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Suroosh Infani writes an adoring review of Karen Armstrong's autobiography in the Daily Times of Pakistan (thanks to Ali Dashti for the link). And why not? She has said and written much that is quite useful to the radical Muslims, who are so powerful in Pakistan.
As an icon of intellectual activism and religious pluralism bridging the gap between the Muslims and the West, Armstrong has come a long way from the struggling woman who was driven by her successive failures and inner terrors to the brink of despair and suicide. In fact, her Spiral Stairway is a living testament of a divine paradox aptly summed up by the 13th century sufi poet Rumi: The seeker after Truth will never surrender for a trifle; [refusing to settle] until belief turns unbelief and unbelief becomes belief....At the same time, Armstrong’s western stereotype of Islam as an “inherently violent and fanatical faith” changed completely as her readings of Islam showed her that “Islam was more tolerant of other faiths than Christianity”. However, the Salman Rushdie controversy made her realise that there was hardly any book in the market that could counter the inflamed western prejudice against the Prophet of Islam in an idiom the western reader could relate to. This prompted her to write a biography of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) that endeared her to many Muslims, and made her one of the compelling voices in interfaith understanding. Interestingly, however, Armstrong also makes a passing reference to an interfaith seminar in London, where a fellow panellist who called himself a Sufi Sheikh refused to speak to her, or even acknowledge her presence there.
Writing the Prophet’s biography, too, had its secret surprises. Armstrong notes that her immersion in the lived experiences of the Prophet’s time as she did the book virtually transformed her writing into an act of surrender- or Islam in the literal sense of Surrender.
Interesting. Does this mean that Armstrong has become a Muslim?
Some of her most notable works, including A History of God followed after she did the Prophet’s biography.For a woman who became a nun as a teenager because she wanted to encounter God and be filled by divine presence, God now signifies the urge for transcendence and transformation, as indeed the desire to live a life more intensely rooted in compassion. It is a living engagement with such compassion that has transmuted Armstrong’s struggle with the darkness within, into a struggle against the darkness of religious hatred and intolerance in the world outside.
An Urdu translation of Armstrong’s autobiography and its circulation in Pakistan’s schools and seminaries could help enlarge the spiritual horizons of the young; and inspire them to acknowledge, and perhaps engage with the reality of the spiritual quest in societies and people other than their own.
In sharp contrast to this love note, I have been denounced three times (twice by the same man) in the Pakistani press. In chronological order, although the articles now appear undated:
One common element I notice in all three of these: they provide no evidence whatsoever that anything I say is false. What I say is simply presented (and often misrepresented, as when Khalid Hasan says falsely: "Nor does Spencer acknowledge Islam’s great contribution to science, art and culture") as self-evidently wrong and even hateful.
What they think of me isn't important. But since I am simply working from Islamic texts, this raises an important question. So in the spirit of the quest for truth that Infani praises in Armstrong, I hereby invite Armstrong, Infani, Khalid Hasan and Lt. Col. M. Zaman Malik to a public discussion and dialogue here at Jihad Watch. Every conclusion I have come to about the need for reform in Islam, and the need for a frank public examination of what in Islam gives rise to terrorism, I have arrived at through study of core Islamic texts -- particularly but not limited to the Qur'an. These conclusions have important implications for public policy, some of which are explored in some interesting and provocative ways here by Lawrence Auster.
Therefore, it is of the utmost import, if Armstrong, Infani, Hasan and Malik are really interested in truth, to investigate these texts and see whether what I have found in them is really there, and what can be done about it. Ms. Armstrong, Mr. Infani, Mr. Hasan and Lt. Col. Malik: you can contact me at director@jihadwatch.org. I look forward to hearing from you.
Posted by Robert at August 20, 2004 6:40 AM
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I've just sent my regards to the hypocritical Mr Hasan.
He's either himself an ignoramus, or, more likely, one of those many muslim con-artists playing a role in the global Islamic taqiyya which, as we're beginning to understand, is an integral part of the Jihad.
