Yesterday I debated Robert Spencer at the Conservative Political Action Committee annual conference in Washington D.C. The debate was aired live on C-Span. Our topic was essentially, Is Islam the Problem? My book The Enemy at Home says no, locating the problem in the way that liberal foreign policy and liberal values projected abroad have strengthened radical Islam and emboldened it to attack us. Spencer's books collectively answer yes, the problem is with Islam itself.
But Islam has been around for 1300 years and the problem of Islamic terrorism is a recent one. How can Islam be to blame? For me the intelligent question is: what is it about Islam today that has made it an incubator of a certain kind of fanaticism and terrorism?
Spencer iwill have none of it. He is part of an influential strain of conservatives who blame the teachings and practice of Islam for producing Islamic terrorism. Since the terrorists do what they do on behalf of Islam, Islam must be the source of their convictions and therefore Islam needs to be examined, denounced and reformed. This is how Spencer thinks we can win the war on terror: by demanding that Muslims stop practicing Islam as it has been practiced since Muhammad.
In arguing his thesis Spencer locates all the violent verses in the Koran and all the hideous deeds performed by Islamic conquerors, especially in their early centuries of irredentist expansion. Then he links these to the words and actions of Khomeini, Bin Laden and today's Islamic radicals. Spencer is an effective polemicist.
But his historical argument is dubious. It emphasizes violent passages in the Koran, while downplaying the passages that urge peace and goodwill. It applies a moral standard to Islamic empires (they didn't give minorities full rights! they reduced Jews and Christians to second class citizens!) that certainly could not be met by the Roman empire or the empires established by the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French and the British. In the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, for example, Jews had three choices: convert to Christianity, leave the country, or be killed. No Muslim empire legislated or systematically enforced such a policy toward its religious minorities. Yes, the Koran says "slay the infidels" but no Muslim empire actually did that. For example the Muslims ruled North India for two centuries before they were displaced by the British. The Mughal emperors could have killed the tens of millions of Hindus under their control or at least forced them to become Muslims? They did nothing of the sort.
Spencer glibly jumps over entire centuries in linking, say, the savagery of the Ottomans in Constantinople with the savagery of Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Taliban in Afghanistan. How different is Spencer's one-sided reading of Islam from, say, the works of historian Bernard Lewis. Lewis is hardly uncritical of Islam. But he knows that world, speaks the local languages, and exhibits in his work a nuance, judiciousness and balance that, alas, I don't find in Spencer or other conservative Islamophobes.
It is Bin Laden's argument that radical Islam is true Islam. It is Bin Laden's contention that he is doing nothing more than what is commanded in the Koran and the Islamic tradition. And Robert Spencer essentially agress with Bin Laden! Spencer is willing to concede one of the world's great religions--one with more than a billion adherents worldwide--to the murderers of Al Qaeda. At one point in our CPAC debate he asked me to name a traditional Muslim, as if such a creature scarcely exists in the world.
Do we really want to go to war with a billion Muslims? If not, is it realistic to approach the Muslim world with the premise that the only good Muslim is a non-Muslim? Don't all these Western attacks on Islam and the Koran and Muhammad, not to mention Spencer's agreement with Bin Laden that Islam mandates violence and terrorism, have the effect of alienating traditional Muslims and pushing them toward the radical camp? These are my questions for Spencer, and for other conservatives who follow the same line. It's time, I would urge these good folks, to reconsider some basic assumptions. Unfortunately you are part of the reason we are losing this war of ideas.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 5)
31. The problem is not Islam, it is the entire spectrum of concrete (in contrast to contemplative) relgion. The concrete forms of Islam have been the subject to extended critique by the contemplative Islamic tradition of Sufism, where in concrete Islam's more extreme adherents have been refered to as "Donkeys with Turbins" to show their stubborness and stupidity in their beliefs.
Foolish consistency, inability to adapt to changes and concrete faith in all faiths world wide, particularly in Islam and Christinaity, can be seen as the greatest overall danger to human survival at this moment in time. They transform powerful visions of transcendence into clubs to batter those who disagree and sword to kill those not subdued.
With regard to the original article your characterization of the Moghul Empire's attitude towards the Hindu inhabitants of their region seems more then a little rose tinted. The destruction and desecration of Hindu religious sites under the Islamic invasion was staggering. One of the holiest Shivalinga of the area was cut into bricks and transformed into pavement so that it might be desecrated at all times by those who walked upon it. Yet the Moghul from the time of Akbar and his "Din-i-Ilahi" in 1581 CE onwards hardly qualified as Islamic in the strict sense as their faith combined elements of Islam, Sufism, Zoroastorianism, Christianity and Hinduism.
