A word from a student of Omid Safi

If she is a student of Safi, she must have received a decent grade or she would not speak so highly of him. We were only worrying about the shallow, biased content of Safi's courses, now we should begin worrying about basic literacy.

Things don't look good for Colgate...

LOL! I do hope that she overcomes her intellectual inertia and naivete, and bothers to read a few books that expose Omid's crap. I'm sorry, brilliantly planned crap.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Which way to the batcave?
My mother always told me that I was the freakin Batman. After all these years I discover there are two of us. It's Ok Robert, you can keep Batman, I can morph into Mighty Mouse, the caped crusader...no problemo. "Here I come to save the day". A piece of cake, or cheese in this case...

Another thing... a great education and a suitcase full of degree's do not necessarily guarantee a decent human being...

Now I know what to wear while perusing the Quran. I have always worn a windbreaker.

Wow, it seems that you're the talk of Colgate, a pseudo-scholar who disseminates hate and lies! Your name must come up frequently in Professor PhD's class, maybe in his amazing lesson plans for "Taquiyya 101."

The author of this scathing diatribe, who butchers the English language and cannot even create a cogent sentence, should begin her college education with a remedial English course. If she typifies the caliber of Colgate students, then apparently Colgate has abolished all scholastic admission requirements.

Apparently this little co-ed is quite smitten with her professor. Your response was excellent; truthful, comprehensive, accurate, and even amusing at times. But I doubt if it will penetrate this student's grey matter. She is enthralled by Omid's charisma. What a shame that she is blind to his cowardice and hypocrisy. He will not face you like a man (where's his Arab honor?) but he has no problem with impuging your integrity and intellect behind your back.

When did macho muslim males start sending the inferior sex out to fight their battles? LOL

You know,I used to work at Sydney University as a storeman making deliveries all over the campus.
I had to keep my eyes sharp because the students had a tendency to walk straight in front of my van on many,many occasions not even bothering to look.
A diploma doesn't make you intelegent,after all its just a piece of paper and in Australian Universities we know that they have lowered the bar academically.
What the hell does Middle Eastern studies involve anyway?
Its just another course on Islamic propoganda.
Is it like a BA where it really is meaningless?
But then again academics are arrogant so it all fits in with islam doesn't it?

The more pragmatic problem for the West is not the multitudes of Omid Safis and their Muslim students: our more pressing problem is the fact that there are MILLIONS of our own Western Leftists who, after perusing this jihadwatch site, would AGREE with this young female student.

Yes DT: It is tragic.

My darling daughter does a course is ME studies in a very fine and expensive University in QLD and she was crying to me on the phone the other day:

They 'teach' her that all culture and civilization and just about everything from buttons to paper to the Automobile and airplanes are Mohammedan inventions.

The twin towers 'imploded' on 9/11, it was a 'show' staged by fundamentalist Christians to turn the US into a dictatorship, and Jihad is (of course) nothing but 'inner struggle'...

If Baruch Goldstein knew he would turn in his grave...

For the record: I do have a PhD (Political Economy) and I do my own thorough fact checking when I encounter other scholars' works. I have done that with Mr. Spencer's work and will continue to scrutinize Mr. Spencer's work in the future with the same due diligence. I can attest that his work is top notch scholarship in the subject matter to which he rightfully claims expertise. One does not need a PhD to accomplish good scholarship but it is not a common situation. I do not agree with everything he has written but that does not in the least diminish the value of his contribution.

It is to be noted with sadness and dismay that the tradition of the brilliant scholarship of the Orientalists of a century ago has fallen out of favor in the universities throughout the West. Luminaries such as Jeffery, Margoliouth, Geiger, St. Clair-Tisdall, Brown, Noldeke, Caetani and Mingana, just to name a few, are no more to be found. So to whom are the young students of the discipline to be apprenticed? All that remain in the university faculties today are gaggles of apologists, Muslim taqiyya masters, and dhimmified prostitutes sitting in Wahhabi funded chairs and institutes.

To the lady who wrote to Mr. Spencer:

You said that Mr. Safi told you not to write to persons he has included in his list of "islamophobes". Why do you think did he do this? Do you think it is appropriate for a professor to prevent his students from getting information on their own and limiting them to sources which are filtered by him? Did you ever see Mr. Spencer doing something like this? Mr. Spencer is exactly the opposite. All he does is informing his readers about sources, very often primary sources. In contrast to Mr. Safi he urges his readers to read the other's point of view. Did Mr. Safi tell you you read one of his opponents texts?

I'm from Germany, and some of my friends grew up in communist East Germany. There it was like in your class: The government told students what they were allowed to read and advised them to avoid the other's point of view. I guess Mr. Safi would have liked it.

Why do you not step out of the confinements of officially permitted thinking? Just base your position on what you see and read and not on what Mr. Safi tells you. Do you think his silence is a proof of his confidence in himself and his position? If it is so easy to refute Mr. Spencer, why doesn't he simply do it? Refuting is what science is about, isn't it?

Try this experiment: Go through one of Mr. Spencers academic texts. If you think that he is wrong in some points, try to refute him. Then share your refutation with the rest of us. See what the reaction will be. I'm sure your contributions will be very much appreciated. I guess the reason why Mr. Spencer and others tend to be provocative sometimes is that a majority in their field has abandoned scientific practice and answers their well-sourced argumentation with moral condemnation instead of scholarly refutation.

Don't limit your arguments to appeals on authority, this is sloppy thinking. By the way, I'm a PhD student (International Relations), so would you say that I'm more accurate than Mr. Spencer just because of my upcoming degree?

And if you are really daring, you would propose to Mr. Safi to examine a few "Orientalists'" and "Islamophobes'" scientific texts in class and to prove that they are wrong (if you can). Will you think on your own, or will you continue believing in what authorities tell you?

I thought Islam was a big problem! If this sycophants epistle is any measure of the state of written English in our universities then we clearly have more problems. How the hell did she pass first year English?

I don't care whether her English is correct as long as her arguments are sound (which they aren't). I presume that she is a foreign student. You won't believe it, but American universities are still among the best in the world.

Robert, AKA Batman, that was exceptionally funny even by your standards, which climb ever higher.

This girl obviously has a crush on her mentor. Perhaps he looks like Tariq Ramadan.

LOL.

I'm reading this in the morning by the way, wearing a little black cocktail dress. Hope this is OK.

That the world is full of dolts with PhDs that walk in lockstep is certainly a problem for they often are brainwashed and stunted in their thinking to the point that even seeing anything outside of the little box in which their minds have been wedged during their many years of academic discipline is inconceivable. Many, if not most, care only about the good opinion of their academic peers and perceive the rest as lesser beings.

Making decisions using intellectual prowess can have a devastating effect IF not paired with the wisdom that comes with time and living. (I don't mean living confined in the academic ivory tower or laboratory.)

It seems political islam has worked its way into the classroom, kt. No words of wisdom from you here?

Academic Standards, R.I.P.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18419

Buffalo's Bullying professor
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18416

“Given the rather sorry state of its grammar and syntax…”

May I suggest, Robert, that this student, whatever the merits of her argument, addressed you in imperfect English because she expected that if she addressed you in her mother tongue, your command of that language might be even worse than her command of English?

“And let me ask you this: how many professors of Islam besides Omid have you had? (Academically.)”

For shame, Robert, for shame! A cheap and tawdry dig, and more a comment on your own (lack of) integrity than on your opponent’s intellect.

My dear "Ganymede,"

You say: "May I suggest, Robert, that this student, whatever the merits of her argument, addressed you in imperfect English because she expected that if she addressed you in her mother tongue, your command of that language might be even worse than her command of English?"

Probably so, Ganymede, probably so. On the other hand, that would depend on what her mother tongue is. I am not monolingual, but this is an English-language website.

You say: “And let me ask you this: how many professors of Islam besides Omid have you had? (Academically.)” For shame, Robert, for shame! A cheap and tawdry dig, and more a comment on your own (lack of) integrity than on your opponent’s intellect."

Sure, sure! I fail to see how this has anything to do whatsoever with integrity, but I will nonetheless cheerfully acknowledge it as evidence of my lack of integrity as soon as you acknowledge your message to me as evidence that you are a self-righteous and humorless prig.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

This Safi groupie has done an excellent job of showing us what has become of our institutions of learning, although it was unintentional on her part. They don't attend these classes to learn, to apply independant thought and research to qualify what the "professor" is teaching them, they go to be indoctrinated, brainwashed.

