| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
Yesterday we posted our new Jihad Watch Send Us Your Syllabus project, in which we will explore the biases, whitewashes, and propaganda of courses in Islamic studies offered in our nation's universities.
But the situation in those universities, despite the dominance of the Middle East Studies Association (or, as Hugh Fitzgerald calls it, MESA Nostra), is not uniformly bleak. Here, from Rice University, is Professor David Cook's excellent course "Jihad and the End of the World." Cook is the author of the superb book Understanding Jihad, and this course has everything that Carl Ernst's propaganda farrago at UNC lacks: academic rigor, a realistic sampling of Islamic texts and teachings, and a goal of equipping the student to understand the subject well enough to make his own judgments, rather than to coerce him to accept the teacher's point of view.
JIHAD AND THE END OF THE WORLD RELI 352 MWF 2:00-2:50 Instructor: David Cook. Prerequisites: None.1. Violence and Apocalyptic Beliefs
Daniel (Daniel 7-12), Matthew 24; Revelation (Rev. 4-20)
Qur’an 3, 8-9, 33, 61, 74-75
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/ #52 “Jihad”
Reuven Firestone, “Disparity and Resolution in the Qur’anic Teachings on War: A Reconsideration,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56 (1997), pp. 1-20.
James Turner Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions, chapters 2, 4-5.
William Chittick, “The Theological Roots of Peace and War according to Islam,” Islamic Quarterly 34 (1990), pp. 145-63.2. The Classical Muslim Apocalyptic Scenario
Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic, chapters 1-3, Appendix 1
Cook, “Muslim apocalyptic and jihad,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 20 (1997), pp. 66-104.
F. Martinez (trans), Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius; also see translation in Andrew Palmer (ed), The Seventh Century in West-Syrian Chronicles, pp. 222-42 (trans. S. Brock).3. Conquests, Crusades and Interpretations of Jihad
Cook, Understanding Jihad, chapter 2.
Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, chapter 4.
John Renard, “Al-Jihad al-Akbar: Notes on a Theme in Islamic Spirituality,” Muslim World 78 (1988), pp. 225-42.
Denis MacEoin, “The Babi Concept of Holy War,” Religion 12 (1982), pp. 93-129.
Joel Kraemer, “The jihad of the falasifa,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987), pp. 372-90.
Yohannan Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous, chapter 8 “Ahmadi Jihad.”4. The Conquest and Islamization of India and Muslim Reactions to Colonialism
Cook, Understanding Jihad, chapter 4.
Simon Digby, Sufis and Soldiers in Auwrangzeb’s Deccan, chapters 4-5.
Sayyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, Revivalist Movements in India in the Sixteenth Century, 2-3.
Louis Fenech, Martyrdom in the Sikh Tradition: Playing the ‘Game of Love’, chapters 4, 7.
Stephen Dale, “Religious Suicide in Islamic Asia: Anti-Colonial Terrorism in India, Indonesia and the Philippines,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 32 (1988), pp. 37-59.5. Jihad and Apocalyptism in Africa
`Arabfaqih, Futuh al-Habasha: The Ethiopian Conquests, trans. Paul Stenhouse, pp. 1-43.
John Willis, “Jihad fi sabil Allah—Its Doctrinal Basis in Islam and some Aspects of its Evolution in Nineteenth Century West Africa,” Journal of African History 3 (1967), pp. 395-415.
Mervyn Hiskett, The Sword of Truth, introduction, chapters 5-7.
Haim Shaked, A Life of the Mahdi, pp. 62-4, 76-80, 180-96.
Abdi Sheik-Abdi, Divine Madness: Mohammed `Abdulle Hassan (1856-1920), chapters 3-4, 6.6. Wahhabism and Salafism
Netana Delong-Bas, Wahhabism, chapters 1-2, 5-6.
William Shepard, “What is ‘Islamic fundamentalism’?” Studies in Religion 17 (1988), pp. 5-26.
Hamid Algar, Wahhabism: A Critical Essay, pp. 1-66.
Cook, Understanding Jihad, chapter 5.7. Sayyid Qutb and Egyptian Radical Islam
Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, pp. 44-52, 107-44, 172-92;
at http://www.youngmuslims.ca/online_library/books/milestones/hold/index_2.asp (intro, chapters 4, 7)
Johannes Jansen (trans), The Neglected Duty (al-Farida al-gha’iba).
Ayman al-Zawahiri (probably), “7 Misconceptions in Fighting the Apostate Regime,” at http://tibyaan.atspace.com/tibyaan/article006f.html?id=1046
“Al-Gama`a al-Islamiyya versus al-Qaeda” at memri.org, special dispatch no. 1301 (Sept. 27, 2006).MIDTERM: in class March 2, 2007.