Patrick F. Brady at 1:32PM on Mar 2nd 2007
32. to author :
you say Islamic terrorism is a recent happening. Get your history straight. check the Turks etal not so recent history against the Jews and other religions. Read the Koran. These extremists and not so extremists are out to destroy and convert whether we like it or not.Any excuse will do. I am sad to say Christain or Jew we are all in for it.
ruth brine at 6:41PM on Mar 2nd 2007
33. to any religious, god created and embeded his will on everything,so the time will come depending on his (god) willing. On the general, one can not take the life ( suicide ) by itself except god.
On the otherhand, anyone get suicide or take their own life, after the die, they will become satan evil, because before they kill them self, their soul in deep of hatre and revenge (just like very sick soul), when a suicide people die, their spirit
was broken in so many pieces, that soul live in a darkness for so long, very very hard to become aweken again, and the spirit will live in that situation for may be a hundred years, few thousands years, that spirit we call ghost, satan or whatever...
So, the only way to live as a human life, we have
to celerated life as a happiness, great gift from
god give to us.
This is just a question ask for you: did prophet Mohamed took his ownn life,his wife took her own life, his son took his own life and go to haven? did prophet Mohamed OF islam teach people kill them self like killing sheep, like animal? you have to think and give your answer before that.
thanks for all.
nhi mai at 1:35PM on Mar 2nd 2007
34. Aminest = Aminist
Which is native African faiths.
Ian Jones at 1:33PM on Mar 2nd 2007
35. Before the time of 911 , I use to get into The Moslems Message Boards, There was no one Moslem who dint show hate for America. After 911, they changed their oppinions, to God Bless America. They know how to dance with the Rythim. Can we trust them? Read the Coran. and find out. that the infidels should dssappear. Who provoke the hatred? It is inside their soul, Their taught since they are born to think like that. When they smile, watch out.
Hashu Ortha at 1:45PM on Mar 2nd 2007
36. Before the time of 911 , I use to get into The Moslems Message Boards, There was no one Moslem who dint show hate for America. After 911, they changed their oppinions, to God Bless America. They know how to dance with the Rythim. Can we trust them? Read the Coran. and find out. that the infidels should dssappear. Who provoke the hatred? It is inside their soul, Their taught since they are born to think like that. When they smile, watch out.
Hashu Ortha at 1:48PM on Mar 2nd 2007
37. Before the time of 911 , I use to get into The Moslems Message Boards, There was no one Moslem who dint show hate for America. After 911, they changed their oppinions, to God Bless America. They know how to dance with the Rythim. Can we trust them? Read the Coran. and find out. that the infidels should dssappear. Who provoke the hatred? It is inside their soul, Their taught since they are born to think like that. When they smile, watch out.
Hashu Ortha at 1:47PM on Mar 2nd 2007
38. Before the time of 911 , I use to get into The Moslems Message Boards, There was no one Moslem who dint show hate for America. After 911, they changed their oppinions, to God Bless America. They know how to dance with the Rythim. Can we trust them? Read the Coran. and find out. that the infidels should dssappear. Who provoke the hatred? It is inside their soul, Their taught since they are born to think like that. When they smile, watch out.
Hashu Ortha at 1:48PM on Mar 2nd 2007
39. Before the time of 911 , I use to get into The Moslems Message Boards, There was no one Moslem who dint show hate for America. After 911, they changed their oppinions, to God Bless America. They know how to dance with the Rythim. Can we trust them? Read the Coran. and find out. that the infidels should dssappear. Who provoke the hatred? It is inside their soul, Their taught since they are born to think like that. When they smile, watch out.
Hashu Ortha at 1:43PM on Mar 2nd 2007
40. Before the time of 911 , I use to get into The Moslems Message Boards, There was no one Moslem who dint show hate for America. After 911, they changed their oppinions, to God Bless America. They know how to dance with the Rythim. Can we trust them? Read the Coran. and find out. that the infidels should dssappear. Who provoke the hatred? It is inside their soul, Their taught since they are born to think like that. When they smile, watch out.
Hashu Ortha at 1:46PM on Mar 2nd 2007
41. How can you say that islam not the problem? Your ignorance is appalling - do you not know about the 80+ million Hindus that were killed by the muslim invaders? islam has been and continues to be the biggest problem in your own home country! why is it that you ignore that fact? because you're a convert?
stu at 1:45PM on Mar 2nd 2007
42. D'Souza's main argument should make us think a little about the causes of radical you-know-what, but it smacks of the all-encompassing Leftist notion that one should look to outside influences to find the cause of any trouble. The media and education and legal systems have been increasingly top-heavy with this nonsense since the 1970s and folks are starting to wake up.
