von Daniel Pipes,  Jerusalem Post, 25. November 2009

http://de.danielpipes.org/7777/islamismus

Englischer Originaltext: Islamism 2.0
Übersetzung: H. Eiteneier

Um einen Begriff aus der Computerwelt zu nehmen: Wenn Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama bin Laden und Nidal Hassan für den Islamismus 1.0 stehen, dann stehen Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Premierminister der Türkei), Tariq Ramadan (schweizerischer Intellektueller) und Keith Ellison (US-Kongress-Abgeordneter) für den Islamismus 2.0. Die Variante 1.0 tötete mehr Menschen, aber die Version 2.0 stellt eine größere Gefahr für die westliche Zivilisation dar.

Hussam Ayloush (links) als Gast des Kongressabgeordneten Keith Ellison (Demokrat aus Minnesota) auf einer Veranstaltung von CAIR im November 2007.

Die Version 1.0 greift diejenigen an, die als Hindernis für das Ziel einer vom globalen Kalifat beherrschten und völlig von der Scharia (dem islamischen Gesetz) geregelten Welt angesehen werden. Die ursprünglichen Taktiken des Islamismus, von der totalitären Herrschaft bis zum Mega-Terrorismus, schließt grenzenlose Brutalität ein. Dreitausend Tote bei einem Anschlag? Bin Ladens Suche nach atomaren Waffen legt nahe, dass der mörderische Tribut hundert- oder tausenmal höher sein könnte.

Ein Rückblick auf die vergangenen drei Jahrzehnte, seit der Islamismus eine signifikante politische Kraft wurde, zeigt jedoch auf, dass Gewalt alleine selten wirkt. Terror-Überlebende kapitulieren selten vor dem radikalen Islam – weder nach der Ermordung Anwar el-Sadats 1981 in Ägypten, noch nach den 9/11-Anschlägen, den Bomben von Bali 2002, denen von Madrid 2004, dem Bombenanschlag in Amman 2005 oder den Terror-Feldzügen in Israel, dem Irak, Afghanistan oder Pakistan. Terrorismus verursacht physischen Schaden, tötet und schüchtert ein, aber er stürzt selten das bestehende System. Man stelle sich vor, die Islamisten hätten die Verwüstungen eines Hurricane Katrina oder des Tsunami von 2004 verursacht – was hätten diese auf Dauer erreichen können?

Nicht terroristische Gewalt, die darauf abzielt die Scharia einzuführen, ist kaum erfolgreicher. Revolution (eine breite soziale Revolte) brachte Isalmisten nur einmal und an einem Ort an die Macht – im Iran 1978/79. Genauso hat ein Staatsstreich (ein militärischen Umsturz) sie nur einmal an die Macht gebracht – 1989 im Sudan. Dasselbe gilt für einen Bürgerkrieg – Afghanistan 1996.

Wenn die Gewalt des Islamismus 1.0 selten damit Erfolg hat, die Scharia vorwärts zu bringen, so ist die Strategie des Gangs durch das System des Islamismus 2.0 erfolgreicher. Islamisten, die geschickt darin sind die öffentliche Meinung für sich zu gewinnen, repräsentieren die wichtigsten Oppositionskräfte in mehrheitlich muslimischen Staaten wie Marokko, Ägypten, dem Libanon und Kuwait. Islamisten haben in Algerien 1992, Bangladesch 2001, der Türkei 2002 und dem Irak 2005 Wahlerfolge verzeichnen können.

Einmal an der Macht, können sie das Land in Richtung Scharia in Bewegung setzen. Während Mahmud Ahmadinedschad sich dem Zorn der Demonstranten auf der Straße gegenüber sieht und bin Laden in einer Höhle hockt, sonnt sich Erdoğan in öffentlicher Zustimmung, formt die Republik Türkei um und bietet ein verführerisches Modell für die Islamisten in der ganzen Welt.

Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, ägyptischer Al-Qiada-Theoretiker, änderte seinen Denkansatz und befürwortet jetzt den gesetzeskonformen Islamismus.

Als er dieses Muster erkannte, verwarf Al-Qaidas ehemals führender Theoretiker öffentlich den Terrorismus und machte sich politische Mittel zueigen. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (geb. 1950, auch unter seinem nom de guerre Dr. Fado bekannt) wurde beschuldigt bei der Ermordung von Sadat geholfen zu haben. 1988 veröffentlichte er ein Buch, in dem er für immerwährenden, gewalttätigen Jihad gegen den Westen eintrat. Im Lauf der Zeit beobachtete Sharif jedoch die Nutzlosigkeit der gewalttätigen Anschläge und trat stattdessen für eine Strategie der Infiltrierung des Staates und der Beeinflussung der Gesellschaft ein.

In seinem vor kurzem veröffentlichen Buch verurteilte er die Anwendung von Gewalt gegen Muslime (“Die Verantwortung für jeden Tropfen Blut, der in Afghanistan oder dem Irak vergossen wurde oder vergossen wird, liegt bei bin Landen und Zawahiri und ihren Anhängern.”) und sogar gegen Nichtmuslime (9/11war kontraproduktiv, denn: “Was ist gut daran, wenn du ein Gebäude deines Feindes zerstörst und er zerstört eines deiner Länder? Was ist gut daran, wenn du einen von ihnen tötest und er tötet Tausende deines Volks?”).

Sharifs Entwicklung vom Theoretiker des Terrorismus zum Anwalt der gesetzeskonformen Verwandlung gibt eine Verschiebung auf breiterer Basis wieder; dementsprechend, notiert Autor Lawrence Wright, stellt sein Überlaufen für die Al-Qaida eine “furchtbare Bedrohung” dar. Andere einst gewalttätige islamistische Organisationen in Algerien, Ägypten und Syrien haben das Potenzial des gesetzeskonformen Islamismus erkannt und weitgehend die Gewalt aufgegben. Man kann eine parallele Verschiebung auch in westlichen Ländern beobachten; Ramadan und Ellison repräsentieren einen wachsenden Trend.

(Was man “Islamismus 1.5″ nennen könnte – eine Kombination aus harten und weichen Mitteln, aus externer und interner Vorgehensweise – funktioniert ebenfalls. Dazu gehören gesetzeskonforme Islamisten, die den Feind weich machen; ihnen folgen gewalttätige Elemente, die die Macht übernehmen. Die Übernahme des Gazastreifens durch die Hamas beweist, dass eine solche Kombination funktionieren kann: Wahlsieg 2006, dann 2007 Inszenierung eines gewalttätigen Aufstandes. Ähnliche Prozesse sind möglicherweise in Pakistan im Gang. Großbritannien könnte den entgegengesetzten Prozess durchmachen, bei dem Gewalt eine Öffnung in der Politik schafft.

Die Schlussfolgerung: Nur Islamisten, nicht Faschisten und Kommunisten, sind weit über rohe Gewalt hinaus gegangen, um öffentliche Unterstützung zu gewinnen und eine 2.0-Version zu entwickeln. Weil dieser Aspekt des Islamismus die traditionellen Werte untergräbt und Freiheiten zerstört, könnte er das zivilisierte Leben noch mehr bedrohen als die Brutalität des Islamismus 1.0.

Mettiamo subito in chiaro una cosa. Il primo che mi parla di Medio Oriente, Islam e islamismo citando Daniel Pipes si becca semplicemente questo link. Questo polemista – perché questo è – ha un sito molto frequentato ed è uno dei principali esponenti di teorie della cospirazione – perché questo sono -  come quella dell’Islam in guerra contro l’Occidente e alla conquista dell’Europa. Sì, teorie della cospirazione, esattamente come quelle formulate ai danni della cultura ebraica.

Questo è il primo post di ‘New Orientalism’, una rubrica che esamina il metodo e le nozioni attraverso cui media ed esperti articolano le rappresentazioni dell’Islam e della cultura arabo-islamica. Quello sull’Orientalismo è stato un dibattito importantissimo nella costituzione dei Middle East Studies, e fu seguito con interesse anche da altre discipline soprattutto dopo la pubblicazione di Orientalism di Edward Said: una critica dettagliata e rigorosa dell’approccio dominante nello studio delle società arabo-musulmane. Ritengo che le critiche mosse da Said nel ‘78 siano più che mai attuali, soprattutto se applicate alla retorica di alcuni politici e giornalisti nazionali. In Italia invece nessuno ne parla mai, anche se non mi sorprende affatto. Almeno finché  le argomentazioni autorevoli in materia saranno quelle di Daniela Santanché, la quale non soltanto ignora la storia della civiltà islamica, ma anche i costumi sessuali di quella greco-romana.

Daniel Pipes Brings Weak Sauce to the Discussion About Shariah Courts in the West

In Part 1 of this article, we discussed Daniel Pipes’s claim that Jews don’t want to force their religious views on others, unlike Muslims who supposedly do.  In Part 2, we’ll question Daniel Pipes’ claim that Islam is inherently misogynistic.

David Green, a right-winger belonging to Civitas, declared on BBC Radio that Islamic law is totally unlike Jewish law in that it oppresses women.  Daniel Pipes uses similar reasoning, arguing that Sharia should be banned because it is–unlike Jewish Halakha–”inescapably misogynistic”:

…Ignorant, isolated [Muslim] females would submit to the inescapably misogynistic Sharia, a law code that [1] permits parents to marry off pre-pubescent girls, [2] men to marry multiple women, [3] husbands alone to divorce, [4] fathers automatically to win custody of children over certain ages, and [5] sons to inherit more than daughters.

Let’s take these one at a time, shall we?  We’ll play both defense and offense:

[1] Marriage of pre-pubescent girls

Defense:  Technically, the Sharia allows Muslim parents to contract a marriage contract on behalf of their pre-pubescent daughters, but the marriage remains suspended (mawquf) until the girl reaches maturity, whereupon she is given the right of khiyar al-bulugh, i.e. the right to annul the marriage. (For a detailed discussion of this topic, please read this here starting from page 68.)

Offense: Daniel Pipes has argued that Islamic law is unacceptable since it supposedly allows marriage of pre-pubescent girls, yet on the other hand he wholeheartedly thinks that Halakha should be allowed in the West.  Yet, Jewish law itself allows marriage of pre-pubertal girls!  According to Rabbi Naftali Silberberg of AskMoses.com, the Halakha allows Jewish girls to marry at the age of three:

What is the minimum age of marriage according to Jewish law?
by Rabbi Naftali Silberberg

…In ancient (and not so ancient) times however, marriage was often-times celebrated at a rather young age. Although we do not follow this dictum, technically speaking, a girl may be betrothed the moment she is born, and married at the age of three. [Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 37:1.]

The editor of the site clarifies: “There is the technical rule, and then there is the proper, practical, and wise thing to do. The Talmud, too, agrees that technically according to Torah law a girl can be married at a very young age, but the rabbis imposed a prohibition on such an unwise practice.”  In other words, the law itself allows it, but the rabbis generally discourage or even disallow it due to practical considerations.

Some more defense:  Just as rabbis have prohibited under-aged marriage even though technically the Halakha allows it, similarly many Muslim leaders have fought to raise the minimum age of marriage to eighteen years old, and they do not think this is a violation of Sharia to do so; rather, they argue that in this time and age it is in fact in accordance with the objectives (maqasid) of the Sharia to do so.  They also argue that conforming to international agreements is binding from a religious angle.

Red herring: Jewish law (Halakha) allows marriage of pre-pubertal girls, yet Daniel Pipes still supports allowing Halakha in the West.  Of course, the entire matter is a red herring, since the religious arbitration courts of Canada were only permitted to act within Canadian law.  This is a concept that many average readers did not quite grasp!  In other words, if the religious law clashed with Canadian law, then the Canadian law would rule supreme; marriage of under-aged girls would never be tolerated in Canada, Sharia courts or no Sharia courts! So it is odd that Daniel Pipes would even mention this, but I guess it is a similar tactic that neoconservatives rely on to fear monger, such as the imaginary “death panels” that Sarah Palin invented.

[2] Polygamy

Defense: Opinions towards polygamy differ widely amongst Muslims of various persuasions.  Reform-minded Muslims are inclined to consider polygamy as the exception, not the rule.  According to the Sharia, a woman can forbid the husband from marrying a second wife by making such a clause in the prenuptial agreement (nikah contract). In any case, Muslims do not believe it is permissible to break the law of the land in this matter.

Offense: I’ll let Rabbi Naftali Silberberg do the talking:

Does Jewish law forbid polygamy?
by: Rabbi Naftali Silberberg

The Torah does not forbid a man from having multiple wives. Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon are notable examples of biblical figures who wedded more than one wife.

Approximately 1000 years ago, the noted German scholar, Rabbi Gershom “the Light of the Diaspora,” banned polygamy.  This ban was accepted as law by all Ashkenazi Jews but was not recognized by Sephardic and Yemenite communities.

Practically speaking, polygamy is almost non-existent today even amongst Sephardic Jews, due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of them live in societies where polygamy is not legally and/or socially acceptable…

So technically the Halakha does not forbid polygamy, and to this day Sephardic Jews hold it to be permissible.  And even the ban accepted by Ashkenazi Jews has a “loophole” in it, as Rabbi Silberberg adds in the footnote: “There is a loophole in this ban, allowing a man to marry a second wife under certain extenuating circumstances.”

Red herring: Once again, even if Sharia arbitration courts were allowed, polygamy would still be outlawed in Canada, so this is another red herring brought forth by Pipes.

[3] Husbands alone have the right to divorce

Defense: Islam allows khula (female initiated divorce).  If a Muslim wife does not like her husband–and thinks it unbearable to live with him–then she is granted a divorce, even against the husband’s wishes.  (For a detailed discussion, read this here, starting on page 69.)

Offense: Jewfaq.org says:

Under Jewish law, a man can divorce a woman for any reason or no reason. The Talmud specifically says that a man can divorce a woman because she spoiled his dinner or simply because he finds another woman more attractive, and the woman’s consent to the divorce is not required.

Inequality of the Sexes

The position of husband and wife with regard to divorce is not an equal one. According to the Talmud, only the husband can initiate a divorce, and the wife cannot prevent him from divorcing her. Later rabbinical authorities took steps to ease the harshness of these rules by…compel[ing] a husband to divorce his wife under certain circumstances: when he is physically repulsive because of some medical condition or other characteristic, when he violates or neglects his marital obligations (food, clothing and sexual intercourse), or, according to some views, when there is sexual incompatibility.

A peculiar problem arises, however, if a man disappears or deserts his wife or is presumed dead but there is insufficient proof of death. Under Jewish law, divorce can only be initiated by the man; thus, if the husband cannot be found, he cannot be compelled to divorce the wife and she cannot marry another man. A woman in this situation is referred to as agunah (literally, anchored).

In other words, in most situations, a Jewish woman–according to the Halakha–cannot obtain a divorce (get) from her husband unless he agrees to it, making it difficult to get out of emotionally abusive relationships.  As Susan Weiss, an Israeli defense lawyer, says: “Rabbinical courts almost never compel a husband to give a get [i.e. divorce].”

The Jewish Chronicle writes:

Under Jewish law, if a man refuses his wife a get, a religious bill of divorce, she is considered an agunah, a chained woman denied the right to remarriage.

Furthermore, husbands can extort their wives, only giving divorces for huge sums of money:

Most of the time, the cost of [a woman's] freedom is just money. Payment is usually in installments…The Israeli Supreme Court has sanctioned such waivers, viewing the get as an adequate quid pro quo.

[4] Fathers win custody over children

Defense:  In fact, the Sharia seems slanted towards mothers in this regard.  Generally speaking, the children are to be awarded to the parent who is fitter for parental duties.   If, however, both are equally fit, then the mother is favored over the father up until the age of about eight years of age.  Past the age of eight, the child has a right to choose which parent to live with. For a detailed discussion, please read this fatwa from an ultraconservative Islamic website, which states:

Women have more right to custody of children than men; in principle custody belongs to them, because they are more compassionate and more kind, and they know better how to raise small children, and they are more patient in dealing with the difficulties involved.

Offense:  In the Jewish Halakha, as enforced by Israel, the father can ensure that he gets sole custody of the children.  This article here–written by the Israeli defense lawyer I cited above–explains why.  As I discussed in the previous point, a Jewish woman can only get a divorce if her husband agrees to it; many husbands refuse to give a divorce unless she forfeits her right to custody, forcing her to choose between her freedom and her children.  Weiss laments:

How much is your freedom worth? Would you give up custody of your child to free yourself from an oppressive marriage?  …These problems torment my clients daily. I am a divorce lawyer in the State of Israel. I also happen to be an Orthodox Jew. Every time I represent someone petitioning for divorce, my client must inevitably pay for his or her freedom…A few of my clients have bought their freedom at the cost of their children. I once represented a woman whose husband refused to give her a get–a Jewish divorce–unless she gave up custody of her son. After two years of litigation, she relinquished custody in return for her get [divorce].

[5] Sons inherit more than daughters

Defense: According to Sharia, a son receives twice the inheritance of a daughter.  Muslim apologists point out a few things: First, it should be understood that prior to Islam, the pre-Islamic culture of the region dictated that women receive no inheritance whatsoever.  When the Islamic prophet Muhammad legislated that the daughters would from now on receive an inheritance–half though it may be–the “pagans” and converts to Islam decried this progressive law, arguing that women did not fight in battle and therefore should receive no inheritance.  (At that time, inheritance was linked to bravery on the battlefield.)  Muslim apologists argue that one must view the Sharia in the context that it was revealed in; it didn’t reduce female inheritance, but rather reduced male inheritance in order to give women a share.  For that particular time, the Sharia was considered progressive.

They also argue that a Muslim man has a much greater financial responsibility than the female.  A man must–according to the Sharia–financially support his wife, children, parents, and widowed sisters; meanwhile, there is no such obligation on a woman, who does not even have to provide for herself.   Furthermore, a man’s wealth is–again, according to the Sharia–shared by the wife, whereas a female’s wealth is all her own and the husband cannot touch it.

Offense: In any case, one might not be satisfied with the defense that Muslim apologists come up with, but it’s really besides the point, since Daniel Pipes was comparing Islamic Sharia to Jewish Halakha.  According to the Halakha, a daughter does not inherit at all; we read:

INHERITANCE

The Torah laws of succession state that when a man dies and leaves sons as well as daughters, the sons inherit his state, whereas the daughters receive nothing.

The Torah of course is a part of the Bible, and the above is referring to Numbers 27:1-11, in which God speaks to Moses and informs him that women will inherit only when a father leaves behind no sons.  This fact–that the Bible gives no inheritance to daughters if there are sons–is of course lost on the Islamophobes when they call the Quran “misogynistic” for giving only half the inheritance to daughters; and here, we are talking about those Islamophobes who have a deep respect and admiration for the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Daniel Pipes Brings Weak Sauce

Daniel Pipes brought up five points of criticism, yet each of these five points applies to the Halakha equally if not more so. How is it then that Pipes is so adamantly opposed to Sharia based on its supposedly “inescapably misogynistic” nature, but at the same time supports Halakhic courts?  This double-standard exposes his profound bias and bigotry.  It is this attitude–of selective “scholarship” and horrific double-standards–which actually typifies the approach of the Islamophobes in general, including Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Pam Geller, Bat Ye’or, and the rest of the goof troop.  For example, in an interview with Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks, Pam Geller goes off on a tirade about how oppressive and warlike Muslims have been throughout history, yet when Cenk counters this by saying that Christian history has also been oppressive and warlike, Pam completely denies this fact.  It is this sort of selective analysis which buttresses the Islamophobic ideology.

Daniel Pipes argues that the Jewish courts should be allowed to operate because–according to him–the system worked, and so why are these Mooslims now messing things up?  Pipes wrote:

The system quietly worked. “If there have been any problems flowing from any rabbinical court decisions, I’m not aware of them.”