8. The Arab-Israeli and the Indo-Pakistani Conflicts
“The Hamas Covenant” in Journal of Palestine Studies 22 (1993), pp. 122-34; or at http://www.palestine-info.net/hamas/ (also Hroub, pp. 267-91)
Shaul Mishal and Reuben Aharoni, Speaking Stones, pp. 201-20.
Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice, chapters 1-3.
Amir Rana, A to Z of Pakistani Jehadi Organizations, chapters 1-2, 9-10
Yoginder Sikand, “The Changing Course of the Kashmiri Struggle: from National Liberation to Islamic Jihad,” Muslim World 91 (2001), pp. 229-56.9. The Developing Muslim Apocalyptic Scenario
Cook, Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature, chapters 2-3, 6-7, 9.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion at fordham.edu/halsall/modsbook
Samuel Huntington, “A Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72 (1993), pp. 22-49.10. `Abdallah `Azzam in Afghanistan: Genesis of al-Qa`ida and Usama b. Ladin
Oliver Roy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, chapters 4-5.
`Abdallah `Azzam, “Martyrs: the Building Blocks of Nations” at http://www.religioscope.com/info/doc/jihad/azzam_martyrs.htm
ibid, “The Islamic Ruling on Defending Muslim Land under Attack,” at azzam.com
Bruce Lawrence, Messages to the World, pp. 23-64, 106-32, 212-76.
Muhammad Saeed al-Qahtani, al-Wala’ wa-l-bara’, part 1, pp. 97-110; part 2, chapter 7, part 3, chapters 2-3, 7.11. The Afghan Arabs Graduate: Algeria, Bosnia—Herzegovina and Chechnya
Luis Martinez, The Algerian Civil War, chapters 3-5, 7-9.
Hugh Roberts, The Battlefield: Algeria 1988-2002, chapter 15.
Cook, Understanding Jihad, appendix 1: “GIA Communique of Sept. 8, 1995.”
“The Islamic Ruling on the Permissibility of Martyrdom Operations,” at azzam.com
Evan Kolhmann, al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, chapters 4-8.
“In the Hearts of Green Birds,” at almansurah.com/jihad/2003/050103i.htm
C.A.O van Nieuwenhuijze, “Islamism—a defiant utopianism,” Die Welt des Islams 35 (1995), pp. 1-36.ROUGH DRAFT OF PAPER DUE:
12. Iran and Hizbullah
E. Kohlberg, “The Development of the Imami Shi`i doctrine of jihad,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 126 (1976), pp. 64-86.
Hamid Algar (trans.), Islam and Revolution: the Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, “Islamic Government”, “Jihad.”
Ahmed Hamzeh, In the Path of Hizbullah, chapters 3, 5.
Internet research: President Ahmadinajad of Iran and his messianic beliefs
Immanuel Wallerstein, “Islam, the West and the World,” Journal of Islamic Studies 10 (1999), pp. 109-2513. Radical Muslim Organizations in Central Asia and Southeast Asia
Vitaly Naumkin, Radical Islam in Central Asia: Between Pen and Rifle, chapters 2-3.
Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, chapters 5-7.
Rizal Sukma, “Indonesia and the Challenge of Radical Islam after October 12,” in Ramakrishna and Tan (eds), After Bali, pp. 341-56.
Andrew Tan, “The Indigenous Roots of Conflict in Southeast Asia: The Case of Mindinao,” in idem, pp. 97-116.
Abu Bakr Bashir, “It is not Democracy we want, but Allah-ocracy,” at memri.org, special dispatch no. 1285 (Sept. 8, 2006).
Gunaratna, Acharya and Chua, Conflict and Terrorism in Southern Thailand, “Berjihad di Pattani,” pp. 118-45.14. Sept. 11, the United States—Afghanistan and Iraq
Cook, Understanding Jihad, “The Last Night,” appendix 1.
Robert Pape, Dying to Win, chapters 3-8, 10, 12.
Abu `Ubeid al-Qurashi, “Comparing the Munich (Attack) in 1972 to September 11,” at memri.org, special dispatch no. 353 (March 12, 2002).
Salih al-Sawi, “A Commentary upon the Fatwa Issued Concerning the Permissibility of Muslims participating in Military Operations against the Muslims of Afghanistan,” at http://www.robert-fisk.com/refutation_of_fatwa_november2001.htm (Nov. 2001)
Mohammed Hafez, “Suicide Terrorism in Iraq: A Preliminary Assessment of the Quantitative Data and Documentary Evidence,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29 (2006), pp. 591-619.