Posted by: Nikoz![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 20, 2004 7:39 AM
From the Internet Toolbox for Islam-critics:
http://www.apostatesofislam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=661
Websites with news about Pakistan:
Posted by: Ali Dashti at August 20, 2004 7:50 AM
Very OT, but still interesting about dhimmitude: Sweden's Islamic decline and cultural suicide continues at warp speed:
http://www.cphpost.dk/get/81008.html
Sweden embraces new wave of family reunifications
Meanwhile, as Danish opposition parties quarrel bitterly over whether to roll back the 24-year age requirement, there is virtually no debate in Sweden. This despite the fact that Sweden granted 24,553 residence permits under family reunification last year, compared to Denmark's 4791.
Danish politicians have justified the strict laws as a bid to prevent arranged marriages, or matches coerced by immigrant parents to placate families in the home country. Denmark has also passed a resolution stating that family reunification applications by young people should be rejected if the couple's parents entered an arranged marriage themselves. Sweden's politicians view arranged marriages as a positive tradition: a cultural pattern that immigrants should be allowed to preserve even in Sweden. The Swedish government feels that interfering in arranged marriages is an encroachment upon private life. In addition, immigrant couples can apply for family reunification in Sweden even if they've never seen each other before - as long as the marriage is entered in a culture with a tradition of parents arranging marriages on behalf of their children.
The nation's liberal reunification laws has led to almost double the number of immigrants in Sweden as in Denmark. Out of Denmark's population of 5.3 million, seven percent are immigrants and their descendants. By comparison, immigrants represent 12-13 percent of Sweden's 9 million inhabitants.
Posted by: Ali Dashti at August 20, 2004 7:54 AM
I hope Mssrs. Armstrong, Hasan, Infani and Malik will engage Mr. Spencer in a dialogue. Let's have a frank discussion on the issues and let the readers decide what to think.
Posted by: Mike at August 20, 2004 11:45 AM
Ali Dashti, we have just bought the book "Twenty-three Years," and applaud your choice of choosing to honor the author by using his name as your pseudonym.
Salmon Rushdi got away with his life for writing his book (at least so far), but Dashti was not so lucky.
Posted by: cubed at August 20, 2004 12:07 PM
Karen Armstrong is a moonbat - what is there NOT to understand about the "Salman Rushdie controversy"? There is no whitewashing or forgiving what has been done to that man's life, and any attempt to do so is vile beyond words.
Posted by: Rottweiller at August 20, 2004 1:21 PM
...Islam’s great contribution to science, art and culture...
That makes me want to puke. All they had to contribute was absolutely merciless warfare on the people of Persia and India. They decimated the vast Hindu kingdoms of Northern India and suddenly, what a coincidence! they made "great contributions to science, art, and culture". They stole it all from India and contributed nothing but death and misery.
Like the so-called "Arabic" numerals that are actually Sanskrit, the ancient language of India. Everything good in "Muslim Culture" from the spicy food, music, and math to the architecture, metalurgy and hygiene was stolen from India.
And the worst part.... most Westerners and Christians in general are ashamed of our expansionist past, with the forced conversions, enslavement, etc. But Muslims are PROUD of their conquests... PROUD. And clamouring for more.
Ancient Arab/Persian empires did give support to some of the Greek philosophers and their writings, but that was loooong before Muhamed.
I think we are going to have to face our enemy sooner or later. Maybe if Iran keeps talking trash about pre-emptively striking the US, there is going to be a sea change in the way we deal with these crazies.
The "Zionist Conspiracy!" theorists are claiming that we will take out Iran and Israel will take Syria, then "we" will have a swath of control stretching from Israel to Pakistan (or to India if you think that Musharaff is Bush's pawn.)
I think that would actually be a pretty damn good idea if not for one small problem: Saudi Arabia is the key, the main problem. And no-one in DC is yet saying much about reinning them in. At least not yet.
Bush Sr. should have let Saddam take Saudi and then taken out Saddam.
Posted by: kj at August 20, 2004 1:37 PM
Shortly after 9-11, Armstrong wrote an op-ed for the PBS website in which she opined, "Unless we in the West believe that Islam is a completely peaceful religion, there will be more acts of violence and terror."
Seriously. The woman is unbalanced. No wonder she is so beloved by many in Islamica.
Posted by: Suzan at August 20, 2004 2:07 PM
These people are clearly insane and brainwashed. If you want to see if islam is a peaceful and tolerant religion just look at the islamic countries for the answer.
