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Professor Carl Ernst has made much of the supposed “right-wing” and “conservative” and “Christian” and -- all together now -- supposedly “right-wing Christian conservative” views of Robert Spencer, with his hate-site and his hate-filled rants and his hateful views, and so on, and so bloody forth. Those who actually have been visiting this site for months or even for years know that such a caricature is absurd. And if they have also read Robert Spencer’s books, they know what useful exercises they are in haute vulgarization – popular divulgation, intended for the mass audience, which needs to find out something about Islam, not least to avoid such follies as the venture in Iraq.
But I am not here to praise Robert Spencer, but to entirely ignore him. Not only that, I am here to suggest to students of Carl Ernst that they entirely ignore the books of Robert Spencer. Don’t look at them. Don’t read them. For if you read them at this point, with Professor Carl Ernst having done what he can to undercut any appeal or interest those books might have for you, you are now most unready to read them.
So do something different. Read as widely among the most important explanatory works about Islam. Then, after you have read, and not merely read but thoroughly assimilated some of the material in those books and articles, then – and only then – come back to Robert Spencer, and read what he has to say, and ask yourself this: do Spencer’s views accord with what Snouck Hurgronje says, and what Arthur Jeffery, and Henri Lammens, and Joseph Schacht, and Bernard Lewis (yes, despite misgivings about Lewis’s understanding of the dhimmi, and his desire to maintain friendships with Muslims, and his general unwillingness to go nearly as far as he should), and Bat Ye’or, and Ibn Warraq, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and for that matter such people whose books have not yet appeared and so cannot at this point be part of any list of Recommended Reading, such as Wafa Sultan, all say, in their different ways, with their attention to different aspects of Islam? Or do Spencer’s views accord more with the view that Carl Ernst presents you with in his carefully-bowdlerized syllabus and in his carefully apologetic presentations, which he inflicts on you, you poor students, who must do nothing to give a hint of real disagreement -- though one of those phony classroom encouragements of “free and open discussion” is by now, no doubt, part of Ernst’s carefully-thought-out modus operandi? And what are the implications of this: that all the Western scholars from the age of uninhibited scholarship about Islam and Islamic history, and all the most articulate and uncowed apostates who have appeared in the West today, are far closer in their view of Islam to what Spencer offers than they are to the thin gruel that Carl Ernst serves up to his hapless and (once they are enrolled beyond the Add/Drop period) helpless students in both his handful of assigned texts by others, in his own or Omid Safi's promised "scholarship"?
In that spirit -- a deliberately Spencer-less spirit -- students from Carl Ernst's course are offered below a list of Suggested Reading. It consists of books by twenty-seven authors, few of whom are likely to have been included on Professor Ernst’s own syllabus, or to be mentioned in whatever list of “Other Reading’ he hands out or otherwise make available.
The list was kept to under thirty authors (the list might have had 130), with a deliberate inclusion of many unsurpassed scholars from the Golden Age of Western scholarship about Islam -- the period from 1870 to 1970. Many celebrated scholars are not included: there is not the Mohammedan Studies by Ignaz Goldziher, not Noldeke on the sources of the early Qur’an; not John Wansbrough’s Quranic Studies, and in the case of C. Snouck Hurgronje, possibly the most important of Western scholars of Islam, only one title is listed.
There are many other articles that one could find -- that one should find -- in back issues of “The Moslem World” (now “Muslim World”), especially those that appeared before 1950. A CD containing the Encyclopedia of Islam can also be obtained.
The syllabus of Carl Ernst, one suspects, contains such things as a bowdlerized Qur’an -- the Approaching the Qur’an of Michael Sells, and texts such as Edward Said’s Orientalism. These are designed to undercut, before the students even encounter them, the scholarship of those who, in England, France, America, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, made the study of Islam their life’s work. Said himself may have been an Arab, but he was not a Muslim. He never received a Muslim education. Rather, he attended first an Anglican school, Victoria College, in Egypt, and then continued his education in the United States. His elementary blunders, his fantastic mistakes, have been quietly dissected by Bernard Lewis in his article “The Question of ‘Orientalism’” -- and more recently by an entire book devoted to explaining who the “Orientalists” were, and why Said, who simplified, omitted, misunderstand, or simply misread so many of them, deserves not respect but contempt. That book has been written by the hardly unsympathetic-to-Islam English writer Robert Irwin.
I haven’t looked at Ernst’s syllabus. But I’m sure he does not include Robert Irwin’s book, nor Bernard Lewis’s article, and I assume he includes Orientalism, as that is a staple of the Higher Apologetics in universities. I doubt if he includes a single work by any apostate from Islam -- not a single thing by Ibn Warraq or Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or even Irshad Manji. He is unlikely to add the soon-to-be-published book by the articulate and brave Wafa Sultan to any future syllabus. He is unlikely to welcome the book to be published this month by Ibn Warraq, which shows that Said was not merely wrong, but completely, totally wrong. For it is the Western world, since the Greeks, that has been wide open to other societies, and it has been the world of Islam that has appropriated, but always claimed as its own, never giving credit to others, and which maintains an attitude of permanent hostility to all Infidels everywhere, as Islam naturally teaches. For if you are taught that Dar al-Islam must forever be in a state of war (if not open warfare) with Dar al-Harb, and that it is the duty of Muslims to participate, sometimes collectively and sometimes as an individual duty, in Jihad to spread Islam by removing every barrier to its expansion and its dominance, you are unlikely to be “open to ‘the Other.’” And Islam demonstrates in so many ways every day, beginning with the indifference to Western ideas and institutions and art and literature (look at the near-absence of translations into Arabic), but a very great interest in Western military hardware. Muslims have a solemn duty to remove all the obstacles to the spread of Islam until it covers the globe, and Infidels are reduced to their proper condition -- that of dhimmis -- who must acquiesce in Muslim rule and endure a condition of permanent humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity.
But will Carl Ernst’s students get a hint of this? Will they read the Qur’an and Hadith with understanding? Will they learn about the figure of Muhamamd, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, or will the figure be described vaguely as “one of the great inspired leaders of history” with no attention to what counts -- the details of that “great inspired leader’s” life.
They are much more likely to be treated to modish fantasies of the type that Maria Rosa Menocal, not a historian but a student of literature, produced in her feel-good fairy-tale The Ornament of the World, thus contributing not to history but rather to the romanticized version or “myth” of Andalucia that got its start with two Romantic writers, Washington Irving with his Tales of the Alhambra and Chateaubriand with Le dernier des Abencerages.
Ernst will do his best to undercut, in advance, to poison minds, in advance, so that they cannot possibly encounter without their minds already having been affected, any of the trustworthy, non-apologetic scholars of Islam. But one hopes you will be able to resist, and to supplement what he force-feeds you by quiet investigations and research of your own. It is Carl Ernst who wishes to ensure that you are exposed only to his, carefully-crafted, received version of Islam and of the history of Islam, and who insults -- quietly, sweetly, implicitly -- you, and who wishes to carefully direct your reading. He gives new and sinister meaning to that phrase “directed reading.” It is we who would have you read everything you can, and find out everything you can, from the hundreds of books, and thousands of articles, by the great scholars of Islam.
Toward that desired end, here is a list of twenty-seven authors. See what you can find. See what appeals to you. See what sense it makes, or fails to make. The more you read, the more widely you read, the less likely it is that you will be taken in, and the more likely it is that what you read will help you not only to better understand the past, but also what is happening today, in southern Sudan and southern Nigeria and southern Thailand and southern Philippines, in Darfur and among the Berbers of the Kabyle and Morocco, and among the Muslim populations everywhere, who are raised on precisely the same texts, inculcated with the same ideas, impressed with the need to fulfill the same central duties, and who exhibit remarkably similar attitudes toward the idea of human freedom and individual autonomy, toward the idea of free and skeptical inquiry, toward the idea of untrammeled artistic expression, and toward the very idea that non-Muslims, too, deserve to build, and preserve permanently, their own legal and political institutions and social arrangements, free from the pressure from Muslims to change or surrender them in order to please Muslims and meet Muslim demands.
