Is Robert Spencer an Islamophobe?
Is Robert Spencer an Islamophobe?
Introduction
Robert Spencer has recently posted an article on Jihad Watch entitled “The Nakba, May 29, 1453” with a witty little picture that says “Free Constantinople: 500 Years of Occupation is Enough.” His underlying argument is that the Arab use of the term “Nakba” [Translation: Catastrophe] to describe the founding of Israel should be applied to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and if the Palestinians claim a right of return to Israel, then theoretically speaking, the Christian inhabitants of Constantinople and Anatolia should demand and receive a right of return.
Spencer describes the conquest of Constantinople essentially as one where everyone (women, children, and old people included) were killed or taken as slaves, religious centers were converted into mosques, religious icons were destroyed, and the Hagia Sophia, one of the greatest emblems of the splendor of Christianity, was sacrilegiously turned into a mosque.
Spencer brings up the conquest in order to justify his theory that there is an inherent imperialist impulse within Islam, insinuating of course, that Muslims today share such an imperialistic impulse and are secretly a fifth column who are biding their time until the moment presents itself to take control of the “West” and the world as a whole. This also creates the implicit argument that it is the responsibility of the “West”, which knows the “truth” of Islam’s imperial ventures because they’ve experienced it in the past, to stop them. Such a theory would be great for a comic book story line, but is deplorable coming from someone who portrays himself as a serious academic and “scholar.”
This post is divided into several parts. The first part will critically analyze the conquest of Constantinople from a variety of sources (all of them non-Muslim in order to eliminate the possibility of arguing that the sources are “biased” Muslims attempting to white-wash the negative aspects of their history) in order to show that the true cause of the demise of Constantinople was probably not the Ottoman Empire, but the Latin “West.” The second part will critically analyze why Palestinians have a right to return and why the Byzantines do not. The third part will discuss the general theory of Islamic imperialism by giving historic and contemporary examples of the spread of Islam. The fourth part will discuss how Spencer’s arguments reveal his underlying Islamophobia.
The Role of the Latin West in the Demise of the Byzantine Empire
Unsurprisingly, Spencer has left out a lot of information regarding the fall of Constantinople which results in an absolutely skewed picture of the underlying causes of its collapse. The biggest omission is that its entirely question whether Constantinople was a Byzantine city to begin with – after all, the city itself was was built upon the Greek city of Byzantium which was conquered by the Romans in 196AD. Constantine I refounded the city as Nova Roma in 330 AD. Besides leaving out the obvious, Spencer also fails to mention that the Byzantine Empire itself had its fair share of belligerence towards the Muslim world. For one thing, he leaves out the fact that the Emperor Constantine sent out galleys before the siege even began in order to raid the Ottoman coastal villages on the Sea of Marmara for villagers who were then sold in the city as slaves. (p 76 “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) Such actions are hardly those of a peace-loving state. Complaining about Ottomans capturing Constantinople and selling its inhabitants into slavery cannot be taken seriously when the Byzantines were doing exactly the same thing. Spencer may try to argue that the Byzantine Empire wasn’t following “Orthodox” Christian teaching, but this isn’t supported by the facts since Pope Nicholas V authorized the enslavement of Muslims and Pagans in the papal bull, Dum Diversas, in 1452 – one year before the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. The fact that the Byzantines were raiding Ottoman territory also illustrates that the inhabitants of the area were Muslim – after all, why would a Christian state capture and enslave its fellow oppressed and enslaved Christians? Demographic research reveals that by 1520-30 only about 19 percent of the Balkan population was Muslim while 81 percent was Christian with a tiny Jewish minority while the Anatolian population was approximately 90% Muslim. (p 251-252 of “A History of Islamic Societies” by Ira Lapidus) By 1500, half the city’s population was still made up of Christians. (p 179 of “Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World” by Stephen O’Shea).
