"The Islamic State of Eurabia"
We all have them: crazy uncles or senile grandparents raving about one conspiracy theory or the other on the dinner table. “Man landing on the moon was a big hoax,” or something about Kennedy’s assassination. We’d smile and continue eating our leftover mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, then politely ask to be excused on account of work early the next morning, the car ride back home full of mirthful post-dinner analysis of the crazy dinner table conspiracy talk.
So when we first read about Bat Ye’or, a lady with no educational qualifications to speak of, who came up with the crazy conspiracy theory entitled “Eurabia,” we here at LoonWatch barely reacted. If a zany lady comes up with some insane theory, we’re certainly not going to take her seriously, at least not any more than the crazy old McCain lady.
The sad reality, however, is that Bat Ye’or is now being used by leading Islamophobes as a primary source for their research and subsequent analysis. So who is Bat Ye’or? Well, first of all, her name is not Bat Ye’or. That’s just her “screen-name.” For many years, she kept her real identity a secret, and only wrote under this moniker, which is Hebrew for “daughter of the Nile.” She also had another screen-name, which was Yahudiya Masriya, Arabic for “Egyptian Jewess.” Her real name is Gisele Littman, and she’s vitriolically anti-Muslim and anti-Islam.
She has written a handful of articles and books–with the basic theme that Muslims have savagely oppressed Non-Muslims (“dhimmis”) throughout history. These resources written by her are used as reference sources by famous Islamophobes like Robert Spencer (the face behind the xenophobic websites Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch). Spencer hailed Bat Ye’or as “the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude, of the institutionalized discrimination and harassment of non-Muslims under Islamic law.” Daniel Pipes, an Islamophobic professor, cites her work numerous times. She has emerged from relative obscurity to fame, her work being the backbone of Islamophobic (mis)characterization of Islamic history.
Pamela Geller, admin of the anti-Muslim site Atlas Shrugs, declares: “Bat Ye’or is the world’s foremost leading scholar on Islam.” Amazing how the “world’s foremost leading scholar on Islam” has no educational background and absolutely no credentials at all from a recognized university; truly amazing that anyone can become the world’s leading scholar on Islam with just a library card, a keyboard and internet connection, and of course the key ingredient of all–an all encompassing hatred of Islam. Can one imagine the world’s leading scholar on Judaism being an Anti-Semite? This just in: the world’s foremost leading scholar on Judaism is an Anti-Semitic Hamas member. Absurd!
Bat Ye’or is Not a Scholar
Bat Ye’or is not a scholar; she does not have the credentials of a historian from any recognized university. She is referred to as an “independent researcher,” a euphemism for a random person who goes to the library, opens up some books, and starts writing. Adi Shwartz, a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, rightfully points out Bat Ye’or’s lack of credentials:
Europe allowed the immigration of millions of Muslims to its territories…and will ultimately…transform Europe into a continent under the thumb of the Arab and Muslim world. Europe is dead, and in its stead “Eurabia” has arisen.
This controversial thesis belongs to Bat Ye’or, the pen name of a self-taught Jewish intellectual who was born in Egypt and who currently lives in Switzerland. She refuses to reveal her real name for security reasons, she says, but her thesis is just the prologue to far-reaching conclusions and extreme statements…While her ideas were once almost completely ignored, nowadays, because of the prevailing consternation in Europe regarding its complex relations with the Muslim world, she is receiving more attention, though she is still quite far from entering the European mainstream…
Bat Ye’or’s opinions have made her a controversial figure, as has the fact that she is not an academic and has never taught at any university. She conducts her research independently.
Professor Robert Wistrich, head of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, says of her:
Up until the 1980s, she was not accepted at all. In academic circles they scorned her publications…A real change toward her emerged in the 1990s, and especially in recent years.
In other words, Bat Ye’or was never taken seriously by academics; it was only recently due to the political climate of Islamophobia that her works have become oft-cited by certain elements of society. Interestingly enough, Bat Ye’or herself admits this:
They didn’t even mention my name in publications. In the United States, I am certain that the September 11 attacks woke people up, including the Jewish community that had previously ignored me…
It truly calls to question the legitimacy of the Islamophobes that they use as their main source a woman who has no credentials and whose work was scorned and ignored by academics and only became popular due to a wave of xenophobia:
[Professor Wistrich said:] “In a survey conducted in Germany recently 83 percent gave the answer ‘fanaticism’ to the question ‘What is Islam?’ Sixty percent said there was a clash of civilizations. This is why Bat Ye’or is getting more attention these days.”
Her opinions on the integration of the Muslims and Europe’s bleak future are acquiring many supporters for her in Europe’s extreme right-wing circles.
Those numbers are staggering, and frightening. An overwhelming majority (83%) of Germans believe that Islam is fanaticism. (One can imagine what a similar poll conducted in the early 1930′s or 40′s-during the reign of the Nazis-would have shown had it asked what their view of Judaism was.) It is such a climate that leads to pogroms, and it seems that Bat Ye’or wishes to tap into this potential. She admits that her works are embraced by “the extreme right and in racist movements.” She gives them the wink and nod, with the usual half-hearted disclaimer that “attacking Muslims, sometimes even physically, is stupid.” Any bigotry short of that, of course, is fine and dandy. Wistrich, who invited her to speak at a conference in Jerusalem, cracked a crass joke:
At the conference I said half-joking that it was possible to call this [her book] ‘the protocols of the elders of Brussels.’
It is interesting that Wistrich could be so mirthful about such a serious topic, as if it is somehow comical for a person to write a document that would result in ethnic strife. Again, a frightening idea. Adi Schwartz, the Israeli journalist who questioned her credentials, aptly titled his article on her “The Protocols of the Elders of Brussels.”
Bat Ye’or: Neutral Academic or Biased Ideologue?
Bat Ye'or: a crazy old lady
Bat Ye’or has an axe to grind; there could be no one more biased than her. Her antipathy towards Islam stems from her stormy past: in 1957, she was expelled from Egypt during the Israeli invasion of Sinai. Although one can and should most definitely sympathize with her plight, it seems that she has–like so many racists before her–reacted to bigotry by becoming a bigot. She was wronged by Muslims, and now she wants to take vengeance, which has blinded her. Bat Ye’or said in an interview:
I wrote these books because I had witnessed the destruction, in a few short years, of a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years and which had existed from the time of Jeremiah the Prophet. I saw the disintegration and flight of families, dispossessed and humiliated, the destruction of their synagogues, the bombing of the Jewish quarters and the terrorizing of a peaceful population. I have personally experienced the hardships of exile, the misery of statelessness-and I wanted to get to the root cause of all this. I wanted to understand why the Jews from Arab countries, nearly a million, had shared my experience.
This is not unbiased and dispassionate academic study; for Bat Ye’or, this is personal. From the above quote alone, one can see the inconsistency in Bat Ye’or’s views. During the Israeli occupation of Sinai, anti-Semitism surged in Egypt and within “a few short years” an end was brought to “a vibrant Jewish community living in Egypt for over 2,600 years.” Does she not see the inconsistency here? Over one thousand of those 2,600 years were during Muslim rule of Egypt, which began in 639 AD. During that time period, there was a Jewish community which thrived, or as Bat Ye’or words it, was “vibrant.” Surely then it makes no sense to generalize the “few short years” to all of Islamic history.
Conspiracy Theory: Palestinians Don’t Exist; Europeans Created Them
It is an irony that Bat Ye’or laments about “the hardships of exile, [and the] misery of statelessness,” which is exactly what the Palestinian people have suffered from. Yet, Bat Ye’or, a fervent supporter of Israel goes even further than some of the most extreme Right-Wing Israelis and even denies the existence of a Palestinian people, arguing that “the Palestinian cause was created mainly in Europe.” To put her quote into context, she says:
The Kurds, the Berbers, the Basques (Spain) and the Corsicans (France) have nationalist characteristics, but not the Palestinians. The Palestinian cause was created mainly in Europe…
So Kurds, Berbers, Basques, and Corsicans are all peoples, but not the Palestinians, who are an imaginary peoples invented by Europe. So why exactly did Europe create the Palestinian people? She explains:
The Palestinian cause was created mainly in Europe, with the purpose to transfer onto the Palestinians the Jewish history in order to delegitimize Israel and to absolve Europe from the Holocaust by throwing onto Israel its own European history of Nazism, apartheid and colonialism.
Let us allow the reader to properly understand her conspiracy theory: she is arguing that the Palestinian people were created by Europe in order to paint Israel as being guilty of Nazism, apartheid, and colonialism–in order to absolve themselves of blame for the Holocaust which created the state of Israel. One can imagine the European leaders convening in some secret lair–shoddy lighting and a room full of cigar smoke–contemplating how to absolve themselves of blame for the Holocaust. “I got it!” exclaims one especially wily European intellectual. “We’ll invent a people–let’s call them ‘Palestinians’–and say that they existed in the land of Israel!” They passed it to a vote, and voila! The Europeans then made a few calls and engineered the Palestinian race. As Jon Stewart said mockingly about the Obama-being-a-stealth-Jihadist-from-Yemen theory: “It was just too easy.”
Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory is creative no doubt, but ludicrous. This is the woman whom Islamophobes like Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Pamela Geller cite as a primary source for their views on Islam, thus highlighting that they have absolutely no academic integrity or credibility.
Conspiracy Theory: Europe Will Become a Vassal State to the Arab World
Bat Ye’or is a fringe conspiracy theorist who argues that “Europe will become a vassal [state], a satellite of the Arab world.” Such alarmist drivel that no sane person could take her seriously. The irony is that the reality is the exact opposite: it is the Arab world that plays second fiddle compared to the West. Tell us, Bat Ye’or, how will the Arabs make a vassal state out of Europe? Them and which army? The combined Arab might pales in front of Israel; how can the Arab world then vanquish all of Europe? Such senseless fear mongering.
Conspiracy Theory: European Universities are Controlled by Palestinians
As part of her global conspiracy theory, Bat Ye’or argues that “[European] universities, for example, are controlled by the Palestinians.” Oh why of course! In fact, the deans of the European universities are all “stealth Palestinians;” every year they travel to the Gaza Strip for an annual ceremony, where Hamas leaders dictate what the curriculum will be for the year, and indoctrinate them in all things jihad. It is in fact funding from Palestine that is keeping the European universities afloat. (deadpan face)
Can one imagine the reaction of Islamophobes if some Moozlim-looking person said that the Western universities were controlled by “the Jews?” They would call such a person not only a crazy conspiracy theorist but a racist, and rightfully so, but the issue here is the profound double standard. You want to say something outlandish about Jews or any other minority? Not acceptable (Rightfully so). But say the same thing about Muslims? Then you get your own show on Fox News, and your books will become best-sellers (of the “What’s Wrong with Islam” or “Why I’m Not a Muslim” variety).
Conspiracy Theory: The Rise of Eurabia
The culmination of Bat Ye’or’s theories is what she coins as “Eurabia,” a (not so) clever combination of the words “Europe” and “Arabia.” Basically, the theory is that Arab and Muslim immigration (of “stealth jihadists”) will soon overwhelm Europe, destroy Western culture and civilization forever, and replace the democratic governments with Taliban style theocracies. While that does sound like an interesting plot for a fictional movie, it is pure insanity to take this seriously. Bat Ye’or is simply delusional. David Aaronovitch, a journalist for The Times, labels Bat Ye’or as a conspiracy theorist:
Pinch me a third time while we get to grips with “Eurabia”. This is a concept created by a writer called Bat Ye’or who, according to the publicity for her most recent book, “chronicles Arab determination to subdue Europe as a cultural appendage to the Muslim world-and Europe’s willingness to be so subjugated”. This, as students of conspiracy theories will recognise, is the addition of the Sad Dupes thesis to the Enemy Within idea.
Aaronovitch would know; he wrote the book entitled Voodoo Histories: the role of Conspiracy Theory in Modern History. (Aaronovitch is no “dhimmi” as the Islamophobes would say; he produced a pro-Israeli documentary titled Blaming the Jews.)
Conspiracy Theory: The Churches of Europe are Colluding with Muslims
Bat Ye’or’s lunacy can be ascertained by some of her even more outlandish claims. For example, she accuses the churches in Europe of being in a state of “collusion with the Muslims,” which she says have of their own volition become “Christian slave militias” that will “spearhead…the Islamic war against Christianity.” According to her, the churches of Europe “reject…the Bible, which they read with a Koranic understanding.” She goes on to say that European Christians “are more inclined to follow the Koranic Muslim Jesus, called Isa, than the Jewish Jesus.” Can any sober academic–or even sensible layman–take such drivel seriously? But perhaps the reader thinks that we have taken her words out of context (after all, who could say something so crazy!), so let us reproduce her entire nonsensical answer verbatim so that her madness can be firmly established in the eyes of the reader:
JW: You’re accusing churches of collusion with the Muslims?
BY [Bat Ye'or]: Yes. Those churches know perfectly well the dire condition of Christians in Muslim lands. But instead of denouncing it, they adopt the militancy of the Janissaries, those Christian slave militias that were the spearhead of the Islamic war against Christianity. They forbid Christians to reveal the iniquities of modern dhimmitude in Arab countries, the enslavement of Christians in Sudan, the abductions and jihadic terror against innocent population. Those churches follow an arcionist theological line which separates the Gospels from the Hebrew Bible. They reject the historical legitimacy of Israel in its own land and, therefore, reject also the Bible, which they read with a Koranic understanding. They are more inclined to follow the Koranic Muslim Jesus, called Isa, than the Jewish Jesus. In my book, I call them the Islamized churches because their rejection of Israel’s history implies their refusal of the Bible and their acceptance of the Koranic version of the Bible that considers Christianity as a deformation of Islam.
This lunacy has been affirmed by another well-known loon–Daniel Pipes–who writes:
The historian Bat Ye’or, the first person to comprehend the gradual process of Europe accepting the dhimmi status, observes that this fundamental shift began with the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, when the continent began moving “into the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence, thus breaking the traditional trans-Atlantic solidarity.”
Translation: not only has Europe fallen under the Arab-Islamic sphere of influence–and not only has it become a subservient “dhimmi” to the Arab world–it is doing so willingly and of its own volition. Riiiight, riiiight. So Pipes is not far behind Bat Ye’or in looniness, which explains his reliance on her work.
Voice of Reason
Adam Keller, a well-known Israeli peace activist and cofounder of Gush Shalom, wrote a letter of protest to the Israeli publisher of Bat Ye’or’s book:
In 1886 the French antisemite Edouard Drumont published ‘La France Juive’ (Jewish France), creating the false nightmarish image of a France dominated by Jews, and sowing the poisonous seeds which came to fruit when Vichi French officials collaborated in the mass murder of French Jewry…
Bat Yeor’, [is] a British inflammatory writer who presumes to be a historian and who, I regret to note, is Jewish. In this book – which, like the other works of this writer, is little more than a rabid anti-Muslim tract – ‘Bat Yeor’ follows in notorious footsteps indeed by creating the false nightmarish image of a Europe dominated by Arabs and Muslims. As Edouard Drumont sought to arouse the French people to persecute and kill their Jewish neighbours, so does Ms. Littman intend to drive Europeans into a continent-wide orgy of hatred and violence against the Muslim immigrants who are now a significant ethnic minority throughout the continent, and the great majority of whom seek nothing but to live useful and fruitful lives in their new homelands.
Ms. Littman’s reasons for writing her racist and inflammatory book are all too obvious. The reasons why you, a respectable publishing house, have chosen to present it to the Israeli public are far more obscure. Whatever these reasons might be, surely – now that you already taken this step – it would be appropriate to complete your task and produce also a companion volume, i.e. a Hebrew translation of ‘La France Juive’? After all, the informed Israeli reading public deserves to be given the chance of comparing the classical work of a master racist demagogue with that of his loyal present-day disciple and successor.
Craigh Smith of The New York Times refers to Bat Ye’or as one “of the most extreme voices” of the right:
A curious thing is happening in Belgium these days: a small but vocal number of Jews are supporting a far-right party whose founders were Nazi collaborators. The xenophobic party, Vlaams Belang, plays on fears of Arab immigrants and, unlike the prewar parties from which it is descended, courts Jewish votes…
Those fears shape some of the most extreme voices on the new Jewish right. Giselle Littman, who was expelled from Egypt in 1957 and now publishes under the pseudonym Bat Yeor, argues in her latest book, ”Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis,” that Europe has consciously allied itself with the Arab world at the expense of Jews and the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Johann Hari of The Independent writes of Bat Ye’or:
There are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca. Meet Bat Ye’or, a “scholar” who argues that Europe is on the brink of being transformed into a conquered continent called “Eurabia”.
In this new land, Christians and Jews will be reduced by the new Muslim majority to the status of “dhimmis” – second-class citizens forced to “walk in the gutter”. This will not happen by accident. It is part of a deliberate and “occult” plan, concocted between the Arab League and leading European politicians like Jacques Chirac and Mary Robinson, who secretly love Islam and are deliberately flooding the continent with Muslim immigrants. As Orianna Fallacci – one of the best-selling writers in Italy – has summarised the thesis in her hymns of praise to Ye’or, “Muslims have been told to come here and breed like rats.”
Rather than dismissing her preposterous assertions, high-profile writers like Melanie Phillips, Daniel Pipes and Niall Ferguson laud Ye’or as a suppressed hero, silenced by (you guessed it) “political correctness”. Her name is brandished as a gold standard in right-wing Tory circles. It’s interesting that writers so alert to anti-Semitism have lent their names to an ideology that is so startlingly similar. In this theory, the Star of David has simply been replaced by the Islamic crescent. If the term has any meaning, this is authentic Islamophobia, treating virtually all Muslims as verminous sharia-carriers. So why are these people still treated as serious and sane by the BBC and its editors?
