An exchange with an Islamic scholar

When we were still using IntDeb to comment, there was a very lively extended discussion of this article. All of which does not appear to have been carried over, in the course of the return to Typepad.

I will, therefore, reproduce what I preserved of the original discussion.

Here is the first part.

VIRGIL said - (quote) "I t is amazing to me how apparently little good faith and intellectual honesty you are displaying in your attack upon Islam and Muslims.' (unquote)

Which means: how dare you point out the illogic, dishonesty, and hypocrisy of my statements! You're so mean!

SUBMITMYA55 said - "Islamic Scholar"- Isn't this an oxymoron? Just because some poor dumb primitive thug from the land of pedophiles and illiteracy somehow learned to read and write is no reason to refer to him as scholar.

And because some dumb poor guilty slob from the land of opportunity (who has never read the Koran) hired said thug because he/she thinks its cute to act out against Christians and Jews is no reason to use the oxymoronic phrase "Islamic Scholar". __

In any event, thank you, Mr. Spencer for taking on these lying punks who follow a warrior pedohile. Please, always remind them , God had a Son. They love that.

-SORROW said, re the phrase 'Islamic Scholar' - Yes, it is up there with Islamic Science.

HESPERADO said - Another interesting thing that can be gleaned, aside from the glaring logical error Spencer caught, in Professor Bassiouni's attempted counter-argument: When he writes that -- "I and a number of other distinguished Muslim scholars have long criticized the views of the four traditional Sunni schools" -- he is inadvertently revealing that those four schools are not in fact a dead letter today, but elicit, and require, the conscientious opposition of scholars like him.

Unless, of course, he means that he and other scholars have "long criticized" the views of the four schools for purely antiquarian reasons -- sort of like many Western scholars at various universities united in a concerted and long-term effort to criticize the Domesday Book of William the Conqueror or the Code of Hammurabai, purely for reasons of historical interest in dusty old laws that have nothing at all to do with current society today. Yeah right, and I'm the uncle of apes and swine.

Another indication of the current relevance of those four schools -- Professor Bassiouni himself said that he felt obligated to submit a written document to the Court in Kabul in the Abdul Rahman apostasy case. Can anyone imagine any Christian scholar today feeling the need to weigh in on a court case involving laws from the early middle ages being enacted in any Western country on the planet ? Of course not. This only is a problem when we deal with Muslim societies.

As long as "distinguished" Muslims like Professor Bassiouni continue to bristle with their prickly pique everytime reasonable criticisms are raised about the outrageous conduct of Muslims all over the globe, we will -- at the very least -- remain suspicious of their motives.

CHAMP said - "Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus"

"Distinguished", eh? ...wow, that puffed-up title is just the icing on the cake given the inaccurate accusations made towards Robert in his letter. One can only laugh out loud!

-HESPERADO said - That "Distinguished" is apparently his official title at DePaul University -- but notice how he used that word to describe other Muslim scholars he claims have been criticizing the 4 schools --

"I and a number of other distinguished Muslim scholars have long criticized the views of the four traditional Sunni schools. "

In that quote, he's using the word in its unofficial sense, which comes off smelling silly and juvenile.

-CHAMP said - Good point! ...either way, he makes much too much of he and others as being *Distinguished* (nose in air).

-SORROW said - Can you smell low self-esteem? It is rather like someone demanding that everyone address him as "Mr.".

Now for what I will call part two, of the original comment stream.

JAMESMARTEL said - Keep squeezing these guys for the truth Robert!

The sure sign of liars are their unwillingness to welcome the revealing light of public debate.

STARINGVIEW said - What's really amazing is that you never know what Muslims really think.

I blogged a recent example of that at : http://staringattheview.blogspot.com/2009/08/hars...

-A HARSH REALITY:

Recently my daughter and I took a Muslim friend of my daughter with us to see the movie The Stoning of Soraya M. The film affected my daughter's friend quite deeply. On the way home she repeated several times, "But she was innocent! They stoned her to death for adultery, and she hadn't even committed adultery. She was innocent."

She then added a very significant statement. "I'm Arab and I'm Muslim, and I believe in Sharia. If she had committed adultery, she should have been stoned. But she was innocent."

This is not a terrorist speaking, not an extremist, not a radical. It's someone who is studying for an advanced degree at one of America's best universities, and who will return to her country to become a well-respected university professor.

