Karen Armstrong reviews Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad!

This should be promptly sent (by Robert, by English visitors to this site) to the Financial Times. Let Armstron be asked to answer, point by point. If not, let her failure to do so be recorded by the newspaper.

From 1962 to 1969, Karen Armstrong was a nun in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. This was a teaching order, and once she had advanced from postulant and novice to professed nun, she was sent to St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she studied English. Armstrong left the order during her course of study.

After graduating, she embarked on a doctorate (still at Oxford) on Alfred, Lord Tennyson. She continued to work on it while later teaching at the University of London, but her thesis was rejected by an external examiner. She eventually left academia without completing her doctorate.

Armstrong is a feminist and a prolific scholar of religions. She has written on a multitude of faiths.

“I usually describe myself, perhaps flippantly, as a freelance monotheist. I draw sustenance from all three of the faiths of Abraham. I can't see any one of them as having the monopoly of truth, any one of them as superior to any of the others."

Karen Armstrong, a feminist.

Feminism and Islam go together like:

oil and water

milk and onions

spaghetti sauce and pancakes

sandals and snowstorms

"This should be promptly sent (by Robert, by English visitors to this site) to the Financial Times. Let Armstron be asked to answer, point by point. If not, let her failure to do so be recorded by the newspaper."

Posted by: Hugh at April 28, 2007 09:02 AM

Wonderful idea! If I was English, I'd be the first to send it in.

I saw Armstrong on C-SPAN not long ago. After she finished spouting off about her version of Islam, she didn't take questions from the audiance (this is rare on C-SPAN). Instead, the Muslim host of the program selected the written questions passed up from the audience.

It was obvious that the women was terrified that someone in the audience might be knowledgeable enough to challenge her sanatized version of Mohammad and Islam.

Don't look for her to be willing to debate anyone.

"the Koranic emphasis on the primacy of forgiveness and peaceful negotiation: the second the enemy asks for peace, Muslims must lay down their arms and accept any terms offered, however disadvantageous."

Did anyone inform Yasser Arafat or the leaders of Hamas? Seems the Israelis have offered many generous terms for peace but have been met with warfare every single time.

As for forgiveness: why are today's Muslims bent on avenging wrongs committed more than eight centuries ago? Who hurt them or their families?

"Spencer makes no attempt to explain the historical, political, economic and spiritual circumstances of 7th-century Arabia, without which it is impossible to understand the complexities of Muhammad’s life."

So why aren't Muslims recognizing the complexities of the society in which WE live and why aren't they willing to accept that the rest of the world isn't interested in recreating 7th-century Arabian society? More to the point: why are modern-day Muslims not looking at Mohammad's teachings in the context of the times in which he lived and adjusting their views accordingly?

I agree that Robert Spencer should send his rebuttal to the Financial Times.

Hear Hear. It seems everyone is in agreement. The next move is to contact the financial times. I suggest that JihadWatch readers write to the editorial staff and politely ask for the publication of Dr. Spencer's rebuttal.

Karen Armstrong writes about God(s) and religions when she does not believe in God! Neither does she believe in the afterlife (calls it a "red herring." She freely admits that even as a nun she was not able to "find" God. That's pitiful.

IMO, she has no credentials to write about God(s) and religions when she has no belief.

i've just sent this in to the Financial Times with a note objecting to such sub-standard, mediocre and mendacious writing in a so-called quality newspaper...pointing out the necessity for more responsibility on the part of said newspaper in our very troubled times. More truth is found in sleazy tabloid 'The Sun'

"It is easy, therefore, to quote so selectively that the main thrust of the faith is distorted. But Spencer is not interested in balance. He picks out only those aspects of Islamic tradition that support his thesis. " -Karen Armstrong

To quote Mark Steyn: "t’s a good basic axiom that if you take a quart of ice-cream and a quart of dog feces and mix ‘em together the result will taste more like the latter than the former."

Letters to the editor at Financial Times can be e-mailed to:

letters.editor@ft.com

as noted on this website:

http://www.ft.com/comment/letters

Good luck with getting a rebuttal published in the FT, which I seem to remember has a track record of (not believably innocent) wrongheadedness about Islam. Out of all the possible reviewers, they pick the egregious Armstrong. Must be all that Saudi money flowing into Londonistan, old boy (not to mention heavy UK investment in dar-al-Islam).

"For example, he cites only passages from the Koran that are hostile to Jews and Christians"

then why is the koran so "peaceful" that it includes any references of hostility to any "people's of the book".

does the bible or torah or bagadvita or buddist texts state that jews and christians are apes pigs and incites war and violence against "unbelievers"?

My hunch is that Armstrong is a paid flunky (probably Saudi money). Someday the truth will come out re her. She's a dancing bear for those pay the piper.

"In Muslim Spain, relations between the three religions of Abraham were uniquely harmonious in medieval Europe"

harmonious?

was hitlers march through europe harmonious?

liberalism truly is a mental disorder.

She has to live with the knowledge that she is a hired flunky. I'm sure all the research grants are nice. But she has sold her integrity. She's in their pocket. That's the problem with those who compromise with the devil. Once you take a devil's money for an "accommodation", the bastard can broadcast everywhere that you are a paid flunky. She must hate herself.

He is a hero of the American right........NO...He is a hero of the people that seek truth!...he tells like it is and takes abuse from silly people like you Karen!....Are you afraid of truth?...will you melt?

Karen-

Who pays you?

Karen-

It may come out when you are dead and gone or it may come out while you are yet alive, but one day it will be known that you were a hired flunky. Meanwhile, enjoy the research grants.

I won't buy nothing from Armstrong to try and figure out what she does or doesn't know. She sure does not know how to answer questions unless she can research it or dictate it! Thanks for the warning now I am going to go buy YOUR book Robert,
The Truth about Muhammad! I only listen to those that are truthful. Thankyou Robert. It is our free will that drives us in search for the truth.
Something Armstrong cannot face for she is caught in her own upheavals!

Karen, you should try being like this guy. He was judge who couldn't be bought. In fact, mobsters are on FBI tapes saying that a gun could be put to Brendan Byrne's head and he would not sell out his integrity. When the public heard that they elected him Gov. of New Jersey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Byrne

Robert,
Maybe she is speaking about something in one of the lesser hadiths. I have never heard of such a verse and doubt I ever will except when listening to kitman or taquiya being spewed by a terrorist apologist.
Personally I wish I could see you debate this or any other mouthpiece for the islamists, but you know that they run from you or anyone knowledgeable enough to point out their lies.

Let me just take this opportunity to thank you again Robert for the great work that you do here on this sight and for America by revealing the truth that the America haters don't want revealed.
God bless you Robert Spencer and

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

MZ-

Someday a book will come out called The Truth About Karen Armstrong. She is a dancing bear. In fact, a dancing circus bear could be a good jacket cover for the book. She dances as a circus bear for her keepers...

http://www.longagoandfaraway.com/ProductImages/Inuit2005/InuitOctober2005/Bears/NoahJawDancingBearD9H008D3.jpg

Karen Armstrong is a left wing nut. The only reason to pay attention to her is that the MSM picks this up and brainwashes the people.

Keep going Robert! You are very heroic for doing what you are doing.

Question for Spencer; Does the Koran provide for love, forgiveness, repentence, and the forgiveness of sins as the New Testament does? If not, then that is the trouble with Islam and why it never has and never will succeed at producing a prosperous, productive culture.

BTW, the links to Frontpage Mag are screwed up from where I sit.

The following is an email exchange I had a couple of months ago regarding Armstrong's prevarications...

KAREN ARMSTRONG: "The veiling of women is neither an original nor a
fundamental practice in
Islam. The Koran does not command all women to cover their heads, and the
habit
of veiling women and secluding them in harems did not become common in the
Islamic world until some three generations after the Prophet's death, when
Muslims
began to copy the Christians of Byzantium and Zoroastrians of Persia, who
had
long treated their women in this way."

RESPONSE: Islamic scripture explicitly repudiates Armstrong's contention.

Below are several Hadith ('Traditions of the Prophet' that provide an
important component in Islamic jurisprudence) from the collection of
Bukari.....clearly establishing that the use of the veil was a dictate of
Muhammad himself and was in no way imported from other cultures. These
Hadith give theological confirmation to the contention of modern Muslim
extremists that women must be veiled....just as other Hadith continue to
provide extremists with the theological arguments to justify other facets of
their religious intolerance.

Karen Armstrong is a reknowned apologist for Islam who is either ignorant or
deliberately obfuscative of Islamic theology/tradition.

My suggestion old buddy is that you stick to the ethereal when trying
to impart wisdom. Diversions into religion or politics require actual
knowledge of the subject matter at hand.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The parenthesis are not mine but rather part of the Hadith....

Volume 1, Book 4, Number 148:
Narrated 'Aisha:
The wives of the Prophet used to go to Al-Manasi, a vast open place (near
Baqia at Medina) to answer the call of nature at night. 'Umar used to say to
the Prophet "Let your wives be veiled," but Allah's Apostle did not do so.
One night Sauda bint Zam'a the wife of the Prophet went out at 'Isha' time
and she was a tall lady. 'Umar addressed her and said, "I have recognized
you, O Sauda." He said so, as he desired eagerly that the verses of Al-Hijab
(the observing of veils by the Muslim women) may be revealed. So Allah
revealed the verses of "Al-Hijab" (A complete body cover excluding the
eyes).

Volume 3, Book 48, Number 812:
Narrated Aisha:
Aflah asked the permission to visit me but I did not allow him. He said, "Do
you veil yourself before me although I am your uncle?" 'Aisha said, "How is
that?" Aflah replied, "You were suckled by my brother's wife with my
brother's milk." I asked Allah's Apostle about it, and he said, "Allah is
right, so permit him to visit you."

Volume 5, Book 59, Number 523:
Narrated Anas bin Malik:
The Prophet stayed with Safiya bint Huyai for three days on the way of
Khaibar where he consummated his marriage with her. Safiya was amongst those
who were ordered to use a veil.

Volume 1, Book 8, Number 347:
Narrated Um 'Atiya:
We were ordered to bring out our menstruating women and veiled women in the
religious gatherings and invocation of Muslims on the two 'Id festivals.
These menstruating women were to keep away from their Musalla. A woman
asked, "O Allah's Apostle ' What about one who does not have a veil?" He
said, "Let her share the veil of her companion."

Armstrong's critique of Mr. Spencer is as absurd as someone criticizing a doctor "for only concentrating on the diseased parts of the body".

It's the diseased parts of Islam that we have to worry about.

(As an earlier teacher noted that he came to confront the unsavory, since the healthy had no particular need.)

Islam's unsavory Koranic suras and Hadithic hate are the problem.

Concentrating on those aspects of Islam that won't hurt you is sophistic silliness when we are being threaten by its murderous malignancies.

And sugar-coating a cancer doesn't cure it.

Although it'll look cute in the short-term.

(Sadly, radio guy Glenn Beck was promoting her biography of Muhammad this past week as "really worth reading"- although he got her last name wrong. I emailed him to recommend a counterbalance in Mr. Spencer's bio of the pedophile "prophet". me@glennbeck.com)

Hitler liked dogs and cream-filled pastries, too.

But they were hardly his traits that Churchill and FDR worried about.

Strange.

I thought Koran Armstrong was a 'revert'-
if she is not, she's definitely on the Islamic payroll...

I think you did an outstanding job of putting into plain language what the real character and motivation of someone like K. Armstrong is all about. Anarchists are at work in this nation, folks. The Leftists wish to eat away at the Union all in the name of individualism to an extreme, so woe be unto any of you if you have a wish to live within the Law, speak the Truth and stand up for the American Way! That makes you an enemy of the Righteous Left.

Karen Armstrong must be insane.

Karen is a bourgeois flunky who has been on some institutional shelf all her life. Her thinking is a brain-fart, devoid of real work for family, by necessity. She's born to be kept like a pet. She's a dancing bear. Enjoy the research grants, Karen.

A few days back, I was reading a review of a book by Karen Armstrong. I forget the title, but the reviewer had written what is referred to as a "rave review". After about 3 paragraphs she said something about a great man who founded a religion of peace and the justice that the author does to this prophet. Light dawned on me instantly. She was talking about big mo, uswa hasana. Seems our Karen has written an entire book about this light unto the human race. I need not say that the reviewer was a muslim.

"Karen Armstrong must be insane."
from above

Thinking about the descriptions of Karen Armstrong and I think mine would be "sociopath".
She knows right from wrong and chooses wrong because thats what a sociopath does.

How can anyone actually read the basic Islamic texts and still think the way Karen Armstrong does? Okay, so it's not math, but read Fjordman on Tina Magaard's study for a scientific approach:
http://fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/09/islam-is-most-warlike-religion.html

arjun.sevak-

I know (from reading) that Robert's family came from Turkey after World War I and I have a hunch his people were not treated very well (maybe even some of them were killed) by Muslims. I detect a sense of obligation in him re a family memory of some injustice done to a family member by Muslims. He's a brave man with a cool head. In Armstrong, I detect a person who has been on some institutional shelf all her life (schools, e.g.). She is a born flunky. Robert would coolly expose her in a debate. All she can do is pose as being indignant because she has nothing else.

She dares not come into the real world. She better stay on some institutional shelf.

Forget these six-bit sound bite "debates" that get tossed into your lap, in which some apologist has just enough time to throw out a solid stream of ad hominem and to jump in every time you try to complete a sentence. Whether or not the host of these 3-minute sound bites has the sense to referee the proceedings they always come off as a monkey show. It is amazing, indeed, that you have the ability to show these goons up for what they are, even under these conditions.

No, you need proper debate forums in which you can systematically expose these lies and distortions. A little proactive work might make the difference. I would suggest the Horowitz Freedom Center sponsor a series of such debates, starting with Spencer vs Armstrong. However, the flaw would be obvious: HFC is seen as "biased" and it would be railed against as a clambake.

What HFC needs is a suitable antagonist that stands against Spencer's analysis, a comparable institute with a clear pro-islamist agenda that stands against the association of worldwide Jihad against unbelievers with Islam in general.

CAIR is not much as a respectable institute, and is really just a bunch of media hounds anyway. Perhaps MAS could serve in this capacity.

Then HFC and this institute could sit down and agree on a series of questions relevant to the debate, posed as catchy one-liners: (Proposed that) Islam is a Religion of Peace, or (Proposed that) Islam calls believers to armed conflict against unbelievers and so on. Hammer out a format in which each of two champions is given 30 minutes to hammer out their own position, 20 minutes to rebut their opponent's statements, and 10 minutes to defend their own, followed by questions to make up a 3 hour program. It could be sold to PBS or underwritten equally by supporters on both sides and distributed by agreement through internet sites sponsored by both institutions.

Audience chants or inappropriate behavior in support of one side of the debate would be converted into an equal amount of extra time for the opponent to state their position, PLUS an equal reduction of any remaining time for the debater on that side. Disrupters, of course, would be ejected right away, to minimize such annoyances.

Let them produce their "champions", but I'd like to see Armstrong take the first shot.

On his show the other night Glenn Beck endorsed Armstrongs book. He is a man who knows Islam is inherently evil but is trying to find any explanation to prove him wrong even if it is based on lies.

Boy, she is wrong on so many counts that it's hard for me to write a letter to FT. Perhaps people here who are more eloquent can do that.

Carry on Mr. Spencer, you evil right-winger you :)

Oh how the jihad originated 1400 yrs back and how the pre-islam Arabs were the first people to be traumatized, and how types like Karen Armstrong will be the last to be utterly traumatized by islam no matter what the outcome.
This should be in dhimmi watch.
Frontpage mag site is screwed where I sit too...

But the widespread ignorance about Islam in the west makes many vulnerable to Spencer’s polemic; he is telling them what they are predisposed to hear.

There's a "chicken and egg" argument in here that Armstrong gets wrong. The reason I am "predisposed" to hear a non-sugar-coated non-kumbayah-let's-all-get-along-in-a-great-one-world-culture message is because Muslims keep doing things that, if we're going to have one world culture, I don't want to have as part of that culture.

I grew up a Catholic and couldn't have cared less about Islam. For all I knew, it could have been the greatest thing since sliced bread. Once I saw what its adherents did, I became curious why they did it. Seeing the inadequacy and superficiality of the Marxist interpretation (i.e. that Muslims are 'alienated' due to the Arab-Israeli conflict), I came to view it more in a Weberian (as in Max Weber) vein and sought out the foundations of terrorism in the Muslim religion. Lo and behold, as Robert Spencer's works point out, just as the Protestants were driven to develop modern capitalism by their religion, Muslims are driven to terrorism by theirs.

It's actually so simple that the only reason every single person in Western society does not see it is that they are ignorant of Islam, but in the opposite way to what Armstrong argues. Our ignorance of the inevitability of conflict between our superior civilization and the inferior Muslim barbarism stems from the fact that we do not understand that the source of that barbarism and the source of Muslim identity are one and the same. I personally cannot even believe we debate things like "Are there Muslim moderates?" or "Why do they hate us?". I have zero personal incentive to care about the continued existence of Islam on this planet. My prediction is that eventually, enough people in the non-Muslim world will come to this same conclusion after enough acts of Muslim terrorism. The sad thing, for those who will die in the interim, is that there is sufficient evidence right now that my conclusion that Islam must be eliminated is the only possible conclusion, unless people are willing to give up modern society and all it entails.

Not a fan of either Islamic or Christian dogma, nor impressed at all with either ideology's history.

What I can say is that when it comes to Rule of Law, and Liberal Democracy, pluralism, Human Rights, secular government, the West wins hands down. For the most part the Christian spokespeople bend over backwards to acknowledge the sins of their past.

I don't hear any of this from the Jihadists, who rather boast and pine for life 14 centuries ago.
Until the Muslims who are not Jihadists, and the whole cabal of Western apologists, like Armstrong get on board, nothing will change. And this means an openness to criticism like the rest of the human race.

Hmmm... I sense a pattern here:

The Washington Post continually provides Jimmy Carter with a public forum for his tendentious views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.... but Carter refuses to debate Alan Dershowitz on the question of who is primarily responsible for 60 years of rejectionism and bloodshed in the Middle East.

The London Review of Books publishes a pseudo-academic paper on the power of the "Israel Lobby" by Professors Walt and Mearsheimer but the authors refuse to respond publicly to criticism of their screed.

The FT publishes Karen Armstrong's diatribe against Robert Spencer and his biography on Muhammad but Armstrong refuses to debate Spencer on the question of the true nature, history, and aims of Islam.

If I didn't know better, I would think that there's a concerted effort on the part of Islamists and their brethren in the mainstream media to stifle debate.

I read Hugh's 1st comment and went directly to wiki's info on Armstrong. Looks like DCWatson beat me to it, but I try to minimize the C & P thing.

Armstrong seems to be typical of someone surrounded by and steeped in leftist academia. Her arguments are very similar to what I've heard from muslim 'scholars'. Selective quotes without balance and some outright fabrications do not a respectable treatise make.

Prior to heavy saudi investment (and some other 'deals') I had high hopes for Murdach's FNC but it has let us all down and we don't have any MSM outlet to lead the way for responsible journalism.

It's a sad commentary on our times that the 24 hour news cycle has unending reports of Alec Baldwin's personal life and Rosie O'Donnell's next career moves but nothing, NOTHING, about religiously motivated murders of Christians in Turkey, religio/racial atrocities in Darfur and so much more.

PBS' cavein this week on airing "Islam v Islamists" as part of their "America at the Crossroads" series should be an alarm for everyone but few even know it happened. How many other reports are spiked? We cannot know.

2 points:

First, Mr. Spencer is not a hero of the right as if he was he would be featured as the poster speaker in every event. As it is now, he is about as rare as whooping crane on television.

Second, Ms. Armstrong is a bigot against Christians and an anti semite against Hebrews, including a complete ignorant against God in what Joshua was sent to do.
The reason Joshua was directed by God to wipe out the "peoples of the area" had to do genetic factors as they would have destroyed humanity. There is a reason the "giants", people who looked like lions which is a genetic condition and the inbreeding which was going on would have set a course for humanity where people would not have survived as a race.
The Canaanites were doing all sorts of things, including animal breeding which was destroying species. This is one reason the flood of Noah was sent in these later peoples were practicing the old arts.

This is about Spiritual corruption in a body which is designed with a soul to house an implanted Spirit from God to change people from base humans into the children of God.
Hebrew laid down the pracitcal day to day training to begin this and Christ laid down the Spiritual union aspect to purify the person which is love, caring and inviting God's Spirit in knowing that people can not do it alone, but it must be God.

That is where Islam fails in being a god of doom, judgement and hell from a male punishment perspective. There is no compassion in the religion as it is hearsay.
For Ms. Armstrong to miss the point that Muhammed stole Hebrew and Christian oral stories and bastardized the one part into Islam is complete ignorance and exposes her hatred for Judaism and Christianity.

There is a huge difference between Hebrew cleansing, Christian conversion in love compared to Islamic convert or have your head chopped off.

Karen Armstrong is in the same league as the halucaust deniers.

