9. Kundalini For Beginners (Ravindra Kumar, Health Harmony, B Jain Publishers (P) Ltd, India)

Unless i am mistaken Kundali is some Hindu astrological science. It has nothing to do with Islam even remotely.

Posted by: Vikrant_Camberleykar at July 13, 2006 7:24 AM

Ah, the religion of peace and tolerance!

Posted by: Always On Watch at July 13, 2006 7:59 AM

I'm confused here. Did they ban the dhimmi books of Armstrong and Esposito, because they were pro-islam, or because they thought them anti-islam? If the latter, why did they not ban Robert's books? Just an oversight?

Posted by: somethingaboutislam at July 13, 2006 8:15 AM

Vikrant:

The mere fact that Kundali, whatever it is, exists as a differing belief/outlook is an affront to Muslims disposed towards book banning.

Notably missing from the list: Irshad Manji's "The Trouble with Islam" which I understand has sold well wherever it has been distributed in the Islamic world. May not quite get the JW/DW seal of approval, but it has plenty in it to get the Muslim book banners up in arms.

Posted by: waterdragon52 at July 13, 2006 8:24 AM

Kundalini is an esoteric Hindu method of meditation.

Posted by: dennisw at July 13, 2006 8:37 AM

I believe Hugh practises Kundalini yoga, when he's not composing clerihews.

Posted by: Silvester at July 13, 2006 8:46 AM

It is very surprising that Karen Armstrong's "Battle for God" has been banned in Malaysia while Robert's PIG guide hasn't. Perhaps it is because Armstrong's book makes the mistake of equating Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Robert's book makes it clear that Islam is different, and what Muslim would not be proud of its legacy of jihad. (Has that been banned too?)

I think it was Ayatollah Khomeini who said something to the effect that those who pretend jihad is a spiritual struggle are talking nonsense. By the same token, perhaps the apologists, who pretend Islam is benign, annoy the true Muslims more.

I believe Hugh practises Kundalini yoga, when he's not composing clerihews.

Clerihugh: a four line humorous verse containing at least three words that nobody understands.

Hugh Fitzgerald
While the West was imperilled
Baffled his readers something chronic
With hapax legemona like "polypragmonic"

Posted by: Interested at July 13, 2006 9:13 AM

Esposito's and Armstrong's books were probably banned for inaccuracy. They offer a watered down and copacetic view of Islam that is offensive to true Muslims. Robert's books may be hated by Muslims but they are accurate in their facts.

Numbers 5 and 11 on the list are obvious guides to converting Muslims to Christianity and are therefore banned. Robert simply gives facts but his books do not proselytize a Muslim to any particular faith but rather point out the reality of Islam. Therefore are not yet prohiited under a strict reading of the Malaysian law. They might ban them later for "blaspheming the prophet" however.

I know very little Bahasa, but I'm guessing that Number 15 is probably advocating some Shi'ite, Ismaili, Ahmadhi or other "heretical" position.

The Kundalini book really doesn't make sense except for the fear that some Muslims may begin to practice this meditation and revert to their original Malay Hinduism. This is the basic fear among Muslim leaders in Southeast Asia that the popular Islam of the majority is shallow.

Posted by: Provoslavni at July 13, 2006 9:32 AM

The banning of the atrocious apologetics of Armstrong and Esposito is amusing but of course will be used by them as evidence that (I can hear lean, mean, jogging John Esposito now, though channeling that subdued hysteric Armstrong is a bit more difficult): "Apparently I am not quite the apologist I am accused of being, since even the very moderate Muslim government of Malaysia bans me."

The way in which this will be used by Esposito/Armstrong, each more repellent than tht next, is akin to how news outlets deal with complaints of systematic misrepresentation or omission of facts, and the repeated use of a highly tendentious lexicon ("occupied Arab lands" for territory which was originally assigned by the Mandate for Palestine to the Jewish National Home, for example). We all know how.