And she believes that women in the year 2009 should be stoned to death for adultery. Why? Because she believes in Islam, and she believes in Islamic law.

You've perhaps already watched the youtube video in which Rifqa Bary expresses her fear that if she is returned to her family in Onio she will be killed by her family because of her Christian faith.

There is no doubt that Muslim leaders will be quick to publicly deny this could ever happen because, as Obama Islam advisor Eboo Patel proclaimed on CNN just the other day, we all know that Islam is a religion of peace.

But how many Muslims secretly believe, even if they perhaps wouldn't publicly acknowledge it as quickly as my daughter's friend, that Sharia really is to be followed by Muslims today, even in America?

That people who leave Islam, just like people who commit adultery, really should be put to death.

-HESPERADO told STARINGVIEW - A well-written anecdote. These kinds of reports of "normal" Muslims need to be blogged more and more.

-SUSANP said - What's really amazing is that you never know what Muslims really think.

Muslims rarely think. They react and emote on cue like programmed robots. A muslim cannot have a conversation or discussion without predicating every "thought" or thesis on islam. Islam is central to everything a muslim does or says. When muslims say that islam is a complete way of life, they aren't kidding. Islamic life is so narrow, regulated, and insular that muslims cannot function in a normal, secular environment. Of course, some manage to escape its suffocating limitations and strictures but in most cases, the guilt and shame overwhelm them. That's when those "nice" "normal" muslims become ticking time bombs.

And part three:

AWAKE said - The core problem here, as is always with Muslims who try to defend the indefensible position of Islam, is why these so-called "moderate" Muslims choose to attack Spencer for simply stating a current fact about Sunni jurisprudence, which these "scholars" have unwittingly agreed with, as opposed to pointing explicitly to their self-proposed written condemnation of those Islamic schools.

Why? Well, the short answer is that their condemnation of the rulings of Sunni jurisprudence simply doesn't exist.

It is all apologia and obfuscation.

They agree with Spencer (because they have to) but are simply upset at him for stating these truths publicly about Islam.

An unmistakable "line in the sand" needs to be drawn by western philosophy, hearkened upon by each and every single inhabitant in the non-muslim western community.

No other logical conclusion I fear, will suffice.

SUNSTRIKER said - Tiny minority of extremist alert for this professor:

Pakistan: New Poll Shows 78 Percent of Pakistanis Support Death Penalty for Leaving Islam

http://www.realcourage.org/2009/08/pakistan-78-pe...

So the populations of Pakistan * .78 = what Professor?

And that is just from *1* Muslim country.

-HESPERADO said, to 'Sunstriker' - Professor Bassiouni is too "Distinguished" to worry about facts on the ground.

ISLAM MACHT FREI said (addressing Spencer) - I love the way you kill these guys with kindness. It must drive them straight crazy.

DSINC said - Well, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University, no one connected to the four traditional Sunni schools appears to be listening to you, or your "distinguished" colleagues.

And, it will be very interesting to see you respond, in good faith and intellectual honesty, to the logic of our really distinguished Mr. Spencer

CHAMP remarked - "M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University"

What a mouthful! ...contrast that to the headful of knowledge that's lacking regarding his own "intellectual honesty" ...Pashaw.

-HESPERADO said - Funny how these anti-American & anti-Western gasbags have such long titles -- like Professor Henry Louis Gates, "Chair of the Department of African and African American Studies and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research."
-CHAMP said - Yes, long titles that overly compensate for where it truly counts, if you know what I mean.

Now for part four, which includes what HUGH said.

IMAMERICAN said - This guy's so busy remembering all of his titles that he probably won't be able to respond and take you up on your offer, Robert. He won't call you back. He doesn't have the marbles.

HUGH said - What an opportunity Cherif Bassiouni provided. And you are akin to that Robber Baron of the Mauve Decade who proudly explained “I sees my opportunities, and I took ‘em.”

That amazing exchange above would fill any polemicist with envy. Rich in years and honors and worldly acclaim and so on and so forth he may be, but still the not-quite-candid-and-more-than-slightly-confused Cherif Bassiouni, has just seen his own polemic carefully taken apart, in public (“in the full light of history”), with the resulting parts then held up for examination and silent -- there is no need for sound effects here, the sound can be turned off -- ridicule.

