Akram's Razor - Reflections on Islam, Muslims & America

Thoughts on why Mr. Spencer doesn't deserve to be debated

I had an exchange with with a fan of Robert Spencer that touches on some of the reasons why a debate with him would be a waste of time, not to mention a kind of recognition of which a strident ideologue like him is undeserving.

The sub-caption of "What's Wrong with the World" reads "Dispatches from the 10th Crusade" and  the conservative Christian group blog declares itself "dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom...[against] the Jihad and Liberalism," so it's not likely to be a very receptive crowd to my perspectives--though they might be surprised to know that I share some of their regrets about the eclipse of Christianity in Western life, however often this cause gets co-opted by the very worst of scoundrels today--but I figured I'd respond to Ms. McGrew's comments on my, as she put it, "pointless bloviation" on Spencer's scholarly shortcomings, mainly to document a few of my reasons for ignoring Mr. Spencer's challenge for those who care to know.

Curiously, my final message was blocked. The first comment and then my second one (a response to her reaction to the former) were both posted automatically, yet the last was automatically moderated and has yet to see the light of  day.

She has clearly been actively monitoring her blog since then, as she's replied at least three times to the large number of comments posted since my offending comment was submitted. And it seems unlikely that she suddenly changed her policy two days ago and made all comments moderated--which would mean that she's individually approved 60 or so messages in 48 hours, yet not gotten around to approving my comment (which was  respectful, pertinent, and no longer than many of left unmolested on her blog)--so I can't help but conclude that she's blocking me personally, presumably to prevent any more criticism of Mr. Spencer to grace her blog's otherwise lively comments.

For my part, I don't screen comments on my blog except for in exceptional cases, but I realize commenting on a blog is always a privilege--one that I don't think a reasonable person could conclude I've abused--and I don't begrudge Ms. McGrew's right to the last word.

Still, it seems to me that she cut the exchange rather short, and after after she'd upped the ante rhetorically. It's rather curious approach to debate from a person who freely called me out by name and who, I presume, opposes the ALA's handling of Spencergate as a betrayal of free speech. So much for defending open debate.

Anyway, below is the exchange, including the comment that Ms. McGrew appears to find too challenging for comfort. I'm sharing the exchange because it explains some of my reasons for ignoring Mr. Spencer's demand to answer his loaded questions about Islamic law and because it touches on a neglected aspect to these trite, post-9/11 debates over Islam.

"Robert Spencer's Excellent answer to fact-free criticism" (What's Wrong with the World)

I am a huge fan of Robert Spencer. One of the reasons I am such a huge fan is that Spencer deals in details and facts. I could not possibly begin to summarize all the information he presents about Islam and what is going on in the world with Islam these days. One of the best things about Spencer is that he gives information both from the scholarly point of view of Islamic jurisprudence and holy texts and from the current events point of view of what Muslims are right now taking these texts to mean and how they are acting on them.

This is a double-whammy, and to my mind it should render speechless all the "religion of peace" promoters. I ask my readers' indulgence, as I certainly intend no blasphemy, but it seems to me that the liberals' (and some "conservatives'") view of Islam is a sort of unholy, secular version of the Catholic view of the Blessed Sacrament: Even if all the visible accidents of Islam are violent, by faith the liberal believes in an underlying substance or essence that is peaceful.

Today Spencer takes on another of his fact-free critics, one Svend White, who says that Spencer is wrong, wrong, wrong about Islam but cannot descend to give any evidence for the assertion. So Spencer calls his bluff:
[...]
The answer Spencer gets from White is an exercise in pointless bloviation. [...]

[etc. etc.]

A number of of mostly supporting comments precede the exchange.

 Posted by svend | July 21, 2009 2:30 PM

Or perhaps Mr. Spencer is undeserving of the dignity of a response. Perhaps there's a reason he's ignored by scholars. And perhaps there is indeed a persistent conceptual failing that makes many of his specific points misleading.

I imagine you don't feel obligated to respond to every atheist crank who denigrates Christianity with long lists of decontextualized facts or distortions of the Bible. There's little point in debating bigots or propagandists in most cases.

And then there's a difference between data and information. A thousand footnoted facts don't shed any new light if the person presenting them hasn't a clue where they fit into the bigger picture, much less if he or she is committed to casting them in the worst possible light.

I don't deny that there are grave problems in the Muslim world and that there are aspects of Islamic tradition that need to change with the times. But good luck understanding them (much less figuring out what to do about them) with somebody like Spencer as your guide.

Posted by Lydia | July 21, 2009 3:37 PM

Spencer as the analogue of an atheist crank. Hmmm. Actually, most atheist cranks have been answered already. But I would also note that most of them, you know, make false claims. That's usually part of being an atheist crank, is getting your facts wrong or deliberately misleading your audience. No need for woolly talk about "missing context" and the like.

Posted by svend | July 21, 2009 4:51 PM

An interesting point, but I think your definition needs to be updated with the times. In Information Age propaganda, only rank amateurs lie outright. While I may not find them compelling there certainly are critiques of the Bible and organized religion in general that many would find intellectually credible, factually grounded and still awaiting adequate response. And I see nothing "woolly" about expecting that context be explored. To the contrary, it seems to me a sine qua non of scholarship, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Thanks.

Posted by Lydia | July 21, 2009 5:34 PM

 many would find intellectually credible, factually grounded

What "many would find" and what is in fact the case are two different things. And I was, definitely, talking about information age propaganda.

No good apologist would simply say that, say, Richard Carrier is a poor advocate of atheism because he is missing the "whole context of Christianity" or something vague like that. There are so many better and more eviscerating points to make about someone like Carrier, so many more ways to fisk him.

Any critic of Robert Spencer, on the other hand, who just goes on talking about "the context of Islam" without deigning to get more specific and tell us how Spencer is _wrong_ is inevitably going to look like he's waving his hands. I'm sorry if that's suggesting, Mr. White, that you need to do more work than you think you should have to do to convince us poor, misled readers of Spencer that he's all wet, but that's the way it is. You give very much the impression of the people selling the emperor a set of new clothes.

posted by svend | July 22, 2009 around noon (BLOCKED BY ADMINISTRATOR)

I understand your objection and frankly consider it understandable under the circumstances [by which I meant her assessment of Spencer and the geopolitical backdrop of his commentary --Svend]. However, that fact doesn't free me up from the responsibilities of daily life to go through his work with a fine-tooth comb, nor does it make it any less dreary and unrewarding a task for me.

