come to the fortieth anniversary issue. The front of the book contends with such matters as EMI's decision to do away with copyright protection, while the reviews section awards NIN's Year Zero four stars, after which the three-star review-a-thon so beloved of Idolator's curators resumes.
But these are merely bookends to the feature well, which is a valentine to the real greatest generation: The Baby Goddamn Boomers! Step right up for 20 interviews that hit all the expected beats, from how rock music is inseparable from political action, to how drugs--while perilous--can have mind-expanding properties, to "how we never seem to learn any lessons from Vietnam," to Hunter S. Thompson, to how key RS has been to the proper evaluation of all these things. An editor's letter promises two subsequent 40th anniversary issues, one devoted to "The summer of love" (apparently because you cannot rehash that topic enough) and another to the "Challenges of the future" (which will likely conclude that any challenges can be met by evoking participants in the summer of love).
And so, for nearly 100 pages, we are privileged to read toothless interviews with what that editor's letter calls "part of (the magazine's) extended family," among them Mick Jagger, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Michael Moore, and Jackson Browne. These are the oracles of our culture--or more specifically, oracles of the worldview of Wenner's moneyed liberal pals. Each interview is conducted by an elite squadron of Wenner's favored baby-boomer Boswells (Anthony DeCurtis, Kurt Loder, and David Wild, take a bow), complemented by a couple of sympathetic paleo-establishment journalists like Tom Brokaw and Douglas Brinkley. Wenner himself even sits down for a chin-wag with Bob Dylan. Permit your correspondent the indulgence of compressing the interview:
WENNER: "The sixties were very, very important, weren't they?"DYLAN: "Uh, well, they were okay."WENNER: "Please tell everybody that your most recent album, Modern Times, is about how the world is being ruined by George Bush."DYLAN: "No. Let's talk about how modern music isn't very good."
Elsewhere, for perhaps the eleventy-jillionth time, Paul McCartney genuflects before the memory of John Lennon. Lennon worship is catnip for Wenner: Here McCartney says that he "always marvel(s) that (he) was the guy who sat down with John Lennon to write all that stuff." Hasn't this guy earned the right to not have to jump through Rolling Stone's hoops by suggesting that he's merely a bystander to Lennon's nigh-omnipotent genius?
Then we hear from Jimmy Carter (he too likes Dylan! And the Allman Brothers!) and George McGovern, two men that are more or less shunned by the mainstream Democratic Establishment with which Wenner is tethered. One wonders if this amounts to a mea culpa for Wenner's support of Ronald Reagan in 1980, not to mention RS's notorious early-'80s Republican-courting Perception/Reality ad campaign. Or maybe he's just trying to make up for RS's mid-period political indifference, which only was shaken off when a triangulating baby boomer with his eyes on the prize emerged in 1991.
Each interview hews very closely to this template, with most subjects taking the bait and concluding that A) the spirit of the sixties must be revived before all is lost; B) Rolling Stone was and is essential for any complete understanding of music, culture and politics; and C) President Bush is the worst president ever (the latter phrase is one that crops up in nearly every issue of RS in some way or another).
Although Wenner's interest has seemed to wax and wane, it's clear that RS will always be immensely personal to him. The magazine afforded his entry to a rarified social stratum, and despite covers devoted to the likes of Panic! at the Disco and Lindsay Lohan, his DNA is imprinted upon it.
But what does the 25-year-old Dave Matthews Band fan--the one who got a RS subscription from his aunt, and knocked one out to last issue's cover image of Rose McGowan and Rosario Dawson--make of all this? Is he shamed, thinking, "So this is why my peer group so insufficient compared to that of Mr. Wenner's! They got it right, and me and my top ten MySpace friends are so, so shallow." It's easier to imagine a party-goer at some function on the Upper West Side--perhaps a Clinton fundraiser, or a cocktail party at Graydon Carter's place-- congratulating Wenner for the dutiful, loving tongue-bath administered by his magazine to his peer group. If, that is, they're not too preoccupied with Vanity Fair or The New Yorker.
And the whole process will repeat itself, not only in two more 40th anniversary issues, but most likely several times before 2017.
Greetings.
