“Islamophobia”
The first time I heard the term “Islamophobia” was right after 9/11 when suddenly there were many Muslim spokespeople on the news talking about how we had to combat “Islamophobia.” The idea was that many Americans were going to attack and/or discriminate against Muslims in this country in order to retaliate for 9/11. Except for a very few isolated cases – amazingly few, considering the size of the country and the seriousness of the crime committed on 9/11 in the name of Islam – it failed to materialize.
But it was a great talking point embraced by the left and many Muslims, which labeled Muslims as the victims rather than “oppressors.” Criticize Islam and you were Islamophobic: intolerant and bigoted and racist and all those other bad things. That effectively delegitimized criticism of Islam in an attempt to take such criticism off the table. Perfectly valid concerns about the teachings of Islam and the nature of Islam were labeled in that way, and the universities in particular made Muslims a very protected group.
Back in 2015 I wrote this post about whether Islam is a religion. I suggest you read the whole thing, but the summary version is that it is a religion but:
… [I]f Islam did not call itself a religion, it would not be so difficult to rally support for fighting against jihadis, who present the added problem of masquerading as being followers of a regular religion rather than a murderous apocalyptic death cult.
Are all Muslims followers of a “murderous apocalyptic death cult”? No, but (a) they are followers of a religion that in its most fundamental form can easily become one, and often has; and (b) they are followers of a religion which, if adhered to at all strictly, is antithetical to our Western doctrines of liberty and human rights.
That’s the problem in a nutshell.
Muslims not given to playing DARVO cards are awfully quiet.
I don’t except the term, the fellow who coined it was the political agent in the NorthWest Frontier, you know where the Taliban found sanctuary,
islamognosos is a fairer representation, reasoned knowledge of islam, this is not easy because most of academic establishment was bought off by first Saudi and Qatari affiliates,
I don’t buy the invention of “phobias” in general. A phobia is an irrational or exaggerated fear of something. Discussion of Islamic teachings and practices in general is neither irrational nor exaggerated. Hatred of Muslims can become extreme and that should be avoided. Mostly what CAIR and its affiliates call “Islamophobia” isn’t any such thing.
I agree that saying Islam is not a religion is false. It has, in addition to religious doctrine, political ramifications which are a problem in non-Islamic countries. (Well, it’s a problem there, too, for non-Muslims.)
All you have to realize is that every Muslim country is a monarchy or dictatorship and all of them are poor except the lucky ones that happen to sit on a huge pool of oil. All the women in the Muslim countries are second class citizens subservient to their husband or male relatives. They are also expected to undergo Female Genital mutilation. Every woman on Earth should be an Islamophobe.
Paul in Boston:
What about Indonesia?
There’s a related question about the existence — or their absence — of “moderate Muslims.” I did a piece on this at VDARE in 2016, Today’s Perpetual Snipe Hunt: The Search For “Moderate Muslims”, https://vdare.com/posts/today-s-perpetual-snipe-hunt-the-search-for-moderate-muslims
I drew on — and credited — a notable article at Takimag by David Cole.
Machiavelli-philia….
Some may enjoy this rather elusive journey:
“The Machiavelli effect;
“A review of Machiavelli’s Effectual Truth by Harvey C. Mansfield.”—
https://newcriterion.com/issues/2024/3/the-machiavelli-effect
H/T Powerline blog.
…featuring a pantheon of great political thinkers, including de Tocqueville in a cameo appearance….
Key phrase?
‘…The Florentine’s aim is to restore “the honor of the world.”…’
Thanks for the link, Barry.
Neo, you’re right as usual. From reading about Indonesia, Islam is the majority religion but not the official state religion, unlike the countries in North Africa and the Middle East. There is also a mind boggling variety of denominations that wouldn’t be tolerated in a place like Iran
In any case, what I wrote holds in Africa and the Middle East.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Indonesia
Yes that was noah feldman who pushed to make that policy in iraq and afghanistan
Islam has spent the last 1400+ years demonstrating itself not to be a religion but rather to be a violently expansionist, murderous ideology that is wrapped within a facade of religious pretense.
9/11 was America’s first lesson in Islam’s inherent nature. Soon we shall receive another, more serious lesson.
Polling of Muslims in the West reveals that as Muslim population density increases, radicalization increases.
That is because Muslim fundamentalists hold the theological high ground. They are the most devout and faithful to the theological imperatives laid out in the Qur’an and in the Surahs.
Islam is the religion of an expansionist regime one cannot deny that is it unique to one country
Paul in Boston, Islamic female genital mutilation is heavily practiced, as you say, in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia (Pakistan, Afghanistan). As you and Neo point out, not in Indonesia, and also not Albania and Turkey.
The word “Islam” in Arabic means “obedience”, I believe.
I cannot see Islam as a religion, but as an ideology. Yet, as a self-declared religion based on the dictated words of Allah to Mohamed the Prophet, it gets constitutional guarantees under our freedom of religion, all-too-broad. Whahabi Islam is an intolerant cult out of the Saudi desert. I fear its spread. But intolerance is now a global disease, especially against Jews.
As usual when Neo posts one of her older articles, I like to scan through the comments and see what the readers were discussing.
In this case, snopercod chimed in nearly a month late with a comment that linked to a post by William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection, which has serious relevance to today’s post-October-7th world.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/01/first-the-saturday-people-then-the-sunday-people/
Jacobson, in turn, quotes from a 1976 essay by Bernard Lewis, which is also deserving of reflection.
https://www.commentary.org/articles/bernard-lewis/the-return-of-islam/
This comment by Professor J. could have been written anytime in the last few months (and there have certainly been echoes of it):
Looks like there is nothing new under the sun.
Of particular importance, though, is the conclusion of Lewis’ essay, which Jacobson quotes (I’ve added some paragraphing and emphasis):
As Neo’s commenters have remarked elsewhere, Muslims play a long game.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2023/10/10/an-intelligence-failure-of-the-imagination/#comment-2702394
https://www.thenewneo.com/2023/12/26/another-poll-from-the-arab-world-that-isnt-what-youd-call-encouraging/#comment-2715271
}}} But it was a great talking point embraced by the left and many Muslims, which labeled Muslims as the victims rather than “oppressors.”
