...and from ms Armstrongs office we hear the birds chirping and wind softly blowing past the windows....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 28, 2007 6:48 AM

Another self appointed 'expert' feminazi western apologist. Sometimes I wonder what motivates people like Armstrong. I think shes all talk and moral authority though. Ill bet shes never spent time living in a muslim family where beating female family members is the norm.

Posted by: Philip_Hollywood at June 28, 2007 6:51 AM

Yet another islamofaciest apoligest unwilling to defend their views in an open debate.....go figure

Posted by: ooddballz at June 28, 2007 6:53 AM

"There are people who would love to ban me, such as the neo-conservatives Daniel Pipes or Robert Spencer in the United States..."

Accusations without substance, that's what I like. I am sure the same amount of research went into her books.

The proof is in the pudding, where's the beef.
Go figure.

Posted by: havekoranwilltravel at June 28, 2007 7:02 AM

Again, she can't give a strait answer.

It's 'no'.

Posted by: Borg at June 28, 2007 8:00 AM

Karen sez:

"I cannot see how these books are in any way detrimental to peace. They're all about promoting peace and harmony, and banning things is simply not helpful. "

....tell that to the Muslims...they certainly are banning a lot of things these days.....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 28, 2007 8:01 AM

From the Articles:

Fitzgerald: A tribute to Karen Armstrong, or The Coherence of Her Incoherence

"Karen Armstrong, long famous for her description of Muhammad as the consummate “peacemaker” who “brought together the warring tribes of Arabia,” has assumed the mantle, yet again, not of the Prophet, but of the Prophet’s defender. In an article in The Guardian she retells in her inimitable fashion the story of European Christendom’s relations with Islam and with Muslims. In her retelling, the Muslims are innocent victims, and more than innocent victims, likened again and again to the Jews. They are also the only people who provided, in that bright shining moment of European history known as Islamic Spain, the only real tolerance and humanity to be found anywhere in Europe before the modern era. It is a tough job, but Karen Armstrong proves equal to the task. And her real theme is not history, but that Europeans should feel ashamed themselves for showing any signs of wariness or suspicion about the millions of Muslims who now live in Europe, having come among the indigenous Infidels to settle, but not to settle down.
It is curious to see how often in this article Karen Armstrong makes references to examples of historic mistreatment of the Jews. For in her previous books she has exhibited a palpable distaste for Israel, and has attempted on every occasion to pretend that the claims of the “three abrahamic faiths” to Jerusalem are identical in the importance that each attaches to the city (but as a city Jerusalem is not holy in Islam, and never was), and she is fond, in her discussion of “fundamentalisms”—always presented in the plural – to make reference to the one or two examples of what she calls “Jewish terrorism.” She fails to consider whether or not the assassination of Rabin by a Jewish political opponent, or the mental collapse of Dr. Baruch Goldstein which led him, acting entirely alone and on impulse, to wreak his solitary revenge on those whose victims Goldstein treated every day as a doctor, until he could no longer stand it, really can be compared to the thousands of planned acts, many of them fortunately foiled, and others not, that are part of the world-wide Jihad against completely innocent Infidels, within Muslim lands, and without.

Here is how she begins:

“In 1492, the year that is often said to inaugurate the modern era, three very important events happened in Spain. In January, the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the city of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Europe; later, Muslims were given the choice of conversion to Christianity or exile. In March, the Jews of Spain were also forced to choose between baptism and deportation. Finally, in August, Christopher Columbus, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and a protégé of Ferdinand and Isabella, crossed the Atlantic and discovered the West Indies. One of his objectives had been to find a new route to India, where Christians could establish a military base for another crusade against Islam As they sailed into the new world, western people carried a complex burden of prejudice that was central to their identity.”

