What A Complete Infidel Needs to Know About the Koran

This particular work of Robert Spencer's should be widely read in America's military academies, both by instructors and cadets/midshipmen. But I fear it won't be. Pity because we're training tomorrow's soldiers, sailors and aviators without properly and accurately identifying a mortal threat to American liberty------Islam itself.

This particular work of Robert Spencer's should be widely read in America's military academies, both by instructors and cadets/midshipmen. But I fear it won't be. Pity because we're training tomorrow's soldiers, sailors and aviators without properly and accurately identifying a mortal threat to American liberty------Islam itself.

It's really too bad Mr. Spencer's books aren't required reading in schools and government. One reason I respect his works so much is that I've been able to verify everything he says and more from other sources, both Muslim and non-Muslim. And the fact so many authorities on Islam refuse his invitation to debate him on Islam and the Koran is very telling to me.

While I haven't read his latest yet, I'm way behind on my reading, I plan to get it soon. Keep up the outstanding work, Robert. And God bless you and everyone at the frontline of the war against Jihad.

It's really too bad Mr. Spencer's books aren't required reading in schools and government. One reason I respect his works so much is that I've been able to verify everything he says and more from other sources, both Muslim and non-Muslim. And the fact so many authorities on Islam refuse his invitation to debate him on Islam and the Koran is very telling to me.

While I haven't read his latest yet, I'm way behind on my reading, I plan to get it soon. Keep up the outstanding work, Robert. And God bless you and everyone at the frontline of the war against Jihad.

Mr. Spencer:
I compared your views on the "gates of ijtihad" with that of current academic scholarship, and found your position to be at odds with what scholarship has been saying for the past 30 years:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20753339/Gates-of-Ijtihad

I have ordered your book, and will begin looking at some of your other views soon. I would appreciate any comments you have on my "gates of ijtihad" reply.

My paper above is a rough draft. I still need to edit it. Sorry for any typos, etc.

"The Koran repeatedly states Jews are prophet killers -- without proof." -- Christian Toto, in his review of Spencer's book, apparently faithfully rendering Spencer's observation on this matter.

Paul's letter to the Christians in Thessalonika:

1 Thessalonians 2:14-15:

You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches [in Judea] suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men.

Then in chapter 7 of Acts, we have the Christian Stephen in Jerusalem interrogated by the Jewish High Priest at a formal council because "the [Jewish] people, and the elders, and the scribes" had become "stirred up" about allegations that Stephen

"ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us." (6:13-14)

In Stephen's reply, this is included:

"Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers [did], so [do] ye.

"Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

"Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept [it]."

(Acts 7:51-53)

These two I don't think exhaust all the verses in the New Testament which claim that the Jews had killed their own prophets. How would one construct a counter-argument to an equivalency between the Koranic attitude and the attitude in the New Testament on this specific theme?

"These two I don't think exhaust all the verses in the New Testament which claim that the Jews had killed their own prophets. How would one construct a counter-argument to an equivalency between the Koranic attitude and the attitude in the New Testament on this specific theme?"'
--Hesperado

The Jews, per Christianity, were performing their role in the cosmic drama. Jesus had to die so HE could be resurrected. Someone had to kill Jesus or else Jesus couldn't rise again. (There's no Passion Story without the Jews and their role in the drama.)

NO CROWN (of thorns) -- NO GLORY

========================

The Jews, per Islam, were intent on killing Jesus, but Allah tricked them into thinking they had killed HIM. Pointless. Idiotic. Typical muhammadan pseudo-plagiarism by the hand of Lucifer. No redemption, no atonement, no blood sacrifice for the GLOBAL ATONEMENT of HUMANKIND.

This whole business of ijtihad I'm afraid might be something of a red herring -- both for Spencer and for "dave742".

I will now paste in a discussion I had with another JW reader some time ago. Though not definitive on the matter, it illuminates some of the contours by which the whole issue of whether or not ijtihad is "closed", is moot for the purposes of the practical impossibility for Islam to be reformed sufficiently to guarantee the security of the non-Muslim world:

Islam scholar Rudolph Peters seems to be arguing, with evidence, that major modern Islamic "fundamentalists" going back to Wahhab tend to reject the concept of "Taqlid" (the obligation to follow the 4 schools and to cease engaging in ijtihad). This, to the extent it is accurate about Islamic "fundamentalism", would seem to throw a bit of a monkey wrench into Spencer's leitmotif about how the problem
of Islam today derives from the "closing of the gate to Idjtihad" -- for, according to Peters, the modern "fundamentalists" tend to declare a re-opening of that gate through, in great part, declaring themselves, and all Muslims, capable of being madhhabs (interpreters of Koran and Sunnah and derivers of law therefrom).

[other JW reader:]

Right; Spencer still talks about non-literal and modern
interpretations. But... going back to some sort of reinterpretation of the texts is not necessarily, nor even likely, going to produce a more moderate Islam. The
reinterpretation could be even more violent and evil than those of the main schools or of the terrorists. Therefore, in the absence of a clear and comprehensive reinterpretation that actually does give us a sufficient guarantee of a moderate Islam, we can reject this apologetic line.

The whole business about the so-called "opening" or
"closing" of the gates of ijtihad is rather annoying. It is of no consequence because it is merely a figure of speech and has no practical importance. The fact is that there are always some variations in interpretations over the ages, within limits, and Islam has still maintained the toxic core elements, and lacks any means of putting those elements in quarantine so that they do not affect the whole system.

[Me:]

If Peters is correct, we seem to have at least two distinct problems of Islam now:

1) the problem of the Islam formed by the Taqlid tradition

2) the problem of Islam by which certain so-called
"fundamentalists" disturb that Taqlid tradition and try to "reform" it (i.e., radicalize it).

Both types of Islam, needless to say, are dangerous to Infidels. The question is, though, why have there been two types develop? My tentative hypothesis is that the modern "fundamentalism" (which, again, is a "re-opening" of teh supposedly "closed gates" of ijtihad) has developed as a somewhat extra-ordinary way to deal with the unprecedented state of weakness which Islam found itself in compared to the astonishing power and influence of Infidels in the form of this new Civilization spreading around the globe, the West, whose power and influence began to be felt in the 17th century. In order to deal with this weakness compared to this power of the Infidel, it became
apparent to many Muslims that the traditional way of operating, Taqlid, was not working, and that a radical alternative had to be developed to regain and revive the original imperatives of Islam, and thus recover from that
weakness and resume the primary goal of world conquest.

[other JW reader:]

Or the terrorists today are pointing out that the main schools aren't doing enough to implement their (those
schools') own classical policies. There's no Islamic reason why the head of the Hanbali,Hanafi, or whatever school of Islam could not be Zawahiri or bin Laden.

Hesperado:
"red herring"

Mr. Spencer seems to think the issue is important, which was shown by him when he challenged me on the issue on one of his threads. He takes the issue seriously because much of the support for his views comes from books that are a thousand years old. He says it is OK to quote these books, because the gates have closed, and Muslims believe exactly what they believed back then, because they are frozen in time. This is wrong, and I have shown it is wrong. All Mr. Spencer is doing is quoting a bunch of old books. Muslims never treated Islamic law like Mr. Spencer does. Maybe Mr. Spencer should stop performing taqlid of the Orientalists.

