President Trump recently called the establishment media “the enemy of the American people,” and the media, enemy of the American people that it is, is predictably outraged. But here is yet another example among tens of thousands of why it deserves the moniker: after Saudi-funded Muslim Georgetown professor Jonathan A. C. Brown defended Islamic slavery and rape in a recent lecture, the Post, instead of challenging him for sanctioning these abominations, gives him abundant space in this article to exonerate himself and explain away his comments — which he singularly fails to do in any case.
While Valerie Strauss of the Post includes comments from some Muslim scholars taking issue with Brown, she doesn’t bother to get any comment from even one of the supposedly “far-right” critics who called attention to Brown’s odious remarks in the first place. She also includes this: “Brown said that he was offering ‘a historical description of slavery as a global phenomenon.’ But he added: These people criticizing me don’t know the difference between the past and the present tense. The talk I gave was historical description.’”
A look at the quotes from his lecture in the article below is enough to show how far-fetched that claim really is. He was speaking about Islamic law and Muhammad’s example as normative. No believing Muslim believes that Muhammad’s example is a relic of history; it’s valid for all time. So when Brown says of Muhammad: “He had slaves, there is no denying that. Are you more morally mature than the prophet of God? No, you’re not,” he is saying that slavery is morally justified because Muhammad owned slaves. But all the WaPo offers in response to this is some weak Islamic apologetics from a Muslim professor who notes lamely that Muhammad freed some of his slaves.
Great. Anyway, the point here is this: when did you last see the WaPo devote an entire article to allowing a counter-jihadist, or any conservative, to attempt to clear himself of charges that had been made against him? That’s right: never. Nor will you ever see such a thing.
What’s more, Valerie Strauss, intrepid reporter that she is, not only didn’t bother to get a quote from any of the “far-right” people she lets Brown smear here; she also apparently didn’t challenge him about these Facebook posts condoning slavery and rape, clearly on Islamic theological terms and with no claim that he is making a historical argument:
So why is the establishment media the “enemy of the American people”? Because it is no longer a news source, if it ever was: it is a propaganda outlet for the likes of Jonathan A. C. Brown and his Saudi paymasters, a mouthpiece for the sinister agenda they want to advance. This ridiculous puff piece is just one of innumerable examples.
“Georgetown professor under fire for lecture about slavery and Islam,” by Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, February 17, 2017:
The director of Georgetown University’s Saudi-financed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding is under fire by some conservatives as well as liberal scholars of Islam for a lecture he gave about slavery and rape in Islamic history.
Jonathan A.C. Brown, a professor of Islamic studies, gave a lecture on Feb. 7 at the International Institute of Islamic Thought in Herndon, Va., titled “Islam and the Problem of Slavery.” The lecture — which ran more than an hour and 20 minutes — sparked some conservative critics to accuse him of supporting slavery and rape when he said, for example, “I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody,” and “[f]or most of human history, human beings have not thought of consent as the essential feature of morally correct sexual activity.”
The tenured Brown, who is Muslim, said in a phone interview and on Twitter that the accusations that he condones slavery and rape are simply untrue and that his words were taken out of context. “I don’t know how they could say that I did,” he said. Scholars are at risk, he said, if “some de-contextualized quote of theirs is taken out and prompts a feeding frenzy that calls for them to be fired.”
He said that after the lecture he and his family were threatened anonymously with rape and death.
Is that so? We have heard this before from Muslim spokesmen. I have been threatened numerous times. I’ve published many of the threats that I received via email here at Jihad Watch. I’ve reported them to the FBI and the police. Did Brown report these threats? If not, why not? Has he released their contents? If not, why not? And of course, the Post reporter doesn’t press him on this.
Other scholars of Islams [sic], he said, contacted him and said they were worried about the same kind of reaction if they discussed such issues.
Brown said the criticism was coming from far-right commentators. But they were not the only critics. Some scholars of Islam, including Ayesha S. Chaudhry of the University of British Columbia and Sadaf Jaffer of Princeton University, said they have several problems with Brown’s presentation of the issues of slavery and sexual consent in Islam….
