Karen Armstrong: The Coherence of Her Incoherence / Karen Armstrong: Islam’s Hagiographer / Self-Defeating Apophaticism

"It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go." - Bertrand Russell

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Karen Armstrong: The Coherence of Her Incoherence - New English Review

"Here is how she begins:

“In 1492, the year that is often said to inaugurate the modern era, three very important events happened in Spain. In January, the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella conquered the city of Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Europe; later, Muslims were given the choice of conversion to Christianity or exile. In March, the Jews of Spain were also forced to choose between baptism and deportation. Finally, in August, Christopher Columbus, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and a protégé of Ferdinand and Isabella, crossed the Atlantic and discovered the West Indies. One of his objectives had been to find a new route to India, where Christians could establish a military base for another crusade against Islam As they sailed into the new world, western people carried a complex burden of prejudice that was central to their identity.”

This first paragraph is a scandal, consisting almost entirely of baseless assertions, incredible omissions, and complete fabrications. But it is not inexplicable. For Karen Armstrong history does not exist. It is putty in the hands of the person who writes about history. You use it to make a point, to do good as you see it. And whatever you need to twist or omit is justified by the purity of your intentions – and Karen Armstrong always has the purest of intentions... It is Islam which... has the strongest claim to being based on the need of its Believers for “the Other.” It is in Islam that emphasis is placed constantly on the only division that matters: that between Believer (to whom all loyalty is owed by other Believers, and for whom all transgressions may be forgiven, except that of disloyalty to Islam) and the Unbeliever, or Infidel... That Armstrong fails to see this is extraordinary; it is everywhere in Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira...

In 1492 “the Catholic monarchs conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Europe.” What then should we call all those lands in southern and eastern Europe that the Ottomans were at that very moment busy conquering and seizing, including Constantinople, the richest, most populous, most important city in all of Christendom for 800 years... and the Balkans (including the then-vast Serbian lands), and what are modern-day Albania, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, and they continued to press northward and westward, later seizing much of Hungary and threatening Vienna twice...

It was not until 1502, after difficulties ensued between Spanish authorities, including the famous Cardinal Ximenes (he of the Complutensian Polyglot), and the Muslims (Mudejares) that they were given the choice of expulsion or conversion...

Note how casually Armstrong drops in her astonishing remark: Columbus was “a Jewish convert to Catholicism.” She treats it as a given, and finds no need to offer sources or evidence. But she must. For there is not a single authority on Columbus who has ever claimed this. Not Samuel Eliot Morison. Not Paolo Taviani. Not Salvador de Madariaga. Not all of the hundreds or thousands of scholars who have written about Columbus...

Columbus did not obtain royal support to find a new trading route to the east (now that the Muslim conquests in Byzantium have totally blocked the overland routes), or – as of course he would – along the way to spread the Gospel, but to find the best route to “India, where Christians could establish a military base for another crusade against Islam.”

Having been transformed into a “Jewish convert to Catholicism,” Columbus can more conveniently be depicted by Armstrong as a Pentagon Proto-Neo-Con, Jewish-but-also-Christian-fundamentalist, off on his voyage to “establish a military base” for “another crusade against Islam.” A regular Donald Rumsfeld, negotiating for American bases in Uzbekistan. And Kyrgyzstan.

“A military base for another crusade against Islam” – what can we say? Armstrong appears to believe that the Crusades, which were limited in space to the recapture of the Holy Land, and in time to 200 years (1090-1290, roughly) in fact were some kind of permanent impulse, just the way the unmentionable (in all of Armstrong’s copious published vaporings on Islam) Jihad remains a permanent and central feature of Islamic teaching. But she is wrong. There was no ongoing effort in 1492 to embark on a new Crusade. Not a word about it, from Columbus, from Luis Santangel, from Los Reyes Catolicos themselves.

And had such a thought occurred to someone, what kind of sense would it have made, militarily, to try to attack from India?...

Karen Armstrong is not innocent, and manages to do a great deal of harm, careless or premeditated harm, to history. Too many people read that she has written a few books, and assume, on the basis of nothing, that “she must know what she is talking about” – and some of the nonsense sticks. And perhaps an enraged professor or two bothers to dismiss her, but mostly – this is how the vast public, in debased democracies, learns its history today. It is hearsay as history – “Karen Armstrong says” or “John Esposito says.”

And that is only her first paragraph."


Karen Armstrong: Islam’s Hagiographer

"In one of her baffling Guardian columns, Armstrong argues that, “It is important to know who our enemies are… By making the disciplined effort to name our enemies correctly, we will learn more about them, and come one step nearer, perhaps, to solving the… problems of our divided world.” Yet elsewhere in the same piece, Armstrong maintains that Islamic terrorism must not be referred to as such. “Jihad”, we were told, “is a cherished spiritual value that, for most Muslims, has no connection with violence.”

Well, the word ‘jihad’ has multiple meanings depending on the context, and it’s hard to determine the particulars of what “most Muslims” think in this regard. But it’s safe to say the Qur’an and Sunnah are of great importance to Muslims generally, and most references to jihad found in the Qur’an and Sunnah occur in a military or paramilitary context, and aggressive conceptions of jihad are found in every major school of Islamic jurisprudence, with only minor variations...

In another Guardian column, Armstrong insists that, “until the 20th century, anti-Semitism was not part of Islamic culture” and that anti-Semitism is purely a Western invention, spread by Westerners. The sheer wrong-headedness of this assertion is hard to put into words, but one might note how, once again, the evil imperialist West is depicted as boundlessly capable of spreading corruption wherever it goes, while the Islamic world is portrayed as passive, devoid of agency and thereby virtuous by default...

In her latest offering, Armstrong is again given free rein to mislead Guardian readers and, again, rewrite history. Armstrong asserts that, “until recently, no Muslim thinker had ever claimed [violent jihad] was a central tenet of Islam”... The Fifteenth Century historian and philosopher, Ibn Khaldun, summarised the consensus of five centuries of prior Sunni theology regarding jihad in his book, The Muqudimmah...

If Armstrong does not know of such things, in what sense can she be considered a “respected scholar” of this subject? For what, exactly, is she respected? For reaffirming popular misconceptions and PC prejudice, even when her claims are demonstrably false and egregiously misleading? It is, I think, more likely that Armstrong is aware of these inconvenient details and has chosen not to divulge them."


And a review of Armstrong by a Philosophy Professor:

Troy Jollimore: Troy Jollimore on Karen Armstrong’s ‘The Case for God’

"The complaint that the new atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, etc.) are theologically incompetent, and that a subtler appreciation for the finer points of theology would expose the shallowness of their attacks, is by now a common one. But few defenders of religion attempt actually to spell out the theological details; and the results of those attempts that have been made are, in my experience, deeply unsatisfying...

It is not as easy as Armstrong assumes to separate belief from action or practice. Indeed all intentional voluntary action presupposes some set of beliefs...

Apophaticism, as she understands it, claims that God is ineffable and that talk about God literally has no content at all. Since God transcends all human attempts at understanding, humans cannot think or say anything meaningful about God...

She is unable to hold herself consistently to her own apophatic view. Indeed... on her understanding the apophatic position, rather than discouraging metaphysical speculation, in fact licenses and encourages it...

