Robert Spencer
Deborah Weiss, columnist, attorney, and senior fellow with the Center for Security Policy, has kindly alerted me to an eleven-part -- eleven! -- series written by Omer Subhani, "Exposing Robert Spencer." Omer Subhani is the Communications Director for CAIR-South Florida, and as one might expect coming from a representative of that inveterately dishonest and mudslinging organization, his "exposé" is less a refutation than a shallow exercise in character assassination, ad hominem attacks, and leaps of illogic. Still, since I have often pointed out that no one has ever shown my work to be inaccurate in any way, it seems only sporting for me to take up Subhani's claim to do so, just for the record, and to show how hollow it is. As it happens I've already dealt with one of the parts of his series, here, before I knew it was part of a series, but now I'll do the rest -- not all at once, so as not to drown the site in Subhani's bluster and guff, but as an occasional series of my own here. So -- on to Part I, which, not surprisingly, starts by diving right into the ad hominems:
There's scholarship and then there's Dershowitz scholarship. Dershowitz scholarship is shoddy at best, maliciously devious at its worse.
Dershowitz, of course, has nothing to do with this at all, but Subhani just couldn't resist the dig, which I think considering the source is a fine advertisement for Dershowitz's work.
Robert Spencer, the head of Jihad Watch, falls under the latter category. He follows in the footsteps of other "anti-terrorism experts" like the disgraced Steve Emerson.
Here's what Subhani means by "disgraced."
Spencer, whose knowledge of the Qur'an extends to translations by Pickthall, Yusuf Ali, and Muhammad Asad, doesn't seem to rely on the more authoritative exegesis of Qurtubi, ibn al-Arabi, or Imam al-Tabari, to name a few. I guess he didn't learn that at UNC when he was studying the nature of Jesus Christ.
I trust Subhani has fired off a strongly worded letter to the USC Muslim Students Association, whose knowledge of the Qur'an apparently extends to translations by Pickthall, Yusuf Ali, and M. H. Shakir. I link to that site in my Blogging the Qur'an series because it is a handy reference and because Yusuf Ali, Pickthall, and Shakir (as well as Asad) were all Muslims -- but Subhani is just trying to score cheap points by pretending that those are all I know of the Qur'an. See here, for example, for me citing translations not just by Yusuf Ali, Pickthall and Asad, but also by Nooruddin, Dawood, Fakhry, Daryabadi, Hilali and Khan, Shakir, Sher Ali, Muhammad Ali, Arberry, Palmer, Rodwell, and Sale. And here and here I discuss the meanings of Qur'anic passages in (gasp!) Arabic.
But all that, of course, would get in the way of Subhani's caricature Spencer, so he tells you I only know those three translations, and then says that I don't rely on the exegesis of Qurtubi, ibn al-Arabi, or al-Tabari. This is odd, because he was talking about translators, but then shifts the goalposts to talk about commentators. Unfortunately for Subhani, I have cited numerous Islamic exegetes of the Qur'an in my Blogging the Qur'an series and elsewhere, including those he claims I don't cite: see, for example, here, here and here.
I guess Subhani didn't learn the value of accurate reporting from his bosses among the unindicted co-conspirators in a jihad terror funding case.
In any case, Spencer has personally studied Islam and has focused much of his attention on issues focused upon the treatment of Christians and Jews under Islamic rule as well as on what he terms the "jihad ideology" - radical Islam, extremism, etc.
"Islam is an ideology." -- Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR, July 31, 2007.
Spencer declares that jihadists have a sounder theological framework based upon classical Islamic sources. He also asserts that Christians and Jews were treated as second class citizens during the period of classical Islam. All of this is easily refutable.
Where's the beef?
Spencer likes to portray himself as a calm, smooth intellectual who has really dug deep into classical Islamic scholarship to discover and expose the real dark nature of Islam.
I really like to portray myself as a a wealthy industrialist, philanthropist, and man-about-town who, after witnessing the murder of my parents, donned a bat-themed costume in order to fight a series of likewise outlandishly costumed criminals.
All he really does in essence is demonstrate his lack of qualifications for such an endeavor.
Yeah, I don't even know where to go to get a degree in Exposing the Real Dark Nature of Islam.
For the purposes of this blog I will simply show a few of Spencer's scholarly blunders. Later on I'll show more. I'll probably never get around to his books because I'm not about to waste money on garbage so I'll just wait until I get back into school and see if my library carries his garbage.
The first one is about an article he wrote about Surah al-Tawba (Chapter 29). In this article (http://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/09/blogging-the-qur%E2%80%99an-sura-9-%E2%80%9Crepentance%E2%80%9D-verse-29-part-2/), Spencer cites a pact between "the Caliph Umar" whom Spencer says lived from "634 to 644" and a Christian community.