"the problem of the Islam formed by the Taqlid tradition"

There was absolutely no "problem" with Islam when taqlid predominated. Taqlid predominates in all legal systems, as I explained in the paper. The only "problem" that occurred in Islamic law is when the West came in and eradicated it. Up until that point, Islamic law was ahead of the West by almost any measure.

"the problem of Islam by which certain so-called
'fundamentalists' disturb that Taqlid tradition and try to 'reform' it"

It was the West opened up ijtihad to anyone and everyone, and this is a major cause of the presence of Islamic fundamentalism today. Blowback.

There was absolutely no "problem" with Islamic law until the West showed up. All the "problems" within Islamic law are the result of the West screwing it up in an attempt to obliterate it. And now you want the West to fix these "problems"? The best thing the West can do is to stop bombing and installing puppet rulers in Islamic countries, and mind their own damn business. Muslims can deal with their own society, and until they are allowed to do so, there will be problems.

My paper above is a rough draft. I still need to edit it.

*** 33:21 ***

Given that the essay begins with...Mr. Spencer is a writer on the fringe right of the political spectrum... one knows right off the top not bother reading it.

I woulda preferred something like......Mr. Spencer is an apolitical analyst who is widely regarded as one of the premier scholars on Islam and its history, some say the most eminent Islamic scholar of all, who has spent his adult life imploring the populations of Dar al-Harb to visit Islam's factual reality and to consider it objectively... but saying that wouldn't be sufficiently Fictive, now would it?

*** 4:142 ***

Reading Toto's book review, did anybody else get the idea that the dude was walking on eggshells with his fingers in his ears in case anybody (read: any Moslems or GloboSocialists) got the idea that he was endorsing Factual Reality?

Ladies and gentlemen

observe 'dave742', in a typical piece of Mohammedan projection, and denial of responsibility, blaming ALL the problems of the Muslim world - all of which problems match up with those that have been consistently observed there and reported, both by Muslim and by non-Muslim observers, for the past 1400 years, including periods when that Muslim world was pretty much a closed system and kaffir 'interference', deep within the ummah, was nonexistent or negligible - on the dirty kuffars' 'interference'.

He writes - 'There was absolutely no "problem" with Islamic law until the West showed up. All the "problems" within Islamic law are the result of the West screwing it up in an attempt to obliterate it.'

(Excuse me while I ROFLMAO. Barbary Pirates, anyone, and the reason they gave to Jefferson and John Quincy Adams, when asked why they had been attacking and robbing US merchant ships in the Mediterranean, and enslaving the crewmen, given that at that point in history the USA had done *nothing whatever* to them?)

I think we need a reality check. Here are the observations of Fr Menezes from 1909.

Father J.L. Menezes on Islam:
The Mahommedan religion on the whole with all its dogmatic and moral principles, and with all its positive and negative laws has been a curse to human society.
Mahommed pretended to confer by his religion a boon, at least on his own countrymen, by giving them in place of gross idolatry a purer faith, and surer moral habits, but in this attempt he has miserably failed and has hopelessly fallen into the very sin he so vehemently assailed.
Mahommedanism has penetrated into barbarous countries and has forced its inhabitants to accept it as their saving religion, but in doing so it has not succeeded in elevating man’s condition to a higher level – or at least to a level any higher than that of Arabia in Mohammed’s time.

The Partial and specious reforms which it may have attempted to effect, are vitiated by the fact that they tend to exclude the higher and nobler virtues;

and as their inner life of families, the whole, the whole tone of society and the intellectual and moral standard of a people depend on the principles of the ruling religion,

it is hopeless to expect that Islam will ever cease to be what it hitherto proved, the most formidable obstacle to the dawn of a progressive and enlighten civilization.

How can it be otherwise?

No permanent house can be built on a foundation of sand; what permanent civilization and progress then can be expected from a people professing a religion founded on fatalism, polygamy and slavery?

Their blind belief in inevitable fate, and their antagonism to liberty of thought and action have rendered reform next to impossible;

and the professors of this religion seem never to realize their obligation and duty towards the people under their rule, of spreading true civilization, good government and the cultivation of the peaceful arts.

The natural consequence of this ignorance and blindness has been

despotism, mal-administration, bigoted persecution and oppression of their co-religionists.

In the countries of the Mahommedan world

anarchy, rapine, revenge, strife and murder are the order of the day,

thieving, lying, usury and oppression are looked upon more as virtues than vices;

unrestrained licentiousness is carried to unimaginable excess.

Dirt and filth are things that never come seriously before the attention of Mahommedans;
they seem indeed to prefer living in the most dirty and filthy environment.

They are generally illiterate and at the same time self-conceited

and their vainglory in their religion and the nothingness of their own acquirements makes them scorn every other religion;

the meager education which they generally receive when young, makes them believe that there is not much left for them to learn in the world.

In short, Mahommedan countries are the chosen homes of
ignorance, bigotry, tyranny and brutal vice,
and rendezvous for a filthy, unprincipled people, as well as for brigands, felons and freebooters. {sounds like Somalia...dda}

While all other countries not influenced by Islam have made rapid progress in every direction and enjoy the blessings and peace of true civilization,

Mahommedan countries have remained absolutely opposed to change and reform;

nay, rapacity and extortion have reduced them to a most deplorable state.

Such is the boon conferred on human society by the Mahommedan religion, and what a benefactor Mahommed has been to his country!

Who was pleased to give to his country, nay, to the whole world, a religion which,

claiming a divine origin as the final and irrevocable standard of morality,

has kept its followers sunk in ignorance and barbarism,

and has become an insuperable barrier to the regeneration, civilization and progress of the Eastern world.”

Fr Menezes was writing a hundred years ago.

From a very different observer, in the southern Philippines, in the 1940s:

"They Fought Alone," (1963) by John Keats, who had taken part in the resistance against the Japanese in Mindanao:

"These hill Moros ...live according to the Koran as interpreted by some illiterate, flea-bitten imam who heard from some crooked hadji what was supposed to be in the Holy Book. What they get out of it boils down to polygamy, slavery and brutality." (pg. 56).

'Polygamy, slavery and brutality'.

Sounds like par for the course for the Muslim world, at about any place and time one might care to name... and a perfectly good description of those parts of it and those periods when the only kafir to be found inside the Ummah consisted of terrified dhimmi minority communities with the Muslim boot ground relentlessly into their faces.

The Life of Dhimmis in 19th century Damascus:

Dhimmis were required to wear clothes of a different color than Muslims’ clothes, and have belts around the waist. When at their places of worship, the loud ringing of bells was forbidden; when reading their Scriptures, they could not raise their voices; they were refrained from drinking wine in public. Their homes were not allowed to be higher than Muslims’ homes; Dhimmis were not to bury their dead in secrecy and express their grief in low tones without raising their voices. Dhimmis were not allowed to ride on horses, but only on mules and donkeys!

“Any non-compliance with the above-mentioned regulations was considered a breach in the Covenant of Dhimma which made a Dhimmi liable to insults, and sometimes led to his death by the orders of the governmental authorities in Damascus.

