Jihad Watch: "Pure Islam" and Michael van der Galiën

November 11, 2007

"Pure Islam" and Michael van der Galiën

Michael van der Galiën is a 23-year-old American Studies student at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands, and correspondent in the Netherlands for Pajamas Media. In a post entitled "Islamic Law and Violence," he commented over a week ago on a response written by a student at Brown, Jebediah Koogler, to my Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week talk there. Since van der Galiën articulates so many common responses to and common misunderstandings of the work I am doing, I thought it might be useful to respond.

Jeb Koogler explains the obvious: Islamic law isn’t static. It changes over time. I also get a bit tired of people who say that the Koran preaches much more violence than the Bible and Torah do. I’ve read the Koran and I disagree; it doesn’t teach violence any more than the Bible or Torah.

I discuss this very common argument at length in my book Religion of Peace?; suffice it to say here that van der Galiën's statement, that the Qur'an doesn’t teach violence any more than the "Bible or Torah" is flatly false. For while the Bible contains descriptions of violent acts committed in the name of God, nowhere does it teach believers to imitate that violence. Where people are commanded to commit acts of violence, these are commands directed to specific individuals or groups in particular situations; they are not universal commands.

The Qur'an, on the other hand, quite clearly does teach believers to commit acts of violence against unbelievers -- see 2:190-193, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4, etc. There are no equivalents to such open-ended and universal commands, addressed to all believers to fight unbelievers, in the Bible.

Of course, van der Galiën would respond that such passages have not been understood as such by all Muslims throughout history, and that is no doubt true. We'll discuss that in more detail in a moment. But it is not the point here, for when he says that the Qur'an "doesn’t teach violence any more than the Bible or Torah," he is not talking about interpretative traditions, but the content of the text.

In fact, I’d say, the only way for people to defend terrorism or violence by the Koran is by quoting passages in it completely out of context and to ignore the spirit of the Koran, which is peaceful.

Unfortunately for van der Galiën, there is not a single traditional school of Islamic jurisprudence that would agree with his assessment here, for all of the schools that are considered orthodox teach, as part of the obligation of the Muslim community, warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers.

Shafi'i school: A Shafi'i manual of Islamic law that was certified in 1991 by the clerics at Al-Azhar University, one of the leading authorities in the Islamic world, as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy, stipulates that “the caliph makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians...until they become Muslim or pay the non-Muslim poll tax.” It adds a comment by Sheikh Nuh ‘Ali Salman, a Jordanian expert on Islamic jurisprudence: the caliph wages this war only “provided that he has first invited [Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians] to enter Islam in faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)...while remaining in their ancestral religions.” ('Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).

Of course, there is no caliph today, and hence the oft-repeated claim that Osama et al are waging jihad illegitimately, as no state authority has authorized their jihad. But they explain their actions in terms of defensive jihad, which needs no state authority to call it, and becomes "obligatory for everyone" ('Umdat al-Salik, o9.3) if a Muslim land is attacked. The end of the defensive jihad, however, is not peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims as equals: 'Umdat al-Salik specifies that the warfare against non-Muslims must continue until "the final descent of Jesus." After that, "nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for taking the poll tax is only effective until Jesus' descent" (o9.8).

Hanafi school: A Hanafi manual of Islamic law repeats the same injunctions. It insists that people must be called to embrace Islam before being fought, “because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith.” It emphasizes that jihad must not be waged for economic gain, but solely for religious reasons: from the call to Islam “the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war.”

However, “if the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax [jizya], it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.” (Al-Hidayah, II.140)

Maliki school: Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a Maliki legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”

Hanbali school: The great medieval theorist of what is commonly known today as radical or fundamentalist Islam, Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328), was a Hanbali jurist. He directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.”

Of course, these are all extremely old authorities -- such that one might reasonably assume that whatever they say couldn’t possibly still be the consensus of the Islamic mainstream. The laws of the United States have evolved considerably since the adoption of the Constitution, which itself has been amended. So why shouldn’t this be true of Islamic law as well? Many observers assume that it must be, and that contemporary jihadists' departure from mainstream Islam must be located in its preference for the writings of ancient jurists rather than modern ones. But in this, unfortunately, they fail to reckon with the implications of the closing of the gates of ijtihad.

Ijtihad is the process of arriving at a decision on a point of Islamic law through study of the Qur’an and Sunnah. From the beginning of Islam, the authoritative study of such sources was reserved to a select number of scholars who fulfilled certain qualifications, including a comprehensive knowledge of the Qur’an and Sunnah, as well as knowledge of the principle of analogical reasoning (qiyas) by which legal decisions are made; knowledge of the consensus (ijma) on any given question of Muhammad, his closest companions, and the scholars of the past; and more, including living a blameless life. The founders of the schools of Islamic jurisprudence are among the small number of scholars -- mujtahedin -- thus qualified to perform ijithad. But they all lived very long ago; for many centuries, independent study of the Qur’an and Sunnah has been discouraged among Muslims, who are instead expected to adhere to the rulings of one of those established schools. Since the death of Ahmed ibn Hanbal, from whom the Hanbali school takes its name, in 855 A.D., no one has been recognized by the Sunni Muslim community as a mujtahid of the first class -- that is, someone who is qualified to originate legislation of his own, based on the Qur’an and Sunnah but not upon the findings of earlier mujtahedin.

Islamic scholar Cyril Glasse notes that “‘the door of ijtihad is closed’ as of some nine hundred years, and since then the tendency of jurisprudence (fiqh) has been to produce only commentaries upon commentaries and marginalia.”

Shi’ite Muslims have never accepted that ijtihad is a thing of the past. Thus it is with a slight tone of disapproval that the Shi’ite scholar Murtada Mutahhari notes of the Sunnis:

The right of ijtihad did not last for long among the Sunnis. Perhaps the cause of this was the difficulty which occurred in practice: for if such a right were to continue [for any great length of time], especially if ta`awwul and the precedence of something over the texts were to be permitted, and everyone were permitted to change or interpret according to his own opinion, nothing would remain of the way of Islam (din al islam). Perhaps it is for this reason that the right of independent ijtihad was gradually withdrawn, and the view of the Sunni `ulama became that they instructed people to practice taqlid of only the four mujtahids, the four famous Imams - Abu Hanifa [d.150/767], al Shafi`i; [d.204/820], Malik b. Anas [d.179/795] and Ahmad b. Hanbal [d.241/855] - and forbade people to follow anyone apart from these four persons. This measure was first taken in Egypt in the seventh hijri century, and then taken up in the rest of the lands of Islam.

The Imam Hassan Qazwini, director of the Islamic Center of America, considers this closing off of new interpretations of Islamic law to be a serious error. According to David Smock, director of the Religion and Peacemaking Initiative of the United States Institute of Peace:

One of the gravest mistakes Muslims have committed, according to Qazwini, is closing the doors of ijtihad. They have limited legal interpretation to only four prominent scholars: Malik Ibn Anas, Abu Hanifa al-No‘man, Muhammad Ibn Idris al-Shafi‘i, and Ahmad Ibn Hambal—the heads of the Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi‘i, and Hambali [sic] schools of thought. The motivation for this was political. During the Abbasid Dynasty (750–1258 CE), the Abbasids decided to outlaw all other sects in order to strictly control religion and worship, as well as political matters.
Closing the doors of ijtihad has had extremely detrimental ramifications for the Muslim world. According to Qazwini, this decision has resulted in chronic intellectual stagnation, as thousands of potential mujtahids and scholars have been prohibited from offering workable solutions to newly emerging problems. Muslim thinkers have become captive to rules that were made long ago, leaving little scope for liberal or innovative thought.

Other Muslims, however, disagree. Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University, in his consideration of Islam and modernity, Ideals and Realities of Islam, says: “Certain modernists over the past century have tried to change the Shari‘ah, to reopen the gate of ijtihad, with the aim of incorporating modern practices into the Law and limiting the function of Shari‘ah to personal life. All of these activities emanate from a particular attitude of spiritual weakness vis-à-vis the world and surrender to the world. Those who are conquered by such a mentality want to make the Shari‘ah ‘conform to the times,’ which means to the whims and fancies of men and the ever changing human nature which has made ‘the times.’ They do not realize that it is the Shari‘ah according to which society should be modeled not vice versa.”

In any case, whether it is a manifestation of “chronic intellectual stagnation” or fidelity to the Sharia, along with the stasis in other areas there has been a lack of development in the doctrines of jihad. Even Islamic apologist Karen Armstrong admits that “Muslim jurists...taught that, because there was only one God, the whole world should be united in one polity and it was the duty of all Muslims to engage in a continued struggle to make the world accept the divine principles and create a just society.” Non-Muslims “should be made to surrender to God’s rule. Until this had been achieved, Islam must engage in a perpetual warlike effort.” But, she says, “this martial theology was laid aside in practice and became a dead letter once it was clear that the Islamic empire had reached the limits of its expansion about a hundred years after Muhammad’s death.”

