Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald has read my open letter to Connecticut College Professor Ahmed Afzaal, and Afzaal's reply, and now he has a few questions of his own for Professor Afzaal:
"...regarding some of my writings you have posted on your website, I have something important to say. These writings date back to the time between 1996 and 1998; we are now several years beyond that point in time. Generally speaking, I have outgrown most of those ideas and the way in which they were formulated, which I now believe was simply naïve. As you know, people grow and mature with the passage of time, with the acquisition of knowledge, and with exposure to diverse experiences. In fact, when I was in graduate school, the papers I would write one semester would appear to me completely idiotic by the end of the next semester. Such growth is a sign of life. If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about these writings." -- From Afzaal's friendly, affable, I've-had-a-complete-change-of-heart-and-by-the-way-I-don't-want-to-endanger-my-retaining-a-good-academic-job-and-also-remaining-forever-in-this-great-big-wonderful-Infidel-land-of-yours letter. And I, who once accepted all that "Islam is to dominate and is not to be dominated" nonsense, I who once repeatedly celebrated such ideas in prose that I admit does sound as if I had thought very long, and very hard about these matters, and really really meant what I said when I set out views which I was hoping no one here at Connecticut College would ever get wind of, I now ask you: please don't post anything else I may have written in my wild and crazy youth.In reply:
1. Articles written in 1998 are not exactly from the distant past.
2. The assertion that Afzaal no longer means what he wrote in a different political climate must be evaluated in light of his possible intent to remain in this country and keep his job. Yet one can easily discover from his syllabi, from what he says in class, and even from his examinations, whether or not he has had the change of heart he assures us -- without giving the slighest bit of evidence -- that he has had.
3. The article by him posted yesterday --- and others posted in the comments field here, suggest that his meretricious reply (one can smile, and smile, and be a villain, and a past master at soft-spoken affability should not be taken, ever, at face value) may not be all that it seems to be. More of his work deserves to be posted.4. The kind of sentiments he expressed in the piece I put up yesterday -- that Pakistan is Islam, and nothing but Islam, and should be nothing else -- cannot
easily be bluffingly cast aside by someone who assures us that "[g]enerally speaking, I have outgrown most of those ideas and the way in which they were formulated, which I now believe was simply naïve. As you know, people grow and mature with the passage of time, with the acquisition of knowledge, and with exposure to diverse experiences. In fact, when I was in graduate school, the papers I would write one semester would appear to me completely idiotic by the end of the
next semester. Such growth is a sign of life. If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about these writings.""If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about these writings."
Jihad Watch is full of examples of Muslims showing up at candlelight and prayer vigils, engaged in all sorts of Muslim Outreach and "dialogue" activites, and then being discovered to have said, and to be saying, quite different things to Muslim ears.
So, Professor Afzaal, if you have had a complete change of heart, please tell us exactly what you disagree with in your previous writings, those from your callow youth some 8 years ago -- when you were fully formed, an adult, and in complete possession of your
faculties.And while we are it, we, and the college that you teach at, deserve to know more about that organization you belong to, or are even an officer of -- what is it called again? Something about "Tanzeem"? And what does "Tanzeem" mean? And what does the organization try to do, and who is connected to it, and when did you decide you didn't agree with its views -- or do you still agree with its views?
The idea that you can smilingly tell Robert Spencer, and all of us, and all worried Infidels, that "if I were you, I wouldn't worry," is extraordinary, given the evidence of your own writings and the organization to which you belong. Tell us more about it, lest we have to present the material ourselves. One waits for a chapter-and-verse discussion as to all the things you once thought that you no longer think.
For example, do you agree with the dictum that "Islam is to dominate and is not to be dominated"? Do you agree that Muslims owe their loyalty to the umma al-islamiyya and not to an Infidel nation-state, or to Infidels in the country those Muslims live in? Do you agree that in the service of an Infidel nation-state, as part of what is owed it, a Muslim should be willing to participate in the armed services even if any of its operations is directed at a Muslim country or group? Do you think that Muhammad is the Perfect Man, despite Asma bint Marwan, Aisha, the Banu Qurayza, Abu Afak, and a few dozen other events in his life that for most Infidels are not exactly inspiring?
