David Frum appears to have changed his mind about Bat Ye'or, the pioneering historian of dhimmitude and the Cassandra of Eurabia. In 2002, he called her "the great Islamic scholar," a "very great scholar: original, authoritative, lucid."
I agree with those assessments, but today Frum apparently does not. For in a new article published in Moment Magazine and reprinted at the American Enterprise Institute site, Frum portrays her -- and me -- as one side of a Manichaean dualism (of which the other side is represented by John Esposito and Karen Armstrong) that fails to take into account the nuance, the richness, the multifaceted way in which Muslims have approached the Qur'an throughout history, and instead, in an over-simplistic and reductionist way, finds the cause of today's Islamic violence in the Qur'an and Muhammad:
[...] After the 9/11 terror attacks, Americans understandably felt a new surge of curiosity about Islam. In response, scholars and writers have offered two broad types of answer.The first answer is defensive and apologetic. As typified, for example, in the work of the scholar John Esposito and the popularizer Karen Armstrong, this school denies any special connection at all between Islam and violence. To the extent that it acknowledges Islamic violence at all, it condones it as response to the aggressions of others. The logical implication of this work: If we want terrorism to stop, we must change our own behavior to stop provoking it.
The opposing answer is accusatory. As typified by the work of the scholar Bat Ye'or and the popularizer Robert Spencer, it locates the sources of Islamic violence in the Koran itself, in the person of Muhammad, and in the core teachings of the Muslim faith. The logical implication of this work: Islamic violence will continue so long as Islam itself plagues the earth.
I think it is important to point out that I have never, ever spoken in these terms, and never will. I don't speak about Islam "plaguing the earth," and I don't think speaking in lurid terms like that gets us anywhere. Also, I don't approve of talk of eradicating Islam, which is not only complete fantasy, but also seems to me to be an inherently genocidal idea, barring some mass apostasy or mass conversion, neither of which seems any more likely than a UFO invasion.
Instead, I have consistently called for the West to mount a strong military and cultural/ideological defense, while asking Muslims who sincerely don't condone the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism to confront the elements of their tradition and theology that jihadists use today to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, and formulate new ways to understand them so as to try to blunt the force of that justification and recruitment.
Frum continues:
Let me suggest another way to think about this dilemma.The Koran is certainly a troublesome book. Hastily compiled over a period of probably less than a century (as compared to almost a millennium for the Tanakh and three hundred years for the Christian scriptures), it is a weird and often contradictory agglomeration. Ancient Arabic poetry is shoved together with primitive legal rulings. Garbled accounts of obscure military triumphs are thrown in alongside apocryphal literature translated from the Aramaic. Calls to arms appear among preachings of brotherhood. The whole is then interspersed with repeated threats of eternal damnation to anyone who doubts the literal truth of all that is said therein.
It is an easy task for the modern polemicist to choose one of the harsher Wahhabi translations, pluck the most lurid verses and frame an indictment. But doing so does not correspond to the human realities. Millions of human beings over hundreds of years have been inspired to lead better and more moral lives by their Islamic faith. Like the doctors and lawyers, accountants and businessmen, psychologists and teachers of my synagogue, they have nodded their heads over shocking words--and then reinterpreted them, allegorized them or simply ignored them.
"It is an easy task for the modern polemicist to choose one of the harsher Wahhabi translations, pluck the most lurid verses and frame an indictment." Frum apparently buys into the common idea, which I debunked here, that the "most lurid verses" of the Qur'an are relatively newly minted, and planted into translations by wicked Saudi Wahhabis. In reality, as you can see from my discussions of sura 9 and other passages in the Blogging the Qur'an series, mainstream pre-Wahhabi Qur'an interpreters affirm that the Qur'an teaches warfare against and the subjugation of non-Muslims under the rule of lslamic law.
But perhaps more importantly, Frum seems to buy into the very common claim that I (and possibly Bat Ye'or, and others) make it our business to root around in the Qur'an trying to find passages that make Muslims look bad. In reality, I would have no interest in doing such a thing, and in any case there is no need to do it, because the jihadists themselves are already doing it. It is Osama bin Laden and others like him all over the world who consistently and copiously quote the Qur'an in order to convince Muslims that they need to be waging jihad. All I do is report on that use.
I do not, however, believe that the Qur'an and other holy books are infinitely malleable, and that we can make them into whatever we want to make them into. I believe that words mean things, and that ideas have power, and that they are not simply meaningless and interchangeable, which is the assumption behind this view -- as if Marxism could just as easily give rise to asceticism and monasticism as Buddhism, given the proper conditions. But Frum, apparently, does subscribe to this Qur'an-As-Silly-Putty view:
Holy books are like mirrors that reflect us back to ourselves. The peaceful man finds words of reconciliation, the vindictive woman reads a summon to revenge. The loving hear calls to love more deeply; the hateful are confirmed in their hate. It is not the text that makes the religion what it is; it is the reader.
Very well. Even taking this as true doesn't deal with the problem of what to do about readers who see hate in the text and act upon it. One would think that those who see love there would see a need to confront those who see hate and try to counter their views -- the very thing I keep calling upon peaceful Muslims to do regarding the jihadists.
If one goes back into Islamic history, one encounters many devout Muslims who read their religion in ways that seem impressively modern. They recognized that the Koran was a work of human origin, a product of its times. They applied the techniques of skeptical historiography to the legends of the life of Muhammad, the hadiths, eliminating thousands of them as spurious. Muslims called this approach "ijtihad," the application of human reason to religious revelation.
In speaking of Muslims who "recognized that the Koran was a work of human origin, a product of its times," Frum may be referring to the Mu'tazilites, who rejected the notion that the Qur'an is a perfect copy of an eternal and immutable book that has existed forever with Allah. They were hardly nonviolent, as they viciously persecuted their Muslim enemies during the ninth-century caliphate of Al-Ma'mun.