"When leaving his home, a Christian was required to have a sac slung over his shoulder, in order to be ready to accompany a Muslim on his way to the market and carry (in his sac) the groceries of that Muslim “boss”! Quite often, such a Christian might spend most of his day in this forced and degrading service to unknown Muslims he had met by chance!

“And as these events multiplied, it was the custom among Christian families when visiting their friends to inquire, ‘How many times were you forced today to carry the bag for the Muslims you had encountered?’ And, ‘On your way home, how often were you slapped by Muslims?’

http://www.faithfreedom.org/2009/06/19/the-intolerable-life-of-dhimmis-in-19th-century-damascus/

These are the perfect laws of Islam (according to Dave742) that the West tampered with? The article, you may note, goes on to explain that these laws ceased when a Turkish sultan sought to model the Ottaman Levant on the French model of religious tolerance.

Winner: France

Worry01,

I don't see how your response is relevant to my point and question.

"You should try using a translation that is more accurate than the KJV when making such citations. The RSV, NIV, the NAB would be better choices."

How would those translations nullify the passages that show Christians claiming that the Jews of Old Testament times killed the prophets? That was my main point.

"Also, in your quotations, you are dealing with the Sanhedrin, and not the general population of Jews."

What does it matter how representative the Sanhedrin was, with regard to my main point (cf. above)?

Alarmed Pig Farmer:
"Mr. Spencer is an apolitical analyst who is widely regarded as one of the premier scholars on Islam and its history."

Mr. Spencer has never had a book published by a University Press, and has never had an article published by a scholarly publication. It is hard to claim that he is a premier scholar. I know - academia does not know the truth. In contrast, Wael Hallaq (who is the top scholar in Islamic Law), has a very long list of University published books and scholarly articles (partial list is here: http://www.mcgill.ca/islamicstudies/faculty/wael-hallaq/publications/ )

There is another way of measuring the impact of a particular author in a particular field. The method most commonly used is a citation index, which counts the number of times an authors work is cited within the scholarly literature. According to ISI citation index, Wael Hallaq is cited over 240 times in scholarly works. Mr. Spencer's total is zero.

However, if Mr. Spencer is correct that the gates of ijtihad was closed a millenia ago, I do encourage him to write a paper and submit it to a scholarly journal. This view goes against the entire field of Islamic law for the past 30 years, and if he can prove his case, he would become famous in the field. He might even get an honorary degree. I do think he will have to come up with more proof than the 4 quotes he gives on his website that deals with the subject.

Hesperado, and Worry

I don't know whether either of you knows French. But perhaps the best re-reading of the key Christian scriptures, including those which have been notoriously the favourite 'proof-texts' of antisemites within Christendom, is to be found in two books by Jacques Ellul - in two chapters of his 'Un Chretien Pour Israel', and in the entirety of 'Ce Dieu Injuste? - theologie chretienne pour le peuple d'Israel' ('This Unjust God? - Christian Theology For the People of Israel'), which focuses particularly on St Paul's Letter to the Romans, chapters 9 to 11, but also looks at a number of other important passages.

The other author worth checking out is James Parkes. He remained a devoutly convinced Anglican to the end of his days; but with a course of yeshiva study under his belt as well. He and Ellul both demonstrate (as also the humble Christian, Corrie Ten Boom) that it is possible to be a sincere and devoted and 'bible-believing' Christian, while having not an antisemitic bone in one's body.

I find Ellul most striking when he argues that for Paul/ Saul, what he perceived as a falling away of Israel in his time, was not *final* (as most antisemites like to think) but rather, just par for the course, one more episode in Israel's stormy relationship with her unfailingly-faithful God who keeps covenant irrespective of the failures and flaws of his human covenant partner; every previous 'falling away' had been followed by restoration, so Paul/ Saul saw no reason to suppose the current episode, however traumatic for all concerned, would be otherwise.

The rejection of Jesus becomes one more bump in the road; and all the harsh things that are said about 'Jews' in the Christian scriptures become (once one bears in mind the fact that practically ALL the major writers of the Christian scriptures were born and bred Jews!) comprehensible simply as part of the ongoing tradition of ruthless Hebrew/ Israelite/ Jewish self-criticism, already abundantly apparent in the TaNaKh.

The more I come to understand Judaism and Christianity, the more I come to think that the best way to describe the fact of the relationship - indeed, the fundamental unity - between them, is to employ, daringly, a phrase from the Athanasian creed:

"neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance".

dumbledoresarmy,

I intend to read that Ellul book; it sounds interesting. Years ago I had read some Ellul on one of his major issues, the philosophy of technology.

I wasn't, however, raising my point and question with regard to anti-Semitism, but simply on the question of the Christian belief that the Jews of Israel killed their own prophets. It seems to me that this belief is rather solidly attested in the New Testament -- not to mention also in the Old Testament itself. There's no reason why this belief necessarily has to entail anti-Semitism. It's understandable why it has, at various times in history; but it's not a logical necessity. It can also simply reflect the tension between Christianity and Judaism, which undeniably exists at the very least on a theological level: the idea that a human being is God and one with Yahweh is obviously blasphemy in Judaism; while the denial of that idea is, in turn, blasphemy in Christianity. There's no way this theological disagreement wouldn't produce tension. This tension, however, need not provoke anti-Semitism.

But all this is a separate matter from my point and my question. I was just interested in that rather bald assertion phrased by the reviewer of Spencer's book -- "The Koran repeatedly states Jews are prophet killers -- without proof." I don't doubt that the Koran doesn't provide proof for that claim. But what's interesting is that that claim is essentially the same claim believed by Christians. Here, as in other instances, Mohammed (and/or the early fabricators of Islam) probably stole this idea from the Christians.

Another interesting thing to pursue in this regard would be how the rabbinic tradition explored the problem of the Israelities killing their prophets. In the Old Testament, from my memory of it, it seems one major theme is a monumental self-criticism, whereby the elites and the people too often seem to get their own God's messages and commands wrong, and He punishes them, and he inspires Prophets to try to guide them out of the wrong way, but they generally tend to ignore, afflict, even kill those Prophets. It is an astonishing narrative for a people to construct: astonishing in its unflinching record of its own failings: a remarkable testament to, and probably one of the pillars of, the Western virtue of self-criticism.

Mohammed turned this virtue on its head. In ancient Israel, the prophets were generally marginal figures, or if they were elites, they were soon ostracized. The Old Testament then becomes the document less of a materially triumphant religion in terms of success in this life, and more of a testament to the higher value of the lowly, despised, "suffering servant" in this life pointing to a transcendent resolution to the inevitable corruption of this life even by God's own people let alone by wicked foreigners. In Mohammed's Islam, there is a this-wordly triumphalism with no development of any narrative of a this-wordly suffering in terms of weakness and meekness as power, to counter-balance the triumphalism, as there was in Christianity. In Islam, the tension between the two gets transferred to the tension between Believers and Unbelievers on the fields of battle, which are the fields of the whole Earth. While there were occasionally tendencies of this in the history of Christianity, they were always in tension with spiritual, intellectual and social forces mitigating those tendencies.

dave742 writes:

"There is another way of measuring the impact of a particular author in a particular field. The method most commonly used is a citation index, which counts the number of times an authors work is cited within the scholarly literature. According to ISI citation index, Wael Hallaq is cited over 240 times in scholarly works. Mr. Spencer's total is zero."