A number of stories from conservative magazines and websites wrote scathing stories about the lecture, saying that he was condoning slavery and non-consensual sex. For example, the American Conservative wrote a piece with this headline: “Georgetown Prof Defends Islamic Slavery.” American Thinker had a story with this headline: “Georgetown professor defends Islamic slavery and ‘non-consensual’ sex.” The Daily Banter wrote: “Islamic Studies Professor On Whether Rape and Slavery Are Wrong: It Depends” and “An Islamic Studies professor at Georgetown has taken academic obscurantism and cultural relativism to new heights.”Some critics noted that the Georgetown center where Brown is a director — the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding — is funded with money from Saudi Arabia, where women have few rights. The institute where he gave the lecture has in the past been under scrutiny by U.S. officials for having ties to anti-Israel terrorist financing, a 2004 Washington Post story said.
Brown said that he was offering “a historical description of slavery as a global phenomenon.” But he added: These people criticizing me don’t know the difference between the past and the present tense. The talk I gave was historical description.”
Brown said that he could have said things more clearly, or used one word for another, but that he is not guilty of what he is being accused of saying.
In one controversial part of the lecture, Brown said: “I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody because we own lots of people all around us and were owned by people and this obsession about thinking of slavery as property.”
Asked to explain that comment, he said in an email:
“I never condoned slavery. My argument was that, by limiting our notion of slavery to owning someone, we’re blinding ourselves to institutions of exploitation in the past and present in which people are technically not “owned” at all, like incarcerated labor in US prisons. And there have been instances in history where people were technically owned by others but not exploited, like the grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire. Ownership is complicated in any legal system. Exploitation is easy to spot.”
In the lecture, he said that Americans think of slavery as depicted in the film “12 Years a Slave,” but that it looked differently in other times and places in history. He noted, for example, that a concubine’s autonomy in early Islamic civilizations was not that much different from a wife’s because women married whom their family wanted.
He concluded that “the word ‘slavery’ can mean so many things that it’s not very useful for accurate communication” because it “often ends up referring to things we don’t mean when we think of slavery, or it fails to match things we do associate with slavery.” He said that “we morally fetishize” the word “slavery” when “we should actually be looking at the condition” in which people live. He said:
“Slavery cannot just be treated as a moral evil in and of itself because slavery doesn’t mean anything. The moral evil is extreme forms of deprivation of rights and extreme forms of control and extreme forms of exploitation. I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody because we own lots of people all around us and were owned by people and this obsession about thinking of slavery as property … it’s just inconceivable sin. I think that’s actually a really odd and unhelpful way to think about slavery. It kind of gets you locked in this way of thinking that if you talk about ownership and people that you’ve already transgressed some moral boundary that you can’t come back from. I don’t think that’s true at all.”
He also said in the lecture:
“For most of human history, human beings have not thought of consent as the essential feature of morally correct sexual activity. And second, we fetishize the idea of autonomy to where we forget, who is really free? … What does autonomy mean?”
While answering a question from someone in the audience, Brown referenced Mohammad, the founder of Islam, saying to his questioner: “He had slaves, there is no denying that. Are you more morally mature than the prophet of God?” [sic] No, you’re not.”
Brown wrote a long statement about the controversy in which he said he apologized to those hurt by the lecture. He also sought to clarify some positions. He said, for example, that “[r]ape in Islam is haram (prohibited),” and “a violation of the rights of a human and the rights of God.” He also wrote:
Here the Shariah [Islamic law] historically worked differently from modern laws on marital rape, which originated in the 1970s. But the effect is similar: protection. Within marriage, wrongs regarding sex were not conceived of as violations of consent. They were conceived of as harm inflicted on the wife. And in Islamic history wives could and did go to courts to complain and get judges to order husbands to desist and pay damages. So yes, non-consensual sex is wrong and forbidden in Islam. But the operating element to punish marital rape fell under the concept of harm, not non-consent.”…
Rachel Pugh, a Georgetown spokeswoman, provided this statement from the university:
As an academic community, we are committed to academic freedom and the ability of faculty members to freely pursue their research and express their analysis. While we will defend this academic freedom, the body of a faculty member’s work does not necessarily represent the University’s position. The views of any faculty member are their own and not the views of the University.