Here is that list. Read around, whatever you can, whenever you can. As a "corrective" to the pabulum I assume you will be fed in the official syllabus:
1) Tor Andrae, Mohammed: The Man and His Faith (Routledge)
2) M. M. Azami, Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature (American Trust Publications)
3) Andrew Bostom (ed.), The Legacy of Jihad (Prometheus Books)
4) Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge University Press); The Koran: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press)
5) Ali Dashti, 23 Years (Mazda Publishers)
6) Antoine Fattal, Le status legal des non-Musulmanes en pays d'Islam [for French speakers only] (Dar al-Kitab, Beirut)
7) Sita Ram Goel (compiler and editor), The Calcutta Quran Petition (Voice of India)
8) Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law (Princeton University Press)
9) Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel (Free Press)
10) Toby Huff, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West (Cambridge University Press)
11) Ibn Warraq, The Quest for the Historical Muhammad; What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text and Commentary; The Origins of the Koran (all Prometheus Books)
12) Hans Jansen, The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism (Cornell University Press)
13) Arthur Jeffery, Islam: Muhammad and his Religion (Liberal Arts Press)
14) Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Johns Hopkins Press)
15) Ayatollah Khomeini, A Clarification of Questions (Westview Press)
16) K. S. Lal, The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India; Theory and Practice of the Muslim State in India (both reprinted by Aditya Prakashan)
17) Henri Lammens, Islam: Beliefs and Institutions (St. Joseph’s University, Beirut)
18) Bernard Lewis, The Political Language of Islam (Oxford University Press); Islam In History (reprint: Open Court Press); Islam and the West (Oxford University Press), The Multiple Identities of the Middle East (Schocken)
19) David Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam; The Early Development of Mohammedanism (both Oxford University Press)
20) V. S. Naipaul, Among the Believers; Beyond Belief (both Vintage Books)
21) Rudolph Peters, Islam and Colonialism; Jihad In Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton Studies in Islam)
22) Xavier de Planhol, The World of Islam (Cornell University Press)
23) Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, The Lawful and The Prohibited in Islam (Al-Halal wal Haram Fil Islam) (Shorouk International)
24) Maxime Rodinson, Mohammed (Vintage Books)
25) Joseph Schacht, Mohammedan Jurisprudence; An Introduction to Islamic Law (both Oxford University Press)
26) C. Snouck Hurgronje, Islam: Origin, Political Growth, and Its Present State (Manohar Publishing -- Indian reprint house)
27) William St. Clair Tisdall, The Sources of the Koran (online at truthnet.org)
In addition, it is important for students to familiarize themselves with at least three different translations of the Qur’an, such as those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali, A. J. Arberry, and N. J. Dawood. Many can be found, presented synoptically, at various websites. Such concepts as naskh should be grasped before students begin to try to make sense of seeming contradictions in the text; impenetrable parts of that text should not phase students, but they should be aware of the work of Christoph Luxenberg and others who attempt to explicate the approximately 20% of the text that remains unclear.
In order to grasp the concept of the Sunnah, the customs and manners of 7th century Arabia that act as a kind of gloss on the Qur’anic texts, students should familiarize themselves not only with the life of Muhammad, from the various biographies listed above, but also familiarize themselves with the collections of Hadith by Bukhari and Muslim, and read, in no particular order, at least several hundred of the Hadith until they feel familiar with them. The text by M. M. Azami above will explain the concept of “isnad” and how the muhaddithin assigned their ranking of authenticity to the tens of thousands of Hadith (properly, “ahadith”) that they collected.
Students are asked to familiarize themselves both with Muslim websites, especially those in which fatwas are sought and given, and with the websites of those who grew up in Islam but have left it, such as the sites www.faithfreedom.org and www.answering-islam.org.
Posted by Hugh at September 4, 2007 7:05 AM
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Why are students paying to take such a biased class? Whatever happened to free discussion in the classroom? Why is any university employing a professor such as Carl Ernst? Then again the lack of standards at today's leftist run, elitist paper mills may explain a lot.
Posted by: lonewolf![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 4, 2007 7:20 AM
What are professors smoking nowdays???
Posted by: Shy Guy at September 4, 2007 7:26 AM
The link shows a Prof. taking a class in some place in US. How can students take this BS. Students seem to be generally very respectful. This is real waste of money. These Profs. get 'paid' for this !. Its very shocking .
Posted by: Kash225 at September 4, 2007 7:55 AM
"Professor Carl Ernst has made much of the supposed “right-wing” and “conservative” and “Christian” and – all together now – supposedly “right-wing Christian conservative” views of Robert Spencer, with his hate-site and his hate-filled rants and his hateful views, and so on, and so bloody forth"-Himself
The left, and folks such as Karl Ernst, are adept at pretending that the "right-wing" in America is practically the same as the "right-wing" in Europe. But they are entirely different.
I rarely call talk shows , but about 8 years ago I called a show in which Gary Wills was a guest and made precisely that point. He said (I'm close), "You are perceptive. The right in America is anti-monarchical, anti-authoritarian in its root and on its extreme is almost anarchistic. The libertarian views are reflective of that. The right in America can really be traced to 1776. The right-wing in Europe is rooted in monarchy and is authoritarian".
Carl Ernst is a very German name. It may be that Ernst is unconsciously touchy about that and has to anxiously point to some guy (Spencer) whose persecuted Christian ancestors came from Turkey as a potential 30's German style authoritarian. Actually Spencer is a regular outdoor cat that flips the bird to regimentation. He pays a price for that from people such as the Moe Howard-Zachary Smith "Distinguished professor" from some institution.
Posted by: Frank at September 4, 2007 8:06 AM
Checking out Utube - the propaganda of the left and the moral relativists - trying to say that Robert is a hate filled 'ranter' - all of which is nonsense.
It wont work.
Because it is just not true, and we wont let them, the relativists, the obfuscators, the sliders, the mea culpists, the hate America crowd,
the DNC, get away with it.
Evil is evil.
We may fall short, as humans, but to reject the light is foolish.
Posted by: dgene at September 4, 2007 8:22 AM
A more direct link to item #27 above:
http://www.truthnet.org/islam/source.htm
Posted by: MarisolJW at September 4, 2007 8:24 AM
You dont even need to read anyone on the Syllabus. Just read the Koran, the Sirat al-Rasul, and the numerous hadiths, and sharia epistles that are referenced by Spencer.
If you are a reasonable person, you will come to similar conclusions.
Posted by: Jimmy the Dhimmi at September 4, 2007 8:50 AM
Very true Jimmy, if you are reasonable.
Posted by: Elric66 at September 4, 2007 9:00 AM
I couldn't find a better price'Encyclopedia of Islam'
than $400 on Amazon.
at September 4, 2007 9:00 AM
What do you suppose it will take for the current wishful thinking to be disbanded and a truly realistic assessment of the jihad being waged against us takes hold? Without apologies, that is.
Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 4, 2007 9:01 AM
I,personally, am afraid it will take another 9/11 (or worse, such as a "dirty" bomb) to make people realise the true face of Islam; Of course some "Professors" will still make excuses.......
Posted by: ooddballz at September 4, 2007 9:26 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjwY__0qqFQ
Posted by: Hugh at September 4, 2007 9:52 AM
"What do you suppose it will take for the current wishful thinking to be disbanded and a truly realistic assessment of the jihad being waged against us takes hold? Without apologies, that is."
Jauhara Al-Kafirah,
Someone asked a similar question (I think it was yesterday, but it might have been the day before).
To paraphrase, it was something like: Why are we all sitting here talking, and not doing anything?
I can't speak for others, only for myself. To answer your specific question, I think only another large-scale attack on the continental US will wake up our government. Attacks on our allies don't seem to be enough. The creeping Islamization of Europe doesn't seem to be enough.
I abhor Political Correctness, which feels to me to be Political Censorship. I don't subscribe to the doctrine, but I'm no less bound by it than those who do.
It's craven and cowardly, but to be honest--I don't want to lose my job or go to jail.
I had a newsletter that I used to leave in the break room, for anyone who wanted to read it, wherein I wrote about Islam and its dangers. I didn't force it on anyone, and I signed my name to it. Most of the time, there were only one or two left, at the end of the day.