In other words, it is precisely our lack of knowledge of God that enables us to say, well, pretty much whatever we want about God—except, of course, that God was not in Christ (but only an atheist or heathen would want to say that anyway). This is mysticism and metaphysical hand-waving raised to a truly objectionable level. If you do not know what you are denying then you also do not know what you are asserting; our inability to conceptualize cannot, on the one hand, prevent skeptics from denying Christ’s divinity while at the same time allowing the faithful to assert it...

The strategy reduces to saying “God isn’t this, God isn’t that” without ever giving a positive account of what God is, while still regarding oneself as justified in talking about and orienting one’s life around God. This is like the debater who responds to every objection by insisting “Well that’s not what I meant” without ever managing to say what he does mean...

When we lose content we do not only lose truth, we lose meaning as well...

Moreover, Armstrong’s attempts to find respectable examples of apophaticism sometimes cause her to resort to highly implausible interpretive strategies. Consider what she says about Socrates...

It requires a profound lack of appreciation of Socratic irony to take Socrates’ insistence that he had nothing to teach at face value. Indeed, Armstrong’s account is not even internally consistent: By her own lights it is false that people learned nothing from Socrates, for what they learned was precisely “how little they knew”...

In light of polls indicating that a large majority of Americans believe in a personal God, and that less than 40 percent of them believe in evolution, Armstrong’s claim that apophaticism represents the religious mainstream—at least in this country—is pretty hard to swallow"

More on Karen Armstrong's "Compassion"

"A thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for." - W. C. Fields

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Making compassion cool: an interview with Karen Armstrong

"NS: The Charter declares, “Any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate.” Can we be so sure of the meaning of these ancient texts? Could it be that an ethic of comprehensive compassion such as you propose requires us to look beyond those texts, to hold something else as a higher authority?

KA: The quick answer would be to read my book The Bible: The Biography. While researching it I found that when Judaism and Christianity became “religions of the book” during the first and second centuries CE, they both insisted that compassion was the key to the interpretation of scripture. The rabbis who composed the Talmud all insisted that “Love of God and neighbor” was the central principle of the Torah and that any other exegesis was illegitimate. When he formulated the Golden Rule, Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that it was the Torah and that everything else was merely “commentary.” In the same spirit, St. Augustine, one of the great authorities of the Western tradition, insisted that if a biblical text seemed to teach hatred, it must be interpreted allegorically and made to speak of charity. And every reading of the Qur’an begins with an invocation of the Compassion and Mercy which is God. We need to get together and get back to these principles. We should also decide what to do with those difficult texts that are used by extremists in all traditions to justify hatred and even atrocity. We might not have the same taste for allegory as Augustine, but we need to find a way of making these more rebarbative scriptures speak of charity—in a twenty-first century way."
(emphasis mine)

Translation: "Let's make religious texts mean whatever we want them to mean!".

She cites religious figures who agree with (or seem to agree with) her, and ignores those who she disagrees with.

The problems with who counts as a "neighbor" aside (the command to love your neighbor comes before the command to perpetuate genocide), she is also giving a very simplistic and misleading summary of what St Augustine said (to focus in on just one of her misrepresentations).

The man actually endorsed war and genocide under certain circumstances (basically if God said to do it, it was perfectly fine). Likewise, St Augustine endorsed the persecution of heresy (sans physical violence). All this was brought under a framework of "love" and "compassion" (see below for more details).

If you confronted Armstrong with her disingenuousness, she would surely fudge. You can imagine that she has similarly perverted the ideas of other religious thinkers to make them say what she wants.


Love and Hate in Medieval Warfare: The Contribution of Saint Augustine
Russell, F.H

"For Augustine, love was the motive for all actions, and guided decision-making... What determined an individual’s moral status was the quality of his love, which was located in the inward disposition of his heart, his praeparatio cordis, rather than in his outward acts...

Proper love that sought to correct vices justified corporal punishment. Thus the father punished the child against its will but for its own good. Similarly, the schoolmaster’s rod was used to coerce his pupils to learn not only their immediate lessons but also the virtue of self-discipline. Likewise, the ruler and his officials such as soldiers were to inflict physical punishment to heal perverted souls even at the sacrifice of their bodies. Properly motivated punishment was aimed at the restraint of evil, wickedness and vice. With abundant familial imagery Augustine emphasised the need for love as the core of inflicting punishment, rather than malicious pleasure...

Out of these two psychologically perceived imperatives, to defeat Manicheans and to justify Christian participation in the ailing Roman Empire’s wars, Augustine fashioned his justification of war.

Augustine’s first task was to fix war within the providential control of a good God over the activities of a world made imperfect by evil and sin. He refused either to condemn war outright or to glorify it. War was both a consequence of sin and a remedy for it...

Augustine’s thought on war... located evil in warfare not in killing itself but in the often wicked inward motivations of the belligerent...

One of Augustine’s Manichean opponents, Faustus... claimed that God’s command that Moses wage wars was proof that God Himself was the author of evil. Augustine countered that Moses’ wars were just and righteous retribution to those who deserved it. Wars that punished sin and luxury might be waged by good men to curb licentious passions. Inspired by the Old Testament, Augustine argued that by divine judgement wars punished conquered people for their sins, and such punishment could be meted out even for crimes unrelated to the war. Wars as instruments of divine Providence chastised the wicked and tested the fortitude of the righteous. The Romans who destroyed Jerusalem were themselves wicked and ungodly, and yet they still served as God’s instruments in punishing the Jews...

If Christians were to wage war with full scriptural support, the right to warfare also needed a firm grounding in evangelical precepts. There were two especially troubling Gospel injunctions that had to be met head-on: ‘resist not evil’ (Matth. 5.39) and ‘turn the other cheek’ (Luke 6.29). Here Augustine returned to his analysis of love. The real danger in being a soldier was not military service itself but the malice and lust for revenge that often accompanied it. When done without taking pleasure in it, punishment of evil-doers to prevent them from doing further wrong became an act of love.’ The command to turn the other cheek referred to the intention rather than the act. Patience and benevolence of heart were not incompatible with inflicting physical punishment. When Moses put sinners to death he was motivated not by cruelty but by love. Hatred had to be overcome by love for one’s enemies, but love did not preclude a benevolent severity...

Practically any hostile act was justifiable provided it was motivated by love. The good Christian could suffer injury and yet retaliate, could love his enemy and yet kill him, both forgive him and punish him. The evangelical precepts of patience were transformed so that love was no longer an inhibition on warfare. In some cases it even necessitated it. Now the soldier of Christ could fight not only the sin within himself but also that of other men, men whose inward thoughts remained hidden to him...

In commenting on the eighth book of Joshua, Augustine said, ‘iusta bella ulciscuntur iniurias’; just wars avenge injuries. Injuries were committed when a people or a city neglected to vindicate wrongs done by its members, or to restore what it had wrongfully seized...

Augustine’s broad concept of justice... included respect for divine rights. True justice demanded righteousness, which in turn required that God be rendered His due. Hence any violation of God's laws could be seen as an injustice warranting unlimited punishment. Motivated by a righteous wrath, just warriors could kill with impunity even the morally innocent. Objective determination of individual guilt was both impossible and irrelevant; what mattered was punishment of the subjective culpa or guilt of the enemy population. Augustine’s emphasis on ulcisci iniurias when coupled with his near equation of justice with righteousness and his near equation of sin with crime paved the way for later justifications of holy wars and Crusaders to punish all manner of wickedness and vice. In effect Augustine espoused the concept of war guilt.

In the very same passage where he defined the just war Augustine declared that any war waged on divinely command was a just war...

