"Culture, custom and cleanliness - the Muslims were superior in The Herald (thanks to EPG and Kaoskntrl) is the second part of the equally ridiculous "After this movie, there may be hate crimes committed":
MANY of the charges levelled against Ridley Scott's forthcoming Kingdom of Heaven centre on its telling of the Crusades from a western perspective. In this it is not alone: most accounts of the Crusades have been told from a western point of view as scholarship from the Muslim viewpoint is in relative infancy.
Horror of horrors! A Western perspective? For a movie made in the West for Western audiences? How ethnocentric! How monocultural!
Understanding why this is requires a leap in perspective. While icons such as Richard the Lionheart featured in childhood adventure stories and ideals of chivalry and honour are important to how we see our culture, Muslims do not single out the Crusades as an unprecedented, identity-defining event in their history.
Wait a minute. I thought we were supposed to believe they were a unique traumatic event in which innocent Muslims, who had never demonstrated any hostility to Christendom, were exposed to Western imperialism, or what Khaled Abou El Fadl called the "white man's burden," for the first time -- triggering centuries of enmity between the Islamic world and the West. This idea, however widespread, is historically preposterous, but now The Herald is tripping over its preposterous notions: if the Crusades were not an "unprecedented, identity-defining event in their history," how is it that they seem to be so traumatic?
They've noticed too:
Some commentators have attempted to extrapolate the origins of modern Islamic fundamentalism from how the western account of the Crusades incorrectly cast Crusaders as the force of progression and Muslims as victims.
Hold it. Did you catch that? Modern Islamic fundamentalism originated from the West's account of the Crusades! How omnipotent is the West! How unstoppable! How uniquely capable of shaping events, in a manner in which no other people seems capable of doing! It's astonishing that "some commentators" really do retail such claptrap -- and then have the audacity to label as "racist" those who dare suggest that "Islamic fundamentalism" may have arisen because of matters within Islam, not because of any evil done by the West. Never mind that they can't seem to envision the Islamic world as anything but a passive victim, and the West as anything but the only actor on the stage.
However, this is rejected by Dr Carole Hillenbrand, professor of Islamic history at Edinburgh University and author of The Crusades, Islamic Perspectives."Fundamentalism is a phenomenon that exists in every religion," she says. "That is to say, you have periodic waves of religious sentiment that wants to go back to what's perceived as the pure religion of the early period and try to recapture that; try to strip away all kinds of innovations and things that have come from outside that have sullied the essential principles of the religion.
"It happens in Christianity and Islam, it's an indigenous phenomenon. Islam has confidently tried to reform itself from within ever since the beginning. It has always been able to look at itself and criticise itself. It has happened on a cyclical basis ever since the beginning...."
This is true as far as it goes, but it's nonetheless highly misleading. In Islam Unveiled I compare Christian and Islamic "fundamentalisms." Until Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson pick up AK-47's and strap bombs to themselves, anyone who equates the two is just whistling in the dark.
Hillenbrand says that the Crusades has, in fact, always been a western European phenomenon and didn't figure as such in Muslim eyes. "For the Muslims, the Crusades were but another intervention in their lives from outside, like the nomadic invasions from the east of the Turks and the Mongols. The western European Christians who came on Crusade were thought of being just like the Byzantine Christians who had raided the Muslim frontiers for centuries.
Ah, those nasty Byzantine raiders. Hillenbrand makes no mention, you'll notice, of the fact that the poor oft-invaded Muslims had expanded their frontiers considerably at the expense of Byzantine territories in the Middle East and North Africa, and that the Byzantine "raiders" were just trying to get back a little of what had been theirs for centuries. I guess they had no "right of return."
"They 'discovered' the Crusades as a phenomenon that affected them rather late and there aren't many Muslim scholars nowadays who are interested in the Crusades. It's taking off now, but it's been rather slow."
It's taking off as they have discovered the joys and rewards of victimology in the West.
When Muslim scholars documented Islamic history, they concentrated on matters rooted in their culture rather than invasions from outside. Accordingly, information about the Crusades appears in various sources and not in one comprehensive text. A further influence on the Islamic perspective on the Crusades is that Islam turned in on itself following the Crusades and Mongol invasions, as at the time being the subject of attack was thought to have been a result of sin....
Not like today's enlightened folks, who see a tsunami as a result of sin.
"On the level of culture and social custom, it's quite clear that the Muslims were superior," says Hillenbrand. "We have these incredibly well-known stories from the Muslim side by the great writer of memoirs of the time who has the unfortunate name, nowadays, of Osama. He describes how 'uncivilised' the Crusader knightly class were and how they learned about civilised behaviour from the Muslims.