The day the first article appeared on Jihadwatch, re Monkey Boy and his proposal to "Wipe Israel Off the Map", my newsletter article got me busted by the PC police at work. (I was trying to make the point that the prez of Iran was not a lunatic, but merely a very devout Muslim.)
So, like my country, I'm waiting for all hell to break loose, so I can justifiably defend myself.
I've tried to think of other ways to "Spread the Dread", as Profitsbeard says, and I'm still working on that. If you or anyone else have any ideas about that, I'm all ears.
Posted by: Abscedere at September 4, 2007 10:07 AM
"Why are we all sitting here talking, and not doing anything?"
-- from a posting above
If the poster thinks that the dissemination of information about the texts, tenets, attitudes, and atmospherics of Islam, and about the history of Jihad-conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims under Muslim rule is merely "sitting here talking, and not doing anything" then he fails to understand that nothing can be done -- short of that huge terrorist attack he thinks will be the only thing that this time, really truly madly, will wake people up, an attack that of course may be foiled or that may never be planned because intelligent Muslims realize that they have far more to win, slowly slowly, especially through the deployment of the Money Weapon that pays for mosques, madrasas, public relations and other propaganda, and a small army of Western hirelings, many of whose recruits come from the highest echelons of government, from former bigshots and diplomats, and who practice a kind of "soft apologetics" that has had the desired effect, of for example protecing Saudi Arabia and making it appear to be not the sinister force it always has been, and always will be, but a "staunch ally" of the United States, and an ally, furthermore, into whose hands we idiotically entrusted our "energy policy" instead of putting a tax, rising by steady and inexorable increments, on gasoline, and working like hell, ever since 1973, to diminish, in our own country and everywhere else, largely through self-taxing, the use of oil that funds the world-wide Jihad.
And well-financed and carefully-targetted campaigns of Da'wa, directed at the already-disaffected economically marginal (such as black prisoners, or some immigrant populatioons) and the psychically marginal (the Lindhs, Gadahns, and others who are the natural products of a certain kind of moral and intellectual confusion in Western society), are the second weapon.
And the third, of course, is demographic conquest. Look at the numbers for the Netherlands, the easy-going, tolerant Netherlands, that is just now awakening from the dream of that "multicultural society" to find it not merely a nightmare, but a real-live, daytime nightmare. The same kind of figures can be given for other European countries.
We are not merely "talking" and "not doing anything." The work at this and other sites is essential to the task of mass divulgation of material. Education right now is the key. It need not, and indeed is likely not, to occur in campus classrooms in courses taught by MESA-Nostran apologists of either the non-Muslim (Carl Ernst, Michael Sells, Richard Bulliet) variety, or of the more obvious Muslim (Rashid Khalidi, Hamid Dabashi, George Saliba, Omid Safi) variety. There are some brave exceptions, including those who, having been safely tenured, are beginning slowly to fight back, by making their own departments, as best they can, apologist-free (names could be named, but attention at this point should not be drawn). Among the still small minority within MESA Nostra, there is growiing the realization that things cannot continue as before, that the things that were being deliberately overlooked, the highly tendentious, absurdly rosy presentations of Islam -- and of course the influence everywhere -- in the United States, in Great Britain, even in Australia -- of Arab money and the networks of mutual aid among those who are pushing the Saudi, Arab, Muslim line, are truly astonishing, and deserve articles, and books, and hearings in the open air, not least hearings that will force university administrations to take note and for the first time, to impinge on "faculty autonomy" to deal with this unprecedented threat that begins with a threat to learning.
We are not just "talking." We are "doing something" here. Something that is far more important than you apparently realize.
Posted by: Hugh at September 4, 2007 10:55 AM
Hugh:
Cannot agree more.
(or to use an expression which will make you cringe: "ditto" (lol))
Posted by: dgene at September 4, 2007 11:13 AM
Good Morning Students:
A Danish language researcher has spent over three years analyzing the original texts of ten different religions, and concludes that the Islamic texts stand out by encouraging terror and violence to a larger degree than other religions do. Four years after the terror attacks at the World Trade Center, Danish linguist Tina Magaard presents an analysis that questions Islam’s relationship with terror, violence and Holy War.
Islamic texts encourage terror and fighting to a far larger degree than the original texts of other religions, concludes Tina Magaard. She has a PhD in Textual Analysis and Intercultural Communication from the Sorbonne in Paris, and has spent three years on a research project comparing the original texts of ten religions. “The texts in Islam distinguish themselves from the texts of other religions by encouraging violence and aggression against people with other religious beliefs to a larger degree. There are also straightforward calls for terror. This has long been a taboo in the research into Islam, but it is a fact that we need to deal with," says Tina Magaard. Moreover, there are hundreds of calls in the Koran for fighting against people of other faiths. “If it is correct that many Muslims view the Koran as the literal words of God, which cannot be interpreted or rephrased, then we have a problem. It is indisputable that the texts encourage terror and violence. Consequently, it must be reasonable to ask Muslims themselves how they relate to the text, if they read it as it is," says Tina Magaard.
at September 4, 2007 11:16 AM
Good morning students
The subject of my lecture today is: Is Islam is a peaceful religion?
I think the answer can be found in one of the very basic observations that Mahatma Gandhi made about human nature - that if you want to find out the true nature of a person, find out how he treats a weaker person. Let us apply that simple test to present day Islam. We can say that Muslims are in “strength”, that is able to dictate political, social and religious decisions in countries or regions where they are in majority. Of course, in certain instances, they might be able to dictate terms even in regions where they are in minority but for now, we can simply focus on Muslim majority regions. Let us think of Muslim majority regions and nations like the Middle East, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, certain regions of Africa and Indonesia and see how the “weaker party” that is, non-Muslims have been treated in those regions? Is there freedom of religion? Is there freedom of speech? Can you openly practice your faith? What about civil laws?
In a nutshell, what kind of society have Muslims created in places where they had the power to create the kind of societies that they wanted to create?
Now compare those societies with the societies created by Christian majority states, like those of the Western Europe or in the US. Or the society created by the Hindu majority state of India.
There, you’ve answered the question that “Is Islam a peaceful religion today?” The real violence committed in the name of Islam was not committed when those planes hit the twin towers, not even when those bombs went off in the streets of London or in the trains of Mumbai. The real violence in the name of Islam is committed every single day in those Muslim majority countries like Saudi Arabia where you cannot freely practice any other religion, cannot have a free civic discourse and cannot have basic human rights. That is the real Islamic terrorism, Islamo-fascism or whatever other term that you fancy. The people ramming those planes into the twin towers were only the end result of that terrorism.
at September 4, 2007 11:30 AM
The best way to find out who is correctly representing Islam is to read "Reliance of the Traveler". Unlike the Quran it has a complete index and references to Quran and Hadith. You can quickly look up the definition of Jihad. It was clearly written by an Islamophobe.
Posted by: justask at September 4, 2007 11:44 AM
The Dawood Quran that I have also has a pretty good index but the Quran is very scattered whereas ROTT is very well organized.
Posted by: justask at September 4, 2007 11:54 AM
"Why are we all sitting here talking, and not doing anything?"-- from a posting above
I agree with Huge's much more intelligent retort. I am but a mere baker, and I must be the most informed baker in the bakery about Islam and Jihad....and only because of sites like this. In 2000, I was very multi-culti, and anti-Israel. I eagerly believed all that I read on the Beeb and didn't question anything. Even muslim atrocities before 9/11, even the treatment of women didn't move me. In fact, I remember VIVIDLY, how, in the 80s we were pro-mujahedin and sided with the Afghans against the Soviet Union. It was so very easy back then. After all, they were the source of all that was evil in the universe, were they not? I easily dismissed the blowing up of Jews (occupiers) and terrorism in Europe....with the exception of Libya, who was another source of evil in the universe.