Yet, that’s not true at all; and again, it’s a case of selective analysis. A rabbinical court in London divorced a woman from her husband against her will on the grounds that she “dressed provocatively, worse than a common harlot.”  In another decision, a London-based rabbinical court banned a child from a school on the basis that he was a Non-Jew, rejecting his conversion to Judaism as unauthentic. A third example is of a man named Nick Lowenstein who kept his wife “chained” (agunah) for over fifteen years, refusing to give her a divorce that she desperately desired; the London-based rabbinical court refused to force the husband to give a get (Jewish divorce).

Broader Conclusions

In the end, the anti-Sharia circus succeeded and the government of Ontario banned Sharia courts.  However, in order to be fair, the Ontario government banned all religious arbitration courts, including the Halakhic-based ones.  The government then announced that every citizen would follow the same law.

I have mixed feelings about the government’s decision.  My view is that either you allow religious courts for every faith, or you disallow it for all.  The government took the latter course, so what’s my problem?  Well, the problem for me is that the other religions operated their own courts for many long years, and nobody said anything.  It was only until some Muslims asked for the same privilege that suddenly the ban was put into effect.

Naturally, it seems that the ban was put into place due to the climate of Islamophobia.  It is similar to the ban on hijab in France, legislation which was passed specifically to target Muslims, but which was then applied to Jews and Christians to some extent in order to give the illusion of fair play.  Had religious courts been banned from the beginning, I would have had no problem.  But the fact is that they were only banned when some Muslims asked for the same rights as people of other faiths.

I myself have reservations about religious courts operating in the West, be they of any religion.  Having said that, I actually agree with Daniel Pipes when he says that the 1991 Arbitration Act (which allowed these religious courts) was “an enlightened, multicultural piece of legislation.”  My only issue is that it really depends on who is running these religious courts: is it reform-minded Jews and Muslims who want to update their religious laws to deal with the modern reality, or are they ultraconservative traditionalists who live frozen in the past?

But my real issue with this whole fiasco was not at all whether or not religious courts should be allowed or not.  I can see good arguments on both sides of this issue.  My real problem is with the rhetoric and discourse that abounded at the time, the level of unchecked Islamophobia.  There was a wholesale attack on Islam, singling it out as this heathen faith that must be fought tooth and nail.  The reality, however, is that Islam is just like any other religion when it comes to these matters.

Disclaimer

This article may have come across as harsh upon Jews, Judaism, and Halakha which of course was not my intention.  I almost regret Daniel Pipes choosing Jews and Halakha as a counter-example to Muslims, Islam, and Sharia.  I am not at all pitting Muslims against Jews.  I don’t view the world in that way.  I view the world as split between extremists and moderates.  I see the extremists of all the different religions (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, etc.) as essentially being part of the same team, even though they hate each other.  They are part of the same team because they have the same myopic mentality and binary view of the world.

Meanwhile, there is the rest–the great majority–who are the moderates of all the various faiths (or no faith at all), who just want to live and let live.  Daniel Pipes created the comparison between Sharia and Halakha and I thought it necessary to shatter his argument that Muslims wish to enforce their views on others but not Jews.  The reality is that there are zealots and nutters in all religions.

There are clearly Jewish reformers, who are working to make Halakha compatible with the modern day reality.  Rabbis have come up with innovative ways of staying true to their religion but at the same time of removing injustice.  For example, moderate rabbis have argued that couples should sign prenuptial agreements that would make it difficult for a husband to retain his wife against her will.  In this article I only highlighted the problems that have arisen due to Halakha, but have not elaborated on the solutions that many practicing Jews have offered.  Therefore, please do not use my article as something to bash Jews, Judaism, or Halakha with.

My purpose here was simply to illustrate that the problems (which were red herrings in the first place) that people have with Islam can be found in other religions, such as Judaism.  Therefore, the singling out of Islam is uncalled for and inappropriate.  The climate of Islamophobia has created a huge double-standard, where Islam is called to task for what other religions are not.  More specifically, this article is directed to Daniel Pipes, exposing his hypocritical attitude: his worldview is not based on logic or facts, but a palpable hatred for Islam and Muslims which has blinded him.

Many of the critics of Sharia courts in the West are Islamophobes who expend 99% of their energy attacking Islam and Muslims, using “I also oppose other religions” only as a cheap disclaimer when questioned about their deep-seated hatred of Islam.  Where was all their outrage for the last fifteen years when Halakhic courts were operating in the West?  Were they questioning the right of Jews to live in Europe and North America as some are questioning the right of Muslims to live here?  Were there pontifications about the improbability or impossibility of Muslims integrating into society?  Truly, the new adage is: one standard for Muslims and another one for the rest of humanity.

President Obama har alltså tilldelats Nobels fredspris. Beslutet har mötts med blandade känslor, förvåning och skepticism. Varför gör den norska nobelkommittén på detta viset? För egen del tror jag att Claes Arvidsson i SvD och Daniel Pipes kommer sanningen nära: Priset är delvis en markering mot George W Bush.

Göteborgs-Posten skriver, att Obama har

inlett vad som kan ses som en löftesrik kursändring av amerikansk utrikespolitik – bort från den aggressiva konfrontationsinriktning som George W Bush representerade och över mot en mer lyssnande, anständig och dialoginriktad linje.

GP sammanfattar väl någon slags mainstream-mjäkig politiskt korrekt europeisk syn på hur utrikespolitik bör bedrivas. Men den är farlig i de allra flesta avseenden, eftersom den av dem som står för den verkligt aggressiva konfrontationen, bara uppfattas som svaghetstecken.

- När al-Qaida aggressivt konfronterade USA genom att anfalla och döda tusentals människor den 11/9 2001: skulle det anständiga svaret från USA ha varit att lyssna och inrikta sig på dialog?
- När Hamas’ aggressivt konfronterar och anfaller Israel med Kassamraketer i det uttalade syftet att utplåna Israel genom anfallskrig: skulle det anständiga svaret från Israel ha varit att lyssna och inrikta sig på dialog?
- När Iran aggressivt konfronterar och provskjuter anfallsvapen på den judiska försoningsdagen: skulle det anständiga svaret från USA och Israel vara att lyssna och inrikta sig på dialog?
- När Saddam Hussein-regimen aggressivt konfronterar och skickar raketer mot Israel och genom anfallskrig ockuperar och annekterar Kuwait: skulle det anständiga svaret från USA vara att lyssna och inrikta sig på dialog?

Nej, knappast.

Har al-Qaida, Hamas och Iran någonsin bett om en dialog med USA? Nej, knappast. Det enda man kan höra från dem är skramlet av vapen och raketernas muller. Det är alldeles uppenbart att den “dialog” al-Qaida, Hamas och Iran vill föra inte ska ske med ord utan med vapen.

Men om då USA, eller för den delen Israel, svarar med samma mynt: vapen, så uppfattas detta märkligt nog som en aggressiv konfrontationspolitik!

Saddam Hussein-regimen bekämpades, inte med dialog, utan med vapen. Därigenom har Irak nu fått möjligheten att utvecklas till en demokrati och en rättsstat som inte hotar andra länder med anfallskrig.

Och normalt sett är det så krig bör föras, nämligen till dess motståndaren kapitulerar. Man för inte dialog med fienden, man besegrar honom.

De allierades försvarskrig mot Nazityskland fördes till dess Nazityskland kapitulerade. Någon dialog var inte aktuell. Hur skulle det ha sett ut om Hitler hade deltagit i Jalta, Teheran, Potsdam? Ur ruinerna av det besegrade Nazityskland föddes ett fritt, demokratiskt och fredligt Tyskland.

Den fria världens försvarskrig mot al-Qaida, Hamas och Iran – Iran understödjer Hisbollahs anfallskrig mot Israel, och hotar enligt JPost (se länk nedan) med att “spränga Israels hjärta” – bör på samma sätt föras till dess angriparen besegrats och kapitulerat.

Att nu börja tala om ett lyssnande, en dialog som mera anständigt än försvar är direkt skadligt. Det går inte att kompromissa med de kompromisslösa, med de stater och politiska rörelser som verkar för Israels ovillkorliga utplåning, för världens ovillkorliga underkastelse under den islamiska lagen och som i likhet med Khomeini anser, att “Allt gott som existerar gör det tack vare svärdet och i svärdets skugga!”

Alltså måste man med svärdet stå emot dem som ovillkorligen vill använda svärdet för att uppnå sina onda syften. Detta är tyvärr det enda språk de förstår.

Låt oss hoppas att president Obama också kommer att förstå det innan det är försent.

Det borde nu vara dags att instifta ett demokrati- och frihetspris. Ett sådant pris skulle vara mera värt än ett fredspris. När Israel utplånats och när världen underkastat sig islam med svärdets hjälp uppnås visserligen fred, precis som fred förelåg både i Auschwitz och i Gulag-arkipelagen. Men förelåg frihet och demokrati? Nej, tvärtom: Där var slaveri, död och diktatur. Fred är som du ser alltså inte tillräckligt för att kunna leva ett människovärdigt liv. Det krävs demokrati och frihet också – men även många andra saker, såsom tro, hopp, kärlek …

Om det funnes ett demokrati- och frihetspris, borde George W Bush få det. Han har nämligen förstått vad saken gäller och agerat utifrån denna insikt. Heder åt honom!

- På denna bild ser man vad som enligt malisen är några fler Obama-supportrar, vid sidan av GP och norska nobelkommittén alltså:

Två av dem som förekommer på bilden har numera fått Nobels fredspris: Obama och Carter. En som märkligt nog inte finns på bild är fredspristagaren Arafat. Han är visserligen död, liksom “vännen” Yassin. Men deras fördärvliga inflytande lever tyvärr kvar. Läs mera om “Obamas fan-club?” här.

Länkar: Sapere Aude!, Ulf Nilson på Newsmill, JPost, DN, SvD, YNet.

***

Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om kärnvapen, Israel, islamism, Hamas, demokrati, försvar, Barack Obama, Adolf Hitler, Jimmy Carter, Yassir Arafat, Sheik Yassin, George W Bush, Khomeini, Hisbollah, al-Qaida, Iran, Jalta, Teheran, Potsdam, Nazityskland, Tyskland, Kassamraketer, USA, Daniel Pipes, fredspriset

Daniel Pipes Brings Some Weak Sauce

In 2003, Islamophobes issued a code red, claiming that the Canadian government would soon “enforce Sharia” in Ontario.  Immediately, some people began assuming that somehow democratic law was about to be overthrown and a draconian Taliban-style corporal system enacted.  Islamophobes played up these fears, and applied pressure on the government of Ontario to outlaw Sharia.

The issue of course is that most people do not exactly understand what Sharia is, and conflate it with the term Hadud (Islamic corporal punishments).  What the Ontario government was planning on doing was to allow Muslim arbitration courts, which would have absolutely nothing to do with Hadud.  (For the record, moderate Muslims do not believe in the Taliban understanding of Hadud, contrary to what the Islamophobes insist.  They have their own moderate and reformist understanding of Hadud consistent with the contemporary age.  But, alas, this is not the topic of our discussion today, as Ontario never planned on enacting the Hadud anyways!)

Let us be clear then: Ontario was never going to allow any understanding of Hadud–”enlightened” or otherwise; rather, when people said that Sharia was going to be allowed in Ontario, the meaning of this was simply that Muslims could–if they so choose–settle their family, religious, and other civil disputes according to their religious beliefs.  (And this only if both parties agreed to do so!)  But the Islamophobes used the buzz word “Sharia”–which people mistakenly conflate with Hadud (a misconception popularized unfortunately by the Taliban)–to create controversy and fear.

For the record, we must make it clear that LoonWatch is not a religious site.  We’re a non-partisan group for and by people of all different faiths (or no faith at all); our shared goal is simply to combat hatred and bigotry and to remain consistent to humanity’s shared universal values.  So we are not going to concern ourselves with theological or religious debates as to which religious law is right and which is wrong, or even if religious courts should be allowed or not.

But we will concern ourselves with discrimination, which is exactly what went on here.  All religions should be treated equally in Canada; either all of them should be allowed to have their own arbitration courts or none of them. To allow some religious groups this privilege and deny it to others is inherently unfair and discriminatory.

You see, what most people overlooked was the fact that “for years, Jews, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mennonites, and aboriginals, among others, made use of [their own] arbitration [courts] to settle family law questions without using Ontario’s court system.”

Like Muslims have Sharia (Islamic law), Jews have “Halakha” (Jewish law).  The two are amazingly similar, since after all, the Sharia is based in the Jewish law (as both are Abrahamic faiths that share a common origin).  Since the 1990’s, Jews have been allowed their own Halakhic courts, and nobody had any qualms over this.

Suddenly though, when Muslims sought to have their own Sharia arbitration courts, the Islamophobes cried foul.  So why the double standard?  Muslims–and other sensible people–asked the question: if Jews could have their own arbitration courts according to Halakha, then why not Muslims?  Why was Halakha considered Kosher and Sharia considered Haram?

Enter the Islamophobes

Daniel Pipes–a modern day McCarthyist–led the charge against Sharia courts. Let me clarify: I’m not responding to Daniel Pipes to defend the idea of Sharia courts.  As I explain at the end of Part 2 of this article, I have mixed feelings about religious courts in general.  My issue here is with the reasons Daniel Pipes gives as to why he is opposed to Sharia courts, and his double-standards and hypocrisy.

You see, Daniel Pipes is not opposed to religious courts; he’s only opposed to Islamic courts.  His article expresses dismay that Jewish Halakhic courts will no longer operate in the same capacity as they did before.  In other words, if it were up to him, he would allow Halakha in the West, but not Sharia.  Pipes wrote in an article entitled “Why Shariah Must Be Opposed”:

Those of us who argue against Shariah are sometimes asked why Islamic law poses a problem when modern Western societies long ago accommodated Halakha, or Jewish law. In fact, this was one of the main talking points of those who argued that Shariah should become an accepted part of dispute resolution in Ontario in 2005.

The answer is easy: a fundamental difference separates the two. Islam is a missionizing religion, Judaism is not. Islamists aspire to apply Islamic law to everyone, while observant Jews seek only to live by Jewish law themselves.

Two very recent examples from the United Kingdom demonstrate the innate imperialism of Islamic law.

Pipes then gives two examples of how Muslims seek to “impose Sharia” on others: (1) the first is of a man named Zulfikar Ali Khan who started serving Halal food to his Non-Muslim residents in an old age home; (2) the second example is of policewomen wearing headscarves to enter mosques, an initiative which two police forces in Southwest England have adopted.

Well, there you have it!  That is Daniel Pipes’ entire argument: two random examples which he thinks somehow proves that Muslims want to enforce their religious beliefs upon non-Muslims, whilst Jews want to simply apply their own laws to themselves.

Jewish Examples

The first example Pipes gives is of a man who served Halal only food in a building he owned.  What about the multiple Subway outlets across the country (located in such places as New York, Miami, and Indianapolis) which turned Kosher only?  Not only is the meat kosher, but the restaurants refuse to serve ham, bacon, cheese, and crab (all of which are forbidden according to Jewish law); additionally, the store remains closed on the Sabbath:

Ham and bacon were removed from the menu, the “cheese” is made of soy, and the Seafood Sensation sandwich is filled with imitation crab. Two microwaves and toaster ovens ensure that fish and meat are kept separate, a consideration for more observant Jews. There is a full-time mashgiach, or kosher supervisor, and the restaurant is closed on Shabbat.

Islamophobes might lose their minds if their local Subways started closing down on Fridays (the Islamic holy day).  It would be another sign of “creeping Sharia” and of “stealth Jihad,” or even of impending “dhimmitude.”

(The truth is that if you own a business, you can serve Halal, Kosher, or whatever you want.  If customers don’t want that, they stop coming and you run out of business.  Ahh, the beauties of capitalism.)

To give an even clearer example, we have the ultra-Orthodox Jews of Israel who force the majority secular population (along with non-Jews) to observe strict Kosher laws; we read:

Public transport comes to a halt on the Sabbath even though the majority of Israelis believe it should continue to operate. Shops are forced to close and all restaurants and stores are forced to keep kosher rules, with the sale of pork strictly forbidden.

So why on earth would Daniel Pipes focus on one single Muslim man who served Halal food, and ignore the fact that the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel force the entire population (including non-Jews) to observe kosher rules (with the sale of pork strictly forbidden)?

In fact, Daniel Pipes had said in his article “Why Shariah Must Be Opposed:”

Returning to pork: both Islam and Judaism abominate the flesh of pigs, so this prohibition offers a direct and revealing comparison of the two religions. Simply put, Jews accept that non-Jews eat pork but Muslims take offense and try to impede pork consumption.

I’m afraid, Dr. Pipes, that your point was just shot to pieces.  The non-Jewish and secular residents of Israel would beg to differ!

The second example that Daniel Pipes gave–as to why Halakha but no Sharia–was of police officers wearing headscarves in mosques.  Yet, Jewfaq.org tells us that non-Jews are expected to wear skullcaps and head coverings when they enter synagogues:

Non-Jews Visiting a Synagogue

Non-Jews are always welcome to attend services in a synagogue, so long as they behave as proper guests. Proselytizing and “witnessing” to the congregation are not proper guest behavior…

A man should wear a yarmulke (skullcap) if Jewish men in the congregation do so; yarmulkes are available at the entrance for those who do not have one. In some synagogues, married women should also wear a head covering. A piece of lace sometimes called a “chapel hat” is generally provided for this purpose in synagogues where this is required.

Non-Jews should not, however, wear a tallit (prayer shawl) or tefillin, because these items are signs of our obligation to observe Jewish law.

If you are in an Orthodox synagogue, be careful to sit in the right section: men and women are seated separately in an Orthodox synagogue.

Just as the police officers were provided headscarves to wear when they enter mosques, Jews expect non-Jews to wear skullcaps and head coverings (chapel hats) when they enter, and extra skullcaps and head coverings are placed at the entrance for this purpose.  Oh, the horror!

Some More Examples

Just to go over the top, I’ll provide some more examples so that Daniel Pipes and company have no way out.  Where to begin?  OK, this story reported in the Washington Post seems a good place to start:

Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews clashed with riot police in central Jerusalem on Saturday night in the latest protest against the city’s decision to open a municipal parking lot on the Jewish Sabbath.

Dressed in traditional cloaks and fur hats, demonstrators forced the closure of several major streets, and some hurled rocks at motorists along a Jerusalem highway…The decision to open the lot was seen as an official endorsement of driving on a day when Jewish law prohibits operating machinery, even pushing elevator buttons

This group of Jews wanted to prevent even non-Jews from driving:

[Jerusalem Mayor] Barkat changed the location of the open lot to one farther from an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood, promised it would be staffed by non-Jews and waived fees so money would not change hands, another Sabbath prohibition.

Still, the crowds have gathered. An estimated 30,000 people joined in a mass prayer one Friday night in June, and there are plans for a children’s protest this week.

“It’s as if they are calling upon the public to come and desecrate the Sabbath,” said Rabbi Yitzhak Goldknop, secretary of the Rabbinical Committee for the Sanctity of the Sabbath. “It hurts us and hurts our feelings and the feelings of any believing Jew.”

This is not an isolated event.  In fact, cars are routinely stoned in Israel if they move about on the Sabbath:

…One of these suburbs, Mea Shearim, is infamous for the stoning of moving cars on Shabat, the Jewish Sabbath.

How’s that for forcing your beliefs on others?