Your correspondent begins the first installment of Rock-Critically Correct by taking a look at the May 3 edition of the big ma-moo of popular music publications, Rolling Stone, which also happens to be the 40th anniversary edition. Jann Wenner, you see, has a thing about anniversaries (as do his advertisers), and no American magazine holds celebrations for itself as often as RS. Last year saw the release of the 1000th issue, which employed boundary-pushing 3D technology in order to evoke the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a cultural artifact that RS never, ever tires of reminding us is the GREATEST ALBUM EVER.
And so we come to the fortieth anniversary issue. The front of the book contends with such matters as EMI's decision to do away with copyright protection, while the reviews section awards NIN's Year Zero four stars, after which the three-star review-a-thon so beloved of Idolator's curators resumes.
But these are merely bookends to the feature well, which is a valentine to the real greatest generation: The Baby Goddamn Boomers! Step right up for 20 interviews that hit all the expected beats, from how rock music is inseparable from political action, to how drugs--while perilous--can have mind-expanding properties, to "how we never seem to learn any lessons from Vietnam," to Hunter S. Thompson, to how key RS has been to the proper evaluation of all these things. An editor's letter promises two subsequent 40th anniversary issues, one devoted to "The summer of love" (apparently because you cannot rehash that topic enough) and another to the "Challenges of the future" (which will likely conclude that any challenges can be met by evoking participants in the summer of love).
And so, for nearly 100 pages, we are privileged to read toothless interviews with what that editor's letter calls "part of (the magazine's) extended family," among them Mick Jagger, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Jane Fonda, Michael Moore, and Jackson Browne. These are the oracles of our culture--or more specifically, oracles of the worldview of Wenner's moneyed liberal pals. Each interview is conducted by an elite squadron of Wenner's favored baby-boomer Boswells (Anthony DeCurtis, Kurt Loder, and David Wild, take a bow), complemented by a couple of sympathetic paleo-establishment journalists like Tom Brokaw and Douglas Brinkley. Wenner himself even sits down for a chin-wag with Bob Dylan. Permit your correspondent the indulgence of compressing the interview:
WENNER: "The sixties were very, very important, weren't they?"DYLAN: "Uh, well, they were okay."WENNER: "Please tell everybody that your most recent album, Modern Times, is about how the world is being ruined by George Bush."DYLAN: "No. Let's talk about how modern music isn't very good."
Elsewhere, for perhaps the eleventy-jillionth time, Paul McCartney genuflects before the memory of John Lennon. Lennon worship is catnip for Wenner: Here McCartney says that he "always marvel(s) that (he) was the guy who sat down with John Lennon to write all that stuff." Hasn't this guy earned the right to not have to jump through Rolling Stone's hoops by suggesting that he's merely a bystander to Lennon's nigh-omnipotent genius?
Then we hear from Jimmy Carter (he too likes Dylan! And the Allman Brothers!) and George McGovern, two men that are more or less shunned by the mainstream Democratic Establishment with which Wenner is tethered. One wonders if this amounts to a mea culpa for Wenner's support of Ronald Reagan in 1980, not to mention RS's notorious early-'80s Republican-courting Perception/Reality ad campaign. Or maybe he's just trying to make up for RS's mid-period political indifference, which only was shaken off when a triangulating baby boomer with his eyes on the prize emerged in 1991.
Each interview hews very closely to this template, with most subjects taking the bait and concluding that A) the spirit of the sixties must be revived before all is lost; B) Rolling Stone was and is essential for any complete understanding of music, culture and politics; and C) President Bush is the worst president ever (the latter phrase is one that crops up in nearly every issue of RS in some way or another).
Although Wenner's interest has seemed to wax and wane, it's clear that RS will always be immensely personal to him. The magazine afforded his entry to a rarified social stratum, and despite covers devoted to the likes of Panic! at the Disco and Lindsay Lohan, his DNA is imprinted upon it.
But what does the 25-year-old Dave Matthews Band fan--the one who got a RS subscription from his aunt, and knocked one out to last issue's cover image of Rose McGowan and Rosario Dawson--make of all this? Is he shamed, thinking, "So this is why my peer group so insufficient compared to that of Mr. Wenner's! They got it right, and me and my top ten MySpace friends are so, so shallow." It's easier to imagine a party-goer at some function on the Upper West Side--perhaps a Clinton fundraiser, or a cocktail party at Graydon Carter's place-- congratulating Wenner for the dutiful, loving tongue-bath administered by his magazine to his peer group. If, that is, they're not too preoccupied with Vanity Fair or The New Yorker.