And yet dave742 in his little booklet about ijtihad dismisses a great scholar, Joseph Schacht, as an "Orientalist" which in his newspeak means someone whose Western bias at every important point clouds their judgment about the study of Islam. I wonder how Joseph Schacht rates on the ISI citation index? I'd wager a whole lot better than "Wael Hallaq".

dave742 wrote,

"Mr. Spencer seems to think the issue is important, which was shown by him when he challenged me on the issue on one of his threads."

It may be a red herring not only for Spencer, but for you too. Your rejection of the "closing of the gates of ijtihad" is predicated on your belief that Islamic law when it is stabilized (or fossilized, depending on one's perspective) is not only unproblematic, but was superior to the West in the past (and by implication perhaps would quickly overtake the West in superiority were it allowed to wax free today?). This is an absurd and preposterous belief so monumental one doesn't know where to begin. Others, like dumbledoresarmy, have adverted to just a few tips of the transcontinental iceberg.

"He says it is OK to quote these books, because the gates have closed, and Muslims believe exactly what they believed back then, because they are frozen in time."

This brings up an interesting paradox in your argument: are you conceding that those ancient Muslims of a thousand years ago whom Spencer persuasively quotes were in fact problematic? This would seem to undermine your bald assertion that there was "no problem" with Islamic law before the West began intruding (circa what, 17th century?).

At any rate, it doesn't matter if Muslims are frozen in time or defrosted and wiggling around for centuries sprouting ever-new amphibious appendages: they will never evolve to a new species: they will continue to develop, pursue and defend grotesque and dangerous evils, because the blueprint for all their legal tinkerings, irrespective of ijtihad or not, is an intolerably intolerant supremacist expansionism based in literalistic eschatological fanaticism and an obsession with purity.

"This is wrong, and I have shown it is wrong."

I doubt it; but at any rate, for your argument to have merit and force it must at the least be critically appraised by critics who will examine its claims rationally. I might decide to take the time to do so in the near future.

"Muslims never treated Islamic law like Mr. Spencer does."

You're right -- because Spencer doesn't "treat" Islamic law. He examines and reports what Muslims say Islamic law is and means.

"There was absolutely no "problem" with Islam when taqlid predominated."

Other than being the sociopolitico-theological infrastructure for a never-ending project of military supremacist expansionism with no theoretical limit for its Lebensraum, which involved attacking in large invasions when possible or attacking in small razzias when they were to weak to launch major invasions; subjugating millions of people to horrible oppression; the mass slaughters, rapes and tortures consequent upon that expansionism; the development of the largest slavery network in all world history; and capital punishment for blasphemy, apostasy, and adultery -- sure: there was no problem with Islam when taqlid predominated.

"Taqlid predominates in all legal systems, as I explained in the paper."

So what? If the West has a rough equivalent of taqlid, it would simply be the other pole in the tension in law between
adaptation and stability. It does not speak to the substance about which one is adapting or choosing not to adapt. It is the fanatical obsession with "purity" in Islam structured in a framework of a slavish devotion to Mohammed's sayings as the Best Exegete of Allah's Guidance (the Koran) that is the substance -- two grotesquely evil pillars (Koran and Hadiths) for any law to rest upon. This is the non-negotiable heart of Islam. All else -- whether it seems to adapt and exhibit the sophistical flexibility of a snake twisting and turning through a maze, or whether it solidifies into conservatism -- is immaterial because it will find a way to perpetuate those two pillars one way or another, whether through the subtleties of fine print (ijtihad) or the rigid stamp of large print (taqlid).

"The only "problem" that occurred in Islamic law is when the West came in and eradicated it."

From your lips to Allah's ear! The West didn't eradicate it. In most Western colonies, such as British India or Dutch Indonesia, a great deal of latitude was given to Muslims to perpetuate their legal institutions -- too much latitude, if you ask me (but that's another story). I wish to God they HAD eradicated Islamic law!

"It was the West opened up ijtihad to anyone and everyone"

Wow, I didn't know the West had that capability! And Muslims let the West tell them how to change their attitudes, practices and minds about their own laws? Rather odd behavior for otherwise exceedingly devout and fervent believers in the truth of their own ways. Of course, people sometimes do abandon and betray their own principles if they are oppressed enough -- as, oh say, for example what happened to millions of Zoroastrians, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Pagans over the centuries under the grotesquely cruel oppression of Muslims, when many of those peoples eventually could not take it anymore and converted in order to attain a better life compared to their treatment as non-Believers.

"The best thing the West can do is to stop bombing and installing puppet rulers in Islamic countries, and mind their own damn business. Muslims can deal with their own society, and until they are allowed to do so, there will be problems."

That'd be fine with me -- as long as Muslims stay within the present Dar-al-Islam along the geographical swath from Indonesia to Morocco and never set foot outside that transcontinental region. Otherwise, we will have to keep on being defensively belligerent against their offensive belligerence.

Islam in an expansionistic, imperialistic, intolerant, misogynistic totalitarian tyranny intent on subjugating the Earth to its despotic terror.

At least that is its self-declared Koranic aim.

"Gates" or no frikkin' "gates".

Playing that is has no such intention is delusional, suicidal stupidity.

(AKA "Dave742"... vebose disinformational apologist for retrograde, cruel, Mohammedan Stone Age idiocy.)

profitsbeard,

Thanks -- you put it much more succinctly than I did. Gates or no frikkin' gates!

Hesperado:
“dismisses a great scholar, Joseph Schacht”

So tell me, why do you think Schacht is a great scholar? Have you read his material and checked his references? Would you like to talk about any one of the major themes he is responsible for introducing within the field of Islamic law? I ask this because there is not a single research hypothesis that has been advance by Schacht that has not been shown to be complete garbage by modern research. In all the books and articles I have read in doing research for my paper, I constantly ran across authors bringing up Schacht’s work, and refuting everything about it. People have written entire books refuting his work. All Schacht did was to screw up an entire field for decades. He would have done more for the field of Islamic law had he been a carpenter. But you say he is a “great scholar.” What is that word for people who “blindly follow” ancient scholars? TAQLID. Most of what Schacht writes is repeating what Orientalist have been saying since the mid 19th century. You are blindly following 150 year old texts. Ironic, huh. Maybe you should stop with your taqlid, and instead try performing some ijtihad. Pick up any scholarly article (no, they are not available on the web) from the past thirty years, and read it.

“Your rejection of the ‘closing of the gates of ijtihad’”

It is not “my” rejection. As I said, my paper is a review article, and does nothing but reflect modern scholarship on the subject. It is not me that has rejected the myth of the closed “gates of ijtihad,” but ALL of modern scholarship. There is not a single scholar who has printed anything in a scholarly publication anywhere within the last 30 years that has defended this myth. It is not even a debate.