Selective and Shoddy “Scholarship”
Bat Ye’or’s idea of history is nothing short of propaganda. She said in one interview:
The Arab invaders arrived in [Jerusalem in] the 7th century, devastated the country, massacred and enslaved the population and expropriated the Jewish and Christian indigenous populations, as is related by contemporaneous sources.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
As for her actual work on dhimmis (Non-Muslims under Muslim rule) is concerned, it is selective and shoddy “scholarship.” Professor Robert Brenton Betts, a well-renowned American historian who worked for the Library of Congress and the Department of State, criticizes Bet Ye’or’s book:
The general tone of the book is strident and anti-Muslim. This is coupled with selective scholarship designed to pick out the worst examples of anti-Christian behavior by Muslim governments, usually in time of war and threats to their own destruction (as in the case of the deplorable Armenian genocide of 1915). Add to this the attempt to demonize the so-called Islamic threat to Western civilization and the end-product is generally unedifying and frequently irritating.
(source: Robert Brenton Betts, “The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude” Middle East Policy 5-3 ; September 1997, pp. 200-2003)
Professor Michael Sells of the University of Chicago writes:
By obscuring the existence of pre-Christian and other old, non-Christian communities in Europe as well as the reason for their disappearance in other areas of Europe [due to Christian persecution], Bat Ye’or constructs an invidious comparison between the allegedly humane Europe of Christian and Enlightenment values and the ever present persecution within Islam. Whenever the possibility is raised of actually comparing circumstances of non-Christians in Europe to non-Muslims under Islamic governance in a careful, thoughtful manner, Bat Ye’or forecloses such comparison.
(source: The New Crusades: Construction the Muslim Enemy, by Professor Michael Sells, p.364)
In other words, the comparison that Bat Ye’or–and Islamophobes in general–flee from is the one between the Muslim lands in the pre-modern era with the contemporaneous Christian Europe. Instead, they choose to compare medieval Islamdom with post-enlightenment and postmodern standards, a most unequal and unusually obtuse comparison. Jan Platvoet sums it up best with a very nuanced answer (emphasis is mine):
Arab scholars praise the tolerance of Islam towards the ‘protected population’. The Egyptian Qasim ‘Abduh Qasim, for instance, who has published several works on the dhimmis in Muslim lands in general, and Egypt in particular, emphasizes the positive attitude of Muslims towards non-Muslims, even under the regime of the eleventh-century Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, known for his persecution of minorities, especially the Christians.
The opposite point of view is represented by a number of researchers, notably a writer who [uses] the pseudonym Bat Ye’or, i.e. Daughter of the Nile. She has managed to select from the body of historiographical evidence, chronicles and documents, only that material which portrays the negative aspects. Some such materials can occasionally be found, relating to various episodes, periods, and areas; it is therefore no wonder that she has succeeded in filling a complete volume, now published in several languages, on the maltreatment of the dhimmis by Muslims. Bat Ye’or has recently published a new book dedicated exclusively to the long history of Christians under Muslim rule; this book is characterized by the same spirit as her previous book on the dhimmis.
…It seems that the truth lies somewhere in between [Qasim and Bat Ye'or's version]…The life of the dhimmis in the shade of Islam was certainly not easy, but at least their physical security (aman) and the safety of their property was assured, almost without exception.
Nazi propaganda showing Jewish octopus taking over the world, not unlike image up top of Islamic crescent taking over Europe
In other words, Bat Ye’or scours historical texts to find all the negative points she possibly can, and then she compiles them into a book. Naturally, the span of Islamic history was over a thousand years, so she can easily fill up hundreds of pages, giving the credulous reader the false impression that Islamic history was incredibly dastardly. To give a suitable analogy, let’s say Rodney King were to scour all the reports throughout the country for the last fifty years for all acts of police brutality–and then compiled them into a book–he could easily fill hundreds of pages. A person who relied on his book would get the false impression that the police were–and are–always brutal, or at least more so than not. One gets a skewed picture from such a selective analysis.
The Islamophobe Robert Spencer argues that Bat Ye’or’s book is convincing because it is “full…[of] almost half primary source documents so that one can see the voracity of what she is saying from very ancient texts.” Yet it is convincing only because it is selective and biased; Bat Ye’or simply sifted throughout Islamic history to selectively find all the instances of anti-Jewish and anti-Christian persecution, ignoring the overwhelming majority of Islamic history which was characterized according to the overwhelming number of scholars by relative tolerance (for the times, and certainly compared to Christendom); if Bat Ye’or could fill a book with her quotes, it would only be a slight exaggeration to say that we could fill an entire anthology with quotes highlighting the relative tolerance of Muslims. Taken selectively, Bat Ye’or’s choice of quotes seem damning, but diluted within the proper context, they would be less convincing of an argument. One can easily carry out such a hatchet job on Christian (and even Jewish) history in a similar fashion.
World renowned Jewish-Israeli historian Nissim Rejwan warns:
By way of conclusion, a word of caution is in order…It must be pointed out that the picture has not been uniformly so rosy and that instances of religious intolerance toward and discriminatory treatment of Jews under Islam are by no means difficult to find. This point is of special relevance at a time in which, following a reawakening of interest in the history of Arab-Jewish relations among Jewish writers and intellectuals, certain interested circles have been trying to…[question the] Judeo-Arabic tradition or symbiosis by digging up scattered pieces of evidence to show that Islam is essentially intolerant…and that Muslims’ contempt for Jews was even greater and more deep-seated than that manifested by Christians…
Such caricatures of the history of Jews under Islam continue to be disseminated by scholars as well as by interested publicists and ideologues. Indeed, all discussion of relations between Jews and Muslims…is beset by the most burning emotions and by highly charged sensitivities. In their eagerness to repudiate the generally accepted version of these relations (a version which, it is worthwhile pointing out, originates not in Muslim books of history but with Jewish historians and Orientalists in nineteenth-century Europe), certain partisan students of the Middle East conflict today seem to go out of their way to show that, far from being the record of harmonious coexistence it is often claimed to be, the story of Jewish-Muslim relations since the time of Muhammad was “a sorry array of conquest, massacre, subjection, spoilation in goods and women and children, contempt, expulsion-[and] even the yellow badge…”
Informed by a fervor seldom encountered in scholarly discourse, some of these latter-day historians have gone so far as to question even the motives of those European-Jewish scholars of the past century who virtually founded modern Oriental and Arabic studies and managed to unearth the impressive legacy of Judeo-Arabic culture, a culture that was undeniably an outcome of a long and symbiotic encounter between Muslims and Jews.
…[But] by the standards then prevailing-and they are plainly the only ones by which a historian is entitled to pass judgment-Spanish Islamic tolerance was no myth but a reality of which present-day Muslim Arabs are fully justified in reminding their contemporaries…Tolerance, then, is a highly relative concept, and the only sensible way of gauging the extent of tolerance in a given society or culture in a given age is to compare it with that prevailing in other societies and cultures in the same period…
The only plausible conclusion one could draw from the whole debate is that, while Jewish life in Muslim Spain-and under Islam generally-was not exactly the idyllic paradise some would want us to believe, it was far from the veritable hell that was the Jews’ consistent lot under Christendom.
Bat Ye’or: The Pioneer of “Dhimmitude”
The Usual Suspects: Bat Ye'or and Robert Spencer
It should be noted that the Islamophobe Robert Spencer refers to Bat Ye’or as “the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude” (emphasis is ours). The word “pioneer” indicates that she is the first to voice such views. In other words, the traditional and long-established understanding of academics and historians is at variance with Bat Ye’or’s assessment: Muslim history was characterized by relative lenience and tolerance towards dhimmis. (Again, all things are relative; while certainly it wouldn’t be considered tolerant to today’s standards and norms, back then it certainly was, evidenced by historical statements from the “dhimmis” themselves.)
The fact that Bat Ye’or is the first to challenge traditional and established opinion is evidenced by what J.G. Jansen, an outspoken Dutch critic of militant Islam, says:
In 1985, Bat Ye’or offered Islamic studies a surprise with her book, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, a convincing demonstration that the notion of a traditional, lenient, liberal, and tolerant Muslim treatment of the Jewish and Christian minorities is more myth than reality.
While Jansen’s view that Bat Ye’or’s book is “convincing” is certainly questionable coming from him, his quote is significant in that it shows that up until Bat Ye’or’s book the traditional and predominant scholarly opinion was that Islamic history was characterized by relative tolerance, certainly in comparison to contemporaneous Christendom. Bat Ye’or is after all the one who coined the term “dhimmitude,” which Islamophobes–including Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes–make recurrent use of.
The Usual Suspects: Bat Ye'or and Pamela Geller
The fact that Bat Ye’or is the first to counter traditional opinion does not mean that the predominant view of scholars has changed, as Bat Ye’or “is still quite far from entering the European mainstream,” according to Shwartz. But–according to Wistrich–”a real change toward her emerged in the 1990s, and especially in recent years,” as she became accepted in “extreme right-wing circles.” It is this motley group which is trying through sheer force and fear to influence academia, and push pseudo-intellectuals like Bat Ye’or into the arena of historical discourse. The fact that the leading Islamophobes reference her (including Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, and Pamela Geller) indicates the weakness of their sources, and calls to question their own credibility.