Look at countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran etc. There is practically ZERO tolerance for any other religion. Even in the muslim-despised country of Israel, muslims are permitted to worship in their mosques which were never obliterated. However in countries like Saudi Arabia, a most respected islamic country, churches have all been destroyed and nobody is even allowed to build one. And no muslim is even allowed to learn of another religion or participate in a service. They dont even afford muslims any rights to even learn about other cultures.
How can any sane, honest and rational person describe a religion whose adherents are told to decimate other people if they do not accept the muslim religion being forced onto them, as a "peaceful" religion??
Posted by: SonofMoses at August 20, 2004 2:07 PM
This business of "Islam's great contribution to science, art and culture" is nonsense. Byzantine models (the Mosque of Omar is simply a typical Byzantine martyrium), the plastic and visual arts limited to mosque architecture and calligraphy (with the calligraphy most often employed in the composition of Qur'ans, or to decorate the walls of mosques), with statuary and painting, aside from landscapes (or the few exceptions smuggled in for depictions in Mughal miniatures, especially of the Majnun u Layli folk-tale variety). As for science, one really ought before making pronouncements on this score study the most recent and complete works on the history of science, such as those of Crombie and Singer, and discover how short-lived, and how narrow (mainly in optics) were contributions by those who might be called "scientists" withi Islamic (largely Persian) civilization. One gets tired of the easy references to the "great contributions to science" that are made by people who simply have not investigated the matter. It is fascinating to watch, for example, certain well-known historians of Islam and of the Ottomans, in delivering their speeches, always to put in a fixed phrase, almost a sentence-length Homeric epithet, about how great Islamic civlization was at the time when Europe was in darkness. First, the whole myth of the Dark Ages has been detonated to bits over the past 50 years of scholarship; apparently the word has not been received everywhere. Second, the more one looks closely at that civilization, the more one fact leaps out: that non-Muslims, as translators especially, had a great deal to do with that "greatness" and when the slow asphyxiation of the indigenous, non-Muslim populations had been achieved, that "greatness" also disappeared. Are we to refrain from making the obvious connection?
Those who attempt to tell something like the truth about Islam, but who still feel constrained to offer a sop, by constant references to "past greatness" -- a phrase that needs much closer examination than they are willing to undertake -- are offering not history, but a branch of self-esteem studies.
One suspects that what is going on here is as follows. We mustn't be too complete, too thorough, in our investigation of Islam. If we really want world harmony, and so on, let us allow them to cling to their pleasing exaggerations, even as we denounce the present behavior based on the tenets of Islam. Do not expect people to change their beliefs, to engage in "reform" (what "reform" and based on changing what texts, and how?) if the Western world ceases to keep repeating just how wonderful and impressive have been the achievements of Islam.
Do we go to China, and keep telling the Chinese what a great civilization they had for three thousand years? No. There is no need. They are self-confident; they need no praise from the outside. Do we go to any other civilization -- do we keep massaging Greek egos, by every time we mention Greece invoking Plato, Aristotle, Pericles, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, the pre-Socratic philosopohers, and so on? No. We don't.
There seems to be a special attempt, as noted above, at playing to the promotion of Muslim Self-Esteem. Is that the way to effect change? Is that what Ataturk wrote about -- or did he not write, or hint very strongly, that Islam was what stood in the way of intellectual progress? Why are so many so reluctant to heed the highly intelligent ex-Muslims, who were born into and grew up in Islam, and whose views, one believes, are owed at least as much sympathetic attention as are those of the "reformers" now touring the country, making very good livings by delivering highly-paid, and highly-misleading, speeches to unwary and enthusiastic audiences at well-off synagogues and churches? The belief seems to be that this is the best one can expect, and one must therefore overlook all sorts of misinformation and misstatements by those Muslims whose hearts are in the right place.
But anything which further thickens the miasma of misinformation is to be deplored. And in any case, one has a right to raise a skeptical eyebrow about those who are professional "reformers" on the lecture circuit, but who react badly, and quite revealingly so, when confronted by those who know something. And those who "know something" are not "Islamophobes" smacking their lips over the prospect of a major war. Not at all. They are people who, rather, think that it is precisely by informing people fully that the need for resorting to large-scale violence will be rendered unnecessary. Those who wish to tell the full truth about Islam are in fact, one must admit, attempting to head off such conflict.