In the Old Testament account of the war the Israelites with the Amorites (Numbers 21.21—25), the Israelites were depicted as defeating their foes, but in Augustine’s account it was God who effected the defeat of the Amorites in order to fulfill His promises to His Chosen People. God’s authority and aid justified a war that would otherwise appear to be an illicit usurpation of Amorite territory. This is just one example of how Augustine twisted the literal meaning of Scripture to fit his purpose...

Since wickedness included the sin of improper belief, Augustine was able to see a divine purpose in the persecution of heresy. He never explicitly related the just war to religious persecution, but his analysis of love was the common ground for his attitudes both toward such persecution and toward warfare. Augustine saw all forms of religious belief other than orthodoxy as posing a common threat to the faith, and he eventually concluded that the ecclesiastical hierarchy had the right and the duty to seek imperial coercion of heretics qua heretics...

Both Pharoah and Moses persecuted the Israelites, but the former was moved by hatred and libido dominandi, while the latter was moved by love to administer beneficial discipline. The Church as Moses’ successor was right to urge the persecution of heretics as an act of charity...

Since Peter had attempted to defend Christ by the sword, orthodox Christians could rightfully fight to defend the Church. (Here Augustine bent the meaning of Scripture, for Christ had actually rebuked Peter for wielding the sword). Christ’s injunction to ‘resist not evil’ did not preclude legitimate authorities from violently expelling impious men whose rule injured God. In effecting coercion of heresy the Church was imitating God himself...

As love for something presupposes hatred for its antithesis, so love of God required hatred for the enemies of God, or, more properly, for their sins. Is it any wonder then that the Old Testament wars or the wars of the Middle Ages undertaken supposedly on divine sanction were often so violent? Augustine provided a major inspiration for medieval holy wars, not only by his attitudes but by his juxtaposition of hostile and bellicose imagery with the imagery of love and family life. Since God could still order a just war, His earthly officials could do likewise when acting on divine inspiration...

Augustine’s life and writings are full of ironies, ambivalences and seeming contradictions. He hated war, and yet, perhaps in spite of himself, he gavc it its most potent Christian justification. As a former Manichean heretic he first developed his thoughts on warfare and his exegetical techniques out of necessities he perceived in his anti-Manichean polemic."

Keywords: religion

The Limits of Karen Armstrong's Compassion

"Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger." - Franklin P. Jones

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The Limits of Karen Armstrong's Compassion

"Karen Armstrong's invitation to the world to begin writing today, a Charter for Compassion, strikes me as well-intentioned silliness at best. At worst it is a more benign form of the same religious arrogance which she decries and which lies at the root of the violence and hatred which religious faith can and does inspire in people of every faith.

Perhaps that response lacks compassion for Ms. Armstrong. But the stakes are simply too high to allow ourselves a Kum-ba-yah moment when what we need is something far more sophisticated and powerful. In a world filled with faith-driven hate and violence, simply appealing to something as amorphous as compassion will not do the job.

Ms. Armstrong's assumption that there is only one definition of compassion and that it is hers is just wrong. I have never met anyone who is opposed to compassion in theory, including people of virtually every faith who are engaged in violence against those who do not share their faith. Such individuals believe in compassion as much as you and I. But they also believe that their faith provides exceptions and exemptions, and therein lays the rub.

I know, because I was once one of those warriors for God. I carried a gun in one hand and a holy book in the other as I set about fulfilling the world of God in the land of Israel. I also considered myself a very compassionate person, but that compassion did not keep me from doing things about which I am anything but proud.

The people, against whom the faithful are at war, do not "deserve" compassion according to the tradition, as understood by these warriors for God. So getting them to commit to compassion is not likely to change anything. The real work involves how each group deals with those who they believe have run afoul of the faith - of those who have offended the faithful.

And so, what we really need is not a charter about how we ought to feel about others, to which all will attach their names and then begin making exceptions. What we need is an agreement about how we understand our own belief, how to practice the kind of modesty which assures that we not seek the destruction of those with whom we have genuine difference.

Before we start engaging people in grand declarations about how they ought to feel, I would settle for a year of teaching the faithful in every community about the sacredness of modesty, humility questioning, and even doubt as expressions of real faith. When people experience that posture as rooted in the depths of the tradition they love, be it a faith, philosophy or politics, fewer people around the world will die in the names of those traditions. That would be more than enough for most of us, I think, at least for now.


His calling out of "compassion" as problematic identifies some of its problems, but again by appealing to the "roots" of tradition for solutions to contemporary manifestations of those same traditions, he does not escape the problem of what happens when that tradition is genuinely problematic.

In other words, you cannot assume that the "roots" of a tradition will solve your problem, since they themselves may be the problem.

On Karen Armstrong's recommendation of "silence" in religious matters

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive." - Thomas Jefferson

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Digested Read: The Case for God by Karen Armstrong

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart make Dawkins and Hitchens burn in Hell, O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.

Much of what we say about God these days is facile. The concept of God is meant to be hard. Too often we get lost in what Greeks called logos (reason) rather than interpreting him through mythoi - those things we know to be eternally true but can't prove. Like Santa Claus. Religion is not about belief or faith; it is a skill. Self-deceit does not always come easily, so we have to work at it.

Our ancestors, who were obviously right, would have been surprised by the crude empiricism that reduces faith to fundamentalism or atheism. I have no intention of rubbishing anyone's beliefs, so help me God, but Dawkins's critique of God is unbelievably shallow. God is transcendent, clever clogs. So we obviously can't understand him. Duh!

I'm going to spend the next 250 pages on a quick trawl of comparative religion from the pre-modern to the present day. It won't help make the case for God, but it will make me look clever and keep the publishers happy, so let's hope no one notices!

The desire to explain the unknowable has always been with us and the most cursory glance at the cave paintings at Lascaux makes it clear these early Frenchies didn't intend us to take their drawings literally. Their representations of God are symbolic; their religion a therapy, a sublimation of the self. Something that fat bastard Hitchens should think about.

Much the same is true of the Bible. Astonishingly, the Eden story is not a historical account, nor is everything else in the Bible true. The Deuteronomists were quick to shift the goalposts of the meaning of the Divine when problems of interpretation and meaning were revealed. So should we be. Rationalism is not antagonistic to religion. Baby Jesus didn't want us to believe in his divinity. That is a misrepresentation of the Greek pistis. He wanted everyone to give God their best shot and have a singalong Kumbaya.

We'll pass over Augustine and Original Sin, because that was a bit of a Christian own goal, and move on to Thomas Aquinas, in whom we can see that God's best hope is apophatic silence. We can't say God either exists or doesn't exist, because he transcends existence. This not knowing is proof of his existence. QED. A leap of faith is in fact a leap of rationality. Obviously.

Skipping through the Kabbalah, introduced by the Madonna of Lourdes and Mercy (1459 - ), through Erasmus and Copernicus, we come to the Age of Reason. It was unfortunate that the church rejected Galileo, but that was more of a post-Tridentine Catholic spat than a serious error and it didn't help that a dim French theologian, Mersenne, conflated the complexities of science with intelligent design, but we'll skip over that.

Things came right with Darwin. Many assume he was an atheist; in reality he was an agnostic who, despite being a lot cleverer than Dawkins, could not refute the possibility of a God. Therefore God must exist, or we drift into the terrible nihilism of Sartre where we realise everything is pointless. Especially this book.