And all the while, I called myself conservative! If I, but a woman, and lowly baker with no smarts, other than the knowledge that salt is NOT sugar, can figure out what the press strains in its own chains to avoid seeing, well, then, are there not others more intelligent than I, who have figured it out, too?
at September 4, 2007 1:00 PM
Possibly Robert will place this Recommended Reading Article somewhere on the left, so that it is constantly visible, under a Guide to Students rubric, for of course that list is applicable to all students enduring not only Carl Ernst but others like him. And if students can help each other out, in deciding whether a course should be taken or not (does the syllabus make sense?), or whether, once they are in it, they can still manage to learn something of value (hell, and then sue later on -- why not? -- for "educational malpractice" in the teaching of Islam), that too would be made easier if the article is a click, and a link, away.
Signs that This Course on Islam Needs Work are not hard to find. Such obviously tendentious stuff as Said's "Orientalism," a book designed, as both Robert Irwin and Ibn Warraq have noted, to disarm and undercut in advance any of the scholarship on Islam that is not of the apologetic variety, by calling into pre-emptive question the entire Western scholarly enterprise when it comes to Islam (unless those happen to be "scholars" like Carl Ernst or Michael Sells or Richard Bulliet), should be noted. So too should the absence of the full Qur'an on the Reading List, and its replacement by some carefully bowdlerized selection, such as that version ("Approaching the Qur'an: The Lyrical Suras") that Michael Sells put out, and that Ernst worked tirelessly to force-feed innocent freshman arriving in Chapel Hill for their first experience of the higher learning. Still more eyebrow-raising should be the absence of any assignment of, say, a few hundred of the Hadith, taken from the "authoritative" muhaddithin al-Bukhari and Muslim, and also having been assigned the highest rank of putative authenticity by those masters of isnad-chain studies. And just as significant would be the absence, on any syllabus, of the assignment of biographies of Muhammad by both Muslims, and by reliable (I don't mean the hagiographic nonsense, such as that of Karen Armstrong, or, less obviously silly, a recent biography of Muhammad by Barnaby Rogerson) scholars, such as Tor Andrae, and Arthur Jeffery, and Maxime Rodinson, and Sir William Muir, and of course He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Recommended as well.
Posted by: Hugh at September 4, 2007 1:12 PM
"but a mere baker..."
-- from a posting above
Erratum sheet:
strike "but"; strike "mere"
And while we are at it:
strike, after "If I" what follows: "but a woman, and lowly baker with no smarts, other than the knowledge that salt is NOT sugar," then pick up again with "can figure out"
Now that we've got that settled, try to think of La Fornarina -- Signorina Luti -- and what she did for Raphael, and what he did for her.
Posted by: Hugh at September 4, 2007 1:18 PM
Locate any of Hugh's suggested readings in a library near you using the ISBN number.
1.) Tor Andrae,
Mohammed: The Man and His Faith (Routledge)
ISBN-10: 0415438799
2.) M. M. Azami [Mustafa Azami ],
Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature (American Trust Publications)
ISBN-10: 0892590114
3.)Andrew Bostom (ed.),
The Legacy of Jihad (Prometheus Books)
ISBN-10: 1591023076
4.) Michael Cook,
Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought ;
(Cambridge University Press)
ISBN-10: 0521661749
5.)Ali Dashti,
Twenty Three Years
ISBN-10: 1568590296
6) Antoine Fattal,
Le status legal des non-Musulmanes en pays d'Islam [for French speakers only] (Dar al-Kitab, Beirut)
7.) Sita Ram Goel (compiler and editor),
The Calcutta Quran Petition (Voice of India)
(AVAILABLE ONLINE)
8.) Ignaz Goldziher,
Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law (Princeton University Press)
ISBN-10: 0691072574
9.) Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
Infidel (Free Press)
ISBN-10: 0743289684
10.) Toby Huff,
The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China, and the West (Cambridge University Press)
ISBN-10: 0521529948
11.) C. Snouck Hurgronje,
Islam: Origin, Political Growth, and Its Present State
(Manohar Publishing -- Indian reprint house)
ISBN : B0007BY0TE
or
via Amazon for Islam: Origin, Political Growth, and Its Present State
[ISBN-10: 1432523074
by Kessinger Publishing, LLC (April 10, 2007)]
12.) Ibn Warraq,
The Quest for the Historical Muhammad
ISBN-10: 1573927872;
What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text and Commentary;
ISBN-10: 157392945X
The Origins of the Koran
ASIN: B000N7669E
(all Prometheus Books)
13.) (Johannes) Hans Jansen,
The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism
(Cornell University Press)
ISBN-10: 080143338X
14.) Arthur Jeffery,
Islam: Muhammad and his Religion
(Liberal Arts Press)
ASIN: B000NSJHNA
15.) Majid Khadduri,
War and Peace in the Law of Islam
ISBN-10: 1584776951
(Johns Hopkins Press)
16.) Ayatollah Khomeini,
A Clarification of Questions
ISBN-10: 0865318549
(Westview Press)
17.) K. S. Lal,
The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India
AVAILABLE ONLINE;
Theory and Practice of the Muslim State in India
ISBN: 8186471723
18.) Henri Lammens
Islam: Beliefs and Institutions
ISBN-10: 0415440637
(St. Joseph’s University, Beirut)
19.) Bernard Lewis,
The Political Language of Islam (Oxford University Press)
ISBN-10: 0226476936
;
Islam In History (reprint: Open Court Press)
ISBN-10: 0812695186;
Islam and the West (Oxford University Press)
ISBN-10: 0195090616;
The Multiple Identities of the Middle East
ISBN-10: 0805211187
(Schocken)
20.) David Margoliouth,
Mohammed and the Rise of Islam;
ISBN-10: 1602060185 Cosimo Classics
The Early Development of Mohammedanism
ISBN-10: 1596059397 Cosimo Classics
ISBN-10: 1-931541-94-9 Simon Publications
(both Oxford University Press)-could not locate
21.) V. S. Naipaul,
Among the Believers;
ISBN-10: 0330413333Picador
Beyond Belief
ISBN-10: 0375706488 Vintage Books
22.) Rudolph Peters,
Islam and Colonialism;
ISBN-10: 9027933472 Mouton (1979)
Jihad In Classical and Modern Islam
ISBN-10: 1558761098 Markus Wiener Publishers (March 1996)
(Princeton Studies in Islam)[could not locate]
23.) Xavier de Planhol,
The World of Islam,
ISBN-10: 0801498309
(Cornell University Press)
24.) Yusuf Al-Qaradawi,
he Lawful and The Prohibited in Islam
ISBN-10: 983915429X
(Al-Halal wal Haram Fil Islam) (Shorouk International)
25.) Maxime Rodinson,
Mohammed
(Vintage Books)
ISBN: 0394716779
26.) Joseph Schacht,
[The Orgins of] Mohammedan Jurisprudence
ISBN-10: 1597401188;
An Introduction to Islamic Law ISBN-10: 0198254733
(both Oxford University Press)
27.) William St. Clair Tisdall,
The Sources of the Koran (online at truthnet.org)
[AVAILABLE ONLINE]
Time to go to the library . . .with many thanks (((Hugh)))!
Posted by: justamomof4 at September 4, 2007 1:20 PM
Robert, Hugh, Andy Bostom and all the others mentioned above are from what I call the Foundational School of Islamic scholarship. This school adheres to the idea that the foundational Islamic texts are the keys to the lock of 'what is Islam?' and does not hold with the figments of the imagination of cowards, apologists and elite intellectuals who hold sway over the msm and universities and who deny the doctrine of this barbaric theocracy.
Posted by: the poetess at September 4, 2007 2:17 PM
Carl Ernst is an utterly perfect example of a twenty-first century 'INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS'-type "pod person." His original personality is almost entirely gone and a subverted, delusional, hominid ape is standing in place of the original person. Chilling indeed, but quite real. Very real.
Ernst's every word, sentence, and movement although virtually reduced to a puppet-like expression of Islamofascist-Communism ideology, is significant for its being an illustration of what those who wish to destroy America want Americans to become.
Ernst does the 'DAILY KOS' fifth-column in the US proud in every way as he is the perfect live Islamofascist-Communist marionette. He may also prove to be the (new) typical twenty-first century human if the global ideological war is not won by the western democracies.
