But Hitchens is merely a provocateur, rather than someone willing to engage in a serious dialogue on the subject.

Well, Rich. It seems you like to read, but you are not really up do date with the world. In fact, most shows (the ones that probably informed your knowledge of Hitchens) were having Hitchens on to debate a man of God and arguing about defense. Par contra, my show invited Hitchens and fellow humanist Edd Doerr, former president of the American Humanist Association to debate what it means to be an atheist in a pluralist democracy. You decide to point out (like many commentators) a seemingly mild, and not particularly divisive point from his book, then, you encourage interfaith-interested Jews to hate him more. Later, you mention in your profile that you are a blogger aimed at Tikkun Olam -literally, to repair the world- yet you spend the entire column taking digs at a writer you could never stand toe-to-toe with and encouraging the audience to hate his point-of-view! What does one have to do with the other?

Is·lam (ĭs-läm', ĭz-, ĭs'läm', ĭz'-)
n.
A monotheistic religion characterized by the acceptance of the doctrine of SUBMISSION to God and to Muhammad as the chief and last prophet of God.

The people or nations that practice Islam; the Muslim world.
The civilization developed by the Muslim world.
[Arabic ’islām, submission, from ’aslama, to SURRENDER, resign oneself

-------------------------------------

It would appear that Hitchens is right and you the one doing the spinning.

The links to the Hitchens debate send to a "Gordon Borwn visits Camp David" article?

Folks,

All Richard's trying to do is give Muslims the same benefit of the doubt we instinctively accord everyone else in comparable circumstances.

What's bogus about Hitchens' argument (and that of so many Islam-bashers today) is that it takes a mundane detail about Islam that has analogs in many other religious traditions and perspectives that we find "normal" and unthreatening and willfully wrenches it completely out of context in order to spread prejudice and misunderstanding.

Look up the various meanings and usage patterns of the word "peace" in English (e.g., http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=peace) and you'll see that this sense isn't alien to us. "Peace" often means removal of hardship. The only difference here is that in this case the means of that removal is specified, but even that touch is ultimately familiar. The idea of peace through submission to God is hardly unique to the Ultimate. To the contrary, it's a common trope of a variety of religious traditions and self-help philosophies. But when it's articulated in Arabic, it suddenly becomes scary. It's really sad that Islam and Muslims have been so thoroughly misrepresented that we have to conversations about the ABCs like this.

Not so long ago, the same kinds of disparaging and politically motivated "factual" distinctions were commonplace among WASPs concerning Jews and "Semitic culture". How soon some of us forget.

Svend
http://akramsrazor.typepad.com

Oops.
"The idea of peace through submission to God is hardly unique to the Ultimate." should have been
"The idea of peace through submission to Ultimate is hardly unique to Islam."

The etymology of the term Islam does mean submission to Allah, just as the Prophet was purported to have been the first person to do. Though, of course, there is a relation to the word salaam, as the idea is that peace can only truly be acheived through submission to the will of Allah. 

Make that "The idea of peace through submission to THE Ultimate is hardly unique to Islam."

Hitch certainly has some obfuscations about religion in his newest book, in order to support his argument.

Actually, according to Muslim tradition Abraham submitted thus, as well. The Quran says he was one who submitted to God (i.e., "muslim"). There's a concept in Islam of the Hanif, or a righteous person living in pagan times who instinctively rejects idolatry. Like Abraham, Muhammad was a hanif and then of course became a prophet.

In fact, this kind of submission is primordial from a Muslim perspective, as Adam has been traditionally been considered a divinely inspired prophet, as well. I've never fully understood this point, myself. And the details of his life are, well, a bit hazy!

Sure, Mr. Silverstein, and "jihad" means "internal struggle of the soul" or some such anodyne formulation that doesn't include suicide bombers.

So Mr. Hitchens is "guileful"? That's "deceitful cunning" Mr. Dictionary Maven. Prove it. Oh, and he's an "ideologue" as well. Can you name the ideology?

You combine being a reckless writer with being an ill-informed one. Just for openers, why don't you trot on over to JihadWatch and introduce yourself to what Robert Spencer. You know, the guy that a major Muslim organization tried to have banned from a YAF conference, and who must keep his residence a secret for fear of reprisals from the Religion of Peace.

After a few minutes (or it may take hours in your case) with Spencer, you may come to doubt your claim that "What is misleading about Hitchens' statement is he neglects that "Islam" connotes the peaceful "surrender" of a believer to the will of God, but not the "surrender" of a non-believer before the force or power of Islam."

My dhimmi friend, you are deluded.

This is what happens when bigotry becomes politically correct. Any attempt to be evenhanded with one's political opponent is treated as selling-out.

Ever heard of libel? I don't always agree with CAIR, but people like Spencer frequently cross the line between legitimate political debate and outrageously unsubstantiated charges in the way they treat CAIR (and, by implication, all Muslims who exercise their right to disagree with US policy on the Middle East) as terrorism supporters. Were this same standard applied to the Jewish community, many Jews would be spending much of their time endlessly explaining why they arent' necessarily Kahanists because they disagree with Israel's critics (not all of whom are wackos or anti-Semites).

There's a whole cottage industry dedicated to demonizing CAIR and spinning everything it does as a Muslim takeover. (Sound familiar?)

