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No, not me. Karen Armstrong is the guardian of Islamic extremism, so called because of her recent attack on the Pope and justification of Pope Rage in The Guardian. Here is my response, from this morning's FrontPage (links in the original):
As the global Muslim reaction to Pope Benedict XVI’s recent remarks on Islam threaten to eclipse last winter’s Cartoon Rage in irrationality and violence, there has been the usual and by now predictable undercurrent of sympathy on the Left for those breathing threats and murder against the Pope and the West. Notable among the spokesmen for appeasement and accommodation of violent Islamic intimidation was Karen Armstrong, author of the popular books Islam: A Short History and Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet.Armstrong on Monday published a piece in The Guardian entitled “We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam: The Pope’s remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic.” It is exquisitely ironic that she would term the Pope’s remarks, rather than the Muslim reaction to them, “dangerous” – particularly after a nun in Somalia and a lay Christian in Iraq were murdered in apparent expressions of anger against the Pope. The Pope’s words didn’t kill these people, violent Muslims did; but that fact, and the inappropriate violence of their reaction, forms no part of Armstrong’s calculus. As far as she is concerned, violent Islamic rage against the West, including the rage against the Pope, is all the fault of the West.
And it is long-standing. “Our Islamophobia,” intones Armstrong, “dates back to the time of the Crusades, and is entwined with our chronic anti-semitism.” Armstrong, like Bill Clinton, who in a similar vein explained 9/11 as part of the debt “we are still paying” to the Islamic world for the Crusades,[1] never mentions that centuries of jihad aggression and imperialism that preceded and provoked the Crusades. After the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in 632, Muslim armies swept out of Arabia and, under the banner of jihad, conquered the lands that now form the heart of the Islamic world. In the Holy Land, the conquest of Jerusalem in 638 stood at the beginning of centuries of Muslim aggression; Christians in the Holy Land faced an escalating spiral of persecution. A few examples: early in the eighth century sixty Christian pilgrims from Amorium were crucified; around the same time the Muslim governor of Caesaria seized a group of pilgrims from Iconium and had them all executed as spies — except for a small number who converted to Islam. Muslims demanded money from pilgrims, threatening to ransack the Church of the Resurrection if they didn’t pay. Later in the eighth century, a Muslim ruler banned displays of the cross in Jerusalem. He also increased the special poll tax (jizya) that Christians had to pay (Muslims were exempt) as ordained by Qur’an 9:29, and forbade Christians to engage in religious instruction of their own children and fellow-believers.Brutal subordination and violence became the rule of the day for Christians in the Holy Land. In 772, the caliph al-Mansur ordered Christians and Jews in Jerusalem to be stamped on their hands with a distinctive symbol. Conversions to Christianity were dealt with particularly harshly. In 789, Muslims beheaded a monk who had converted from Islam and plundered the Bethlehem monastery of St. Theodosius, killing many more monks. Other monasteries in the region suffered the same fate. Early in the ninth century the persecutions grew so severe that large numbers of Christians fled for Constantinople and other Christian cities. Fresh persecutions in 923 saw more churches destroyed, and in 937, Muslims went on a rampage in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, plundering and destroying the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.[2]