The problem is that however much of a dead letter it became in practice during times of weakness in the Islamic world, this doctrine of Islamic supremacism was never reformed or rejected. No one seems to have told the warriors of jihad who besieged Europe through the seventeenth century that the Islamic empire had already reached the limits of its expansion centuries before. No one seems to have told the modern-day warriors of Islam from Bosnia to the Philippines that jihad is a dead letter, and that Islam isn’t doing any more expanding. The Saudi Sheikh Muhammad Saalih al-Munajid (1962-), whose lectures and Islamic rulings (fatawa) circulate widely throughout the Islamic world, demonstrates this in a discussion of whether Muslims should force others to accept Islam. In considering Qur’an 2:256 (“There is no compulsion in religion,”) the Sheikh quotes Qur’an 9:29, as well as 8:39 (“And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (disbelief and polytheism, i.e. worshipping others besides Allaah), and the religion (worship) will all be for Allaah Alone [in the whole of the world]”), and the Verse of the Sword. Of the latter, Sheikh Muhammad says simply: “This verse is known as Ayat al-Sayf (the verse of the sword). These and similar verses abrogate the verses which say that there is no compulsion to become Muslim.”

Other modern writers agree. The Pakistani Brigadier S. K. Malik’s 1979 book The Qur’anic Concept of War (a book that made its way to the American mujahedin Jeffrey Leon Battle and October Martinique Lewis, and which carried a glowing endorsement from Pakistan’s then-future President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who said that it explained “the ONLY pattern of war” that a Muslim country could legitimately wage) delineates the same stages in the Qur’anic teaching about jihad: “The Muslim migration to Medina brought in its wake events and decisions of far-reaching significance and consequence for them. While in Mecca, they had neither been proclaimed an Ummah [community] nor were they granted the permission to take up arms against their oppressors. In Medina, a divine revelation proclaimed them an ‘Ummah’ and granted them the permission to take up arms against their oppressors. The permission was soon afterwards converted into a divine command making war a religious obligation for the faithful.”

Muhammad Sa’id Ramadan al-Buti, a theology professor at Damascus University, echoes the classic Islamic legal tenet that Muslims can legitimately wage war against those who resist the proclamation of Islam in his book Jihad in Islam: How to Understand and Practice It. Al-Buti considers at great length the question of whether this armed struggle can be undertaken “to avert belligerency” or “to put an end to infidelity.” In other words, is jihad purely defensive, or can it be offensive? (Al-Buti, however, carefully defines “to avert belligerency” to allow for a pre-emptive strike against a perceived imminent attack.)

Al-Buti bases his discussion of this question on the Qur’an and Islamic traditions. After a thorough discussion of these hadiths and other elements of Muslim tradition, al-Buti concludes that Muslim forces shouldn’t attack unbelievers. They should fight when attacked, or when an attack seems imminent, but that’s all. In this conclusion he notes that he is siding with three of the four major Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the Hanafi, Maliki, and Hanbali: all agree, by his account, that military jihad should only be undertaken to ward off an attack or potential attack. Of course, such restrictions can be and have been interpreted with great elasticity, but the fourth Sunni school school of jurisprudence (madhhab) goes even farther: the Shafi’is, as well as the minor Zahiri school, favor offensive jihad. The Shafi’is and Zahiris, according to al-Buti, “proclaimed that the fundamental cause of Jihad is to terminate Paganism.”

Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad, in a 1994 book on Islamic law quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd. Ibn Rushd reports on a consensus (ijma) among Muslim scholars on jihad warfare – and in traditional Islamic legal terms a consensus among scholars, once reached, cannot be modified. “Why wage war?” asks Ibn Rushd, and then he answers his own question: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.

But if this is so, why hasn’t the worldwide Islamic community been waging jihad on a large scale up until relatively recently? Nyazee says it is only because they have not been able to do so: “the Muslim community may be considered to be passing through a period of truce. In its present state of weakness, there is nothing much it can do about it.”

In this view, then, the jihad must continue as long as there are unbelievers, and only falls into abeyance when Muslims do not have the military strength to press forward with it. Making war on unbelievers is one of the responsibilities of the Muslim umma. That the three stages of jihad, culminating in offensive warfare to establish the hegemony of Islamic law – which stage is normative for all time -- can be found not only in the writings of contemporary Islamic jihadists, but also in ancient Muslim scholars, underscores the traditionalist character of contemporary Islamic jihad activity. Modern mujahedin are, in their own view, not “hijacking” Islam; they are restoring its proper interpretation – and they are successfully convincing peaceful Muslims around the world that they are correct in this.

For this to end, peaceful Muslims around the world would have to confront the fact that bin Laden and other jihad terrorists are regularly justifying their violence by reference to passages of the Qur’an and the words and deeds of Muhammad. If they don’t acknowledge this and formulate new and non-literalist ways of understanding this material, it will continue to be used to incite violence. In other words, the use that jihadists make of elements of the Qur’an and Muhammad’s teaching makes it incumbent upon peaceful Muslims to perform a searching reevaluation of how they understand those elements, so as to neutralize their capacity to set Muslims against non-Muslims.

People will do evil in all kinds of circumstances, and use all manner of justification for it; but the violent passages in the Bible are not equivalent to those in the Qur’an in content, in mainstream interpretation, or in the effect they have had on believers through the ages. The fact that in Islam violence against unbelievers has divine sanction in a way that it does not in Christianity makes religious violence more prevalent and harder to eradicate in Islam than it has ever been in Christianity. To equate it to a jumble of passages from the Bible to which no one would otherwise be paying any attention at all, at least as direct marching orders for twenty-first century warriors, is specious and dangerously misleading.

Back to van der Galiën:

As regards to Islamic law: Jeb’s completely right. Throughout the history of Islam there have been debates about what Islam means, what Islamic law should look like, etc. To Robert Spencer I would like to say one thing, one word: Mevlana.

Certainly there has been and is diversity of Islamic law, but as I have shown above, there has been consensus on the necessity to wage war against and subjugate unbelievers. I would ask van der Galiën or Koogler to produce one orthodox school of Islamic jurisprudence, or one scholar recognized as orthodox, who explicitly rejected this necessity. Mevlana? That's Rumi, folks, the Persian poet and mystic. Rumi was a terrific poet, and a great mystic, but does Islamic mysticism in general preclude a proclivity for jihad warfare? Unfortunately, no. Here is a quote from the pioneering Sufi mystic Al-Ghazali:

[O]ne must go on jihad (i.e., warlike razzias or raids) at least once a year...one may use a catapult against them [non-Muslims] when they are in a fortress, even if among them are women and children. One may set fire to them and/or drown them...If a person of the Ahl al-Kitab [People of The Book – primarily Jews and Christians] is enslaved, his marriage is [automatically] revoked…One may cut down their trees...One must destroy their useless books. Jihadists may take as booty whatever they decide...they may steal as much food as they need...
[T]he dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle…Jews, Christians, and Majians must pay the jizya [poll tax on non-Muslims]…on offering up the jizya, the dhimmi must hang his head while the official takes hold of his beard and hits [the dhimmi] on the protruberant bone beneath his ear [i.e., the mandible]… They are not permitted to ostentatiously display their wine or church bells…their houses may not be higher than the Muslim’s, no matter how low that is. The dhimmi may not ride an elegant horse or mule; he may ride a donkey only if the saddle[-work] is of wood. He may not walk on the good part of the road. They [the dhimmis] have to wear [an identifying] patch [on their clothing], even women, and even in the [public] baths…[dhimmis] must hold their tongue…. [2] (From the Wagjiz, written in 1101 A.D.)

There are other Sufi authorities who speak in the same vein.

In his response to Jeb Robert Spencer (whom Jeb criticized) writes: “I spoke of the oppression of their fellow Muslims by Salafists, and discussed at some length the fact that ‘the overwhelming majority of Muslims don’t actually follow the passages that [I] cited’.” This, of course, sounds better, but it still ignores the larger point, namely that these Muslims don’t ‘ignore’ the passages in the Koran that speak about using violence against unbelievers, but that they interprete them in their context. In other words, they don’t just look at such a passage and say “ah yes, kiell the infidel!,” they look at the entire Koran and understand that they shouldn’t use violence but should preach and practice peace and tolerance.

Actually, I have never denied that alternative interpretations of the Qur'an exist. And I am all for them -- in fact, we need more. But what we really need are ones that are effective enough to begin to seize the intellectual vanguard away from the jihadists, who make recruits among peaceful Muslims by presenting their perspective as "pure Islam." Until this is effectively countered by peaceful Muslims, that recruitment will continue successfully.

This means that Spencer et al. should stop arguing that ‘pure Islam’ is such and so. That’s not up to them to say. Pure Islam is whatever you want it to be. Rumi’s supporters thought and think that they are living true “Islamic” (or Muslim) lives. Bin Laden disagrees and would kill them if he could. Ahmadinejad thinks that what he preaches is the ‘pure’ Islam, Ali Eteraz disagrees and offers ‘his’ ‘pure’ version of Islam.

Here van der Galiën gets me flatly wrong, as I have never said that the jihadist version of Islam is "pure Islam." I have said that the jihadists say it is, and that they appeal to broad support within the Qur'an and Sunnah and Islamic jurisprudence, as I've shown above. But does all that support mean that they're correct in saying that theirs is the "pure Islam"? No, and I have never said otherwise. If someone, even Ali Eteraz, could construct a version of Islam that could convince Muslims that the jihadists did not represent "pure Islam," no one would be happier than I. But I don't think they will succeed in doing that by denying the scope of the problem and playing fast and loose with the facts, like Eteraz. Reform doesn't occur by denying the need for reform. It occurs by confronting what needs reforming, and opposing it.