Self-Esteeem Studies are always comical. When they are applied in the world of Islam, they are comical, and dangerous.
Posted by: Hugh at August 20, 2004 3:38 PM
Hugh, the lie that has been "detonated to bits" regarding the glories of Islamic civilization is still spoon fed to American school children in classes such as World Cultures, World History, and even in Spanish Civilization. Constant remediation or re-education will be required as the textbook industry is in the grips of revisionists, liberals, and Islamists.
Posted by: epg at August 20, 2004 3:54 PM
Previewing your Comment
THREE CHEERS FOR HUGH! Hugh, you simply MUST write an integrated history of Islam!
PLEASE write 1) a history for the general public, 2) a history for college students, and 3) a history for high-school students (since "dumbing down" would not be possible for you, it is unnecessary to plead with you not to do that). It would take a bit of finagling, but they would basically be three versions of the same book.
Naturally, these books would not be intended for our government school system. They would never get past the text selection committees. Parents would have to do an end-run around them through private purchase.
Truth is sometimes awfully hard to come by, especially in a PC world.
at August 20, 2004 4:20 PM
P.S. Hugh, doubtless it would be a multi-volume set. Think of it as something future civilizations will be grateful for if Islam should throw us into another prolonged Dark Age, where all history was "revised."
Posted by: cubed at August 20, 2004 4:22 PM
Hugh,
Don't pay heed to those who say your comments are lengthy.
They are truly insightful and informative.
I'd be among the first to buy such a book as Cubed has proposed.
at August 20, 2004 6:10 PM
Suggest Karen Armstrong goes to live in Pakistan if she loves Islam so much. Or Iran so she can see the purity and peace of Sharia.It's always the same with these crazy, attention seeking dames. Yvonne Ridley is another. They bleat on about 'understanding and tolerance of Islam,' but
make sure they DON'T live in Muslim countries.
at August 20, 2004 6:41 PM
So she wrote a kiss-ass book about islam...maybe she should go on a book tour through the peacful and tolerant middle east (of course Israel is the only country where she as a woman would be welcomed) Let her walk uncovered through peaceful saudi arabia...she would be a rape and killing waiting to happen...but at least she would have a sequal for her book.
Posted by: USAgirl at August 20, 2004 10:50 PM
Ms Karen Armstrong:
This is what your beloved muslims did in India (the neighbor of Pakistan):
Book documents 'Islamic holocaust' in India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow/819614.cms
Hindu Genocide in East Pakistan By Shrinandan Vyas
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/modern/hindu_bangla.html
Francois Gautier -The genocide beyond the Hindu Kush http://inhome.rediff.com/news/2001/apr/30franc.htm
Hindu Holocaust Museum- http://www.mantra.com/holocaust/
So Ms. Karen you stay with your pretty boys, but don`t ever come to India.
at August 20, 2004 11:45 PM
Sleeping with Karen-true colors:
Let us see how the orthodox Muslims repaid Gandhi:
In 1924, Mohammed Ali to whom Gandhi showed such affection said, : "However pure Mr. Gandhi's character may be, he must appear to me, from the point of religion, inferior to any Mussalman even though he be without character."
In 1925 he emphasized: "Yes, according to my religion and creed, I do hold an adulterous and a fallen Mussalman to be better than Mr. Gandhi". That is the true Islamofascist mentality revealed in all its glory. http://www.faithf…
Well Karen you certainly better not come.
Posted by: hutchrun at August 21, 2004 12:13 AM
Islamic civilization's only
contribution to science
and literature is that it lies midway between India and Europe. It plagiarized the mathematical and architectural advances in India and could hold out to Europe till 1200 AD. Eventually Europeans invented better weapons and banking system and started pushing the muslims out. Muslims plagiarized the invention of gun from Europe and ransacked India. The Persian language and art was invented by Zoroastrians.
Muslims called it their own. Fortunately, their geographical location is no longer important in the modern world. And so suddenly in today's world, how many engineers/doctors/scientists are the Islamic republics producing ?