This is largely true, although Hillenbrand is likely pointing it out because she thinks that Westerners assume that the Islamic world has always been backward. In fact, even if true it is of no more importance than the relative barbarity of the 7th century Muslim invaders of Persia, who were so uncivilized relative to those they had conquered that they exchanged gold (which they had never seen) for silver (which they had) and used camphor, a substance entirely new to them, in cooking.
"They learned about using soap, all kinds of ways of living, they adopted Muslim food, clothing. If one looks at the evidence of the time, one realises there was a great deal of acculturation going on, of Crusaders adapting to the Muslim way of life and quite a lot of friendly interchange between Muslims and Crusaders on the personal level."
There is a celebrated statement by an early Crusader about how Frenchmen and Germans have become Syrians etc. To characterize this as "adapting to the Muslim way of life" mocks the indigenous Christian presence in the Middle East, which was still considerable at the time of the Crusaders.
Indeed, the level of fraternisation between the two sides has traditionally been underestimated. The Crusades lasted for 200 years and the popular belief is that this involved continuous battle, but it was not so. Peace treaties, inter-marriages and ideological alliances were formed between Muslim and Christian groups "Muslims and Crusaders would fight other Muslims and Crusaders across the ideological divide," says Hillenbrand. "That was particularly so between the period of 1100 and 1150, but it happened after that, too, in the early thirteenth century. So let's not see the stereotype of the Muslims being on one side and the Crusaders on the other side. There was often a great deal of rather pragmatic alliances with nothing to do with religion, but to do with getting access to trade and all sorts of local interests."...
True. Usually these alliances, however, were short-sighted on the part of the Crusaders, and proved unfortunate for them.
"Saladin and Richard the Lionheart stand together as two chivalric heroes in many medieval European minds," says Hillenbrand. "There's not much to choose between them, except Saladin is shown to be more merciful and compassionate than any of the Crusader heroes. It's European literature that has made him so. The Muslim sources of the time have Saladin as having human failings but also coming as across incredibly magnaminous in conquest.
Actually Saladin had planned to massacre the Christians in Jerusalem; his magnanimity was caused by a threat by the Crusader commander in Jerusalem to destroy the city rather than let Saladin capture it. That's why Saladin agreed not to kill the Christians there:
"There's a big contrast drawn between the brutality of the 1099 fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders, where blood flowed through the streets - and that's what the Crusaders say as well - and Saladin, who according to Muslim sources and some of the Crusader sources, avoids the temptation to take revenge for what happened in 1099 and instead is remarkably merciful."
The 1099 capture of Jerusalem has been so magnified in history that even Bill Clinton cited it as a cause of 9/11. But in fact the Crusaders were following accepted conventions of the time: a city that resisted capture could be plundered. A city that did not resist could not be. The Muslims followed this rule many times -- witness their ruthless and bloody behavior in Constantinople on May 29, 1453. It is ahistorical politicking to single out the Crusader capture of Jerusalem as some kind of singular event in history.
Phillips also stresses that Saladin wasn't perfect. "He's a hero of Islam, he threw the Crusaders out of Jerusalem and that's why Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda are prepared to invoke his image, but he killed a lot of Muslims to get there and he was also brutal towards Christians. He's a complex character."...
Indeed. See more about this in my forthcoming Regnery book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades. Available this summer.
The western European Christians who came on Crusade were thought of being just like the Byzantine Christians who had raided the Muslim frontiers for centuries.
The depth of ignorance in that statement is breath-taking. The Byzantine Empire existed before Islam, and ruled the lands from Constantinople around the Mediterranean to Egypt. All of that land was Christian.
The Muslims put that land to the sword. They were not the victims of Byzantine raids; they raided the Byzantines and conquered Byzantine-ruled lands. The Muslims massacred Byzantine civilians, raped Byzantine women, leveled Byzantine towns, and forced the conversion of tens of thousands.
How can we possibly hope to understand the present when our past is endlessly distorted and lied about?
Of course, the Byzantine Christian raiders of their poor Muslim neighbours. That's why their capital is now called Istanbul and not Constantinople and the Hagia Sofia is no longer an Orthodox church.
Remember all the hysteria surrounding "The Passion of the Christ"? Rampaging Christians were going to swarm through the streets, looking for Jews to beat up, or worse.
Didn't happen. Nor did the Jews go out and slaughter Christians over their allegedly negative depiction in the movie.