Muslims should decide what ‘pure’ or ‘true’ Islam is and what’s not.

Quite so. That's exactly what I've been calling upon peaceful Muslims to do for years now.

And with regards to all religions, those who argue that it’s not about the letter but about the spirit usually have a stronger case than those who argue the opposite. We would do well to remember that.
For instance when Spencer talks about how Islamic law has condoned the stoning of women. Or how Islamic law has grown to oppress women, etc. All true. From a modern Western perspective that is. If you look at what life was like before Mohammed came to power and before he established the new religion, you’ll see that Islam actually meant progress for Arabic women. You will also see that Mohammed treated his wives with kindness and depended on them (for advise, etc.). That’s the spirit of the Koran and of Mohammed’s life. If you copy the spirit you’ll get an entirely different result today, then when you only copy the letter.

All true only from a modern Western perspective? So would van der Galiën deny that there are women awaiting death by stoning in Iran today? I suppose I, with my modern Western perspective, put them there? It may be wonderfully true that Muhammad liberated women in his day, but the application of the letter of his law is oppressing and killing women today. Van der Galiën can speak loftily about the spirit of that law all he wants, but that isn't preventing those women in Iran from being stoned to death.

And I am not going to stop speaking out on their behalf, and for the human rights of women and religious minorities in the Islamic world, because Muhammad was ahead of his time in the treatment of women. It's time for all those who believe in the human dignity of all people, whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim, to stand up against this oppression. I hope that ultimately van der Galiën will join us in this stand, rather than making excuses for the oppressors.

Posted by Robert at November 11, 2007 8:42 AM
Print this entry | Email this entry | Digg this | del.icio.us

Comments
(Note: Comments on articles are unmoderated, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Jihad Watch or Robert Spencer. Comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying may be summarily deleted. However, the fact that particular comments remain on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Robert Spencer of the views expressed therein.)

Thank you, Robert, for seizing this "teaching moment." Let's hope there are some open-minded souls out there in denial-land who will take a lesson.

Posted by: Stendec

at November 11, 2007 9:24 AM

"This means that Spencer et al. should stop arguing that ‘pure Islam’ is such and so. That’s not up to them to say. Pure Islam is whatever you want it to be. Rumi’s supporters thought and think that they are living true “Islamic” (or Muslim) lives. Bin Laden disagrees and would kill them if he could."
quoted in the posting from van der Galien's letter

What nonsense; he contradicts himself in the same paragraph. "Pure Islam is whatever you want it to be" but other "pure Moslems" will kill you if your "purity" disagrees with their "purity". So my Islam can be whatever I want as long as it agrees with the Islam of everyone else. That rather limits my choices. What I want my Islam to be would get me beaten or jailed or killed in most Islamic countries

Posted by: ebonystone

at November 11, 2007 9:31 AM

"Where people are commanded to commit acts of violence, these are commands directed to specific individuals or groups in particular situations; they are not universal commands."

Unfortunately, Christians have been all too willing to act in the "spirit" of these commands, and treat them as universal. The Puritans of Massachusetts felt quite at ease exterminating the native peoples, such as the Pequot, because of them.

Check out this charming sample from Deuteronomy 7:1-3 (NRSV).

"When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away the many nations before you--the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you--and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy."

Posted by: sceptico

at November 11, 2007 9:32 AM

When I read the first sentence I was about to get annoyed that you had wasted your time on some 23-year-old. Twenty-three years! And then I read on, and saw how useful your answer turns out to be, for in your detailed response, with sura and ayat, to his miscomprehension and missatements, you are addressing the generic miscomprehension, the standard misstatements.

Possibly one can regard as both fortuitous, and fatidic, Michael van der Galien's twenty-three years.

Posted by: Hugh

at November 11, 2007 9:45 AM

Big difference is that the what was commanded in the Jewish/Christian scriptures ALL WERE ONE TIME DIRECTIVES ONLY. What we see in the Muslim scriptures is VERY MUCH OPEN ENDED AT ALL TIMES.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106

at November 11, 2007 9:46 AM

"To Robert Spencer I would like to say one thing, one word: Mevlana."
-- from Michael van der Galien

Really? Not "plastics"?

Posted by: Hugh

at November 11, 2007 9:48 AM

Non-Muslims “should be made to surrender to God’s rule. Until this had been achieved, Islam must engage in a perpetual warlike effort.” But, she [Karen Armstrong] says, “this martial theology was laid aside in practice and became a dead letter once it was clear that the Islamic empire had reached the limits of its expansion about a hundred years after Muhammad’s death.”
from the posting

So the martial theology became a dead letter. Well it seems to have been resuscitated in the 11th and 12th centuries, with the Islamic conquests of India, Anatolia, and sub-Saharan West Africa; and again in the 14th and 15th centuries with the conquest of the Balkans. funny that this "dead letter" doesn't stay dead.

Posted by: ebonystone

at November 11, 2007 9:49 AM

"This means that Spencer et al. should stop arguing that ‘pure Islam’ is such and so. That’s not up to them to say. Pure Islam is whatever you want it to be."
-- Michael van der Galien, quoted above

Well, perhaps Michael van der Galien was, in a way, saying "plastics" after all. Perhaps he meant that Islam is infinitely "plastic" and can be molded this way or that.

Very well, then. Why don't Muslims openly and articulately do that molding of that infinitely-plastic material known as the tenets of Islam, based on those endlessly flexible, re-interpretable, shape-shifting texts known as Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira? If "Islam is whatever you want it to be" -- an incredible remark -- then why don't Muslims all over the world make it, and why haven't they made it in the past, when the history of Islamic conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims shows remarkable sameness in the behavior of Muslim warriors, and in treatment of those non-Muslims and the treatment endured by those conquered non-Muslims (see the sourcebook "The Legacy of Jihad") over 1350 years (in time), and from the Iberian peninsula to the East Indies (in space).

Islam "is whatever you want it to be"?

Daniel Pipes a while back made the claim that "Islam can be whatever Muslims want it to be" (or words to that effect), and was criticized here, and elsewhere, for such a remark. If it wasn't an acceptable statement from him, whose heart we know is in the right place, it certainly isn't from the likes of Michael van der Galien, whose heart, we know, isn't.

Posted by: Hugh

at November 11, 2007 9:58 AM

Thanks, Robert Spencer. I read the whole thing and once again come away more educated than before.

It seems to me that what troubles all fair-minded Westerners who seek to preserve their cultural and religious freedoms is what to do with those millions of actually "peaceful" or otherwise nominal people calling themselves "Muslim."

What also seems clear, from what I've heard from my more liberal friends but not including the neo-Marxists who hate and seek to destroy the West, is that we all know that the violent jihadists among the Muslims (and there are millions worldwide and hundreds of millions of sympathizers) MUST be confronted, stopped, and defeated wherever they are. Even where they confine themselves to nation states (Iran, Afghanistan under the Taliban, for example) they can pose an unacceptable threat to the global community (see bin Laden's training camps that led directly to 9/11, or the current Iranian regime pursuing a nuclear bomb).

In light of world events of the last decade or so, it seems clear that the fundamentalist and jihadist factions of Islam are speaking loudest and most clearly for Islam as a whole. Whatever the work of peaceful Muslims to stop them, it clearly is having no effect. It would be therefore completely irresponsible and suicidal for any reasonable person in the West to not take the violent Muslims as the true representatives of Islam. And conversely to give any quarter to those Muslims who would dismiss them out of hand or play the victim card when Islam is called into question.

These "peaceful" Muslims only further incriminate Islam, illustrating only too well what will happen in any society where the "peaceful" Muslims build up a majority population, for as sure as stone in those places the more militant and hardline fundamentalist elements will quickly subdue any moderate factions and seize complete control, no doubt citing the Koran as all radical Muslim scholars do throughout the world today.

Posted by: JohnAdams

at November 11, 2007 9:58 AM

If he keeps it up Michel van der Galien is going to give "van der" a bad name. Nicolas van der Graaf, much less his generator, did nothing to deserve this. Nor did Hugo van der Goes, with that mesmerizing vase in the Portinari altarpiece.

Cut it out, Michael. Stop being so dumb. Pull up your mental socks. Straighten up and fly right.

Posted by: Hugh

at November 11, 2007 10:04 AM

Excellent piece! I am passing this on.

Posted by: calatrava

at November 11, 2007 10:24 AM

Ah, Hugh, I think the "van de Graaff"s are getting confused with the "van der Graaf"s. Robert J. van de Graaff developed the particle accelerator; Volkert van der Graaf was the murderer of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. Michael seems to be more in the vein of Volkert.

Posted by: ebonystone

at November 11, 2007 10:30 AM

"If you look at what life was like before Mohammed came to power and before he established the new religion, you’ll see that Islam actually meant progress for Arabic women."

I find it odd or perhaps informative that no great muslim leaders were women. The west has several examples such as Theodora (497?-558), Isabella of Castile (1451-1504), Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Catherine the Great (1729-1796) and several others. This does not mean the average lives of women in the west was a cake walk by a modern view however women were given leadership roles.