The modern drift to atheism has been balanced by an equally lamentable rise in fundamentalism. Both beliefs are compromised and misconceived. The only logical position is apophatic relativism, as stated in the Jeff Beck (1887- ) lyric, "You're everywhere and nowhere, Baby. That's where you're at."

I haven't had time to deal with the tricky issues of the after-life that some who believe in God seem to think are fairly important.

But silence is often the best policy - geddit, Hitchens? And the lesson of my historical overview is that the only tenable religious belief is one where you have the humility to constantly change your mind in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

God is the desire beyond this desire, who exists because I say so, and the negation of whose existence confirms his transcendence. Or something like that.

And if you believe this, you'll believe anything.

The digested read, digested:

The case dismissed.

Another review: "Armstrong firmly recommends silence [on the topic of religion], having written at least 15 books on the topic...

Armstrong is not presenting a case for God in the sense most people in our idolatrous world would think of it. The ordinary man or woman in the pew or on the prayer mat probably thinks of God as a kind of large version of themselves with mysterious powers and a rather nasty temper."

Another: "Amongst those of an educated, literary-ecclesiastical background, religion is defended by advocating a metaphorical interpretation of scripture, and an aesthetic-mytho-poetic concept of God.

Wary of the power of science to overthrow religious worldviews, as demonstrated in the Copernican and Darwninian revolutions, the modern theist ushers God into an ontological safe-zone, where he cannot be subject to refutation by empirical means. Realising, however, that even this stronghold cannot resist the barbs of logic and reason, God is blindfolded, and bundled unceremoniously into a waiting limousine, whence he is taken at breakneck speed to a supra-logical and supra-semantic realm, beyond all human understanding...

All of which will come as a surprise to the majority of monotheistic religious believers in the world, who believe that the universe was created by God, that God answers prayers and performs miracles, and provides the means for an afterlife...

To propose that the notion of God is beyond all human understanding, language and logic, is to acknowledge that there is no coherent, comprehensible content to belief in God. Not only is belief in God belief without reason or evidence, but it is a belief without coherent content. The proponent of the modern educated defence against atheism is, in effect, admitting:

'I have a belief, without reason or evidence, in a meaningless proposition.'

At which point, I rest my case."

(He even quoted one of my favourite Freud passages from The Future of an Illusion! Woo hoo!)


And a comment:

"Has Armstrong ever actually read any of the "new" atheists? I'm tired of this 'lacks intellectual depth' garbage, especially when people like Armstrong are conspicuously reticent to actually cite examples of what they're talking about. Her idea of 'intellectual depth' is ivory tower obscurity."


Keywords: "that arrogant"

"People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it." - Ogden Nash

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Protestations of an alleged Islamophobe:

About Robert Spencer

"Q: Why should I believe what you say about Islam?
RS: Because I draw no conclusions of myself, and I do not ask anyone to take anything on my word. Pick up any of my books, and you will see that they are made up largely of quotations from Islamic jihadists and the traditional Islamic sources to which they appeal to justify violence and terrorism. I am only shedding light on what these sources say.

I present the work on the basis of the evidence I bring forth, and invite readers to evaluate it for themselves. Critics have again and again mounted ad hominem attacks in response; they do not (and cannot) bring forth even a single example of a supposed inaccuracy in my work. I would, of course, be happy to debate any scholar about Islam and jihad; this is a standing invitation. Also, as this site has shown, I am always open to new information.

Q: Have you debated Islamic scholars and spokesmen?
RS: Yes *long list of names*

Q: I've read that you are actually ignorant of Islam.
RS: Such a charge is a common rhetorical tactic of jihadist apologists. Here are two examples of how it is used, with brazen disregard for the facts. ("assertions of points about Islam that are generally taken for granted as true by Muslims were sharply contradicted by Muslim spokesmen, who not only claimed the contrary but charged that the non-Muslims making the statements were "ignorant."")

Q: Do you hate Muslims?
RS: Of course not. Islam is not a monolith, and never have I said or written anything that characterizes all Muslims as terrorist or given to violence. I am only calling attention to the roots and goals of jihad violence. Any Muslim who renounces violent jihad and dhimmitude is welcome to join in our anti-jihadist efforts. Any hate in my books comes from Muslim sources I quote, not from me. Cries of "hatred" and "bigotry" are effectively used by American Muslim advocacy groups to try to stifle the debate about the terrorist threat. But there is no substance to them.

It is not an act of hatred against Muslims to point out the depredations of jihad ideology. It is a peculiar species of displacement and projection to accuse someone who exposes the hatred of one group of hatred himself: I believe in the equality of rights and dignity of all people, and that is why I oppose the global jihad. And I think that those who make the charge know better in any case: they use the charge as a tool to frighten the credulous and politically correct away from the truth.

Am I "anti-Muslim"? Some time ago here at Jihad Watch I had an exchange with an English convert to Islam. I said: "I would like nothing better than a flowering, a renaissance, in the Muslim world, including full equality of rights for women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies: freedom of conscience, equality in laws regarding legal testimony, equal employment opportunities, etc." Is all that "anti-Muslim"? My correspondent thought so. He responded: "So, you would like to see us ditch much of our religion and, thereby, become non-Muslims."

In other words, he saw a call for equality of rights for women and non-Muslims in Islamic societies, including freedom of conscience, equality in laws regarding legal testimony, and equal employment opportunities, as a challenge to his religion. To the extent that they are, these facts have to be confronted by both Muslims and non-Muslims. But I make no apologies: it is not "anti-Muslim" to wish freedom of conscience and equality of rights on the Islamic world -- quite the contrary.

Q: Are you deliberately ignoring more liberal schools of thought in Islam?
RS: Certainly not. I encourage any Muslim individual or group who is willing to work publicly for the reform of the Islamic doctrines, theological tenets and laws that Islamic jihadists use to justify violence. But this must be done honestly and thoroughly, confronting the texts of the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira that are used to justify violence against unbelievers, and decisively rejecting Qur'anic literalism. Not all self-proclaimed moderates are truly moderate: many deny that these elements of Islam exist at all — hardly a promising platform for reform. It is important to make proper distinctions and speak honestly about the roots of the terrorist threat."


Also interesting:

Ibn Warraq on the charge that you need to know Arabic to understand the Koran (among other things Classical Arabic is different from modern) and on context. Karen Armstrong would flip on reading these.

Karen Armstrong talk (MUIS lecture 2007)
The Role of Religion in the New Millennium
Part 3

If you go to war to make peace, this makes you as bad as the people you fought since you betrayed the values you fought for - Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay are examples. [Ed: Curiously, she had earlier cited World War II as a necessary war. This also invalidated her explanations of the wars Mohammad fought; did they bring him back to the state of "jahilliya" (belligerence, striking first and imposing your values on others)] Don't imprison people who hate in a prison of hate - it destroys you.

Violence can make things worse for your people. Morocco suffered from 9/11 since tourism went down. US Muslims used to say that the US was the best place to be a Muslim and that it was easier to be a good Muslim in the US than in Iraq. Now this is no longer the case.

Christians have always had a problem with money worship. They're not supposed to have any - they should give it to the poor. Don't get a job, don't worry about tomorrow. But this was the religion that gave birth to/endorsed Capitalism through Calvinism - it was a remarkable transition. It is easier for a Muslim to accept democracy and secularism than it was for Christianity to birth capitalism.