After a period of Byzantine resurgence, in 1004, the sixth Fatimid Caliph, Abu ‘Ali al-Mansur al-Hakim (985-1021) turned violently against the faith of his Christian mother and uncles (two of whom were Patriarchs) and ordered the destruction of churches, the burning of crosses, and the seizure of church property. He moved against the Jews with similar ferocity. Over the next ten years thirty thousand churches were destroyed, and untold numbers of Christians converted to Islam simply to save their lives. In 1009, al-Hakim gave his most spectacular anti-Christian order: he commanded that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem be destroyed, along with several other churches (including the Church of the Resurrection). The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, rebuilt by the Byzantines in the seventh century after the Persians burned an earlier version, marks the traditional site of Christ’s burial. Bizarrely, the church had served as the model for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Caliph al-Hakim commanded that the tomb inside be cut down to the bedrock. He ordered Christians to wear heavy crosses around their necks (and Jews heavy blocks of wood in the shape of a calf). He piled on other humiliating decrees, culminating in the order that they accept Islam or leave his dominions.[3]
The erratic caliph ultimately relaxed his persecution and even returned much of the property he had seized from the Church.[4] Some of al-Hakim’s changed attitude probably came from his increasingly tenuous connection to Islamic orthodoxy. In 1021, he disappeared under mysterious circumstances; some of his followers proclaimed him divine and founded a sect based on this mystery and other esoteric teachings of a Muslim cleric, Muhammad ibn Isma’il al-Darazi (after whom the Druze sect is named).[5] Thanks to al-Hakim’s change of policy, which continued after his death, in 1027 the Byzantines were allowed to rebuild the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.[6]
Nevertheless, Christians were in a precarious position and pilgrims remained under threat. In 1056, the Muslims expelled three hundred Christians from Jerusalem and forbade European Christians from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.[7] When the fierce and fanatical Seljuk Turks swept down from Central Asia, they enforced a new Islamic rigor making life increasingly difficult for both native Christians and pilgrims (whose pilgrimages they blocked). After they crushed the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071 and took the Byzantine Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes prisoner, all of Asia Minor was open to them — and their advance was virtually unstoppable. In 1076, they conquered Syria; in 1077, Jerusalem. The Seljuk Emir Atsiz bin Uwaq promised not to harm the inhabitants of Jerusalem, but once his men had entered the city, they murdered 3,000 people.[8] The same year the Seljuks established the sultanate of Rum (Rome, referring to the New Rome, Constantinople) in Nicaea, perilously close to Constantinople itself; from here they continued to threaten the Byzantines and harass the Christians all over their new domains.
The Christian Empire of Byzantium, which before Islam’s wars of conquest had ruled over a vast expanse including southern Italy, North Africa, the Middle East, and Arabia, was reduced to little more than Greece. It looked as if its death at the hands of the Seljuks was imminent. The Church of Constantinople considered the pope a schismatic and had squabbled with him for centuries, but the new Emperor Alexius I Comnenus (1081-1118), swallowed his pride and appealed for help. And that is how the First Crusade came about: it was a response to the Byzantine Emperor’s call for help. The Crusaders were responding to the emperor dialing 911.
The Crusaders and the Crusades were not perfect, but this brief survey should establish that they were in no sense a gratuitous proto-colonial attack by the Christian West against a hitherto peaceful and benign Islamic world. On the contrary, they were a response to centuries of violence by Muslims against Christians – violence that made it perfectly understandable that the 12th century Abbot Peter the Venerable would reproach Muslims for “bestial cruelty.” Yet in Armstrong’s world Peter’s words were an early manifestation among Christians of an “entrenched loathing of Islam,” a loathing that evidently had no cause or justification beyond xenophobia and sheer prejudice. And, says Armstrong portentously, “this medieval cast of mind is still alive and well….Hatred of Islam is so ubiquitous and so deeply rooted in western culture that it brings together people who are usually at daggers drawn.” But this hatred, as far as Armstong is concerned, sprang only from the West’s own actions. Again like Clinton, she invokes the Crusaders’ sack of Jerusalem in 1099, explaining that “it is always difficult to forgive people we know we have wronged. Thenceforth Jews and Muslims became the shadow-self of Christendom, the mirror image of everything that we hoped we were not -- or feared that we were.”