When, again and again, in its coverage of the MIddle East, NPR insists that 2 & 2 = 5, and those complaining of pro-Arab pro-Islam bias suggest that 2 & 2 = 4, and the Arab and Muslim lobby (aided by those antisemites of whom there is always one creepily managing, his or her voice strained with ill-concealed hysteria and hate, managing to get a word into a "question" on a talk show) calls NPR to insist that they have it wrong, that in fact 2 & 2 = 7 (because they think the coverage isn't already skewed enough), then NPR's smug defenders, including its Ombudsman, replies to its detractors by saying: "We get complaints from both sides. So we must be doing it right."

And for some people, that is enough. That is considered a satisfactory answer.

It is not.

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2006 9:51 AM

Silvester--

Do not overlook that Kripke S5 modal logic. That's the secret.

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2006 9:52 AM

Everyone,

I wouldn't read anything into their not banning my books. I am sure it is because they simply haven't come to the attention of the censors.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Posted by: jihadwatch at July 13, 2006 11:37 AM

Vikrant,
Kundilini is a form of advanced Yoga. I don't recommend anybody to learn it from a book, one needs a good teacher since Kundilini, when done without guidance, can cause complications. Simple Yoga can be learnt from books, no problem. But not advanced Yoga. The one thing that is completely safe and has no side effects and can be done reading from books is the breathing exercises (Pranayama).

islam has declared Yoga to be un-islamic some time back. I think they outlawed gymnastics as well. I am not sure about that, however.

Posted by: arjun.sevak at July 13, 2006 12:00 PM

Esposito and Armstrong kiss the Islamic ass and for their troubles merely have Mohammedan wind broken in their p.c. faces.

Poetic justice.

There were two apologists, dapper,
With obeisance to Islam, dog-lapper,
But it did them no good
In the jihadi "hood"
As their books ended dumped in the crapper.

Posted by: profitsbeard at July 13, 2006 1:16 PM

Do not overlook that Kripke S5 modal logic. That's the secret - Hugh
--

That sounds painful, I'm glad I've never suffered from it.

Posted by: Silvester at July 13, 2006 1:17 PM

I'm astonished that "Mohammed - Rantings of a Paedophile" by Jr Hartley is not on the banned list.

Posted by: Celsius at July 13, 2006 1:21 PM

Robert

I'd think that your 'The truth about Mohammed', whenever it comes out, should be a bestseller in Malaysia. After all, in their government, who could be opposed to the truth, and who could be opposed to Mohammed?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 13, 2006 1:40 PM

Arjun

I doubt that the Malay authorities are banning the Kundilini book because of complications that may occur if someone tries to use that book, instead of going to a specialized instructor. After all, it wasn't too long ago that a 100 year old KL temple was demolished, despite protests from the Tamil community. Aren't the Hindus (and Buddhists and Christians) protesting, or is it just that their protests are going totally un-noticed, including here on D/W?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 13, 2006 1:56 PM

"islam has declared Yoga to be un-islamic some time back. I think they outlawed gymnastics as well. I am not sure about that, however."
Who declares (current) things/actions un-islamic for musulmans?
It seems like everything the rest of humanity does is un-islamic.
If they practiced yoga, it would take their minds off "finger pointing", and make them look at themselves and see what monsters they are. Remember one whining finger pointing at us, and four pointing to themselves.

Posted by: freetoBEfree at July 13, 2006 1:58 PM

I think it's more likely that

1) Robert's books were not banned because, as Robert conjectures, the Malaysian censors don't know about Robert's books;

and

2) Esposito's and Armstrong's books were banned out of ignorance (the censors may not have even read them, or read them only superficially) -- a similar reflexive censorship that one notices on looking at the list of websites banned by the Saudi Arabian government (I have the link somewhere but can't locate it now), where they try to ban all websites that mention forbidden subjects (e.g., Wiccan rituals, marijuana, gay rights), and apparently end up banning some websites that are actually either neutral about those subjects or that are actually opposed to them.

