Islamic Spain was a “progressive society. It was multicultural. You had religious pluralism,” Rice University sociologist Craig Considine gushed during a November 6, 2020, webinar. Serious scholars have exposed this “myth of the Andalusian paradise,” a “fantasy Islam” propaganda trope, but Islam’s supposed medieval golden age is a staple of his debunked, new book, The Humanity of Muhammad: A Christian View.
Considine, a jihad-appeasing, former sports management student, whose confused interfaith views on Islam Muslims themselves have condemned, spoke during his still-ongoing virtual book tour. As previously examined, in his book and elsewhere he has sophistically spun the Muslim prophet Muhammad’s seventh-century subjugation of the Arabian Peninsula’s non-Muslims into a fairy tale of pluralistic religious coexistence. In this ludicrous analysis, Muhammad’s rule reflected the same “civic nation” principles expressed in the American Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution.
Whether in Arabia, America or Andalusia, Islam is ever-enlightened for Considine, who retails wholesale the arguments of his mentor, American University professor Akbar Ahmed. Considine has relied upon the book, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain to present Al-Andalus as a Dark Ages Silicon Valley. Devastated by Islamic invaders, this sharia-subjugated society had in his telling an “extraordinary level of tolerance” where “you had all of these kinds of minds from different backgrounds coming together and really putting it all together.”
In this La Convivencia, Considine has claimed, Spain’s Muslim rulers were “very open to Greek philosophy, to integrating Jews and Christians into the fabric of Spanish life.” Thus Christians and Muslims “are actually working together and they are flourishing together,” he has argued. This reflects the “sociological concept of hybridity” and how the “dialogue of civilizations is inherent in Muhammad’s experience.”
Islamic Spain’s celebration of diversity appears to Considine as a grand civilizational jam session, where scholars were “sharing knowledge for the sake of sharing knowledge.” Here occurred a “synthesis of civilizations, where these ideas of being Christian, being Muslim, kind of dissolve into something that is more human, so it is not Islamic civilization or Western civilization, it is human civilization.” “Muslims used knowledge from the world and kind of meshed it together and synthesized it and created a new type of knowledge,” he has stated. This exhibited “love of knowledge for the simple fact of loving knowledge, not caring where it’s coming from or who is giving it, just embracing it because it’s part of God’s creation; it’s part of God’s love, God’s vision for us.”
While Quran 5:101 casts doubt upon any questioning of faith-based submission to Muhammad’s religious claims, Considine asserts without any evidence that Muhammad was a Renaissance man. Al-Andalus civilization was “all rooted in a love of knowledge, and we know that Muhammad was a lover of knowledge.” Muhammad “tried to instill in the early ummah a curiosity about human beings,” Considine has added.
Islamic Spain for Considine is proof of the oft-touted claim that Islam was a source of Western civilization’s renewal, and not a historic ravager of civilizations. Although Christians suffer from “historical amnesia” about Muslim contributions to the West, “Western civilization would not be where it is without the immense contributions that Muslims have made throughout history.” “When we talk about Western civilization, we should include Islam in that, and vice-versa,” for “Muslims have always been part of Europe” in Spain as well as medieval Sicily, the “other Al-Andalus.”
During an October 26, 2020, discussion with the London-based Minhaj Welfare Foundation (MWF), moderator Anam Iqbal agreed with Considine that Western societies misconstrued their histories with Islam. She noted that “Judeo-Christian elements which are widespread throughout the Western world have always set Islam a little bit apart as though it is not compatible.” Yet MWF’s founder is Pakistani cleric Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri, the author of a 2010 book that falsely claims to rebut Islamic doctrinal justifications for jihadist suicide bombings. Despite his pretenses to Islamic moderation, he has professed pride in helping to create in the 1980s his homeland’s notorious blasphemy law, which punishes criticism of Islam with death.
Varying degrees of sharia speech repression are widespread throughout Muslim-majority countries, but Considine’s naïveté remains unfazed. He claimed to Iqbal that the late Harvard University professor Samuel Huntington “would have a hard time of defending his thesis” in his 1996 book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. The almost two decades since September 11, 2001, have hardly been years of Islamic peace, yet Considine imputed that people “oftentimes who have ulterior motives” in criticizing Islam.