So, pretty much, the same bait-and-switch pulled by Palestinians vs. Jews….
}}} Art-Deco: Muslims not given to playing DARVO cards are awfully quiet.
et al:
Strongly recommended reading. I think Neo may back me on this…
I’ll call attention to the erstwhile blogger, Dr. Sanity…
SHAME, THE ARAB PSYCHE, AND ISLAM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2005
https://drsanity.blogspot.com/2005/08/shame-arab-psyche-and-islam.html
And a related, followup piece (inspired by yours truly):
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AS A ‘SHAME’ CULTURE ?
MONDAY, MARCH 02, 2009
I will note, “Doctor” Sanity was not a mere moniker:
A Board-Certified Psychiatrist with over 35 years of clinical experience in psychiatry and aerospace medicine. A former NASA Flight Surgeon and author of CHOOSING THE RIGHT STUFF.
(She was the mission psychiatrist for the ill-fated Challenger disaster)
So, she was discussing things with a clinical knowledge, not just bloviating on the topic…
She retired from regular blogging about 12 years ago. But for about a decade, she was (along with Neo) one of my primary “go to” bloggers (another was the article-mentioned Carl from “No Oil For Pacifists” who is also somewhat gone — the blog still exists, or did the last time I checked, but Carl had to get out of blogging himself somewhere near the same time, lest the Obama admin start creating business issues for his legal firm. someone else took over the writing reins)
“it was primarily a religious war against the Jews, not a territorial war…”
This is actually a good case for “embracing the power of AND”….
Note, though, that the destruction of the incipient Jewish State was supposed to be a walkover (the Yahoodi, after all, being Yahoodi…weak, cowardly, fearful, pathetic, scorned by god)….
Didn’t quite happen that way…but the Ishmaelites have long memories…and cherish vengeance…and so long as they cannot destroy the Zionist Entity, they will complain about being victimized…and they will be believed and supported in their victimhood. (This, by the way, is one of the major reasons—if not THE MAJOR REASON—why Oslo could never have succeeded the way it was O so gloriously supposed to have…IOW, “confidence-building measures” were pitted against against “unbridgeable differences”, which latter were supposed to have been eased, softened and ultimately erased by the former(!)—well, sounds good in theory…. To be sure, those warning that Oslo was pure, unadulterated FOLLY were denigrated, mocked and criticized by all the beautiful dreamers…)
N.B. There are certain Islamic scholars, some of them currently alive that have acknowledged that while the lands of Arabia belong to the Moslems, the land “between the River and the Sea” was bequeathed by Allah to the Jews. (Probably won’t find any of their op-eds in the NYT, though…)
Unequivocally, ALL of them are courageous, even if some are quite vocal while others prefer to be more discreet….
9/11 was not America’s first brush with the nature of Islam. The lead up to the Barbary Pirate war, fought under President Thomas Jefferson, was.
Yes but the pirates were not salafi they were a milder variety
Milder, miguel? They told Jefferson that they were commanded by Allah to attack ships of nations that had not attacked them, and to take slaves from non-Islamic nations.
Islam is not a religion but an ideology first and foremost. It has a religious veneer grafted onto it, yes, but that’s simply because an entirely atheist ideology wouldn’t fly back in the eighth century.
Back then it was religion that held empires together. The Persian empire was Zoroastrian. The Eastern Roman Empire (that’s how they referred to themselves, as Romans, but in Greek) was held together by Eastern Orthodox Christianity. All the evidence (textual, archaeological, historical i.e. hostile outside observers, what have you) points to the fact that after the Romans and Persians had bled themselves white with their centuries of warfare the Arabs (who had served as auxiliaries for both sides) realized there was now a power vacuum they could step into. So they started acquiring their empire first. They weren’t doing this out of any religious zeal. But after they had built something of an empire the realized they, too, needed a religion to hold it together so they cobbled one up. It really was just thrown together and makes zero sense. I don’t just mean theologically; it doesn’t even make sense as a practical matter.
Muslims believe that Ibrahim (Abraham) was commanded by Allah to abandon his wife Hajar (Hagar) and infant son Ishmael in the desert in order to demonstrate his faith in Allah. Which of course mimics the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. This is referenced in the Quran verse Surah 14:65 although the full story is in the Hadith collections.
He left her with provisions including a skin of water but when the provisions ran out Hagar got thirsty and could no longer produce milk to nurse Ishmael so she climbed the nearest mountain, Safa, to see if she could spot any water source or anyone to help her. Nothing. There was another mountain across the valley, Marwah. So she ran to it, but still nothing…
Distinguishing between the karamanlud who were turkish from the sultan ahmed 2nd who opposed the wahabbi and aided mohammed ali which is worst
She did this seven times. Either when she reached the foot of Marwah or where she had left Ishmael by Safa (the ahadith conflict as always) either she heard a voice and the water from a spring miraculously gushed out or she saw Jibril (Gabriel) who dug with his heel (or wing) and the water gushed forth. In all cases in such quantities Hagar yelled Zome Zome (stop, stop). But it was never exhausted and is now world famous as the Zam Zam well. Muslims believe the well is miraculous, the water is supply is unlimited (which would be miraculous in that desert), is the purest water in the world, even having a sweet taste, and has healing powers.
That’s what Muslims believe, anyway. This Zam Zam water is bottled and shipped all over the world; you can order it online from Walmart, eBay and Amazon if you don’t feel like going to an Islamic book store near you. And if you’re Muslim, when you go on the Hajj to Mecca one of the requirements is to run between Safa and Marwah to commemorate this miracle.
The only problem is it’s bulls***. First of all, it’s not inexhaustible. Search “Zubaida Canal-built for the Hajj pilgrims in 809 a.d.’ Queen Zubaida was the wife of the Caliph who made the Hajj in the late eighth/early ninth century and found there was no water in Mecca. So much for the miraculous Zam Zam well. So she made it her life’s work to build aqueducts to bring water from the mountains 22 miles away.
The aqueducts were repaired and expanded over the centuries but it became hopeless and in 1926 the Saudi monarchy signed contracts with Western companies to build desalinization plants.
If the Zam Zam well was inexhaustible nobody would have had to go to any trouble over the centuries to provide Mecca with water from outside sources. The aqueducts required constant maintenance. Desalinization is an expensive process. Why bother if you have an inexhaustible supply close at hand? In fact, if it was inexhaustible the region around Mecca, the entire country in fact, would be an irrigated oasis. But it remains a desert.