Such incidents have worried the non-Jewish and secular residents:

Secular residents, however, worry about intolerance and a loss of diversity, citing demands for gender-segregated buses, the recent jailing of a member of a “chastity squad” who assaulted a woman he thought was dressed immodestly…

This leads to our next example, which is of some Jews forcing companies to segregate their buses and make women sit at the back.  The Independent reports:

‘Sinful’ city buses stoned by ultra-Orthodox Jews

[An] Israeli bus…is pelted with stones that smash windows and startle passengers…The violence is part of an unholy war in which strident elements of the ultra-Orthodox community in Mea Shearim are trying to force Israel’s leading bus company – and, by extension, Israeli society– to defer to their strict religious teachings and sensibilities…

The latest battle is over demands that buses segregate men and women in accordance with strict Jewish law…In the view of some ultra-Orthodox Jews, segregated seating, with women entering separately through the rear door and sitting at the back, is vital to uphold their stringent traditions stipulating modesty and prohibiting physical contact with members of the opposite sex.

Secularists say the push for sanctity on the buses is part of a larger effort to transform Jerusalem into a kind of Tehran…

Menachem Kenig, head of a committee pressing for segregated buses, says Israel’s leading bus company, Egged, is in effect forcing religious people to sin. “The one place where men and women are forced to be together is on the bus,” he says. “People are crowded in, men and women push up against each other. There are sudden stops and sharp turns and men fall on the women. This really angers us, it is a violation of the concept of modesty that is at the basis of the ultra-orthodox community.”

But Laura Wharton, a secularist member of the Jerusalem city council, says the attempt to force a new segregated bus line is “outrageous and extremist”, adding: “It is humiliating to be sent to the back of the bus.”

Can you imagine if this had been Muslims who were pelting buses in order to force women to the back of the bus?   Daniel Pipes and company would be creating pandemonium!  But suddenly they are quiet as mice.

Immodestly dressed women are not allowed to board these Israeli buses, and are man-handled if they try to; the Guardian reports:

With the demographics skewed in [ultra-Orthodox] favour, government authorities are acquiescing to the growing demands of the ultra-orthodox. The transport ministry, which regulates and funds bus transport through private companies, has allowed operators to provide ‘kosher’ or ‘pure’ routes, where women are required to sit at the back and cannot board unless appropriately dressed.

More than a dozen women have filed complaints after being verbally or physically attacked on the buses. ‘Sometimes it’s an official group but often it’s one or two men who start to complain and the other men follow,’ said the Israel Religious Action Centre’s legal director, Einat Hurvitz. ‘The drivers allow them to intimidate the women.’ Haredi women also participated in the bullying.

‘I was wearing jeans and a long sleeved T-shirt and as I was getting on the bus someone told me I couldn’t get on the bus like that,’ said Iris Yoffe who was travelling from Jerusalem to her parents’ home in the northern city of Haifa. ‘I ignored him and paid the driver.’ But then, said Yoffe, two women blocked her way and told her to get off. ‘When I refused they started yelling at me.’

Moving on, we have the example of some Jews trying to close down shops that were selling mp4 players, which–according to them–is a violation of Halakha; Israel News (YNet) reports:

Battle against MP4 players

…The demonstrators directed their anger at a store on the Shabbat Square accused of selling “non-kosher” MP4 players.

On Wednesday evening, a group of yeshiva students demonstrated opposite another store in Meah Shearim, demanding that it stop selling “impure films.”

So Dr. Pipes, here we have an example of Jews trying to force others to adhere to their religious laws and there are more examples, such as ultra-Orthodox Jews throwing out children from schools if their families own computers, which they consider to be a violation of the Halakha.  The Guardian reports:

…Time is spent checking out reports of illicit use of new technologies by members of the [ultra-Orthodox Jewish] Haredi community. ‘If we discover someone has a computer at home we throw the children out of school,’ he said. Enforcing dictates on women’s behaviour is another vital part of his brief.

There is in fact an emergence of “chastity squads” in Israel, which go around beating up people for being irreligious, targeting women who dress provocatively (such as dressing in the color red); we read:

The “work” of the “chastity squads” has also included stoning women for wearing the “provocative” colour red and torching stores that sell MP4 players in the fear they will be used to air pornography.

Stores that sell clothes regarded as provocative have been vandalised with bleach thrown at merchandise, with suspicion all that’s needed to spark an attack. Girls have been expelled from school after being seen talking to boys, a punishment that ruins their marriage prospects.

In April, a group of ultra-Orthodox men caused a ruckus on a flight of El Al, Israel’s national airline, when they became abusive and rowdy after a film was shown which they considered immoral.

The squads have also made media headlines for enforcing the gender division on buses that service their neighbourhood, forcing women to sit in the back section, with those that refuse to do so being verbally abused and beaten.

An Orthodox Canadian tourist found this out the hard way. Miriam Shear says she was travelling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City last year when a group of ultra-Orthodox (haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the bus.

In an interview following the incident, Shear says that she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded she sit in the back of the bus with the other women.

Jewish women who leave ultra-Orthodox lives to embrace a secular and “immodest lifestyle” are given “honor beatings” and threatened with death; the Guardian reports:

Four months ago in the middle of the night, six men dressed in wide-brimmed black hats, black coats, white shirts and black trousers burst into the Jerusalem apartment of a young Jewish woman and taught her a lesson.

Mikhail, who is reluctant to give her full name, had scandalised members of her ultra-orthodox Jewish community by leaving her husband and embracing a secular lifestyle. The men, all members of the theologically conservative Haredi branch of Judaism, tackled her to the ground, slammed her head against the floor and tied a rag around her mouth. One assailant sat on her head as the others kicked her while demanding to know the names of the men she was seeing.

They also threatened to kill her if she did not leave the neighbourhood, which contains many secular as well as religious residents. ‘A woman is only OK if she has a family, kids and a husband,’ said Mikhail with a sigh.

Welcome to the new, increasingly orthodox, Jerusalem. The attack on Mikhail, although exceptionally brutal, was only the latest in a string of assaults over the past two years against Jewish women accused of immoral behaviour in the city.

These “chastity squads” slash tires of female drivers who dress immodestly:

Signs warning women not to enter if they are wearing trousers, short sleeves or a skirt above the knees, hang in the neighbourhood. One is affixed outside Kreus’s two-room house where he lives with his wife and 11 children. ‘Every week there’s a complaint about the way women dress,’ said Kreus.

Extraordinarily, he admitted to slashing the tyres of women who have driven into the neighbourhood who, he said, were indecently dressed.

Riots erupted when some members of the chastity squads were arrested.  These “chastity squads” seem to have some level of community support, as Israel News (YNet) reports:

‘The chastity squad activists are doing what the police should be doing,’ senior community member says.

According to the Guardian article, “more than 30 per cent of [Jerusalem's]  Jewish residents are [ultra-Orthodox] Haredi.”  The ultra-Orthodox “Jewish Taliban” freely “roam Jerusalem’s ultra-religious neighbourhoods enforcing the voluminous and ever growing list of rabbinical laws such as the recent decree banning the sale of MP4 players.”

And we could go on and on with examples of Jews trying to force Halakha on others…

I’ll stop here, mostly due to already having committed overkill.

The Bottom Line

The argument brought forth by Daniel Pipes–that Halakha should be allowed since Jews don’t wish to force their laws on others, whereas Sharia should be disallowed since Muslims wish to force their laws on others–is categorically rejected.  The bottom line is that there are religious zealots of every religion that wish to force their beliefs upon others. Islam is no exception to this.

The vast majority of Muslims–like the vast majority of Jews–just want to be able to practice their own religion.  We don’t let the actions of a few overzealous Jews characterize all of Jewry and Judaism, so let’s not let a few overzealous Muslims characterize all of Muslims and Islam.

Principle of Noninterference in Sharia

Clearly the vast majority of Jews disagree with the Jewish zealots who force Halakha upon others.  I will not however speak on this topic and instead assume that the reader will take it for granted.  Since it is Muslims that are on trial nowadays, I will speak specifically about the Islamic belief,  but rest assured I am not in anyway implying that the majority of Jews wish to enforce their laws upon others.

With regard to Islam, moderate Muslims remind their overzealous Taliban-like coreligionists that there is a principle in Sharia of noninterference towards people of other faiths.  In other words, the Sharia is applicable to Muslims, not non-Muslims.  For example, the Sharia stipulates that alcohol is forbidden, and the Hadud (Islamic penal code) dictates that corporal punishment be meted out to the one found guilty of alcohol consumption.  However, Sharia also recognizes that non-Muslims drink alcohol, and therefore dictates that Muslims should not prevent non-Muslims from that.  In other words, in an ideal Muslim state, non-Muslims can drink alcohol, eat pork, etc.

Historically, Muslims would even allow non-Muslims in Islamic lands to have their own courts, their own judges, and their own laws.  The non-Muslims were free to rule themselves according to their own religious laws.  Muslims went to Islamic courts, Jews went to Jewish courts, Christians to Christian courts, etc.  Muslim judges were forbidden to issue rulings upon non-Muslims, unless the non-Muslims themselves opted to go to an Islamic court as opposed to their own court.

Professor Mark R. Cohen of Princeton University, who according to his wiki page is “considered to be one of the leading scholars of the history of Jews in the Middle Ages under Islam,” wrote:

Islamic judges remained faithful to the principle of noninterference in the adjudication of intra-Jewish issues unless brought before them voluntarily by the parties.  Even when this occurred, as it did quite frequently, qadis [Islamic judges] especially observed the rule of nonintervention when the matter related to personal status, as evidenced, for example, in the phrase la nata’arrad fi dhalika (or: lahum) li makan ‘aqd al-dhimma, “we do not interfere in this matter (or: with them) on account of the dhimma [protection] pact.”

(Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, p.74)

Muslims allowed non-Muslims (such as Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, etc.) to have their own religious courts to settle matters of arbitration, including and especially family and personal law, something which I found interesting in relation to the modern day issue of Sharia courts in Canada.

Imam al-Shafi’i, founder of one of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence, wrote about non-Muslims:

If one of you or any other non-believer comes to us for judgment, we shall adjudicate according to the law of Islam. But if he does not come to us, we shall not intervene among you (lam nu’rid lakum fima baynakum wa baynahu).

(Imam al-Shafi’i, Kitab al-Umm, 4:118)

Not only did Muslims historically allow non-Muslims to drink alcohol, consume pork, and the like, but they also tolerated matters which the Islamic religion considered repugnant.  To illustrate just one such example: a certain Zoroastrian sect engaged in a practice known as self-marriage; a man would marry his own mother or sister.  Such marriages were explicitly forbidden in the Quran and considered repugnant to the Muslims; classical scholars opined that such a thing was more offensive to Islam than “even homosexual relationships.”

The question arose, however, as to whether or not Zoroastrian citizens of the Islamic state should be allowed to engage in self-marriage based on their own religious rules, or should the Islamic state forbid such a thing based on Sharia?  The Islamic prophet Muhammad allowed the Zoroastrians to engage in self-marriage, and this ruling was affirmed by the founders of three out of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence  (Ibn Hanbal, Malik, and Shafi’i).

Professor Sherman Jackson of the University of Michigan writes:

[Freedom of religion] did not preclude the countenance of non-Muslim beliefs and behaviors that violated Islam.  This applied not only to “soft disagreements,” for example, pork consumption, but to practices deemed by Muslims to be downright morally repugnant.

One example in this regard will have to serve…This was the institution of “self-marriage” practiced by Zoroastrians (al-Majus)., who were protected minorities under the Muslim state.  Such marriages being repugnant under the law of Islam, the question arose as to whether they should be recognized or not…

Such practices [ruled Islamic jurists]…are to be recognized under two conditions: (1) That the religious minorities who engage in them not present their case to a Muslim court [but to their own courts]; and (2) that these religious minorities believe the practice in question to be permissible according to their religion.  If a religious minority either seeks the judgment of the Muslims or does not accept the marriage in question in its own religion, the Muslim authorities are not to recognize them…

Despite [their] own moral indignation…Muslim authorities were to recognize such incestuous marriages…[Muslim authorities] did not consider granting Zoroastrians (and other religious minorties) the right to maintain marriages that were condemned by Islam to be a violation of an optimally functioning “Islamic State.”

Similarly, Islamic jurisprudence allowed Jews to marry their nieces, even though this was forbidden according to Sharia. Reform-minded Muslims use such classical rulings as a proof that Muslims can respect the right of non-Muslims to engage in homosexual marriages, even if the Muslims themselves do not approve of homosexuality based on religious grounds.

This principle of Sharia–noninterference in the affairs of other religious groups–finds support in the Quran, which declares: “Unto you your religion and unto me my religion,” (109:6) as well as “Let there be no compulsion in religion,” (2:256) amongst others.

Naturally, Muslim fundamentalists and puritans ignore this principle of Sharia, but certainly moderate Muslims hold onto it.  The point is: it was inappropriate of Daniel Pipes to summarily claim that “Muslims want to enforce their religious views upon others,” or that Sharia itself dictates that.

To be continued…

Canyon Clowdus: No More Muslims Allowed

If you want to see what kind of impact bloggers and self-proclaimed scholars such as Robert Spencer and his buddies likePamela Geller and Daniel Pipes are having on the discourse on Muslims in America then look no further than Canyon Clowdus. Clowdus employs terms and ideas coined by Spencer and company, such as “Stealth Jihad” and “creeping Shariah,” which are meant to be used as scare tactics to frighten Americans about their Muslim neighbors. Yet, they still have the gall to claim not to hate Muslims or Islam!

Congressional Candidate: No More Muslims to U.S.

WASHINGTON — Big Country congressional hopeful Canyon Clowdus wants no more Muslim immigration to America.

But the conservative Republican doesn’t want to stop at the stance he outlined to radical blog “Dr. Bulldog & Ronin,” which endorses him for 11th Congressional District representative.

“It’s not just them,” Clowdus told a reporter Sunday night. “They need to check all immigrants. They used to assimilate.”

Instead, immigrants retain their beliefs, weakening America, Marble Falls businessman Clowdus said.

The 11th Congressional District covers a wide swath of West Texas and stretches down to include Marble Falls. The city is about 200 miles southeast of Abilene and about 50 miles from Austin.

Clowdus wants to halt Muslim immigration to stop what the blog termed a “Stealth Jihad” and “creeping sharia” to replace the Constitution with Islamic religious law.

A civil rights advocate said he reads the blog and is disappointed a congressional candidate is lending his credibility to efforts to divide Americans instead of bring them together.

The blog pushes the wrongheaded idea that there is a huge clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam, said Eric Ward of the Chicago-based Center for New Community, a faith-based organization including Christians, Jews and Muslims.

“The truth of the matter is that the only clash that’s going on is amongst extremist elements in Christianity and Islam,” Ward said.

Christians and Muslims have much in common when it comes to values and the wish for an opportunity to work and better their lives, he said.

A San Angelo physician who is Muslim and immigrated to the United States 40 years ago said people with views like Clowdus’ have tunnel vision.

“One-fifth of the world’s population are Muslims,” Dr. Fazlur Rahman, an oncologist, said. “So for the benefit of Americans, we should understand them, learn their religion, culture and civilization for our benefit.”

Rahman said 6 million Muslims live in the United States.

“They worry about their own future and of their children just like everyone else,” he said.

Rahman became a U.S. citizen decades ago and raised a family in San Angelo. His writings on health care, science and other topics have appeared in The Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle and other publications. He’s also a trustee of Austin College in Sherman.

Rahman said America has been successful because it is tolerant and multicultural.

There are bad Muslims just as there are bad Christians, Jews and people from all of the religious faiths, Rahman said.

“Every one of them has their fair share,” he said.

Muslims worry about their children’s future just like everyone else, he said.

A spokesman for an Islamic civil rights and advocacy group said the level of anti-Muslim rhetoric is rising, especially from the right.

“Our research has shown that this kind of rhetoric is coming from a minority of Americans, but it’s a very vocal minority,” said Ibrahim Hooper of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

CAIR asks mainstream leaders to challenge anti-Muslim talk if they hear it because silence equals consent or unspoken approval, Hooper said.

“That’s why it’s the responsibility of people of goodwill in our society and particularly leaders in our society to challenge this kind of hate-filled bigoted rhetoric when it’s used anywhere in our society,” Hooper said.

Dr. Bulldog & Ronin listed CAIR among organizations supporting a “Stealth Jihad” with “Islamic Supremacists.”

Dr. Bulldog and Ronin wanted to know how Clowdus would fight this “creeping sharia” that uses the constitutional rights to freedom of religion and speech against Americans.

Clowdus’ reply: “How about CREEPY Sharia? Fuse lit … back away from Canyon!”

Clowdus believes there are efforts to override national law with Islamic religious law, he said in an interview.

Hooper said that’s nonsense.

If a Muslim woman is allowed to wear a headscarf in the workplace or a Muslim man is allowed to go to Friday prayers — any accommodation of a Muslim in American society — then that vocal minority views it as a “creeping sharia,” he said.

“For some reason, it drives these people crazy when Muslims practice their faith,” Hooper said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security doesn’t track immigrants’ religions, said Pat Reilly, a spokeswoman for DHS agency U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

People are identified by country of origin — not religion or ethnicity — in the DHS “Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.”

Neither U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway of Midland nor a second challenger, Chris Younts of San Angelo, share Clowdus’ views on Muslim immigration.

“Congressman Conaway is a strong proponent of immigration reform,” Conaway campaign spokesman Richard Hudson said. “But he does not have an immigration policy based on religion.”

Younts, a businessman, opposes illegal immigration, but he “believes that any law abiding citizen of another country should be allowed to immigrate to the U.S. as long as they abide by our immigration policies and honor our Constitution,” Younts’ campaign spokesman Ken Burton said.

Conaway and Younts are also conservative Republicans.

Clowdus said that he e-mailed back and forth to Dr. Bulldog & Ronin for the interview posted Aug. 22 and that he doesn’t know the identity of the blog’s authors. The blog bills itself as “Conservative News, Views & Analysis of Events.”

Earlier in August, the blog endorsed Clowdus as a “non-politician in Texas who is fed up with all the Lefturds in Washington.”

The blog describes “Doctor Bulldog” as a theoretical physicist and electronic engineer who has served in the Air Force. He’s worked for private aerospace companies and moved recently from Silicon Valley to the Midwest, the blog said.

Its visitor count lists more than 1.2 million “Infidels.”

Ward said the blog’s definition of America and American-ness is very narrow and not embraced by most in the United States.

Muslims and Christians have cultural and religious differences, he said. But they don’t outweigh the common ground between them.

von Daniel Pipes
Middle East Quarterly
Herbst 2009

Englischer Originaltext: Peace Process or War Process?
Übersetzung: H. Eiteneier

Fathima Bary Needs to Read Her Bible

An emotional Fathima Rifqa Bary–whose personal writings reaveal that she wants to be a modern day prophet–said of her parents:

“My parents are Muslim…I don’t know if you know about honor killing…They have to kill me…Because if they love Allah more than me, they have to do it. It’s in the Quran. And you can, like, give them knowledge about it [gestures to someone off camera, who says something unintelligible].”

It seems that Fathima’s understanding of the Quran comes from whomever she pointed to, whom I can only assume is her pastor (or pastor’s underling more likely). A few more dry runs could have perfected the performance. She just had to memorize a few verses to prove her claim:

13:6 If–your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend, which is as your own soul–entice you secretly, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods,” which you have not known–not you, nor your fathers;

13:7 Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, near to you, or far off from you, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;

13:8 You shall not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall your eye pity him, neither shall you spare, neither shall you conceal him:

13:9 But you must surely kill him; your hand must be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

13:10 And you must stone him with stones, that he die; because he has sought to thrust you away from the LORD your God.

Well, that’s pretty damning evidence right there. That sounds a lot like “honor” killing: “If your brother…or your son or your daughter….entice you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’…You must kill him…you must stone him with stones, that he die.” Well, if that’s in the Quran, then we better ban all Muslim immigration to America!