Posted by: Television at July 13, 2006 2:23 PM

LOL!

"Moderate" Malaysian government strikes again.

Whatever their reasons for banning the Esposito and Armstrong cotton candy, this story is definitely one for the (Not) Moderate Malaysia File.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 13, 2006 2:53 PM

They seem to have missed one key book with a proven potential to "disrupt peace and harmony": the Koran. *Spit*.

Posted by: Paul at July 13, 2006 3:27 PM

Muslims are not interested in deceiving themselves with Armstrong's and Esposito's lies about Islam. They are interested in their loyal dhimmis, Esposito and Armstrong, continuing to deceive infidels.

Posted by: US_infidel at July 13, 2006 4:02 PM

Robert, et al, have you or anyone actually read The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong?

I doubt it, perhaps you made a rash judgement based on her earlier books.

The only book by Karen Armstrong that I have read is a Battle for God, and that has left me puzzled as to your basis for condemning her.

The Battle for God excorciates fundamentalists period, but mostly Muslims. and that is probably why it is banned in Malaysia.

Posted by: Nariz at July 13, 2006 7:50 PM

"have you or anyone actually read The Battle for God by Karen Armstrong""
-- from a posting above

Yes. I have. It is complete crap -- though not as complete crap, I suppose, as the piece by her that appeared in The Guardian just a few days ago.

It is one more of those "symmetrical" books -- every religion has its "fundamentalists," every religion has its crazies who can't cope with "modernity" or the modern world or something. Transparent apologetics for Islam.

I even bought her original little guide to nothing and nowhere, her "Islam," thus giving her royalties. Still mad about that.

Go read that Guardian piece.

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2006 9:19 PM

Here is that Guardian piece, to save you or others from having to find it. It's Armstrong to a T, beginning with the anecdote about those wild-eyed, bomb-laying crazed Christians who are just as bad as the Muslims, and apparently have the texts to prove it. And of course Jesus was just like Muhammad, wasn't he? And then there is the false and idiotic remark that Jihad was never a central tenet of Islam --until along came that mean Mr. Qutb a half-century ago to change 1350 years of peaceful Islam. How much of this nonsense are we expected to swallow?

Here it is:

Saturday July 8, 2006
The Guardian

"A few years ago at a conference in the US, a Christian fundamentalist erupted into the hall and launched a vitriolic attack on me and my fellow panellists. His words were tumbling over one another incoherently, but the note of pain was clear. We had obviously assaulted him at some profound level. For three days my colleagues and I had discussed complex and radical issues in theology, not once at a loss for words; but stunned by the impact of this attack, we could find nothing to say. Dumbfounded, we gazed bleakly at our assailant across an abyss of incomprehension, until he was hustled out.