Perhaps if she would pick up a book and read, which you must do in order to understand the subject of Islam (athough she disagrees with this concept)She would learn what Islam is really all about, rather than the whitewashed version Mr. Safi preaches, and she soaks up without question.

I would suggest she go to the library, pick up volume one of the "Sirat Rasul Allah" which is
translated to english by Alfred Guillaume under the title, "The Life of Muhammad". It is the ONLY record of Muhammads life, in cronicological order, and cannot be disputed. Without this, there cannot be a Koran or cult of Islam.
Then starting at chapter 1, read it. But not just read it, anyalize it, question the statements it makes, facts it quotes, and the words Muhammad says, the actions he takes and the reasons why he takes them.
It doesn't require rocket science, there is no mystery or magic words only "allah" knows. It was origionaly written by an Islamic "scholar"
In 750 AD. It wasn't even written in Arabic origionaly, because even in 750 AD Arabic was still not a written language.(which also proves the Koran wasn't origionaly written in Arabic either, or even written during Muhammads lifetime at all.) In fact it's most probable that the Koran was eventually written hundreds of years later based on this book by Ishaq.

Maybe then this Mr.Safi groupie will see that what Mr. Safi is trying to fill her mind with isn't really the truth. Allah really was just a rock (one of many) that pagan Arabs worshipped, which is made clear in this "scripture". Muhammad was a fraud, a violent murdering raping bandit whose inner voice (probably Satan)said was a good thing to do.

Ishaq:208 “When Allah gave permission to his Apostle to fight, the second Aqaba contained conditions involving war which were not in the first act of submission. Now we bound themselves to war against all mankind for Allah and His Apostle.

For all time until the last day. Common Miss Safi groupie, use your own mind, pick up the book and read it. Contrary to what you've been told, that's how you learn about Islam, and you need this book to undertand the koran.
The koran is an unorganized jumbled mess and doesn't make sense without it. The koran is certainly not something any all knowing perfect god would write. A rock maybe...

Why is it people need a "professor" to tell them what Islam is about? Don't they teach people to read in school anymore?
Islam isn't complicated at all, even though there is so much garbage written about it.

I just described the basic text of All of Islam.
Everything else is written later but based on that one and only record of Muhammad's life.
True, later scholars like Bukhari and Muslim (Bukhari's student) eliminated some of Ishaq's writings, and added some of their own, but I assure you, Ishaq's writings,(which are now lost)later abridged and edited by Ibn Hisham in 830 are all that is known of Muhammad life.
dispute it and you must dispute everything in the Koran, because without Muhammad there can be no Islam.
Of course, Islamic professors don't want you to know that all of islam stems from this one work.

As Dean Martin used to slur, "Just tryin' to have a little fun here, folks."
(Ganymede??? Like the little Trojan boy Zeus took for cupbeareer after tossing out the female Hebe? Ooooooookay.)

Robert,

You don’t deny you made a cheap and tawdry dig yet you fail to see how making such a dig reflects on your integrity? Let me enlighten you. Taking cheap shots – in this case, a colloquialism loaded with sexual innuendo, at a young person of the opposite sex whose scrambled English would likely mean that she wouldn’t pick up on the colloquialism - would be a reflection on anyone’s integrity, in this case, on yours.

Don’t behave like a schoolyard bully, Robert. Stick to the argument – if you believe you really have one.

It's not actualy A book, it's 10 volumes.

mullahmasher:

Heaven only knows whether university students can even read in the first place, let alone what they are being taught in any discipline and not only the realm of politics. I am in the process of ridding myself of an idiot tenant with an undergrad degree in "design engineering" from the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) who figures she should be able to flush tampons down toilets without blocking up the plumbing because "poohs are bigger than tampons".

I see the proffesor has taught you well Ganymede.
Avoid the facts, Avoid discussion of Islamic 'scripture" change the subject and hurl insults. typical Islamic scholar, aren't you.

waterdragon52-- LoL!

Waterdragon said: "Avoid discussion of Islamic 'scripture" change the subject and hurl insults. typical Islamic scholar, aren't you."

Since you accuse me of changing the subject and hurling insults, Waterdragon, perhaps you'd like to explain what bearing Robert's suggestion that his young, female opponent was sleeping with her teachers - had on their argument?

Typical, selectively myopic bigot, aren't you?

waterdragon52-

It's pathetic how students "learn" these days. PhD aren't worth the paper they are written on
in many cases because all the "student" is doing
is repeating and agreeing with whatever half baked idealism the "professor" is trying to sell. The professor himself is no more than a professional student who did the same thing. All he did is move from one desk somewhere in the classroom to the one at the front. They have no life experience whatsoever. For subject like psychology, I'd rather listen to a woman's opinions who raised 4 kids to adulthood than some pimple faced graduate who's main argument on the subject is "but I have a PHD".

When I graduated with my engineering degree in the good ol' days, we left that classroom smarter than the instructor, but that still didn't make you an engineer until you got a good 5-10 years of practical work experience in the field.
Nowadays, they think they know it all and expect a high paying job at the top of the cooperate ladder, but usually end up sorting mail at the post office because of their arrogance. Later they become union leaders and waste their lives demanding engineers salaries for putting a letter in the correct slot (they can't even do that right)

Robert's suggestion that his young, female opponent was sleeping with her teachers -

Thats odd, I didn't see where he suggested that anywhere. That proves you can't read properly.

Oh and Ganymede, that wasn't waterdragon who made the statement, it was me. Again, it suggests you have underdeveloped reading skills.

Apologies to Waterdragon for wrongly addressing my comments to you.

Mullahmasher,

Given that it was you who made the comment, my comments will apply to you. I'm glad to see that you don't deny you are a selectively myopic bigot after all.

As for this comment of yours:

[G: Robert's suggestion that his young, female opponent was sleeping with her teachers] M:
"Thats odd, I didn't see where he suggested that anywhere. That proves you can't read properly."

Robert asked his young, female opponent:

"how many professors of Islam besides Omid have you had? (Academically.)”

The pun on "had" and the resulting sexual inference is obvious to anyone with even the most basic of English language skills....... but then, since you lack those, this is no doubt a wasted discussion.

Ganymede - you're a bit po-faced about this. It was a teeny weeny little joke. No big deal.

Are you a Muslim, by any chance? Ayatollah Komeini said there is to be 'no fun in Islam'. Mohammed wasn't known for cracking jokes, but there aren't many laughs to be had in murder, rape, banditry and paedophilia.

Actually I take that back about Mohammed not cracking jokes. There's the one about Muslims being 'the best of people'.

And the riproaringly funny one about Allah being compassionate and merciful.

No, it's only a sexual inference to someone with a dirty mind- such as you.

What he simply asked and clarified is how many academic classes she had with an actual Islamic professor, or was Omid's class her only exposure to Islamic study.

I gather you are a muslim, which explains the preoccupation with sexual thoughts. Normal people don't read sexual overtones into everything.

Mullahmasher - no, it was a pun, but a teeny weeny one, not worth getting ones knickers in a twist over.

If Miss :) has paid for her own education, I am afraid she is the one who has been had.

College students everywhere are extraordinarily naive, easily inveigled, easily impressed. Often what impresses them is not what, were they were cleverer, less easy to inveigle, would not impress an outsider. They lay great store, some of them, by the most obvious kinds of "niceness" and I have no doubt that Omid Safi, with that liquid-brown-eye performance down to a T, makes up in "warmth" -- and those invitations, those personal invitations to come to his very house to break bread, how could anyone say anything bad about this man? How?.

Now think of real scholars. Some are friendly, and some aloof. Think of Joseph Schacht, for example. He would have gone over a paper, for a real student, or for a fellow scholar. He would have avoided faculty politics. And he would never have stooped to playing to the students.

But in this age, an age of the complete breakdown of standards, where fraud hires fraud, and the mutual backscratching of blurbs (Professor X just loves Professor Y's magnificent achievement and Professor Y, in turn, thinks Professor X really deserves this job, or this year "to complete his book" at Bellagio). Spare us, please. We know, we have seen it all -- too many of us.