We can probably all agree that Western cultural excesses have influenced the ideology of radical muslim leaders-- it is the leaders who propel the violence, not "the people"-- but so what? The causes are also based, overwhelmingly, in Islamic teachings, on personal choices and on local politics. The responsibility for terrorism is wholy owned by those who carry it out. It's a fairly simple concept, Mr D'Souza. Identifying influences does not subtract from ultimate responsibility.
lycaste at 1:54PM on Mar 2nd 2007
43. Notice the people attack Islam as the problem are the people confusing "there" with "their" and "your" with "you're." People get an education and you'll realize that there has been death and conflict surrounding all three of the major western religions. From the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Modern-Day Islamic Fanatics, death and religious fanatics go hand and hand. People say drop bombs to flatten the extremists... but that would only prove we are more extreme than them. Be an American and respect your fellow Americans whether they are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Black, or White.
Tarek at 1:58PM on Mar 2nd 2007
44. I am beginning to love D'Souza as my comic relief of the day and I thank Robert Spencer for revealing what this person is.
The Big Double D is like Texas in the summer, it is too big, sprawls all over, you can't get away from it and it is full of hot air.
D'Souza if you examine his speech pattern can not keep from mentioning, selling and promoting his book. His entire blogs are like infomercials of the worst kind.
The honest truth is D'Souza is not American in thought patterns nor Conservative. His entire process is feminine liberal as he skirts issues, makes things up, degrades others and is Hillary Clinton in a Goa immigrant package.
Every time he opens his mouth or taps on a keyboard he reveals his complete ignorance on a wide variety of subjects. His mention of Muslim rule of India as an example of why Islam is humane in not slaughtering Indian Hindus or forcing them to Islam ignores economics as there was no way the Muslims could either murder nor convert that many Hindu nationals as it would have destroyed the Islamic empire.
Converted Hindu would have been free and not slaves to exploit and murdered Hindu waste resources and how does one profit when no workers are available to enslave?
That is the kind of ignorance D'Souza operates under. He in many ways is like Muhammed bringing back Christianity to Arabs and calling it Islam on the bias.
D'Souza is of Bombay a Portuguese outpost in India of Catholic origin. He has benefitted from British rule. He has immigrated to America, but at his heart he is the outsider Indian Hindu always looking in but never understanding Christianity, America, Americans nor the basis of all in God.
D'Souza clicks perfectly in the profile clock. I was not going to reveal this, but people do need to understand who this man is at heart. He is still the little Hindu Indian boy with dark skin who saw the elite were white skinned which beckons back to his past of Aryan white skinned peoples civilized the black skinned lower Indians of lore.
D'Souza looks at western values as superior and in his soul views white women as status symbols. It is why he dated prominant Conservative white women and married a southern Louisiana white female named Dixie.
His entire being is trying to be what he is not as he deems himself inferior. This is not racist, because he has written a book on it trying to negate his daughters ethnic background of simple Eurasian to "too many sources to define", which in turn in his psychology allows him to finally escape his Indian world as race does not matter.
Such pyschopathy never does make any sense as people who know India find it a dynamic, exotic and a seductive people with a rich heritage and peaceful industrious community. D'Souza though embraces the economic and status symbol and is what gears "his conservatism".
D'Souza is not an expert on Islam, America or anything. All he is is just a voice spewing things he has heard in order to give status to the ego house he has constructed. He uses his limited intellect as a weapon and when he meets people like Robert Spencer he fails miserably, but can not let it go as he has to blog about it in order to keep this little Indian boy in the fiction that he is not what he is.
Sadly, D'Souza should be pittied as he is not a voice for Conservatives or anything. He is like Muhammed who heard something and has twisted it to make himself into a lie he knows he is not.
agtG
LC at 4:55PM on Mar 2nd 2007
45. Cm, if they're good people to begin with, why would they curse America in God's name? Why are they happy whenever the "holy" war succeeds over nations who just want a diplomatic (really good communication with each other), peaceful resolutions?
Walsh, let's think about who voted the politicians first.
Cm and Walsh, do you want Israel be conquered (again) by people who don't even respect a nation like Israel? Or maybe it's because the nations around them envy them that even if Isreal is small country, they couldn't eradicate them. Thankfully, there's something going on that most of us don't understand.
isis at 2:27PM on Mar 2nd 2007