Violent Islamic radicals know they are heretical

Extremists are proud of their deviance, and moderate Muslims can't be held This type of incident is now common. Increasingly, people find it difficult to communicate with their co-religionists. The divide is as great as that between religious and secular people. Many of the faithful feel threatened by those who interpret their tradition differently; it seems their sacred values are in jeopardy. An apparently impassable gulf yawns between liberal and fundamentalist Christians, reform and orthodox Jews, traditional and extremist Muslims. Because of our preoccupation with the so-called clash of civilisations, this internal tension is often overlooked.
It is a year since the London bombings, an act committed in the name of Islam by a viciously disaffected minority, but which violated the essential principles of any religion. Doubtless with this anniversary in mind, the prime minister has complained that British Muslims are not doing enough to deal with the extremists. The "moderate" Muslims, he said testily, must confront the Islamists; they cannot condemn their methods while tacitly condoning their anger. The extremists' anti-western views are wrong, and mainstream Muslims must tell them that violent jihad "is not the religion of Islam".
This regrettable step will put yet more pressure on a community already under strain. It ignores the fact that the chief problem for most Muslims is not "the west" per se, but the suffering of Muslims in Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Iraq and Palestine. Many Britons share this dismay, but the strong emphasis placed by Islam upon justice and community solidarity makes this a religious issue for Muslims. When they see their brothers and sisters systematically oppressed and humiliated, some feel as wounded as a Christian who sees the Bible spat upon or the eucharistic host violated.
It is disingenuous of Tony Blair to separate the rising tide of "Islamism" from his unpopular foreign policy, particularly when Palestinians are being subjected to new dangers in Gaza. He is also mistaken to imagine that law-abiding Muslims could bring the extremists to heel in the same way that he disciplines recalcitrant members of his cabinet. This is just not how religious groups operate.
During the 20th century, a militant piety erupted in almost every major world faith: in Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Confucianism, as well as in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It is often called "fundamentalism". Its aim is to bring God and/or religion from the sidelines back to centre stage, though very few fundamentalists commit acts of violence. Coined by American Protestants who wanted a return to Christian "fundamentals", the term is unsatisfactory, not least because it suggests a conservative and backward-looking religiosity. In fact, fundamentalists are rebels who have separated themselves irrevocably and on principle from the main body of the faithful. Fundamentalist movements are nearly always the result of an internal dispute with traditional or liberal co-religionists; fundamentalists regard them as traitors who have made too many concessions to modernity. They withdraw from mainstream religious life to create separatist churches, colleges, study groups, madrasas, yeshivas and training camps. Only later, if at all, do fundamentalists turn their wrath against a foreign foe.
Thus Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), whose ideology is followed by most Sunni fundamentalists, had no love for the west, but his jihad was primarily directed against such Muslim rulers as Jamal Abdul Nasser. In order to replace secularist Fatah, Hamas began by attacking the PLO, and was initially funded by Israel in order to undermine Arafat. Osama bin Laden began by campaigning against the Saudi royal family and secularist rulers such as Saddam Hussein; later, when he discovered the extent of their support for these regimes, he declared war against the US. Even when fundamentalists are engaged in a struggle with an external enemy, this internal hostility remains a potent force.

It is unrealistic to hope that radical Islamists will be chastened by a rebuke from "moderate" imams; they have nothing but contempt for traditional Muslims, who they see as part of the problem. Nor are extremists likely to be dismayed when told that terrorism violates the religion of Islam. We often use the word "fundamentalist" wrongly, as a synonym for "orthodox". In fact, fundamentalists are unorthodox - even anti-orthodox. They may invoke the past, but these are innovative movements that promote entirely new doctrines.

Fundamentalist Christians who claim that every word of the Bible is literally true are reading in an essentially modern way; before the advent of our scientifically oriented culture, Jews, Christians and Muslims all relished highly allegorical interpretations of their holy texts. Religious Zionists who regard Israel as sacred also fly in the face of tradition. A hundred years ago, most orthodox rabbis condemned the idea of a Jewish secular state in the Holy Land. In making the assertion that a cleric should be head of state, Ayatollah Khomeini flouted centuries of Shia orthodoxy, which separated religion and politics as a matter of sacred principle.

The same is true of the new emphasis on violent jihad. Until recently, no Muslim thinker had ever claimed it was the central tenet of Islam. The first to make this controversial, even heretical, claim was the Pakistani ideologue Abu Ala Mawdudi in 1939. Like Qutb, he was well aware that this innovation could only be justified by the godless cruelty of modernity. Informed extremists today do not need to be told that their holy war is unorthodox; they already know.

The extremists believe that mainstream Muslims have failed to respond to the current crisis and are proud of their own deviance. Attempting to shift the blame to the already beleaguered Muslim community could further alienate the disaffected. It will certainly not prevent another London bombing."

· Karen Armstrong is the author of The Battle for God, A History of Fundamentalism

You still want anyone here to take Karen Armstrong seriously? She is said to be a depressive. She has every right to be. I don't know how she can stand herself.