This is hardly the slaughter and conversion of an entire population that Spencer attempts to intimate. If the majority of the population of the Byzantine Empire wasn’t displaced, then the argument of a right of return is patently absurd. Assuming for the sake of the argument that the entire population was converted, albeit the empirical evidence strongly indicates otherwise, they would have no right to return if they didn’t leave the area. If Spencer wanted to make an argument that the Ottoman/Turkish actions in the 19th and 20th century against the Greek population entitled them to a right of return, he might have a stronger claim, but not with regards to Constantinople. Moreover, his analogy with the displacement of the Byzantines and the Palestinians is false on other grounds, but more about this later.
More important than leaving out such information is the fact that Spencer completely fails to mention the first conquest of Constantinople in 1204 – which wasn’t done by the big, bad Muslims – but the Latin Christians in the Fourth Crusade. The Fourth Crusade got entirely diverted from attacking Muslim lands into a full scale invasion and conquest of Constantinople, which was ruthlessly sacked for three days, unlike the Ottoman conquest which was only for one day. While Spencer mentions the lamentable destruction of the city by the Ottomans, he fails to condemn similar actions by the Crusaders who stole or destroyed Roman and Greek artifacts, burned down the Library of Constantinople, and violated the city’s holy places.
“The Latin soldiery subjected the greatest city in Europe to an indescribable sack. For three days they murdered, raped, looted and destroyed on a scale which even the ancient Vandals and Goths would have found unbelievable. Constantinople had become a veritable museum of ancient and Byzantine art, an emporium of such incredible wealth that the Latins were astounded at the riches they found. Though the Venetians had an appreciation for the art which they discovered (they were themselves semi-Byzantines) and saved much of it, the French and others destroyed indiscriminately, halting to refresh themselves with wine, violation of nuns, and murder of Orthodox clerics. The Crusaders vented their hatred for the Greeks most spectacularly in the desecration of the greatest Church in Christendom. They smashed the silver iconostasis, the icons and the holy books of Hagia Sophia, and seated upon the patriarchal throne a whore who sang coarse songs as they drank wine from the Church’s holy vessels. The estrangement of East and West, which had proceeded over the centuries, culminated in the horrible massacre that accompanied the conquest of Constantinople. The Greeks were convinced that even the Turks, had they taken the city, would not have been as cruel as the Latin Christians. The defeat of Byzantium, already in a state of decline, accelerated political degeneration so that the Byzantines eventually became an easy prey to the Turks. The Crusading movement thus resulted, ultimately, in the victory of Islam, a result which was of course the exact opposite of its original intention.” (p 152 of “Byzantium and Europe” by Speros Vryonis)
A further description of the conquest of 1204 states: “An appalling massacre ensued and huge portions of the city were destroyed by fire: “more houses were burned than there are to be found in the three great cities of the Kingdom of France,” declared the French knight Geoffrey de Villehardouin. The city’s great heritage of art was vandalized and St. Sophia profaned and ransacked: “they brought horses and mules into the Church,” wrote the chronicler Nicetas, “the better to carry off the holy vessels and the engraved silver and gold that they had torn from the throne and the pulpits, and the doors, and the furniture wherever it was to be found; and when some of these beasts slipped and fell, they ran them through with their swords, fouling the Church with their blood and ordure.” The Venetians made off with a great trove of statuary, relics, and precious objects to adorn their own church of St. Mark, including the four bronze horses that had stood in the Hippodrome since the time of Constantine the Great. Constantinople was left a smoking ruin.” (p 28 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley)
If Spencer is going to condemn the brutality of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, he should also condemn the Latin conquest. After all, the Latin conquest of the city resulted in more long-term damage of the city than anything the Ottomans did. Specifically, the Latin conquest contributed to the decline of Constantinople in three ways: (1) it created the conditions of Turkish intervention, (2) it resulted in the commercial decimation of the city, and (3) resulted in a massive population migration.