This first paragraph is a scandal, consisting almost entirely of baseless assertions, incredible omissions, and complete fabrications. But it is not inexplicable. For Karen Armstrong history does not exist. It is putty in the hands of the person who writes about history. You use it to make a point, to do good as you see it. And whatever you need to twist or omit is justified by the purity of your intentions – and Karen Armstrong always has the purest of intentions. She knows that we in the “white Western world” (as some like to call it) fail to understand others. She knows of our deepneed to create “the Other” – a psychic need felt exclusively, and with great intensity, apparently, only by us, and never by anyone else. Though Western civilization, a product that was formed from the inheritance of both classical antiquity and and of Christianity (which itself has a strong Hebraic element, that it should be called Judeo-Christianity, a word about which some are still self-conscious), has far outstripped any rival in its achievements, collective and by individuals, in art and science, in political and economic thought, in social development, and has really never needed to create the “Other” (the entire business is a reason ideological fashion which is by this point getting long in the seminar and call-for-papers tooth). Indeed, it is Islam which, though Karen Armstrong does not see it, because she knows nothing about Islam (which doesn’t keep her from writing about it, endlessly), has the strongest claim to being based on the need of its Believers for “the Other.” It is in Islam that emphasis is placed constantly on the only division that matters: that between Believer (to whom all loyalty is owed by other Believers, and for whom all transgressions may be forgiven, except that of disloyalty to Islam) and the Unbeliever, or Infidel (who must be opposed, and subjugated if such an Infidel refuses to accept Islam or stands in the way of its spread). That Armstrong fails to see this is extraordinary; it is everywhere in Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira. But she is on a mission: to make us feel guilty about our treatment of Muslims in the past (hence the harping on the Crusades, and the failure to offer the context of those Crusades, or the difference between the Crusades and Jihad). She wants to evoke a guilt that need not exist at all, so that we will, today, be inhibited from responding to Muslim atrocities and the attitudes that promote such atrocities – this she cannot abide.

“In 1492, the year that is often said to inaugurate the modern era…” Who says that the year 1492 inaugurated the modern era? And what does the phrase “the modern era” mean in any case? The year 1492 was chosen by this lover of symmetries and “three monotheisms” (now said to be studying Buddhism as the latest stop in her Spiritual Search) because in that year, in Spain, Jews and Christians and Muslims each acted, or was acted upon, in ways that Karen Armstrong finds useful to both misstate, and exploit. She will not mention what happened before 1492. She will not tell us about the Muslim invasion and conquest of Spain, or about the 500 years of the Reconquista, nor will she tell us when the Jews first came to Spain, long before the Muslim invasion, even before the Visigoths arrived. She will not point out that the Jews were inoffensive victims, and unlike the Muslims, never invaded, never conquered, never held the Christians of Spain in thrall, never posed a threat to the body politic.

In 1492 “the Catholic monarchs conquered Granada, the “last Muslim stronghold in Europe.” What then should we call all those lands in southern and eastern Europe that the Ottomans were at that very moment busy conquering and seizing, including Constantinople, the richest, most populous, most important city in all of Christendom for 800 years (taken by the Turks on a Tuesday – May 29, 1453), and the Balkans (including the then-vast Serbian lands), and what are modern-day Albania, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, and they continued to press northward and westward, later seizing much of Hungary and threatening Vienna twice. Were these not parts of Europe, and was not a good deal of Europe, including what had been its most important city for a millennium, Constantinople, firmly in Muslim hands before Granada fell – and after?

But it would not do to remind readers that while the Muslim invaders and conquerors of Spain lost their last “stronghold” in Granada, other Muslim invaders and conquerors were busy at the other end of Europe, seizing lands and subjugating the native populations to the devshirme (the forced levy of Christian children) as well as to the jizyah (the tax on non-Muslims) and all the other disabilities that, wherever Muslims conquered, were imposed, as part of a clearly elaborated system, and not merely the whim a ruler, on all non-Muslims.

Now having begun with that year 1492, Armstrong has a bit of a problem. It was that year that Jews were forced to be baptized or to leave. But though Granada had fallen, nothing then happened to the Muslims. In fact, they were treated with the same gentleness that all the Mudejares (Spanish Muslims) who had been defeated, in successive campaigns, were always treated by the Christian victors.
Henry Lea, the pioneering historian of the Inquisition, who was hardly looking for ways to exculpate Christianity, describes the generosity with which the defeated Muslims were treated in Granada, and after the prior victories:

“It was the Jews against whom was directed the growing intolerance of the fifteenth century and, in the massacres that occurred, there appears to have been no hostility manifested against the Mudéjares. When Alfonso de Borja, Archbishop of Valencia (afterwards Calixtus III), supported by Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, urged their [the Mudejars] expulsion on Juan II of Aragon, although he appointed a term for their exile, he reconsidered the matter and left them undisturbed. So when, in 1480, Isabella ordered the expulsion from Andalusia of all Jews who refused baptism and when, in 1486, Ferdinand did the same in Aragon, they both respected the old capitulations and left the Mudéjares alone. The time-honored policy was followed in the conquest of Granada, and nothing could be more liberal than the terms conceded to the cities and districts that surrendered. The final capitulation of the city of Granada was a solemn agreement, signed November 25, 1491, in which Ferdinand and Isabella, for themselves, for their son the Infante Juan and for all their successors, received the Moors of all places that should come into the agreement as vassals and natural subjects under the royal protection, and as such to be honored and respected. Religion, property, freedom to trade, laws and customs were all guaranteed, and even renegades from Christianity among them were not to be maltreated, while Christian women marrying Moors were free to choose their religion. For three years, those desiring expatriation were to be transported to Barbary at the royal expense, and refugees in Barbary were allowed to return. When, after the execution of this agreement, the Moors, with not unnatural distrust, wanted further guarantees, the sovereigns made a solemn declaration in which they swore by God that all Moors should have full liberty to work on their lands, or to go wherever they desired through the kingdoms, and to maintain their mosques and religious observances as heretofore, while those who desired to emigrate to Barbary could sell their property and depart."
It was not until 1502, after difficulties ensued between Spanish authorities, including the famous Cardinal Ximenes (he of the Complutensian Polyglot), and the Muslims (Mudejares) that they were given the choice of expulsion or conversion. And a great many of them pretended to convert, and remained in Spain – far more Muslims were capable of engaging in dissimulation of their faith than were the hapless Jews, who were expelled, in 1492, virtually overnight. It was much later, in 1570, under Philip II, that the Muslims (“Moors”) who remained were finally expelled, having in the meantime risen in revolt.

