This is still my favorite picture of Robert Spencer.
This is part of my continuing (and epic) rebuttal of chapter four of Robert Spencer‘s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). In this chapter, Spencer vilifies Islam by sensationalizing the topic of dhimma, (or “dhimmitude” as he says). I’ve already taken a massive sledgehammer to this fundamental pillar of his hateful paradigm, and you can see the catastrophic damage I’ve done by reading this, this, this, this, this, and this.
Then I came across this golden nugget, from p.49 of his book:
The dhimmi
The Qur’an calls Jews and Christians “People of the Book;” Islamic law calls them dhimmis, which means “protected” or “guilty” people–the Arabic word means both…Jews and Christians are “guilty” because they have not only rejected Muhammad as a prophet, but have also distorted the legitimate revelations they have received from Allah. Because of that guilt, Islamic law dictates that Jews and Christians may live in Islamic states, but not as equals with Muslims.
Wow. Just wow. Usually Spencer dresses his lie up in half-truths, obfuscation, and sensationalism before he peddles it to his hate-mongering audience. But here we have a case of complete fabrication.
Dhimmi means “protected person” and in no way, shape, or form means “guilty.” One can simply open up an Arabic dictionary to prove that this has absolutely no basis in the reality-based world. For example, here’s what Lisan al-Arab (considered the most reliable Arabic dictionary in the classical age of Islam) says:
ورجل ذِمِّيٌّ: معناه رجل له عهد
(Dhimmi: A person with whom there exists a treaty)
والذِّمَّةُ العهد
(And ‘dhimmah’ means treaty)
قال الجوهري: الذِّمَّةُ أَهل العقد.
(Al-Jawhari says: Dhimmah refers to the people with whom there is a treaty)
وقال أَبو عبيدة الذِّمّةُ الأَمان
(Abu Ubaydah says: Dhimmah means protection/security)
وقوم ذِمَّةٌ: مُعاهدون أَي ذوو ذِمَّةٍ
(A Nation of Dhimmah: The people who sign a treaty, i.e. the people of ‘responsibility’)
You can check any other Arabic dictionary to prove that “dhimmi” does not mean “guilty.” The word “madhmum” shares the same root as “dhimmi”, but so do many other words. To imply that there is a necessary connection between the two is pure idiocy, and proof of one’s ignorance of Arabic. They are quite simply two separate words entirely.
If the Prophet Muhammad and early Muslims wanted to refer to the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) as “guilty” people, why not just use the word for that? That seems much more straightforward. Of course, this nonsense just reflects the demagoguery of the dhimmi system that the anti-Islam elements engage in.
To illustrate the absurdity of the claim that “dhimmi” means “guilty”, let us look at the word used in the nefarious Pact of Umar, as reproduced on p.50 of Spencer’s academic (ha!) book:
If we break any of these promises that we set for your benefit against ourselves, then our Dhimmah (promise of protection) is broken and you are allowed to do with us what you are allowed of people of defiance and rebellion.
So if the Christians broke the conditions in the Pact of Umar, then their guilt is broken? How nonsensical! We see quite clearly from the above quote that “dhimma” is something positive; it is protection. In fact, the exact same word–dhimmah–is used for both Jews and Muslims in the Constitution of Medina. This document declares that all who uphold the pledge–Jew and Muslim alike–are granted dhimma (protection). If the word meant or implied “guilt”, why did the Prophet Muhammad include the Muslims under this? As I said before, it is complete fabrication on the part of Robert Spencer to claim that the word means “guilty”.
To add another layer to the absurdity that is Spencer’s book, there is in fact a great irony in what he is saying. Robert Spencer is a Catholic apologist, who starts his book invoking the Crusader call of “Deus Vult!” (God wills it!) and ends his book calling for a Crusade against Islam. As he foams at the mouth about the heathen faith of Islam, he doesn’t realize the irony in the fact that he attributed to Islam a doctrine alien to it but which actually is part of Catholic doctrine.
