As with the Brown story, this story from the Dartmouth college newspaper is accompanied by a bogeyman photo obviously designed to portray me as a Hitlerian rabble-rouser. There was a campus photographer at the Darmouth talk who was, I was told, taking "hundreds" of photos. I responded at the time that he was no doubt taking so many pictures so he could find one that made me look as bad as possible. And here we are.
Anyway, in the story, a Muslim student blandly retails falsehoods about what the Qur'an says, and where I stand. More comments below.
"‘Islamo-fascism’ speaker met with controversy," by Thomas Bukowski in TheDartmouth.com (thanks to Harrison Sonntag):
Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of two New York Times bestsellers on Islamic jihad, gave a speech to an audience of around 70 in Dartmouth Hall on Friday on the subject of “Islamo-fascism.” Amid much controversy over the week’s advertising, the keynote speech received a standing ovation and was the concluding event of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” at the College.During his speech, Spencer called on the audience to end the silence on the subject of what he called Islamo-fascism.
“Now is the time for every person of conscience to call what oppression and injustice are —- oppression and injustice,” Spencer said. “That’s why we need Islamo-fascism Awareness Week.”
Chloe Mulderig ‘05, who identifies as a “moderate Muslim” and works for the anthropology department, said that Dartmouth disagrees with Spencer’s assertion that Dartmouth needs such a week.
“Part of their agenda is to illicit [sic] a response, but we’re smarter than that,” Mulderig said. “Debate about terrorism is very important, but Robert Spencer is unfortunately bringing hate speech on campus and hates Islam itself.”
Of course, no evidence is offered for this. I ask anyone and everyone, including Chloe Mulderig, to listen to the talk I gave at Dartmouth and to come up with even a single example of "hate speech."
Spencer defended the term “Islamo-fascism” and denied that the term equates Islam to terrorism. He added that terms such as Italian and German fascism used during World War II did not apply to the entire populations of Italy or Germany.“Saying that Islamo-fascism tars all Muslims simply defies all common sense,” he said.
Spencer said that there was a growing movement of fundamentalist Muslims within the Islamic world who are “claiming the mantle of Islamic purity”.
“Without an authority on who can say what is ‘true Islam’ and when they can base their words on the Koran, then it can and does have a great effect on the Islamic world.”
Spencer claimed that Al-Qaeda and Hamas, who feel “the need for waging war against Christians and Jews until they submit,” sprang from this disagreement about the finer details of Islam.
Spencer also emphasized that in the society that jihadists would implement, women would be one of main groups to suffer .
Though Mulderig was impressed by Spencer’s knowledge of Islamic theology, she questioned the accuracy of his comments concerning the Koran in regards to women.
“[Spencer’s assertion] that the Koran says it is okay to beat women is incorrect and offensive,” she said.
Is that so?
Qur'an 4:34 tells men to beat their disobedient wives after first warning them and then sending them to sleep in separate beds. This is, of course, an extremely controversial verse, so it is worth noting how several translators render the key word here, وَاضْرِبُوهُنَّ, waidriboohunna.
Pickthall: “and scourge them”
Yusuf Ali: “(And last) beat them (lightly)”
Al-Hilali/Khan: “(and last) beat them (lightly, if it is useful)”
Shakir: “and beat them”
Sher Ali: “and chastise them”
Khalifa: “then you may (as a last alternative) beat them”
Arberry: “and beat them”
Rodwell: “and scourge them”
Sale: “and chastise them”
Daryabadi: "and beat them"
Asad: “then beat them”
Pickthall, Yusuf Ali, Al-Hilali/Khan, Shakir, Sher Ali, Khalifa, Daryabadi and Asad are Muslims. Are their translations all "incorrect and offensive"?
Laleh Bakhtiar, in a new translation that has received wide publicity, translates Qur'an 4:34 as “go away from them.” In light of this unanimity among the translators, both Muslim and non-Muslim, this seems difficult to sustain – all of these authorities got the passage wrong until Bakhtiar? But her impulse is understandable, as many Muslims today regard this verse with acute embarrassment. Asad adduces numerous traditions in which Muhammad “forbade the beating of any woman,” concluding that wife-beating is “barely permissible, and should preferably be avoided.”
Unfortunately, however, this is not a unanimous view. Sheikh Syed Mahmud Allusi in his commentary Ruhul Ma’ani gives four reasons that a man may beat his wife: “if she refuses to beautify herself for him,” if she refuses sex when he asks for it, if she refuses to pray or perform ritual ablutions, and “if she goes out of the house without a valid excuse.”
But Mulderig would apparently prefer to pretend that I made this up rather than deal with Muslim approval of wife-beating.
Muldering also wished that a speaker without an agenda was brought in to ignite discussion about terrorism.“Though a part of Spencer’s agenda is to increase awareness [of terrorism], the other part is to hate on Muslims,” she said.
Once again: prove it. These are false and libelous charges. I argued during the talk that peaceful Muslims were among the victims of jihadists who deem them insufficiently Muslim. It is an act of hate to make false and libelous charges against someone one opposes. Mulderig should back it up if she can, or retract it.
In the question and answer session following the speech, Spencer was asked by a member of the audience if having an Islamo-fascism Awareness Week meant that the College should also have a week for other countries, including a “CIA-fascism awareness week”.“You guys have that every week here,” Spencer replied, a comment that was met with applause from the mostly-conservative audience.
Spencer was introduced by Professor Meir Kohn of the economics department, who highlighted how the effects of Islamo-fascism was brought to the world’s attention by Sept. 11, 2001 and criticized the ambivalent view of Islamo-fascism by the “left”.
“Marxism currently exists in only three places: North Korea, Cuba and American universities,” said Kohn. He went on to call the academic left a “watered-down version of Marxism.”
Kohn also said that the silence about Islamo-fascism by the academic left is a form of passive approval, and that the front of the war for awareness of this issue is waged on American university campuses.
At one point during the speech, two Safety and Security officers came into the auditorium. They said that they were “not here in official capacity”, but there “just to make sure things were OK,” adding that they found the speech interesting.
Mulderig felt that the presence of the Safety and Security officers was the most offensive part of the event.
“The College clearly has a lot of faith in the muslim community,” she said sarcastically.
Sorry. I know Noam Chomsky and Tom Friedman could go to any campus and speak without needing guards, given the Leftist fascist thugs who dominate so many campuses today, I am not going to have faith in anyone.
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The easiest way to fight people like this guy at Dartmouth is to pass copies of the Kuran around with key violent passages underlined and SHOW people what Islam teaches first hand. Watch the horror on peoples' faces when you read the Surah 9.5 for example!
If you do this, there should NO trouble cleaning up the legacy left behind by the Islamo- Communist-fascist-leftist liars who have been spreading ghastly propaganda lies around our once-fair nation. Islam IS evil and the Kuran's innumerable verses teaching first degree murder PROVE it beyond any doubt!
Is someone running around calling YOU something heinous because you DARE condemn Islam for its diabolical doctrines? IF so, open a Kuran before your enemies' eyes and prove YOU are in the right and THEY are in the wrong!