Considine has actually equated “Islamophobia industry” groups such as ACT for America with Islamic State jihadists as “two sides of the same coin” for rejecting his proclaimed Islamic rainbow coalition. These groups “feed off each other. They have the same worldview. It’s a very puritanical worldview and they happen to have the same interpretation of Islam.” He has compared upstate New York’s Islamberg community, suspected of terrorism ties, to Amish communities, although “evil forces” have meant that “a lot of the coverage of Islamberg is blatantly Islamophobic.”
Muhammad was a “cross-cultural navigator,” Considine has concluded in his statements and tweets. Muhammad supposedly exemplified Considine’s mantras to
be “fearless” in getting to know one another. Humanity flourishes when we seek meaningful encounters across the perceived divides. Living in bubbles & closing in on ourselves, creates walls instead of bridges.
Contrary to the Irish-American Catholic sophist Considine, Yasmine Mohammed, an ex-Muslim Arab-Canadian atheist, has far more intimate and realistic knowledge of Islam. She has written extensively in her book, Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam, about the oppression she and other women have experienced due to Islamic doctrines such as veiling. She has accordingly mocked Considine’s mythical Muhammad by tweeting that “cross-cultural navigator applies to his legacy of raping women from different cultures and taking them as sex slaves.”
Considine’s imagined Muhammad is no match for the real-life Yasmine Mohammed, but all past evidence indicates that Considine will never engage in any dialogue with her. For all of his pronouncements on “getting to know one another,” academic frauds such as Considine never interact with critics. His career and reputation, carefully constructed upon contrived narratives and trite platitudes, could hardly survive contact with criticism.
mortimer says
There he goes again!
I recommend you buy, read and lend out the following book as a detailed corrective to Considine’s twaddle.
“The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain” by Darío Fernández-Morera, ISI Books, 376 pp.
Scholars, journalists, and even politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain—“al-Andalus”—as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: it is a MYTH.
As a reader of ‘Myth of the Andalusian Paradise’, you are a member of the jury. The “defendant” on trial is Islamic-ruled Spain. The “defense attorneys” are the proponents of “La Convivencia” and the transmission bridge theory. The names of the proponents and their specific claims introduce every chapter and main section of this book. These claims are then shown to be false by the “prosecutor” Morera. The verdict? Guilty. There was no ‘convivencia’ … there was ethnic cleansing, severe religious persecution, destruction of heritage buildings and massive plundering. It was more properly an ‘Andalusian Hell’ for Christians, rather than a ‘paradise’.
Considine should be forensically audited to expose his Arabian paymasters.
Mount Zion says
I really like the tweed response of Yasmine Mohammed . Takes guts these days to tell it how it is , to bluntly refute Considine the way she did .
mortimer says
Ibn Khaldun, a Tunisian Islamic scholar who lived in Andaluz, wrote the following depressing assessment of the Arabs of his time and what he witnessed first hand in Spain and elsewhere:
“Places that succumb to the Arabs are quickly RUINED.”
“The reason for this is that (the Arabs) are a savage nation, fully accustomed to savagery and the things that cause it. Savagery has become their character and nature. They enjoy it, because it means freedom from authority and no subservience to leadership. Such a natural disposition is the negation and antithesis of civilization. All the customary activities of the Arabs lead to travel and movement. This is the antithesis and negation of stationariness, which produces civilization. For instance, the Arabs need stones to set them up as supports for their cooking pots. So, they take them from buildings which they tear down to get the stones, and use them for that purpose. Wood, too, is needed by them for props for their tents and for use as tent poles for their dwellings. So, they tear down roofs to get the wood for that purpose. The very nature of their existence is the negation of building, which is the basis of civilization. This is the case with them quite generally.
Furthermore, it is their nature to plunder whatever other people possess. Their sustenance lies wherever the shadow of their lances falls. They recognize no limit in taking the possessions of other people. Whenever their eyes fall upon some property, furnishings, or utensils, they take it. When they acquire superiority androyal authority, they have complete power to plunder (as they please). There no longer exists any political (power) to protect property, and civilization is ruined.
Furthermore, since they use force to make craftsmen and professional workers do their work, they do not see any value in it and do not pay them for it. Now, as we shall mention, (140) labour is the real basis of profit. When labor is not appreciated and is done for nothing, the hope for profit vanishes, and no (productive) work is done. The sedentary population disperses, and civilization decays.”
