In War against Islamism, We Must Listen to the Words of Our Enemies

You’ve never heavily studied the Quran. Don’t generalize any further.

ok, if you’re so confident in your works merits,why not submit it to a peer reviewed journal? It’s pretty easy to deflect attacks on a blog consisting of people who have never heavily studied the Qur’an, although admittedly you and I have the same amount of academic training in Islamic studies…none. If your personal studies stand on their own merits, then they should be able to do so under peer review.

Actually, I have academic training in Islamic studies. I just don’t have a doctorate in it. If you think peer reviewed journals are academically sound and unbiased these days, I suggest you read Ivory Towers on Sand by Martin Kramer, and Ibn Warraq’s elegant evisceration of Edward Said — whose perspective rules academic study of Islam and related issues these days — which I reprinted in my book The Myth of Islamic Tolerance.

Academic approval in America in 2008 signifies that your work meets the standards of hard-Left propagandists who have demonstrated again and again that they have no interest whatsoever in genuine academic inquiry.

That said, would I hesitate to go head-to-head with any of these vaunted academicians, or to stack up my work against theirs? Not for a nanosecond. In fact, I have challenged numerous Middle East Studies establishment professors to debate — including Carl Ernst, Omid Safi, Akbar Ahmed, Ahmed Afzaal, and others. All have declined. One would think that if I am really as ignorant and malicious as my detractors claim, one of these superior scholars could accept my debate challenge, mop the floor with me, and end my baneful influence forever. Yet none of them will even try. Now, why is that?

The only answer I’ve ever gotten to that question is just more ad hominems — “You’re so witless and evil it isn’t even worth refuting you.” Fine. But I continue to document everything I say very carefully from Islamic sources. People can check up on me for themselves, to see if I’m misusing or misrepresenting those sources — and they have. Professors have written to me saying they started out trying to debunk what I’ve written and ended up discovering it was true. In any case, my invitation to debate any scholar or academic remains open.

you’re kidding right?

crr6 on February 4, 2008 at 10:05 AM

I’m interested in what you think and why

My work stands or falls on its merits. And no one — particularly those hacks and propagandists like Carl Ernst, Omid Safi, and others who write for peer-reviewed academic journals — have ever been able to demonstrate that anything I have said about Islam or jihad or the Qur’an is false.

Robert Spencer on February 4, 2008 at 12:41 PM

ok, if you’re so confident in your works merits,why not submit it to a peer reviewed journal? It’s pretty easy to deflect attacks on a blog consisting of people who have never heavily studied the Qur’an, although admittedly you and I have the same amount of academic training in Islamic studies…none. If your personal studies stand on their own merits, then they should be able to do so under peer review.

Precisely.

My work stands or falls on its merits. And no one — particularly those hacks and propagandists like Carl Ernst, Omid Safi, and others who write for peer-reviewed academic journals — have ever been able to demonstrate that anything I have said about Islam or jihad or the Qur’an is false.

Peer-reviewed by Saudi-funded MESA Nostra crypto jihadis like Esposito?

That’s as bankrupt as the modern Pulitzer.

Here’s a question that has probably been asked more times than anyone can count. Are you going to put this series in book form, Mr. Spencer?

how about a peer-reviewed academic journal?

(crickets).

I have a contract to write The Infidel’s Guide to the Koran in 2009 for Regnery (after Stealth Jihad in 2008). It will be based on this series, but will be arranged thematically and will not reproduce these posts. I hope sometime after that to publish this series as it appears here, if I can interest a publisher in doing so.

where is this lack of consistency in the bible?

nineveh on February 4, 2008 at 7:59 AM

you’re kidding right?

right, just as with the Bible total scriptural consistency is only a problem for a minority of literalists.

crr6 on February 3, 2008 at 1:57 PM

where is this lack of consistency in the bible?

Yes.

009.038
YUSUFALI: O ye who believe! what is the matter with you, that, when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling heavily to the earth? Do ye prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the Hereafter.

It seems to track the language of some others which do.

014.003
YUSUFALI: Those who love the life of this world more than the Hereafter, who hinder (men) from the Path of Allah and seek therein something crooked: they are astray by a long distance.

One of Osama’s favorites it the ayah in Nine which mentions clinging too heavily to this life.

Robert, prior to Mohamed’s vivid imagination, were there any Arab/Beduin legends associating Abraham with Mecca? Or was this a completely new claim by Moe?

It seems to have been an invention by Muhammad, to justify his changing the qibla — the direction to face during prayer — from Jerusalem to Mecca.

I am beginning to see a pattern here.

You know that.

We know that.

But they don’t know that.

Shy Guy on February 3, 2008 at 1:24 PM

right, just as with the Bible total scriptural consistency is only a problem for a minority of literalists.

why should a book that was collected, rather than composed be expected to be completely internally consistent?

crr6 on February 3, 2008 at 12:37 PM

You know that.

We know that.

But they don’t know that.

So, just how do present day Islamic scholars reconcile the contradictions in the Quran that variously say that Satan leads people astray, or that it’s Allah’s will that such people go astray and that people have free will?

Do they just ignore those contradictions?

why should a book that was collected, rather than composed be expected to be completely internally consistent?

Thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you!

“Rock City” – no, not this one.

Detroit Rock City?