Unless, of course, it’s a professor who discusses how jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism (as if there were such a professor). That professor would be out on his ear in no time.


No Fear says
Fortunately most people in the world are more moral than Mohammed.
Most people have not beheaded Jews, tortured, raped, stolen property etc…..
jihad3tracker says
HERE IS AN EMAIL PATH TO THE AUTHOR OF THIS ARTICLE: Valerie.Strauss@washpost.com
(This is how it is given by that news website. I do not know if this is case sensitive — please be sure that what you send GETS THROUGH OK.)
Take a few minutes tonight or tomorrow to send her a REALITY CHECK BY ROBERT HERE AT JIHAD WATCH. As I wrote in a comment below, we now have a chance to GET RID OF TREASONOUS SCHOLARS who have embedded themselves in a long term cancer to kill us.
One other effort which we also could accomplish: send all of these posts as a thread — or even one from the entire group — to your state senators representatives, personal faith leaders, and city TV station executives.
Keep in mind that penetrating the concrete-block density of our fellow citizens takes a lot of time. But if we seize this current opening to show how totally corroded American post-high-school education is today, there could be awakening not too far down the line.
jihad3tracker says
HERE IS NATHAN LEAN’S THREAT OF PHYSICAL HARM TO ROBERT SPENCER:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/05/nathan-lean-reza-aslans-creepy-threatening-protégé
BE SURE TO INCLUDE THIS LINK FOR EVERY CLUELESS PRIVILEGE GUILT COWARD YOU CONTACT.
Especially Georgetown’s chief-of-staff for the president (jaf@gu.edu). In your message to him, insist that a response be given to your inquiry: WHY IS SUCH A SOCIOPATH STILL AT THE CAMPUS ?
maghan says
But Brown was just being honest to state the unvarnished truth about Islam’s endorsement of slavery and rape.
The unvarnished truth is that if one is a Muslim, then one must NECESSARILY believe that the enslavement and rape of infidel females and apostate Muslimas is divinely sanctioned, Qur’an 33:50 states that clearly.
What Brown did was to undress the emperor of Islam leaving him naked for all to see. The result is that ALL knowing Muslims now stand accused as Brown is now being accused of embracing rape and slavery.
The desperate sanitizing efforts by the WP is an abject failure.
If Brown is a sociopath then so too are all KNOWING Muslims.
gravenimage says
But now that the Infidels have taken issue with this Islamic savagery Brown–I wonder what his Muslim name is?–is backpeddling.
jihad3tracker says
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY BOARD OF REGENTS: http://alumni.georgetown.edu/bor
They are very comfortable — plenty of money and refusal to see Islam honestly. If you have time, SEND ROBERT’S POST to them.
REMIND THEM THAT DEVOUT ORTHODOX WORSHIPPERS OF ALLAH are slaughtering infidels constantly around the world..
jihad3tracker says
A WEB PAGE FOR GEORGETOWN’S RECTOR: https://jesuits.georgetown.edu/members/lingan
His is the comfortable life of Catholic clergy (and virtually ALL Christian hierarchy) who accept what comes along on the cultural-context turnpike. No disagreement, no trouble.
BUT HOW ABOUT UPSETTING HIS APPLECART TO PERHAPS SAVE INFIDEL LIVES ? Send these comments and links — tomorrow is a holiday for many U.S. workers, so if a spot of free time appears, go for it.
mortimer says
I disagree with your comment about the ‘comfortable life’ of Christian clergy or hierarchy if they accept to whitewash Islam. While many clergy are naïve about Islam as a result of not studying it, there are an equal number who have looked into it and are alarmed, but swamped with work and therefore unable to deal with it.
The clergy that count in this war are in the universities teaching. They should be doing their job and exposing Islam.
Counterjihadists need to form their own university where professors (some clergy) would be free to publish about JIHAD and JIHAD-RELATED studies and also provide accredited degrees in JIHADOLOGY.
jihad3tracker says
HERE ARE THE TWO GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY NEWS RESOURCES:
www (dot) gureview (dot) org AND www (dot) thehoya (dot) com
The first one — GUREVIEW — claims to be independent but almost certainly the staff is petrified of losing scholarship $$$ and future employment slaughter if any honest coverage of Islam actually surfaces.
