ANTI-ISLAMOPHOBIA

In a previous post and discussion about Islam on the Integral Global Facebook group a video by Bill Warner was recommended as an excellent source for the history of Islam. After reading about Warner he seemed like a typical politically motivated and narrowly informed Islamophobe like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. I criticized him as an Islamophobic ideologue, without having watched the video. I was taken to task for not watching Warner’s video on the history of Islam and promised I would watch it and give an evaluation of Warner’s work. Bill Warner has many books and videos on Islam and is a political activist who says he’s educating the public about the history of “Political Islam” because of the threat it poses to the US and Europe.

So I’ve seen Bill Warner’s video and I have looked at the scholarly sources to check what he says. Lo and behold, it’s exactly as I said it would be. Warner has a skewed view of Islam that selects and arranges favored facts to promote his fears of an Islamic takeover. Now it could be the case that I just did what Warner does, select and arrange facts to agree with my preconceived ideas. Because that is possible, we need a test of what we assert. That is the point of having a community of scholars who devote their lives to studying specific topics AND who discuss assertions critically with other well-schooled scholars. Their assertions, unlike Warner’s, must past peer-review. 

 SUMMARY OF WARNER’S VIDEO

Warner’s history of “Islam” is shockingly tendentious. We see a map of the Middle East and Mediterranean that will visually chart the course of Islam’s spread from its beginnings. His biased title of this chart is “The Destruction of Classical Civilization”. He calls it a “battle map” and shows the 548 battles that Islam, represented as an everenlarging green blob, caused as it unrelentingly spread over more and more lands.  He absurdly personifies a thing called “Islam” and says “it” is taking over. His basic story is that Islam, because of the warlike parts of the founding documents, inevitably attacks and dominates other lands in order to impose Sharia law on the dominated. He says he’s only stating facts, and he does know some facts, yet chooses the facts he tells for maximal Western revulsion. So we learn about Islam enslaving but little about its culture. We learn nothing of the economic, social and political aspects of this history, nor is mentioned that this imperial struggle is only one dimension of the story of many world powers throughout history. Towards the end of the video his political agenda is exposed as he accuses universities and corporations of wanting Sharia law because they practice political correctness. But a rightest political ideologue like Warner could be right, so we need to check the scholarly debate. What we find is that some elements of Warner’s skewed view are accurate, but he has chosen to tell a narrow story focusing on the war-making aspects of Islam to scare and sow revulsion in Westerners ignorant of how history-writing is done. 

THE ACADEMIC SCHOLARSHIP 

Note: I will be noting the credentials of the scholars I cite, not to use their status as a substitute for determining whether what they say is true, but to emphasize that their work has been critically reviewed by similarly knowledgeable scholars. In academic scholarship there is a rigorous checking mechanism Bill Warner’s work doesn’t withstand.

First, it’s important to understand that it’s difficult to know what happened in undeveloped Arabia 1,400 years ago. One of the most esteemed scholars of Islam, Montgomery Watt, in “What is Islam?”, warns that “The greatest challenge to a coherent conceptualization of Islam has been posed by the sheer diversity of—that is, range of differences between—those societies, persons, ideas and practices that identify themselves with “Islam.”” 

So unlike Warner’s unhistorical green growing blob called “Islam”, one of the greatest scholars of Islam emphasizes its diversity, even using scare quotes around the term Warner tosses around so cavalierly: “Islam”. 

Prof. Chase Robinson in “The Rise of Islam 600-705”, part of “The Formation of the Islamic World, Sixth to Eleventh Centuries” from Cambridge U. Press, elaborates on Watt’s comment, “As we shall see all too frequently throughout this chapter, the historiographic ground cannot bear interpretations that carry the freight of much real detail. For reasons made clear in chapter 15, the study of early Islam is plagued by a wide range of historiographic problems: the sources internal to the tradition purport to preserve a great deal of detailed history, but with very few exceptions they are late and polemically inclined; meanwhile, the sources external to the tradition are in many instances much earlier, but they know so little of what was happening in Arabia and Iraq that they are inadequate for detailed reconstruction. What is abundant is in general unreliable; what is relatively reliable is invariably too little;” Robinson concludes “Given the state of the evidence, the most one can do is to set out some historical answers very schematically.”

 Agreeing with Watt, Prof. Khaleel Mohammed states that “Islam contains so many juristic and interpretational differences that scholars generally acknowledge that there are several Islams. I choose not to detail such differences in this Element [book] and embark on a sort of essentialism.”