But Armstrong manages to smugglein that first, rather ineffective expulsion of 1502: “later [i.e. in a different year altogether] Muslims were given the choice of Christianity or exile.” .She does not add, and may not know, that Muslims in Spain after the fall of Granada were not under any danger of expulsion, and it was only when they showed signs of refusing to integrate as asked (and it was assumed that over time they would share the Christian faith, though at first nothing was done to demand such a sign). She may not know, either, that Muslims in a Spain now everywhere ruled by Christians asked members of the ulema in North Africa (in present-day Morocco) to determine whether they might continue to live under non-Muslim rule, and were told that it was not licit, and it was important for them not to be ruled by non-Muslims, and they must, therefore, return to the Muslim-ruled lands of North Africa. Such details provide a rather different slant on what Karen Armstrong offers – she takes the real tragedy, the overnight expulsion of the hapless and inoffensive Jews, and attempts to make the reader think that the Muslims were equally inoffensive, equally harmless, and treated with equal ferocity, as the Jews. But they were not equally inoffensive, not equally harmless, and not treated with equal ferocity..

First comes the fall of Granada. Then, second in time, and certainly in Karen Armstrong’s indignation, came the expulsion of the Jews “In March, the Jews of Spain were also forced to choose between conversion and exile.” Note how that “also” is dropped in, as if the real event, the main event, was the nonexistent (in 1492) expulsion of the Moors, which she had taken care to slip into her discussion of the Fall of Granada, so that she could diminish the significance of the expulsion of the Jews. That afterthoughtish “also.”

But the Muslims were invaders and conquerors, who had been resisted for 500 years of the Reconquista, and were expelled merely across the Straits of Gibraltar from whence they had come, to live again among fellow Muslims, under Muslim rule. Armstrong never says that. Nor does she point out, as she would if she were trying to compare the quite different treatments of Jews and Muslims, that the Jews of Spain never invaded, never conquered, never represented a threat to the political or social order. And when they were expelled they were not to find refuge, like the Muslims, in lands ruled by co-religionists, but again, to be scattered, to Ottoman domains and to Christian ones, Salonika or Amsterdam, to be treated indifferently, or kindly, or with contumely, or worse.

Under Muslim rule, despite their sometimes horrendous treatment, as recorded by Maimonides in his “Epistle to the Yemen” (Maimonides fled Islamic Spain), the Jews managed to make important cultural contributions as translators (along with Christians), as physicians, and as poets (the name Judah Halevi comes to mind). They were perfecdtly willing to live in Spain under Christian rule. They did nothing to deserve their expulsion. But Karen Armstrong has sympathy for the Jews only insofar as that sympathy can be transferred to the real objects of her pity, the Muslims, and she will do nothing to cause readers to see the difference in the two cases, one of clear mistreatment, the second a matter of prudence. It took a full decade for the Spanish rulers and clergy, or some of them, to realize that the Muslims, though conquered, were not about to eventually mold into one faith (that faith being Christianity), and their signs of remaining insubmissive and therefore potentially subversive or rebellions could only disturbIt had taken 500 years for the Reconquista. Why should the Spanish Christians, now that they were militarily victorious everywhere, take a chance that the Muslims would not rise in revolt?

And such revolts took place in the sixteenth century, and led, in 1570, under Philip the Second, to a second and more thorough expuslon of those Muslims who had remained in Spain, and feigned outwardly to have accepted Christianity, but had quietly waited to rise in revolt. That is why the real expulsion of the Muslims (Moors) took place not in 1502, but in 1570, nearly 80 years since the fall of Granada which Armstrong appears to believe led ineluctably to the expulsion of the Moors. It did not.