And what is Hitchens if not an ideologue? The guys makes his living writing eloquent but undeniably hardline ideological polemics. Take a look at his respectfully entitled work on Mother Theresa, THE MISSIONARY POSITION.

I was long his biggest fan (e.g., I agree with his brutal attacks on Bill Clinton), but then 9/11 pushed him over the edge and he started burning crosses and promoting war.

Islamophobia, the NEW Socialism of Fools.

But "Islam" in any modern (since the end of the Jahiliyya) sense does not mean peace, but the surrender of one's self to God. The derivation of the term is neither indicative of the militant behavior that so many strains of Muslim thought have taken from the Ismaelis through the Wahabis, nor does it connote necessarily a violent struggle. Violence has been linked to even the highest cultural achievements of the Islamic world, even many of the those that surpassed the West intellectually. Late Umayyad Spain - the zenith of Islamic civilizations - was, despite its intellectual and religious tolerance, racked by conquests, and the Caliphate itself ended with scores of civil wars. The Taifa kings themselves fell not to a secular regime, but a wave of fundamentalist conquerors from North Africa. Hitchens is perhaps an entertainer posing as a public intellectual. That said, some of his rhetoric is historically accurate if overdone. I think that many apologists for Islam have exaggerated the peaceful quest for the ultimate and overlooked a certain violent rapacity carried over from Arab and north African culture into the political and social Dar al-Islam.  Just because Christian fundamentalists, Neocons, and radical Zionists make vicious blanket statements about Islam does not mean we should making equally false "nice" or "complimentary" statements about its history, or the history of any religion.  Islam is a religion of many conquests, some of them personal and peaceful, some of them collective and violent. 

Hi Gregory and thanks for your balanced and thought-provoking comments.

I don't doubt that Muslim apologists oversimplify things at times. It's human nature, and there's sure no shortage of Islam-bashers who oversimplify.

To borrow from a Talmudic saying, Muslims are as made of a crooked timber as everybody else, and the tensions between culture and if you will high tradition are as present in Islamic civilization as any other. And it is evolving like any other, as well.

I don't agree entirely with your historical reading, but in my view that's neither surprising nor a problem, so long as we agree to dialog with respect and fairness. There are differences, sure, but I don't think one can make a serious scripturally, historically and sociologically informed argument that Islam is inherently any more violent than Christianity or Judaism.

The bigger problem here is that fairness gone out the window and tenditious analyses that we'd find outrageously biased in the case of other traditions have become socially acceptable. Thus, one can judge Islam by a hostile standard that has long since been otherwise been discarded in the public sphere.

Imagine if all the sarcasm and hostility of all these "Some 'religion of peace'!" quips were applied to Christianity or Judaism. It could be easily done--all religious traditions have their share of skeletons in the closet. We just automatically make allowances for "our" traditions and unconsciously exclude them from consideration as "exceptions".

BTW, violence has been linked to some of Christianity's greatest cultural achievements, as well. Some historians consider war the paradoxical engine of tecnnological and economic progress in premodern times. The Industrial REvolution, for example, depended on institutionalized violence and domination in the New World.

Jews have a cleaner slate here probably, but then they for the most part didn't have the means of acting on any such atavistic impulses, being minorities everywhere until very recently. Pacifism was arguably imposed on them by history.

And one of modern Judaism's most dramatic achievements, the state of Israel, has certainly been and continues to be closely linked to violence to some degree (we might disagree how much).

Let's also keep in mind that for most of human history politics and warfare were largely synonymous. As far as I can tell, the West turned began to turn its back on war as a legitimate means of achieving political objectives only quite recently, with industrialization and the rise of captialism. Nothing religious about that paradigm shift.

Much of the the Muslim world was occupied, exploited and sometimes brutalized for the last 2 centuries by the West at the very time the West was developing all these inspiring ideals that we now find lacking in Muslim culture and tradition.

Then there's teh fact that most Muslims don't live in a world that is at peace, economically or politically. Why would they turn away from violence when they feel that the world is constantly being violent towards them? We expect them to think people who live in safe, prosperous American suburbs.

Ignoring the fact that a large chunk of the Muslim world was at one point part of the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire, let's take a look at your point about violence. Look no further than the Kurds who still to this day (despite having a distinct culture, language, etc..etc..) do not have their own state. And have the Kurds en mass (outside of some, but few incidents) turned to terrorism and violence? Nope.
Excusing the barbarism that exists in the Muslim world is nothing more than paternalism at its worst. Personally, I expect more from both the Muslim and Arab world precisely given its history of achievements in science, culture and philosophy. Excusing such behavior is just a mask for the worst of attitudes towards Islam.

point towads the amount of inter-Islamic violence aimed at Shiites, Sufists and the like, as well as violence towards women and gays.

Harper and Row, 1989, Cyril Glasse:

Islam (lit. "surrender," "reconciliation," from the word salam, "peace" or "salvation.")