This silly psychologizing ignores the fact that the sack of Jerusalem, while brutal and heinous, was nothing singular. One atrocity does not excuse another. But it does illustrate that the Crusaders’ behavior in Jerusalem was consistent with that of other armies of the period — since all states subscribed to the same notions of siege and resistance. In 1148, Muslim commander Nur ed-Din did not hesitated to order the killing of every Christian in Aleppo. In 1268, when the jihad forces of the Mamluk Sultan Baybars took Antioch from the Crusaders Baybars was annoyed to find that the Crusader ruler, Count Bohemond VI, had already left the city. So he wrote to Bohemond to make sure he knew what his men had done in Antioch: “You would have seen your knights prostrate beneath the horses’ hooves, your houses stormed by pillagers and ransacked by looters, your wealth weighed by the quintal, your women sold four at a time and bought for a dinar of your own money! You would have seen the crosses in your churches smashed, the pages of the false Testaments scattered, the Patriarchs’ tombs overturned.”[9]
Most notorious of all may be the jihadists’ entry into Constantinople on May 29, 1453, when they — like the Crusaders in Jerusalem in 1099 — finally broke through a prolonged resistance to their siege. Like the Crusaders, who violated the sanctuary of both synagogue and mosque, the jihadists raided monasteries and convents, emptying them of their inhabitants, and plundered private houses. They entered the Hagia Sophia, which for nearly a thousand years had been the grandest church in Christendom, killed the elderly and weak and led the rest off into slavery. The magnificent old church was turned into a mosque; hundreds of other churches in Constantinople and elsewhere suffered the same fate. Millions of Christians joined the wretched ranks of the dhimmis; others were enslaved, and many martyred.[10]
Yet to Armstrong, acts of Islamic aggression were nothing more than “fearful fantasies created by Europeans.” Among these “fearful fantasies” she also mentions the anti-Semitic blood libel that circulated among Christians during the time of the Crusades – the charge that Jews killed Christian children and used their blood to make Passover matzo. But she of course makes no mention of the fact that the blood libel is alive and well today, not in the Christian or post-Christian world, but in the House of Islam. Syria in 2003 and Jordan in 2005 aired during Ramadan a viciously anti-Semitic TV series dramatizing the murder of a Christian child by wicked Jews, who then used the child’s blood in baking Passover matzo. The blood libel has also been spread recently on official Iranian TV. Why have Muslims taken up this ancient Christian slander? Armstrong doesn’t say.
Armstrong’s other charges are similarly wrongly focused and lacking in substance. She points out that “the Muslims who have objected so vociferously to the Pope’s denigration of Islam have accused him of ‘hypocrisy’, pointing out that the Catholic church is ill-placed to condemn violent jihad when it has itself been guilty of unholy violence in crusades, persecutions and inquisitions and, under Pope Pius XII, tacitly condoned the Nazi Holocaust.” Leaving aside Armstrong’s repetition of the by-now common slander of Pope Pius XII, which has been thoroughly refuted by Rabbi David Dalin in his book The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, no one is actually claiming that Muslims have or have ever had a monopoly on religious violence. What Armstrong does not acknowledge is that Islam is unique among the religions of the world in having a doctrine of religious imperialism. Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, tells his followers to call people to Islam, and if they refuse, to offer them second-class dhimmi status or war: “Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action….Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them….If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya [the tax on non-Muslims specified in Qur’an 9:29]. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them (Sahih Muslim 4294).”
Conversion, subjugation, or war: there is not and never has been a theological imperative of this kind in Christianity. Yet Armstrong alleges that “until the 20th century, Islam was a far more tolerant and peaceful faith than Christianity. The Qur’an strictly forbids any coercion in religion and regards all rightly guided religion as coming from God; and despite the western belief to the contrary, Muslims did not impose their faith by the sword.” It is true that forced conversion is forbidden by Islamic law, although the choice of conversion, subjugation or war contains a level of coercion that Westerners may find incompatible with the notion of free choice. Muslims did not impose conversion to Islam by the sword, but they made life so difficult for non-Muslims in their domains that conversion became their only path to a better life. Armstrong’s observation that “until the middle of the eighth century, Jews and Christians in the Muslim empire were actively discouraged from conversion to Islam, as, according to Qur’anic teaching, they had received authentic revelations of their own” is largely true, but for a reason she does not mention: converts no longer paid the tax, jizya, that was collected from the non-Muslim dhimmis. Too many converts would destroy the tax base.