Far from being pure with healing powers the water from the Zam Zam well has been the source of numerous cholera epidemics over the centuries. It was international news in 1930 when the Saudis managed to pull off the Hajj without a cholera epidemic.
The Saudis don’t keep it a secret where that Mecca’s water actually comes from. Search on “Arab News: How Saudi Arabia plans to meet the water needs of holy sites.” In fact they positively brag about since it’s also no secret the new crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, wants to diversify his economy and make it an international high tech hub. One specific area is solar-powered desalinization. Search “Al Khafji desalinization plant.” The one concession, so to speak, that they make to Islamic sensitivity is they’ve capped off the Zam Zam well entirely; there is a circle marking the spot where it was.
So the pilgrims can’t see the pipes.
Nationwide about 50 percent of Saudi’s water is produced by desalinization plants. But water sources vary by region. For instance, about 10 percent of Saudi’s water supply comes from renewable sources. In the mountains of the southwest. Asir province is on a high plateau, has the country’s highest peaks, and gets more rainfall than the rest of the country. But like the rest of the country there are no permanent rivers or lakes.
Mecca is either exclusively or almost exclusively dependent on desalinization plants depending on the source.
There is a Zam Zam well. There are subterranean aquifers in Saudi Arabia. In fact about 40 percent of Saudi’s current water supply is due to mining this non-renewable fossil water. But here’s an article about how Saudi authorities manage the well. Search on “Arab News: How Saudi authorities overseeing the holy zamzam well have moved with the times.”
As you can see the Saudi government has to monitor the well water to ensure it continues to flow and they have to treat the water to make sure it’s “safe for human consumption.’
It’s no more miraculous than any other tap water anywhere where tap water is safe to drink. For the same reasons; it goes through water treatment facilities and is purified with methods used to treat any other tap water. Muslims can both know all this and yet continue to believe it’s it’s inexhaustible, pure as it comes from the ground, has healing powers and is naturally sweet tasting.
I’ve never been able to screw up the ability to acquire and maintain that level of cognitive dissonance.
I’m not saying it’s irrational to believe in God. Like many other atheists Einstein came to believe in a divine creator through his study of the cosmos though he rejected the idea of a personal God. He considered the God of the Bible a fairy for children.
Unlike Judaism and Christianity, science and Islam have a conflict.
Surah 4:65*
“But no! By your Lord they will never be true believers until they accept you, O Prophet, as the judge in their disputes, and and find no resistance within themselves against your decision and submit wholeheartedly.”
Muslims have to submit wholeheartedly to both Allah and Muhammad. This includes scientific matters. So if the Quran says, and Muhammad agrees that the sun sets in a muddy spring of water, that people live around it, and if we walk far enough we can find it, then Muslims have to reject the science of the infidels and believe in the Quran and Muhammad. There are numerous examples I can cite in astronomy, biology, embryology, etc.
It’s like child marriage. We know that it’s a horrible thing to do to a young girl. A girl’s body simply isn’t ready for pregnancy until she’s completed puberty. But the common belief among Muslims is that a girl is ready for motherhood as soon as she has her first menstrual cycle. This is why they mistakenly believe that though Muhammad married Aisha when she was six (there is no minimum age for a girl to marry) he waited until she was nine to consummate the marriage. Actually as Aisha relates in the ahadith she got I’ll and all her hair fell out. Muhammad liked little girls, just not bald little girls, and was simply waiting for her hair to grow back. This is confirmed by the Quran.
65:4
“And those among your women who no longer expect administration – if you doubt, then their period is three months, and (also for) those women have not menstruated… ”
The period mentioned is how long you have to wait to make sure you wife isn’t pregnant until you can divorce her (if she’s pregnant the man has to wait until she gives birth). So a man can marry and divorce a pre-pubescent girl.
Nearly all Muslims know this is wrong. But I’ve seen lay Muslims try to debate Muslim clerics on Egyptian TV and the cleric always shuts them down when he demands to know, “are you saying Allah and the prophet are wrong?”
To answer yes in a Muslim majority country is suicide. This is no religion. Muslims are required to hate non-Muslims (Surah 60:4), required to fight non-Muslims (all of Surah 9), land demand blind, unthinking obedience to a seventh century caravan trader who understood the world as a seventh century caravan trader and thus permits no progress.
Our only hope is that we recognize it for what it is; a hostile politico-military ideology that is incompatible with the civilized world. There’s just one problem; the left’s Marxist ideology is equally as bad for the same reasons, and if we go down this road these two satanic cults would rather unite and outlaw Christianity, since that gets in the way of the modern pagan pathologies of the left.
So I have no hope.
it was sheikh Bin baz, who was a creationist and a flat earther if memory serves,
which was a little awkward for the Saudi Prince who became a mission specialist,
he had opposed Juhaymans siege of the Grand Mosque, King Khalil who followed Faisal, pbuh, sent in French paratroopers to liberate the mosque, the victory was pyrhic though, any openness that had come after the oil shock was reversed and the Ikwan was given full autonomy
that little episode formed the backstory to christopher reich’s devils banker, where the
lead character was one of the quarrelsome utaibi, who held a grudge for 25 years,
he also issued the fatwa that approved of infidel in the land of the two shrines, UBL took exception to that, and got his Sahwa gang, Al Hawali* al al Auda**, to
challenge any Western imposition, there was even one sheikh who went so far
as to author a fatwa authorizing the use of nukes, (that escalated quickly)
* has written commentaries on Old Testament scripture
** was part of the deradicalizing program
for Gitmo terrorists, no joke,
* the verse I referred to involving Ibrahim is actually 14:37
Islam is incompatible with the West.
@Steve57
Well said on the whole, but with one caveat.
Disagree, in that it seems relatively clear the religion came first, though it doesn’t make sense. One reason I don’t buy the “Muhammad and Islam were a late post-imperial invention” is that we see references to Muhammad very early on, before the creation of an Arabic script or any kind of Islamic textual references, in Roman and Persian non-Muslim sources, meaning the Arab conquerors were telling them about him and Islam very very soon after its stated founding.