Yeah, Umar was the amazing ten-year-old caliph. What I actually wrote, as you can see if you look, was that Umar "ruled the Muslims from 634 to 644," not that he lived from 634 to 644. If you wonder why I'm being a bit flip with Subhani, this is why: he is either inexcusably careless in his reading or so outrageously dishonest and bent on defaming me that he simply lies about what I say. Since he gets it right below, I suspect it's just carelessness, but in any case it doesn't speak well for the accuracy of his analysis.
Based upon these dates, Spencer seems to be suggesting that the pact was between Umar ibn al-Khattab (the second khalifah) and a Christian community. He cites ibn Kathir as his source for this pact. The pact is harsh on the Christians, by today's standards.
Now, as any historian should know, you don't just take something at face value. You must investigate whether your primary source is authentic or not by studying the secondary literature. Spencer apparently did not do that because all I had to do was Google "Pact of Umar" and lo and behold I got a nice article about the pact on Wikipedia (yes, I know, it's not exactly scholarly, but I don't have the resources as of now to do a more serious investigation).
You can say that again!
Whatever our opinions about Wikipedia, it does offer important information, especially in regards to this subject. So, firstly, Spencer says that it was the Caliph Umar who ruled from 634-644.
Subhani meets accuracy! That is what I said!
Accordingly, that is incorrect as Wikipedia cites a number of Western specialists on Islamic history stating that:
Subhani is an extraordinarily poor writer. He doesn't mean that it is incorrect that Umar ruled from 634 to 644, although that is the import of his words. He means that the Pact itself isn't historical, as he goes on to explain:
"Western orientalists doubt the authenticity of the Pact, arguing that it is usually the victors, not the vanquished, who propose, or rather impose, the terms of peace, and that it is highly unlikely that the people who spoke no Arabic and knew nothing of Islam could draft such a document. Academic historians believe that the Pact of Umar in the form it is known today was a product of later jurists who attributed it to the venerated caliph Umar I in order to lend greater authority to their own opinions. The striking similarities between the Pact of Umar and the Theodesian and Justinian Codes suggest that perhaps much of the Pact of Umar was borrowed from these earlier codes by later Islamic jurists. At least some of the clauses of the pact mirror the measures first introduced by the Umayyad caliph Umar II or by the early Abbasid caliphs."
So, it was not written by Umar ibn al-Khattab as Spencer erroneously suggests. Second, the document itself is under scrutiny by Western historians, something Spencer wholly misses.
Now: did I actually say the thing was historical? Nope -- in his carelessness Subhani probably missed the portion of the sentence I've put in italics here: "He then goes on to outline the notorious Pact of Umar, an agreement made, according to Islamic tradition, between the caliph Umar, who ruled the Muslims from 634 to 644, and a Christian community."
Does Islamic tradition speak about the Pact of Umar? Well, it's in Ibn Kathir -- that's where I got it. I wasn't actually dealing with the question of whether or not it was a real seventh-century document. I was and am interested in the patent and manifest fact that it became the basis for Islamic law regarding dhimmis. Whether the law came first and then was read into a fictional pact Umar made, or whether there really was a Pact of Umar and the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) regarding dhimmis was influenced by it, simply doesn't concern me, except as a matter of historical interest. I am concerned with the institutionalized mistreatment of non-Muslims under Islamic law, and used Ibn Kathir's citing of the Pact of Umar to illustrate it. I could have used any number of other things, including Reliance of the Traveller, 'Umdat al-Salik, a manual of Islamic law that was certified by Al-Azhar in 1991 -- not 991 -- as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy. It is remarkably similar to the Pact of Umar in its regulations on how the dhimmis are to be treated. That in itself illustrates the constancy of these elements of Islamic law. They have not been reformed or rejected.
Instead, Umar ibn al-Khattab has his own authentic pact with the Christian community of Syria when the early Muslims conquered Jerusalem. It is called the Umarriya Covenant:
"In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Beneficent. This is what the slave of Allah, Umar b.Al-Khattab, the Amir of the believers, has offered the people of Illyaa’ of security granting them Amaan (protection) for their selves, their money, their churches, their children, their lowly and their innocent, and the remainder of their people. Their churches are not to be taken, nor are they to be destroyed, nor are they to be degraded or belittled, neither are their crosses or their money, and they are not to be forced to change their religion, nor is any one of them to be harmed. No Jews are to live with them in Illyaa’ and it is required of the people of Illyaa’ to pay the Jizya, like the people of the cities. It is also required of them to remove the Romans from the land; and whoever amongst the people of Illyaa’ that wishes to depart with their selves and their money with the Romans, leaving their trading goods and children behind, then their selves, their trading goods and their children are secure until they reach their destination. Upon what is in this book is the word of Allah, the covenant of His Messenger, of the Khulafaa’ and of the believers if they (the people of Illyaa’) gave what was required of them of Jizya. The witnesses upon this were Khalid ibn Al-Walid, 'Amr ibn al-'As, Abdur Rahman bin Awf and Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan. Written and passed on the 15th year (after Hijrah)."