But Armstrong has never had an overly strong attachment to accuracy. Daniel Pipes has noted about her book Islam: A Short History that “Armstrong goes out of her way to soften every hard edge, explain away every unpleasantness, and hide what she cannot otherwise account for.” An egregious example of this comes in her biography of Muhammad: according to Islamic traditions (hadith) reported by Bukhari, the hadith collection considered most reliable by Muslims, the Prophet of Islam married his favorite wife, Aisha, “when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old.” He was at this time in his early fifties. Embarrassed by this, many Islamic apologists claim – in the teeth of this evidence – that Aisha was actually older. Armstrong obligingly asserts that “Tabari says that she was so young that she stayed in her parents’ home and the marriage was consummated there later when she had reached puberty.”[11] Unfortunately, her readers are unlikely to have volumes of Tabari on hand to check her assertion; contrary to Armstrong’s account, the Muslim historian quotes Aisha thusly: “The Messenger of God married me when I was seven; my marriage was consummated when I was nine.”[12] Did Aisha go through puberty at nine, or was Armstrong covering up one of the more embarrassing aspects of Muhammad’s career?
The time for such disingenuousness is over, as is the time, if there ever were time, for the unseemly self-recrimination to which Armstrong is calling the West. The Muslim rage against the Pope’s call to eschew religious violence reveals an Islamic world in deep denial, as irrational as it is unable to take responsibility for its own actions. And in this it has Karen Armstrong and other Leftist haters of Western civilization and culture as willing accomplices.
ENDNOTES:
[1] Bill Clinton, “Remarks as delivered by President William Jefferson Clinton, Georgetown University, November 7, 2001.” Georgetown University Office of Protocol and Events, www.georgetown.edu.
[2] Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine 634-1099, Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 473-476. To his credit, Caliph al-Muqtadir did respond to the 923 persecutions by ordering the church rebuilt.
[3] Gil, A History of Palestine 634-1099, p. 376.
[4] Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Volume I, (Cambridge University Press, 1951), pp. 35-6; Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, (Routledge, 2000), pp. 16-17; Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A Short History (Yale University Press, 1987), p. 44.
[5] Bernard Lewis, The Assassins, (Basic Books, 1967), p. 33.
[6] Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Volume I, p. 36.
[7] Runciman, A History of the Crusades, Volume I, p. 49.
[8] Gil, A History of Palestine 634-1099, p. 412.
[9] Thomas F. Madden, The New Concise History of the Crusades by (Rowan & Littlefield, 2005), pp. 181-182.
[10] Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople 1453, Cambridge University Press, 1965, pp. 145ff.
[11] Karen Armstrong, Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, Harper San Francisco, 1992, p. 157.
[12] Abu Ja’far Muhammad bin Jarir al-Tabari, The History of al-Tabari, Volume VII, The Foundation of the Community, M. V. McDonald, translator, State University of New York Press, 1987, p. 7.
Posted by Robert at September 21, 2006 11:10 AM
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Nice job Robert. If only she had the courage to respond.
My favorite line from her essay is that the Islamic conquests of the 7th century were not religious conquests but were rather "politically motivated."
The claim is preposterous. Made we want to lose my lunch when I read it.
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at September 21, 2006 11:23 AM
The Pope’s remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic.
The only thing incurable is Islam's obsession with total world domination and its reluctance to advance to the present from the 7th century.
By the way, what Koran did Armstrong read?
Insane!
at September 21, 2006 11:25 AM
Karen Armstrong is so dangerous, she has tricked so many because she is a goddam nut case who leaves a trail of destruction behind her. I despise her so much but I will refrain from cursing so not to sully this blog.
Here's her loony toon book about her years of depression: http://www.amazon.com/Spiral-Staircase-Karen-Armstrong/dp/0007122284 Many good reviews of it
Has this witch ever been on the Oprah show? She is tailor made for it
Posted by: dennisw at September 21, 2006 11:38 AM
Bacon Blaster!!! Good luck with that. This would work in Islamokazi riots on campus
Posted by: dennisw at September 21, 2006 11:40 AM
"The Pope’s remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic.”