Posted by: pythagoras at September 4, 2007 2:43 PM
Ever since I first posted a comment here at JW in 2003, I have been frustrated with how much effort is put into keeping a "clean face" on the issue of the conflict with Islam in order to make sure that the mainstream audience is not pushed away prematurely. It is part of the reason that I have always put on the no-holds-barred face when posting. Consider me the 'bad cop' of sorts.
Now, it can not be ignored any longer that despite Robert Spencer's continued efforts to be polite to everyone involved, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, his sites have been codified as "hate" by so many members of the MSM, censors, pacifists, dhimmis, dummies, seditionists, traitors and, of course, Islamists like CAIR.
"See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak No Evil."
And you shall still be labeled -- evil.
There's only one possible explanation: the too-often unspoken Truth about Islam is SO true, so ugly, so virulent, so nasty, that if you even hint at it and then garner a sizable audience in the process, you'd best be prepared for a torrent of propaganda, word and thought police, frantic cowards from the Left, Communists, projecting haters, nutcases, jihadi, crackpots and worse.
"The wise man does at once what the fool does finally." -Baltasar Gracian
And what should we call those that refuse to address the Truth that sites like Jihad Watch put forth for all to analyze?
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder[er] is less to fear." -Marcus Tullius Cicero
Robert Spencer is simply a wise man trying to tell the world that the Earth is round, not flat, and he's being polite about it.
I, on the other hand, will continue to "drop the hammer" on fools, because if we're all going to be hated equally despite our demeanor simply because we give people the facts, then I see no reason to be polite about it.
"In war you do not have to be nice - you only have to be right." -Winston Churchill
The worst thing about the dhimmi dummies that aren't actual traitors? They still think we are living in peace time and the jihadi are just criminals and a 'tiny minority of extremists'.
Silly, silly dhimmis. We are going to piss away our free nations because we should all be trying to stand in a circle and hold hands? Good luck. At this rate it won't be too much longer before many of us will be holding hands while awaiting judgement from a Sharia court.
at September 4, 2007 2:48 PM
More suggested readings and links for Ernst's students and others.
Tafsir, or Muslim scholars' interpretation, of the Koran:
Ibn Kathir
http://www.mquran.org/index.php/content/section/1/2/
The Jalalayn and Ibn Abbas tafsirs.
http://www.altafsir.com/TafseerQuran.asp
Some major Sunni Hadith collections.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muslim/
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/abudawud/
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/muwatta/
The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, with Introduction and notes by Professor A. Guillaume (translator). [First published in 1955, Nineteenth impression (2006), Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press]. This is an English translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sira, compiled by Ibn Hisham, and is one of the earliest major biographies of Muhammad.
The Reliance of the Traveler (Shafi'i fiqh)
http://www.muhaddith.org/cgi-bin/e_Optns.exe
Critical Books and Articles on Islam
http://www.bharatvani.org/books/mssmi/
Muslim Slave System in Medieval India.
K.S. Lal
http://www.bharatvani.org/books/tcqp/
The Calcutta Quran Petition
Sita Ram Goel
http://voi.org/books/siii/
The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India
Sita Ram Goel
http://voi.org/books/jihad/
Jihad: The Islamic Doctrine of Permanent War
Suhas Majumdar
http://www.voi.org/books/negaind/
Negationism in India:
Concealing the record of Islam
By Koenraad Elst
http://www.meforum.org/article/395
The Rushdie Rules. Koenraad Elst
http://www.islam-watch.org/AnwarSheikh/Islam-Arab-Imperialism.htm
Islam the Arab Imperialism
Anwar Sheikh
at September 4, 2007 2:51 PM
Here's an outline from an anonymous source that I edited and posted on the Anvil this past weekend. Worth bookmarking:
The Islamist Strategy: Based On The Evidence
Posted by: Foehammer at September 4, 2007 2:59 PM
Hugh mentions Qaradawi's The Lawful and the Prohibited, but in perusing it I couldn't find anything interesting in there. The book mostly consists of mind-numbing regulations of the minutiae of Muslims' daily existence. Conspicuously absent are the Islamic rulings governing apostasy, blasphemy, jihad, etc.
One can, however, find expressions of the popular and influential Qaradawi's views on his website Islamonline. For example, in the wake of the Abdul Rahman affair in the spring of 2006, al-Qaradawi summed up the present-day opinion of Muslim jurists on the penalty for apostasy:
“Muslim jurists are unanimous that apostates must be punished, yet they differ as to determining the kind of punishment to be inflicted upon them. The majority of them, including the four main schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i, and Hanbali) as well as the other four schools of jurisprudence (the four Shiite schools of Az-Zaidiyyah, Al-Ithna-`ashriyyah, Al-Ja`fariyyah, and Az-Zaheriyyah) agree that apostates must be executed.”[Source]
This is stated, for example, in The Reliance of the Traveller, which is currently approved by al-Azhar University in Cairo (for Ernst's students, al-Azhar is the attractive-looking building in the colourful photo at the top of Ernst's webpage...as I understand it, Ernst is interested in Islamic architecture):
o8.1 "When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed."
o8.4 "There is no indemnity for killing an apostate (O: or any expiation, since it is killing someone who deserves to die)."
Also, for Ernst's students who might be concerned with issues about freedom of expression, there are the recent rulings of the "moderate" Shia Ayatollah al-Sistani. Regarding those who are deemed to have "insulted Islam," here is a question-and-answer, with Sistani providing the answer.
"Q195: If they are serious and intend to slander Allah (s.w.t.), the Prophet (S), the Imams (a.s.), religion or school of law (madhhab) and persist in this.
A: The ruling upon them is death. (FM, p. 419)"
Source: http://www.al-islam.org/laws/contemporary/
From
CONTEMPORARY LEGAL RULINGS IN SHI'I LAW
in accordance with the rulings (fatawa) of
Ayatullah al-'Uzma al-Sayyid 'Ali
al-Husayni al-Seestani
at September 4, 2007 3:28 PM
Assassinations of critics and poets, ordered by Muhammad.
[Source: The Life of Muhammad. A Translation of Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, With Introduction and Notes by A. Guillaume. (2006). Oxford University Press].
Ishaq, p. 675.
Regarding the assassination of the elderly man, Abu Afak:
"Abu Afak showed his disaffection when the apostle killed al-Harith b. Suwayd b. Samit and said:
'Long have I lived but never have I seen
An assembly or collection of people
More faithful to their undertaking
And their allies when called upon
Than the sons of Qayla(2) when they assembled,
Men who overthrew mountains and never submitted.
A rider who came to them split them in two (saying)
'Permitted', 'Forbidden'(3) and all sorts of things.
Had you believed in glory or kingship
You would have followed Tubba'.(4)' "
[Guillaume's notes:
(2) "Qayla was the putative ancestress of Aus and Khazraj."
(3). "A gibe at the language of the Quran."
(4). "i.e., You resisted Tubba' who, after all, was a king in fact and a man of great reputation, so why believe in Muhammad's claims?"]
Ishaq, p. 675, (Assassination of Afak, continued)
"The apostle said, 'Who will deal with this rascal for me?' whereupon Salim b. 'Umayr, brother of B. 'Amr b. 'Auf one of the 'weepers', went forth and killed him. Umama b. Muzayriya said concern that:
'You [referring to Afak] gave lie to God's religion and the man Ahmad!
By him who is your father, evil is the son he produced!
A hanif gave you a thrust in the night saying
'Take that Abu 'Afak in spite of your age!'
Though I never knew whether it was man or jinn
Who slew you in the dead of night (I would say naught).' "
[brackets added]
Ishaq, p. 675-676. Regarding Asma bint Marwan, who was also assassinated:
"When Abu Afak had been killed she displayed disaffection...Blaming Islam and its followers she said:
‘I despise B. Malik and al-Nabit
And 'Auf and B. al-Khazraj.
You obey a stranger who is none of yours,
One not of Murad or Madhhij.*
Do you expect good from him after the killing of your chiefs
Like a hungry man waiting for a cook's broth?
Is there no man of pride who would attack him by surprise
And cut off the hopes of those who expect aught from him?"
Ishaq, p. 676, continued.