Svend - Agreeing to disagree on the historical interpretation, I do not think Islam is inherently more violent than European Christianity (though I do see a difference in the kind of violence that has manifested itself occasionally in Judaism). Christianity, however, receives a far more objective treatment in contemporary academic and intellectual circles (though not in popular American culture) for its barbaric legacies.  Many rationalists do, despite harsh popular reactions, make - as you put it - "some religion of peace!" comments about Christianity. What bothers me most about many (largely Arabic) incarnations of political Islam is not merely their attachment to premodern ideas about the state or even violence, but their institutionalization of these instead of of (and seemingly in spite of) the many alternative traditions offered within Islam, let alone those of the European Enlightenment.  Are contemporary Islamic nations so demoralized that they cannot root out the corruption in their own regimes? And when you point out that the Muslim world was occupied by the West while the latter became more civilized or something like it, I can't help but notice how many aspects of the Enlightenment were foreshadowed in medieval Islamic civilization...I wonder if the standard should in fact be significantly higher rather than lower for the Islamic world?

Adam- I agree that much of the apologetics for the Arab world (like many discourses of postcolonialism general) is deeply paternalistic.  Assumptions that all Arabs deal with is violence and thus they are inherently violent are a kind of essentialism that Islamic history itself argues against.  If we were to judge contemporary Islam by its medieval standards (and I get angry with journalists who talk about the Islamic "world" being stuck in the "Middle Ages" - if only!), the regress is apparent. And among the most peaceful periods of Islamic history were those were most populations were contained within empires (from the Abbasids to the Ottomans), so yeah, the statehood thing does not make much sense.  

I don't disagree with you, Adam, but draw quite different conclusions from the evidence.

My point isn't that violence is acceptable but that we can't explain Muslim violence with these airy theories that reduce complex problems and conflicts to monocausal explanations--my all time favorite: "They hate freedom!"--or pseudo-scholarly theories about people's behavior being the result of their "culture" (which is basically what Hitchens is building towards; the same old "culture of death" claptrap).

All people, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, good or bad, are the products of a complex mix of factors.

Also, religious traditions are complex, ever-changing collections of beliefs. You don't give insight into a sprawling, diverse, 1400 year old tradition essence with this kind of dime-store pycho-babble.

Most importantly, what's good for the goose must also be applied to the gander. These days, many critics of Islam have revived cheap polemical tactics that were justly discarded in polite company and which just as much to other religious traditions and cultures.

It must also be said that you cannot selectively condemn violence. You can't only condemn the violence of the weak, the ignorant or the un-telegenic. THAT is a form of a violence, in my book. Unfortunately, I think many American leaders are guilty of just that today. In the process, they do their part to beget yet more yet worse violence.

Meanwhile, people who are among the most guilty of ensuring that this vicious circle continues--i.e., the warmongering zealots like Hitchens--preach about Muslims need to embrace non-violence.

Agreed, agreed, agreed. In fact, if anything I would dare say that many of these issues--save for the Sunni/Shiia violence which is obviously historical in nature--are more than anything the product of the awful class split that exists throughout the Muslim world (particularly in the oil producing Arab states). I suppose my point is--and I think overall we have much agreement--is that on both sides (those who would blindly criticize Islam, and those who would blindly ignore its modern flaws) oversimplification takes place. And in many ways, both opinions are equally as dangerous.

Gregory:
I don't deny that there are serious issues to be addressed by Muslims in the realm of Islamic jurisprudence and political culture(s).

I used to be heavily involved in a high profile reform initiative (the Center for the Study of Islam & Democracy). I'm actually quite radical on host of issues and quite scathing towards most "Islamist" political movements, which have, much like state-santioned Marxism in the Eastern Bloc, in my view often severely dumbed down political debates in Muslim societies. The irony is that many of their worst offenses are at least partly the result of unsuccessfully importing newfangled Western concepts into their paradigms (e.g., the idiocy that resulted from Islamists integrating the Western concept of political sovereignty into their theology two generations ago--like the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", the idea of governance being strictly according to God's Will is a hopeless pipe dream in the absence of some extraordinary millenial development; in the absence of the Mahdi or the Messiah, you have no choice but imperfect human sovereignty).

Reform is happening, but it's not going to happen according to a Washington timetable, especially if Washington continues to do everything it can to spark more violence and paranoia. How long did it take for Christianity to collectively renounce the charge of Deicide, 1800 years? And Christians didn't feel they were collectively under siege from a hostile outside, either. People don't make idealistic reforms when they feel under siege. (Did Americans fret much about state-sanctioned anti-Japanese bigotry during WWII?)

there are other factors to consider. Thanks to, yes, colonialism--which systematically dismantled Islamic societies once vibrant and dynamic legal institutions and imposed European laws (which sometimes were less "modern" than that which they supplanted)--utterly disastrous misgovernance by post independence secular leadership, and the economic realities of globalization, there are all sorts of crises facing traditional Islamic legal institutions. As is the case across the developing world, the "best and the brightest" in Islamic societies tend to go into medicine, law or other economically secure professions. And, contrary to the widespread perception, shariah is actually quite as national law--most Muslim-majority nations long ago adopted and continue to rely on secular law, even if they throw in the occasional touch of shariah (especially in family law) to satisfy traditionalists. [See Abdullahi An-Naim on this.] Which means that Muslim jurists haven't been able to practice their trade in the real world for generations. Finally, Muslims are no more eager than anybody else to capitulate to what they perceive (sometimes rightly) as the dictates of poorly informed outsiders, which complicates the reform effort.

Christian tradition is chock full of troubling attitudes towards Jews (from the Gospels up to our day), yet Christians today are among the most vigilant against anti-Semitism. I don't think that kind of self-criticism and reform could've happened if Christians everywhere were locked in these kinds of conflicts, which is another reason for those calling for Islamic reform to get serious about conflict resolution as opposed to continuously attacking Islam and Muslims.

