• Why Jihad Watch?
  • About Robert Spencer and Staff Writers
  • FAQ
  • Books
  • Muhammad
  • Islam 101
  • Privacy

Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Omid Safi lies again, claims I threatened to kill him

Apr 26, 2010 6:03 am By Robert Spencer

The facts at hand presumably speak for themselves, but a trifle more vulgarly, I suspect, than facts even usually do. A few years back I had a rather unpleasant exchange with Omid Safi, a professor at that time at Colgate University, now at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Or at least he seemed to think it was unpleasant; I thought it was riotous: an entertaining exposure of academic pomposity and the vacuity of the dominant MESA orthodoxy that has a stranglehold on university Middle East Studies departments.

And it ended, mind you, with Safi refusing to debate me — hiding behind his degree even when I offered to get someone who had a PhD to debate him, and continuing to propagandize his students about “Islamophobia” rather than train them to think critically about the issues of Islam and jihad.

Or at least that’s where it ended for me. Safi, it appears, has been nursing a grudge — one he could easily have assuaged by accepting my challenge to debate, defeating me, and thus proving that I really am the empty-headed ideologue he pretends that I am. Instead, he chose a different route.

I have just been sent the email below — one that Omid Safi sent on November 11, 2008. It contains the most outrageous falsehood about me that I have ever seen in all the years I’ve been doing this work: it’s one thing to say I’m stupid, or evil, or secretly inclined to this or that rotten ideology. It’s quite another to claim that I have done something I have never done — something that if I had indeed done, Safi could have and should have gotten me arrested. The fact that he didn’t do that shows in itself that he is lying. Nonetheless, there is no way for me to know how far and wide he has spread this defamatory charge. I am publishing his email here now as an example of the depths to which a pseudo-academic propagandist like Safi will sink when intellectually cornered, and as a public challenge to him to retract and apologize. I also call upon the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to rebuke and/or dismiss this sorry excuse for an academic.

And I warn Professor Safi that if he claims this email is fabricated, that I have all the necessary documentation and testimony from its recipient to demonstrate that it is genuine.

Professor Safi, I await your retraction of this claim about me, and your public apology.

dear Parvaneh khanoom,
ba arz-e salam.
I have not looked at Spencer’s latest piece of trash, but I have to caution you against taking what he says seriously. He is a hateful man, who has personally threatened me and my family with death. These are not people who are interested in serious scholarly debate.

My own work has tended to focus on the tradition of falsafeh, ‘erfan, and poetry, especially the works of people like Molavi and Attar, Hafez and Sa’di. But I also think (and you are free to disagree with this) that it is impossible to read these people aside what they were: observant Muslims. All of their poetry (especially for Molavi) is filled with references to the Qur’an and Islamic teachings.

Of course you are right that we as Iranians had a beautiful civilizations before the rise of Islam. As a historian of Iran I also think that we have had a beautiful civilization after the rise of Islam.

If I may ever suggest readings, please allow me to be of service. It would be my great pleasure.

ba nahaayat-e ehteraam
omid

One last note: Safi implicitly defends those who really do threaten to murder their opponents, since Iran’s “beautiful civilization after the rise of Islam,” which he praises above, presumably includes the Iranian mullahs who built the Islamic Republic. Then, in a classic example of projection, he charges those who oppose such murderous regimes with doing what they do.

iran_hanging_outrage_2.jpg
A beautiful civilization after the rise of Islam

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Follow me on Facebook

Filed Under: Uncategorized


Learn more about RevenueStripe...

FacebookYoutubeTwitterLog in

Subscribe to the Jihad Watch Daily Digest

You will receive a daily mailing containing links to the stories posted at Jihad Watch in the last 24 hours.
Enter your email address to subscribe.

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!
If you are forwarding to a friend, please remove the unsubscribe buttons first, as they my accidentally click it.

Subscribe to all Jihad Watch posts

You will receive immediate notification.
Enter your email address to subscribe.
Note: This may be up to 15 emails a day.

Donate to JihadWatch
FrontPage Mag

Search Site

Translate

The Team

Robert Spencer in FrontPageMag
Robert Spencer in PJ Media

Articles at Jihad Watch by
Robert Spencer
Hugh Fitzgerald
Christine Douglass-Williams
Andrew Harrod
Jamie Glazov
Daniel Greenfield

Contact Us

Terror Attacks Since 9/11

Archives

  • 2020
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2019
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2018
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2017
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2016
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2015
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2014
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2013
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2012
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2011
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2010
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2009
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2008
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2007
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2006
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2005
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2004
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2003
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • March

All Categories

You Might Like

Learn more about RevenueStripe...

Recent Comments

  • Crusades Were Right on Muslim cleric: ‘We welcomed the takeover of ISIS because they wanted to implement the Sharia’
  • William Garrison on The Fantasy Islam of Rice University’s Craig Considine (Part 3)
  • Vladimir on Islamic Republic of Iran: Turkey’s Erdogan champions Islam only as a tool to further his own interests
  • John on Muslim cleric: ‘We welcomed the takeover of ISIS because they wanted to implement the Sharia’
  • Vladimir on Muslim cleric: ‘We welcomed the takeover of ISIS because they wanted to implement the Sharia’

Popular Categories

dhimmitude Sharia Jihad in the U.S ISIS / Islamic State / ISIL Iran Free Speech

Robert Spencer FaceBook Page

Robert Spencer Twitter

Robert Spencer twitter

Robert Spencer YouTube Channel

Books by Robert Spencer

Jihad Watch® is a registered trademark of Robert Spencer in the United States and/or other countries - Site Developed and Managed by Free Speech Defense

Content copyright Jihad Watch, Jihad Watch claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are copyright to their respective owners. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it appear on this site, please E-mail with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed.

Our mailing address is: David Horowitz Freedom Center, P.O. Box 55089, Sherman Oaks, CA 91499-1964

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.