I'm reminded of the laments of astronomers who debunk conspiracy theories about the moon landings of the 1960s. Effective propaganda or pseudo-scholarship--or, to put it another way, any large set of complex, interrelated misconceptions--is devilishly time-consuming to refute, and those who take the time to do so usually aren't guaranteed enough attention from those under its spell for it to be worth the effort.

So I don't expect you to take my word for it. You don't know me from Adam, and I'm not some famous writer. My hope is simply that you will keep in mind the possibility that Spencer's presentation could be distorted in important respects and try to get a second opinion on the things that matter. Even if Islamic tradition and Muslim history are indeed as dismal as Spencer makes them out to be, in conflict-ridden times such as these any thoughtful observer committed to the truth should be on the lookout for bias in discussions of Islam (even if it's only to more effectively understand your "enemy").

If you’re interested in sources that I think could offer useful correctives to what I consider to be Spencer’s oversights, for starters I’d recommend Richard Bulliet’s THE CASE FOR ISLAMO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION and John Kelsay’s ARGUING THE JUST WAR IN ISLAM. (Few reviews that give you useful overview of either work are available online, but here are two: http://www.presence.tv/cms/article_562.php , http://law.hamline.edu/files/Carnahan.Kelsay.Rev_.pdf )

P.S. Speaking of atheists, if not cranks, I happen to be reading George H. Smith's Atheism: The Case Against God at the moment and recommend it for the philosophically inclined, however much I disagree with its conclusions.

Too many religious apologists--be they be Muslim, Christian or what have you--overlook how epistemologically shaky many of their arguments are from a strictly logical standpoint. I find this classic of atheist thought a healthy reminder of the limits of purely intellectual proofs in matters of faith, not to mention of the fact that many atheists have very serious and indeed moral arguments for their positions.

Update (2009-08-09): All the posts on Robert Spencer/Jihad Watch exchange are available on a single page here.

Newsweek on the myth of "Eurabia"

There's an incisve analysis in the current issue of Newsweek of the flawed assumptions that go into alarmist "Eurabia" demographic-threat rhetoric we hear so often on the Far Right.

It points out that a lot of the numbers that get thrown around in this debate are not only pure speculation, but speculation by people with anti-immigration agendas.

Here's the crux of the article.  "Why Fears Of A Muslim Takeover Are All Wrong" by William Underhill (NEWSWEEK - Jul 20, 2009):

For the number of Muslims to outnumber non-Muslims by midcentury, it would require either breeding on a scale rarely seen in history or for immigration to continue at a pace that's now politically unacceptable. More likely, new controls will slow Muslim immigration. The birthrate for Muslim immigrants is also likely to continue to decline, as it has tended to do, with greater affluence and better health care. There is no Europewide data available, but one study says fertility rates among Turkish-born women in the Netherlands fell from 3.2 in 1990 to 1.9 in 2005, barely above the figure for native-born Dutch. Over the same period, the equivalent figure for Moroccan-born women in the Netherlands dropped from 4.9 to 2.9. Also, fertility rates are edging upward in some Northern European countries, which would offset some of the Muslim growth. Bottom line: given the number of variables, demographers are loath to make predictions about the number of Muslims in Europe in the years to come. "You would almost have to make it up," says Carl Haub, the senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. And the idea of a Muslim majority any time soon? "Absolutely absurd."

Read the whole thing. It covers a lot of ground.

HT: Indigo Jo

More from Jihad Watch

My 15 minutes of fame on the loony Far Right continues.

I'm a little late in reporting this--haven't had much time to blog this week--but Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch also wrote about me recently (2 days ago) to thunder in florid outrage at my refusal to waste my time debating Islamic law with the likes of Mr. Spencer.

I have to hand it to him. He has a way with words, if perhaps not careful reading or nuanced thinking (and, boy, does he get a lot of mileage out of a typo). He charges me with changing my tune when I say that my objection was to Spencer's participation in a forum to discuss outreach to Muslims by libraries even though--however one feels about that characterization of the panel--it's a point I made repeatedly and consistently in my exchanges with Spencerites (and one to be found in my very first comment on the matter).  In fact, as misleading and unscholarly as I (and many, Muslim as well as non-Muslim) find Spencer's writings to be,  I wouldn't deny that he has relevant expertise to some discussions of Islam, especially those that put more of a premium on debate than careful, reasonably evenhanded analysis.  And I certainly don't believe in censoring his ideas (not that this controversy really was about censorship, anyway).

You get a sense of what a parallel universe Fitzgerald inhabits by how he holds up Spencer's striking lack of credibility among some of most highly regarded scholars of Islam working today in the academy as badge of honor. Then he rattles off a list of shrill, right-wing polemicists and pundits with about as the same claim to objectivity and rectitude on Islam enjoyed by, say, Richard Dawkins on Christianity.  The puny shadow cast by the "academic" cavalry dispatched to Spencer's rescue is quite striking, and gets one thinking: Where are the endorsements from the leading conservative historians, theologians and scholars of religion?  It is interesting that Fitzgerald can't muster an endorsement from historians of the stature of, say, Bernard Lewis or a Fouad Ajami. To the contrary, the Great Truth Teller About Islam and his alter ego are reduced to dismissing both influential figures--who, for all their political bias in my opinion, are serious scholars who've produced seminal works about Islamic history and political thought--as duped dhimmis. (Think about that, these people are so fringe and gloriously kooky that they think Fouad Ajami and Bernard Lewis are apologists for Islam!)

The less credibility someone has among scholars and professionals, it appears, the more self-evident their mastery of the subject matter. It's logic worthy of a teenager in the throes of filial rebellion. Consider it an AM radio-style update to Jack Weinberg's iconic slogan from the Sixties: Don't trust anybody the grown-up professionals like. (This academic standards thing is just leftist conspiracy to keep right-wing pundits down!)

