One of the most common responses to my work that I have encountered since I have been doing it publicly is a sweeping assertion that I am ignorant, and/or maliciously ignoring the broad mainstream of peaceful Islam. Of course I do not ignore in the least the broad mainstream of peaceful Muslims, but I have repeatedly pointed out that within the various theological and legal traditions of Islam, they do not have much of a case. All the schools (madhahib) of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) teach violent jihad and Sharia supremacism, with some minor variations. Accordingly, Ibn Warraq is correct when he says that there are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.
This bears repeating: there are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.
What I have encountered again and again, however, has been the flat assertion that peaceful Islam (not just peaceful Muslims) exists and is the Islamic mainstream, and that I am dishonest or malicious for denying this. But no evidence is ever presented for the existence of this Islam, and in all the years that I have been studying Islamic texts and Islamic history, I have never found it. Again and again and again people throw up to me the assertion without evidence.
Accordingly, I have asked for this evidence again and again here, because I am only interested in the truth, and if such evidence exists, I have no interest in denying it. In my response to Dean Esmay, I asked again: “I have asked here many times for people to send me examples of Islamic religious scholars rejecting, on Islamic grounds, jihad violence against non-Muslims; rejecting the idea that Sharia law should be instituted in the Muslim and non-Muslim world; and teaching the idea that non-Muslims and Muslims should live together indefinitely as equals. Send me rejections of the ideas that women should not enjoy full equality of rights with men. Send me information that shows that those who write such rejections are not lone voices crying in the wilderness, with the wolves of Islamic orthodoxy ready to pounce upon them, but that they represent broad traditions within Islam and have large followings.”
I have repeatedly asked for this: here and here and here and here and here. I’ve received a few responses that don’t supply what I asked for — they are the work of lone scholars with little or no following, or they are transparently false exegeses of Qur’an and Hadith. I have received no actual evidence of the existence of the things I asked for.
This comes up again because Esmay has written about my work again in his comments field. Here again I post this not because Esmay’s views are important or because I think I can convince him of anything, but because I believe his assessment is widely held, and that people of good will who hold it can be convinced of the truth:
Here’s what Spencer does:
1) Take the most tendentious and pernicious interpretations of what the Koran says, in the ways that the most radical clerics of Islam interpret them.
2) Declare that these are the inescapably correct views.
3) Declare that he doesn’t hate muslims or all of Islam, but that no one can prove him wrong about what he “inescapably” concludes about the religion.
Seriously: when I do this to Christian scriptures, people go absolutely ballistic on me. I mean, I’ll come right out and say, “Look, here is a totally twisted and out-of-context quote of Christian scriptures, which if taken literally would mean the same thing as the Koran says here” and people blow up and say I’m insulting Christianity. The irony never dawns on them at all.
My inescapable conclusion is that to take Spencer seriously, or to endorse Spencer and insult those who question him, is to inescapably conclude that Islam is simply evil, that the real problem is the religion itself and by extension its adherants.
Of course, I don’t do anything like this, and Esmay is even asserting that I do in the face of what I wrote to him before. In my response to him, which is as yet unanswered, I wrote: “I have said that all eight madhahib [Islamic schools of jurisprudence], most notably the four principal Sunni madhahib — Shafi’i, Maliki, Hanafi, and Hanbali — all teach jihad and Sharia supremacism. They are not monolithic, but on that they are united. Prove me wrong.” I stand by that statement, and can support it and have supported it with evidence from each of those major madhahib. In other words, I can prove that violent jihad is not based on “tendentious and pernicious interpretations of what the Koran says, in the ways that the most radical clerics of Islam interpret them,” but on the Islamic mainstream. Esmay ignores this and asserts the contrary, without adducing a shred of evidence.
Is it “inescapably correct” that each Muslim school of jurisprudence sanctions violent jihad? Yes, as much as it is “inescapably correct” that each Muslim school of jurisprudence sanctions tauhid, or Islamic monotheism. There is no disagreement among Muslims about tauhid, and it isn’t hating Islam or Muslims to say so. With jihad it’s just the same thing: it is a matter of fact, not hatred. Again: prove me wrong. But no evidence is ever forthcoming.
And as for the Christian Scriptures, it is ironic that Esmay speaks of people going “ballistic,” since it is unlikely that any of the Christians he may have offended have shot, stabbed, or beheaded him, or want to. But in any case, his all-religions-are-the-same assumption founders on the fact that Christianity and Judaism have well-developed traditions that reject literalism on things approved of in the Old Testament such as stoning adulterers and slavery. Where is that tradition within Islam? Again — no evidence is forthcoming.