It is the reportage and the misrepresentation of those remarks that is dangerous.
Have any riots or killings resulted from accurate reports of the Pope's message?
Posted by: PRCS at September 21, 2006 11:41 AM
Once again, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN was colored with plenty of Mahdism-speak. Text of his speech can be found here.
He said:
I emphatically declare that today`s world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity; and above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.Posted by: yaqub0, Almighty [Allah], all men and women are Your creatures and You have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause.
at September 21, 2006 11:45 AM
"The Pope’s remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic.”
So what if they were , would muslims act somehow differntly?
or would that stymie their plans somehow?
at September 21, 2006 11:47 AM
Imadingdong is really doing a lot of doublespeak at the U.N. He won't even answer a straightforward question.
I have to now go wash my hands.... he's so nasty looking.
Posted by: freewoman at September 21, 2006 11:50 AM
She cracks me up with the "prejudices against Islam" remark.
We're not pre-judging. We're post-judging. Post-judging them on their actions and words. They make it real easy for us.
Posted by: bjjfiter at September 21, 2006 11:57 AM
One wonders if she'll change her mind as she gets up in years, like some others have done.
Or if nariz is waiting to chime in with her about 'violent' Christianity.
BaconBlaster, Nice product! May it go over well with our soldiers.
at September 21, 2006 11:59 AM
In the the central library of the town i live in all the generl books about Islm are by authors with obviously Muslim names, except for one.I could imagine a lot of readers pick this volume out as likely to take a more objective, dispassionate view of the religion. Unfortunately, it's Armstrong's 'Islam: a short history.' I don't think it would be unjust to describe it as sanitised, apologistic pap .
Posted by: wallyUK at September 21, 2006 12:03 PM
It appears that the gullible Karen Armstrong has been flummoxed by the Islamic totalitarians in a manner similar to how the fellow travelers of the thirties and forties (such as Walter Duranty of the New York Times) were intellectually and morally sucked in by Stalin and his minions.
Ms. Armstrong apparently ignores a parallel between Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist totalitarianism and Islamic totalitarianism with respect to the common function of Dialectics (specifically, the "Law of the Identity of Contradictions") in the former, and Koranic Abrogation (where the earlier peaceful/tolerant Meccan suras are "abrogated" by the latter violent/intolerant Medinan suras) in the latter.
Both devices have been used to circumvent and disarm efforts to demand logical and factual consistency from the adherents of the respective totalitarian ideologies. The resulting moral and intellectual chaos effectively neutralizes any attempt at reasoned argument and throws the contest in favor of those who are most ruthless in threatening or committing violence to impose their views.
Stalin's words from over half a century ago, with minor modifications, would certainly fit in with recent pronouncements by Islamic clerics:
"We are in favor of the state withering away and at the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which represents the most powerful and mighty authority of all forms of state which have existed up to the present day. The highest possible development of the power of the state: that is the Marxist formula. Is it contradictory? Yes, it is contradictory. But this contradiction is a living thing, and completely reflects Marxist dialectics."
Posted by: urbanIIredux at September 21, 2006 12:09 PM
Karens obcession with protecting Islam cant be because she is ignorant of the truth. She tries to cover-up and minimise the truth. So what drives her?
Why is she so 'energenic' about Islam...Is she a muslim? If not, why not? Is she married to a muslim?
Does she go out with muslim/Arab men? Is this all sexually driven? Is this misplaced sexual energy?
Maybe she's just frustrated...well Karen would probably agree...Allah knows best...If she is frustrated, it is the will of Allah...a little deodorant would not hurt either...
at September 21, 2006 12:10 PM
baconblaster,
brilliant product. I have emailed information to everyone I can think of.
Meanwhile, I find calling muslim crazies "Zionist agents," works very well too.