 I also found that Warner’s brand of polemical history is itself a subject of study by real scholars. In the chapter, “Modern approaches to early Islamic history,” Fred M. Donner, recounts the struggle against Warner-like polemics and in the process eerily nails Warner’s methods:

 “In another vein, there has emerged in recent years a secularized contemporary avatar of the medieval religious polemics against Islam that essentializes ‘Islamic civilization’ as antagonist to the ‘West’ and which sometimes reaches back to the founding events of early Islamic history in an effort to find ammunition for its arguments. In considering how scholars in the modern West have studied early Islamic history, then, it is important to be mindful of the many forms of the polemical tradition against Islam, even though that tradition cannot be considered scholarship in the proper sense of that word.”

 While Warner blithely recites his skewed conquest narrative of early Islam, Donner describes the differences among the scholars he names and the difficulty posed by the meager reliable sources: 

 “Regarding the conquest narratives, Noth emphasized their salvation-historical character and questioned whether the conquests had any centralized impetus or direction, Sharon and others suggested they never occurred at all, and Conrad has shown that some conquest accounts appear to have no secure factual basis; on the other hand, Donner stressed the cogency of understanding the conquests as a unitary phenomenon and Robinson demonstrated that some early, independent non-Muslim sources confirm certain Muslim conquest reports.”

 Donner concludes, “Beyond the thorny problems posed by the heritage of the polemical tradition and by the deficiencies of the sources for early Islamic history, there exist other problems of perception and conceptualization, as well as practical obstacles, that have affected Western approaches to early Islamic history.”

 And from  Chase F. Robinson, editor of “Volume 1: The Formation of the Islamic World, Sixth to Eleventh Centuries”:

 “This – the realization that what we know about early Islam is less certain than what we thought we knew, and that writing history in this period and region requires altogether more sophisticated and resourceful approaches – is one of a handful of notable advances made in Islamic studies since the original Cambridge history of Islam was published in 1970.”

 Robinson’s summation: “What, in broad strokes, is the quality of our evidence for the period covered by this volume? It is mixed.”

 This appreciation of the diversity of views about historical Islam is also reflected in serious study of the contemporary Islamic world. In contrast, Warner presents Islam as a scary monolith that is driven by adherence to central ancient texts.

We learn from Prof. Emeritus Mohammed Ayoob in his “Political Islam: image and reality” that:

“In practice, no two Islamisms are alike because they are determined by the contexts within which they operate. What works in Egypt will not work in Indonesia. What works in Saudi Arabia will not work in Turkey. Anyone familiar with the diversity of the Muslim world--its socioeconomic characteristics, cultures, political systems, and trajectories of intellectual development--is bound to realize that the political manifestations of Islam, like the practice of Islam itself, are to a great extent context specific, the result of the interpenetration of religious precepts and local culture, including political culture.”

“It becomes clear that the Islamist political imagination is largely determined by context when one looks at the political discourse and, more importantly, the activities of the various Islamist movements.”

 And contrary to Warner’s ahistorical concoction “Political Islam”, we learn that “Political Islam is a modern phenomenon, with roots in the sociopolitical conditions of Muslim countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is a product of the Muslim peoples' interaction--military, political, economic, cultural, and intellectual--with the West during the past two hundred years, a period when Western power has been in the ascendant and Muslims have become the objects, rather than the subjects, of history.”

“As these examples make clear, it is the local context that has largely determined the development and transformation of Islamist movements within particular national milieus. Moreover, it is not true that Islamist political formations have been primarily violent in nature. The most long-standing and credible Islamist parties have normally worked within the legal frameworks in which they have found themselves.”

And Ayoob, a political scientist, concludes “This Western perception does not, however, negate the fact that political Islam is a multifaceted phenomenon and is in almost all instances context specific, circumscribed by the borders of individual states. The overwhelming majority of Islamist political activity is conducted through peaceful means within constitutional limits, even where governments are unsympathetic to the Islamists' cause. Transnational extremist activities, including acts of terrorism, are the exception, not the rule, when it comes to political action undertaken in the name of Islam.”

Amazing how different is the conclusion of Prof Ayoob, Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Michigan State University, writing in the peer-review World Policy Journal and subject to the criticism of his colleagues, from Bill Warner, the former physicist, who has no peer-reviewed Islamic publications or scholarship to his name. 

 ISLAM AND NON-MUSLIMS

An understandably popular topic in the West is how the dominant Islamic authorities, in the lands they conquered, treated their subordinate populations of Christians and Jews. As we might expect from such a diverse array of societies and locations the conditions for the underclass varied greatly.

Chase Robinson, in his chapter “Rise of Islam 600-705” confirms the warlike aspect of Islamic history that is Warner’s narrow focus. We learn of:

 “Muhammad putting his nascent community into shape for war-making against his polytheist opponents. In this, the Constitution conforms to the great stress laid in the

Quran upon fighting on behalf of God in general, and upon the connection between emigration or ‘going out’ (khuruj, as opposed to ‘sitting’, ququd) and this fighting, as Q 2:218 (‘those who emigrate and fight on the path of God’), and other verses put it. The Muslim is ‘one who believes in God and the last Day and fights on the path of God’ (Q 9:19)” (Robinson, the Rise of Islam 600-705).