Both Jews and Moors were expelled from Spain, but however determined Armstrong may be to convince us (most unconvincingly) that these were identical historical events, both prompted by the demonization of “the Other” ( a phenomenon which apparently results from the peculiar psychic deficiency of Christian Europe) they were not identical/ The phrase “the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors” comes trippingly off the tongue, but without more, remains an offense to history and the truth.

The third great event, after the conquest of the “last stronghold” of Islam in Europe, and the two “identical” expulsions of identically unthreatening Muslims and Jews, in that fateful 1492 was the voyage of Columbus: “In August, Christopher Columbus, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and a protege of Ferdinand and Isabella, crossed the Atlantic and discovered the West Indies.”

Note how casually Armstrong drops in her astonishing remark: Columbus was a “a Jewish convert to Catholicism.” She treats it as a given, and finds no need to offer sources or evidence. But she must. For there is not a single authority on Columbus who has ever claimed this. Not Samuel Eliot Morison. Not Paolo Taviani. Not Salvador de Madariaga. Not all of the hundreds or thousands of scholars who have written about Columbus. What some have suggested or argued, is that Columbus came from a family of Genoese wool merchants, that Jews were prominent in that trade, that there is other evidence that his family originally had been Jewish but generations before had converted (and since, without conversions, and slaughter, the numbers of Jews in Europe would now be not a few million but 200 million, quite a few people must have converted over time). This was Salvador de Madariaga’s argument, and that of others. It convinced Indro Montanelli, the celebrated Italian journalist and popular historian, and he was by nature a skeptic. But that has nothing to do with Columbus himself.

Armstrong offers no authority for her statement. But why should she? Her purpose here is twofold. What better way to establish, in her vulgar, “some-my-best-friends-and-discoverers-of-the-New-World-are-Jewish” way, than to claim Columbus for the Jews (of course, assuming that people still honor Columbus for his deeds of derring-do, which would exclude the Ward Churchills of this world). At the same time, she can have this “Jewish” Columbus be depicted as part of a larger problem, for now he, that “Jewish convert to Catholicism,” has embraced the (non-existent) aggressive military plans of Ferdinand and Isabella. Columbus did not obtain royal support to find a new trading route to the east (now that the Muslim conquests in Byzantium have totally blocked the overland routes), or – as of course he would – along the way to spread the Gospel, but to find the best route to “India, where Christians could establish a military base for another crusade against Islam.”

Having been transformed into a “Jewish convert to Catholicism,” Columbus can more conveniently be depicted by Armstrong as a Pentagon Proto-Neo-Con, Jewish-but-also-Christian-fundamentalist, off on his voyage to “establish a military base” for “another crusade against Islam.” A regular Donald Rumsfeld, negotiating for American bases in Uzbekistan. And Kyrgyzstan.

“A military base for another crusade against Islam” – what can we say? Armstrong appears to believe that the Crusades, which were limited in space to the recapture of the Holy Land, and in time to 200 years (1090-1290, roughly) in fact were some kind of permanent impulse, just the way the unmentionable (in all of Armstrong’s copious published vaporings on Islam) Jihad remains a permant and central feature of Islamic teaching. But she is wrong. There was no ongoing effort in 1492 to embark on a new Crusade. Not a word about it, from Columbus, from Luis Santangel, from Los Reyes Catolicos themselves.

And had such a thought occurred to someone, what kind of sense would it have made, militarily, to try to attack from India? Europeans may not have known how far India was from Europe by sea, but they knew that it was very far from the Holy Land (in fact, Columbus thought it was much closer to Europe – that was his happy miscalculation). By 1492, the southeastern part of Europe itself had been for many decades under constant military assault by the powerful Ottoman armies. A few decades before, the first city of Christendom had fallen to the Ottoman Turks, to the Mulsims. How, with such constant dangers, could anyone even think of launching a new Crusade from India? How would tens of thousands of men be transported there, stationed there, and then transported again to the Holy Land? How would they make their way safely through the vast Muslim-controlled lands of Persia, of Mesopotamia, of Syria, in order to reach the Holy Land and fight the Saracens?

Armstrong’s nonsense perhaps has to do with some rude and indigestible bits of history that she dimly recalls, about the story of Prester John, the mythical Christian king of a mythical Christian kingdom, placed first, in European imaginations, in India, and later transferred to Ethiopia – a fable, designed to hearten European Christians who were always fearful of Muslim assaults, the Arab raiding parties by sea, up and down European coasts, and the Turkish land armies of the mighty Ottoman Sultan.