But in any case, they were attacked as heretical, and ultimately completely eradicated. It is hard to see how a movement long ago declared heretical by mainstream Islamic authorities could possibily provide a way forward today without encountering the same kind of opposition. Perhaps Frum has an explanation for this, but in his piece he gives no hint of it, and instead gives the impression that Muslims who regarded the Qur'an as "a work of human origin, a product of its times" were perfectly mainstream, and that this was an Islamic idea that was acceptable to the orthodox theologians. It never was.
Catastrophic events in Islamic history--and perhaps also a gathering awareness that the skeptical method might cut much deeply than even its first practitioners anticipated--led to the famous "closing of the gates of ijtihad" almost one thousand years ago. But now the pressure of modernity is forcing those gates open again. Many Muslims experience this opening as deeply threatening. Reactionary Islam promises to relieve those feelings by slamming the gates shut forever, with all the force derivable from hundreds of billions of dollars of oil wealth.
They may be opening again. Some claim they've never closed. But the opposition to their opening is not just Saudi oil wealth. It is the weight of a millennium of orthodoxy. No less an eminence than the prominent moderate Shi'ite theologian Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University, in his consideration of Islam and modernity, Ideals and Realities of Islam, says:
Certain modernists over the past century have tried to change the Shari‘ah, to reopen the gate of ijtihad, with the aim of incorporating modern practices into the Law and limiting the function of Shari‘ah to personal life. All of these activities emanate from a particular attitude of spiritual weakness vis-à-vis the world and surrender to the world. Those who are conquered by such a mentality want to make the Shari‘ah ‘conform to the times,’ which means to the whims and fancies of men and the ever changing human nature which has made ‘the times.’ They do not realize that it is the Shari‘ah according to which society should be modeled not vice versa.
Frum concludes:
Yet against these reactionaries stand many other Muslims to whom free inquiry offers emancipation and progress. Like you and me, they believe that they can sift enduring ethical truths from the accidents and accretions of tradition; that they can extract moral lessons from stories even after they have ceased to believe in their literal truth; that they can judge their religion as well as be judged by it.The Koran is their book, too. They don't have to rewrite it. Just reread it.
I think that is theoretically possible, with the caveats I have explained above, but I am sorry that Mr. Frum has decided to frame it as an attack on Bat Ye'or and me, or at least as if it is something we would oppose. Also, he does non-Muslims (who get unrealistic hopes) and sincere Muslim reformers a disservice by painting an overly optimistic picture of what those reformers need to do, without bothering to mention that even to begin this undertaking puts their lives at risk. They deserve better.
The misunderstanders of Robert's line of argument are legion. Somehow grasping this central point that it is how the jihadists interpret the texts that matter, not what we as outsiders believe to be the 'true' Islam is impossible for many - I know this personally, as I often parrot this particular line in debates. Fact is, I've seen debates stop dead in their tracks because the opponent just seemed unable to (or unwilling to) confront this angle. But then, accepting the premise that it is what jihadists say and do, and how they interpret, that matters, would preclude the use of ad-hominem attacks. Maybe that's the rub.
Frum : "The logical implication of this work: Islamic violence will continue so long as Islam itself plagues the earth."
Whether Mr. Spencer thinks this or not, it's still true. Islamic violence will indeed continue as long as Islam itself plagues the earth.
If there was no Islam, there wouldn't be Islamic violence, and since Islam has been around, it HAS plagued the earth. Reference any civilization to have come in contact with it in the past 1,350 years.
I can't think of a better description for Islam as a plague...maybe a parasite, but it's a pretty good adjective.
This is a classic example of Political Correctness. To actually say that Islam plagues the earth, regardless if it's true or not, as Mr. Frum attributes to Mr. Spencer as saying, or believing, is taboo, and Mr. Spencer may not believe this.... but it's still true.
Then, as one takes the stance that it's not true, because one can't say the taboo, even if one thinks it is true, one has to make up excuses in order to justify their position that it's not true, which infact is protecting the Islamic faith built on piracy, plunder because the truth just cannot be said.
Islam is what it is....the lipstick on the pig isn't working.
'In speaking of Muslims who "recognized that the Koran was a work of human origin, a product of its times," Frum may be referring to the Mu'tazilites,'
Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Who knows? Unlike Robert Spencer, Frum does not make appropriate references to canonical Muslim texts or traditions, and, again unlike Robert Spencer, shows no sign of having properly acquainted himself with the Qur'an, Sira & Hadith; the whole unlovely shebang.
Read it all and then come back with something worth listening to or reading.
Eradicating Islam implies the same thing. Even if there isn't a collective war against the likes of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran and others, doing a number of things - primarily banning the practice of Islam in non-Muslim countries, as well as ending Muslim immigration and destroying the military and law enforcement capability of Islamic countries could be adequate in defanging Islam. At some point, a majority of Muslims could end up either openly becoming Athiests or Agnostics, or converting to something else altogether - something that has historically been known to happen.
I agree with Sneakyzionistcrusader as well - Islamic violence will indeed continue as long as Islam itself plagues the earth. In the absense of Islam, no other type of violence would be as gripping towards other people. Even Communism - threatening as it was - was rational: the Communists never believed in killing themselves in order to overcome their enemies.
Another person who's mentally decided what sort of Muslim he would be and somehow thinks that has bearing on the world at large. Frum's probably making some nice money from the Gulf.
Yet against these reactionaries stand many other Muslims to whom free inquiry offers emancipation and progress. Like you and me, they believe that they can sift enduring ethical truths from the accidents and accretions of tradition; that they can extract moral lessons from stories even after they have ceased to believe in their literal truth; that they can judge their religion as well as be judged by it.