Some Muslims seem to hate non-Muslims. People misquote the Koran and always quote lubriciously the parts about slaying unbelievers. This has nothing to do with belief. The instructions were to slay the arrogant, aggressive, chauvinistic people of Mecca - translating 'kafir' into 'infidel' is a wrong translation. Mohammad was telling them this on the eve of battle, during which you don't tell your followers to turn the other cheek. I noted that since she had told us that if you go to war to make peace, this makes you as bad as the people you fought since you betrayed the values you fought for, his followers were then to turn into arrogant, aggressive, chauvinistic people. I also noted that she could be accused of likewise misquoting the Koran. Really, when it comes to the misquoting game, you can get as good as you give.

In Thatcher's time, there was a group called the "Wets". In John Major's time, there was a group called the "Bastards". These were political factions and everyone knew who was being referred to with these terms. Islam does not have an undying hatred of unbelievers. It has a good record of living with other religions, better in fact than Western Christendom. For example, Jews in Spain and Jerusalem (one Byzantine emperor forbade Jews to live in Jerusalem, but Caliph Omar invited them back). I noted that, once again, this applied only to Peoples of the Book - others were forced to convert.

The next qustion was: should humans ignore their religious differences, embrace Universal Brotherhood with homogeneity being a result.

The response was a vehement no. Because of her religious past, she was into syncretism but it's best to remain in the religion you're born in. All religions have what you need: each has its genius and its failings. Appreciate other religions and learn what you all have in common and share tips. Christians can learn from Buddhists to stop being so obsessed with dogma, theology and belief - you need practise not just theology. I noted that she did not say what Muslims could learn.

The word 'toleration' is not good because it's very grudging.

It was then asked: if secularism has its failings, how can it be integrated with religion? What are your comments on Sam Harris/Richard Dawkins.

The reply was the secularism was possible. Secularism is like religion. It fails from time to time but it also has successes. The USA was the first secular republic, but it is also the second most religious country in the world (India is ahead). Yet it is not fundamentalist. The US is moving to pluralism and it has interesting theological questions, but secularism can be unskilful also.

I noted that 2 questions were asked from a mic and 1 from the floor. The rest were all read by the Chairman (the Minister) from pieces of paper. Given how everyone else seemed to be writing in successfully, I thought I should write in too, but then it'd definitely have been censored by the Chairman.

There is violent secularism - the 'wretched people who published the [Danish] cartoons'. They are secular fundamentalists; there are extremists on both sides. 97% of Muslim youths, while disapproving of the cartoons, disagreed with the violence. Similarly, most Danes, though defensive of Free Speech, were upset that they had caused such offence.

At this I recoiled and almost cursed aloud: had we seen the same cartoons? Perhaps she had confused the Akkari-Laban dossier, with the extra images of dubious provenance contributed anonymously by third parties, for the original 12 Jyllands-Posten cartoons. Why did she not then condemn the wretched people going on a Grand Tour to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) and inciting violence by outright lying?

Dawkins is a secular fundamentalist. He is a typical Brit in many ways, sharing the disdain for religion that most of my friends (who think my mad for working and writing on discredited stuff) have. Dawkins is obsessed with discredited religion. I have been on panels with him and when you point out that until the 19th century no Christian or Jew thought Genesis was a literal account, he just looks at you and then continues his tirade.


I noted that I was quite sure although most educated people might not have believed Genesis to be literal truth during the Enlightenment, the hoi polloi certainly did, not having either the capacity or time to ponder how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Furthermore, prior to the Enlightenment project (in the Middle Ages and before), many educated people accepted literalism (or at least a form of it). For example, Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews is certainly not a metaphorical account of Creation (Book I is subtitled: "Containing the interval of three thousand eight hundred and thirty-three years from the Creation to the death of Isaac.").

St Basil wrote: "I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep to make them serve their own ends. For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense. 'For I am not ashamed of the Gospel'."

Tribesmen sitting under the night sky (for that is how Genesis started) and looking up at the stars certainly believed in literalism.


Europeans are weary of secularism. You must be serious in your questioning. The Hitchens and Dawkins brand of secularism is a retreat from religion but religion can be good. When you're in a restaurant, after a strong first course you sometimes get a sorbet to clean your palette. Europeans want to rinse their minds.

Dawkins is fanatical. He has a closed mind. Secular fundamentalists can be as bigoted as religious fundamentalists, just as religious fundamentalists can be as bigoted as secular fundamentalists.

The next question was that the person agreed that we needed more compassion. He contested that people were lazy. No one knows about the hereafter because if you stick to the tenets of your religion, it is your best hope for the hereafter. The underlying motivation is a selfish one for salvation.

The answer: I don't want to interfere with beliefs. If you believe the world was created in 6 days I can't share that belief but this doesn't matter to me. I don't care what belief you have if it makes you kind. It's fine as long as you share your wealth and are kind. If you have a closed mind, are unkind, unjust, dismissive - whether you are a liberal secularist or a traditional religionist - it hasn't worked.

The Koran is dismissive of belief, and so am I, about 'self-indulgent guesswork about matters no one can prove one way or the other like the Divinity of Christ' is bad for it makes one belligerent. Ironically I noted that she had precisely and neatly defined religion, adding yet another layer of contradiction and paradox to her thesis.

St John said that faith that can move mountians is useless without charity. It is not correct theology that matters - you must lend compassion. In Buddhism once you achieve Enlightenment you must come down from the mountain and preach to living things. I am not interested in the details (? - transcribing is unclear) of belief.

I noted that to her the ends seem to justify the means (religions are good if they make you compassionate - this seems to justify a Noble Lie). This seemed Machiavellian but I don't have the time/energy to research anti-consequentialism, so. Suffice to say that there's a reason why perjury is an offence in court (even if its end result is good). Process is very important: if I steal a rich man's wallet and give the contents to beggars along Orchard Road who only want to buy something to eat, I am Robin Hood and have a price posted on my head. If the PAP government taxes the top tier of income at 40% and gives the poor unemployment cheques, this is instead called welfare and is a good thing, even if the end result is the same.

The Q&A session then came to an end. The question that I had wanted to ask was this: "Since this is the MUIS lecture, I would like to ask you for your views on Islam and apostasy. Having just come from Malaysia, you might be aware of Lina Joy and her unsuccessful battle spanning almost a decade to be allowed to leave Islam. Even in Singapore, I have a friend who is a murtad (apostate) who is absolutely terrified of coming out to his family. In his words: "I don't want to be blown up". Meanwhile, all 5 schools of Islamic jurisprudence condemn apostasy and prescribe harsh punishments for it. How would you advise Muslims to be more compassionate towards apostates so that they can fully embody the spirit of mercy and compassion of the Prophet (PBUH)?"

The President of the Muslim Converts Association (Darul Arqam) then ended with some platitudes about Singapore and Darul Arqam being a happy and diverse place.


Despite my misgivings about the details of her speech, one might ask if I would agree with her basic messages: religious tolerance is good, secularism can be bad and religion good, 'skilful' religion makes you compassionate to others and good and context is important in religion. Surely only a mean old grinch could disagree. Unfortunately, I am a mean old grinch; basically she was repeating fluffy things people want to hear and believe and that sound good until you critically examine them, upon which they fall apart.

Religious tolerance: I am very much for religious tolerance but her version of religious tolerance seems to be following the modern transcendental syncretic line that all religions are the same, all religions are good (in their 'true' form) and that all of them are true (in a sense, or have elements of truth).