Your reply to him is unanswerable. He has no answer. He must now remain silent. And .If he still has some of his wits about him, he must at this point be truly mortified. For what can he say? He's one of those eminences so used to being an eminence, he can't quite fathom those who do not yield to his (to him) self-evident authority and rank, and who demand of him such things as truthfulness, logic, consistency -- you know, stuff like that. He expects, but in this case did not receive, the accustomed salaam-salaaming of everyone. I could have told him -- I happen to know -- that Robert Spencer is no respecter of parsons. We're in America now, and the Argument From Authority (I'm the famous legal scholar, you have to defer to me) cuts no ice here.. The same intellectual standards are required for all. And Bassiouni is clearly no Lauterpacht, or De Visscher, or – nota bene – Julius Stone.

This exchange also puts me in mind, too, of a cartoon dear to many a young American. I am thinking of Wile E. Coyote, just when he has assumed he has successfully launched a missile --an Acme Missile, bien entendu -- in the direction of the Road-Runner, and then suddenly he hears that tell-tale "Beep Beep" and sees the Road-Runner whizzing happily by, and then W. E. Coyote looks down, and sees just under his seat, the Acme Missile still sitting on its launch pad, because it had apparently failed to launch correctly, and just then, just as he looks down, just as the awful truth is shown by the expression of fear and horror on his face, that Acme Missile explodes in his face.

That is more or less what happened to Cherif Bassiouni. He no doubt bitterly regrets having dared to answer you (with such obvious illogic, about the admitted difference between what the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence have concluded about apostasy, and the view, which he, Cherif Bassioni claims is quite different, of something he calls “Islam.” What a perfect occasion to demolish him, and what sportsman could have resisted?

Tant pis pour lui.

The exchange (ah, ces echangistes!)? Epatant.

These bits of slightly off-color parlez-vous have been supplied, with malice aforethought, since M. Cherif Cherif Bassiouni is, undoubtedly, and quite proudly, francophone. For without French as his passport to the great world, the world of Western thought, and Western legal theory and practice, then where, really, would Cherif Bassiouni, and others of his ilk, undoubtedly be?

-SASHLAND said - I'm not sure that it is his tenure measured worth that he feels gives him some special bragging rights and gravitas.

I'm thinking that in his world-view he is permitted to criticize the four "schools" because he is an Islamic scholar while lowly Robert is just a Scholar of islam. Kind of like the the underlying semantics differentiating between an american Muslim and a muslim American. Primary v. Secondary.

He's just saying, in a nice obama kind of way "Shut up, you are the problem".

I'm just wondering how the four "schools" might respond it they actually paid attention to his criticism of them, unless, of course, they prefer to let him provide a smokescreen and they accept his espousing "progressive" insults of infallible islam as a jihad tactic. And, of course he is an Islamic Scholar, which I understand gives him some leeway in text analysis not available to his co-religious commoners, or especially, an outsider.

He must be awfully busy writing notes to Sharia Courts explaining their mistakes. Do you think he ever gets a note back?

Part five, of the original comment stream for this article, as archived by me.

DAVIDP said - I agree with "awake" above.

I also think Professor Bassiouni is saying "In my version of Islamic law, conversion to Christianity is not punishable by death."

As "a written document submitted to the Court in Kabul in the Abdul Rahman apostasy case" Professor Bassiouni's document is not deceptive, but publishing it without corrective commentary in an American newspaper probably is deceptive.

It probably needed something like "This is a legal opinion attempting to save the accused converts. This argument's position was rejected by the courts, the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, most Islamic governments, and most pro-islamic independence and pro-sharia movements"

I doubt if the professor wants to establish Robert's lack of "good faith and intellectual honesty" - he just wants to defend his position as valid Islam (as every other "reformist", moderate, liberal or secular muslim does)

-HESPERADO said to DAVID P's - "I also think Professor Bassiouni is saying "In my version of Islamic law, conversion to Christianity is not punishable by death." This may well be true..."

But he didn't say that, because he's trying to pull the wool over our eyes -- which is easy, since the entire West is so full of sheep these days.

HESPERADO then added - There is, however, the matter of the Two-Step maneuver Bassiouini has to fall back on (the same Two-Step which Leftists also use), which Spencer didn't address:

"My position on apostasy has been expressed as early as 1983, namely that at the time of the Prophet it was not considered as only changing one’s mind but that it was the equivalent of joining the enemy and thus constituting high treason."