The Church debated about what to do with the Jews. After mulling around the idea of slaughtering them outright, it was decided that they ought to be allowed to survive but only so that they could serve as living proof of the defeat and humiliation of those who rejected, defied and killed Christ. Accordingly, the Jews were to live in Perpetual Servitude to the Christians, so as to serve as a constant reminder of the victory of Christ over them. This was the Doctrine of Witness, and its associated belief of Perpetual Servitude. Prof. Steven Bayme writes in his book Understanding Jewish History (pp.120-121):
Augustine and the other Church Fathers wrestled with this question of why Judaism continued if it had apparently lost its purpose? Augustine’s answer lay in the “Doctrine of the Witness.” This doctrine suggested that the continuing physical presence of the Jews was desirable because the Jews themselves provided testimony to the truth of Christianity in two ways: First, the Jews possessed Scriptures, thereby proving that Scriptures were no means invented retrospectively by Christians to predict the coming of Jesus…
Secondly, the physical status of the Jews provided testimony to the truth of Christianity. The Jews existed in a subjugated, second-class status as a defeated people…The perpetual servitude of the Jews reminded the world that the Jews are being punished for their rejection of Jesus. Therefore it was desirable that the Jew remain in Christian society. As long as Jews retained their second-class status, they would remind the world of their crime in rejecting Jesus and their validity of Jesus’s teachings…
Although the Jews’ status would always be second-class, the Church Fathers decreed that the Jews must be protected and not eliminated. In this context medieval Christian anti-Semitism provided a protective mechanism against the elimination of the Jews. Or, as Duns Scotus, a thirteenth century Christian theologian, put it, the Jews could be persecuted and virtually eliminated, but some of them would have to be kept alive on a deserted island until the Second Coming.
As we see, not only does Robert Spencer’s claim have no basis in the Arabic language, but his own argument comes to bite him in the ass. The question remains: is this a result of Spencer’s lying nature or merely a consequence of his profound ignorance? Let me know which one you think it is in the comments below.
UPDATE:
May 25th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Hey Danios,
[Comment by Danios: Thanks for the tip.]
May 25th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Thanks for reading Spencer’s book Danios. The man doesn’t even have undergrad Arabic 101 knowledge, yet his followers fawn over his “scholarship.”
We keep exposing, he keeps quiet.
May 25th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Interesting article
May 25th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Bob Spencie is an embarrassment. All his books are the same. At least you won’t have to go over each book, you can just debunk this one and it is like you debunked the whole body of his work.
May 25th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Look, I am not a fan of Robert Spencer, but, how is it something positive when “the Pact of Umar puts an obligation on dhimmis not to “restore, by night or by day, any [places of worship] that have fallen into ruin”, and Ibn Kathir adhered to this view”. This is just one form of discrimination that I found under the wikipedia heading on dhimmi. The jizya is another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi#Places_of_worship
May 25th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Danios, thank you. Your rebuttals about Spencer’s “academia” are a much needed antidote. At least Daniel Pipes made the effort to go to Cairo and learn Islam from the right sources, and speaks/understands Arabic. This Spencer is just a plain fraud. Period. It’s satisfying seeing that Jihad Watch is obsessed with Loon Watch, (just read some comments there) clearly your rebuttals are direct arrows to his fabrications.
Loon Watch
Please try to include an Arabic version of Loonwatch. Other languages too, but Arabic is important, as it has a wide readership, and your articles need to be promoted on the growing number of Arabic websites on the web. First on the list should be the Robert Spencer rebuttals that Danios wrote/writes.
How about putting a small box announcent for a translator, on the home page? I’m sure you will find a Muslim who would be happy to translate to Arabic as a service to Islam, by rebutting Islamophobic lies.
Can’t you do something at Facebook, which has a lot of Arabic pages too?
Thank you.
May 25th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
He’s ignorant of Arabic, but I believe he’s aware of Church doctrine and deliberately lies about it. He is a Christian apologist – half ignoramus half liar.
May 25th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
As a Catholic apologist, Spencer should take into consideration the words of Pope John Paul II: “Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn’t misuse it.” Wouldn’t it be nice if stupidity is painful to its practitioner?
May 25th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
OK, the pact of Umar is a forgery. I have asked the “Angry Arab” for a recommendation on a different view of the dhimmi.
May 25th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
@Molly,
I see that you figured out that most scholars consider it a forgery. Danios did a great job of analyzing it, he posted the link above but here it is again: http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/03/the-protocols-of-the-elders-of-mecca-the-final-word-on-the-pact-of-umar/
It would be interesting to see As’ad Abukhalil’s view on the dhimmi, especially coming from a historical and materialist perspective. By the way are you the same Molly that Abukhalil thanks for tips often?
May 25th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Bob Spinster is not a hate monger but who is a coward, and therefore who tries to hide his deep seated hate beneath the veneer of scholarship. But there is is limit to how you can sustain your deep seated anger and hate and Bob is being exposed by Danios and gang for the world to see and indeed the world is seeing how evil and demonic he is.
May 25th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
The morally bankrupt lying Spencer, exposed yet again. Of course one could question if he is a “scholar” why aren’t Muslim parents sending their children to learn from him? Why does the academic elite dismiss him as an opportunistic fraud?
“ahl al dhimma” is Arabic for those people living under a covenant of protection who pay a Jizya. A Jizya obligates the ruler to protect the life, wealth, and property of the dhimmi and to ensure freedom of worship for them. Of course spencer won’t quote the following Hadeeth (oral tradition)
The Prophet said:
“Beware! Whoever is cruel and hard on a non-Muslim minority, curtails their rights, burdens them with more than they can bear, or takes anything from them against their free will; I will complain against the person on the Day of Judgment.” (Abu Dawood)
Ahl al dhimma have a special status in that if they are mistreated or don’t get their rights, the ruler whom they live under, will be held accountable for his actions before God. That is generally why Islamic rule was benevolant and tolerant, compare to others of it’s day.
[snipped]
It would be interesting if someone could actually come up with a percentage of how much of Spencer’s work is pure fabrication. I’d say at least 95% is.
May 25th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I appreciate all of your exposes of Robert Spencer’s errors. I’ll have to reread them sometime soon, as there is so much information in them that a good bit of it slips my mind pretty quickly.
May 25th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
I have to mention a thought that came to my mind as I was perusing Spencer’s hate site. He had a post about “Obama’s dhimmitude…” and the irony of that just struck me. I know now that not only is he and his cohorts unable to understand Arabic, as Danios demonstrated, but they don’t know how to logically use the word.
Imagine this, somehow, Barack Obama the leader of the strongest nation on earth is a “subdued dhimmi” who pays jizya to Muslims. First off, all the contradictions came rushing to my head, “but Spencer according to Pamela Obama is the birth child of Malcolm X, and she is certain that he is a Mooslim, you yourself said he ‘may be’ a Mooslim. So I guess the pertinent question is, ‘Is he a dhimmi or a Mooslim?’”
Is it to hard to ask you guys to stick to one or the other falsity? Very confusing.
May 25th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Clearly, Spencer is lying about the meaning of the word. It has nothing to do with ignorance. I mean if he brags about the hours he spends doing “research”, one would think that he would also have done some research on Arabic. He knows what the facts are, but he also knows that the majority of his followers are slack-jawed yokels (like Cletus on The Simpsons!) who would believe anything he says about Islam, as long as it is bad.
May 25th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
@Molly
Are you the same Molly from Palestine Pundit?
May 25th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
I’m 15-years-old, know only a little bit of Arabic, and even I can see how ignorant Robert Spencer is in this area. He (and many other people like him) also misuses the word “taqiyyah” often.
May 25th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
How many Muslims read Arabic?
May 25th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
BeautifulMuslim Doll wrote:
“At least Daniel Pipes made the effort to go to Cairo and learn Islam from the right sources, and speaks/understands Arabic. This Spencer is just a plain fraud. Period. It’s satisfying seeing that Jihad Watch is obsessed with Loon Watch, (just read some comments there) clearly your rebuttals are direct arrows to his fabrications. ”
Ah, yes. The learning Islam from the approved places. Oh, and you have to learn Arabic too.
Ok, fair enough.
Danios writes quite a bit on European and Christian history, where are these pre-approved places of Christian learning that Danios must attend before he can further pontificate on Christian history and theology?
Oh, and does Danios read Latin, Greek, German and French?
Do tell Muslim doll, I’m interested.
May 25th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
@LOONWATCH
Yeah I agree , this website is awesome and arabic version of it would be great.
May 26th, 2010 at 1:20 am
tanstaafl
More muslims read arabic than christains
May 26th, 2010 at 5:35 am
edward carner evangelical piglet investigated for bullshiting/embellishing about his muslim background after 9 11.
http://formerfundy.blogspot.com/2010/05/president-of-liberty-baptist-seminary.html
May 26th, 2010 at 7:15 am
JihadBob,
I actually believe that the “do you speak Arabic” defense is invoked too much by some Muslims. And I actually agree that Arabic–like any other language–can, within certain limitations, be translated.
I have never used this argument in any of my writings. In this particular case, I am simply pointing out one of Robert Spencer’s complete fabrication, which is his claim that the word “dhimmi” means “guilty.” This is false. It would be false even if he had a degree from al-Azhar University or if he never studied past second grade. Either way, he is guilty of fabrication.
Can you please comment on this fabrication, which is the substance of my article? Why must you move the goalposts? We have here a complete lie by Spencer. Please do respond to that.
Sincerely,
Danios.
May 26th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Jihad Bob,
The language of Christianity is Aramaic if you go by Jesus’s language, so your argument is a nonstarter. The Bible (NT) ia not written in Aramaic or even Hebrew as the Torah (again Jesus’s religion) is. It is written in any language in the world, where it is, and it has so many different versions, each country cannot even agree with another on it’s theological basis. There is no common lanagauge, that binds Christianity all over the world.
Al Quran and Hadeeth’s can’t be understood unless you have knowledge of Arabic, which is the most difficult language to learn. I’m talking of Islamic theology now. I mean to reach to a scholar level, where you can teach, if you don’t know Arabic, you are no expert and you cannot become a scholar of Islam without knowing Arabic.. Period.
The same actually applies to Judaism. YOu can’t learn Torah unless you learn Hebrew, and you won’t understand it either if you don’t because the oral law is based on the written. Just ask you local Rabbi. Prayers are said in Hebrew, Jewish schools teach Hebrew. What you read in English has been based on the Hebrew.
In fact the only language it is close to is Hebrew. Most Arabic speakers understand Hebrew and vice versa.
It’s the same with Islam. Muslim children are taught the theology in Arabic,
Danios doesn’t pontificate about Christian theology, which doesn’t have a religious language anyway, because Paul rejected all that.
Danios,
I respectfully disagree. Up to a certain point you can learn about Islam, but to claim to be a scholar and not know Arabic the language the whole religion is based on, is riduculous and impossible. There are certain words in Arabic that cannot be translated. For example there is a unique word which can only be translated as “we” in English, that is when God speaks to the Prophet he calls himself “we”, The “we” here is a word that is used for no other purpose. Now translated it means a plural in English, but that is not the meaning in Arabic. Some words are unique and you have to learn Arabic to know them otherwise, you are misled.
as i said to JihadBob you cannot master Islamic theology without Arabic. The translated versions that can be used (including the ones that you use), have been translated from Arabic sources. So Jihad Bob has no case becauuse Robert Spencer was talking of Islamic theology here, the meaning of the word “dhimmi”. He also hinted that we accept you as a scholar, which we don’t. You’ve never said you’re a scholar of Islam, you just rebut Spencer’s lies, and because they’re bases on lies, you don’t need a knowledge of Arabic to do it.
It’s stunning example of how far back into the dark ages these loons live, ……i mean Jihad Bob has an example of Robert Spencer fabricating the meaning of “dhimmi”, right here, rebutted in front of his eyes, whilst questioning us why we accept your word as the gospel on Christianity, when Christianity has no religious language? The NT is written in English in the US, but the Quran and Hadeeths are in ARabic, everything else is a translation of the original. Besides, you’ve never claimed to be a “scholar on Christianity”.
Amazing…just amazing…how the goalposts shift,
Also Danios, i note on the home page there is a link to the Constition of Medina. You may wish to include this link, because it has the full text, as dictated by The Prophet.
Full Text of the Madina Charter
http://www.constitution.org/cons/medina/macharter.htm
Text version
http://www.constitution.org/cons/medina/con_medina.htm
Thank you.
May 26th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Wait a minute. So you’re actually espousing the “dhimma/dhimmis/dhimmitude” as a good thing? You’re off your friggen rocker.
May 26th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
” The word “madhmum” shares the same root as “dhimmi”, but so do many other words. To imply that there is a necessary connection between the two is pure idiocy, and proof of one’s ignorance of Arabic.”
Not to mention semantics. It’s like saying the adjective ‘grave’ (as in a ‘grave penalty’) and the noun ‘grave’ (as in ‘grave-robber’) have the same meaning because they’re the same word.
“The question remains: is this a result of Spencer’s lying nature or merely a consequence of his profound ignorance?”
Probably, it’s a combination of both. It’s pretty clear Spencer only has a limited and rather superficial knowledge of Islam.
It’s also pretty obvious Spencer sets out in advance to project a kind of Huntingtonian clash between Islam and the West back into Islam’s foundational sources.
So he’s working towards his preconceived conclusion, which is about the most unscientific course a self-professed scholar can venture on. But then again, Spencer isn’t really a scholar: he’s a propagandist, who feigns scholarschip in order to reinforce people’s fears about Islam and Muslims.
So there you have it: the man is a sham, a crock and a fraud.
May 27th, 2010 at 2:40 am
Where’d you go, JihadBob? Cat got your tongue all of a sudden?
What about the rest of you JW loons?
Can’t debate the topic at hand huh?
May 27th, 2010 at 6:22 am
What do people here think of those who believe there is a clash of civilizations between the Middle East and the West, which has origins pre-dating Islam itself?
Many of these works claim that the hostility arose because the Middle East’s arid climate dooms it to grinding poverty, leading to its people having a murderous envy of the prosperous West. Examples of this genre are James DeMeo’s Saharasia and Eg Ban’s The Constant Feud.
May 27th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Spencer replied on his site,
He is correct that the root letters dh-m-m have the meaning of “blame” or “censure”. Although dhimma/dhimmi is related to this root as it is a cognate, the blame or censure in this word is not meant in the sense Spencer is using it i.e. the protected people are guilty for their disbelief, the ridiculousness of which Danios exposed above.
The authoratative Lane’s Lexicon explains the sense in which “dhimma” which means “compact, covenant or contract” is related to dh-m-m: “because the breaking thereof necessitates blame” (Volume 3 p. 976). The larger Arabic dictionaries from which Lane’s is derived like Taj al-Arus and al-Muhit say the same. In other words, the blame (not “guilt”) involved in the term “dhimma” is related to breaking the contract which is bilateral – i.e. both the Muslims and the non-Muslims were liable in this sense, so Spencer’s whole theory breaks down. This also explains why Umar according to Sahih al-Bukhari impressed on the Muslims the rights of the dhimmis and the severity of denying these rights.
Dhimmi according to the online Sakhr dictionary which Spencer refers to (but is NOT a scholarly source!) is defined as “a free non-Moslem under Moslem rule , adherent of a revealed religion” and in Hans Wehr another authoratative dictionary as “a free non-Muslim subject living in a Muslim country”.
If Spencer is honest, he will explain the sense in which “blame” is used in the word “dhimma” – i.e. the blame involved in breaking the contract, not disbelief!
May 27th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Danios wrote:
“Where’d you go, JihadBob? Cat got your tongue all of a sudden?
What about the rest of you JW loons?
Can’t debate the topic at hand huh?”
I wasn’t in this thread to debate, only to comment on what someone else has said.
I’ve submitted quite a few posts on other topics which were never published by your truly, so I know better than to waste my time trying to argue a point against the original post.
And, it so happens, that Spencer has responded to the allegations in this thread:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/05/egyptian-convert-endures-life-at.html
May 27th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
What do you define as the Middle East? I didn’t know that Turkey and Iran have arid climates for example. I think you’d have to go out on a limb to say the same about Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
May 27th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Response is forthcoming. Stay tuned.
May 31st, 2010 at 10:53 pm
“JihadBob”, in the link you provided, Spencer says:
The Arabic word ذمي (dhimmi) is derived from ذمة (dhimma), “‘protection, custody’”), and from ذم (dhamma), which means “to blame.” Thus the dhimmis are the blamed, or guilty ones.
His poor understanding of Arabic might not be as important here as his poor conception of English. When does “blamed” mean “guilty”? Spencer’s entire online career is devoted to blaming Muslims, which, for him, warrants saying that Muslims are guilty of the charges these loons have leveled against them. For Spencer, Geller, et al., they are conflating “blame” with “guilt”, a keen rhetorical trick that allows them to point to accusations as evidence.
June 14th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
For the record, here is my counter-response:
http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/06/more-proof-that-robert-spencer-is-an-intellectual-huckster-part-2-spencer-digs-himself-into-a-deeper-sh-hole/