Where is the Islamic version of Theodora or Elizabeth or Isabella?

Posted by: greatcometof1577

at November 11, 2007 10:47 AM

You're right. I got a particle wrong in the name of the man who invented the particle accelerator. Van de Graaff, not Van der Graaf. And he wasn't Dutch or Belgian, but from Tuscaloosa, and his mother's middle name was "Cherokee." Not to mention that the "f" should have been repeated "ff" but perhaps that can be consdidered merely a matter of Norman-Conquest Anthony Chenevix-Ffrench Olde English spelling.

The important thing for me to remember, the next time I feel inclined to discuss particle accelerators and Portinari Altarpieces, is that the name for the inventor of the first should be written not as "van der" but "van de." Must keep that straight. Just thought ofa sentence that might do as a mnemonic device: "he didn't graduate from Evander Childs High School but he does shower with savon de lavande." On second thought, maybe I'll just try to remember to keep the "r" out of it. Rhotacism, not for the first time, has been my downfall.

Posted by: Hugh

at November 11, 2007 10:58 AM

It may be comforting to think that those who adhere to the spirit, rather than the letter of a religion, "usually have the upper hand", but as Robert explains, that is not the case with Islam. As for the "spirit" of Islam, that's every bit as evil, if not worse, than the letter. I think that a very strong case can be made that the modern jihadists, with their wanton slaughter of innocents and drive for mass murder via high-tech, go beyond the rules of legitimate jihad. Instead, they are acting on the spirit of jihad, which, as they see it, is divinely sanctioned mayhem to achieve power.
As far as the Torah goes, while it is replete with acts of divine retribution, it is clear that said acts are of divine provenance only and are not to be undertaken by humans. This stands in stark contrast to the Quran, which reads like a war manual for the faithful.

Posted by: jewdog

at November 11, 2007 11:04 AM

greatcometof1577,

Or a Susan B Anthony

Posted by: Elric66

at November 11, 2007 11:06 AM

Elric66 & greatcometof1577:

I'll ask my sis-in-law ... who 'graduated' from UC Santa Cruz in Women's Studies about this! Surely the religion responsible for all great discoveries before 1500 can front up evidence of Mo's great liberation of the fairer sex ...

Posted by: blues4allah

at November 11, 2007 11:17 AM

Re: "Jeb Koogler explains the obvious: Islamic law isn’t static. It changes over time. I also get a bit tired of people who say that the Koran preaches much more violence than the Bible and Torah do. I’ve read the Koran and I disagree; it doesn’t teach violence any more than the Bible or Torah".

The "peaceful verses" of the Quran have been abrogated by the later verses that command the subjugation of the world to Islam. The Quran (allegedly direct dictation from God) is set-up longest to shortest verse, but what matters is chronological order (for example, wine is permitted and then a later (chronological)verse bans alcohol).

The so-called peaceful verses in the Quran are meaningless. Beyond this, Muslims are permitted to deceive unbelievers ("war is deception"). It is this permission which will undo Islam. It is a loathsome permission and must destroy the self-respect of someone who accepts that and ultimately it must produce a culture of hustlers that exploits others-especially unbelievers.

Very many non-Muslims are now aware of these things. If Muslims feel uncomfortable with that awareness by non-Muslims-that's too bad. It is what it is. The last direct orders from God re Kuffirs are monstrous. The truth is the truth.

Posted by: Frank

at November 11, 2007 12:06 PM

Michael van der Galiën (MvdG) wrote:

"Islamic law isn’t static. It changes over time."

It "isn't static" with regard to what, and to what extent? Classical Islamic law is undergoing a widespread revival throughout Muslim populations. [Source: Rudolph Peters: Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century. (Themes in Islamic Law, 2.) x, 219 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006].

MvdG:

"I also get a bit tired of people who say that the Koran preaches much more violence than the Bible and Torah do. I’ve read the Koran and I disagree; it doesn’t teach violence any more than the Bible or Torah."

I've read them all and found plenty of violence described in them all, but I think the Quran contains a higher percentage of prescriptions for violence and non-believers. I would not expect anyone to accept my anecdotal opinion at face value, though. I therefore cite the scholar Tina Magaard, who has actually done research on this question:

“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 we need to deal with.” [source, thanks to Fjordman]

MvdG:

"In fact, I’d say, the only way for people to defend terrorism or violence by the Koran is by quoting passages in it completely out of context and to ignore the spirit of the Koran, which is peaceful."

Well, let's look at the overall textual context of the Quran. According to someone who has actually categorized and quantified an arbitrary sample of 201 verses from the Quran, the so-called good or peaceful verses constitute less than 4%, whereas verses promoting hatred, violence, insult, etc. against non-Muslims constitutes a much higher percentage. Here is what she found:

52.7% Hatred against Infidels.
24.9% About Believers.
11.4% About Allah.
5% About the Day of Doom
2% Anti-Woman.
4% (other categories).

[Source]

That gives us a reasonable, ball-park estimate of the composition of the textual context of the Quran. I have taken a random sample of Quranic verses and have found a similar pattern of results.

As for the situational or historical context, Allah seems to have forgotten to include it in the Quran. Therefore most Muslim scholars turn to the Hadith and Sira for that context (or to other scholars who've researched those contexts). Needless to say, for any non-Muslim who has actually read the "genuine" Hadith and Sira, it is clear that interpreting the Quran in light of those alleged contextual sources leads to an even harsher view. We need not quote, once again, the massacres, the assassinations, the aggressive raids, the rapes, and so on, which were conducted under the direct supervision of "Allah's Apostle."

In sum, whether we are dealing with the textual or the historical context, taking verses "in context" leads to an even more brutal and immoral depiction of Islamic policies.

Posted by: Khaybar Oasis

at November 11, 2007 12:07 PM

Robert Spencer's enlightening post shows conclusively that there is such an elasticity in Islamic interpretation of what good Muslims are obligated to do that the plain English of it all is that Islam will seemingly always remain a death cult for a certain percentage of its followers.

Posted by: Wellington

at November 11, 2007 1:16 PM

Michael van der Galiën (MvdG) wrote: "Pure Islam is whatever you want it to be."

That's right, except if you disagree with MvdG regarding the "spirit" of Islam, in which case he seems quite confident that you are wrong. Then again, as "Editor-in-Chief and founder," I suppose he is not subject to too many restraints, such sticking to writing complete sentences.

MvdG: "For instance when Spencer talks about how Islamic law has condoned the stoning of women. Or how Islamic law has grown to oppress women, etc. All true. From a modern Western perspective that is."

Maybe he also thinks morality can be discarded.

MvdG: "If you look at what life was like before Mohammed came to power and before he established the new religion, you’ll see that Islam actually meant progress for Arabic women."

We don't know much about how women were treated in 6th to 7th century Arabia, aside from pious Muslims' subsequent descriptions. However, even those descriptions suggest that life under Muhammad's rule was not as good as some apologists today would suggest. As Aisha, quoted in the Sahih Bukhari, said, "I have never seen anyone suffering as much as the believing women." [Volume 7, Book 72, Number 715].

The "progress for Arabic women" comment is also dubious when we consider Muhammad's policies regarding intercourse with non-Muslim female captives:

Sahih Muslim, Book 008, Number 3371 (also 3371-3388):
"Abu Sirma said to Abu Sa'id al Khadri (Allah he pleased with him): O Abu Sa'id, did you hear Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) mentioning al-'azl? He said: Yes, and added: We went out with Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) on the expedition to the Bi'l-Mustaliq and took captive some excellent Arab women; and we desired them, for we were suffering from the absence of our wives, (but at the same time) we also desired ransom for them. So we decided to have sexual intercourse with them but by observing 'azl (Withdrawing the male sexual organ before emission of semen to avoid-conception). But we said: We are doing an act whereas Allah's Messenger is amongst us; why not ask him? So we asked Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him), and he said: It does not matter if you do not do it, for every soul that is to be born up to the Day of Resurrection will be born."

Also see this source: Traditionalist View on Sex Slavery. by Oliver A Ruebenacker.
The author appears to be a progressive Muslim condemning the traditional view which permitted Muslim masters to rape non-Muslim female captives and slaves in their possession.
http://www.averroes-foundation.org/articles/sex_slavery.html
http://www.averroes-foundation.org/articles/sex_slavery_addendum.html

MvdG: "You will also see that Mohammed treated his wives with kindness and depended on them (for advise, etc.). That’s the spirit of the Koran and of Mohammed’s life. If you copy the spirit you’ll get an entirely different result today, then when you only copy the letter."

The fact that Muhammad had multiple wives (simultaneously) should be enough to cause concern for MvdG. If that's not enough, maybe the fact that Muhammad owned slave girls will get MvdG's attention? Yes the "spirit" of the Quran, specifically the spirit which is expressed in verses 33:50-52 and 66:1-6, gives us some insight into Muhammad's life.

Posted by: Khaybar Oasis

at November 11, 2007 1:17 PM

Thank you Robert for including a more indepth look at the various schools. This has been somehting I have been curious about.

Posted by: npabga

at November 11, 2007 1:17 PM

Robert,

Some comments:

1. Michael van der Galiën is just repeating the same old "logical" thinking that muslims as well as apologists keep bringing up to defend Islam. It always amazes me that literally everybody tells the same thing to deceive people with little knowledge about Islam.

