The Koranic Quotations Trap

Asia Times Online ^ | May 15, 2007 | Spengler

[Dajjal]

Robert Spencer, the publisher of the JihadWatch.com website and the author of a number of volumes attacking Islam, bridled at my comment in last week's essay (Are the Arabs already extinct? May 8):

The available literature on Islam consists mainly of a useless exchange of Koranic citations that show, depending on whether one is Karen Armstrong or Robert Spencer, that Islam is loving or hateful, tolerant or bigoted, peaceful or warlike, or whatever one cares to show. It is all so pointless and sophomoric; anyone can quote the Koran, or for that matter the Bible, to show whatever one wants.

Spencer protests that I misrepresent his view; his considered
response can be found on his webpage.[1] I was referring to a review of his most recent book[2] by the odious Karen Armstrong, a renegade nun who attempts to reduce all religions to an indistinguishable and insipid spiritual gruel. Armstrong opined in the April 27 Financial Times:

The traditions of any religion are multifarious. It is easy, therefore, to quote so selectively that the main thrust of the faith is distorted. But Spencer is not interested in balance. He picks out only those aspects of Islamic tradition that support his thesis. For example, he cites only passages from the Koran that are hostile to Jews and Christians and does not mention the numerous verses that insist on the continuity of Islam with the People of the Book: "Say to them: We believe what you believe; your God and our God is one."

It irks me no end when people with whom I would like to agree, such as Spencer, are wrong, and people whom I despise unconditionally, such as the odious Ms Armstrong, are right. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum: judge fairly even if the heavens fall in consequence.

[txzman]

Excuse me but this representation of Karen Armstrong’s work immediately makes me discount anything else the author has to say. Granted Armsrong is NOT a believer, but she is extremely well educated about the 3 faiths and shares her knowledge with great insight.

This guy is just sharpening his own warped axe.

[Dajjal]

Spengler ping

[null and void]

Know the tree by its fruits.

I see Christians rushing to the aid of møøslimbs after the tsunami.

I see wounded møøslimbs escaping Gaza to go to Israeli hospitals.

I see møøslimbs wrapping their own children in explosives to kill, Jews, Christians and other møøslimbs.

I know the tree. I don’t need to read the leaves.

[vpintheak]

Islam is a death cult. Just look around the world and you can see it. It is a mind numbing exercise in submission, ignorance, cruelty, and evil.

[taxesareforever]

Hey Spengler, you would make a good democrat. See no evil, hear no evil, and denounce any action that is taken against those trying to kill us. Excuse me while I barf.

[Dajjal]

Excuse me but this representation of Karen Armstrong’s work immediately makes me discount anything else the author has to say. Granted Armsrong is NOT a believer, but she is extremely well educated about the 3 faiths and shares her knowledge with great insight. This guy is just sharpening his own warped axe.

To each his own, but it seems the concensus of Freepers would side with Spengler on this one.

Islamic Apologetics

Robert Spencer and Karen Armstrong discuss their biographies of Muhammed on BookTV Sunday 3 December

A Historian's Faithful Account [Karen Armstrong/Relativist]

Karen Armstrong's Fantasies About Islamic Terror

[Dajjal]

Hey Spengler, you would make a good democrat. See no evil, hear no evil, and denounce any action that is taken against those trying to kill us. Excuse me while I barf.

How can you possibly get that from this essay?????

Archive of Spengler essays

[Captainpaintball]

...and does not mention the numerous verses that insist on the continuity of Islam with the People of the Book: "Say to them: We believe what you believe; your God and our God is one."

But it is horseshit. Our God is NOT their god. And the "Say to them" part is direction; it is instruction to do taqiyaa to the infidel. What is so hard to undertand about this?

[Dajjal]

Did you read the full essay? That quote is from “the odious Ms Armstrong” and the only part of the quote Spengler agrees with is that the Qur’an is “multifarious” in the sense that it is a hodgepodge of all sortso f self-contradictory garbage — and looking for one consistent message in it is a “quotations trap.”

[Dajjal]

excerpts from essay:

As I wrote on Spencer's website, there are any number of factual problems in his approach, of which two stand out:
1) Mohammed may never have existed, and
2) If he existed, he may have had nothing to do with the Koran, which well might be an 8th- or 9th-century compilation.

....

One reason that the Koran contains so much contradictory material (such that the odious Karen Armstrong can quote it as readily as the estimable Mr Spencer) might well be that it is a later compilation derived from disparate sources. Ibn Warraq, the scholar of Islam who wisely employs a pen name, has assembled the scholarly evidence to this effect in a single convenient volume [What is the Koran?].