We need to know.
Tell us.
Give 'em hell, Hugh!
Is this nut serious? Does Ahmed really think that we'll all be so relieved by his change of heart that we'll just resume burying our head in the sand?
The jig is up, Islam. We're finally onto you, and here we come.
Yet one can easily discover from his syllabi, from what he says in class, and even from his examinations, whether or not he has had the change of heart he assures us...
Perhaps, Ahmed Afzaal has become more Americanized than credit him?
Perhaps, in his newly acquired lexicon distant past can be defined as two-and-a-half-weeks-ago (which is the average life expectancy of anything in the American consciousness anyway)?
In that context, Ahemed might be right about his works from 1998 and prior -- being in the extreme, far, far, distant past.
Therefore, let's have a peek at his syllabus from say ... yesterday?
I love the featured hadith at Tanzeem-e-Islami. But don't be Islamophobic...
It's a religion of light gymnastics or protection money. I'm feeling spiritual just reading it.
More should be written on Afzaal -- and will be.
Mission statement of Tanzeem-e-Islami:
As an "infidel Crusader," probably filled with shirk and fitna, this is certainly good news to me. What could possibly go wrong?
Obviously there is a need for job training and outreach programs. We need to nip this thing in the bud.
[heavy sarcasm alert]
Ahmed Afzaal appears to have some very disturbing sympathies and connections. Very.
Ahmed Afzaal said
If I were Prof. Afzaal, I wouldn't worry too much about the publicity he will be receiving over his writings. A little fresh air and light never hurt anyone.
No specifics on what he has changed his mind on, and more importantly what he has not. Okaaaaay. But if, for example, he had once thought that, oh, I don't know, violent jihad was an acceptable method of spreading the influence of Islam in the world, just as an example, and now he thinks it is not, what is to prevent him changing his mind again tomorrow and again taking up the call of, for the sake of example, violent jihad?
Will he tomorrow think it "completely idiotic" that he today suggests that sharia might not be the only source of legal authority in the world? Well, he doesn't suggest it, so much as indirectly hinting at the possibility of something along the lines of it.
To hear Prof. Afzaal describe it, it would have been common and not unexpected for Hitler to write Mein Kampf in January, become a Quaker pacifist in February, order blitzkriegs in Poland and Russia throughout March, and take up pottery in April.
One doesn't just take on and take off extremist ideology as if it were a baseball cap. The behavior he's describing, even if it were not just a shallow attempt at taqqiyah, sounds like bi-polar disorder, or possibly schizophrenia.
"The behavior he's describing, even if it were not just a shallow attempt at taqqiyah, sounds like bi-polar disorder, or possibly schizophrenia."
The Muslim mind is essentially schizophrenic, mirroring their division of the world into the Dar-al-Islam and the Dar-al-Harb; and as the Dar-al-Harb has become more dominant and its Infidels more intolerably powerful in the world at large, so too has the essential schizophrenia of the Muslim mind intensified.
The pressure of this schizophrenia is enormous; it leads to Muslims literally exploding, or to other Muslims able to channel that pressure into a long and patient pursuit of hatred in planning one way or another, perhaps in donning the mask of taqiyyah while being supported and appreciated in the land of the Infidels, all the while lending easily camouflaged support to the ongoing jihad. It also leads to other Muslims thinking they can have their cake of Islam and eat "reform" of it -- much like the alcoholic who thinks he can have a drink now and then, or the nicotine addict who thinks one cigarette every other day won't be a problem, etc. (Perhaps medical laboratories can develop an "Islamic patch" for Muslims who can't quite yet apostasize...)
Afzaal gives two courses: Islam and Modernity, and Islam and Tradition. Both are not, then, designed to introduce Islam, to tell the students what Islam is all about. They begin at a later point, in which the existence of Islam, but not its tenets. One can find out from his students whether or not he has assigned significant and representative portions of the Hadith, and has gone through the details of Muhammad as a warrior who enforced discipline and discouraged -- by assassination sometimes -- all criticism. The Qur'an he appears to assign just bits and pieces of is the ridiculous "Approaching the Qur'an: The Lyrical Suras" which, if Michael Sells wishes to demonstrate a change of heart on the way to Damascus, he will remove from circulation and denounce his own creeation as a misleading text, denounce himself and his apologist colleagues at MESA Nostra, and rddeem himself, by at long last doing, to great wonder and acclaim, the proper thing, the handsome thing)there's still time for him to do the redeeming, the handsome thing.