Safi is a perfectly transparent and deplorable type. But he smiles. And he heaps the plates of his grateful students --- oooh, the real thing, a real "ethnic" meal -- when he invites them here or there. No doubt this wins him exactly the points that he wants, for the "Student Reviews" at the end of the course, and to keep him safe from those colleagues or administrators who might, just might, begin to question the careful selection of discredited apologetics that he so calculatingly offers his students.

And keep in mind that at this point, and no doubt for the last several years, his class is self-selected. What truly intelligent and wary student, sniffing about his syllabus, and his general "lesson plan" lauded by his illiterate defender, would take his class? No, there may be a few complete innocents who still sign up to "learn about Islam" but the really good students who are wary will simply not sign up at all. They can sense the apologetics.

So who's left to take Omid Safi's classes where Maria Rosa Menocal's farrago of nonsense and notions concocted out of Washington Irving's The Alhambra, Sir Walter Scott's The Talisman, and Chateaubriand's Le dernier des abencerages, but not out of clear and specific knowledge (a book on Islamic Spain that does not list the main authorities, beginning with Levi-Provencal, in its bibliographical, is farcical -- even from the "Director" of something called the "Whitney Center for the Humanities").

The classes are mostly taken by those who already are on Omid Safi's wavelength, islamisant students, third-worlders, those who will refuse, despite all the evidence, to consider how Islam divides the world uncompromisingly between Believer and Infidel.

It would be fascinating to see how Safi's students would perform on a little quiz -- asked to tell us, for example, what the Hadith and Sira are, and how the former were winnowed and categorized by al-Bukhari and Muslim, or who was Asma bint Marwan, Aisha, the Khaybar Oasis, the Banu Qurayza and the Battle of the Trench.

And one could ask those students as well to offer a hypothesis as to why Islamic science suddenly disappeared, and ask them what they make of the "gates of ijtihad" being closed. And what do they think "Jihad" means. And why do they think 60-70 million Hindus were massacred by Muslim conquerors and then those conquerors decided to no longer slaughter them, but to treat them almost as "People of the Book" who could stay alive as long as they paid, in humiliating circumstances, the jizyah?

And then would also like to ask the students of Omid Safi, perhaps a year or two or five after they have taken his course or courses, and begun to think -- some of them, the ones who learn how to think -- how they were snookered, how naive they were, how absurd they were to be taken in by his deliberate and exaggerated affability that, in the absence of scholarly standards, and of pedagogic ones (for he does not tell them about Islam -- he offers them a carefully circumcribed apologetics for Islam that any soldier returning from Iraq would laugh to scorn), is his main weapon, and defense.

Standards, especially in the teaching of history and of literature, have gone down in many places. Some left the MLA to found a quasi-decent group of LIterary Scholars and Critics. Some left the AHA for the same reasons, to try to establish a group that would not wallow in diversity, ethnicity, sexuality, gender issues, and all the crap of the age.

But no organization, no guild to defend its members and protect their jobs (and tenure must end if there is to be a future for American education), has been as egregious as MESA NOSTRA. And at MESA NOSTRA, Omid Safi is not the exception -- but the dismal rule.

There is such a thing as educational malpractice. Some student at Carnegie should, preferably after he has pocketed his degree, sue the school for what Omid Safi was allowed to (mis) teach him. At the very least, it will get attention. We cannot allow the barbarians to remain, undislodged, from the professorial seats they have usurped, while in the outside world, hundreds or thousands of very good former graduate students, the kind who were dismayed and discouraged because, believe it or not, they actually were in love with historical or literary studies, but not in the way they are offered and ruled with an iron fist today, are wandering around. ABD, are some of them, All But Dissertation. ABD, in Arabic, means slave.

We need a slave revolt, a revolt of the ABDS, a revolt of those who, over the past few decades, have seen their rightful places taken by the likes of Omid Safi.

Ganymede-

Muslim males seem to have this sexual inferiority complex, perhaps feelings of inadequacy.
The think whenever a woman converses with a man who isn't her husband that these men are looking at her in a sexual way. This is why there are so many "honor killings" in Islamic countries.
There a huge immature jealousy thing going on there. All through the Koran and hadith there is a deep mistrust of women.

"It's all about sex", they shouted.
Sounds like Ganny has some sexual hang ups. After all that writing , it boils down to sex.
The word "Had" could have sexual implications if your mind runs in those channels. It's your choice Ganny, to see it that way. It seems to me that Robert could have added the word 'academically'to clarify that this was not a sexual pun...only Robert knows for sure and he should remain silent on the subject so that Gannys mind can run wild and burn itself out. I can smell those wires heating up from here...

Interested-

Oh no, definately not. (wink) it's all in his mind :o)

Mullahmasher,

I had the same thought: when I read his reply I had no impression of a juicy wit but rather the idea: "How many professors have you had, not only on paper, not only HEARD their lessons, did you also dared to oppose their thoughts.Do you discuss with them after having read other scholars' works? "

Well Said, Hugh. (Holy Bad Puns, Batman!)
One need look no further than this: Safi includes Mr. Spencer, a living breathing author, in his syllabus. Spencer is one of a number of choices of people to be studied. Spencer actually contacts Safi and offers to discuss his ideas with the students, but Safi is horrified at the thought. Safi in fact discourages his tender charges from even contacting Spencer or the others on his list.
What kind of critical mind can Safi have?

Excellent piece Hugh. I wish I had your gift.

Interested- The koran and hadith are full of humor- if you aren't a Muslim. Take this for instance:

Tabari I:275 “Satan wanted to meet them [Adam and Eve] in Paradise, but the keepers prevented him from entering. He went to a snake, an animal with four feet like a camel. Satan tried to persuade it to let him enter its mouth and take him to Adam. The snake agreed, passed by the keepers, and entered without their knowledge, because that was Allah’s plan.”

ROTFLMAO! Allah is setting them up for something...

Tabari I:278 “Adam went inside the tree to hide. Eve cut the tree [why?] and it bled. [trees bleed?] Then the feather that covered Adam and Eve dropped off.[why is this little fact important?] So Allah said, ‘Now Eve, as you caused the tree to bleed, you will bleed every new moon, and you, snake, I will cut off your feet and you will walk slithering on your face.’”

Hilarious!

Allah made women bleed because she made a tree bleed. it has absolutely nothing to do with the menstrual cycle at all!
That folks is the undeniable irrefutable word of Allah via Muhammad.
Our doctors and medical science people have got it all wrong. it's just a coincidence that women bleed during their menstrual cycle.

What's even more funny is sending an email to "ask the imam" and reading the material they write, trying to sell you a convincing explanation for this rubbish.

That was a truly hilarious response. Note how the troll goes off on a tangent: a terrible, terrible pun indeed! (Maybe Rob will have a double punishment?) Never mind the character slurs yon student was dishing out. No no, one rule of play for one person, another for another - your side, that is. All fair, isn't it, in love and war?

Then again, if the other side has so much proof of this terrible, seething hatred, one supposes they might post it rather than waving the wand of intolerance so generally in the direction of a foe they can't fathom - the educated and islamically well-reader disbeliever.

O! You obstinates! Allah will turn you into lizards! And so forth.

Geoff

PS: Sorry I haven't been on; busy.

Mullahmasher (good name) - thanks for opening my eyes to the humour potential in Islam. Ask Imam is hilarious.

Didn't somebody here once mention something about a hadith to do with wiping your arse with twigs? Allah may be all seeing, but he definitely seems to train his eye on the nether regions rather more than is healthy.

"Didn't somebody here once mention something about a hadith to do with wiping your arse with twigs? Allah may be all seeing, but he definitely seems to train his eye on the nether regions rather more than is healthy."

A good follower of Mohammed wipes his or her private parts with the left hand and pure water.
Only we infidels use paper thus being considered "najis"/impure.

I never shake a Muslim's hand.

Sorry, meant "infidels"...

Interested-

"Allah" does indeed have a rather peculiar obsession with bodily functions and orifices- very similar to Satan's.

And yes, sticks or stones, wipe three times,no more, no less and only with your left hand. And when urinating, hold your wee wee with only the left hand also, and for gosh sakes NEVER pee in the direction of Mecca, or it's hell fire for you.(unless you kill an infidel, that will erase the sin) Also, when you wake up, wash your hands BEFORE you put your hands in pre-prayer abulation water, because no one knows where your hands were while you slept. Also blow your nose three times when you wake up, because Satan sleeps in there and takes a dump.