I would wear this one like a badge of honor, Robert. Really, is this unexpected? It just shows that what you are doing is effective, and it is being noticed as such by the people most likely to be financially and credibly damaged by it. Not bad publicity either. The book has been out a long time, I'm sure sales have plateaued or dropped, now this. Thanks, Karen!

I am surprised that Osama noticed you before she did though.

Keep up the good work!

Explain me this. Why should games be islamic.

www.islamic-games.com

Islamic games is being held in south brunswick, NJ shcool?. Can someone explain why township resources are used to promote islamic games?
By the Way why should games be islamic?
Why should country be islamic?
Are rocks islamic?
Are animals islamic?

Where will this stop? I can't understand.

Karen Armstrong has evidently sold her soul.
If she can't see the difference between Christianity and islam....and defends islam, well she's not that stupid. She is an undeclared revert.

justamomof4 ,
Thank you for the address. I emailed them and asked for the chance for RS to answer her. Hopefully they will get enough mail to allow RS that privilege.

Desi-

Yes, games are islamic--especially burkha mud wrestling.

You ask if the rocks are islamic.

Why, yes Desi, the rocks that tell the muslim there is a Jew hiding behind them are very islamic, indeed!

You ask if animals are islamic.

Well...that depends. Apes and pigs are assigned to other religions. But goats. Goats can be islamic by injection.

But afterwards the islamic goat can only be sold to the next tribe over.

A piece by David Thompson on Karen Armstrong:

"Islam's Hagiographer

In my review of Robert Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad, I wrote: "In his book, Islam and the West, the historian Bernard Lewis argued: 'We live in a time when… governments and religious movements are busy rewriting history as they would wish it to have been, as they would like their followers to believe that it was.' This urge to sanitise unflattering facts is nowhere more obvious than in biographies of Muhammad, of which, Karen Armstrong’s ubiquitous contributions are perhaps the least reliable." I've since received a number of emails asking me to clarify why Armstrong is unreliable in this regard. To that end, here's a brief catalogue of Ms Armstrong's errors and distortions, a version of which was first published by Butterflies & Wheels. Some of her rhetorical airbrushing is, I think, quite spectacular.

"Armstrong would have us ignore what terrorists repeatedly tell us about themselves and their motives. One therefore has to ask how we defeat an opponent whose name we dare not repeat and whose stated motives we cannot mention..."

Karen Armstrong has been described as “one of the world's most provocative and inclusive thinkers on the role of religion in the modern world.” Armstrong’s efforts to be “inclusive” are certainly provocative, though generally for reasons that are less than edifying. In 1999, the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Los Angeles gave Armstrong an award for media “fairness.” What follows might cast light on how warranted that recognition is, and on how the MPAC chooses to define fairness.

In one of her baffling Guardian columns, Armstrong argues that, “It is important to know who our enemies are… By making the disciplined effort to name our enemies correctly, we will learn more about them, and come one step nearer, perhaps, to solving the… problems of our divided world.” Yet elsewhere in the same piece, Armstrong maintains that Islamic terrorism must not be referred to as such. “Jihad”, we were told, “is a cherished spiritual value that, for most Muslims, has no connection with violence.”

Well, the word ‘jihad’ has multiple meanings depending on the context, and it’s hard to determine the particulars of what “most Muslims” think in this regard. Doubtless countless Muslims would recoil from connotations of violence and coercion. But it’s safe to say the Qur’an and Sunnah are of great importance to Muslims generally, and most references to jihad found in the Qur’an and Sunnah occur in a military or paramilitary context. Aggressive conceptions of jihad are found in every major school of Islamic jurisprudence, with fairly minor variations. The notion of jihad as warfare against unbelievers is affirmed by Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi and Shafi'i traditions, to which the majority of Muslims belong. And Muhammad’s own celebration of military jihad and homicidal ‘martyrdom’ makes for interesting reading. How these ideas are reconciled by believers is not entirely clear.

Muslims who do commit acts of terrorism and intimidation do so, by their own account, because of what they perceive as core Islamic teachings. The jihadist movements in Indonesia, for example, refer to theological imperatives and the names they give themselves – jihadi, mujahedin, shahid – have no meaning outside of an Islamic context. Mukhlas Imron, the Bali bombing ‘mastermind’ and leader of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, explained his actions not as a response to Iraq, Bush or Blair, but as intended to advance the creation of a vast Sharia state covering Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. Imron pointedly cited Muhammad as his inspiration: "You who still have a shred of faith in your hearts, have you forgotten that to kill infidels and the enemies of Islam is a deed that has a reward above no other? Aren't you aware that the model for us all, the Prophet Muhammad and the four rightful caliphs, undertook to murder infidels as one of their primary activities, and that the Prophet waged jihad operations 77 times in the first 10 years as head of the Muslim community in Medina?"

In his book, Robert Spencer argues, “If peaceful Muslims can mount no comeback when jihadists point to Muhammad’s example to justify violence, their ranks will always remain vulnerable to recruitment from jihadists who present themselves as the exponents of ‘pure Islam’, faithfully following Muhammad’s example.” But Armstrong would have us ignore what terrorists repeatedly tell us about themselves and their motives. One therefore has to ask how we defeat an opponent whose name we dare not repeat and whose stated motives we cannot mention.

In another Guardian column, Armstrong insists that, “until the 20th century, anti-Semitism was not part of Islamic culture” and that anti-Semitism is purely a Western invention, spread by Westerners. The sheer wrong-headedness of this assertion is hard to put into words, but one might note how, once again, the evil imperialist West is depicted as boundlessly capable of spreading corruption wherever it goes, while the Islamic world is portrayed as passive, devoid of agency and thereby virtuous by default.

According to Armstrong, Muhammad was, above all, a “peacemaker” who “respected” Jews and other non-Muslims. Yet nowhere in the Qur’an and Sunnah does Muhammad refer to non-Muslims as in any way deserving of respect as equals. Quite the opposite, in fact. Apparently, we are to ignore over 13 centuries of Islamic history contradicting Armstrong’s view, and to ignore the contents of the Qur’an and the explicitly anti-Semitic ‘revelations’ of Islam’s founder. One therefore wonders whether Armstrong has read Ibn Ishaq’s canonical, quasi-sacred biography of Muhammad. Has she not read the Hadith, most notably Bukhari? Does she not know of the massacre of the Banu Qurayza and the opportunist raids against the Bani Quainuqa, Bani Nadir, Bani Isra’il and other Jewish tribes? Does she not know how these events were justified as a divine duty, one which formed the theological basis of the Great Jihad of Abu Bakr, setting in motion one of the most formidable military expansions in Islamic history? Does she really not know how these theological ideas established the subordinate legal status of Jews and Christians throughout much of the Islamic world for hundreds of years?

In her latest offering, Armstrong is again given free rein to mislead Guardian readers and, again, rewrite history. Armstrong asserts that, “until recently, no Muslim thinker had ever claimed [violent jihad] was a central tenet of Islam." In fact, contemporary jihadists pointedly draw upon theological traditions reaching back to Muhammad’s own example. The Fifteenth Century historian and philosopher, Ibn Khaldun, summarised the consensus of five centuries of prior Sunni theology regarding jihad in his book, The Muqudimmah: “In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the… mission to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force… Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.” Shiite jurisprudence concurred with this consensus, as seen in al-Amili’s manual of Shia law, Jami-i-Abbasi: “Islamic holy war against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam.”

Given that Armstrong is regularly described as a “respected scholar” and an “expert on Islam”, she must surely know of Khaldun and his sources, and must surely know how Muhammad conceived jihad primarily as an expansionist military endeavour. Armstrong must also be aware of the jihad campaigns of religious ‘cleansing’ throughout the Arab Peninsula, in accord with Muhammad’s purported death bed words. Likewise, the five centuries of jihad campaigns in India, during which tens of millions of Hindus and Buddhists were slaughtered or enslaved, along with similar campaigns in Egypt, Palestine, Armenia, Africa, Spain, etc. These campaigns are thoroughly – often triumphantly - documented by Islamic sources of the period and are available to any serious scholar. (For a detailed overview, see Andrew Bostom’s Legacy of Jihad.)

If Armstrong does not know of such things, in what sense can she be considered a “respected scholar” of this subject? For what exactly is she respected? For reaffirming popular misconceptions and PC prejudice, even when her claims are demonstrably false and egregiously misleading? It is, I think, more likely that Armstrong is aware of these inconvenient details, at least to some extent, and has chosen not to divulge them, or contest them. Either way, Islam’s foremost hagiographer and shill has found an audience among those with little appetite for unflattering facts and a preference for being told whatever they wish to hear."

© David Thompson 2007

Karen Armstrong is one treacherous traitor as evidenced by this pitiful sladerous diatribe.

I used to question the wisdom of RS answering so many pathetic critics like this, however I have seen the light. As Hugh and other JW'rs note here, simply posting the plain and true rebuttal to the misinformation of this slander will suffice quite adequately as to leave NO DOUBTS about reality for any person the least bit interested in sorting fact from fiction.

Bravo Robert! Please continue to stand strong and lead by your example of integrity and your meticulous attention to upholding the truth. You are a great leader in our "Jihad watch."

And from the JW Archives, an analysis of a single paragraph by Karen Armstrong:

Fitzgerald: A tribute to Karen Armstrong, or The Coherence of Her Incoherence

Karen Armstrong, long famous for her description of Muhammad as the consummate “peacemaker” who “brought together the warring tribes of Arabia,” has assumed the mantle, yet again, not of the Prophet, but of the Prophet’s defender. In an article in The Guardian she retells in her inimitable fashion the story of European Christendom’s relations with Islam and with Muslims. In her retelling, the Muslims are innocent victims, and more than innocent victims, likened again and again to the Jews. They are also the only people who provided, in that bright shining moment of European history known as Islamic Spain, the only real tolerance and humanity to be found anywhere in Europe before the modern era. It is a tough job, but Karen Armstrong proves equal to the task. And her real theme is not history, but that Europeans should feel ashamed themselves for showing any signs of wariness or suspicion about the millions of Muslims who now live in Europe, having come among the indigenous Infidels to settle, but not to settle down.
It is curious to see how often in this article Karen Armstrong makes references to examples of historic mistreatment of the Jews. For in her previous books she has exhibited a palpable distaste for Israel, and has attempted on every occasion to pretend that the claims of the “three abrahamic faiths” to Jerusalem are identical in the importance that each attaches to the city (but as a city Jerusalem is not holy in Islam, and never was), and she is fond, in her discussion of “fundamentalisms”—always presented in the plural – to make reference to the one or two examples of what she calls “Jewish terrorism.” She fails to consider whether or not the assassination of Rabin by a Jewish political opponent, or the mental collapse of Dr. Baruch Goldstein which led him, acting entirely alone and on impulse, to wreak his solitary revenge on those whose victims Goldstein treated every day as a doctor, until he could no longer stand it, really can be compared to the thousands of planned acts, many of them fortunately foiled, and others not, that are part of the world-wide Jihad against completely innocent Infidels, within Muslim lands, and without.

Here is how she begins:

“In 1492, the year that is often said to inaugurate the modern era, three very important events happened in Spain. In January, the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the city of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Europe; later, Muslims were given the choice of conversion to Christianity or exile. In March, the Jews of Spain were also forced to choose between baptism and deportation. Finally, in August, Christopher Columbus, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and a protégé of Ferdinand and Isabella, crossed the Atlantic and discovered the West Indies. One of his objectives had been to find a new route to India, where Christians could establish a military base for another crusade against Islam As they sailed into the new world, western people carried a complex burden of prejudice that was central to their identity.”

This first paragraph is a scandal, consisting almost entirely of baseless assertions, incredible omissions, and complete fabrications. But it is not inexplicable. For Karen Armstrong history does not exist. It is putty in the hands of the person who writes about history. You use it to make a point, to do good as you see it. And whatever you need to twist or omit is justified by the purity of your intentions – and Karen Armstrong always has the purest of intentions. She knows that we in the “white Western world” (as some like to call it) fail to understand others. She knows of our deepneed to create “the Other” – a psychic need felt exclusively, and with great intensity, apparently, only by us, and never by anyone else. Though Western civilization, a product that was formed from the inheritance of both classical antiquity and and of Christianity (which itself has a strong Hebraic element, that it should be called Judeo-Christianity, a word about which some are still self-conscious), has far outstripped any rival in its achievements, collective and by individuals, in art and science, in political and economic thought, in social development, and has really never needed to create the “Other” (the entire business is a reason ideological fashion which is by this point getting long in the seminar and call-for-papers tooth). Indeed, it is Islam which, though Karen Armstrong does not see it, because she knows nothing about Islam (which doesn’t keep her from writing about it, endlessly), has the strongest claim to being based on the need of its Believers for “the Other.” It is in Islam that emphasis is placed constantly on the only division that matters: that between Believer (to whom all loyalty is owed by other Believers, and for whom all transgressions may be forgiven, except that of disloyalty to Islam) and the Unbeliever, or Infidel (who must be opposed, and subjugated if such an Infidel refuses to accept Islam or stands in the way of its spread). That Armstrong fails to see this is extraordinary; it is everywhere in Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira. But she is on a mission: to make us feel guilty about our treatment of Muslims in the past (hence the harping on the Crusades, and the failure to offer the context of those Crusades, or the difference between the Crusades and Jihad). She wants to evoke a guilt that need not exist at all, so that we will, today, be inhibited from responding to Muslim atrocities and the attitudes that promote such atrocities – this she cannot abide.

“In 1492, the year that is often said to inaugurate the modern era…” Who says that the year 1492 inaugurated the modern era? And what does the phrase “the modern era” mean in any case? The year 1492 was chosen by this lover of symmetries and “three monotheisms” (now said to be studying Buddhism as the latest stop in her Spiritual Search) because in that year, in Spain, Jews and Christians and Muslims each acted, or was acted upon, in ways that Karen Armstrong finds useful to both misstate, and exploit. She will not mention what happened before 1492. She will not tell us about the Muslim invasion and conquest of Spain, or about the 500 years of the Reconquista, nor will she tell us when the Jews first came to Spain, long before the Muslim invasion, even before the Visigoths arrived. She will not point out that the Jews were inoffensive victims, and unlike the Muslims, never invaded, never conquered, never held the Christians of Spain in thrall, never posed a threat to the body politic.

In 1492 “the Catholic monarchs conquered Granada, the “last Muslim stronghold in Europe.” What then should we call all those lands in southern and eastern Europe that the Ottomans were at that very moment busy conquering and seizing, including Constantinople, the richest, most populous, most important city in all of Christendom for 800 years (taken by the Turks on a Tuesday – May 29, 1453), and the Balkans (including the then-vast Serbian lands), and what are modern-day Albania, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, and they continued to press northward and westward, later seizing much of Hungary and threatening Vienna twice. Were these not parts of Europe, and was not a good deal of Europe, including what had been its most important city for a millennium, Constantinople, firmly in Muslim hands before Granada fell – and after?

But it would not do to remind readers that while the Muslim invaders and conquerors of Spain lost their last “stronghold” in Granada, other Muslim invaders and conquerors were busy at the other end of Europe, seizing lands and subjugating the native populations to the devshirme (the forced levy of Christian children) as well as to the jizyah (the tax on non-Muslims) and all the other disabilities that, wherever Muslims conquered, were imposed, as part of a clearly elaborated system, and not merely the whim a ruler, on all non-Muslims.

Now having begun with that year 1492, Armstrong has a bit of a problem. It was that year that Jews were forced to be baptized or to leave. But though Granada had fallen, nothing then happened to the Muslims. In fact, they were treated with the same gentleness that all the Mudejares (Spanish Muslims) who had been defeated, in successive campaigns, were always treated by the Christian victors.
Henry Lea, the pioneering historian of the Inquisition, who was hardly looking for ways to exculpate Christianity, describes the generosity with which the defeated Muslims were treated in Granada, and after the prior victories:

“It was the Jews against whom was directed the growing intolerance of the fifteenth century and, in the massacres that occurred, there appears to have been no hostility manifested against the Mudéjares. When Alfonso de Borja, Archbishop of Valencia (afterwards Calixtus III), supported by Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, urged their [the Mudejars] expulsion on Juan II of Aragon, although he appointed a term for their exile, he reconsidered the matter and left them undisturbed. So when, in 1480, Isabella ordered the expulsion from Andalusia of all Jews who refused baptism and when, in 1486, Ferdinand did the same in Aragon, they both respected the old capitulations and left the Mudéjares alone. The time-honored policy was followed in the conquest of Granada, and nothing could be more liberal than the terms conceded to the cities and districts that surrendered. The final capitulation of the city of Granada was a solemn agreement, signed November 25, 1491, in which Ferdinand and Isabella, for themselves, for their son the Infante Juan and for all their successors, received the Moors of all places that should come into the agreement as vassals and natural subjects under the royal protection, and as such to be honored and respected. Religion, property, freedom to trade, laws and customs were all guaranteed, and even renegades from Christianity among them were not to be maltreated, while Christian women marrying Moors were free to choose their religion. For three years, those desiring expatriation were to be transported to Barbary at the royal expense, and refugees in Barbary were allowed to return. When, after the execution of this agreement, the Moors, with not unnatural distrust, wanted further guarantees, the sovereigns made a solemn declaration in which they swore by God that all Moors should have full liberty to work on their lands, or to go wherever they desired through the kingdoms, and to maintain their mosques and religious observances as heretofore, while those who desired to emigrate to Barbary could sell their property and depart."
It was not until 1502, after difficulties ensued between Spanish authorities, including the famous Cardinal Ximenes (he of the Complutensian Polyglot), and the Muslims (Mudejares) that they were given the choice of expulsion or conversion. And a great many of them pretended to convert, and remained in Spain – far more Muslims were capable of engaging in dissimulation of their faith than were the hapless Jews, who were expelled, in 1492, virtually overnight. It was much later, in 1570, under Philip II, that the Muslims (“Moors”) who remained were finally expelled, having in the meantime risen in revolt.

But Armstrong manages to smugglein that first, rather ineffective expulsion of 1502: “later [i.e. in a different year altogether] Muslims were given the choice of Christianity or exile.” .She does not add, and may not know, that Muslims in Spain after the fall of Granada were not under any danger of expulsion, and it was only when they showed signs of refusing to integrate as asked (and it was assumed that over time they would share the Christian faith, though at first nothing was done to demand such a sign). She may not know, either, that Muslims in a Spain now everywhere ruled by Christians asked members of the ulema in North Africa (in present-day Morocco) to determine whether they might continue to live under non-Muslim rule, and were told that it was not licit, and it was important for them not to be ruled by non-Muslims, and they must, therefore, return to the Muslim-ruled lands of North Africa. Such details provide a rather different slant on what Karen Armstrong offers – she takes the real tragedy, the overnight expulsion of the hapless and inoffensive Jews, and attempts to make the reader think that the Muslims were equally inoffensive, equally harmless, and treated with equal ferocity, as the Jews. But they were not equally inoffensive, not equally harmless, and not treated with equal ferocity..

First comes the fall of Granada. Then, second in time, and certainly in Karen Armstrong’s indignation, came the expulsion of the Jews “In March, the Jews of Spain were also forced to choose between conversion and exile.” Note how that “also” is dropped in, as if the real event, the main event, was the nonexistent (in 1492) expulsion of the Moors, which she had taken care to slip into her discussion of the Fall of Granada, so that she could diminish the significance of the expulsion of the Jews. That afterthoughtish “also.”

But the Muslims were invaders and conquerors, who had been resisted for 500 years of the Reconquista, and were expelled merely across the Straits of Gibraltar from whence they had come, to live again among fellow Muslims, under Muslim rule. Armstrong never says that. Nor does she point out, as she would if she were trying to compare the quite different treatments of Jews and Muslims, that the Jews of Spain never invaded, never conquered, never represented a threat to the political or social order. And when they were expelled they were not to find refuge, like the Muslims, in lands ruled by co-religionists, but again, to be scattered, to Ottoman domains and to Christian ones, Salonika or Amsterdam, to be treated indifferently, or kindly, or with contumely, or worse.

Under Muslim rule, despite their sometimes horrendous treatment, as recorded by Maimonides in his “Epistle to the Yemen” (Maimonides fled Islamic Spain), the Jews managed to make important cultural contributions as translators (along with Christians), as physicians, and as poets (the name Judah Halevi comes to mind). They were perfecdtly willing to live in Spain under Christian rule. They did nothing to deserve their expulsion. But Karen Armstrong has sympathy for the Jews only insofar as that sympathy can be transferred to the real objects of her pity, the Muslims, and she will do nothing to cause readers to see the difference in the two cases, one of clear mistreatment, the second a matter of prudence. It took a full decade for the Spanish rulers and clergy, or some of them, to realize that the Muslims, though conquered, were not about to eventually mold into one faith (that faith being Christianity), and their signs of remaining insubmissive and therefore potentially subversive or rebellions could only disturbIt had taken 500 years for the Reconquista. Why should the Spanish Christians, now that they were militarily victorious everywhere, take a chance that the Muslims would not rise in revolt?