Her every word adds to the absurdity. There is no evidence for Armstrong’s assertions about Columbus himself, or about what motivated him. History is putty in her hands, we said earlier. But the word putty does not do her infantile approach to history justice. History is for Karen Armstrong not so much putty as Playdoh. She can roll it about, she can pull it apart, she can twist and turn it with the same delight exhibited by a two-year-old when too-too-solid block of Playdoh is finally softened up for use by grown-up hands. But the two-year-old is an innocent at play, and even if he leaves a momentary mess, he has done no real harm. Karen Armstrong is not innocent, and manages to do a great deal of harm, careless or premeditated harm, to history. Too many people read that she has written a few books, and assume, on the basis of nothing, that “she must know what she is talking about” – and some of the nonsense sticks. And perhaps an enraged professor or two bothers to dismiss her, but mostly – this is how the vast public, in debased democracies, learns its history today. It is hearsay as history – “Karen Armstrong says” or “John Esposito says.”

And that is only her first paragraph.

[Posted by Hugh at April 22, 2005 8:42 AM]

Posted by: Hugh at June 28, 2007 8:02 AM

They're all about promoting peace and harmony...

And that's the problem, they should be about truth.

Posted by: Borg at June 28, 2007 8:04 AM

Karen sez:

"In the Danish cartoon crisis, the secularists who were publishing those cartoons again and again and again were secular fundamentalists who were aggressively pushing free speech 'in your face', as it were."

.....and I just thought they were witty journalists making a statement that was easy to understand (even by those who could not read) and who were exercising the rights of free speech (which by the way is heavily restricted in most Muslim countries)....

Islam is for losers...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at June 28, 2007 8:08 AM

"Come on, Ms. Armstrong. You can't provide a scrap of evidence for the assertion that I would "love" to "ban" you. In fact, I want to debate you. And I am not the one who has turned down opportunities for this to happen, now, am I"?
Robert

You can forget it-she'll never debate you. She's a coward. This is someone who has grasped to institutions all her life. She's an indoor cat. You are an outdoor cat. The reason for that difference might have something to do with the genes of your ancestors who fled Turkey and Muslim tolerance earlier in the 20th century. They too were outdoor cats who knew what it takes in the real world. Armstrong has never lived in the real world. She's always a pet for some master or other.
-------------------------
BTW, these people on the left (particularly the European left) do not realize that the core political right in America (Goldwater style conservatives) are the exact opposite of the "right" (and "left") in Europe. The right in Europe is rooted in a monarchical authoritarianism, the political right in America is very anti-authoritarian. That's why people like Karen Armstrong leave true American conservatives with a feeling of cold bagels. They sense her love for institutional authoritarianism. She fees "safe" in institutions.

Posted by: Frank at June 28, 2007 8:40 AM

Here is a proper photo of Ms. Armstrong over at Jawa:

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/188496.php

Notice the rather "un-submissive" woman behind her. Armstrong has chosen to submit and has made her bed.

-XRDC

Posted by: XRDC at June 28, 2007 8:41 AM

Wrong Karen.

Still a telling photo, though.

-XRDC

Posted by: XRDC at June 28, 2007 8:42 AM

Why was her book banned in Malaysia? She wasn't grovelling enough?

Posted by: BlowHammed at June 28, 2007 8:55 AM

Another self appointed 'expert' feminazi western apologist.
Posted by: Philip_Hollywood

While I am firmly in the anti-jihad camp of this forum, I strongly object to the pseudo-word "feminazi", as it is a sexist term.

While I do not "run with the wolves" of the NOW crowd, most of whose views I consider to be just plain silly, I am pro-woman, without being anti-man.

I defend to the bitter end your right to express your opinions, but "feminazi" is a term that stinks to high heaven. I pity you, if you cannot make your point, without using such epithets.

Cindy Buxton

Posted by: Abscedere at June 28, 2007 9:04 AM

Mr. High - I thought T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) "brought together the warring tribes of Arabia?"

If he didn't what did LOA do, then?

Posted by: darcy at June 28, 2007 9:44 AM

Yeah, that's the wrong Karen. That is Karen Hughes, not Armstrong.

That photo is horrific - a portrait of our Dhimmi "leaders" in submission at the mosque they let be built in America. The shame of that is endless...

Back to Karen Armstrong - I hate you, I truly do. I consider you a traitor to Western civilization. You need to take a hike to Yemen, and stay there, a black sack with eye slots.

Posted by: darcy at June 28, 2007 9:56 AM

"what did LOA do, then?"
-- from a posting above

What did the mythomane T. E. Lawrence do? He fulfilled, or met, a need in Great Britain, after the Great War, for a doer of heroic deeds, even if the heroism, and the greatness of the deeds, were greatly exaggerated. The "Arab Revolt" was a matter of a few hundred tribesman (Abdullah, or was it Feisal, confidently spoke of "100,000 men."), harrying the Hejaz Railway. But Lawrence, like Gertrude Bell, became a star of the papers.