Spencer argues that it is only “political correctness” that prevents people from taking Bat Ye’or seriously; no, my Islamophobic friend, it is not political correctness, but academic integrity. When you consider an Islamophobe to be the leading scholar of Islam in the world, then something is profoundly wrong. Simply substitute the word “Jews” for “Muslims” in the following sentence and the matter becomes clear: “Muslims will take over Europe.” Anyone who said that about Jews would be branded an Anti-Semite and academically ostracized, yet hey, it’s open season for Muslim-bashing!
The Bottom Line
Even if we were to accept the fallacious argument that Muslim history was characterized by profound and incessant intolerance, then what does that mean for us today? The Mongols were historically known to be intolerant, at least the Genghis Khan variety; how should that affect our opinion of Mongolians today? Do we discriminate against them based on their historical record? What do the present day Mongolians have to do with those of the past? Do people inherit sins?
The relevance of Islamic history to today’s popular discourse is questionable. It is in fact designed to demonize Muslims, but the reality is that the question shouldn’t even arise. Why is it that Muslims of today are on trial for what their ancestors supposedly did? Should all nations now demand their pound of flesh from all who wronged their people in ancient times? Maybe we should create a system of reparations…?
Then what is the end goal for Islamophobes like Bat Ye’or? Why does she spend so much time pontificating about the historical record? It all boils down to one thing: immigration. She has highlighted the negative aspects of Islamic history in order to push the argument for a tight control (or rather, full cessation) of Arab and Muslim immigration to Europe. Indeed, Islamophobia is simply another flavor of xenophobia.
In every generation, there have been xenophobes, who have this irrational fear of the other. In American history, it started with the Irish and Italian immigrants who were both heavily discriminated against due to their religion and skin color. Then it was against the Chinese who were brought to build railroads, the Japanese in World War II, and so on. What history has born out consistently however is that the xenophobes always end up with egg on their faces. They are on the wrong side; tolerance and multiculturalism always win out over intolerance and bigotry. The question is: which side are you on?
UPDATE: A related article on dhimmitude can be found here.
September 11th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Excellent break down! Really great.
“Batty” is quite nutty, to put it mildly.
September 11th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I’m shocked, SHOCKED, that Ms. Littman’s credentials are like the rest of the Anti-Intelligence brigade. Non-existent.
September 12th, 2009 at 5:27 am
This is comprehensive and deep analysis. The Islamophobic right-wing and their subordinates will not know what hit ‘em!
Bat Ye’or, is for some reason touted as a big figure and academic amongst Pipes, Spencer, etc. Yet, she may be even less qualified then them though I have the sneaking suspicion that she probably knows more Arabic then Spencer, and that Arabic probably extends to Modern Day Standard Egyptian Arabic and not the classical Arabic required to parse through the ancient texts.
Everyone should read this!
September 12th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Danios, you hit the jackpot once again, this is the most comprehensive analysis and exposure of Batty Ye’or, I have seen anywhere on the web. She is like the inspirational guru for the Islamophobes like loonie Pam Geller and loonie Robert Spencer. About time she be exposed. What a loon crook.
September 12th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Interesting article but unfortunately you left out a very important piece in your analysis. Nowhere do you actually refute any of her ideas except by quoting people who can only attack her. The ideas she postulates come from a study of Islamic history. Her detractors cannot come up with any Islamic texts, rulings or fatwas disputing what she says. If in your article you can only attack and not substantiate then your argument is nothing more than “ad hominum” attacks with no intellictual basis. Its one thing to be able to clearly and subjectively critique someones work, it is quite another to randomly bash someone due to a false belief that “Islamophobia” is running rampant.
BTW, I think Bat Ye’or is a poor writer, she is very hard to follow and her style leaves a lot to be desired. This, however in no way discounts or diminished her “scholarly” work on what is happening in Europe now.
Think about this. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan williams has said publically many times that he wants sharia law in England and supports a second legal system alongside British commonwealth law. I find this appaling, dangerous and a nod to Bat Ye’or and her views.
September 12th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Dear OregonJake:
Thanks for your reply. I have actually written a small book refuting the points used by Bat Ye’or. I decided not to post it all in one go, but rather to post it in parts. This is the first part only (which ended up being too long in itself!). Please stay tuned for more.
I agree with you that if I just left it at this, then it would be incomplete, since after all, even a joker can be right sometimes.
However, I disagree with you that this is just “ad hominum” attacks. When I study Islam or history etc, I rely on academic and reliable sources. I certainly do not use the works of conspiracy theorists. Is it any wonder that the PRIMARY SOURCE of Islamophobes is a nutter who believes that the European churches have OF THEIR OWN VOLITION formed “Christian slave militias” in order to “spearhead…the Islamic war against Christianity.” Like other writers on this site have said, there is no reason to “refute” that, since any sane person can see its insanity.
I could post a bit more to prove why all this is relevant, but instead I’ll just tell you that this is the first part in many more to come against our dear friend Bat Ye’or. Her primary source for her claim on “dhimmitude” is in fact spurious, but more on that later!
I’d also like to thank everyone for their words of support, and ask them to stay tuned for further posts on Bat Ye’or!
Sincerely,
Danios.
September 12th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Danios, thank you for your reply, I appreciate those who do their homework, flawed as it may be. Again I will point out that none of the sources you quote takes into account how Islam is being defined today, nor the doctrine which drives fundamental Islam and its adherants. Without that context you leave the readers with only a slice of the entire picture, and I am sure you want the readers to be informed and educated by having all the information available.
By attacking someone with only words of condemnation you run the risk of showing a bias. Be specific please. I read your entire article and you do not dispute her assertions with facts. There is nothing in the way of recognized Islamic clerics presenting Islam as the religion of peace, nothing to refute the teachings of jihad or the subjugation of non-Muslims. You do not present any reliable Islamic scholars to tear down her arguments. Without reliable Islamic sources the ground you stand on is shaky at best, quicksand at worst.
Yes there may be moderate Muslims but at this moment in time there is no moderate Islam, as defined by the main schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
The words of the Ulema carry weight and gravitas, and hundreds of millions of Muslims believe, and act on this definition of Islam. To deny this fact is to run the risk of losing our way of life. Maybe not tomorrow, but in the near future, say within 50 years.
I await your reply.
September 12th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Bat Ye’or is the world’s leading scholar on Islam? Sounds fair. I then proclaim David Irving the world’s leading scholar on Judaism. (if you don’t know who he is, look him up on wiki)
September 12th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Dear OregonJake:
I disagree with many things you said, but you will have to kindly wait till I release further posts on Bat Ye’or. I think however you will be pleasantly surprised by the thoroughness with which she and her ideas will be refuted. Like I said, this is part one.
Sincerely,
Danios.
September 13th, 2009 at 1:47 am
Dear OregonJake,
No offense, but I find it difficult to take you seriously when you spell intellectual incorrectly.
Whatever might your agenda be? Please do state it.
You claim that this freelance researcher “Bat Ye’or,” whom I do not know and will not comment on, is difficult to follow and her style leaves much to desire. While style is certainly a tool for beauty, it also functions as a tool for emphasis, structure, and articulating one’s message. But, more importantly, when research is “hard to follow,” as you claim hers is, the research loses, yes, loses, a large part of the work’s scholarly credibility. If you truly respect this woman, I suggest you rethink how you approach publishing your view of her works to the world. Questioning a writer’s articulative ability is questioning the writer’s authority.
If I were to proceed wholly based on your comment, I would indubitably find it more worthwhile, if not also more fanciful to research everything myself than to attempt a deciphering of code–which is what it means when something is hard to follow.
And, for everyone involved in the discussion, if you want a forum to discuss make it. The weakness of one’s eloquence certainly deters from its expressiveness being fully conveyed, but a discussion is not a dialogue of “No, you’re wrong. I’m right,” nor is it a monologue of one’s self-belief unquestionably true, because one believes it.
Danios’ is an article not just about what Bat Ye’or writes, but also about her persona and who she is. I don’t think a discussion will go anywhere say if OregonJoe argues about her work after claiming its lack of scholarliness and brings this up in the context of an article not necessarily discussing those claims.
Lastly, history can be claimed, but what has past has past. Change the truth in words how you may, but that won’t change what happened. I find non-scholarly work (especially that so-defined by the scholar’s own followers) to hold any precedence except in the circles of magic, witchcraft, astrology, and divination. Just make anything up and believe it, if that is what you like to do but, do not dare call it scholarly–even the craziest of academics remain academics and scholars in their right, because of their adherence to a code of academic integrity and vigor of research. Once we begin arguing about whether or not magic is true and testing this by asking if we have experienced it, or by asking whether or not God exists by using a physics experiment, then we have certainly divorced ourselves from rationale and any sense of scholarly aptitude we might have had or potential we might have possessed.
-Your Average Academic
September 13th, 2009 at 7:08 am
OregonJake, why do you in all your replies resort to deflection and projection? First you deflect here from the subject at hand, BatYeor and bring in another conversation about “how Islam is defined today.” Certainly, Islam as defined by you is not Islam as defined by Muslims or Ulema. You want to define Islam as evil, militant, of course the vast majority of Muslims disagree with that biased definition.