But another commenter at Esmay’s site, a certain Matoko Kusanagi, dismissed me as a “moron” and attempted to provide that evidence:
i am a mathematician by training and a sociobiologist by avocation.
In mathematics you need only one counter-example to disprove a theorem.
the school of al-Anzhar, far more populous than the salafist schools, decries the Saud practice of Islam as an “abomination” and rejects violent jihaad categorically.
Now i suppose robert will just say they are practicing taqiyya, as he often does, but that is simply untrue. the school is on record as opposing it.
therefore spencer cannot legitimately state that Islam is homogeneous and united behind the concept of violent jihaad.QED
Well, I don’t like to let patent falsehoods pass, so I emailed this fellow:
Matoko Kusanagi:
You wrote: “the school of al-Anzhar, far more populous than the salafist schools, decries the Saud practice of Islam as an “abomination” and rejects violent jihaad categorically.”
It’s Al-Azhar, not Al-Anzhar.
A Shafi”i manual of Islamic law that in 1991 was certified by Al-Azhar as conforming “to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community,”[1] defines jihad as “war against non-Muslims,” noting that the word itself “is etymologically derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare to establish the religion.”[2] It spells out the nature of this warfare in quite specific terms: “the caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians . . . until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax.” It adds a comment by a Jordanian jurist that corresponds to Muhammad’s instructions to call the unbelievers to Islam before fighting them: the caliph wages this war only “provided that he has first invited [Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians] to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya) . . . while remaining in their ancestral religions.”[3] But the manual also states that in the absence of a caliph, Muslims must still wage jihad.[4]
[1] Ahmed ibn Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller (“˜Umdat al-Salik): A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law, translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller. Amana Publications, 1999, p. xx.
[2] Ibid., o9.0.
[3] Ibid., o9.8.
[4] Ibid., o9.6.But I’m the moron. Sure.
You might try to get a clue about what you’re talking about before you start pontificating.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
I wrote in haste. I might have added some references to Al-Azhar sheikhs calling for violent jihad.
But anyway, here is Kusanagi’s response. Note again the assertions without evidence:
i see you do not read arabic, or understand it, right?
there are different clerics in all schools of shari’ia, that make different rulings. you are quoting a single source. unimpressive. sorry for the mispelling, but who knows how to spell arabic in english, anyways?yes, i do think you are a moron.
you claim to to have distilled the truth about all Islam while you are unable to do your own translation, or read sources in the original? Have you ever trained in Islamic scholarship or Islamic jurispriudence? Islamic scholars have been arguing the meaning of the Qur’an and associated texts for hundreds of years. you truly are a moron if you think you are delivering the unequivocable truth from your paltry efforts at scholarship. You cherry pick to prove one narrow viewpoint.the other reason i think you are a moron is that you are blind to the damage you do in the information wars. by showcasing the more horrible examples, by perpetuating urban myths about Islam, by treating all muslims as an undifferentiated mass that share the exact ideas about jihaad, taquiyya, etc, all your scare tactics, your breathless hystrionics, you drive the moderates right into the arms of the fundamentalists. You are feeding the ignorant masses that desire the clash of civilizations.
There are millions and millions of moderate muslims. but they don’t meet your standards. you are not interested in moderate muslims, you are only interested in REFORMIST muslims, that would deny their faith or make it into something exactly like yours. the pious middle have no desire to reform Islam, like buddhists, confucians, catholics, lutherans, all you supernaturalists have no desire to reform your faiths, no matter how crazy and illogical they are in aspect and practice. and don’t give me that sanctimonious crap about xians being all kind and nice NOW, because it wasn’t very long ago that xians and muslims were isomorphic.
if you really want to know the 411 read this 62 page pdf— it is the reader’s digest condensed version of Atran’s book, In Gods We Trust. All religions are the same, an attempt to paper over the hideous truth with religion-membership passing for fake kinship–we are all nasty hobbesian barbarians under the skin, and there is no god and there is no afterlife, so all your silly poseur interpretations of qur’anic texts are useless pompous, tendicious dreck, and just it make it harder for GW to win the hearts and minds of the real moderate muslims, that you scorn for being insufficiently like you.
uncordially, mk
The pdf, as you can see, is a windy and off-point piece of religious sociology, so I didn’t address it in my reply. Kusanagi’s remarks are double indented below, and mine are single indented. I hope it is not too confusing to read.
i see you do not read arabic, or understand it, right?
Have we met? How did you come by this factoid?
Here’s something it would be good for you to bear in mind when you don’t know all the facts:
خير الخلال حفظ اللسا
there are different clerics in all schools of shari’ia, that make different rulings. you are quoting a single source. unimpressive.