In Lawrence's case, he was greatly helped by the showman Lowell Thomas.

Many were taken in by Lawrence's tall tales, including Churchill, and Robert Graves, and all kinds of people who should have known better. The full extent of his fabricdations (that mythomania) was revealed in 1959 in the biography of him by Richard Aldington. Further piquant examples have been supplied by, among others, the dry Elie Kedourie.

For more on the T. E. Lawrence-Lowell Thomas connection, you might wish to google "Literary-Historical Contest at New English Review" and "Hugh Fitzgerald" to find the Contest which was put up the other day and is now closed, without any winning entries having been received. But the right answer can be found, posted, at the same site.

Posted by: Hugh at June 28, 2007 9:57 AM

Oh dear, very sorry - I typed Mr. High instead of Mr. Hugh. It's an hour earlier here, please excuse the typo!

Thank You for the info. I think "LOA" should have left well enough alone...

Posted by: darcy at June 28, 2007 10:01 AM

You can't ban a turd. Turds are all around us. You can only avoid them or carry a big broom to sweep them of the sidewalk.
Re Karen Armstrong I could imagine there are quite a few other uses for a broom...

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at June 28, 2007 10:05 AM

"Karen Armstrong, long famous for her description of Muhammad as the consummate “peacemaker” who “brought together the warring tribes of Arabia,”-Hugh

There could be something to this kind of Saddam and Muhammad style "peacemaking" after all. The Vito Corleone style peacemaking does work sometimes.

darcy-

She's not worth hating. She is in her fee simple institution and there she will remain. She's not the person she thinks she is and does not to disturb that. She has a lot to fear and thinks what she fears is outside her self. That's why she will never debate Robert.

(BTW, agree with him or not, Denesh is a man of courage and therefore virtue. He's no coward. Armstrong is a coward grasping to institutions. She's afraid of "out there".)

Posted by: Frank at June 28, 2007 10:35 AM

Paranoia, thy name is Armstrong!

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at June 28, 2007 10:46 AM

Two points Hugh, the jews were removed for having collaborated in many times with the muslim authorities, them and the witizians were the pillars were islam entered in the peninsula, and other reasons were usury and the notion that a new united nation Spain should be united by one religion, in that time, the catholicism were very convinced of being the truth and all people had to be catholic, in protestant countries, the catholicism were forbidden too.
Respect islam, in my land Valencia, and other regions of Spain, the bishops and priests made cathecism in arabic, bibles, some ceremonies but the majority of muslims wanted to continue being muslims and being allied with the turks, they were, finally deported in 1609 from Spain, in 1570 they were defeated in the Alpujarras but not removed.
Thanks for your interest.

Posted by: Franze at June 28, 2007 10:56 AM

Would you say that of all the major religions of the world, Islam is currently the most misunderstood?

Yes, I would.

Well, the West has found it always very difficult to understand Islam. Islamaphobia dates right back to the time of the Crusades when we tended to project worries about our own behaviour unto Islam.

This is one who is in a position of power, folks. Seems as though we have more than one revert around the throne.

Posted by: interestinconundrum at June 28, 2007 11:41 AM

Would you say that of all the major religions of the world, Islam is currently the most misunderstood?

Yes, I would.

Well, the West has found it always very difficult to understand Islam. Islamaphobia dates right back to the time of the Crusades when we tended to project worries about our own behaviour unto Islam.

This is one who is in a position of power, folks. Seems as though we have more than one revert around the throne.

Posted by: interestinconundrum at June 28, 2007 11:43 AM

Get her a press agent, dolly up the babe, and let her do a speaking tour with Irshad Manjit.

For all the fools who are prepared to listen.

The only excuse for mental debris is if it is hillarious and hence liberating.

Not.

Posted by: dgene at June 28, 2007 11:48 AM

So, in our country, where most of us believe that Muslim apostates should be sentenced to death, what do you think about that?

I think it's upsetting. As I said, I don't think this was the sort of way the Prophet behaved.

Look again, ma'am. Educate yourself before you speak. The "prophet" perfected murder and wife-stealing.

OT
Typekey is acting up again....why should we have to repeatedly sign in?

Posted by: interestinconundrum at June 28, 2007 11:56 AM

AND FOR THE GRAND FINALE!!! Holy moly...

You were a Catholic nun for seven years before you left the convent, and you described yourself as being disillusioned and depressed, and you wanted nothing to do with religion for a long time after that. What was it about Catholicism or religion that you found objectionable?

It wasn't kind.

It wasn't kind?

Yes. And I think that the most important thing is compassion, is to be kind, and the religion that doesn't project kindness, the Quran is always talking about kindness, friendliness.