In other words, as long as they don't really believe the Koran, they can make it say whatever they want. Does Frum realize what he is saying? Religion doesn't last long when believers think that it is just stories. Basically, he is telling Muslims to dump their religion and accept Western notions of belief because he has himself. He's just going through the motions of his Judaism and picking and choosing what he believes. No serious religious believer is going to do that. I wouldn't and I don't expect Muslims will either.
Frum unfortunately peddles a very common falsehood that comes with an embarrassed apology for what? Biblical atrocities at the time of Abraham? The holocaust? Immigrating to Israel and making Israel a successful Jewish state?
"Like the doctors and lawyers, accountants and businessmen, psychologists and teachers of my synagogue, they have nodded their heads over shocking words--and then reinterpreted them, allegorized them or simply ignored them."
Frum is a parrot. This ' reinterpretation' thing is a generally believed fallacy among many orthodox Jews, it makes me puke when I hear it. This line of reasoning presumes that 'Muslims are just like us, if we give them time they will reinterprete their holy texts'- BS.
How do you reinterprete 'the Jews are the vilest of creatures' and the 'glorious hadith' that calls the Jews 'sons of apes and swine' who must be wiped out to the last?
Muslims are not Jews. We have nothing in common, except a history where we have been killed en masse, driven out of our homes over 1400 years or been subjugated to dhimmi-slavery under the Muhammadan yoke.
Read the Koran, Frum! In context and stop parroting drivel!
Hastily compiled over a period of probably less than a century (as compared to almost a millennium for the Tanakh and three hundred years for the Christian scriptures) . . . .
Where on earth does Frum get the idea that "the Christian scriptures" were composed over a 300-year period? I've never heard of any Bible scholar dating any book of the NT earlier than 40 (the Gospel of Matthew, according to a decidedly minority opinion) or later than 150, which gives a maximum range of 110 years. (No scholar would actually argue for that range, because the traditionalists who hold to the early authorship of Matthew would also hold that none of the NT was written later than the death of the Apostle John, about 100, which would give a maximum range of 60 years.) Or does Frum think the canons and decrees of the Council of Nicaea are part of the New Testament?
Where on earth does Frum get the idea that "the Christian scriptures" were composed over a 300-year period?
Good point Seamus. I have no idea where he pulled that figure unless he's saying the text didn't count until it was compiled into the Bible. Of course, the pre-canon texts basically match the canon. So, I don't know what he's thinking. I don't know how he describes the Koran as hastily compiled either. What exactly does that mean, "hastily compiled?"
He's just completely confused about this like most non-religious/religious-in-name-only people.
"The opposing answer is accusatory. As typified by the work of the scholar Bat Ye'or and the popularizer Robert Spencer, it locates the sources of Islamic violence in the Koran itself....The logical implication of this work: Islamic violence will continue so long as Islam itself plagues the earth".
Unfortunately, this is true. Muslims have no right to ask for acceptance any more than they accept non-Muslim religions in Saudi Arabia. I don't think this "religion" is reformable or capable of anything else but deception. People are wising-up re Islam's "War is deception". Deception is Islam's "internal contradiction". It's loathsome.
Frum may have come under the sway of the One True Authority: Bernard Lewis, or possibly to those who are not only his former students, but became his acolytes. That, at least, is one conceivable explanation. Articulate, impressive, learned, kind to those students in whom he takes a real interest, cultivated in ways that his enemies, the dabashis, khalidis, espositos and ernsts, are not and can never be, Bernard Lewis is nonetheless not necessarily the final authority on Islam, its meaning and menace.
If one works backwards from his policy enthusiasms this may become clearer. Think of his enthusiasm, undiminished for so long, for the Oslo Accords (and what that enthusiasm tells us about his understanding of the depth, and source, of Arab Muslim hostility toward Israel). Think of his enthusiasm for the Iraq venture, and his surprise, when Iraq turned out not to be full of supporters of Ahmad Chalabi, and his current position on the Iraq Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations project, which is that there was nothing wrong with it in its conception, but unfortunately the Administration managed to bungle the execution. In fact, the conception itself was wrong, for instead of removing Saddam Hussein and thereby ensuring the transfer of power to the Shi'a,and ensuring as well, with that transfer, that the Sunni Arabs would never accept the new dispensation, Lewis was all for creating a Light-Unto-the-Muslim Nations. It was a mad idea. Others suggested it would "all end in tears" and so, of course, "surge" or no surge, it will, because the squandering of men, money, materiel, with no conceivable gain worth that squandering (oh, we can stay in Iraq another year, five years, ten years, it doesn't matter -- Kemalism seemed to have recreated Turkey, as Lewis himself thought, over 80 years, and now Islam is back, with a vengeance), cannot continue much longer.
Frum once seemed to have responded to the amplitude of a quite different wave length. But he's succumbed to that "nuanced" view that, in so many areas, is called for. But when it comes to an ideology such as Islam, it makes almost as little sense to offer a "nuanced" view, when there is altogether too much "nuance" and finding of "moderates" here and there and everywhere, as little sense as it made with Communism. How useful was it, after all, to pin one's hopes on that denouncer-of-Stalin nice Mr. Khrushchev as being so very different from the party theoretician mean Mr. Suslov?; how much sense did it make to sing the praises of slender, elegant Chou En-Lai as someone "whom one can do business with" as opposed to that coarse-featured rustic Chairman Mao. And of course no one of sense from 1939 on, would have argued for seeking to deal in a "nuanced" manner with different kinds of, different currents of, Nazis.
I have to say, David's passage that begins, The Koran is certainly a troublesome book... is a terse, yet brilliant description of the Koran.
I think that Mr. Frum, like others that take the position that Islam is not inherently flawed, and that what flaws that do exist, are in the minds of the beholders, and, given a correct attitude, one can find all kinds of enlightened and uplifting things in Islam, are just afraid of the brick wall they've reached, and can't get over or around.