And such revolts took place in the sixteenth century, and led, in 1570, under Philip the Second, to a second and more thorough expuslon of those Muslims who had remained in Spain, and feigned outwardly to have accepted Christianity, but had quietly waited to rise in revolt. That is why the real expulsion of the Muslims (Moors) took place not in 1502, but in 1570, nearly 80 years since the fall of Granada which Armstrong appears to believe led ineluctably to the expulsion of the Moors. It did not.

Both Jews and Moors were expelled from Spain, but however determined Armstrong may be to convince us (most unconvincingly) that these were identical historical events, both prompted by the demonization of “the Other” ( a phenomenon which apparently results from the peculiar psychic deficiency of Christian Europe) they were not identical/ The phrase “the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors” comes trippingly off the tongue, but without more, remains an offense to history and the truth.

The third great event, after the conquest of the “last stronghold” of Islam in Europe, and the two “identical” expulsions of identically unthreatening Muslims and Jews, in that fateful 1492 was the voyage of Columbus: “In August, Christopher Columbus, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and a protege of Ferdinand and Isabella, crossed the Atlantic and discovered the West Indies.”

Note how casually Armstrong drops in her astonishing remark: Columbus was a “a Jewish convert to Catholicism.” She treats it as a given, and finds no need to offer sources or evidence. But she must. For there is not a single authority on Columbus who has ever claimed this. Not Samuel Eliot Morison. Not Paolo Taviani. Not Salvador de Madariaga. Not all of the hundreds or thousands of scholars who have written about Columbus. What some have suggested or argued, is that Columbus came from a family of Genoese wool merchants, that Jews were prominent in that trade, that there is other evidence that his family originally had been Jewish but generations before had converted (and since, without conversions, and slaughter, the numbers of Jews in Europe would now be not a few million but 200 million, quite a few people must have converted over time). This was Salvador de Madariaga’s argument, and that of others. It convinced Indro Montanelli, the celebrated Italian journalist and popular historian, and he was by nature a skeptic. But that has nothing to do with Columbus himself.

Armstrong offers no authority for her statement. But why should she? Her purpose here is twofold. What better way to establish, in her vulgar, “some-my-best-friends-and-discoverers-of-the-New-World-are-Jewish” way, than to claim Columbus for the Jews (of course, assuming that people still honor Columbus for his deeds of derring-do, which would exclude the Ward Churchills of this world). At the same time, she can have this “Jewish” Columbus be depicted as part of a larger problem, for now he, that “Jewish convert to Catholicism,” has embraced the (non-existent) aggressive military plans of Ferdinand and Isabella. Columbus did not obtain royal support to find a new trading route to the east (now that the Muslim conquests in Byzantium have totally blocked the overland routes), or – as of course he would – along the way to spread the Gospel, but to find the best route to “India, where Christians could establish a military base for another crusade against Islam.”

Having been transformed into a “Jewish convert to Catholicism,” Columbus can more conveniently be depicted by Armstrong as a Pentagon Proto-Neo-Con, Jewish-but-also-Christian-fundamentalist, off on his voyage to “establish a military base” for “another crusade against Islam.” A regular Donald Rumsfeld, negotiating for American bases in Uzbekistan. And Kyrgyzstan.

“A military base for another crusade against Islam” – what can we say? Armstrong appears to believe that the Crusades, which were limited in space to the recapture of the Holy Land, and in time to 200 years (1090-1290, roughly) in fact were some kind of permanent impulse, just the way the unmentionable (in all of Armstrong’s copious published vaporings on Islam) Jihad remains a permant and central feature of Islamic teaching. But she is wrong. There was no ongoing effort in 1492 to embark on a new Crusade. Not a word about it, from Columbus, from Luis Santangel, from Los Reyes Catolicos themselves.

And had such a thought occurred to someone, what kind of sense would it have made, militarily, to try to attack from India? Europeans may not have known how far India was from Europe by sea, but they knew that it was very far from the Holy Land (in fact, Columbus thought it was much closer to Europe – that was his happy miscalculation). By 1492, the southeastern part of Europe itself had been for many decades under constant military assault by the powerful Ottoman armies. A few decades before, the first city of Christendom had fallen to the Ottoman Turks, to the Mulsims. How, with such constant dangers, could anyone even think of launching a new Crusade from India? How would tens of thousands of men be transported there, stationed there, and then transported again to the Holy Land? How would they make their way safely through the vast Muslim-controlled lands of Persia, of Mesopotamia, of Syria, in order to reach the Holy Land and fight the Saracens?

Armstrong’s nonsense perhaps has to do with some rude and indigestible bits of history that she dimly recalls, about the story of Prester John, the mythical Christian king of a mythical Christian kingdom, placed first, in European imaginations, in India, and later transferred to Ethiopia – a fable, designed to hearten European Christians who were always fearful of Muslim assaults, the Arab raiding parties by sea, up and down European coasts, and the Turkish land armies of the mighty Ottoman Sultan.

Her every word adds to the absurdity. There is no evidence for Armstrong’s assertions about Columbus himself, or about what motivated him. History is putty in her hands, we said earlier. But the word putty does not do her infantile approach to history justice. History is for Karen Armstrong not so much putty as Playdoh. She can roll it about, she can pull it apart, she can twist and turn it with the same delight exhibited by a two-year-old when too-too-solid block of Playdoh is finally softened up for use by grown-up hands. But the two-year-old is an innocent at play, and even if he leaves a momentary mess, he has done no real harm. Karen Armstrong is not innocent, and manages to do a great deal of harm, careless or premeditated harm, to history. Too many people read that she has written a few books, and assume, on the basis of nothing, that “she must know what she is talking about” – and some of the nonsense sticks. And perhaps an enraged professor or two bothers to dismiss her, but mostly – this is how the vast public, in debased democracies, learns its history today. It is hearsay as history – “Karen Armstrong says” or “John Esposito says.”

And that is only her first paragraph.

[Posted by Hugh at April 22, 2005]

Desi-

If the "Islamic games" are being played and promoted in a public school, on public property, the school and officials should be sued. The first amendment clearly mandates that our secular government may not establish religion by giving such preferences on the tax-payer dollar. Unless there are Hindu games, Jewish games, Catholic games, etc.-there should be no "Muslim games" on public property. The right to the free exercise of religion does not mean any preference should be given to any one religion in the use of public property.

If they held the games as a "Special Olympics" that would be another matter. That does not promote religion. Religion is not an issue in such games as "Special Olympics" for mentally/physically handicapped people.

Koran is a person that feels if she wrote it on b&w that proves what she said. Not so.
Robert having nothing to hide, honest, knowledgeable, good willed, in search for the truth like so many of us. She cannot stand up to the truth. None of them can! Since she likes b&w here it is THE ISLAMIST HAVE ATTACKED OUR BELIEFS OUR RELIGION! The Bible!
If they cannot prove what they say, it should be banned!! People can't just throw crapp out there. Another Churchhill? Dangerous thing to do. I would love to see the debate though!
This would of been a good opportunity for her to walk the walk and talk the talk. She could have helped solve the Big Problem. Who is their devil anyways? They must have devil worshippers like we do in our religion! Their "religion" seems to set themselfs up for that! Being possessed!

I don't remember reading anything so vile as this 'review." If Mohammed taught only defensive warfare, how is it that, a century after his death, Arabs ended up in North Africa and Spain, most of the time making their way with the sword??

What's really distressing is that very few people are willing to challenge Armstrong. The majority are afraid. They are cowards.

What is scary Frank is some day her books turn into another religion-of stupidity and the bear will become their god!

Robert,

If you get a chance, it would be worthwhile to do detailed reviews of Armstrong's and Ramadan's recent books on Muhammad.

Also the FT article by Armstrong is positively loaded with easy-to-refute erroneous claims...though I realize there is only so much time in the day!

Armstrong: "Like any book written in hatred, his new work is a depressing read. Spencer makes no attempt to explain the historical, political, economic and spiritual circumstances of 7th-century Arabia, without which it is impossible to understand the complexities of Muhammad’s life. Consequently he makes basic and bad mistakes of fact."

As usual, an Islam apologist makes an accusation of hate, fails to substantiate that, then makes an accusation of mistakes, errors, etc., and fails to substantiate any of those...

"As they sailed into the new world, western people carried a complex burden of prejudice that was central to their identity.”

Armstrong has a childish blame mentality. The truth is that all groups of people have used religion-ideology as a rationalization for conquest throughout history. All of history is the the record of the removal of some "indigenous people" by another. Every nation, every empire has been established by violence. The Arab Empire, the ottoman Empire, etc., are typical of this pattern in history. However, Islam is best at rationalizing conquest, extermination (India), occupation, prejudice and is at its core the engine of Arab Imperialism. The Arabs carried with them a complex burden of prejudice that was/is central to their identity.

No debate required.

No matter what one finds out and re-states about Islam, Muslims, and their Armstrong like sympathaziers, deny that you found out any facts even though your facts came from Muslims and Islamic writings in the first place.

We always have it wrong, misquoted, misinterpreted, taken out of context, just plain wrong. But....

Anyone with a brain will see through this. If not, anyone with a half a brain can turn on the TV or read the news, and yes read some blogs if you want. The unmistakable facts are: ALL radical violence in the world today is conducted by one group, Muslims against Muslims or Muslims against infidels. Pictures are worth a thousand words, in spite of the talking heads in the Media.

The MSM obviously sanitizes the reporting for public consumption, as does Armstrong, however, the clear images of those spewing 'Death to America", "Death to Israel", "we won't rest til the crescent moon flys over the White House, over the UK", blah, blah, blah, are etched in my mind forever.

No debate required.

A while back, that's how I got interested in Jihad Watch. There were just too many world problems and war, acts of violence and hate, all involving Muslims, to be a coincidence.

Even my pea sized brain could figure out it's not a coincidence, but there is a common denominator, Islam, an ideology sanctioned by the Koran and the supporting Islamic writings.

No debate required.

To refute Robert Spencer's books, when you can't refute him based on the written facts, the only way to attack him is to question his knowledge, and steer away from the stark facts and that's what Karen Armstrong is doing.

Similar to..........

What the Dems (and most world governments) are doing today: focusing on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the deaths of US and NATO soldiers, the money spent, aplealing to public opinion but at all costs, steer clear of the underlying facts, dangers and root causes of the bigger problem, naming the enemy, and it works, for now.

None of these people want to honestly discuss what happens when the US and NATO capitulates because that won't bring votes. Irrespective of our belief in the war or not, as with all spineless (for today only) approaches, our children and grand children will have to pay the ultimate price.

How quick we forgot 9/11, the message delivered, the idealogy behind it, seemingly now taken as a one time message.

"Fool me once, shame on you!, fool me twice shame on me!"

The world has a cancer, it's spreading, and it will continue to spread irrespective of foreign nations with foot on muslim lands, and true to the human psyche, most are in denial.

Deny any of it, then we must face the road paved, and subsequently, what we get.

No debate required.

Come off your academic shelf, Karen. My hunch is that you have been on or part of some institutional shelf all of your life. It's made you into a self-righteous flunky who is afraid to confront open questions of your assertions re Islam (and other things)in the give-and-take of debate. No one is fooled by your poses of indignation. Get into the real world, Karen.

You are afraid of what you will see if you get off that institutional shelf that you have lived on all of your life. I'll bet I'm right.

Sorry, Hugh length alert--but I have to.

This post is nothing more than a cry-fest because people don't think like Spencer and another chance to plug his and others in his circle's upcoming books.

Quran 29:46--Spencer uses it as an example of an Islamic attempt to convert all non-Muslims to Islam before they start murdering in his interpreted 3-Step program, which was neither the intention of the verse, nor the interpretation that was garnered throughout history (see your good friend Ibn Kathir's discussion on the topic, or there are some good modern books that discuss this as well.)

The paragraph which concludes with this aya:
"Fighting is prescribed for you..."
--Interestingly enough, this is a perfect example of how Spencer jumps around, picking and choosing the translations that fit his political goals the best. In his bio, he argues that Yusuf Ali is not very credible, and states that someone such as Pickthal would perhaps be more reliable in garnering an accurate meaning. However, this is the Yusuf Ali translation. If you read the Pickthal translation as well as the original Arabic, this verse means that WAR IS A PART OF LIFE THAT IS INESCAPABLE, whether you like it or not. Who will argue with me that this is not the case, regardless of religion. Islam is intended to provide a comprehensive guide to life, and any analysis of ANY part of human history (Cain and Abel on) knows that war and fighting are parts of human life, and therefore should be discussed in a religion that comprises a guide to everything in life.

Last thing for now, is the fact that Spencer suggests that Islam doesn't allow negotiations to be made or that a Muslim should seek peace first (completely contrary to everything Islamic, you are supposed to be the first to seek peace [Hadith & Quran] and even those verses that describe war completely forbid aggression [offensiveness]). Spencer is the quickest draw when it comes to diverting you from his literalism, but goes out of his way to make sure that everybody else is taken literally.

Just doing some thinking...
(PS. Spencer has read the Quran "innumerable" times and knows Arabic, right??? Why does he need to use an English search engine to find the verse that Armstrong refers to?...weird...even though the engine locks up and is unable to process the inquiry for awesome evil [I don't know why, there is a difference between unable to process and 0 results, but you guys don't really know about that]) See 2.191 and its interpretations as well as others (where they talk about killing is a sin no matter what for. But please don't listen, take it literally and use your own preconceived notions and interpret it based on your pre-judged hatred of Islam)

Glenn Beck recommended Her as a good source for getting a fair view of Islam and Mohammad wednesday on his radio show.

Re the post above by "An American":

Rather than take the time to write a lengthy reply, allow me to quote Qur'an 2:191 (from Pickthall, not Ali, since "An American" prefers Pickthall), which "An American" represents as being about how "killing is a sin no matter what for." Here it is:

"And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers."

You can be the judge of the veracity of the rest of what he says.

Cordially,
Robert Spencer

An American,

You can window dress all you like, but to paraphrase Forrest Gump, "Evil is as evil does".

Look at the recent history of your "faith".

It's telling that the Financial Times would even choose Armstrong to review Spencer's book, knowing she is Spencer's polar opposite and was going to piss all over it before she read it (if she even did).

It's also extremely revealing that Armstrong, a supposed expert on Islam, tries to put Muhammad's example in a historical context, as if the Qur'an, written by Allah himself, doesn't say Muhammad was without err and was nothing less than an inspiration inspired. It would be fitting to put his life into the context of the time and place he lived in were it not for the annoying little fact that Muslims believe he was an apostle of God - the last of Allah's prophets, in fact, and thus conveying Allah's final message and example to mankind.

She fools no one but herself and the extremely ignorant.

DCWatson-

I'm not surprised she was a nun. This is a woman who has lived in institutional settings all her life and is really separated from the real world in many ways. (Mother Theresa was a practical, doer type. That's a different kind of nun.) From Karen's high institutional shelf she looks down on folks like Robert. But the truth is that she's scared of people like him and hides her fear behind a pose of indignation.

Robert

I have done a google search for "awesome evil".

It appears here:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/88/story_8849.html

The article is by Karen Armstrong where she claims..

"Therefore the only war condoned by the Qu'ran is a war of self-defense. "Warfare is an awesome evil" (2:217), but sometimes it is necessary to fight in order to bring the kind of persecution suffered by the Muslims to an end [2:217] or to preserve decent values [22:40]. But Muslims may never initiate hostilities, and aggression is forbidden by God [2:190] While the fighting continues, Muslims must dedicate themselves wholly to the war in order to bring things back to normal as quickly as possible, but the second the enemy sues for peace, hostilities must cease. [2:192]"

I have just looked at my translations of 2:217 and find no such statement. Also at:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/002.qmt.html

No mention? What is she talking about?

A simple analogy for "An American":

Since the ice cream/dog feces combination (Steyn) above went over your head, consider camel urine. Heals all that ails you, and tastes great, too, right? But add one drop of pig fat, and the entire glass is defiled.

Islam is just like that camel urine with the pig fat. Any good in it (appropriated from true faiths) is defiled by the hedonism, misogyny, and conscience-free violence. And it's more than a drop.

Karen Armstrong is another dangerour "author" who is in complete denial about Mohammad -- plain and simple. Her statements only reveal someone who WISHES these things were true about Mohammad/Qur'an/Islam, but they aren't.

Robert's book is not only supported by 9/11 and years of other terrorist attacks, but by the Qur'an itself; and her observations about Islam are empty and void of truth because she's living in La-La-Land, where lies are the truth and the truth needs to be silenced.

oops..."dangerous"...not dangerour

"Great Comet of 1577":

Thanks. This is Qur'an 2:217:

"They question thee (O Muhammad) with regard to warfare in the sacred month. Say: Warfare therein is a great (transgression), but to turn (men) from the way of Allah, and to disbelieve in Him and in the Inviolable Place of Worship, and to expel His people thence, is a greater with Allah; for persecution is worse than killing. And they will not cease from fighting against you till they have made you renegades from your religion, if they can. And whoso becometh a renegade and dieth in his disbelief: such are they whose works have fallen both in the world and the Hereafter. Such are rightful owners of the Fire: they will abide therein."

Thus, contrary to Armstrong's statement that this verse refers to "all warfare" as "an 'awesome evil,' in fact the verse refers only to warfare during the sacred month as evil at all, and then goes on to say that "persecution is worse than killing."

In context, this verse was revealed to justify a Muslim raid on a Quraysh caravan: the raid took place during a sacred month, during which war was forbidden. But the Quraysh were allegedly persecuting the Muslims, so this verse absolves the Muslims of guilt for the raid -- since "persecution is worse than killing."

So in fact, the verse that Armstrong is using to argue that the Qur'an teaches that war is an "awesome evil" actually teaches that moral precepts, such as the prohibition on fighting during the sacred month, may be set aside to benefit the Muslims.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

"Karen Armstrong, a feminist.

Feminism and Islam go together like:

oil and water

milk and onions

spaghetti sauce and pancakes

sandals and snowstorms

DCWatson,

All true, but remember that Armstrong, like so many apologists for Islam, live in the West. They can be feminist and Muslims at the same time, and not fear for their lives. She's a very convenient mouth piece for Islam, and Muslim clerics are happy to use her as such. In reality, Armstrong would be considered nothing short of a common prostitute in many Islamic countries.

For all her vaulted education in world religions, Armstrong is sorely lacking in firsr-hand knowledge of the Islam she's always defending.

I would suggest a couple years in Saudi Arabia where she might earn that P.H.D after all -- in dodging the virtues police, of whom she'd be a prime target.

The correct translation is Fighting therein is a great (transgression) but a greater (transgression) with Allâh is to prevent mankind from following the Way of Allâh, to disbelieve in Him, to prevent access to Al-Masjid-al-Harâm (at Makkah), and to drive out its inhabitants, and Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.

Fitnah = disbelief and is equated with persecution because your open disbelief hinders others from the path of Allah, opening the road to hell; it would be better for them if you killed them than to send them to hell for eternity. As Ibn Kathir commented,

Since Jihad involves killing and shedding the blood of men, Allah indicated that these men are committing disbelief in Allah, associating with Him (in the worship) and hindering from His path, and this is a much greater evil and more disastrous than killing. Abu Malik commented about what Allah said:
(And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.)

Meaning what you (disbelievers) are committing is much worse than killing." Abu Al-`Aliyah, Mujahid, Sa`id bin Jubayr, `Ikrimah, Al-Hasan, Qatadah, Ad-Dahhak and Ar-Rabi` bin Anas said that what Allah said:


(And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.)

"Shirk (polytheism) is worse than killing."

http://www.geocities.com/ibniblis/dictionary/#FITNAH

"Spencer makes no attempt to explain the historical, political, economic and spiritual circumstances of 7th-century Arabia, without which it is impossible to understand the complexities of Muhammad’s life.
"

For Karen Armstrong, explain means "explain away".
Let's substitute the handy little word mystify for understand. We can also change complexities to historical acts. Lets change circumstances to acts while we are at it.

Now lets see it

"Spencer makes no attempt to explain away the historical, political, economic and spiritual acts of 7th-century Arabia, without which it is impossible to mystify the historical acts of Muhammad’s life.
"

Paul Begala should apologize to Bay Buchanan, Pat and Virgil Goode

We can compare this to the Begala attack on Virgil Goode.

"PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, well, first, just call a spade a spade. Virgil Goode is a bigot and he’s an idiot. Let’s hope he clears that up when he has his press conference, because lots of people misspeak."

Begala was the one who said Pat Buchanan was a bigot in 1992 to defeat Bush Sr. When Begala got in power, he and Clinton ignored the WTC 1993 attack and instead, because to recognize it would be to admit it was done by an immigrant, and that it was a ploy to call Pat Buchanan a bigot in 1992 to get Clinton elected in 1992. So they let in the 19 hijackers as legal immigrants after 1993, making no attempt to even screen, and the result was the 2001 attacks.

In the meantime, Begala, Clinton, etc. got power, celebrity, TV exposure on CNN and money. They have personal lifetime security and can even advance their relatives and friends into this inner circle.