Yep, she's one of 'em.

Posted by: interestinconundrum at June 28, 2007 12:06 PM

Neocon? Where? Armstrong is suffering from a severe case of hallucinatory neoconophobia.

Posted by: JasonP at June 28, 2007 1:05 PM

Gosh, Karen is so far gone, I almost feel sorry for her. There were so many inane statements to choose from, so I'll just "cherry-pick" a few:

Armstrong:
"When Muhammad conquered Mecca and invited the Quraish to enter Islam, he stood beside the Kaabah and said, 'O Quraish, God is calling you from the chauvinism of jahiliyyah with its pride in ancestors. But all men come from Adam and Adam came from dust.'"

and then followed it with:

"And then he quoted God's words in the Quran: 'O people, we have formed you from a male and a female and formed you into tribes and nations so that you may know one another.' Not so that you may convert one another, or terrorise one another, or conquer one another, or colonise one another, or kill one another, but so that you may reach beyond tribal bonds and know one another."

So Muhammad conquered and then said do not conquer. That certainly does sound like Islamic logic.

and a fan favorite "mosquito in a nudist colony" type comment from Armstrong:
"Yes. And I think that the most important thing is compassion, is to be kind, and the religion that doesn't project kindness, the Quran is always talking about kindness, friendliness."

Wowser!

I'd give her less than 5 minutes against Robert before she'd implode.

Posted by: awake at June 28, 2007 1:31 PM

Please Mrs. Hughes, debate RS. I would love to know what translation you are studying...the "Romper Room" version?

Posted by: interestinconundrum at June 28, 2007 1:32 PM

Exuse me for being rude, but I haven´t read her opinion about catholicism, she is a "whore", she prefers a religion like islam against the religion that Christ founded. Sad and depressing!

Posted by: Franze at June 28, 2007 1:38 PM

"It was not until 1502, after difficulties ensued between Spanish authorities, including the famous Cardinal Ximenes (he of the Complutensian Polyglot), and the Muslims (Mudejares) that they were given the choice of expulsion or conversion."

Is it merely a coincidence that difficulties ensued just ten years after the Spanish victory? It sounded like the Muslims were observing their "ten year ceasfire", if only unofficially.

Columbus was from Genoa and he first sought backing from Portugal, but the Portugese were more interested in traveling around Africa to reach the Indian Ocean and so they sent him on his way. Only then did he approach Spain.

For Ms. Armstrong to refer to C.C. as a "protege of Ferdinand and Isabella" is a bit of a stretch.

Thanks, Hugh for the repost. I hadn't seen the original.

Posted by: PMK at June 28, 2007 1:52 PM

ARMSTRONG>>>>OH CRAP Excuse me.......
/Best Steve Martin impression
Karen Armstrong, I don't know why I thought Hughes.
I guess because I was thinking of the other picture.
Mea Culpa!!!!
Never Mind!!

Posted by: interestinconundrum at June 28, 2007 2:02 PM

How does one "ban" another individual?

However, it is most unfortunate that this misguided woman has chosen to close her eyes to the violence inherent in Islam and pretend that there is nothing wrong with Islam itself, its violence, or in pretending that Islamic violence doesn't exist.

Posted by: pythagoras at June 28, 2007 2:55 PM

What are your thoughts on this, and have you been banned anywhere else in the world?

There are people who would love to ban me, such as the neo-conservatives Daniel Pipes or Robert Spencer in the United States...

Yup, it's those jooooz again!

Have we ever seen this before? Let's see ... Hmmmm...

The mediocre seeking the approval of racists by blaming their problems on evil foreigners and the hated alien race (joooz again) ....

Not to mention the implied claim of victimhood.

Hmmm... Just can't place it. But damned if it doesn't seem familiar somehow.

Posted by: joeblough at June 28, 2007 4:08 PM

I haven't downloaded the interview and so just relying on the quotes provided by others:

"I cannot see how these books are in any way detrimental to peace. They're all about promoting peace and harmony, and banning things is simply not helpful."

It's rather obvious that Karen Armstrong is making the cardinal mistake that Muslims are "just like us" and think like us and want the same thing. She doesn't understand why her books were banned since they were all about "peace and harmony". But Muslims don't want "peace and harmony" between religions. They want Islam to dominate, so naturally they would ban any book that for whatever reason might impede that goal.

"There are people who would love to ban me, such as the neo-conservatives Daniel Pipes or Robert Spencer in the United States..."

If the woman actually cannot understand the difference between criticism of her ideas versus having her ideas actually banned, it might explain this moral equivalence that she is always peddling between Islam and the west.

"What was it about Catholicism or religion that you found objectionable?"...