It's easier to retreat into the fantasy that the problem is in people, not in the theology. Otherwise, they might have to conclude that Islam is not reformable. And where where does that leave them?
Islam should be the focus of all efforts, it is the enemy. If you can't teach it, can't read it, hear it, preach it, go into the "churches", follow it's "laws",etc, it would be in effect, banned.
It would not be easy, but it could be done.
And ending islam means the followers have nothing to follow. People are programmed every day, and some followers would require a reprograming. Reform could be attempted much better if the faith was under control, and the current islam was not being offered to the world instead, reformers are forced to fight the current islam, just to live, to see another day.
Robert has my hope for success, if it could be done, the world's future could be very bright. If any can help guide the effort, none better could be found.
The only other options I see are, outlaw islam here, just as done in Saudia Arabia with other faiths, or wait it out until the oil runs out, or we quit using oil. Seal the borders, no followers of islam into the free world that they hate.
Or , it, the faith of islam, will take the world to war, or many wars, until it is removed.
Or we are.
Frum: Like you and me, they believe that they can sift enduring ethical truths from the accidents and accretions of tradition; that they can extract moral lessons from stories even after they have ceased to believe in their literal truth; that they can judge their religion as well as be judged by it.
If a muslim said that in public, they would be labeled an apostate and probably killed. Since when do muslims get to 'judge' Islam? Those muslims who are brave enough to 'judge' the words of Allah are in a heep of trouble. Those muslims who are brave enough to 'judge' the Prophet are headed for Allah
's fire, or the gallows, or both. As far as I can see this guy is blowing smoke...
OT...I heard Savage today refer to muslims as a race...I thought he knew better than that...
"The opposing answer is accusatory. As typified by the work of the scholar Bat Ye'or and the popularizer Robert Spencer"
"The Koran is certainly a troublesome book."
--Both comments by Frum.--
Truth
"It is an easy task for the modern polemicist to choose one of the harsher Wahhabi translations,"
--Frum--
These "cherry-picked" verses, ever-present in the Qur'an and interpreted in kind since ijtihad's end, by the scholars of the four main schools of Islamic jurispredence.
Taqiyya.
The bar is now open for the evening. You have a choice of only two drinks...truth or taqiyya.
What'll it be, mate??
Yet against these reactionaries stand many other Muslims to whom free inquiry offers emancipation and progress.
So where are those non-reactionaries? How many are there? What percentage of the Muslim population do they represent? Unless and until they come forward and denounce those who preach violence, what good are they? Why would you believe anything they tell you in private if they are not willing to take a public stand to that effect? Their silence in the face of violent jihadists speaks volumes and it is positively deafening.
"Lewis was all for creating a Light-Unto-the-Muslim Nations. It was a mad idea".
Indeed. President Wilson died in Iraq. I have a close personal (Arab) pal who agrees with you. In some ways, we are are as crazy as them in the "democracy" nonsense. There is no way Muslim majorities will protect non-Muslim minority opinion-ideas as necessary-as in in our idea of "democracy". It will not happen under Islam in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere in the Arab-or the rest of the Muslim world. We must face reality on this.
If the Koran were anything but the major religious work of a major religion, it would not be given the time of day. The deference shown it is out of all proportion to what it deserves. (There is far more wisdom in Shakespeare than there is in the Koran.) I forced myself to read this work, all of it, and I have never come across a more repetitive, disturbing, desultory, stultifying, boring, uninspiring and contradictory work in all my life unless it be Hitler's Mein Kampf or Marx's Das Kapital.
Trying to "reread" the Koran so that it fits in with modern life is a desperate act, just as attempting such with Adolf's or Karl's tomes would be. Totalitarian texts, whether Das Kapital, Mein Kampf or the Koran, are prescriptions for the destruction of human freedom and the imprisonment of the mind. They do not deserve rereadings in order to find a peaceful and enlightened version of them. What they do deserve is eternal skepticism and scorn.
Frum cites the two different approaches to Islam and the Koran as 'defensive and apologetic' and as 'accusatory.' I suppose he thinks his is the truthful approach.
He doesn't really don't want to know Islam, yet he feels it's important that he share his thoughts about it with like-minded readers who also don't want to know. It's always fools like this who bring conscientiousness into their studies of a chronically malevolent religion like Islam, lest they come to a conclusion that they feel they couldn't hold in good faith, EVEN if it's regarding a religion of bad faith. Truth is simply not that important to them, which makes them unimportant.
Ok, I'll take a peaceful stab at part of this.
"Holy books are like mirrors that reflect us back to ourselves. The peaceful man finds words of reconciliation, the vindictive woman reads a summon to revenge. The loving hear calls to love more deeply; the hateful are confirmed in their hate."
This is a Western projection onto Islam as if surely it is the same as any other religion, right? After all, Jews and Christians approach their Holy books in such a way (at least nowadays), so Muslims can and do too, right?
Well, in Frum's example of the the peaceful man searching and finding words of peace and reconciliation in the Koran, it's true that those messages are there. But unlike other religions of the world the love and peace messages in islam are not universalist. The peace and love is for other Muslims only (members only), not for mankind in general. Yes this love is ready to be spread to others in the event they accept the invitation to Islam, but God help them if they resist or refuse. Such conditional love is a difference in kind from other faiths which truly do at least strive to extend love (if not approval) even to those who do not join up.
This is a bit of a tangent but can we see this difference at work today in the world of charity? Zakat (charitable giving) is one of the Five Pillars of Sunni Islam. Therefore Islamic charities are numerous and well-funded (thanks to oil money). And they are trans-national. I wonder how much they do to help and benefit Non-muslims? Very little (if any) I bet. It would be an interesting thing to study. Western and Christian charities clearly help anyone, everyone. Is the Red Crescent as ecumenical? If there were devastating floods in Poland (where there is virtually no Muslim population) would the Islamic charities rush in with relief?