The conquest of Constantinople in 1204 created a vacuum of power that was filled in by competing states governed by Italians, Franks, and Greeks. It was these anarchic conditions that ultimately drew in the Turks. In fact, the first time the Muslim Turks crossed the Dardanelles in the 1350s was at the invitation of emperor John Cantacuzenos to assist in the civil wars between the successor states. It was the first time that Muslims had set foot in Europe since 717. (p 31 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) The Turkish presence in Byzantine military forces was prevalent enough that the Byzantines allowed the construction of a mosque in the city to cater to their religious needs. (p 27 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) The construction of a single mosque in a Christian city might not seem like a big deal, but during the time it was a source of extreme controversy. When the doge of cosmopolitan Venice proposed constructing a mosque in the city to accommodate Muslim merchants that were instrumental in its control of the spice trade, the city fell into civil anarchy and rioting. (p 277-278 of “Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World” by Stephen O’Shea) Thus, the construction of a mosque in the heart of a Christian state was a big deal, which illustrates how desperate the Byzantines were for military assistance insofar as they would go so far as to hire Muslim Turks to fight in their wars against the other successor states that formed as a result of the Latin Conquest in 1204.
The more direct way in which the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 contributed to the conquest of 1584 was the loss of economic vitality of the city. It is estimated that approximately 900,000 silver marks were looted from the city – about 200,000 of which ended up in Venetian hands. The sacking of the city created a shortage of funds which had grave consequences for the future of the city. For example, Emperor Andronikos decided to abolish imperial navy in 1284 resulting in the unemployed sailors to defect to the Ottomans to build their own fleet. A strong Byzantine navy would have definitely assisted in preventing the blockade the Ottomans were able to impose on Constantinople and enabled reinforcements to come in from other areas of Europe. (p 33 “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) A better example of the dire financial conditions the Byzantines were in would be how Orban, a Hungarian cannon founder, offered the Byzantine Emperor his services in constructing single-piece bronze guns in 1452. The Emperor accepted his services but was only able to pay him a tiny stipend which was not even paid regularly. As a result, Orban left Constantinople and went to the Ottoman city of Edirne and was immediately hired by Sultan Mehmet. (p 90-91 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) Orban’s cannons were instrumental in the destruction of the mighty walls of Constantinople which prevented foreign incursions into the city for centuries. Without Orban’s cannons, the Ottomans would have never been able to take Constantinople and without the sacking of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, such a historical incident would have probably never arose in the first place.
Perhaps the strongest area in which Spencer’s argument collapses is the depopulation of the city subsequent to the 1204 conquest. “For nearly sixty years the city became the “Latin Empire of Constantinople,” ruled by the count of Flanders and his successors. The Byzantine empire was dismembered into a scattered collection of Frankish states and Italian colonies, while a large part of the population fled to Greece. The Byzantines established a kingdom in exile at Nicaea in Anatolia and were relatively successful in barring further Turkish incursions. When they recaptured Constantinople in 1261, they found the city’s infrastructure close to ruin and its dominions shrunk to a few dispersed fragments.” (p 28 “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) On the eve of the 1584 conquest, the population of the city had shrunk to somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 (p 34). While it is undoubtedly true that the city suffered from the Black Death, so did the Turks and Italians. In fact, the Italians were hit the hardest out of any population in Europe, yet they provided a greater proportion of troops in the defense of the city after the Greeks.