And how many suicide bombers and terrorists and jihadis and fatwa issuing mullahs are they producing ? Do they flock to Chennai or Mumbai or London for treatment ? Do the kafir doctors treat them ? Do they buy Japanese 'cars and vans' or the Arab 'caravans' ?
Posted by: Naresh C. at August 21, 2004 12:13 AM
Naresh C:
Perhaps you could provide some input here:
http://malaysiatoday.blogspot.com
at August 21, 2004 12:35 AM
"At the same time, Armstrong’s western stereotype of Islam as an “inherently violent and fanatical faith” changed completely as her readings of Islam showed her that “Islam was more tolerant of other faiths than Christianity”."
Armstrong has not read the Qissa-i Sanjan, has she.
Islam has plagiarized its beliefs from Judaism and Zoroastrianism. The only thing original to Islam is jihad.
Armstrong must have received her degree from the Sears catalog.
at August 21, 2004 1:37 AM
Because someone brought it up, I'll throw in my two cents. I still favor something like a lot of sites use -- posting the first 500 words with a link to the rest. That way people can post as much as they want and the rest of us don't have to keep scrolling through pages of text. Excessive length is a form of rudeness especially in forums where you can't ignore posters.
~NMJ
at August 21, 2004 12:54 PM
Most if not all great inventions or discoveries of mankind arise from settled societies and none from nomadic tribal ones. That is self evident from the very nature of a settled and a nomadic society.
Arabs were, right until the nineteenth century, essentially tribal nomadic societies. One sees this even now as in wealthy Saudi Arabia, rich Saudis play/pretend being nomads. Thus the inventions and discoveries from the ancient world come from settled societies such as Greece, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, China and ancient Egypt. And none of them are Arabs.
What is so disheartening is that by constant repetition of a lie, even Westerners have been duped into thinking of Arabs being the progenitors of a civilisation. The Arabs were conquerors of civilisations, because they had a religious ideology of Islam which was ideally suited for warfare, ie unity of an idea that they were destined to win, clear lines of command from allah down and a divinely ordained distribution of booty coming to you, in case you fell in combat, even in paradise.
Having conquered though, it was not long before the civilisation that they conquered, died from atrophy, neglect, or the inability to think freely in an Islamic society. New ideas can only come from the interactions of free minds in a free society. Islamic nations are not free societies.
This desire by Islam, to claim the contributions of other cultures, may arise from two motivations
1. A sense of inferiority
2. Anything worthwhile must be Muslim anyway.
And to appease the Muslim, it is shameful that the West demeans and even prostitutes its own scolarship.
Hugh:
You rightly wrote that we do not continuously tell the Chinese or Greeks, what a great civilisation they had. There is no need. On a similar theme, I have noted that Muslims post character references for Mohammed. Now this is odd. We in the West, do not post character references for people who we regard as moral examples for mankind. Fo we require one for Dalai Lama, Gandhi or King? Yet Muslims do this consistently for Mohammed. One of the most quoted referees, who has given a glowing reference for Mohammed is G.B. Shaw. I have pointed out that Shaw also provided glowing references for Stalin and Hitler, and as such makes him singularly inapproiate choice for a referee.
-----------------
How Shaw defended Stalin's mass killings
By Will Bennett, Art Sales Correspondent
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/18/nshaw18.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/06/18/ixhome.html
------------------
at August 21, 2004 7:37 PM
This quote from Matthew 7 is a great quote dealing with Islam/Muhammed
15 "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.
16 By their fruits you will know them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
17 Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit.
19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 So by their fruits you will know them.
I guess there are some parts of Islam that could be considered good (like what this Karen Armstrong has fallen for) which is the sheep part...but just look at the fruits of Islam...murder, rape, genocide, hate, death, oppression, ignorance, etc...
Islam is like the house built on the sand...and it's starting to fall...and it will fall hard...
at August 21, 2004 10:56 PM
There is NO good part of Islam. The `GOOD` is copied from others.
Even that shitty pilgrimage to the black pebble `Kaaba` is copied from the tribes whom Mohd. (pubic) fought in Mecca.
Karen is an ignoramus who has not studied. There are few Hindus who could teach her about Islam. So she just better not come to India. We don`t want to see her.
at August 22, 2004 12:59 AM
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