“Your rejection of the ‘closing of the gates of ijtihad’ is predicated on your belief that Islamic law when it is stabilized (or fossilized, depending on one's perspective) is not only unproblematic, but was superior to the West in the past”

When I said that there was no “problem” with Islamic law in the pre-colonial period, I meant in a structural or developmental sense. Of course, like any system, there were faults. If left alone, these faults would have been dealt with in an evolutionary way, and judging by the advanced level that Islamic law was at during this period, it is highly likely that they would have remained at a more advanced level relative to the West. Instead, the West invaded and screwed up their society and culture. And then blamed it on them, of course.
The rejection of the closed “gates of ijtihad” myth is NOT predicated on the belief that Islamic law was ahead of the West at the time. These are two different issues. Whether or not Islamic law was ahead of the West at the time has nothing to do with whether or not their system of law was fluid and dynamic and capable of change. Conversely, even though the system of law in the West was behind, as I showed, that also does not mean that the system of law in the West was “static and unchanging.” Of course the system of law in the West was changing and evolving, despite their system being more primitive than Islamic law. I would never portray the system of law in the West at the time as being “static and unchanging.” The only people that say things like this about other cultures are those that want to wipe out that culture to steal their resources or enslave their people. In that case, they have to portray that culture as primitive, so the people don’t feel too bad about killing them.

“This brings up an interesting paradox in your argument: are you conceding that those ancient Muslims of a thousand years ago whom Spencer persuasively quotes were in fact problematic?”

I already said what I was referring to when I said that Islamic law had no “problems” just before the colonial period. Islamic law in the formative period was extremely advanced FOR ITS TIME. Of course, judged by modern standards, it was not. It was not right, for example, for Muslims to conquer other people lands, just like it is not right to do it today (what countries do that today?? – I know, we don’t conquer anybody, we are just defending ourselves. Our 800 military bases spread throughout the world are all for defensive purpose. Our puppet dictators are ruling other countries for our defense. Whatever.) People, and countries or cultures, always need to improve and continue to develop. Of course, some people cannot develop, because they do not expose themselves to different views, and instead perform taqlid on those that parrot their preconceived beliefs. Even though Islam was far from perfect in the formative period, they were advanced for its day. They also continued to evolved, which is what my paper showed. They evolved at a rate that left them still more advanced than the West at the start of the colonial period. And had they been left alone, they would likely still be more advanced today. Had they been left alone, maybe they would have stopped the practice of having to dominate and subjugate other people. As it is now, the dominant powers are still stuck in that mode.

“I doubt it; but at any rate, for your argument to have merit and force it must at the least be critically appraised by critics who will examine its claims rationally. I might decide to take the time to do so in the near future.”

I welcome it. I hope Mr. Spencer will do so as well. I will reiterate: IT IS NOT MY ARGUMENT. It is the argument of the entire field of Islamic law for the past three decades. If your rebuttal has any substance whatsoever, (and I doubt it will based on your writing on this blog), then I will be happy to submit it to an Islamic law journal for immediate publication under your name. For if you are able to refute what I said (because what I said was merely reflecting current scholarship – note the the majority of my paper is merely quotes: all I did was to basically introduce and explain quoted material), you will have stood the entire field on its head, and you will be famous. I relied on material that is based on primary sources. When you make you rebuttal, I challenge you to do what I did, and rely on quotes from books and articles that also are based on primary sources. If you are planning to do your research using Google, please don’t bother. Get E-library access, or go to the library. Try using material from scholarly publications and books printed by Universities.

The rest of your post is meaningless rambling, or says things that scholarship has show in painful detail is wrong, which I have showed. I’ll be waiting for you reply. I am sure it will be entertaining.

My point for writing the paper was to show you people in great detail how unsupportable your views are, and I will continue to do so with various other subjects in the future. I realize that you are unable to absorb any new information, because you are frozen in a mindset that was articulated 150 years ago. You are unable to perform ijtihad. I like to watch you perform taqlid to the utmost degree, and then charge the brown people with doing so. It is very entertaining for me.

dumbledoresarmy:
Do me a favor. Could you please post the references that Jacques Ellul uses to support what he said in the quote you give? (I don’t really expect a reply to that).

Here is an exerpt from a review of Yeor's work:

"As a consequence of its inflexible assumption that an unfair law must always be applied unfairly, it fails to recognise the different conditions under which dhimmis lived at different times and places. The author is as guilty of the same doctrinaire attitude of which she accuses so many of her subjects."

Author(s): David Thomas Reviewed work(s): The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam, from Jihad to Dhimmitude by Bat Ye'or Source: British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1 (May, 1998), pp. 183-185

And an excerpt of Ellul'd work on the same subject:

"This book makes frustrating reading for the historian. Bat Ye'or has an explicit agenda. It is to show that over the centuries jihad and "Dhimmitude" have brought about a social fact which systematically undermined the dhimmi's condition to the point that they have been effectively disenfranchised and virtually compelled to appeal to forces outside Islam for relief, a situation that in turn has hardened Islamic antipathy toward them. The problem is that, as she presents the case for the long view of the phenomenon, she deals much too quickly and selectively with the evidence. Her interpretive discussion rests upon the evidence furnished by the passages quoted from numerous historical documents. But the quotations are limitated to the description of aggressive and oppressive behavior on the part of Muslims, or presumed Muslims, against Christian and other dhimmi populations. There is little or no discussion of the attendant circumstances of each episode, and no real evaluation of the sources themselves. One does not find any mention of positive valuation of the rule of Islam, which can in fact be found in some Christian sources. The Syriac chronicle of Michael the Syrian is a case in point. Bat Ye'or quotes from it extensively. But it is a complex document, woven together from many sources, meaning that it must be used with care and attention to detail. Its narratives often speak of excessive taxation and of the danger of attack by wild bedouin tribesmen. But one can parallel these accounts not only from passages in the same Christian work describing events before the rise of Islam but also from Islamic Arabic sources decrying the same sort of perils suffered by Muslims under certain Islamic governments. The methodology of simply stringing together all of the accounts of the deleterious effects of "Dhimmitude" one can find, without paying sufficient attention to the context, bearing, and reliability of each report, leaves an overall negative impression, with no acknowledgment of what good times there were when Christians in the Orient lived under Islamic rule. Admittedly they were not numerous. But historical truth demands a much more nuanced account of "Dhimmitude" than Bat Ye'or has provided. Nevertheless, when all the shortcomings of this book are listed, it remains a fact that the author is the first writer to raise the issue of "Dhimmitude" as a social, psychological, and cultural phenomenon that deserves serious historical study, in both the medieval and the modern periods. The work still remains to be done."
Author(s): Sidney H. Griffith Reviewed work(s): Les Chrtients d'Orient entre Jihad et Dhimmitude: VIIe-XXe sicle. by Bat Ye'or; Jacques Ellul Source: Speculum, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Apr., 1994), pp. 419-420

Joseph Schacht recounts, in his 1957 article "Islam in Northern Nigeria" (Studia Islamica, No. 8 (1957), pp. 123-146) his visit to Nigeria in 1950 as an expert in Mohammedan law to help certain matters for the Colonial Office. One episode he recounts is interesting, concerning

"the attitude of the chief cadi [Islamic judge of Islamic law] of a Muslim settlement in the midst of a solidly pagan region; these pagans had never been conquered by the Fulanis [one particularly aggressive caste of African Muslims who monopolized leadership in politics and law], and had never formed part of a Muhammadan emirate. It so happened that for reasons of administrative convenicence the tribunal of this cadi was the only statutory tribunal in the town and the district, the cadi sitting with pagan assessors when he tried pagan cases. Now the pagans whose leader, incidentally, was a Christian, asked for the establishment of so-called "native courts" all over the district, which would have transformed the tribunal of the chief cadi and his assessors into a so-called "mixed court". The District Officer called a meeting in order to discuss the question with the interested parties, and the cadi appeared girt with his ceremonial sword, and made a statement in which he opposed all change. "We have conquered you with the sword", he said to the pagans; that was his last word, and if it were not accepted, he would appeal to the District Officer, the Resident, the Governor, and the British Government...