We also have some curious coincidences in the timeline, such as pauses in communication with Arabia during times associated with Fitnas or wars against Arab Pagans. And finally, there is the nature of the Islamic scriptures themselves and how they paint Muhammad. And while obviously propaganda mixed with massive whitewashing and glorification, there is something deeply “human” in the portrayals of “the perfect man”, albeit in some of the worst possible ways. It is through Muslim sources we get fine details such as Muhammad being prone to seizures, the whole doctrine of abrogation (which is a massive problem theologically), the Satanic verses, his initial doubts about his “divine mission” and being reassured by his first wife, his rejection by his ancestral tribe and by the Jews, his commissioning of a first attempt to write down the scripture only to be rejected after the scribe became disillusioned with how Muhammad followed his editorial advice in twisting “God’s” words before Muhammad had him murdered, and a host of military campaigns. Many of which are surprisingly, realistically mundane, disappointing, or anticlimatic. For instance, the last campaign Muhammad took upon basically is recorded as going “Muhammad led the largest Arabic army ever seen up to that point North to confront the Romans, going for hundreds of miles in mostly Arid desert only to not find any Romans, at which point the army had to turn back.” This is all stuff that people probably wouldn’t write for their “Perfect Man”, even an adventure/thriller protagonist at the end of his life and character arc in fiction, let alone a prophet. This fits the criteria of embarrassment in spades. And that is before we talk about the man’s moral bankruptcy, perfidy, pedophilia, rape, tyranny, hypocrisy, and the curiously self serving nature of Allah’s revelations.
I’m not saying I believe that everything that came down to us about Muhammad from the Muslim sources is true. Much of it obviously isn’t. And it is utterly self/serving. But then a hell of a lot of our other historical sources are (Chinese annals and Caesar’s Commentaries for only two). And the description of it being memories and testimony of Muhummad’s colleagues or people who knew them that were captured down in a hurry due to war deaths and old age also rings rather authentic, and are reasons why I don’t think the “Muhummad/Islam were invented after the Empire” story that is often told doesn’t add up to me, especially given the hostile testimony we have of references to Muhummad.
I am not even going to say Muhummad was a for sure real figure, but I do feel that there is a “Muhummad-shaped hole” in our history otherwise filled by someone roughly analogous to him, including the religious aspect. While a lot of the Arabic forces fought for slaves and booty rather than the Prophet (and this gets noted even in the Muslim sources) the level of fanaticism and success was unprecedented before in Arab history, and we already have some Roman sources referencing a form of Muhummad’s name and customs or laws we recognize as Quranic today very, very early on.
If anything I would say this underlines how terrifying this could be, in spite of how rather irrational it was. Had the first Arabic armies to fight through the 600s and 700s been the mercenary clans or warbands of yore, they probably could’ve been bought off or divided. But they weren’t, and I think that says something. And also how obscurantist and dangerous the cult of personality around a man even the sources underline was a brutal hypocrite that was painfully fallible speak. I think this has echoed down the centuries as you point out with the Saud.
Of course none of this means that Muhummad or “Muhummad” lived or acted EXACTLY like we are told, and it is very very likely his story was embroidered by others, both accidentally and intentionally as propaganda (much like how the Councils at Nicea had to wean through different supposed testimonies and chapters to figure out what seemed authentic, which would have probably been viewed as both utterly sacrilegious and politically treasonous in Islam outside the Caliphal palace). But I do think the portrayal of events – with significant grains of salt – largely holds up, and certainly hostile contemporaries seemed to and early Muslims within a generation or two of Muhummad’s attributed life certainly belieced it did.
Islam is not a religion but an ideology first and foremost.
–Steve57
I once ran into, from a libertarian, “Islam is a raiding party disguised as a religion.”
Works for me.
I believe that Islam, itself, isn’t the cause of the horrible things we’ve seen Moslems do. Religions are shaped by the people and cultures that adhere to them. The problem we have is with Arabic people and culture. Afghanistan was a very different country before the Wahhabi built their “mission schools” there. The Taliban were the result. Why is Indonesia not like the other Moslem countries? Because Indonesia is Indonesian first and Moslem second. I’ve seen this with Roman Catholicism. The “flavors” different cultures give to it. And Catholicism has a ridged structure where Islam doesn’t. So, it’s Arabic and to a degree Persian culture that is at war with the West. And has been for at least 1,300 years.
It’s foolish, I think, to say Islam is not a religion. It is a religion, one with which I and other commenters here strongly disagree. The religion teaches, among other things, the conquest and oppression of anyone who doesn’t accept it.
In the U.K. and Australia you cannot mention the legitimate fears of antisemitism without throwing in the imagineary “Islamophobia”.
As for the use of the term “Islamophobia” a good part ot the problem was the inept George W. Bush who almost immediatley after 9/11 started with his idiotic “Islam is a Religion of Peace” spiel. One of the many reasons I cannot stand that family.
Tom holland not that one suggests there are gaps about evidence of mohammed are their accounts of other cultures like the persians encountering him it is remarkable it has become the faith of a billion ot so people
St. John of Damascus, in the eighth century, viewed Islam as a Christian heresy. Close scrutiny of the Qur’an indicates some of its more poetic passages may be from a Syriac lectionary associated with groups which denied the divinity of Christ. Muhammad also seems to have been in contact with some Jewish tribes from whom he got twisted ideas about Judaism. (This analysis is of course not accepted by any Islamic scholars.)
see here
http://orthodoxinfo.com/general/stjohn_islam.aspx
it is contrary to most every interpretation of christianity I can think of
Those quotations from St. John of Damascus are very clear that Muhammad took some Christian stories and some Jewish stories and twisted them into something entirely different. John did not seem to think, however, that Muhammad had not existed, as some modern critics say.
@miguel Cervantes
The Persians almost certainly had very little or no contact with Muhammad and vice versa during his life. Iranian influence and penetration into the Hejaz was not Totally absent (especially in trading capacities) but it was paltry even in comparison to Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and Ethiopian penetration, and those were marginal. And of course we should discount most stories such as Muhammad’s midnight ride as falsehoods, or at best highly distorted memories.
If was Muhammad’s successors who the Iranians would have encountered in earnest as they ripped across the Middle East and utterly destroyed Iran, not Muhammad himself. Honestly like a certain carpenter named Yeshua (though this is almost all they have in common) what is remarkable is how relatively strong the evidence for Mo is, even if indirect.