- Statement: "Islamic law is not static" or "Islam is not a monolitic bloc". Obviously this is completely wrong. All major schools of Sunni and Shi'a Islam agree on most issues and principles of Islamic law. This is not a surprise because they use the same Quran and Hadith on which they base their shariah books. If you study Islam for 2 or 3 years based on Quran, Hadith and Sira, you will easily understand and trace back where each individual shariah law comes from. What van der Galiën and other confuse is "the extent of application of islamic law" with "islamic law itself". A number of islamic laws like :
- the death penalty for apostasy,
- the stoning of adulterers and
- the killing of polytheists who do not convert to Islam
are so barbaric that they are not applied anymore in most muslim countries. My point of view is that people are people no matter which religion they follow and killing somebody who did not harm others is a serious matter and goes against the human conscience, no matter what.

However, this does not mean that those Islamic laws have gone away. Clerics all over the world keep repeating and rewriting them. A muslim can proudly state that he follows the Quran and the Sunna of Muhammad which implies that he agrees with the above-mentioned barbaric islamic laws. And nobody will touch him. The absurdity is that you can find islamic lawbooks all over the western world calling for armed struggle against christians and jews until they submit and nobody seems to mind. You can simply order those books on Amazon.

- statement: "the spirit of the Quran teaches peace". Those are statements that the writer does not prove of course. He leaves it to the audience to prove the contrary which is as difficult. And he assumes that as long as the audience does not prove the contrary, he is right. If you see that throughout the Quran the unbelievers are threatened with hell over 200 times, you can see that the only peace that the Quran is implying is full submission to Allah.

- statement: "violent passages have to be seen in their context". The assumption is that the context will make those passages peaceful and everybody is happy. However if you read the context in which the Quran is revealed, which means the biographies of Muhammad, you will see the opposite. The period of Mecca was characterised by the insulting by Muhammad of the gods and the religion of the Meccans, after which a hostile atmosphere grew between Muhammad and the early muslims on one side and everybody else on the other side. After fleeing to Medina, Muhammad started a non-stop war of revenge against the Meccans, his self-declared ennemy. The quran is just a mirror image of all those events. So the spirit of the Quran can be summarised as follows: muslims should try to convince people to convert to islam. They are free to attack the religion of all other people because the religion of those people is false anyway. If people show enmity, you can attack them physically and kill them if needed.

- statement: "before Islam the situation in Arabia was far worse. Muhammad provoked a revolution in the positive sense." And everybody is happy. Again this is a statement that is uttered and supposed to be true unless you can prove otherwise. The claim of course is false in many respects:

+ when Muhammad was born, there was absolute freedom of religion and the Ka'aba was the religious center for everybody. There were 360 statues of all kinds of gods including Allah. Jesus and his mother Mary were there as well as Abraham and Ismael. From time to time, new prophets popped-up and disappeared. Nobody minded them. Shortly before he died, Muhammad gave the order to expell all remaining non-muslims from the Hejaz (now West-Saudi-Arabia), so until today no non-muslim can be a permanent resident of Saudi-Arabia and no non-muslim can even enter Mecca. The absolute climax of religious freedom in Islam is the death penalty for apostasy.

+ when Muhammad was born, some tribes practiced female infanticide, but that was limited otherwise those tribes would have ceased to exist in one generation. Muhammad stopped this practice and this is positive. However women had a lot of freedom, just take the example of Khadija who was a business woman and who did not need anybody to protect her or to pay for her expenses, at the reverse. Muhammad lived on her fortune otherwise he would not have had the time to receive and spread his new religion. Khadija gave him spiritual comfort when he was depressed after getting the first revelations and he thought he had gotten crazy. When islam was established, women were reduced to helpless creatures who cause trouble (fitna) for men and who are in need of a man to work for them and to protect them. One hadith transmitted by Aisha narrates how she complains to Muhammad that no women are suffering like the women of the believers.
+ When Muhammad was born, there were tribal wars but there was a four month period where fighting was forbidden (the sacred months). Muhammad abolished those cease-fire months when they were not suiting him. He united the tribes, or better, he subdued them by war and instead of tribal wars, he started a worldwide war against all people with other beliefs that replaced the tribal wars.

+ At the time there were some practices that we find barbaric now and instead of abolishing them as a Prophet, he just continued them and put them into a religion. Examples are slavery and the rape of female slaves and captives of war.

2. The problem with Islam is that it is a religion that is so well-documented by very early sources and all those sources are quite consistent with each other so that it is difficult to escape from the truth of "real islam". There is so much confusion as to what islam is because muslims are only taught the "convenient truth" and not the "inconvenient truth" that you only discover when you read all sources.

cheers,
Jan

Posted by: Jan

at November 11, 2007 1:18 PM

"If you look at what life was like before Mohammed came to power and before he established the new religion, you’ll see that Islam actually meant progress for Arabic women."

Wow. This hits high on my Bullshit Detector (TM)...

Like Robert, I read the Sirat (Ibn Ishaq & Al-Tabari), and most every clue on that subject says that women had considerably more freedom before Islam than after. Before Islam, there were free-spirited women, artists, poets etc., in charge of their own lives. And free to dress as they liked, no Hijab, Niqab, Chador or Burka forced upon them. These women existed, are mentioned in Islamic scripture, as well as the fact that Muhammad had several of them killed.

After Islam, things changed.

Posted by: Henrik

at November 11, 2007 1:24 PM

Bigcatgirl, they should not even have been one time directives.

If genocide is wrong now, then it was wrong then. By believing in the old testament, you are approving of the genocide of those tribes by the jews in old testament times.

If some-one approved of the genocide of the Armenians, how does that make you any different?

Posted by: Voltaire

at November 11, 2007 1:27 PM

Bigcatgirl, they should not even have been one time directives.

If genocide is wrong now, then it was wrong then. By believing in the old testament, you are approving of the genocide of those tribes by the jews in old testament times.

If some-one approved of the genocide of the Armenians, how does that make you any different?

Posted by: Voltaire

at November 11, 2007 1:27 PM

Islam permits deception and it does not mandate the Universal practice of the Golden Rule. This makes it quite different than the other major religions of mankind.

No one can love anything or anyone they do not trust. Trust is a very basic need among humans (even money is a trust thing). Human relationships (individual or community) that are not based in trust must be based in fear.

Islamic violence-terror is rooted in its mandates to deception, and though it is true that only a few Muslims practice the mandates to violence, they almost all practice deception in denying the facts re the permissions to deception and permissions to violence-terror re unbelievers-unorthodox Muslims, that are in Islam.

The permissions to deception (compare this to Jesus' absolute condemnation of all deception-hypocrisy as coming from "the evil one") must inevitably destroy Islam. The cat's out of the bag on this.

Posted by: Frank

at November 11, 2007 1:36 PM

Wow. This hits high on my Bullshit Detector (TM)... Henrik

It's like some Saint Patty's Day Parade for Bullshitters. A lot of Muslims are wearin the brown.

Posted by: Frank

at November 11, 2007 1:41 PM

People like Galien will never side with people like Spencer. The sad fact is most leftists have a habit of embracing authoritarian ideologies. During the Cold war, leftists of all stripes were supporting marxist groups and causes.

Now with the demise of the Soviets they found another master to serve - Islam.

Posted by: waltc

at November 11, 2007 1:58 PM

Brilliant reply to van der Galiën. But I still say that the ultimate learning experience for the van der Galiëns of this world is to spend a year or so at a university somewhere in the Islamic world arguing with Muslim students and professors about what Islam really teaches.

It's not likely that an Infidel, no matter how knowledgeable he is about Islam, will ever get through to a van der Galiën. They have to get it from the proverbial horses mouth.

Like most appologists for Islam, they are generally hold up in some Western University, where they can block out the real world around them.

A good dode of reality is what they need.

Posted by: rational

at November 11, 2007 2:11 PM

Unfortunately Michael van der Galien has become a vociferous (and intolerant) denier of the genocide of the Armenians, as a review of his blog shows.

Posted by: Eliot

at November 11, 2007 3:51 PM

But I still say that the ultimate learning experience for the van der Galiëns of this world is to spend a year or so at a university somewhere in the Islamic world arguing with Muslim students and professors about what Islam really teaches.-rational

Absolutely. You live up to your name. No one, or any group, would dare preach the equality of religions, or that Islam must cease its intolerance of other religions, or condemn dhimmitude, the jizya, and violence against apostates and unbelievers, in Saudi-A-Gas-Station, or just about any other place in the Muslim world. The fact there are no such schools in Saudi-A-Gas-Station or elsewhere in Dar-al-Islam is education. Where are those schools that teach that in Dar-al-Islam?

Posted by: Frank

at November 11, 2007 4:22 PM

Hugh & ebonystone,

Perhaps van der Galiën could be "hooked up" with Van de Graff... how shocking!

Mwuuuuahahahah...mwuuuahahahaha

Posted by: RalphInfidel

at November 11, 2007 4:29 PM

The Shafi’is and Zahiris, according to al-Buti, “proclaimed that the fundamental cause of Jihad is to terminate Paganism.” - from Robert's

If this was carried out in practice to the letter, then it would mean Islam must terminate itself, since its god Allah is a Pagan moon god, and not the universal God of the Jews and Christians.