"When the apostle heard what she said he said, 'Who will rid me of Marwan's daughter?' 'Umayr b. 'Adiy al-Khatmi who was with him heard him, and that very night went to her house and killed her. In the morning he came to the apostle and told him what he had done and he said, 'You have helped God and his apostle, O 'Umayr!' When he asked if he would bear any evil consequences the apostle said, 'Two goats won't butt their heads about her,' so 'Umayr went back to his people."
"Now there was a great commotion among B. Khatma that day about the affair of Bint Marwan. She had five sons, and when 'Umayr went to them from the apostle he said, 'I have killed Bint Marwan, O sons of Khatma. Withstand me if you can; don't keep me waiting.' That was the first day that Islam became powerful among B. Khatma; before that those who were Muslims concealed the fact. The first of them to accept Islam was 'Umayr b. 'Adiy who was called 'the Reader', and 'Abdullah b. Aus and Khuzayma b. Thabit. The day after Bint Marwan was killed the men of B. Khatma became Muslims because they saw the power of Islam."
* "Two tribes of Yamani origin."
In recent years, especially since the stories of Abu Afak and Asma bint Marwan have been copied and read over the internet, Muslim apologists have scrambled to try and discredit these stories. Note that the stories of those assassinations come from original Muslim sources, and the killings are consistent with Islamic law. Islam critic Sam Shamoun addresses those apologetics here and here.
Then there is the assassination of the poet Kab bin Ashraf, who Muhammad said had "hurt Allah and His Apostle" by composing mock amatory verses about the Muslim women, which Muhammad deemed to be insulting.
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 59, Number 369:
“Narrated Jabir bin 'Abdullah: Allah's Apostle said, "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?" Thereupon Muhammad bin Maslama got up saying, "O Allah's Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?" The Prophet said, "Yes," Muhammad bin Maslama said, "Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab). "The Prophet said, "You may say it."[…]”
Ishaq, p. 367-368.
“...he [Ashraf] composed amatory verses of an insulting nature about the Muslim women. The apostle said...'Who will rid me of Ibnu'l-Ashraf?' Muhammad b. Maslama...said, 'I will deal with him for you, O apostle of God, I will kill him.' He said, 'Do so if you can.' So Muhammad b. Maslama returned and waited for three days without food or drink, apart from what was absolutely necessary. When the apostle was told of this he summoned him and asked him why he had given up eating and drinking. He replied that he had given him an undertaking and he did not know whether he could fulfil it. The apostle said, 'All that is incumbent upon you is that you should try.' He said, 'O apostle of God, we shall have to tell lies.' He answered, 'Say what you like, for you are free in the matter.' "
Ishaq, p. 368 (Maslama and his associates then deceived Ka'b, gained his confidence, then killed him)
"...they smote him, and their swords clashed over him with no effect. Muhammad b. Maslama said, 'I remembered my dagger when I saw that our swords were useless, and I seized it. Meanwhile the enemy of God had made such a noise that every fort around us was showing a light. I thrust it into the lower part of his body, then I bore down upon it until I reached his genitals, and the enemy of God fell to the ground....Our attack upon God's enemy cast terror among the Jews, and there was no Jew in Medina who did not fear for his life.'
Ka'b b. Malik said:
'Of them Ka'b was left prostrate there
(After his fall al-Nadir were brought low).
Sword in hand we cut him down
By Muhammad's order when he sent secretly by night
Ka'b's brother to go to Ka'b.
He beguiled him and brought him down with guile
Mahmud was trustworthy, bold.'
Hassan b. Thabit, mentioning the killing of Ka'b and of Sallam b. Abu'l-Huqayq, said:
'What a fine band you met, O Ibnu'l-Huqayq,
And you too, Ibnu'l-Ashraf,
Travelling by night with their light swords
Bold as lions in their jungle lair
Until they came to you in your quarter
And made you taste death with their deadly swords,
Seeking victory for the religion of their prophet
Counting their lives and their wealth as nothing.'"
Tabari VII:97 “The morning after the murder of Ashraf, the Prophet declared, ‘Kill any Jew who falls under your power.’” (also see Ishaq, p. 369).
Ishaq, p. 369
“The apostle said, 'Kill any Jew who falls under your power.' Thereupon Muhayyisa b. Mas'ud leapt upon Ibn Sunayna, a Jewish merchant with whom they had social and business relations, and killed him. Huwayyisa was not a Muslim at the time though he was the elder brother. When Muhayyisa killed him Huwayyisa began to beat him saying, 'You enemy of God, did you kill him when much fat on your belly comes from his wealth?' Muhayyisa answered, 'Had the one who ordered me to kill him ordered me to kill you I would have cut your head off.' He said that this was the beginning of Huwayyisa's acceptance of Islam. The other replied, 'By God, if Muhammad had ordered you to kill me you would have killed me?' He said, 'Yes, by God, had he ordered me to cut off your head I would have done so.' He exclaimed, 'By God, a religion that can bring you to this is marvellous!' and he became a Muslim.”
For those of Ernst's students who might, understandably, think this early Islamic promotional testimonial is too incredible to happen in real life, read this:
Montreal Muslim kills apostate brother, says all non-Muslims are Satan.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016931.php
at September 4, 2007 4:21 PM
One source I was never able to find is an English
translation of Kitab alTarikh wa al-Maghazi by al-Waqidi. Anyone have a clue?
at September 4, 2007 4:31 PM
That's a tough one. Have you tried any university libraries? That's how I hit pay dirt. I'm a poor student so buying books isn't really an option, the books I have bought are small and selective in number. But through the university library I've found, there's enough books ON Islam, but few ABOUT Islam (i.e. most of the syllabus there has been written primarily by apologists and Arabists). Still, that's how I got my hands on the legal texts, as well as many others. I'll look next time I'm on campus, which should be this week.
If you want my advice, you have to turn your Western brain off when you're studying Islam. The point isn't to be looking for what a Westerner would naturally look for when studying a non-Western subject, like Islam. Minutiae is important, old wives tales are important, speeches from obscure dead mullahs are important, things that you wouldn't normally expect (because you're a Westerner) are important. It's not about how we see Islam, but how THEY see Islam. It's the little things, stupid (you know what I mean!). You gotta look for things (and most importantly pay attention to things) that you normally wouldn't look for. I'm probably just saying this because I'm an anthropology student.
So apostates are executed under Islam? We already knew that. It sounds like someone is beating a dead apostate.
Posted by: TheDiggler at September 4, 2007 5:05 PM
Another informative book by Rudolf Peters is
Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century (2005). Cambridge University Press, New York.
Diggler,
If you can recommend any titles on contemporary Islamic law (i.e., the authoritative rulings themselves), please post them here or here, if you get the chance. We are familiar with the Reliance of the Traveler and the Hedaya, but are looking for a broader range of sources. At my local university, there's not much.
Thanks in advance.
Posted by: Khaybar Oasis at September 4, 2007 5:48 PM
Now that we've got that settled, try to think of La Fornarina -- Signorina Luti -- and what she did for Raphael, and what he did for her.
Posted by: Hugh September 4, 2007 1:18 PM
Mi molto piace, Huge~!
When I get done reading that brainload of books listed above, I will want a pretty little piece of paper to go along with my baking creds.
Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah at September 4, 2007 6:32 PM
Read the Qur'an.
at September 4, 2007 6:32 PM
I'm buying the paints now.
Posted by: Hugh at September 4, 2007 7:14 PM
"Professor Carl Ernst has made much of the supposed “right-wing” and “conservative” and “Christian” and -- all together now -- supposedly “right-wing Christian conservative” views of Robert Spencer, with his hate-site and his hate-filled rants and his hateful views, and so on, and so bloody forth."
This is the joke of all jokes. I have no idea if Robert Spencer is a right-wing Christian conservative. I'm fairly certain he is Christian. But right-wing conservative... ?
Beats the hell outta me!!! And you know what, I could care less. The purpose of this site is not to promote a right-wing or conservative agenda. And it is certainly not a hate-site filled with hate-filled rants. If anything, any hate-filled rants on this site tend to be removed quite quickly. This is not about hate, but freedom and liberty, something that is being ever-more-so compromised by the threat of Islamic Jihad and other Islamic concepts.