The depopulation of the city may be the strongest explanation for why such few forces were mustered in its defense. Estimates of the city’s defense range from 7,000 to 8,000 total men of which only 4,773 were actual Greeks while estimates of the Ottoman forces ranged from 100,000 to 200,000 (a strong minority of whom were non-Muslim). (p 103 of “Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World” by Stephen O’Shea) In other words, a little less then half of the city’s defenses were provided by foreigners. To contrast against these few number of soldiers defending the city during the Ottoman siege, consider that Constantinople housed a garrison of 30,000 men during the Fourth Crusade. (p 159 of “The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople” by Jonathan Phillips)
The fact that so many foreigners were present in the city may at first seem like an illustration of Orthodox and Latin unity, but in reality, it was far from it. Relations between the Latin West and the Orthodox East in Constantinople had collapsed beyond repair, even during the defense of the city. When Byzantine Emperors attempted to get aid from Catholics, such as the touring of Italy and Hungry in the 1420s by Emperor John VIII, they were advised to push for the unification of the Orthodox Church with the Church of Rome. (p 67 “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) The Byzantine emperors finally conceded to such demands and the two Churches grudgingly reconciled at the Council of Florentine in June of 1439. The response in Constantinople to the Council of Florentine was overwhliming negative. “Back in the city the Orthodox faithful greeted the returning delegation with hostility; many of those who signed immediately revoked their signatures. The Eastern patriarchs refused to accept the decision of their delegates; the next patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory Mammas, who supported the union, was widely unpopular, and it became impossible to celebrate the union in St. Sophia. The issue split the city in two: Constantine and most of his immediate circle of nobles, officers, and civil servants supported the union; only a fraction of the clergy and people did – they believed that union had been forced on them by the treacherous Franks and that their immortal souls had been imperiled for base and materialistic motives. The people were profoundly antipapist: they were accustomed to equate the pope with the antichrist, “the wolf, the destroyer”; “Rum Papa,” the Roman Pope, was a popular choice of name for city dogs. The citizens formed a volatile proletariat: impoverished, superstitious, easily swayed to riot and disorder.” (p 68 (p 28 “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) The situation became so intense that the Emperor Constantine was not formally crowned, which should have been done in Sophia, but the coronation of a unionist emperor by a unionist patriarch would probably have led to massive public outcry (p 68-69 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley)
Even during the siege of Constantinople, the Orthodox Greeks bickered and fought with the Unionists. A union liturgy was conducted, for the first time, on December 12, 1452 in the St. Sophia. The masses didn’t attend and one Italian eyewitness described how lamentations against the liturgy could be heard all across the city. “Henceforth the Orthodox shunned St. Sophia as “nothing better than a Jewish synagogue or a heathen temple”; they worshiped only in the securely Orthodox churches of the city. (p 71 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) Even the emperor, Constantine, was jeered in the streets during the winter of 1452-1453 (p 75 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) The St. Sophia wasn’t prayed in by the masses until 5 months later – on the eve of the conquest. (p 200 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley)
Rather than the brutal conquest of religious fanatics hell-bent on fulfilling a religious prophecy by destroying the heart of a unified Christendom as Spencer attempts to portray, the truth is that the conquest of Constantinople was due to a variety of historical causes – including the role of Latin Christians in undermining the foundations of the city nearly two hundreds before it which was just as brutal and violent as the Byzantine ventures into Muslim lands and, of course, the Ottoman conquest of the Constantinople in 1584. There is nothing that sets out Islam as any different from Christianity at the time. If anything, Islam surpassed Christianity in a variety of ways during the area in terms of the treatment of religious minorities.
Arguing that the Ottomans slaughtered everyone in sight upon breaching the city’s walls isn’t accurate. For one thing, the elderly, women, and children that Spencer laments about being slaughtered also participated in resisting the invaders by throwing bricks, stones, and fire upon them. While it is deplorable that loss of life occurred, distinctions between combatants and non-combatants wasn’t always easily identifiable. (p 218 of “The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) The Byzantine chroniclers undoubtedly portrayed the conquest of their society with the greatest of horror, but they also had a tendency to exaggerate things. After all, it is estimated that only 4,000 had been killed in the day’s fighting, which is certainly not anywhere near the slaughtering of the entire city. (p 233 of “The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley). By comparison, the total number of Palestinians who died during the Second Intifada alone was 3,386. (p 100 of “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt)Moreover, we know for certain that there were parts of the city that were completely left untouched such as the villages of Studion and Petrion which had surrendered voluntarily and were protected by the Ottoman military police from plundering altogether. This resulted in a number of churches and monasteries being preserved as a result. (p 221 of “The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) As was mentioned above, half the population was still Christian in the 1500s is hardly proof that the Ottomans came in, killed everyone or forced them to convert. Although it is true that Christians from other parts of the Ottoman Empire had migrated into the city, contributing to the restoration of its Christian flavor, this only further undermines Spencer’s claim that everyone was forcibly converted or killed. After all, if there were still enough Christians from other regions of the empire to populate the decimated city, this is proof that Christianity had survived the Ottoman Empire. Spencer’s strongest argument against the conquest of Constantinople was the fact that the inhabitants were taken into slavery – estimated at 30,000. (p 237 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) However, it should be pointed that some slaves were later ransomed and contributed to the repopulation of the city. Also, it shouldn’t be overlooked that the Byzantines themselves had engaged in slave-raiding themselves, even on the eve of the Ottoman siege.