The second one — THEHOYA — is published by students and so cannot be counted as reliable (shredding neutrality in campus opinion, politics, mendacity).
BUT SEND THEM A BOMB ANYWAY — Insist on answers regarding whether the editors and reports have the journalistic integrity and ethical spine for an interview WITH PRESIDENT JOHN DEGIOIA, ACMCU THUG NATHAN LEAN, CHRONIC DECEPTIVE LIAR JOHN ESPOSITO.
Plus SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE JORDAN DENARI DUFFNER. Look at a disgusting soul-less complete betrayal of Catholicism by searching “Witness” along with her name. AND SEND WHAT EVER LINKS YOU FIND ON TO the Georgetown president DeGioia, the Rector, and ever other resource you have who still is clueless.
Look her up (if you really want an execrable
Carmel says
The aim of muslims is always to get the wealth of non-muslims for them, as much as I understand it .
utis says
Using his arguments, anyone good at verbal gymnastics could just as easily defend pre-Civil War slavery and Western colonialism, because they’re “historical”. Well, he’s getting attention, which is probably all the twit wants.
And where are those feminists, why aren’t they ganging up on him and smothering him with their little pink hats?
Oliver says
Utis- re pink ahts.
Like a (mythical) conversation between Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton.
Ted- yes I killed Mary Jo Kapechnick ( sorry if spelling is wrong)
Bill- well, maybe I raped a few women
BILL & TED -JOINTLY– ” BUT WE DIDN’T TALK DIRTY”.
But, Trump did (12 or so years ago, in a private conversation, with a George Bush relative)so therefore he is a misogynist.
maghan says
All the result of that vapid intellectual movement called “Postmodernism”. The argument is that we all live in a world of multiple moral and epistemological universes and that each moral and epistemological universe has its rules for knowledge acquisition and morality. In short, for the Postmodernist, truth and morality are both intrinsically relativist.
What this means is that what is true and valid for a Muslim need not be the same for a Westerner–and vice versa. Thus if Muslims by way of the Qur’an claim that rape and slavery are morally valid then so be it. That’s exactly what’s implicit in Brown’s unpacking of Islam regarding rape and slavery.
But that won’t work because a Western Liberal, by definition, is ensconced in a moral universe that states that rape and slavery are not morally defensible. So the desperate move by the WP was to get Brown to walk back his candid comments on rape and slavery in Islam.
Westman says
Well said, Maghan. And did the walkback succeed or did it highlight the dark cracks in the veneer?
Robeaver says
Let’s guess:::: taken out of context. …….It was a different time……….didn’t really mean that…….Curran doesn’t really mean that……..you don’t read original Arabic and don’t know that slavery actually means sharing ……..It is just indented servitude for a few years and the slaves are given a house…??????
Robeaver says
Let’s guess:::: taken out of context. …….It was a different time……….didn’t really mean that…….Curran doesn’t really mean that……..you don’t read original Arabic and don’t know that slavery actually means sharing ……..It is just indented servitude for a few years and the slaves are given a house…??????Hahahaha, went back and read the article. Who knew?
jihad3tracker says
THIS WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE WAS FORCED INTO PUBLICATION BY THE BACKLASH OF JIHAD WATCH READERS AND THE GRAPEVINE OF TRUTH TELLERS
PLEASE — KEEP THE PRESSURE ON TO GET THE WHOLE ACMCU TRAITOR STAFF KICKED OUT OF “JESUIT CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN” GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY.
Go back to Andrew Harrod’s original post about the Brown lecture — use JW search box feature. It was just a week ago or thereabouts. (Maybe some readers can help me with this — I am trying to put the lead up fast at the top of this comment stream.)
HERE IS AN EMAIL PATH TO GEORGETOWN PRESIDENT JOHN DEGIOIA’S CHIEF OF STAFFF, JOSEPH FERRARA: jaf@georgetown.edu.
You can also find a post containing the GU rector (top Catholic cleric) email resource by using JW’s search box. I cannot overstate how crucial this chance is to finally begin nationwide awareness to see clearly how STEALTH JIHAD IS CORRUPTING AMERICAN CAMPUSES.