....

A religion is not a text but a life.... Rosenzweig [in The Star of Redemption] explains that [for Jews] the sanctification of daily life attempts to bring the Kingdom of Heaven into ordinary existence. Christians, by contrast, bring themselves to the portals of the Kingdom of Heaven through Communion, through the miracle of Christ's blood....
What is it that Muslims do to bridge the great gulf fixed between the eternal realm and ordinary human existence? ... My conclusion was that Muslims sacrifice themselves, in a benign way through pilgrimage to Mecca, but also in a malignant way through jihad.... It is that self-sacrifice in the form of violent death in warfare is the Muslim equivalent of a sacrament.

[reaganaut]

I had to read the Koran, in full, for a graduate course in Medieval History. Scariest book I have ever read. The venom is througout the book, not just quotes that they claim are "taken out of context". I read them in context.

As far as Karen Armstrong goes, I have issues with her assumptions and methodology, and I told her that at a conference once. Good professional historians, especially religious historians (of which I am one), have to be careful to not let their biases show. Armstrong's biases are so blatant they detract from any valid point she may have.

[cookcounty]

No significant movement within Judaism or Christianity, including their "fundamentalisms," considers the imprecations of violence against unbelivers seen in the ancient Biblical text to be normative for today.

The Orthodox Jews, through mishnah have reinterpreted the meanings of the ancient texts. Christian fundamentalists believe it was prescriptive for ancient times, but that that Christ's gospel supercedes those requirements.

I am sure you can find a small handful of kooks in the Idaho woods with a different view, but they would be the tiny exception that proves the rule. You would have to visit thousands of fundamentalist churches or orthodox synagogues in the nations of the world before you would find a preacher calling for the "smiting of the Amalakites"

Visiting the mosques of the world would yield a different result.

[null and void]

But it is horseshit. Our God is NOT their god.

Yeah. I had a US born møøslimb co-worker get VERY upset when I put a "God Bless America" sign up im my office. ON 9/11!

[Cacique]

The traditions of any religion are multifarious. It is easy, therefore, to quote so selectively that the main thrust of the faith is distorted. But Spencer is not interested in balance. He picks out only those aspects of Islamic tradition that support his thesis. For example, he cites only passages from the Koran that are hostile to Jews and Christians and does not mention the numerous verses that insist on the continuity of Islam with the People of the Book: "Say to them: We believe what you believe; your God and our God is one."

This misconception occurs when one reads the koran as organized rather than as chronologically written. Unlike the bible the Koran is organized by the length of the Shuras with the longest coming first and the shortest last. If read in chronological order one would see that the people of the book comments occur at the beginning and change into hatred after the "prophet" was rejected by jews and christians in medina after his "flight". The early passages were an attempt to win over jews and christians. But after jews and christians saw what a pos moohamad was they turned against him. Thus the later hateful passages.

[Publius6961]

Whatever else I may say about the author of this article, Spengler, his essays are erudite, thorough and thought- provoking.
It's tough reading, but well worth reading his other muslim-related columns.

[Publius6961]

Here, for example, is an interesting discussion of the idea I express every chance I get: That islam (or any religion) is in essence what it does, not what it says or professes to believe. In the case of islam, it's all bad...

Not what it was, but what it does

[Dajjal]

Not what it was, but what it does

[snip]
It is not what it is, nor what it was, but rather what it does that defines a religion: How does a faith address the paramount concern of human mortality, and what action does it require of its adherents? I addressed these issues under the title Jihad, the Lord's Supper, and eternal life (September 19, 2006), explaining that jihad does for Muslims precisely what Communion does for Christians. It is not a doctrine but a sacrament, that is, a holy act that transforms the actor.

Indeed, Spengler is always thought-provoking. He got me to find Franz Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption and make an attempt to study it. Not easy reading.

I cannot think of any other op-ed pundit who would dare suggest that Muhammed is not the source of the Qur'an, or that the Qur'an might be an 8th or 9th century invention.

[taxesareforever]

Because Robert Spencer isn’t wrong. Spengler is. He’s got his head in the sand just like the liberals.

[Skywalk]

Spengler actually posted on jihadwatch. He’s not a bad guy and he is intelligent and well-spoken(written) but he made a mistake in equating Armstrong with Spencer and was overly broad and harsh in his statements about Spencer. Spencer is not who he portrays him to be and I think that’s where this little conflict came about.