While describing war making in the name of Islam, Robinson also provides the facts Warner excludes. In contrast to Warner’s hard linkage of Islamic violence to Islamic teaching we learn that:

 “Only gradually – and incompletely, as subsequent Islamic history would show – was taking up arms disengaged from belief, as armies were professionalized and the state claimed the exclusive right to carry out legitimate violence.” (Robinson, the Rise of Islam 600-705).

 And in the following quotes it sounds as if Robinson is criticizing Warner’s approach when he writes that “Modern descriptions of systematic conquest-era violence targeted at non-Muslims, in addition to those of post-conquest persecution before the Marwanids, are usually nothing more than poorly disguised polemics.” (Robinson, the Rise of Islam 600-705). He notes that “Unlike the barbarian invasions of the fourth- and fifth-century western Mediterranean, the effects of the Islamic conquests were in many respects modest.” (Robinson, the Rise of Islam 600-705). 

 And he concludes that:

 “For the most part, conquest destruction was restrained and, at least in some respects, discretionary: low- and mid-level bureaucratic functionaries were preserved so as to ensure fiscal continuity, and the material evidence shows continuities at other levels too.” Robinson, (“Conclusion” of “From formative Islam to classical Islam”)

 Regarding non-Muslims “the umma of the Constitution appears to accommodate the Jews of Medina, although they occupy a subordinate status. This inclusive sense of community reflects the relatively catholic nature of early Islamic belief: we have already seen that Muhammad had followed in the footsteps of earlier prophets (Moses and Abraham are especially prominent in the Quran), and his call for monotheism was initially compatible with those made by his predecessors.”  (Robinson, The Rise of Islam 600-705).

 Other sources confirm Robinson’s account:

Regarding Islam’s relation to Christians and Jews we learn in Courbage and Fargues, “Christians and Jews Under Islam”, that “the political, sociological and demographic factors that have shaped the position of Christian and Jewish minorities under Islam in the past and today. Focusing on the Arab world and on Turkey, the authors show how Christianity and Judaism survived and, at times, even prospered in the region, thus modifying the view of Islam as an inevitably unbending and radical religion.”

Najib Saliba, professor of Middle East history at Worcester State College, MA, writes: “This article will show that, for centuries, perhaps a millennium, during which Islam dominated the area, conflict between Jews, Christians and Muslims was the exception, not the norm. The norm was peace, harmony, coexistence and cooperation among those of the three religions. ”http://www.alhewar.com/Saliba_Christians_and_Jews_Under_Islam.htm

While Gordon Newby, chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory University, emphasizes the stronger effect of historical factors, rather than the sacred texts Warner focuses on so exclusively. In “Muslim, Jews and Christians - Relations and Interactions” he writes:

“Relations among Muslims, Jews, and Christians have been shaped not only by the theologies and beliefs of the three religions, but also, and often more strongly, by the historical circumstances in which they are found.” “During the first Islamic century, the period of the most rapid ex­pansion of Islam, social and religious structures were so fluid that it is hard to make generalisations” https://www.iis.ac.uk/academic-article/muslim-jews-and-christians-relations-and-interactions

SHARIA LAW

Warner is prone to hyperbole especially about Islamic Sharia law: “Each and every demand that Muslims make is based on the idea of implementing Sharia law in America.”  (Warner, “Sharia Law for Non-Muslims”) Part of his mission is to provide Americans with the information needed to combat the imposition of Sharia law in the US.

In Khaleed Mohammed’s monograph “Islam and Violence” for the Cambridge “Elements” series on “Religion and Violence” we get an informed and more varied picture of the current situation:

“The battle for Islam, as Khalid Abou El-Fadl notes, is between moderates and those he deems “puritans,” based on their vision of a pure Islam if certain laws and practices are enforced (Abou El-Fadl 2007: 162). Entities like ISIS and Boko Haram, in their effort to fight the Western forces, are imposing their own brand of Islamic law that has little to do with methodology or consideration of the goals of the Sharia, as understood by the classical jurists. Such “puritans” view most modern Muslims as having strayed from the path of righteousness and in need of coercion to return to what is proper. Many of the proponents for “Islamization of law” are not scholars in the field, and as such, bring about what Scott Appleby (2002: 85–92) and Khalid Abou El-Fadl (2014: 119) term the “vulgarization” of Islamic law. This means a return to an imagined, highly artificial Islam that draws a clear line of demarcation between an ungodly Western “them” and a righteous “us.” The actors in this scenario seek to gain their goals without any of the ethical or moral considerations elemental to the Islamic tradition, employing instead the cruelest methods to achieve their ends.”