For example, had I been at Ahmed Iamadingdong's news conference yesterday, I would have said:
"Bismi lilahi Sayid Iamadingdong (or however you pronounce your last name) what you're saying sir about the Mahdi sounds exactly like what I was taught in Hebrew School about the coming of the Messiah. Are you a Zionist Agent?
Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at September 21, 2006 12:18 PM
A (fairly) robust response to Armstrong on today's Guardian's letters page + 2 letters in response to a similar article by Jonathan Freedland:
Thursday September 21, 2006
The Guardian
Karen Armstrong's one-sided denunciation of supposed Christian intolerance reproduces the forms of antagonism it superficially affects to repudiate (We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam, September 18).
Invoking the timeless canard of the Crusades displays scant understanding of the geopolitical context out of which the Crusading movement emerged, and misleadingly exonerates Islam from any responsibility for the resultant conflict. It also passes silently over Europe's other guilty secret: the abandonment of a Byzantine Christian civilisation, the legacy of which, Benedict rightly reminds us, may have much to teach us about how polyglot multifaith populations can live together.
The real bigotry lies in the wilful misrepresentation of the past to support a predetermined animus against one faith and a selective account of the other: Christianity is epitomised by its fanatics; Islam violated by its. Benedict's point is that all religions live under the shadow of violence, and that only in the difficult conversation between faith and reason can the wounds inflicted by that violence be understood and - just possibly - healed.
Dr Robert A Davis
Head of department of religious education, University of Glasgow
Jonathan Freedland writes of secularists and atheists "wondering why they cannot slam, say, Catholicism the way they might attack, say socialism" (The pope should know better than to endorse the idea of a war of faiths, September 20).
I don't notice secularist and atheist columnists having any problem slamming Catholicism. The question is why can't they slam Islam the way they slam Catholicism.
Catholicism has reformed under pressure from vigorous liberal criticism. Despite the claims of pro-Islamic columnists, there is no chance of the Catholic church re-introducing the Crusades. Islam, on the contrary, has yet to face up to real liberal criticism, and you patronise it by refusing to give it. The Pope has done us a credit by challenging Islam to show that it can produce something new that is good and humane. Brusque words, maybe, but the public reaction of much of the Muslim world is very telling.
Matthew Huntbach
London
Like many commentators, Jonathan Freedland ignores the lack of a level playing field. Muslims refuse to apologise for the regular demonisation of Jews and Christians in the Muslim world, yet expect an instant retraction of any critical comment on Islam. Western commentators, mired in political correctness and post-colonial guilt, support this double-standard and therefore find it hard to criticise militant Islam without self-abasement. We have the perfect recipe for the very war of faiths Freedland decries.
Jeremy Havardi
Watford
at September 21, 2006 12:18 PM
The Crusades, always about those Crusades! If this is the Islamaniac excuse for what they do today then by that logic we should still be firebombing Tokyo because of Pearl Harbor.
These idiots really need to get a life and improve their own countries rather than trying destroy everyone elses.
at September 21, 2006 12:39 PM
You can't reform Islam. When you inspect it, it falls apart like a bad mudpie.
Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at September 21, 2006 12:41 PM
Mr. Spencer - Thanks very much for this essay. It is concise and compelling - a true tour de force, and very valuable for anyone searching for a historical foundation for the current battle against the Jihadists.
Posted by: MP at September 21, 2006 12:43 PM
Ms. Armstrong's indulgent attitude towards Islam has always been perplexing for me. In an interview on the radio, she was praised for her biography of Mohammed, with one commentator stating something to the effect that if Mohammed were alive today, Ms. Armstrong would surely become his umpteenth wife. My Goodness! I'm sure such a declaration would make many-a girl's heart go pitty-pat, including Ms. Armstrong as she seemed to take no offense.