I.e. --

Step One: First the apologist claims there is nothing there -- no death penalty for apostasy

then when people call him on it with the facts, he moves to

Step Two: Oh, there is something there, but it's something else -- why, it's not apostasy, it's "high treason"!

This is essentially the same Two-Step maneuver used in other similar circumstances when Islamic terrorism -- which is at first denied to exist -- is then admitted to exist when the facts can no longer be denied, but is then magically transformed into "restive" "resistance movements" against "oppression" and "long-standing grievances" in a "context of a cycle of violence" caused by a breakdown in the sociopolitical order due to fallout from Western Colonialism "interfering" in "the region".

Bassiouni's Two-Step tap-dance can be easily dispensed with: the modern world no longer accepts a concept of "high treason" based upon religion and upon religious choices.

Now, if only the modern world would step up to the plate and actually enforce what it believes in, we might have on our hands something actually quite relevant, rational and humane to define (and punish: "Mr. Bassiouini, please get your papers and luggage in order...") as high treason...

-PROFITSBEARD said to HESPERADO - The "distinguished" Obfuscator must have gone to the Arthur al-Murray School of Tap, Soft Shoe and Pussyfooting, he can dance around the issue so deftly.

But you caught him flatfooted!

Kudos, Hesperado, on nailing his crooked toes to the rotten floorboards of his warped logic.

Ouch!

SANJAY said - Something tells me Mr. Spencer will not hear from Mr. Bassiouni again !
-HESPERADO said to SANJAY - Even if he did hear from Bassiouni again, something tells me it would result in more obfuscations & tap-dancing, salted with more aggrieved prickliness and peppered with every logical fallacy in the book.

PRAGMATIST said - I think it is safe to say that you will never hear from the distinguished Professor ever again Robert . He knows he has been hung out to dry and whats more in the Mohammedan mind he has already replied to you once so the matter is finished. Debating the hypocrisy and logical fallibility of his response is not on offer I am sure.

Comments, as originally made at IntDeb, part six:

NYADJIM said - This guy is spouting typical dawa and taquiyah with his claims, and typically a Moslem, he expressis his cincere outrage when you question his balderdash, and challenge him with the true facts.

LEODETROIT said - I will put it as I see it: all that islamic apologists do, like Mr. Bassiouni, is to paint a dignified image of the barbarian "political system" called Islam. Mr. B. seems to try hard to make a logical defense against the fact that poor converted souls are condemed to death for apostate in Afganistan, and the around the world.
Well, if you are a college professor, the minimum expected is that you articulate inteligently about your area of "expertise".

Mr. B. surely can't: as a matter of fact, he admits the in spite of the 4 Sunni schools, the Afgan muslims in case and muslims around the world killing for "apostate"Islam, he himself wrote a letter in defense of the converted Afgan muslim. This man is a moron and a disgrace to the University and the community where he lives (i.e., the USA). I miss J. Edgar Hoover.

YANKEL - @Robert Spencer

You've been HUMPTIED!!

Cherif Bassiouni (aka Humpty Dumpty) to Robert Spencer: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less."
-DDA said to YANKEL - Yankel - It's not often I get to learn a new word. "To humpty". Much more simple and elegant than the phrase my husband (a long-time reader of 'Alice in Wonderland') has employed from time to time to describe the same phenomenon - 'to do a humpty dumpty'.

CORNELIUS said - This is the same argument used by Jeremiah McCauliffe (sic)...who insists that "ridda" is treason in time of war, not apostasy. But the Hadith clearly make no such distinction.
Robert only cited one...there are others that specifically mandate the shedding of Muslim blood for three crimes, of which leaving Islam is one.
This is obviously not a war-time edict, but rather a standardized establishment of Islamic jurisprudence.

Like so many other Muslim apologists trying to present an Islam sanitized for Western sensibilities, Professor Bassiouni's inaccuracies cannot be attributed to ignorance...not a man of his educational accomplishments. The only alternative is that he is liar.

-IMMADASHELL said - Cornelius,
You have gotten to the root of it. "War is deceit."

I am more and more convinced that all communications with Islamic apologist has an air of contempt and all lies with at the best a thread of truth only used to further deceive.