 What Khaleed Mohammed is telling us, in contrast to Warner’s exaggerated vision of a Sharia monolith, is that the Islamic radicals impose “their own brand” of Islamic law that “has little to do with methodology or consideration of the goals of the Sharia, as understood by the classical jurists”. Those puritans “are not scholars in the field”. This “means a return to an imagined, highly artificial Islam that draws a clear line of demarcation between an ungodly Western “them” and a righteous “us.”” So Bill Warner, for his political purposes, has focused exclusively on the legal interpretation used by unschooled radicals, adopting uncritically their us vs. them dualism, that is an “an imagined, highly artificial Islam” while claiming that he is simply giving us the “facts” of Islamic law, about which he wrote a book.

People truly interested in Islam and violence might want to read a book about that topic, realizing that violence is only one dimension of the vast Islamic story, instead of listening to marginal figures who have no relationship to the actual scholarly community that interact and criticize each other’s works, and who uses his isolated studies to wage a counter holy war against a fabricated monolith called Islam.

At the very least Warner has not engaged the massive scholarship on Islam, instead reading the history for his paranoid political purposes so that the vast terrain of Islam becomes the radical interpretation of violent radical groups. Warner focuses on the oppressiveness and dangers of Sharia law, even going so far as to accuse US corporations and universities of practicing Sharia, by their alleged adherence to political correctness. But Prof. Khaleel Mohammed steers a middle course between rightwing Islam deionizers and left wing Islam apologists. 

 In “Islam and Violence” we learn, contrary to Warner’s reduction of Islam to three texts, that “Islamic law is found in an enormous corpus of volumes that document the rulings, opinions, and discourses over the span of many centuries” (Abou El-Fadl 2014: xxxii). It covers a vast array of topics, from rulings related to worship, criminal law, personal status, family law, commercial law, international law, constitutional law, and inheritance.”

 Khaleel Mohammed criticizes two other scholars, Tyan and Lewis, and asserts: “Contrary to what Tyan and Lewis would have us believe, there has never been any single Islamic creed or law about jihad, since there is no singular authoritative body in Islam. All we have from Muslim writers throughout the ages are numerous legal opinions that may all be equally “normative” (Mottahadeh and Sayyid 2001: 23–29; see also Abou El-Fadl 2007: 21–22; Afsaruddin 2015: 70–81).”

 And, in contrast to Warner’s scary contemporary Sharia monolith, we learn that: “The current state of Islamic law in every single Muslim-majority nation seems to be that of outright confusion…… In Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan, Iran, and Yemen, Islamic law seems to be enacted without any reference to the goals of the Sharia to promote what would seem to be ethical and moral practices to please the Divine.”

ON BILL WARNER

As we can see from a cursory glance of the massive literature form a novice working for only a week, there is a diverse, contentious, fact and interpretation-laden debate about what Warner confidently proclaims. For his anti-Islamic jihad Warner has selected a narrow portion of the historical story and then fixated on particular sacred texts to produce an Islam for his political purposes that has little relation to the realities of contemporary Islamic life and its history. 

 Warner says he’s only stating facts. That’s only half the story of writing history. ALL history writing is value-laden. We have to choose which facts to include, how to describe those facts, and what story those facts will tell. It’s true both that there are facts AND that every telling of those facts, even a chronology, is laden with values or moral choices. Warner, perhaps because he is not a historian, appears not to know this.

CONCLUSION

Bill Warner reads history to serve his present paranoid purposes. His given name is Bill French, but he chose the pen name “Warner” presumably because he sees his mission, post-9/11, as warning us of the coming Islamic theat. He fears the Islamic hordes coming to Europe and America and imposing Sharia law. To prove that fear is justified he reads Islamic history tendentiously selecting the facts to scare us about Islam’s true intentions. So his “history” is of a politicized religion that migrates outward to conquer and destroy its enemies and impose harsh Sharia law on its victims. His map shows one big mass of Islam, like a contagion or blob, that relentlessly subsumed and crushed other religions and cultures. And, of course, imperialism and domination is one part of Islam. We could also concoct a scary map of a blob-like European Christianity spreading over North and South America crushing the indigenous populations until European Christianity was supreme. And we could link that ruthless Christian genocide to recent attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen. But history isn’t about religious creeds driving zealots to do its bidding, although that is one dimension of a complex picture true scholars try to discern.

 My survey of Islamic scholarship suggests there are two dangers: rightwing demonizers and liberal apologists. Bill Warner is one of many examples of the former and there are many examples of the latter. So we need to go to the scholarly sources. Of course, there too battle lines will be drawn, but the pressure to document sources and the peer-review process allows us to discern what we can and can’t say and believe about historical and contemporary Islam.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x549127?fbclid=IwAR3QL7JELbjTe9zA4KrInE3EsHNZgxdSQ1IIOeA4zL2phXlRINTKLLta02Y

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