I am not a Christian, I am certainly not right-wing, and for the most part I do not hold conservative views on most issues (there are some, to be sure), and I really do not see a recognizance (and the willingness to do something about it) of the Jihad-Threat as a conservative view, on the other hand, it is a common sense view that is shaped largely by reality.
Please people, there are enough Islamists to go around to spread the taqqiya. We certainly do not need any 7th column (aside from the 6 columns or pillars of Islam) useful idiots to be helping them out.
Posted by: ThinkForYourself at September 4, 2007 7:23 PM
But seriously, Hugh, while you are doing exactly what must be done, surely your readers can and should do more than vent in this blog.
Certainly "each one teach one" (or two or more), but it is in organizing that people's strength lies. Center for Vigilant Freedom, United American Committee and others are growing and networking, throughout the US, Europe and elsewhere.
Strength of a protest or of a letter-writing campaign grows faster than linearly when it is done as a concerted effort and not by disconnected individuals (just ask our opposition).
Shall I paraphrase Engels with "Kuffars of the world, unite!" or would that be undignified?
at September 4, 2007 7:38 PM
No, not undignified. Give us that old-time phrase, updated for the time.
Posted by: Hugh at September 4, 2007 7:58 PM
silent_rage-
Buy.com has a copy of the Encyclopedia of Islam for $270.
Posted by: profitsbeard at September 4, 2007 8:43 PM
Strength of a protest or of a letter-writing campaign grows faster than linearly when it is done as a concerted effort and not by disconnected individuals (just ask our opposition).
Shall I paraphrase Engels with "Kuffars of the world, unite!" or would that be undignified?
Posted by: kuchuklambat at September 4, 2007 7:38 PM
We have been involved in many projects to educate the public about islam, both individually and collectively. In fact, there is such a project underway as we speak, organized by a reader/poster who is trying to collect enough copies of Mr. Spencer's latest book to send to every member of Congress. Read the archives and you will find some excellent ideas, and you will see that we do much more than just "vent" in the comments section of this website.
I will admit that plenty of venting occurs here. It really helps to vent your frustrations in the company of people who share them and who know what you're talking about. Islam and jihad are not topics that most Americans discuss at the dinner table, or anywhere else. We are trying desperately to warn people about the threat of islam before we find ourselves living Europe's nightmare, or worse. If you have any ideas about how to do this, please share them.
at September 4, 2007 10:25 PM
Hugh -
Well said (everything).
What about Browning (such an apt name in the context of bakery, don't you think) and
"...A baker ryhmes for his pursuit...".
By the way, a 'mere' is a short Maori war club - 8 to 20 inches long with a flat side for hitting and a pointed end for stabbing. I do hope that our baker friend knows how to use one for she might yet need to.
Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 4, 2007 11:11 PM
Susanp -
"...living Europe's nightmare...".
Interesting thought. I live in Europe and it isn't some sort of Muslim nightmare yet. I think you are being just a tad generous with your alarmist tendencies.
Note that I said 'yet'.
Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 4, 2007 11:18 PM
11.) C. Snouck Hurgronje,
Islam: Origin, Political Growth, and Its Present State
(Manohar Publishing -- Indian reprint house)
ISBN : B0007BY0TE
or
via Amazon for Islam: Origin, Political Growth, and Its Present State
[ISBN-10: 1432523074
by Kessinger Publishing, LLC (April 10, 2007)]
***
This one is also available online at Project Gutenburg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10163
at September 4, 2007 11:19 PM
@kuchuklambat
The one thing I am doing personally is ask a simple question. Who is the enemy in the war on terrorisms. I sometimes ask who was the enemy in WWII in Europe? I correct the second question to Nazis if they say Germany. If they don't know or give an answer other than Islam I tell them the answer.
Most don't agree or have questions I don't try to convince them just get the word out. I am planting seeds, that is all. Maybe you can think of other ways or questions to ask. The point is talk to as many people as you can in your everyday activities.
Posted by: Im.mad.as.HELL! at September 4, 2007 11:25 PM
ThinkForYourself -
" "Professor Carl Ernst has made much of the supposed “right-wing” and “conservative” and “Christian” and -- all together now -- supposedly “right-wing Christian conservative”..."
Yep. You're right. I post and read here and I certainly ain't 'right-wing' or 'conservative' and I'm hardly Christian by most Christ-following people's standards.
It's just plain stupid that there is some universal mould of a poster or a reader at this site. It is obvious that we are a diverse, argumentative and contentious bunch. The only point of agreement that most of us have with one another is that we agree, more or less, with Mr. Spencer's points - and even there I'm not sure that we all agree 100% and 100% of the time.
Don't know about you, but I resent being labelled in this way!
Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 4, 2007 11:34 PM
"Kufaars of the world unite!"
Could that be the slogan for the Haramintern International?
Posted by: november1981 at September 5, 2007 12:17 AM
november1981 -
Simply love 'Haramintern International'! Can it have a pink and yellow striped tie as part of its uniform? Please!
Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 5, 2007 12:23 AM
Haramintern is excellent but "intern" already stands for International, like in Komintern.
Certainly a different ghost walking about Europe these days, though turned out to be a kindred spirit to the one Marx and Engels wrote about.
Susanp -- nothing wrong with venting, I vent plenty, and I know readers here do more than vent (right on, traeh).
But every once in a while someone asks the question "what to do" beyond that.
So I offer up what I have -- go add yourself to http://www.vigilantfreedom.org/910forum and I'll wave you in. Some organizations have incubated out of it and moved off the forum, some flakes hold forth a bit too much there but there is plenty of work to be done.
I found that actually organizing, making and maintaining connections with kindred kuffars you can trust is the most important work at this stage of our enterprise.
at September 5, 2007 12:55 AM
Carl Ernst is very typical of modern-day academics who have little or no ability to effectively argue with those with whom they disagree. Instead, such folk (and unfortunately their numbers are legion in colleges and universities across America-----another unpleasant legacy of the 1960s) call their opposition haters and then, quite self-deceptively, declare themselves a kind of victor. It's pathetic, to be sure. And pusillanimous. Professor Ernst, you are a complete wuss. And I say this as one who is an academic himself. And bravo, Mr. Spencer, for your refusal to be cowed by the cowardly.
Posted by: Wellington at September 5, 2007 1:10 AM
from Khaybar Oasis:
"Hugh mentions Qaradawi's The Lawful and the Prohibited, but in perusing it I couldn't find anything interesting in there. The book mostly consists of mind-numbing regulations of the minutiae of Muslims' daily existence. Conspicuously absent are the Islamic rulings governing apostasy, blasphemy, jihad, etc."
All true. One of the things I have noted, especially at Ali Sina's Faith Freedom Forum is that the muslim posters tend to be verbally bloated, and that in itself is a tactic...dazzling them with brilliance or baffling them with bullshit. It is also annoying. But when someone on the inside, an apostate who was a formerly devout muslim, gets on and spills the beans, then it gets interesting. The silly little mind numbing regulations of the minutiae concerning wudu (ablution) are hilarious, and provide ample material for the ultimate weapon against the islamists and their acolytes: Humor. Both lack a humor gland, and they are defenseless against well-aimed and well-hurled ridicule. They always have the same reaction: Islamotons: Seething, rioting, burning something down, boycotting stuff they never would buy from Denmark, anyway. And the reaction for the academic inferiori: cringing....always cringing. Which makes the Overlord and his Boy both FUNNER and FUNNIER!!!
Oh, and Huge, Darth Batman,
http://www.samworthbrothers.co.uk/imguploads/Pictures_sav1.jpgtp://">This haramly tasty little infidelicacy is for y'all!
I hopes ya likes pork pies! La Fornarina, Signorina Luti...io dovo scritare col mio nuovo nome, addesso. Grazie.
at September 5, 2007 1:15 AM
"If you want my advice, you have to turn your Western brain off when you're studying Islam. The point isn't to be looking for what a Westerner would naturally look for when studying a non-Western subject, like Islam. Minutiae is important, old wives tales are important, speeches from obscure dead mullahs are important, things that you wouldn't normally expect (because you're a Westerner) are important. It's not about how we see Islam, but how THEY see Islam."
-- from a poster above
Yes.