Moreover we know full well Muhammad and his successors had contact with the Jews of Arabia, mostly because they all but completely wiped them out, a fact that is still lauded by Muslim propagandists today.
Muhammad’s attributed behaviors were of course horrifying and downright evil, as well as being blasphemous and incoherent perversions of earlier scripture and histo et. However that doesn’t mean he did not exist.
Pingback:Instapundit » Blog Archive » THE PROBLEM IS AT LEAST SOME IS WARRANTED: “Islamophobia”.
Sarah Hoyt picked up this post at Insty.
https://instapundit.com/634103/
The commenters there have thoughts, and memes.
I have a love-hate relationship with Christopher Hitchens and his writings, but he got this one correct.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/10630a625d6c03f434e1c28c05efb8e684d9fe340222b594b6a52adfa0d23db6.jpg?w=800&h=896
“Islamophobia — a word created by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons.”
“…mostly because they all but completely wiped them out…”
Well, they disappointed Muhammed, so what do you expect?
(They were supposed to have flocked to the newly revealed religion…under the banner of the Prophet—easy! So what happened? They didn’t quite believe that Jibril actually revealed the LAW to him PBUH (woopsie)?—and may likely said something along the lines of “No thanks, not today”…though some might have snickered something like “Oh no, NOT AGAIN…”….hence, they deserved destruction…and so…to the sword with you ya Yahood!**…O Khaybar, Khaybar ya Yahood… One can hear the glorious chant yea even today at certain demonstrations for Human Rights and Ethics in warfare… Yep, rather long memories…)
Such disappointment (of the kind Jews seem to be good at) might remind one of Martin Luther’s expectations and grave disappointment…except that, fortunately(?) he restricted his response to “mere” (if impressive) screeds against the ingrate Jews, who refused his generous invitation to join the new movement…once again proving their implacably stiff-necked adherence to that dead religion….Don’t they know that God abandoned them for their transgressions and betrayals?? (Good thing that ole ML’s not around today(!)…but all this does go a long ways to explain why the Catholic Church took a while before it could figure out HOW exactly to recognize the State of Israel…. Problems, problems….so what else is new “under the sun”….?)
** Or might it have been actually a war over trade and commerce…?
Islamophobia is rational.
Islam is a Political Ideology of Violent Conquest
Or a Violent Ideology of Political Conquest
I keep getting the 2 mixed up
But I know that Violence is involved either way
Jesuss presence was evidence by tacitus and josephus tom holland suggests there was little of that
Again i say islamognosos like spencer like gabriel like any of those who have witnessss what it wrought
I’m probably stepping on a landmine here……
Yes, “Islamophobia” is a make-up word to preempt criticism. But lately I’ve noticed that the recent uptick in screaming about “antisemitism” seems to be running parallel. Suddenly, everything is antisemitic. I’m starting to wonder about that.
Anyone who doesn’t fear Islam is either an Islamist or is not paying attention. Despite Democrat, and hence FBI, preoccupation with “domestic terrorism” it is indisputable that virtually all terrorism worldwide is carried out in the name of Islam. So-called “peaceful Muslims” are complicit by their silence, since the magnitude is too great to ignore.
The only consolation is that when only the Islamists and their Marxist apologists remain, the scimitars will be unsheathed.
See this link re Muslim problems in France:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20414/france-skyrocketing-threat
See this link re Muslim porblems in France:
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20414/france-skyrocketing-threat
Crusty Old Codger:
Pay attention to what’s actually happening then, and you won’t wonder. Anti-Semitism is very real, and has a very long and violent history.
Islamophobia is not and does not.
Also, the Jews and Israel are judged by double standards and held to standards higher than any other people and country on earth. The Muslims the opposite in the double-standards game: held to standards lower than other people.
Though when Leftists caterwaul that any criticism of the likes of Soros and Greenblatt—for their respective roles in deceit, deception, subversion and destruction—is anti-Semitism, one can be certain that’s entirely false.
To be sure, crying “wolf” to gain perceived political advantage has a long—and repulsive—pedigree…
Turtler, of course there are references to Muhammad. As indicated by the prefix “mu”
Muslim: one who submits (to Islam).
Mujahid: one who wages jihad.
Musharik: one who commits the unforgivable sin of shirk (assigning partners to Allah).
Ergo…
Muhammad: one who is praiseworthy.
The title goes back to a word in Ugaritic which can mean precious, desirable, chosen (as in the chosen one or the chosen people), glorified, or praiseworthy. It became a loanword in the semitic languages that evolved into Hebrew, the Aramaic variants, and later Arabic. First as a word, then a title.
If you doubt me, do what I did. I can’t copy and paste anything from my phone. So I’ll give the search terms I used: “Hebrew word machmad Song of Solomon altogether lovely.” You should get a result referencing Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon. The reason this is important is that the Quran says the prophet of Islam is predicted in the Torah and the Gospel. Muslims have been desperately searching for that prediction for 1200 years. They haven’t been able to find it because, like seventh century Islam, it doesn’t exist. So out of desperation they’ve seized on this, not caring that the Song of Solomon isn’t part of the Torah. They’re wrong, but the Hebrew machmad and Arabic Muhammad do descend from the same 3k y.o. loanword.
The Doctrina Jacobi a seventh century source written about 634-640 refers to a Muhammad that couldn’t possibly be the prophet of Islam. There are coins in the British museum in London depicting a Christian ruler, with a cross on his crown and staff, inscribed Muhammad.
But Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem from Jerusalem from 634-638, writes in great details about the conquering Arab armies. The called themselves many things; saracens, Ishmaelites, Hagarines, etc. But never Muslims. Nor did they ever talk about having a prophet Muhammad nor mention a holy text called the Quran. Odd, don’t you think, if these armies were conquering out of a zeal born of their new religion.
Sophronius, like the later John of Damascus, thought their religion was some sort of Christian heresy. It may well have been. Those coins I referred to earlier might have been minted by, and depicted, the first umayyid Caliph Mu’awiya. Yet if you go to his Wikipedia page you’ll see depictions of coins minted in his name (which I knew about) and there are no Christian symbols. True enough. But if Islam came before the conquest what is Mu’awiya’s image doing on the obverse of the coin? Explain the Zoroastrian symbols on the reverse.