Robert's replay was just the opposite both in tone and intent for the truth of the subject. Kind of like what fellowship does darkness have with light? Fortunately reasonable men will be able to see the difference.

And finally, this is how the discussion concluded.

KRAZYKAFIR said - Oh my. Clearly the good Professor is educated beyond his intelligence.

NOTOSHARIAH observed -Three common types of deception:

1. "I am a Muslim and I don't personally believe in x" = "Islam does not believe in X"

2. These were the beliefs of Muslims in era X therefore they cannot be the beliefs of Muslims in the current era.

3. Muslims who are not violent extremists must be moderate in their beliefs.

MATAMOROS said - In Europe we have a huge Islamic problem but in USA the situation doesn't look much better.
How you can have such a guy "Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus and President Emeritus, International Human Rights Law Institute, DePaul University"?
Bu maybe it is only because I ignore the academic level of said University!

ICESTAR said - The scholar's position in untenable. Mohamed himself commanded death to all who leave Islam. No one familiar with Islam can deny this.

So he is offended that he is called out with specifics that show he is a liar. Speak the truth, even one that is unpleasant, then you will gain respect, continue to tell boldfaced lies and you become a talking clown for the barbarians.

KAFFIRKANUCK said...(after an aside on IntDeb screw-ups)

I really doubt Bassiouni has the cajons to take RS up on his challenge, and if he does, I bet he demands so many restrictions on the exchange, no real debate will actually take place; just vague liberally watered down half truths on his part and fact's on the side of Robert. Because if a real debate would take place, betcha "crusaders, the west, jews and equating race with religion" will creep out of the Prof's mouth.

WELLINGTON said - Bassiouni struck out. Spencer has hit a homer. Typical of a Muslim though to say what is the case isn't the case. More Muslimthink...

SUNSTRIKER said:

This professor can disagree all he likes, but the Muslim practice worldwide right now is to kill converts.

Perhaps he would like to contact the President of Iran and the clerics and show them the error of their ways in regard to the to Christian women who are ***on trial*** for their conversion from Islam to Christianity

...

CHAMP - "Distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus"

"Distinguished", eh? ...wow, that puffed-up title is just the icing on the cake given the inaccurate accusations made towards Robert in his letter. One can only laugh out loud!

DDA said - Memo to everyone who participated in this highly instructive and also very entertaining thread...no matter what IntDeb in its madness may in future do, never fear: every part of this thread, that is, the exchange between Mr Spencer and the Islamic professor, and all comments made thereupon and visible to me at this time (Saturday 15th August Australian time) has been providently copied, and saved, on my own computer's hard disk, inside the bulging electronic file entitled "Apostasy and Blasphemy".

And a backup copy of the contents of that hard disk will be made, as is habitual in my household under the management of my computer-savvy husband.

{and just as well I did make such copies...}

GODHATESISLAM said - Cornelius makes a good point. 'The only alternative is that he [Bassiouni] is [a] liar.'

My only hope is that these people, who at least seem to believe there is such a thing as objective Truth (unlike atheistic humanists) will see that if they are sanctioned to lie to spread their faith - it's really because their faith is a lie in itself.

Muslims shed this evil, bring joy into the world by abandoning the satanic cult of islam.

PROFITSBEARD said - One more example of Islamo-doublethink.

Tragic and pathetic that supposed intelligent people contort themselves into these ludicrous poses over a Koran that is not the "perfect" word of "Allah" which its adherents claim, but a cobbled-together and politically-selected collection of the partial sayings of Mohammad as the "Yemeni Koran Fragments" demonstrate to any honest intellect.

But honesty is anathema to Islam.

Thanks for restoring this, dumbledoresarmy.

"What I object to in the position of Mr. Spencer and others, including what I read in your email, is an effort to attack Islam as a whole and to denigrate it because of some either extreme or unacceptable views."

Maybe I'm a little thick but the original arguement is over honor killings and somehow ended up like this.

Funny how the world turns....

Anyhow,from where I stand,It is an attack on Islam.Just as Islam has attacked,degraded and destroyed all things non-Islamic throughout
it's history.Thats what I see here(and elsewhere in media) every day,in real events,affecting real people.

It's called fighting back Mr.Bassiouni.

We know where you stand.