Personally, I think the biggest barrier to reform is rarely acknowledged, partly because it requires *US* to do soul-searching: irresponsible policies and interference from the outside that undermine reformers and keeps things ever aboil among Muslims. The way things are today, civilizational dialogue and self-criticism all but impossible. I think today's concrete conflicts (a disproportionate chunk of which involve Muslims) and other socio-economic problems and the passions they arouse have infinitely more impact on the prospects for reform than most of these airy discussions of fine points of doctrine. People are far more likely to engage in violence or extremism for sociological reasons than theological ones, I think.

One example is democracy. The Muslim world if overflowing with people who want democracy. It's actually quite hard to find Muslim thinkers who don't believe in democracy, even if they employ different terminology. Many otherwise hidebound Islamists are committed to democracy, having sometimes been subjected to torture and arbitrary detention at the hands of secular (and, of course, US-backed) regimes on the flimsiest of pretexts. Polls show Muslim populations to consisently be more enthusiastic about democracy than Westerners. MUslims desperately want democracy, but "we" (i.e., the US et al.) consistently thwart these desires for a variety of short-sighted and/or cynical reasons.

Your quip about wishing Islam was indeed "stuck in the Middle Ages" is great. I'm sorely tempted to steal it. People need to realize just how perversely modern and un-traditional most Islamist movements are today, for all their pretensions to the contrary.

Adam,
I'm quite comfortable admitting that Muslims are as knuckleheaded as everybody else and that this inevitably bleeds over into what is perceived/presented as Islam. Muslims sometimes politicize or dumb-down their tradition, making it doubly challenging for outsiders to get a good read.

I don't expect non-Muslims to necessarily agree with Muslims on the line between contingent Muslim culture and authoritative Islamic tradition. So long as we agree to be civil in expressing our differences, I'm happy. Pat Robertson is free to believe I worship a "moon god" for all I care so long as he doesn't cross the line between expressing his sincere beliefs and/or academic theories and vilifying my religion and thus denying my right to live with dignity and participate in society.*

[* BTW, before hecklers jump in retorts of "horrors of dhimmitude" guff: Muslims need make no apologies for the dhimma system, imperfect though it was and however inappropriate it is for today without major reforms.

It was quite advanced for its time. Especially compared to what was happening to Jews next door in Christendom. Jews didn't stream into Christendom in 1492 to escape dhimmitude--they happily chose it over inquisitions and culturally sanctioned scapegoating. Nor did they welcome the Reconquista as they did the overthrow of Christian rule centuries earlier in numerous places.

Let he whose religious tradition is free of comparable if not far worse discrimination cast the first stone. Muslim treatment of religious minorities doesn't measure up to modern standards, but it was quite enlightened--whether by accident or design--when seen in historical context.]

In a nutshell, I think Muslims are like everybody else, but today often have the misfortune of being born in the wrong time and place. Many Muslim societies inherit complex legacies and conflicts that many other people had the good fortune to escape. As Bosnia and Rwanda showed for Christians and as events in the Occupied Territories regularly show in the case of Jews, as Gujarat showed for Hindus, ad infinitum, when put in comparable socio-cultural circumstances of communal strife, non-Muslims exhibit equally fundamentalist and "uncivilized" attitudes and behaviors. We just naturally filter out the cases of religious with which we sympathize.

Okay, I've spent *far* more time than I intended or should have here, so I'd better sign off before I get divorced and/or carted off to the Blogosphere hall of shame. I have a syllabus to finish!

"Broken links"

Yes, the Gordon Brown show is correct. Just click on "Listen" & you can hear the show. The Hitchens conversation begins somewhere in the middle of the program so you'll have to navigate through the file till you get to it.

"'jihad' means "internal struggle of the soul" or some such anodyne formulation that doesn't include suicide bombers."

No, jihad has both meanings. Have you never heard of a word that could have one spiritual & one material meaning?

"Can you name the ideology?"

He's a convert from leftism to neoconservatism. Baaley teshuvah usually go to extremes attempting to prove their allegiance to their new found faith. This is perfectly true of Hitch, I'm afraid.

"You combine being a reckless writer"

From you, I take that as the highest compliment. I only appear 'reckless' to those whose politics makes them much more reckless to the safety of the world.

"have the Kurds en mass (outside of some, but few incidents) turned to terrorism and violence? "

I'm generally pretty supportive of Kurdish culture & its resistance to its various oppressors, but haven't you left out the PKK, which has engaged in serious acts of terror against Turkey for yrs if not decades?

"Excusing the barbarism that exists in the Muslim world..."

No one here is "excusing" barbarism in the Muslim world. We're just demanding that all those who attack Islam as a religion of war, hate & domination recognize that it's not JUST those things; and that virtually all of the world's religions (including Judaism, btw) have engaged in violence & at times even genocide against their perceived opponents.

Svend, I'm a regular reader of Jihad Watch, and I have frequented the CAIR site on many occasions.

Please cite for me exactly where Robert Spencer spreads "outrageously unsubstantiated charges" regarding CAIR, or retract your accusation.

Meryl,

Well, what *isn't* unsubstantiated? It's a tissue of guilt by association, paranoia and speculation. There's a way of taking unproven charges and evidence that is open to multiple interpretations and tarring your political opponents so that they are treated as guilty until proven innocent.