But before we call Homeland Security, I hope you don’t mind if I check the Quran to verify if those verses exist.

[Flipping through pages of Quran]

Hmmm, can’t seem to find it.

Oh wait, *smacks forehead*, I remember now where those verses are from. Ahh yes, they are from the Bible (Deuteronomy, 13:6-10). There are of course many other Biblical verses in the same vein, such as 2 Chronicles 15:13 which reads:  “All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.”

Oopsie doopsie!

Maybe it’s not such a good idea to randomly quote someone else’s scripture or medieval texts without any context as a proof to demonize a people or to fear monger.

Introduction

Islamophobes insist that Islam says that apostates must be killed. These ardent critics of the faith are of the view that Islam is for this reason simply incompatible with the Western Judeo-Christian tradition.  Their view–which they try to propagate–is that Islam is somehow so inherently different from all other religions that it should be singled out as the one faith that we just absolutely cannot tolerate.

The issue of course is that “Islam” doesn’t “say” anything, since it is not a person.  Islam is in fact polyvalent meaning it has within it different understandings and interpretations of the religion.  On this particular issue, Islam itself doesn’t “say” anything.  Valerie Hoffman, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Illinois, commented on the issue of apostasy in Islam: “You can’t say Islam says this or Islam says that.” The question of course is “whose Islam” and “which Islam?”

Yes, the majority “classical” and “traditional” opinion codified hundreds of years ago was indeed that apostates from Islam should be killed, though even amongst them there were differing opinions with some individuals such as Sufyan Thawri who held liberal views on the subject. However, such views are abundantly present in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well, yet Jews and Christians have over the course of time reanalyzed their canonical texts and come to different understandings today.

Before the Great War, the Ottoman Empire united Muslim lands under one symbolic leadership. (Perhaps an oversimplification but it suffices for our discussion here.)  It is interesting to note that the Ottoman government eventually stopped enforcing the punishment for apostasy and finally abolished it altogether in 1844, more than one hundred and sixty years ago:

Punishment for apostasy (in any case, extremely rare) was not in practice enforced in later times and was completely abolished by the [Ottoman] Turks by a decree of the Ottoman government in 1260/1844.

(The New Encyclopedia of Islam, by Cyril Glasse, p.54)

And we read:

The Ottoman Caliphate, the supreme representative of Sunni Islam, formally abolished this penalty…The Shaykh al-Islam, the supreme head of the religious courts and colleges, ratified this major shift in traditional legal doctrine. It was pointed out that there is no verse in the Qur’an that lays down a punishment for apostasy (although chapter 5 verse 54 and chapter 2 verse 217 predict a punishment in the next world). It was also pointed out that the ambiguities in the hadith (the sayings of the Prophet) suggest that apostasy is only an offense when combined with the crime of treason…

The debate triggered by the Ottoman reform was continued when al-Azhar University in Cairo, the supreme religious authority in the Arab world, delivered a formal fatwa (religious edict) in 1958, which confirmed the abolition of the classical law in this area.

(T.J. Winters writing for Newsweek)

It should be kept in mind that the Ottomans had embraced change, pushing what came to be known as the Tanzimat reforms, a drive to modernize the Islamic state to be compatible with the contemporary age.  They abolished the jizya and dhimmi system; the Hatt-i Humayun of 1856 promised full legal equality for citizens of all religions, and the Nationality Law of 1869 created a common Ottoman citizenship irrespective of religious or ethnic divisions.

The point is that the Islamic state had embraced change and reform of their religious understanding.  The debate had begun, but after World War I, the Allies occupied Turkey and Arab lands.  They broke up the Ottoman Empire, and carved out mandate states, installing despots into power, something which of course retarded further Muslim intellectual growth.

The modern Muslim world is living with the consequences of these events.  Unfortunately, feelings of anti-Westernism have emerged as a backlash to colonialism and subsequent events.  Extremists and religious fundamentalists began to define themselves in opposition to the West; the more the West condemned their extreme understandings of Islam, the more “street cred” these fundamentalists garnered.  Hey, if the West hates you, and the West is the colonialist, then you must be right!  Such was the thought process.

So harsher understandings replaced more tolerant ones, and the punishment for apostates–which had been long abandoned by the Ottoman Empire–was re-instituted in a few Muslim majority countries.  As Dr. Tariq Ramadan put it:

The opposition and condemnations by the West supplies, paradoxically, the popular feeling of fidelity to the Islamic teachings; a reasoning that is antithetical, simple and simplistic.  The intense opposition of the West is sufficient proof [for them] of the [supposed] authentic Islamic character of the literal application of hudûd (Islamic penal code).

In the context of relationships between countries, we often tend to remember only the conflicts and the wars.  We focus on the battles and wars between the Muslim world and the Judeo-Christian West,  but on  a deeper level, there is another more significant aspect, which is an ideological cultural exchange.  Muslims now live in the West; when Western Muslims approach the Islamic texts, they come with a certain background and upbringing which necessarily affects their understanding.

What we have witnessed in the last couple decades is a growing trend of a return back to early reformist understanding of freedom of religion. These reformist-minded Muslims have realized that not only is the modern concept of freedom of religion permissible in their religion–and not only is it wholly compatible with the Quran–but rather it is mandated and obligatory in Islam.

A “soft reformation” is taking place in Islam, as mentioned by Dr. Tariq Ramadan and Reza Aslan.  The reformists are challenging traditional interpretations and understandings of the religion, and pushing for a repeal of apostasy laws in specific where they exist.  The struggle is on, and change cannot and will not happen overnight; the post-colonial mess that the Muslim world finds itself in only retards intellectual growth but the process has begun.

Enter the Islamophobes

Instead of seeking to help the reformists, the Islamophobes have demonized virtually all Muslims, except of course a few self-hating Muslims who simply repeat whatever the Islamophobes want to hear (for which they are rewarded handsomely).

The main argument used by Islamophobes is that Islam as a religion itself advocates the death penalty for apostates, and therefore it is the religion itself–not the interpretation of it–that is the problem, an unusually obtuse and altogether unhelpful assertion. Furthermore, some of them argue, Muslims must abandon their belief in the inerrant nature of the Quran.  In other words, the Islamophobes posit that the only possible way for Muslims to become “civilized” is to view the Quran as any other text, deleting what they dislike from it and adding whatever they wish to it–or as Daniel Pipes puts it: to make it “defunct.”

While, certainly, that may seem like a plausible solution to an outsider, the problem is that for the vast majority of Muslims it is quite simply not a possibility; it is anathema to question the Quran’s veracity.  Regardless of the arguments back and forth on the issue, the practical reality is that the Muslim masses cannot countenance such a thing; the Islamophobes know this, and that’s why they set up this formula.  In other words, they know that the Muslims cannot do this and therefore it has become for the Islamophobes the “only possible solution” to the problem.

Yet, it is hardly the case that the Muslims can only take one possible route to modernization.  Reformist Muslims believe that a change in the texts is not required, but only a change in the understanding and interpretation of said texts.

Open Texts

The Quran is an open text, because it generally refrains from specifics.  In fact, names are almost never used in it, in order that its verses have not only a specific meaning but also a more general import.  For example, a verse may have been revealed to placate the Islamic prophet Muhammad during a particularly difficult time in his struggle; so even though the verse will have a specific reason for revelation (to one particular man in one specific situation), it can also be used in a general context: Muslims will use that same verse when they themselves are going through tough times.

Because of this unique structure of the Quranic text, what one gets out of it depends a lot on the reader, who tends to inject into verses his own background and biases, for better or for worse.   In any case, an unbiased and neutral observation shows that the reformist Muslims are correct, and the Islamophobes incorrect: nowhere in the Quran does it clearly and definitively say one must kill apostates.  In fact, it seems to say the exact opposite.

If Muslims can understand it in that way, why this continual insistence by the Islamophobes that the Muslims “must” abandon their belief in the inerrant nature of the Quran?  (Again, it is in order to set up a situation whereby Muslims simply cannot fulfill the requirements to be accepted into society, which is exactly what the Islamophobes desire.)

But enough jibber jabber; the proof is in the pudding.

The Quran

Ms. Fathima Rifqa Bary was incorrect: unlike the Bible, the Quran does not at all say to kill apostates if they choose to leave Islam. Rather, it says the exact opposite. The Quran declares emphatically:

“Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth is distinct from error!” (Quran, 2:256)

Almost every Muslim knows this verse by heart. It categorically closes the door to religious compulsion, and is used by reformist Muslims to promote freedom of religion and the idea that the people have a right to follow whatever religion they so choose. Because “truth is distinct from error,” people should be able to discern it for themselves without having to be forced.

Tafsir al-Jalalayn, a classical Islamic text, says of this verse: “This was revealed concerning the Ansar who tried to compel their sons to enter into Islam.” Some of their children were Jewish, and the parents wished to force them to become Muslims. In Al-Suyuti’s classical text Asbab al-Nuzul (Reasons for Revelation), it also says that there was a Muslim father by the name of Husayn bin Salim bin Awf who had two daughters both of whom were Christians. After failing to convince them to convert to Islam of their own free will, he went to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and requested permission to compel them into Islam. It was for this that the verse “Let there be no compulsion in religion” was revealed, to forbid parents from forcibly converting their children to Islam.

The relevance to the Fathima Rifqa Bary case cannot be understated: contrary to Fathima’s claim, the Quran forbids religious compulsion in general.  The verse in question was specifically revealed for parents in regard to their children of different faiths. Amazingly, the Quranic verse was revealed to forbid a Muslim father from forcing his Christian daughters into Islam. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like Mr. Bary and his daughter! So how accurate was Fathima’s claim that the Quran commands parents to force their children into Islam or kill them if they refuse?

Ironically, it is the Bible–the same one that Fathima holds–that has verses in it commanding parents to stone their daughters should they worship gods other than the Christian one. Considering that Fathima espouses a hardliner literalistic Christian fundamentalist mentality, we wonder if she would even contextualize the verse like the Christian mainstream does? (This is not about Christianity vs Islam; this is about extremists vs moderates; Fathima and the Global Revolution Church are not representative of mainstream Christianity, at least not any more than Al-Muhajiroon is of the Islamic mainstream!)

Alas, I digress. Back to the Quran, which says:

“And if your Lord had pleased, surely all those who are in the earth would have believed, all of them; will you then force men till they become believers?” (Quran, 10:99)

Reformist Muslims use the above verse to argue that forcing people into Islam is wrong because God Himself did not do that.  They believe that the power to guide and misguide people rests only with God, and nobody can share in that.  The next verse is used by reformists to show that Muslims should just worry about what they themselves do, instead of trying to force people into guidance:

“And had God willed, He could have made you all one [religious] community, but He sends astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills.  But you shall certainly be called to account for what you (yourself) used to do [i.e. not what others used to do].” (Quran, 16:93)

The phrase–“God guides Whom He wills” and that He “misguides Whom He wills”–appears in dozens of Quranic verses.  All of these references are commanding believers that they cannot force or will people into the religion, but that only God can do that.

The Quran commands:

“The Truth is from your Lord; so let him who please believe and let him who please disbelieve.” (Quran, 18:29)

And the Quran says:

“Exhort them to believe; your task is only to exhort. You cannot compel them to believe.”  (Quran, 88:21-22)

Another verse in the Quran indicates that during the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, there were people who believed and disbelieved–and then believed only to disbelieve once again; in other words, people entered into and out of the religion freely. The Quran says that such people are weak in faith and God will never guide them in this worldly life. The verse reads:

“Those who believe then disbelieve, again believe and again disbelieve, then increase in disbelief, Allah will never forgive them nor guide them to the Way.” (Quran, 4:137)

Reformist Muslims use this verse as a proof that there can be no punishment for apostasy. If that had been the case, then those who believe and then disbelieved (i.e. apostates) would have been put to death and therefore no chance would have been given to them to once again believe and disbelieve. Furthermore, the verse says that God will never guide them back to Islam, indicating that the Muslims are to ignore such a person: if God did not guide them to the Way, then why should Muslims?

So there are clear and explicit verses of the Quran that reformist Muslims naturally understand to mean that freedom of religion must be extended to all, and that compulsion into Islam is not to be tolerated.

The Hadiths

Enter the Hadiths. For those who don’t know, the Hadiths are a body of collection of the prophet Muhammad’s sayings or traditions. In other words, the Quran is considered by Muslims to be the word of God, and the Hadiths are the words of their prophet. Unlike the Quran however, Muslims do not believe that all of the Hadiths are authentic. Rather, many of them are apocryphal and therefore rejected. In other words, if some Islamophobe claims that such-and-such Hadith exists, be aware of the fact that many of them are rejected by Muslims. The Hadiths do not occupy the same rank as the Quran, but are rather a secondary source open to criticism.

In this huge body of collection, we find the Hadith that Islamophobes rely on as their trump card in this debate, which reads as follows: “Whoever changes his religion, kill him.” At first glance, that seems pretty clear and unambiguous but has the Islamophobe proven his case? Well, let’s take into consideration that the Bible has many seemingly clear and unambiguous verses which call to kill apostates, yet we never assume that Christians today believe this, nor do we insist that Christianity itself demands it.

A Christian–when confronted with those verses in the Bible–would respond by saying something like the following:

“Well, that’s the Old Testament, and Jesus abrogated that part of the law. Back then during Biblical times, the believers were few and there was a real fear that they would be eliminated so punishing apostates was a deterrent. Furthermore, at that time apostasy was akin to high treason.”

And this answer would completely placate the Islamophobes. In other words, verses that seemed unambiguous and clear from a religious book seemed to indicate one thing at face value, but the people who follow that book have a different way of understanding it: they give an explanation that contextualizes the verses.

Let’s be clear here: we’re not trying to bash Christianity at all. What we are saying however is that if we extend the common courtesy to Christians that they can contextualize such verses in the Bible, then why do we not extend the same courtesy to the Muslims when it comes to the Hadiths? Keep in mind also that Muslims believe that their Bible–so to speak–is the Quran and not the Hadiths. In other words, if Christianity’s primary source seems to say that apostates are to be killed, then why do we not accept any explanation from Muslims about their secondary source? (Hint: Islamophobia is the answer!) It is this terrible double standard that bothers Muslims and those who believe in religious tolerance.

So how do reformist Muslims contextualize the Hadith in question (i.e. “whoever changes his religion, kill him.”)? First of all, they point out that these are not the words of the Islamic prophet Muhammad to begin with; rather, these are the the words of a man named Ibn Abbas who was paraphrasing the words of the Islamic prophet.

Secondly, they point out that what the Prophet in fact said was that “those who leave the community and fight against God and His Messenger” should either be “killed, crucifed or exiled from the land.” So we see that according to the scholars of Islam what this refers to is a military action, in which an individual joins the Muslim community but then leaves it to join enemies who wish to annihilate the Muslims, i.e. “treason.” This is what professor M. Cherif Bassiouni meant when he wrote,

My position on apostasy…[is] that at the time of the Prophet it was not considered as only changing one’s mind but that it was the equivalent of joining the enemy and thus constituting high treason.

The Traditional Opinion

Yes, it is true that the majority “classical” and traditional opinion of Islamic jurists was that apostasy–even “peaceful apostasy”–should be punished by death. This belief was enshrined into Islamic jurisprudence in the medieval era, and therefore many “classical” Islamic texts do indeed say this. It is for this reason that Alan Kornman of ACT for America–a fervently Islamophobic group–was waving around a copy of Reliance of the Traveler, a fourteenth century manual of Islamic jurisprudence, which does say that apostates should be killed. Is it possible to point out the obvious? The text was written hundreds of years ago in the medieval era. The absurdity of using it as some sort of proof against contemporary Muslims is absurd. Muslims do not consider this book to be religiously binding upon them. The words of the classical scholars are not considered a part of the Islamic canon. Only the Quran and some of the Hadiths are said to have any divine origin.

Contemporary Muslims believe that they are free to agree or disagree with the words of classical scholars. There is no equivalent to the pope in Islam. Yes, they do respect the classical scholars, and do view them as some of the greatest scholars of all time, but that does not mean that they agree with them on all issues. As for “classical texts” like the Reliance of the Traveler, yes many moderate Muslims consider such treatises to be a good source of attaining their Islamic knowledge, but they don’t believe that they must accept every single sentence or dot therein! As the famous Islamic saying goes: they take the good in it, and leave the rest!

Even within the classical Islamic texts, one can find great disagreement therein. For example, there are classical texts which refute some of the views expressed in the Reliance of the Traveler. If that is the case–that Islamic scholars of that time disagreed with some views within that text and others–why shouldn’t contemporary Islamic scholars–and Muslims in general–disagree with some of its views? Is this really so hard to comprehend? I don’t think so.

We understand it perfectly well with classical Christian texts. Let’s look at the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of the most influential Christian scholars in history. The Vatican considers him as “the model teacher” for those pursuing priesthood.

The Summa Theologica, a book written by St. Thomas Aquinas, is considered one of the best summaries of Catholic doctrine to this day, and continues to be relied upon. In other words, here we have a text that is certainly more central to the Catholic faith than the Reliance of the Traveler is to Muslims. Well, let’s take a look-see into what the Summa Theologica says about apostasy; the first part talks about how Jews are apostates and thus worse than regular disbelievers, and the second part talks about how apostates ought to be compelled by the sword to Christianity:

Question 10: Unbelief in General

… It is written (2 Peter 2:21): “It had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they have known it, to turn back.” Now the heathens have not known the way of justice, whereas heretics and Jews have abandoned it after knowing it in some way. Therefore theirs is the graver sin…He who resists the faith after accepting it, sins more grievously against faith, than he who resists it without having accepted it…[The Jews] accepted the figure of that faith in the Old Law, which they corrupt by their false interpretations, [so] their unbelief is a more grievous sin than that of the heathens, because the latter have not accepted the Gospel faith in any way at all…

Article 8. Whether unbelievers ought to be compelled to the faith?

…I answer that, Among unbelievers there are some who have never received the faith, such as the heathens and the Jews: and these are by no means to be compelled to the faith…On the other hand, there are unbelievers who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it, such as heretics and all apostates: such should be submitted even to bodily compulsion, that they may fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received…

For, Augustine says “…When a man’s crime [apostasy] is so publicly known, and so hateful to all, that he has no defenders, or none such as might cause a schism, the severity of discipline should not slacken”…Those Jews who have in no way received the faith, ought not by no means to be compelled to the faith: if, however, they have received it, they ought to be compelled to keep it…Christ at first compelled Paul and afterwards taught Him…the rites of other unbelievers, which are neither truthful nor profitable are by no means to be tolerated…

Do we then think it is justified to wave around this seven hundred year old text in the air as a proof that Christians believe that apostates should be killed? Or that “since the Jews are the slaves of the Church, she can dispose of their possessions” and the “the rites of other unbelievers, which are neither truthful nor profitable are by no means to be tolerated?” No sensible person can say so. Rather, Catholics are free to read the book, taking what they like and disagreeing with whatever they dislike.

So why then can’t these people understand the same thing for the Reliance of the Traveler, which says the exact same thing about apostasy as does the Summa Theologica?  Muslims use it in a similar manner to learn about traditional Islamic jurisprudence just as Catholics use the Summa Theologica to learn traditional Catholic doctrine, taking the good and leaving the rest. In fact, the Muslim translator of the book, Nuh Keller, did not even translate parts of the book into English which he deemed totally irrelevant to the modern day and age, which shows that Muslims do not consider whatever is in the text as religiously binding. It doesn’t mean that Muslims must abandon the book in its entirety, just as Catholics don’t need to abandon the Summa Theologica altogether.