Mohammed Hafez, “Martyrdom Mythology in Iraq: How Jihadists Frame suicide terrorism in videos and Biographies,” Terrorism and Political Violence 19 (2007), pp. 95-115.PAPER DUE: April 25, 2007
FINAL EXAM: take home (due May 7, 2007)
Posted by Robert at September 6, 2007 8:49 AM
Print this entry
| Email this entry
| Digg this
| del.icio.us
Yes, this is just what the real doctors -- Snouck Hurgronje, Schacht, et al. -- would have ordered.
Posted by: Hugh![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 6, 2007 9:29 AM
Wow. Professor Cook seems to get it. It looks like he wants to educate and inform his students rather than indoctrinate them. There's some interesting reading in that list.
Academia needs more like him.
Posted by: Proud Infidel at September 6, 2007 9:29 AM
You should also ask for syllabi from students in so called "peace studies" courses.
Bruce Bawer has an excellent article exposing the fraudulent nature of these studies.
You can read it here:
The Peace (Studies) Racket
By Bruce Bawer
City Journal | 9/6/2007
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_peace_racket.html
Posted by: scribe10
at September 6, 2007 9:30 AM
I wish Condoleezza would go to Rice University.
Posted by: Shy Guy at September 6, 2007 9:32 AM
Extra credit
http://www.hri.org/docs/Horton/HortonBook.htm
http://infidelnation.org/DOWNLOADS/Noble%20Quran.pdf
http://infidelnation.org/DOWNLOADS/ibnkathir.rar
http://infidelnation.org/DOWNLOADS/TheIslamizationofAmericaTheIsl.zip
http://infidelnation.org/DOWNLOADS/Management_of_Savagery.pdf
at September 6, 2007 9:34 AM
I should have added: "and learn how to Cook."
Posted by: Shy Guy at September 6, 2007 9:35 AM
Going to buy that book(understanding Jihad) today. But while I'm there, I have to buy Robert's old books, Politically incorrect and The Truth. The people that I lent them to, lent them, who lent them, etc... Tough to keep a good book now-a-days.
Posted by: pegg696 at September 6, 2007 9:36 AM
All well and good and a round of applause but where are the reading assignments of the foundational texts that support all the commentary on the list? You know the usual suspects, the koran, the hadiths of bukhari and muslim, and the sira by ibn isaq.
Posted by: the poetess at September 6, 2007 9:39 AM
Poetess:
Actually Qur'an and Hadith are in the course's section #1.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
at September 6, 2007 9:41 AM
Christiana Amanpour should be forced to sit through this course instead of being allowed to pretend she could teach it.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at September 6, 2007 9:43 AM
Robert, this is great, and Hugh, the list of sources you put up on Sept 4th is also excellent.
I wrote to David Horowitz a while back asking for advice on who I could trust as a supervisor for post-grad study; he directed me to Martin Kramer's site. That was appreciated but there needs to be a more systematic and better presented roster of trustworthy academics and educational departments. I was, and still am, a little surprised that Campus Watch is pretty much solely focused on revealing the bias and intellectual bankruptcy of American educational institutions, and not promoting those that actually do have something to offer. For people like myself that want to study in this area - Islam, counterterrorism etc - we need positive advice, not just warning signs.
Rice University, on Campus Watch, has two very outdated articles, neither specific to the university; one, entitled "Middle East studies in the News" and dated 2002, has this one reference to Rice: "Rice University has taken Saudi money for implementation of an Islamic Studies Chair."
I suggest a dedicated, highly accessible space to post trustworthy courses, curricula, academics, etc and reading lists. This is all excellent and I believe this could be the start of making Jihad Watch an even better resource than it already is.
Posted by: dlp at September 6, 2007 9:53 AM
So how does this excellent course square up to the report that the university took Saudi money?
Posted by: dlp at September 6, 2007 10:02 AM
Cook's page at Rice:
http://reli.rice.edu/rice_reli.cfm?a=cms,c,6,1
Posted by: dlp at September 6, 2007 10:04 AM
Extensive bibliography of Cook's:
http://cohesion.rice.edu/administration/fis/report/FacultyDetail.cfm?DivID=1&DeptID=1&RiceID=206
Posted by: dlp at September 6, 2007 10:06 AM
I believe the Baker Institute's links to Middle East money dominate Rice Universities position.
I suspect Cook is tolerated (for the time being) in the less high-profile religious studies department.
I wish I were wrong on this ... maybe things are changing.