CAIR can be too conservative for my tastes and I don't always agree with them on specific policy recommendations, but they are doing important and legitimate civil rights work, not to mention occasionally providing a voice to a sizable American community whose wishes and concerns are often ignored. And the way CAIR is consistently portrayed without evidence as some kind of diplomatic arm of terror is indeed outrageous.

The idea that the campaigns and charges against CAIR just *might* be a smidgen biased or politically motivated shouldn't be shocking, given how politicized all sorts of major decisions and policies have turned out to be (one word: WMDs). There are whole lot of witch hunts going on these days (a few of which I've been able to observe up close). CAIR is a persistent target of them.

If proof emerges that CAIR is indeed a terror front, I'll be the first in line to condemn it. But until then, there are these little things called the presumption of innocence and due process. A lot of people want to deny CAIR and Muslims in general those basic safeguards these days.

Meryl,

I pay little attention to CAIR, but I have read enough of Robert Spencer's writings to notice some serious epistemological and historical problems (perhaps "deficiencies" might be a better word). Yes, I'm deeply bothered by the trend among many Western intellectuals to show disproportionate objectivity toward Islam and to ignore the dangers of tolerating its radicalized adherents. And my intellectual sympathies are totally with the post-Enlightenment West, secularism, and the dream (perhaps that is all it is) of making rational societies work, or spending one's life attempting to do so.  But I do not think this means we should write endless, vague invectives that accomplish little in safeguarding us from radical Islam or informing us about a very large portion of the world's population. Spencer's biography of the Prophet Mohammed says little in the way of new information, but merely cuts and pastes the existing Islamic sources together like a fifteenth century crusading tract. He states the obvious (Mohammed and his world were violent), but does so in a polemical and exaggerated style.  He misunderstands basic influences on Islam such as Nestorian Christianity, conflates Arabicized Arab culture with the nomadic cultures of the Arabian peninsula.  (I know this is off topic, but the best study of Mohammed is really Rodinson's biography).  And the errors in his Politically Correct Guide to Islam include conflating the later "crusades" against the Turks (which were defensive) with the unprovoked terrors unleashed on the Islamic, Byzantine (Eastern Christian), and Jewish inhabitants of Anatolia, Syria, and the rest of the Near East by northern European armies. And while he is right to point out the initial cultural damage done by the expansion of Islam in the seventh century, he omits the staggering intellectual achievments that followed, and ignores the fact that most Jewish intellectuals with means fled Christian Europe in favor of Islamdom. That kind of writing makes makes his political analysis suspect, even though I do agree at times with his public policy recommendations. 

Richard and Svend,
We are absolutely in agreement here. And certainly most importantly in agreement about the dangers of polemicss; particularly amongst people who do not know a thing about Islam (or say even met a Muslim in his/her life). There is a normal, healthy range of criticism and analysis that any religion should receive, and as you point out any number of historical difficulties that those religions have to ultimately answer for. However, I would also say that historical context does not necessarily excuse the unethical, violent or oppressive. Certainly we should not excuse the actions of slave traders, violent colonists and the like--particularly given the fact that there were voices of clarity at those respective times. As such I ultimately disagree with your analysis of dhimmitude, even if accepting the comparative advantages of that system (and most importantly recognize those examples of humane treatment of Jews in the Muslim world during the "Golden Age").

Still waiting for a cite. We weren't discussing Spencer's books, or Spencer in general. You specifically said "people like Spencer frequently cross the line between legitimate political debate and outrageously unsubstantiated charges in the way they treat CAIR (and, by implication, all Muslims who exercise their right to disagree with US policy on the Middle East) as terrorism supporters."

If you can't cite it, then you are doing exactly what you charge Spencer with: Making unsubstantiated charges. 

Considering that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a current trial involving funding Hamas, I'm inclined to believe that calling them terror supporters may not be unsubstantiated. 

Meryl sent me an email so I thought I'd drop by. Good evening.

On the comments above by Gregory C., a few observations:

Spencer's biography of the Prophet Mohammed says little in the way of new information,

May I ask what you expected? He's been dead since 632; he hasn't done much lately. I wasn't trying to provide some new angle on the facts. I was trying to alert people to the facts.

but merely cuts and pastes the existing Islamic sources together like a fifteenth century crusading tract.

Not having read any 15th century crusading tracts, I'm can't speak to the accuracy of this charge, but it is kind of you at least to acknowledge that everything in the book is from the Islamic sources. Reporting on what they say is exactly what I was trying to do, and that was all I was trying to do.

He states the obvious (Mohammed and his world were violent), but does so in a polemical and exaggerated style.

Really? I tried in all cases to avoid any kind of emotionalism in the writing, and refrained from drawing conclusions that weren't drawn by Muslim exegetes. I'd be grateful if you'd provide an example or two of this.

He misunderstands basic influences on Islam such as Nestorian Christianity,

Really? As Nestorian and Monophysite Christianity have been objects of personal interest and study for me longer than has Islam -- and I first read the Qur'an in 1981 -- I'd be interested to know how you think I misunderstand Nestorianism.

conflates Arabicized Arab culture with the nomadic cultures of the Arabian peninsula.

Arabicized Arab culture? As opposed to non-Arabicized Arab culture? Or Arabicized non-Arab culture (that one would actually make sense)? Can you please explain your terms here?