In the old Latin:

"Quae nocent docent."

(Things that injure, teach.)

Mr. Safi is a fine example of it.

If this young gal is a "student" of anything it is pop illiteracy.

Her instructors should all be sent back for remedial everything.

Methinks that Gany hath hit the mead too much, mayhap. The problem isn't that anyone has made fun of this "girl" (If she is in college, she's a woman now, not a girl). It is that college students have become fetal-position infantalized. You can't say anything that might send them kicking and screaming to the floor, poor dears. HATE SPEECH! PERSECUTION! Waaah, waaaah, I tells ya. Waaaah! So, what constitutes good evening wear, Mr. Spencer? It's afternoon here, and I am still in my flannel pjs. (I work nights, forgive me.) Can I learn better in my jammies, or should I put on something more educationally slinky? I'm a full-grown babe, I can handle it...you can be brutally honest with me.

"I am in my white kid gloves, white tie and tails as we speak.."

Robert, I think you were alluding to that passage in "Seymour: An Introduction" in which Seymour assures the recipient of the letter he is writing (Bessie Glass? Buddy?) that as he writes that letter he is wearing, not the Astairesque frac that you claim to have donned for the rhetorical flaying above, but rather a tuxedo?

Am I right? Youth Wants to Know.

What would Mohammed wear?

He'd suit a Noel Coward style silk dressing gown, and an elegant cigarette holder, as he reveals the Koran in a 'clipped voice'.

"as he reveals the Koran in a 'clipped voice'."
-- from a posting above

He should have sounded like Jack Buchanan, in light-heared repartee with Elsie Randolph.

Two more comments before we tuck or squeeze Omid Safiinto his Procrustean bed:

1) It is perfectly legitimate to point out the impossible English of his defender. Whether a native speaker of English or not (we have no way of knowing), that student should be able to produce a coherent English sentence, and where the English is only semi-literate, one is under no obligation to politely refrain from pointing it out -- in fact, one has a duty to point it out.

2) Obviously this student was pressed into service by Omid Safi himself, for who else would be combing the Internet to find out what unpleasant things are said about -- Omid Safi? How did he press him/her into service? Let's imagine.

Ring! Ring!
"Hello?"
"Salaam aleikum."
"Professor Safi?"
"Yes."
"Aleikum salaam. Sorry, I didn't know it was you. How are you?"
"Fine, Kimberley (or Tiffany, or Melissa). Just checking in to see how your summer's going."
"Oh, it's fine. I'm just re-reading that book you assigned by Menocal -- what a good writer she is. So perceptive. That whole world in Spain sounds so wonderful."
"Yes, it was wonderful. A kind of model society. If only we could go back to those simpler times.Just imagine what Cordoba must have been like before the Spanish took over."
"I know. Those fountains. And the mosque -- I still have the postcard, you know, from the set of mosque postcards you gave each of us at the end of the year."
"Oh, that's nice. Which one is your favorite?"
"Well, I kinda like the Blue Mosque in Ispahan. ?And of course Al Aqsa. If only Muslims could still visit it. Someday. Let's hope."
"Yes, I know what you mean. Well, glad you are still hanging in there. Do you have a job?"
"Yes, I'm working with a Muslim Outreach Group. We invite these Christians, Jews, whatever, They come to the mosque on Elm Street."
"The new one?"
"Yes, the very big one. You know, it cost $24 million."
"Fantastic. Its beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"So what do you do at these Outreach sessions?"
"Oh, we explain about how the three abrahamic faiths all share the same beliefs, and One God, and how Muslims really respect Jesus, and Moses. You know, I think Moses and Mary are mentioned more in the Qur'an than in the Bible."
"Doesn't surprise me."
"But it sure surprises them. They can hardly believe it."
"Do you discuss the Hadith or the Sira -- do those come up?"
"No, its like you said in class -- there just isn't time to cover everything so we just stick to the Qur'an. We have paperback copies of "Approaching the Qur'an" -- remember, the one you recommended we give to all our friends."
"Of course I remember. That's really the easiest way into the Qur'an. It can be hard for people. And we should try to make it easy."
"Yes, Professor Safi." "You know, the term came to an end so fast, that I didn't have a chance to tell you -- your 5-page final paper on Sciencein the Qur'an was really spectacular. Even I didn't realize that the structure of DNA is actually set out in the Qur'an. But why should I be surprised? The Qur'an has everything, doesn't it, absolutely everything?"
"Yes, Professor Safi. You taught us to see that. I just tried to apply what you taught us, and I took Bio 2 last year, and I realized that everything I learned was already in the Holy Qur'an."
"Isn't it amazing?"
"Yes, it's amazing."
"And that paper was so well-written."
:Thank you. It was the longest paper I've ever done. It wasn't easy."
"Oh, I know. But it was great, really great.""Tnank you."
"I wish I had more students like you."
Happily embarrassed silence.
"Say, do you remember that Spencer fellow who keeps on saying ridiculous things?"
"Do I? Of course I do. When you brought his stupid little comments to class, I was horrified. Don't you remember what I said?"
"Yes, of course I do. Well, he's at it again."
"No?'
"Yes."
"I've made a vow never to bother with him or any of his little group over there. They're haters. I don't want to dignity them."
"Right, I agree completely."
"But, you know, I don't mind when he attacks me, but I really don't like it when he implies I mislead the students. He talks as if I just brainwash all of you, as if you can't think for yourselves."
"Professor Safi, you were the kindest professor of them all. I remember those times we actually got to go to your house for those dinners. No other professor I've ever had did that."
"Yes, well, I like to get to know my students."
"And the way you explained Islam -- well, it all became so clear. I only wish everyone gettingt so upset for no reason could have a chance to study with you."
"Thank you. You know, it's comments like that that make the whole thing worthwhile."
"No, thank you, Professor Safi. Is there anything I can do?"
"Well, if you'd just take a look at this Spencer site -- www.jihadwatch.com -- I'll call you with the exact date later -- I'd appreciate it if you'd be willing just to post there, and tell him what you think of him. Nothing extreme. I mean, since you were my best student I thought you might be the best one to explain to him how I teach, and what you learn..."
"Of course. I'd be honored."
"Thank you."
"Not at all."
"And by the way, if you're like the other students, you'll probably be needing a reference from me, won't you?"
"Oh, Professor Safi, that would be very kind."
"Nothing. Happy to do it. Can't think of anyone who deserves it more."
"Professor Safi, thank you so much, And I'll get to work right away on this."
"Thank you so much. It really is great for you to do this."
"Oh, I feel as though I'm giving something back."
"Thanks again. And I'll be sure to get that reference to you soon.
"Professor Safi, I hope what I write can help, alhamdullilah, shut up that awful Spencer person. He's so mean. He doesn't know a thing about you."
"Well, let's hope so. In any case, you know how much I care about my students -- that's always been my main concern, hasn't it?"
"Yes, of course, Professor Safi. You're the best."
"With students like you, I have to be. You really know how to keep me on my toes."
"Thank you."
"And I'll get that reference out to you after the weekend."
"Thank you again for all you've done, Professor Safi. You were so different from all the other professors. You really cared. You are the nicest person I know."
"Salaam aleikum."
"Aleikum salaam."

Excellent, Hugh! Very, very funny. Who'd have thought counter-da'wa could be so enjoyable?

"Tabari I:278 “Adam went inside the tree to hide. Eve cut the tree [why?] and it bled. [trees bleed?] "

That should make the Eco-Leftists feel warm and fuzzy...

Mullahmasher --

You cited the "snake with four legs" passage as ridiculous -- however, Islamic references to Old Testament texts often used sources (texts & oral traditions) that were parallel to the canonical version. It could be that there was one tradition that considered the "serpent" in the Adam & Eve story to be a dragon and not a snake.

Hugh,

Your fictional dialogue between Prof. Safi and the female student was great -- however, I don't think the female student was a "Tiffany/Melissa" anglo American. The atrocious grammar of the missive to Spencer is not the bad grammar of an American airhead college student. It is far more likely the bad grammar of an immigrant Muslim.

(On the same note, your fictional Tiffany spoke on the phone with unobjectionable grammar.)

Nevertheless, the sad fact is that there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of Tiffanies out there.