Perhaps what undermines Spencer’s argument the most is the lengths that the Ottomans went to in preserving Christianity as opposed to destroying it. The truth is that the moment Sultan Mehmet stepped into the city, he immediately stopped the looting of the city (Ottoman looting lasted only one day, unlike the three days that the Crusaders spent looting after they conquered Constantinople in 1204) (p 231 of “1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West” by Roger Crowley) He immediately began taking steps to reconstructing it and preserving its Christian flavor. “One of the first steps taken by Muhammad II, after the capture of Constantinople and the re-establishment of order in that city, was to secure the allegiance of the Christians by proclaiming himself the protector of the Greek Church. Persecution of the Christians was strictly forbidden; a decree was granted to the newly elected patriarch which secured to him and his successors and the bishops under him, the enjoyment of the old privileges, revenues and exemptions enjoyed under the former rule.” (p 146 of “The Spread of Islam in the World: A History of Peaceful Preaching” by Professor Thomas Arnold) Professor Arnold also aptly points out that while it is true that the Byzantines had to pay jizyah, it was far less of a financial burden than the “endless feudal obligations of the Franks and the countless extortions of the Byzantines.” (p 149 of “The Spread of Islam in the World: A History of Peaceful Preaching” by professor Thomas Arnold) In addition to restoring the Greek patriarch and giving them control of the civil system as well – a power that the Orthodox Church didn’t have even under the Byzantine Empire – the Ottomans returned many of the churches back into Christian hands (with the exception of the Hagia Sophia). (p 277 of “Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World” by Stephen O’Shea) The city had become such a center of tolerance that persecuted people from other regions of Europe came to it, which further illustrates the intolerance of Christian states compared to that of the Muslim states: “Although many Jews accepted to convert to Christianity, only to be later persecuted by the Inquisition for having done so, many others fled across the Mediterranean. Great numbers of the Sephardim found a home in the lands of the Ottomans, particularly in Thessalonica – which in effect became a Spanish Jewish city – and in Konstantinyye.” (p 281 “Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World” by Stephen O’Shea) The fact that Spanish Jews migrated to Constantinople all the way from Western Europe to escape the inquisition is an illustration of not only the level of tolerance exhibited by the Ottoman Empire but also Islam in general since the Spanish Jews survived Andalusian Muslim rule for hundreds of years without being scathed. It wasn’t until the Christian monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Spain that the Jews were persecuted and had to flee to other Muslim lands. This paints a picture of the general tolerance of Muslim polities in comparison with their Christian counterparts during the same historical epoch.
In conclusion, Robert Spencer’s account of the conquest of Constantinople is unhistorical and skewed by his sensationalist attempts to bash Islam and render illegitimate the Palestinian claim which is substantiated by international law.