(I know this is off topic, but the best study of Mohammed is really Rodinson's biography).

I agree.

And the errors in his Politically Correct Guide to Islam include conflating the later "crusades" against the Turks (which were defensive) with the unprovoked terrors unleashed on the Islamic, Byzantine (Eastern Christian), and Jewish inhabitants of Anatolia, Syria, and the rest of the Near East by northern European armies.

Conflating in what way? In their origin? Motivation? Goal? There are points of similarity between the two, no? And I think it important to note that I wrote in the book about the terrors unleashed by the First Crusade, and neither minimize nor excuse them.

And while he is right to point out the initial cultural damage done by the expansion of Islam in the seventh century, he omits the staggering intellectual achievments that followed, and ignores the fact that most Jewish intellectuals with means fled Christian Europe in favor of Islamdom.

I don't have that book in front of me right now, but actually I do believe I discussed those intellectual achievements at some length, and discuss the flight of Jewish intellectuals not in that book but in Onward Muslim Soldiers. For comparisons between Christendom's and Islamdom's treatment of Jews, I might suggest you see my new book Religion of Peace?, or better, Andrew Bostom's forthcoming The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Svend,

CAIR would happily sue me if I purveyed unsubstantiated charges against them. I don't deal in unsubstantiated charges. Specifics, please.

CAIR was founded by 3 men from the IAP, a Hamas front.

CAIR has just been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas funding case.

CAIR's cofounder and head has just been identified as attending an illegal Hamas meeting some years ago.

And there's much more. Readily verified.

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Ever heard of libel?

That's a serious charge. Bring your proof, if you be truthful, as the Qur'an says.

I don't always agree with CAIR, but people like Spencer frequently cross the line between legitimate political debate and outrageously unsubstantiated charges in the way they treat CAIR (and, by implication, all Muslims who exercise their right to disagree with US policy on the Middle East) as terrorism supporters.

You are obviously unaware that I myself disagree with US policy on the Middle East. I guess that means that according to you I would...call myself a terrorism supporter?

Cordially
Robert Spencer

Robert (if I may address you this way)

By "Arabicized" cultures I mean the formerly Hellenistic worlds of Syria and Egypt, and their very different strengths are prejudices from those of the Arabian peninsula.  I think it is extremely important to differentiate these because the previously Hellenized  places took much longer to succumb to any serious radicalism (witness the reaction to the Ismaelis in Egypt) than did those in greater cultural proximity to the Arabian peninsula. I am not claiming culture is the only element, but it does matter.  The general tone of Abbasid culture, and Umayyad Spain (though NOT Taifa or Berber) was not any more violent or discriminatory than that of medieval Provence or Normandy.  The intense violence of Islamic soldiers you write of is not terribly different from anyone else until we get to the Turks, who likely  did manage to outdo Arab and European armies alike.

While perhaps "misunderstands" was not the best word choice, I do think that the culture of Nestorians and Monophysites is very important for Westerners in particular to apprehend, and a discussion of the origins of Islam should prioritize the fringes of the Eastern Churches, because these were models for the militant evangelism, and the often violent need to dissociate (or perhaps differentiate) from Judaism.  The non-Chalcedonian churches in general were accused of Judaizing tendencies by the Byzantines, and their own attempts to show the folly of Jews surely influenced Islam as much as any Arab anti-Jewish prejudices.  

And as for the polemical tone, there are a few particular instances, choices of topic, and phrasing:   (1) the subtitle, "the world's most intolerant religion." It may be currently the world's most violently intolerant religion, but put some Christian Reconstructionists in charge of a nation and see how that works. (2) Your discussion of a quote from the second Surah of the Quran, where you interpret the curse of Allah to imply (if I read this correctly) that passage as another condemnation of unbelievers.  Several other ambiguous passages like this get cited. There's plenty of evidence for actual violence against unbelievers in the Quran, so why interpret passages that follow a kind of rhetoric that's found in Christian authors like St. Paul or St. John Chrysostom, both of whom produced antisemitic and anti-infidel statements on a par with that found in the Quran? (3) The punishment given to the Urayna tribe smacks far more of Arab clan warfare than it does of any general theological principle, whatever the various hadith that have grown up around it. I think your discussion of this made the passage appear to suggest their punishment was religious. The strongest tradition of interpretation on this passage suggests that they were being punished as brigands. 

As one of my favorite Islamists, Bernard Lewis, has pointed out, one does not have to trace the strains of violence and intolerance in contemporary Islam back to the life of the prophet. Many changes have affected Islam for the worst since then. There are many violent, ambiguous, and intolerant passages of the Quran that only in the last few centuries have received literal interpretations.  And the Mutazilite school, until its eventual demise to the literalists, taught for centuries with widespread popularity doctrines very different from mainstream Sunni or Shia theology today. So I don't think the (very real) problems with Islam should be projected back onto the life of its founder, however much I disagree with him.  My references to polemic and to crusading tracts stem from my problems with someone using the ambiguous early mythology of a religion to indict its evils.

I've not read Onward Muslim Soldiers. The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism is on my reading list.

On the CAIR issues (though I suspect you were addressing Svend) I agree with you - the evidence is decidedly in favor of a direct connection with Hamas. As with the late Oriana Fallaci's final book, what disturbs me about your writing is the tone and the particular bent of the history, not the contemporary politics.