And the whole process will repeat itself, not only in two more 40th anniversary issues, but most likely several times before 2017.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Cats!
From today's Times obituaries:
Dr. James R. Richards, a prominent veterinarian who was a recognized authority on cat care, died on Tuesday in Johnson City, N.Y. He was 58 and lived in Dryden, N.Y.Dr. Richards died of injuries he sustained in a motorcycle accident on Sunday. According to Sgt. Kelly Daley of the New York State Police, he was thrown from his motorcycle after he tried without success to avoid hitting a cat that had run into the road.
Very sad. Say this for the guy: He died as he lived. Caring way too much about cats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/obituaries/26richards.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin
Dr. James R. Richards, a prominent veterinarian who was a recognized authority on cat care, died on Tuesday in Johnson City, N.Y. He was 58 and lived in Dryden, N.Y.Dr. Richards died of injuries he sustained in a motorcycle accident on Sunday. According to Sgt. Kelly Daley of the New York State Police, he was thrown from his motorcycle after he tried without success to avoid hitting a cat that had run into the road.
Very sad. Say this for the guy: He died as he lived. Caring way too much about cats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/obituaries/26richards.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries&oref=slogin
VDH
It’s a short attention span kind of world these days, and Victor Davis Hanson asks:
Is the war on terror over?
Jihadists have already scored successes in all sorts of ways beyond altering the very nature of air travel. Cartoonists now lampoon everyone and everything - except Muslims. The pope must weigh his words carefully. Otherwise, priests and nuns are attacked abroad. A single false Newsweek story about one flushed Koran led to riot and death.
The net result is that terrified millions in Western societies silently accept that for the first time in centuries they cannot talk or write honestly about what they think of Islam and the Koran. ...
Radical Islamists largely arise from the oil-rich Middle East. Since 9/11, the price of oil has skyrocketed, transferring trillions of dollars from successful Western, Indian and Chinese economies to unsuccessful Arab and Iranian autocracies.
Terrorists know that blowing up a Saudi oil field or getting control of Iraqi petroleum reserves - and they attempt both all the time - will alter the world economy. Even their mere threats give us psychological fits and their sponsors more cash.
This is a strange war. Our successes in avoiding attack convince some that the real danger has passed. And when we kill jihadists abroad, we are told it is peripheral to the war or only incites more terrorism.
But despite the current efforts at denial, the war against Islamic terrorism remains real and deadly. We can’t wish it away until Middle Eastern dictatorships reform - or we end their oil stranglehold over the world economy.
Is the war on terror over?
Jihadists have already scored successes in all sorts of ways beyond altering the very nature of air travel. Cartoonists now lampoon everyone and everything - except Muslims. The pope must weigh his words carefully. Otherwise, priests and nuns are attacked abroad. A single false Newsweek story about one flushed Koran led to riot and death.
The net result is that terrified millions in Western societies silently accept that for the first time in centuries they cannot talk or write honestly about what they think of Islam and the Koran. ...
Radical Islamists largely arise from the oil-rich Middle East. Since 9/11, the price of oil has skyrocketed, transferring trillions of dollars from successful Western, Indian and Chinese economies to unsuccessful Arab and Iranian autocracies.
Terrorists know that blowing up a Saudi oil field or getting control of Iraqi petroleum reserves - and they attempt both all the time - will alter the world economy. Even their mere threats give us psychological fits and their sponsors more cash.
This is a strange war. Our successes in avoiding attack convince some that the real danger has passed. And when we kill jihadists abroad, we are told it is peripheral to the war or only incites more terrorism.
But despite the current efforts at denial, the war against Islamic terrorism remains real and deadly. We can’t wish it away until Middle Eastern dictatorships reform - or we end their oil stranglehold over the world economy.
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On Francisco Franco
On Francisco Franco written by Charles Few Americans know much about Francisco Franco, leader of the winning side in the Spanish C...