The Right to Return of Palestinians
Robert Spencer attempts to portray himself as an objective academic attempting to expose the “true” nature of Islam. However, a person truly concerned with objectivity and justice would condemn all injustices, and not single out a particular group of people or religion solely for criticism. In fact, if one scrutinizes any of Spencer’s many projects (books, blogs, speeches) there is very little criticism devoted to any other religion or political entity other than Islam or Muslims. A perfect example is his post on the Nakba. By making an obscure historical reference to an event that occurred 500 years ago that has not been the source of contemporary political issues, Spencer attempts to deemphasize the horrors that Palestinians have been subjected to by Israel. Many historians and human rights activists openly recognize that the conduct of the Israeli government is not only in violation of international law, but it a decent argument can be made that it has engaged in ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. While terrorist organizations, such as HAMAS and Hezbullah, should be rightfully condemned for killing civilians, it should be pointed out that no similar condemnations emanate from the Islamophobic sector with regards to the deaths of Palestinians. Moreover, many of the human rights violations and ethnic cleansing that Israel has committed have occurred before the existence of any organized terrorist movement. Also, while Israel is justified in defending itself against the killing of non-combatant civilians, it is not entitled to killing non-combatant civilians or inflicting collective punishment. I call upon Robert Spencer to speak his mind on these issues and if he chooses to remain silent, then that should be interpreted as approval of such activities, in which case he is no different from the “stealth jihadists” that he spends so much time attacking.
Assuming for the sake of argument that everything that Spencer alleges about the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople is true, his analogy to the Palestinian claim of a right to return is still weak. Firstly, the Ottoman Empire doesn’t exist anymore and nothing is really preventing allegedly displaced Byzantines from returning to their purported homeland, unlike Israel which has laws prohibiting such a right to return. Secondly, only a tiny minority of Byzantines were killed, which is miniscule to the number of Palestinians killed. Conversely, if he wanted to argue that the Byzantines were displaced, that argument carries little weight as many Byzantines were relocated back to Constantinople anyway. Thirdly, if we assume Spencer’s argument that the population was coerced into converting to Islam from Christianity over time, although the historical evidence does not show this, such an argument would not give rise to a claim of return, only a right to revert back to Christianity. You can’t claim a right to return to a place you never left. Unlike the Byzantines, the Palestinian’s claim is based on ethnicity, not religion, which is an immutable characteristic. Moreover, Palestinian’s haven’t accepted statehood anywhere else but still claim a right of return back to their homeland. On all accounts, Spencer’s comparison between the right of return of non-existent Byzantines and existing Palestinians is fallacious. Of course, Spencer’s objective is not to make a serious claim to the right of return for Byzantines, his argument is directed at undermining the legitimacy of the Palestinian argument. Spencer’s arguments against the right of return of Palestinians, like his arguments concerning the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople leaves out key information. There are ten key facts that Spencer fails to mention – and won’t mention – because it exposes how flawed his argument is against the right of return of Palestinians.
Fact #1: Jews never had a majority of the population prior to declaring independence
In 1893, Arabs comprised 95% of the population and had continuous possession of the land for nearly 1300 years. Jewish immigration happened only within a 75 period and didn’t acquire significant property holdings. In 1948, the number of Jews was 650,000, 35% of the population within the mandate whereas there were 1.2 million Palestinians, 65% of the population. The Israeli claim to sovereignty is limited to areas where the population consented to the formation of the Israeli state or in areas where Jews had property. All other persons and property are by default not within the territorial boundaries of Israel but belong to Palestinians. Thus, the Palestinian argument to a right of return is strong by default since Palestinians formed the majority of the population in 1947.
(p 15 of “1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War” by Benny Morris)
Fact #2: Israelis never owned the majority of property
Another key argument in the mythical narrative of the formation of Israel is that the Arabs forfeited their right to statehood by selling their property lawfully to Jews. Firstly, such an argument is false since the Palestinians did not sell much of their property to Jews. By 1947, Jews only owned 5.8% of the land, an extreme small percentage of the total land which is certainly too insufficient to support the declaration of independent sovereignty. This fact alone strongly establishes the right of return of Palestinians. If they were the legal owners of 94.2% of the property, then how can it be said that they do not have a right of return? This is where the Israeli narrative shifts and attempts to argue that the Palestinians “gave up” their right of return by either opposing the UN plan or by voluntarily fleeing the land due to the war. Let us scrutinize these two arguments.