Best,

Greg

Meryl:
I'm sharing my view of his arguments and am not inclined to writing a legal brief at the moment. You're certainly welcome to your opinion.

Ah, the ever handy "unindicted co-conspirator" charge. What exactly does that mean? It means that the evidence was so paltry that they haven't even been charged--even in this increasingly hostile and paranoid political climate--much less convicted.

In other words, they're innocent until proven guilty.

It wouldn't be the first time political agendas or prejudices tainted the legal system in a time of conflict and it won't be the last.

Gregory:
Thanks for sharing those very interesting observations. As you might expect, I have similar concerns about his objectivity and rigor. Luckily for him, rigor and objectivity aren't what sells books on Islam these days.

Adam:
We may end up with some differing conclusions, but I don't have a problem with these sentiments. I feel no need to idealize previous generations of Muslims and treat them as somehow immune to the passions, vices and influences with which all cultures have struggled.

Gaps between ideal and practice are hardly unique to Muslims, as any even-handed examination of Western history shows. The lofty ideals of the Enlightenment didn't prevent the brutality and institutionalized racism of Colonialism. And African-Americans remained second-class citizens for nearly 2 centuries after the Declaration of Independence had established the equality of men.

As Stan Lee used to say, 'Nuff said.

Svend - I think the biggest problem with many popular criticisms of Islam, coming from Western pundits and political commentators, is that they often recycle very old and often very contextually suspect arguments from premodern Christian apologetics. I recently read some Quattrocento anti-Turkish tracts written for popular consumption and was struck by how much this crusading literature is being recapitulated in modern works.  What is most  uncanny is the way that works discussing Ottoman evils have been (unconsciously?) read back into the narratives of Arabic and Muslim history.  Perhaps there really are very few new ideas, but still...that does not help when one is trying to explain to a group of students that there was, in fact, something called "Islamic biology."

Mr. Spencer:

The point of my initial comment on libel was that since it is as you say a very serious matter, CAIR (or any other organization, whatever its political persuasion) has a right to avail itself of the law to protect itself from defamation. I assume that CAIR's suit arises out of their belief that your involvement in that event would have led to their illegal defamation. While I obviously have my own concerns about your objectivity, I can't judge the merits of that contention for a variety of reasons (e.g., I'm not a lawyer, nor have I studied all the particulars), but I certainly support their right to defend themselves against illegal actions against them.

There are two sides to every story, as the old saying goes, and I wished to point out that CAIR has made some arguments concerning a serious issue that appear credible enough to at least get a hearing at court and therefore need to be addressed, whatever one thinks about their ultimate merit. The comment to which I responded presented the CAIR case as self-evident example case of censorship (or, depending how you interpret it, perhaps bullying). Given your antagonistic relationship with CAIR, the case seems a little more complex than that to me, even if one feels their suit is ultimately unjustified.

Speaking more generally, I most certainly did not intend accuse you of libel. These comments were composed on the fly--hence the profusion of typos--and consequently not exactly worded with legal precision. (Nor should they be expected to be, given the conventions of the medium.)

The two broader points I intended to make concering CAIR, and which I stand by, are:

1) I consider your analysis of CAIR extremely biased and your evidence inconclusive for a host of reasons.
2) I believe there are dark forces in American politics today that use sensationalistic and conspiracy theory-ridden attacks against CAIR as a means to silent dissent and whip prejudice against Muslim Americans. Even if conclusive evidence eventually emerges in the future proving CAIR guilty of your charges, the way CAIR has been so thoroughly demonized on questionable proof should be, I think, very troubling to anybody who takes civil liberties seriously.

It's ironic, because I have my share of disagreements with CAIR. The problem is that demagogic tactics being increasingly used against CAIR not only stoke hate and fear at a time when dialog is desperately needed, but ultimately put all our basic civil rights at risk.

re: alleged Hamas links
I am neither a CAIR insider nor an intelligence expert, so I can only judge by the evidence I have before me in the public domain.

Assuming these links to be true, I am concerned as well, but do not see it to be quite as straightforward as you evidently do. Like many societies in throes of conflict, the Palestinian territories aren't exactly teeming with choices in terms of employment, political movements, or civic society organizations. Whatever we may think of it, Hamas is a major player within Palestinian society and plays a complex, multi-faceted role. Not everything it does is terrorism-related, and I wouldn't be surprised if in some circumstances it might be the "only game in town" for an aspiring political activist.

Therefore, I'd want to know more about what the individuals in question actually did. Did they involved in social service, administration, or a military arm? Simply stating someone was once "linked" at some point in the past isn't enough, if we really interested in getting at the truth and committed to discerning moderates from extremists.

Re the etymology, Islam means "submission", aslama means "to surrender" and salam means "peace". All of these are self-evident cognates. When people hear the word "surrender" they automatically think of warfare and making others surrender, but in fact the surrender we are talking about is precisely the self-surrender which Jesus Christ offered his father in the Garden of Gethsemane (let this cup pass from me... nevertheless not my will but thine be done, Luke 22:42).

Jihad means "struggle" and is used commonly to denote any form of effort. The prophet Muhammad explicitly identified two religious meanings for jihad, the greater (the internal struggle of a person to overcome their own sinfulness) and the lesser (war in defence of Muslims and against Islam's enemies).