In Afzaal's courses, Islam is not taught in detail. Islam is taught from the point of view, rather, of the "dilemma" of a Muslim, the viewopint of a Muslim, clinging to tradition, or "confronting modernity." The whole matter of what is actualy contained in Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira -- and the atitudes toward Infidels, and the 1350-year history of Jihad-conquest and subsequent subjugation of non-Muslims -- not a word, not a peep, nothing.
Islam is simply a given. And Muslims are a given. And there is no need to go into what they are taught about Infidels or about how they have treted Infidels whenever they have been on top. The course is given from within the inside of a Muslim mind: what problems confront Muslims today. "Tradition"? "Modernity"? "Modernity"? "Tradition"? In this carefully closed universe, the students will not get, will not begin to get,the kind of information they have a right to receive, and that instructors, Muslim or not, have a duty to impart. This Afzaal cannot and will not do.
Members of the faculty and administrators, and alumni, and even the cleverer students, should look into what is offered as a course, or courses, on "Islam" at Connecticut College. They will not find that what is on offer will do. No -- it will never do.
Hugh said
To be fair to the professor, let's not blame him for what every professor of religious studies omits from every university's courses.
Of course it would be nice, given his previous smarmy insinuations that he is "on our side" and he can see the downside of violent jihad, if he would use his position to be the first professor to actually explain what is in the Qur'an and the Hadith. But, no, that would be asking too much.
These writings date back to the time between 1996 and 1998; we are now several years beyond that point in time. Generally speaking, I have outgrown... blah blah blaaaah ...
Man, does this dude drip with Taquiyya Oil or what. He's so shifty, he could be a... a... a college professor. No, wait a minute, now he is a college professor!
Unless we have the will to win this battle of wits, bombs, and treachery, we cannot do so.
The West is
Unwilling to name its ENEMY Refusing to understand that Islam is a political ideology with religious trappings* not just another religion like Christianity and Judaism
Denying that the enemy of the West is Islam--not hijackers of it, Islamists, or only Islamic fundamentalists
Hesitant about finding out why all Mohammedans who have not left Islam are potential jihadists (they can go over the edge with ease and turn from "moderate" to jihadist killing machine)
Unwilling understand that as long as Moslems obey the koran (and the preachings of the clerics) they are the enemy
Trying to define and find moderate Moslems in the hope that it is not Islam itself but the few bad apples that command to subjugate or kill non-Moslems
Too uninformed about the koran and the ahadith to know that the Mohammedan war plan is codified in these scriptures
Awash in an idiotic and suicidal "code of honor" that forbids fighting the enemy until he is utterly annihilated In that code of honor or "fairness in warfare" going against the Sun Tzu, Von and its own historical successes in war--World War II most recently
Unless the West becomes as ruthless as it was against the Nazis and Japanese in World War II, it is refusing to be the victor
Shackled by a stupid hang-up that it is not fair, right, humane, justified to destroy the enemy--its personnel, armaments, materiel, infrastructure, government
Applying its own domestic laws to enemy combatants (Guantanamo, Constitutional protection for the enemy fifth-columnists within, e.g CAIR etc.)
Allowing the Enemy to establish ideological education, training, and territorial enclaves within its lands
Allowing its most essential raw material to continue to be controlled by the Enemy (either seize control of the sources or find alternatives)
Cringing under the lies of the Enemy (Islam) and devaluing its own accomplishments and civilization--unsurpassed in history
Not determined to enter into the cyberwar with Islam by using available technology to prevent the ENEMY from using cyberspace to recruit, communicate with operatives, give orders to strike, and spread its foul message to the partially-committed ("moderate" Moslems and gullible Westerners searching for a meaning to their lives. (Removing jihadist websites is being carried out successfully by several non-governmental people. So, the excuse that this is impossible has no merit.