In this case I'm not so sanguine. It's Muslims we're talking about offending here. Poor, sensitive, delicate, fragile Muslims. They're easily offended, and when offended, they're easily provoked to demonstrating the depths of their hurt feelings by such showy actions as beheadings and stonings.
Maybe it's because, deep down, they're aware that their religion is a fraud.
The Koran is full of little disclaimers by Allah/Mahomet saying things like: "This is not the work of a madman." Why would they be so concerned to state that if the accusation didn't at some level hit home? I can't recall a single passage in the Bible, either OT or NT, where Jesus or one of the prophets keeps assuring folks that "I'm not nuts, really I'm not."
So, bottom line, I'd not be surprised at all to see violent Muslim reaction to ANY movie that doesn't toe the line.
This is why we need a UN-sponsored, worldwide ban on poking fun at Muslims.
On January 12, 2005 the winners of the annual King Faisal International Prize were announced. In this self-styled "Islamic Nobel" the prizes in science are legitimate -- i.e., you need not be an apologist for Islam to get it, though you must not be Jewish.
Outside of the sciences, however (and those winners in science pocket the dough, and the 22-carat whatever, and enjoy the luxury, and then return home quickly to their labs, and the free air of the West), things are quite different. There is the prize for "services to Islam." And of course, the whole King Faisal Prize business is designed to make Saudi Arabia seem part of the civilized world. If only it were a question of money, but that has been a puzzlement for plutocratic parvenus all over the world since time began.
In the category of "Services to Islam" this year's joint winners are:
"Dr Ahmad Mohammed Ali, the President of Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB), and Lebanon-based Hariri Charitable Foundation have been jointly awarded King Faisal International Prize to the service of Islam, while Professor Carole Hillenbrand of the University of Edinburgh won the prize for Islamic studies."
Carole Hillenbrand's achievement? Her book on the Islamic view of the Crusades, and her tireless apologetics of Islam hither and yon, of which the phrases quoted in The Herald article are merely an ex-ungue-leonem example.
A prize richly deserved. Well done, Carole, thou good and faithful servant -- of Islam.
Now try to guess some of the past winners in the same category of "Islamic studies" and "services to Islam."
C'mon. Give it a try. And don't do any google-peeking before posting your answers here.
Um, let's see, Hugh: off the top of my head (no googling) I'd have to guess that Karen Armstrong, John Esposito, and perhaps Bernhard Lewis have all enjoyed this prize in the past.
Score?
Cato:
I think you can safely exclude Bernard Lewis from the list of past honourees (by virtue of his Jewishness).
Most Americans and some other Westerners view the Crusades as a romantic incursion by some of their ancestors to "regain the Holy Land". They know very little because to them because Americans are a forward-looking people, interested in the future and in "progress", and the Crusades happened so long ago.
Muslims, on the other hand, are not interested in progress and the only future that seems to concern them is the overtaking of the earth for the goals of Islam and making all inhabitants slaves of Allah. The Crusades thwarted this goal and are vibrantly alive in the collective memory to serve as inspiration to overthrow non-Muslims that have the audacity to have another world view in which Allah is not the master.
Islam does seem fragile, as has pointed out, for Muslims constantly feel they must protect the reputation of the Prophet and protect Allah from degrading non-Muslims. If the Prophet is such a "great man", if Allah is so omnipotent and wonderful, and if Islam brings such wonderful things to mankind, why is this protection necessary? Obviously the opposite must be true.
Hugh
without Googling. I would hazard a guess.
Terry Jones of the lenghthy BBC "Crusades" series ?
A masterful celluloid piece of disinformation, which i have to admit, fooled me into believing Saladin was "Gentleman" and we were Barbarians unfit to set foot on "MUslim Lands".
That was several years ago.
How times have changed!
As said above, the scientists who win the prizes are not to blame for being picked, and their work has nothing in common with the mumbo-jumbo practitioners of “Islamic science” who claim to find all the discoveries of the modern world, from DNA to the study of the earth’s crust, from subatomic particles to what goes on in the farthest star, all prefigured – no, laid out in detail – in a mysterious phrase or two from the Qur’an.
A word to the decent recipients of the science prizes. After you have pocketed the fat check, the 22-carat medal, and the ceremony in which a good alcohol-free time is had by all (Will your wife accompany you? Will she put on the head-to-toe black abaya? Will you permit it?), and returned home to civilization, if you happen to have a moment’s reflection about the event, and about the fact that no Jews have been, or ever will be, selected for the King Faisal Prize, perhaps that will embarrass you enough to possibly write something. Don’t do anything rash. Keep the money(good god, I would). But at least write down, and publish your chagrin that the prize will remain diminished in prestige, when the pool of those eligible has been so obviously, calculatedly, cruelly reduced (no Jews need be considered) and that as a recipient, you think the Saudis should be made to understand that the civilized world shares your view, if it need not feel so keenly your shame and chagrin at this aspect of the matter.