I mention Sophronius because he’s an outside, hostile source. Just like the Doctrina Jacobi. The authenticity of that document is doubted because that Muhammad raided into Gaza two years after the Muhammad of the Islamic creation myth died in 632. This is only a problem if we treat the Islamic creation myth the same way Reuters, the AP, and the WaPo treat casualty figures from the ‘Gazan Health Ministry. ” As if the information 100 percent reliable and is coming from an unbiased source. Why?
We know nothing about how Muhammad and his followers treated the Jews of Arabia because all we have are Islamic sources that weren’t written until 200 years or more after the mythical Muhammad died. Is there any archeological evidence, any evidence, outside the Islamic sources there were even Jews in Yathrib? No. There are Jewish burial sites in the north of Saudi Arabia, but not in the Hijaz.
If we look at the Islamic texts themselves the evidence is clear. None of the oldest quranic manuscripts date back to Uthman, the Caliph who supposedly compiled the Quran about 652. Two Turkish Muslim scholars who were allowed exclusive access to the Topkapi manuscript in Istanbul, and also access to the Samarkand in Tashkent, the Husseini in Cairo, and the Sana’a from Yemen confirmed this fact. Given the fact that the Islamic “settler colonizers” remain in control of the “stolen lands” they “illegally occupied” (to use the left’s terms) if these texts that Uthman supposedly compiled and distributed to the provinces ever existed the Muslims could produce at least one. They can’t because Islam didn’t exist in the seventh century. All of these Qurans were begun in the eighth century, and were heavily edited for decades.
Ibn Ishaq supposedly wrote a biography of the prophet Muhammad, to distinguish between this Muhammad and the others, but we don’t have it. We only think we know it existed because the first biography we do have was written by ibn Hisham in 833 and he claims it existed. But ibn Hisham also tells us he only kept the parts he liked. So throw out ibn Ishaq; he did. The first biography of Muhammad was written 200 years after Muhammad died. The first Hadith collection, Sahih al Bukhari, was compiled in 870. 240 years after Muhammad supposedly died.
They were making this up as they were going along. Again, go to Mu’awiya’s Wikipedia page and look at that Persian-style coin. Normally I don’t use Wikipedia as a source but I have absolutely no reason to doubt the authenticity of those coins. Everything else on the page maybe but not the coins. No doubt he was issuing Byzantine-style coins for his new subjects in the former Roman-controlled regions. That obviously couldn’t go on forever. He and his successors needed one religion to tie the whole new empire together.
Neo, Islamophobia like homophobia and transphobia doesn’t exist (speaking of double standards, if I say gender dysphoria is a mental disorder I’ve committed a crime against humanity and as part of the backlash I’m assumed of having an irrational anxiety disorder which is somehow ok).
In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood noticed how useful the baseless political smear homophobia has been to shut people up or, failing that, discrediting them so others are afraid to listen to them they invented a word that would have the same effect.
After all, they couldn’t and can’t yet demand we adopt Sharia blasphemy and slander laws. In all schools of sharia slander includes but is not limited to lying. It also includes telling a truth that a Muslim (or group of Muslims) does not want known.
It dovetails perfectly with the hate speech laws the left has imposed in Europe. The truth is no defense.
Hello, misinformation, disinformation, and especially malinformation (information our rulers are forced to admit is true but they claim is “harmful”)!
In further double standards news, it’s ok for Hamas supporters to blame all Jews everywhere for the perceived injustices of Israel. Jews are being assaulted in Piccadilly Square in London (like we should expect less in Siddiq Khan’s London) for the crime of being identifiably Jewish. Just as Jewish students are threatened on college campi from coast to coast in the U. S.
By the same Mensa members/theologians who say collective punishment is a war crime when Israel does it.
@Steve57
Mostly because the Doctrina Jacobi is a polemical tract that is a factual mess, as to be fair we’d expect from a second or third hand anonymous source with intentionally misleading attribution during one of the most tumultuous periods in history. What is remarkable to me is the degree to which its portrayal of the Arab Armies and Islam are consistent with what we can establish. In particular the “(“The Saracen Prophet”) is false, for the prophets do not come armed with a sword.” (Leaving aside how this is a distinctly Christian viewpoint considering how while Jewish military messianism had waned after the horrifying failures of Jewish revolts, the Jews in general were much more prepared to accept the concept of a prophet armed with a sword, just not one so manifestly heretical as Muhammad and his successors). Moreover the explicitly religious terminology used in regards to the “Arab” (though by this point they would have incorporated various non-Arab forces but only to a marginal degree) forces undercuts your claim that 7th century Islam did not exist or that the early Arabic armies were not notably religious.
I chalk up the Doctrina Jacobi as a valuable source, but a primarily theological, polemic, and decidedly unofficial one. And one that like most such sources is not a primarily historical document and which screws things up, and not just about Mo and the early Muslims (I point o it the decidedly Christian bent of the complaint against “Muhummad”). It most likely conflated Muhummad or whoever inspired him with his successors, which is hardly an unknown problem even in official historiography (see: Thutmose and Hatshepsut, or for more recent issues the question of who authorized which charters during what Germans call the Great Interregnum of the Holy Roman Empire).
It’d be a bit like trying to sus out the geopolitics and ethnic composition of Northern Iberia using the Song of Roland as your main guide. You CAN do it to a surprising degree and even with the ability to compare it you can see echoes or bits of info continued on, but you are going to come away with some really odd conclusions (such as the Frankish force at Battle of Roncevaux Pass was destroyed by Muslims rather than by non-Abrahamic Basque Pagans).
Which can very easily be explained by crude Arabic reuse of old Roman molds or edits to put Muhummad’s name there. Which again is ludicrously common for upstart regimes that lack a lot of technological or institutional savvy or the new resources to fine tune it. We see similar on the other side of the Roman world with Sub-Roman Britain and Scandinavia with coinage there. We also see similar patterns in much more recent history, such as Khyber Gunsmiths unthinkingly copying over Lee-Metfords and other Victorian rifles for generations, often down to “Regina Victoria” coupled with years after we know she died and the correct one was different.