Further your rebuttal of this extraordinary piece highlights your evident bias. Her detractors (which includes almost everybody except Islamophobes) have refuted her even though she lacks any credibility and is in the same league as an “academic” with those who deny the holocaust.
Danios did not attack Bat Yeor with words of condemnation only, he explained and cited all the reasons why she as a person, as an “academic” is to be condemned. Any fair minded person sees that. He also gave an example of her faulty scholarship and refuted with a link, I do urge you to follow and click the links.
Also your patently absurd and unfactual claim that the Archbishop of Cantebury wants Sharia’ is just parroting of the idiotic discourse that surfaced around what he said. Have you actually read the text of the speech he gave? Do you understand that even Jewish Halakhich courts exist in the West? And they are not exactly based on equality.
If you want to decry people doing flawed homework then please make a point to at least attempt to do your homework rather than be hasty with a comment just to get your prejudiced anti-Muslim bias across. A bias which is evident through every letter and every word that you have typed.
September 13th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Just what we need… yet another islamophobic pseudo-scholar whose “education” comes from doing random google searches, phrased as doing “independant research”
September 13th, 2009 at 11:05 am
I agree w/ this analysis 100%.
@Ustadh:
You echo my sentiments exactly. Bat Ye’or is only credible in the eyes of far-right personalities. There is not a single mainstream politician who can espouse her views w/o waddling into the same libels Jews are faced with. There is a clear double standard, and the pic Mooneye uses for comparsion (the one w/ a ‘Jewish’ octopus’) illustrates my point.
September 13th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Danios, thank you for your reply. As a dedicated student and one who loves information I look forward to your entire piece. You write well, and I find the challenge of discussing Islam and the ME with you and others stimulating and, I hope enlightening for all who read and get involved. You have my patience, sir.
To PakistanMD, Mahmoud, Ustadh, James and An Academic, thank you for your replies, I will answer your points shortly.
Here are my responses to all of you who have taken the time to express yourselves.
James, thank you for your reply. I never said that Bat Ye’Or was the worlds leading scholar on Islam, you did. I do know David Irving, having met him and listened to him speak on the ME. He is a scholar of history, no doubt and I find little fault with some of his positions on world history. He is, though an anti-semite and holocaust revisionist and because of that I find it difficult to take his views on Israel or Islam without a large grain of salt. Also may I suggest you use other sources besides Wiki for information. Wiki is fine but not as a stand-alone source.
An Academic, thanks for your reply. So my spell checker missed that one, and for that I am to be dismissed as someone not to be taken seriously. I guess by your standards anyone who misspells a word like intellectual must not be one. OK, if you want to set the bar that far down, lets go.
You wish to know my agenda. It is simple and easy to understand. There is a lot of information being bandied about in regards to the ME, Islam and Muslims. All media outlets including the internet do not give a true amd complete picture, leaving out unpleasant details, spinning facts and using opinions as truths. 15 years ago I decided to learn, from as close to the inside as I could everything about the ME, Israel and Islam. To my wonderment I discovered that the words spoken to the West were not the same words spoken to other Muslims. I believe that all people need information done correctly; within context and as unbiased as possible. My studies of the subject matter do not prove, to me that Islam is a religion of peace. The information I have learned is what I believe people should be aware of, just as you feel the same with what you have learned. It is not better to give people all the information and then let them sort it out within their own framework, or am I wrong?
Let me finish this by saying facts, as unpleasant as they may be, are just that…facts. They stand alone on their own merits. Bat Ye’or may indeed be a difficult read yet her facts (most of them as no one can be 100% all the time) are spot on. Her research into Islam by using words, fatwas and rulings from clerics, imams, sheiks and scholars and presented as such cannot be dismissed as just so much jibberish. The words of our sworn enemies cannot, and should not be discarded, even when coming from someone as despised in these circles as Bat Ye’or. I do not like Howard Zinn, or Noam Chomsky or Thomas Friedman yet I read and comprehend what they write, and agree at times. That is critical thinking, not moral relativism.
Mahmoud, thank you for the reply. I smiled when I read “random Google searches”. Really now, if that is the best you can come up with I think you need to go to the back of the line. Here are just a few of the hundreds of books on my shelves:
AL TAWHID: Its Implications for Thought and Life, by Isma’il Raji al Faruqi, published by the International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1998
Moral Teachings of Islam: Prophetic Traditions from al-Adab al-mufrad by Imam Bukhari, translated and introduced by Abdul Ali Hamid, 2003
The Clash of Fundamentalisms, Tariq Ali, 2002
Al-Qur’an the Ultimate Miracle: Ahmed Deedat, Kazi Publications, 1979
Major Sins in Islam: compiled and translated by Muhammad Iqbal Siddiqi, International Islamic Publishers, 1980
The Al Qaeda Reader: Raymond Ibrahim, Broadway Books, 2007
Forty Hadith Qudsi: selected and translated by Ezzeddin Ibrahim and Denys Johnson-Davies(Abdul Wadoud), The Holy Koran Publishing House, 1981
Islamic Law and Contemporaray Issues: Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi Publishing House, 1998
Understanding Islam and Muslims: The Islamic Affairs Dept, Embassy of Saudi Arabia, 1989
And if those are not enough, I also have 5 Qur’ans, two of them unabridged versions.
What may I ask are you reading tonight? I just received my new Qur’an from CAIR, a beautiful hardback edition with english, arabic and a phonetic translation from arabic into english.
PakistanMD, thank you for your reply. If I am correct you seem to be, from the cloaked phrases used that you are an anti-semite. Thats OK, be proud of who you are. Yet lets be clear that your reference to the “jewish” octopus stems from a belief that the evil jooos are taking over the world. Again, be proud of your views and stand by them, for that is what makes you….you.
Ustadh, thank you for your reply. First let me clear the air. You can accuse me of being anti-Muslim so I challenge you to show, in any of my posts…anywhere that I say I am against Muslims. It is important for you to understand the difference between being biased against Muslims because they ARE Muslim, and being biased against a theology which some Muslims follow. I have consistently stated I have nothing against Muslims yet I have serious problems with how Islam is being defined today, and the fact that so called “moderate” Muslims have not stood up in strength and said in one voice that they reject how Islam is being defined, they reject the hundreds of millions of Muslims who do follow and practice the worst kind of doctrinal hatred and that they are truly followers of the religion of peace and will work towards being part of the family of man rather than one of its usurpers. I hope that clears the air on that comment. It would be appreciated that from this point on you do not refer to me as anti-Muslim, OK? I am being very clear here and expect my explanation to be understood.
Your claim that I deflect the conversation away from Bat Ye’or and turn it to the definition of Islam is correct, as Bat Ye’or herself writes about how the definition of Islam today, and those responsibile for it is the cause of the problems she goes on to detail. The defining of Islam by its leaders is part and parcel of any serious study of Islam.
Islam is not defined by me, or any other non-Muslim, it is defined by the Ulema, Al-Ashar University and the thousands of clerics, sheiks, Imams, Mullahs and the myriad other Islamic scholars around the world. I do not want to define Islam as evil, militant or any other moniker, those labels have been placed upon Islam by the very people you refuse to acknowledge. Islam today is defined and promulgated throught the words of these fine folks:
Ali Gom’a, the grand mufti of Egypt, the highest Muslim religious authority in the world, supports murdering non-Muslims. In the daily Al Ahram (April 7, 2008), he says, “Muslims must kill non-believers wherever they are unless they convert to Islam.” He also compares non-Muslims to apes and pigs, not only the Jews.
Muhammad Sayyid Al Tantawi, president of Al Azhar University also approves of killing and maiming Christians, Jews, and other infidels. He added, “This is not my personal view. This what the Shari’a Law says, the law of Allah, the only valid law on the earth.”
Yousef Al Qaradhawi, the spiritual leader of the fundamentalist organization, the Muslim Brothers, urged on Al Jazeera TV (Jan. 9, 2009) Muslims to kill the Jews, not only in Israel but also worldwide. He added, “No peace can be made between us (Muslims) and the non-believers. This what our holy book says. This what Allah says.
If you must vent anger, direct it at those from whom the message emanates, not the messenger.
I am quite familiar with Dr Rowan Williams and yes I am familiar with his talks on sharia law and the courts. You are correct in that the Jewish courts, like the sharia courts do mediate in matters such as family issues (see Rifqa Bary), marriage, divorce, dispute arbitration, business contracts and the like. The fundamental difference is that sharia law, unlike Jewish law is actively seeking official recognition of their rulings under British commonwealth law. Jewish court rulings hold no status in commonwealth law and if sharia courts were to operate the same way there would be no problem. Dr Rowan Williams is endorsing the merging of sharia law and British commonwealth law and that to me is dangerous, seditious and very dhimmi-like.
There is an image problem within Islam, perpetuated not by us greasy Islamophobes but by those who actively seek to destroy us. I cannot ignore what comes out of the mouths of our enemies, nor dismiss it as just the rantings of some crazed ideolog spewing nonsense.