In the posting above, I neglected a few piquant details. First, the announcement of this year's King Faisal prize-winner in the category of "Islamic studies" which can be found at the website of the University of Edinburgh:
“Professor Carole Hillenbrand, of University of Edinburgh’s Department for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, has been awarded the prestigious King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies.
The King Faisal Foundation (KFF), headed by HRH Prince Khalid Al-Faisal and based in Saudi Arabia, awards the prize each year in five categories, including Medicine, Science, and Islamic Studies. Professor Hillenbrand’s award, which will be presented in a ceremony in Riyadh, reflects her “revolutionary approach to the largely one-sided subject of The Crusades”.
Her book “The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives“ examines the period between 1099 to 1291 from a Muslim perspective; traditionally, historical work in this area has had a largely European bias.
The KFF cite Professor Hillenbrand’s “objectivity, preciseness and clarity of thinking” in her groundbreaking research. During the course of her work, she identified “several original texts, written in different languages and previously un-translated, in support of her refreshing examination of the many stereotypes that have pervaded western literature on [the subject of The Crusades]”.
Since the KFF was set up in 1976, a total of 28 scholars from 12 countries have won the King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies. The Foundation’s website explains that because of the high standards of the award’s selection procedure, it is ‘among the most prestigious of international awards to scholars and scientists who have made the most significant advances to benefit humanity and enrich human knowledge.’
‘The granting of these Prizes embodies King Faisal Foundation's firm belief that through the collective efforts of outstanding individuals the highest aspirations of mankind are realized.’
Carole Hillenbrand was educated at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh. After working at the Ministry of Aviation she was appointed Lecturer in Islamic History at the University of Edinburgh in 1979. She was appointed Reader in 1990 and was awarded a Personal Chair in Islamic History in 2000. In 2001 her department at The University of Edinburgh received a 5-star A rating, the highest in the country, and the only 5-star awarded to any UK department in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies."
Note that "5-star A award" given to Carole Hillenbrand's department of “Islamic and Middle Eastern studies." There is no mention of where the prize comes from. A bolt from the blue, by an admiring Zeus?Michelin, whose food inspectors were impressed with the quality of the sheeps’ eyes served up at faculty meetings? Possibly an award from the Ministry of Education – but the Ministry of Education of which country, Great Britain or Saudi Arabia? One would like to know. And since it is Question Time, one would also like to know about that "Personal Chair in Islamic History" which Carole Hillenbrand was given in 2000, which by the sound of it was carefully sculpted to fit only Carole Hillenbrand's particular bottom. Who paid for that chair? Can anyone in Auld Reekie, in Scotland, in the United Kingdom, in the European Community, in the whole wide world, fill us in about Carole Hillenbrand’s “Personal Chair” – who paid for it, whether it automatically collapses when she eventually does so that it will never have to bear the weight of a successor?
It can be said of Carole Hillenbrand what, with equal justice, can be said of the previous winners in this particular category of King Faisal Prizes: What Islam has joined -- Saudi Arabian money and these disinterested "scholars" of Islam --let no false morality, or false scrupulosity about scholarship put asunder. After all, nowadays we know there is no such thing as the truth, just “perspectives” on things, and since – as the new view has it – scholarship is never disinterested, never the product of curiosity, but always in the service of someone or something (see Edward Said, “Orientalism”), then surely it makes sense to undertake such scholarship in the service of those who pay the best?
And who pays better than Saudi Arabia?
Robert,
I know you have been counting on winning the King Faisal Prize, just as I have factored Winning the Lottery into my retirement plans (in fact, it is the centerpiece of those plans).
But someone has to tell you. I guess it's up to me. You will not, I'm afraid, be getting the King Faisal Prize any time soon. In fact, I would be surprised if a Saudi simulacrum of the Prize Brigade of Publisher's Clearinghouse were ever to arrive at your door, all dishdashas-and-daggers, to announce that you had been selected to receive that year's King Faisal Prize for your contributions to "Islamic studies."
You won't be getting the King Faisal Prize. Not this year. Not next year. Not the year after that. Not ever.
Better make other plans.