That is assuming that he is accurately referencing all their endonyms, which is quite the issue. And in any case does not correlate distinctly with whether or not there was a religious underpinning. Indeed, the references of “Ishmaelites” and “Hagarines” (if they were NOT terms Sophronius put on them on his own volition) tie back to a decidedly Abrahamic world view, with the question being whether it was that of the Christian Greco-Roman or Rabbinatical Jewish view of Arabs as descendants of Ishmael, Arab views of themselves as such, or both.
It is also telling that Muslim religious dogma holds that they are descendant from Hagar by way of Ishmael and are the “true” heirs of Abraham.
And yet as you pointed out the Doctrina Jacobi does, albeit in a very confused fashion that doesn’t gel all that well with Muslim sources (but which DOES gel with them on some key issues, like the whole “Armed Prophet” thing).
Which isn’t that surprising because the Quran was most likely written down much later, especially given how even Muslim tradition explain the absence of a written Quran and other text (and in a very scandalous fashion), as well as how this is from a population that was overwhelmingly illiterate to the point where it would have made Galilee in the time of Jesus Christ look like a beacon of learning and literacy.
No, not really. What I find odd is the amount of double think involved in many of your explanations. You mention how Sophronius did not make mention of any Prophet Muhammad, just after talking about how the Doctrina Jacobi did (albeit in a highly confusing fashion that most likely merged Muhammad with Umar or one of his successors). You talk about the use of Christian iconography in coins entitled Muhammad but overlook the rich history of poor powers stealing other peoples’ coins or coin molds which could explain a fair bit of this. And assume that we should be surprised there is no written reference to a Quranic Book this early in spite of the Arabian Peninsula being overwhelmingly illiterate, ideological transmission and news being primarily oral, and the Muslim dogma itself having explanations (self serving and suspicion raising as they may be) for why humans failed to transcribe their “holy book” for so long.
As well as overlooking any possible ideological or religious baggage behind references to “Hagarines” or “Ishmaelites”.
Contrary to the impression I may give, I am not some kind of accredited historical expert on the Early Medieval Ages, and especially not on the early Arabic conquests. However I am significantly more knowledgeable and experienced than the layperson and can compare this period to a bunch of other situations, many in exactly this time, such as the British Dark Ages happening at almost exactly this time, where sloppy Coin Copies where Pagan rulers copied over molds originating with Roman or post-Roman Celtic British leaders were fairly common and literacy (while far more expansive than in Arabia a generation or two before the first Jihads) as a shadow of itself from the Roman Period (and was still the venue of an admittedly large minority even then).
And in particular you don’t seem to be asking yourself about possible other explanations other than the “Muhummad and Islam didn’t exist so they were invented or transformed later” theory.
Technically speaking it is a Christian or Jewish heresy, since Islam claims to be a fulfillment of both (while butchering much of their theology). But that doesn’t mean it isn’t its own distinctive mess.
I will also note that they would not be the only two Christian leaders or chroniclers to paste their own beliefs or identification onto confusing foreign believers. The Portuguese explorers that arrived in Calicut first mistook the local Hindus for a highly heterodox form of Christian, while the Chinese that came before with Zheng He’s treasure fleet mistook them for Buddhists. “Square peg round hole” fitting is not exactly alien in historical sources, even today (see the desperate Marxist attempts to identify Fascism as “Capitalism in Decay”).
And we are trusting Wikipedia to be an accurate source for all of this, let alone for Dark Age Levantine Numismatic? Leaving aside how highly irregular and non-uniform Coining was for Late Antiquity in the Levant and Middle East?
Hell if I know but it was hardly unthinkable for Kingly authorities or divine deputies to be portrayed on coins, especially if these were crude copies of Persian coins or the like.
Explain the Zoroastrian symbols on the reverse.
Muslim appropriation of Zoroastrian iconography in keeping with the early attempts to claim Zoroastrians were “people of the book” to aid pacification and conversion. Unthinking repetition of a Persian mold that didn’t get rid of it. Edits to existing Persian coins with the icons that inserted the name of the supposedly first Ummayad Caliph without doing a clean fix. Some mixture of the above. There really are no shortage of explanations in this era for irregular coining, and failing to consider them would be a key weakness of any theory.
With the accompanying caveats that would need to be attached to a hostile or outside source, such as limitations of familiarity. Though again what they do say is Al’s telling, as I pointed out.
This is a misreading of the issues with it. The Doctrina Jacobi is doubted for a host of reasons, starting with the fact that it was an anonymous, fly by night source that seems pretty clearly to be an unofficial, Heterodox Christian apologetic directed at Jews, hence mangling of bits of theology. It is viewed as something of a more reliable cousins of things like the Acts of Pilate, and the confusion of dating regarding Muhummad are actually among the less inconsistent-with-“mainstream”-history parts of it (especially since Muslim history portrays Muhummad’s final expeditions as trying to go after the Eastern Romans).
That said, the fact that it doesn’t refer to a “Prophet” and “Muhammad” with the “Saracens” so soon is remarkable in and of itself.
This is a weak argument if there ever was one. Even if we ignore all Muslim sources about their history – including bloodthirsty chants of Khaybar – we have quite a few sources discussing the Jewish presence through Arabia (especially along its Western Coasts) from about Petra near what is now the Negev to Yemen (the latter of which was periodically ruled by Jewish rulers, one of whom – the ill fated Dhu Nuwas – was stomped on by a joint Roman/Axumite crusade for his persecutions of Christians) in the 500s. Then we get a sharp decline of references to them in the 500s and especially 600s, and when the sources come back in the 600s and especially 700s… VIOLA, there are basically no Jews in Arabia except some in Yemen.
And an Arabic centered Empire that is increasingly using religious myth to justify its conquests, including genocidal hostility to Jews.
It does not take much guesswork to conclude what probably happened, not the least given Muslim theology and explanations on the matter. As well as what limited archaeological work has been allowed to be performed (another reason why using cases and situations that are like this is important given Muslim clampdowns on archaeology in their areas, especially “Quranic Archeology”).
Quite the assumption. As for myself I will need to check, but we certainly have evidence for Jewish presence elsewhere in Arabia that wilted under the onslaught of Arab Muslims.