Begala and Karen Armstrong are not just blowing smoke for no reason, they have responsibility for deaths to cover up because of immigration they advocate.

002.217
YUSUFALI: They ask thee concerning fighting in the Prohibited Month. Say: "Fighting therein is a grave (offence); but graver is it in the sight of Allah to prevent access to the path of Allah, to deny Him, to prevent access to the Sacred Mosque, and drive out its members." Tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter. Nor will they cease fighting you until they turn you back from your faith if they can. And if any of you Turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.
PICKTHAL: They question thee (O Muhammad) with regard to warfare in the sacred month. Say: Warfare therein is a great (transgression), but to turn (men) from the way of Allah, and to disbelieve in Him and in the Inviolable Place of Worship, and to expel His people thence, is a greater with Allah; for persecution is worse than killing. And they will not cease from fighting against you till they have made you renegades from your religion, if they can. And whoso becometh a renegade and dieth in his disbelief: such are they whose works have fallen both in the world and the Hereafter. Such are rightful owners of the Fire: they will abide therein.
SHAKIR: They ask you concerning the sacred month about fighting in it. Say: Fighting in it is a grave matter, and hindering (men) from Allah's way and denying Him, and (hindering men from) the Sacred Mosque and turning its people out of it, are still graver with Allah, and persecution is graver than slaughter; and they will not cease fighting with you until they turn you back from your religion, if they can; and whoever of you turns back from his religion, then he dies while an unbeliever-- these it is whose works shall go for nothing in this world and the hereafter, and they are the inmates of the fire; therein they shall abide.

Maybe you should explain it to these translators, Gnosis, we infidels read English (oh, and the "Classical Arabic is the only language in the world that can't be translated" argument is rubbish).

Apparently, I have managed to call out the big guns, Spencer himself (who says constantly on other debates that he has no time to respond to or discuss comments posted on his site) quotes 2.191---great. Try the next verse, 2.192 (warning: problem ahead):

2.192 But if they desist, then lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Watch out, here comes the one before Spencer's quote:

2.190 Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but BEGIN NOT hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not, aggressors. [my emphasis]

I'll keep going...

2.193 And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah. [Spencer and you all will stop reading here, but please continue]. But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrongdoers.

What!?!?!?! If they attack you FIRST, then DEFENSE is allowed, but if they STOP attaking you, then you shouldn't keep going and allow forgiveness!!! Why can't verses be seen on their own without interpretation (unless Spencer's viewpoint needs to seek one out in order to be reinforced!)

But Spencer ALWAYS puts things in context...right??...what about the verses right before and after his quotes???

Just doing some thinking...
(PS. Start calling me a Muslim and "boogy boogy" scare quotes work well too. Like I said before, you don't require baptismal or confirmation records of Spencer, so why of me...because I don't think like you do means that I'm a Muslim (or D'Souza for that matter?)

Concerned Citizen~

The meaning of the word fitnah is provided in verse 2.217 - to prevent mankind from following the Way of Allâh, to disbelieve in Him... This is translated into 'persecution' because to commit "fitnah", you lead others onto the path to hell - an eternity of brutal torment (perhaps you've never read the Qur'anic depictions of hell) - which is much worse than killing them.

"You infidels" should learn to understand Arabic terms such as fitnah and fasad, and understand that, like jihad, most of them have expanded meanings in an Islamic context (the Arabic word "jihad" means much more than "struggle" in an Islamic context). They are the keys to countering taqiyya (there's another one!) and the apologetics of Islamophiles like Armstrong.

Dear "An American" (whoops -- there go those "boogy boogy scare quotes" again):

I usually don't read comments. I'm reading them on this thread because it is column day and I have no good ideas at the moment, and because I was hoping someone would come up with the Qur'an quote Armstrong meant -- which turns out to be 2:217.

You may be interested in the discussion by Muhammad's first biographer, Ibn Ishaq, of the stages of development of Qur'anic revelation on jihad. "Begin not hostilities" from 2:190 refers to the 2nd stage, which is defensive warfare. Unfortunately, the 3rd stage, involving offensive warfare, depends on verses revealed later, including 9:5 and 9:29.

2:193 mandates that there be no hostility against those who have sued for peace. And indeed, 9:29 dictates that as long as Jews and Christians "pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued," there will be no hostility at all. How nice.

Personally, it is of no interest to me whether you are a Muslim or not. If you don't want "boogy boogy quotes," use your real name.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Robert

Thank You. I knew the term "persecution is worse than killing." (Pickthal version) was the get of jail free card. The word "persecution" can mean anything in Islam it appears. It is open ended and thus aggressive warfare is acceptable because persecution could mean converting someone from the faith or just not accepting the Muhammad as a prophet of god.

Where is Armstrong getting the "Warfare is an awesome evil" quote? Has she come up with her own translation or is just her version of the commentary?

"Gnosis":

You're quite right, of course. Fitnah is an extraordinarily important term, as is fasad, of which I have been accused, and for which the penalty is specified in Qur'an 5:33.

Apparently simply speaking the truth about what the Qur'an and Muhammad teach is enough to incur this charge.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

"Spencer makes no attempt to explain the historical, political, economic and spiritual circumstances of 7th-century Arabia, without which it is impossible to understand the complexities of Muhammad’s life.
"

7th century facts

Muhammad and Muslims killed their first Jew from about the start of their calendar as Year 1.

Muslims kill and subjugate their first Christians according to the orders in the Quran.

21st century

Saudi Arabia pays Palestinians to kills Jews.

Saudi Arabia provides men and money to kills Jews and Christians in New York, the Pentagon and elsewhere.

All done in accordance with commands in the Quran.

When did the complexity stop and the simplicity begin?

More on Begala attacking Virgil Goode in front of Bay Buchanan, Pat's sister, while actually attacking Pat again, and thus attacking Pat again to silence her from pointing out Begala's complicity in ignoring the 1993 attacks and why he did.

Paul Begala waylays Bay Buchanan, Virgil Goode, and 9-11 Truth

Also, if its simple to understand now, then its simple to understand now.

Karen Armstrong wrote: "The Christian Byzantines had forbidden Jews from residing in Jerusalem, but when Caliph Umar conquered the city in AD638, he invited them to return and was hailed as the precursor of the Messiah. Spencer doesn’t refer to this."

Quoted in the article above.

The truth is a little more complicated. The pagan Romans under Titus first forbade Jews from Jerusalem. After Constantine's edict of religious tolerance, many returned. Then certain Jewish leaders allied with the neo-Pagan Emperor Julian the Apostate and were blamed for supporting his persecution of Christians.

The death of Julian led to a Christian restoration under Jovian who passed the throne to the Valentinian-Theodosian dynasty (364-457). Foolishly, some of these same Jewish leaders then openly supported the Persians and appealed to them to take Jerusalem. At this point the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem and later Emperor Theodosius ordered the abolition of the Sanhedrin.

However, the Byzantines then welcomed these expelled Jews to settle in Constantinople itself. By the end of Theodosius' reign in 395 AD/CE, there were over 30 synagogues in Constantinople, many built at the emperor's expense. So while it is true that the Byzantines wrongly expelled the Jews from Jerusalem, they did lighten the oppression by giving them absolute freedom to worship and prosper in Constantinople and other cities of the Empire.

As for Ms Armstrong, she is a well-known apostate from Catholicism yet no Catholic preist or bishop has called for her death. She should ask herself if her beloved Muslims would be so tolerant if she were an apostate from Islam?

Gnosis,

I think you are missing the point, and so is "An American". "Preventing" the spread (usually merely failing to acquiese in the facilitation thereof) of a religion is insufficient provocation for WAR, defensive or otherwise. Personally taking authority over another's life to satisfy one's own religious dictates is WRONG. What is so hard to understand about that?

You can play linguistic games all you want. Muslims understand these verses the same as they always have. Their actions prove it. Tell it to them.

In the sense that the jihad and Islamic primacy are the threat to everyone, no matter what their political orientiation happens to be, it is definitely not an issue of left vs. right. However, in the sense that people on the left have swallowed the purple Kool-Aid of multiculturalism, Marxism, imperialism, colonoialism, Palestinianism and other assorted nonsense and are incapable of grasping the grave threat (and, in fact, are often enablers for it), it can't help but be a left vs. right issue.

Robert~

Absolutely, we are "spreading mischief". And we will persist.

The Meaning of Mischief

In his Tafsir, As-Suddi said that Ibn `Abbas and Ibn Mas`ud commented,

(And when it is said to them: "Do not make mischief on the earth," they say: "We are only peacemakers.")

They are the hypocrites. As for,

("Do not make mischief on the earth"),

that is disbelief and acts of disobedience." Abu Ja`far said that Ar-Rabi` bin Anas said that Abu Al-`Aliyah said that Allah's statement,

(And when it is said to them: "Do not make mischief on the earth"),

means, "Do not commit acts of disobedience on the earth. Their mischief is disobeying Allah, because whoever disobeys Allah on the earth, or commands that Allah be disobeyed, he has committed mischief on the earth. Peace on both the earth and in the heavens is ensured (and earned) through obedience (to Allah)."

Types of Mischief that the Hypocrites commit

Ibn Jarir said, "The hypocrites commit mischief on earth by disobeying their Lord on it and continuing in the prohibited acts. They also abandon what Allah made obligatory and doubt His religion, even though He does not accept a deed from anyone except with faith in His religion and certainty of its truth. The hypocrites also lie to the believers by saying contrary to the doubt and hesitation their hearts harbor. They give as much aid as they can, against Allah's loyal friends, and support those who deny Allah, His Books and His Messengers. This is how the hypocrites commit mischief on earth, while thinking that they are doing righteous work on earth."

The statement by Ibn Jarir is true, taking the disbelievers as friends is one of the categories of mischief on the earth. Allah said,

(And those who disbelieve are allies of one another, if you do not do this (help each other), there will be fitnah on the earth, and great mischief.) (8:73),

In this way Allah severed the loyalty between the believers and the disbelievers.

http://www.geocities.com/ibniblis/tafsir/surah2.html#2.25

Concerned Citizen~

I think you misunderstand my intentions. Of course I don't think preventing the spread of Islam is justification for war. I'm simply quoting and explaining what the Qur'an says. There's no linguistic game. Not on my part. Muslims know Americans as a rule do not speak Arabic, and know little or nothing about Islam, and they know that when they say 'persecution' we will think of it in different terms than they, just as the word 'innocent' is different to them (see the definition of fasad (mischief)) as it relates to Qur'an 5.32).

It appears she just made up her own interpretation of 2:217. I can't even find anyone else who views it the way she does. Thus this another "Armstrongism". Her version of Islam is found only in her mind...

lol @ karen armstrong

As if expecting anything else from such faithful followers of the islamicommie unholy alliance, this is like having josef goebbels critiquing capitalism.
LMAO

Nothing complex about this one.
NEXT???!!!

This just goes to show we have a tough struggle ahead of us. As long as people like Armstrong and Esposito are getting the media attention, jihad will have the upper hand.

Ok I see the update now where Mr. Spencer states...

"Warfare therein is a great (transgression) [or an "awesome evil"]"

Ok that is how she uses the "awesome evil". Still she butchers the meaning of 2:217 by giving this as an argument against aggressive warfare or warfare in general.

Mr. Spencer, I am very interested in Ibn Ishaq's discussion, especially since it is a biography, relating historical events. Ishaq, nor any other Islamic text, describes when exactly the shift from "phase" one to two should occur, nor debates whether the shift should be undertaken at all unless by Mohammed in his biography. What he is referring to (since you are very keen on presenting everything literally and as it is) is the process through which Mohammed's life and the events in it shaped the early history of Islam as an example of the obstacles one should put before yourself before resulting to violence.

1. Say no (then they keep attacking)
2. Defend yourself (then they keep attacking you again)
3. Violence (without transgression or over-aggression or, arguably, aggression at all) in order to get them to stop fighting you, sounds like defense to me, two sets of attacks before you have the right to respond forcefully.

Even in that situation, all killing is a sin (the question is degree), and there is no text which completely exhonorates killing.

Islam, or humanity if you want my philosophical opinion, does not exist in a pacifist spectrum, and violence is a part of human life.

*I like this column day, but why didn't you come across the 2.217 interpretation in your innumerable readings of the Quran in your 20+ years of research? You seem to be so perceptive of the endless discussions and interpretations of verses over 1400 years of Islamic history that you would miss something that has been discussed quite a bit in the modern Arabic (and other Islamic) literature.*

Just doing some thinking...
(By the way, I won't use my real name because I am afraid of JihadWatch members who have promised to kill all those who disagree with them (I thought only Muslims do that???)...I have reported one of them to Marisol recently and it was removed, so no complaints to the staff, but that doesn't mean the thoughts don't remain. And it makes people say the darndest things, like maybe tomorrow someone will call me Karen Armstrong!)

Dear "An American,"

As for Ibn Ishaq, as I am sure you know, his interpretation of the 3 stages is echoed by many modern theorists, including the Pakistani General S.K. Malik (in "The Qur'anic Concept of War") and the Saudi Chief Justice Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid (in "Jihad in the Qur'an and Sunnah"), among many others. I trust you will charge them, as you have charged me, with ignorance and evil motives.

As for 2:217, perhaps if Armstrong hadn't misrepresented its meaning -- by saying it referred to "all warfare" -- I might have recognized the reference more quickly. But before you are so quick to condescend, it might be wise to find some actual error in anything I have written.

As for threats you say you have received: I don't believe you. However, provocateurs have indeed posted here from time to time, attempting to discredit the site. When we see their posts, we remove them.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

An American - Towards the end of his life Muhammad issued invitations to embrace Islam and thereby avoid being attacked. What defensive spin could you possibly put on that? Islamic jurisprudence makes it abundantly clear that offensive jihad is sanctioned in Islam:

1.. Maliki jurist Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406): “ In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam by persuasion or by force.... The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense...Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.” [8]

And also Ibn Abi Zayd al Qayrawani (d. 996): “Jihad is a precept of Divine institution. … We Malikis maintain that it is preferable not to begin hostilities with the enemy before having invited the latter to embrace the religion of Allah except where the enemy attacks first. They have the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax , short of which war will be declared against them.” [9]

2. Hanbali jurist Ibn Tamiyya (d. 1328): “Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God's entirely and God's word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.” [10]

3.Hanafi jurist Shaikh Burdanuddin Ali of Marghinan (d. 1196): “It is not lawful to make war upon any people who have never before been called to the faith, without previously requiring them to embrace it, because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call infidels to the faith, and also because the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the trouble of war....” [11]

4. Shaafi jurist al-Mawardi (d. 1058): “The mushrikun [infidels] of Dar al-Harb are of two types: First, those whom the call of Islam has reached, but they have refused it and taken up arms. The amir of the army has the option of fighting them... in accordance with what he judges to be in the best interests of the Muslims and most harmful to the mushrikun.... Second, those whom the invitation to Islam has not reached, although such persons are few nowadays since Allah has made manifest the call of his Messenger...it is forbidden us to initiate an attack... before explaining the invitation to Islam to them, informing them of the miracles of the Prophet and making plain the proofs so as to encourage acceptance on their part; if they still refuse to accept after this, war is waged against them and they are treated as those whom the call has reached.” [12]

5. Shia scholar al-Amili (d. 1621) “Islamic holy war against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam or pay the poll tax.” [13]

6. Shia (Jafaari) scholar Ayatollah Khomeini (d. 1989): “But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God’s law]. ... Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those (who say this) are witless.” [14]

7. Al-Azhar (Sunni) scholar Muhammad Sai’id al-Buti: “The Holy War, as it is known in Islamic jurisprudence is basically an offensive war. This is the duty of Muslims in every age when the needed military power becomes available to them. This is the phase in which the meaning of Holy War has taken its final form.” [15]

(For an in-depth treatment of similar statements from contemporary Muslim scholars, see “Truth about Islam, Part I, by Shabana Muhammad. [16] )

Islamic jurisprudence codifies into law 2 different kinds of obligations with respect to jihad. Self-defense ("Al-Jihad al-Daf’a") is always an individual obligation (“fard-‘ayn”) upon every member of the ummah, while expansionist, aggressive jihad ("Al-Jihad al-mubadahah") is a collective obligation (“fard-kifaya”).

A) Obviously, the existence of these two categories of obligation in traditional Islamic jurisprudence negates the claim that jihad is defensive only.

According to Rudolph Peters, “Expansionist jihad is a collective duty (fard ‘ala al-kifaya), which is fulfilled if a sufficient number of people take part in it. If this is not the case, the whole umma is sinning...Sometimes jihad becomes an individual duty. …Moreover, jihad becomes obligatory for all people capable of fighting in a certain region if this region is attacked by the enemy. In this case, jihad is defensive. " [17].

Majiid Khadurri notes, "The jihad, on the other hand - unless the Muslim community is subjected to a sudden attack and therefore all believers, including women and children, are under the obligation to fight - is regarded by all jurists, with almost no exception, as a collective obligation of the whole Muslim community. It is regarded as fard al-kifaya, binding on the Muslims as a collective group, not individually. If the duty is fulfilled by a part of the community it ceases to be obligatory on others; the whole community, however, falls into error if the duty is not performed at all." [18]

Moreover, “…many of the stipulations and restrictions governing aggressive jihad were dropped in the case of defensive jihad. For example, the Muslim ruler did not have to announce the obligation to join the defensive jihad nor conscript soldiers for its prosecution. Similarly, all those groups who were normally exempt from participating in the aggressive jihad, e.g., women, minors, the elderly, young men who had not been granted permission by their parents, were required to participate in defensive jihad." [19]

B) The existence of these 2 obligations in Islamic law is confirmed by Muslim sources:

Reliance of the Traveler: "09.1 Jihad is a communal obligation. When enough people perform it to successfully accomplish it, it is no longer obligatory upon others (O [the following is an excerpt from the commentary of Sheikh ‘Umar Barakat]: the evidence for which is the Prophet’s saying (Allah bless him and give him peace), “He who provides the equipment for a soldier in jihad has himself performed jihad,” and Allah Most High having said: “Those of the believers who are unhurt but sit behind are not equal to those who fight in Allah’s path with their property and lives. Allah has preferred those who fight with their property and lives a whole degree above those who sit behind. And to each, Allah has promised great good.” (Koran 4:95)”

“If none of those concerned perform jihad, and it does not happen at all, then everyone who is aware that it is obligatory is guilty of sin, if there was a possibility of having performed it. In the time of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) jihad was a communal obligation after his emigration (hijra) to Medina. As for subsequent times, there are two possible states in respect to non-Muslims.”