And Schacht goes on to note that the Muslim cadi "...had been appointed by the British administration."

So much for dave742's claim that the West "eradicated" Islamic law!

Of equal if not greater interest is the belligerent intolerance exemplified by that Muslim cadi, tempered only by the massive presence of the West all around him in the form of the British. We know what happens when that presence is removed: the subsequent Jihad in Nigeria in 1967-1969, in which fellow Muslims, the Egyptian government, lent support in the form of planes to strafe and kill Christian villagers in Biafra, tens of thousands who didn't even have weapons to defend themselves with (about which, of course, the West did nothing) -- Jihad waged by the same Fulani Muslims whose right to conquer and impose law the aforementioned cadi (as Schacht observed and reported less than 20 years earlier) so eloquently expressed, his sword visibly on his belt like a gangster showing his gun in his pants. And this is not to mention the continued fanatical violence against non-Muslim Nigerians in the region to this day along with imposition of laws fanatically obsessed with purity, such as laws forbidding women from riding local motorcycle taxis which they need to do to go shopping, get to work or school -- all because it is "impure" for women to be on the back of a motorcycle with a male driver in the driver's seat too close to her.

For more on that latest Jihad, see:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2005/12/fitzgerald-remember-biafra.html

Hesperado:
"So much for dave742's claim that the West "eradicated" Islamic law!"

I can just picture you searching the literature, reading the quote you give, and thinking to yourself "Ahaaa!! Now I have that dave742 right where I want him! Now I have proof that Islamic law was undisturbed by the West because of what this cadi did in northern Nigeria!"

You are a nitwit.

dave742

Lying and denying in order to protect the Ummah, or Muslim Mob.

dave742 conjectures what I thought when I found the evidence of a supremacist Muslim cadi in a scholary article:

I can just picture you ...thinking to yourself "...Now I have proof that Islamic law was undisturbed by the West because of what this cadi did in northern Nigeria!"

You did not claim that the West "disturbed" Islamic law; you claimed that the West eradicated Islamic law.

dumbledoresarmy:
"it might be profitable to check up on Sidney H Griffith and David Thomas, whose opinion 'dave742' seems to think constitutes a sufficient dismissal or disproof of all of the damning testimony gathered together by Bat Yeor."

I don't know those authors. I have not read anything by Yeaor, and when I don't know someone, I look up their articles in the standard databases. Yeor has none, which says something right off the bat. At least Bernard Lewis writes articles in real journals. There were a few review articles of Yeor, so I quoted them. I will eventually read a yeor book, especially if I pick my next project as the treatment of minorities in the Ottoman period.

"'dave 742' with his continual aggressive demand for proofs and for documentation piled on documentation (and his dismissal of any documentation that supports a less-than-rosy view of Islam and of Mohammedan conduct) seems to me to be implicitly setting an impossible condition"

Sorry for wanting to deal with facts. For me, facts matter. I can bring up a top notch scholar who meticulously shows a particular fact using dozens of original sources to illustrate that fact, but if you can do a Google search and find some internet imbecile who says the opposite off the top of his head, then you feel like you have rebutted what my source said. It is idiotic. You have no idea what scholarship is, or how to evaluate sources, etc. Why do you think your BS ideas can't get published in any scholarly publication? Because the ivory tower can't handle the truth? It's because educated people deal with facts. If you say something, then back it up. This is why it is so easy fo leaders to manipulate people. It's not that you people are dumb. You might be, you might not be. You simply can't accept any information that makes your in-group look bad. You can have a 400 page book of the most in-depth work ever done on a subject that says something negative about your in-group, but all you need is one person from your in-group to say that book is wrong, at that's good enough. I wish I was ruthless. I could have a nation of 200 million people doing what I want within a year. 99.9% of people are simply brain-dead.

Hesperado:
"you claimed that the West eradicated Islamic law."

No matter how many times I explain this to you, you will not be able to understand. I will do it again anyway. It is not ME that claims the West eradicated Islamic law, it is ALL of modern scholarship. This theme has been discussed at length throughout the literature by many, many authors, and I brought many of them up in my paper. I would have kept a more detailed list, but I did not know that this would be a sticking point for the closed mind. For example, Rudolph Peters, who has been quoted often on JW before, said:

“between 1790 and 1807 the British transformed Islamic criminal law totally and beyond recognition.”
Peters, Rudolph, Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 119

That is not me talking. That is Rudolph Peters. He gives ample evidence for saying this, and nobody disagrees that I have seen. If you find someone who does, then tell me. If the best you can do is find some qadi who was "girt" with his sword, then I don't think you have equaled the findings of the rest of Islamic scholarship. If you like, I can write a 50,000 word paper on this subject, but you will still stick with your qadi from northern Nigeria, won't you.

If you are someone without the luxury of time to spare. Here is the quick, rude, and crude encapsulation of Dave742‘s paper.:

“When Muslims were inventing what you stole from them and are taking for granted now, Western world lived in Viking caves.
Not only you stole our lands by colonialism and occupation but stole our invetions and cultures.
.. and oil and gold and diamond and, and ....…”

That was a comment to the Independent article listing the Islamic inventions that changed the world.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-islamic-inventors-changed-the-world-469452.html

Compare that comment with this statement by Dave742:

“Until the colonial period, it is clear that Islamic civilization was far more advanced than that of the West, including their system of law. The West was unable to compete with Islamic culture, but they did find a way to fix that problem. They occupied Islamic lands militarily, and proceeded to f@#k up their society. “ - Dave742
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20753339/Gates-of-Ijtihad

Is it just me, or do I detect a recurrence of cultural appropriation in the Islamic storyline? Whether it is scripture, cities, land, or ideas, Muslims claim the rights of ownership.

Sometimes it seems even the grievances of people they intend to wrong in the future are appropriated in a preemptive fashion.

This version of history, told with foot notes, and citations “reeks of politics“, and the conclusions sound so much like the usual whinging about victimization, and oppression.

The decline of the Ottoman empire was the result of many causes including a reluctance to innovate, not Western perfidy.

“ Firearms of the Islamic World” by Robert Elgood reviewed by Nick Beckwith

“The author surveys Middle Eastern reluctance to accept firearms and shows that those quickest to embrace this new technology (for example, the Ottomans) were more successful in war -- though they suffered taunts from their defeated opponents about relying on weapons suitable only for women and Christians. By the 1660s, however, European armies adopted the flintlock, against which Turkish arquebus were hopelessly outclassed, leading to the Ottomans' expulsion from Europe.
The Industrial Revolution intensified this technological gap as Middle Eastern gunsmiths tried in vain, using handicraft methods, to produce lockwork of European quality.”
http://www.meforum.org/1109/firearms-of-the-islamic-world

Also, Dave742’s paper at times drips with venom, and epithets abound. This should be left out of the final draft , Dave742 because someone might mistake it for incitement.