The Four Schools of Islamic Jurisprudence

A critic of Islam argued back:

Yes there may be moderate Muslims but at this moment in time there is no moderate Islam, as defined by the [four] main schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

First, it is absurd to say that there is no moderate Islam; moderate Islam is what the vast majority of Muslims follow, and how they define it. As for the argument that “all four schools of Islamic jurisprudence demand the death penalty for apostasy,” isn’t this simply restating the obvious? Contemporary Muslims already admit that the traditional and classical opinion of Islamic jurists was that apostates were to be killed (which by the way was also amongst the “traditional and classical opinions” in Judaism and Christianity as well).

Since the four schools of thought were defined and codified hundreds of years ago, doesn’t it already go without saying that the four schools of jurisprudence would take the traditional and classical opinion on the matter? Stated another way: as the four schools were codified hundreds of years ago, is it any surprise that they should follow the old way of looking at the matter as opposed to the new?  So what exactly is the critic trying to say? It is simply restating and repackaging the obvious attack in attempt to give an air of authority to it.

His statement also betrays a superficial understanding of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence. The four schools are not defined by their final rulings or verdicts, but rather based on their methodology (Usul). Within a school itself, all sorts of conflicting opinions can be found, since a school is defined not by a ruling but by the methodology one uses to arrive at such a ruling. In other words, contemporary Muslims can still follow the same methodology and arrive at different conclusions, without betraying the school of thought itself. Many followers of the four schools have done so with regard to the issue of apostasy.

So the fact that a person follows a school of jurisprudence does not at all mean that he must commit himself to one particular ruling. Furthermore, many Muslims do not follow a school of jurisprudence at all, with still others claiming that it is wrong to follow the four schools whatsoever. Bottom line: there are diverse opinions on this matter, and to pigeonhole Muslims into a particular belief is wrong.  It is just wrong to speak on behalf of Muslims; let them speak for themselves!

Contemporary Muslims argue that their rejection of an opinion held by the classical scholars does not amount to rejection of the scholars themselves, nor of the schools of thought they founded.  Rather, they insist that respectful disagreement is not only permitted but mandated in Islam. Furthermore, the new opinion of contemporary Muslims is simply a reflection of changed circumstances which have allowed Muslims to properly understand the issue. Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq says:

Undeniably, the traditional position of Muslim scholars and jurists has been that apostasy [riddah] is punishable by death. The longstanding problem of the traditional position, as held by Classical jurists or scholars, can be explained and excused as not being able to see apostasy, an issue of pure freedom of faith and conscience, separate from treason against the community or the state. However, the accumulated experience over the history in terms of abuse of this position about apostasy even against Muslims as well as the changed context of a globally-connected, pluralistic society should help us appreciate the contemporary challenges in light of the Qur’anic norms and the Prophetic legacy. In this context, while the classical misunderstanding about this issue of apostasy is excusable, the position of some of the well-known contemporary scholars is not.

Contemporary Scholars

Whilst ultraconservative scholars tenaciously cling to medieval opinions, moderate Muslim scholars are increasingly adopting the opinion that absolute freedom of religion is mandated in Islam. Hundreds of Islamic clerics have accepted this view as correct. Representatives from all the major Western Muslim organizations have spoken out against the death penalty for apostates.

Indeed, Islam is witnessing a “soft revolution” nowadays, and a reformation is taking place. It seems almost every other day another major Islamic scholar announces that he has studied the issue and come to the conclusion that there should be no punishment for apostasy.

Ijma

The conservative Muslims (and in turn the Islamophobes) insist that there is an Ijma (consensus) on the view that apostates are to be killed. This is an Islamic legal term which connotes a sort of authoritativeness to a ruling, almost like a papal decree. However, this is a hotly contested topic, and this article here explains why it is inappropriate to use Ijma as a proof.

Imam al-Shawkani argued:

“The one who claims that ijma constitutes proof is not correct, for such [a claim] constitutes mere conjecture (zann) on the part of an individual from the community of Muslims. No believer can worship God on the basis of this.”

Refuting Robert Spencer’s Drivel

Robert Spencer of JihadWatch argues that Fathima Rifqa Bary was correct for claiming that the Quran mandates death for apostasy. We have already outlined the numerous verses in the Quran that state the contrary. But let us now deal with Spencer’s “proof.” He claims that the following verse is “direct proof” that apostates are to be killed:

“And if any of you turn back from their faith and die in unbelief, their works will bear no fruit in this life and in the Hereafter; they will be companions of the Fire and will abide therein.” (Quran, 2:217)

Sorry, Spencer, but I don’t see how that’s “direct proof,” especially in light of the explicit verses in the Quran that I have cited above which clearly and unambiguously forbid compulsion in religion. In fact, contemporary Islamic scholars use this verse (the one Spencer just used) as a proof that there is no worldly punishment for apostasy, only a heavenly one. For example, Dr. Jamal Badawi says:

There is no single verse in the Qur’an that prescribes an earthly punishment for apostasy. Verses about apostasy in the Qur’an speak only about God’s punishment of the apostate in the Hereafter [such as] “…But if any of you should turn away from his/her faith and die as a denier [of the truth] – these it is whose works will bear no fruit in this world and in the life to come; and these it is who are destined for the fire, therein to abide.” ([Quran] Al-Baqarah 2:217)

…The silence of the Qur’an on any prescribed mandatory capital for apostasy is quite revealing. More revealing is the fact that there is overwhelming evidence in the Qur’an of freedom of conscious, belief, and worship.

Of course, Spencer quotes an Islamic scholar who lived hundreds of years ago as a proof. Sorry, but that’s not a proof to Muslims, nor is it binding. Whilst moderate Muslims respect Imam al-Qurtubi like Catholics respect St. Thomas Aquinas, they don’t believe his words are divine and simply disagree with them. That is in actuality the bulk of Spencer’s argument, since the verse itself is not at all “direct proof” of anything!

Then Spencer uses verse 4:89 as a “proof:”

“If they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever you find them.” (Quran, 4:89)

But he does not quote what comes right before and after it, thereby removing the context of the verse. The Quran says:

“Why should you be divided into two parties about the Hypocrites? …If they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever you find them; Except those who join a group between whom and you there is a treaty of peace, or those who approach you with hearts restraining them from fighting you as well as fighting their own people. If God had pleased, He could have given them power over you, and they would have fought you: Therefore if they withdraw from you and fight you not, and instead send you guarantees of peace, then God Has opened no way for you to war against them…Therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and do not offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given you a clear authority (to war against).” (Quran, 4:89-91)

This verse is talking about a group of apostates who are pretending to be Muslims (and are thus Hypocrites), so that they can turn renegade during war and destroy the Muslim army from the inside. In actuality, this verse shows the mercy of Islam, in the sense that the Islamic prophet was forbidden to make war against these people until they picked up arms against the Muslims; if, however, they did not pick up arms and instead sent guarantees of peace, then Muslims were forbidden from fighting them. This verse can be used as a proof for the reformist position, namely that peaceful apostates cannot be killed, but those who wage war against the Islamic state (i.e. high treason) should be.

Spencer quotes Tafsir al-Jalalayn as a proof, yet doesn’t realize that the text itself negates his view. Tafsir al-Jalalayn says of the very next verse (4:90):

[Those who come to you] refraining from fighting either you or them, then do not interfere with them, neither taking them as captives nor slaying them…If they stay away from you and do not fight you, and offer you peace, reconciliation, that is, [if] they submit, then God does not allow you any way against them, [He does not allow you] a means to take them captive or to slay them.

Abrogation

Christianity was militarized after Jesus died, by latter day thinkers.  A similar thing happened with Islam.  The Quranic text prohibits military aggression, allowing war only in self-defense; it also gives absolute freedom of religion.  Latter day thinkers within Islam had such a hard time dealing with these issues that they simply decided to “abrogate” the peaceful and tolerant verses in order to make Islam “more compatible” with the warlike times.  For example, the author of Tafsir al-Jalalayn had such a hard time reconciling verse 4:90 with the view–that apostates are to be killed–that he rationalized that: “this statement and what follows was abrogated.”

This has importance here: Spencer uses the verse (4:90) as a proof that apostasy is mandated in the Quran, yet the classical scholar he quoted as a proof was so “frustrated” by this same verse–since it seemed to imply freedom of religion–that he was forced to abrogate it.  In other words, even those Muslim scholars who believe that apostates are to be killed had to get rid of this Quranic verse in order to make their claim, so how can Spencer now use the verse as a proof?

For those of you who don’t know what abrogation means, it means that a verse was rescinded and basically no longer counts. Translation: the verse still appears in the Quran but it has no legal import to it.  Contemporary moderate Muslim scholars reject such a haphazard abrogation of Quranic verses. For example, a Muslim cleric by the name of Shabir Ally says:

[Question:] Now this idea of abrogation altogether seems odd. You have a book–you say it’s from God–and you say ‘well, He didn’t really mean this.’ How does one justify this?

[Answer:] Well, Imam al-Tabari is in a way the father of tafsirs. And his tafsir is the monumental one that came to be used widely in later tafsirs…and he said very clearly that if a verse is to be agrogated, you have to have some definitive information from the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself which says that this verse is abrogated, otherwise how would you know if a certain verse is abrogated? You shouldn’t claim that a verse is abrogated without this type of definitive information.

Dr. Jamal Badawi says:

While some scholars have claimed that hundreds of verses of the Qur’an were abrogated, the majority of scholars reject that claim.

Interestingly, the ultraconservative Muslim scholars are inconsistent in their own understanding of the Quran.  For example, the ultraconservative Saudi scholar Ibn Baz affirmed the idea that abrogation is to be used only as a last resort when understanding two seemingly “contradictory” verses of the Quran; Ibn Baz stated:

Whenever it is possible to show agreement or reconciliation between various narrations, in a manner which is suitable, without stretching their meanings, it becomes obligatory to do so.  Making Reconciliation (al-Jam) between the texts takes precedence over the other two methods of resolving apparent contradiction between proofs–the two other methods being Outweighing (al-Tarjih) and Abrogation (al-Naskh).  This is what has been agreed upon in the Science of Usul al-Fiqh.

The above might be very confusing to the layperson, so to summarize: he is basically saying that when two texts seem to contradict each other, then one should first try to reconcile them (al-Jam) before one claims that one is abrogated by the other (al-Naskh). In other words, when we have one text saying “Let there be no compulsion in religion” and another saying “Whoever changes his religion, kill him,” there seems to be an apparent contradiction between the two.  One way to resolve these two texts would be to say that the latter abrogated the former (and this is the argument of Bin Baz and other ultraconservative scholars).  Ibn Baz is quoted by an ultraconservative Saudi website as saying:

[Question:] Some friends say that whoever does not enter Islam, that is his choice and he should not be forced to become Muslim, quoting as evidence the verses in which Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning)…“There is no compulsion in religion” [al-Baqarah 2:256] What is your opinion concerning that?

[Answer:] …Ayat al-Sayf (the verse of the sword)…and similar verses abrogate the verses which say that there is no compulsion to become Muslim.

Unbelievably Bin Baz does not even follow his own rule that Reconciliation of texts takes precedence over Abrogation!  Moderate Muslims reconcile the texts by simply contextualizing the second narration, which indicates that peaceful apostates are not to be killed but those apostates who “wage war” (i.e. high treason) are.

The way in which Ibn Baz, other ultraconservatives, and some classical scholars abrogated the peaceful verses without direct proof of that must be rejected, argue reformist Muslims.  As Ibn Al-Hassar, a classical Islamic scholar himself, stated:

It is not acceptable, in the matter of Abrogation, to accept statements of the interpreters of the Quran, not even the ijtihad (reasoning) of those engaging in ijtihad without authentic reports or clear evidence…What is acceptable in that matter is the [explicit] narration [of the Prophet] and history [Sunna/Sira] not opinion or ijtihad.

Therefore, reformist Muslims reject any classical or contemporary scholar’s opinion that such-and-such verse was abrogated, unless the claimant brings unequivocal proof of that, such as a direct statement from the Islamic prophet to that effect.  But in the absence of that, such arguments are rejected; otherwise, every single verse in the Quran could be abrogated by mere desire!  Therefore, when Islamophobes try to build their whole case on Tafsirs (commentaries) written hundreds of years ago, be extremely wary!  A Tafsir is not a proof in and of itself; it is simply one man’s interpretation of the Quran open to criticism.

Reformist Muslim scholars argue that their understanding of the Quran’s view on this matter is more accurate and truer to the text, since they take into consideration all of the verses instead of simply doing away with whatever verses they cannot reconcile to their preconceived view. Meanwhile, the ultraconservatives are forced to abrogate verses of the Quran without any proof for that, such as the verse that forbids compulsion in religion. Certainly, it is unacceptable to just abrogate verses that one does not agree with!  In other words, neither the ultraconservative Muslims nor the Islamophobes can make their case, i.e. that the Quran says to kill apostates, without having to get rid of certain Quranic verses, those that are abundantly clear that religious compulsion is forbidden.  This in actuality shows the strength of the reformist Muslim view, namely that if you look at the Quran as a whole, it mandates religious freedom.

Hypocrites Worse than Disbelievers

In the Quran, it is clear that the worst of mankind are the Hypocrites, a group of people who pretended to be Muslims but were really disbelievers in their hearts.  They would seek to destroy Islam from the inside.  Reformists point out that forcing people into Islam–be they disbelievers or apostates–would create a legion of Hypocrites within the ranks of the Muslims, a far more dangerous thing than people simply peacefully following whatever religion they want.  Dr. Jamal Badawi argues:

The fear of such assumed [capital] punishment [for apostasy] may lead many to hypocrisy; by pretending to remain Muslims just to save their lives. In the final analysis, hypocrisy is a greater danger to the community than apostasy in itself. Hypocrites may implode the Muslim community from within.

Reformists also point out the fact that there was a Bedouin who apostatized in the lifetime of the prophet Muhammad, leaving the Islamic city-state of Medina; he abandoned both his religious and national identity (as the two were fused back then).  Instead of punishing the man, the prophet Muhammad simply replied by saying: “Medina is like a pair of bellows (i.e. a furnace): it expels its impurities and brightens and clears its good.” (Sahih al-Bukhari,Vol.9, No.316, pp.241)  Reformists use this narration as a proof that someone leaving the religion is–in a way–a  good thing: it purifies the religion from those weak in faith who could become Hypocrites.  Is it not better to have a few strong believers rather than many weak Hypocrites?

Dr. Jamal Badawi notes that this incident involving the Bedouin took place after the Islamic city-state of Medina was up and running, so the Islamophobes cannot claim that this was before some mass abrogation of verses:

This incident took place in Madinah when Muslims were living in an independent Islamic “state,” where the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had full authority to implement Shari`ah law.

If indeed the “revealed” prescribed punishment for apostasy is death, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would have been the first to carry out the punishment. In fact, he did not even prescribe any punishment at all against that Bedouin, nor did he send any one to arrest him as an “apostate,” imprison, or ask him to recant or even reconsider his decision as later jurists prescribed. Nor is there any solid ground to claim that this and other similar hadiths were “abrogated.” In fact, these Hadiths are in conformity with the Qur’an and consistent with its central value of freedom of conscious and rejection of any compulsion in matters of faith (Al-Baqarah 2:256).

Nonsensical Defense

Ultraconservative Muslims argue that the death penalty for apostasy makes “perfect sense,” since “people choose to enter Islam knowing that it is a lifetime decision punishable by death” and therefore “it serves to ensure that their intention is strong” and “dissuades those weak in faith from entering it.”

Reformist Muslims argue that this argument is weak from many angles.  It is negated by the fact that the ultraconservative Muslims do not differentiate between converts to Islam and those born into the religion.  In fact, some of the classical scholars opined that born Muslims who apostatize (murtad fitri)  are more liable to punishment than those who converted to Islam (murtad milli).  The question reformist Muslims ask is: does a born Muslim get the chance to enter the religion knowing that he will be killed if he ever leaves it?  The answer is of course no; you simply grow up following the religion of your parents; therefore, the justification that “apostates knew what they were getting into” falls flat on its face.

Furthermore, it is simply common sense that people change their minds.  *Gasp!*  It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to point out that obvious fact.  So one day a person thinks Islam is the religion for him, but maybe ten years down the line he doesn’t.  Anyways, these are all points I have heard reformist Muslims use.

The Quranic principle is that God has granted humankind free will, and they have the right to choose to accept Islam or not. Nobody can force them to do so.  Reformists argue: “Why would God command Muslims to force people into Islam when it is He Himself Who gave people the ability to leave the religion?”

An Important Clarification

Even if Fathima’s parents held the “traditional view,” this does not mean that they were going to kill her.  In fact, the traditional view–as espoused by the classical scholars and now championed by the ultraconservatives–has always been that corporal punishments–such as killing of apostates–must be done by the government and not individuals.

Vigilante justice has always been strictly forbidden, and in fact severely punished.  The second Caliph of Islam was in fact killed, and his son ended up killing the murderer, vigilante style.  Even though his case seemed just, the Muslim authorities punished him for murder, due to it being vigilante justice outside the court system.

We can read this from ultraconservative Islamic websites themselves, which quote classical scholars; for example, the Saudi based Islam-QA strictly forbids “honor killing” on the grounds that it is vigilante justice:

Al-Qurtubi said:

There is no dispute among the scholars that qisaas (retaliatory punishments) such as execution cannot be carried out except by those in authority who are obliged to carry out the qisaas and carry out hadd punishments etc, because Allaah has addressed the command regarding qisaas to all the Muslims, and it is not possible for all the Muslims to get together to carry out the qisaas, which is why they appointed a leader who may represent them in carrying out the qisaas and hadd punishments.

Tafseer al-Qurtubi, 2/245, 246.

No one should carry out the hadd punishments without the permission of the ruler. If there is no ruler who rules according to sharee’ah then it is not permissible for the ordinary people to carry out the hadd [corporal] punishments. Whoever does that is sinning, because carrying out the hadd punishments requires examining the matter and requires shar’i knowledge in order to know the conditions of proof.

The ordinary people have no knowledge of such things, and the carrying out of one of the hadd punishments by the ordinary people leads to many evils and the loss of security, whereby people will attack one another and kill one another or chop off one another’s hands on the grounds that they are carrying out hadd punishments.

Islam-QA: Honor Killings Forbidden in Islam

And that’s the opposite of a reformist site.  So even they don’t advocate honor killings or vigilante justice.  The point here is not to justify the ultraconservative view.  Rather, it is simply to show that this entire thing has been a hyped up situation used to demonize Islam and Muslims in general.  Most Western Muslims don’t believe in killing apostates, and even the small fraction that do don’t believe it can be done in the West.

Conclusion

The Quran does not at all say to kill apostates. As for the Hadiths, yes there are some texts which could be interpreted as such, but reformist Muslims believe that if you properly contextualize them, this is not the case.  Furthermore, they believe that if a Hadith contradicts a basic tenet of the Quran, it is to be rejected; in other words, the Quran takes precedence over all other texts.

As for a parent forcing a child to convert to Islam, an explicit verse in the Quran rejects this practice, which was specifically revealed for a Muslim father who was trying to force his Christian daughters to accept Islam, a remarkably similar situation to what we see in the Fathima Rifqa Bary case today.

What seems apparent is that Fathima’s parents never threatened to kill her; rather, she was brainwashed by some Christian extremists (who by the way look down on the Christian mainstream) into thinking that Islam itself–and the Quran in particular–mandates death for apostates.  Notice in her emotional interview that she clearly was of the view that: the Quran mandates it, ergo religious Muslims believe in it.  This logic is faulty and problematic.

The Islamophobes have jumped on this opportunity to spread fear and hate, insisting that Islam is intrinsically culpable, a pagan and heathen religion incompatible with those who love Christ.