"It wasn't kind...And I think that the most important thing is compassion, is to be kind, and the religion that doesn't project kindness, the Quran is always talking about kindness, friendliness"

Oh. My. God. There are simply no words.
This woman must be seriously messed up in the head to dismiss Christianity and the example of Jesus as lacking in kindness and compassion, while somehow finding that quality in Muhammad and the Koran. Even Muslims themselves don't go there. They know very well that Jesus was a complete pacifist and compassionate and kind. What they seem to admire about Muhammad was that he was strong and willing to use violence. Her position would make more sense if she frankly stated that she thought that pacifism was for suckers. Why is she instead prating on about peace and harmony and compassion and kindness?

What exactly happened to this woman in the convent anyway that would explain her messed up head?

Posted by: Caroline at June 28, 2007 8:54 PM

well i dismayed today to listen to a very prominent Georgetown academic at a class in front of US Special Operations talk about how US foreign policy and Israel are truly the reason for Islamic terrorism. Besides that I was surprised to learn, Islam was NOT spread by the sword, women faired well under Muhammad, Islam was/is more tolerant than Christianity, among other things.. In addition, apparently Ibn Warraq, Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson are racist quacks simply out to make a lot of money...

Posted by: Peaceful_Muslims? at June 28, 2007 9:59 PM

well i was dismayed today to listen to a very prominent Georgetown academic at a class in front of US Special Operations talk about how US foreign policy and Israel are truly the reason for Islamic terrorism. Besides that I was surprised to learn, Islam was NOT spread by the sword, women faired well under Muhammad, Islam was/is more tolerant than Christianity, among other things.. In addition, apparently Ibn Warraq, Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson are racist quacks simply out to make a lot of money...

Posted by: Peaceful_Muslims? at June 28, 2007 10:00 PM

As I copied Hugh's response to forward to friends, I find myself wanting to add the title "Sir" to his name - out of the utmost respect.

As a young student, I failed to grow any interest in learning history. I cannot blame my instructors, I simply had no interest. Since coming to this site back in 1994 (?) I cannot read enough about history and find every tidbit learned a treasure.

I hit the jackpot with each and every one of Hugh's dissertations. I cannot think of anyone who could draw my interest so intensely. Thank you, sir.

As for Karen Armstrong . . .has she no shame? Certainly, she has no credibility.

Posted by: justamomof4 at June 28, 2007 10:21 PM

I know Robert Spencer is very busy but surely he should answer some of the points raised by Ms. Armstrong.
She says

“The Prophet wanted there to be no compulsion in religion. When one of his companions converted back to Christianity, for example, the Prophet accepted it; there was no question of putting the man to death.”

I am sure she is being very selective in her reading of the Hadith but surely Mr. Spencer could refute her more specifically?

Posted by: Odyessus at June 29, 2007 5:03 AM

“The Prophet wanted there to be no compulsion in religion. When one of his companions converted back to Christianity, for example, the Prophet accepted it; there was no question of putting the man to death.”

http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=2691&cid=2&sid=2

"The death penalty for apostasy from Islam is firmly rooted in Islamic texts – certainly in the hadith, but arguably also in the Koran. The Koran 4:89 states:

"They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper."

"Ibn Kathir's (d. 1373) venerated tafsir (Koran commentary) on this verse concurs with the view that 4:89 sanctions killing apostates, maintaining that as the unbelievers have manifested their unbelief, they should be punished by death. The death penalty is virtually beyond debate in the hadith. For example, in the most respected hadith collections of Bukhari, Muhammad is reported to have said "Kill him who changes his religion."

"According to Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, there is also a consensus by all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (i.e., Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi'i), as well as Shi'ite jurists, that apostates from Islam must be put to death. Averroes, or Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), the renowned Aristotelian philosopher and scholar of the natural sciences, who was also an important Maliki jurist in medieval Spain, provided this typical Muslim legal opinion on the punishment for apostasy (vol. 2, p. 552):

"An apostate…is to be executed by agreement in the case of a man, because of the words of the Prophet, 'Slay those who change their din [religion]'…Asking the apostate to repent was stipulated as a condition…prior to his execution."

Posted by: Caroline at June 29, 2007 7:24 AM

''I think that in its appreciation of other faiths and its inspired pluralism, the Quran has a headstart on many of the other scriptures, for promoting a more pluralistic vision of the world.''

What? This woman has lost the plot completely. A suitable case for treatment indeed!

Posted by: johndoe at June 29, 2007 8:30 AM

Karen A. is a feemanist who thinks she's a femanist. But in any case she's A all the way.......

http://vwt.d2g.com:8081/joe-horses_ass03_copy.jpg

Posted by: Frank at June 29, 2007 9:24 AM