Posted by: LoneRanger at September 6, 2007 11:02 AM
I made this suggestion in the thread below, but I'll repeat it here: I think the powers that be at Jihad Watch should give a variety of ways to send syllabi--a preferred e-mail address and perhaps a P.O. box for paper copies. I would think the "contact us" box would be a little small for the purpose, especially with formating and such.
Posted by: Lydia at September 6, 2007 11:55 AM
Just emailed my daughter, a Junior at Rice, and strongly encouraged her to get this course on her class card. Ironically, our home is in Chapel Hill, NC - the home of UNC. Glad she left town to matriculate.
Posted by: Bucko7 at September 6, 2007 12:19 PM
Academic vigor? Of course, it's Rice University.
More academic vigor than all the Ivy League combined.
Posted by: Miss_Anthrope at September 6, 2007 12:39 PM
Further to my note on the high-profile Baker Institute at Rice, here's what Middle East money has bought at Rice ...
Topics of particular current interest and research are: 1) the appropriate relationship between religion and politics in the United States; 2) the movement known as Dominionism, which asserts that Christians have a God-ordained mandate to replace democracy with a theocratic regime that would “take dominion” by imposing their interpretation of Biblical law upon the nation; and 3) the influence of a particular theological doctrine known as Dispensationalist Premillennialism—the set of beliefs that are articulated in the enormously popular Left Behind series of novels—on the Middle East peace process, given that this doctrine contends that Scripture requires that Israel occupy “all the land of Judea and Samaria” (also known as the West Bank) and therefore precludes a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.
at September 6, 2007 12:54 PM
The posting just above is incredible -- or possibly, alas, not incredible at all. Just look at what the "Baker Center," modestly-titled after that quintessential fixer who, let it be said, was hostile to Israel long before it became the easy and popoular thing, especially with all that Arab money and that dreamy belief, encouraged by, inter alios, hard-eyed James Baker, that the Arabs had to be appeased because, you see, they sold us oil.
Let's get this straight. There is no Arab "oil weapon" and there never was. As J.B. Kelly showed in his exhaustively thorough "Arabia, the Gulf, and the West," during the so-called Arab "oil boycott" in 1973 the Arabs sold more oil to the supposedly pro-Israel United States and the Netherlands than to the pro-Arab Great Britain and France, and the "boycott" threat was merely a smokescreen to make sure that the quadrupling in oil prices would stick. The OPEC oil states are totally dependent on the sale of oil, and they have failed in the last 35 years to create economies based on anything else. Indeed, the Arab oil states are now, if anything, even more dependent on the sale of oil, as their populations have acquired (non-alcoholic) champagne tastes, a taste for luxe and decadence among their rulers that is beyond the wildest dreams of any fabled king in any tale by Scheherezade.
But there is a "money weapon." That is, the Arabs have been able to buy up all kinds of influence-peddlers, and hence all kinds of influence. And one of their bribery schemes are those
"disinterested" donations to Presidential libraries, or to certain carefully-selected programs (that Saudi-funded chair that just happened to be endowed at the University of Arkansas when the boy from Hope, Arkansas, Bill Clinton, became President. And the Baker Center, run by a complte mediocrity, Edward Djerejian, who though he used to serve in the Middle East --was even Ambassador to Syria, I believe -- shares his boss Baker's complacent ignorance of, and no doubt indifference to, Islam, and one would not be surprised to find Djerijian also believing, as his malevolent boss believes, that "if only" Israel can be thrown to the wolves, the Muslim agitation will die down. Quite the reverse. Triumphalism is at the heart of Islam. Give it a real victory, not merely a temporarily perceived on (as an American withdrawal from Iraq might, for a month, be perceived -- but that perception can soon be set aright), as any further American-imposed surrenders of rights and land by Israel would be correctly regarded by the Arabs, and this will not sate but whet Arab and Muslim appetites, and not only, or even mainly, in the Middle East.
Take a good look at what "Lone Ranger" has unearthed and posted above. It should horrify. You should ask what is going on at the Baker Center, and why is James Baker treated with respect, instead of being hauled before a Congressional Committee devoted to the subject of "Jihad and the Money Weapon," and depicted, like so many others, as the traitor to this country that all those who take Arab money, directly and indirectly, and then directly, or indirectly, promote the Jihad by doing the Arab bidding in misrepresenting Islam and issues related to Islam, can correctly be described as being.
And they have also, these influence-peddlers and fixers on the take, have kept this country's energy policy in thrall for more than three decades to the supposed "good will" and "price moderation" of "our friends the Saudis." This utter crap was accepted by many people, who then ceased to think about the matter, ceased to realize that Saudi efforts in OPEC had nothing to do with favoring the Americans, but everything to do with establishing, at any time X, a price Y that would maximize, over time, total Saudi revenues from its reserves. And that is all the Saudis have ever done.