Being considerate of so-called "allies" belonging to the Enemy that are hosting these Enemy sites because of governmental personal or political considerations at the highest levels is contributing to the propagation of a successful cyberwar carried on by the Enemy.
The foregoing points are not original and should be apparent to all astute Westerners (except for the governments that are corrupt, politically correct, bleeding for and feeling the pain of the enemy--take your pick--or all of it)
You can come up with a slew of more points with which the West is shackled and preventing itself from winning the war against Islam. Add them and spread this around. Information dissemination is one of the most powerful weapons in the West's war that must result in absolute victory, if the West to survive.
Find out that all of what is said here about Islam is true by consulting the primary sources.
If you think that this is all hogwash and that we can merrily sail along as we have without going under, then read this chilling fact-based tale:
http://www.danSimmons.com/news/message.htm
*or Islam is a religion with a violent political agenda, if you prefer
Can someone give a translation for Tamzeem-e-islami?
What does it mean?
2pacshakur,
Something like "discipline of Islam." That's a guess based on a quick search.
Tanzeem-e-islami -- the Islamic organization (the organization consisting of those who respond to the Call of Islam with extra fervency). Note that in far-off Pakistan, Arabic words are used, false Arab lineages flaunted, the behavior of 7th century Arabs taken as models, Arabia the place that qibla-wards one turns in prayer.
Man, does this dude drip with Taquiyya Oil or what. He's so shifty, he could be a... a... a college professor. No, wait a minute, now he is a college professor! - Alarmed Pig Farmer
They're not all bad; I've met a few good ones, though they are unfortunately in the minority. They're often among a significant, but silent, percentage who simply don't bring up politics in class... whether as a matter of courtesy to the students or fear of the administration.
Granted, it's easier to avoid politics in some fields than others, though that didn't stop a math prof I had some years ago from ranting about his issues with the government to his captive audience. Sometimes, those anonymous course evaluations at the end of the semester can be mighty cathartic.
"There is no doubt that the monster exists and that it is dangerous."-Professor Afzaal
Mr. Fitzgerald,
The monster of Islamic intolerance was born in present day Saudi Arabia and it will die there just as the foot-binding of women died in China in the past 100 years. The Transport Revolution of the past century and the Communications Revolution of the past 50 years (especially the Internet) have made it impossible to stop ideas at borders and the handwriting is on the cyberspace wall everywhere-even in Mecca. (Ironically, even violent jhadists use cell phones invented at Motorola-Israel.)
The Communications Revolution is a two way street. I am one of the growing number of "infidels" who have learned to question (JW has been helpful) the assertion that "Islam is a religion of tolerance." Islam is not a religion of tolerance to other religious beliefs, and in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Moslem world it is absolutely dangerous to be Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, atheist or agnostic, for an "Infidel" to preach and practice his or her beliefs in freedom and peace. There is no free exercise of religion in Saudi Arabia, no other creeds are allowed to build Houses of Worship there (yet Moslems are quick to condemn intolerance ("Islamaphobia") in the USA).
I once told a scholar of Islam that education in an Islamic madrassas appeared to me to be like foot-binding for the head (he called that "a memorable description.") I am beginning to think Islam may ultimately have the same fate that the foot-binding of women has had in China.
Hugh sez:
"..In Afzaal's courses, Islam is not taught in detail..."
Of course not. But would you know of any place at all where Islam is taught in detail? I don't think there is any place, at least not any institution of higher learning, where Islam is taken apart the way we do here on JW/DW.
Please correct me if I'm wrong....
There are here and there departments where a single professor, or several, may be pulling no punches. Not all started out that way. Some may never have been apologists, but not quite as convinced, as they have become, that possibly Bernard Lewis is not the last word. The work of Bat Ye'or -- and those whom she uses, and those whose work she did not use either becuase it came after, or was about the fate of non-Muslims outside the Middle East (especially in India) -- is hard to overlook. The students of Islam, samples of whose work are offered in the anthology "The Legacy of Jihad," once read, cannot be un-read. Once students begin to realize that their courses fail to mention all kinds of things -- beginning with the dhimmi, and the Muslim view of Infidels and Believers -- they begin to get uneasy themselves. I have talked to many who had to endure nonsense, and after the course was over, the grade received, they were full of anger over the way they had been manipulated and fed pap. Some of them, I know, are intent on not keeping their fury to themselves.