(p 30 of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe)
Fact #3: The UN Mandate Was Not Fair
The third argument is that the UN two-state solution granted sovereignty to Israel but it was rejected by the Arabs. Of course, if one scrutinizes the UN position, it makes perfect sense for why the native Palestinians would oppose the division of their lawfully owned land with a settler population that had only recently immigrated from the far reaches of the world. According to the UN plan, Palestine was intended to be divided into three parts: (1) 42% of the land would have gone to 818,000 Palestinians which included 10,000 Jews, (2) 56% of the land would have gone to 499,000 Jews with 438,000 Palestinians, and (3) the City of Jerusalem, with a total population of 200,000 was to be equally divided between Arabs and Jews. (p 35 of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe) Although Palestinians comprised a majority of the population within Palestine, they were effectively granted minority of the land for their own state with almost 60% of their population in Israel instead of their own homeland. Given that Palestinians formed the majority of the population and owned the majority of the property within the land and had been in the land for more than a millennium, it makes absolute sense that they would have opposed the UN plan since it wasn’t a representation of the will of the people.
Fact #4: The displacement of the Palestinians occurred BEFORE the Arab armies invaded
From the perspective of the Israeli narrative, the Palestinians forfeited their right to return by intentionally leaving their land during the 1948 war. However, this argument fails completely since the population began departing prior to the 1948 war due to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israeli forces that began in March 1948 and ended six months later. By the time of its conclusion, 800,000 people had been forced to migrate, more than half of Palestine’s native population, 531 villages had been destroyed, and eleven urban neighborhoods forcibly emptied. (p xiii – xv of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe) Moreover, the argument that the population fled as a result of the war is fallacious as almost 250,000 Palestinians had already been expelled during the last months of the British mandate and before May 15th 1948, when Israel declared independence and was subsequently attacked by the Arab states. This point completely deconstructs the claim that the population fled due to the actions of the Arab governments.
The Israeli forces were more numerous, well-trained, and better armed than the Palestinian population. “All in all, on the eve of the 1948 war, the Jewish fighting force stood at around 50,000 troops, out of which 30,000 were fighting troops and the rest auxiliaries who lived in the various settlements. In May 1948, these troops could count on the assistance of a small air force and navy, and on the units of tanks, armoured cars and heavy artillery that accompanied them. Facing them were irregular para-military Palestinian outfits that numbered not more than 7000 troops: a fighting force that lacked all structure or hierarchy and was poorly equipped when compared with the Jewish forces. In addition, in February 1948, about 1000 volunteers had entered from the Arab world, reaching 3000 over the next few months.” Even during the 1948, the total number of Arab forces never reached 50,000 while the Israeli forces eventually grew to 80,000 troops. (p 44-45 of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe) Thus, prior to the 1948 war, a few thousand irregular Palestinian forces were facing up to 50,000 well-trained, better-armed Israelis. Thus, when the attacks occurred, a largely defensive population really had no other alternative other than to flee.
Fact #5: Arab leaders urged the Palestinian population to stay at home
In a post dated May 20, 2008, Spencer attempts to argue that the Palestinians left their home on their own volition at the request of elites tied to the invading Arab leaders in order to vanquish Israel. This point is completely rebutted by the fact that the exodus of the Palestinians began several months before the 1948 war even begun. However, textual evidence now shows that the majority of Arab leaders told the Palestinians to stay in their homes, but many Palestinians were forced to flee due to attacks on them by Israeli and Jewish forces. “In fact, most Arab leaders urged the Palestinian population to stay home, but fear of violent death at the hands of Zionist forces led most of them to flee.” (p 95 of “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt) If the Palestinians, the majority of the population in 1948 who owned the majority of the property were forced to flee by a powerful Israeli army, then obviously, they have a right to return to their land. Moreover, assuming for the sake of the argument that the Palestinians fled because the Arab leaders told them to or because it of the conditions of war and not because of the actions of Israeli forces, how is it that they wouldn’t have a right to return even if they left voluntarily? Fleeing a war doesn’t mean that one gives up one’s land. Had the Palestinians taken up citizenship in another state, an argument against their right of return might be stronger, but most Palestinians ended up in refugee camps and were not recognized as citizens in most of the Arab states. Furthermore, even if they were given citizenship in another country, it doesn’t undermine their right of return because a person can have dual citizenship – such as many Israelis who often have dual citizenship.