You asserted that Al-Azhar rejected violent jihad. If it does, why did it endorse this manual of fiqh that teaches violent jihad?
Please produce any rejection of violent jihad in principle from anyone at Al-Azhar.
sorry for the mispelling, but who knows how to spell arabic in english, anyways?
There is no possible way you can get an “n” out of الأزهر.
Nobody, but nobody, would transliterate that with an “n.”
yes, i do think you are a moron.
I’m glad you’ve decided to keep your rejoinder on a high level, sticking strictly to evidence.
you claim to to have distilled the truth about all Islam while you are unable to do your own translation, or read sources in the original?
I never claimed that. You claimed that for me, based on your false assumptions about what I know, and your misreading of my phrase “inescapable” conclusions. There are disagreements among Islamic scholars. There are some things on which they do not disagree. It would be an inescapable conclusion that Muslims believe in tauhid and that Allah is one. There are other inescapable conclusions as well — a fact which does not mean that there is no disagreement within Islam. As I noted in my unanswered post to Esmay, all the eight madhahib, including the four principle Sunni ones, teach the acceptability of violent jihad. Please produce evidence that that assertion is false.
Have you ever trained in Islamic scholarship or Islamic jurispriudence? Islamic scholars have been arguing the meaning of the Qur’an and associated texts for hundreds of years. you truly are a moron if you think you are delivering the unequivocable truth from your paltry efforts at scholarship. You cherry pick to prove one narrow viewpoint.
See above. All I am asking for is evidence of a mainstream Islamic tradition that has always taught non-violence and peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis. I’m sure you can come up with 20 or 30 such; I’m just asking for one. But note again: I’m not asking for one scholar or professor somewhere. I am asking for evidence of a mainstream Muslim tradition accepted as orthodox by other Muslim groups.
the other reason i think you are a moron is that you are blind to the damage you do in the information wars. by showcasing the more horrible examples, by perpetuating urban myths about Islam, by treating all muslims as an undifferentiated mass that share the exact ideas about jihaad, taquiyya, etc, all your scare tactics, your breathless hystrionics, you drive the moderates right into the arms of the fundamentalists. You are feeding the ignorant masses that desire the clash of civilizations.
This is beyond absurd. Even if your characterizations of my work were remotely true, why would one person acting badly make someone who believed in nonviolence and peaceful coexistence suddenly believe in violence and supremacism?
There are millions and millions of moderate muslims. but they don’t meet your standards.
The only standard I have is that they fight against the mujahedin ideologically. Is that too much to ask? If what you say about Islam is true, they ought to be able to stand on the broad peaceful Islamic mainstream and condemn the mujahedin from it. But they don’t. Why not?
you are not interested in moderate muslims, you are only interested in REFORMIST muslims, that would deny their faith or make it into something exactly like yours.
This is just a straw man you are setting up to knock down. It has nothing to do with what I am actually doing.
the pious middle have no desire to reform Islam, like buddhists, confucians, catholics, lutherans, all you supernaturalists have no desire to reform your faiths, no matter how crazy and illogical they are in aspect and practice. and don’t give me that sanctimonious crap about xians being all kind and nice NOW, because it wasn’t very long ago that xians and muslims were isomorphic.
You clearly have no idea what I actually say. I have never denied Christian atrocities. But I do not accept your contention that all religions are the same, and I don’t think it holds up to the evidence. There is no global movement of Christian terrorists violently asserting Christian supremacism. Why not?
if you really want to know the 411 read this 62 page pdf– it is the reader’s digest condensed version of Atran’s book, In Gods We Trust. All religions are the same, an attempt to paper over the hideous truth with religion-membership passing for fake kinship–we are all nasty hobbesian barbarians under the skin, and there is no god and there is no afterlife, so all your silly poseur interpretations of qur’anic texts are useless pompous, tendicious dreck, and just it make it harder for GW to win the hearts and minds of the real moderate muslims, that you scorn for being insufficiently like you.
I certainly think you have abundantly established that you yourself are a nasty hobbesian barbarian. As for the rest of us, non-Muslim and Muslim, I am unconvinced.
uncordially, mk
Cordially
روبرت سبنسر
In the Arabic above I quoted a proverb, “The best thing is to hold your tongue,” wrote Al-Azhar in Arabic to show that there is nothing like an “n” in it, and signed my name, Robert Spencer. See also Jihad Watch Board member Ibn Warraq’s debunking of the idea that one has to know Arabic in order to speak about Islam.
Anyway, once again — it is not important what Dean Esmay and Matoko Kusanagi say. But I offer this to people of good will, who are considering these issues thoughtfully.