It would not do to name particular departments or professors here who do things right. They know who they are. They themselves have to practice taqiyya in order to insure their survival until tenure -- and then they need to be careful, for now, so that their undergraduate and graduate students can benefit, rather than be harmed, by their references and support. But there are signs -- here and there. One can only allow oneself to participate in a huge academic fraud for so long.
There are analogies with those who spent decades in the morass of literary theory, and then -- in Frank-Lenticchia fashion, gave it up for plain old-fashioned plaisirs du texte -- that is, reading. On the Road to Damascus. Changes of heart, new understandings, fury at being used, the examples both of great scholars of Islam in the past, Jeffery or Schacht or Hurgronje, Lammens or Noldeke or Muir -- and of ex-Muslims who in their critical analysis make perfect sense, who are thankfully free of that fake affability of the smyler with the knyf under the cloke like Afzaal above.
In European universities there are whole departments that are fine. For example, that of the Universite of Aix-en-Provence. But again, no need to go into detail.
Hugh said
It's hard to believe the lies and half-truths we were taught about Islam in college; it's also hard to believe that anyone in today's environment would feel free to speak the truth. But I stand happily corrected.
It should be encouraging for academics with an interest in Islam to observe how Mr. Azfeel has been forced to concede the power of Spencer's position; the ad hominem-slander move, so typically in debates with apologists of Islam, has been avoided, this time at least. Spencer's arguments have been conceded, albeit in a fashion that must leave us wondering about the implicature of the debate and the character of respondent--first the interlocutor appears to strike a condescending attitude, obviously to project ridicule of Spencer, and then he says he was misunderstood and admires Spencer's arguments. And then again with a patronizing 'if I were you', the respondent recommends personally to poor Spencer that Spencer not trouble himself with what he, Azfeel, has said and wrote in the past. Again, Azfeel makes a rhetorical attempt at asserting a role as a quasi-parent. "Yes, indeed, my child Spencer, if I were you...".
Nevertheless, we should be encouraged. It remains impossible on many campuses in the United States even to quote violent, unflattering passages in the Qur'an and Hadith to students, to faculty, without raising suspicious looks, disdain, and even hatred from defenders of Islam. Charges of bigotry and racism lurk around every corner: no matter what one's reputation, no matter what one has written, no matter what one stands for, if one raises the issue of violent, intolerant Islam with quotation or just curious questioning, one must be ready for trouble. Mr. Azfeel backing away from the 'ad hominem-racist-bigot gambit', apparently by virtue of the sheer power of what Spencer said, as well as the shocking nature of Mr. Azfeel has also said, is a victory for all in academia who slowly but surely work to open the critical floodgates on the traditions of Islam.
I believe what Hugh says is coming true: there will come a time in the near future when all this will change.
-Vincent Wong
I'm having trouble with it too.
Hugh sez:
"...In European universities there are whole departments that are fine. For example, that of the Universite of Aix-en-Provence. But again, no need to go into detail..."
At a recent wine-dinner in Hong Kong, (nothing but the very best of the best, sorry you missed it, Hugh!) a young Frenchman from Aix en Provence, (4 languages perfect, very smart, very slick & arrogant, something that comes with the chateau & the domain) laughed at me when I asked him about the Islamization of France.
Obviously he thought the question was preposterous...
No , I'm not sure whether he went to the uni in Aix, and I never got a chance to ask...
No. Things are not well...
Yep, there's something wrong with the "reply link".
I find it irritating that not a single person on this message board has criticized Mr. Spencer for his unfair judgment of Prof. Afzaal. I was also at Spencer’s presentation at Conn, and thought Afzaal’s compliment was completely honest. It is unfortunate that Spencer chose not to accept the compliment but to treat it as an insult that he would take delight in conveying to the readers of his website.