The problem with this that if all religions are the same, good and true, this negates any criteria that we might have in sensibly evaluating religion. If a religion qualifies by virtue of being a religion then there is nothing differentiating (and more importantly, there is nothing that can differentiate) a fly-by-night cult with an established (and presumably more credible) faith.

Respecting the right of other people to have their religion does not mean that everyone is right (and MUST be right), for if everyone is right then everyone is also wrong; "Always remember that you are special. Just like everybody else."

Secularism can be bad and religion good: On the contrary, I'd argue that it is precisely secularism (and liberal democracy) that is needed to protect religion, since it does not privilege any one religion over the others; also when a religion is made dominant it often goes to the dogs so secularism protects dominant religions as well.

Religion can certainly be good, but when people press for religious 'rights', too often they want to impose their version of religion on the unwilling. This is why secular liberal democracy is needed, to protect people from having religion foisted on them.

'Skilful' religion makes you good: She seemed to pull a pre-determined criterion for determining religious worth from out of thin air without justifying it, and relied on the moralistic fallacy (what we want to believe is true is true) to get it by us. I wasn't convinced - it would make more sense (or at least be less insensible) to say that the religion with the highest mindshare was the truest, since its truth managed to convince the most people.

Certainly, if a religion makes you compassionate and such this is a good result, but in evaluating truth claims, proper criteria must be determined: saying that the sun revolves around the earth to escape crucifixion may be wise, but this does not mean that the statement is true.

Of course this is likely why she deftly avoided the issue of religious veracity, preferring to focus on the changes religion resulted in and the nebulous concept of 'skilfulness'. Yet even then she was on shaky ground. The positive values she credited 'skilful' religion with fomenting (primarily compassion) were not inherently religious in nature: secular humanism is eminently capable of promoting them. In fact, in boiling religion down to secular principles she was removing all religious content from it. In that case, we don't need religion (if, as she says, its primary purpose is to teach us to be good) and can dump it for philosophy. After all, this follows the principle of Occam's Razor and anyhow, calling the vacuous shell 'religion' mocks the concept of religion.

Context in religion: Context is surely important in interpreting religion, yet the trouble with context is that many things can be justified with it. Taken to an extreme, one might say that religious precepts were meant for and only for the time in which they were propagated and can thus yield no morals across temporal constraints (ie We shouldn't follow religion today since it wasn't designed for our context).

For example, one could justify Muslims eating pork thus: In ancient times, pork was not always a healthy meat to eat because of the danger of trichinosis but modern rearing and cooking methods mean that this is no longer a problem. Thus, pork is no longer haram. Another example is that polygyny was allowed by Mohammad because there were too many women, the men having died off in wars. Thus, in modern China Muslims should be allowed to practise polyandry, since there are too many men and not enough women (some suggest male homosexuality as another possibility).

It's a good bet that virtually all Muslims would disagree with these two examples. What, then, is the arbiter of context?


A saving grace was that she didn't bring in the tired point about how religion has done lots of good (she talked mostly about how it makes you compassionate, which is in the realm of personal development rather than phenomena-that-change-the-world-for-the-better). For abrogating all responsibility religion has for causing evil while simultaneously claiming for it all the good that can remotely be connected to it is most dishonest, and there's no good reason not to believe the reverse - that religion can only cause harm and never good.

Karen Armstrong talk (MUIS lecture 2007)
The Role of Religion in the New Millennium
Part 2

Arabic tradition was to be belligerent, strike first and impose your values on others. Mohammad tried to promote forbearance and mercy but this was not as popular. He had to fight the people of Mecca because they tried to kill Muslims. The Koran articulates that war is sometimes a necessary evil but must be fought out of self-defense, not belligerence (like World War II). If the enemy asks for peace, no matter how unfavorable the terms are to you, Muslims have to lay down their arms [Ed: This sounds dubious]. As an example, what Mohammad made the Haj with 1000 Muslims, some people tried to slaughter them but they ran into the sanctuary. Mohammad then negotiated with his enemies and accepted their disadvantageous terms though some of his followers were so upset they wanted to mutiny. When they returned to Medina he had a revelation - this was a great victory for Islam because they were filled with the spirit of peace. Violence - even verbal violence - is unreligious.

I wonder if all of her Mohammad stories were from the Koran. Some might be from hadith.

All major World Religions promote compassion and feeling for others. All advocate the Golden Rule. The first to promote it was Confucius in the 5th century BC. Later, a Rabbi living just before Jesus was told by a pagan that he'd convert to Judaism if he could stand on one leg and recite the whole of the Jewish religion. The Rabbi then said: "that which is hurtful to you, do not do to others. All the rest is commentary". Another time, there was a gathering of rabbis and all but one thought that the Golden Rule was the most important part of Judaism; the only dissenter thought "these are the generations of Adam" was more important because is meant the whole human race was one. Benevolence and compassion cannot be confined to your own group; you must love others, even those not of your ethnic group or ideological camp. Buddha said to treat all beings with concern [Ed: Except plants].

I noted that traditionally, the Golden Rule was to apply only to fellow believers and not to those outside the group - this was ascriptive inegalitarianism in action. Even Jesus, commonly cited as an example of open-heartedness, only wanted to preach the Gospel to other Jews; it was St Paul who transmogrified early Christianity into Pauline Christianity with its emphasis on preaching to gentiles. Also, this was not surprising, being a manifestation of a meme promoting reciprocal altruism.

Leviticus talks of how important it is to take care of strangers. You cannot molest strangers, and should love them as you love yourself because you were strangers in Egypt.

I found it extremely bizarre that she chose to quote Leviticus. For someone keen on using "context" to explain away everything people were uncomfortable with, she ignored how Leviticus was chock full of the strangest, most inane and shocking things, and I'm sure she was likewise cherry-picking from many other sources. Furthermore, the Old Testament notion of hospitality includes offering your daughters for the enjoyment of the (male) strangers you host - she conveniently ignored that bit.

"Love" is not a feeling of warm tenderness to strangers. As used in Leviticus, it is a technical, judicial term used in international treatires in the Middle East. 2 Kings who swore to love each other would look out for and support each other, look out for his best interests, be loyal and defend the other.

Jesus said to love your enemies. When Mohammad conquered Mecca he stood at the Kaaba and invited his tribe to enter Islam. He didn't force or compel them. The Koran is absolutely clear about that - there is no compulsion in Islam. All men are from Adam and Adam was from dust.

On the other hand, as Wikipedia writes:

Muhammad and the Jewish tribes of Medina

"After his migration to Medina, Muhammad's attitude towards Christians and Jews changed. Norman Stillman states:

During this fateful time, fraught with tension after the Hidjra [migration to Medina], when Muhammad encountered contradiction, ridicule and rejection from the Jewish scholars in Medina, he came to adopt a radically more negative view of the people of the Book who had received earlier scriptures. This attitude was already evolving in the third Meccan period as the Prophet became more aware of the antipathy between Jews and Christians and the disagreements and strife amongst members of the same religion. The Qur'an at this time claims that it will "relate [correctly] to the Children of Israel most of that about which they differ" ( XXVII, 76).

Jewish opposition "may well have been for political as well as religious reasons". On religious grounds, the Jews were skeptical of the possibility of a non-Jewish prophet, and also had concerns about possible incompatibilities between the Qur'an and their own scriptures. The Qur'an's response regarding the possibility of a non-Jew being a prophet was that Abraham was not a Jew. The Qur'an also claimed that it was "restoring the pure monotheism of Abraham which had been corrupted in various, clearly specified, ways by Jews and Christians". According to Peters, "The Jews also began secretly to connive with Muhammad's enemies in Mecca to overthrow him."