Thank you all, I await your replies.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:18 am
Great article, one mistake: you say Pipes is a professor, he is not. He is a failed academic, which is why he is relegated to being an Internet polemicist. When I was at Harvard, I heard whispers that he only got a degree there because of the clout of his father, Professor Richard Pipes, who was himself seen as a nut by his colleagues.
September 14th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Hey Ali:
Thanks for your comments.
Wikipedia (Bat Ye’or’s main research source) says:
‘Pipes largely retired from academia after 1986, though in 2007 he taught a course titled “International Relations: Islam and Politics” as a visiting professor at Pepperdine University.[8] Pipes told an interviewer from Harvard Magazine that he has “the simple politics of a truck driver, not the complex ones of an academic. My viewpoint is not congenial with institutions of higher learning.”[5]‘
So he himself has said that he does not have the stuff of an academic, nor is he compatible with institutions of higher learning. So I agree with you in spirit, although technically he is and was a professor, and I will call him by his due title. If for example I knew a doctor who was horrible–say Michael Jackson’s doctor–I’d still call him Dr. so-and-so.
This is totally unlike Bat Ye’or, who has no credentials whatsoever. But I feel ya. Pipes himself seems to acknowledge that he is not fit for academia. Well, Dr. Pipes, you said it best yourself!
Sincerely,
Danios.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Dear OregonJake:
I do not want this comments section to become a debate board, simply because that will eat up my time and thus hamper my ability to write new articles, many of which will actually address many of the points you brought up.
Therefore, this is the last polemical comment I will accept here. However, I understand that you were simply responding to what others said (although you went off track a bit with some colorful remarks about Islam), and I also can recognize the feeling that a rebuttal is necessary to give when one is attacked by other members. Thus, in order to be fair to you, I advise the other commentators not to attack you.
Please keep in mind that this is not an attempt to squash debate and discussion. It is simply an issue of time, and I am already cognizant of many of the arguments you have brought forth, which will be addressed by me shortly in future articles.
Now to reply to some of what you said:
1. You said that you have a hard time accepting David Irving because he is a holocaust revisionist, and therefore you find it difficult to take his views on Israel and Islam seriously. (I actually don’t know who David Irving is, but if he is a Holocaust denier, then I totally agree with you.) But understand this is how we feel about Bat Ye’or, who is also a conspiracy theorist, believing in the ludicrous Eurabia idea. So we question anyone who uses her as a primary source, just as you question Irving.
2. Then you said that Islam is not a religion of peace. Muslim apologists on the one hand claim that Islam is a religion of peace, whereas Islamophobes claim it is not a religion of peace (which unfortunately you also believe). from a neutral academic perspective however, a statement like “Islam is a peaceful religion” is useless, because the true question is “whose Islam?” There are different Islams, or rather–more accurately–different interpretations and understandings of the religion. This is like any religion. There are militant versions of Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism as espoused by fervent Israeli settlers, the Religious Right, and Hindu fundamentalists respectively. There are soft and hard readings of all religions.
But what we here at LoonWatch are trying to convey is that the Islam of the majority of Muslims is most definitely and obviously a peaceful one.
Now the Islamophobes will insist that the “true” understanding of Islam is not peaceful, and that being true to the texts would entail being an ultraconservative Muslim. Yet, I ask you: have you read the Bible, in specific the Old Testament (which forms a part of both the Jewish and Christian tradition)? A literalistic understanding of the text would give an even more violent religion, including statements that from their face value seem to imply one should massacre entire cities and engage in ethnic cleansing.
Therefore it is altogether curious that you (or Islamophobes in general) would single out Islam (for what they think a literalistic understanding of hadiths would entail), when they suddenly don’t think the same of the Bible.
But reasonable people know that the religious adherents of a faith–be they Jews, Christians, Hindus, or Muslims–are free to understand the religion and religious texts themselves, and we should stop trying to box them in.
Furthermore, I have read deeply into many of the debates between moderate Muslims and ultraconservatives, and I have found that the moderate Muslims seem truer to the canonical texts than ultraconservative Muslims, the latter of which seem more inclined to follow medieval scholarship than the canonical texts. But alas, this is a longer discussion but one which I will prove in the future.
3. Then you defended Bat Ye’or’s scholarship, saying it is not “jibberish.” However, this is because you do not understand the counter-points, which I will elucidate in future posts. I will not delve into that here, because I have already refuted all her arguments and it is only a matter of putting it up on the site. Hey, gives you a reason to come back!
4. Then you accuse PakistanMD of being an anti-Semite. I just re-read his post, and I ask you: what exactly is anti-Semitic in what he wrote? He simply said that Muslims are being wrongfully libeled just like Jews were. Then he mentioned the “Jewish” octopus just like I did, to show that the Islamic crescent has replaced it. Again, what “cloaked phrases” are being used? It seems that he is opposed to targeting of Muslims, and says it is wrong just like targeting Jews is wrong. I think your accusation of “cloaked phrases” is the same fear mongering of the Islamophobes, who claim that everything Muslims say is either “taqiyyah” or “stealth Islamism.” This entire attitude of–”you can’t possibly trust a word that comes out of Muslims”–is xenophobic, bigoted, and totally unacceptable in civilized discourse. This idea that Muslims say one thing publicly and another privately is the enemy within idea, repackaged for Muslims. It was in fact an accusation against Jews for a very long time, and the Protocols was exactly that, a forged document “exposing” what Jews would never dare to say publicly. (Obviously that’s not true.)
5. Then you say you have nothing against Muslims, just Islam. What our collective experience as a human race has showed us is that being anti-Islam is inherently anti-Muslim, just like being anti-Judaism is inherently anti-Semitic. The difference is only in semantics. Can one imagine a person saying “I am anti-Judaism” and getting away with it?
6. Then you claim Islam is defined by the Ulema, clerics, sheiks, Imams, Mullahs, etc. This is where you, the Islamophobes, and even many ultraconservative Muslims are wrong. Islam is not defined by the Ulema, just like Christianity is not defined by the priests and pastors. The reality is that the religious clerics of certain countries are far more conservative than the Muslim body as a whole, and are thus non-representative. It is for this reason that a Muslim scholar like Dr. Tariq Ramadan is respected and followed by so many Muslims.
What I am trying to say is that the proportion of ultraconservatives is far higher amongst the clerical population than the general body of Muslims, and most Muslims follow the non-ultraconservative religious scholars.
One only need to know the situation in countries like Pakistan for example, where the average Pakistani has disdain for the “mullahs.” This does not mean that the average Pakistani is a bad Muslim or non-observant, or doesn’t know about his religion.
Islam is not defined by or limited to the clerics; rather, Muslim doctors, lawyers, engineers, and people of all walks of life study their religion and follow moderate Islam. Going back to the situation in Pakistan, it is for this reason that the Pakistani population voted in a poll that they would like to see government reformation of madressas in order to introduce religious tolerance and diversity into their curriculum. It is also the reason why you will find so many Pakistanis clinging to the moderate and more progressive Islamic scholars.
To conclude: your claim that the clerics are indicative of the religion is false, just like Judaism is not defined by ultraorthodox rabbis or Christianity is not defined by pastors, priests, or even the pope.
7. You committed libel against Ali Goma. He never said that. Please read: http://www.aligomaa.net/news_files/4.html
Again, Islamophobic sites are not a reliable source!
8. Then you commit libel against Muhammad Sayyid al-Tantawi. He never said that. Rather, he said: “Killing innocent civilians is a horrific, hideous act that no religion can approve.”
9. Then you commit libel against Yusuf Qaradawi, who has clearly and emphatically said that it is not permissible to kill civilians. He also explicitly forbade the targeting of civilians in Israel. He is an ardent advocate of peace between Muslims and the West, so much so that he gave a supporting voice to an opinion that would allow Muslim soldiers in the United States Army to fight in Afghanistan against the Taliban, for this extremists called for his head. So these charges are false, and taken from Islamophobic sites that take things out of context.
Qaradawi has definitely said things that raise some eyebrows, and we certainly do not endorse those views or opinions, in fact where his opinions infringe on core values of rights and freedoms we condemn that just as we condemn the Islamophobes. His speech against Zionist Jews was definitely way out there. But taken into the context of all his views, it seems that his views towards everything other than everything Israel related is pretty moderate and in line with the “reformist trend” amongst clerics and that is according to the experts. But again, Qaradawi does not define Islam. The Muslim masses do.
10. You use the fear mongering Islamophobic phrase of “dhimmi-like.” Please refrain from that, as it insults your intelligence. Being multicultural and tolerant does not equate to being “dhimmi-like” as our Islamophobic friends would like to imply. If “dhimmi” is a code word for being tolerant to Muslims, then we should all strive to be dhimmis.
As for the courts issue, good thing is that one of my next few articles is on this topic, so I will refrain from commenting on it here.
11. Then you close off with a George Bush line: “There is an image problem within Islam, perpetuated not by us greasy Islamophobes but by those who actively seek to destroy us.” The reality is that the Islamophobes and Islamic extremists are two peas in the same pod. Your dichotomous and binary view of the world is dangerous, and ironically the same as ultraconservative and Islamic extremists.