As for Mr Hitchens' remark about "prostration", there is no way that Islam can mean "prostration". The verb for prostration is sajada, from which we get not only the word for the thing on which Muslims prostrate themselves in prayer (sujjad, a carpet) but also the place where this most often happens (masjid, a mosque). And again, this is about prostrating one's self, not anyone else. Mr Hitchens needs an Arabic speaker to keep him on the straight and narrow.

A couple of things Adam said (hello Adam) stood out:

And have the Kurds en mass (outside of some, but few incidents) turned to terrorism and violence? Nope.

The PKK is a terrorist group, and both the PUK and the KDP have long had militant arms. I would like to know how much of a population has to take up arms before this can be considered to be acting en masse. Turks in particular would be quite amazed by this statement, the terrorism indulged in by the Turkish military itself notwithstanding.

In fact, if anything I would dare say that many of these issues--save for the Sunni/Shiia violence which is obviously historical in nature--are more than anything the product of the awful class split that exists throughout the Muslim world (particularly in the oil producing Arab states).

The Sunni-Shia division, though religious in origin, frequently manifests itself as a class division in modern nation-states.

The straight and narrow in Arabic is "al-Mustaqeem":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Fatiha

Maher,
Agreed with your points re: umm me. I think my point with the Kurds was merely that if violence (or terroristic violence in this case) were a direct result of oppression, and in direct correlation with the level of violence absorbed, would there not be significantly more Kurdish violence directed at any number of targets beyond the Turks? I do not mean to minimize the seriousness of groups like the PKK, a terrorist group in every way to be sure. However, we can certainly distinguish between the number of Kurdish terrorist acts over the years from, say, those carried out by any number of Palestinian groups (Fatah, PFLP, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc...etc...). And if so, that does point to other differences than just oppression and the stunting of national aspirations.

Adam

Since 1984, 30,000 people have died in the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish government. This week, 13 people have died and eight have been kidnapped in south-eastern Turkey. I think we can safely say that Kurds have turned to violence en masse, contrary to your assertion. This does not mean that Kurds have not also continued to pursue non-violent options where that has been possible.

I'm not sure how you make this quantitative distinction between Kurdish and Palestinian terrorism, and what raw numbers would tell you in any case. If you want to make a qualitative distinction between the terrorism undertaken by Kurds and Arabs, I'd be interested to hear it. I'd also be interested to know what it is other than the experience of violence that generates Palestinian terrorism, in your view.

Gregory:
That's an interesting observation. I'm constantly struck by the parallels between modern discourse vis-a-vis Muslims and that once directed towards various "native" groups whose claim to being civilized needed to be delegitimized given their resistance the colonial project. The assignment of attributes like "hatred" or "irrationality" to other peoples was as politically useful then as it is now. It makes violence and domination a lot easier to justify.

But I wasn't aware of these particular parallels.

On the Muslim end, a lot of extremist groups call for the return of the Caliphate, something at least 500 years old that sees odd in a world after the Ottomans and the British.  But some "secular" Western authors use an alarming amount of Christian propaganda that was directed against Turks originally.  One interesting place to look are the tracts written by Florentine humanists (between writing their literary and historical masterpieces), usually when paid employees of the Papal chancery. There was even a recent monograph on this phenomenon of crusading literature in the Renaissance.  What I find interesting is the transposition of Turkish behaviors, both real ones and the imagined ones, onto a largely Arabic group.  I'm very much an opponent of Wahabism and its adherents, but I really don't see the similarities to these earlier historical contexts. The main commonality, between crusading texts then and now, is of course, religion...

So, the upshot of this discussion is that you are perfectly willing to throw out sweeping generalizations, and unwilling to actually, you know, cite facts when calling people names. You said:

Ever heard of libel? I don't always agree with CAIR, but people like Spencer frequently cross the line between legitimate political debate and outrageously unsubstantiated charges in the way they treat CAIR (and, by implication, all Muslims who exercise their right to disagree with US policy on the Middle East) as terrorism supporters. Were this same standard applied to the Jewish community, many Jews would be spending much of their time endlessly explaining why they arent' necessarily Kahanists because they disagree with Israel's critics (not all of whom are wackos or anti-Semites).

I asked for cites. Now you say:

I'm sharing my view of his arguments and am not inclined to writing a legal brief at the moment. You're certainly welcome to your opinion.

Sorry, but that doesn't cut it. You're sharing your accusations that Spencer commits libel, and yet, you have come up with absolutely zero examples of such.

I've got a new motto for debating on comments threads: Cite it or bite it. I like it. Short. Pithy. To the point.

If you cannot substantiate a fact-based argument, well... figure it out.

Bite it!

Maher,
Thanks for following up. I would be curious as to where you got that 30,000 number from, as well as precisely what that entails. As far as I have understood (and please do correct me if I'm wrong) the majority of PKK violence has been directed against the Turkish military; certainly different than the tactics of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc...and that many of the casualties on innocents have been inflicted by the Turkish military. Again, please feel free to correct me if my assumptions are wrong.
Also,the PKK at its heart is a Marxist paramilitary group, and as such is often at odds with much of the mainstream Kurdish sentiment. This is a kind of difficult comparison to go through though, merely because the Kurds are so dispersed, and the land that they are connected to is controlled by both Iraq and Turkey. So a different situation I would think. Not entirely incomparable but certainly distinct.