Pope Benedict and the Muslims by Stephen Schwartz

TCS Daily ^ | 20 Sep 2006 | Stephen Schwartz

[Nicholas Conradin]

It seems to have been too much to expect that the educated West, in dealing with the challenge of Islam after the atrocities experienced in New York and Washington five years ago, would do so in a spirit of caution, precision, and rationality -- thus reflecting and improving on the values for which the West has long been praised. Instead, as time wears on and the dread "clash of civilizations" becomes more profound and serious, insightful reportage on the Muslim world becomes mush in the mainstream media, intellectual constructs intended to make distinctions, rather than to confuse them are plagiarized and vulgarized, and many of those who claim to embrace liberal values and open dialogue, on both sides of the widening abyss, become indistinguishable from screeching bigots. The situation is not helped by the prevalence of sound-bite commentary and blog columns said or written with no obvious reflection.

[expatpat]

What's his point?

[ClaireSolt]

So many of these guys are just flat out liars. I can't be bothered. It is the bahavior I see that I deplore, and I don't care about suras.

[Revolting cat!]

I got through most of this diatribe by a (presumably) Jewish convert to Islam and a too-clever-by-half apologist for it. Unpersuasive. Corrections to the Benedict's scholarship petty and unimportant. Mr Schwartz needs to get out more on the Muslim street where the rest of them, including the muzzie "intellectuals", dwell. The piece reads like an antropology professor's, who's in love with his subject, strained apologetics.

[the anti-liberal]

Point?

I think he's just pointing out the obvious:

The effort to moderate the conflict between cultures, by enabling rational voices on both sides of the divide to be heard, appears doomed. The opinions of the informed and sensible will continue to be drowned out by the witticisms of those proud of their ignorance and cynicism; the most subtle and obscure issues will be transformed into mass-market products for the consumption of lumpen intellectuals. The religious instinct toward meditation, withdrawal from the noise of the world, and refinement of spirituality will be crushed in the chaos of rhetoric.

[claudiustg]

A convert to Islam explaining why he's smarter than the Pope...

[Urbane_Guerilla]

This is a wonderful example of the modern Mohammedan tu quoque response to everything. It is on the level of nyah nyah nyah, your mother wears army boots.

Schwartz has apparently decided that the burden of tut-tutting his jihadi brethern is just too much to bear. Here, the true worshipper of mohammed makes his appearance.

Yes, the clash is getting louder. And Schwartz, staring at the absurdity of his position, has made the choice you would expect of someone who worships mohammed.

[outdriving]

His point seems to be:

1.) Christians are (were?) worse than Muslims about forced conversion.

2.) They have no right to criticize Islam.

3.) But they (Christians) have the right to express opinions, as long as they don't upset Muslims.

What he does not address, of course, is the irrational and violent reaction of his co-religionists to the Pope, the Danish Cartoons, Salman Rushdie, ETC.

If he cares to defend the sensitivities of Muslims to Western style free speech, which is the only system that would publish or tolerate his criticism of Christianity.

Why in the world should the West tolerate the immigration or even the presence of those who ascribe to his point of view.

I'm holding my breath.....

[expatpat]

Thanks for the effort you put in to extract those conclusions. Saved me from wasting brain cell energy.

[Revolting cat!]

More on Mr Schwartz. I recall him (perhaps incorrectly) as an apologist for the gulag.

[pierrem15]

He didn't address any of Benedicts points, in particular the fact that Islam itself rejected the influence of Hellenism and reason. In this respect, the Pope's choice of Ibn Hazm as representative of this voluntarism may be an extreme, but one that highlights essential differences regarding the voluntarism that makes Islam susceptible to being highjacked by nutcases, not just now, but in the past. For example, he brings up Averroes, but fails to mention that Averroes was driven from Spain by Muslim fundamentalists, and that his Two-Truths Doctrine was specifically developed to counter the voluntarism of Islamic theology with a hyper-rationalism that condemned theology as the imaginative representation of truths that could only be fundamentally understood by philosophy.

Worst of all, his tuquoque defense obscures the fact that intellectual forms of Islam such as those apparently held by Schwartz himself have not been the dominant forms of Islamic theology since the 12th century. There was a brief period from the 9th to the 12th century whe that was the case, but in the period prior to that and ever afterwards, the dominant strains of Islam have been dominated by scimitar wielding kooks who were only ever restrained by the despotism of the Caliphs and the Sultans.

[Urbane_Guerilla]

Worst of all, his tuquoque defense obscures the fact that intellectual forms of Islam such as those apparently held by Schwartz himself have not been the dominant forms of Islamic theology since the 12th century.

This is why Schwartz has always been so absurd.

His "pbuh" looks ridiculous to everyone, including his fellow worshippers of mohammed. His islam is a pair of chartreuse socks.

Only he knows why he wears them.

[dr_lew]

... the chaos of rhetoric.

Von Clausewitz said that war is an extension of politics by other means, but in our age we may say terrorism is a form of rhetoric.

[Nicholas Conradin]

What's his point?

Thank you all very much for your comments about this article. To elicit responses such as these were my reason for posting it.

[Steve_Seattle]

"I got through most of this diatribe by a (presumably) Jewish convert to Islam and a too-clever-by-half apologist for it."

Just yesterday I had a run-in with Schwartz in an Islamic (Sufi) chat room. He is indeed an arrogant, pompous ass, who thinks that somehow the MSM is utterly anti-Muslim, and that anyone who doesn't share his perspective or his knowledge of Islam is a benighted fool. Although not strictly a liberal, he truly embodies the liberal "I'm smarter than you" mentality.

[Steve_Seattle]

I am (or perhaps WAS) a member of an Islamic/Sufi discussion group on the Internet, focusing primarily onthe Bektashi Sufi Order, of which Schwartz is apparently a member. Most of the ethnic Sufis in that group seem to be gentlemen, even if I don't always share their perspective. But Schwartz ia a true Pharisee, pompous, arrogant, who wields his knowledge like a bullwhip against those whom he regards as his inferiors, which is just about everyone. He has the self-righteous zeal often seen in new converts, and does seem to take the position that only Muslims can criticize Muslims, whereas Muslims are free to criticize anyone, anywhere.

His ideal of pursuing religion in the quietude of the lodge (tekke, in Albanian Sufism) indicates that - as another poster indicated - he is out of touch with the Muslim street.

[Steve_Seattle]

"What's his point?"

His point is, "I'm smarter than you because I've studied Islam and I am an initiate into a Sufi order, therefore everything you say about Islam is incomplete and wrong and biased and stupid, and only I have the properly nuanced understanding of Islam to make intelligent remarks on the subject." He's an intellectual snob.