As for me, I don’t view the world as set into two camps or soccer teams. Rather, I think there are peaceful and loving people on both sides, and each has a group of idiots (the Islamophobes and Islamic extremists respectively) who mess things up.
The Islamophobes and Islamic extremists sound alike. For example, Islamic extremists say that “America has an image problem (as imperialists, civilian killers, etc.)”, and that they (“the Christian Americans and the Zionists”) wish to “actively destroy” Muslims, and that they cannot ignore what “comes out of their mouths.” Exactly what you said just switched the labels.
12. Lastly you say: “I cannot ignore what comes out of the mouths of our enemies, nor dismiss it as just the rantings of some crazed ideologe spewing nonsense.” Well, we certainly will, because that’s exactly what it is: drivel. Just like the drivel of the Islamophobes.
As a reminder, I ask all posters to refrain from ad hominem attacks and to remain civil. OregonJake is a commentator here, and we can’t just be courteous and civil with those who agree with us, otherwise what separates us from the likes of JihadWatch and company? I am confident that as the days go by, OregonJake may revisit many of his views and come to new conclusions.
Lastly, I do not mean to say that OregonJake is an Islamophobe. But he certainly has repeated some of their views, which is unfortunate. But alas, that’s why we at LoonWatch are here: to bring tolerance and understanding. I know that my post here is not satisfactory but I assure OregonJake that within the next couple months I will have adequately addressed the points he brought up. I only ask for patience.
Sincerely,
Danios.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
@Oregon Jake- you need to re-read PakistaniMDs post…..his point is that the cartoon is anti-semitic by pointing to some global conspiracy and Bat Ye’or does the same thing but with Muslims.
Also…http://www.aligomaa.net/news_files/24.html
so you didn’t so much do random google searches as much as going straight to the anti-Muslim (sorry, anti-’Islamist’) sites.
I can’t verify the other quotes because they only show up on those sites and I don’t trust MEMRI. I admit a lot of scholars tend to sound anti-semitic…conflating Israel with all Jews needs to be addressed but it doesn’t mean they support killing all non-Muslims. And you didn’t quote Hamza Yusuf or Tariq Ramadan or any Western Islamic scholars…surely their opinion is important as Muslims reside in the West in their millions….? Also, all the scholars I have ever read on Islam online are ulema and I have never read anything that stresses violence or oppression against non-Muslims (and that was set up by Qaradhawi). My point is…the Islamic world and the scholarly institutions are no monoliths or homogenous. One thing Muslims are is diverse.
Interesting you mentioned the Bary case since it seems like a total anti-Muslim circus and no…a case like that would not be done through sharia courts, its a child protection issue. In the UK, no Muslim organisations have asked for sharia to supersede state law- and official recognition as far as I know has only been requested for the Nikkah marriage contract as women are now exercising their rights that our mothers missed out on because of cultural etiquette.
As for the public image of Islam….the fact that a few quotes and some sensationalist media would even make someone question the humanity of over a billion people is ridiculous. I am sick of all this ‘being afraid of Islam is rational…i’m not anti-Muslim’ nonsense. Debate and critique is great, Muslims live to talk about Islam! But being selective and intellectually dishonest, as a lot of the loons featured on this BRILLIANT site are, is not for rational debate but for irrational scaremongering.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I didn’t see Danios’s post and it made the points I wanted already….much more eloquently than I did too! In my defence I haven’t slept in three days working on my final dissertation!
September 14th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Danios, thank you, and thanks to all who are here, read what is written and throw their two cents in. You have provided a lot of statements, information and opinion which I find stimulating and I will reply soon. As I do, you write with as much passion and verve as anyone, for that you have my respect.
Again, you have my patience, sir and I look forward to lively discussions.
One more thing. Is there a way to continue a discussion as this without having it cut into your time? If so, I think all of us would like to see that happen. If not, I understand and will play by the rules.
Thanks again
September 14th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Dear OregonJake:
Thank you for your good manners. You are making me feel bad for my curt reply in the other post.
Let’s agree to keep all discussions relevant and specific to the article, and I will promise to address many of the points you have raised in future posts.
Your presence on the site is more than welcome, as is your input.
Sincerely,
Danios.
September 15th, 2009 at 2:19 am
OregonJake,
Everything I have seen from your comments point to an anti-Muslim bias. The most I can say is that it may be unconscious on your part. So, sorry, as long as you exhibit such a bias I will call you out on it.
You seem to think the worst of Muslims as evidenced by your misconstruing of PakistaniMD’s post. In your mind he was expressing anti-Semitism, this results from the prejudiced point of view you begin with: “Muslims, followers of Islam must be anti-Semitic.” Of course he wasn’t expressing anything of the sort, and I think you owe him an apology on that. His post was clearly highlighting an analogy that Danios made in the article between the way Jews were demonized and how Muslims are now.
Danios pretty much answered the points about your libelous attributions to Ali Gomaa and company, a result of your reliance on Islamophobic/anti-Muslim sites.
Islam is unlike Christianity, with an all overseeing body that defines what one Christian denomination is today and what it is tomorrow. There is no Nicene Council or Second Vatican with clergy deciding “this is it.” Islam has a narrow unchanging dogmatic creed pretty much consisting of the five pillars which through your study I’m sure you are well aware of by now. All the other issues are malleable and have various and different interpretations/definitions and are subject to change or reformation. Muslims, not a small number of Ulema define Islam, in the way they act, their daily lives, etc. and in that you must admit, unless you are an Islamophobe, the vast majority, I would venture to say 99% are peaceful, trying to live prosperous lives, and many find their succor in their Faith and are propelled to do good by it. That is a fact.
You say,
“The fundamental difference is that sharia law, unlike Jewish law is actively seeking official recognition of their rulings under British commonwealth law. Jewish court rulings hold no status in commonwealth law and if sharia courts were to operate the same way there would be no problem. Dr Rowan Williams is endorsing the merging of sharia law and British commonwealth law and that to me is dangerous, seditious and very dhimmi-like.”
Danios pointed out your use of the misnomer “dhimmi-like.” On the rest of your statement, friend, it is pure falsity. Sharia law, which is already operative in the UK on the level of family and personal law is not asking for anything more then what exists for other faith communities such as the Jewish Halachic courts. It is a form of mediation that is voluntary and is not to contravene the laws of the UK. Archbishop Rowan Williams was bringing up the point that these courts already exist on local levels, and we should recognize them into the system as we have done with other communities such as the Bet Din’s rather then have them hanging out in the periphery. He made this point in the context of a wider discussion on the growing Muslim community, multi-culturalism and integration. A heated topic but the turn took place when idiots(racists such as the BNP) and political opportunists took up the cause to purposefully misconstrue what Williams said by bandying about the bogey-man scenario of a UK capitulating to a Taliban style execution of Sharia law; in their nightmarish fantasies heads and hands would be cut off on the London bridge, Traflagar square would be the scene of stonings.
Pure insanity, and all to try and score political points, but it doesn’t surprise me that you would echo those inaccuracies.
September 15th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Ali: I have thought about your input further, and have decided that the article needs to be edited where I say that he is a professor. I should make it clear that he abandoned academia since he himself said that he has “truck driver” mentality. I’ll make the necessary changes.
Ustadh: I might quote your last line in a future article: “Political opportunists took up the cause to purposefully misconstrue what Williams said by bandying about the bogey-man scenario of a UK capitulating to a Taliban style execution of Sharia law; in their nightmarish fantasies heads and hands would be cut off on the London bridge, Traflagar square would be the scene of stonings.” Hope you don’t mind! Very well worded.
Sincerely,
Danios.
September 15th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Mr Danios, you are liar and coward.
September 17th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Danios you are welcome to use that line any time. Thank you again for a fantastic article. Looking forward to more!
September 20th, 2009 at 3:13 am
When Pipes claims he abandoned academia, I wonder if he was actually abandoned by it. I think his claims are a reflection of his failure to be taken seriously as an academic, so he now pooh-pooh’s the arena as being too politically motivated as an excuse to reflect his failure.
October 1st, 2009 at 5:11 am
Great article.
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:32 am
how the hell does this witch keep getting supporters
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:48 am
Barry Lyndon,
No, I don’t know Ali Gomma well enough to know whether I support him or not. However, I don’t support libelous quotes being attributed to people, made up whole-cloth, spurred by Islamophobia with the intent to character assasinate. You do, don’t you?
On the issue of Hezbollah! Puhleeze, the hypocrisy couldn’t be any more evident. That is rich coming from someone who supports the Israeli destruction of Southern Lebanon and Gaza both condemned by International Law. Have you read the Goldstone report lately? The Israeli govt. that you support is one that is filled with racists, terrorists, supremacists and war criminals.
I don’t agree with a lot from Hezbollah, they are too conservative for my tastes. Yet, I recognize that in the South they repelled the aggressive invasion of Israel (twice) which brought nothing but massacres, terror and strife to the region.They, surprisingly as a Guerrilla organization killed 150 Israeli soldiers and only 13 civilians, whereas 90% of the Lebanese killed by the Israeli Army were civilians. Israel purposefully targeted civilians just like they did in Gaza.