Once again Islam presents itself with an interesting conundrum. We are not the pagan worshipers, they are! So let's end Islam here in a self-canceling proposition, as they demand per their Jihad. "Check mate", mate.

But the real problem is that all those peaceful Muslims who disagree with the Jihadi interpretatiions of 'pure Islam' are silent, or ineffective in countering that claim. There's the real problem, or worse, they are silently complicit.

Posted by: Battle_of_Tours

at November 11, 2007 5:02 PM

It may be wonderfully true that Muhammad liberated women in his day

I find this unlikely. He may have stopped female infanticide but that was likely because he saw the financial gain of keeping them. And the sexual gain of having lots of females around.

Aisha said that no women suffered as much as the believing women. That is a comparison of the muslim women to the other women who were not muslim.

That tells me that all the talk about islam and Mohammad making things better for women was and is all talk.

After all, Christianity was being practiced for centuries. Maybe not by the bedouins. And even the Romans treated their women better.

Posted by: Borg

at November 11, 2007 5:26 PM

Who cares what 23 year old snots think? The Clash War will be won on the battle fields and not in debate parlors. I like Dave Horowitz, but he is cheapening the Clash debate.

On the matter of abject servitude to the Muslim aggressor, a Swedish Cabinet Minister once went beyond Bush slavery to the murder cult. This quote from Jens Orback, should be widely quoted to politicians, “We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.”

http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2006/07/let-them-eat-kebab-new-marie.html

That surrender declaration - debased only by Bush's "islam is peace" vomit - was made in a radio interview, and a transcript of said quote was issued:

http://www.sverigeicentrum.se/206/muslimer.html

Anyone - especially the Little Green Jackboot lickers - who sees advancement of US security in Bush's legitimation of "political islam," aided by hundreds of billions in "nation building" money burning, is as bad as the terrorists who benefit from said legitimation. Islam is terror and Muslims are terrorists. What is the point of building up countries over hundreds of years, only to have a parasite Multi cult class hand it to murderous Muslim aggressors, in a generation or two? What is the point of pushing the Russians out of Eastern Europe, so that dhimmi regimes can replace them?

At least 70% of Jihad Watch posters are conditioned to experience irrational anger at Trifkovic when they read the following. I would suggest that you seek help to undo your brainwashing, and then actively work to undo Bush's Kosovo atrocity. You are human lab rats.

>>>
------------------------------
You see how Musharaf - having defrauded US tax payers out of $12,000,000,000 in US aid, has released a Taliban planner of 9-11, while jailing Seculars. Since "martial law" was declared over 150 Pak troops have surrendered (and that's generous) to the Taliban. George Bush is a con-man of the lowest order. His sole purpose in life is to exceed Cheney's Gulf War 1 take of $60,000,000 in unearned income. If Bush had an ounce of integrity, he would end the GWOT by Jan. 1.

Posted by: supercargo

at November 11, 2007 5:37 PM

You will also see that Mohammed treated his wives with kindness and depended on them (for advise, etc.).

I think that the woman whose husband was killed before Mohammad claimed her would disagree with that. Was it Safia that became his wife after her family was murdered?

Posted by: Borg

at November 11, 2007 5:39 PM

Five days after 9-11, and in context of Oval Office discussions with CAIR Ikhwanis, AMC Wahabis and ISNA Maududists, Bush recited whitewash script composed by Islamofascists:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010917-11.html

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much for your hospitality. We've just had a -- wide-ranging discussions on the matter at hand. Like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday's attacks. And so were Muslims all across the world. Both Americans and Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our TV screens.

These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that.

The English translation is not as eloquent as the original Arabic, but let me quote from the Koran, itself: In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil. For that they rejected the signs of Allah and held them up to ridicule.

The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace...

Posted by: supercargo

at November 11, 2007 5:45 PM

Borg:

That was Rihanna. After murdering her Jewish father and husband, and with their blood on his cloak, Muhammed raped her on the battlefield and then seized her as "an-fal" (Muslim booty).

Normally, Muslim males are required to withhold rape of captive women (marital chattel taking is based only on what "the right hand possesses"), until after menses. However, being a self-proclaimed "prophet" - tested only by the threat of murder against critics - Muhammed allowed himself the power to quench his lust against a woman in mourning. Since Bush expressed (see above) his knowledge of the Koranic concept of "evil," then he must believe that Muhammed's rape lust is: "GOOD."

I don't link to Bukhari Hadith websites, because anyone who hasn't given up a second since 9-11 to read same, doesn't deserve assistance. However, Google "MSA" and "USC" and you might get there.

Posted by: supercargo

at November 11, 2007 5:58 PM

Interesting that the student has to go back to the 7th century to demonstrate any Muslim "progress" for women (Wow! Mo sure was advanced compared to that nasty old 6th century, huh!?!), but gives nothing modern in his argument.

Same with the usual "But there's violence in the Judeo-Christian texts too!" gambit.

Where are the current Judeo-Christian equivalents of the terroristic jihadis basing their attacks on Biblical dogma?

Is that crickets I hear, or the tiny rocks shifting in the student's head?

"They strain for a gnat and miss the camel" may be the most apt Biblical line about his "reasoning".

Or maybe "You see the splinter in your neighbor's eye but overlook the plank in your own."

The West's faiths have secularized (based upon "My kingdom is not of this world" and "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's"); Islam- by definition- cannot.

Not and remain Islam.

Student needs a better tapdancing teacher.

But this Islam-apologia routine is still tiring, no matter how earnestly hoofed.

Posted by: profitsbeard

at November 11, 2007 6:03 PM

Robert,

"al-Buti concludes that Muslim forces shouldn’t attack unbelievers. They should fight when attacked, or when an attack seems imminent, but that’s all. In this conclusion he notes that he is siding with three of the four major Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the Hanafi, Maliki, and Hanbali."

Does this mean that Islamic aggression could be interpreted as being against three of the four schools of mainstream Sunni teaching?

Posted by: StillBreathing

at November 11, 2007 6:25 PM

Van Gaelen is a 23-year old twit. He says he's read the Koran, really? If true, he reads without understanding.

Two things come to mind: either he is a simpleton who has 'Muslim friends' who tell him what he likes to hear, or he is a closet muslim who spouts the usual drivel in order to 'defend Islam'.
If the latter is the case, financial rewards may come into the equation, since Arab muslims are known to entice Westerners to write drivel like that to further obscure and deflect away from the Religion of Peace. Mearsheimer & Walt and quite a few others come to mind.

But the way way Robert Spencer shakes these kooks out of their tree is priceless.

Fantastic article, Robert!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami

at November 11, 2007 7:53 PM

Robert, an excellent article, full of information taken directly from the mainstream Islamic sources. There are centuries of petard there, just waiting to be hoisted.

A couple of quotes stood out:

Seyyed Hossein Nasr of George Washington University wrote (in "Ideals and Realities of Islam"):

Certain modernists over the past century have tried to change the Shari‘ah, to reopen the gate of ijtihad, with the aim of incorporating modern practices into the Law and limiting the function of Shari‘ah to personal life. All of these activities emanate from a particular attitude of spiritual weakness vis-à-vis the world and surrender to the world. Those who are conquered by such a mentality want to make the Shari‘ah ‘conform to the times,’ which means to the whims and fancies of men and the ever changing human nature which has made ‘the times.’ They do not realize that it is the Shari‘ah according to which society should be modeled not vice versa.

This is typical Islamic jurisprudence, with its theme of the corruption of modernity and the law of man, versus the purity of sharia and blind obedience to the will of Allah. But it is shocking in the sense that its proponent is teaching at George Washington University. This is the kind of intolerant and anti-intellectual ideas that are being taught in our own universities these days? Excuse me if my naivety is showing, but I find this shocking.

Sufi cleric Al-Ghazali said:

[T]he dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle

When infidels say that the Islamic Allah is not the same god as the Christian God, they are called bigots. But Al-Ghazali seems to be making the same distinction. Of course, he is taking it further, and saying not only are they different deities, but the dhimmi is not even allowed to mention Allah or Mohammad (under penalty of what, I wonder?).

Robert said

Modern mujahedin are, in their own view, not “hijacking” Islam; they are restoring its proper interpretation – and they are successfully convincing peaceful Muslims around the world that they are correct in this.

Excellent point. The jihadis are not bringing any new ideas to Islam that were not there before. They are in fact returning Islam to the way it has always been practiced, from day one in the time of Mohammad, as evidenced by a millenia of Islamic jurisprudence. The jihadists make abundant quotations of core Islamic documents to justify their actions. It is the proponents of "Islam means Peace" that are twisting Islam into something that it has never been before.

Posted by: special_guest

at November 11, 2007 11:00 PM

Elric66

I only picked royalty just because it was the first thing that came to mind but you are right.

How about...

Where is the Islamic Joan of Arc? Could a girl like Joan have come into existance in the Islamic world. Not even as a jihadi!

Posted by: greatcometof1577

at November 11, 2007 11:24 PM

StillBreathing said

Does this mean that Islamic aggression could be interpreted as being against three of the four schools of mainstream Sunni teaching?