After each major battle with the Medinans, Muhammad accused one of the Jewish tribes of treachery (see Surah 2:100) and attacked it. After Badr and Uhud, the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu Nadir, respectively, were expelled "with their families and possessions" from Medina. After the Battle of the Trench in 627, the Muslims accused the Jews of Banu Qurayza of conspiring with the Meccans, then exterminated the male members of the Banu Qurayza. The females and children were sold as slaves.

Two types of explanations are given for Muhammad's treatment of the Jews of Medina: Theological and Political. The theological explanation given by some Arab historians and biographers is that:"the punishment of the Medina Jews, who were invited to convert and refused, perfectly exemplify the Quran's tales of what happened to those who rejected the prophets of old." Others offered a political explanation. F.E. Peters, a western scholar of Islam, states that Muhammad's treatment of Jews of Medina was essentially political being prompted by what Muhammad read as treasonous and not some transgression of the law of God. Peters adds that Muhammad was possibly emboldened by his military successes and also wanted to push his advantage. Economical motivations according to Peters also existed since the poorness of the Meccan migrants was a source of concern for Muhammad. Peters argues that Muhammad's treatment of the Jews of Medina was "quite extraordinary", "matched by nothing in the Qur'an", and is "quite at odds with Muhammad's treatment of the Jews he encountered outside Medina.""

In case the naive objection is raised that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone and so cannot be trusted, contentious and well-trafficked bits (like the above) are always heavily contested and so backed up with citations. I also note that no compulsion in religion doesnt apply to apostates (murtads) or to people other than People of the Book (Jews or Christians).

The Koran is suited to a world which needs pluralism because it accepts and honours other world religions. The Koran says: "Tell the People of the Book - we believe what you believe. Your god and our god is one and the same". I hope I wasn't the only one who picked up on this referring only to people of the book; after all, Mohammad destroyed allthe idols in Mecca except for the Kaaba when he conquered it.

The Sufis have a tradition of tolerance. When in ecstasy, they will cry out that they are neither a Jew nor a Muslim nor a Christian [Ed: Presumably they say nothing about whether they are a pagan]. Do not press forth exclusively and disregard the rest, because God is not confined to one creed; everywhere you turn you see the face of Allah. Everyone praises only what they know. If you only praise your own religion, you blame the belief of others. Ignorance is bad. [Ed: Presumably she forgot the first and most important pillar of Islam: 'There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his Prophet']

In the Hebrew Bible there is a story about Abraham. He was sitting outside his tent and saw 3 strangers. He treated them with hospitlaity and found one of them was his god. The Hebrew word for holy means 'separate' / 'other'. The otherness of the stranger is akin to that of God. It brings us out of our comfort zone and allows us to transcend ourselves.

Religion will help us in the new millennium because of the global face of terrorism and unrest. The Golden Rule is essential for survival. The Golden Rule should be a political/religious force. There is disquiet with economic forces.

Then the Q&A session started.

The first question was rubbish, something about the afterlife and how she'd treat it. She said not to dwell so much on the afterlife, because you should look at your current life. I noted that the raison d'etre of much religion is precisely a preoccupation with improving the conditions of the afterlife.

The second question was that if compassion was the core of religion, why were people not set on it? The answer was that people don't want to practise compassion. They want a weakly uplifting faith, like dilettantes in art and music who dabble but don't want to go all the way because it is agonising. People with compassion can change the world, for example Nelson Mandela who invited his jailer to sit with him and his family at an event after his release.

The next question was that there are calls for moderate Islam and that the only way for it to survive is to change and adapt to modern society. But the person disagreed: Islam instead must go back to its roots of compassion. There is no need to modernise to survive. Compassion is the central emphasis of Islam: it can succeed in converting the political situation in the world.

The answer was that compassion is the only thing to succeed in the modern political context. Sages preached compassion because they were pragmatic. If you are compassionate, and it changes you, it works. If you don't practise the Golden Rule, it is folly and you see the results. I noted that there was a reason why most Saints die horrible deaths.

The subsequent questions were all vocalised by Yaacob Ibrahim who had collected a long series of written questions. It was asked if secularism worked in Europe but not the (I presume she meant Muslim) colonies because in the latter it was forced on them. Can Islam and secularism be compatible? For example Malaysia is a weird implementation of a moderate Islamic state.

She replied that secularism was essential in Europe because of Enlightenment ideals. Politics and religion mixing resulted in disaster. So secularism was essential for modernity because it was deep. Secularism was good not for its ideas but for freeing the economy - if a priest looked over your shoulder you couldn't work well.

I had no idea what she was on about about secularism and economics: she seemed to be spinning a just-so story. The only way I can think of how religion impeded the European economy was usury laws, but there was a region Jewish moneylenders existed and I'm confident eventually an analog to Islamic Banking would've emerged.

She continued that in other parts of the world modernity could take a different course - not just in colonised areas, though colonisation could make modernity harder and delay modernisation. Rapid secularisation was bad because it didn't allow the area to follow its own dynamics and forces. It was not likely to put down roots in people, especially if secularism was lethal. In Iraq, they don't want secularism because when you state secularism they associate it with Saddam Hussein.

I noted that it was presumptuous to reject secularism on behalf of a people - why not ask them (eg The referendum after the Islamic Revolution in Iran)? To say on behalf of a people that they were not ready for secularism was deeply insulting - aren't they capable of deciding such things for themselves? Also, religion should not be imposed on people who were unwilling to accept it (eg Apostates, girls who don't want to wear headscarfs) - communitarianism is well and good if and only if there is a voluntary mechanism of exit from its tyranny.

Secularism has produced failured like Hitler and Stalin. I sighed at the use, once again, of this tired, old, discredited example. The examples of Hitler and Stalin should make us even more eager to reject religion and embrace secularism (in the form of liberal democracy) precisely because Fascism and Communism are like religions in having dubious ideology of questionable provenance (and like fundamentalist religion in sanctioning dissenters, discouraging questioning and imposing ideology on people). Indeed, it is precisely secularism that can protect religion, since it does not privilege any one religion over the others; also when a religion is made dominant it often goes to the dogs so secularism protects dominant religions as well.

It is premature to say that everyone must follow the Western secular model. Religion is better off opposing and challenging the state. The Shiites separated religion and politics as a sacred principle for centuries so the idea of separation of religion was rife in the Muslim world. This is why Khomeini's merging of the two was shocking. Politics is dirty business, and religion advocates the loss of the ego. Politicians do not know this, especially in the democratic world, because they have to get votes and see themselves on TV. I noted that in the non-democratic world, politics was even dirtier and bloodier and politicians had even bigger egos (eg Turkmenbashi and Kim Il Sung who is North Korea's Eternal President despite dying in 1994), so once again I had no idea what she was talking about; she liked to say a lot of things which people instinctively agreed with, but on closer examination found to be false.

Yaacob then interjected that politics was practised different in different parts of the world, and that politics was compassionate in Singapore. The audience then laughed (presumably agreeing with him) and someone else noted that Opposition politicians were treated with a great deal of compassion here.

The next questions were that if people kill your people and perpetrate injustice, can you still be compassionate? If you worship money it is not easy to be compassionate. There is a perception that Islam is stuck in enmity with non-Muslims. How can this perception be corrected?