Yes, a legitimate criticism is that it is unfortunate that there are Muslims–even some big time scholars who are not ultraconservatives–hold onto this view.  This is in fact a self-criticism that the reformist Muslims themselves engage in, and if the critics limited their input to this, there would have been no problem.  But the Islamophobes wanted to impugn Islam as a whole, and the Muslims in generality.

The issue of apostasy is at  “the heart of a burning debate among modern Muslims,” said Sherman Jackson, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Michigan.  It is a time of reassessment, flux, and hopefully change.  But to reduce that all down to “Muslims (or Islam) say that apostates are to be killed” is preposterous.  Muslims are undergoing a soft reformation, led by the Western Muslims and the likes of Dr. Tariq Ramadan.  But it will take time, just like Europe did not reform overnight.

Even if there happens to be a case of Muslim parents killing their children for changing religions, this shouldn’t be used as an example of what Islam advocates, or what Muslims in general think.  Such demonization is altogether unhelpful and only helps to strengthen a binary worldview.  If indeed such a case takes place (and they do from time to time), then the fault lies with the murderers, not Islam and not the Muslims in generality.  Certainly we shouldn’t encourage extremists and xenophobes who seek to co-opt such tragedies for their own nefarious agendas of fear mongering and singling out of Muslims, who are already one of the most maligned minority groups in the West.

When you consider that our campus paper runs three editions each week, features breaking news updates online between editions, and has put out some wonderful special editions centered around events like the Vice Presidential Debate, we’re quite lucky. Or at least we were. Even as recently as March 2009, Student Life was a publication that had quality standards commensurate with our peer institutions, displayed respect for core journalistic values, and fostered a free and open culture that made involvement both simple and pleasurable. But, with the staff change that took place in April 2009, none of this can be said anymore with a straight face. There has been a noticeable decline in quality, a reckless disregard for journalistic standards and values, and a regression to secrecy and power politics.

Though I do not want to paint too rosy a picture about the operations and content of Student Life prior to this staffing change (such as the horrid coverage of Dr. Daniel Pipes), as somebody who has worked at other student papers and for a range of more professional sources too, I feel able to say that on the whole, the previous standards of operation were generally commendable, and the results often praiseworthy.

First and foremost among what made Student Life function as a credible vehicle that was more newspaper than sub-tabloidal misallocation of paper (as is presently the case) was that, rather than choosing governing sentiments as fit the agenda of those in charge, they upheld journalistic standards, chief among them free speech. It is understood that, especially as it pertains to editorial columns, the writer is given sufficient discretion to not only choose their topic, but write about it in a tone and with a slant of their own choosing. For their part, the editor is generally expected only to make alterations to grammar and syntax, and if need be, removing statements that qualify as libel. And that was the position taken by my editor, and insofar as I am aware all others, up until the staff shift. Not a single article I wrote between September of 2008 and April of 2009 was censored, including an article where I advocated applying an obscure Israeli law that would make the vast majority of its government eligible for life imprisonment and another article decrying Gandhi and the undue popularity he continues to enjoy postmortem. The new staff however, was quick to abandon this standard. Or rather, Kate Gaertner was. Being the new Senior Forum Editor, she has the ability to override the decision of the daily editors. And, at least in my experience, said group was not actively inclined to follow Gaertner’s reckless lead. Rather, they were just a bit too green behind the ears to challenge her abuse of authority, meaning that from day one, she could censor articles whose viewpoint she disagreed with, altering the tone, or making changes that made the article less coherent (as happened with my Fujimori article), thereby making the author seem less competent.

I was greatly concerned when, within a week or so of assuming power, she overrode the daily editor and made drastic changes to an article about the Federal Reserve written by fellow CLA member Phil Christofanelli. While some of her changes were legitimately necessary to enhance the readability of his column, having seen both the original version submitted and that which ultimately ran, I can say with confidence that she grossly distorted Christofanelli’s position, and left out crucial details that supported or qualified his position, and which were contextually critical. Alas, this was not the last example of her flagrant disregard for the opinions of the few non-liberals who had opted to lend the paper credence by letting it cite us as examples of a balance that never truly existed. The very next week, my article about the famed Peruvian politician Alberto Fujimori was savagely butchered.

Length was obviously not the issue, for it was among the shortest columns I turned in last year, and was nearly three hundred words shorter than the column I’d run the previous week about US-Israel relations. Indeed, the version she decided to run without my consent was a mere 19 words more brief. The real changes she made were not to length, but message. My article was unabashedly supportive of Fujimori, who many conservatives hold as hero based on the stellar results he generated while in power, especially as compared to the job done by those who preceded and succeeded him. In her mind however, that was unacceptable. After the column ran, I met with her to discuss my profound anger over the rape of my column. Her justification was that because I was the only Student Life columnist whose focus was on international affairs, she felt the need to moderate my tone, given that I had no left-wing counterpart. Never mind that with the arguable exception of Christofanelli, who covered various domestic policy issues every other week from a qualified libertarian position, every other writer for the section had a pronounced left-wing orientation. Yet at no time did she ever feel that balance was needed there. After all, the views of said columnists aligned generally with her own, so she felt no need to restrict their speech. In that particular exchange her seeming fetish for censoring conservatives was re-iterated throughout, as she issued various proposals that involved cutting, marginalizing, or balancing my column and no others. We ended with me making rather clear that should my column ever again be censored, I would cease to write for Student Life, as I now have.

Censorship though is not limited to those writing, as such policies just as readily apply to those wishing to join the staff. One individual wishing to write for Forum sent Gaertner an email detailing their desire to write for her section. She did not ask for a writing sample or details of the writer’s credentials. She did however make certain to confirm that their political position was one consistent with her own. She stated, in reference obviously to me, that the paper already had a writer who is “very neo-conservative in his stance [ed - this is grossly inaccurate], very pro-Israel” and that she was not looking to hire another such writer in the name of the “balance,” which consisted of me on the right, and most of the rest of the staff on the far left. It wasn’t until she was sufficiently ensured she wouldn’t be adding another conservative to the staff that she granted the applicant a column.

Of course, once granted a column, even if a Forum writer is not subject to censorship as a result of their ideological sympathies, it all but certain they will suffer from the ill-effects of mismanagement and/or power politics. For instance, it was not until shortly after I attempted to submit my Srebrencia column (now run elsewhere) during the first week of class this academic year that a clear word limit was ever stated, being set at a meager 700 (which, in turn, has caused a decline in quality perhaps moreso than any other singular action since the staffing change). Problem was, what your limit was would vary depending which editor you asked, and who you were. Under the old regime, if there was a word limit, it was perhaps a soft 1000, and I ran at least four articles that were between 800 and 1000 words without so much as a suggestion that I consider writing shorter submissions. Under the new regime, the limit is a hard 700. But, and here’s the catch, it applies selectively. I had run multiple columns longer than that in the short reign of the new governing regime. And indeed, I was told by my editor that the submitted article would run, but that in the future, I should keep articles under 800 words. A friend of mine writing for Forum was told to keep his columns under 550 words by a different editor. Presumably these were not arbitrary decisions, but rather the result of mismanagement by Gaertner, as applied to her subordinates.

I am especially inclined to believe the fault lies exclusively with Gaertner based on her inability to relay simple information to her staff in a timely fashion. After the last minute rejection of my Srebrenica article for being longer than a limit I was never told about, and other issues to be detailed below, I resigned from Student Life on August 30, 2009. From what I have been told, even though the article was in her hands well in advance of that time, she did not bother cutting it until printing day, keeping the Friday Forum Editor in the dark. Likewise, he was not even told of my resignation until the next week, at which time he was tasked with finding a way to fill column inches he had come to expect were already accounted for, being that I had a weekly column.

Still, it may not merely have been an issue of incompetence and limited communication skills on Gaerner’s part, as her apparent love for instigating petty conflicts in an inexplicable quest to ensure that her authority was never challenged, even though hierarchically she was never in any danger, manifested itself regularly. This is perhaps best evidenced by her fear of openness, and the associated reliance on secrecy, witnessed clearly in her management of the Executive Board. Made up officially of senior staff, its job is to select the topics for the staff editorials, as well as the position that will be taken therein. Whatever the connotations of her name, the staff in charge before her held that such meetings should be open to all Forum writers interested in attending, and that when there, participants were equal in status to those who were official members of it. They recognized that there was no negative consequence to this approach, as only those genuinely interested would attend if not obligated. At the same time, there was tremendous benefit that came with it, including helping to determine who would be offered promotions at the next staff roster adjustment, encouraging interaction between junior and senior staff, fostering an open atmosphere that instilled faith the paper, and allowed for a diversity in opinion to be given voice that might otherwise be sorely lacking. Gaertner however, would have none of this. Though she herself had attended several such meetings before being made an editor, unsure in power based on her underwhelming experience and leadership skills, she sought to keep the meetings closed, limiting them only to the newly appointed editors, all of whom had the same or less experience than her, and were disinclined to challenge her authority. Or rather, she almost did.

Having regularly attended such meetings previously, and moreover having both written a Staff Editorial (about University College access by undergrads) and having introduced a piece of software still widely used by Student Life staff to collaboratively edit articles (Writeboard), I continued to attend the meetings without issue. And at first, there was no apparent problem, for she had not announced a policy switch, and no other non-editor besides me made a point of attending such meetings. One week however, I suggested to a friend of mine that also wrote for Forum that he experience an Executive Board meeting, as they sometimes featured rather interesting debate. He agreed, and we went together to the next such meeting. Shortly after leaving, he received an email from Gartner, wherein she said stated he was not welcome at said meetings in the future. She said, “One thing that I wanted to address with you is that the editorial board meetings are technically open only to senior staff members, and we invite Caleb, as a columnist, to come to our meetings because we feel he helps us to strike the appropriate political balance of opinion that an editorial board for our campus community should reflect.” That she even allowed me to continue attending for the remainder of the academic year was a bit shocking, for her actions detailed earlier in this article make clear she had no true allegiance to balance. But this was to be short lived.

Just before the start of the academic year, and prior to my resignation from the paper, I sent Gaertner an email inquiring as to when and where the Executive Board meetings would be held this year, thinking that it might have changed from last year. In response to my inquiry, she informed me that “the scope of eboard has changed this year, and in keeping with our goals, it will be limited to editors.” Now, insofar as I can tell, that policy was not any different from the preceding year since her assumption of power, with one notable exception. And that is the concern for balance. It seems that over the summer, she lost any interest in even pretending that her section enjoyed any. Not being one to avoid confrontation, I responded to her, stating as much, albeit with a somewhat nicer tone. She of course ignored this, as she often did emails I sent where the answer would invariably require that she either concede something to me, or put her foot in her mouth. While other writers would hear back from her in hours, I would never get a response as soon as the circumstances forced her hand, even if I sent two or three emails on the same topic over the course of a week or two. To do otherwise would require that she be less paranoid about protection authority nobody ever sought to challenge. And that inclination seems absent from her DNA.

Ultimately, I do not believe that the sad state Forum, and to a lesser extent other sections of the paper, currently find themselves in is necessarily a permanent condition. Past leadership has demonstrated that within our student body there are a perfectly sufficient number of capable individuals to run a high quality campus newspaper. But those presently in power, especially Gaertner, have done considerable damage in the present to our paper’s quality and reputation. If, when the next staff re-assignment comes around serious changes are not made, with more qualified individuals being given greater authority, I fear that what is presently just a dark period for the paper will become something more permanent and more destructive. Its longterm viability, if present conditions persist, is questionable. And, even if it were to continue on, in its present capacity that would serve only as a blight on this fine institution.

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I fortsættelse af indlægget fra i går vil jeg meget gerne henvise til denne artikel i Information af Nina Trige Andersen: Frygten for den muslimske magtovertagelse

Hun skriver bl.a.:

Eurabien-ideologen Bruce Bawer er ikke i tvivl om løsningen på ‘kultursammenstødet’ mellem muslimer og Vesten: Det europæiske folk må indse, at alternativet for Vesteuropa vil blive »total kapitulation eller massefordrivelse«. Steyns forslag lyder: »I en demokratisk tidsalder kan man ikke overvinde demografien – undtagen gennem borgerkrig.«

Bemærk, at disse galninge (eurabien-ideologerne) direkte opfordrer til borgerkrig !!!

Ultrazionisten Daniel Pipes

Eurabien-ideologerne tæller de sædvanlige islamhadere omkring Giordano Bruno Selskabet, Trykkefrihedsselskabet, Tidehverv og ikke mindst personer som Bent Jensen og Daniel Pipes, der i øvrigt “tilfældigvis” havde besøg af journalisten Flemming Rose fra Jyllands-Posten ganske kort tid før offentliggørelsen af de såkaldte Mohammed-tegninger… – det var Flemming Rose, som stod bag dette perfide angreb på muslimer over hele verden (men der var naturligvis andre og langt mere magtfulde personer, som stod bag ham)!

Se afsløringen af Flemming Roses og Daniel Pipes forsøg på at starte en ny verdenskrig, nemlig krigen mellem Islam og Vesten: Afsløret: Neocon-mænd bag Jyllands Postens storpolitiske provokation

Daniel Pipes–one of the “Dirty Dozen” leading Islamophobes of the country according to FAIR–recently taunted Palestinian people in a hate-filled post, saying:

The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.

A sensible commentator voiced LoonWatch’s opinion:

“Isn’t the charge (and belief) that the Palestinians are a defeated people, however true, incendiary, at worst; taunting, at best? And to what purpose?”

Amazingly, Pipes sees nothing wrong with his comment, saying: “The world may quote me on it…”  Racists and bigots in general have this problem: they say something completely offensive and inappropriate, and then not only do they refuse to rescind what they said, but are actually completely unable to see what is wrong with it to begin with.  This is because their mind operates differently than the rest of us: they are oblivious to the obvious. They say what we could never say due to human decency.

However, Pipes’ comment is not without precedent.  In fact, there was another ethnic group which was constantly referred to by white racists as “a defeated people.”  I’m talking about the Native Americans.  This idea–that Native Americans are a “defeated people”–was started by the American settlers who wished to steal Native American land.  We read (emphasis is mine):

Iroquois delegates at Fort Stanwix tried to argue for the Ohio River as the boundary to Indian lands, but the American commissioners would have none of it.  “You are a subdued people,” they lectured the delegates..When chiefs of the Wyandots, Chippewas, Delawares, and Ottawas said they regarded the lands transferred by Britain to the United States as still rightfully belonging to them, the American commissioners answered them “in a high tone,” and reminded them that they were a defeated people. At Fort Finney, when Shawnees balked at the American terms [for peace] and refused…one of the American commissioners…told them to accept the terms or face the consequences.

(The American Revolution in Indian Country, by Colin Gordon Calloway, pp.282-283)

I must of course thank Daniel Pipes for using the exact same phrase and of providing the perfect analogy, as the Palestinians are in a similar situation as the one the Native Americans found themselves in when the American settlers tried to steal their land. Just like there were American settlers back then stealing land, there are today Israeli settlers trying to steal Palestinian land.

The above quote fits the analogy perfectly: the Palestinians define their land as West of the Jordan River (consisting of the West Bank and Gaza with the right of return), just as the Iroquois argued for the boundary of the Ohio River.  The Native Americans regarded the land as theirs, despite the fact that the British had “transferred” the land to the American settlers; again, the Palestinians still regard the land as theirs, despite the British transfer of the land to Israelis after the mandate period.  And of course the American settlers were of the view that the Native Americans “must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”  It was necessary for the occupier and colonizer to imbue in the natives a learned helplessness, a feeling of absolute demoralization and self-loathing, so that they would accept terms of peace that were completely slanted against them.

It is the language of the white supremacist and colonizer which Daniel Pipes has adopted.  The object of denigration has simply changed from the “warlike” Indian “pagans” to the “warlike” brown Muslims. The American settlers indoctrinated the Native Americans with the idea that they are “a defeated people,” until they started believing it themselves:

In the past, many Indians saw themselves as a defeated people whose land was occupied and whose lives were dominated by their conquerors…[which] caused major psychological problems in Indian communities.  In some ways the Native Americans shared a defeated status with Mexican-Americans…

Their reservations became virtual prisons…At an Indian conference held during the 1950s, the speakers concluded that as far as the Siouan peoples of the Plains were concerned “most Indian assumptions are negative, unenthusiastic and fearful–the outlook of a beaten people.”

…[Whites] recognized the Indians’ precarious status…as “Persons of little worth…”

(The American Indian: Past and Present, by Roger Nicols, pp.130-131)

This concept of “a defeated people” is intrinsically imperialistic and offensive, and is no longer appropriate to use in the post-colonial era.  People should not be conquered.  One can only imagine the reaction if the American president taunted the Iraqi people by saying that “the Iraqis are a defeated people.”  Governments and regimes may be defeated; but should we seek to defeat an entire people?  This idea of one people defeating another is archaic and incendiary.

Nowadays, Native Americans are fighting these horrible stereotypes of being “a defeated people”–a label placed on them by the settlers.  A writer for The Native American Community Explorer writes:

It was recently said by a commentator that American Indians are “a broken and defeated people” …In actuality, American Indians are probably the most stalwart people in the United States.  Consider this – the American Indians as a group of people have suffered and continues to suffer at the hands of an unjust civil and criminal system that began with Manifest Destiny and continues through today and are still a proud and strong people that are carrying on their traditions and culture with laughter and life.  Despite concerted efforts by the colonizers and the US Government to eradicate all traces of the Indigenous population – we are still here.

Palestinians can also claim to be a “stalwart people” who refuse to disappear despite the concerted efforts of another form of Manifest Destiny, i.e. Eretz Israel or “Greater Israel.”  The Palestinians can proudly proclaim: “we are still here.”

A member of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation lamented that the racist attitudes towards Native Americans as “a defeated people” persists:

[They] see us as nothing more than a defeated, broken down race of people who constantly complain about being victimized.

In a similar vein, Pipes and company view Palestinians as a “defeated, broken down race of people who constantly complain about being victimized.”

So this is the racially loaded and highly offensive terminology that Daniel Pipes uses; in fact, it is the same language used by white supremacists.  Emmeric, a senior member and active donor to the Stormfront forum, says of the Native Americans:

They are a defeated and broken race.

Bravo, Dr. Pipes!  You are in good company!

The undertones in Daniel Pipes’s statement are racist.  His use of the demeaning phrase “a defeated people” is purposeful, and it is a slur that has a history of abuse by racists.  Therefore, he cannot hide behind the claim that it is merely a definitional understanding.  Rather, it has a deeper historical connotation, and an imperial “high tone” to it.

From Daniel Pipes blog http://www.danielpipes.org/

Daniel Pipes, Aug. 10th

I’ve studied Islam for a long time (forty years next month) but Islamists are constantly surprising me with their practices. In reverse chronological order, this blog occasionally chronicles some of the more colorful examples. Forcibly remove gold and silver teeth: The Somali Islamist group al Shabaab has begun to pull gold and silver teeth from residents in southern Somalia on the grounds that they contravene the Shari’a. Abdi Sheikh reports for Reuters: Al Shabaab in action, when not pulling teeth. Residents in Marka say al Shabaab has been rounding up anyone seen with a silver or gold tooth and taking them to a masked man who then rips them out using basic tools. “I never thought al Shabaab would see my denture as a sin. They took me to their station and removed my silver tooth,” resident Bashir told Reuters. “I met several men and women whose dentures were being pulled out by a masked man they called a doctor. The doctor used a pincer or his gloved hand depending on the strength of the tooth,” Bashir said. “As you smile your silver tooth accuses you. I was at a counter with my friend when three armed al Shabaab ordered me to follow them,” he added. “I am afraid they want to make money from taking all this precious metal.”

al Shabaab in action when they are not forcibly pulling people’s teeth out.