"It is not the text that makes the religion what it is; it is the reader."
Again, a western projection. Not many Muslims would agree with Frum here I'm afraid. Islam is a complete, closed system which seeks to regulate all aspects of a believer's life. Islam itself means to submit. That means submitting to Allah and by extension what Allah says in the Koran. Therefore it IS the text, the Koran, which makes Islam what it is, and many Muslims what they are.
Most Muslims do not have the luxury of picking and choosing which aspects of Islam they want to follow or ignore. They ignore at great peril in many parts of the Islamic world.
I already mentioned the messages of peace and love in the Koran and how they are meant primarily for other Muslims, fellow believers. What of the messages of hate and intolerance? Ah, here is where Islam stops being clubby and internal. The hate is mostly directed outward against Non-muslims. Infidels. Islam is the most xenophobic faith on earth (that I'm aware of anyway). There is so much hatred and intolerance in the Koran for non-believers (i.e. Non-muslims).
Here, in stark contrast to the love prescribed for fellow Muslims, is the hate prescribed for those outside Islam (Infidels) who are invited to join but decide not to. If Islam is rejected then Muslims are enjoined to either crush or rule over them.
This deadly nexus of love and hate makes Islam appealing or appalling depending on whether one submits to it or rejects it. Rejecting Islam can be a deadly path, especially for those unlucky enough to be born into it. What other religion in the world calls for the death of those who decide to leave it? Islam is not just another religion.
"The logical implication of this work: Islamic violence will continue so long as Islam itself plagues the earth."
It's not a pleasant prospect, he's right about that.
alexon, it often seems to me that many critics of Islam don't appreciate just how hard it is fundamentally for a Muslim to change his or her religion. Indeed, because Islam is such a closed system, it almost becomes psychologically impossible for a Muslim to convert to another religion or willfully utter that he thinks it's all bunk. I think the best approach to dealing with Islam is to willfully resist any attempts to impose Islamic viewpoints/practices on the West and keep a close eye on extremism in the Middle East--at least insofar as it can effect the West a la 9/11.
The strongest weapon Islamic Supremacists have is unity and damn well knowing and being clear about what they want, and the only thing that can defeat is similar unity from the West.
I was going to buy his new book but not now.
"allah" is Satan and muhammad is his demon minion.
We will erradicate their influence.
"Asking Muslims who sincerely don't condone the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism to confront the elements of their tradition and theology that jihadists use today to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, and formulate new ways to understand them so as to try to blunt the force of that justification and recruitment" is not working. Few Muslims have the courage to seriously challenge their jihadist religious traditions that I can see, because those traditions are too entrenched with the example of their prophet's life example, and in the Koran and hadiths. If a few Muslims from time to time do challenge those traditions, nobody listens to them, except possibly long enough to figure out that the person daring to "confront the elements of their tradition and theology" has crossed the line into apostasy and to deal with him as Muslims have traditionally dealt with apostates in their midst. If you are a Muslim, do you want to invite a death fatwah?
Nevertheless, it is good strategy for this website to call upon Muslims to confront and reform their theology, even knowing that very few will do so, in order to keep this site from being labeled as a hate site and in order to get people to the point of understanding why Muslims are not heeding the call to question their traditions. But seriously, that part of the strategy alone is really the sort of thing Frum himself seems to be calling for, but will never work to stop the demographic and military conquests of Islam so long as those Muslims who dare to confront their theology continue to be "declared heretical by mainstream Islamic authorities" and so to risk their lives. So we need to look further for a strategy which will actually be effective in preserving the West.
Calling for the West to "mount a strong cultural/ideological defense" is an extremely important strategic goal, and this website is very helpful in that regard. By throwing a spotlight on Islam and its teachings and its fruits, this website helps people to understand the difference between our own cultural and religious traditions and the Islamic traditions which would supplant them if we lose this struggle. Unfortunately, efforts to mount such a defense of our own cultural and religious traditions face opposition from all too many of our own people, including all too many educators, Hollywood and main-stream media types, and the left generally, who loathe our established traditions and are happy to see anyone, including Islamists, tear those traditions down, with little thought of what would replace them. Even though we have the better culture and ideology, until we have more political, educational, religious and entertainment industry/news industry leaders who use their bully pulpit to explain and defend our traditions, we will continue to slip in this regard, and the more we slip, the less likely it becomes that such leadership will emerge. The influence of Islamic petro dollars on our educational, media, and political institutions is also a handicap to the West in trying to bring leaders to the fore who will unapologetically point out how and why our own traditions are better than Islamic culture and traditions.
That brings us to the need for the West to "mount a strong military defense" against the global jihad. I think the posters to this website agree with that objective, although there would be a great deal of division as to how to accomplish it. But to discuss the alternatives briefly, one alternative would begin with purely defensive containment. That strategy is not likely to work for several reasons. To begin with, the demographic collapse of the West and the demographic explosion of Islam results in the need for labor in the West, threatening to make Europe into an Islamic continent, for example.
Islam's takeover of Europe through demographics and open borders would be a bonanza for the global jihad for the same reasons as Islam's take over of Byzantian territory served that purpose in its early history: Until Islam has killed off its European host, Islam would be able to thrive as a parasite benefiting from European military, industrial, and medical technology. Eventually the light that is Europe would die out completely under the rule of sharia, but that could take hundreds of years. European dhimmis could keep things going for the house of Islam before it totally smothers the creative spark of the West.