In her article, she states that in its early years Islam's spread was not motivated by a desire to spread its faith. This is an intriguing observation. Of course one of the requirements of Islam is that there be honor among thieves: Moslems were not to raid other Moslems. This proposition is simple and logical enough: just ask the Five Families Commision if it works for them. However, those outside the ring of protection --non-Moslems-- were fair game. Armstrong also assert that once conquered, no effort was made initially to convert the subjugated people. Well, why would there be, given that the Moslem overlords now had a steady source of revenue from their "clients." Standard tactics of organized crime.
Ms. Armstrong then goes on to suggest that Christian monks projected their own frustrated sexual mores on to the Moslem world and on to Mohammed in particular, thus forever clouding Western attitudes towards Islam as simply debased sensuality. Really now! One of my favorite quotes from the Hadith of Bukhari comes from the child-bride, Aisha (Volume 6, Book 60, Number 311), in which she comments not only upon the Moslem prophet's easiness with satisfying his lusts, but also comments on how quickly and conveniently Mohammed's lord sends revelations to him, justifying his behavior. Aisha had Mohammed's measure, and her words indicate that it was found wanting. And all of this long before Christian monks were aware of the existence of Islam. Yet Ms. Armstrong makes this issue all about Western guilt.
Every author is entitled to adopt a position on the subject matter of their work. One would hope that this is done with as much objectivity as possible, that is one's position on a matter is based upon the facts. Karen Armstrong is no less entitled to have her position, but one wonders how well her position melds with that of other authors, say Salman Rushdie. Any thoughts on this, anybody?
Posted by: Chatillon at September 21, 2006 12:43 PM
What Karen Armstrong and others of her ilk fail to grasp is that “Islamophobia” does not exist in vacuum. If Islam were like Scientology or Mormonism or some other offbeat religion we might think its adherents a little kooky, but we would generally adopt a live-and-let-live philosophy. Any “Islamophobia” in this day is the direct result of the murderous acts committed in the name of Islam and the fact that Islam conveniently comes with a set of rules and laws that are diametrically opposed to those of Western civilization. My distaste (to put it mildly) is not based on occurrences of hundreds of years ago any more than I hate the Germans or the Japanese based on events of the recent past. Karen Armstrong might well be advised to keep these dates in mind: 1979, 1982, 1993, 1998, 2000, and 2001.
Posted by: dame cecily at September 21, 2006 12:46 PM
..."how quickly and conveniently Mohammed's lord sends revelations to him, justifying his behavior."
Rushdie's "Satanic Verses" is verbose and composed in the genre known as "magic realism."
I don't care for "magic realism" and I found Rushdie's work to be a piece of dazzling bullshit (as in: "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit") until the part about 'ol mohammed.
Rushdie very convincingly demonstrates just how "quickly and conveniently" Gabriel obliged Mohammad by sending him revelations justifying his behavior. You also see the depraved condition in which the cult of islam was born.
Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at September 21, 2006 12:57 PM
Robert-As usual, you present logical arguments, based on facts, like Solzhenitsyn did re the USSR. Solzhenitsyn was given a hard time for stating the facts. Good luck.
Re: “We cannot afford to maintain these ancient prejudices against Islam: The Pope’s remarks were dangerous, and will convince many more Muslims that the west is incurably Islamophobic.”
The tenor of this is typical of many on the left who did not want to confront the truth or have the truth known re the USSR. Just replace "Islamophobic" with "anti-Soviet propaganda" and it's deja-vu all over again.
Posted by: Frank at September 21, 2006 12:58 PM
If Armstrong loves Islam so much then why doesn't she convert? Women are so well treated by Islam from cradle to grave and even beyond from what we all hear. Maybe she will then accept a one way ticket to Tehran so we can be rid of her and her drivel.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at September 21, 2006 1:19 PM
Robert Spencer, after quoting Armstrong -- "as, according to Qur’anic teaching, they had received authentic revelations of their own" -- writes that this "is largely true".
I thought, however, that the official and traditional position in Islam is that the "People of the Book" had twisted and perverted the revelations (or "guidance") Allah had tried to give them, this being one of the major reasons why Muslims hate them so much.
at September 21, 2006 1:47 PM
Armstrong was nurtured in a tradition that uses guilt to extract compliance from others. It is no surprise that she lays on the guilt like a rancid icing to get those of us in the west to sit down, shut up, and be good little dhimmis.