“The first is when they [i.e. Muslims] are in their own countries, in which case jihad is a communal obligation, and this is what our author is speaking of when he says, “Jihad is a communal obligation,” meaning upon the Muslims each year. The second state is when non-Muslims invade a Muslim country or near to one, in which case jihad is personally obligatory upon the inhabitants of that country, who must repel the non-Muslims with whatever can." [20]

Al Ghazali: " One must go on jihad (i.e. warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year"...[21]

Ibn Tamiyyah: " The most serious type of obligatory jihad is the one against the unbelievers and against those who refuse to abide by certain prescriptions of the Sharia, like those who refuse to pay zakat....This jihad is obligatory if it is carried out on our initiative and also if it is waged as defense. If we take the initiative, it is a collective duty [which means that] if it is fulfilled by a sufficient number [of Muslims], the obligation lapses for all others and the merit goes to those who have fulfilled it...But if the enemy wants to attack the Muslim, then repelling him becomes a duty for all those under attack and for the others in order to help them......So the latter [form of jihad] consists in defense of the religion, of things that are inviolable, and of lives. Therefore it is fighting out of necessity. The former [type of jihad], however, is voluntary fighting in order to propogate the religion, to make it triumph and to intimidate the enemy, such as was the case with the expedition to Tabuk and the like." [22]

Ibn Qudama (d. 1223): “Legal war (jihad) is an obligatory social duty (fard-kifaya); when one group of Muslims guarantees that it is being carried out in a satisfactory manner, the others are exempted.” [23]

Molla Khosrew (d. 1480): “…jihad is a fard al-kifaya, that is, that one must begin the fight against the enemy, even when he [the enemy] may not have taken the initiative to fight, because the Prophet...early on…allowed believers to defend themselves, later, however, he ordered them to take the initiative at certain times of the year, that is, at the end of the haram months, saying, “Kill the idolaters wherever you find them...” (Q9:5). He finally ordered fighting without limitations, at all times and in all places, saying, “Fight those who do not believe in God, and in the Last Day...”(Q9:29); there are also other [similar] verses on the subject. This shows that it is a fard al-kifaya." [24]

Hasan Al-Banna: “The author of the "Majma' al-Anhar fi Sharh Multaqal-Abhar", in describing the rules of jihad according to the Hanafi School, said: "Jihad linguistically means to exert one's utmost effort in word and action; in the Sharee’ah it is the fighting of the unbelievers, and involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam including beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship and smashing their idols. This means that jihad is to strive to the utmost to ensure the strength of Islam by such means as fighting those who fight you and the dhimmies (if they violate any of the terms of the treaty) and the apostates (who are the worst of unbelievers, for they disbelieved after they have affirmed their belief). It is fard (obligatory) on us to fight with the enemies. The Imam must send a military expedition to the Dar-al-Harb every year at least once or twice, and the people must support him in this. If some of the people fulfil the obligation, the remainder are released from the obligation. If this fard kifayah (communal obligation) cannot be fulfilled by that group, then the responsibility lies with the closest adjacent group, and then the closest after that etc., and if the fard kifayah cannot be fulfilled except by all the people, it then becomes a fard ‘ayn (individual obligation), like prayer on everyone of the people. This obligation is by virtue of what He, the Almighty, said: ‘Then fight the polytheists...!’ (Surat at-Tawbah (9), ayah 5) and by what the Prophet (PBUH) said: ‘Jihad is in effect until the Day of Judgement’ If the whole body [of believers] abandons it, they are in a state of sin’ (up to where the author of the book says: ‘If the enemy conquers any territory of Islam, or any regions of it, it becomes a fard ‘ayn, and the woman and the slave shall go forth without the permission of husband or master. In the same way, the child shall go forth without the permission of his parents, and the debtor without the permission of his creditor." [25]

Sheik Al-Qaradhawi: " In the Jihad which you are seeking, you look for the enemy and invade him. This type of Jihad takes place only when the Islamic state is invading other [countries] in order to spread the word of Islam and to remove obstacles standing in its way. The repulsing Jihad takes place when your land is being invaded and conquered... [in that case you must] repulse [the invader] to the best of your ability….” [7]

http://islam-watch.org/CommunityServer/forums/thread/3171.aspx

Also, "An American," since you know Arabic, take a look at the text of 2:217:

يَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الشَّهْرِ الْحَرَامِ قِتَالٍ فِيهِ قُلْ قِتَالٌ فِيهِ كَبِيرٌ وَصَدٌّ عَن سَبِيلِ اللّهِ وَكُفْرٌ بِهِ وَالْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ وَإِخْرَاجُ أَهْلِهِ مِنْهُ أَكْبَرُ عِندَ اللّهِ وَالْفِتْنَةُ أَكْبَرُ مِنَ الْقَتْلِ وَلاَ يَزَالُونَ يُقَاتِلُونَكُمْ حَتَّىَ يَرُدُّوكُمْ عَن دِينِكُمْ إِنِ اسْتَطَاعُواْ وَمَن يَرْتَدِدْ مِنكُمْ عَن دِينِهِ فَيَمُتْ وَهُوَ كَافِرٌ فَأُوْلَـئِكَ حَبِطَتْ أَعْمَالُهُمْ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالآخِرَةِ وَأُوْلَـئِكَ أَصْحَابُ النَّارِ هُمْ فِيهَا خَالِدُونَ

You'll note that the adjective "kabir" (كَبِير) doesn't modify any noun, at least in any clear way. So literally, the text says that fighting during the sacred month is "great," which the translators have correctly taken in context to mean a "great offense," or "awesome evil" as Armstrong's translation has it, but the word "evil" or "offense" does not actually appear in the text. So the Arabic supports Armstrong's case even less well than do English translations, and in any case the Arabic text is quite clear in referring to the sacred month (الشَّهْرِ الْحَرَامِ).

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Apparently, I have managed to call out the big guns, Spencer himself (who says constantly on other debates that he has no time to respond to or discuss comments posted on his site) quotes 2.191---great. Try the next verse, 2.192 (warning: problem ahead):

2.192 But if they desist, then lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Watch out, here comes the one before Spencer's quote:

2.190 Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but BEGIN NOT hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not, aggressors. [my emphasis]

I'll keep going...

2.193 And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah. [Spencer and you all will stop reading here, but please continue]. But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrongdoers.

What!?!?!?! If they attack you FIRST, then DEFENSE is allowed, but if they STOP attaking you, then you shouldn't keep going and allow forgiveness!!! Why can't verses be seen on their own without interpretation (unless Spencer's viewpoint needs to seek one out in order to be reinforced!)

An American,

Sounds Great, but now explain why Muslims are killing everyone. How does "But if they desist, then lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful." fit into killing 300 people (157 of them children) in a school in Beslan, Russia?

Explain how " Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but BEGIN NOT hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not, aggressors." fits into flying planes into the world trade center, Killing 200 commuters on a train in Spain, murdering 53 people in the London subway, killing teachers and monks in Thailand?

The scriptures you're quoting only seem to mean something to you, not to the rest of the Muslim world.

The scriptures quoted by Robert Spencer are the guiding scriptures of Muslim terrorists, so who are you trying to convince?

I think you should be preaching to Muslims, not Robert Spencer.

Shirk is worse than Killing

Since Jihad involves killing and shedding the blood of men, Allah indicated that these men are committing disbelief in Allah, associating with Him (in the worship) and hindering from His path, and this is a much greater evil and more disastrous than killing. Abu Malik commented about what Allah said:

﴿وَالْفِتْنَةُ أَشَدُّ مِنَ الْقَتْلِ﴾

(And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.) Meaning what you (disbelievers) are committing is much worse than killing.'' Abu Al-`Aliyah, Mujahid, Sa`id bin Jubayr, `Ikrimah, Al-Hasan, Qatadah, Ad-Dahhak and Ar-Rabi` bin Anas said that what Allah said:

﴿وَالْفِتْنَةُ أَشَدُّ مِنَ الْقَتْلِ﴾

(And Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.) "Shirk (polytheism) is worse than killing.''

The Order to fight until there is no more Fitnah

Allah then commanded fighting the disbelievers when He said:

﴿حَتَّى لاَ تَكُونَ فِتْنَةٌ﴾

(...until there is no more Fitnah) meaning, Shirk. This is the opinion of Ibn `Abbas, Abu Al-`Aliyah, Mujahid, Al-Hasan, Qatadah, Ar-Rabi`, Muqatil bin Hayyan, As-Suddi and Zayd bin Aslam.

Allah's statement:

﴿وَيَكُونَ الدِّينُ للَّهِ﴾

(...and the religion (all and every kind of worship) is for Allah (Alone).) means, `So that the religion of Allah becomes dominant above all other religions.' It is reported in the Two Sahihs that Abu Musa Al-Ash`ari said: "The Prophet was asked, `O Allah's Messenger! A man fights out of bravery, and another fights to show off, which of them fights in the cause of Allah' The Prophet said:

«مَنْ قَاتَلَ لِتَكُونَ كَلِمَةُ اللهِ هِيَ الْعُلْيا فَهُوَ فِي سَبِيلِ الله»

(He who fights so that Allah's Word is superior, then he fights in Allah's cause.) In addition, it is reported in the Two Sahihs:

«أُمِرْتُ أَنْ أُقَاتِلَ النَّاسَ حَتَّى يَقُولُوا لَا إِلهَ إلَّا اللهُ، فَإِذَا قَالُوهَا عَصَمُوا مِنِّي دِمَاءَهُم وَأَمْوَالَهُمْ إلَّا بِحَقِّهَا وَحِسَابُهُمْ عَلَى الله»

(I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight the people until they proclaim, `None has the right to be worshipped but Allah'. Whoever said it, then he will save his life and property from me, except for cases of the law, and their account will be with Allah.)

Allah's statement:

﴿فَإِنِ انتَهَواْ فَلاَ عُدْوَنَ إِلاَّ عَلَى الظَّـلِمِينَ﴾

(But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against the wrongdoers.) indicates that, `If they stop their Shirk and fighting the believers, then cease warfare against them. Whoever fights them afterwards will be committing an injustice. Verily aggression can only be started against the unjust.' This is the meaning of Mujahid's statement that only combatants should be fought. Or, the meaning of the Ayah indicates that, `If they abandon their injustice, which is Shirk in this case, then do not start aggression against them afterwards.' The aggression here means retaliating and fighting them, just as Allah said:

﴿فَمَنِ اعْتَدَى عَلَيْكُمْ فَاعْتَدُواْ عَلَيْهِ بِمِثْلِ مَا اعْتَدَى عَلَيْكُمْ﴾

(Then whoever transgresses against you, you transgress likewise against him.) (2:194)

Similarly, Allah said:

﴿وَجَزَآءُ سَيِّئَةٍ سَيِّئَةٌ مِّثْلُهَا﴾

(The recompense for an evil is an evil like thereof.) (42:40), and:

﴿وَإِنْ عَاقَبْتُمْ فَعَاقِبُواْ بِمِثْلِ مَا عُوقِبْتُمْ بِهِ﴾

(And if you punish them, then punish them with the like of that with which you were afflicted. ) (16:126)

`Ikrimah and Qatadah stated, "The unjust person is he who refuses to proclaim, `There is no God worthy of worship except Allah'.''

Under Allah's statement:

﴿وَقَـتِلُوهُمْ حَتَّى لاَ تَكُونَ فِتْنَةٌ﴾

(And fight them until there is no more Fitnah) Al-Bukhari recorded that Nafi` said that two men came to Ibn `Umar during the conflict of Ibn Az-Zubayr and said to him, "The people have fallen into shortcomings and you are the son of `Umar and the Prophet's Companion. Hence, what prevents you from going out'' He said, "What prevents me is that Allah has for bidden shedding the blood of my (Muslim) brother.'' They said, "Did not Allah say:

﴿وَقَـتِلُوهُمْ حَتَّى لاَ تَكُونَ فِتْنَةٌ﴾

(And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah))'' He said, "We did fight until there was no more Fitnah and the religion became for Allah Alone. You want to fight until there is Fitnah and the religion becomes for other than Allah!''

`Uthman bin Salih added that a man came to Ibn `Umar and asked him, "O Abu `Abdur-Rahman! What made you perform Hajj one year and `Umrah another year and abandon Jihad in the cause of Allah, although you know how much He has encouraged performing it'' He said, "O my nephew! Islam is built on five (pillars): believing in Allah and His Messenger, the five daily prayers, fasting Ramadan, paying the Zakah and performing Hajj (pilgrimage) to the House.'' They said, "O Abu `Abdur-Rahman! Did you not hear what Allah said in His Book:

﴿وَإِن طَآئِفَتَانِ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ اقْتَتَلُواْ فَأَصْلِحُواْ بَيْنَهُمَا فَإِن بَغَتْ إِحْدَاهُمَا عَلَى الأُخْرَى فَقَـتِلُواْ الَّتِى تَبْغِى حَتَّى تَفِىءَ إِلَى أَمْرِ اللَّهِ﴾

(And if two parties (or groups) among the believers fall to fighting, then make peace between them both. But if one of them outrages against the other, then fight you (all) against the one that which outrages till it complies with the command of Allah.) (49:9) and:

﴿وَقَـتِلُوهُمْ حَتَّى لاَ تَكُونَ فِتْنَةٌ﴾

(And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief))

He said, "That we did during the time of Allah's Messenger when Islam was still weak and (the Muslim) man used to face trials in his religion, such as killing or torture. When Islam became stronger (and apparent), there was no more Fitnah.'' He asked, "What do you say about `Ali and `Uthman'' He said, "As for `Uthman, Allah has forgiven him. However, you hated the fact that Allah had forgiven him! As for `Ali, he is the cousin of Allah's Messenger and his son-in-law.'' He then pointed with his hand, saying, "This is where his house is located (meaning, `so close to the Prophet's house just as `Ali was so close to the Prophet himself').''

﴿الشَّهْرُ الْحَرَامُ بِالشَّهْرِ الْحَرَامِ وَالْحُرُمَـتُ قِصَاصٌ فَمَنِ اعْتَدَى عَلَيْكُمْ فَاعْتَدُواْ عَلَيْهِ بِمِثْلِ مَا اعْتَدَى عَلَيْكُمْ وَاتَّقُواْ اللَّهَ وَاعْلَمُواْ أَنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَ الْمُتَّقِينَ ﴾

(194. The sacred month is for the sacred month, and for the prohibited things, there is the Law of equality (Qisas). Then whoever transgresses against you, you transgress likewise against him. And fear Allah, and know that Allah is with Al-Muttaqin.)

Don't pay this person any attention, she's just another empty head who is blind to the truth

But Spencer is not interested in balance.
this said by ms armstrong, is showing how liberals want all things equal... that is their downfall, they give excuses for those who cannot seem to help themselves by lowering the standards. Another way to like to see all things equal, when the leftist media protrays the US/Israel strenght in their military against those poor arab muslims, how unfair.
actually this way of thinking is racist, it gives excuses of why ie minorities cannot be as bright as the WASP.
Gulianni had some great speechs about why muslims hate the West, and Karen Armstrong needs to read it, learn it, and undersand it! l think she needs to readmit herself to a convent for life.

The rebuttal really should go in to the FT.

I think Karen Armstrong must be one of the most immoral scholar-impersonators of all time. She knows that by writing mushy nonsense in praise of Islam that she will endear herself to the immoral powers that be and be rewarded accordingly. You will note that KA has been appointed as official Historian of Religion at the UN.

Of course she won’t debate a real scholar like Robert Spencer despite his fame – a sure sign of disingenuity.

Sadly, probably the most respected and influential mid-Eastern scholar, Bernard Lewis – whose book “The Crisis of Islam” corroborates what Robert Spencer has been writing about Jihad and other elements of Islam - has, as far as I can tell- reviewed neither Robert’s nor Karen Armstrong’s books.

Frank:
She has to live with the knowledge that she is a hired flunky. I'm sure all the research grants are nice. But she has sold her integrity. She's in their pocket. That's the problem with those who compromise with the devil. Once you take a devil's money for an "accommodation", the bastard can broadcast everywhere that you are a paid flunky. She must hate herself.

Somehow I doubt this.
All this "she is in the pay of the Saudi's" is complete and utter drivel.

No, she is fully paid up member to the liberal club. And does not believe in evil. The 3 monkeys with the "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" comes to mind. So naturally, she will gloss over and close her mind when reading Islamic texts that contradict her held beliefs in Islam.

Only if many Muslims behead all her friends in front of her and explain calmly quoting the Quran and Hadith why they are doing this (and possibly rape her and slice off her nose and ears) and the long term objectives of their religion might cause her to reevaluate Islam. But then again it might not.

During a tea break last night at work I was rather surprised to hear that there had been a heated debate, which I missed, on another shift. The subject of which just happened to be Muslims and their presence in our country. This of course began yet another debate on my tea break. Now this may shock and stun many of you here but the truth is, believe it or not, the views that were expressed during this debate were not formulated on any of the in-depth information or writings found on this site nor on any highbrow literature on the subject of Islam. So take note Ms Armstrong you are pissing against the wind as far as the common punter is concerned, they’ve never heard of you. Common we may be but there are many of us out here, growling. (Bordering on seething too I might add)

Now I have to say that I have heard some really nasty things said about ‘management’ and certain members of staff in the past but what I’m hearing on the subject of Muslims pales by comparison. There was genuine hatred being spewed and nobody could find opposing arguments to what was being said, truth is there were no opposing arguments, it was total agreement. Muslims have been put in social pariah status either by design or intention and that’s all there is to it.
I’ve seen it stated here on some posts that the Mainstream Media don’t cover or highlight particularly significant incidents, the premise being that it would perhaps be a catalyst for trouble amongst the citizens of our respected ‘Multi-cultural Societies’, well that may be true and you could be correct but this alleged tactic of keeping secrets and dumbing down the population doesn’t seem to be working very well, nor does the leftist apologist approach seem to have much effect either. The troops are getting restless and vicious irrespective of the efforts to keep a lid on things (if that be the case)

I should explain that those taking part in the discussions at work are ordinary folk who just batter on trying to get from day to day, feed the kids and are more interested in TV soap operas and sport, politics is NEVER a topic of discussion. But the fact is they have come to despise Muslims. None of them have been on internet searches looking for information on Islam, none had heard of JW/DW so their present position of malice and disgust in being fuelled by what they see and hear in the MSM.
I heard no mention at all of ‘Moderate Muslims’ or ‘Good Muslims’ not a word, as far as this lot are concerned Muslims are bad and that’s that. No sounds of tolerance whatsoever. I find it very worrying. (Seriously)

I read the posts here and some are particularly articulate and academic in their composition using multi-syllable words to convey the authors meaning, which is all well and good but for some who do not have a college education or read Broadsheet newspapers material like this can be brain numbing, bordering on the pedantic at times but there is a place for this and no doubt a need, (I mean no offence in saying that). The workers here don’t seem to be particularly interested in what Mohammed did or said, they show little knowledge of the Koran or the Hadiths; they don’t need to know any of that stuff. They just hate Muslims. Why?

Recently two terrorists in the UK have escaped the horror of being sent back to Libya, as this would infringe their human rights apparently, good for them! This is one reason to hate Muslims, because they get away with murder……
It takes years to get convictions against preachers of hate and we are entertained on TV by seeing these people parading themselves espousing venom and spite, another reason to hate Muslims, they get away with promoting murder….

We read about police protection for these terrorist sympathisers on their marches in the centre of London as they celebrate murder

We read about demands from and submission given to Muslims on subjects ranging from school food to segregated swimming sessions, this list as you know is practically endless.

Has it not occurred to anyone here that there is just a slight possibility that we are being duped? If ever there were a situation to use as an example of “giving someone enough rope to hang themselves with” I guess this would be it.

I wonder if Hitler and his propaganda machine could have done as good a job on the Jewish population as the Muslims are perpetrating upon themselves at the moment. They just can’t help themselves and it looks as if the Government is giving them plenty of room to play.

It should be noted that this was just one little tea break in an nondescript factory full of people of no great importance, how many other tea breaks up and down the length of this country are having similar discussions? (It’s all so politically incorrect I’m almost ashamed)

I find it worrying that in the space of a few years a small segment of our society has been set up in such a way that they could be the subject of serious hatred. Could we be brought to the point where our intolerance for these people results in terrible actions here at home?

It matters not what I read about Islam or its past. I, like many others, have no great tolerance for long pedantic writings on the minutiae and the intricacy of the Islamic teachings and how they can be twisted (The same holds true for all organised religion) what does matter to me and is a major decider on my opinions on this religion, is the actions of its adherents and followers, in particular the occasions where I hear Muslims born and bred in my country refer to our armed forces as “Your armed forces” and when I hear it said that “You have invaded our lands”, when referring to Iraq and Afghanistan, this coming from some sad Pratt who was born in Middle England and speaks with the conviction of a true Taliban. It may go some way to explain why Islamists hold these views to read deeper but at the end of the day it’s their actions that are ultimately going to decide my position. I couldn’t care less about understanding ‘why’ someone hates me it’s sufficient that I know that this is the case and to know what I’m prepared to do about it, if it requires me to leave then so be it, or if retreat is not an option I’m looking for a big stick matey!

When I see someone like Karen Armstrong taking a stance of defending or explaining Islam and delving in to historical issues I feel that a really good slap on the chops is in order because the simple truth is this NOBODY GIVES A TOSS, it’s irrelevant, it means nothing to the common punter. I just don’t see John Doe rushing out to buy into this rubbish. It’s too intense and academic, too wordy, too smarty pants. Too many written words to explain what Mohammed said and what he meant by them and what day he said them on and who was standing beside him when he spoke, it’s all bollocks. Lets be honest here, they probably make this nonsense up as they go along the merry road of depravity on a daily basis knowing full well that the Infidel isn’t too bothered about checking up on the actual truth in their damned book and even if you take the time to so, as many here have they’ll argue the point with you yada yada yada. Puleeeese people get a grip! Its all time wasting and totally irrelevant who said what and where they said it and what was meant by it…… There are children running about carrying Ak47’s and children being used to behead people, who gives a flying toss over what Mohammed said….. The sucker is dead meat now it’s the nut jobs that are in place now that we have to be attended to. (Note I say ‘attended to’, not ‘listening)’.
John Doe and his wife Mrs Doe just find it difficult to erase the multitude of images that they’ve been bombarded with over the years, beheadings, hangings, bodies mutilated in the streets, children marching in Palestine armed with AK47’s, pictures of children with bomb belts strapped on their bodies. These images do not frighten or intimidate me as perhaps they are intended to, they disgust me and that being said I have to state that it is totally pointless producing literature that tries to cover or explain away the actions of what is at the end of the day as a particularly sad ideology of intolerance and craven barbarity. To say that “300 trillion flies eat shit, who’s to say they’re wrong?” is perhaps a suitable analogy. It’s perfectly ok for the flies but I’ll pass on that thank you.

Their culture and mindset is alien to me I have no need to ‘understand’ it, I have no need nor desire to spend endless hours checking up on obscure verses in their damned book to find a way to argue why they are wrong in their assertions or accommodate any further this insidious cult, in fact it would be safe to say that on these points Islam and I are in agreement. The Islamists don’t want western interference ‘over there’ and I don’t want them or their Islamic interference ‘over here’ on my street, so now that we are in agreement on that it’s just a simple matter of arranging the removal vans and the QE2 for a long voyage ‘home’.