Containment might work, but only if conducted in a very robust manner. For demographic and 5th column reasons, effective containment would need to begin with a deportation of Muslims who have already penetrated within our walls, as was done in Spain in 1492. It would need to also involve a cessation of immigration from Islamic countries, and a refusal to trade any Western technologies or products (especially military goods) to the Islamic world which would further their jihadist agendas, and a refusal to train Islamic students in our universities so they can learn how to use our nuclear, biological, and military technologies against us. Since the Islamic world seems unable to produce anything of value of its own, it would be left to live in the Dark Ages without Western inputs, and would cease to be a threat. (Unfortunately, Western entrepeneurs are all to willing to sell the rope that will hang us all, and preventing such intercourse with the house of Islam would not be easy, given the profits which could be made.) The containment stategy would be difficult so long as we are dependent on oil sources controlled by Islamic fundamentalists. And containment would be impossible if Islamic countries were left with the resources to build nuclear or other such weapons, including biological weapons, as the jihadists cannot be deterred by mutual assured destruction.
That brings us to military stategies that go beyond merely hiding behind our increasingly porous walls.
A strategy of invading Muslim countries with the Wilsonian strategy of bringing democracy to the house of Islam is not going to work, because it would bankrupt the West and because democracy in Islamic countries will die with the first free vote in these areas unless the people also value such Western traditions as freedom of speech and religion and respect for the individual and minority points of view, which they do not.
So, now we are getting down to strategies that involve targeting Islam and its institutions with total unconstrained warfare in the same manner that Naziism was targeted in WWII. Such warfare would need to be continued until Islam was reduced to rubble and no longer a threat, or it would merely succeed in stirring up a beehive. Such warfare could not be constrained by the feeling that we are obligated to fix what we break, but would rather need to be aimed simply at isolating and reducing the house of Islam and weakening it. Such a war could not be constrained by concerns of civilian casualties and damage to the economies of our enemies, but would need to be aimed at efficiently accomplishing that methodical reduction of enemy infrastructure in the same manner as was done by Generals Sherman and Sheridan in the Civil War.
Total war against Islam is a really extreme solution which should not be undertaken lightly, and should only be undertaken as a last resort. But, if pushed, we need to be ready to go that route, and Islamists need to understand our intentions.
Perhaps 9/11 should have been our Pearl Harbor awakening and uniting our people to fight an offensive war against Islam for defensive reasons, but it apparently has not. An offensive military strategy of taking on the entire house of Islam in a new crusade would involve a level of total warfare for which our people do not currently seem to be ready. The big question is whether we will be ready to adopt such a strategy if and when we suffer an even greater attack by jihadists, or whether we will instead once again blame ourselves for the actions of the jihadists and then quietly surrender our freedoms and accept a dhimmi status in the hope that such appeasement will appease them and buy us security.
Frum shows himself the usual mieducated ignoramus re religion:
****The Koran is certainly a troublesome book. Hastily compiled over a period of probably less than a century (as compared to almost a millennium for the Tanakh and three hundred years for the Christian scriptures), it is a weird and often contradictory agglomeration.****
In fact, the New Testament (if that is what he means by "Christian Scriptures", as if Christians excised the Old Testament) was written within a generation of Jesus himself.
further, his saying that the critics of Jihadi ideology "pick recent Wahabbi translations" is the biggest straw man I have ever seen. Since when were Michael Dahood, Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, and Yusef Ali Wahabbis?
Frum: "It is an easy task for the modern polemicist to choose one of the harsher Wahhabi translations, pluck the most lurid verses and frame an indictment. But doing so does not correspond to the human realities. Millions of human beings over hundreds of years have been inspired to lead better and more moral lives by their...faith."
Are we to excuse the human sacrifice of The Mayan, the Aztecs, Phoenicians & Carthaginians, Minoans, Celts, Mongols, Vikings, The Annual customs of Dahomey, Satanic ritual abuse, etc. because by killing other humans these adherents were inspired to lead better and more moral lives? Surely we can distinguish between good and evil of their conduct. Surely we must unequivocally condemn that which is despicable and immoral. The fact that a billion people might choose murder and evil, makes our task more difficult, but it does not relegate moral decision to a consensus vote among evil doers that what they do constitutes good morality. The conduct is either moral or immoral.
There are over one hundred haddiths that jihad or meritorious personal struggle is killing the infidel for the sake of establishing allah as the sole god of this planet. The haddiths hold jihad killing to be the most perfect way a muslim can obtain paradise. Mr. Frum may want to start with the premise that adherents must be approached as good people to try to manipulate them to goodness, but such activity will utterly fail.
Muslims must be told unequivocally that killing an infidel is an atrocity against humankind that makes the muslim adherent an anathema to humankind. Muslims must be told that the very fact their religion calls for such a thing proves the religion is bankrupt of human values!
"David Frum: Don't rewrite the Qur'an, just reread it""
...ok..but it stills reads the same....
"I don't approve of talk of eradicating Islam, which is not only complete fantasy, but also seems to me to be an inherently genocidal idea, barring some mass apostasy or mass conversion, neither of which seems any more likely than a UFO invasion" (Robert)
I want islam eradicated completely. I know there are a HUGE number worldwide who feel this way. There is nothing wrong with having this opinion. They way I'd like to see it happen has NOTHING to do with anyone's death.
I'd like to see mass deportations of the radical, the violent, and any and all providing any type of support for them whatsoever. I'd like all existing mosques monitored and any imam found to be spweing hate about Jews and infidels and calling for the downfall of the west to be swiftly deported as well.
I'd like to completely halt all muslim immigration. I'd like a complete halt to construction of all mosques. I'd like islam declared by our governments as a dangerous political movement, stripped of its designation as a religion. I'd like our governments to stop giving one more penny to every islamic state.
Once islam as a movement is severely hampered in
every infidel land, it will implode from within in it's own domain. States who insist on islam as the way of life within will probably sooner than later disintegrate into chaos and mayhem and will wither and eventually collapse. I doubt few tears would be shed by no more islam in any infidel land.
How much has islam cost humankind in money and suffering and misery not only to it's own but mostly to the rest of us? Too much to contemplate.
Civilizations have crumbled from within many times before. Islam is a blight upon the earth that has caused infinitely more harm ad blooshed and discord and backwardness than any lasting "benefit" I can even begin to imagine.