______________________________________________________________

Thank you, Daniel Pipes, for all your courageous work exposing and reporting on the Islamists around the world.

Bat Ye’or: Anti-Muslim Loon with a Crazy Conspiracy Theory Named “Eurabia”

We all have them: crazy uncles or senile grandparents raving about one conspiracy theory or the other on the dinner table. “Man landing on the moon was a big hoax,” or “Elvis really didn’t die but went to live with Mickey Mouse in Disney World.” We’d smile and continue eating our leftover mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, then politely ask to be excused on account of work early the next morning, the car ride back home full of mirthful post-dinner analysis of the crazy dinner table conspiracy talk.

So when we first read about Bat Ye’or, a lady with no educational qualifications to speak of, who came up with the crazy conspiracy theory entitled “Eurabia,” we here at LoonWatch barely reacted. If a zany lady comes up with some insane theory, we’re certainly not going to take her seriously, at least not any more than the crazy old McCain lady.

The sad reality, however, is that Bat Ye’or is now being used by leading Islamophobes as a primary source for their research and subsequent analysis.  So who is Bat Ye’or?  Well, first of all, her name is not Bat Ye’or.  That’s just her “screen-name.”  For many years, she kept her real identity a secret, and only wrote under this moniker, which is Hebrew for “daughter of the Nile.”  She also had another screen-name, which was Yahudiya Masriya, Arabic for “Egyptian Jewess.”  Her real name is Gisele Littman, and she’s vitriolically anti-Muslim and anti-Islam.

She has written a handful of articles and books–with the basic theme that Muslims have savagely oppressed Non-Muslims (“dhimmis”) throughout history.  These resources written by her are used as reference sources by famous Islamophobes like Robert Spencer (the face behind the xenophobic websites Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch). Spencer hailed Bat Ye’or as “the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude, of the institutionalized discrimination and harassment of non-Muslims under Islamic law.”  Daniel Pipes, an Islamophobic professor, cites her work numerous times. She has emerged from relative obscurity to fame, her work being the backbone of Islamophobic (mis)characterization of Islamic history.

Pamela Geller, admin of the anti-Muslim site Atlas Shrugs, declares: “Bat Ye’or is the world’s foremost leading scholar on Islam.” Amazing how the “world’s foremost leading scholar on Islam” has no educational background and absolutely no credentials at all from a recognized university; truly amazing that anyone can become the world’s leading scholar on Islam with just a library card, a keyboard and internet connection, and of course the key ingredient of all–an all encompassing hatred of Islam.  Can one imagine the world’s leading scholar on Judaism being an Anti-Semite?  This just in: the world’s foremost leading scholar on Judaism is an Anti-Semitic Hamas member. Absurd!

Bat Ye’or is Not a Scholar

Bat Ye’or is not a scholar; she does not have the credentials of a historian from any recognized university.  She is referred to as an “independent researcher,” a euphemism for a random person who goes to the library, opens up some books, and starts writing. Adi Shwartz, a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, rightfully points out Bat Ye’or’s lack of credentials:

Europe allowed the immigration of millions of Muslims to its territories…and will ultimately…transform Europe into a continent under the thumb of the Arab and Muslim world. Europe is dead, and in its stead “Eurabia” has arisen.

This controversial thesis belongs to Bat Ye’or, the pen name of a self-taught Jewish intellectual who was born in Egypt and who currently lives in Switzerland. She refuses to reveal her real name for security reasons, she says, but her thesis is just the prologue to far-reaching conclusions and extreme statements…While her ideas were once almost completely ignored, nowadays, because of the prevailing consternation in Europe regarding its complex relations with the Muslim world, she is receiving more attention, though she is still quite far from entering the European mainstream…

Bat Ye’or’s opinions have made her a controversial figure, as has the fact that she is not an academic and has never taught at any university. She conducts her research independently.

Professor Robert Wistrich, head of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, says of her:

Up until the 1980s, she was not accepted at all. In academic circles they scorned her publications…A real change toward her emerged in the 1990s, and especially in recent years.

In other words, Bat Ye’or was never taken seriously by academics; it was only recently due to the political climate of Islamophobia that her works have become oft-cited by certain elements of society.  Interestingly enough, Bat Ye’or herself admits this:

They didn’t even mention my name in publications. In the United States, I am certain that the September 11 attacks woke people up, including the Jewish community that had previously ignored me…

It truly calls to question the legitimacy of the Islamophobes that they use as their main source a woman who has no credentials and whose work was scorned and ignored by academics and only became popular due to a wave of xenophobia:

[Professor Wistrich said:] “In a survey conducted in Germany recently 83 percent gave the answer ‘fanaticism’ to the question ‘What is Islam?’ Sixty percent said there was a clash of civilizations. This is why Bat Ye’or is getting more attention these days.”

Her opinions on the integration of the Muslims and Europe’s bleak future are acquiring many supporters for her in Europe’s extreme right-wing circles.

Those numbers are staggering, and frightening.  An overwhelming majority (83%) of Germans believe that Islam is fanaticism. (One can imagine what a similar poll conducted in the early 1930’s or 40’s-during the reign of the Nazis-would have shown had it asked what their view of Judaism was.)  It is such a climate that leads to pogroms, and it seems that Bat Ye’or wishes to tap into this potential.  She admits that her works are embraced by “the extreme right and in racist movements.” She gives them the wink and nod, with the usual half-hearted disclaimer that “attacking Muslims, sometimes even physically, is stupid.” Any bigotry short of that, of course, is fine and dandy.  Wistrich, who invited her to speak at a conference in Jerusalem, cracked a crass joke:

At the conference I said half-joking that it was possible to call this [her book] ‘the protocols of the elders of Brussels.’

It is interesting that Wistrich could be so mirthful about such a serious topic, as if it is somehow comical for a person to write a document that would result in ethnic strife.  Again, a frightening idea.  Adi Schwartz, the Israeli journalist who questioned her credentials, aptly titled his article on her “The Protocols of the Elders of Brussels.”

Bat Ye’or: Neutral Academic or Biased Ideologue?

Bat Ye’or has an axe to grind; there could be no one more biased than her.  Her antipathy towards Islam stems from her stormy past: in 1957, she was expelled from Egypt during the Israeli invasion of Sinai.  Although one can and should most definitely sympathize with her plight, it seems that she has–like so many racists before her–reacted to bigotry by becoming a bigot.  She was wronged by Muslims, and now she wants to take vengeance, which has blinded her.  Bat Ye’or said in an interview:

I wrote these books because I had witnessed the destruction, in a few short years, of a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years and which had existed from the time of Jeremiah the Prophet. I saw the disintegration and flight of families, dispossessed and humiliated, the destruction of their synagogues, the bombing of the Jewish quarters and the terrorizing of a peaceful population. I have personally experienced the hardships of exile, the misery of statelessness-and I wanted to get to the root cause of all this. I wanted to understand why the Jews from Arab countries, nearly a million, had shared my experience.

This is not unbiased and dispassionate academic study; for Bat Ye’or, this is personal.  From the above quote alone, one can see the inconsistency in Bat Ye’or’s views.  During the Israeli occupation of Sinai, anti-Semitism surged in Egypt and within “a few short years” an end was brought to “a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years.”  Does she not see the inconsistency here?  Over one thousand of those 2,600 years were during Muslim rule of Egypt, which began in 639 AD.  During that time period, there was a Jewish community which thrived, or as Bat Ye’or words it, was “vibrant.”  Surely then it makes no sense to generalize the “few short years” to all of Islamic history.

Conspiracy Theory: Palestinians Don’t Exist; Europeans Created Them

It is an irony that Bat Ye’or laments about “the hardships of exile, [and the] misery of statelessness,” which is exactly what the Palestinian people have suffered from.  Yet, Bat Ye’or, a fervent supporter of Israel goes even further than some of the most extreme Right-Wing Israelis and even denies the existence of a Palestinian people, arguing that “the Palestinian cause was created mainly in Europe.”   To put her quote into context, she says:

The Kurds, the Berbers, the Basques (Spain) and the Corsicans (France) have nationalist characteristics, but not the Palestinians.  The Palestinian cause was created mainly in Europe…

So Kurds, Berbers, Basques, and Corsicans are all peoples, but not the Palestinians, who are an imaginary peoples invented by Europe.  So why exactly did Europe create the Palestinian people?  She explains:

The Palestinian cause was created mainly in Europe, with the purpose to transfer onto the Palestinians the Jewish history in order to delegitimize Israel and to absolve Europe from the Holocaust by throwing onto Israel its own European history of Nazism, apartheid and colonialism.

Let us allow the reader to properly understand her conspiracy theory: she is arguing that the Palestinian people were created by Europe in order to paint Israel as being guilty of Nazism, apartheid, and colonialism–in order to absolve themselves of blame for the Holocaust which created the state of Israel.  One can imagine the European leaders convening in some secret lair–shoddy lighting and a room full of cigar smoke–contemplating how to absolve themselves of blame for the Holocaust.  “I got it!” exclaims one especially wily European intellectual.  “We’ll invent a people–let’s call them ‘Palestinians’–and say that they existed in the land of Israel!”  They passed it to a vote, and voila!  The Europeans then made a few calls and engineered the Palestinian race.  As Jon Stewart said mockingly about the Obama-being-a-stealth-Jihadist-from-Yemen theory: “It was just too easy.”

Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory is creative no doubt, but ludicrous.  This is the woman whom Islamophobes like Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Pamela Geller cite as a primary source for their views on Islam, thus highlighting that they have absolutely no academic integrity or credibility.

Conspiracy Theory: Europe Will Become a Vassal State to the Arab World

Bat Ye’or is a fringe conspiracy theorist who argues that “Europe will become a vassal [state], a satellite of the Arab world.” Such alarmist drivel that no sane person could take her seriously.  The irony is that the reality is the exact opposite: it is the Arab world that plays second fiddle compared to the West.  Tell us, Bat Ye’or, how will the Arabs make a vassal state out of Europe?  Them and which army?  The combined Arab might pales in front of Israel; how can the Arab world then vanquish all of Europe?  Such senseless fear mongering.

Conspiracy Theory: European Universities are Controlled by Palestinians

As part of her global conspiracy theory, Bat Ye’or argues that “[European] universities, for example, are controlled by the Palestinians.” Oh why of course!  In fact, the deans of the European universities are all “stealth Palestinians;” every year they travel to the Gaza Strip for an annual ceremony, where Hamas leaders dictate what the curriculum will be for the year, and indoctrinate them in all things jihad.  It is in fact funding from Palestine that is keeping the European universities afloat.  (deadpan face)

Can one imagine the reaction of Islamophobes if some Moozlim-looking person said that the Western universities were controlled by “the Jews?”  They would call such a person not only a crazy conspiracy theorist but a racist, and rightfully so, but the issue here is the profound double standard.  You want to say something outlandish about Jews or any other minority?  Not acceptable  (Rightfully so).  But say the same thing about Muslims?  Then you get your own show on Fox News, and your books will become best-sellers (of the “What’s Wrong with Islam” or “Why I’m Not a Muslim” variety).

Conspiracy Theory: The Rise of Eurabia

The culmination of Bat Ye’or’s theories is what she coins as “Eurabia,” a (not so) clever combination of the words “Europe” and “Arabia.”  Basically, the theory is that Arab and Muslim immigration (of “stealth jihadists”) will soon overwhelm Europe, destroy Western culture and civilization forever, and replace the democratic governments with Taliban style theocracies.   While that does sound like an interesting plot for a fictional movie, it is pure insanity to take this seriously.  Bat Ye’or is simply delusional.  David Aaronovitch, a journalist for The Times, labels Bat Ye’or as a conspiracy theorist:

Pinch me a third time while we get to grips with “Eurabia”. This is a concept created by a writer called Bat Ye’or who, according to the publicity for her most recent book, “chronicles Arab determination to subdue Europe as a cultural appendage to the Muslim world-and Europe’s willingness to be so subjugated”. This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea.

Aaronovitch would know; he wrote the book entitled Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History.  (Aaronovitch is no “dhimmi” as the Islamophobes would say; he produced a pro-Israeli documentary titled Blaming the Jews.)

Conspiracy Theory: The Churches of Europe are Colluding with Muslims

Bat Ye’or’s lunacy can be ascertained by some of her even more outlandish claims.  For example, she accuses the churches in Europe of being in a state of “collusion with the Muslims,” which she says have of their own volition become “Christian slave militias” that will “spearhead…the Islamic war against Christianity.”  According to her, the churches of Europe “reject…the Bible, which they read with a Koranic understanding.”  She goes on to say that European Christians “are more inclined to follow the Koranic Muslim Jesus, called Isa, than the Jewish Jesus.” Can any sober academic–or even sensible layman–take such drivel seriously?  But perhaps the reader thinks that we have taken her words out of context (after all, who could say something so crazy!), so let us reproduce her entire nonsensical answer verbatim so that her madness can be firmly established in the eyes of the reader:

JW: You’re accusing churches of collusion with the Muslims?

BY [Bat Ye'or]: Yes. Those churches know perfectly well the dire condition of Christians in Muslim lands. But instead of denouncing it, they adopt the militancy of the Janissaries, those Christian slave militias that were the spearhead of the Islamic war against Christianity. They forbid Christians to reveal the iniquities of modern dhimmitude in Arab countries, the enslavement of Christians in Sudan, the abductions and jihadic terror against innocent population. Those churches follow an arcionist theological line which separates the Gospels from the Hebrew Bible. They reject the historical legitimacy of Israel in its own land and, therefore, reject also the Bible, which they read with a Koranic understanding. They are more inclined to follow the Koranic Muslim Jesus, called Isa, than the Jewish Jesus. In my book, I call them the Islamized churches because their rejection of Israel’s history implies their refusal of the Bible and their acceptance of the Koranic version of the Bible that considers Christianity as a deformation of Islam.

This lunacy has been affirmed by another well-known loon–Daniel Pipes–who writes:

The historian Bat Ye’or, the first person to comprehend the gradual process of Europe accepting the dhimmi status, observes that this fundamental shift began with the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, when the continent began moving “into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence, thus breaking the traditional trans-Atlantic solidarity.”

Translation: not only has Europe fallen under the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence–and not only has it become a subservient “dhimmi” to the Arab world–it is doing so willingly and of its own volition.  Riiiight, riiiight.  So Pipes is not far behind Bat Ye’or in looniness, which explains his reliance on her work.

Voice of Reason

Adam Keller, a well-known Israeli peace activist and cofounder of Gush Shalom, wrote a letter of protest to the Israeli publisher of Bat Ye’or’s book:

In 1886 the French antisemite Edouard Drumont published ‘La France Juive’ (Jewish France), creating the false nightmarish image of a France dominated by Jews, and sowing the poisonous seeds which came to fruit when Vichi French officials collaborated in the mass murder of French Jewry…

Bat Yeor’, [is] a British inflammatory writer who presumes to be a historian and who, I regret to note, is Jewish.  In this book – which, like the other works of this writer, is little more than a rabid anti-Muslim tract – ‘Bat Yeor’ follows in notorious footsteps indeed by creating the false nightmarish image of a Europe dominated by Arabs and Muslims. As Edouard Drumont sought to arouse the French people to persecute and kill their Jewish neighbours, so does Ms. Littman intend to drive Europeans into a continent-wide orgy of hatred and violence against the Muslim immigrants who are now a significant ethnic minority throughout the continent, and the great majority of whom seek nothing but to live useful and fruitful lives in their new homelands.

Ms. Littman’s reasons for writing her racist and inflammatory book are all too obvious. The reasons why you, a respectable publishing house, have chosen to present it to the Israeli public are far more obscure. Whatever these reasons might be, surely – now that you already taken this step – it would be appropriate to complete your task and produce also a companion volume, i.e. a Hebrew translation of ‘La France Juive’? After all, the informed Israeli reading public deserves to be given the chance of comparing the classical work of a master racist demagogue with that of his loyal present-day disciple and successor.

Craigh Smith of The New York Times refers to Bat Ye’or as one “of the most extreme voices” of the right:

A curious thing is happening in Belgium these days: a small but vocal number of Jews are supporting a far-right party whose founders were Nazi collaborators. The xenophobic party, Vlaams Belang, plays on fears of Arab immigrants and, unlike the prewar parties from which it is descended, courts Jewish votes…

Those fears shape some of the most extreme voices on the new Jewish right. Giselle Littman, who was expelled from Egypt in 1957 and now publishes under the pseudonym Bat Yeor, argues in her latest book, ”Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis,” that Europe has consciously allied itself with the Arab world at the expense of Jews and the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Johann Hari of The Independent writes of Bat Ye’or:

There are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca. Meet Bat Ye’or, a “scholar” who argues that Europe is on the brink of being transformed into a conquered continent called “Eurabia”.

In this new land, Christians and Jews will be reduced by the new Muslim majority to the status of “dhimmis” – second-class citizens forced to “walk in the gutter”. This will not happen by accident. It is part of a deliberate and “occult” plan, concocted between the Arab League and leading European politicians like Jacques Chirac and Mary Robinson, who secretly love Islam and are deliberately flooding the continent with Muslim immigrants. As Orianna Fallacci – one of the best-selling writers in Italy – has summarised the thesis in her hymns of praise to Ye’or, “Muslims have been told to come here and breed like rats.”

Rather than dismissing her preposterous assertions, high-profile writers like Melanie Phillips, Daniel Pipes and Niall Ferguson laud Ye’or as a suppressed hero, silenced by (you guessed it) “political correctness”. Her name is brandished as a gold standard in right-wing Tory circles. It’s interesting that writers so alert to anti-Semitism have lent their names to an ideology that is so startlingly similar. In this theory, the Star of David has simply been replaced by the Islamic crescent. If the term has any meaning, this is authentic Islamophobia, treating virtually all Muslims as verminous sharia-carriers. So why are these people still treated as serious and sane by the BBC and its editors?

Selective and Shoddy “Scholarship”

Bat Ye’or’s idea of history is nothing short of propaganda.  She said in one interview:

The Arab invaders arrived in [Jerusalem in] the 7th century, devastated the country, massacred and enslaved the population and expropriated the Jewish and Christian indigenous populations, as is related by contemporaneous sources.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

As for her actual work on dhimmis (Non-Muslims under Muslim rule) is concerned, it is selective and shoddy “scholarship.”  Professor Robert Brenton Betts, a well-renowned American historian who worked for the Library of Congress and the Department of State, criticizes Bet Ye’or’s book:

The general tone of the book is strident and anti-Muslim. This is coupled with selective scholarship designed to pick out the worst examples of anti-Christian behavior by Muslim governments, usually in time of war and threats to their own destruction (as in the case of the deplorable Armenian genocide of 1915). Add to this the attempt to demonize the so-called Islamic threat to Western civilization and the end-product is generally unedifying and frequently irritating.

(source: Robert Brenton Betts, “The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude” Middle East Policy 5-3 ; September 1997, pp. 200-2003)

Professor Michael Sells of the University of Chicago writes:

By obscuring the existence of pre-Christian and other old, non-Christian communities in Europe as well as the reason for their disappearance in other areas of Europe [due to Christian persecution], Bat Ye’or constructs an invidious comparison between the allegedly humane Europe of Christian and Enlightenment values and the ever present persecution within Islam. Whenever the possibility is raised of actually comparing circumstances of non-Christians in Europe to non-Muslims under Islamic governance in a careful, thoughtful manner, Bat Ye’or forecloses such comparison.