It's very flattering to be getting so much attention from such luminaries in the Islam bashing industry. If I'm not mistaken, Hugh repeats my full name 25 times in the piece. At times, I don't know whether it's a jeremiad or a billet doux. And I must say that I enjoyed the "SS Svend White" quip. I'm a swashbuckling pirate! A zippy new byline for my blog, coined by a master sloganeer. (Spencer's  "Dot dot dash, Svend!" was a gem, too.) Great stuff, stylistically if not intellectually.

Based, apparently, merely on my name, Fitzgerald mocks me for allegedly being a convert and paints an image of me as a knee-jerk apologist for Islamic fundamentalism terrified of the debate and reform Spencer allegedly represents. To those who know me, both inside and outside the Muslim community, his screed is surely high comedy. Not because of any notable merits on my part, but because of how the canned, clichéd nature of his rhetoric becomes so obvious when applied to a person with my beliefs and background.

You see, first of all, I'm not a convert (not that there's anything wrong with that and not that one can even make generalizations about converts beyond a few common patterns of experience during their early years). I grew up in a Muslim American family in Boston during the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, I suspect that Islam entered my family tree before Mr. Fitzgerald was even born--my American father embraced Islam as a teenager in 1957, and my Danish mother did so in Copenhagen in 1970, before meeting my future father. So I've been this way all my life, and in America. 

As far as beliefs and politics go, I'm a liberal, a feminist known for speaking out against sexism within the Muslim community (e.g., here and here), a staunch believer in religious universalism,* a democracy activist and proponent of full Muslim integration into American society, a defender of non-Muslim rights, and a believer in legal reform who concedes that Shari'ah cannot be implemented in the modern world without major overhauls. A regular John Walker Lindh, right, Hugh? Good luck with that.

Fizgerald's shallow caricature is not merely stupendously off-target, but also illustrative, I think, of  how woefully out of touch these cliché-spouting "experts" on Muslim problems are with intellectual, cultural and political developments in the American Muslim community and the broader Muslim world.  Like many American Muslims--including a fair number of those smeared by Spencer and his goons--my very existence refutes their tautological philosophical and political categories.

The laughable mismatch between Fitzgerald's pulp-fiction imagery and the reality in my case highlights yet another ideologically inconvenient fact for Spencer and his fellow travelers in Islamophobic hate: They'd like the public to believe that people like me take them seriously and perhaps even look to them for leadership, yet nothing could be further than the truth. We see them for what they are, as well.  However well footnoted it may be, the "scholarship" this motley movement produces is no less superficial or self-evidently out of touch with reality to liberal and moderate Muslims than to the most staunchly conservative ones, which seems an unlikely quality in scholarship at the forefront of Islamic denigration reform efforts.

To be fair, there is one Muslim constituency for which Spencer's fundamentalist scripturalism, jihadi Manichaeism and unreconstructed medievalism rings authentic: the real "Islamofascists"! Throw a turban and a shalwar khameez on him and Spencer could practically be a mullah in the Lal Masjid, so deep do the methodological and epistemological affinities run.

Spencer and his ilk go to great lengths to spin their attacks on the Muslim community and non-Muslim scholars who don't play ball with their political agenda as skirmishes with Islamic extremists and their brainwashed sympathizers, but the truth is that their attacks on "Islamofascists" are crafted in such a poorly defined and broad-brushed way that the fundamental beliefs of all Muslims are targeted, and all Muslims smeared and ultimately demonized.

These sad, conflict-stoking figures are best ignored, it is true--to even dignify their screeds with a response is to risk conferring upon them legitimacy they do not deserve--but sometimes you need to call a spade a spade to remind the broader public what's at stake.

* I believe that God's mercy knows no creedal boundaries, albeit in a more  [Karl] Rahner-esque sense than the unequivocal universalism of, say, Hans Kung, to use examples from the Western religious lexicon. So I do believe in divine truth and some traditions being blessed with more of it than others, but it does not follow God withholds his mercy to those who find themselves in the "wrong" religion (or without one at all).

Update (2009-08-09): All the posts on Robert Spencer/Jihad Watch exchange are available on a single page here.

Update (2009-07-18): Added the paragraph on scholars. Also made a few minor stylistic tweaks and added some supporting links.

Update (2009-07-19): Somehow, this post was set to draft status again and disappeared. Thought I'd published it. Here it is again.

My response to Spencer

My emailed response to Mr. Spencer was posted on Jihad Watch this morning. 

Dear Mr. Spencer,

Some corrections and clarifications: First (and perhaps you can be forgiven for overlooking this fact given the number and chaotic arrangement of comments on the blog), I made it quite clear in my contributions that I was questioning your credibility and qualifications not to discuss “Islamic issues” but rather to participate in a forum on library policies and outreach to Muslim communities. Second, you neglected to note the backdrop of lively and blunt give and take regarding Islam—some of it quite crudely prejudiced or hostile—in the comments which inevitably colored my comments at times. Third, despite my inclusion of a link to the term’s definition you neglected to note that “Islamophobe-e-Azam” was a play on the title Quaid-e-Azam (“Great Leader”) used by Pakistanis for their nation’s founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, rather than some obscure insult or malediction; given your already established fame as a critic of Islam and, thus, little need for introduction to Muslim readers in the Blogosphere, it functioned as a joke more than anything else. Fourth, the quip about your writings representing a “personal crusade” involved a bit of poetic license, but I think it’s a defensible interpretation of your career as a public figure. More generally, my comments were frank and opionated [sic] —in keeping with the medium—but hardly “defamatory.” In fact, I took another commenter to task for engaging in ad hominem attacks against you. (Still, there is a limit to how diplomatic one can be when confronting what one sees as bigotry; a spade must be called a spade.)

I am not particularly inclined to write a treatise on special topics in Fiqh for Jihad Watch or otherwise play games with you. My comments on the blog in question were undoubtedly a bit disjointed and off the cuff, but they captured the gist of my concerns reasonably well. People who dismiss those objections out of hand aren’t likely to be a very receptive audience for further reflections by me here.