No, it means that Muslims are the victims. It means that the kafirs invaded Muslim lands in Afghanistan and Iraq and Israel and Chechnya and Thailand and Kashmir. Muslims are just defending themselves, in their mind, and all mainstream Islamic schools teach that it is permissible (actually, mandatory) for Muslims to fight in that case.

Posted by: special_guest

at November 11, 2007 11:35 PM

"There are centuries of petard there, just waiting to be hoisted."
-- from a posting by "special_guest"

Don't miss that.

Posted by: Hugh

at November 11, 2007 11:52 PM

Surely Islam is a live religion and evolves with the times.Take for example the use of catapults against those in fortresses,here we can plainly see that Islam has changed with the times for now they use Airplanes,not catapults,against the fortresses.

Or we could see that the "heroes" back in the day would run into the enemy forces swinging away and if he got cut down then he was a martyr.Here in this day they use explosive belts and exploding automoblies to run into crowds of enemies instead of horses when cut down,even if it be by thier own hand ,are martyrs.

Surely islam is a live religion and evolves with the times.

Someone once told me Islam was this thing called a live religion as it changed it's laws for modern times,he was Iranaian,so i guess in part he was correct.Though i wasn't clear whether we were speaking of for the better or for the opposite.Then again i think Amahdanijad clears that up.

Personaly i feel the only thing alive and that changes is the date and time of the same old acts and deeds and commandments ,which just happens to have more of those who desire booty and
property,for Allah of course.

Islam is a live religion that changes it's laws for modern times.Thats truth from behind the veil,or ski mask or even just a plain faced polisher of that tightly coiled pile on the neighbors lawn.But there is truth to it.I guess thats some of Islams dualistic ideology as spoken of by Bill Warner, the director of the Center for the Study of Political Islam.

Posted by: Dar al-harb

at November 12, 2007 12:25 AM

greatcomet of 1577 -

some more women who could only have done what they did, and been what they were, in Christendom.

St Bridget of Ireland.

Abbess Hilda of Whitby.

Eleanor of Aquitaine, beautiful, passionate, wild and smart, married off young to a king of France but then chose her own man the second time around - she scandalised everyone by running off with the man who became king of England; mother of kings; loved and hated, patroness and muse of poets.

Abbess Hildegard of Bingen - polymath, poet, mystical theologian, healer, painter of exquisitely gorgeous figures (representational art!), composer of ecstatic instrumental and vocal music, abbess, and counsellor to kings and popes. She was a seventh daughter, given by her parents to the local Benedictine Abbey to be educated. No-one like her could ever exist under Islam, given its ban on a. representational art and b. deep suspicion of 'songstresses' and rejection of liturgical/ devotional music.

St Clare, who ran away from her well-to-do family to join St Francis and found the Poor Clares, female counterparts to the Franciscans. Could any woman, under Islam, run away from her family like that, and get away with it?

The Blessed Lady Julian of Norwich. Margery Kempe.

Teresa of Avila.

Elizabeth the First of England.

Aphra Behn the playwright.

Those are just some off the top of my head.

I do not doubt our central European and Russian visitors, and the Jewish members of this community could name others, from out of their own histories. I recall reading about Jewish women who managed businesses, in medieval Europe, while their husbands travelled or studied.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy

at November 12, 2007 1:39 AM

You said

For while the Bible contains descriptions of violent acts committed in the name of God, nowhere does it teach believers to imitate that violence.

The Old testament prescribes violence, it is worse than the Koran - which was the major reasons that some Jews, such notably Paul the apostle, found it necessary to get in a new prophet to make the old testament non binding and issue a new peaceable and tolerant testament.

For example:

Deuteronomy 13:6

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:

But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die;

Deuteronomy 17:2

If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant,

And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;

And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel:

Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.

Because of this, and many similarly inconvenient and abhorrent scriptures, around 200AD the Jews that had not become Christians started to manufacture the Talmud, - drilling loopholes in these unwanted scriptures - burying the original Torah under a great huge pile of weaseling and nitpicking that would drive a lawyer cross eyed and give him a headache.

Muslims have frequently been tempted to do the same, and have frequently made a start on doing the same

The proposal to construct a great big pile of Talmudic rationalizations and excuses and bury the bloodier bits of the Koran in that pile is called, in Islamic circles, "reopening of the gates of ijtihad"

Unfortunately however, the gates of ijtihad are firmly closed, and reopening them will get you jailed in Muslim lands, and murdered in Western lands.

No Muslim is a moderate unless he has a fresh prophet up his sleeve, or else proposes to reopen the gates of ijtihad, and by this standard, in all the world there are very few moderate muslims - in part because even in England, such a moderate will likely be killed and the police will find it dangerous and inconvenient to notice his death.

Posted by: James A. Donald

at November 12, 2007 2:13 AM

Supercargo,

Ordinarily I would not respond to your mindless ravings but in the interest of factuality, specifically regarding Rihanna and Safia:

Rihanna or Rayhana, was the beautiful wife of a leader of the Jewish Banu Qurayzah tribe. Muhammad had all of the men in this tribe (and any boys who had pubic hair) beheaded - some 600 to 800 souls. The women and children were then divided among the Muslims as slaves. Muhammad took Rayhana as a concubine that night as she refused an offer of marriage.

Safia or Safiyya, was the wife of the Jew, Kinana b. al-Rabi. Muhammad had him tortured, by building a small fire on his chest, so he would reveal the location of his tribe's treasure. Near death, he was beheaded. Muhammad raped Safiyya that night, due to her feminine charm. The short interval between the murder and the bedding was not the norm, but Muhammad did take her as a wife.

Please try and keep the facts in order and the details of the murders and the rapes straight.

Posted by: Davegreybeard

at November 12, 2007 2:37 AM

Supercargo,

Ordinarily I would not respond to your mindless ravings but in the interest of factuality, specifically regarding Rihanna and Safia:

Please try and keep the facts in order and the details of the murders and the rapes straight.

Posted by: Davegreybeard

at November 12, 2007 2:42 AM

Supercargo,

Ordinarily I would not respond to your mindless ravings but in the interest of factuality, specifically regarding Rihanna and Safia:

Please try and keep the facts in order and the details of the murders and the rapes straight.

Posted by: Davegreybeard

at November 12, 2007 2:50 AM

James A donald, I'm not sure what you are on about. How does a few verses in Deuteronomy compare to hundreds like these which are far more explicit and direct. Explain how exactly the Deuteronomy verses are worse. I'm not seeing it.

"When we decide to destroy a population, we send a definite order to them who have the good things in life and yet sin. So that Allah’s word is proven true against them, then we destroy them utterly.”

"The infidels should not think that they can get away from us. Prepare against them whatever arms and weaponry you can muster so that you may terrorize them."

"Slay them wherever you find and catch them, and drive them out from where they have turned you out; for persecution and oppression are worse than slaughter."

Posted by: savitch

at November 12, 2007 2:59 AM

No comment to make on the subject matter, just...

WOW, incredible post, full of extremely helpful stuff.

A tour de force, and excellent example of how to cut through Bullsh*t (please excuse my poor Arabic here).

Posted by: Archimedes2

at November 12, 2007 3:01 AM

No comment to make on the subject matter, just...

WOW, incredible post, full of extremely helpful stuff.

A tour de force, and excellent example of how to cut through Bullsh*t (please excuse my poor Arabic here).

Posted by: Archimedes2

at November 12, 2007 3:02 AM

The Russkis and their coalition of the unwilling never gave Pure Communism™ a chance...if ONLY they would have given the latest five year plan a go, they would have seen Pure Communism™...."take your milk pail to the radio" was a punchline for a reason....it is because it was there, and only in the pages of Pravda and Izvestia that you could find all the positive things about Pure Communism™ and the latest 5 Year Plan.
How very like them are the Durantistas of our day in hyping Pure Islam™.
Wake me when you can find me a place where Shari'a is going swimmingly....especially for the leetle girls and womenfolk. I got a bucket-full o' camel's milk to sell ya.

Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah

at November 12, 2007 3:06 AM

To best understand the "spirit" of Islam one only needs to look as far as it's inventor, Muhammad. Everything he did, from child molestation & rape to wanton mass slaughter, was for self gratification and profit.

That is "pure Islam."

Posted by: DJM

at November 12, 2007 8:17 AM

@James A. Donald:

I can't see how you can describe those Deteronomy verses as "worse" than what's in the Qur'an. Those verses tell the Jews to kill any individual who tries to get the Jews to follow other gods or who apostasizes (the latter essentially the equivalent to the apostasy treatment in the hadith, if not the current Qur'an).

Nowhere is the command to go and find and kill or subjugate those who are already following other gods...which is unequivocally in the Qur'an.

Posted by: Godefroi

at November 12, 2007 9:41 AM

Michael van der Galiën is pathetic little wuss. If he staying in Netherlands Islam will eat him alive

I posted at his blog and he deleted it. I posted that the spirit of Islam is war and Muhammad engaged in 27 battles (wikipedia) the Four Caliphs engaged in about 70 wars, battles, military campaigns
http://www.derafsh-kaviyani.com/english/Islam.html

Today's Muslims are simply emulating the belligerence and naked aggression of Muhammad. And one Islamic command is that the faithful Muslim emulates the life of their (alleged) prophet. Todays Muslims are fighting wars all over the world as they emulate Muhammad.