More than 20 years ago, Georgetown University accepted money from Saudi Arabia, and from then on GU adopted the taqiyya of ACMCU — John Esposito, sociopathic thug Nathan Lean, special snowflake Jordan Duffner, Engy Abdelkader, and other jihadi haters.
One final request: respond to the author of this item. Sometimes contact paths for reporters and opinionists are difficult to find, but A PHONE CALL TO THE WASHINGTON POST MAIN NUMBER usually gets an answer.
Be patient, however, because, as this news website’s leftist privilege-quilt agenda has been exposed, it has put up a barrier against truth.
Shmooviyet says
Andrew Harrod’s article “Aren’t You Tired of Writing Your Stupid Articles: Georgetown professor…” posted here Feb. 9 @ 11:38 AM, if that’s of any help?
The juvenile, impotent dig at Robert Spencer’s looks was Feb. 10, I believe.
gravenimage says
Yes.
no_one says
I too think that there are many people that are morally more mature than MuHamMad. Also the freedom of my children to study what they want and develop in an area they like is more precious to me that the academic freedom of this guy and the freedom of religion of anyone. I hope he and any muslim keep their hands of my children.
no_one says
BTW I don’t read WaPoo, HuffPoo, NYT and many others and I avoid CNN. They are fake news.
JIMJFOX says
+no-one says
I too think that there are many people that are morally more mature than MuHamMad.
You THINK? You’re not entirely sure? How about this statement–
“People who consider MuHam Head ‘morally mature’ are mentally ill and deranged”
Still ‘THINKING”???
no_one says
I have no doubt that many people are morally more mature than MuHamMad.
Greyhound Fancier says
Most pedophile caravan-robbing mass murderer serial rapists are not considered morally mature.
Lloyd Miller says
We must spend more time documenting the “Saudi Paymasters” instead of arguing with insincere apologists for Islam. They only pretend to engage in rational argument.
mortimer says
Exactly. Follow the money. The FBI and CIA have not revealed the money trail leading from wealthy Arabs to US universities, their professors and US politicians.
gravenimage says
I think exposing creeps like Jonathan Brown is important, Merely showing that the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding is funded by the Saudis–as is common knowledge–is not enough.
Wellington says
Jonathan Brown is worse than just a fool (ah, if only). He is an apologist for, and obfuscator of, the iniquity which is the worst religion ever created by man.
He sickens me.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Wait a minute. This Jon Brown has the same name as the fire-breathing anti-slavery abolitionist?
Glory, glory, Hallelujah!
vlparker says
That tune really got around. I have a copy of an autobiographical letter written by my great-great grandmother’s sister. In the letter she states that her mother told her not to sing “Hang Jeff Davis From A Sour Apple Tree” when her father was home. LOL. That song was also sung to the same tune.
vlparker says
The left makes me sick. This guy is 100% dirtbag.
mortimer says
If Brown were a member of the KKK, then there would be no ‘CONTEXT’ allowed for his ENDORSEMENT of slavery and the rape of slaves. A slave has no human rights.
Brown took a stand… the classical Islamic stand of Sharia law… that denies human rights to slaves of Muslims.
He should be held to it. He should be denied a teaching position. His teaching is as intolerant and MORE intolerant than that of the KKK.
Brown’s values are un-American. He reveals in his un-thought-out comments that Islamic doctrine FULLY ENDORSES slavery. Brown has no way out.
BROWN OUTED HIMSELF AS ENDORSING SLAVERY AND RAPE OF SLAVES.
Norger says
You are 100% right; if he were KKK he wouldn’t be allowed within 10 miles of Georgetown. An Islamic apologist for slavery/–now THAT’S a different story.
gravenimage says
All true, Mortimer.
dumbledoresarmy says
Indeed he did.
His presentation as originally given made me wonder whether he doesn’t, tucked away in his room, drool over Islamic State videos of sex slave auctions, or whether, tucked under his pillow, there isn’t a dog-eared and greasy print-out of their ‘sales list’, that gives a list of ‘women and girls and little, little tiny girls for sale as sex slaves”… the one that came out some time ago. the one in which the girls aged 8 and under command the very highest prices, indicating that they are regarded as the prizes, the most desirable, the juiciest and sweetest.