Islamic law is besides the point in a way, though. In my view, the flaws in your writings on Islam transcend simple factual points and speak to far more fundamental conceptual problems. There is a critical dearth of social scientific awareness in the writings I have seen by you, this manifesting itself most strikingly in an acute overemphasize of jurisprudence, as if Islamic civilization and Muslims were simply the sum of their laws. (Nor coincidently [sic], I suspect, this narrow, legalistic approach dovetails nicely with the agenda of those in contemporary politics intent on discouraging consideration of the many non-religious factors at play in the Muslim world’s problems.)

The graver problem, though is systematic bias, and the point at which it rises to the level of outright prejudice and hate. As you must know, a new definition of anti-Semitism added to the Western political lexicon in recent years holds that criticism of Israel that demands of the Jewish State that it adhere to standards never applied to other nations is anti-Semitism. It is a reasonable criterion for prejudice and method of detecting more insidious forms of bias. It is also at the crux of this debate: Analyses of Muslims—or any other community, for that matter—that discuss them in a vacuum and hold them to ahistorical and/or unique standards are equally immoral and intellectually disreputable. (Sadly, it has become second nature in wide swathes of American political life to view Muslims through such a dehumanizing, Islamophobic prism, thanks in part to the attacks of people such as yourself.)

That will have to do for now. Perhaps another time.

Sincerely,
Svend

Was sleepy when I wrote it, so  I guess I should be grateful it only had 2 typos.

I'm still ticked with myself for my mangled rendering--lovingly highlighted by Mr. Spencer and, of course, seized on  as proof of my lacking literacy by a JW reader who doesn't appear to understand the concept of a metaphor--of gerrymander as "jerrymander". You can never spell-check too often. You never know when your mind is going to play a prank on you and toggle to Soundex mode. [Unless you're my wife, who never misspells anything whatsoever, and who thus sees perfect spelling as the self-evident touchstone of literacy.]

As could be predicted, Spencer has dismissed the above as a "non-answer." So be it--I'm under no obligation to drop what I'm doing to dance at Mr. Spencer's command. Besides, I was responding to a non-question, anyway. Fair's fair.

Back to work. More later.

Update (2009-08-09): All the posts on Robert Spencer/Jihad Watch exchange are available on a single page here.

Spencer and his hordes come calling

Sauron...err...Mr. Spencer has turned his baleful, lidless eye to litle old moi.

Unlike him, I don't make a living engaging in such polemics, so as fun as it would be to mix it up right now, my response will have to wait until I get home from work this evening.

Update (2009-08-09): All the posts on Robert Spencer/Jihad Watch exchange are available on a single page here.

Sense momentarily prevails: Spencer panel canceled

A small victory for the Forces of Good:   The American Library Association canceled the round table on Muslim outreach to which notorious Muslim-basher Robert Spencer had been inexplicably invited to speak. 

On the "An Open Letter to ALA & the Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Roundtable" blog that was created in protest against this ill advised move, I commented as follows:

That’s good news.

In a perfect world, Spencer would have been summarily disinvited, but this is probably the smartest choice under the circumstances, as ALA was in a no-win situation politically. Had they kept him on the panel, they would have brought disrepute on the event and organization. Had they dumped him, that would’ve become a cause celebre among Islamophobes and right-wingers. It will, anyway, of course, but this will take some of the edge off the controversy. (And maybe they’ll be able to get something accomplished at the conference.)

As I said in my last post (which I wrote before I got the glad tidings), this won’t clip Spencer’s wings much. The world outside of the more intellectually demanding halls of academia is still largely his oyster.

Predictably, the Right-o-sphere is awash in complaints about censorship, not to mention truly moronic and demagogic claims that CAIR "forced" the ALA to cancel the events. (Because everyone knows how powerful Muslims are in post-9/11 America. When we're not being locked up on secret evidence, openly vilified and otherwise made into second class citizens, that is.)

Actually, the other 3 participants canceled in protest to Spencer's inclusion. I guess the ALA is supposed to hold a one-person panel on a topic  that its sole panelist has dubious credibility and no evident qualifications to discuss. Makes perfect sense.

Censorship indeed. I call it common sense and professionalism.

Maybe, just maybe, the problem lies in Spencer and the ALA was horrified at the prospect of being associated with him. The evidence supports that conclusion a lot more than the conspiracy theories.

Update (2009-08-09): All the posts on Robert Spencer/Jihad Watch exchange are available on a single page here.

Joke of the day: Robert Spencer as bridge-builder. (repost)

[This a re-post. Due to an unnoticed glitch in TypePad, the first version lost its first few paragraphs. Not sure what happened. ]

A controversy is brewing in academia over the inscrutable decision by the American Library Association to invite Islamophobe-e-Azam Robert Spencer to address a forum dedicated to, I kid you not, improving Muslim/non-Muslim relations through more effective outreach.  You'd be forgiven for assuming this to be a wicked parody dreamt up by the folks at The Onion after taking in a "Monty Python" rerun--not unlike the farcical Secular Islam Summit of 2007--but the ALA's Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) is a serious group, the stated objectives of which are:

• To serve as a source of information on recommended ethnic collections, services, and programs.
• To organize task forces, institutes, and workshops to carry out the functions of the Round Table as defined in the petition.
• To develop for Annual conferences forums and symposia programs that deal with the key issues of ethnicity and librarianship.
• To maintain a liaison with the Office of Library Outreach Services and cooperate with other ALA units, including the caucuses in joint projects for the betterment of outreach services.
• To disseminate the work of the Round Table through a program of publications. There is an urgent need for an effective exchange of information in the Ethnic area in the form of a Newsletter to be financed by the nominal dues for the Round Table, e.g., $20.00.

It's hard to see what Spencer would bring to the table of such a forum. He's neither a librarian nor a community outreach professional--an understatement if ever there was one--and while the popular tracts against Islam that he churns out at such regular intervals may earn him an 'A' for effort he certainly isn't  taken seriously as a scholar in the fields of Religious Studies or  Middle Eastern Studies. So his qualifications and relevance seem exceedingly dubious for an event of this nature.