What not to wear :-
hijab, jilbab, chadour, abaya, burqa,

And appropriate for any purpose:-

white face, black shirt
white socks, black shoes
black hair, white strat
bled white, died black

sweet gene vincent
let the blue roll tonight.

Hugh,
Like the dialogue.

Nice work, Hugh.

'Mary and Jesus are mentioned more in the Koran than in the Bible.'

Oy. I am reminded of LaHayes in his new series, Bablyon Rising. Where his main character is teaching how fossils on mountain tops indicate the Great Flood...

Just how Stupid can people be?

The mosque on Elm Street."

Who's the janitor there? Freddy Krueger?

Interested,

Thanks for your honesty. Robert's question to the young woman asking her how many professors she had "had", highlighting its dual meaning in this context by clarifying one of them, i.e. by adding "academically", was indeed a suggestive pun. Moreover, if his little joke was unintentional, he would not have accused me of lacking a sense of humour.

Anyone who follows this thread can see that my comments were not a defence of Omid Safi. They were a criticism of the tactics Robert used - sexual innuendo to hit back at a young, female opponent, whose comments on his lack of scholarship clearly got under his skin, however poor its "grammar and syntax" may have been.

Several people here seem to see his bullying tactic as funny. I don't. A cheap shot is, at the end of the day, just that.

Ganymede - I'm not presuming to speak for Robert, but I know a little joke when I see one, and that's all it was. It was nothing. You've made a huge deal of it.

It isn't so long ago that I was a young female student, and if anybody had made a little joke like that to me it would have been water off a duck's back. I would either laugh, yawn, or make a much better one back. With knobs on, as we Brits say.

The joke was only one small aspect of the post. If ridicule can shake this dozy 'hijabette' (thanks Granny W) out of her adoration for her manipulative professor, well and good. If it can't, then who the hell cares what she - or any other misguided muslimah (is there any other kind?) thinks?

Ridicule her ideas by all means. Don't hit back at her with cheap, personal shots - in this case by suggesting she's sleeping with her professors.

Ganymede you pious prig take a hike.

Ganymede - it's such a little titchy miniscule double entendre. I can't tell from your name if you're male or female. If you're male, then in this day and age it really is misplaced chivalry. If you're female, you need to toughen up.

When I was a teenager I bantered un-politically correct jokes around like there was no tomorrow. As a student I did the same and in the workplace - well where would the office be without double entendres? The office and 'The Office' (cult comedy show)?

The main point here is that this guy Safi is whitewashing a murderous death cult and this gullible student is dopey enough to buy into it. Let's get some perspective.

Ganimede:

Chivalry honors you!

Don't soil your armour while youre at it!

Uh Gany, this is not a PC site. Sarcasm and wit and double entendres and puns are welcome. What you see as crass is to me comic relief. Muslims are always making a big tadoo our of the most minor thins. Are you a Muslim?

"You're the laughing stock of the scholarly world."
-- from the article above (the student passing on what she has been told by Omid Safi)

Which "scholarly world" would this be? Would it be the world of Joseph Schacht, and Edmond Fagnan, and Antoine Fattal, and Evariste Levi-Provencal, and K. S. Lal, and Mary Boyce, and C. Snouck Hurgronje, not one of whom could find much fault in the very simple insistence at this website by Robert Spencer and others that what is written in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira actually is received (vide "reception theory" just for the hell of it) by Muslims in a way that does not allow them to believe, much less act upon, any notion of "peace" and "tolerance" as we now understand these words in the Western world.

Which "scholarly world" is this girl talking about? She must mean the "scholarly world" of MESA NOSTRA, the world where Rashid Khalidi, Joseph Massad, George Saliba, Hamid Dabashi(yet again, please do google "Edward Said" and "Hamid Dabashi" for the time of your life) are considered experts -- on what exactly? On Islam? They say nothing about Islam, they keep well away from Islam, and for good reason). Or could it be the American professor/apologists for Islam, such as Michael Sells, the author of that bowdlerized bamboozlement, "Approaches to the Qur'an," or Carl Ernst, Sells's stalwart supporter and a similar professor guilty of pedagogic malpractice (are there no former students willing to sue? willing to demand their money back? willing to contact the trustees and the university president about the propaganda that is offered in various courses on Islam). Are these the ones whom Omid Safi has set up in this trusting young mind as "scholarly experts" or others of that ilk?

The dutifully loyal if quasi-literate student who was no doubt roped into standing up for Omid Safi by Omid Safi himself (do his colleagues see through the exaggerated affability which is of the usual Middle Eastern/Pakistani oily variety, or do they wish simply to be left alone, and not have to bother with the scandal of how Islam is taught to students? Is there no one in the President's office, or among the Trustees at Colgate, who just might want to take a look at his syllabus, and then find out what is wrong with those books, beginning with the farcical "Ornament of the World" by Maria Rosa Menocal, and continuing with that apologist (who pays for that Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, after all? How much of reality are we all going to pretend does not matter?), John Esposito, by now notorious throughout the Western world (though the people at The Teaching Company apparently do not realize what Esposito is all about, and how his presence calls into question their standards, and the quality of their enterprise).

Fiercely loyal, quasi-literate, this girl knows what she knows about Robert Spencer entirely through what Omid Safi has told her -- with a smile, with a look of bewildered innocence-cum- indomitable-imperturbability put on for the students, and intended to conceal his chagrin and even fury at the unwonted attention he has received at Jihadwatch (it was so much more fun when he could unremarked get on with molding the minds of impressionable American young).

The loyal student's disjointed prose (which hardly means she is a foreigner, and in any case her English is fair game, unless she stepped off a plane only 3-4 years ago from a non-English speaking country) does not speak well of Omid Safi. If this is the only example of a student defender he can round up, then her illiteracy reflects on him. For the quality of his mind and thought -- well, just google a bit. See what you think. See what passes for a professor nowadays, when anything goes.

Hugh

"The loyal student's disjointed prose (which hardly means she is a foreigner"

It's a matter of degree: as egregious as is the grammar of some American college students, it would be highly unlikely that this extreme degree of near-incoherence and syntax in shambles could be found in the prose of an American college student.

"and in any case her English is fair game, unless she stepped off a plane only 3-4 years ago from a non-English speaking country"

Of course it's fair game: any foreigner who is studying in an American college and taking English-speaking classes should be expected to have at LEAST the degree of bad but passable grammar of her American classmates -- which this girl fails even to achieve.

And let me ask you this: how many professors of Islam besides Omid have you had? (Academically.)”

For shame, Robert, for shame! A cheap and tawdry dig, and more a comment on your own (lack of) integrity than on your opponent’s intellect.

Posted by: Ganymede at June 14, 2005 06:54 AM

You must be acquainted with the student who wrote to Mr. Spencer. Is she by any chance a pious muslima, a pristine and innocent virgin who is scrupulously protecting her seductive, dangerous body for her next owner and wants to be respected for her astute mind; a paradigm of muslima purity and modesty who proudly wears her hijab and thinks FGM is an honor, but is too naive and unfamiliar with the English language to detect a bit of acerbity?

How chivalrous of you to step up and defend this vestal maiden! But by your own assertion, "she likely wouldn't pick up on the colloqialism", so what's the problem? For a non-native English speaker, she's well versed in American slang.

Your complaint is irrelevant and unrelated to the topic. The double entrendre that so disturbs you is an innocuous repartee compared to some of her inaccurate and insulting accusations and assertions.

I like Robert's double entendres and I hope he keeps it up (chortle).

I went into a bar the other day and asked specially for a double entendre. The barman gave me one (chortle).

I like Robert's double entendres and I hope he keeps it up (chortle).

I went into a bar the other day and asked specially for a double entendre. The barman gave me one (chortle).

Oooooo Matron!

1. Hugh: Yes, it was a ref to "Seymour: An Introduction." Thanks for noticing. I believe it is Buddy who is wearing the tux as he begins telling a particularly lapidary anecdote about Seymour -- one that he has put off until Tomorrow Night, and which, if I recall correctly, begins, "His hair jumping in the barbershop."