One has to wonder though and I’m being serious here, how would a ‘repatriated’ Muslim born and bred in Bradford or Birmingham be welcomed by his Muslim brothers in the likes of Somalia or Sudan? “Hey Brother, I’m home!” I suspect the old fart in a spacesuit scenario would be the order of the day, perhaps not…..any takers? Assuming of course that they had the gumption to get of their lazy arses and learn the local language, or am I taking it too far already……….first lesson, “where is the local benefits office my friend?” Shokran!

Please have a look at this version of The Religion of Peace, sums it all up really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAYdcAnHoew

I apologise in advance for this rather long diatribe but sometimes it’s good to rant, perhaps someone just might agree with me on some of this.
I should state now that I have great respect for the attention to detail shown by the posters on this site and their dedication to the exposition of the sham of Islam.

UK Infidel Lover-

You may be right. I really don't know much about Armstrong except hunches about her. However, I'll bet she has received "research grants" from Saudis. I'll also bet she is paid in flattery by her masters there and elsewhere. She's a born flunky, someone who has been on the shelf of institutions (schools, foundations etc.) all her life. That's my gut impression of her. She's much less important than she thinks she is and someday she will be laughed at. She's never been part of the real world. She's typical of many in academia.

It's just a hunch, UKIL. I might be wrong. She would never debate Robert because he would expose her, but she will pretend (to herself and others) that it's because of moral indignation. But the real reason is she can't face her real self.

She belongs in an institution.

He ignores the Koranic emphasis on the primacy of forgiveness and peaceful negotiation: the second the enemy asks for peace, Muslims must lay down their arms and accept any terms offered, however disadvantageous.

Well then the war should be over?

Or did somebody forget to ask for peace?

Why squabble over what's in the Koran? Why argue if Jihad means this or that in English?! Ultimately its pointless. Ultimately it's about how Muslims act, people have written a library's worth about how their barbaric behavior isn't justified because of this verse or that but they still continue to act this way and cause problems for us.

Armstrong and others can live in la-la land and comfort themselves by telling others that "Suras X,Y,and Z prevent the killings of civilians" but the fact of the matter is innocents are killed everyday in the name of Islam and at best in "the moderate Muslim community" does nothing and keeps silent. This behavior will continue untill the people who comit it are dead, no matter what Armstrong or Sura number whatever says.

Karen, you're a plunker.

Don't pay this person any attention, she's just another empty head who is blind to the truth

Glenn Beck lauded her as an excellent source on understanding Islam.

Armstrong is at best a hack who writes way above her level. One could see this is her book on Buddha, she confused and mislead readers on numerous topics and nowhere did she even bother to talk to real life Buddhist practictioners to get a real understanding of the topics she wrote about. And on some topics she just made crap up like where she implied Buddhism in inapproachable to us moderns.

To me this shows she doesn't care about what she writes about and why she won't debate anyone who knows more than she does about a subject.

Re: Posted by: UK Infidel Lover at April 28, 2007 05:14 PM

Who really knows. But I concede you may be right. I think she's like a dog begging for a bone of approval and anyone who contradicts her must be bitten. She prizes approval over reality, bad rough-and-tumble-reality. She needs to control her environment, and a debate with Robert could be a very painful confrontation with reality. However, she will pretend that she will not debate because of her moral indignation at Robert and others who contradict her. Anyway, that's my opinion.

She's born for an institutional environment. Maybe she likes Islam for that reason.

Armstrong: "Spencer never cites [1] the Koran’s condemnation of all warfare [2] as an ”awesome evil” [3], its prohibition of aggression [4] or its insistence that only self-defence [5] justifies armed conflict. He ignores the Koranic emphasis on the primacy of forgiveness [6] and peaceful negotiation [7]: the second the enemy asks for peace, Muslims must lay down their arms and accept any terms offered, however disadvantageous [8]. There is no mention of Muhammad’s non-violent campaign that ended the conflict.[9]"

[1]. Given that Spencer has in the past cited the verse in question (2:217) many times previously, I guess we can chalk up another erroneous statement ("never cites") by Armstrong.

[2] The Koran does not condemn all warfare. On the contrary, Allah (a) uses it to test the believers (3:142, 47:4), and to (b) punish the disbelievers through the hands of the believers (8:17, 9:14). The Koran states that if Allah did not try one set of people against others, the world would be full of mischief/corruption (2:251, fasad).

[3] Armstrong's phrase "awesome evil" (thanks greatcomet) appears to be derived partly from the Asad translation, which the apologists like, and from another that inserts the word evil in brackets later in the verse 2:217.
http://openburhan.pak.net/
(click on the verse number to get the multiple translations)

[4] In Islamic-speak, aggression has a different meaning, in at least some respects. For example, verbal criticism of Islam or Muhammad is considered "aggression" and is considered grounds for violent physical retaliation, including the death penalty or other harsh penalties for blasphemy, sedition, etc. At the same time, Muhammad himself routinely cursed and insulted the polytheists, Jews, and others who did not take heed of his revelations, plus he ordered his followers to curse and insult the members of other religions, but this was not considered "aggression."

[5] Self-defence. Again, this is Islamic-speak; see Caroline's link. When the spread of Islam is in any way impeded by non-Muslims, Muslims can "defend" themselves and Islam by launching jihad fighting expeditions into non-Muslim territory to establish Islam.

[6] It is not surprising that she does not cite a verse that deals with the "primacy" of forgiveness. Yes, some verses mention forgiveness, but it is not prescribed to be given to those who stubbornly refuse to accept Islam, Islamic rule, or Islamic terms of truce (which in Islamic law include total prohibition on criticizing Islam). Also Armstrong neglects to mention that Allah does not forgive those who disbelieve if they persist in their disbelief (I.e., do not repent and convert to Islam).

[7] "Negotiation" in the Koran? That is very funny. I must have missed the chapter on diplomacy and the finer points of conflict resolution. I suppose one must take a certain amount of interpretive licence with the Koran's ambiguous statements, and I suppose the terms laid out in 9:29 constitute negotiation of sorts!

[8] Now that has got to be one of the funniest things Armstrong has said. I think she should do stand-up comedy! But what the Koran actually says is
"Do not cry for peace when you have the upper hand" (47:35).
"Fight them until they surrender" (48:16).
"Fight them until there is no more fitnah, and all religion is for Allah. But if they desist* then Allah is seer of what they do." (8:39)
and the next verse which says incline to peace if they incline to peace must be understood in terms of the Islamic-speak regarding the word peace, e.g., there certainly cannot be peace if people are criticizing Islam and impeding its spread.

*Ibn Kathir and al-Jalalayn say that means "if they desist from polytheism/disbelief." That interpretation is based on the mutawatir hadith which says "I was commanded to fight the people until they say there is no God but Allah and His prophet is Muhammad"

[9] What non-violent campaign? Muhammad persisted in conflict against the Meccans until they "desisted from polytheism" and accepted Islam under the threat of being massacred. Is that what she means by non-violent? He finally ordered that all the remaining pagans, Jews, and Christians be expelled from the Arabian Peninsula.

jihadToBeJoking, i enjoyed your post. i grew up thinking of england as the cradle of democracy, the place that gave me (an American) a key to our future. "It all started with the Magna Carta," I thought. and then churchill was to be made an honorary american, and when i asked my parents about this, they spoke in almost hushed tones, with reverence. and then the beatles. and then... well, peter hitchens' book tells some of what followed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abolition_of_Britain).

i think you need to look toward the BNP, whose success depends on maintaining decency even as they move against Muslims. their stance on the EU is negative, too, which is a further (and related) point in their favor.

Jadedragoness~

Ultimately, the way Muslims act is meaningless without an understanding as to why they act this way. It is a willful neglect of the roots of jihad that allows Islamophiles to apologize for the crimes of jihadists by deflecting them onto the crimes of Christians. Without an understanding of their texts, how do we know who has the moral authority to speak on such matters? Is it bin Laden and his ilk? Or is it Irshad Manji? Who was the true Christian: Mother Theresa or the Grand Inquisitor? Most people who morally equate Muslim and Christian attrocities have limited knowledge of either.

Individuals are not the target of criticism, really. It's the ideology itself. If their religion commands them to kill or subjugate non-believers, then it is the religion that is the root cause, not individual human desire. If these acts are not justified by their faith, then it is simply the evil all men are capable of. The problem with Islam is, Muhammad created his own religion out of his own human, seventh-century bedouin savage ideals which, by some catostrophic error of history, has survived into the 21st century.

Know your enemy, know yourself, and victory will never be in doubt - not in 100 battles.

As the famous prophet of Islam Isa (hijacked Jesus) said:

"By their fruits ye shall know them."

What are the fruits of Islam, presently?

9/11, 3/11, 7/7, Beslan, Bali, Sunnis and Shi'ite in Iraq, al-Qaedi in Pakistan, the jihadists in Algeria, the resurgent Islamists in Turkey, the terrorists in Syria and "Palestine" and Jordan (blowing up a wedding party), ad nauseam.

If the Koran is being dangerously "distorted", it is by the Jihadists, not Mr. Spencer.

Mere mistaken exegesis (assuming it existed for the purpose of argument) by an infidel (like Mr. Spencer) isn't setting off car bombs in markets, or in front of mosques, or by police stations, or in trains, or at elementary schools.

It is the violent, expansionist dogma of a warlord, taken to its logical, bloody conclusion: "...terrorize them..." until they "...convert or submit...", or "...slay them...".

The idea that Islam is being "persecuted" has more to do with the persecution complex that Islam was born out of than any current external reality.

(Most infidels -beyond the area around Israel- were generally indifferent to and unconcerned by Islam -[or were blissfully unaware that it even existed, except as Ali Baba stories, Turkish taffy, funny turbans, and as cartoonishly-charming and backward curios like aoud music and harems]... until 9/11.)

Mohammad's deep sense of persecution came from being mocked and called insane by his neighbors, and he never got over it.

His "religion" started as a march of retribution and morphed into one of of conquest, -and was not an unarmed missionary plea for humanity to become more decent.

It was a choice of: Mohammad's way (under the shadow of the Sword), -or slavery (under the shadow of the Sword), -or the grave (delivered by the Sword).

As the behavior of Islam on the world stage bears out, with the Sword still meaning more to them than any effort to convince.

A tree that bears so much violence is clearly not rooted in peace.

"I grew up thinking of england as the cradle of democracy, the place that gave me (an American) a key to our future".
Posted by: StillBreathing

It will perhaps come as a surprise to you that I'm refering to discussions that took place in Scotland, not England! I am Scottish.
I have great sympathy for the situation in England as they, at the moment are for want of a better word, 'infested' with Islamists.

What the hell they are doing up here in the cold, cold north beats me but I should warn any potential Islamic invaders that there is nothing more vicious and depraved than having a live Haggis rammed up your burka in mating season. You have been warned.

Jihadtobejoking-

Sounds like the "pause that refreshes" was fairly stimulating. And, please, don't ever feel apologetic for politically incorrect leanings--the PC crowd is never going to save your arse. I read your comment with great pleasure. Many from the UK have commented here about their frustrations with the kind of anti-progress but yours, coming as it does from the perspective of working geezers, is priceless. As we say, "hang in there".

UK Infidel Lover-

I tend to agree with your point of view. The phrase 'live with oneself' requires an expression of guilt, an emotion that KA can apply to Europeans, but not to herself as she has lost the notion of personal good and evil.

You posit that she MIGHT reevaluate islam "if many Muslims behead all her friends in front of her..."

Never underestimate the ability of a multi-culti apologist to rationalize anything. She'd manage to convince herself that it was all a misunderstanding caused by the victims.

Robert-

First let me thank you for your tireless efforts. Your years of scholarly work are not unrecognized and with that you will continue to be vilified and marginalized. You are a man of courage.

Not that I've been a daily reader of JW for terribly long (after receiving "The Truth About Mohammad" in November) but "An American" is new to me as of this past week. I've already sparred with him on a few threads and I suspect his provocations are here in order for responses to be posted back to kos et al.

He never responds to challenges--just poses more of his own (or his handlers) You don't need to respond to the likes of "An American". We'll do that.

I wonder if "An American" will cut and run now that massively pertinent refutations of his arguments have been marshalled by posters KAOSKTRL, Caroline and Khaybar Oasis above. I seem to remember that "An American" similarly ducked out of a challenge on a previous thread about a month ago.

In the two years I've been reading Jihad Watch, I've seen this happen time and again, where Muslim apologists (whether Muslim themselves or not) have issued pot-shots in the comments sections, then when intelligent counter-posts build up, those apologists suddenly disappear -- either from that thread's specific discussion, or altogether from Jihad Watch, never to be seen again.

At any rate, apologists like "An American" do serve the purpose, at least, of inspiring certain posters to sharpen their blades of rhetorical response.

Robert,

Karen Armstrong said of your book about Muhammad “Like any book written in hatred, his new work is a depressing read.”.

On the contrary, it is an inspiring read. Of course it is not “written in hatred”, but even if it were, would Armstrong say that the great works of satire were a “depressing read”? Distrust anyone who has no literary sense!

The Noble Qur'an

2:216 Jihad[1] (holy fighting in Allah's cause) is ordained for you (Muslims) through you dislike it, and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you and that you like a thing which is bad for you. Allah knows but you do not know.

2:217 They ask you concerning fighting in the Scared Months (i.e. 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar). Say, "Fighting therein is a great(transgression)[2] but a greater (transgression) with Allah is to prevent mankind from following the Way of Allah, to disbelieve in Him, to prevent access to Al-Masjid-Al-Haram (at Makkah), and to drive out its inhabitants, and Al-Fitnah[3] is worse than killing. And they will never cease fighting you until they turn you back from your religion (Islamic Monotheism) if they can. And whosoever of you turns back from his religion and dies as a disbeliever, then his deeds will be lost in this life and in the Hereafter, and they will be the dwellers of the Fire. The will abide therein forever."

[1] (V.2:216) See the footnote of (V.2.190)
[2] (V.2:217) The provision of this Verse has been abrogated by Verse 9:36. Jihad cf., (V.2:216)
[3] (V.2:217) Fitnah: (polytheism and to disbelieve after one has believed in Allah, or a trial or a calamity or an affliction or to set up rivals in worship with Allah).

------------

2:190 And fight in the Way of Allah[1] those who fight you, but transgress not the limits. Truly, Allah likes not the transgressors. [This Verse is the first one that was revealed in connection with Jihad, but it is supplemented by another (9:36)].

FOOTNOTE of (V.2.190)

[1] (V.2:190) Al-Jihad (holy fighting) in Allah's Cause (with full force of numbers and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars (on which it stands). By Jihad Islam is established, Allah's Word is made superior, (His Word being La ilaha illallah which means no has the right to be worshipped but Allah), and His religion (Islam) is propagated. By abandoning Jihad (may Allah protect us from that) Islam is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; their honour is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim, and he who tries to escape from the duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfil this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite.

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 41:

Narrated Abdullah bin Masud:

I asked Allah's Apostle, "O Allah's Apostle! What is the best deed?" He replied, "To offer the prayers at their early stated fixed times." I asked, "What is next in goodness?" He replied, "To be good and dutiful to your parents." I further asked, what is next in goodness?" He replied, "To participate in Jihad in Allah's Cause." I did not ask Allah's Apostle anymore and if I had asked him more, he would have told me more.

------------

9:36 Verily, the number of months with Allah is twelve months (in a year), so was it ordained by Allah on the Day when He created the heavens and the earth; of them four are Sacred (i.e. 1st, 7th, 11th, and 12th months of the Islamic calendar). That is the right religion, so wrong not yourselves therein, and fight against the Mushrikun(polytheists, pagans, idolaters, disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah) collectively[1] as they fight against you collectively. But know that Allah is with those are Al-Muttaqun(the pious -- See V.2:2).

[1] (V.9:36) See the footnotes of (V.2:193) and (V.8:73)

FOOTNOTE of (V.2.193)

Volume 1, Book 2, Number 24:

Narrated Ibn 'Umar:

Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform a that, then they save their lives an property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah."

Yep. Apart from her ad hominems, errors of fact, and lack of any real substance, the most galling charge is that Robert Spencer writes 'in hatred'.

Au contraire Ms Armstrong: it's education versus obfuscation.

Khaybar Oasis

Thanks for the link...

Neat to see some of the translations I have not seen before.

JFGR-

The Koran, however, is a "depressing read".

Boiling metal poured on people. Devaluing and supressing women. Consigning everyone who disagrees with your to hell for eternity.

What a vile mind.

“Must be all that Saudi money flowing into Londonistan, old boy”

Can you explain what “old boy” means, pardner? It hasn’t been used in England since, oh, 1945. And I doubt whether the suits of the Financial Times would ever have heard the expression.

Old boys are former pupils of English public schools. The term's used ironically these days, at least on the English blogs (cf. Harry's place) that I read.

Like most things English, it's double-edged.

Karen Armstrong is the author of ”Muhammad: Prophet For Our Time”

In a way this is right, as Mohammed never made a prophesy, and as such is always a prophet for our time - always.

No FrontPage Mag from here either (Manchester, UK)

8:73 And those who disbelieve are allies of one another, (and) if you (Muslims of the whole world collectively) do not do so [i.e. become allies, as one united block under Khalifah (a chief Muslim ruler for the whole Muslim world) to make victorious Allah's religion of Islamic Monotheism], there will be Fitnah (wars, battles, polytheism) and oppression on the earth, and a great mischief and corruption (appearance of polytheism)[2]

FOOTNOTE of (V.8:73)

[2] (V.8:73) It has been mentioned in Tafsir At-Tabari, Vol.10, Page 56, that the best interpretation of this Verse: - ["And those who disbelieve are allies of one another, (and) if you (Muslims of the whole world collectively) do not do so [i.e. become allies, as one united block"] is "That if you do no do what We (Allah) have order you to do, [i.e. all of (Muslims of the whole world) do not become allies as one united block to make Allah's religion (Islam) victorious, there will be a great Fitnah (polytheism, wars, battles, killing, robbing, a great mischief, corruption and oppression, etc.)"] And it is Fitnah to have many Khalifah (Muslim rulers), as it has been mentioned in Sahih Muslim by 'Arfajah, who said: I heard Allah's Messenger saying: "When you all (Muslims) are united (as one block) under a single Khalifah (a chief Muslim ruler), and a man comes up to disintegrate you and separate you into different groups, then kill that man."

Also there is another narration in Sahih Muslim: Narrated Abu Sa id Al-Khudri: Allah's Messenger said: "If the Muslim world gave the Bai'a (pledge) to two Khalifah (chief Muslim rulers), the first one who was given the Bai'a (pledge) first will remain as the Khalifah, then kill the latter (the second) one."

So it is a legal obligation, form the above-mentioned evident proofs (from the Qur'an and the Prophet's statement) that there shall not be more than one khalifah (a chief Muslim ruler) for the whole Muslim world or otherwise there will be a great Fithah (mischief and evil) amongst the Muslims, the ultimate results of which will not be worthy of praise.

Thank you Robert for responding both to Karen Armstrong's article and the nearly diligent "An American" (Ali, is that you?).

Off-Topic:

I received this email yesterday afternoon:

"Due to technical difficulties, readers interested in viewing FrontPageMagazine.com should type in the url: www.frontpagemagazine.com . We are working on restoring the usual url, www.frontpagemag.com , and we apologize for the delay and any inconvenience.

Sincerely,

FrontPageMag.com Staff"

Consequently he makes basic and bad mistakes of fact. Even more damaging, he deliberately manipulates the evidence.

This is from someone who tries to claim in one of her books that the "Red Sea" was really the "Reed Sea," as she twists and turns in unbelievable contortions to explain that Moses could not have crossed during the Exodus!

The ex-nun has a bad habit of substituting her own delusions with historical reality in every book she writes.

Her examination of Spencer's work is dubious at best.

Mr Spencer mentions above :

Watch for Andrew Bostom's new Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism

Book jacket summary :

This comprehensive, meticulously documented collection of scholarly articles presents indisputable evidence that a readily discernible, uniquely Islamic antisemitism—a specific Muslim hatred of Jews—has been expressed continuously since the advent of Islam. Debunking the conventional wisdom, which continues to assert that Muslim animosity toward Jews is entirely a 20th-century phenomenon fueled mainly by the protracted Arab-Israeli conflict, leading scholars provide example after example of antisemitic motifs in Muslim documents reaching back to the beginnings of Islam. The contributors show that the Koran itself is a significant source of hostility toward Jews, as well as other foundational Muslim texts including the hadith (the words and deeds of Muhammad as recorded by pious Muslim transmitters) and the sira (the earliest Muslim biographies of Muhammad). Many other examples are adduced in the writings of influential Muslim jurists, theologians, and scholars, from the Middle Ages through the contemporary era. These primary sources, and seminal secondary analyses translated here for the first time into English—such as Hartwig Hirschfeld’s mid-1880s essays on Muhammad’s subjugation of the Jews of Medina and George Vajda’s elegant, comprehensive 1937 study of the hadith—detail the sacralized rationale for Islam’s anti-Jewish bigotry. Numerous complementary historical accounts illustrate the resulting plight of Jewish communities in the Muslim world across space and time, culminating in the genocidal threat posed to the Jews of Israel today. Scholars, educators, and interested lay readers will find this collection an invaluable resource for understanding the phenomenon of Muslim antisemitism, past and present.