Most importantly, the participation of a figure as undeniably polarizing and partisan as Mr. Spencer--whose Muslim-bashing has been denounced by people across the political spectrum (e.g., here and here)--would not only make a mockery of the round-table's mission but torpedo the initiative by creating a bitter controversy sure to utterly overshadow the event as well as create new animosities between the communities it is attempting to bring closer together.

Not surprisingly, a group* of professors and librarians have released a petition calling on the ALA to reconsider this bizarre decision.  An Open Letter to ALA & the Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Roundtable « An Open Letter to ALA & EMIERT Regarding 2009 Panel on Islam

 

We, the undersigned, would like to voice our concerns regarding the inclusion of Robert Spencer in the EMIERT panel “Perspectives on Islam: Beyond the Stereotyping.” As we are sure you know, Mr. Spencer is founder of the web sites “Jihad Watch” and “Dhimmi Watch”, author of such books as The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion; The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades); Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith; Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West; Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t; Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs; coauthor, with Daniel Ali, of Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics; and editor of the essay collection The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims.

Even the most cursory overview of Mr. Spencer’s oeuvre makes it clear that in fact he has no place on a panel whose aim is to dispel stereotypes about Islam. Indeed, we, as librarians, scholars, and individuals are deeply concerned by ALA & EMIERT’s choice of Mr. Spencer for such a panel: Mr. Spencer espouses a view of Islam as a system of belief which is essentially violent, undemocratic, totalitarian, exclusive and at war with all non-Muslims. Mr. Spencer in fact goes as far as to equate Islam with fascism. According to him,

The misbegotten term “Islamo-fascism” is wholly redundant: Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only when it assumes the powers of the state.” (www.jihadwatch.com/islam101)

Hence a question arises as to the justification for inviting a speaker who cannot see anything positive about Islamic beliefs, cultures, societies, histories, etc. to talk to an audience in order to dispel negative views of Islam. We are indeed saddened and puzzled by ALA’s choice for their panel, especially in that this appears to be a rare opportunity to educate people about Islam against the backdrop of an overwhelming atmosphere of ignorance, and negative stereotyping (For example a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released right before Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo shows that only 1 in 5 Americans have a favorable view of Islam & 60 percent of Americans believe the Muslim world is at war with the United States. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/02/us.muslims.poll/)

We hope that you take our concerns into serious consideration. While we are not advocating censorship or the removal of Mr. Spencer from the panel and we affirm the values espoused in the ALA Library Bill of Rights, we ourselves advocate the choice of panelists who would be able to highlight in a rational and scholarly manner the richness, complexity, and multifaceted elements of Islamic cultures, societies and beliefs if we are to engage in meaningful discussions of Islam that can truly go beyond negative stereotypes. It would be unfortunate for such a distinguished organization as ALA to perpetuate such negative stereotypes of Islam and Muslims and for panel attendees to return with those stereotypes to their home libraries and for such stereotypes to negatively affect services to Muslims. However, we look forward hopefully to a respectful and courteous information session on Islam.

Sincerely, Tara Lannen-

• Stanton, WorldLinQ Coordinator, New Americans Program, Queens Library

• Kaoukab Chebaro, Middle East and Islamic Studies Librarian, Columbia University Karim Boughida, Associate University Librarian for Digital Initiatives and Content Management, George Washington University
• Dr. Alan Godlas, Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Georgia
• Simon Samoeil, Curator, Near East Collection, Yale University Library
• Beth Whipple, Research Informationist/Assistant Librarian,
• Ruth Lilly Medical Library, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis Kristin Lalonde, Library Assistant, Arab American National Museum
• Dr. Ali Hassan, Ohio State University Dr. Omar Khalidi, Aga Khan Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

*Our opinions are our own and are not the opinons of the institutions or organizations we are associated with. Please feel free to add your voice of support or dissent in the comments section. Thank you.

As the authors rightly point out, the overheated titles on Spencer's C.V. alone testify eloquently of his unfitness for inclusion in a dialog project with Muslims. The gentleman is on a personal crusade to make anti-Muslim prejudice intellectually respectable, churning out tracts to disabuse the world of the supposedly mistaken notion that there is any worthy of admiration in Islam and to clear up any lingering suspicions that might share anything important with the civilized religions of Judaism and Christianity.

Predictably, his supporters are  declaring this a "politically correct" call for censorship rather what it obviously is, a legitimate call on the round-table stick to its mission. This is censorship, you see, because there's never a bad time or inappropriate venue to tear down Islam and insult Muslims. Even if it means derailing a forum intended to build bridges between Muslim and non-Muslim.

I contributed some comments. Below are the longer ones that sum up why I think the drafters of this open letter are entirely justified and why these cries of censorship are specious. [I've taken the liberty of correcting a few of my typos.]

Incidentally, has a more maddening and inefficient medium for debate ever been devised than the blog comment? What a confusing mess. There are currently 139 172 comments, many threaded.

One interesting thing is how several of the Muslim-bashing commenters display their Islamophobic prejudices with such insouciance that they matter-of-factly chat about the value of Spencer's attacks against Islam and the Prophet (s) as a means to demoralize the Muslim "enemy."  Spencer may speak in code that makes it hard to pin his agenda down, but the haters out there get his message loud and clear.

Update (2009-07-10): Added the comment about the FAIR report.

Update (2009-07-10): Noticed that the first few paragraphs had been somehow been deleted and reconstructed them. Also added the whole of the open letter.

As Spencer noted in his predictably evasive response of Jul 7, the quote concerning Islamo-Fascism was not drawn from one of his posts, but from an article of one Jihad Watch's contributors.

What Spencer didn't comment on, of course, is the obvious implications of this quote being found in an article entitled "Islam 101" on his website. Clearly, he agrees enough with the sentiment to feature its source prominently as a primer on Islam.

* Not that it makes any difference given the particulars of this case, but one of them (Alan Godlas) is a former professor of mine at UGA, where I did an M.A. in Religion a few years ago.