Posted by: Hugh at July 13, 2006 9:27 PM

I just strolled past Dr. Esposito's townhouse in Georgetown. Sneakily, I looked up and glimped his bobbing haid, beads of sweat glistening from his brow, typing hard. Real hard.

This craven professor has personal pride and dignity and he's gonna try harder. Kudos to him. Unlike Professor Churchill, he doesn't castigate victims; he exalts the murderers who kill the victims.

Good for Esposito.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at July 13, 2006 10:06 PM

It is one more of those "symmetrical" books -- every religion has its "fundamentalists," every religion has its crazies who can't cope with "modernity" or the modern world or something.

Equivalence. A fake theorem introduced in 1867 and still thriving today... at least in colleges, media studios, and government salons.

Posted by: Alarmed Pig Farmer at July 13, 2006 10:18 PM

Esposito and Armstrong push the myth of moral equivalecy between fundamentalists of all religions. This is provably false. It is true that you can find flawed individuals in all religious groups but the key difference is how the totality of the religion responds to these individuals. When a Christian, Jewish, or Hindu fanatic commit murder they are condemned by the vast majority of these religious communities. When a Muslim commits a murder, he is applauded by millions of Muslims as a man acting on his faith.

In her lectures, Armstrong makes a big deal about Meir Kahane and Baruch Goldstein. The difference she overlooks is that Israel took measures against Kahane and Jews of all political persuasions were repulsed by Goldstein. What is interesting is how she ignores the extreme fundamentalists of Nuterei Karta. Perhaps this is because they support terror against Israel.

Posted by: Provoslavni at July 13, 2006 11:25 PM

There is nothing particularly remarkable about that Armstrong article quoted above: she is merely putting up her antennae and channeling the prevailing transmissions of our Western cultural atmosphere in its current phase. And unfortunately, the availability of a remote control -- or even the inclination to use one -- for most people to change that channel in our modern West is still remote.

Posted by: Television at July 13, 2006 11:38 PM

"The same is true of the new emphasis on violent jihad. Until recently, no Muslim thinker had ever claimed it was the central tenet of Islam."--Karen Armstrong.

Nariz,

I've read many of Armstrong's articles, but I must confess that I have not managed to make it past leafing through and scanning some of her books, including the one in question, with specific questions in mind, testing, trying to determine whether or not they are credible. I quickly came to the conclusion that she knew less about it than did I (and at the time, that wasn't much, but I had at least read the Koran and therefore could instantly recognize that much of what she was saying was incorrect or misleading). This is very lightweight stuff, very thin scholarship (especially those viz Islam's inherent good peaceful nature). She is spinning a fantasy, a Disney-view of Islam that does not now and has not ever existed. If she ever writes something that leads me to believe that she has actually read the book (that would be the Koran), and understood it, then I would consider changing my views. (Though having read her interpretation of verse 5:32---which of course unconditionally forbids all killing and shows the true Ghandi-like nature of Allah/Mohammad---I am not optimistic). Until that time arrives, I believe that my sample readings of her work are sufficient from which to draw the conclusion that she is not interested in accuracy viz Islam and writes with an entirely different motive.

P.S. I would certainly read her book _The Battle for God_ if I were paid to review it. I'm not, so I won't.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 14, 2006 1:03 AM

I bought Karen Armstrong's book, but realized I would save money buying toliet paper instead because I intentionally used both for the same purpose.

Patriot 1/17

Know the Enemy. Know Yourself......Know the difference between toliet paper and a Karen Armstrong book (There is no difference.)

Posted by: Patriot_1/17 at July 14, 2006 1:29 AM

I am surprised that my book "Mohammed and the Goat - the Photos" (in plastic wrapper) wasn't also banned. Maybe it's a hit in Kuala Lumpa.

Posted by: Ozi_bloke at July 14, 2006 7:49 AM

Vikrant_Camberleykar :

the Kundalini issue is because it says it will bring you closer to god. theres nothing fancy.

Posted by: tjwork at July 14, 2006 1:38 PM