Twerzig says
Perhaps if he were kept as a slave for a time he might change his opinion.
dumbledoresarmy says
Probably not.
He’s shucked off western, biblical morality and is wallowing in the swamp of the dar al Islam, the swamp of barbarism, whose denizens pity only themselves. G K Chesterton, in a famous essay in 1915 (where he was discussing the sickness already manifest in Germany, the sickness that would give rise to Nazism), described the true barbarian, or savage, thus – “He laughs when he hurts you, but howls when *you* hurt *him*.”
That would be Mr Brown. Suppose he were discovered to be soliciting under-aged girls online, and arrested, tried, convicted, and chucked into jail, and found himself as the de facto sex slave of the biggest, baddest bunch of fellow prisoners, he would no doubt howl, wail, scream and complain of being mistreated and abused.
But it wouldn’t make an iota of difference to his belief that, as a Muslim, he is entitled to use and abuse a slave-girl – of any age, including the age that Aisha was – as he sees fit.
Westman says
The agenda-university and the agenda-media are both the enemies of America and Europe. Prof Brown is just another trojan horse, lose among the youth to make an, “opening”, with the University’s blessing.
His words were plain, concise, and not taken out of context. Let’s wait for wet-behind-the-ears students to stand up for the rape-culture ideology, of which Islam seems so proud. “Oh please, don’t fire our dear professor of slavery!”
mortimer says
Jonathan Brown has made a career of explaining that Islam’s genuine conflicts and problems vis-a-vis modernity are NOT problems at all.
Brown has tried to explain away serious issues of incompatibility of Islam with modernity:
Worst problems in Islam: 1 No Golden Rule 2 No free speech 3 No democracy 4 Jihad – holy war of supremacism 5 Honour killings 6 Taqiyya – sacred lying 7 Taqlid – group think 8 Circular reasoning 9 Misogyny – repression of women 10 Rape of kafirs as jihad prizes 11 Genocide 12 Ethnic cleansing 13 Al-Walaa wal-Baraa – Islamic apartheid 14 Torture 15 Plundering 16 Cruel and unusual punishments 16 Backwardness – stagnation 17 Violence against women 18 Slavery 19 Discriminatory Sharia law 20 Hatred of the arts 21 No music 22 Pedophilia disguised as child marriage 23 Fifty generations of cousin marriage and genetic defects 24 Cruelty to animals 25 Extortion tax to humiliate disbelievers 26 No historic basis 27 Anti-intellectual obscurantism 28 FGM 29 Arab racism 30 Theocratic totalitarianism 31 Vigilantism 32 Amoral, opportunistic character of Mohammed that all Muslims must imitate
Angemon says
Let’s take those two statements – “I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody” and “[f]or most of human history, human beings have not thought of consent as the essential feature of morally correct sexual activity” – and pretend they were said by someone else. For example, let’s pretend David Duke said “I don’t think it’s morally evil to own somebody” and Trump said “[f]or most of human history, human beings have not thought of consent as the essential feature of morally correct sexual activity” in the same tape he bragged about grabbing women by the pussy. Would the Washington Post give them a platform to defend their views if that had been the case?
Custos Custodum says
Political operatives like Jonathan Brown hunt in packs.
Somebody at Islam Central has decided that the time is ripe to make slavery accepted again in parts of the West. Brown was ordered to make his remarks as a trial balloon to see how far the corrupted MSM will play along.
So far, the results have been most encouraging, and we can expect further steps shortly.
AnnaK says
I believe you. The world today is insane enough.
Jaem says
Money is indeed the root of all evil…apparently Saudi money has launched Islam through Professors and through student groups that silence any oppositional points of view. It has also bought politicians the people that will temporarily vote for them since Liberals can’t otherwise be voted in.
gravenimage says
Washington Post gives Georgetown prof Jonathan Brown platform to explain away his pro-slavery remarks
………………………
Just repulsive.
Anyone who read Brown’s original words knows that he was condoning slavery and sex slavery *for all time*. As disgusting as it would be in any case, this was *much worse* than a whitewash of Muslim’s enslaving victims in the past.