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svend Says:
July 8, 2009 at 7:58 pm | Reply

I see that the Muslim-bashers are out in force, letting all their hate and bite-sized ideas hang out.

Love his work or loath it, there’s no question that Spencer is highly partisan and confrontational. As the original post rightly points out, even a quick perusal of his CV shows that he is anything a voice of dialogue, much less a credible commentator on Islamophobia (unless I missed the memo that this event was a how-to workshop).

Quite to the contrary, a closer examination of his writings reveals an unmistakable pattern of *rationalizing* rather than critiquing prejudice, as much of his output is geared towards explaining why all the insulting and dehumanizing generalizations we rightfully find objectionable normally are, in the unique case of Islam and Muslims, completely justified by “the facts.”

Now, perhaps you agree with him and think we Muslims are the root of all evil. Even if you are right, that doesn’t change how self-evidently unsuitable someone with his political baggage and deliberately confrontational message is for a forum committed to reducing fear and conflict between Muslim and non-Muslim.

What’s next, demanding that a roundtable on defending abortion rights give a platform to somebody from Operation Rescue? This is common sense and basic professionalism. So spare us the histrionics and charges of political correctness. Whatever role he has to play, it sure ain’t there. Were this an equally virulent critic of another, less widely vilified community, such a petition wouldn’t even be controversial.

[...]

SL Says:
July 8, 2009 at 4:32 pm | Reply

Qur’an 9:5 – “Fight and kill the Disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war.”

I’d love to see the PC Apologists on this panel discussing that Jihad verse! I’d love to see ‘em squirming in their seats as they endeavor, in the face of all contrary evidence, to keep proclaiming “Islam is peace.”

• svend Says:
  July 8, 2009 at 9:00 pm | Reply

  @SL
  I usually ignore this kind of know-nothing heckling, but I’ll make an exception since it’s relevant to the broader discussion. This bigoted rant–which is methodologically if not stylistically in keeping with Spencer’s selective and instinctively adversarial style of interpreting Islam–completely wrenches a verse out of context to support your prejudices. There’s a long list of problems with this reading, but the simplest one is that it refers to the Meccan polytheists with whom the Muslims already were at war. The Quran does not teach pure pacificism, it is true, but it by no means encourages war, making it clear that war should be fought in self-defense and that even then it had to abide by strict rules of conduct. (Have Muslims always only fought defensive wars? Of course not. Welcome to the club.)

  For a serious analysis of this woefully misunderstood topic–and one that, it must be pointed out, reminds one how simplistic and tenditious Mr. Spencer’s commentary on Islam and Muslims often is–see “Islam, Quranic” [by Mustansir Mir] in the Encyclopedia of War and Religion by Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez. You can currently read much of it on Google Books at http://tinyurl.com/l3e9lt

  
  

John C. Barile Says:
July 9, 2009 at 2:50 am | Reply

Robert Spencer, director of jihadwatch.org, is a serious, respectable author, observer, and commentator; possessing integrity, principle, and wit. As a critic of ossified Islam in its unreformed expression, he is passionate but reasonably objective. He is a popularizer of information and ideas, yet not a self-aggrandizing sensationalist.

His is a valuable perspective on the collision of Islamic orthodoxies with modernity; a perspective to be weighed and considered, but not to be ignored nor shouted down.

• svend Says:
  July 9, 2009 at 8:23 pm | Reply

  I find the notion that Spencer is merely a critic of “ossified Islam” quite curious given how hard he works to delegitimize contemporary reformers as being out of sync with authentic traditional Islam.

  As always, the devil is in the details. First of all, his selective and tendentious presentation of Islamic doctrine and tradition is recognizable to neither traditional Muslim scholars nor Muslim reformers or liberals, so the idea that he is just a chronicler of Islamic tradition is untenable. No one outside his Muslim-bashing circles recognizes this “Islam” that he deconstructs over and over. He’s a highly partisan critic, and one that most his supposed colleagues in academia ignore.

  Second and more importantly, his message–diplomatically articulated though it may be–boils down to a categorical (and utterly unproven) claim that even when one takes them in their historical context Islamic tradition, the essential message of the Quran and Muhammad’s career are inherently and irremediably opposed to modern values, Judeo-Christian values, etc. etc. What that translates to on the ground in the real world is the simple, dehumanizing principle that a good, civilized Muslim is either 1) an ex-Muslim or 2) a hopelessly inconsistent one who that rejects his faith’s most core beliefs and values.

  Now, imagine an evenhanded, respectable scholar arguing that traditional Christianity is inherently illogical, contrary to modern values, and ultimately dangerous while grandly conceding that there that “modern Christianity” was a whole different matter. Imagine if he then defined “modern Christianity” as *necessarily* rejecting the Trinity, Christ’s resurrection, the Afterlife and perhaps even the historicity of Christ himself.

  How meaningful would that olive branch to modern Christians really be? And how could anyone ever imagine him to be a moderate commentator fit for dialogue with traditional Christians?

  I’m not threatened by Spencer or his ilk–I see them more as a political syptom than an emerging school of thought; they will go the way of other politically motivated academic fads of past eras–and I fully realize that there are aspects of Islam or Islamic tradition that many non-Muslims find problematic or even threatening (shoot, there are supposedly “traditional” Islamic beliefs that I reject myself) .

  But it is disingenuous in the extreme to present a polemical thinker like Spencer as some neutral observer on Muslim affairs or a recognized authority on Islam. You can’t ignore scholarly standards and go for the jugular but then expect to be hailed as a dispassionate scholar. Nor can you make a living attacking a community and then pass yourself off as one of its well wishers. Sorry, he can’t have that cake and eat it, too.

  Some aspects of Islamic orthodoxies (which I agree need to be discussed in the plural) are indeed in conflict with modernity (singular?)–a state of affairs that is not unique to Islam–but there are frankly many scholars doing far more penetrating and evenhanded work than Spencer, some of them Muslim. For every valid point he makes, he makes a dozen more fundamental errors.

[...]

svend Says:
July 10, 2009 at 12:48 pm | Reply
Incidentally, it’s not just Muslims or traditional academics who decry Spencer’s dubious scholarship and lacking objectivity. It’s even caught the eye of media observers.