Meanwhile, the American government, which has a greater influence over energy policies than any other govenment, did nothing to anger the Saudis -- nothing, for example, like putting a real effort into diminishing gasoline and oil use, through self-taxation, which taxes could have been plowed into alternative energy projects, the building of government-funded nuclear plants (as in France, where such plants now provide 80% of the electricity), or subsidies for solar collectors (as in Germany), or subsidies for mass transit, or all kinds of things.
No. The Saudi Lobby -- the really powerful lobby in Washington which the walts and mearsheimers of this world overlook completely, in their obvious malevolence -- have helped not only to fashion a policy that has left this country unprepared to understand Islam, and hence led to the folly of Tarbaby Iraq, and also has had consequences that may be fatal for 90% of the world's species, that are now expected to disappear because of global warming that is, too late alas, now being addressed, after years of American faith in those same "Saudis" who are, in truth, far more dangerous to the long-term interests of the United States than the Iranians could possibly be.
Posted by: Hugh at September 6, 2007 1:47 PM
You mean there is only ONE university in America (Rice) that has a decent ME study center and professor David Cook is merely tolerated?
Dip sez:
Rice University, on Campus Watch, has two very outdated articles, neither specific to the university; one, entitled "Middle East studies in the News" and dated 2002, has this one reference to Rice: "Rice University has taken Saudi money for implementation of an Islamic Studies Chair."
Well, there is not much of a future there then, is there?
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at September 6, 2007 1:58 PM
Rice University has taken Saudi money for implementation of an Islamic Studies Chair."
How sickening! And for what, a fancy new wing named after a Saudi slimebag, staffed by mendacious, devious muslim professors who won't even try to disguise their contempt for Jews? Did Rice need the filthy Saudi money badly enough to sell out its students and M.E. Studies faculty, which will be sold out sooner or later.
This just makes me sick. Are there any Middle East Studies departments in U.S. universities that are not owned and operated by the stinking Saudis?! It should be illegal for them to corrupt our institutions of higher learning with bribes, but I'm sure people like our brilliant president think that this is a wonderful thing; muslims contributing to our multicultural society with large sums of money and genuine muslim professors who know islam and can convince us that it is a beautiful, peaceful religion. The next generation of diplomats, national security advisors, terrorism experts, and islamic cultural advisors will be a sight to behold. How much more of this insanity must we tolerate?
Posted by: Susanp at September 7, 2007 12:49 AM
What a contrast between the Professors Cook and Ernst(although with our Pr. Ernst I apply the term 'Professor' loosely but actually prefer not to use the term at all!).
Professor Cook is certainly sharp, highly-educated, everything an educator on Islam ought to be, and what I call "Islamosavvy". An "A+" grade goes to this outstanding professor's work, which we think will go a long way to counteract the ghastly (and puerile)Islamic propaganda rubbish 'Pr'. Ernst churns out ad nauseum (incidentally, Ernst gets an "F-" grade on the Pythagoras curve).
Posted by: pythagoras at September 7, 2007 3:11 PM
Lone Ranger - where did you get this information from? Is this a joke? I don't see any reference to "Dominionism" or "Dispensationalist Premillennialism" on the Faculty website at Rice. Have you made these up?
Posted by: dlp at September 8, 2007 5:06 AM
Oops. Just spotted this:
"Typical of the approach in an American setting is a recent dissertation dealing with the sociopolitical agenda encoded within contemporary American dispensationalist novels (e.g., Left Behind)."
But what does this entail? Still keen to know how you got the lowdown ...
Posted by: dlp at September 8, 2007 5:09 AM
dlp,
Here is the link ...
Click on mid-page hot link ...
RELIGION AND PUBLIC POLICY
My suspicions heightened after the Baker Report on the Iraq.
I heard an invited Saudi speaker spew the friendship BS (behind a not-too-veiled sneer).
I was stunned by the applause.
I was appalled by the screened questions and rehearsed answers.
Where was the decent? the counter position?
To me, something was fouling the air at this institute.
Posted by: LoneRanger at September 8, 2007 2:29 PM
Comments are turned off and archived for this entry.
(Note: The Comments section is provided in the interests of free speech only. It is mostly unmoderated, but comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying stand a chance of being deleted. The fact that any comment remains on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch, or by Robert Spencer or any other Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch writer, of any view expressed, fact alleged, or link provided in that comment.)