Now when a religion engages in many wars and battles right out of the box that tells me that is the true spirit of Islam. And that is Islams track record from 633-777AD. This is merely what Islam did right off the bat. This omits other Islamic carnage such as the conquest of India (80 million Hindus killed)

Historyofjihad
http://www.historyofjihad.com/sitemap.html

Posted by: dennisw

at November 12, 2007 10:08 AM

On November 11th, "sceptico" quotes Deuteronomy 7:1-2 wherein God instructs the children of Israel to destroy the nations that were occupying the Holy Land. It appears sceptico's intention was to say that the God of Israel universally commands his people to kill non-believers. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God judged these nations and decreed their destruction for two reasons: 1) because of the sins and abominations which they practiced, and 2) so that they would not corrupt His people with these evil practices. This is described in Leviticus chapters 18 & 20, parts of Deuteronomy, etc (KJV):

child sacrifice (Lev.18:21 & 20:2-5; Deut.12:31)
bestiality (Lev.18:23 & 20:15-16)
homosexual sex (Lev.18:22 & 20:13, 1 Kings 14:24)
incest (Lev.18:6 &ff; Lev.20:11 &ff)
adultery (Lev.18:20 & 20:10)

"When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods." (Deut.12:29-31 KJV)

"Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you." (Lev.18:24-28)

"Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out. And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them." (Lev.20:22-23)

"Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire." (Deut.7:3-5)

Sceptico, take care, for you are blaspheming God most High. He loves us, but He will judge sin.

I would suggest you study the Bible and learn from it.

I will pray for you and others like you.

Posted by: American Woman

at November 12, 2007 5:53 PM

"Sceptico, take care, for you are blaspheming God most High."

Well lookeethar, Jihad Watch has its own resident muftis in the comments section pronouncing fatwas.

Posted by: non-croyant

at November 12, 2007 7:07 PM

Van Der Galien deleted a very reasonable post of mine where he accused me of sounding like Spencer or Pipes, whom he obviously disliked.
Yet he calls himself "classical liberal". It shows what this "classical liberalism" really means in The Netherlands.
Guys like this, who major in "America Studies" in The Netherlands (anyone else think this is crazy?) are predictable and rather uninteresting closet America lovers who have to maneuver in a politically correct, anti-American environment, and have to define themselves in opposition to America to keep their lifetime investment in their European identity intact, even though they secretly admire the US.
Not worth our time, although I appreciate the effort of Mr. Spencer. FYI I am 24, Dutch and PhD student Economics in the US.

Posted by: humanliberty

at November 12, 2007 10:33 PM

Michael van der Galien fails to provide any evidence whatsoever for this good peaceful "spirit" or "essence" of Islam that he keeps talking about. He doesn't seem to know exactly what it is, but he sure has a strong conviction that we all ought to stop criticizing Islam and just have faith that moderate Muslims will fix the enormous and numerous problems in Islam today.

In his latest response to Spencer's detailed, substantive reply, van der Galien doesn't have much new to say, other than to retreat to the safe ambiguity behind words like the spirit and essence of Islam. Van der Galien starts out making some nice statements about Robert and Charles, but then he stubbornly returns to the same position that elicited Robert's response in the first place.

[Below, I've added emphasis in certain parts, and have not quoted the entire reply]
http://mvdg.wordpress.com/2007/11/11/pure-islam-me-and-robert-spencer/

MvdG

“Robert Spencer wrote a highly insightful and respectful post to this post I wrote last week. I encourage you all to head on over to Jihad Watch in order to read Robert’s lengthy reply. Charles linked to it, which led to an interesting consensus in the comment section at LGF; namely, that Robert had kicked my butt, smacked me down, taught me a lesson, etc. These commenters, however, miss my point (and Robert - sadly - does so as well)."

MvdG

"Namely, I never argued that extremists can’t argue that ‘their Islam’ is ‘pure Islam,’ that they can’t base their beliefs and political views on the Koran, on Islamic laws, teachings, etc. I, simply, argued that they focus on the letter, and ignore the spirit of Islam. I tried to explain this point by pointing out that where Islam is now considered to be highly oppressive of women, Mohammed’s teachings actually meant an improvement for the women then living in Arabia."

Incidentally, he still hasn't presented evidence that Muhammad/Islam produced a net positive set of changes for women (Muslim and non-Muslim alike) as compared to the pre-Islamic period.

MvdG

"Robert doesn’t argue against this, but merely points out that if Muslims follow the literal teachings of Mohammed - and ignore the spirit and historical context of them - we - today - would consider women to be oppressed.”

Unless I'm mistaken, Robert never made a judgment about the "spirit" and "historical context," but rather left that up to the orthodox Islamic scholars. MvdG imagines that the spirit and historical context make Islam into something good, and he further imagines that Robert assumes the same. I don't think Robert ever said that.

MvdG

“[…]Furthermore, it’s my conviction that if the West and moderate Muslims want to win this battle we’ve got to convince the far majority of Muslims that extremists are actually acting in breach with the spirit of Islam (which I also believe they do). You don’t do that convincingly by pointing out time and again that the extremists have a strong case, to say the least."

Here MvdG ignores the primary role of Islam critics: To present an honest empirical descriptive presentation of what Islam is--the doctrines, the main interpretations, the current practices, laws, the numerous problems and conflicts, etc.--to non-Muslim audiences who've been fed politically-correct but inaccurate information.

MvdG

“[…]I’m not saying “there’s no problem” (again, Spencer’s post makes me wonder whether he read other posts by yours truly about immigration and integration, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Palestine / Israel, etc.), I’m saying there is a problem, but it can be solved by Muslims relying on their faith: namely, by living by the spirit of Mohammed’s teachings, not by the letter / by interpreting everything literally.
And that’s, basically, the main difference between Spencer and me. He emphasizes the “extremists can base their teachings on the Koran, etc.,” while I emphasize the idea that they can only do that by taking things out of context and, more importantly, by focusing on the letter and ignoring the spirit of the Koran and Muhammed’s teachings.”

He "emphasizes" and hopes, but he fails to provide any support whatsoever for what he's saying.

MvdG

"Robert, excuse me, but against whom are you arguing? That was a tremendous last paragraph, but I could’ve written it as well. I agree completely. I am one of those “there’s a real war going on between extremist Islam and the enlightened West”-people. And “rather than making excuses for the oppressors”? Pardon me? Where, please search my blog and come back at me, did I ever ‘excuse’ the oppressors? Everyone here, who reads my blog on a daily basis, knows that this is quite a ludicrous statement. I condemn them constantly. In fact, I take my condemnation one step further than Spencer does by arguing that these individuals aren’t just bad and despicable human beings, they’re also lousy Muslims."

MvdG

"Lastly, Robert argues that he too wants to encourage reformers. Great. I’m not sure how you do that by convincing people that the only ‘right’ interpretation, that ‘pure Islam’ is the one of extremists like Bin Laden. Spencer writes in his post that this is not what he believes, but if you read the comment section there you can’t possibly conclude different than that a lot of his readers do believe it. And that’s, in my opinion, partially due to the way he - Robert Spencer - words his message and due to what he chooses to emphasize and what he chooses to (mostly) ignore."

No doubt, it this ever-elusive "essence" and "spirit" of Islam that MvdG thinks Robert is ignoring. Well, MvdG, you failed to provide evidence for this overriding positive "spirit" of Islam you keep talking about.

Posted by: Khaybar Oasis

at November 13, 2007 4:12 PM

Non-croyant wrote: "Well lookeethar, Jihad Watch has its own resident muftis in the comments section pronouncing fatwas" in answer to my warning to Scepito to "take care, for you are blaspheming God most High."

Sorry to disappoint you, Non-croyant, but I issued no fatwa. Read the sentence you cited and those following. I said: "Sceptico, take care, for you are blaspheming God most High. He [meaning God] loves us, but He [God] will judge sin. I would suggest you study the Bible and learn from it. I will pray for you and others like you."

Did I call for Scepito to be jailed, beheaded, killed? No. Out of love, I warned him that GOD [not me] will judge sin, suggested he read the Bible, and told him I would pray for him. More importantly, 'tis not I who condemns blasphemy and judges evil, but God himself:

Blasphemy is evil (a few representative illustrations):

* God humiliated and destroyed Sennacherib, the mighty king of Assyria, for his blasphemy. Read 2 Chronicles ch 32, especially verses 16-21: Sennacherib's servants "spake yet more against the LORD God" and "He [Sennacherib] wrote also letters to rail on [i.e. defame] the LORD God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, 'As the gods of the nations of other lands have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand.' (vs.16-17.) Then, "for this cause Hezekiah the king [of Judah], and the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz, prayed and cried to heaven. And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword." (vs.20-21)

* Jesus tells us that blasphemy defiles a man and proceeds from an evil heart: "Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, BLASPHEMIES: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man." (Matthew 15:17-20)

* Paul warns us about the evil to come in the last days including blasphemy: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, BLASPHEMERS, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

God will destroy the wicked and evil (just a few many such verses):

* "For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts." (Malachi 4:1-3)

* "Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the LORD shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly." (Jeremiah 23:19-20 KJV)

* "…The LORD shal