Take a look at media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) report, “Smearcasters: How Islamophobes spread fear, bigotry and misinformation” http://www.smearcasting.com/smear_spencer.html

There’s no question that Spencer’s endless attacks on Islam and Muslims have played a role in fueling the kind of irrational fear and bigotry against Muslims with the Republican Party that General Colin Powell so courageously denounced at the tail end of the 2008 presidential election.

As FAIR’s report points out, his prejudice has even been denounced by fellow rightwing critics of Islam, such as Dinesh D’Souza and Stephen Schwartz. When an inveterate Muslim basher like Schwartz, known for shrill attacks on pretty much all mainstream Muslim groups (not to mention his trademark obsession with Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism) is moved to speak out against your rants against Islam, that’s pretty serious.

Update (2009-08-09): All the posts on Robert Spencer/Jihad Watch exchange are available on a single page here.

Joke of the day: Robert Spencer as bridge-builder.

This post has been moved to here.

Imam Zaid Shakir's critique of "Obsession" in Tikkun

Imam Zaid Shakir has an insightful piece in the current issue of the progressive Jewish magazine Tikkun refuting the Islamophobic hysteria and tendentious historical revisionism of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West", the 2005 pseudo-documentary that was widely distributed in America last year by shadowy neocon and hardline Jewish groups in an obvious attempt to stir up anti-Muslim prejudices and scare voters away from Barack Obama, whose father was a (nominal) Muslim and who spent part of his youth living in the Muslim world.

Here's the beginning. Tikkun Magazine - Obsessed with Defamation and Slander By Zaid Shakir

This past September, 28 million copies of the anti-Islamic propaganda documentary Obsession were distributed free of charge in what were considered the "swing" states in the past presidential election campaign. This effort was clearly designed to leverage the idea in the minds of some Americans that Senator Barack Obama is a Muslim (he is not), seeking to identify him with the images and statements of Muslims portrayed in the video. These portrayals give the impression that Islam is a fanatical, bloodthirsty religion, whose adherents are hell-bent on destroying America. By implying a connection between Senator Obama and "radical" Islam, the film sought to prove that Obama was too anti-American to be seriously considered for the highest office in this land.

The film is propaganda that relies in some instances on distorting the truth and in others on blatant lies or vile innuendos. The film points to some extreme doctrines that the overwhelming majority of Muslims readily condemn, implying that "radical" Islam is the new fascism and that it poses an existential threat to the United States. This allegation is false and dangerous. To support this allegation, the film's producers juxtapose scenes of Nazi marches and other forms of political imagery with corresponding Muslim images

It's a great piece that needs to be widely discussed. I particularly like his comparison of the military resources brought to bear in the respective conflicts (i.e., WWII and the so-called War on Terror). It's an elegant way of showing how utterly dissimilar the respective threats are/were.

This observation doesn't detract at all from Imam Zaid's arguments, but for whatever it's worth I'm inclined to approach this Islamofascism claptrap from a different angle. I think it's ultimately more effective to concede that, sure, some Muslims have at some points in 20th century history and for specific reasons allied themselves to some extent with fascist campaigns, but make that concession part of a holistic valuable overview of how widespread such sympathies were around the world, including in America at the time. The claim that Muslims have been any more receptive to the siren song of Fascism is simply not supported by the historical record, and once that fact is highlighted the bias and myopia of this overheated rhetoric becomes impossible to overlook. And then the narrative collapses like the flimsy house of cards that it is.

The other reason I prefer this approach is that it forces mainstream observers (many of whom inevitably harbor a variety of anxieities and/or misconceptions about Islam) to confront the underlying assumptions that unconciously treat Muslims by a special, ultimately ahistorical standard. Even if one wins the media debate about which image is more typical of Muslim sympathies, the bias that makes these myopic canards seem credible remains in place.

Also, I worry that the most important corrective point--the diversity of Muslims--easily gets drowned out in a discussion of this that is based on these dueling lists of evidence, especially given the inherent sensationalism of MSM discussions. There are all sorts of facts about Islam and Muslims that refute Islamophobic hysteria and which are very evident from the historical record, but which nonetheless get short shrift thanks to sensationalism and already-entrenched MSM narratives. When the media is naturally inclined to dump evidence against one side's narrative down the memory hole, the other side's most effective response is to shortcircuit the whole pseudo-debate by highlighting its faulty premises.

As is so often the case in the GWOT debates, I think the best defense here is simply context. Then you don't even need to refute. That, of course, requires Muslims to set aside sometimes overly idealized images of Islamic history, past and present, but there's no legitimate doctrinal reason for Muslims to find that humility threatening--we just have some bad habits. But that's another discussion.

In any case, there's more than one way to skin this diseased cat. Imam Zaid brings some critical and woefully neglected historical facts into this often dreadfully biased discussion.

More on that third rate propaganda piece. Obsessionwithhate.com - The Real Story behind the Obsession Hate DVD

Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West is a 2005 anti-Muslim propaganda film put together by controversial anti-Muslim figures to further the perceived divide between Western and Muslim audiences. 28 million copies of the DVD were recently distributed by a mysteriously-funded entity by the name of the Clarion Fund with the help of 70 US newspapers in a curious and unprecedented campaign. This large distribution, particularly given it was targeted to swing states in the current elections cycle, piqued the interest of many, especially civil rights watchdogs.

There's a lot more.

Some thoughts on Tony Campolo, Jim Wallis and hijab

Thought I'd share this naughty but deeply inspired and profound quip from progressive evangelical pastor Tony Campolo, whose wonderful book Speaking My Mind: The Radical Evangelical Prophet Tackles The Tough Issues Christians Are Afraid To Face I'm reading at the moment.

According to a profile on him in Christianity Today:

"I have three things I'd like to say today," he famously began many speeches in the 1980s. "First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a s—. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said s— than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."

Let us count the ways similarly myopic priorities are found in the Muslim (and indeed any religious) community, as well.