(source: The New Crusades: Construction the Muslim Enemy, by Professor Michael Sells, p.364)

In other words, the comparison that Bat Ye’or–and Islamophobes in general–flee from is the one between the Muslim lands in the pre-modern era with the contemporaneous Christian Europe.  Instead, they choose to compare medieval Islamdom with post-enlightenment and postmodern standards, a most unequal and unusually obtuse comparison.  Jan Platvoet sums it up best with a very nuanced answer (emphasis is mine):

Arab scholars praise the tolerance of Islam towards the ‘protected population’.  The Egyptian Qasim ‘Abduh Qasim, for instance, who has published several works on the dhimmis in Muslim lands in general, and Egypt in particular, emphasizes the positive attitude of Muslims towards non-Muslims, even under the regime of the eleventh-century Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, known for his persecution of minorities, especially the Christians.

The opposite point of view is represented by a number of researchers, notably a writer who [uses] the pseudonym Bat Ye’or, i.e. Daughter of the Nile.  She has managed to select from the body of historiographical evidence, chronicles and documents, only that material which portrays the negative aspects.  Some such materials can occasionally be found, relating to various episodes, periods, and areas; it is therefore no wonder that she has succeeded in filling a complete volume, now published in several languages, on the maltreatment of the dhimmis by Muslims.  Bat Ye’or has recently published a new book dedicated exclusively to the long history of Christians under Muslim rule; this book is characterized by the same spirit as her previous book on the dhimmis.

…It seems that the truth lies somewhere in between [Qasim and Bat Ye'or's version]…The life of the dhimmis in the shade of Islam was certainly not easy, but at least their physical security (aman) and the safety of their property was assured, almost without exception.

(Pluralism and Identity, by Jan Platvoet, p.169)

In other words, Bat Ye’or scours historical texts to find all the negative points she possibly can, and then she compiles them into a book.  Naturally, the span of Islamic history was over a thousand years, so she can easily fill up hundreds of pages, giving the credulous reader the false impression that Islamic history was incredibly dastardly.  To give a suitable analogy, let’s say Rodney King were to scour all the reports throughout the country for the last fifty years for all acts of police brutality–and then compiled them into a book–he could easily fill hundreds of pages.  A person who relied on his book would get the false impression that the police were–and are–always brutal, or at least more so than not.  One gets a skewed picture from such a selective analysis.

The Islamophobe Robert Spencer argues that Bat Ye’or’s book is convincing because it is “full…[of] almost half primary source documents so that one can see the voracity of what she is saying from very ancient texts.” Yet it is convincing only because it is selective and biased; Bat Ye’or simply sifted throughout Islamic history to selectively find all the instances of anti-Jewish and anti-Christian persecution, ignoring the overwhelming majority of Islamic history which was characterized according to the overwhelming number of scholars by relative tolerance (for the times, and certainly compared to Christendom); if Bat Ye’or could fill a book with her quotes, it would only be a slight exaggeration to say that we could fill an entire anthology with quotes highlighting the relative tolerance of Muslims.  Taken selectively, Bat Ye’or’s choice of quotes seem damning, but diluted within the proper context, they would be less convincing of an argument.  One can easily carry out such a hatchet job on Christian (and even Jewish) history in a similar fashion.

World renowned Jewish-Israeli historian Nissim Rejwan warns:

By way of conclusion, a word of caution is in order…It must be pointed out that the picture has not been uniformly so rosy and that instances of religious intolerance toward and discriminatory treatment of Jews under Islam are by no means difficult to find. This point is of special relevance at a time in which, following a reawakening of interest in the history of Arab-Jewish relations among Jewish writers and intellectuals, certain interested circles have been trying to…[question the] Judeo-Arabic tradition or symbiosis by digging up scattered pieces of evidence to show that Islam is essentially intolerant…and that Muslims’ contempt for Jews was even greater and more deep-seated than that manifested by Christians…

Such caricatures of the history of Jews under Islam continue to be disseminated by scholars as well as by interested publicists and ideologues. Indeed, all discussion of relations between Jews and Muslims…is beset by the most burning emotions and by highly charged sensitivities. In their eagerness to repudiate the generally accepted version of these relations (a version which, it is worthwhile pointing out, originates not in Muslim books of history but with Jewish historians and Orientalists in nineteenth-century Europe), certain partisan students of the Middle East conflict today seem to go out of their way to show that, far from being the record of harmonious coexistence it is often claimed to be, the story of Jewish-Muslim relations since the time of Muhammad was “a sorry array of conquest, massacre, subjection, spoilation in goods and women and children, contempt, expulsion-[and] even the yellow badge…”

Informed by a fervor seldom encountered in scholarly discourse, some of these latter-day historians have gone so far as to question even the motives of those European-Jewish scholars of the past century who virtually founded modern Oriental and Arabic studies and managed to unearth the impressive legacy of Judeo-Arabic culture, a culture that was undeniably an outcome of a long and symbiotic encounter between Muslims and Jews.

…[But] by the standards then prevailing-and they are plainly the only ones by which a historian is entitled to pass judgment-Spanish Islamic tolerance was no myth but a reality of which present-day Muslim Arabs are fully justified in reminding their contemporaries…Tolerance, then, is a highly relative concept, and the only sensible way of gauging the extent of tolerance in a given society or culture in a given age is to compare it with that prevailing in other societies and cultures in the same period…

The only plausible conclusion one could draw from the whole debate is that, while Jewish life in Muslim Spain-and under Islam generally-was not exactly the idyllic paradise some would want us to believe, it was far from the veritable hell that was the Jews’ consistent lot under Christendom.

Bat Ye’or: The Pioneer of “Dhimmitude”

It should be noted that the Islamophobe Robert Spencer refers to Bat Ye’or as “the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude” (emphasis is ours).  The word “pioneer” indicates that she is the first to voice such views.  In other words, the traditional and long-established understanding of academics and historians is at variance with Bat Ye’or’s assessment: Muslim history was characterized by relative lenience and tolerance towards dhimmis.  (Again, all things are relative; while certainly it wouldn’t be considered tolerant to today’s standards and norms, back then it certainly was, evidenced by historical statements from the “dhimmis” themselves.)

The fact that Bat Ye’or is the first to challenge traditional and established opinion is evidenced by what J.G. Jansen, an outspoken Dutch critic of militant Islam, says:

In 1985, Bat Ye’or offered Islamic studies a surprise with her book, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, a convincing demonstration that the notion of a traditional, lenient, liberal, and tolerant Muslim treatment of the Jewish and Christian minorities is more myth than reality.

While Jansen’s view that Bat Ye’or’s book is “convincing” is certainly questionable coming from him, his quote is significant in that it shows that up until Bat Ye’or’s book the traditional and predominant scholarly opinion was that Islamic history was characterized by relative tolerance, certainly in comparison to contemporaneous Christendom. Bat Ye’or is after all the one who coined the term “dhimmitude,” which Islamophobes–including Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes–make recurrent use of.

The fact that Bat Ye’or is the first to counter traditional opinion does not mean that the predominant view of scholars has changed, as Bat Ye’or “is still quite far from entering the European mainstream,” according to Shwartz.  But–according to Wistrich–”a real change toward her emerged in the 1990s, and especially in recent years,” as she became accepted in “extreme right-wing circles.”  It is this motley group which is trying through sheer force and fear to influence academia, and push pseudo-intellectuals like Bat Ye’or into the arena of historical discourse.  The fact that the leading Islamophobes reference her (including Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Pamela Geller) indicates the weakness of their sources, and calls to question their own credibility.

Spencer argues that it is only “political correctness” that prevents people from taking Bat Ye’or seriously; no, my Islamophobic friend, it is not political correctness, but academic integrity.  When you consider an Islamophobe to be the leading scholar of Islam in the world, then something is profoundly wrong.  Simply substitute the word “Jews” for “Muslims” in the following sentence and the matter becomes clear: “Muslims will take over Europe.”  Anyone who said that about Jews would be branded an Anti-Semite and academically ostracized, yet hey, it’s open season for Muslim-bashing!

The Bottom Line

Even if we were to accept the fallacious argument that Muslim history was characterized by profound and incessant intolerance, then what does that mean for us today?  The Mongols were historically known to be intolerant, at least the Genghis Khan variety; how should that affect our opinion of Mongolians today?  Do we discriminate against them based on their historical record?  What do the present day Mongolians have to do with those of the past?  Do people inherit sins?

The relevance of Islamic history to today’s popular discourse is questionable.  It is in fact designed to demonize Muslims, but the reality is that the question shouldn’t even arise.  Why is it that Muslims of today are on trial for what their ancestors supposedly did?  Should all nations now demand their pound of flesh from all who wronged their people in ancient times?  Maybe we should create a system of reparations…?

Then what is the end goal for Islamophobes like Bat Ye’or?  Why does she spend so much time pontificating about the historical record?  It all boils down to one thing: immigration. She has highlighted the negative aspects of Islamic history in order to push the argument for a tight control (or rather, full cessation) of Arab and Muslim immigration to Europe.  Indeed, Islamophobia is simply another flavor of xenophobia.

In every generation, there have been xenophobes, who have this irrational fear of the other.  In American history, it started with the Irish and Italian immigrants who were both heavily discriminated against due to their religion and skin color.  Then it was against the Chinese who were brought to build railroads, the Japanese in World War II, and so on.  What history has born out consistently however is that the xenophobes always end up with egg on their faces.  They are on the wrong side; tolerance and multiculturalism always win out over intolerance and bigotry.  The question is: which side are you on?

I am starting to archive some of the posts from my main blog, Bob From Brockley, so as not to have all of my eggs in one basket. Please got to the original if you have any comments.

Original post location: The lessons of the Lucozade plot

I have a strong personal stake in the so-called Lucozade plot, the plot to explode several trans-Atlantic flights using ingenious liquid explosive devices concealed in lucozade bottles. I was due to fly, with my family, on one of the target flights on the day in August 2006 when the plot was foiled. That long, gruelling day at the tense, chaotic airport, and the subsequent days of indecision about whether to catch another flight, and the day we actually flew, with the fear that it may well be our last day on earth, were extremely stressful – but as the details of the plot emerge I realise more and more how close to being killed I actually was.

Reading the details of the second trial which has finally concluded at Woolwich Crown Court, four lessons strike me – four myths are exposed as utterly wrong. In the writing that follows, I am referring to the eight men who were tried. Of these, Donald Stewart-Whyte was found not guilty. Some of the others were found not guilty of some of the more serious charges, and the jury was unable to reach a verdict on many of the charges. Although the innocence of some of them, particularly Stewart-Whyte, is conceivable, the fact that all were involved in jihadist groups means my observations about the jihadist ideology and milieu based on their examples would stand even if they were innocent of this specific plot. However, it seems clear that the jury’s verdict had to do with the technical quality of evidence, an issue that relates to one of the points I make below, and that the overwhelmingly likelihood is that they were all involved in a bomb plot.

1. “Terrorism as the voice of the voiceless“. There is a common view, especially on the left, that terrorism is a cry of despair, the voice of the utterly dispossessed, born out of grievance and poverty. Terrorism, the argument goes, will go away when we remove the grievances, grievances for which the West is largely to blame. However, looking at the biographies of the plotters, it is clear that most of them were from reasonably well off backgrounds, and reasonable life chances, were well educated and articulate, and had other opportunities to express their grievances. Wahid Zaman was a biomedical student at a top university, and, in his “martyrdom video”, said “I have not been brainwashed, I am educated to a very high standard.” He was articulate; he spoke at rallies and had articles published in his university’s student magazine. Donald Stewart-Whyte was an art student, a white boy, who went to the “prestigious” Dr Challoner’s Grammar School in Chesham. His father was a Conservative Party agent, his mother a teacher. Tanvir Hussein was also highly educated. In fact, terrorism, far from being the voice of the voiceless, seems to be a weapon of the relatively privileged, of intellectuals.

2. “Londonistan, Eurabia”. A familiar argument, particularly in North America and particularly on the right, is that Europe, with its official policies of multiculturalism, has sleep-walked into segregation, has created Islamified ghettos or no-go areas which breed terrorists. This is the Britain and Europe portrayed by Melanie Phillips, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes and their ilk. The details of the plotters reveal this to be a myth. The plotters were in fact extremely westernised, assimilated even. Waheed Zaman’s favourite TV programme was Only Fools and Horses. Tanvir Hussein experimented with drink, drugs and girls at college. Stewart-Whyte, Umar Islam (from a Christian Caribbean background) and Ibrahim Savant (of Indian and English parentage) were all converts. It is true that one of the July 2005 bomb attempts was perpetrated mainly by young men from one of the areas (Beeston in Yorkshire) which is predominantly Pakistani Muslim. But it is also true that the Beeston bombers turned to radical Wahhabi Islamism as part of a rebellion against the traditionalist Sufi Islam of their parents; becoming Wahhabi meant they could, for example, marry white girls rather than the Mirpuri village girls chosen by their parents. In other words, jihadi violence is not something anachronistic imported to the West through immigration and breeding in multiculturalism’s ethnic enclaves; it is modern, Western and appealing to converts and the apparently most integrated of Muslims.

3. “The war on terror”. There seem to have been two approaches to the investigation and foiling of the plot. British intelligence and security services, reporting regularly to Tony Blair on the case, carefully infiltrated and watched the plotters, building up a slowly expanding picture of their networks, and gathering robust trial evidence. They let it run its course, confident they would know when they needed to act. American intelligence and security services, reporting regularly to George W Bush, seemed to want to make quick arrests to shut the network down. British stubbornness, resisting the pressure to swoop, seems to have enabled them to catch the High Wycombe branch of the conspiracy, which was not visible at first. It also seems that the Americans were obsessed with what they called “al Qaeda central”, rather than seeing the terrorists as an extremely dispersed and loose net. It seems that America pressured Pakistan into arresting Rashid Rauf, who connected the conspiracy to Al-Qaeda networks. This in turn forced the British to “scramble”, cracking down on the conspiracy earlier than they meant to. This scrambling, seems to have been a major factor in the poor quality of the evidence the prosecution has been able to present at trial, leading to an embarrassing failure to convict some of the plotters. In this instance, the American approach was mistaken, and the culture around the war on terror under Bush – conceived as a military war rather than as a strategy of investigation and prevention, and staged as a high profile public spectacle – proved counterproductive.

4. “The terrorists have already won”. There is a certain civil libertarian line – whose vulgar, common-sense, non-dogmatic version you often hear at airports when passengers are irked about having to hand over the over-sized perfume bottles they have in their carry-on – which says that defending us against terror is not worth the price of the curtailment of our “rights”. Our privacy, our freedom of movement, even our right to carry hair gel in our hand bags, are precious, and if we create a draconian security state which abrogates these, then the terrorists have effectively already won. This argument, which we can currently hear most loudly and articulately from those civil libertarians who are calling for an end to control orders, is disingenuous. If the 2006 bomb plot had succeeded, some dozen big long haul planes would have been downed over the sea, with few if any of the passengers surviving. The threat is real, and, as the old saying goes, the bombers only have to be lucky once, while the rest of us have to be lucky all the time. We have managed to be lucky now in Britain since July 2005, but it has not just been luck, and we should be grateful to the security services for the protection we have had.

Lincoln with Harry Jaffa

LAND OF LINCOLN: Abraham Lincoln and American History

Crisis Management with John Taylor

 The Economy According to Taylor and Judd

Thomas Sowell on the Housing Boom and Bust

Thomas Sowell and a Conflict of Visions

Thomas Sowell talks about his new book Economic Facts and Fallacies

PAY IT FORWARD: Social Security Reform

Charles Kesler on the Grand Liberal Project

Shelby Steele: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race.

Uncommon Knowledge: The Great Depression with Amity Shlaes

The World According to John Bolton

War Policy with Douglas Feith

The Middle East with Daniel Pipes

COMMANDING HEIGHTS: American Empire

At War with General Jack Keane

Intelligence and Security with James Woolsey

WILSON’S GHOST: Robert S. McNamara

Trotsky with Hitchens and Service

In Defense of WWII

GIVE WAR A CHANCE? The Utility of War

THE FRENCH KISS-OFF: The History of French and American Relationship

The Politics of Hollywood with Andrew Breitbart

The World According to Andrew Klavan

The Word According to Tom Wolfe

HITCH-COCKED: A Conversation with Christopher Hitchens

The Rise and Fall of Liberalism

The U.S. Economy with Peter Thiel

Equality Man

Africa with Dambisa Moyo

THE GRAND OLD, OLD PARTY: The Future of the Republican Party

Michael Barone

Crisis & the Law with Richard Epstein

Law and Justice with Antonin Scalia

ROBERT’S RULES OF ORDER: A Conversation with Robert Bork

The Founders and Us

ALEXANDER THE GREAT: Alexander Hamilton

Peter Robinson interviews Fresno State Classicist Bruce Thornton about his new book Decline and Fall: Europe’s Slow Suicide.

FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE: Global Poverty and the World Bank

LAND OF THE SETTING SUN? The Future of Japan

TRADING PLACES: Is Outsourcing Good for America?

The Environment with Steven Hayward

TAKE IT TO THE LIMITS: Milton Friedman on Libertarianism

Economic trade-offs debate

MONKEY BUSINESS: Evolution and Intelligent Design

MAKING THE GRADE: The No Child Left Behind Act

Background Articles and Videos

Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson

http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk

Rhetoric and Reality in the Education Stimulus Bill

Voucher controversy

MIND THE GAP: The Racial Gap in Education

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Friedrich Hayek–Videos

Milton Friedman–Videos

Milton Friedman on Education–Videos

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The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and The Ideas of Ayn Rand

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Schiff, Forbers and Bloomberg Nail The Financial Crisis and Recession–Mistakes Were Made–Greed, Arrogance, Stupidity–Three Chinese Curses!

L. William Seidman on The Economic Crisis: Causes and Cures–Videos

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Banking Cartel’s Public Relations Campaign Continues:Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke On The Record

von Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com

Englischer Originaltext: Counterterrorism in Obama’s Washington
Übersetzung: H. Eiteneier

Barack Obamas Assistent für Heimatschutz und Terrorbekämpfung, John O. Brennan, skizzierte am 6. August in seiner Rede “Ein neuer Ansatz für den Schutz der Amerikaner” praktischerweise die derzeitigen und zukünftigen politischen Fehler der Administration   ( Mehr…. )

Det skriver Daniel Pipes, och MXp kommenterar här. Uttalandet i rubriken har tillskrivits den tidigare israeliske stabschefen Moshe Ya’alon, men eftersom allt tyder på att han inte sagt så, bestämmer sig Pipes för att i stället uttala detta själv.

Problemet med detta har jag i någon mån diskuterat här, där jag refererade Daniel Braws recension av Benny Morris’ bok One State, Two States.

Jag citerade där Claudianus: “en seger är verklig först när fienden inför sig själv har bekänt sig besegrad”. Och det har ju aldrig palestinierna gjort.

Så hur ska palestinierna(s ledare) förmås inse, att de har förlorat sina anfallskrig 1948, 1967, 1973 osv.? Går det? Eller måste Israel försvara sig – och vinna fler krig – i oändlighet? Att israel, om det behövs och så länge det behövs, kommer att både försvara sig och vinna verkar alldeles uppenbart.

Men vore inte fred med Israel ett bättre alternativ?

Här ytterligare en relevant länk.

***

Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om antisionism, försvar, Palestina, Israel, islamism, Daniel Braw, Benny Morris, MXp, Moshe Ya’alon, Daniel Pipes, Claudianus, fred, seger

I’m not the only one who thinks of pyramid schemes when I read the details of Islamic investment plans.

Daniel Pipes links to a book which warned against the same risk in the 1990’s:

They mainly counted on the pyramidal cumulative effect of new deposits, with very little actual investment.

from The Politics of Islamic Finance by Clement Henry and Rodney Wilson

HISTORY BUZZ: