This is still my favorite picture of Robert Spencer.

Robert Spencer loves to flaunt and name drop his speeches to “officaldom,” it serves to legitimize his anti-Islam/anti-Muslim crusade. However, as we have copiously catalogued on our website, the chorus of those speaking out and exposing Spencer is growing larger every day. They include Conservatives as well as Liberals, from various groups across the nation.

Spencer used to regularly write on his blog about speaking in front of this security group or that security group. The truth is that those requests for Spencer’s speeches have decreased over the years, especially under the Obama administration (another reason for  the hate he and his buddy Pamela Geller direct towards Obama).

The fact that the FBI has erred so terribly in giving a voice to a bigot such as Spencer does not in the least legitimize Spencer as a trusted, objective or authoritative voice on Islam, terrorism or American Muslims. It just means that it has taken the FBI longer to realize what everyone is realizing, Spencer is a fraud, a Crusading (to use Andrew Sullivan’s term) Christianist bigot who sees Islam as the competition that must be eliminated.

It is only a matter of time before the FBI realizes that inviting Spencer to speak on Islam is akin to inviting David Duke to speak on the holocaust or a member of the KKK to speak about race relations in America. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Robert Spencer popularized the term “Stealth Jihad,” and some in the Conservative wing such as Newt Gingrich have ran with it and are using it all the time. As has been exposed on Loonwatch and other sites, “Stealth Jihad” is paranoid speak and just another anti-Muslim conspiracy theory.

Lisa Miller takes on this term in her recent article which no doubt will have Spencer, whose site is described as “a hyperventilating anti-terror blog,” in fits.

The Misinformants

By Lisa Miller

Here is the latest semantic assault from the party that brought you “Islamo-facism” (circa 2005) and “Axis of Evil” (2002). The term “stealth jihad” is suddenly voguish among politically ambitious right wingers who see President Obama’s approach to terrorism as insufficient. If it sounds like a phrase from a military-fantasy summer blockbuster, that’s on purpose: in its cartoonish bad-guy foreignness, “stealth jihad” attempts to make the terrorist threat broader and thus more nefarious than it already is. The only thing scarier than an invisible, homicidal, suicidal enemy with a taste for world domination is one who’s sneaking up on you. In the words of former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at a July speech at the American Enterprise Institute, “stealth jihad” is an effort “to replace Western civilization with a radical imposition of Sharia.”

The term wasn’t Gingrich’s invention. It’s the title of a two-year-old book by Robert Spencer, whose hyperventilating antiterror blog, Jihad Watch, is cited and circulated widely on the far right. But the recent vicious debate over the proposed community center and mosque near Ground Zero gives Gingrich an excuse to use “stealth jihad” and its variants frequently—not just at the AEI but in an interview with this magazine. (In an essay on the conservative Web site Human Events, he referred instead to “creeping sharia.”) Gingrich’s like-minded peers have seized on the language, too. “Muslim Brotherhood operatives, like [Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the center’s founder and leader] are extremely skilled at obscuring … their true agenda,” said Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, on FOX’s Glenn Beck show. “It’s part of the stealth jihad.”
‘A Little Intolerant, But Good Reason To Be’ Protesters for and against the building of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero talk about their reasons for supporting or opposing the project.

Words matter, and if you say them often enough and with enough authority, they start to sound true—even if they’re not. Abdul Rauf, for instance, has no affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood and is an “operative” (another nefarious word) only in the sense that running a small, progressive interfaith nonprofit is an “operation.” As for his “stealth jihad,” it’s virtually impossible to imagine how such an event would—logistically—occur. Would the construction of an Islamic prayer site near Ground Zero inevitably lead American women to wake up one morning and find themselves veiled and confined to their homes? “The term is ever-so-slightly goofy,” says Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California, Berkeley. The paranoia conveyed by “stealth jihad” brings to mind the anticommunist campaigns of Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, Nunberg adds. Just as McCarthyites imagined a communist behind every lamppost, the word “stealth” conflates all Muslims with terrorists. In a stealth campaign you never know who your friends are.

Also, simply put, foreign words freak people out. “Jihad” and “Sharia” reinforce the sense among Americans that Muslims in general have an unfathomable world view. During World War II, formerly obscure words like “hara-kiri” and “kamikaze,” which suggested the “warlike ferocity” of the Japanese, became common parlance, Nunberg says. “There was this sense of being confronted with this hostile, alien culture.” The Japanese were “literally demonized,” he says.

Gingrich has already used the mosque debate to evoke many of America’s historic enemies, comparing Muslims indirectly with Nazis and communists and even the Japanese. “We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor,” he said on FOX recently.

But that is not true. Fourteen percent of Hawaiians call themselves ethnically Japanese, according to the U.S. Census, and dozens of Japanese temples stand near Pearl Harbor—as they have for decades. One of them, the Buddhist Aiea Hongwanji Mission, is less than half a mile away. “You can see Pearl Harbor from the roof, maybe. We’re really close,” says Wade Yamamoto, the temple’s treasurer. The temple allows people “to practice their religion from back home,” he says. Gingrich, a historian, might take a lesson here. After the attacks of Dec. 7, 1941, more than 100,000 people of Japanese descent—two thirds of them American citizens—were interned in camps in a shameful episode that later legislation called the result of “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” Last week, a New York City cab driver was stabbed for answering the question “Are you a Muslim?” in the affirmative. Our enemies are dangerous. Let’s be clear about who they are.

With Johannah Cornblatt

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So much for the claims of Spencer-Geller that this was probably staged by Muslims to get sympathy from unwitting Americans.

Michael Enright, cabbie-stabber, had “anti-Muslim” diary

By Alex Pareene

Michael Enright, the raging drunk who nearly killed a Muslim cab-driver in Manhattan this week, is being held without bail following his arraignment on hate crime charges. Enright, a film student, is finishing a documentary about Marines serving in Afghanistan, where he was embedded earlier this year for 35 days.

Enright stabbed the man after an apparently civil conversation about the driver’s Muslim faith. Then Enright allegedly yelled, “This is the checkpoint,” and slashed the drivers throat and arm.

According to friends, Enright was usually kind and mild-mannered. He volunteered with Intersections International, a liberal organization dedicated to religious tolerance and peace.

“The person who volunteered for us is a really good guy,” Intersections International executive director Rev. Robert Chase told the media. “He’s responsible, he’s been generous, he’s concerned about the issues in the world.”

“He’s a really nice guy to be around,” a college friend told the New York Post. “He’s a great kid,” a neighbor said.

But: Enright was arrested twice last year, for disorderly conduct and underage drinking. According to the Post: “College friends said Enright had been sober for the last year.”

And a friend tells the Daily News that Enright had seemed troubled and angry since his return from Afghanistan.

The Daily News also reports that cops found a diary on Enright that was filled with anti-Muslim rantings:

Muslim non-victim of non-existent Islamophobia

An irony of Islamophobes is that they are among the most vehement Islamophobia-deniers. It’s sort of like how White supremacists believe that there is no such thing as racism, that their hatred of blacks is a logical and rational enterprise. Hey, they’re just out to preserve the purity of the White race.

I wonder what goes through the minds of Robert Spencer or Pamela Geller who are making a handsome living inciting Americans against the evil faith of Islam and its suspicious adherents when they see the picture of the 44 year old father above lying in the ER after he was slashed on the job for committing the grand old crime of being Muslim.

Ahmed H. Sharif came to this country 25 years ago. He worked as a chef for 10 years, and as a cab driver for 15. Like most American Muslims, he came to this country to earn a living on the merit of his hard work and sacrifice, in hopes of providing a better life for his family.

Unbeknownst to him, there has been a movement fomenting in this country blasting an incessant message over AM talk radio, the internet, and the right-wing TV talk shows telling gullible Americans that Mooslims like Sharif and his ilk are really here to “Islamize” America, abolish freedom and democracy and institute a Taliban-brand Shariah. The recent hysteria surrounding the building of the proposed Park51 Islamic center in lower Manhattan saw that Goebelsian message rise to a deafening pitch.

Michael Enright, 21, an art student by day, and a “soldier of freedom” by night, was listening.

On late August 24th he hailed Sharif’s cab.

"Anti-Jihadi Freedom Fighter" Michael Enright

Enright greeted Sharif with “Assalamu Alaikum.” A flattered Sharif responded. Enright asked Sharif how his Ramadan was going, and a compliant Sharif explained it was going well. Enright then gave Sharif a hint of what was coming by proceeding to ridicule Sharif’s faith.

At the end of the ride, before stepping out of the cab, Enright then left Sharif a little piece of “freedom fighting:”

“This is the checkpoint motherfucker” and “I have to bring you down motherfucker,” shouted Enright.

The New York Times reports that Enright then “withdrew a Leatherman knife and reaching through the opening in the plastic divider, slashed Mr. Sharif’s throat. When Mr. Sharif turned, he said, Mr. Enright stabbed him in his face, on his arm and on his thumbs.”

Mr. Sharif pleaded: “I beg of you, don’t kill me. I worked so hard, I have a family.”

Of course, Pipes, Geller, and Spencer will tell you that Sharif only has himself to blame for being a scary Muslim:

Says ailing Islamophobe Daniel Pipes:

“Muslims should dispense with this discredited term [of Islamophobia] and instead engage in some earnest introspection. Rather than blame the potential victim for fearing his would-be executioner, they would do better to ponder how Islamists have transformed their faith into an ideology celebrating murder and develop strategies to redeem their religion by combating this morbid totalitarianism.” (Islamophobia? New York Sun, 10/25/2005)

Mr. Sharif, We sincerely hope you had some time to “ponder” that before your throat was randomly thrashed in this non-Islamophobic attack.

Says the Queen of Islamophobia Pamela Geller, founder of the pro-genocide anti-Muslim hate group SIOA:

“What hate crimes, what hate crimes, there is no documentation, there is no backlash, this is part of this narrative, it’s part of this narrative, it’s part of this Islamic narrative… There is no [anti] Muslim backlash, that’s part of this Islamic narrative, you cannot cite any hate crimes, there has been no hate crimes, America has gone out of its way to make sure there is no backlash” (The Alyona Show, RT, 07/25/2010)

Hear that Mr. Sharif? Even if you were lashed from the back for being Muslim, it’s still not a backlash because there is no such thing as an anti-Muslim backlash.

Says the (anti) Islamic “scholar” Robert Spencer and co-founder of SIOA:

“This is why the fake term Islamophobia is so dangerous: It insinuates that any reservations about Islam must ipso facto be ‘phobic.’ A phobia is an irrational fear or dislike. Islamic preaching very often manifests precisely this feature, which is why suspicion of it is by no means irrational.” (jihadwatch.org, 08/24/2010)

That’s right, what’s so “irrational” about Enright’s behavior? Islamophobia? What Islamophobia?

So there you have it folks, as the “perceptive” commentator Jonah Goldberg would say: “the supposed Muslim backlash” in America is “mostly a myth.” (Islamophobia? Not really. Los Angeles Times. 08/24/2010)

SIOA's Misleading Chicago Cab Ads

Way to go Chicago!

Chicago’s Yellow Cab is giving hate-mongers Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller‘s campain of hate ads the old Windy City boot.

The so-called “leave Islam safely honor killing” ad campaign was cynical from head to toe given that the phenomenon of domestic abuse and infanticide is not limited to Muslim families, and that within the Muslim community, has not exceeded 12 cases from coast to coast in the US and Canada.

Geller and Spencer had paid for ads through their newly formed hate group, SIOA, pretending to care for the victims of “honor killings.” But rather than advertise a counselling service hotline or guide potential victims to actual professional help, the ads slipped in a Spencer/Geller website that bashed the Islamic faith, painted all Muslims as evil, and had absolutely nothing to do with providing safety for victims as the ad falsely suggests.

Bravo Yellow Cab!

Geller and Spencer are willing to sink so low as to exploit the young female victims of domestic abuse, casting them as pawns in their rabid hate for Islam and Muslims. Worse yet, they had the audacity to think they could get away with it.

Yellow Cab is within their legal and professional rights to pull the plug on the offensive and misleading ad campaign, and while I am sure Geller and Spencer will, as usual, threaten a lawsuit to enforce their hateful ways, they have absolutely no legal recourse and will have to lick their wounds on this one.

Kudos to Chicago. I hope the rest of America follows suit. Let’s give the fraudulent “scholar” and his botox queen a good ol’ American wake up call.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Robert Spencer, a Christian crusader who likes to cover his anti-Muslim fanaticism with a pretense to scholarship is fond of saying “Obama may be a Muslim,” and his buddy Pamela Geller often dubs Obama as a “Socialist” and “Communist.”

That’s why it is quite ironic to learn that Spencer himself in a previous incarnation used to be a Communist. In his younger days before he went zealous with Christianity Spencer was a devoted Communist,

Robert Spencer…[a] canny operative who likely has the inside track on the State Department’s Middle East affairs desk should the tea party win the White House in 2012, Spencer nonetheless offered that he had spent part of his youth working at Revolution Books, which is run by the Revolutionary Communist Party (and its cultish leader Bob Avakian), a hard-line Maoist group most sixties-style radicals, like, say, Bill Ayers, would consider beyond the pale.

Not only was Spencer a Commie but he was a hard core Communist, such that even the boogie monster known as Bill Ayers wouldn’t want to touch.

It is also another point of similarity between Spencer and his boss David Horowitz who used to be a Communist and now is a hardcore Conservative. Interestingly enough Spencer’s embrace of capitalism has been quite profitable, he is making six figures for his anti-Muslim work.

The article in the New York Magazine also reveals some other interesting if irrelevant tid-bits about Spencer, his father used to work for the Voice of America.

The following is the relevant portion relating to Spencer in the article, I suggest everyone read the whole thing by Mark Jacobson titled, Muhammad Comes to Manhattan:

Dhimmitude was the state to which Muslim caliphs reduced their “useful” but decidedly second-class subjects, those who had to be made to “feel themselves subdued” (the Koran, Sura 9:29), Robert Spencer told me as we dined in the T.G.I. Friday’s on the scenic lower level of Penn Station. A canny operative who likely has the inside track on the State Department’s Middle East affairs desk should the tea party win the White House in 2012, Spencer nonetheless offered that he had spent part of his youth working at Revolution Books, which is run by the Revolutionary Communist Party (and its cultish leader Bob Avakian), a hard-line Maoist group most sixties-style radicals, like, say, Bill Ayers, would consider beyond the pale. Spencer—whose father worked for the Voice of America during the Cold War—contended that terror, the threat of the A-bomb in the burka, while worth worrying about, was “just one tactic” in Islam’s clash with the U.S. What was afoot was a more insidious thing, a burrowing infiltration of the enemy.

“Muslims are the first immigrant group that has ever come to this country with a ready-made model of society and government they believe to be superior to what we have here,” Spencer told me. The thinking was clear to anyone who took the trouble to study the plan, the blogger and author of Stealth Jihad contended. “Muhammad said, ‘When you meet the unbelievers, invite them to accept Islam; if they refuse, offer them the dhimma—second-class status—and, if they refuse that, go to war with them.’ That’s it. Conversion, subjugation, or war. Three steps. Conversion, subjugation, or war … That’s what Muhammad said. And in chapter 33, verse 21 of the Koran, it says Muhammad is the excellent example for the Muslim, you ask any Muslim and they’ll tell you that: That is nonnegotiable, what Muhammad said goes, and that’s not some hijacker extremist Islam, that’s mainstream … This is how it is, you don’t need a bomb. I don’t think Feisal is ever going to blow anything up, because that’s not his game; his game is a societal, cultural penetration … ”

After that, Spencer peered up from his plate of Caribbean chicken and bid me to look around the T.G.I. Friday’s. “Remember this moment and this spot,” he said. “Because the freedoms we enjoy are in danger. You might not know it now, because it is just beginning. But 25 or 30 years from now you’re going to think of this place and say to yourself, Spencer was right.”

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Spencer with fellow anti-Muslim writer Bostom during happier days.  (Bostom too has accused Spencer of fake scholarship since).

Robert Spencer is indeed a strange breed. He has curiously thin skin for someone who is a career bigot and hatemonger. He freely throws punches (that mostly miss) but cries to the heavens when any are thrown back (maybe because they usually land).

I mean if you are going to put yourself out there as a bigot, you may not want to cry yourself to sleep every time someone calls you out as one.

Grow some gonads.

Robert Spencer, “the acclaimed scholar”, makes a living painting Muslims as murderers, terrorists, misogynists, liars, hypocrites, thugs, and bloodthirsty savages.

But then when the Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein correctly characterized him as anti-Muslim, he throws a hissy fit, arguing that she “smeared” and “maligned” poor little Spencer, and even put his life in danger.

You could not make this stuff up. The man is plain bonkers. (Spencer’s tearjerker of a schoolboy letter to Boorstein is a riot to read and is a must see for every Silly-Spencer lover.)

Now, his feelings are hurt again.

This time the ego-bruised Mr. Spencer goes after the Chicago Tribune’s Manya Brachear, one of the few objective religion reporters left in the newsroom business. Spencer is reeling from Tribune religion blog contributor Ahmed Rehab outing him as:

“a long-time anti-Muslim goon from the annals of the hate blogosphere.”

Sounds like an apt characterization of Spencer alright.

Browsing Spencerwatch.com you will find plenty of evidence that corroborate this description of Robert Spencer.

Browse Spencer’s very own Jihadwatch.com and you will find it bursting with a thousand more examples of Spencer’s anti-Muslim loonieness, personal megalomania, and general creepiness.

And yet Spencer apparently is soft in the center and needs to shed a tear for his hurt feelings when people call him “mean things.”

But here’s the best part:

Spencer has the wool pulled so deeply over his eyes that he utters the name of “David Duke” to describe someone who criticizes him, apparently while completely oblivious to the irony of the analogy: Spencer’s rabid Islamophobia being an identical counterpart to David Duke’s brand of anti-Semitism.

Perhaps the “scholar” Mr. Spencer, can heal the pain inflicted upon him by truth tellers Ms. Brachear and Mr. Rehab by singing himself a soft lullaby filled with his heartwarming bigoted and hateful rants against Muslims.

Here’s the Tribune article, enjoy (hat tip: Jihadwatch.com):

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2010/08/untold-story-behind-the-mosque-at-ground-zero.htm

The mainstream media continues to cover the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”  story (which isn’t a mosque, and isn’t on Ground Zero), and the story has gone truly viral.  At the heart of the controversy is Pamela Geller, who was the first to protest the Islamic cultural center’s location.  Ahmed Rehab wrote an excellent article for the Huffington Post, which gives a very accurate timeline of events leading to this contrived controversy.  Says Rehab:

The “Ground Zero Mosque” fiasco is a fabricated controversy that traces its origins to a couple of long-time anti-Muslim goons from the annals of the hate blogosphere by the names of Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller as a flagship campaign of their newly founded organization, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA). SIOA is part of an emerging phenomenon of astroturf anti-Muslim organizations that seek to project any public expression of Muslim life in this country as tantamount to a stealth “Islamization of America.” (Except it’s not so stealth since everyone and their mother is talking about it).

It was SIOA that first coined the misnomer “Mosque at Ground Zero,” purposely twisting the reality that the proposed Muslim cultural center near Ground Zero is neither a Mosque nor at Ground Zero. It was the SIOA that sought to redefine Imam Rauf as a radical Imam even though he was heralded by the Bush administration, the FBI and others as a moderate voice of reason. It was the SIOA and its partners that ruthlessly sought to stoke the fears and suspicions of otherwise good, unsuspecting Americans.

Hate blogger Pamela Geller used the power of her hate blog to bring attention to the cultural center, amping up fears of an “Islamic conquest of Ground Zero”.  She teamed up with “the acclaimed scholar of Islam” Robert Spencer to form the organization known as Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).  You may be wondering why they didn’t pick a catchier name, or one that rolls off the tongue without sounding extremely awkward.  (And why is there an “O” in the acronym from “of” but  not a “t” from “the”?)  Well, if you follow Pamela Geller’s crazy blog you’ll note that she has a tendency to slam every possible stereotype and alarmist mantra into her blog titles, along the lines of: “Stealth Jihadist Taqiyya Artist Pimp Imam Hussein Obama Pledging Loyalty to Mafia Jihad Hamas-Linked CAIR.”

The title of “Stop the Islamization of America” captures the essence of their alarmist paradigm.  It’s not just a name of a group.  It’s their entire conspiracy theory perfectly encapsulated in five words.

Ahmed Rehab did a good job of introducing you to the two founders of SIOA.  But allow me to introduce you to the “spiritual head” of the group.  Her name is Bat Ye’or, an anti-Muslim ideologue and conspiracy theorist.  Like Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’or claims to be “a scholar”–not just any scholar, but “the world’s leading scholar of Islamic antisemitism”–even though she, like Spencer, “is not an academic and has never taught at any university” (quote from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz).

Pamela Geller says on her hate blog:

Bat Ye’or, groundbreaking scholar of the Islamization of Europe (author of Eurabia), the pioneering scholar on dhimmitude, the institutionalized mistreatment of non-muslims under Islam law…

Notice the words “Islamization of Europe.”  It’s a conspiracy theory called “Eurabia”, which is the idea that Moozlems are going to take over Europe and reduce non-Muslims to second-class citizenship (or worse)…Geller and Spencer have simply adopted this same idea and applied it to America.  Hence the name “Stop Islamization of America” (SIOA).

In fact, as one reader pointed out, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA) is a rip off of Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), whose slogan boasts that “Islamophobia is the height of common sense.”  This organization is linked to fascists, the English Defense League (EDL).  Both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have ties to these hate groups.

But back to the spiritual head of the group…

Here are some of Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theories from which Geller and Spencer take inspiration:

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.

And:

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.

The SIOA received “spiritual input” from Bat Ye’or on the issue of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” [video].  In the video, Bat Ye’or likens the Muslims to Nazis, a typical comparison that Geller makes recurrently on her crazy site.  (It’s amazing how a sweet looking granny and a cougar with a botoxed face and fake boobs could be amongst the two biggest hatemongers in the world).

The spiritual idea behind blocking the Islamic cultural center is not just that Ground Zero is “sacred ground” unfit for Muslims, but that the Muslims are going to take over and impose “dhimmitude” upon non-Muslims.  Spencer, Geller, and Bat Ye’or recount the horrors of Islamic rule, conveniently forgetting the even worse Christian rule over Jews and Muslims.  The theological basis of SIOA is that the Muslim-Americans are engaging in “stealth jihad”, a doctrine supposedly based in the Islamic concept of taqiyya.  (I’ve thoroughly debunked this lie here.)  Basically, those pesky Muslim-American spokesmen are trying to sweet talk us silly infidels into believing that their religion is about peace, and then when we’re fast asleep, they’ll take over!  And then we’re in deep trouble, because that’s when they will reimpose “dhimmitude” upon us.  So we need to get them before they get us!  (I’ve obliterated their argument about Muslims wanting to reimpose dhimmitude here.)

This is the alarmist conspiracy theory that buttresses the group known as Stop the Islamization of America, which is behind the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy.  If you think they will stop at just this mosque, you’re horribly uninformed.  There have been protests all over the country over mosques, and the SIOA is swift in coming to their aid.  Muslim-Americans complain that there is virtually no city in the country where they can freely build a mosque without meeting fierce opposition from people in the community.  The SIOA wants to tap into peoples’ fears and translate it into anti-Muslim bigotry.  Every mosque must be opposed, because every mosque teaches Muslims to wage “stealth jihad” (“taqiyya!”) and secretly preaches that Muslim-Americans must lie in wait to impose Sharia and dhimmitude over the infidels.

It’s not just mosques.  It’s also Muslim Congressmen.  They all want to impose Sharia on you and I.  So they must be stopped too.  All two of them.

Now that you understand the ideology behind the SIOA, let me ask you: can you imagine the reaction of the public if Muslim-Americans founded a group called “Stop the Judaization of America” (SJOA)?  Pamela Geller is Jewish. What do you think she’d think of such a group?  She’d yell “anti-Semitism” at the top of her lungs.  And so would you.  And so would I.

Now, can you imagine for a second, if Imam Rauf–the Imam of the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”–was part of a group called “Stop the Judaization of America”?  Or what if Ahmed Rehab was a co-founder of this group?  Do you think he’d be invited to make rounds on the cable news networks like Pamela Geller has been?  Do you think he would be called on as an expert to explain his views, like news organizations have called on Geller?  Do you think they would talk to the leader of the SJOA seriously, or do you think they would tear the leader of such a group a new one?

But let’s think about it for a second.  How many Jews are there in the country?  According to one reliable study, about 1.3% of the U.S. population is Jewish, compared to 0.5% for Muslims.  That means there are more than twice as many Jews as Muslims in the country.  So, the SJOA has twice the reason to exist over the SIOA.  If you think it’s ludicrous that 1.3% of the U.S. population is taking over the remaining 98.7% (as I do)–and if you would laugh in someone’s face who would claim such a thing–then how do you take someone seriously who claims that less than half of that is going to take over the remaining 99.5% of us?

It’s beyond absurd!  The entire premise of the organization, and their entire paradigm is ridiculous.  Next time anyone debates Geller, please just ask her very calmly: “Do you really think the Muslims, who constitute 0.5% of the population, are going to take over?”  And then laugh at her.  And make sure to laugh in a conceited and haughty tone. Scoff.  Because that’s what nut jobs who claim such a thing deserve.  They don’t deserve to be treated seriously.

If you think there are too many Muslim Congressman (there are two!) and you think the emergence of Muslim Congressmen is proof of the Islamization of America, then a member of the SJOA would have even more right to fear the Judaization of America, considering that there are over 40 Jewish Congressmen.  In fact, they are way overrepresented in the Congress, so this must be proof of the Judaization of America!  Save yourself!

Let’s compare how many Jewish people are in the media vs Muslims.  It wouldn’t even be a comparison.  What about synagogues vs mosques?  I’m betting there are ten times as many synagogues.  And what about lobbies?  Whose lobby is more powerful?  Can you say AIPAC?

If a person is to be considered an anti-Semite for thinking that the Jews are Judaizing the country, then so too should people be labeled as Islamophobes if they worry about the Islamization of America.

In fact, the idea that Jews are taking over Europe or America is an old one, and was responsible for a lot of Jewish persecution. Today, it’s true that the “Jew” has been replaced by the “Muslim.” For some odd reason though, we just don’t react the same way when we hear the exact same thing against Muslims.

The truth of the matter is as one Muslim-American comedian put it when he imitated a radical Imam, saying: “Today, we are going to establish the religion of Islam!  But first I have a couple announcements to make: we need to raise some money to buy a shampoo machine for the carpet…”  The idea that Muslim-Americans could somehow take over the country is ludicrous.  They barely have enough money to shampoo the carpet…

I’m forming another group: Stop the Loonization of America (SLOA).  I’ll give you a Free Hat if you join.

The anti-Muslim movement is gaining momentum

Danial Luban examines the people and ideas behind the growing anti-Muslim hysteria. What he finds is a mixture of crusader-inspired nuts and right wing politicians willing to compromise sanity for electoral success.

The New Anti-Semitism

by Daniel Luban

After Abraham Foxman waded into the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy,opposing ^[1] plans to construct an Islamic community center a few blocks from the World Trade Center site, the Anti-Defamation League chief was assailed by critics who charged that the ADL was giving license to bigotry and betraying its historic mission “to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike.” A week after initially coming out against the mosque, Foxman announced that the ADL was bowing out of the controversy, but the damage to the group’s reputation had been done.

The problem for the ADL is that there simply isn’t much anti-Semitism of consequence in the United States these days. While anti-Semitism continues to thrive elsewhere in the world and to molder on the fringes of American society, Jews have by now been fully assimilated into the American ruling class and into the mainstream of American life. A mundane event like the recent wedding of Protestant Chelsea Clinton and Jewish Marc Mezvinsky drove this point home. What was notable was not the question “will she convert?” but how little importance anyone attached to the answer; the former first daughter’s choice between Judaism and Christianity seemed as inconsequential as the choice between Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism would have a few decades ago.

At the same time, many of the tropes of classic anti-Semitism have been revived and given new force on the American right. Once again jingoistic politicians and commentators posit a religious conspiracy breeding within Western society, pledging allegiance to an alien power, conspiring with allies at the highest levels of government to overturn the existing order. Because the propagators of these conspiracy theories are not anti-Semitic but militantly pro-Israel, and because their targets are not Jews but Muslims, the ADL and other Jewish groups have had little to say about them. But since the election of President Barack Obama, this Islamophobic discourse has rapidly intensified.

While the political operatives behind the anti-mosque campaign speak the language of nativism and American exceptionalism, their ideology is itself something of a European import. Most of the tropes of the American “anti-jihadists,” as they call themselves, are taken from European models: a “creeping” imposition of sharia, Muslim allegiance to the ummah ^[2] rather than to the nation-state, the coming demographic crisis as Muslims outbreed their Judeo-Christian counterparts. In recent years the call-to-arms about the impending Islamicization of Europe has become a well-worn genre ^[3], ranging from more sophisticated treatments like Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe to cruder polemics like Mark Steyn’s America Alone and Bat Ye’or’s Eurabia.

It would be a mistake to seek too precise a correspondence between the new Islamophobia and the old anti-Semitism, which differ in some key respects. Jews have never threatened to become a numerical majority, or even a sizable minority, in any European country, so anxiety about Jewish power naturally gravitated toward the myth of the shadowy elite manipulating the majority from behind the scenes. By contrast, anti-Muslim anxiety has focused on the supposed demographic threat posed by Muslims, in which the dusky hordes overwhelm the West by sheer weight of numbers. (“The sons of Allah breed like rats,” as the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci put it.) It may be that in many ways this Islamophobia shares more of the tropes of traditional anti-Catholicism than classic anti-Semitism.

But if the tropes do not always line up, there is some notable continuity in the players involved. One of the most striking stories of recent years has been the realignment of segments of the European far right behind a form of militant support for Israel. Much of the traditional neofascist right remains both anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic, but savvier far-right leaders have realized that by dropping the anti-Semitic elements of their platforms and doubling down on Islamophobia, they can tap into a new base of support from pro-Israel hawks across the Atlantic. Both the British National Party and the Vlaams Belang in Belgium have gone this route, although it remains questionable whether the move away from anti-Semitism is more than skin-deep. (The Vlaams Belang’s predecessor party, for instance, was disbanded after a controversy ^[4] concerning Holocaust-denying statements made by one of its top officials.) Equally striking has been the rise of Geert Wilders, the controversial Dutch politician whose Islamophobia, virulent enough to draw thecondemnation ^[5] of even the ADL, has made him a darling of “anti-jihadists” in the United States.

Although there was a predictable upsurge in anti-Muslim sentiments in the United States following the Sept. 11 attacks, much of the most virulent Islamophobic discourse remained marginal on this side of the Atlantic in the early years of the war on terror. There are several possible reasons for this, but one of the most important is simply that George W. Bush, as president, was committed to a rhetoric about Islam as a “religion of peace” divided into a moderate majority and an extremist minority. The justification for the Iraq war came to depend heavily on this distinction, and right-wing hawks, with some grumbling, generally fell into line. The election of Obama, however, freed the hawks from any obligation to temper their rhetoric and simultaneously provided ample material for conspiracy theories about Muslims and fellow travelers in the White House. The result has been an intensification both in the amount of Islamophobia and in its political prominence, as ideas that were once marginal have moved to the center of political debate.

***

The two years since Obama’s election have seen a sudden flood of books describing an alleged Muslim conspiracy against the United States. Examples include Robert Spencer’s Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam Is Subverting America Without Guns Or Bombs, Spencer and Pamela Geller’s new The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War On America, Paul Sperry’sInfiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington, and Sperry and P. David Gaubatz’s Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.

The works share a set of common themes. Radical Muslims who engage in violence are only the tip of the iceberg, goes the argument; the more insidious threat comes from the far larger group of religious Muslims (most, perhaps all) who aim to subjugate the United States under sharia law through ostensibly peaceful and legal means. In this they are aided and abetted by the leftist elites controlling the government, media, and academy—above all, the ambiguously Muslim Obama himself—and a cast of villains that includes some mix of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jeremiah Wright, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Obama adviser Dalia Mogahed, ACORN, and George Soros. Some of the authors of these works have ties to the European far right themselves; Geller and Spencer, for instance, have alienated former political allies by championing Geert Wilders and the Vlaams Belang.
Andrew C. McCarthy’s The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America is among the most recent, and likely the most comprehensive, contributions to the genre. McCarthy is, on the surface, a credible figure: A former federal prosecutor, he came to prominence by winning convictions against Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and others linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. During the Bush years, he was a vociferous defender of the administration’s detainee policies, while Obama’s election caused him to venture into nuttier territory. (He has speculated ^[6], for instance, that Bill Ayers may have been the real author of Obama’s Dreams From My Father.) His book helps illustrate both the potency of the Muslim-conspiracy myth and the extent to which it has taken hold of mainstream right-wing discourse.

McCarthy’s thesis is simple: Muslims aiming “to supplant American constitutional democracy with sharia law” have joined forces with leftists—including Obama himself—to impose a shared “totalitarian, collectivist” vision. Which Muslims? McCarthy hints that the real problem is Islam itself but that for reasons of political correctness it is wiser to stick to the term “Islamist”—a distinction that loses some of its force given his estimation that two-thirds of Muslims are Islamists. (Indeed, he applies the term to some, like Edward Said, who were not Muslims at all.)

The bulk of the Muslim population, then, aims to impose sharia over every aspect of American life. How will they do this? Through violence, if need be—but McCarthy is keen to note that Islamists are above all master dissimulators who will seek to impose sharia through legal means if they can (“grand-jihad-by-sabotage,” he calls it). This means that even peaceful attempts to follow Islam through strictly private means (for instance, through sharia-compliant finance) are simply precursors to a takeover of the overall system. Muslims who live within religious or ethnic enclaves are not merely trying to remain within a familiar community or preserve shared values; rather, they are presented as deviously following the “voluntary apartheid” strategy of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood—the group whose “global tentacles” extend into nearly every Muslim-American civil society organization. It is too obvious to be worth belaboring that no one would dream of applying a similar logic to Orthodox Jews or evangelical Christian homeschoolers.

At times, McCarthy speaks the language of religious tolerance, arguing simply that Islam should not have a “sacrosanct status” denied to other religions. Yet it becomes increasingly clear that he is in fact arguing for special targeting and discriminatory measures against Islam, and he eventually concedes that he believes it is wrong to place Judaism and Christianity “on a par with an inherently discriminatory, supremacist doctrine.” As a result, “foreign Muslims should not be permitted to reside in America unless they can demonstrate their acceptance of American constitutional principles.” (But how, given the Muslim propensity for dissimulation, can we be sure that their professions of loyalty are genuine?)

The Islamist threat to the United States, McCarthy further argues, would not be so dire if it weren’t for their alliance with the leftists who “dominate policy circles, the academy, and the media.” The most important of these, of course, is Obama himself. Obama “publicly professes” to be a Christian, and McCarthy generously allows that there is no reason to doubt him—although he goes on to include two full chapters on Obama’s Muslim roots—before asserting that the “faith to which Obama actually clings is neocommunism.” This distinction ultimately matters little, however, for the Marxism of Obama and the rest of the American elite coalesces in key respects with the Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood and its American minions.

The overall tone and content of McCarthy’s polemic will be familiar to students of 1850s Know-Nothing anti-Catholicism or 1950s anti-Communism—or, for that matter, late-19th-century European anti-Semitism. It is tempting to dismiss him as a crackpot, and on an obvious level he is one. But his speculations and those of his fellows are far from irrelevant to the political moment. They are not being published in anonymous blog comments sections, but in widely publicized and bestselling books. More to the point, they have already made a notable impact on American political discourse.

The mosque furor is only the most recent and revealing demonstration of the anti-jihadists’ political influence; from the beginning of the controversy, McCarthy and his allies have dictated the terms of debate on the right. In his July 28 statement attacking the Islamic center, Newt Gingrich cited The Grand Jihad and framed the controversy in McCarthy’s terms of Western civilization under siege from creeping sharia. More recently, the American Family Association—a leading fundamentalist Christian group—cited the book to argue that no more mosques should be built anywhere in the United States because “each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.” A campaign spearheaded by Pamela Geller, the right-wing blogger who was previously most notorious for publishing a lengthy piece alleging that Obama is the illegitimate child of Malcolm X, will place ads on New York City buses opposing the Islamic center. On September 11, she and Gingrich will lead a major rally against the center that will also feature Wilders, the Islamophobic Dutch politician. What was once a lunatic fringe now appears to be running the show, aided and abetted by mainstream figures like Gingrich.

It is quite possible that the next Republican president will also be a party to what can justly be called the new McCarthyism; for that reason alone, McCarthy and his allies deserve our attention. But even more important is the impact of this steady stream of anti-Muslim vitriol on the popular consciousness. Cynical politicians like Gingrich may know that all the talk of the Islamic center as a “9/11 victory monument” and of ordinary Muslims as stealth sharia operatives is mere agitprop designed to win votes in an election year, but ordinary citizens may take them at their word and act accordingly.

While activists like Pam Geller have led the anti-mosque campaign and the broader demonization of Muslims that has accompanied it, leaders like Abe Foxman have acquiesced in it. In doing so they risk providing an ugly and ironic illustration of the extent of Jewish assimilation in 21st-century America. We know that Jews can grow up to be senators and Supreme Court justices. Let’s not also discover that they can grow up to incite a pogrom.

Daniel Luban is a doctoral student in political science at the University of Chicago.

A powerful piece by Ahmed Rehab in the Huffington Post laying the bottom line about the swelling controversy surrounding the “mosque at Ground Zero.”  (hat tip: Schmorgus)

The Untold Story of the Mosque at Ground Zero

by Ahmed Rehab | Huffington Post

Americans have a right to assemble and worship freely in this country, period. It’s not only a founding principle of this nation, but a main justification for its founding. It is why many White Christians flooded to this country in the first place.

Those opposed to American Muslims practicing their right to build a religious and cultural center on their private property near Ground Zero and in concordance with all laws and regulations reluctantly concede that they have no legal grounds to challenge it. So they argue instead that they should voluntarily forgo their right out of sensitivity for the sacredness of that site.

This is a particularly disingenuous line.

If it is about sensitivity for the sacred, then why aren’t those same people opposing the deli, bar, coffee shop, and offices, or strip club for that matter, that are open for business in that same sacred vicinity?

What is particularly indecent or insensitive about American Muslims building a house of peace, community, and worship that doesn’t apply to the New York Dolls gentlemen’s club?

Let’s be blunt: it is only indecent and insensitive if you buy into the canard that American Muslims are somehow collectively guilty for 9/11. That is the coded message at the heart of opposition to the center. It is a message we reject on its face.

American Muslims bear no collective guilt or blame for the crime of 9/11. We have nothing to apologize for and everything to be proud of, including our loyalty and hard-earned livelihoods. We are not guest citizens, we are not second-rate citizens; we reject marginalization and require no validation. We are equal citizens living and worshipping in our country.

We are part and parcel of the diversity of America including the diversity of the 3,000 people who died on 9/11. We are part of the diversity of the hundreds who were injured and those who were first responders to Ground Zero. We are part of the diversity of the millions who grieved and still grieve. When “they” attacked “us,” we were attacked. We are part of the “us” not the “they.”

The whole brouhaha about the “Mosque at Ground Zero” is frankly bogus. It has little to do with sacred ground, or sensitive hearts. It does however have everything to do with the exploitation of the sacred and the sensitive for the furtherance of the sacrilegious and the insensitive: the phenomenon of Muslim-bashing that is ravaging our nation today.

The Cordoba House, now Park51, is an old story. In fact, it was reported on in the New York Times and other mainstream media as far back as two years ago. Why the frenzy now?

That’s not all: Muslims have been worshipping at Mosque Manhattan a few blocks away from Ground Zero, long before Ground Zero was Ground Zero; in fact, since 1970, before the twin towers were the twin towers.

So again, why the sudden frenzy?

Failure to ask “why” is a collective indictment of the media establishment (with a few notable exceptions). Just as the media shirked its responsibilities in questioning the Bush administration on the justifications for the war in Iraq, now too it fails to properly investigate, scrutinize, and report the origins of this controversy. Here is what it failed to tell you:

The”Ground Zero Mosque” fiasco is a fabricated controversy that traces its origins to a couple of long-time anti-Muslim goons from the annals of the hate blogosphere by the names of Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller as a flagship campaign of their newly founded organization, Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA). SIOA is part of an emerging phenomenon of astroturf anti-Muslim organizations that seek to project any public expression of Muslim life in this country as tantamount to a stealth “Islamization of America.” (Except it’s not so stealth since everyone and their mother is talking about it).

It was SIOA that first coined the misnomer “Mosque at Ground Zero,” purposely twisting the reality that the proposed Muslim cultural center near Ground Zero is neither a Mosque nor at Ground Zero. It was the SIOA that sought to redefine Imam Rauf as a radical Imam even though he was heralded by the Bush administration, the FBI and others as a moderate voice of reason. It was the SIOA and its partners that ruthlessly sought to stoke the fears and suspicions of otherwise good, unsuspecting Americans.

The fact that bigots see fit to peddle sensational drivel for a living is not shocking.

The fact that the media is unwilling or incapable of calling it out is disturbing.

The fact that a significant segment of this population stands to be duped by it is disappointing.

And the fact that public officials who should know better are all too content pandering to the bigoted, misguided, and confused in search of votes this election season is outright nauseating.

Here’s another under reported fact:

The battle raging on now is not one that pits Muslims on one side and non-Muslims on the other as critics would have you believe. It is in fact a showdown between Americans of all backgrounds (Muslim and otherwise) who are fighting for the freedom and dignity of what it means to be American, on one side; and those who are willing to throw those values under the bus in exchange for publicity, notoriety, ratings, or votes, on the other.

It is a struggle between those wishing to affirm our pluralism and our equality as color-blind, race-blind, and faith-blind citizens and those wishing to immerse us into identity politics that make some more equal than others.

The Park51 battle is a microcosm of this generation’s struggle for the soul of America.

That’s the untold “Mosque at Ground Zero” story any red-blooded American journalist who still has respect for the integrity of the profession should be telling.

It seems like more people are catching on to Spencer’s lies. Here’s a new book available at Amazon.com.

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, N.J., Aug. 19 /PRNewswire/ — Incensed with how much the American public are lied to about Islam (the latest rampant Islamophobia regarding building the mosque near Ground Zero and the planned burning of the Holy Quran in a Florida church), well-known Muslim American scholar Moustafa Zayed struck back by releasing the anticipated book “The Lies about Muhammad,” in which he refuted, paragraph by paragraph, all false claims and allegations about Muhammad and Islam in the well-publicized Islam-bashing book “The Truth about Muhammad” by Robert Spencer. Zayed explains that, “My contention is that all misperceptions that the average American has about Islam (from what jihad truly is, to what women, minorities, and human rights are), are not just outright fallacious but, worse, are the total opposite of the truth!”

Zayed comments, “Today’s Islamophobia is not a misunderstanding, or a difference in beliefs or opinions, but a deliberate fabrication and misinformation of clear facts perpetrated upon the American people.” Zayed gave an example: In his book, Mr. Spencer brought a verse from the Quran, claiming that it proves that Islamic law mandates male witnesses of “sexual immortality” in order to support the male criminal! It appears that Mr. Spencer has intentionally omitted the first sentence of the verse that shows it is only related to recording debts!
Zayed asks further, “If Islam is that awful, why is it that it was not only the only religion that grew in America the past 18 years, but actually doubled in population?” He continues, “Islam is the same religion whose Prophet made the condition to enter paradise to ‘spread peace amongst yourselves.’ If it is inherently a violent and intolerant religion, why is it the fastest growing religion in the entire world, with over 1.6 billion followers?” Zayed adds ominously, “Some people are seriously misled about Islam.”
Zayed, featured as a leading scholar in Britain’s Ch. 4 documentary “Islam in America,” adds about the 400 page book “The Lies about Muhammad,” “I didn’t just refute over 154 false claims with my own word against theirs, but with the most undisputed Islamic references, historical facts, common sense logic, testimonies from some of the world’s greatest thinkers, and even evidence straight from the Torah and New Testament.”
“The Lies about Muhammad” has just been released on amazon.com.
Contact: Moustafa Zayed
732-698-8812
theliesaboutmuhammad@gmail.com
http://www.theliesaboutmuhammad.com

UPDATED below (8/20/10).

Michelle Boorstein, a journalist with the Washington Post has written on anti-Muslim bigots Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer and their growing influence amongst Conservatives. We have extensively followed these two, providing evidence of their hate, bigotry, genocidal rants, and pseudo-scholarship through links, snapshots and in-context quotes.

Boorstein puts on the kids gloves when tackling these two, and labels them “Islam critics.” However, they are more than  mere “critics” of Islam, (a statement one might make of Orientalist Bernard Lewis), they are anti-Muslim Islamophobes. They wallow in, pander and promote the vilest and weirdest conspiracy theories about Islam and Muslims, and sometimes non-Muslims as well.

Boorstein’s article, though it recognizes Geller and Spencer as the principal front figures and activists propelling the anti-mosque agitation is at the end of the day an epic failure due to its neutrality. Despite one mention of Geller’s nutty claim that Obama was the “love child” of Malcolm X, it glosses over the plethora of bigoted, hateful, irrational and borderline genocidal statements Geller has made.

When it comes to Robert Spencer the failure is even more pronounced, Boorstein cites Islamophobe Daniel Pipes (whom she dubs, “perhaps the most prominent US scholar on radical Islam”) opinion of Spencer as a “serious scholar.” This is like a kid being asked what grade his best friend should get on his report card, especially since Pipes considers himself allied with Spencer and Geller against similar “enemies.”

Pipes, according to Boorstein claims to be in the middle now, but that is belied by the fact that he admits he is “raising money” for the “most anti-Islam” individual out there, Dutch politician Geert Wilders, to supposedly “protect freedom of speech.”

Wilders you will remember says Islam is not a religion, compares the Quran to the Mein Kampf and wants it banned, wants to tax the hijab, and repatriate “criminal” Dutch Muslim citizens to their lands of origin. So how in his right mind can Pipes claim to be in the middle?

In the same breathe that Pipes says the “anti-Islam” agitation is growing in the US he admits that the “anti-Islam” bloggers (presumably including Spencer and Geller) have brought an “unsophisticated tone to the debate,” but then nimbly moves to say he shares the “same goals” as them. Double talk anyone? In reality the divide between Pipes and Spencer is a difference without a distinction.

You cannot have your cake and eat it as well. You can’t say that you don’t share in the methodology or beliefs of vociferous anti-Muslims whose goals are to eradicate Islam and strip Muslims of their citizenship but then join them because you have similar goals of “preserving freedom.” That is hypocrisy wrapped up in a contradiction.

In the mean time what is being missed by reporters and journalists in news papers and on TV alike is that these mere “critics” of Islam are at the forefront of a growing, organized anti-Muslim movement. The Park51 “Ground Zero” mosque controversy did not come out of nowhere, it is part of a plan to dig up and spread controversy about Islam and Muslims.

What is surprising is that Michelle Boorstein made no mention of the link between Geller and Spencer and the anti-Muslim movement, especially considering we featured her as an anti-loon in June for asking the question in her blog, “How influential will anti-Muslims become?”

What is the future of the anti-Muslim movement in the United States?

For years there has been a small but passionate group of people concerned with the influence of Islam, and their activism seemed to be largely focused on blogging and lobbying political conservatives. But their presence — and the arguments they raise — seem to be coming into the broader sphere of late.

There’s the fight over a mosque at the Ground Zero site, and this weekend the on-line electronic payment firm PayPal reportedly cut off the anti-Muslim blog Atlas Shrugs, saying it’s a hate site.

Needless to say, this has prompted a roar from Atlas Shrugs supporters who see political bias.

Commentators across the spectrum, from the libertarian Becket Fund to the progressive Media Matters are asking: Where is this anti-Muslim movement going? How significantly will it steer the debate in this country about religious freedom and bias?

Why couldn’t she make that connection about these two leaders in the anti-Muslim movement in this article? Is it a reversal of nomenclature on her part due to pressure from the anti-Muslims? Hopefully she is not kowtowing to pressure.

Boorstein mentions Loonwatch towards the end of her piece (hat tip: Marco). One sentence, in a very obscure paragraph.

A site monitoring the Muslim critics is called Loonwatch. Conspiracy theories on the blogs about murder attempts and bestiality are common. People on both sides say they get death threats and thus can’t disclose where they live.

This paragraph is odd and it is a poor transition from the previous paragraph. Loonwatch does not monitor “Muslim critics” which is what that sentence implies. Muslims and Islam may justifiably be criticized by anyone. We don’t have a problem with that. We monitor anti-Muslims and Islamophobes. The paragraph also doesn’t specifically assign the “conspiracy theories” and “bestiality” to the Spencer and Geller blogs and for that reason is too ambiguous. It leaves the door open for people to think we partake in “conspiracy theories” or talk about “murder attempts” and “bestiality” which we do not.

Boorstein could have used a number of our posts and pieces to highlight how insane it is for the Right-wing to allow these two Muslim haters to rise up to stardom in their ranks. How, in fact they belong on the periphery amongst the fringe, but she chose not to and for that reason her article leaves a lot wanting.

However, I did find the final few sentences of her piece quite revealing,

Asked if he was being deliberately combative and provocative, Spencer chuckled.

“Why not?” he asked. “It’s fun.”

This gives us a glimpse into who Spencer is and what he really is about. He finds the fact that he is dooping Conservatives and others in America by creating controversy funny. It is not at all about being a “serious objective scholar,” it is all about the anti-Muslim crusade.

Update: Michelle Boorstein changed the title of her article it is no longer, In flap over mosque near Ground Zero, conservative writers gaining influence, now it is “The pens of anti-Muslim conservatives impact N.Y.C. mosque debate mightily.” She deserves kudos for that.

Robert Spencer: Ground Zero Strip Club is OK, No to Islamic Cultural Center

by Rousseau

How a strip club “at” Ground Zero doesn’t cheapen the sanctity of Ground Zero, while an Islamic cultural center does, is only something a wannabe conquistador could fathom.

Robert Spencer is enraged at the wording used by Politico’s Ben Smith in describing the so-called Ground Zero mosque as “actually a few blocks north of the site…” For Spencer, anywhere you can see Ground Zero may be hallowed ground.

Spencer says:

In the first place, the mosque will not be a few blocks away. I have been to the site, and can tell you: walk half a block down the street from the Burlington Coat Factory that is set to be the site of the mega-mosque, turn left, and you will see Ground Zero. Smith and Haberman have apparently never been to the site, as no one who has could characterize it as “a few blocks north.” It is actually just 600 feet away from Ground Zero.

See, since you can walk a half-block down from the proposed mosque site and then turn to your left and see Ground Zero from 600 feet away this means that the mosque is actually “at” Ground Zero. Right.

So next time you’re looking over the New York skyline from the Empire State Building, remember that you’re standing on hallowed ground even though you’re a mile away from Ground Zero. Or hey, looking at Ground Zero from Google Maps could even make your bedroom hallowed ground.

This is a game of semantics. Spencer is arguing that the mosque is not a few blocks away from Ground Zero, but a mere 600 feet away. So? The implication is that by being 600 feet away, the mosque “near” Ground Zero is in fact “at” Ground Zero. Therefore, the mosque shouldn’t be there. What’s silly about all this is that “the actual mosque location is surrounded by delis, coffeeshops, bars, offices — not to mention a strip club a few feet away from the proposed site,” as Danial Luban points out. None of these trivial and even erotic sites enrage Spencer like the mosque does. How a strip club “at” Ground Zero doesn’t cheapen the sanctity of Ground Zero, while an Islamic cultural center does, is only something a wannabe conquistador could fathom.

Read the rest of the article here.

This is Inoconnu’s refutation of Chapter 6 of Robert Spencer’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).  After reading this, check out Danios’ article at SpencerWatch, which analyzes the concept of taqiyya in great detail..

An oft-used intellectual cop-out by many Islam-haters is the so-called doctrine of taqiyya. The Islam-haters, such as Robert Spencer, claim taqiyya is the willful deception of Muslims towards non-Muslims. Whenever a Muslim would say or write something positive about Islam, it is all taqiyya. This is what Spencer has to say in his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades):

Muhammad minced no words about the necessity of telling the truth…However, as with so many other Islamic principles, this is largely a matter between believers. When it comes to unbelievers–particularly those who are at war with Muslims–Muhammad enunciated a quite different principle: “War is deceit.” Specifically, he taught that lying was permissible in battle…

When Shi’ite Muslims were persecuted by Sunnis, they developed the doctrine of taqiyya, or concealment: They could lie about what they believed, denying aspects of their faith that were offensive to Sunnis…Closely related to this is the doctrine of kitman, or mental reservation, which is telling the truth, but not the whole truth, with an intention to mislead…Remember that the next time you see a Muslim spokesman on television professing his friendship with non-Muslim Americans and his loyalty to the United States. Of course, he may be telling the truth–but he may not be telling the whole truth or he may be just lying. (pp.79-81)

Clearly, his implication is the latter, not the former: the Muslim is not telling the whole truth or “may be just lying.”

Yet, it is necessary to begin with the principle of truthfulness in Islam, which Spencer himself admitted the Prophet Muhammad stressed. Many thanks to Sheila Musaji for compiling the following verses and Prophetic traditions, of which are posted a few:

“And cover not Truth with falsehood, nor conceal the Truth when ye know (what it is).  (Qur’an, 2:42)”

“If ye are on a journey, and cannot find a scribe, a pledge with possession (may serve the purpose). And if one of you deposits a thing on trust with another, Let the trustee (Faithfully) discharge His trust, and let him fear his Lord. Conceal not evidence; for whoever conceals it,- His heart is tainted with sin. And God Knoweth all that ye do.  (Qur’an, 2:283)”

“O ye who believe! Stand out firmly For justice, as witnesses To Allah, even as against Yourselves, or your parents, Or your kin, and whether It be (against) rich or poor: For Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (Of your hearts), lest ye Swerve, and if ye Distort (justice) or decline To do justice, verily Allah is well-acquainted With all that ye do.  (Qur’an, 4:135)”

[...]

Abdullah bin Mas`ud (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet (PBUH) said, “Truth leads to piety and piety leads to Jannah. A man persists in speaking the truth till he is enrolled with Allah as a truthful. Falsehood leads to vice and vice leads to the Fire (Hell), and a person persists on telling lies until he is enrolled as a liar”.’

It was narrated from Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “The signs of the hypocrite are three: when he speaks, he lies; when he makes a promise, he breaks it; and when he is entrusted with something, he betrays that trust.” (Narrated by al-Bukhari, 33; Muslim, 59)

Hasan bin `Ali (May Allah be pleased with them) said: I remember (these words) from Messenger of Allah (PBUH): “Give up what is doubtful to you for that which is not doubtful; for truth is peace of mind and falsehood is doubt”.  [At-Tirmidhi].

Hakim bin Hizam (May Allah be pleased with him) reported that: Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: “Both parties in a business transaction have a right to annul it so long as they have not separated; and if they tell the truth and make everything clear to each other (i.e., the seller and the buyer speak the truth, the seller with regard to what is purchased, and the buyer with regard to the money) they will be blessed in their transaction, but if they conceal anything and lie, the blessing on their transaction will be eliminated.’‘
[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].

It is clear that Islam (and its Prophet) stresses the utmost importance of speaking the truth and being as truthful as possible. Spencer himself admits this, but he inserts a (huge) caveat that it is only “between believers.” As will be seen, this is completely untrue.

Let us begin with Spencer’s first indictment of the Prophet: “War is deceit.”

This statement comes from the Battle of the Trench. After the siege of the city of Medina had lasted for almost 30 days, and the Muslims were in dire straits.  The Prophet Muhammad asked a man named Nuaym ibn Masud to break the deadly siege somehow.  Nuaym said he could do this but that “this requires me to lie.”

Let’s stop here. Why did he ask this permission from the Prophet Muhammad if, according to Spencer, lying to non-believers is standard practice? Because, as noted above, the principle in Islam is honesty. The Prophet gave him specific permission to lie saying, “War is deceit.”

This is the context of the Prophet’s statement, “War is deceit.” Spencer, however, claims that this phrase, “War is deceit,” gives Muslims carte blance to lie to all non-Muslims all the time. Logically, it is pure rubbish.

Yet, when one thinks of it, is not good policy to deceive one’s enemy during war? Is it not good strategy to decieve the enemy in order to defeat him? What is wrong with saying, “War is deceit”? Yet, are there others that have said the same thing?

Of course!

In fact, “War is deceit” is one of the oldest military principles in history. It is found in none other than The Art of War by Sun Tzu, a Chinese strategist from the Sixth Century B.C. This book is the oldest military treatise in the world. In Part I, principle No. 18 says:

All warfare is based on deception.

Was Sun Tzu advocating Taqiyya? Is this something to be condemned, as Spencer condemns the Prophet?

How about the Trojan Horse, a story from one of the oldest poems in Western Civilization?

Still seeking to gain entrance into Troy, clever Odysseus (some say with the aid of Athena) ordered a large wooden horse to be built. Its insides were to be hollow so that soldiers could hide within it.

Once the statue had been built by the artist Epeius, a number of the Greek warriors, along with Odysseus, climbed inside. The rest of the Greek fleet sailed away, so as to deceive the Trojans.

One man, Sinon, was left behind. When the Trojans came to marvel at the huge creation, Sinon pretended to be angry with the Greeks, stating that they had deserted him. He assured the Trojans that the wooden horse was safe and would bring luck to the Trojans.

Only two people, Laocoon and Cassandra, spoke out against the horse, but they were ignored. The Trojans celebrated what they thought was their victory, and dragged the wooden horse into Troy.

That night, after most of Troy was asleep or in a drunken stupor, Sinon let the Greek warriors out from the horse, and they slaughtered the Trojans.

Were the Greeks also practicing Taqiyya? Why doesn’t Spencer condemn the Greeks, the Fathers of Western Civilization, for practicing deceit in times of war?

Not only did Sun Tzu write of deception in warfare, but Italian Renaissance thinker Niccolo Machiavelli wrote:

Though fraud in other activities may be detestable, in the management of war it is laudable and glorious, and he who overcomes the enemy by fraud is as much to be praised as he who does by force.

How about more recent times? During World War II, there was a military operation called “Operation Fortitude.” It was a disinformation campaign to deceive the Germans about the Normandy invasion:

“Fortitude” was the codename given to the decoy (or disinformation) mission mounted by the Allies to deceive the Germans about the date and above all the place of the landings. The latter were convinced that the British and American attack would come in the Pas-de-Calais area and it was important not to disillusion them. They therefore had to be made to think that a whole group of armies was present in Kent, opposite the Pas-de-Calais.

To deceive the German observation planes, which their antiaircraft defences did their best to avoid, the local estuaries, creeks and harbours were crammed with dummy landing craft, made out of bits and bobs. A giant oil pumping head for PLUTO (made from papier mâché) was erected near Dover, while large numbers of inflatable rubber tanks were positioned in the fields. Plywood vehicles and guns lined the roadsides. At night, convoys of lorries ‑ always the same ones – drove back and forth across the region. For the benefit of the Germans, a team of technicians maintained constant radio traffic between totally fictitious units.

Fortitude succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Long after June 6^th, Hitler remained convinced that the Normandy Landings were a diversionary tactic to induce him to move his troops away from the Pas-de-Calais, so that a decisive attack could then be launched there. He therefore kept his best units in readiness there, until the end of July, desperately scanning an empty horizon, while the fate of the war was being decided in Normandy.

Dr. Joseph Caddell, Lecturer on Military History at North Carolina State University, wrote in 2004:

Deception in warfare is probably as old as armed conflict itself. The logic of confusing an adversary is obvious, and the rewards can be realized very quickly.

On the website of the Air University, the military education system for the United States Air Force, there is a list of numerous books, documents, and periodicals that chronicle deception in WW I and WW II. Here is just some of the examples of the books written about deception in warfare:

Barros, James and Gregor, James. Double Deception: Stalin, Hitler, and the Invasion of Russia. DeKalb, IL, Northern Illinois University Press, 1995. 307 p.
Book call no.: 940.532247 B277d

Basic Deception and the Normandy Invasion. New York, Garland, 1989. 1 vol.
Book call no.: 940.5485 C873 v.15

Breuer, William B. Hoodwinking Hitler: The Normandy Deception. Westport, CT, Praeger, 1993. 263 p.
Book call no.: 940.54 B846h

Breuer, William B. The Secret War with Germany: Deception, Espionage, and Dirty Tricks 1939-1945. Novato, CA, 1988. 318 p.
Book call no.: 940.5485 B846s

As is quite clear, deception during times of warfare is not only standard procedure, but is a laudable and necessary tactic. Our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan use deception every single day to try to defeat the enemy. They would be blameworthy if they did not do so. Why doesn’t Robert Spencer condemn Sun Tzu, or the Greeks, or Allied Forces in WW II, or the U.S. Air Force for advocating deception in warfare? After all, all of these people also believe, as the Prophet Muhammad did, that “war is deceit.”

Robert Spencer’s claim that “war is deceit” to impugn the Prophet Muhammad and Islam is another case of Spenceritis. It is logical rubbish, and makes a mockery of the claim that Robert Spencer is any sort of “scholar” about Islam.

Also check out Danios’ excellent article on the same topic available on SpencerWatch.com. He refutes every single argument the Islamophobes raise about taqiyya.

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) ranked Robert Spencer as the second leading Islamophobe in the country, losing out the number one position to his boss and financier David Horowitz.  Former Nixon advisor Robert Crane calls out Spencer as “the principal leader…in the new academic field of Islam-bashing.”  Even though Horowitz can be credited with funding the modern day online Crusade against Islam, it is Robert Spencer who fights on the online battlefield, attacking his Muslim foes and their liberal dhimmi allies.  In order to bolster his credibility, Spencer and his allies not only claim that he is a scholar, but his own website touts him as “the acclaimed scholar of Islam”.  Because these words are boldly emblazoned on his own site, we can only assume that he takes such claims seriously.  It is thus fair game to call him to task for this.

His claims notwithstanding, Robert Spencer simply does not possess any scholarly credentials.  To be seriously considered a scholar in the academic world in this day and age, one must at minimum possess some rudimentary academic education in the field in which one is claiming scholarship. In order to be considered a scholar, one must have published numerous peer-reviewed articles in reputable journals, the articles being subjected to rigorous critique by established authorities before being accepted.  First year students in Ph.D. programs have published far more of such articles than Robert Spencer ever has.  There is good reason for that: Spencer has published no such articles, contenting  himself with reproducing work in non-academic and populist publications.  Spencer does not even possess a Master’s Degree in anything related to Islam, let alone a Ph.D. and post-doctoral fellowship.  Spencer does have in M.A. in the field of early Christian studies; does that make him a scholar of Christianity?  If not, then why is he considered a scholar of Islam without even an M.A. in Islamic studies?

It seems that Spencer wishes to bypass the minimum of eight years of studies needed to even be considered a serious student (let alone a scholar) and wishes simply to anoint himself the title of “scholar.”  It is difficult to take any of his supporters seriously when they claim someone is “the acclaimed scholar of Islam” when he does not even have a Master’s Degree in the subject.  Spencer’s followers, fans, and sister sites refer to him as a “scholar” and that’s enough of a credential for him.  Ahmed Rehab wrote an excellent article on the Huffington Post that succinctly sums up Robert Spencer’s (lack of) “qualifications” as a scholar:

Spencer postures himself as an “Islamic Scholar.” But unlike most people we tend to call “scholars,” Spencer did not burden himself with the traditional scholarly route that puts an emphasis on objectivity and academic rigor.

There is a good reason for this: his “scholarly” methodologies would not jive in any of our nation’s accredited PhD programs let alone a path for tenure where he would have to get his papers peer-reviewed and have his methodology checked by notable scholars for objectivity and a lack of bias (unless, of course, David Horowitz decides to build the David Horowitz Freedom University).

Spencer dismisses such criticism as follows: he is right, and all of the tenured professors of Islamic studies, with their inconvenient knack for unbiased scholarship, are wrong. After all, universities are the establishment of the left-wing liberal conspiracy.

Besides who needs peer-reviewed papers, Spencer seems content to receive rave reviews from Weasel Zippers, Nice Doggie, Atlas Shrugs, Muslims are Terrorists, and of course, frontpagemag.com, that other gem of a creation, and bastion of objectivity, by the guy who cuts his checks.

Now, I will be the first to admit that there are plenty of problems in the Muslim world. I welcome an honest and responsible critique any day. But honest and responsible Spencer’s agenda-driven hatemongering is not. I am not not the only one to take issue with Spencer’s technique. Most objective scholars and professors of Islamic studies dismiss the guy as laughably fraudulent and amateur.

The fact that Robert Spencer posits himself as a “scholar” calls to question his credibility, and one cannot escape the conclusion that he is nothing but an intellectual huckster.  Just as we would view a person as a quack for claiming to be a physician without having gone to medical school, likewise we must declare Spencer a fraud.  Quite frankly, he is a boldfaced liar, for claiming to be something that he is not.  His claims to scholarship ought not be taken seriously, and his title of “the acclaimed scholar of Islam” ought to be considered the epitome of hilarity.

Neither is Robert Spencer’s methodology scholarly.  Because he is not accustomed to nor subjected to scholarly peer review, Spencer can use populist arguments that appeal to the layperson but not to the serious student or scholar.  Ahmed Rehab explains Spencer’s basic methodology:

So let us take a quick look at the crux of Spencer’s methodology which is as disingenuous as his conclusions are sensational. In fact, it can be analogized to the three acts of a magic trick as described in the movie The Prestige.

The Set Up: Spencer and his associates scour the web for the most sensational and extreme expressions within the Muslim world. They may be related to a certain extremist interpretation of Islam, or may not even have anything to do with Islam altogether, but that won’t matter, so long as the perpetrator is a Muslim, it will do.

The Performance: Spencer then supplants his own commentary on the story which he meticulously crafts with the ultimate goal of convincing his readers that the bizarre incident in question is representative of the faith of Islam and Muslims at large. This subtle leap of faith that he hopes no one notices is the key to his magic act.

The Prestige: He can then rightly claim, with the innocence of a schoolboy, that he does not make up the material he produces, that he is merely quoting things as is, hoping no one notices that he uses the aberrant to define the normative.

Rehab’s analysis is good, but it seems necessary to add the missing element.  Yes, it is true that Spencer points to the most extremist interpretations of Islam and then claims they represent the faith.  But he also points to ultraconservative interpretations of Islam (which ought not be considered exactly synonymous with “the most extremist interpretations of Islam”) and then reinforces the authority of these interpretations by quoting texts from the classical Islamic texts.  It does not matter to Spencer or his audience that these medieval texts were written hundreds of years ago; these views become the “normative” understanding of the religion.  He ignores the fact that, like Judaism and Christianity, Islamic thought is not static and has developed over the last century.  It is thus that a contemporary Muslim can read an ancient legal text without taking it as the Gospel truth, perhaps agreeing with it in general but disagreeing on certain points.  But to Spencer, a Muslim who picks up any such book must automatically agree with it 100%, without question.

Spencer’s work involves labeling the extremist or ultraconservative views of Islam as “the real (and only) Islam” 70% of the time, and wholesale fabrication 30% of the time.  This 70/30 strategy works well for him, because he can claim that he didn’t make up the 70% by quoting REAL Muslims who say such.  And the remaining 30% is slipped in between the 70%, requiring an astute and informed mind to catch it.  Let’s see this article of Spencer’s to see the 70/30 strategy in action.  He makes two arguments on that page, as follows:

The two recent cases in which I was involved had to do with the closure of the gates of ijtihad and the arrangement of Qur’anic suras…

1. The gates of ijtihad are closed…

2. The Qur’an is arranged from the longest to the shortest chapters…

Point #1 is the 70%, and point #2 is the 30%.  In point #1, Spencer claims that the “gates of ijtihad” are closed.  The Arabic word ijtihad refers to the independent analysis of the Quran and Prophetic traditions.  If the gate is closed, this means that Muslims are “stuck with” the traditional opinions expressed hundreds of years ago during a very intolerant time in world history.  In other words, Muslims cannot reform their religion because the gates of ijtihad are closed.

To “prove” his claim, Spencer says: “Here is some material from Muslims” and then quotes a few random Muslims who said as much, linking to an Islamic website.  This is how Spencer cites sources, using as authoritative even no-name random websites.  For example, on p.76 of his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), Spencer makes the following incredible claim:

…As many as 75 percent of the imprisoned women in Pakistan are, in fact, behind bars for the crime of being a victim of rape. [34]

When one flips to the back of his book, one reads that the source, footnote [34], reads:

[34] See Sisters in Islam, “Rape, Zina, and Incest,” April 6, 2000, http://www.muslimtents.com/sistersinislam/resources/sdefini.htm

The link is broken, but the site he sourced has been archived here.  It’s just  random website that says:

In Pakistan, it is reported that three out of four women in prison under its Hudud laws, are rape victims.

“It is reported…”?  By whom?  What authority?  Who reported it?  There is no footnote, reference, or citation given.  But Spencer uses it anyways, assuming that his opponents are simply supposed to accept it because it is “your side” saying it.  No academic publication would ever accept such a spurious reference.  A real scholar, whose work would regularly be subjected to scholarly critique (i.e. peer-reviewed), would never even cite like such.  The number 75% is truly astronomical and beyond belief.  Likewise, Spencer “backs up” his claim about the gates of ijtihad by citing REAL LIFE Muslims, as if somehow quoting from “your side” will prove his statement.  For example, he says:

Then there’s this from Muslim-Canada.org:

“Thus the schools of the four Imams remain intact after a thousand years have passed, and so the ‘Ulama’ recognize since the time of these Imams no Mujtahid of the first degree. Ibn Hanbal was the last….Since their Imam Qazi Khan died (A.H. 592), no one has been recognized by the Sunnis as a Mujtahid even of the third class.”

A mujtahid is someone qualified to perform ijtihad. Ahmed ibn Hanbal died in 855 AD. Qazi Khan died in 1196.

The truth is that his claim that the gates of ijtihad are closed is bogus, because there is no real such thing as “gates of ijtihad.”  It’s just a phrase used, and is not a real physical thing.  Some conservative elements in the Islamic world believe that the gates of ijtihad are closed, and Spencer quotes these Muslims as “proof.”  But there is no dearth of Muslims who think otherwise.  The gates of ijtihad are open for whoever wants them to be open, and closed for whoever wants them to be closed.  Indeed, this has always been the case, with jurists who lived hundreds of years ago engaging in ijtihad.  Even the conservative Hanbali jurist Ibn Taymiyya firmly believed that the gates of ijtihad were open, engaged in ijtihad, and was (and is) considered a mujtahid (one who is capable of engaging in ijtihad) of the highest order by many Muslims.  And he died in 1328 A.D., more than 130 years after the passing of Qazi Khan (the imam Spencer claims was the last mujtahid “even of the third class”).  Even those Islamic jurists (past and present) who say they believe that the “gates of ijtihad” are closed would (and do) often engage in ijtihad but simply call it something else; others would (and do) believe that it is closed in general (i.e. on most topics) but open for other issues.

Professor H. Patrick Glenn, in his book Legal Traditions of the World (pp.203-204), wrote of the so-called “gates of ijtihad” (or “door of endeavor” as he translates it):

Of course, there never was a door, and there never was a closing (that anyone could see, or hear) but everyone can instantly seize what a closed door means.  It is a silent but effective barrier, and you can never know what will be on the other side if you open it and go through.  So the proponents of the closed door argue not only that God’s will has been fulfilled in existing teaching, but that the re-opening of the door would raise fundamental questions about the future direction and even identity of Islam.  Yet the controversy within Islamic legal thought on this subject in the last century has been described as ‘violent.’  Some say the door should be re-opened, at least for the least precise of the Koranic injunctions; others say it is already open,  or even never closed…Nobody today can say whether the shari’a, in the totality of its primary sources, is immutable.

Professor M.B. Hooker writes in his book entitled Indonesian Islam: Social Change through Contemporary Fatawa (p.232):

The gate to ijtihad was opened long ago.

Perhaps a more precise statement would be that the gate of ijtihad was opened for whoever wants to view it as opened.  Conservative Muslims will view it as closed, whereas less conservative Muslims will see it as opened. Conservative Muslims who repeatedly make the claim–that “the gates of ijtihad are closed and have always been closed”–must be understood to be chastising their less conservative brethren for engaging in what they view as unacceptable modernization via ijtihad.  In other words, their claim is not stating that no Muslim is engaging in ijtihad, but only that no Muslim ought to engage in it or is properly authorized to do so (according to them).

Robert Spencer’s claim that the gates of ijtihad are closed is incredibly misleading and uninformed as it is completely misses out on the entire theme of the nineteenth century of Islamic thought, which was rampant with “modernist Islamic thinkers” who demanded an unfettered “opening” of the gates of ijtihad.  They not only successfully opened it, they smashed it, much to the chagrin of conservative Muslims.  Professor F.E. Peters mused in his book The Monotheists (V.1, p.118):

Today the gate of ijtihad seems agape rather than merely ajar.

But a Muslim said otherwise!  “Your own side” said so!  Such silliness cannot be tolerated in academia, and it is no surprise that Spencer could not tolerate a scholarly peer-review of his work.  This, then, is Spencer’s 70%, wherein he cites extremist or ultraconservative/conservative opinions and cites them as not only the most authoritative views in Islamic thought, but the only ones.  Less conservative views (especially reformist interpretations) are viewed as not being “real Islam.”  Once Spencer has discounted these reformist understandings of Islam, he then disingenuously laments about why Islam is not being reformed.

Moving on to the 30%, we see Spencer’s second argument, as follows:

2. The Qur’an is arranged from the longest to the shortest chapters…

Spencer claims that aside from the very first chapter (sura), “the Qur’an is indeed arranged longest chapter to shortest.”  This seems like an innocuous mistake, so why should we dwell on it?  Certainly it would not be worthy of a second thought, except that he is specifically berating Dinesh D’Souza for saying otherwise.  Wouldn’t Spencer have simply opened up the Quran to see if it is true or not before he responded?  Instead of doing this very simple task, he looks around for “Muslim sources” that “say the same thing”.  He cites www.islamset.com and an article published on an oil company’s magazine (written by a random anthropologist named Geert Mommersteeg).  Well, if Geert Mommersteeg the anthropologist says it, then it must be true!

The last chapter of the Quran is al-Nas, and it is 6 verses long.  It is not the shortest chapter in the Quran as Spencer claims.  Rather, the shortest chapter in the Quran is al-Kawthar, which is only 3 verses long.  The fact that “your side” said that the last chapter is the shortest doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t. There can only be one of two possibilities: Spencer did not even open the Quran to check, in which case his “scholarship” is extremely shoddy.  Or alternatively, he is guilty of academic deceit, using the “your side said it” argument to “disprove” reality.  Spencer’s audience congratulates him on the fact that “he never says something of his own, but always quotes from Muslim sources.”

An even clearer proof of the 30% (and this time not an innocuous lie at all) can be seen here, where Spencer claims that the word “dhimmi” means “guilty person.”  His entire chapter on “dhimmitude” used the 70/30 approach.  The 70% came by quoting ultraconservative interpretations of how to treat non-Muslims, and reinforcing it by citing the views of “classical” scholars (i.e. those that died hundreds of years ago).  The 30% came by slipping in the “guilty person” fib, which Spencer hoped nobody would be astute enough to notice.

Robert Spencer is no scholar, nor is his methodology scholarly.  He is a fraud, an intellectual huckster, and a sham artist.  And he’s about to be exposed.

For years, Robert Spencer has seemed quite comfortable spewing his anti-Muslim polemic uncontested, and then LoonWatch came along and shattered that comfort to bits.

Now we introduce SpencerWatch.com, a site that lays waste, once and for all, to the hate, deception, and fear-mongering that propels Spencer.

The site breaks down Spencer’s bio, agenda, and arguments, with more information than can be found anywhere on the web. It also has bios of Spencer’s “sugar daddy”, David Horowitz as well as Spencer’s “mystery man” Hugh Fitzgerald. The site’s format is a parody of JihadWatch, and in its creative imitation it also has a section on “What they say about Robert Spencer,” which is a comprehensive section on what politicians, scholars, academics, and humanitarians have said about Robert Spencer. There are also quotes directly from Robert Spencer himself, and they quite succinctly capture the loony, zealous and bigotted character that pervades everything Spencer does or says in relation to Islam.

Most importantly, the site will archive all the rebuttals (by the likes of Danios and others) of Spencer’s fraudulent books, articles, and arguments, as well as running commentary on his daily blog posts that expose the fallacy of his logic.

The world will finally have the perfect antidote to his venomous hate-blog. Make sure you read more at “Why Spencerwatch.com.”

Robert Spencer next to his Perpetual Serf Pamela Geller

Robert Spencer contradicts himself once again. In a recent article in the Daily Caller, Spencer is quoted as saying,

“[Kagan] would knowingly and wittingly abet the advance of Sharia, but she wouldn’t do it understanding anything about Sharia. She would do it out of her ignorance.”

Yes, because the only one who understands Sharia is Robert Spencer.

What a convoluted way of saying what he really wants to say, “Kagan will ‘advance Shariah.’”

So will she “knowingly” or “ignorantly” advance Sharia?

Spencer attributes Kagan’s fondness for Sharia to naïveté and liberalism. “There is a general tendency on the part of political liberals in the United States today to take a benign view of Islam and Islamic law,” he said. “They are generally uninformed and share a hatred of the West and Western civilization.”

Essentially, if someone disagrees with Spencer they are cast as either “ignorant” or “taking a benign view of Islam and Islamic law.” This woman has devoted her whole life to the study of law, does he not think for a second that Kagan might know more about Islamic law than himself?

According to Spencer, Kagan will be a willing accomplice in the ongoing stealth jihad — or the institution of Sharia into non-Muslim societies via non-violent means, such as the courts and mainstreaming Islamic customs — currently underway against the West. “The goal of the jihad is to assert the primacy of Islamic law over non-Muslim society and over Muslim societies where it is not fully enforced, and that can take place either through violent or non-violent means and the goal is the same,” he said.

This is still my favorite picture of Robert Spencer.

Professional anti-Muslim bigot Robert Spencer is cashing in a huge paycheck. He makes $132,537 from blogging on JihadWatch, courtesy of the David Horowitz “Freedom Center.” That doesn’t include all the money he makes from advertisements, speaking engagements and book deals.

So, yes Islamophobes, it isn’t all altruistic defense in the name of Western Civilization that inspires your heroes to crusade against Muslims, it turns out the spoils of the Islamophobic cottage industry are quite lucrative.

David Horowitz’s Freedom Center 990 tax return,

One can make a comfortable living off of hate and bigotry. The rest of the document is quite worth seeing as well and we will expose more of it in the near future.

Spencer has quipped many times that he is not funded by big “rich” Conservatives, that he has a “modest income.” Maybe modest in relation to his boss David Horowitz who is raking in nearly half a million dollars, which makes me wonder how much is my local school teacher making?

Robert Dreyfuss

Robert Dreyfuss, contributing editor to the Nation Magazine and also a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, and Mother Jones has a great blog post about anti-Muslim bigot Robert Spencer of SIOA-fame training and explaining Islam to the FBI and Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force.

This is how Robert Spencer will react: “Robert Dreyfuss is a leftard, dhimmi, who is tarnishing and libeling me!! Wah! Wah!”

Dreyfuss also links to us, and I urge our readers to take time out and comment on Dreyfuss’ blog piece, or at the least thank him for bringing this to light.

Anti-Muslim Bigot and Fanatic Explains Islam to the FBI and the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force

By Robert Dreyfuss

The Council on American Islamic Relations is making noise about the fact that an extremist, right-wing anti-Muslim rabble rouser was “invited to offer training to state and federal law enforcement officers.” It sounds like something that might have happened under the administration of President Bush, but no – this happened on Obama’s watch.

Robert Spencer, co-founder of the group Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), is the culprit.

According to CAIR, Spencer was called in recently to pontificate to the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force. (The JTTF’s are law enforcement and intelligence coalitions that began Washington. Soon every jurisdiction wanted the federal dough for a JTTF, and after 9/11 the number of JTTF’s exploded.)

Says CAIR:

“Our nation’s law enforcement personnel should not receive training from the head of a hate group that seeks to demonize Islam and to prevent American Muslims from exercising their rights as citizens,’ said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “Robert Spencer is the same individual who claims in his new book that President Obama is waging ‘war on America.’”

He noted that Spencer recently co-authored the book, “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America,” that sounds a “wake-up call for Americans to stop the Obama administration from limiting our hard-won freedoms, silencing our democratic forming in the 1990s in key areas thought to be vulnerable to terrorism, such as New York and voices, and irreparably harming America for generations to come.”
According to Loonwatch, the SIOA is so extreme that it seems almost satirical. Like a Tea Party phalanx of radical anti-Muslim bigots, the SIOA says that its goal is educate Americans “about about the threat that Islamic doctrine and those who support it present to our freedoms, and the future of our democracy and country.”  Its  organizers call themselves “scholar warriors/ideological warriors in the cause of American freedom and Constitutional government,” as well as in “the defense of… our society of liberty, knowledge, and human decency.”

Spencer’s co-founder, Pamela Geller, is a piece of work, too. Notes CAIR:

“Geller has posted images on her blog that include a fake photograph of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan in a Nazi uniform, another fake image of President Obama urinating on an American flag and drawings purporting to depict Islam’s Prophet Muhammad as a pig. In a June 25 blog entry, Geller posted a video claiming that Muslims engage in bestiality.”
This needs repudiation – or, as Sarah Palin would say, refudiation – from the Justice Department, and quick.

Stop the Islamization of America

Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), was created by anti-Muslim bloggers and activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. It was born out of its parent organization Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), an organization led by Anders Gravers (also a leader in SIOA), of whom Media Matters wrote,

Despite having put what she says is the “full video” of the event on her site, Geller actually cut out several comments made by Anders Gravers, the Danish Leader for the Stop the Islamisation of Europe. For instance, Geller’s video edits out Graver’s assertion that “[r]ape is also a part of” Muslims’ efforts to convert non-Muslims in Europe, and that “[d]emocracy is being deliberately removed” from the European Union by “incorporating Muslim countries of North Africa and the Middle East in the European Union.” Gravers went on to explain (in a portion of the speech that Geller did include) that the purpose was to gain “some European control of oil resources” at the cost of the “introduction of Sharia law and removal of democracy” in Europe. No, really. Check out this exclusively un-edited portion of his remarks (transcript available here)

SIOE’s motto is, “Racism is the lowest form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height of common sense.” It was criticized by John Denham, Labour’s (UK) Communities Secretary, who stated that it was “trying to provoke violence on Britain’s streets” and called it “right-wing.” The group calls for a boycott of all Muslim majority countries and some countries with sizable Muslim minorities such as Cameroon. It calls on its followers to avoid Fisher Price, Asda, Kentucky Fried Chicken and The Radisson Hotel chain for apparently pandering to the Muslim community (via. Wiki).

SIOA’s declared mission is to educate Americans,

about the threat that Islamic doctrine and those who support it present to our freedoms, and the future of our democracy and country.” The organizers call themselves “scholar warriors/ideological warriors in the cause of American freedom and Constitutional government,” as well as in “the defense of… our society of liberty, knowledge, and human decency

The declared mission gives us a scent of the absurdity that is SIOA, what else can “the threat of Islamic doctrine and those who support it” mean except “Muslims.” In other words the groups mission is to educate Americans about the “threat that Muslims present to freedom.”

However, to capture the full extent of bigotry and inciting hatred of Islam and Muslims that is the substance of the organization we have to look no further than its founders, members and supporters. It is a hatred that gives platform to all the destructive rhetoric and conspiracies about Muslims that we have detailed here at Loonwatch, including: nuke and kill all the Muslims and their holy places, Obama is a Mooslim, Muslim demographic take over of the West, extolling the Crusades, etc. The group also seems to bring together radicals from a variety of backgrounds: Christian Zionists, Extreme Jewish Nationalists, Tea Partiers all united in hate for Muslims.

US Government Rejects SIOA Trademark

Soon after SIOA was launched, both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer attempted to have their organization’s trademark patented. They assumed that it would go through without a problem but they didn’t expect what came next. The patent office rejected SIOA’s attempt to patent its trademark because of its anti-Muslim nature,

The applied-for mark refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to cease.

“The proposed mark further disparages Muslims because, taking into account the nature of the services (‘providing information regarding understanding and preventing terrorism’), it implies that Islam is associated with violence and threats,” the government agency said.

“The trademark examining attorney refers to the excerpted articles from the LEXISNEXIS® computerized database referencing how many Muslims view terrorists as illegitimate adherents of Islam. … Therefore, the suggestion that Islam equates terrorism would be disparaging to a substantial group of Muslims,” it said.

Accordingly, the applied-for mark is refused under Section 2(a) because it consists of matter which may disparage or bring into contempt or disrepute Muslims and the Islamic religion

The reaction from both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer was unsurprising, to them it was a signal that Islam had permeated all of our government agencies. Pamela Geller wrote,

It is everywhere, folks, in every aspect of our lives from the big stuff (Major Hasan cover-up) to the minutia (trademark registration)

She doesn’t say what is “everywhere” but one can safely presume based on the written record freely available at her hate site that what she is referring to is the “evil tentacles of the Mooslims.”

SIOA

Undaunted by the rejection from the US Government, SIOA continued with its project. Pushing forward with their now infamous “Leaving Islam” ad campaign as well as opposition to the construction of Mosques and Muslim cultural centers, such as the high profile case of the Cordoba Center or what opponents are dubbing “the Ground Zero Mosque” because of its proximity to Ground Zero.

Both the anti-Mosque and anti-Islam Bus ad campaigns garnered a lot of media attention and were the scene of staunch anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In Miami, where the bus ads kicked off, the city having made a contract to run the ads became aware of the anti-Muslim and Islamophobic nature of the group and upon review made the right decision to remove the ads because they were “offensive.” Of course this riled up Geller and Spencer and they sued Miami which then essentially buckled rather then having to deal with law suits that would cause the city to lose money and time.

In New York, the bus ads went ahead without a hitch though many viewed it as Islamophobic and hateful. Detroit’s transit system however rejected the ads,

Detroit’s SMART bus system has rejected the button-pushing placards that read “Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you? Leaving Islam?” – and direct Muslims to a Web site urging them to leave the “falsity of Islam.”

“It’s a purely anti-Muslim hate issue,” Dawud Walid of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Detroit News on Friday.

“The SMART bus company, or any bus company, should not be used to marginalize a minority group.”

Defenders of the ads, dreamed up by Manhattan-based right wing blogger Pamela Geller and the New York-based Stop the Islamization of America, say it’s a free speech issue and they have sued.

“Americans have a right to know the truth; Islam is a religion of intolerance and violence,” said Michigan lawyer Richard Thompson, who filed the suit.

In New York, the ongoing divisive saga over a planned cultural center has been the scene of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim agitation. Pamela Geller inserted her group into the fray and now SIOA is taking a leading role in the opposition to a planned cultural center which is being dubbed by Geller and company the “Ground Zero Mosque,” though as Reza Aslan put it, it is “neither a mosque nor is it at Ground Zero.”

Some weeks ago SIOA held a protest against the “Mosque” in which protesters attacked two Arab looking men who they mistook for being Muslim. The police had to save them from the crowd, even though they were Arab Christians who came all the way from California to join the protest. That gives you an insight into the kind of people SIOA attracts.

SIOA Facebook Group

SIOA has over 10,000 members on Facebook and it is growing. The SIOA Facebook page is administered by Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Anders Gravers,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

It is truly an ode to hate mongering racism, incitement to violence, veiled threats of physical violence against Muslims, conspiracy theories, from birthers to Eurabia clowns.

Nuking Muslims and Mecca

One demented SIOA member believes that the “rules of engagement with Muslims” are “#1: Kill the enemy, #2: There is no rule #2,”

(Click Image to Enlarge)

Another doozie, this time from David Gaston. Apparently the Ghost Busters are out to start World War III,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

Another nuking fantasy from Ben Kjellssecondson (the last name sounds like it was put together by someone blindly tapping away at the keyboard),

(Click Image to Enlarge)

It isn’t only pyscho images, but in discussions members dispute with each other on which option, “nuking the Middle East” and killing all the “diaper heads” or wanting Israel to “conquer the whole Middle East” are better solutions to the Mooslim menace,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

There are more nuking and destroying Mecca and Muslim pics which we have saved but this gives you a taste and flavor of the annihilation of Muslims that many in SIOA want to see.

Murdering Muslims

David Gaston, still a member of SIOA posts what he calls “Army Math” next to a picture of dead Afghan civilians,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

This is particularly disturbing when we read that some SIOA members claim to be in the United States Armed Forces and add images with thinly veiled hints of physical violence against Muslims,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

This is something that the MRFF, Military Religious Freedom Foundation and the military should definitely look into. We are seeing a growing trend amongst members of the military who view Muslims as their enemy, and it is only simple mathematics to note that more than a few will not leave their hatred of Muslims at the battlefield but will bring it home.

Crusader Mentality

You can say that many in the SIOA have Biblical or Medieval mentalities — literally. They believe that Israel has a right to the land because it says so in the Bible, they believe the solution to terrorism is Crusades, they believe all of this is prophecy and that Jesus approves,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

More ghastly calls for violence in the name of Jesus,

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Did we mention that some of them really don’t like the Quran,

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Conspiracy Theorists

The paranoia and fear amongst many of the members of SIOA takes form in a number of ways. They hold all the crazy conspiracies that we are used to by now about President Obama: he is a Muslim, anti-Semite, Communist, anti-Christ, etc. They believe in the conspiracy theories of Eurabia, the myth that Muslim women’s wombs are the most dangerous weapons of all because they spell the demographic take over of the West, etc.

Obama and our leaders are anti-Semitic fascist Nazis,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

Obama wants to make America into a Muslim country,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

Another one from Ron Ben Michael, who earlier said Israel will rule the whole Middle East,

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Ron sees no difference between Obama and the other two. They’re all “evil Mooslims” trying to burn Israel.

Then there is the Muslim demographic time bomb, there were a number of pics related to this topic, but this one summed up all the craziness in one image,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

So what is the solution. Well, SIOA members won’t leave you dissapointed,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

Notice the comments. “Kick Muzzies ass out of Europe” and the prayer to Jesus, “I hope this one day happens.” Delightful.

The Fabulous Duo: Christian Zionists and Extreme Jewish Nationalists

While there are all sorts of wackos on SIOA, and some misguided ones who don’t know what they got themselves into, the majority of those attracted to SIOA seem to be Extremist Christians and Jews with a sprinkling of atheists. The SIOA Facebook page was littered with pics of Jesus, prayers to Jesus, Israeli flags, stars of David, etc.

For instance, what does this pic have to do with SIOA’s mission?

(Click Image to Enlarge)

The guy is totally insane, just look at his crazy comments.

Then there is this gem, from our friend Ron, which extolls the power of the Israeli Air Force,

(Click Image to Enlarge)

Disproportionate power anyone? How aboud David v. Golaith?

Conclusion

There are many more posts and pics that manifest the loonacy that is SIOA, and we have them all saved. The sad thing is that this is no laughing matter, these people are calling for murder and genocide. Some of it may be tongue in cheek but a lot of it reveals the inner depths of hatred that lurks inside and motivates this organization, which is one step removed from being the inspiration for an armed anti-Muslim vigilante group.

Even more reprehensible are the admins and creators of this organization, Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller who allow such vile, conspiratorial and dangerous pronouncements from their members. How could we expect any less, as is clear from mounting evidence, both Spencer and Geller share in the above views though at times not as explicitly as their followers.

Stop the Islamization of America is nothing less than a hate group that deserves to be monitored and observed by Homeland Security and the likes of the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is one of a plethora of extreme right-wing organizations that have arisen since Obama has taken office and should be included in any further report or update on the rise of right-wing extremism.

Any organization that targets a minority that makes up one percent of the population of America, claiming that the minority is trying to take over is beyond hysterical, it is a threat to the fabric of our nation.

Jon Stewart is one of the last men out there with the moral courage to do the kind of reporting the mainstream media just won’t do. A beautiful segment, that skewers Fox News, and the likes of Steven Emerson and Robert Spencer. Spencer no doubt will be howling at the moon about Stewart being a dhimmi. Nothing makes him more upset than being portrayed like the clown that he is.

Enjoy!

We don’t want to make big hay over errors even from the likes of Robert Spencer, the pseudo-Scholar who swears he is “never wrong.” We just like to take a hammer to those assumptions being parlayed as facts and reduce them to rubble. Loonwatch, over and over again has done just that to Spencer’s work and we will continue to do it until Spencer acknowledges his folly.

We wrote a piece on one more instance of Robert Spencer getting basic information wrong and then trying to pass it off as fact. He claimed Pope Pius XII was a victim of misinformation and that he was in fact “memorialized in Yad Veshem.” Tipped by one of our readers we pointed out the easy to find out fact that Pius XII was not memorialized in Yad Vashem, in fact he has constantly been rejected.

Spencer, originally wrote:

The record of Pope Pius XII is controversial, but there has been a good deal of misinformation publicized about it. In reality, he helped save many hundreds of thousands of Jews and was memorialized at Yad Veshem.

(Click here for a snapshot of the original comment by Spencer)

One of Spencer’s readers, Raqnu, who the JihadWatchers figured was a Muslim Taqqiyah artist because his name is an anagram for Quran (only problem is it also seems to be a name for the Spirit of Justice in the Zend Avesta) asked Spencer what he thought about our claim. Spencer replied,

As far as I know Pius XII is not honored at Yad Veshem.

(Click here for a snapshot of the reply to Raqnu from Spencer)

A clear contradiction to his early comment. Yet, Spencer doesn’t have the guts to acknowledge his mistake and he especially is not going to acknowledge a mistake when it is pointed out to him by Loonwatch. C’mon Spencer where is our hat tip?

Interestingly, Spencer went back to his original comment, and without telling anyone changed what he had written, so instead of saying,

The record of Pope Pius XII is controversial, but there has been a good deal of misinformation publicized about it. In reality, he helped save many hundreds of thousands of Jews and was memorialized at Yad Veshem.

It now says,

The record of Pope Pius XII is controversial, but there has been a good deal of misinformation publicized about it. In reality, he helped save many hundreds of thousands of Jews. The campaign to blacken his name began much later.

(Click here for a snapshot of Spencer’s quiet attempt at covering up his error)

Not a word about how he was propelled by Loonwatch’s article to change his comment. Not even a disclaimer signifying “Update” as most professional bloggers would react in this scenario. Instead, Robert Spencer keeps trudging along hoping no one will notice his error. To do so would concede that he is wrong, and that would bruise his fragile ego. More worrisome for him, it would open up the door in his and his minions’ brains (if it already hasn’t) that maybe Loonwatch is right about his other arguments.

For a paid polemicist that is a scary proposition.

This is still my favorite picture of Robert Spencer.

A while back Danios wrote one of his most popular pieces debunking Robert Spencer’s work. It dealt with a chapter from Spencer’s, Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and was titled The Church’s Doctrine of Perpetual Servitude. Spencer wrote a reply that basically skirted around the subject and in effect dug himself into a bigger hole then he was in previously. Danios replied to Spencer who has remained mum on the debate since then, essentially conceding to Danios and Loonwatch.

One of our readers, Paterfamilias, wrote to inform us that Spencer’s reply contained more factual errors. Spencer claimed that Pope Pius XII, though “controversial” was “memorialized at Yad Vashem.”

The record of Pope Pius XII is controversial, but there has been a good deal of misinformation publicized about it. In reality, he helped save many hundreds of thousands of Jews and was memorialized at Yad Veshem.

Oh really, a lot of misinformation? So much for Robert Spencer’s research abilities. He could have easily done a Google search to check the veracity of such a claim, but for a paid polemicist with an ax to grind it’s probably considered a waste of time.

The following article, Pope Pius XII and Yad Vashem, from Wikipedia makes it clear that not only is Pope Pius XII not memorialized at Yad Vashem, his candidacy has been repeatedly rejected for decades.

Yad Vashem, the state of Israel‘s official Holocaust memorial, has generally been critical of Pope Pius XII, the pope during The Holocaust. For decades, Pius XII has been nominated unsuccessfully for recognition as Righteous Among the Nations, an honor Yad Vashem confers on non-Jews who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust altruistically and at risk to their own lives.

Yad Vashem affixes the following captions to two pictures of Pius XII in both English and Hebrew,

In 1933, when he was Secretary of the Vatican State, he was active in obtaining a Concordat with the German regime to preserve the Church’s rights in Germany, even if this meant recognizing the Nazi racist regime. When he was elected Pope in 1939, he shelved a letter against racism and anti-Semitism that his predecessor had prepared. Even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the Pope did not protest either verbally or in writing. In December 1942, he abstained from signing the Allied declaration condemning the extermination of the Jews. When Jews were deported from Rome to Auschwitz, the Pope did not intervene. The Pope maintained his neutral position throughout the war, with the exception of appeals to the rulers of Hungary and Slovakia towards its end. His silence and the absence of guidelines obliged Churchmen throughout Europe to decide on their own how to react.

Pretty damning stuff.

Yad Vashem’s official website has this to say about Pope Pius XII,

The controversy about Pius XII and the Holocaust is still open. At the end of his visit to Israel in 1964, Pope Paul VI came to Pius’s defense in Jerusalem. On March 12, 1979, Pope John Paul II met with Jewish leaders in Rome and said: “I am happy to evoke in your presence today the dedicated and effective work of my predecessor Pius XII on behalf of the Jewish people.” In a meeting with American Jewish leaders in September 1987 in Miami, John Paul II again recalled the positive attitude of Pius XII. However, his passivity in the face of the Holocaust remains a controversial subject.

How could Robert Spencer get a fact so brutally wrong? Maybe one day Yad Vashem will find Pope Pius XII legitimate for memorializing, but as of now the controversy surrounding his actions and inaction during the Holocaust continue to make the attempts of various Pope’s and advocates unsuccessful.

Robert Spencer should think twice before undertaking a task of disinformation, it just doesn’t fly anymore.

Sharron Angle calls for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and a "return" to Biblical Law.

Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle has made some very interesting statements about what could happen if the ballot box fails:

“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. In fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years. I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this, this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? And I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

Source: Washington Post

“The nation is arming. What are they arming for, if it isn’t that they are so distrustful of their government? They’re afraid they’ll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways? That’s why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don’t win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?”

Speaking to Reno Gazette Journal on May 30, 2010:

“I feel that the Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry. This is not for someone who’s in the military. This is not for law enforcement. This is for us. And in fact when you read that Constitution and the founding fathers, they intended this to stop tyranny. This is for us when our government becomes tyrannical…Well it’s to defend ourselves. And you know, I’m hoping that we’re not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems.”

Source: Huffington Post

Just to remind our dear readers, the Second Amendment reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So, is this incitement to armed insurrection? Is this a call to violence if “we don’t win at the ballot box”? What are the “Second Amendment remedies”?

Sharron Angle’s “stealth jihad” campaign against the U.S. government is waged on behalf of the Christian not Islamic flag.  She doesn’t want to replace our secular and liberal form of government with Sharia law, but Biblical Law.  If you think of Sharia as stoning adulterers, guess which book that comes from?  It’s from none other than the Bible.  (Of course, it would be unfair to link stoning–found in the Bible–to Sharron Angle, since her interpretation of Biblical Law may not entail this, but this never stops Christian right-wingers from saying every Muslim who believes in Sharia advocates a return to stoning.)

Anyways, here’s more about Angle’s background:

Sharron Angle, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Nevada was, in the 1990s, a member of the Independent American Party, the Nevada affiliate of the Constitution Party.  The Constitution Party is not merely a political party that supports the Constitution, but rather a party that promotes a very specific interpretation of the Constitution: based on founder Howard Phillips’ Christian Reconstruction.

The Constitution Party’s platform advocates “returning” American law to its “foundations” in “Biblical Law.” The notion that the First Amendment’s religion clauses provide for a separation of church and state is rejected…They contend that the founders always understood the U.S. to be a Christian nation founded on biblical law.

source: ReligionDispatches.org

Can you imagine the reaction if she had been a Muslim? What if a Muslim candidate for public office – any public office, even if it is Chief Librarian (or the prestigious position of Miss America) – calls for “Second Amendment remedies”? What if a Muslim candidate for public office said, “If we don’t win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?”  What if Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison said that, or any of the “army of Muslim spy interns” supposedly trying to topple our government?  And what if these Muslims advocating violent overthrow believed in “returning” American law to Sharia-based law?  Do you think that such a Muslim would have a semblance of a political career left?

I will tell you the answer: people would be saying that such a Muslim candidate should be sent to jail for incitement to murder and terrorism; that Muslim candidate would be demonized to no end.  At minimum, he/she would be forced to resign, amid a fury of calls for his/her head.  And Spencer, Geller, and Co. would be screaming “Stealth Jihad!” “Taqiyya!” “Dhimmitude!” until the cows…no, I’m sorry, the pigs come home.

This incident highlights the fact that right wing extremism–of which extremist Christians comprise a large chunk of–remains a grave threat to this country just as radical Islam does.  Right-wing extremism is certainly more of a threat to our liberal way of life than the imaginary “stealth jihad” that loyal Muslim-American citizens are continually accused of–a fact that holds true even if it doesn’t conform to the narrative imagined by right wing Islamophobes.  We also wonder: why are Muslim-Americans always skeptically cross-examined by Christian right-wingers about their loyalty to this country, but meanwhile these same Christian right-wingers openly call for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government?

Lord Voldemort, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named

Once again, Robert Spencer responds to one of my articles but refuses to take my name.  I am forever “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”  Spencer says:

And on those rare occasions when the opposition does offer a substantive response, it’s tissue-paper thin. A friend recently told me that he posted a lengthy rebuttal to a pseudo-scholarly presentation purporting to prove false something I said about the meaning of an Arabic word (my friend is a native Arabic speaker); his comment was summarily deleted.

My response is as follows:

1. “And on those rare occasions when the opposition does offer a substantive response”

I’ll take that as a compliment!

2. “it’s tissue-paper thin.”

Of the “ultra soft and strong” variety I hope.

3. “A friend”

I assume you are speaking of Kinana of Khabyar, who like you is an intellectual huckster.

4. “a pseudo-scholarly presentation”

As I said before, this is a bad case of projection: Spencer tries to pass himself off as a scholar despite his lack of scholarly credentials,  so he simply assumes that everyone else is trying to do the same.  I have never claimed to be a scholar, and it truly amazes me that he would even assume that I tried to be “scholarly” considering I used the word “sh*% hole” in the title of my article.  How many scholarly works have you read that speak with such an irreverent tone?  The fact that Spencer would even think this speaks volumes about how little he knows about scholarship.

5. “native Arabic speaker”

Is that supposed to impress me?  Kinana of Khaybar could be a professor in Arabic for all I care or the Queen of England.  None of that changes the fact that he is guilty of academic deceit.

6. “his comment was summarily deleted.”

A lie.  I never deleted Kinana’s comment.  He never posted it on our site.  Instead, he posted it on JihadWatch, and someone posted the link to it on our site, which you will see is still very much there.  But let’s even assume–simply for argument’s sake–that I “summarily deleted” his comment.  Not only is the link posted by an Islamophobe still on our site, but I myself reproduced the link in my counter-response as well as his response itself!

7. “he posted a lengthy rebuttal”

Let’s recap the debate.  First, Robert Spencer claimed in his book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), that the word “dhimmis” translates to both “protected people” as well as “guilty people.”  He went on to say that non-Muslim residents are called “guilty people” (or “dhimmis”) because they rejected the prophethood of Muhammad and altered their scriptures.  I wrote an article declaring all this to be a bold-faced lie and proof that Spencer is an intellectual huckster who is guilty of wholesale fabrication.

Both Robert Spencer and his friend Kinana of Khaybar responded to my article.  Spencer tried to cover his ass by moving the goalposts: instead of defending his claim that the word “dhimmis” means “guilty people”, Spencer argued that the word “dhimmis” is related to the word “guilt.”  Kinana attempted to strengthen this argument by citing various Arabic dictionaries that linked the word “dhimmis” with “guilt.”  In my counter-response, I exposed the intellectual chicanery that Kinana was engaging in: he quoted only a part of the dictionary definition, purposefully omitting the critical part which clearly explained that the “guilt” was associated not with the non-Muslim residents as Spencer and Kinana claimed, but with the Islamic state should it violate the rights of the non-Muslim residents.

Furthermore, the claim that the non-Muslim residents were called “dhimmis” because they were guilty of rejecting the prophethood of Muhammad and altering their scriptures is complete fabrication from the conspiratorial mind of Robert Spencer.  Neither Spencer or Kinana sought to explain this bit of wholesale fabrication.

My question now is: whose response is “tissue-paper thin”?  Will Spencer or Kinana care to defend their academic honesty (or in this case their lack thereof)?  My guess is that they will try to avoid issuing “a substantive response” as much as possible.

In the same post, Robert Spencer bellows:

The list of the Leftist and Muslim academics and apologists who have refused my challenge to debate is very long; they know they can’t refute what I say on the basis of evidence, so they resort to broad-based smears and personal attacks — and haughty refusals to debate.

I accept your challenge, Spencer.  I agree to a radio debate with you on the topic of jihad and “dhimmitude”, namely chapters 1-4 of your book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).  It will then be seen if you can defend your own writing, which I argue is a load of sensationalist crock.

Will you accept my challenge to debate or cower in fear?  My guess is that you “know [you] can’t refute what I say” and will “resort to…haughty refusals to debate.”

I predict that the JW minions will give excuses to explain away why their master Robert Spencer will refuse to debate me, instead of urging him to enter into a debate as they always do with other people who challenge his ideas.  They already know that Spencer does not stand a chance in a debate with me, which is why they will continue to generate excuses to exonerate him from his intellectual cowardice.  This is because deep down inside they know–as does everyone else who has followed his and my writings–what the outcome would be.

Spencer backing down from a debate with me would be curious, considering that he has already conceded that my writings are “rare occasions when the opposition does offer a substantive response.”  Spencer, are you saying that you can debate with people so long as they don’t give you a substantive response, in which case you flee?

No matter, I’ll continue to pulverize your arguments in my articles.  Speaking of which, I’m almost done with my latest one (on the topic of jihad).  Stay tuned.

"Bad Eagle" or just "Plain Loon"?

What happens when you cross a white supremacist with someone who claims to be half-white and half-Native American? Answer: David Yeagley (hat tip: Mallorcaman). Yeagley is a rare and strange specimen, self-described as the “lone Conservative Indian voice,” he rails against Native Americans and anyone who he considers to be liberals. He is known amongst Native Americans, for reasons we will come to shortly as the Indian apple,

apple n. An Indian who is red on the outside, white on the inside.
Tonto n. Sidekick, lackey, Indian Uncle Tom.
Tepee Tom n. Native American version of an Uncle Tom. Synonyms: Tonto, Fort Indian, Hang-around-the-fort Indian

Amongst his many peculiarities is that he claims to be the descendant of a Comanche Indian chief, Bad Eagle, while at the same time allying with and espousing White supremacist beliefs,

Yeagley is associated with a long list of figures on the far right, the John Birch Society, white nationalists VDare, neo-Nazis Stormfront, the White Boy Society, and the National Alliance, and eugenics groups Gene Expression and American Renaissance.

Native Americans find him offensive for many reasons and also dispute his claims of being a Comanche,

According to sources at the Comanche headquarters, David is not Comanche. His adopted mother is Comanche.

One website devoted to exposing Yeagley, DavidYeagley.blogspot.com, has skewered him and exposed him for the fraud that he is. It is run by Al Carrol, a scholar who is truly descended from Natives. On the site we find more expositions of Yeagley’s persistent White supremacy and anti-Native American stances,

Yeagley describing a gathering of white supremacists and anti-Indian groups:

“It’s their people that created America, not Indians. Only a diabolically self-righteous liberal politician would take America out of the hands that created it, and give it to those who either lost it, or never had anything to do with it.”
“The white blood flowing is the purest I’ve ever seen.” http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13399

“Superior beauty is in the white race, with its scintillating varieties of color: red, brown, amber, golden hair… green, blue, light brown, gray eyes. In the darker races, everything is always the same, dark brown and black a beastly bore.”

“These days the white woman is expected to humble herself before the darkie.”

“Judeo-Christian religion allowed the European Caucasian race to advance above all other people.The darker races now encroach through integration and intermarriage.”

“Maybe Hitler was partially right on ‘the hated white race’ thing.”

“There is a reason for differences. This is to keep the human race separated into smaller groups. Love of race is the only ‘saving grace’ left in the world.” http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=273

“Indian men… and also typical of black women, together, is just the kind of thing that says these races deserve to be on the bottom of the barrel. They cannot appreciate good will, they are possessed by envy, and have no higher thought than lies.” http://www.indianz.com/board/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=14169&whichpage=3 (Quoting from Yeagley on his Badeagle forum. Note that the poster quoting him was neither an Indian man nor a Black woman. It is typical of Yeagley’s racist paranoia to assume a “plot” by the races he hates.)

And as if to remove all doubt, Yeagley’s conversation with a white supremacist reluctant to admit it until he reassured her he believed the same:

“You are simply a white supremacist, complete with a theology to justify it.
THAT’s OKAY! I’m not knocking that. But you can’t talk about it. You have to guise it in different terms. That’s NOT exactly okay….you DON’t believe in equality, and THAT’s OKAY, TOO. I really mean that. ”
http://www.badeagle.com/cgi-bin/blog/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=650

Yeagley wrote a lot of these supremacist rants on Frontpagemag, David Horowitz’s zany far-right rag, where he was a regular contributor, and on his own website. Not too long ago he also posted a piece called White Man Rising: The Confederacy, which extols the South as the last bastion of true America.

Amongst Yeagley’s other novel pursuits has been his support for the portrayl of Native Americans as mascots. A touchy issue with Native Americans, amongst whom a consensus against such mascots exists. Isn’t it strange for a self-proclaimed descendant of a Comanche chief, who claims to want to help the Comanche, to then go and support the use of Indian mascots?

Yeagley’s maniacal hate and demented racism manifests itself when it comes to Muslims and Arabs. Yeagley writes about Rima Fakih nearly a dozen times on his site, bringing up the familiar wacko claims that she is a secret Hezbollah plant. He writes that she is a Muslim mascot propped up by Muslims to infiltrate and “rape the West.”

The Huffington Post’s Ahmed Rehab in an excellent piece entitled, Miss USA Scrutiny indicates Weird Obsession with Islam, ripped into the loon world who were obsessing over Rima Fakih for being a Muslim, and accusing her of everything from cultural infiltration to being a terrorist. He linked to Bad Eagle as an example, calling it a “Kooky blog.”  That really hurt David Yeagley’s feelings causing him to once again unleash his hate filled feelings about Islam, Muslims and all Americans,

Rima Fakih, the Lebanese immigrant supported by terrorists, who was “judged” to be the new Miss USA 2010, is clearly a nude mascot for Muslims. She is Islam, stripped of all pretense. Despite the pathetic defense of terrorist associate Ahmed Rehab, both on Huffington Post and Celebutopia, Islam is offensive to America. Muslims are repugnant. They have made their name to stink in all the free world. Rehab, typically Muslim, typically liberal, attempts to denigrate and demean Americans who happen to be offended by Islam, and by the unpredecented hypocrisy of the Rima mascot. Americans don’t have “a weird obsession” with Islam. We hate it!

…

I call you out, Mr. Ahmed Rehab, and everyone like you. I call you a deceiving coward, liar, and enemy of America. Go home. You, who are afraid to reveal your family background and country of origin; you who presume to represent American freedom, but speak only for Muslims, or Communist Democrat liberals; I challenge you, one on one, man to man. Was it not you who had the audacity to post your Twittered comment (No.21) on my site? Or was it some lackey in the office? It doesn’t matter. I call you an extremely offensive individual, and I don’t want you in the free world. You need to be in Saudi, or whatever country believes like you do. You are an unwanted and odious alien in this country. I despise how you think, and what you represent. You are not welcome here in this country. Leave. Now.

The delusions held by this self proclaimed descendant of Bad Eagle are momentous. To him Rima is Islam, and all Muslims are de facto terrorists, Islam not only isn’t American it is “liberal” and “alien.”

Ahmed Rehab must have really pissed Yeagley off, (not a hard task: just say you are a Muslim or not white) considering he wants to expel him from the “free world.” Does Yeagley notice the contradiction, or is his brain so muddled with right-wing racist propaganda that he can’t see the contradiction in wanting to expel someone from the “free world” for not believing or being the same as him? Freedom obviously has a different meaning for Yeagley than the one in the Constitution.

Moreover, in Yeagley’s typical self-victimizing fashion, the old kook tried to argue that he was being ridiculed by Rehab because he was “Indian” not because he was a Kook.

Rehab didn’t mention BadEagle.com in hisHuffington Post defense of Rima the Muslim Mascot, but instead mererly linked to my article behind the words, “kooky blog.” So, an American Indian patriot site is “kooky.” Kooky because I quoted Debbie Schlussel? Or kooky because I hate liars like Ahmed Rehab?

Arab Muslims immigrants apparently feel superior to all other races, and are anxious to demonstrate it. They come from a history of lording over others, from enslaving others, from humiliating others. This is their visceral way of exalting themselves. Equality is anathema to them. I am not suprised that Rehab should consider the American Indian the lowest of the low, or merely “kooky.” We’re easy to denigrate. And honesty is certainly not Rehab’s strong point. Truth he must demean, or nullify somehow. Rehab’s attitude is abundantly clear. Islam has no respect. Islam was the invention of an angry Arab. It is a military death cult from the day it was born. Deceptive, specious words in the societies of the free world may fool those willing to be fooled, but, not me.

I am an American Indian conservative patriot. I hate Islam, and everything it stands for. I hate liars, who attempt to pawn Muslims off as a blessing to the free world. Islam is the enemy of freedom. I love freedom, and I love what America has provided, despite the ironies of history. I defend America, at least verbally, against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Amed Rehab is an invader, an enemy, and a lying deceiver. This is what I say, because this is what I see.

Rehab responded directly on Bad Eagle’s blog by calmly ripping him a new one,

Show me where I made any disparaging remarks about Indians. Copy and paste them here for all to see. I challenge you.

You will fail to do so because I never made a single negative remark about Indians, and you sir are a liar.

I merely called your blog kooky – because it is.

You generalized my opinion of your blog to an opinion of all Indians, mostly because you are a dishonest person; I myself did not and would not make that generalization.

Badeagle.com is not representative “Indians,” it is representative of “David Yeagley”

In the same vein, in venting your anger at my negative opinion of your blog, you proceeded to disparage Islam and Muslims at large, rather than to limit your reaction to me. Again, stupid generalization is your sin.

As to the “Kooky” designation for your blog, I stand by that. While your lackeys may entertain your madness, I have no doubt that any objective person will take a look at this blog and reach the conclusion that it is kooky, and that you sir are a classic kook.

Your blog posts are all over the place, your arguments make no sense, you seem to suffer from an ego the size of Alaska, and a good number of delusions, such as that you somehow speak for Indians just because you claim Indian ancestry or that you have the moral authority to decide who is an American and who is not. Your grammar sucks, your posts are filled with schoolboy typos, etc. Most significantly, your blog posts and the comments from your friends are filled with ridiculous generalizations and filthy hatred of Muslims.

I imagine that self-respecting Indians cringe to see someone like you claim to speak for them. You defile the sanctity, glorious history, and honor of the great native tribes of this country. I count Native Americans as friends, I find them to be compassionate, intelligent, and some of the least bigoted people I know.

That anybody would take you seriously is an enigma. Fortunately, your kookiness speaks for itself. I imagine most people who browse your blog can only laugh at what a silly individual you are.

Good luck to you sir.

Ouch. Bad Eagle down.

Yeagley’s filthy racist attacks are plenty, he writes about Arabs,

Arab Muslims should be immediately deported from the free world, and returned to their own homelands, with a travel ban placed on all of them for the next decade.

Not only does he believe that Arab Muslims should be immediately deported, he also believes that,

The Arab personality is the perfect cohabitation of fear and aggression. It reacts to itself. It comprises fear of the Jew, and the assertion of superiority, not only to the Jew, but to all other races. The Arab personality is desperate for superiority. It must achieve superiority–by any means. Words are first, then actions. It is characterized by impatience, argumentativeness, arrogance, violence, and cruelty. It is essentially a mindless reaction to its own fear. It is a most private writhing, manifested in offense to all other people. It seeks to overcome its fear by enslaving or lording over others. That is its natural way. That is its approach to reality–a jaded reaction to itself. There is no objectivity, no self-reflection, or moral evaluation.

He has a lot in common with other more savvy and less out right racist Islamophobes such as Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller (both people he cites favorably on his site). They hold common conspiracy theories such as “Obama is a Mooslim,” “Muslim demographic take over of the West,” etc.

In the end, David Yeagley is just another garden variety loon who belongs in the category of dejected and unknown backwater wingnuts such as Bob Beers, i.e the Loon blog dungeon. His semi-coherent verbal diarrehea and racist Hitler-esque meanderings serve only as a warning to mankind that such inanities and impossibilites are possible.

Michelle Boorstein

Are we finally hearing some discussion about the “anti-Muslim movement” in the mainstream media? The discussion seems to be getting more play because of high profile protests and news. Michelle Boorstein asks, “How influential will anti-Muslim groups become?”

If Loonwatch has anything to do about it, the answer is, they won’t become influential because we are going to battle them and expose them for the nuts that they are. At the moment, if we are to take the words of Islamophobes such as Robert Spencer at their face value, anti-Muslims are getting a hearing from deep within our government all the way to common wingnut Nazis who proudly displays signs such as, “Everything I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11″

How influential will anti-Muslim groups become?

By Michelle Boorstein

What is the future of the anti-Muslim movement in the United States?

For years there has been a small but passionate group of people concerned with the influence of Islam, and their activism seemed to be largely focused on blogging and lobbying political conservatives. But their presence — and the arguments they raise — seem to be coming into the broader sphere of late.

There’s the fight over a mosque at the Ground Zero site, and this weekend the on-line electronic payment firm PayPal reportedly cut off the anti-Muslim blog Atlas Shrugs, saying it’s a hate site.

Needless to say, this has prompted a roar from Atlas Shrugs supporters who see political bias.

Commentators across the spectrum, from the libertarian Becket Fund to the progressive Media Matters are asking: Where is this anti-Muslim movement going? How significantly will it steer the debate in this country about religious freedom and bias?

How about the 300 Muslims who died?

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, leaders of the hate organization SIOA (Stop the Islamization of America), were going nuts advertising their protest against the Cordoba House, a center that will contain a mosque, gym, swimming pool and museum that is to be built a few blocks away from Ground Zero. According to the Islamophobic duo, and their “save-Western-Civilization-from-evil-Mooslims” crowd, this protest was similar to D-Day, when the allies stormed Normandy. Hysteria much?

The protest itself was filled with anti-Muslim and Islam hating personalities. Placards read that building the mosque would be similar to building a” memorial to Hitler at Auschwitz,” labeled Prophet Mohammed a “pedophile,” “terrorist” and other names and stated that “Islam Hates Women,” etc.

According to Pamela’s highly inflated estimate, 5,000 people showed up while in reality only around 200-300 came to the event.

Geller said the NYPD and security at the rally told her about 5,000 demonstrators were there. But NYPD spokesman Sgt. Kevin Hayes said the police department’s policy is to not provide crowd estimates and that he could not confirm Geller’s number. CNN iReporter Julio Ortiz-Teissonniere, who attended the rally and sent photos to CNN, said the number was closer to 200-300 while he was there for the first 45 minutes of the event.

Can this woman ever quit with the hysterical, disproportionate and excessive lies? Another news agency put the number of protesters squarely at 300.

According to Geller and Spencer this protest not only turned out large (fictional) numbers of people, but was also looked upon with approval from the heavens! Pamela wrote joyously that, “despite weather forecasts of thunderstorms and rain, the skies were clear and beautiful — but not as beautiful as this patriotic crowd of great Americans and Europeans.” Robert Spencer hinted at Divine approval,

And the truth is powerful. The forecast had called for rain, but it didn’t start raining in New York until after the rally had broken up. Many took it as a sign that we represented the cause of right and justice.

Debbie Schlussel, an open Islamophobe and bigot, whom Robert Spencer once dubbed a “freedom fighter” refers now to her former friend Pamela Geller only as Scamela Geller, had this scathing assessment of the protest (hat tip: BMD),

a cleverly designed PR vehicle for people like car loan fraud scammer Scamela Geller and others who are using them to raise money and get attention.  Because having a whole car dealership making gazillions by ripping off banks with car loan scams using Muslim straw buyers wasn’t enough.  Nor was the murder of an investigating cop and the execution of the one honest car salesman employee who told police.  Behavior worse than a mobster’s wife apparently breeds no shame.  But it does breed faux-outrage in a “battle” that we already know won’t be won.  It’s already lost.  They have the property.  Move on to something we can win, not a car loan defrauder’s attention-whore trick, just weeks before her book is about to be released and needs to earn back a bloated advance.  If you think it’s anything other than this, you are a malleable tool, easily manipulated and not of much substance.

Wow, did Debbie just drop the elbow from the sky on Pamela here? This assessment is from a woman who wants all Muslim immigration to America to stop and for there to be no Mosques in the USA, so it can’t be said that she is sympathetic to the plight of Muslims.

Also, I have to ask why no mainstream media outlet, cable or otherwise has taken Pamela to task not only for her crazy and loonie conspiracy theories, but the fact that she isn’t only against this specific center which will house a mosque, but against mosques in general. She is the same person who called for the DESTRUCTION of the Golden Dome in Jerusalem, and for it to be replaced with a Jewish Temple (insert World War III)! Someone needs to smack her with that question.

The height of irony probably came when two Christian Arabs who came to protest the mosque were mistaken for being Muslims, and became targets of their fellow protesters bigotry and harassment. I wonder if they will dispute whether Islamophobia really exists? From Mike Kelly’s great article, On this Ground, Zero Tolerance,

At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims.

“Go home,” several shouted from the crowd.

“Get out,” others shouted.

In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry — were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called “The Way.” Both said they had come to protest the mosque.

“I’m a Christian,” Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face.

But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.

“I flew nine hours in an airplane to come here,” a frustrated Nassralla said afterward.

The incident underscores how contentious — and, perhaps, how irrational — the debate over the mosque has become.

A mosque, for instance, has been located since 1983 on West Broadway, about 12 blocks from Ground Zero. After the 9/11 attacks, the mosque’s imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, began shaping plans to build an Islamic cultural center closer to Ground Zero as part of an attempt to build cultural ties between Islam and America.

Called Cordoba House, the center would rise 13 stories and would include a 500-seat auditorium, a swimming pool and a mosque.

I guess the lesson here is don’t speak Arabic or look foreign at an Islamophobic protest or you might get harmed.

In part 1, I refuted Robert Spencer‘s outlandish claim that the Arabic word dhimmi means “guilty person.” In specific, I quoted p.49 of his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), in which he says:

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.

Robert Spencer has completely fabricated this from his own mind and attributed it to Islam, passing it off as “scholarship.”  In reality, the word dhimmi does not mean “guilty person” and no Arabic dictionary says this.  I reproduced the definition of the word as found in Lisan al-Arab, the most authoritative source used in the classical times of Islamic jurisprudence.  And I challenged Spencer to provide an Arabic dictionary that translates the word to mean “guilty person.”

Of course, Spencer could not meet this challenge, proving that he cannot defend his own writing.  (Spencer’s book is used by the Islamophobic world as an “authoritative” and “scholarly” source for understanding Islam, yet it cannot withstand even cursory critical analysis.)  Of course, most of Spencer’s gullible audience does not speak Arabic and choose to unquestioningly believe him, mostly because they desperately want to believe him.

Robert Spencer was forced to respond to my article, and amusingly he refused to take my name or mention the site I work for.  He has responded to me several times in the past, and I am forever “he whose name shall not be mentioned.”  I’m glad I bother him so much that he can’t even take my name! In any case, it would have been better for Spencer if he had chosen not to reply, because he ended up digging himself deeper into the sh*% hole he created for himself. Spencer’s reply reads as follows:

Christians are also by definition guilty people. As I noted in my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), “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.” While the classic Islamic laws regarding dhimmis are not in force in Egypt today, they’re still part of Islamic law, and as such Islamic clerics regard them as the proper status that Christians and other “People of the Book” should assume in the Islamic state. 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.

How is it that “protection” and “custody” can be related to “blame” and “guilt”? Dhimmi does indeed mean “protected,” “guaranteed,” and “secured,” but the semantic connotations of the word pertain to “indebtedness” and “liability.” That’s according to the online Sakhr dictionary, which is not by any stretch of the imagination an “Islamophobic” publication — for example, it translates the word “Israel” into “a Jewish country set up on the Palestinian land.” So when it says that dhimmi has to do with guilt, it is not reflecting some anti-Muslim bias!

In any case, the Arabic root-word “Z-M-M” (from which “dhimmi” issues) means “the opposite of praise,” that is, to “censure,” “dispraise too much,” “blame,” “criticize,” “find fault with,” “accuse,” “obligate,” “hold liable,” “hold in bad conscience,” “accuse,” and “hold guilty,” etc. And that’s not a semantic connotation, that is the meaning, according to the Elias Modern Arabic Dictionary.

Notice here that Spencer has moved the goalposts, as he always does.  In his response, Spencer has tried to prove that the two words–”dhimmi” and “guilty”–are related or connected to each other.  But his initial claim (found on p.49 of his book), the one I refuted, was that the word dhimmi means “guilty person.”  It does not.  The authoritative Hans Wehr Arabic dictionary defines the word “dhimmi” as “a free non-Muslim subject living in a Muslim country.”

In fact, the very sources that Spencer has invoked support this.  For example, Spencer cites the online Sakhr dictionary as a proof for his claim; yet, when we look up the word “dhimmi” in this dictionary, we find that it simply says: “a free non-Moslem under Moslem rule, adherent of a revealed religion.”  It does not mean “guilty people” as Spencer explicitly claims on p.49 of his book, nor does it mean “guilty ones” as he implies in his response.  The same is the case if we look up the Elias Modern Arabic Dictionary.  Neither dictionary that Spencer cites says the word dhimmi means “guilty person”.  Nor is “dhimma” defined with the word “guilty.”

If two words are related or connected to each other, they do not mean the same thing.  They are two separate words entirely.  Let’s say that dhimmi is related to the word “guilt”; in that case, why did Spencer claim that the word means “guilty person” or even “guilty”?  Is this the level of Robert Spencer’s academic integrity and scholarship that he would use the word “means” when in fact he should have said “related (or connected) to”?  There is a world of difference between the two.  And this cannot be understood as a mere typo, since Spencer writes (emphasis is mine): “dhimmis, which means ‘protected’ or ‘guilty’ people–the Arabic word means both.”  Whatever he meant by the word “means” is the same for “protected” and “guilty,” as we equates them both.  In other words, the word “dhimmis” translates to “protected people”, and it equally translates to “guilty people.”  He did not say: “dhimmi, which means ‘protected’ people, but is also related to the word ‘guilty.’”

All of this of course begs the question why the Prophet Muhammad didn’t simply refer to these non-Muslims as sha’ab mudhnib (which literally means “guilty people”) as opposed to “dhimmis” (which means “protected people”)?  Does that not seem more straightforward and logical?  Why use the word “protected people” if the intent was to cast them as “guilty people”?

I’ve quite clearly established that Robert Spencer’s claim that the word “dhimmi” means “guilty person” is complete fabrication.  I will not, however, belabor this point and instead choose to move on.  So if the word “dhimmi” does not mean “guilty person”, is it at least related to the word “guilty”?  Yes, it is.  Case closed?  Not so fast.  The two words are connected, but in a way that actually punches Spencer in the mouth and proves that he only dug himself into a deeper sh*% hole.  The root letters dh-m-m do in fact have the meaning of “blame” or “censure”.  But although dhimmi/dhimma is related to this root, the blame or censure in this word is not meant in the sense Spencer is using it.

The authoritative 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–such as Taj al-Arus and al-Muhit–say the same. In other words, the blame (or “guilt”) involved in the term “dhimma” is related to breaking the covenant of security, and the blame/guilt is ascribed to the Islamic state–not the non-Muslim resident.  An Islamic state would be guilty/blameworthy if it did not uphold and protect the “sanctity” of the covenanted non-Muslim’s life and property.

Kinana of Khaybar, a loyal fan of JihadWatch.org, tries to defend Robert Spencer’s claim that dhimmi means “guilty person” by claiming that the dhimmi (non-Muslim resident) would be “guilty” if he/she broke the covenant.  In other words, Kinana is ascribing the guilt to the dhimmi, not the Islamic state.  Of course, Kinana’s claim is not true at all, but let’s for argument’s sake pretend it is.  Let us suppose then that it is the dhimmi who is “guilty” if he breaks the covenant.  Even if we were to concede this (which we don’t–but let’s just say we do), this still does not disprove that Robert Spencer is guilty of wholesale fabrication.  Spencer did not just claim that the dhimmis are guilty; he told us why they are called “guilty people.”  Here are Spencer’s words from p.49 of his book (emphasis is mine):

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.

In other words, Spencer has wholly imagined the claim that the word “dhimmis” means “guilty people” because they are guilty of “reject[ing] Muhammad as a prophet” or because they have “distorted the…revelations.” According to Kinana’s own argument, the word “dhimmi” is related to “guilt” not because of any of this but for breaking the covenant.  Again, even if we were to grant Kinana his fantastic defense, it still wouldn’t answer how it is that Spencer’s shoddy scholarship is such that he doesn’t mind completely fabricating the bolded part above.

Secondly, and more importantly, Kinana is guilty of wholesale fabrication himself (which is why he fits right into the JihadWatch crew).  The word “dhimma” is related to “guilty” not because the dhimmi is a “guilty person” but because the one granting the dhimma (protection) would be guilty if he/she violates it.  Said in a clearer way, it is the Islamic state (not the non-Muslim resident) that would be guilty of violating the sanctity of the dhimmi’s life and property.

Lane’s Lexicon reads:

Dhimma: A compact, a covenant, a contract, a league, a treaty, an engagement, a bond, or an obligation; because the breaking thereof necessesitates blame: and a right, or due, for the neglect of which one is to be blamed: [an inviolable right or due:]… a thing that should be sacred, or inviolable; or which one is under an obligation to reverence, respect, or honour, and defend.

The sacred and inviolable right that must be respected, honored, and defended is the safety (amaan) of the non-Muslim resident.  As Lane’s Lexicon says:

dhimma signifies also amaan [as meaning security, or safety; security of life and property; protection or safeguard; a promise, or an assurance, of security, safety, protection, or safeguard...]

But Kinana knew this quite well, evidenced by his deceitful half-quoting of another source.  Says Kinana:

Thanks for addressing this Robert.

Also from T. P. Hughes’ A Dictionary of Islam,

1) “ZIMMAH. , pl. zinam, from the root zamm, “to blame.” A compact, covenant, or contract, a league or treaty, any engagement or obligation, because the breaking thereof necessitates blame; and a right or due, for the neglect of which one is to be blamed. [...]“

and

2) “ZIMMI. , a member of the Ahlu ‘z-Zimmah, a non Muslim subject of a Muslim government, belonging to the Jewish, Christian, or Sabean creed. who, for the payment of a poll— or capitation-tax, enjoys security of his person and property in a Muhammadan country. [...]“

Note: Zimmah = dhimma, zimmi = dhimmi.

The T. P. Hughes dictionary is available free online courtesy of Answering-Islam, see their Index to Islam. The section on the zimmi goes into considerable detail.

Notice how Kinana cites (the horribly outdated) T.P. Hughes’ A Dictionary of Islam, and yet he purposely places ellipses [...] in the definition of the word “zimmah” in order to hide the fact that the “blame” (or “guilt”) is attributed to the Islamic state, not the non-Muslim resident.  This cannot be a mere mistake on the part of Kinana; it is academic deceit of the highest order.  T.P. Hughes’ A Dictionary of Islam reads (emphasis is mine):

Zimmah, pl. zinam, from the root zamm, “to blame.” A compact, covenant, or contract, a league or treaty, any engagement or obligation, because the breaking thereof necessitates blame; and a right or due, for the neglect of which one is to be blamed. The word is also synonymous with aman, in the sense of security of life and property, protection or safeguard, and promise of such; hence ahlu ‘z-zimmah [dhimmis], or , with suppression of the noun ahlu, simply az-zimmah, the people with whom a compact or covenant has been made, and particularly the Kitabis, or the people of the book, i.e. Jews and Christians, and the Majusi or Sabeans, who pay the poll-tax called jazyah. [JAZYAH.] An individual of this class–namely, a free non-Muslim subject of a Muslim Government, who pays a poll- or capitation-tax, for which the Muslims are responsible for his security, personal freedom, and religious toleration–is called zimmi (see the following article).

Notice quite clearly that both A Dictionary of Islam as well as Lane’s Lexicon equate the word “dhimma” with the word “amaan”.  Amaan means “safety” and is related to the word amaanat which means “trust, keepsake.”  If, for example, a person gives his property to you to keep it safe until he returns from a business trip, then his wealth is an amaanat (i.e. given in trust) to you.  If you violate the sanctity of that trust by failing to safeguard his wealth, then you would be blameworthy/guilty for doing that.  It would be absolutely absurd to claim that the person who entrusted his wealth to you is blameworthy/guilty.

Likewise, the word “amaan” means “safety” and refers to “safe passage” granted to a person by the state.  The state promises to safeguard the person’s life, and would be blameworthy/guilty for not upholding this.  For example, ambassadors from other empires would visit the Islamic caliph, and be granted amaan (safe passage) to travel in the Islamic lands without fear of being harmed.  This amaan was granted without any payment or other obligation on the ambassador, so it cannot be said that the ambassador is the one blameworthy/guilty of breaching the covenant of security.  Rather, it is the state that would be blameworthy/guilty should it harm the ambassador.

Kinana’s own source, A Dictionary of Islam, says:

The word [zimmah] is also synonymous with aman, in the sense of security of life and property, protection or safeguard, and promise of such…the Muslims are responsible for [the zimmi's] security, personal freedom, and religious toleration.

There is absolutely no doubt that it is the Islamic state that is blameworthy/guilty if it violates the dhimma.  It therefore cannot at all be said that dhimmi means (or even implies) “guilty people” or “guilty ones.”  Even if Robert Spencer or Kinana of Khaybar were to claim that it could also refer to the dhimmi if he breaks the contract (which does not at all seem to be true, but let’s just say it is for argument’s sake), then this is an incredibly weak polemical point, since the Islamic state is also “guilty” in the same way then!

Furthermore, as I mentioned in my previous reply, the word “dhimma” was used for Muslims as well:

…The exact same word–dhimma–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”.

But to completely shatter Spencer and Kinana’s argument, I will reproduce the words of the Prophet Muhammad himself, who said in a hadith narrated in Sahih al-Bukhari:

Whoever prays our [Islamic] prayer, faces our Qiblah [Mecca], and eats our slaughtered meat [Zabiha] is a Muslim who is under the dhimma [protection] of God and His Messenger.

If we say “dhimma” also means “guilt”, then the saying makes no sense, as it would read “a Muslim…is under the guilt of Allah and His Messenger.”  Complete nonsense.  Rather, the word means “protection,” and in the above quote the meaning is that God and His Messenger promise the believers to uphold the sanctity of the Muslim’s life.  Clearly, the word “dhimma” cannot mean something negative if it is equally applied to the Muslim believers.  As I have said repeatedly, Spencer’s entire claim is complete fabrication.

Spencer and Kinana then try to obfuscate the issue by claiming that non-Muslims in general are “guilty” of sins such as shirk.  This seems like a strong point to the uninitiated, until of course you think about it.  If Muslims believe that non-Muslims are “guilty” of shirk, then what of Hindus who believe that unbelievers are “guilty” of eating beef?  Or what of Christians who believe that unbelievers are “guilty” of not taking Christ as their Lord and Savior?  For that matter, Christians believe that whoever is guilty of this cannot attain salvation and will thus burn in Hell.  Yes, unbelievers would be–by definition–guilty of unbelief!  This is not something unique to Islam.

Furthermore, Muslims are also “guilty” of many sins, and Islamic theology states that no human being–not even the best Muslim–could be completely blameless of sin.  So if non-Muslims are guilty of shirk, Muslims are guilty of other sins.  But none of this has anything to do with the word “dhimmi” or “dhimma.”  Of course, both Spencer and Kinana know this very well and are just desperately trying to obfuscate the issue.

The word “dhimmi” is derived from “dhimma”, a word that was used for Muslims as well!  If the non-Muslims are to be “under dhimma” because of their shirk, then why are Muslims also “under dhimma” (as quoted in the hadith above)? In fact, by definition, a Muslim is automatically under the dhimma (protection) of the Islamic state.  So when Kinana feigns to be perplexed by me, saying:

Interesting that Danios thinks the dhimma is something positive.

I respond by saying: your ignorance is profound.  We know for a fact that “dhimma” is something positive, because it is granted to Muslim believers, as the Prophet Muhammad declared:

Whoever prays our [Islamic] prayer, faces our Qiblah [Mecca], and eats our slaughtered meat [Zabiha] is a Muslim who is under the dhimma [protection] of God and His Messenger.

And this same dhimma–or protection (a good thing!)–was granted to non-Muslim “citizens” in the Constitution of Medina (as I mentioned in part 1) and to non-Muslim “non-citizens” via the jizya.

To conclude, Robert Spencer is an intellectual huckster.  His writings are full of wholesale fabrications, and he has become too accustomed to nobody spending the time to thoroughly debunk his nonsense.  Unfortunately for him, that time has come to an end.

Spencer’s claim that “dhimmi” means “guilty person” is completely false, and no Arabic dictionary supports this.  Blame/guilt is related to “dhimma”, but Spencer is incorrect to claim that the dhimmi (non-Muslim resident) is the “guilty one” for disbelieving in the Prophet Muhammad or distorting the scriptures.  Rather, the blame/guilt is attributed to the Islamic state should it violate the inviolable rights of the non-Muslim residents.  This, according to the most authoritative Arabic dictionaries, including those cited by Spencer and Kinana.  We see that Robert Spencer completely flipped reality on its head.  As for Kinana of Khaybar, he too is an intellectual huckster, evidenced by his deceitful half-quoting of a passage of T.P. Hughes’ A Dictionary of Islam, the entirety of which negates his claim and supports mine.

As I said before, Spencer has, by replying to me, dug himself into a deeper sh*% hole.

Update: If you turn to page 133 in the Hans Wehr Arabic dictionary, you will find that cowardice (jubn) and cheese (jubna) share the same root: j-b-n.  Are these two words related in such a way that a man who is a coward is also a…cheese?  Or does eating cheese make you a coward?  Using Spencer’s logic, probably.  (hat tip to Ibksi for this humorous but effective point)

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:

More proof that Robert Spencer is an intellectual huckster, part 2; Spencer digs himself into a deeper sh*% hole

Robert Spencer, a Catholic apologist, spouting his vitriolic propaganda on the Christian Broadcasting Network

Robert Spencer, one of the leading anti-Islam ideologues of the Western world, published The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).  This is a rebuttal of chapter four of his book.

Spencer’s claim:

1.  Historically, Jews fared better in Christian Europe than in the lands of Islam.  Says Spencer: “…The Muslim laws [imposing dhimmitude] were much harsher for Jews than those of Christendom…In Christian lands there was the idea, however imperfect, of the equality of dignity and rights for all people…” ^[1]

Rebuttal:

Spencer’s claim contradicts the predominant opinion held by Western scholarship.  Prof. Mark R. Cohen, the leading expert in the field, concludes that “the historical evidence indicates that the Jews of Islam, especially during the formative and classical centuries (up to the thirteenth century), experienced much less persecution than did the Jews of Christendom.” ^[2] Spencer’s book is horribly one-sided: it mentions “dhimmitude” (a spurious term), but makes no mention of the Church’s doctrine of Perpetual Servitude.  Comparing the two, Cohen writes:  “…The dhimmi enjoyed a kind of citizenship, second class and unequal though it was…[in contrast to] Jews living in Latin Christian lands, where…[they were] legally possessed [as slaves] by this or that ruling authority.” ^[3]

Read my complete rebuttal here.

Spencer replied, and I counter-replied here and here.

Spencer’s claim:

2.  The Pact of Umar, a document that enumerates a number of humiliating conditions to be imposed upon non-Muslims, is “still part of the Sharia today.” ^[4] As soon as Muslims are able to, they will enforce it.

Rebuttal:

Numerous Islamic and Western scholars have declared the Pact of Umar to be a forgery.  Muslims do not believe that a forgery can be a “part of the Sharia.”  More importantly, although the document may have had some significance hundreds of years ago, it has now fallen into complete disuse and obscurity in the Islamic world.  It is highly unlikely that contemporary Muslims want to reimpose a document that they themselves have never heard of.  This is very similar to how most Christians today have no familiarity with the Church’s doctrine of Perpetual Servitude.  To argue that either Muslims or Christians in general want to reimpose these respective doctrines–dhimmitude and Perpetual Servitude respectively–is conspiratorial and far-fetched.  Read my complete rebuttal here.

Spencer replied, and I counter-replied here.

Spencer’s claim:

3.  Robert Spencer writes:

*Islamic law mandates second-class status for Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims in Islamic societies.

*These laws have never been abrogated or revised by any authority. ^[5]

Spencer challenges me, claiming that I will do

virtually anything other than actually prov[e] that there exists a sect or school of Islam that teaches that Muslims must live with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis

Rebuttal:

I accept his challenge.

Spencer’s claim–that no Islamic “authority” or “sect or school” has ever “abrogated” the laws of “dhimmitude”–is quite simply false.  It is a boldfaced lie or profound ignorance, either of which casts great doubt on Spencer’s “scholarship.” Over 150 years ago, the caliph (supreme leader of the Islamic world) abolished the dhimmi system entirely.  In 1839, a caliphal decree known as the Hatt-i Sharif of Gulhane was issued, implicitly recognizing the equality of all Ottoman subjects, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.  In 1856, “the Hatt-i Humayan [was issued], in which the principles of 1839 were repeated and the guarantees of the equality of all subjects were made more explicit.  Thus, Muslim and non-Muslim were to have equal obligations…and equal opportunities…” ^[6] The decree abolished the jizya and dhimmi system for all time.  (Read more about these caliphal decrees here.)

In the mid-nineteenth century, a group of Islamic intellectuals emerged, known as the Young Ottomans (not to be confused with the secularized Young Turks). They expounded Ottomanism, a doctrine stating the inherent equality of all peoples in the Empire regardless of religion or ethnicity.  The Young Ottomans believed that Islam advocates constitutionalism and that the government must enter a contractual agreement with those whom they rule over.  In other words, there is to be mutual consent between the rulers and the ruled.  The Young Ottomans opposed the royal autocracy, and demanded democratization of the Empire.  They argued that not only should all religious communities be viewed equally by the state, but there were certain inalienable rights that all citizens possessed, which the government could not infringe upon. The efforts of the Ottoman government on the one hand and the Islamic intellectuals on the other hand culminated in the passage of the Nationality Law of 1869, which “reinforced the principle that all individuals living within Ottoman domains shared a common citizenship regardless of their religion.” ^[7] (Read more about these Islamic intellectuals here.)

The Young Ottomans had a long-lasting effect on Islamic discourse, and gave birth to the modernist school of thought.  Arguably the key figure of modernist Islam was Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), who served as rector of al-Azhar University (the foremost Sunni institution) and who held the position of Grand Mufti of Egypt (the highest ranking religious position in the country).  Abduh issued a fatwa declaring Muslims and non-Muslims “to be equal under the law, with full citizenship rights.” ^[8] He further supported parliamentary democracy and constitutionalism as a means to protect these individual rights.  In 1908, Mehmed Emaleddin Efendi (Turkey, 1848-1917)–the chief religious authority of the Ottoman Empire, appointed directly by the caliph–concurred with Abduh.  During this period, numerous Islamic reformers emerged, and reconciled Islam with modernity.  They revised traditional opinions dealing with jihad, women’s rights, human rights, science, and interfaith relationships.  Quite consistently, the modernist trend of Islam has held the opinion, to use Robert Spencer’s own words, that “Muslims must live with non-Muslims as equals on an indefinite basis.” (Read more about modernist Islam here.) Muhammad Abduh’s work “fostered not only a modernist school of thought but also a reformed traditionalist school…spearheaded by [the more conservative] Muhammad Rashid Rida, a disciple of Abduh.” ^[9] In this manner, reformist ideas seeped into the discourse of the conservative Ulema.  One can say that the fire of reform burned greatest at its modernist core, but its warmth reached even more traditionalist elements, defrosting some of their more [f]rigid opinions.

It should be noted, however, that “few Muslims explicitly self-identify as ‘Muslim modenists,’ [and] instead refer[] to themselves simply as Muslims.” ^[10] The term “modernist Islam” is instead used most frequently by Western scholars–those outside of the faith–to describe a clearly discernible trend that has had profound influence on contemporary Islamic discourse. Anti-Islam ideologues often dismiss modernist interpretations, choosing instead to “look at the more conservative articulations of Islam (such as some traditional scholars) and even Muslim extremists as somehow representing ‘real’ Islam.” ^[11] However, modernists should not be disregarded so easily, because although they diverge from classical formulations, they maintain fidelity to the canonical texts.  Muhammad Abduh argued that his was a “properly understood interpretation of Islam”, consistent with the “standards of the Quran [and] the hadith.” ^[12]

In fact, the modernists argue that in reality it is “the inherited, calcified shari’a tradition” that does “not reflect the true spirit of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sunna.”  They disregard the classical formulation as “centuries old legal baggage derived from the [spurious] Pact of ‘Umar.” ^[13] The modernists look instead to the Constitution of Medina, drafted by the Prophet Muhammad, which granted “equality” to the Jewish residents of the city.  No jizya was taken from them, and they served in the military alongside Muslims. The nineteenth century Islamic reformers “cited the ‘Constitution of Medina’ as a model of good sectarian relations.  If the Prophet could extend political rights to non-Muslims then so too could a modernist Islamic polity, without endangering its Islamic character.” ^[14]

The Constitution of Medina declared that the “Muslims of Quraish and Yathrib, and those [Jews] who followed them and joined them…are one nation (ummah) to the exclusion of all men.”  Nineteenth century modernists used this powerful sentence to dismiss the medieval division of the world into a Muslim ummah and a non-Muslim polity.  Instead, they argued that there was a religious ummah and a political ummah.  Muslims and non-Muslims living in the same country were then part of the same ummah, and owed their loyalty and allegiance to each other.  Similarly, Muslim Americans today believe that the United States is their ummah (nation) to which they owe their loyalty and allegiance, so when anti-Islam ideologues deride them by saying “the Muslim Americans owe their loyalty and allegiance to the ummah,” the Muslim Americans could not agree more. (Read the relevant parts of the Constitution of Medina here.)

According to the Constitution, the Muslims and Jews were obligated to defend the other in case of attack, a very real fear considering the hostile polytheist tribes surrounding Medina.  Prof. Francis E. Peters writes: “Muhammad’s attitude toward the People of the Book [Jews and Christians], as he called those who shared the same scriptural tradition with Islam, was generally favorable…But as time passed, the Quran came to look on Jews and Christians as adherents of rival rather than collegial faiths.  Some of this change in attitude was dictated by events at Medina itself, where Jewish tribes made up part of the population.  Not only did the Jews reject Muhammad’s prophetic claims; they began secretly to connive with his enemies.” ^[15] Fear of a fifth column prompted the Prophet Muhammad to banish the Jewish tribes of Banu Nadir and Banu Qinaqa from Medina, a controversial decision receiving its share of criticism by historians and polemicists alike.  Jewish tribes not involved in the treachery were allowed to stay in the city, so long as they honored the terms of the Constitution.

S.A. Rizvi writes: “The banishment of the Jewish tribes of Banu Nadhir and Banu Qinaqa from Medina had accentuated the animosity of the Jews towards the Muslims. These tribes had settled down at Khaibar at a distance of about eighty miles from Medina.” ^[16] Two years later, the banished Banu Nadir sought to exact revenge, and joined the polytheists in an assault on Medina.  The Banu Nadir bribed various tribes to join in the attack, including the Banu Ghatafan, the Bani Asad, and the Banu Sulaym.  They also convinced a Jewish tribe in Medina to attack the Muslims from the inside.  The combined forces outmatched Muhammad’s army 10,000 to 3,000.  However, the Muslims saved Medina from almost certain doom by building a trench which successfully impeded enemy advance, a tactic hitherto unknown to Arabia.  After several weeks of trying to cross the trench, the besiegers retreated, the Quraish polytheists to Mecca and the Jews of Banu Nadir to Khaibar.

The Muslims launched a counter-attack on Khaibar, and won a decisive victory.  Terms of the surrender included a provision for the defeated Jews to “relinquish any intention of maintaining a military force and to rely on Muslims for their personal security and that of their possessions in exchange for the payment of [jizya].” ^[17] This was the first time jizya was instituted, and the context in which it was.  In the time of the Prophet Muhammad, no other condition was placed on the dhimmis, except that of jizya and the prohibition from serving in a military capacity.  As such, the conditions placed on them seemed to be about security rather than humiliation.

As the Islamic legal tradition developed, the jizya became accepted as the normative practice towards non-Muslims (along with the trappings of the Pact of Umar), whereas the Constitution of Medina fell to the wayside.  Islamic reformers in the nineteenth century, however, argued that jizya is to be demanded only of those disbelievers who have “violated their pledges (of peace)…and attacked you first” (Quran, 9:13), those whose belligerence must be “subdued” (Quran, 9:29).  The Prophet Muhammad’s decision to demilitarize certain tribes and take jizya to fund their protection was seen more of a military consideration than a theological obligation. The modernists revived the Constitution of Medina, arguing that peaceful and loyal non-Muslims ought to be considered equal citizens alongside Muslims.  There was to be religious equality, with people of all faiths having the same rights and obligations.

These ideals were enshrined in the Objectives Resolution of 1949, a document that represents the culmination of over a century’s worth of modernist reinterpretation of Islamic texts.  This fascinating synthesis of Islam and modernity declared that “the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance, and social justice as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed…adequate provision shall be made for the [religious] minorities to freely profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures; Wherein shall be guaranteed fundamental rights including equality of status, of opportunity and before law, social, economic and political justice, and freedom of thought, expression, belief, faith, worship and association…adequate provisions shall be made to safeguard the legitimate interests of [religious] minorities…” (Read more about the Objectives Resolution of 1949 here.)

The idea of religious equality may have been considered exclusively modernist a century ago, but now finds resonance in wider Islamic circles as well. As Prof. Cleveland writes: “If, after the passage of nearly a century, Abduh’s proposals seem somewhat…conservative, we must attempt to appreciate how bold they were at the time.” ^[17] Accordingly, numerous contemporary scholars ranging from modernist to conservative have issued rulings declaring their belief in equal citizenship regardless of religion.  My very cursory research found several such Islamic intellectuals and scholars who have issued rulings saying as much, including:  Jasser Auda, Tariq Ramadan, Yousuf al-Qaradawi, Rashid al-Ganoushi, Muhammad Salim al-Awa, Muqtedar Khan, Mukarram Ahmad, Muhammad Yahya, Abdul Hameed Nomani, Syed Shahabuddin, Tahir Mahmood, Mujtaba Farooq, Ataur Rahman Qasmi, Waris Mazhari, Zafar Mahmood, S.Q.R. Ilyas, Zafarul-Islam Khan,  Mirza Yawar Baig, Shahnawaz Ali Raihan, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Moiz Amjad, Shehzad Saleem, and Javed Ahmad Ghamidi. Representatives from the following Islamic organizations have issued these rulings: UK Board of Muslim Scholars, International Union for Muslim Scholars,  European Muslim Network, Al-Nahdha Islamic Movement, World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Circle for Tradition and Progress, European Council for Fatwa and Research, International Association of Muslim Scholars, Egyptian Association for Culture and Dialogue, Association  of Muslim Social Scientists, All India Jamiat Ahl-e Hadees, Jamiat Ulama-e Hind, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, Jamaat-e Islami Hind, Muslim Personal Law Board, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, Students Islamic Organisation, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, and Al-Mawrid Institute. (Read these religious rulings here.)

Spencer would have unearthed this if he had only spent the couple hours I did to find it.  Or had he picked up a real history book, he would have known that over a century ago, these views became the law of the land due to the efforts of the caliph and numerous Islamic intellectuals.  He would have known that such a fatwa was passed by al-Azhar, the same university which he invokes as the absolute most ultimate Islamic authority when ranting about Reliance of the Traveler.  He would have known that the highest religious authority in all of the Ottoman Empire declared the same.  In light of all this, Spencer’s claim that the “laws [of dhimmitude] have never been abrogated or revised by any authority” is truly absurd.  The only question that remains is: is his claim willful prevarication or simply the result of his lack of scholarly training?

Robert Spencer will learn to regret the day Danios spent $5 to add a used copy of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) to his bookshelf.

I have a nagging suspicion that Spencer will now move the goalposts, and argue that there are some ultraconservative Muslims who don’t have such enlightened views about the topic.  But that was not his claim.  His claim was that no Islamic authority has ever “abrogated or revised” the dhimmi laws. (Can Spencer ever defend his actual argument when he debates me!?)  If Spencer limited his criticism to ultraconservative Islam alone, and argued that Islamic puritans who believe in reimposing “dhimmitude” need to be opposed, I would have absolutely no issue with him.  In fact, I would then support his work, and help him in that important task.

Of course, I would also be consistent and criticize extreme right-wing Christians who argue to this day that the Church’s Doctrine of Witness and of Perpetual Servitude should be revived; for example, this website (which boasts an impressive membership of a couple hundred thousand) argues that “the theologically correct, and socially just Catholic social policy is to subjugate [the Jews], regulate them, segregate them and expel them.”  (Here, Spencer would mistakenly invoke the tu quoque defense, not knowing that tu quoque is not always considered a fallacy but in fact has legitimate uses; see hypocrisy, argument for equal treatment, and clean hands doctrine.)

I would also point out to Spencer that the best way to undermine ultraconservative interpretations is to support reformist ones.  But Spencer wants to deny this option to Muslims, because it would mean that the entire faith of Islam could not be vilified.  The only option that should be given to Muslims, according to Spencer’s philosophy, is to leave Islam, and of course it would be ideal to convert to Christianity.  At the end of the day, Spencer is a Catholic polemicist who is waging a crusade against Islam.  The very first words in his book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) are “Deus Vult!” (God wills it!), which was “the rallying cry of the First Crusade”; and the very last sentence of his book explicitly calls for a crusade against Islam.  His book then is “Deus Vult…Crusade”, and everything in between those two words is just propaganda to justify the Crusade that God willed.

Footnotes

refer back to article 1. Robert Spencer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), pp.57-59. ISBN: 0-89526-013-1

refer back to article 2. Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages, xix. ISBN 069101082X, 9780691010823, p.xxi-xxiii

refer back to article 3. Ibid., p.195

refer back to article 4. Spencer, p.51

refer back to article 5. Ibid., p.47

refer back to article 6. William L. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, p.83. ISBN: 0-8133-3489-6

refer back to article 7. Ibid., p. 83

refer back to article 8. William Brown, Ordering the International: History, Change, and Transformation, pp.273-275. ISBN: 0745321372, 9780745321370

refer back to article 9. Caeser E. Farah, Islam: Beliefs and Observances, p.243. ISBN: 0764122266, 9780764122262

refer back to article 10. Vincent J. Cornell, Voices of Islam, p.xvii. ISBN: 027598737X, 9780275987374

refer back to article 11. Ibid., p.xviii

refer back to article 12. Cleveland, p.125

refer back to article 13. Bruce Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World, pp.175-176, ISBN: 0521005825, 9780521005821

refer back to article 14. Ibid.

refer back to article 15. Francis E. Peters, The Monotheists: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Conflict and Competition, p.273. ISBN: 069112373X, 9780691123738

refer back to article 16. S.A. Rizvi, The Life of the Prophet Muhammad, Chapter 16.ISBN: 0-9702125-0-X

refer back to article 17. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, p.28. ISBN: 0521599849, 9780521599849

refer back to article 18. Cleveland, p.125

Yesterday, May 20th was the Draw Muhammed Day which is extending into today, ostensibly put together to defend freedom of expression/speech. The original creators of the day have backed out, including Molly Norris, due to the tremendous amounts of bigotry and hate that it engendered, but others continued with the campaign.

Taking a glance at the Facebook page, most of the freedumb expressions are hateful and bigoted depictions of Muhammad meant to anger Muslims. Is it a coincidence that the ones who are reveling most in this day are racists and Islamophobes?

Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller have both been utterly gleeful over the event. Unconditionally supporting it, Spencer got in the act himself drawing Prophet Muhammad with a bomb on his head, though the depiction looks a little bit like Spencer himself, and Geller added to the fray by drawing Prophet Muhammad with the face of a pig.

As Shahed Amanullah said, this is pretty much collective punishment on the whole Muslim community for the actions of a few. The inspiration for this event was the threats that the South Park creators received from a group called Revolution Muslim.

We reported at the time that this group is composed of four or five individuals, all with dubious backgrounds. Not only are they on the fringe in terms of their beliefs, they are completely rejected in the American Muslim community. Yet for some curious reason the media took this story and ran with it as if these Revolution Muslim characters represented or had any clout amongst American Muslims. It is as though anyone can say they are Muslim or represent Muslims and they will get airtime if they do or say something crazy.

The event itself was a mixture of self-righteous internet warriors who cared less about free speech and more about offending and disparaging Muslims. The initial fan page was deleted by Facebook, shortly after that another one was started.

There were pictures of Quran’s in toilets, of Muhammad depicted in all sorts of ways which I won’t repeat or reproduce here because they are vile and disgusting, and go beyond any justification of free speech and into the realm of outright hostility and bigotry towards Muslims.  People can view the site and judge for themselves.

However, I must say that if this event was put together to defend freedom of speech it has failed. Freedom of speech, the freedom to offend, to be a racist is not in dispute but when you get called out for it don’t begin whining. There also seems to be a level of incitement, the strange and morbid wish to receive death threats, as the moderator put it, “Did you receive any death threats? If so, post them online and share the fun. ”

Interestingly enough, a few participants in the Draw Muhammad Day expressed disappointment at not receiving death threats, one Jack Burns wrote,

Jack Burns

I’m really disappointed…I haven’t received any…I’m starting to feel left out!

Troels Jensen

damn, i did not get a death threat yet, darn…

Spencer resembles someone here.

Sheila Musaji and The American Muslim have done a great job in compiling different sources, including a number of links from Loonwatch for a concise piece on Robert Spencer with the apt title: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Robert Spencer.

by Sheila Musaji

Robert Spencer describes himself as an impartial scholar of Islam, and maintains that he is not an Islamophobe, and that in fact the term Islamophobia is either irrelevant or an attempt to silence critics.  He is only one of a number of individuals whose statements about Muslims and Islam can only be called alarming.  Although, he is not alone, he is perhaps the most prolific Islamophobe.

Clearly we have free speech in the U.S., and free speech must be defended.  The line between hate speech and free speech is difficult to draw, but I believe that we need to at least attempt to recognize when speech crosses that line as important, and to respond to that speech appropriately.  My hope as an American Muslim is that we are able to learn to have respectful speech that does not close off the possibility of dialogue and alienate the very Muslims who could act as a bridge between cultures.

The villification of Muslims, Arabs, and Islam has become relentless.  Repeating the same things over and over again has been shown to create credibility. False logic seems plausible, and even outright lies repeated often enough begin to sound like the truth.  Sadly, these stereotypes have replaced knowledge with ignorance and misperception, and ignorance fuels hatred of what we don’t know much about.  Muslims are consistently portrayed as “the other”, not part of us, and imposible to understand, and so not worthy of tolerance.  Just the mention of Islam creates a feeling of fear on the part of many non-Muslims because of what they have heard so often and causes them to believe that this fear is reasonable.

“The leap from deviant Muslims perpetrating atrocities to a religion being impugned for the sins of its supposed adherents is breath-taking in its audacity. This distinction has become critical ever since the ‘’showdown with Saddam” transmuted into the ‘’war on terror.” With the daily mind-numbing imagery of maniacal Muslim ‘’insurgents” savaging troops and civilians alike, a transformation rapidly took place: The problem was just not Muslim terrorists but an ‘’evil” Islam itself. This is a theme broadcast with malevolent glee by talk shows on a daily basis thereby intensifying suspicion, fear, contempt, and hatred of Islam. Demonizing Islam makes it the enemy in the ‘’war on terror.” … Ironically, it is us Muslims who have the greatest vested interest in eradicating terrorism. We need to do this to salvage our religion and our self-respect. As long as we are marginalized by the West and taunted by the extremists, we are made to feel as if we were part of the problem rather than of the solution, and our commitment becomes ambivalent. If the so-called war on terrorism has any chance of being won, there needs to be an immediate redefinition of the enemy.” Foe isn’t Islam, it’s Binladenism, Abdul Cader Asmal

And, the repetition of such statements results in seeing Muslims in a false light.

The most commonly repeated claims about Muslims are that “everyone knows” that most or all terrorists are Muslims, and there are no Christian and no Jewish terrorists (or terrorists of any other religious stripe), and that Muslims are inherently violent.  Everyone also knows that Muslims are not equivalent to real Americans, that they are the enemy within, and a fifth column,  that good Muslims can’t be good Americans, that they are not a part of our American heritage, that they are all militant,  that Islam makes Muslims “backward”, that Muslims have made no contribution to the West,  that Islam is “of the devil”, a Crescent menace, and an “evil encroaching on the United States”, and not a religion.  Everyone knows that this is a Christian nation, which everyone knows the Muslims are trying to take over, starting with getting an Eid stamp which is the first step towards shariah law, and by purposefully having more children than others to increase their numbers.  Everyone knows that Muslims have no respect for the Constitution.  Everyone knows that Muslims are given a pass by the elite media.  It’s “us versus them”.  They don’t speak out against extremism or terrorism, and even those Muslims who do speak up or seem moderate are simply lying or practicing taqiyyah.  The problem is that what “everyone knows” is wrong.  These self-righteous and incorrect statements are usually followed by a demand that the Muslim community do something about whatever is the false flag of the day or face the inevitable consequences.

In addition to these “everyone knows” statements of demonization and misrepresentation, there is also a whole industry of simply connecting with Islam or Muslims with any negative idea, event, or societal trend (even when there is no sane connection to make).  These I think of as “Through the Looking Glass” claims.  For example, lots of “news” items never happened, or are simply not true.

Arabs didn’t celebrate 9/11 at a Dunkin Donuts in New Jersey.  Budweiser did not pull all its product from the shelves of a convenience store where there was celebration of the terrorist attacks – this never happened.  The Muslim statement of faith (Shahada) is not an expression of hate.  An American Missionary in Africa didn’t face possible murder charges and hanging because of a traffic accident.  There is no verse of the Qur’an on “The Wrath of the Eagle”.  The supposed bomb threat made by an Arizona student that led to an evacuation of the school was a hoax by non-Muslim students.  The story that Iran was considering forcing Jews to wear a yellow star appeared in several publications and it was totally false.  The slaying of the New Jersey Coptic family was falsely charged to Muslims.  The story about the British banks banning piggy banks so as not to offend Muslims never happened.  Muslims are not more likely to support terrorism and violence than Christians or Jews.  Muslims did not destroy the Library of Alexandria.  Nurses in Britain were not “ordered to drop everything and turn Muslims’ beds toward Mecca five times daily”.  There is no Muslim sword through the 41-cents mark on the U.S. Eid stamp.  Sirhan Sirhan is a Christian, not a Muslim.  The Virginia Tech massacre had no connection with Islam.  A bus driver in Britain didn’t tell passengers to get off the bus so he could pray.  Rachel Ray’s Paisley scarf is not a symbol of “murderous Palestinian Jihad” (and neither is a Keffiyah).  A Muslim student in Florida did not refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance.  There were no Muslims acting suspiciously on Air Tran flight 297. Wearing a tee-shirt with Arabic writing on it does not make a person dangerous.  A Madrassah is simply a school.  The zebibah (prayer bruise) on some Muslims foreheads is not a sign of a “commitment to jihad”.  Jihad is not terrorism. Ashura is not a “Muslim blood festival”.  Muslims are not forbidden to have non-Muslims as friends.  The Nuclear Security Summit logo is an atom on a circular path, not an Islamic symbol, the U.S. Missile Defense Logo is not evidence of Obama’s ‘Submission To Shariah’, and neither is the Flight 93 memorial.  Barack Obama is not a Muslim, but so what if he was?  (Note: click on the links to see responses to particular claims or incidents

The fact that these “news stories” and articles are simply wrong doesn’t change the fact that they are “out there” and that they will be read and believed by many of the same folks who believe the supermarket tabloids.  They will be forwarded or passed on, and commented on, and the stories will grow and more and more people will accept them as “facts”.  I would hope that not only Muslims would be concerned with the dangers in this sort of stereotyping and dehumanizing of any segment of our population.  Here is a link to a collection of English translations of Nazi Propaganda: 1933-1945.  Exactly how is this different?

Robert Spencer’s views on Islam are a part of this demonization industry, and lead to seeing Muslims as suspect and Islam as the source of every negative action.  If Muslims are so different from other human beings that there can never be any motive for any action they undertake other than Islam (no Muslim criminals, no political, economic, social, or cultural motives for actions), if you can’t tell a moderate from an extremist, and even the moderates are dangerous, then that really does seem to limit the options to either criminalizing Islam, or carrying out a “final solution” against the Muslims.  This is the only direction that Robert Spencer’s arguments lead.

In order to see where this sort of inflammatory rhetoric comes from and might lead see:  Terrorism and violence carried out by non-Muslims (the majority) – Jewish extremist statements and views – Religious extremism/ religious right – Incidents of Islamophobia by year – Prejudiced, racist, or violent incidents at mosques (by state and/or country) – Responses to particular incidents, events or claims A to L and M to Z (This includes: Responses to Claims Made ABOUT Islam and Muslims in General – Responses to Claims Made ABOUT Qur’an Verses, Arabic Terms, Prophet Muhammad – Responses to False Claims ABOUT Muslim Individuals & Organizations & Incidents Involving Muslims – Responses to Actual Extremist Statements & Incidents of Extremism or violence BY Muslims – Responses to Claims Made BY Specific Individuals and Organizations About Muslims.

The Runnymede Trust in Britain identified eight components that define Islamophobia:

1) Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change.
2) Islam is seen as separate and ‘other’. It does not have values in common with other cultures, is not affected by them and does not influence them.
3) Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist.
4) Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a ‘clash of civilisations’.
5) Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political or military advantage.
6) Criticisms made of the West by Islam are rejected out of hand.
7) Hostility towards Islam is used to justify discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion of Muslims from mainstream society.
Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.

I personally believe that Robert Spencer is an Islamophobe, and that all of these eight components of Islamophobia are prevalent in his writings.  Consider his own statements and make up your own mind.

IN HIS OWN WORDS:

Robert Spencer said that Islam itself is an incomplete, misleading, and often downright false revelation which, in many ways, directly contradicts what God has revealed through the prophets of the Old Testament and through his Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh… For several reasons… Islam constitutes a threat to the world at large.