– from “The Muqaddimah”: https://asadullahali.files.wordpress…muqaddimah.pdf
The Arabs RUINED Spain and what monuments they left behind were built by their highly-skilled CHRISTIAN SLAVES, rather than by Arab Muslims.
Mateen says
Mortimer, unfortunately the link you provide does not work for me. Could you check it and post again? Thanks.
gravenimage says
Mateen, this link didn’t work for me, either. Please try this one:
https://asadullahali.com/
Thanks for this, Mortimer.
mortimer says
Welcome. It’s one of the greatest indictments of the slovenliness and ruin caused by Islam. And it was written by a Muslim … probably he was a Berber … they despise the Arabs who conquered them and forced this Death Cult upon them.
mateenelass says
Thanks, graven. Your link was too general — this is what I was looking for:
https://asadullahali.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/ibn_khaldun-al_muqaddimah.pdf
mortimer says
The massive destruction of highly-civilized Gothic Spain by the Arab invaders (no churches were left standing in southern Spain and most of the population was expelled) reminds one of the words of the Roman orator Calgacus:
“Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant,’ (They make a desert and call it peace.)
JamesC. says
Calgacus was not a Roman orator. Tacitus puts that speech in his mouth, because he was a Scottish war-leader rallying his men before joining battle at Mons Graupius with the invading Romans – it is the Romans under Agricola whom Calgacus says “make a desert, and call it peace”, Tacitus was the son-in-law of Agricola, and the Agricola, from which the quotation comes, is Tacitus’ biography of him.
Making up speeches to express the sentiments deemed appropriate to a character had been a normal part of Greek, then Roman, historiography since Herodotus, 500 years before Tacitus.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calgacus
mortimer says
Considine dare not defend his preposterous whitewashing of Islam in a scheduled debate.
Ecosse1314 says
The guy is a tit. He just wants publicity for his anti historical bs. Best ignored after he has been put in his place.
mortimer says
Considine uses his degree and position in the way of the Appeal to Authority. That fallacy says: ‘Believe this because I have a fancy title … not because the facts support it.’
James Lincoln says
Yes, mortimer.
The naïve will erroneously believe that his degree and position give him credibility..
tim gallagher says
What is the story with lying pieces of crap like this Considine character? Is it merely a bid to get some publicity and sell some book full of bullshit? I don’t believe that anyone who has actually done a bit of research, as I’m guessing that Considine would have done, could actually believe that what he writes is the truth. Maybe he is a perverse type of character who just loves to argue the opposite to the truth. Just loves to have an argument. Maybe some oil rich Arabs are paying this lying piece of crap to be a propagandist (a sort of Goebbels like creature) for islam. I’m guessing that Considine is barely noticed by most people. Probably people like Karen Armstrong, (and some other lying or totally deluded supporters of Islam) with her bullshit views about Muhammad and Islam, has got her rubbish out to a bigger audience over the years than Considine. I don’t know why these people do what they do, but I’m pretty sure they lack integrity and know that they are bullshitting with their rubbish about islam.
Pray Hard says
Sheesh, I haven’t thought about Koran Armstrong in forever. Thanks for reminding me … not.
gravenimage says
Pray Hard, her dishonest tripe was covered here in two articles just recently:
“Karen Armstrong: The Coherence of Her Incoherence”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/01/karen-armstrong-the-coherence-of-her-incoherence
“Wikipedia, Karen Armstrong, and Me”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/01/wikipedia-karen-armstrong-and-me
James Lincoln says
All reasonable possibilities, tim…
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the comments, Pray Hard and James. Pray Hard, Karen Armstrong (Koran is a good, witty name for the fool) was on my mind because she was mentioned here at Jihad Watch recently. Like you I hadn’t paid any attention to her until then. James, who knows why characters like this Goebbels (er, sorry Considine) lie the way they do. Maybe it’s just anything to be a bit controversial and flog a book. I feel sure that they must know that they are lying and that’s the end of them from my point of view. It is OK to be wrong but honest in what you are saying, but not OK to tell straight out lies.
Pray Hard says
Just another paid propagandist for mohamhead’s hordes.
Pray Hard says
Or maybe he just has a moslem boyfriend.
gravenimage says
Craig Considine’s Quranic Cosmopolitism
……………..
The very definition of a dhimmi tool.