Perhaps at long last you will consider emulating my own sober and sensible planning for the future. I realized long ago that no one has a better chance than I of winning the lottery. Ever since, I haven't looked back. What can possibly go wrong?
There are days when I am just in tears with laughter at the comments made here on JW!
How about this: Instead of the traditional banquet on the closing night of the seminar/conference, have a ROAST!
A pork roast?
Hang it all, Hugh Fitzgerald, you're probably right: I will never win the King Faisal International Prize for Islamic Studies, not for "Islam Unveiled," not for "Onward Muslim Soldiers," and most likely not even for "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades."
But I've GOT to be still in the running for the Shaykh Muhammad Salih Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Creativity, right?
Right?
Hugh?
(For details on that one, see http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/002712.php)
Best regards
Robert
"After all, nowadays we know there is no such thing as the truth, just “perspectives”"
It is said that truth does not exist- only its perception exists.
certainly as a young man i was struck by principle in physics from i believe werner heisenberg ?? that one cannot objectively observe an event without interfering with it.
Try measuring the temperature of your bath water without changing it the slightest way.
I now believe this principle applies heavily to the recounting of History.
And has been exploited by the most maliciously insprired revisionists whether on ideological grounds or simple for the persuit of wealth and personal prestige.
Fortunately in this wondrous age of electronic digital record keeping, it should be far more difficult to lie and distort.
The plethora of conspiracy theories that assault us daily is surely the proof that the distortive revisionists now try even harder.
Would one give equal standing to a flat earth believer in a discussion on the earth's topology?
Today's topsy turvy world demands that we do just that.
And we must listen attentively to such claims that the planes that hit the twin towers were actually US airfoce jets, despite all the photographic and testimonial evidence.
Alber Einstein must be turning in his grave!
Of course you're in the running. I nominated you.
First winner of the Shaykh Muhammad Salih Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Creativity, not surprisingly, was Carl Ernst, defender of the Sells bowdlerization of the Qur'an -- google "Carl Ernst" and "Jihadwatch" to find more.
And read this interview with Carl Ernst on-line:
Middle East studies in the News
From survey: University of North Carolina
From survey: Duke University
Questions and Answers with Carl Ernst on the Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Achievement in the Humanities awarded for Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World (UNC Press, 2003)
UNC Press
May 7, 2004
http://www.unc.edu/%7Ecernst/FollowingMuhammad/Q&A.htm
How was the book nominated?
Very unexpectedly, I was contacted by Dr. Seham al-Freih, a professor of Arabic literature at Kuwait University, on May 7, when she called to ask me to accept the prize. I had never heard of the Bashrahil Prize, because this year is the first time it has been awarded. After making inquiries, I learned that the foundation established for the Bashrahil Prize is an organization dedicated to the support of literature and culture, and on that basis I was happy to accept the award.
How did Dr. Al-Freih become aware of the book, and why did she nominate it?
Dr. Al-Freih visited North Carolina in January 2004 to take part in the Muslim Networks Consortium meeting held at Duke University; she had been invited by Prof. miriam cooke (Duke) when the latter visited Kuwait to evaluate the Arabic program at the university there. The Muslim Networks Consortium, now consisting of nearly thirty universities in the US and a number of other countries, was created by a group of scholars at Duke and UNC, based on a series of seminars that began in 1999. The aim of the Muslim Networks Consortium is to create new models for Islamic studies, moving away from academic Orientalism, Middle East area studies, and inter-religious dialogue. By using analytical tools such as network analysis, and by embodying a new academic network that cuts across existing boundaries between academic disciplines and geographic regions, this group hopes to bring Islamic studies into the heart of the humanities and social sciences in the American university, instead of relegating them to the status of an exotic subject reserved for specialists. Literature and the arts are key elements for the Muslim Networks project. Among the fruits of the Muslim Networks Consortium is a new publication series called Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks, published by the University of North Carolina Press; my book Following Muhammad is the first book of the series, and its publication was one of the items discussed at the workshop."
Nota Bene:
"this group hopes to bring Islamic studies into the heart of the humanities and social sciences in the American university, instead of relegating them to the status of an exotic subject reserved for specialists. Literature and the arts are key elements for the Muslim Networks project."
Muslim scholarship is like "Islamic Science" and oxymoron.
Aaargh, Carole Hillenbrand needs Saudi harem time, an Abaya and some tender loving Arab spousal abuse.
Wrap her in a burqa and ship her to Peshawar or Afghanistan.
I have an idea give all Islamophiles and muslim apologists a one way ticket to Peshawar (Saudi Arabia won't let them in, especially the Jewish apologists).