Spencer regarding Keith Ellison taking an oath on the Qur’an “I hope there will be some who have the courage to point out that no American official should be taking an oath on the Qur’an, since—as we have been pointing out here for over three years now—there are so many elements of traditional and mainstream Islam that are at variance with our system of government, our Constitution, and our entire way of life. But since that is blandly denied and unexamined by the mainstream media and government officials, it is much more likely that Qur’anic oath-taking will be allowed without any discussion at all.”

He wrote regarding the Arab Israeli Knesset member who had sold secrets to Hisballah that “I have maintained from the beginning of this site and before that that there is no reliable way to distinguish a “moderate” Muslim who rejects the jihad ideology and Islamic supremacism from a “radical” Muslim who holds such ideas, even if he isn’t acting upon them at the moment. And the cluelessness and multiculturalism of Western officialdom, which make officials shy away from even asking pointed questions, only compound this problem.” Then when the news came out that the Knesset member involved was Christian and not Muslim, a “correction” was posted:  “I have been reminded that Bishara is a Christian, which makes him instead of a false moderate, an example of what Hugh calls an “islamochristian,” or a dhimmi Christian who has imbibed the values of his Muslim overlords. I apologize for the error.” Amazing logic here.  If a Muslim did it, he’s guilty.  And, even those Muslims who are not guilty right now are just temporarily not acting on their negative impulses.  If a Christian did it, he was corrupted by the Muslims.

He said regarding the Hutaree militia arrests “For years now we have heard, in the indelible formulation of Rosie O’Donnell, that “radical Christianity is just as dangerous as radical Islam,” and yet proponents of this exercise in wishful thinking and ignorance have had precious little evidence to adduce in support of it. But now it is certain that for years to come this Hutaree group will be thrown in the face of anyone who takes note of jihad activity in the United States and around the world, as if this group in itself balances and equals the innumerable Islamic groups that are waging armed jihad all around the world today.  …  The Islamic jihad is global, well-financed (courtesy our friend and ally Saudi Arabia) and relentless. One self-proclaimed Christian group should not divert us from the ongoing need to defend ourselves against that jihad. But for many, it will.” This refusal to acknowledge the reality that terrorism, extremism, and violence are a problem that is not confined to Muslims.  In fact, the majority of such acts are carried out by non-Muslims.

He said at CPAC “It’s absurd” to think that “Islam is a religion of peace that’s been hijacked by … extremists”

Spencer said “The misbegotten term “Islamo-fascism” is wholly redundant: Islam itself is a kind of fascism that achieves its full and proper form only when it assumes the powers of the state.”

Spencer said “The term “Islamo-Fascists” no more blames the religion of Islam than the term “Italian Fascism” blames Italy for fascism. It merely refers to those Muslims—who obviously really exist—who invoke Islam to justify violence and supremacism, whether they are invoking Islamic doctrines correctly or not.”

Spencer said about Muslim population in Europe “And those who are talking about it are smeared and vilified as racists and bigots. When a nuclear-powered Islamic Republic of France threatens the U.S., however, some Americans may come to regret the ease with which they swallowed and even propagated defamation and lies about anti-jihad European politicians such as Geert Wilders.”
He totally missed the point of the unconstitutionality of Franklin Graham speaking at the Pentagon and called the decision to exclude Graham “the Army’s dhimmitude”

He wrote “Ever since I began doing this work publicly my point has been simple and consistent: that the jihad terrorists are working from mainstream traditions and numerous Qur’anic exhortations, and that by means of these traditions and teachings they are able to gain recruits among Muslims worldwide, and hold the sympathy of others whom they do not recruit. This explains why there has been no widespread, sustained, or sincere Muslim outcry against the jihad terrorist enterprise in general. The mainstream media, both liberal and conservative, does not want to face these facts.” His scholarship somehow doesn’t include the fatwas, statements by Muslim organizations, statements by Muslim individuals – or these quotes that clearly denounce extremism and terrorism.  He also clearly has never heard about the Muslim voices promoting Islamic non-violent solutions to political and social problems.

Spencer promoted the fraudulent Iranian yellow badge story and even after it was proven untrue, he couldn’t bring himself to issue an unqualified disclaimer:  “Untrue, or too hot for public consumption at this time? That remains to be seen. While Nazi analogies dominate analyses of this, as I pointed out yesterday it is actually a revival of traditional elements of Islamic law for dhimmis. That makes it entirely reasonable that an aggressive Islamic state like Iran would reinstitute such laws; but now that international attention has focused upon them for contemplating doing so, it is likely not that they will abandon the project, but simply implement it when the world media has turned to other matters.” He has a particularly hostile view of all things Iranian, as he also promoted the fraudulent August 22, 2006 “Doomsday” story.

Spencer wrote “I have written on numerous occasions that there is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists. While Americans prefer to imagine that the vast majority of American Muslims are civic-minded patriots who accept wholeheartedly the parameters of American pluralism, this proposition has actually never been proven.”, and as Islamophobia Watch has pointed out, this is the same man who has said “Islam is not a monolith, and never have I said or written anything that characterizes all Muslims as terrorist or given to violence.” There seems to be a disconnect in his logic.

During the incident with Debbie Almontaser and the Khalil Gibran Academy in NYC, he posted an article from the NY Post with his own heading reading “Does an Islamic supremacist have a right to head a New York City public school?”  This description does not appear in the referenced article, so it can only be assumed that this is his take on the question.

When Muslim Charities and individuals responded to the Haiti earthquake with humanitarian relief, Spencer posted an article with the title “Jihad groups set up camp in Haiti”, and another article saying that Muslim aid was conspicuous by its absence

RESPONSES TO SPENCER
- attacking Mark Levine’s ‘hudna’ article [1] (Mark Levine)

- about the Roxbury Mosque controversy[2]

- on Muslim feminism [3] (Khaleel Mohammed), [4a] (Tariq Nelson)

- statement about Arab Israeli spy [4] (Sheila Musaji)

- claim that terrorists are acting on Islamic teachings [5]

- statement about rape as Jihad [6] (Yusuf Smith)

- statement on meaning of jihad as holy war [7] (Yusuf Smith), Islamic war doctrine [7a] (Robert D. Crane)

- claim that Qur’an is anti-Semitic [8] (Khaleel Muhammad)

- Obsession With Islam [9] (Khaleel Muhammad)

- Spencer, the NDU scholars, the securocrat and his books [10] (Yusuf Smith)

- Smearcasting report on Spencer [11],

- American Library Assoc. incident [12],  [12a] (Ahmed Rehab)

- altercation with Svend White [13] (Svend White),

- on Rifka Barry case [14] (Loonwatch),

- on CAIR airbrushing woman’s photo [15] (Sheila Musaji),

- dodges debate with Loonwatch [16],

BOOKS
- book Politically correct guide to Islam & the Crusades[17],  [17a] (Loonwatch), [17b] (Loren Rosen)
- book The Truth About Muhammad [17c], [17d], and [17e] (Robert D. Crane), [19d] (Karen Armstrong)
- book Religion of Peace? — Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn’t [17f] (John Derbyshire)
- book Complete Infidels Guide to the Qur’an [17g] (John R Bowen)
- book Islam Unveiled [17h] (Danny Doueri)

- attack on Khaleel Muhammad [18] (Khaleel Muhammad)

- and EDL neo-Nazi’s [19] (CAIR), [19a] (Richard Bartholemew)

- attack on Louay Safi [20] (Louay Safi)

- accused of Islamophobia [21] (Carl Ernst), [21a] (FAIR)

- article mistranslating Ahmedinejad [22] (Loonwatch)

- on testimony of a rape victim [23] (Loonwatch)

- Spencer’s position on Kosovo [24] and his relationship with Serge Trifkovich [24a] (Kjeda Gjermani)

- views on the Qur’an and violence [25] (Louay Safi), 25a] (Aaron Hess)

- on confusing Buddhist Sri Lanka as a country “where the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence prevails” [26] (Richard Bartholemew)

- on Obama as a Muslim [27], on Obama using full name at his inauguration [27a] (Richard Bartholemew)

- on the cancellation of the LA Premiere of Geert Wilders Documentary [28] (Richard Bartholemew)

- involvement in the film Islam: What the West Needs to Know [29] (Zahir Janmohamed)

- on CPAC panel “Jihad: The Political Third Rail” [30] (Eli Clifton), [30a] (Christine Schwen), CPAC and the Freedom Defense Initiative [30b] (Kelly Vlahos)

- involvement with SIOA [31] (Eli Clifton)

- on his support of the conspiracy theory that Iran would nuke Israel on August 22, 2006 [32] (Andrew Sullivan)

- his endorsement of the book The Islamic Anti-Christ by Joel Richardson – a book claiming that the Bible predicts that the anti-Christ will be a Muslim [33] (Richard Bartholemew)

- on Virginia neo-Nazi license plate incident [34] (Sheila Musaji), [34a] (Loonwatch)

- comments on Hutaree militia group [35] (Sheila Musaji)

- comments on Pres. Obama’s Middle East peace initiative [36] (Hussein Ibish)

- misrepresentation of Qur’an 5:60 [37] (Hussein Ibish), misrepresentation of Qur’an by cherry picking verses to prove a point [37a] (Louay Safi)

- statements about “taqiyya” [38] (Hussein Ibish), [38a] (Sheila Musaji)

- his claim that Tariq Ramadan is a “stealth jihadist” [39] (Sheila Musaji)

- claim that Muslims don’t object strongly to extremists like Anjem Chaudary [40] (Shahed Amanullah)

-  views on what constitutes a “moderate” Muslim [41], [46a] (Sheila Musaji)

- on use of terms like “Islamofascist/Islamo-Fascist” [42] (Chip Berlet), [42a] (Sheila Musaji)

- on his views about Islam and Muslims generally [43] (Cathy Young), [43a] (Adem Carroll), [43b] (Tariq Nelson)

- on his op ed in Emory University paper [44] (Ali Eteraz)

-  attack on Prof. M. Cherif Bassiouni [45]

- promoting the false Muslim bus driver stopping bus to pray story [46] (Sheila Musaji)

- on his concept that radical Muslims are the “real” Muslims [47] (Dinesh D’Souza)

- on his smearing of Rashad Hussein [48] (Media Matters)

- on his posting a video on his site of a Hindu girl calling for wiping Pakistan off the map [49] (Chasing Evil)

- reprinting Danish cartoons on his site [50] (Sheila Musaji)

- claims about ISNA and the Muslim Brotherhood [51] (Louay Safi)

-  claims about Islam forbidding music [52] (Ali Eteraz)

- claim that the root of terrorism is Islam [53] (Mustafa Aykol)

- his views on “dhimmitude” and jizya [54] (Loonwatch), [54a] (Robert D. Crane)

- on Ayesha’s (Aisha) age at marriage [55] (Tarek Fatah)

- his comments on CAIR and GOP claims about Muslim interns on Capital Hill [56 (Sheila Musaji), [56a] (Loonwatch)

- his calling the Archbishop of Canterbury, the “Archdhimmi” of Canterbury [57] (Sheila Musaji)

- on Keith Ellison and oath on Qur’an [58 (Sheila Musaji)

- his alarmism over Muslim demographics [59] (Sheila Musaji) [59a] (Loonwatch)

- participation in David Horowitz’ Islamo-Fascism awareness week [60] (Sheila Musaji)

- his views on honor killings [61] (Omer Subhani)

-  on making Islamophobia mainstream [62] (Steve Rendall and Isabel Macdonald)

- on Cologne Conference and neo-fascists [url=http://www.kejda.net/2008/11/07/jihadwatchwatch-robert-spencers-amorous-flirt-with-european-fascism/][63] (Kjeda Gjermani)

- claims about suicide terrorism and Islam [64] (Loonwatch)

- connecting witchhunts and Islam [65] (Loonwatch)

- claim that radical Christianity is not as dangerous as radical Ilam [66], [66a] (Sheila Musaji)

- on his willingness to debate Muslims [67] (Omer Subhani) [671] (Loonwatch)

- his views on the Pace of Umar [68] (Loonwatch)

- his comments on Fiqh Councils fatwa on body scanners [69] (Loonwatch)

- his views on Muslims and Haiti humanitarian efforts [70] (Sheila Musaji), [70a] (Loonwatch)

- his blog post titled titled Uighur Muslims in China Stabbing Opponents with Tainted Needles [71] (Loonwatch)

- On the website url’s “f**kallah.com” & “f**kislam.com” which redirected people to Spencer’s Jihad Watch site [72], [72a], [72b] (Loonwatch)

- on his falling out with Charles Johnson of LGF [73] (Loonwatch)

- his views on the Fort Hood massacre [74], [74a] (Loonwatch), [74b] (Mehdi Hasan)

- on his support for Bat Ye’or [75] (Loonwatch)

-  confusing views on reliability/unreliability of hadith and sirah/seerah [76] (Robert D. Crane)

- views on “Satanic verses” [77] (Robert D. Crane)

- views on Muslim attitude towards Christians and Jews as friends (wali) [78] (Robert D. Crane)

- views on apostasy and Islam [79] (Robert D. Crane)

- views on Obama’s Cairo speech to Muslim world [80] (Chris Good)

- offensive comments by readers of his site [81]

- his views on Spanish Fatwa against bin Laden [82

- KFC controversy as creeping Sharia [83] (Edmund Standing & Yusuf Smith)

- his views on Bible verses on rifle scopes used by soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq [84] (Sheila Musaji)

- his views on Islam and violence against women [85] (Robert D. Crane)

- Spencer and the politics of fear [86]

- his views on the South Park incident and the Revolution Muslim lunatics [87] (Sheila Musaji)

- his views on slavery and Islam [88] (Sheila Musaji)

As his arguments become exposed, so does he.

Robert Spencer is finished. The cloak of objectivity he claimed has long been undone, as he received blistering blows from not only Loonwatch, but former allies and mainstream organizations disavowing and condemning his anti-Muslim stance.

We have seen an odd metamorphosis on the part of Spencer. For years he tread a fine line, making statements that neared the boundary of Islamophobia without being outright anti-Muslim; veiled Islamophobia if you will. He fashioned himself as a rational, objective scholar when all along he was a right-wing Christian supremacist with an ax to grind against Islam and Muslims. Slowly the truth about who he is and what he believes came out over the past two years. One can only hide falsehood for so long.

It may be that Spencer has spent too much time with Pamela Geller, tea baggers and other nuts, or maybe this is what he has believed all along and it is in fact him influencing Geller, regardless he has hopped on a new loonie train: the “Obama is a Mooslim” conspiracy.

So lets count the conspiracies Spencer either believes or supports now:

1.) Eurabia: Muslim demographic take over of Europe.

2.) Stealth Jihad: Peaceful, law abiding Muslims are really just subverting Western Civilization and trying to impose Shariah law.

3.) Bosnia: The genocide in Bosnia and the massacre in Srebrenica never occurred or are exaggerated.

4.) Congressional Intern Spies: CAIR was sending spies into our government in the form of congressional interns.

and now,

5.) Obama is a Mooslim: The possibility that Barack Obama ever was or is still a Mooslim.

The evidence:

by Inconnu and Danios

A few months ago, Islam “experts” Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller hosted on their respective websites a video of a young Hindu girl who advocated “wiping Pakistan off the map.”  At that time, LoonWatch had quickly responded and exposed the genocidal content expressed in the video.  It has now come to our attention (hat tip: Jack) that in addition to the genocidal content, the makers of the video are of interest.  The video was shot and released by the Vishaw Hindu Parishad (VHP), a militant and genocidal group.

This extremist Hindu nationalist party seeks to “Hinduize” India.  They view India as a Hindu country, and the Muslim and Christian minorities in it as invaders, or at least those descended from invaders.  The Islamophobes like Spencer and Geller sympathize with Hindus who revile Muslims for the Arab conquest of India, but conveniently forget the British colonization of India.  Both occupations resulted in sizable Muslim and Christian minorities respectively.  Many Hindu Indians want their country to be a pluralistic and democratic state, comprised of people of various faiths all equally Indian.  The VHP, on the other hand, doesn’t want this.

Human Rights Watch says that the VHP has “collectively and violently promoted the argument that, because Hindus constitute the majority of Indians, India should be a Hindu state.”  VHP members want to enact a fundamentalist Hindu interpretation of religious law in the country, and want to “cleanse” the country of the influence of the Muslim and Christian “invaders”.  The VHP’s view of Muslim and Christian Indians as “invaders” causes the group to flirt with genocidal ideas.

Those genocidal ideas became more than just ideas in 2002, when VHP members orchestrated the Gujarat riots, which Human Rights Watch refers to as an “anti-Muslim  pogrom” and which Professor Allan D. Cooper calls a “genocide” of Gujarati Muslims.  Prof. Cooper includes the Gujarat massacre in his book The Geography of Genocide, in which he provides a “case series” of historical genocides.  On pp.183-184 of his book, Cooper writes (emphasis is ours):

A Hindu mob stormed the Muslim area of Naroda Patia in Ahmedabad…killing at least 65 people…More attacks on Muslims in Gujarat state followed that killed about 2,500, destroyed thousands of homes, and resulted in the gang rapes of hundreds of Muslim women and girls.

There is evidence of state complicity in the genocide against Muslims…The government had ordered the killing of Muslims.

More than 20 Hindus eventually were sentenced to life imprisonment for their role in the genocide.

Human Rights Watch issued a report, declaring:

The groups most responsible for the anti-Muslim violence include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP), the Bajrang Dal (the militant youth wing of the VHP), and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps, RSS).  Collectively they form the sangh parivar (or “family” of Hindu nationalist groups).

The VHP was founded by RSS and maintains links, so all three groups implicated by Human Rights Watch are related to VHP.  The VHP has a “militant youth wing” that has inflicted violence upon Muslims and Christians throughout the country.  Following the Gujarat riots, the VHP promised similar developments throughout India.  Human Rights Watch writes:

…VHP officials declared that the strategy used in Gujarat would be repeated all over India, thus raising concerns of further communal violence…Members of the VHP in Rajasthan are busy distributing weapons similar to those used in Gujarat, as well as literature depicting Muslims as sexual deviants and terrorists…

The violence in Gujarat underscores the volatile consequences of rising Hindu nationalist sentiment propagated by the sangh parivar…The arming of civilians continues unabated in the state.  Training camps, known as shakhas, continue to multiply, providing weapons such as tridents and swords and extensive physical and ideological training to men as well as young boys targeted in recruitment drives.

So far, there is nothing that would upset Robert Spencer or Pamela Geller too much.  After all, the violence is only against “Moozlems.” But perhaps they ought to read the following line in the same Human Rights Watch’s report:

Christians in the state have also come under renewed legislative and physical attack [by the VHP].

The VHP has been responsible for widespread communal violence not just against Muslims, but against Christians.  HRW’s report holds the VHP responsible not only for “nationwide violence against India’s Muslim community in 1992 and 1993″ but also for “nationwide violence…against Indian’s Christian community since 1998…stemming in large part from violent activities and hate propaganda.”

In 2008, the All India Christian Council issued a fact finding report after anti-Christian attacks. The report states:

The VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) instigated the attacks and carefully targeted Christians throughout Kandhamal District, Orissa.

The report states that 95 churches were burnt and destroyed, and 730 houses were set on fire and completely destroyed (415 of them in one village alone). Not only this, the attackers looted the gold, cash, and jewelry from the homes of villagers.  The Guardian reports that overall thousands of churches and houses have been burned down to the ground.

According to the report by the All India Christian Council, the VHP attackers used several hate-filled slogans, including:

Only Hindus to stay here – no Christians to stay here

Kill Christians

Just to give one example from the report:

There was a small church that was attacked. The pastor, Rev. Kalia Mani Digal, and 12 Christians were forcibly taken to a field and were tonsured (heads shaved) because they refused to deny their Christian faith. Later all of them were told to eat raw rice mixed with goat blood in order to become Hindus.

The report also states that there was a conspiracy to hide the bodies of the dead Christians to conceal the evidence of deaths in the Christian communities.

On their website, the VHP addresses some of the allegations of violence against Christians. Their answers are eye-opening:

There has been violence against Christians in Gujarat. What are the reasons for it?

Much of this violence has been due to the provocation by the Christians…Unless the provocation is removed, the violence will continue.

In fact, a simple glance at their website finds that they dedicate more of their vitriol against Christians than Muslims. The VHP has a particular problem with Christian missionaries who operate in India, whom they accuse of “tricking” Hindus into converting to Christianity…which was the “provocation”.  On its website, the VHP says:

…A convert from Hinduism is not only one Hindu less, but an enemy more.

Not only this, they claim that Christian missionaries undertake social services in order to convert Hindus to Christianity:

The objective of the social service is to get an access to the people who are targeted for conversion. Once the missionaries come close the people, and the latter become obligated to them, the ‘benefits’ of believing in Christ is explained to them. This is done not on the basis that there is any special merit in the new system, but because Christ is supposed to have told them that praying to any other god will make them go to hell.

This social service is of many forms – education, medical facilities, etc. In the past these services were concentrated in urban or rural areas. During the colonial times, these services were financed mostly by the taxes that were levied on the local people. In many cases, land and facilities belonging to Hindu organisations were appropriated and given to the missionary organisations. Also, Hindu organisations were discouraged from starting social service projects.

Hence, the social service was done by utilising the money of the people who are Hindus. Even today,many of the established social service activity is funded by the state. For example, all the colleges, whether run by the missionaries or the Hindus, get state aid. Many of the other projects also receive government support through grants being given to those registered as NGOs. The funds received from outside India are then used for setting up the organisation for conversions.

Moreover, the VHP even claims that Christians use “inducements and fraud” to convert people:

With conversions by force not being possible, the methods that are applied are inducements and fraud. Inducements are the so-called social service activities, and these have been documented by the Niyogi Committee. In most cases, the social service benefits was provided only to those who agreed to convert. A loan given to a tribal is cancelled if he, along with his family, becomes a Christian. While the commission dealt with Madhya Pradesh only, the practices that have been narrated are the ones that are a common practice all over India, and indeed in the rest of the world.

The fraud that is done is to pretend that a person has become well because of the ‘power’ of Christ. While treating an illness, a missionary gives medicine of no value and asks the tribal to take it while offering prayers to his present deity. Of course, there is no cure. Next, the missionary gives real medicine and asks the tribal to take it while offering prayers to Christ. The recovery is attributed to Christ and not to the medicine.

Fraud also takes place when there are programmes of what are called faith healing. ‘Lame’ people are said to be cured, and ‘blind’ recover their sight. These ‘miracles’ are used to establish the superiority of Christ.

In fact, they are so against Hindus converting to Christianity that the VHP has organized mass conversions back to Hinduism (most of them are forced conversions as we shall see later):

More than 200 Christians in the eastern Indian state of Orissa have reconverted to Hinduism on Thursday in the presence of the leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

They were reconverted at a Hindu temple in Jharsuguda in western Orissa where the tribal Christians were first purified by rituals and then re-admitted into Hinduism.

Representatives from the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) were also present.

The ceremony was part of the VHP’s plan to reconvert 400,000 tribal Christians back to Hinduism.

On their website, the VHP has delineated a set of principles, their “Hindu Agenda.” They call for a ban on conversion from Hinduism to Christianity, declaring:

Strict ban should be imposed on the nationally dangerous process of conversion of Hindus through allurements, mispropaganda and terror by taking disadvantage of the poverty and gullibility of the backward segments of Bharatiya community.

The ban applies to any conversion based on “mispropaganda”, and the VHP classifies missionary teaching as such, thereby effectively prohibiting virtually all conversions.

Why the silence from Spencer, the resident “Islam expert,” on this lack of religious freedom? Why has he not spoken out against the resistance of the VHP to conversions from Hinduism to Christianity?  As we see, it is not only Muslim fundamentalists who kill apostates; Hindu extremists do it too.  Hundreds of Christians have been forcibly converted to Hinduism, whereas we have not heard of any forced mass conversions in the Muslim majority world today.

Islamophobes like Spencer and Geller like to rant about how many extremist Muslims there are in the world.  Well, there are 6.8 million members of the VHP a