Hezbollah provide essential services and are viewed as liberators and heroes by many. They are also working within the Lebanese democratic system and have long ago eschewed implementing wilayat ul faqih, or an Islamic form of government.
Are you disputing whether the “Nicene Council” was central in formulating the official creed of Christianity? Whether one is Protestant or Catholic is irrelevant as are the dates, these councils were fundamental to the understanding of these sects, after all that is where the divinity of Jesus was agreed upon. If you look at the substance of what I wrote my point was Islam doesn’t have a Pope or these Councils who proclaim “this is it, this is what we now believe.”
As far as your link to Archbishop Cranmer than how did he or whoever is behind the blog come to know what “most Muslim women” want.It looks like another case of an outsider projecting his own bigotry onto Muslims. Furthermore you didn’t address any of the substance of my post. As I said, these courts, like the Bet Din’s amongst Jews work when both parties use it voluntarily as a form of mediation. Something the article points out. Muslim women are not being coerced into it, it is a matter of choice and the judge of the court makes sure of that.
“Under the Islamic system, the man may end the marriage if he thinks it right. It is preferable he does this in front of two witnesses, then it is a simple exercise to say: ‘I divorce you.’ The only thing we must ascertain is that he has given the dower (dowry) to the woman. This is a marriage gift from bridegroom to bride. Unless he has paid it, the man cannot get a divorce.
“When a woman applies, the process is called a khula divorce. If the husband agrees, the matter is settled, but if not, we invite both for an interview, and we do emphasise reconciliation. If she is seeking the divorce, she has to return the dower to him, if not, no divorce.”
So it is clear that the religious Muslim woman who wants to go through this process (she doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to, she has recourse to civil courts) can get a divorce if she so chooses. This is more than can be said for the Bet Din’s and Halachic courts which don’t allow a woman to be divorced if her husband doesn’t consent to it. These women are known as “Agunah” or “anchored” and “chained down,” they are also known as “kept women.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agunah
“For a divorce to be effective, Jewish law requires that a man grant his wife a get of his own free will. Without a get or a heter aguna (permission by a halachic authority based on a decision that her husband is presumed dead) no new marriage will be recognized, and any children she might have with another man would be considered illegitimate.”
Where is your condemnations of this Bet Din practice?
I do see an underlying current in your comments where in an attempt to justify your beliefs you link us to people who aren’t neutral on the matter, or to some revisionist piece of history, kinda like Bat Ye’or.
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Like all conspiracy theorists, Islamophobia is one of those ideas that you can’t argue against rationally.
If you attack it, you’re either a Muslim or a “Muslim-sympathizer”. And if you’re a scholar, then you’re accused of being part of the “anti-American, anti-Wstern, anti-Christian, anti-Israel liberal elite establishments”.
Thus only a Muslim-hating ignoramus is to be trusted as being “unbiased”.
October 9th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
The second, perhaps stronger leg of this reactionary movement, besides directing the immigration debate in Europe, is “defending” Israel.
So I would encourage everyone to read Giselle’s interview with the Jerusalem Post. I hope Danios will incorporate that into his next article on her.
I think this is it: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215330916349&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
October 20th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Europeans should be ashamed of themselves. They’ve fallen hard for this lying evil hate-filled woman! Do they not understand that her goal is to set Europeans against the Muslim world for the benefit of Israel.
Muslims in Europe are generally poor, unorganized descendents of labourers. They just want to live their lives and keep many of their customs. However, Jews and right-wing Christians have used them as a scapegoat for all their problems. They want Europeans to fight the Muslims for them.
She is in the same company as Geert Wilders and the rest of those crazy racist Islamophobes in the “Freedom Party”- a misnomer if there was ever one! Time to burn the trash!
December 1st, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Oh, I get it. CAIR funds this website. You had me there for a minute.
December 1st, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Can someone post as “No Perpetual Serf” and reply to this clown? Time to NEUTRALIZE.
And no, CAIR doesn’t fund this site. It’s George Soros, remember?
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:36 am
@ No Dhimmi, after Danios’ last article, you bigots have now become a ROYAL joke! So please pop that snot bubble in your nose and stop trolling that crybaby, whiny “Dhimmi” term, and go sell a few cellular phones in the market son…
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:37 am
Hey No Dhimmi
“Oh, I get it. CAIR funds this website. You had me there for a minute.”
The Truth doesn’t need funds. It just needs tenacious people to get it out there.
and Danios, continue like this, and George Soros really will get involved:) His Open Society philanthropic foundation has helped media get their voice out if they are too small to take on the big guys on their own
http://www.soros.org/
The right wing nutjobs fear him, and label him as evil because he recognises the threat they pose. They ignore all his good works, and libel him a “Nazi” even though he is a Holocaust survivor.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:57 pm
Oh My God they are even going to attack dear sweet Ireland. THOSE SAVAGES
March 6th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Thanks for the article on Bat Ye’or. Your smug attitude only re-enforces my understanding that her thesis is correct. Independent researchers are the only ones who really dig after the truth in this political correct age.
March 16th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Harvey, Islamophobes are most smug people ever, and Bat Ye’or was even criticized by Daniel Pipes who said she lacks scholarly writing
March 17th, 2010 at 5:06 am
Harey , Independant researchers? you mean people who make up stuff and then say its the truth .
My mum taught be other words for them, didnt your mum?
April 16th, 2010 at 3:57 am
1290 Jews expelled from England
1394 Jews expelled from France (excl. Province, Dauphine, Avignon)
1345-55 Black Death: 350 pogroms in Germany
1492 Jews expelled from Spain
1496 Jews expelled from Portugal
In fact, after all this the Renaissance, the “rebirth”, is supposed to have taken place in Western Europe. Rebirth of what?
1542 Luther publishes “About the Jews and their lies”
1855 Gobineau publishes his “Essay about the inequality of human races”
1939-1945 Der Endlosung
What tolerance?
I’m European, pro Israel and highly critical of the collection of totalitarian dictatorships called “the Arab world”. Still, when it comes to intolerance towards Jews, any comparison between Islam and Christian Europe fails. Horribly. Sorry, fellow Europeans, it were our ancestors who f*cked up Big Time. And perhaps there are a few lessons to be learned..
BTW I’ve met quite a few Muslims over here, and I can assure our paranoid U.S. friends that the vast majority of them aren’t waiting for the Shariah to be established whatsoever. Quite on the contrary.
April 24th, 2010 at 8:57 am
A history question here: was the expulsion of Jews from Spain justified at the time on the basis that the Jews had collaborated with the Muslim invaders?
(Of course, the Visigothic kingdom was the architect of its own downfall here, by its enslavement of the Jews. Changing your status from “slave” to “dhimmi” is a step up
)
Incidentally, what do you think of this? It’s the only time up to now I’ve seen the word “Eurabia” used, but not by or about Islamophobes. (Note though that the comments are in reversed date order on that blog…)
July 8th, 2010 at 6:41 am
thank you Bat ye’or for filling in a puzzling piece of the jigsaw. i was always perplexed looking at history, why…when other conquerors melded with the conquered and produced a hybrid culture, that islam managed to so quickly stamp out the indiginous culture, but in such a way that it didnt cause mass uprisings and rebellions.
one half of the picture was clearly territorial jihadist driven expansion. what i think is Now coming into the full light of day [thanks to bat ye'or] is how dhimmi/sharia laws slowly strangled the life out of indiginous religion communities, and through perpetual discrimination, denigration of and de-legitimization of all other faiths, islam was able slowly, bit by bit suck the life of of competing faiths and cause a perpetual trickle of conversions [quite apart from periodic massacres and forced conversions down the centuries].
this is not to say that other faiths havnt behaved as diabolically…they have, but they have done it in spite of their own religious teachings, not, as in islam’s case, under the full sanction of a law derived explicitly from quranic and other sources.
this, i think explains why in spite of the fact that most middle east countries were christian majority cultures at the advent of islam, how we are now still seeing the christian and jewish minorities shrinking down to ever smaller numbers. of course while the opression was lifted for the christians and jews, by the changes to the law implemented at the time of colonialism, the jew have been sumarily expelled and forced out or many arabs lands in reprisal for the creation of the state of israel.
still sound like a religion of peace and tolerance to you…..?
whilst many indiginous cultures around the world are bouncing back and re-finding their roots language and pride, the cultures steamrollered by islam are still declining and heading for extinction.
its so ironic that the “old country” of many muslims -who are benefiting from and prospering in europe and america’s climate of multiculturalism and religious tolerance- are still still subjecting their minorities to discrimination and intolerance….especially in places where supremacist sharia laws are prevalent or are newly resurgent.
September 2nd, 2010 at 7:13 pm
“islam managed to so quickly stamp out the indiginous culture, but in such a way that it didnt cause mass uprisings and rebellions.”
That is why Muslims who are Persians, Turks, Pakistanis, Bosnians, Berbers, Somalians, Kazakhs, Indians, Bengalis, Malaysians, Circassians, etc speak Arabic and wear Bedouin clothes.
You’re delusional “auntie”.