Even if this were true, it can easily be explained by the rise of violent iconoclasm in Arabian Muslim history, climaxing early with the Qarmatians and their infamous raids on Mecca and Medina, and more recently with the Wahhabis of various shades of “moderate” and “radical”, complete with debates about demolishing the site attributed as Muhummad’s tomb (again). It is quite easy to believe that Jewish burial sites in the Hejaz also suffered from this (as they confirmably have in Yemen).
And that is assuming that is true
Which isn’t too surprising again because of the extreme illiteracy of the populace it was compiled from and the fact that even Muslim sources argue the written Quran (at least that of this world) was compiled after Muhummad’s death (at least while they doublethink themselves about how it is perfect and descended from heaven, or how they talk about the failed attempt to write down Muhummad’s “revelations” that drove its would be scribe to apostasy at how Muhummad acted).
It’s a similar problem with pre-Nicea Christian scripture, but vastly more extreme because we at least have a bunch of written sources for Jewish and early Christian scripture (some of which were heretical or heterodox).
And indeed one reason this could be discussed by Muslims so candidly is because it can be harmonized more easily with conventional Muslim dogma and historiography.
Absolute horseshit that tells me you haven’t studied the problems of hunting down surviving sources – even thoroughly noncontroversial or popular ones (and early drafts of the Quran, Surah; and Hadiths absolutely would be controversial) in this era or even before or after. This is an era where each and every copy of each and every document would have to be written by hand and distributed from there, an issue that has obvious logistical problems both in distribution and preservation. We quite literally have Roman sources complaining about how hard it would be to find poetry or book copies if a given author or work fell out of fashion for as little as half a decade, and that again was in a much more literate world than the Late Antiquity Middle East. We have massive lists of written works we either know or have good reason to believe existed but which have been lost because transmission failed somewhere along the line, and even more where the game of telephone saw edits.
And again, this is without forgery, lies, or campaigns of book burning factoring in. And it is quite easy to see all of the above factoring in here, especially that last one if the early drafts of Muslim scripture or history proved inconvenient to the Powers that Be. If Sargon of Akkad could do it thousands of years before, Mu’awiya, Umar, and Mohammad certainly could. And Muslim scripture implies Mo did some of that to the supposed very first written records of his work by
Abd Allah ibn Sa’d.
This is one gigantic leap of logic, made without considering alternate explanations. And again, even your own sources point to identifications of the early Arab armies with some kind of political or religious identity, even if this was distinct from “Islam” as we know it (and that is a big If).
Which doesn’t mean the Quranic source material or Islam “didn’t exist.” It probably took centuries for the Homeric Epic Cycle to be transcribed by anyone, for instance. That doesn’t mean it didn’t exist prior to that.
Which again isn’t too surprising even if we don’t factor in the possibilities of political censorship or iconoclasm (both of which were insanely powerful in Muslim history), since we don’t have a lot of works, even from far more literate and politically open societies.
Fair and this certainly gives us plenty of reason to distrust Muslim sources unless they correlate with others.
Which is on a historical terms – and especially a premodern, mostly illiterate society – that is a remarkably quick turnover, and one that is still less than many others. For reference, it took about 150-200 years for the first draft of the Sikh Holy Scripture to be put together, and another century for it to be considered complete as the Final Guru. But there’s much less suspicion because the Sikh Gurus emerged in a rather old, literate civilization and their lives and deeds were recorded at or close to their lifetimes (including by hostile sources such as Aurangzeb, the great Islamist Emperor of the Mughals). And of course the Sikhs were much more pluralistic and open and much less prone to censorship.
Even if that were true it does not mean they did not have a clear foundation they built off of, which many of your sources point to an early imperial, at least quasi-religious project by an armed prophet identified tentatively as Muhammad.
Again, learn basic fucking Numismatics and get back to me. You can start with the Romans and their coinage issues, or go back further if you want a fuller picture with things such as early Mesopotamian currency and the Athenian Owls. But in any case I would particularly suggest looking at Dark Age Britain and Scandinavia since they are rough contemporaries of this era but had far less religiously motivated censorship of scholarship on this era.
Especially since Muslim sources explicitly point to their leadership promising war booty to their fighters from Infidels and other enemies, including slaves and coins. And how damn common it is for up and coming regimes to crib from other, more settled ones
Ironic given how you won’t do even compare it to there.
More like monetary currency for it.
Also again, coins have fungibility that often goes far beyond religion. Take a look at Viking Grave Goods laden with Muslim and Christian coins, or early Pagan Anglo-Saxon holds filled with Roman ones.
In any case, you sure as hell haven’t proven that Islam didn’t exist in the 7th century. Indeed, you have mostly underlined that you aren’t considering your sources carefully.
You have no explanation for inconsistencies in coin use in an era and region famous for inconsistent coinage beyond “must not have been Muslim!”
You latch on to the Doctrina Jacobi contradicting the usual dating of Muhummad without also observing its inconsistencies in other issues, or how telling it is that it identified Arabs fighting on behalf of an armed-with-sword prophet named Muhummad.
You apparently don’t understand how spectacularly difficult it is for pre-printing press civilizations to transmit writings or knowledge, even without censorship or deliberate destruction of sources (which we have reason to believe were present).
You have no explanation for why we see Jews confirmed to be in Arabia – especially Yemen and around Petra – in the 500s and very few in Yemen and basically none outside it by the early 700s.
You have no explanation for why the Arabs would where out of Arabic as a united empire in the 600s and 700s unlike anything they had been before beyond vague mentions of referencing the weaknesses of both Byzantine and Persian Empires (true enough but not much of a “push” explanation since similar periods of mutual devastation had come before without this kind of Arabic upsurge).
You do not know what you don’t know, and that means your arguments fall apart under close scrutiny. And also why in spite of my obvious moral as well as historical issues with Muhummad as portrayed in Muslim sources I have reason to broadly believe their outline. Perhaps Mo was younger than portrayed and maybe he did partake in actual invasions of the Roman Levant (it would be risky beyond belief for Umar or who have you to claim credit for the supposed Prophet’s victories like that but not necessarily impossible as Thutmose III showed). I certainly have no reason to believe he was Prophet of God or a Perfect Man. But here is still a Muhummad-shaped—hole in the historiography otherwise that would be best filled by someone or some people acting out rather similarly to how Muhummad is claimed to be doing so.