2. Ganymede: Your notes are an example of a tactic which bears unpacking.
A. By accusing me of "bullying" the girl, you attempt to shift the focus away from Omid Safi's propagandizing and arrogance to my supposed wrongdoing. My man Omid thereby slides off the hook.
B. The hook (my "Academically" parenthesis) you have found on which to hang this accusation will hardly bear its weight, but no matter: if I hadn't indulged in this bit of silliness, you would have found something else on which to hang it. The hook is not the point; the accusation on which it hangs, and the deflection of attention that that accusation accomplishes, is.
C. Meanwhile, your persistence in hammering away at this one point, combined with an apparently reasonable plea that I deal rationally with the girl rather than bully her, deflects attention in another way: someone reading your posts might think that my response to the girl's letter consisted of one sentence in which I accused her of being a slut. Of course I did no such thing, and my response contained many points, but they all seem to have escaped your notice. By persisting in asking for reasoned arguments from me, you hope to create the impression in people's minds that I did not present such arguments in the first place. What did you think of everything else I wrote to this girl, and to and about Safi? We don't know -- you only seem to have read one sentence.

This is a tactic I have seen used by masters of confusion such as Hussein Ibish and Ibrahim Hooper. It is extraordinarily clever and usually hard to discern. Thanks for giving us this relatively transparent example.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Robert-- Ganymede is undoubtedly a Muslim, and possibly a student of Safi who volunteered, or was asked to help out the floundering student #1, by focussing on trivia.

As far as that theme of Omid Safi as"the nicest person in the world" -- here perhaps is the place to sum up.

Mere affability -- the ready smile -- means nothing. It is easy, and comes easiest, often, to those for whom it means nothing. Courting the students, inviting them home, in some cases can reflect real sympathetic interest, but it can also be the cheapest attempt to curry student favor -- students can be won over easily by any professorial display of interest -- and everyone knows that in the New Improved Universities of today (the Junior High Schools of a century ago), student reports on How Well the Professor Is Doing are taken seriously and can affect promotions, and raises, and summer grants. And if you do not produce real scholarship, and if your teaching is fatally vitiated by extreme tendentiousness -- well, there's always the role of presenting yourself as the Student's Friend, and making sure they fill out those forms teling the administration and the department chairman just what a great guy you are, in every way, and to prove it I'm going to take my pencil and shade in the oval that, on a scale of 1-5, shows you were just the bestest in every category.

Sometimes you can read between the shaded-in ovals. Sometimes you can't. But you can read what is on the syllabuses of Omid Safi. You can read what he has written. You can take his measure. It is not difficult.

Ganymede, it seems a bit unfair to attack Robert for making a joke about a writer who accused him of trying to be Batman!

"Ganymede is undoubtedly a Muslim, and possibly a student of Safi who volunteered, or was asked to help out the floundering student #1, by focussing on trivia."

Newsflash -- not everyone who disagrees with the prevailing opinion here is a Muslim. This isn't a personal gripe against Hugh, I see this often here: x is obviously a Muslim because he said y...it reminds me of the fulminating Islamist sites that can't stop saying that Robert is Jewish.

ROBERT: 2. Ganymede: Your notes are an example of a tactic which bears unpacking.
A. By accusing me of "bullying" the girl, you attempt to shift the focus away from Omid Safi's propagandizing and arrogance to my supposed wrongdoing. My man Omid thereby slides off the hook
B. The hook (my "Academically" parenthesis) you have found on which to hang this accusation will hardly bear its weight, but no matter: if I hadn't indulged in this bit of silliness, you would have found something else on which to hang it. The hook is not the point; the accusation on which it hangs, and the deflection of attention that that accusation accomplishes, is.

GANYMEDE: I see you now acknowledge that you indulged in some “silliness”, something you seemed loath to do earlier.

ROBERT: C. Meanwhile, your persistence in hammering away at this one point, combined with an apparently reasonable plea that I deal rationally with the girl rather than bully her, deflects attention in another way: someone reading your posts might think that my response to the girl's letter consisted of one sentence in which I accused her of being a slut. Of course I did no such thing, and my response contained many points, but they all seem to have escaped your notice. By persisting in asking for reasoned arguments from me, you hope to create the impression in people's minds that I did not present such arguments in the first place. What did you think of everything else I wrote to this girl, and to and about Safi? We don't know -- you only seem to have read one sentence.

GANYMEDE: As a matter of fact, I had never heard of Safi before reading your post on this board. Nor do I have an issue with much of your response to the girl. I DO have an issue with your use of sexual innuendo as a weapon against a woman in a completely unrelated discussion. Moreover, I did not “hammer away” at the point – some of your sychophants here did – and I responded to a few of them - while still ignoring most of the rubbish that has been posted about the nature of my response. As for making a “plea” for you not to bully the girl or for “persisting” in asking for reasoned argument, I did neither, though you are welcome to interpret my injunction to “stop behaving like a bully” as a “plea”. What I did do was to criticise your tactic of using sexual innuendo against a young, female opponent who lacks your English skills.

ROBERT; This is a tactic I have seen used by masters of confusion such as Hussein Ibish and Ibrahim Hooper. It is extraordinarily clever and usually hard to discern. Thanks for giving us this relatively transparent example.

GANYMEDE: It seems both you and Hugh are practitioners of ESP. You have in your opening paragraphs characterized what you see as my motives (on the basis of no more than my criticism of your tactics!) and Hugh has gone so far as to suggest that I may be a fellow student of the girl in question – and “undoubtedly” a Muslim! Whatever my religious background may be, if this is the usual standard of “argument” on this board, I’m not surprised that, whatever the quality of their own arguments, the comments of the student concerned and those of Omid Safi, got under your skin.

By the way and on another point, I understand that Ibn Warraq has joined your board. He is someone I admire and I am deeply sorry at his decision to join you.

Note to Viking 5: Viking5, you sound like someone with more commonsense than most people here. This board clearly needs people like you.

Ganymede, give it a rest. You muslims are the most thin-skinned people who have ever lived. Everything humiliates you...do you know why? Because you have no authority in your own lives. You have to ask the imam how to wipe your butt and if you can tweeze your eyebrows. Damn, use your own brain.

Ganymede:

Your latest post just proves my previous points about you. It looks even worse for you if you don't know the girl: you have no idea if she is a native speaker or not, but are lambasting me on the basis of unestablished assumptions both about my motive in writing the sentence in question and about who this lady is.

That you are attempting to deflect attention from the real issues is illustrated again by your implication that I began picking on this girl (which I do not acknowledge anyway) gratutiously -- yet you never speak of the fact that she accuses me of, among other things, preaching hate and associating with "preach hate and associate himself with people who WOULD SUPPORT VIOLENCE AGAINST MUSLIMS" -- both vile and unsubstantiated slanders.

Funny you mention Ibn Warraq. Here's his review of my forthcoming book, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)": ""The jihad that the Western world faces today is identical in its motivations and goals to that which Europe managed to stave off almost a thousand years ago ­ thanks in large part to the Crusades of which the West is now ashamed. In this book, Robert Spencer tells the truth that few in the U.S. or Europe wish to face. Today's jihad, as Spencer illustrates here, is proceeding on two fronts: one of violence and terror, and another of cultural shaming and the rewriting of history. Here is a devastating riposte to that revisionism -- and a clarion call for the defense of the West, before it is too late."

Read it, as they say, and weep.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

ROBERT: Your latest post just proves my previous points about you. It looks even worse for you if you don't know the girl: you have no idea if she is a native speaker or not, but are lambasting me on the basis of unestablished assumptions both about my motive in writing the sentence in question and about who this lady is.

GANYMEDE: I did not discuss motives. You did. I discussed your *tactics*. You are, I take it, the host of this board. Moreover, I am not the only one who came to the (obvious) conclusion that the student in question was not a native speaker, as you’ll see if you follow this thread.

ROBERT: That you are attempting to deflect attention from the real issues is illustrated again by your implication that I began picking on this girl (which I do not acknowledge anyway) gratutiously -- yet you never speak of the fact that she accuses me of, among other things, preaching hate and associating with "preach hate and associate himself with people who WOULD SUPPORT VIOLENCE AGAINST MUSLIMS" -- both vile and unsubstantiated slanders.

GANYMEDE: It seems that you are attempting to deflect attention from your reprehensible tactics by claiming, above, that I discussed your motives, when it is clear from my posts that it was your TACTICS, not motives that I was concerned with. As for the girl’s comments, I actually said this about your response to her in my last post above: “Nor do I have an issue with much of your response to the girl”, so no, I do not agree that I accused you of picking on her. Once again, this was about the TACTICS you employed. I addressed you as the host of this site. She was not a participant in this discussion.