Dave742 relies heavily on the work of Wael B. Hallaq, and maybe more than a little on Edward Said. I can't find very much about Mr. Hallaq. Does he have any critics? Is anyone in academia talking about him?

Why are there no summaries, critiques, analysis, or reviews of his work online?

If you are someone without the luxury of time to spare. Here is the quick, rude, and crude encapsulation of Dave742‘s paper.:

“When Muslims were inventing what you stole from them and are taking for granted now, Western world lived in Viking caves.
Not only you stole our lands by colonialism and occupation but stole our invetions and cultures.
.. and oil and gold and diamond and, and ....…”

That was a comment to the Independent article listing the Islamic inventions that changed the world.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-islamic-inventors-changed-the-world-469452.html

Compare that comment with this statement by Dave742:

“Until the colonial period, it is clear that Islamic civilization was far more advanced than that of the West, including their system of law. The West was unable to compete with Islamic culture, but they did find a way to fix that problem. They occupied Islamic lands militarily, and proceeded to f@#k up their society. “ - Dave742
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20753339/Gates-of-Ijtihad

Is it just me, or do I detect a recurrence of cultural appropriation in the Islamic storyline? Whether it is scripture, cities, land, or ideas, Muslims claim the rights of ownership.

Sometimes it seems even the grievances of people they intend to wrong in the future are appropriated in a preemptive fashion.

This version of history, told with foot notes, and citations “reeks of politics“, and the conclusions sound so much like the usual whinging about victimization, and oppression.

The decline of the Ottoman empire was the result of many causes including a reluctance to innovate, not Western perfidy.

“ Firearms of the Islamic World” by Robert Elgood reviewed by Nick Beckwith

“The author surveys Middle Eastern reluctance to accept firearms and shows that those quickest to embrace this new technology (for example, the Ottomans) were more successful in war -- though they suffered taunts from their defeated opponents about relying on weapons suitable only for women and Christians. By the 1660s, however, European armies adopted the flintlock, against which Turkish arquebus were hopelessly outclassed, leading to the Ottomans' expulsion from Europe.
The Industrial Revolution intensified this technological gap as Middle Eastern gunsmiths tried in vain, using handicraft methods, to produce lockwork of European quality.”
http://www.meforum.org/1109/firearms-of-the-islamic-world

Also, Dave742’s paper at times drips with venom, and epithets abound. This should be left out of the final draft , Dave742 because someone might mistake it for incitement.

Dave742 relies heavily on the work of Wael B. Hallaq, and maybe more than a little on Edward Said. I can't find very much about Mr. Hallaq. Does he have any critics? Is anyone in academia talking about him?

Why are there no summaries, critiques, analysis, or reviews of his work online?

dave insists:

"It is not ME that claims the West eradicated Islamic law, it is ALL of modern scholarship."

Then that one Nigerian cadi proves them all wrong.

P.S.: If we only had one Nigerian cadi coddled by the British Empire, it would refute the "eradicated" charge of Dave742's purported sources, since "eradicated" means "eliminated". But we have far more than this. We have innumerable Islamic legal institutions being coddled and allowed to continue their practices in British India, for example. And in Dutch Indonesia, for example. Examples I have already cited. All these examples (and much, much more) make the "eradicated" of Dave742's purported sources not merely preposterous, but bizarre.

Livingengine:
You are focusing on some of my personal comments in the latter part of the paper. I guess I knew this would happen. Maybe I will break up the paper into two parts. The paper is about the “gates of ijtihad”, and how they were never closed. This part of the paper is less than half of the total. I could have left the rest out. Do you have any comment on the primary subject of the paper?

“Dave742 relies heavily on the work of Wael B. Hallaq, and maybe more than a little on Edward Said. I can't find very much about Mr. Hallaq. Does he have any critics? Is anyone in academia talking about him?”

Edward Said is not even in the bibliography, and is mentioned in a single footnote in order to explain how I use a term. To say that I rely on Said is idiotic.
Yes, I rely on Hallaq more than any other. That is because he is the world’s foremost scholar on Islamic law, especially surrounding the subject under discussion. When you write on any subject, you will tend to rely on the top scholars if you are writing a serious paper. The very basis of evaluating scholarship involves citations. What journals are cited most by scholarly authors, and what authors are cited most. You cannot read an article on Islamic law without seeing multiple references to Hallaq, because he is the best. That said, if you simply look at the bibliography, it is clear that I quoted many, many authors. Not just Hallaq. Another primary author I use is Haim Gerber, who is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Any comments about him?

“Does he have any critics?”
I have seen one author try to challenge his work. Can’t remember the author or paper. It was wholly ineffective, but if you want to read it yourself, go find it. Please don’t try looking on the web. Go to a library.

“Is anyone in academia talking about him?”
If you knew the first thing about Islamic law, you would realize how idiotic this statement is. Hallaq is simply the finest scholar in Islamic law in the world. One issue of the journal “Islamic Law and Society” was devoted to papers that addressed questions surrounding ijtihad. Hallaq was invited not to write a paper, but to comment on and evaluate the papers that were published, and that was used as an introduction to the journal. He is asked to evaluate the top scholars.
Turn off your computer, go to the library, and read.

Hesperado:
“Then that one Nigerian cadi proves them all wrong.”

Do me a favor. Submit your quote of your Nigerian cadi to the “International Journal of Middle East Studies,” and tell them you have proof that the West did not interfere in the development of Islamic law. Then post the response you get on JW. I would like to see it.
I wish there was someone on this site with at least a high school education that I could debate with. Mr. Spencer, are you going to respond to my paper? Specifically, the first half which addresses the “gates of ijtihad”?

Hesperado:
"Then that one Nigerian cadi proves them all wrong.”

Hey! Guess what! Native Americans have an "Office of Tribal Justice" that operates under the USDOJ:

http://www.usdoj.gov/otj/index.html

That means that the US have never interfered in Native American culture or their system of law! They were allowed to live their lives unaltered by the Europeans! I feel so much better now!

Imbecile.

"That means that the US have never interfered in Native American culture..."

You said the scholars said the West had eradicated Islamic law, not "interfered in" it.

It's fun watching dave742 dance like a little monkey attached to an organ grinder's string.

I believe dave742's particular tactic of changing his own word in later attempted rebuttals is a logical fallacy that is in a sense the mirror-opposite of the straw man: perhaps it can be (or already is) called the "fallacy of changing the goal-posts".

Hesperado:
Ok, I admit it. You got me. If I had known about that cadi in northern Nigeria, I never would have written the paper. How could I have thought that I could match-up to the combined intellect of Schacht and Hesperado. I never had a chance. I feel silly.

If you feel silly now, just think how silly you will feel when Wael Hallaq sees your conspiracy theory hate rant.

I wonder what he would think about you using his name to support your assertion of a "plan to end Islam"?

Do you think he is going to admire "scholarship" that calls other people idiots, nimrods, thick, liars, bastards,and stupid?