I want it gone. For good.
I have read Mr. Frum for years and I have found him to be a very good commentator on the political scene in the United States. However, I am amazed at his statements that are quoted above by Mr. Spencer.
Permit me to get to the heart of the matter. Mr. Frum seems to have no awareness of Christianity whatsoever. The Qur'an, if taken at its word, rolls back Christianity to a Judaism that existed before the Jewish prophets, beginning with Amos. Most importantly, the Qur'an takes god out of human experience altogether. The greatest offense in Islam is to claim that something in human experience resembles Allah, especially that you resemble Allah. Never mind that the Qur'an is Allah's will and it is in human experience; after all, religions have their internal contradictions.
Why is it important that the Qur'an rolled back Christianity? Because the account of Jesus and the account of Jesus Christ are, among accounts of god, the most loving accounts ever written. That is extremely important to Christians and should be important to all monotheists. Some defenders of Islam cite the harsh penalties imposed by Jahweh in what Christians call the "Old Testament." Excuse me, but the "Old Testament" does not define my religion. It was succeeded by the New Testament. In the Old Testament, there is state religion. In the New Testament, there is no state religion. In the Qur'an, there is state religion, yet Jesus Christ is claimed as an Islamic prophet. Obviously, Jesus Christ has been revised by Islamic scholars.
What is the practical import of these differences? Christianity is the one religion that acknowledges that it is based in experience not doctrine. As Christians pray often, the summation of all the prophets (Jewish) and the Laws (Jewish) is in these two principles: 1. Love God before all else and 2. Love your neighbor before yourself. Any serious, mature adult knows that religion is based in experience not doctrine.
To a contemporary Christian, Islam appears to be governed or dominated by a group of people who resemble most strongly the inquisitors who tortured people during the Spanish Inquisition. Unlike Christianity, there is nothing in the Qur'an that can be used against these inquisitors. Christianity rejected the Spanish Inquisition centuries ago. How long will it take for contemporary Muslims to reject their ongoing Saudi Inquisition?
Again, well written essay. I don't believe that you are doing anything other than criticizing what the Koran has to say. While many "moderate" Muslims never read the entire Koran, and were also never told about all of the horrible verses, Sharia is guided by the entire Koran (ugly and pretty verses).
In fact, I've never ran into a Muslim who wasn't aware of at least some of the ugly verses. The moderate ones were just better at the apologetics, and focusing on the other prettier verses.
Finally, I don't know if this is in agreement or not, but the Koran is considered by every Muslim I've met to be the infallible word of Allah. In their minds, there are no ugly verses. It is also considered a guide to life, especially when the Hadith are included. Thus, as long as there are violent, racist, misogynist verses in the Koran, there will be violent, racist, misogynist Muslims. It's a sad truth.
I think Frum has pegged you perfectly as "popularizer" Robert Spencer. You have, after all, made your living on writing sensationalist books about the menace of Islam. Yet, when called on it by myself or Frum or whomever, you claim misrepresentation.
You imagine that you're fooling anyone with an iota of awareness that there's a defensible distinction between quoting a radical Muslim cleric's view on a verse in the Koran and your own view on the meaning of that same verse?
Own your position, Robert. You can start here, in your own blog's comments section, where anti-Islam sentiment runs rampant. In fact, you can start with your "employee" Hugh Fitzgerald. Or perhaps in your next book you'll focus on the "peaceful Muslims" that you claim to encourage.
'Jeffrey Carr'
I'm not going to enter into a discussion, with you, about Robert Spencer's supposed fomenting of irrational Islamophobia.
Instead, I have three questions.
They can both be answered with a simple Yes or No.
First: should Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, who has publicly expressed concern about the existence, in parts of Britain, of areas, occupied by Muslims, that are actively maintained by some of those Muslims as de facto 'no go for Infidels' territory, be forced to apologise to all Muslims in Britain, and be stripped of his episcopal office?
Yes or No?
Second: does freedom of speech include the right to describe, question, criticise, discuss, dissect, and indeed satirise and even make fun of, any and all aspects - INCLUDING NEGATIVE ASPECTS - of the theory and practice of any and every belief system, INCLUDING ISLAM, and to do so without fear of being killed, or of any other punishment, such as flogging, fines, demotion or imprisonment?
Yes or No?
Third: was the assassination of Asma bint-Marwan morally justifiable?
Yes or No?
Jeffrey, I certainly don't pretend to speak for Robert but all kinds of people come here on this blog for all kinds of reasons, you included. Apart from the unusually egregious (e.g. calls to genocide and the like), most comments stand as written, your's included.
Every comment section begins as follows:
"(Note: Comments on articles are unmoderated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Jihad Watch or Robert Spencer. Comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Robert Spencer of the views expressed therein.)"
Most of us barely have enough time to create a few decent posts of our own let alone police everyone else's. If you expect Robert to spend hours on end every day poring over every comment left here, deciding which ones are naughty and which ones are nice, it's just not going to happen. Though it sometimes appears otherwise with the schedule he keeps and the vitality he shows, Robert is only human like the rest of us.
There's also plenty of disagreement among posters on this site concerning what to do about the plague of jihad and Islamic supremacism in the world today. Both a strength and weakness of this site is that everyone gets their say, even trolls and opponents. It's very close to free speech and most of us want to keep it that way despite the inevitable excess and abuse that comes with it.
An excessive post which stands does not mean that Robert (or a majority of the posters here) necessarily agrees with it. It just means that somebody thinks or feels that way, uncomfortable though the thought or feeling may be. And when it comes to the topics which we deal with here on a daily basis it's not surprising that reactions are often as sharp as they are. Crimes committed in the name of Islam, like the beheading of Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia, the beheading of Buddhist monks in Thailand, the massacre of Russian schoolchildren in Beslan, the assassination of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, and innumerable other horrible daily crimes, does create blowback. This site is one of the very few outlets where such reaction is allowed to register, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that there is a lot of anger and excess which gets expressed here. Sometimes rightly so! Other times the anger is misplaced or misguided or simply not helpful. I include many of my own posts in that category where i think afterwards how much better I could've put things, or that my emotion overtook my better judgment.