ROBERT: Funny you mention Ibn Warraq. Here's his review of my forthcoming book, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)": ""The jihad that the Western world faces today is identical in its motivations and goals to that which Europe managed to stave off almost a thousand years ago ­ thanks in large part to the Crusades of which the West is now ashamed. In this book, Robert Spencer tells the truth that few in the U.S. or Europe wish to face. Today's jihad, as Spencer illustrates here, is proceeding on two fronts: one of violence and terror, and another of cultural shaming and the rewriting of history. Here is a devastating riposte to that revisionism -- and a clarion call for the defense of the West, before it is too late."

GANYMEDE: All I can say is that I sincerely hope that Ibn Warraq serious examines both your tactics and some of the claims you have made on this board, if his own name is to remain untarnished.

Ganymede,

Unfortunately, sir, you don't know a thing about my "tactics." Once again you are misrepresenting my response to this lady as if it consisted of one sentence. You have not addressed any of my other points, and you have denied in the most weaselly possible fashion the obvious import of your words.

First you said "Don’t behave like a schoolyard bully, Robert. Stick to the argument – if you believe you really have one."

Now you say "'Nor do I have an issue with much of your response to the girl', so no, I do not agree that I accused you of picking on her."

1. What does a schoolyard bully do, if not pick on the weak? So was I bullying her, or not? Make up your mind.

2. If you don't have much of an issue with my response, then why did you first advise me to "stick to the argument – if you believe you really have one." Either I have one or I don't, but if I don't, which is the clear implication of your first statement, then I fail to see why you would not have much of an issue with what I said.

You, sir, are being, at best, inconsistent and disingenuous. How this squares with your self-righteous smugness and superiority is something only you can answer.

As for Ibn Warraq, I do hope you contact him and bring all this to his attention. I suspect he will find it -- and you -- quite amusing.

As for your hope that he examines "some of the claims [I] have made on this board," I think now we are getting to the heart of the matter. Your beef with me is not about Safi's student at all, but about some of the things I have said about Islam. Fine. It would be better if you would just be honest, but I am getting the impression from the above that that is beyond you. As far as I know Ibn Warraq and I are in 100% agreement about matters concerning Islam and jihad. If you think that that is not the case, I do indeed hope you will ask him, as I think you will find the answer enlightening on many levels.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Ganymede,
You are blowing this all out of proportion. The general consensus of the people reading this site is that line you object to is a mildly risqué joke. Why are your knickers in a twist over something so incredibly insignificant?
May I suggest you pick up a copy of I Am Charlotte Simmons, or perhaps Porn Generation : How Social Liberalism is Corrupting our Future by Ben Shapiro before your start wringing your hands over the threat Mr. Spencer’s double entendre poses to matriculated womanhood?
Get a hold of yourself, man. I think “How many professors have you had- academically” would have passed the censors of any generation.
To update a joke generally attributed to thirties wit Dorothy Parker, “If all the women at Colgate University were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be in the least surprised.”
Put that in your pipe and smoke it, G.

ROBERT: First you said "Don’t behave like a schoolyard bully, Robert. Stick to the argument – if you believe you really have one." Now you say "'Nor do I have an issue with much of your response to the girl', so no, I do not agree that I accused you of picking on her."1. What does a schoolyard bully do, if not pick on the weak? So was I bullying her, or not? Make up your mind.

GANYMEDE: I already have. The implicit suggestion of the pun you used was that she was sleeping with her teachers. That was bullying, of the worst sort. That, however, was what I took exception to – hence my comment that I did not have an issue with *much* of what you said. I highlighted the bit that I *did* have an issue with.

ROBERT: 2. If you don't have much of an issue with my response, then why did you first advise me to "stick to the argument – if you believe you really have one." Either I have one or I don't, but if I don't, which is the clear implication of your first statement, then I fail to see why you would not have much of an issue with what I said.

GANYMEDE: I did not say that I did not have “much of an issue” with your response. I said that I did not have an issue with “much of your response”, a significant difference.

Moreover, I did not state an opinion as to whether or not your argument was valid. I said only that if you believed you had a genuine argument, you should stick with it (i.e. not indulge in personal attacks). By the way, the student in question had a right to question your scholarship (though not to use some of the language she did) since you do claim authority on the subject under discussion. You had no right to suggest in counterattack that she was sleeping with teachers.

ROBERT: You, sir, are being, at best, inconsistent and disingenuous. How this squares with your self-righteous smugness and superiority is something only you can answer.
As for Ibn Warraq, I do hope you contact him and bring all this to his attention. I suspect he will find it -- and you -- quite amusing.

GANYMEDE: I am not in contact with Ibn Warraq. I do not know him. I wish him well – and I hope he maintains his reputation, rather than tarnish it with questionable associations, which I believe an association with you would be.

It seems that, after all, misrepresentation is what you do best.

Ganymede:

Very well. Please emend "I fail to see why you would not have much of an issue with what I said" to "I fail to see why you would not have an issue with much of what I said."

Your reputation for focusing on insignificant minutiae and ignoring the much more important aspects of the larger picture is thus preserved.

But I myself have had enough of it. You have succeeded in diverting this discussion, and I have allowed it. But now let's get back to the real issue. You say, "the student in question had a right to question your scholarship (though not to use some of the language she did) since you do claim authority on the subject under discussion." I am not surprised that you seem to have missed my discussion of this point in the original post, since your reading of it was evidently limited only to what you could make hay with against me. But I have never, in fact, used the argument from authority or asked anyone to believe what I am saying because it is I who am saying it.

If "misrepresentation" is what I do best, and yet the best example you can find of it is the difference between "much of an issue" or "an issue with much," your case remains extraordinarily weak.

Or is there more to it? You have made many smug and false assertions about my motive in writing "academically" to this girl, and have expressed the hope that that one word will discredit me utterly. (Viz. your statement "All I can say is that I sincerely hope that Ibn Warraq serious examines both your tactics and some of the claims you have made on this board, if his own name is to remain untarnished.") Unless your statement doesn't rest on that one word, and you came to this thread just looking for ammo. It is most interesting to me that you have never posted here before, and now have posted only on this one thread. It is equally interesting that you are making broad claims about the value of my work on the basis of a quip. In fact a bit of ridicule that I directed at the pompous and arrogant Safi and his acolytes is not really going to convince anyone that I am wrong or right about Islam and jihad.

I'll wager that you came here and read that sentence with your mind made up about me already. So now I am calling you out. Defend your conclusions: call me any names you want, but you can't prove me wrong. I challenge you to identify yourself and to engage me in a debate about Islam and jihad and terrorism, as I challenged Safi. If I am misrepesenting Islam and jihad, have the courage to set me straight in the public forum.
And I think it very likely that you will not even try.

But if you do summon up the courage to do so, identify yourself and give me a place to contact you, and we will arrange for the debate.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Briefly:-

ROBERT: You have made many smug and false assertions about my motive in writing "academically" to this girl, and have expressed the hope that that one word will discredit me utterly”

GANYMEDE: You used reprehensible *tactics*. I was right to highlight them. The inference of your question to the student (that she had had sexual relationships with her teachers) was obvious not just to me but also to at least one of your friends here.

ROBERT: “…..Unless your statement doesn't rest on that one word, and you came to this thread just looking for ammo. It is most interesting to me that you have never posted here before, and now have posted only on this one thread.”

GANYMEDE: I’m am not sure whether your first sentence means that the only people invited to post here are those who do not challenge what you say. I would disappointed if so, though not surprised.

As a matter of fact, I have posted here recently, in a few different threads. One concerned the misrepresentation on this site where the introduction of a part of the Islamic penal code in the Indonesian province of Aceh was portrayed as happening in “Indonesia” and another was a response to your claim that American soldiers wore gloves in handling the Quran at Guantanamo Bay because under “Islamic law” the Americans were infidels and therefore unclean. I wonder why a group of Islamic scholars gave the late Pope John Paul II a copy of the Quran as a gift when he visited Egypt! It was this that I had in mind when I said that Ibn Warraq may wish to seriously examine some of the claims you make, in order to preserve his own reputation - in the first post where I mentioned Warraq, I made it clear that my disappointment at his joining the board of Jihadwatch was an issue entirely separate to the main point of discussion in this thread.