The problem for all of us is that Koran Armstrongs propaganda is widely distributed, you can find it in just about every bookshop around the globe, just like the despicable Chompsky (misspelling intended) and the exploits of Willie Clinton and this utterly corrupt darling of Arabia, the egregious Peanut Khadr.

For the insincere trollish fool "An American"- (or is he a foolish troll?) who denies to be a Muslim but calls himself 'American'- (certainly not in the spirit) here it is from the horses mouth, because nothing and nobody beats the Muhammedan doctrine better than their own clerics, and why should any infidel take the word of an uneducated Muslim over the preachings of the imams, muftis or mullahs?

Here it is from the horses mouth, the mufti Ibrahim Desai:

You should understand that we as Muslims firmly believe that the person who doesn’t believe in Allah as he is required to, is a disbeliever who would be doomed to Hell eternally. Thus one of the primary responsibilities of the Muslim ruler is to spread Islam throughout the world, thus saving people from eternal damnation.

Thus what is meant by the passage in Tafsir Uthmani, is that if a country doesn’t allow the propagation of Islam to its inhabitants in a suitable manner or creates hindrances to this, then the Muslim ruler would be justifying in waging Jihad against this country, so that the message of Islam can reach its inhabitants, thus saving them from the Fire of Jahannum. If the Kuffaar allow us to spread Islam peacefully, then we would not wage Jihad against them.

and Allah Ta’ala Knows Best

Mufti Ebrahim Desai

Right. The Kuffar must be killed in order to be saved. Read the whole thing:

http://sheikyermami.com/2007/04/04/lost-and-found-the-treasure-drove-of-the-mufti-ibrahim-desai/

"if a country doesn’t ALLOW the PROPAGATION of Islam to its inhabitants in a SUITABLE manner or creates HINDRANCES to this..."

Words. They can mean so many different things to different people.

As I continue reading Dr. Bostoms website, I find this gem in the Forward written by Ibn Warraq:

"Many Medieval Jewish writers commonly referred to Muhammad as

ha-meshugga'

,

Madman—the Hebrew term, as Norman Stillman notes, being “pregnant with connotations.” 4

4 Norman Stillman. The Jews of Arab Lands. A History and Source Book. 1979, Philadelphia p.236, and p. 236 note 8

I think from now on I will use that term whenever I need to comment about this insane so-called prophet.

ha-meshugga' . . .that'll do.

I still prefer:
"psychopathic murdering pedophile bandit chieftain from southern jordan named ubu'l kassim by birth, and made up his own religion as he went along because he was too much of an unstable jealous psycho to be jewish or christian"...

...even if it IS too long.

:-)

Jihadtobejoking -I too like your write. I am sick of quotes of the queran! Look who wrote it! He may of been a warrior but he was really screwed up in his head! Narcist-egotist-murderer-self centered hungry monger PIG! That you tube video does show it all! When I think of this "religion" I want to prewk! I see blood, dead people, people suffering. I have never seen a vision of peace with this "religious thinking"! How Karen can even defend such thinking and not debate it shows you she is shallow as the graves they make! My God how they have ruined this world! They all need to go back to "their" land! Our colleges allow such stupid stuff. Robert going to speak is the first smart thing I heard them do! You just don't know how much you are appreciated Robert!

Note to Karen Armstrong: The truth about Muslims

This is how Muslims "appreciated" Christians:

"The young men got guns, bread knives, ropes and towels ready for their final act of service to Allah. They knew there would be a lot of blood. They arrived in time for the Bible study, around 10 o'clock," the letter said. "Reportedly, after Necati read a chapter from the Bible the assault began. The boys tied Ugur, Necati, and Tilman's hands and feet to chairs and as they videoed their work on their cellphones, they tortured our brothers for almost three hours."

The letter included the following graphic details of the torture:

"Tilman was stabbed 156 times, Necati 99 times and Ugur’s stabs were too numerous to count. They were disemboweled, and their intestines sliced up in front of their eyes. They were emasculated and watched as those body parts were destroyed. Fingers were chopped off, their noses and mouths and anuses were sliced open. Possibly the worst part was watching as their brothers were likewise tortured. Finally, their throats were sliced from ear to ear, heads practically decapitated."

----

That is Islam and those are the acts of Muslims.

and the Christian response?

In an act that hit the front pages of the largest newspapers in Turkey, the widow of a martyred Christian told reporters she did not want revenge against the Muslims who killed her husband and two others, according to a new report from Voice of the Martyrs.

"Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do," she said, agreeing with the words of Christ on Calvary (Luke 23.34), according to a letter Christians in Turkey have written to the worldwide church,

---------------

No, Christians and Muslims do not worship the same god, and the true Jesus of Christianity has nothing in common with the false description in Islam. Christians have nothing in common with Muslims.

Jadedragoness

The reason why all these quotes and analysis of the Quran and Sunnah are important is very simple...

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." Sun Tzu, Art of War

We are studying our enemy and why they fight. To better inform ourselves of the best way to evolve victory and counter their moves.

The Inquisition was a nationalistic, xenophibic reaction to Islamic oppression which caught up the Jews along with the Muslims. While the Christians were guilty of atrocities, the Muslims were hardly guiltless in having brought about the reaction in the first place.
Karen Armstrong's assertion that Jews have always fared better under Islam than Christianity has much truth to it, and is a very common assertion by Islamic apologists. What those apologists seldom mention is that Islamic tolerance, such as it was, was contingent on dhimmi status for Jews. Having an independent state is a violation of that holy writ (9:29 etc).This benighted ideology is what so many of today's so-called progressives tacitly excuse when they parrot and excuse the "We're not anti-Jewish, we're just anti-Zionist" line. What I can't figure out is whether people like Ms. Armstrong are naive or malevolent, or a little of both.

Re: "Karen Armstrong said of your book about Muhammad “Like any book written in hatred, his new work is a depressing read.”.
Posted by: JFGR at April 28, 2007 06:53 PM

Armstrong is an indoor cat, Robert is an outdoor cat and that's the difference. She has grasped to institutions from nunneries to schools to nutteries of unchallenged thought. Robert is a better mouser than her. She calls instincts for truth hate. She dares not debate. She fears the real world. That's what depresses her.

Armstrong will never take legitimate questions or fairly debate anyone who knows what is in Islamic scriptures and jurisprudence. She is paid by her Saudi masters to keep her as a transmission belt for their taqiyya. The only people who believe her are either slothful dolts unwilling to do the hard work of checking the sources or those whose predilection is to hate the West and hope the jihadis overthrow it.

Mrs. Armstrong has no time for debate she has a check to pick up and it's waiting for her at the nearest mosque.

Those who cannot or will not defend themselves for what they say in public especially against someone elses work have no buisiness speaking in public.

Hit and run tactics are so....islamic.

Robert your armor just became grander because unless i am mistaken you just got spit on.

You gained a new victory song because again if i am not mistaken you just got cursed.

Rise Hero thy name is Robert Spencer.
Roar True lion louder than any appeaser.
Rejoice for another True martyr upon that day.

For now your tribute is over back to the fight soldier the enemy still creeps and pounds at the gates.Keep your torch lit for all to find the way and never mind those lost for they will either find the way or forever be lost right where they lay.

Apparently she has little time for facts either...but that's no surprise here...lol

"Many Medieval Jewish writers commonly referred to Muhammad as

ha-meshugga'

Maimonides, aka the Rambam, was born in Muslim Spain. When the Almohides took over and started killing Jews and other Muslims, he fled to Egypt which was more tolerant.

In any case, R. Moshe ben Maimon, lived his entire life among Muslims so he was not uneducated about Islam. In his code of Jewish law, under the laws of Jewish kings, the Rambam discusses the Messiah and he asks the question, why did God send the Ishmaelite and the Nazarene? His answer is that they introduced Jewish concepts about God to the world, notwithstanding their, in Judaism's view, distortions.

However, while Maimonides was somewhat 'pluralistic', he still refers to Mohammed as "Ha Ish Ha Meshugga HaZeh", that crazy man.

Just sent to the FT editor:

What does your paper expect of the authors of your book reviews? Do you expect them to read the books they review? To tell the truth about what is or isn't in the book? And, if they say that a book has errors, shouldn't they at least provide an example to justify that claim?

In Karen Armstrong's review article "Balancing the Prophet," (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4a05a4a4-f134-11db-838b-000b5df10621.html), she writes of Robert Spencer and his book, The Truth About Muhammad:

"For example, he cites only passages from the Koran that are hostile to Jews and Christians and does not mention the numerous verses that insist on the continuity of Islam with the People of the Book: 'Say to them: We believe what you believe; your God and our God is one.'"

I own this book. Spencer cites this verse of the Koran (29:46) specifically on pages 17 and 51. Page 17: "The Qur'an, of course, claims that the deity of Jews and Christians is the same as that of the Muslims (29:46)". Page 51: "Those who did not convert to Islam should be reminded that Muslims, Jews, and Christians all worship the same deity. (Qur'an 29:46)"

Armstrong also writes of Spencer: "... he makes basic and bad mistakes of fact." Yet Armstrong doesn't even provide one example of such "mistakes." I'm not sure type of argument would even be acceptable in an 8 year old's book report.

The irony of her review, of course, is that Armstrong herself has written two biographies of Muhammad, and Spencer's book several times disputes key points from her 1992 book. In one case, Spencer explains in detail a real "basic mistake" in her book (p. 170): "Karen Armstrong asserts that 'Tabari says that [Mohammad's wife Aisha] was so young that she stayed in her parents' home and the marriage was consummated there later when she had reached puberty.' Unfortunately, her readers are unlikely to have volumes of Tabari on hand to check her assertion; contrary to Armstrong's account, the Muslim historian quotes Aisha thusly: 'The Messenger of God married me when I was seven; my marriage was consummated when I was nine.'"

This review seems like the perfect opportunity for Armstrong to counter Spencer's points, but instead she ignores them altogether and resorts to incorrect and unsubstantiated claims.

It's almost as if she didn't even read the book.

I like how Robert uses quotes of the queran. He does it in parabel. He certainly has not taken it out of "text" no where near compared to these monsters! I've seen their ill-a-strations! I think someone like Karen is a deterrent and she is a spie! If it is just paranoia-pheww..but these people are worthless. I think we need some scholars for the true interpretation of the religion. There is none. Mo-stole it and replaced it with his thinking and it worked!

justamomof4:

Mohammed was diagnosed as "ha-meshuggah" i.e. "The Madman" by no less a physician/philosopher than Maimonides in his Epistle to Yemen (OK, he just called Mo that, but this was way pre-Freud). The Epistle was written to shore up the faith of the Jews of Yemen who were being forced to apostatize and convert to Islam by the local ruler. He likened this to the persecutions he had suffered under Spain's Berber Muslim rulers. I guess those Muslims never read that "no compulsion in religion" aya.

BTW, Norman Stillman's book "The Jews of Arab Lands" is still in print and worth a read. It served as my introduction to Muslim anti-Semitism in the fall of 2000 as I tried to understand Arafat's rejection of negotiations with Barak, and subsequent re-launch of intifada. The book presents an in-depth view of those communities that is quite damning to the notion of Islamic religious tolerance. He is Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

A couple of links for Ms. Armstrong how the openly treat their women:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9OoejF-U9w&mode=related&search=
Sheik Says OK for Men to Kill Cheater Wives but not Reversed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV28b1_6HGU&mode=related&search=
Saudi Cleric: Educating Jihad & World Conquest - Not Enough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF0ojK4SAy4&mode=related&search=
9/11 deniel continues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGpJC3f3UHk&mode=related&search=
Palestinian Sheik: "Islam Will Rule U.S/U.K, Jews Are AIDS"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BckLTw-dxPc
A Muslim woman caght flirting..caught by her husbend

This is only the start Ms. Armstrong. Perhaps you wanna see more, I will oblige. Just ask us here.

Just a passing thought - OK it hurts my head, for a different reason..

Muslims, the moonbats are very sensitive about the moon because their 'prophit''s original religion was some kind of moon-worship, however.

Neil Armstrong, an American was the first guy to go on the moon. They have been claiming all sorts of things about Neil heard this, saw that etc.etc..

I think Ms. Armstrong fits the bill. They could make her say whatever they desire, she will oblige. I think they are waiting for a certain event, before they legitimately start to claim 'ARMSTRONG' stated he saw some cracks on the moon etc etc.

Here is something disturbing me about them, that they spread lies without any thoughts whatsoever..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixfk4LsKWnw
Muslim Scientist: Neil Armstrong Proved Mecca- Center World

remote_control said:

At any rate, apologists like "An American" do serve the purpose, at least, of inspiring certain posters to sharpen their blades of rhetorical response.

Excellent point. In fact it might be salutary for one or two of us occasionally to enter the site "in mufti" and argue from the Muslim viewpoint, precisely in order to help sharpen rhetorical blades around here. But it could easily become counterproductive to do that, so it would have to be done thoughtfully and carefully, if at all.

Does this mean we better hide our microwaves or put a rug in front of them?

MS Armstrong has no educational qualifications that I know of to claim to be 'an expert on Islam or any other Faith.'
Does she speak Arabic ? I think not. Nor has she ever resided IN AN ISLAMIC COUNTRY longer than a few days for a Book Launch.[UNLESS BRITAIN IS AN
ISLAMIC COUNTRY].
She is a Poster Gal just as Yvonne Ridley
is-their sum of knowledge about Islam is about the same-both are attention seekers & rather unstable characters.
Like La Ridley, Ms Armstrong is careful NOT to put 'Tolerance & Compassion of Islam' to the Test,neither showing an interest in LIVING IN AN
TRULY ISLAMIC SHARIA PARADISE.
This foolish Lady will fade with her books[published by Muslim Money] as soon as Terrorist bombs fall in earnest upon the West.And wouldn't put it past her to seek refuge in same convent she quitted with disdain years ago.

Gnosis said

It's telling that the Financial Times would even choose Armstrong to review Spencer's book, knowing she is Spencer's polar opposite and was going to piss all over it before she read it (if she even did).

Excellent point. The media know that there is a debate about the "peacefulness" of Islam. They purposely chose someone of the opposite opinion to review Robert's book.

Just as when Robert recorded an interview with C-SPAN, and then C-SPAN asked a critic of Robert's to do an entire show devoted to "debunking" Robert's interview BEFORE THEY EVEN AIRED Robert's interview itself, the media's idea of a fair debate is to give the opposite side free reign to misquote, malign, and make personal insults against Robert, without giving him a chance to respond. It is dishonest, unfair, and disgusting.

On another topic, it must make Robert proud to see the number of excellent posts above, full of well-documented Qur'anic quotes, in response to both Armstrong and "An American". Robert has taught us well, and inspired us. There are now many articulate and Islam-aware anti-jihadists all over the world who have access to JW/DW and his books.

The funny thing is, every time the Islamic apologists give us a quote to show how peaceful Islam is (such as the "killing one man is like killing all of mankind" red herring, or "Warfare is a great transgression" in this story), a further reading shows just how violent the quotes really are, and how they prove the opposite of what the apologists claim. It's worth noting that they cannot come up with real rebuttals to the undeniable violence of such quotes as "Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them".

An American said:

Apparently, I have managed to call out the big guns, Spencer himself (who says constantly on other debates that he has no time to respond to or discuss comments posted on his site)

I'll bet you cannot find any quote of Robert Spencer saying he has no time to respond to or discuss comments posted on his site.

He does say he cannot read all the comments, cannot respond to all the comments; and similar statements.

But you chose to slightly alter what he actually says. You apparently are a dealer in half-truths. A half-truth is often a more effective lie than an outright falsehood.

You instinctively spun that little half-truth about Robert not responding to comments, because you seem to have thought it would allow you to deceive others into believing something or other about Robert.

Your deceptiveness inspires little confidence that anything else you have said on this thread can be trusted as more than manipulative half-truths.

Karen Armstrong said

Spencer makes no attempt to explain the historical, political, economic and spiritual circumstances of 7th-century Arabia, without which it is impossible to understand the complexities of Muhammad’s life.

Jesus lived centuries before Muhammad. He preached a message of love, forgiveness, and tolerance. Why was the world so peaceful in the time of Christ, but so bloody and violent in the time of Muhammad? And if Muhammad is the Final Prophet, al-insan al-kamil, the Perfect Man, uswa hasana, the Role Model for all time, why was he so influenced by the vagaries of 7th-century Arabia, the time and place he happened to live in? If he's All That, he should be able to rise above his contemporaries' deficiencies.

If Armstrong is attempting to explain away Muhammad's moral transgressions by claiming "that's just the way they did things back then", perhaps she could be so kind as to tell us, specifically, what "complexities" of that time and place could justify Muhammad's murder of a female poet for mocking him, being a slave owner, having sex with a 9 year old girl, committing mass murder against unarmed civilians, and so on. Whatever those "complexities" were, they obviously appeared between the time of Christ and Muhammad, since Christ did none of those things. [Again, if it matters to anyone, I say this as an atheist. I have no interest in prosyletizing for any religion over another].

It's not just a mistake here or there in Muhammad's life, taken out of context. His lifetime career was a caravan raider, a bandit, a warlord. His many wives included slaves taken after he had killed their husbands. He thought it important enough to devote sections of the Qur'an to explain how to divide up the loot from a successful caravan raid. He oozes evil out of every pore in his body. Every facet of his life was full of evil, superstition ("demons stay in your sinuses while you sleep"), hatred, violence.

He's not a Role Model for All Time, he's not a Role Model for Any Time. With all due respect to any "complexities" in his life.

Question for anyone:
How can I access all the Hot Air appearances of Robert Spencer? When I do a Google search, only three or four Hot Airs by Spencer seem to come up. There must be tons more, but how to get to them. You Tube brings up a few other things by Spencer, but how can I access everything?

I wonder if "An American" will cut and run now that massively pertinent refutations of his arguments have been marshalled by posters KAOSKTRL, Caroline and Khaybar Oasis above. I seem to remember that "An American" similarly ducked out of a challenge on a previous thread about a month ago. Posted by: Remote Control

Here is the discussion that UnAmerican (I wouldn't want to offend him with boogy boogy quotes) chickened away from, when confronted with it.
Essentially, it was the old 'You gotta know Arabic' spiel. Going by his logic, and those like him, all Muslims who don't know Arabic ought to be given the choice of either learning Arabic, or converting out of Islam, or death. Sort of a twist on 9:29.

As for UnAmerican's 2:193 citation above:

2.193 And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah. [Spencer and you all will stop reading here, but please continue]. But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrongdoers.

I normally don't advocate banning posters. I do make an exception of you, since you make it a point to simply throw these barbs, and never respond. That's what you did when your clain that one needs to know Arabic was challenged, and now, you pretty much avoided responding to KAOSKTRL, Caroline, Khayber, et al, since obviously, the only one worthy of engaging with you is Robert. Bottom line - you are doing nothing more than wasting our time. If you want to demonstrate otherwise, respond to the points made above by the above.

Hugh Fitzgerald's piece analyzing that one paragraph of Armstrong was pretty neat...

traeh

Here it is. If you were navigating, click on 'Vault', then in the JihadWatch section, click on 'Latest episodes'. That will take you to the link I provided, but that has the whole list, not just some particular month.

What the hell they are doing up here in the cold, cold north beats me but I should warn any potential Islamic invaders that there is nothing more vicious and depraved than having a live Haggis rammed up your burka in mating season. You have been warned.

Posted by: Jihadtobejoking

Hey,
I like your sentiments.
I have been wondering about this for some time. Why are they migrating to COLD CLIMATES???
Read this about Sweden and weep:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2065

And let us remember they have a stronghold in cold northern states like Michigan and Minnesota.

“Old boys are former pupils of English public schools. The term's used ironically these days, at least on the English blogs (cf. Harry's place) that I read.

Like most things English, it's double-edged.”

I’m sorry you missed the irony in my post (too double-edged, perhaps). I’m well aware of what the English expression “old boy” means, being an Englishman. As a form of address, it has no connection with the phrase”old boy” referring to a former pupil ( which doesn’t just refer to ex-public school pupils, by the way). My point was that it’s only used jocularly by most people in England today, or by foreigners to make a snide remark at Englishmen’s expense (rather like mentioning cups of tea).

Oh do tell us, Karen, about the "complexities of Muhammad's life. Just how was he able to function as a misogynistic, warlord, while still entertaining his obsessions with pedophilia, murder, and religious supremism?

materialguy,just mom of four,metesky

Just the way the word meshugga sounds, sounds as if it means crazy

I'm also tickled by Maimonides calling Muhammad "the crazy one" which in Hebrew and Yiddish is meshugga. Maimonides is also saying Muhammad was a false prophet and false messiah. Jews have been plagued by numerous false messiahs, many of them comically bogus. In fact this word "meshugga" is definitely in the Yiddish vocabulary I heard growing up.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1812269/posts?page=8#8

BTW I don't go around calling Christ a false messiah. On the Christian plane he is a real one and valid one and so be it. Christian God and Jewish God are the same and are not phony fake fraud Allah and his carny barker Muhammad.