None of this -- not a single element of it -- contradicts the elements of the Pact of Umar I cited. The Jews and Christians were allowed to live in peace, provided they accepted a subjugated, second-class status.
Spencer cites the wrong Umar. He quotes a potentially fabricated document and asserts that it speaks for all of "Islamic law." He then goes on to quote radical Islamic thinkers like Syed Qutb and Mawlana Mawdudi to reinforce his argument that Muslims/Islam want to subjugate Christians and humiliate them (gee, isn't that circular logic?). He quotes only ibn Kathir as his primary classical Islam scholar, likely because that's where he found the explanation of Surah al-Tawba and because he doesn't read Arabic.
I've already shown that Subhani either reads carelessly or has no concern for honest dealing, or both, but in fact -- go read the passage and see for yourself -- I also cite the early nineteenth century Sheikh Syed Mahmud Allusi (1802-1853), author of the noted commentary on the Qur’an Ruhul Ma’ani, and the Tafsir Anwar al-Bayan by the twentieth-century Indian Mufti Muhammad Aashiq Ilahi Bulandshahri, as well as Muhammad Asad, who is as "moderate" as they come.
Quoting Qutb and Mawdudi is strange, indeed. If you wanted to show that Islam was truly radical then I would assume you would want to quote some great Islamic scholar from the classical period, such as Abu Hanifa or Malik - not modern Muslim activists like Qutb and Mawdudi who are well known for their hostility to non-Muslims, even some Muslims. That's like if I wanted to show why the Miami Dolphins are the greatest NFL franchise in history and I only interviewed Dan Marino and Don Shula.
Very well, Subhani. Here you go:
Hanafi school: A Hanafi manual of Islamic law repeats the same injunctions. It insists that people must be called to embrace Islam before being fought, “because the Prophet so instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith.” It emphasizes that jihad must not be waged for economic gain, but solely for religious reasons: from the call to Islam “the people will hence perceive that they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save themselves from the troubles of war.”
However, “if the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to pay capitation tax [jizya], it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover, commands us so to do.” (Al-Hidayah, II.140)
Maliki school: Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a Maliki legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”
Back to Subhani:
Spencer goes after "Islamic law" regularly stating that because there are books or Muslim scholars who wrote harsh things about Christians and Jews a thousand years ago or even last year then that means Islam is really hostile to Jews and Christians. He fails to recognize the difference between texts and known history. Has Spencer ever wondered what the condition of Muslims were under Christians? Essentially, that's not even a subject of study because Muslims couldn't dream of living anywhere in Europe or Russia before the Enlightenment. Jews had a terribly difficult time living under Christianity, but Muslims are rarely know to have ventured into Christian lands because of the likely fact that they would have been forced to convert or killed.
False. Christian antisemitism is a terrible fact, but take the period of the Crusades, when Jews in the Levant had a choice to live in Christian or Muslim areas. According to the historian Jonathan Riley-Smith, even after the sack of Jerusalem and Crusaders' massacre of the Jews in 1099, Jews generally preferred to live in areas controlled by the Franks. They knew all too well that what was in store for them in Muslim lands was even worse.
What's more, the Spanish Muslim Ibn Jubayr (1145-1217), who traversed the Mediterranean on his way to Mecca in the early 1180s, found that even Muslims preferred living in Crusader lands. He lamented that near Tyre he passed a series of farms where "the inhabitants were all Muslims, but they live in comfort with the Franj [Franks, or Crusaders] -- may Allah preserve them from temptation! Their dwellings belong to them and all their property is unmolested....Now, doubt invests the heart of a great number of these men when they compare their lot to that of their brothers living in Muslim territory. Indeed, the latter suffer from the injustice of their coreligionists, while the Franj act with equity."
Christians on the other hand who lived under Islam's authority, though having to live as second class citizens, could still live and practice their faith, which was unheard of for minorities in the Christian world prior to the Enlightenment.
Were Jews and Christians treated as second class citizens under Islamic rule? By today's standards of freedom and equality, of course. Anyone with an objective outlook will see that clearly. But what is Spencer comparing? Is he comparing the 13th century Muslim world with today's world? How is that a valid comparison? If you were going to make a proper comparison you would compare the status of minorities in Europe under Christian rule with the status of minorities under Islam. How does that pan out? It's not even a comparison. Spencer knows that full well, but he likes to make faulty comparisons so he can sell books.
Subhani is right: historical comparisons are pointless. The only reason why any of this matters is because Islamic supremacists want to revive the dhimma now. And what is Omer Subhani doing to stop them? Why, demonizing me, of course!
I will stop here. Spencer likes to focus on Surah al-Tawba quite a bit so I'll carry on refuting his shoddy scholarship tomorrow, if God wills.
Apparently God did not so will, for Subhani didn't return to his defamation campaign for nearly a month. I will get to his Part II sometime soon, when time permits, and I assure you that future demolitions of this pseudo-analyst will not take as long as this one has.
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