You chose not to respond to either of the two posts I have mentioned above (there were also others).

Unlike you, I have not made irresponsible assumptions about you – I have attacked only your reprehensible conduct in one particular aspect of your response to the young woman in question.

You, by contrast and your acolyte, Hugh, not to mention your sycophants on this site, have made a number of unwarranted assumptions about me – you now assume that I am pro Islam because of my attack on your conduct, hence your invitation to a “debate”. Whether I am pro Islam or not (thought my previously stated admiration for Ibn Warraq may give some food for thought) is irrelevant to the discussion but, it seems, typical of your taste for straw men.

I’ll let you have the last word.

not to mention your sycophants on this site--posted by Ganymeade

Sycophants?! Not!

"Ganymede,
You are blowing this all out of proportion. The general consensus of the people reading this site is that line you object to is a mildly risqué joke. Why are your knickers in a twist over something so incredibly insignificant?"

No kidding. I fail to see how Robert's response constitutes bullying. He did not make his remark in the context of a serious academic debate. If you go back and read the woman's comments as a whole (ignore Robert's intejections), you might get a different perspective. It looks clear to me that the woman flamed Robert. Robert just responded in kind. You might think that he was unfunny, even immature, to do so, but it's hardly bullying.

Ganymede says that Robert's joke was "more a comment on your own (lack of) integrity than on your opponent’s intellect". But the whole discussion is not about anyone's intellect. The woman showed little respect for Robert or any interest in a serious discussion. It was just a flame, no doubt one that Robert has heard many times before.

Ganymede: you have just insulted all regulars on this site. If you had any knowledge of what goes on, you would know that I for one, and Viking5 for another, have more than once challenged Mr.Spencer's, Ms.Bynum's, and Mr.Fitzgerald's views, statements of facts, or conclusions - and I am sure many others of us have done so - not to mention get into very vigorous debates with one another. There are even people like Giaour, who have almost nothing in common with the rest of us except for one thing. And this one thing, which we all share, is a belief, based on experience, that Islam is a deleterious force in the world, that Jihad, meaning religious war with no limit or end, is a fundamental part of it, and that these things must be opposed by all lawful and useful means. If you agree with this, then please stop picking nits and insulting people; address yourself to serious issues. If you do not agree with this, then on even stronger grounds stop picking nits and insulting people: attack us on serious issues.

Don't you call that nice Robert Spencer a bully. He's the nicest person I've never met. If you saw his picture you wouldn't say that. Oooh, I've got a crush on him.

Don't you call that nice Robert Spencer a bully. He's the nicest person I've never met. If you saw his picture you wouldn't say that. Oooh, I've got a crush on him.

Ganymede, here's the last word:

You say: "You used reprehensible *tactics*. I was right to highlight them. The inference of your question to the student (that she had had sexual relationships with her teachers) was obvious not just to me but also to at least one of your friends here."

I have let this pass for awhile, but as this is the last time you will hear from me, for the record: the weight you are trying to hang on a silly quip is unwarranted. It doesn't at all imply that she is sleeping with her teachers. It implies that she may not know in which sense I meant the question. In other words, that she may need some help to think clearly, as is obvious from the rest of her message. You have repeatedly ignored the fact that this was one line of a much longer piece, responding to a contemptuous questioner whose note to me was full of invective and false accusations. My response is light in tone throughout, as I refuse to take seriously the pomposity and self-importance of people like Safi, his student, and you. Your characterization of this as a "reprehensible tactic" is howlingly false -- and ridiculously misplaced in light of the truly reprehensible practice of Safi in misrepresenting the work of important scholars like Patricia Crone, Samuel Huntington, Bat Ye'or and others to his students.

You say: "I’m am not sure whether your first sentence means that the only people invited to post here are those who do not challenge what you say. I would disappointed if so, though not surprised."

Mmm-hmm. Read the archives here for awhile and tell me if you are still disappointed. I think you'll cheer up considerably. If it were true that I only allow posts from people who agree with me, I would simply have banned you and erased what you have written, as I do with others whose posts are simply beyond the pale -- it is a daily job now with the posts of a persistent neo-Nazi.

But there is one thing you say that's true: you did post on a few other threads. I apologize for overlooking that. You note that one of your posts "concerned the misrepresentation on this site where the introduction of a part of the Islamic penal code in the Indonesian province of Aceh was portrayed as happening in 'Indonesia.'"

In this, your quest to discredit me and my work, by any means possible, shows forth most nakedly: the headline to which you object did not originate here, but was taken unaltered from the Taipei Times:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/06/12/2003258981

As you acknowledge, Aceh is in Indonesia. Thus this did happen "in Indonesia," and the headline is not inaccurate. Here again, you are assuming too much: you jump to the conclusion that I am trying to make people think that this was a matter of Indonesian law, not provincial law, and then go on to moralize about my dark motives in doing so. But actually I just left the Taipei Times' headline unaltered and linked to them because more Americans will be familiar with "Indonesia" than with "Aceh." And the headline is accurate. So here you have again made false judgments about me and my motives and misrepresented my work on that basis.

You say: "...and another was a response to your claim that American soldiers wore gloves in handling the Quran at Guantanamo Bay because under 'Islamic law' the Americans were infidels and therefore unclean. I wonder why a group of Islamic scholars gave the late Pope John Paul II a copy of the Quran as a gift when he visited Egypt! It was this that I had in mind when I said that Ibn Warraq may wish to seriously examine some of the claims you make, in order to preserve his own reputation - in the first post where I mentioned Warraq, I made it clear that my disappointment at his joining the board of Jihadwatch was an issue entirely separate to the main point of discussion in this thread."

Over there you asked me for a citation from Islamic law on this. Here is the Shafi'i manual "'Umdat al-Salik," which is certified by Al-Azhar as conforming to "the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community": "When one fears that a Koran may burn, get soaked, that a non-Muslim may touch it, or that it may come in contact with some filth, then one must pick it up even if there is no place for it, even if one is in a state of minor or major ritual impurity..." (e8.3). Missionary intent -- the gift to the Pope, and proselytizing activities -- allow for the giving of the Qur'an to non-Muslims, but otherwise they are not to touch it, as is made clear by the above.

Or do you think Ibn Warraq is as unaware as you seem to be about these aspects of Islamic law?

You say: "You chose not to respond to either of the two posts I have mentioned above (there were also others)."

Yes. I didn't seem them until just now. I generally don't read the comments. If you really want a response from me, email me at director@jihadwatch.org. But you yourself need not bother.

You say: "Unlike you, I have not made irresponsible assumptions about you – I have attacked only your reprehensible conduct in one particular aspect of your response to the young woman in question."

You have made several irresponsible assumptions about me, as I have demonstrated here, including the assertion that I engaged in "reprehensible conduct" toward Safi's follower.

You say: "You, by contrast and your acolyte, Hugh, not to mention your sycophants on this site, have made a number of unwarranted assumptions about me – you now assume that I am pro Islam because of my attack on your conduct, hence your invitation to a 'debate'. Whether I am pro Islam or not (thought my previously stated admiration for Ibn Warraq may give some food for thought) is irrelevant to the discussion but, it seems, typical of your taste for straw men."

I couldn't care less whether you are "pro Islam" or not. This is a site about jihad terrorism, not Islam as such. Islam only comes into it because people like OBL and Zarqawi keep pulling it in. You clearly disagree with my views on this, and so I invited you to have the courage to identify yourself and debate the issues that really bother you -- and no, I do not believe that you were sympathetic to the views of this site until you saw my appalling Taipei Times headline, my irresponsible knowledge of what Shafi'i law says about handling the Qur'an, and my Snidely Whiplash act towards this girl. Not that it matters.

You say: "I’ll let you have the last word."

Thanks, but as I said, you will hear from me no more, and are now free to misrepresent me all you wish on this and other threads. I usually do not engage people like you here, but I did this time because I thought your charge was an example of a familiar tactic of deflecting attention from the real issue -- a tactic I have seen others use -- and I wanted to call attention to that tactic. And now my suspicions in that regard have been abundantly confirmed.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Terminator has the last word:

Spencers answers and Ganymedes 'exchange' is the best example of how one can waste (a lot of time) over nothing when engaging with trolls.