The answers were that it was easy for her to talk about compassion because she had a privileged life. However, violence breeds violence and destroys your soul. Someone has to break the cycle of violence.

Karen Armstrong talk (MUIS lecture 2007)
The Role of Religion in the New Millennium
Part 1

This talk was co-organised by the Muslim Converts' Association of Singapore. I suggested to someone that he start the Murtads' Association of Singapore and he said I was crazy and he didn't want to be blown up.

Response was supposedly overwhelming, but I saw many empty seats.

At least one of Karen Armstrong's critics has been attacked as having "no academic training in Islamic studies whatsoever". Yet, I note that she suffers from the same lack of qualifications, yet has escaped attack. As Dawkins comments (about a study about prayer and recovery from illness), if science refutes religion everyone claims that they work in different realms, yet if science ever supported religion it'd be eagerly seized upon by these very same people as "proof" of its veracity.


The session opened with multiple blessings (I hope any reciprocity would be welcomed, but doubt it) and the obligatory platitudes. Among other things, last year's MUIS lecture had the highest ranking Sunni Mufti in the modern world coming to speak. Perhaps next year they'll invite a Jew (or we can hope, anyway).

There were then some remarks from Yaacob Ibrahim, who claimed that the traditional thinking that religion was good and encouraged good values was being questioned because of terrorism. Of course, this isn't true, for even the Greek philosophers were questioning the veracity, utility and consequences of religion, such Enlightenment luminaries as Voltaire roundly criticised it and many Founding Fathers of the USA had scathing words about it. He then claimed that we were bombarded by misleading images from the media, wondered if the journalists had gotten it wrong and Karen would give us a reality check on religion, ignoring the fact that the Singaporean media overwhelmingly propagates a discourse favorable to a 'desirable' point of view.

Finally, the talk started (and I shall switch to paraphrasing of what she said, with "I noted" or "I thought" to mark my interjections).

Religion is often seen as an absolute claw to progress. London cabbies always tell me that religion is bad, is violent and has caused all the major wars in history; it has also dragged people into the past and is intolerant and unwelcome of change. I would say that it's not religion per se, but it definitely plays a role, depending on the religion involved.

There's a lot of bad religion about, or as the Buddhists put it, there is a lot of 'unskilful' religion. Terrorism is a form of religiously articulated nationalism, like what brought Europe World War I and II. Hamas is an example of a resistance movement finding expression in religious terms, due to an asymmetric world with an unequal distribution of power, and that terrorism is a way of fighting back.

The modern economy had a domino effect - living in proximity to strangers polarises us because we have to live with strangers, but religion can help in smoothing a rocky century.

There is widespread religious disquiet with modernity. Modern, secular Western style governments all separate religion and poltics, and there is thus a reaction by religiosity which feels itself under siege: a turn to fundamentalism (a term she deemed unsatisfactory, especially to Muslims, since it was a term specific to American Protestants in the 1920s and had no easy translation into Arabic but was foisted onto them). Even fundamentalists aren't monolithic.

Fundamentalists drag their gods and religions from the sidelines to centre stage. In the mid-20th century, secularism was thought of as an up and coming philosophy to kill religiosity but this has been proven wrong. Fundamentalism is not an atavistic reaction to modernity, but an attempt ro recast old religious tradition in terms of the 20th and 21st centuries. All fundamentalism is rooted in fear, a conviction that the secular/liberal establishment wants to wipe out religion. When fundamentalists feel threatened and colonised by the ethos of Harvard, Yale and Washington DC they feel they need to fight for survival and push up the barricades.

Religion has a symbiotic relationship with aggressive secularism. For example in the Scopes trial, they won the case but lost the war, since US fundies withdrew from the mainstream, created their own media and educational institutions and planned a counter-offensive, emerging in the late 70s. Before the Scopes trial, US fundies were on the left of the political spectrum, willing to work with socialists and liberal Christians but after Scopes they swung to the right where they remain. When under attack they became more extremist.

I was flabbergasted at this. It is important to note that feeling under siege is not the same as being under siege. Evolution being an 'attack' is bad enough, but religious tolerance (eg Not displaying the Ten Commandments in a public courthouse) is often seen as an attack on religion. Accommodating intolerance, bigotry and condemning generations to wallow in ignorance in the name of tolerance is preposterous. Even in the name of realpolitik (stopping fundies from going on a rampage) its merits are questionable - as Lyndon Johnson said on signing the 1964 civil rights act: "We have lost the south for a generation." (one might also think about the merits of Emancipation)

Muslims feel attacked by modernity and colonisation. Secularism developed slowly in the West over 300 years, but in Muslim countries it is being imposed too fast. The elite accept it, but a large majority are stuck in their primal ethos. Ataturk closed madrasahs, forced Sufis underground and forced people to wear Western dress. The Turks looked modern but didn't grok modernity. Secularism was not liberating but seen as an assault on the faith. Similarly, the Shah of Iran made his soldiers rip veils of women off with bayonets. In 1935 his soldiers shot hundreds of demonstrators in a holy shrine, so Secularism was seen as lethal.

Sunni fundamentalism developed in Nasser's concentration camps. He imprisoned Muslim Brotherhood people in them and they underwent mental and physical torture, so moderate/liberal people became fundies.

There is much talk about a clash of civilisations, and US politicians use this concept to formulate policies [Ed: Wth?! Most of them stick with palatable talk - she is engendering a clash of civilisations herself by creating a false impression of the US]. It is wrong to think the Muslims recoil at the Modern World - when they first encountered it in the early 20th century they recognised it as deeply congenial to their traditions and they liked modernity, European customs and European countries. One religious figure said: "In France, I saw Islam but no Muslims. In Cairo, I see Muslims but no Islam". This was because Europe had social equality/justice and was closer to the spirit of the Koran than the Muslim countries.

Iran Shiite clerics campaigned with secular intellectuals to demand democratic reforms of the Shah. They won concessions in 1906 but in 1908 oil was discovered so the British didn't let Parliament function freely. The top Shiite cleric said that the new constitution was the next best thing to the coming of the Shiite prophet because it curbed the Shah's tyranny. Western hypocrisy in having democracy at home but imposing the Shah on Iranians was bad.

So Muslims are not inherently against progressive politics. With asymmetry, religion is a way of articulating distress. Islamic civilisation does not endemically oppose modernity. I noted that the Middle Ages was a flourishing period of Islamic modernity.

Religiosity turns you from violence, and violent devotees have lost the plot. All world religions began with a recoil against violence. The catalyst for religious change is horror at the violence going on, with societies filled with violence on an unprecedented scale (like the world today). I contest this hotly, but don't have the time or energy to expound on this so interested readers can read up on religious origins on Wikipedia.

Hindu priests in the 9th century BC took the violence out of the Indian liturgy which hitherto was filled with mock battles and sacred raids. It took 2 centuries but the warriors were persuaded to abandon sacred wargames and take up a more anodyne form of religion, to look within for the cause of violence in the human psyche.

In the Classical Period, Yoga needed you to purify yourself and practise ahimsa. You couldn't even swat an insect, get angry or be impatient. You had to persuade your guru of your serenity and affability to all.

Jesus practised ahimsa [Ed: Not all the time] and Mohammad, though depicted in the West as a Warlord, lived in a very violent period with trival violence [Ed: A tacit admission that he didn't either]. Mohammad was against 'ignorance' (more properly translated as 'irascibility' and 'aggression') - the chauvinism of the desert Arabs.