Does Robert know that it would be easy to sue the Financial Times for slander, defamation and libel.

It's far easier to sue publications here in the UK than it is in America, and Robert would also get damages on a pro-bono basis.

It's up to the newspaper to PROVE that Karen Armstrong was right, which is very hard, considering she was blatantly lying about so many things.

"...his new work is a depressing read." --Armstrong

Of course it's a depressing read. Honest appraisal of what we're up against IS depressing. Wishful thinking on the other hand is oh so easy and comfortable. No wonder so many indulge in it.

I have been wondering about this for some time. Why are they migrating to COLD CLIMATES???

muslims love the welfare state" and love those checque coming in, so they can keep on breeding!
l have one good clue to socialist states, stop the welfare cheques!

An American sums up:

>>>
1. Say no (then they keep attacking)
2. Defend yourself (then they keep attacking you again)
3. Violence (without transgression or over-aggression or, arguably, aggression at all) in order to get them to stop fighting you, sounds like defense to me, two sets of attacks before you have the right to respond forcefully.

"Robert has taught us well, and inspired us. There are now many articulate and Islam-aware anti-jihadists all over the world who have access to JW/DW and his books".-special_guest

You bet. This is as good as it gets in terms of learning the truth re Islam. This site will one day prove historic in its importance. It will prove to be a great good for Muslims as well as non-believers in the long term.

The truth is a bumpy road, not smooth. Everybody has to hold on to their hats. Robert is not backing down because it's a bumpy road.

The truth is a bumpy road, not smooth. Everybody has to hold on to their hats. Robert is not backing down because it's a bumpy road.

I wonder if the Maxwell will hold up.

The truth is a bumpy road, not smooth. Everybody has to hold on to their hats. Robert is not backing down because it's a bumpy road.

Posted by Frank

I wonder if the Maxwell will hold up.

Infidel Pride:
Thanks.

I must apologize, but I don't usually spend my time in front of my computer all the time responding to people who hate everyone who doesn't agree with them.

Spencer: (not column day anymore?) so what's your argument...that Armstrong's reference was correct? I am not understanding what you are trying to attack me with.
--Malik's book (dutifully translated into English)--is written by a man despised by Muslims and actually takfir-ed upon (mind the pun) by countless Pakistani and other Islamic religious authorities for being the tool of Musharraf's oppression. As for the Saudi, I think you need a small lesson in Sunni heirarchy before you can tell me who writes what (Sunni heirarchy has no bearing or legal binding and is simply part of the debate, even among the most hardline Saudis, and I know some sheikhs in Saudi who write equal amounts of literature in the country and out blasting the Chief Justice's opinions (I know Saudi jurists who constantly question and debate the statments of bin Baz, and hopefully you know who that is). Although I have never read the two books you refer to, and I am relatively busy so I hope you will understand and therefore have not been able to read whether they advocate what you say they do or actually advocate the defensive process but your selective quotes and commentary simply alter that. However, if they do advocate what you do, then I WILL charge them as I have you with the same misguided and evil intentions.

--The error in your writing is that you completely ignore the fact that this verse, alhtough you take it literally (like you do all verses unless it requires interpretation to make it in line with your views), has in Islamic discourse been applied on countless occassions to all types and occasions of warfare, and that arguably, all months have a degree of sanctity because they were created by God (I won't go into the details...easy to research if you don't look at your own site's history).

Countless other responders:
--I regret to inform you that, although the six degrees of separation game between the Arabic terms for oppression and the infamous shirk can and is performed on a daily basis here and on sites like it, it is unfortunately hardly existent in the modern Islamic discourse. This is a connection primarily advocated by three or four Wahabist thinkers (who even then only apply this ideology to what are considered "core Islamic" countries).

--In the end, the three steps as I described in another post exist and are practiced by many Muslims throughout the world. However, the discussion in the Islamic world is what qualifies as oppression.

Just doing some thinking...
(I am sorry about not responding to your earlier posts, but I was away for the evening and didn't get a chance to respond. I know that I will never change most opinions because most of you are so ingrained and bred towards hatred---like you would be on this site if you liked Muslims or even attempted to think with a clear mind).

PS. For the record, I am so happy that someone of your wonderful glorious Western Islamic scholarly status doesn't believe me about the threats that people post on this site, my mind is so much more at ease knowing that. Also, I don't believe that a single e-mail sent through a ghost IP that might (but there is no evidence that it did) track back to Pakistan count as a credible death threat, requiring you to remain in "Undisclosed Locationville." I know you are going to play the Rushdie card with this one (and now that I've said it you'll say somebody else just to make yourself feel smarter) but, there are countless other people that offer differing opinions within Islam on a daily basis and add to the debate that are still alive and kicking and public throughout the world despite their opinions. I believe that you make up these false threats much in the same way that others do throughout the world to make it seem as though your opinions are somehow more legitimate, because "them folks don't want me spreadin' the truth, and they'll do anything..." Fortunately, that tactic, as well as others in your arsenal, don't phase too many people outside the JihadWatch and "24" fan clubs.

When you do a search in Muslim administered data bases expect to be mislead. The Koran at one time mentioned the word love "ONE TIME" now its mentioned around a Hundred times and growing.

Mr/Ms 'An American' - did you or any member of your family ever served for our country, I mean really served?

If you did not you are probably a Muslim, a deceptive person based on your postings.

What actually did you find wrong with Robert or anybody's postings, we don't read anything wrong that Robert writes?

You keep on 'cra..ing' about that you've received death threats, again, why don't you put yours bucks where your mouth is and show us a single posting that has threaten you?

Robert has made a plain clear that nobody has threaten to kill you, so why don't you shut-up or put-up?

Btw - We know a great deal more about Islam, so does the rest of the World that we had enough. We don't want to be part of it. Do you understand that? Sell your Camel S. to the clowns in Pakistan, the country of your origin.

"An American"

And you have the gaul to give Hugh a "length alert"?

That was some vacant, circular, wordy ad hominem and straw man arguments there.

"I regret to inform you that, although the six degrees of separation game between the Arabic terms for oppression and the infamous shirk can and is performed on a daily basis here and on sites like it, it is unfortunately hardly existent in the modern Islamic discourse. This is a connection primarily advocated by three or four Wahabist thinkers (who even then only apply this ideology to what are considered "core Islamic" countries)."

That's not what I get when I Google oppression and shirk. Seems more like an obsession.

Jerusalem Posts:

Good advice, though I doubt Robert will follow it. He doesn't seem to be the litigious kind.
Yet I think he should. Putting Islam and KA's truthfulness on trial would do an immense service to anti-jihadism.

jihadtobejoking:
Great posts. I have been hoping to hear from somebody like you. It's a rare occurence on sites in English. I read similar feelings and ideas in the now defunct france-echos from French people "de souche" (born and bred French for generations), hard-working, law-abiding people, despairing of being passed over because the Muslims are given preferential treatment, not, as the media would have it, being discriminated against, in education, the job market, housing and other benefits. The anger was palpable. Those folks didn't know anything about the Quran, but they all said the entire order of things was perverted not only for the benefit of aliens to the culture, but primarily that of their enablers, the political and administrative elites of the socialist state. Segolene Royal has become a millionnaire mostly on government paychecks while raising 4 children. It's so typical of the French elite. And, early in the campaign, she failed to disclose exactly what she was worth. I wonder why.

"The error in your writing is that you completely ignore the fact that this verse, alhtough you take it literally (like you do all verses unless it requires interpretation to make it in line with your views"
Posted by: An American

"I know that I will never change most opinions because most of you are so ingrained and bred towards hatred"
Posted by: An American

It strikes me that anyone who follows the teachings of a book which requires 'interpretation' and is treading dangerous ground when one takes it 'literaly' should perhaps look towards an 'Electrical Wiring Manual' for an example of why this is a stupid way to go through life.

Perhaps this can explain why wherever Muslims gather sparks fly? Just a though....

As far your second statement goes, that's a bit harsh doncha think? If being bred toward hatred means opening doors to asylum seekers and immigrants who then turn upon us with excessive demands and show intent to rearrange our political landsape and mores to suit themselves and their belives whilst calling out the race card and victimisation when they don't get what they want then who's really showing hatred.
Which of the two sentances below could be considered to be more accurate?

The Muslims love it here so much they the status quo to remain

or The Muslims hate it so much here they want to change it all and have Sharia law

You have to remember that we are aware of what happens in madrasses, we see the intolerance shown toward the poor piggies it should be fairly obvious where the hatred stems from and originates.

To be honest I never gave Islam a second thought nor looked at Muslims in suspicion untill 9/11 and even then never lost any sleep but finding this site and reading longwinded essays written by yourself and others who go to great lengths explaining away the intricate beauty of the Koranic verses and their endless meanings has got me confused as to why Muslims just cannot fit in and settle down with their neigbours.

You'll have a hard job convincing anyone who has a semblance of intelligence that Muslims are not essentially striven to conflict from an early age.
You can of course continue to try and force us to believe otherwise but as the street riots rage on in France and Sweden there will be Various other little annoying Islamic type idiosyncrasies kicking off here and there around the world apparantly refuting what you say. Perhaps you could ask them to 'Tone it down a bit' even just for the look of the thing while you have us mulling over the possibility that you could be correct in your assentions.

One last point and perhaps my most serious one would be this....Please pay careful attention to the IKEA instruction sheet when you make your next purchase, take eveything you read in it literaly, do not make interpretations! Othewise you could easily end up with a Koranic peice of furniture which has the doors on back to front, one of which will be upside down, three legs, wobbly and thirteen excess screws.

jihadtobejoking- scum like unAmerican can only see hatred when they look around themselves. They are so full of self-loathing and guilt over what they've got. They are incapable of seeing the Truth of things. The islamofascist sympathizer unAmerican, if he/she is lucky, will get to see a future enslaved- and still won't understand that it will have come about due to small minds like his own.

Dear "An American,"

Column day is Saturday. I finished yesterday around 6PM. Thanks for your concern.

If you think anything I have written argues that Armstrong was correct, I suggest you take a course in reading comprehension. In light of your earlier avowal that Qur'an 2:191 teaches that all warfare is sinful, I do think you need such a course, rather badly.

As for Malik, Humaid, and the rest, you likewise miss the point: I am not arguing that theirs is the correct interpretation. I am not in the least interested in whether or not it is correct. All I am interested in is that Muslims make this argument, and justify violence by making it. And that other Muslims who reject this interpretation are very interested in attributing it to me and telling me it is incorrect, but not at all interested in convincing Muslims who are convinced by it that it is incorrect. And that is the problem.

As for your death threats, I suggest you contact the FBI. As for the ones I have received, both the one you refer to and others, they did not share your dim view of their credibility. But here you yet again miss the point. If you think death threats confer authority to one's writings, or that I believe they do, you are quite mistaken. They are just a nuisance, courtesy of your more thuggish coreligionists. But one who receives them would be foolish to ignore them, and if you have really received any, I do urge you to contact the relevant authorities. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary I remain skeptical that you have, in fact, received any -- since your game is a familiar one of trying to deflect attention away from those committing actual violence and onto those who are trying to call attention to that violence and resist it -- but ultimately it is no concern of mine whatsoever.

Be safe,
Robert Spencer

"An American", by his last post that arrogantly dismisses the fine arguments marshalled by KAOSKTRL, Khaybar Oasis, and Caroline (not to mention Spencer) against his previous claims, has put the final nail in his coffin of credibility (no, that's not a death threat, I hasten to add for the benefit of the Muslim mentality that tends to think literally about every utterance).

I would urge fellow JW readers to ignore his future comments as utterly worthless; and I would hope that Spencer simply bans him so we don't have to experience that flutter of nearly retching nausea whenever, as we are scrolling down comments on this, that or the other thread, we happen to glide past that name, "An American".

LOL...they ARE worthless...but they're funny.
Why anyone would give his spew a worth of salt is beyond common sense-something he & the rest of the PC ilk are mortal enemies of.

or Dsouza for that matter?)
Posted by An American

A hint perhaps?

Jihadtobejoking What you are saying is very true. I have a bad habit of bringing Islam up in weird places.
An old Southern black man selling tomatoes on the side of the road surprised me with his knowledge of the pedophilia part of the religion of peace (not that he used that word).
He thought it was disgusting. I'm sure he didn't get his information from a scholarly tome.
The word is spreading. You can't continue to commit the horrific acts that are committed in the name of Islam every day and continue to keep the wool over every ones eyes.

Apparently there is some disillusion in Washington as well.

As I said, Washington taking some steps back.
To dream the impossible dream.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/27/AR2007042702054.html?nav=hcmodule

For a while there I could paste a link in, but alas, no more.

In the same review, Karen Armstrong says (a propos Tariq Ramadan's book) "the first time the word [jihad] is used in the Koran, it signified a "resistance to oppression" (25:26) that was intellectual and spiritual rather than militant."

I have looked up this verse, it appears not to mention jihad, and it's not a particularly early sura, so far as I can see. Can anyone explain what she means?

Masthead,

I looked up 25:26 also, and you are correct, there's nothing I can see about jihad there as a "resistance to oppression". We can add this to the list of egregiously sloppy errors the supposed "scholar" Karen Armstrong has piled up in her career. Didn't any editor at the Financial Times fact-check this article for Crissakes?

25:26 --

"The true kingdom on that day shall belong to the Merciful, and it shall be a hard day for the misbelievers."

Arabic Transliteration:

Almulku yawma-ithin alhaqqu lilrrahmani wakana yawman AAala alkafireena AAaseeran

"An American" says:

"I know that I will never change most opinions because most of you are so ingrained and bred towards hatred---like you would be on this site if you liked Muslims or even attempted to think with a clear mind"

As I said before re Armstrong, an Islam apologist makes accusations of hate and erroneous claims, and then fails to substantiate any of those accusations. You have also failed to refute anything said above regarding the relation between fitnah and shirk, apparently trying to bluff your way out of the problem with a few vague grumblings about some unnamed "Wahhabists"--an all-to-common scape-goat. [Note: Ibn Kathir, the Jalalayn, Ibn Ishaq, et al, were not Wahhabists].

You have also failed to provide the link to the threat that you claim was made here.

Khaybar Oasis:
I enjoyed your fisking of Armstrong's review. (The comment where you break down a paragraph of hers into 9 points.)

Jihadtobejoking:
I enjoyed your "rant."

"An American", by his last post that arrogantly dismisses the fine arguments marshalled by KAOSKTRL, Khaybar Oasis, and Caroline (not to mention Spencer) against his previous claims, has put the final nail in his coffin of credibility (no, that's not a death threat, I hasten to add for the benefit of the Muslim mentality that tends to think literally about every utterance).

And Robert Spencer's last comment (3:16 pm above) in response to "An American" was both funny and devastating. Seems there is nothing left of "An American" but a small field of ashes.

Mr Spencer,

I would love to see you engage in a public debate with Karen Armstrong. I know she will never allow herself to be in that position because you will rip her lies to shreds. Mrs Armstrong does a huge disservice to former Muslims like myself and to moderate Muslims like my family. She completely dismisses the danger apostates have to live with and reinforces the lies many moderate Muslims have been fed throughout their life about the peaceful nature of Islam. Nevertheless, she is one of the most boring and talentless writers I have ever had the misfortune to read. Her books are mega snoozers and her ideas are all over the place and don't flow well. I have to admit that despite my best efforts, I have never been able to finish reading any of her books and I was stupid enough to buy 3 of them. I struggled with "Islam: A short history". It was beyond boring and made me fall asleep every time I read a page. It is a great treatment for insomnia, I would have to say. I ended up throwing them in the trash. I did not want them deluding or boring any prospective readers. Keep up the good work Mr Spencer. Mrs Armstrong is not even worthy of reading your books, let alone review them.

The combination of Karen Armstrong and Grover Nyquist running loose in the halls of the White House goes a long way to explaining the islamo-naivete of both George Bush and Condi Rice. The Religion of Peace message of Armstrong and Nyquist has been mouthed by George and Condi ever since 9/11, and no doubt she and Grover had a lot to do with it. Suppliers of disinformation to Bush under the guise of Islamic expertise.

Only once did Bush use the word "Islamo-fascists", and that was quickly swept aside probably when some Islamophile told him something like "Heavens, Mr. President, Don’t use that word! It is not respectful of the fact that Islam is a Religion of Peace"

Karen, was that you?

Compared to the days of George Washington and of Abraham Lincoln, when traitors were hung or at least jailed, today they write columns for lefty newspapers and continue to hold high posts in government.

I must apologize, but I don't usually spend my time in front of my computer all the time responding to people who hate everyone who doesn't agree with them.

An American

My goodness, aren't we wading in hyperbole and histrionics here?

Just doing some thinking...............
and I have decided that you are a sarcastic, condescending, poor sport who can't bear to lose an argument and even when you do, you refuse to concede. Some issues are pure black or white; no grey, no nuances, no nebulous fringes, not open to subjective interpretation. Apparently you possess a supernatural ability which enables you to see and understand the concealed goodness ensconced in islam, so you must be one of the lucky chosen ones. Congratulations.

Nobody here "hates" everyone who disagrees with them. Do you realize how infantile that comment sounds? You try entirely too hard to defend or nullify the dark and sinister heart of islamic doctrine and that begs the question: why?

Thsi is the thems song for those with a petted lip.
All together now......

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me,
Guess I'll go eat worms,
Long, thin, slimy ones; Short, fat, juicy ones,
Itsy, bitsy, fuzzy wuzzy worms.

Down goes the first one, down goes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.
Up comes the first one, up comes the second one,
Oh how they wiggle and squirm.

The Jihad Watch archives are littered with the bones of Muslim challengers who popped in for a while to shoot off rounds of wildly missing pot-shots and failed -- though not without the deployment of a lot of smoke and mirrors -- to respond to any of the substantive counter-arguments marshalled against them, before finally disappearing forever.

R.I.P. An American.

His bones lie atop the bones of Mike Ghouse, and before him Tom Haidon (though Tom periodically resurrects himself in order to reiterate his inscrutable unresponsiveness), and before him "Matoko", and before her or him, many others whose names and/or nicknames are lost to the ravages of time...

QUOTE FROM COMMENT ABOVE by remote control: "...shoot off rounds of wildly missing pot-shots and failed -- though not without the deployment of a lot of smoke and mirrors -- to respond to any of the substantive counter-arguments marshalled against them..."

Precisely. I see these muzzie "arguments" all the time -- often punctuated with "you'll never understand Islam" or the all-time fave, "get your facts straight" without then offering anything to prove that my "facts" are indeed amiss.
http://grsb.jakchat.com

The other fave, of course, which Armstrong and the jihadis and their "brothers" always use is this whole thing about HATE. Those of us, who really prefer not to live our lives under a Taliban-esque Caliphate are called "haters". And when we try to explain why we'd prefer to live with our own Western cultural traditions and freedoms, we, of course, are "espousing hatred"...

And this is more than just a word. Nobody wants to be known as a "hater". Think of all the negative connotations, like "hate crimes" good and evil = love and hate.

It's these apologists way of trying to stop those in our culture that wish to defend it. Unfortunately, there are too many people like Armstrong, who've sold out for one reason or another.

I would not like to get into a big ad hominem debate here, but what is it that motivates people like Armstrong to unconditionally defend backwardness, murder and misogyny?

In a hundred years from now, when OUR great grandchildren read the history of this period and see all the turmoil and bloodshed as a result of muzzies attempting to dominate the globe -- but ultimately losing -- I wonder what questions they'll ask their teacher or parent when they see that some of 'our own' (like Armstrong) were actively aiding and abetting the monsters?

I posted the reviews on this book, The Truth About Muhammad on my site a few weeks back and got quite a lot of feedback from my regular readers, many of whom are Indonesian Islamists who much of the world believe to be moderate... Please feel free to take a few minutes and comment there as I'm keen have interesting, intelligent people involved in that discussion. The title of the thread on Mr. Spencer's book is "Prophet MO exposed!"
http://grsb.jakchat.com
RSS feed: http://www.jakchat.com/forums/cache/rss12.xml

If opposition to Islam is an age-old Western prejudice, then maybe there's something to be said for prejudice. Prejudices may be walls, but walls are there to protect those behind them from real dangers. The trick is to be sure your walls have at least a few doors and windows.

Feminism and Islam go together like: oil and water...

This of course explains feminist silence on the Islam, except for the frequent outbursts of such dumbasses as Rosie on the View.

* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *

As we've seen over the past three decades, feminists and Moslems get along just fine.

Life is all about domination and submission, and whether you're a radical-feminist-lesbian biting the hand that feeds you, or a clitorodectimist male Moslem medical doctor biting the hand that feeds you... it's all chewable, and quite digestable, with enough acid in the system, that is.

Confused women can be bottoms too.

"As for Ms Armstrong, she is a well-known apostate from Catholicism yet no Catholic preist or bishop has called for her death"

...actually, they probably were happy to be rid of her....

Muslim "American" believes anything he wants to believe.

But then being a Muslim means never having to tell the truth and believing everything the religious authorities say. Everything.