But no one need apologize for feeling angry about all the vicious crimes being committed in the world today in Islam's name. The challenge is to harness and channel that anger in the most effective way to broaden the coalition against Supremacist Islam, not shrink it. That certainly isn't accomplished in every post here in the comments section, but neither should it be expected. Opinions vary widely and the posts reflect that. This is a mostly free board and most of us want to keep it that way.
alexon writes: "If you expect Robert to spend hours on end every day poring over every comment left here, deciding which ones are naughty and which ones are nice, it's just not going to happen."
No, alexon, I don't expect that. An occasional post which argues against one of the more virulent anti-Islam posts would put some action behind his rhetoric, however.
I also note that his alter-ego "Hugh Fitzgerald", whom Robert claims as his employee, is much more prolific in his anti-Islam posts then Robert is. Why, I wonder, does Robert choose to employ someone whose beliefs he claims not to share, particularly when he's been employed to work at JihadWatch?
Mr 'Carr'
I asked three questions to do with freedom of speech: three questions that can each be answered with a simple 'Yes' or 'No'.
Here they are again.
1. Should Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, who has publicly expressed concern about the existence, in parts of Britain, of areas, occupied by Muslims, that are actively maintained by some of those Muslims as de facto 'no go for Infidels' territory, be made to apologise to all Muslims in Britain, and be stripped of his episcopal office?
Yes or No?
2. Does freedom of speech include the right to describe, question, criticise, discuss, dissect, and indeed satirise and even make fun of, any and all aspects - INCLUDING NEGATIVE ASPECTS - of the theory and practice of any and every belief system, INCLUDING ISLAM, and to do so without fear of being killed, or of any other punishment, such as flogging, fines, demotion or imprisonment?
Yes or No?
3. Was the assassination of Asma bint-Marwan morally justifiable?
Yes or No?
Jeffrey,
I've never seen where Robert claims Hugh F. as an employee. If you can show me that then you have a stronger case. Robert does, however, believe in a 'Big Tent' coalition of resistance against jihad and Islamic supremacism. Hugh's opinions are Hugh's opinions and don't necessarily reflect Robert's views.
If you're suggesting that Hugh and Robert are one and the same then I would disagree with that. The writing styles could hardly be more different and distinct. No, Robert is Robert and Hugh is Hugh (though not one-hundred and two).
On this very topic, above here, Robert writes:
"I think it is important to point out that I have never, ever spoken in these terms, and never will. I don't speak about Islam "plaguing the earth," and I don't think speaking in lurid terms like that gets us anywhere. Also, I don't approve of talk of eradicating Islam, which is not only complete fantasy, but also seems to me to be an inherently genocidal idea, barring some mass apostasy or mass conversion, neither of which seems any more likely than a UFO invasion."
So there you have it. Robert actually writes things like this more often than his critics ever imagine, but they take no notice because they are convinced that he doesn't mean it.
Alexon, I learned about Hugh's status as Robert's employee from Robert himself. We've had some correspondence recently.
Regarding writing styles, it's not much of a challenge for a professional writer to adopt different personas with different "styles" of writing - superficially, at least. A semantic/stylometric assessment could penetrate that deception, but that kind of work is only being done in university software labs (at least for now).
Jeffrey Carr continues to display his nusto moonbat conspiracy-theorist side by insisting that Hugh and I are the same guy, which claim is a continuing source of amusement to Hugh, me, and those who know us.
And to those who do, you understand, Mr. Carr, it shows you to be more than a little ridiculous.
But never mind. I am not interested in proving that to you any more than I am interested in proving the existence of the Sun to you. Your insinuations that I believe what I have stated I do not believe are based on -- what? The contention that I am the same person as someone who expresses different views? The idea that it would be impossible for me to work with someone with whom I do not agree on everything? I think in this Mr. Carr betrays the common Leftist/Fascist assumption that the ideological lockstep must be absolute, or there can be no cooperation.
Well, it doesn't work that way here. Hugh and I disagree about many things. He is an atheist, I am a Catholic. He has an accountable fondness for 20s-era corn, whereas I tend to be interested in freeform jazz that leaves him completely cold (and not a little nonplussed that anyone could like such things, truth be told.) He and I have a broad agreement on the problem of Islamic jihad and what must be done about it, with some differences of emphasis and approach.
The bottom line is: if you want to know what I believe, consult my published writings, which are rather easily available. Attributing to me beliefs based on my associations or imagined identities only leaves you liable to richly deserved ridicule.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
"20s-era corn..."
Absurd.
Listen to the first three songs at "Interludes." Jessie Matthews, Annette Hanshaw, Margaret Stedeford. Then listen to, or watch, the other things I have retrieved from the past, including heartrending tangos from Russia and Poland, English music-hall routines, bits and pieces of vaudeville, Ray Bolger comically tap-dancing, and so on.
And those who have gone to "Interludes" and discovered with astonishment the riches there, and realize that I have perfect taste, have perfect taste.
Try harder, Robert. Otherwise I will claim you not only as a tax deduction, but as a fig-newton, as Pogo or possibly Albert Alligator would say, of my imagination.
Here is someone I like, whom just possibly you will like, and not dismiss, as you have, apparently, my amazing finds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUa22k2TDPY&feature=related
There. Na te. There's more of Paolo Conte where that came from.
Hugh is a JW Board member, not an employee.
CGW:
Hugh is both, as am I.
Hugh:
Okay, okay!
And mind you, I dig Jelly Roll Morton.
Yrs
R