As for Al-Qaradawi's guide to what is Halal and Haram, and the observation that it is merely a collection of minutiae, that does not make the book "uninteresting," as the same poster says, but makes it most interesting. Isn't it amazing to see that Islam everything is regulated? Of course that book is only a handy guide, which cannot cover everyting (Ask Mr. Fatwa and similar sites exist for Muslims to get answers to knotty questions).
Tax lawyers know all about "the Code and the Regs." The Code needs to be known, but so do "the Regs." And that is essentially what Al-Qaradawi's book is: a simple handbook, a kind of Code, and if you need "the Regs" you've got to go elsewhere, for otherwise the book would be 10,000 pages and not two hundred.
But what tdoes the book show? It shows that Islam offers a system of Complete Regulation of Life. It tells women, for example, that they are forbidden to wear their hair in the "shape of a camel's hump" -- that is, a bouffant hair style, or any hairstyle that involves piling up the hair on top of the head. Think of the hairstyles in the first James Bond movies, the kind that were worn, with white Courreges boots, in the late 1950s.
Or, to take another example, one is allowed to participate only in those sports that are martial in nature, that prepare one for the Jihad. Such as? Such as wrestling (King Abdullah of Jordan was on the wrestling team at Deerfield). And no doubt certain sports might be justified as contributing to the development of cunning and the kind of "teamwork" that the Jihad often requires.
What about statues? Prohibited, because Muhammad said that he wouldn't enter a hosue that had "dogs or statues." Also sprach Muhammad.
I find the book is instructive precisely because of the "minutiae."
Posted by: Hugh
at September 5, 2007 7:51 AM
One of the things I have noted, especially at Ali Sina's Faith Freedom Forum is that the muslim posters tend to be verbally bloated, and that in itself is a tactic...dazzling them with brilliance or baffling them with bullshit.
Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah
***
We were reading Gilgamesh at school yesterday. And then last night I picked up the Al Qaeda Reader. Next thing I knew, I found myself reading to the same cadence as Gilgamesh. It was uncanny how much bin Laden's screeds "feel" like a 4,000-year-old epic. Something in the florid phrasing, the deliberate repetition, the cadence is very similar.
I wonder if bin Laden knows how much he sounds like a bad imitation of ancient pagan poetry.
Posted by: CJ at September 5, 2007 8:17 AM
Hugh,
I agree, based on my brief perusal, that Qaradawi's The Lawful and the Prohibited illustrates the whole 'total regulation of daily life' aspect of Islam, and in that respect is instructive. Your point about the emphasis on militaristic games is well taken. I overstated my point initially.*
Nevertheless, new students are going to get plenty of exposure to that minutiae if, following your suggestion, they read "several hundred" of the Hadith in no particular order (e.g., Muhammad's forbidding women from getting tattoos, his reaction when Aisha made him a pillow [as a gift] with an image on it, and so on). The fact that Qaradawi's book is still used suggests that many of the rules are still followed, or that many Muslims are at least concerned with such matters.
*What I was getting at was that students should be exposed initially to the Islamic rules and regulations regarding the most important issues. About such issues as apostasy, blasphemy and limits on expression (and the penalties), jihad, slavery, the dhimma, and so on, students will have already been subjected to a barrage of apologetics (e.g., that there is no compulsion in Islam, therefore Islam permits apostasy and free criticism; that jihad is primarily an internal struggle or a struggle for peace, etc.). A major task then is to present the evidence which shows the apologist claims to be empirically false in regards to the most important issues. (And many of the other titles you've recommended do provide that evidence). However, if students get too bogged down in the minutiae initially, that is time taken away from getting a solid footing on the major issues.
Posted by: Khaybar Oasis at September 5, 2007 12:22 PM
Thank you for the list, Hugh.
For those who cannot read Antoine Fattal's book, consider reading Bat Ye'or's "Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide":
http://www.amazon.com/Islam-Dhimmitude-Where-Civilizations-Collide/dp/0838639437
As for dismantling Edward Said's "Orientalism", I would also recommend Ibn Warraq's "Debunking Edward Said - Edward Said and the Saidists: or Third World Intellectual Terrorism":
We're all still wondering "Just what did they do to him at his Cairo English prep school ?"
Posted by: Mike at September 5, 2007 1:51 PM
It occurs to me to ask our Jewish posters - can you tell us some of the ways in which Jewish rules for the regulation of day to day life differ from Muslim rules for same?
Given that some people on encountering the domestic detail of the Muslim 'total regulation of life' may think - 'oh well it's just like the Jewish thing' - I think a bit of 'contrast and compare' might be helpful.
Going only from my knowledge of the Pentateuch, as compared to the Qur'an, together with such information about The Rules For Muslims as has been given in certain threads on this site, my feeling is that the Jewish system is marked by an overarching sanity and coherence - and an openness to creative interpretation - that is lacking in the Muslim system.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at September 5, 2007 7:37 PM
Hugh - very useful list. Why aren't you teaching? You have a lot to offer.
OliverPCamford - what happened to you and the police in the UK? We were all waiting to hear your story.
Posted by: dlp at September 5, 2007 9:08 PM
Foehammer said...
"It is part of the reason that I have always put on the no-holds-barred face when posting. Consider me the 'bad cop' of sorts."
Your "bad cop" was "every cop" back when America was America. Now America is this strange PC entity that is sliding towards a sissified Euro-trash destiny.
Eight or so Republican candidates and not a single one describing Islam properly as the death cult!
When you're poll ratings are sub 1%, why not bother to at least speak the truth? The truth of "Islam is a death cult" I think would at east guarantee you an immediate 10% ranking.
at September 5, 2007 9:12 PM
dlp -
Thanks for asking. Still in deep doo-doo and am prohibited, by law, from talking about it. But I can tell you that we got our computers back even if I can't tell you the full and sordid story behind that move.
Sorry about the lack of info. A few people who work for my company also post here from time to time but I've had to ask them not to talk about things. When we can, we will.
In the meantime all those of you who have emailed me or expressed sympathy on this website have been of great comfort. It may not seem like much to you but, believe me, knowing that you are not alone is vitally important - as I've found out over the last couple of weeks.
Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 5, 2007 11:41 PM
dlp -
Incidentally, we have one major corporate client. I let them know what was going on and gave them the option to go elsewhere
THEY DIDN'T (WHOOPEE)
and they've ordered loads of new product from us!
There is a fight-back against PC and the Muslims, after all! You should hear what they actually said to me - I've never been more bucked in my whole life.
Posted by: OliverPCamford at September 5, 2007 11:47 PM
To the students of Carl Ernst, here is Ibn Kathir's tafsir of the Quran verses 9:29-33, inclusive. Ernst says interpretation is important. In fact, Ibn Kathir's classical tafsir has been historically, and is today, one of the most widely-consulted among Sunni Muslims.
.
The Order to fight People of the Scriptures until They give the Jizyah
Paying Jizyah is a Sign of Kufr and Disgrace
Fighting the Jews and Christians is legislated because They are Idolators and Disbelievers
People of the Scriptures try to extinguish the Light of Islam
Islam is the Religion That will dominate over all Other Religions
Similar pronouncements are made in Sura 48.
48:28. The Good News that Muslims will conquer the Known World, and ultimately the Entire World
48:21-. Good News of continuous Muslim Victories until the Day of Resurrection
Professor Ernst also refers to anti-Semitism, but doesn't seem to acknowledge the instances of it in the Islamic texts.
Sahih Muslim, Book 041, Number 6985.
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177.
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."
Sahih Muslim, Book 19, Number 4366: Narrated Umar ibn al-Khattab:"Umar heard the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) say: 'I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslims.'"
Also see Jews as Depicted in the Qur’an, which was written by a Muslim author and published on a major Islamic website (run by Qaradawi).
.
Posted by: Khaybar Oasis at September 5, 2007 11:58 PM
Update: Here is the new link for
Jews as Depicted in the Qur'an
The author claims that the Qur'an's depiction of Jews is "quite impartial," and lists one instance where the Jews are praised...followed by twenty examples were Jews are denigrated, insulted, cursed, etc.
Posted by: Khaybar Oasis at September 6, 2007 12:17 AM
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