Thanks to my having just happened to re-read my old post, "Salafis, Kalam, complexity, and hijab" after I noticed an incoming link to it, the first thing that pops to mind is tha old favorite, hijab.  The only time some Muslims pay attention to the needs and rights of their sisters  is when hijab is at stake. Otherwise, out of sight, out of mind.

Then there's the paradox in some cases of Islamic dress sometimes making women less visible and in a sense comfortable in the community due to imported cultural hang-ups that don't make sense in a society where Muslims are a minority.

Things have improved dramatically in recent years, but take the way how in some more conservative MSAs, young men sometimes reward Muslimahs for bucking the tide of American culture and dressing modestly (no small feat in most nudist colonies...sorry...college campuses) by completely ignoring them--to the extent of not even making eye contact with women who are dressed conservatively and cover their hair--in the name of modesty while interacting freely and warmly (reluctantly, of course--this is strictly for the sake of Dawah) with far less modestly dressed non-Muslim women on campus is well known.

I don't think it's conscious in most cases, but in some people's eyes, hijab signals to them that culturally inappropriate foreign norms may safely be imposed on community socializing to the exclusion of women. With a non-hijabi, they'd probably feel less entitled to assume those mores and treat them more respectfully (in many cases, this eye-aversion thing is not a mark of respect, but a conspicuous display for onlookers and/or a reminder of the other person's inferior place in the pecking order--people don't avert their gaze from equals).

Which is a really tragic when one's only source of solidarity and spiritual support is that same community, as is often the case on isolated campuses. For many Muslims in this country--especially those living outside major metropoles--one's local mosque or MSA is for all practical purposes the Ummah, at least until they move. If that particular institution is cold and unwelcoming to women--as my mother, a Danish convert to Islam, found the main mosques in Boston to be in the 1970s--because of imported cultural hangups, then you have an extremely serious problem.

Imagine a church whose members wave warmly to passersby and encourage them to come in, but then ignore 50% of new members once they enter the building. It's perverse and incredibly self-defeating, but what's new. 

For the record, this pessimistic picture is thankfully outdated as regards many communities today. (I remember when a decade ago earnest, long-bearded uncles busted an informal and very chaste Muslim singles events at ISNA as if they'd uncovered an orgy; now, such things are widely supported at the highest levels.) Organizations and leaders have grown and evolved dramatically on many previous hot button issues in recent years.

But values that once reigned supreme in many places can't disappear overnight, so you can be sure these attitudes are still out there and in need of scrutiny.

Anyway, went on a bit more than intended on that.

I recommend Campolo's book (which includes a chapter refuting the claim that Christians should consider Islam evil and many other valuable insights).

And Jim Wallis' The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, for that matter. I found that quite enlightening and heartening, too. Wallis argues that a systemic shift is underway among evangelicals away from the cold, hardline ideologues of the Christian Right.

Let's hope he's right and that this changing of the guard happens before these "Left Behind" types reduce the planet to a smoking heap in the name of the Prince of Peace.

Scorn is really poured on people like Campolo and Wallis by movement evangelicals for, among other things, daring to show respect for Islam.

Take this post listing "scandalous" statements along these lines.  [I submitted a comment commenting on how the Christian Right's methods in critiquing people like Campolo remind me of the kneejerk literalism of old school Wahhabism, btw.]

I find it fascinating how the quotes presented in the link above--most of which are from a modern Christian perspective to be debatable but at the same time quite defensible--are presented a self-evident proof that require no analysis or context to be properly grasped. (Perhaps that's because to engage in analysis would show how tenuous these assumptions really are? Another parallel with Wahhabism!)

P.S. Here's the comment I left (which to the guy's credit was not deleted), which of course rejects Muslim exclusivism no less. With the possible exception of the guy who invented Speedos, I don't do eternal hell. Don't think it's in the Quran or Hadith. (And a minority of scholars has always agreed.)

As a Muslim, I have to say that your theological criticisms remind me of the doctrinaire smugness of Wahhabis.

I say the same thing to you that I say to closed minded Muslims who assume that only Muslims are saved: Why are you so miserly with God's mercy, and where do you get off assuming that your narrow debatable interpretations are the only conceivable conclusions on such complex issues?

It's fascinating how ferociously many Christian bloggers on the right react to his olive branch to Islam. Apparently, hatred of Islam is truly an article of a faith for a lot of you.

This doesn't have to be a zero sum game, you know. One can believe in the truth and perfection of one religion (as I do Islam) without assuming that it necessarily entails the complete exclusion of all other belief systems and that, therefore, adherents of other faiths are abandoned by God. (The Quran, incidentally, constantly and conspicuously couples faith with good deeds and explicitly says that all will be rewarded for their actions, good as well as bad, in the next life. It doesn't say only Muslims will be rewarded.)

Also, seems to me that your assumption that God is so curtailed by time, space & the vagaries of circumstance that He could never save a person who didn't say the "magic words" is both impious and ironic given your criticisms of Catholicism for its emphasis on Works.

Aren't you reducing faith to works here? Do you believe faith in God/Christ is some kind of vending machine, or do really believe that God works in mysterious ways that sometimes are beyond our understanding?

I for one don't think you're going to Hell. In my view, you're quite mistaken about Christ's divinity--he was a prophet, you know :-)--but that doesn't mean you're lost in and of itself.

Such a more nuanced position to truth is admittedly hard for some people to understand, but then so's Quantum Mechanics. Complexity doesn't disqualify truth.

Maybe you should cut Campolo some more slack and stop playing the Pharisee. He might understand something about Christ's message that you have yet to grasp fully.

In any case, he's a lot less likely to unleash World War III than the guys you seem to be holding up as standard bearers of Christian orthodoxy.

Peace.

PPS  For the record, when I referred to "closed minded Muslims who assume that only Muslims are saved," I was referring to Muslims who parallel these Islamophobes, ie Muslims who go beyond honest acknowledgments of doctrinal differences and sink into demonizing  non-Muslims.

I certainly think that to believe that God damns all non-believers is ultimately a closed-minded (and in the case of Islam unwarranted) conclusion, but it doesn't follow that a person who subscribes to that position for one reason or another is closed minded, especially if they are unaware of competing interpretations.

End of legal disclaimer.