When he sees you using expressions like “Gee, ya think?”,” Wow“, and “Oh my God! That’s impossible!”, he is going to tell you that you belong in a comic book.

Do you remember describing Suyuti’s personality as that of a “pompous ass” because “Besides boasting, he would also belittle his fellow jurists, calling them “fools, if not worse””?

What you are doing is appropriating his reputation to promote your hate of Orientalists. By the way, Hallaq does not use that term even once. You use it more than 120 times, and then you call me idiotic for pointing it out.

He also doesn't use the term "the West". He doesn't talk like you at all.

My advice is to take this embarrassing piece of writing off the internet before someone sees it.

“If you feel silly now, just think how silly you will feel when Wael Hallaq sees your conspiracy theory hate rant.”

I don’t think Hallaq reads much material on the internet. Like other scholars, I picture him reading books and articles. Especially, I picture him reading Islamic law books from centuries ago, which, strangely enough, is something that not all people who are considered “Islamic scholars” do.

“I wonder what he would think about you using his name to support your assertion of a ‘plan to end Islam’?”

I am not using his name to support this assertion. If I was, I would have quoted him in connection with it, and I did not. I adopted that theme after reading a paper by Abdal Hakim Murad, which I quoted in the paper. I certainly took it further than Murad did, but it makes sense to me to do so, whether the people who are doing it are conscious of it or not. I do not know what Hallaq thinks of Murad. Hallaq does speak of “Orientalist projects,” and seems to ascribe conscious motives to some of their distortions. He also describes Orientalism as being an “organ of colonialism”. I don’t know what he would think about Murad’s quote, or my broadening of the idea. He does respond to E-mails. I’ll ask him.

“Do you think he is going to admire ‘scholarship’ that calls other people idiots, nimrods, thick, liars, bastards,and stupid?”

You forgot “imbecile.” What I wrote is not scholarship, and I said so in the paper. I wrote a review article that was intended for a blog. What I wrote has more content and is written in a more adult fashion than everything I read on JW. I read a large number of books and articles in order to write the paper, and I think there is a lot of information in it. I doubt if Hallaq would think I did a particularly good job, but the information is there. A reader who wants to find out about the “gates of ijtihad” issue can simply read the material in the bibliography to find out more, so for that reason alone I think it is useful. My editorial comments should simply be ignored if you don’t like them.

“When he sees you using expressions like ‘Gee, ya think?’,’Wow’, and ‘Oh my God! That’s impossible!’, he is going to tell you that you belong in a comic book.”

I really don’t know why you are hung up on this. Do you see what your fellow JW posters, and you, write? If I take those words out, the paper would be no better or worse.

“What you are doing is appropriating his reputation to promote your hate of Orientalists.”

Hallaq is not responsible for where he is quoted. If Hitler quotes Einstein, it is no reflection of Einstein. I did not impart any meaning to what I quoted of Hallaq other than what Hallaq said. You can quote someone regarding one subject, then talk about something else elsewhere in the paper. This is allowed. Hallaq has no love for Orientalists anyway. Read the paper I reference in this post.

“By the way, Hallaq does not use that term [Orientalist] even once. You use it more than 120 times, and then you call me idiotic for pointing it out.”

In the paper referenced below, he uses the term 93 times. Here’s a couple examples:

"In a closed, self-preserving tradition such as Orientalism, the fate of intruders and heretics cannot be otherwise. The epistemological xenophobia of Orientalism remains effective to this day. Any critical comment by a non-Orientalist directed at Schacht or any Orientalist paradigm will elicit hostile reaction, in total disregard to any documentation or argument, no matter how thorough or well-reasoned. It remains true that a necessary result - or perhaps a concomitant - of the proprietary relationship between Orientalism and the Orient is the former's perceived epistemological monopoly over the latter. It also follows necessarily that, as the object of Orientalist knowledge, Orientals, whether they are scholars or not, are incapable of possessing this knowledge. One simply cannot be at once the knower and the known, the actor and the acted upon. And even if Orientals - Muslims, Christians or otherwise - were to pretend to such knowledge, they can never genuinely partake in it. They will always be outsiders, to be readily dismissed as mere Orientals, polemicists, apologists. An Oriental's scholarship, however well-documented, well-reasoned and sound it may be, can never aspire to the same epistemological status as that of an Orientalist's woolly, flimsy and even fraudulent scholarship. The proprietary epistemological rights over the Orient also dictate that whatever Orientalism posits as knowledge must be guarded as a paradigm, and, though unproven, no critique or refutation of it may be adduced unless it is thoroughly documented. And even then, the critique may fail to shift the paradigm, especially if it is authored by an Oriental. Propositions put forward by Orientalists acquire the value of 'true premises' by the very fact that they are pronounced in the West, by the West."

"Schacht and the rest of the Orientalists operated - and most still operate - in a closed epistemological network from which they could by no means escape, even if they wanted to. The network has thus far been self-generative, living off repetition and reenactment of old knowledge. If repetition has in the past reinforced the reality of colonialist practices, it is now necessary to maintain the scholarly tradition itself and to secure its survival. It would lose its distinctiveness (its Orientalism-ness) if it were to forsake its untiring repetitive dynamic -- if it were not to guard against intruders who might attempt to shake off the repetitive adages and replace them, for a change, with credible scholarship. In short, the legal history of the first three centuries of Islam has yet to be written and must, in the process, abandon the archaic assumptions that have dominated Orientalism so far. Credit must be seriously given to the Near Eastern pre-Islamic Hijaz; to the private scholarship of the 1st/7th and 2nd/8th centuries; to the changing meaning of Islam during this period; to the institutional and movement-oriented developments; to the political underpinnings of legal evolution; to the doctrinal structures of legal schools; and to the dynamism and vibrancy of legal continuity. More importantly, methodological assumptions must be continuously checked against ethnocentric intrusions, which necessarily result in manifold errors, compounded by an epistemology of appropriation and domination that is self-righteous and blindly supercilious. The Orientalist history of the formative period has no more scholarly worth than does nowadays' popular American thinking of Muslims as backward and savage who, in order to fit in with 'our' world and history, must be coerced into the civilizing effects of the free and modern Western culture. It necessarily follows that any challenge to this culture or to its voices, including this very writing, must be resisted at any cost."

“He also doesn't use the term ‘the West’.”

Here are two examples from the paper cited below:

"The period of 'origins,' like that of 'reforms' (but unlike the intervening millennium when Islam's Europe was an admittedly inconsequential entity), brought Islam, both ontologically and epistemologically, into confrontation with the West and its legal and cultural traditions."

"Propositions put forward by Orientalists acquire the value of 'true premises' by the very fact that they are pronounced in the West, by the West."

“My advice is to take this embarrassing piece of writing off the internet before someone sees it.”

And you are proud of what you write on the internet?

UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law
Fall, 2002 / Winter, 2003
2 UCLA J. Islamic & Near E.L. 1
LENGTH: 14746 words
ARTICLE: THE QUEST FOR ORIGINS OR DOCTRINE? ISLAMIC LEGAL STUDIES AS COLONIALIST
DISCOURSE
NAME: Wael B. Hallaq*

Very interesting.