Posted by: MP at September 21, 2006 1:51 PM
This woman takes the Fictive Reality game to new heights. Breed her with John Esposito and you'd have a deaf, dumb, and blind infant on your hands. An indignant whining elitist blind basket case, with soiled diapers to boot. That'd be great.
* 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 ** 33:21 *
Too many converts would destroy the tax base.
I think that the strategic planners in Dar al Islam are eyeing the Chinese to be able to do the work once world takeover is achieved. Hard workers already conditioned to tyranny after a half-century of communism and centuries of repressive war lords.
But there would still be room for viable Islamic industries. For example, the Islamic Republic of Iran could set up kiddie sex amusement centers around the country; they would way outperform their Thai competitors in that.
Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at September 21, 2006 2:00 PM
3 encouraging votes for BaconBlaster. I appreciate it. I will mix up a gallon tonight. Also, I started a blog at http://baconblaster.blogspot.com
Thanks
at September 21, 2006 2:00 PM
Alarmed - But that kid would sure play some mean pinball!
Posted by: MP at September 21, 2006 2:12 PM
If Ms. Armstrong gets crippled for life by and/or loses a loved one to an Islamic terrorist act, we'll see if she still thinks anti-Islamic sentiment is really "prejudice."
Posted by: pythagoras at September 21, 2006 2:22 PM
She will eventually join her Jihad friends in hell.
Posted by: kisassdemos at September 21, 2006 2:53 PM
I AM SICK TO DEATH OF YOU PEOPLE.
The Guardian is one of the greatest LIBERAL papers in the world!!!
Your tiny and twisted minds cannot grasp the basic principals of liberal thought so I will spell them out for you,
1. If someone says he hates you and wants to kill you its almost certainly YOUR FAULT!
2. The worst, the very worst thing you can do if he shoots at you is to shoot back because it will only make him really angry!
Now remember them!
Posted by: Fred at September 21, 2006 3:03 PM
PS - Irony
Posted by: Fred at September 21, 2006 3:34 PM
I've noticed that there is another "Fred" on this forum. For the record, I am not the "Fred" of the prior posts. Just so that the confusion is cleared up... and I agree with most of what he writes.
I've read some of Karen Armstrong's work and I am mystified as to where she gets the temerity to pass herself off as an expert on Islam. It's obvious that she's never really studied the Islamic scriptures or knows anything about the fourteen hundred year history of jihad conquest.
If I had so neglected a topic as she has, I honestly could not bring myself to publishing her books and articles about Islam, as lying and stealing are still considered sinful in my Roman Catholic tradition.
at September 21, 2006 4:51 PM
Yes I noticed that. I thought I was the only Fred and was going to ask JW to sort it out but as I only saw one of your posts I left it. Which of us was first? I do not mind changing to “Fred formally known as Fred” or “Fred the other one” or just Fred 2nd.
Any suggestions?
at September 21, 2006 5:14 PM
Fred,
How do we make changes to our handles? I'm willing to do so but am not sure what I need to do.
Signed,
The Other Fred
at September 21, 2006 5:37 PM
Fred,
As you can see, I've changed my handle. No need for you to change yours.
at September 21, 2006 6:58 PM
Karen ARmstrong is a self-loathing apologist for islam whose books are shallow and teeming with inaccuracies and historical revisionism. She renounced Catholicism and her life as a nun to become a shill for islam, and to excoriate the West and blame it for every evil ever committed. She is now a "freelance monotheist", whatever that is.
The venal tripe she manufactures and calls religious scholarship isn't worth the paper it's printed on, especially her islamic fiction. Considering her unabashed adoration of islam's savage prophet, she's probably a closet masochist as well as a fourth-rate religious "scholar."
Posted by: Susanp at September 21, 2006 11:31 PM
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