Fact #6: Most of the Arabs Haven’t Left but Still Live in the Area
Some will undoubtedly argue that the Palestinians fled to other countries and don’t have a right of return to their original land in Palestine. However, statistical information indicates otherwise since the majority of Palestinians still live in the area the British Mandate. In Israel, there are currently 5.3 million Jews and 1.36 million Arabs. In the Gaza and West Bank, there are 3.8 million Palestinians. In other words, the total number of Arabs living in the area is approximately 5.16 million, which means there are only 140,000 more Jews than Palestinians living in what used to be called Mandate Palestine. (p 87 of “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt) However, if one includes the number of Palestinian refugees living in diaspora who still claim a right of return, the numbers tilt in favor of Palestinians. The three states with the highest Palestinian refugee population are Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. In 2001, there were 1,572,742 Palestinian refugees in Jordan, 370,144 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, 374,521 Palestinian refugees in Syria with a total of 2,317,407 within these three states. (Monde) If one were to add this to the total number of people of Palestinian descent, that comes to 7,477,407 which means that there are currently, 2,177,407 more Palestinians than Israelis. Thus, their claim to a right of return is still strong given that they are a majority of the people historically or contemporarily. Again, as was mentioned above, assuming for the sake of the argument that the Palestinians have taken up citizenship with other states, such as Jordan, this doesn’t negate their right of return since many Israelis have dual-citizenship and no one would argue that if they leave Israel they automatically lose citizenship or their property within that country.
Fact #7: Research has shown a direct link that the land used for building settlements is privately owned by Palestinians
Another source of the claim that the Palestinians have a right of return in addition to the fact that they were largely ethnically cleansed from the area by Israeli is the fact that Israel has appropriated a good portion of Palestinian property. Research has shown that 32% of the land that Israel holds for the purpose of building settlements is privately owned by Palestinians (p 91 of “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt) Even if one argued that the majority of Palestinians no longer have a claim to property in Israel since they were born in refugee camps, there cannot be a universal bar against Palestinians to returning to their land when it is clearly shown that Israelis are seizing it and using it for their own.
Fact #8: Israel has systematically destroyed Palestinian homes
The Palestinian argument of a right of return is strengthened by the fact that Israel has not only systematically seized Palestinian property but also systematically destroyed Palestinian homes. As pointed out above, Jews owned a little more than 5% of the land on the eve of independence, but by 1962, Israel owned almost 93% of the land within its borders and they were able to acquire this land by destroying some 531 Arab villages and expelling 11 urban neighborhoods of their populace. Such tactics have been used in the West Bank and the Gaza strip. According to Amnesty International, between 1967 and 2003, more than 10,000 homes in the West Bank and Gaza strip have been destroyed by Israel. (p 96-99 of “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt). The fact that Israel has historically and contemporarily engaged in the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and then destroyed them firmly establishes a Palestinian right of return since it can be shown that the Israeli seizure of land and destruction of property is unlawful. Furthermore, even though the Israelis have destroyed Palestinian homes, the underlying claim of the right of return still applies since the land still lawfully belongs to Palestinians.
Fact #9: Israeli Leaders Have Committed Gross Human Rights Violations and Terrorism
The Israeli narrative attempts to portray the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the denial of their right of return as a struggle between freedom and tyranny, democracy and dictatorship, or security and terror. However, the argument that Israel is a democracy is at best tenuous since its treatment of the Palestinians amounts to apartheid by reducing them to second-class citizens in their own land and by restricting them to specific zones all the while their human rights are being constantly violated. Israelis will argue that the treatment of Arabs in Israel is a sufficient rebuttal to this claim, but such arguments were used by other states that engaged in ethnic cleansing. For example, America up until the civil war had some states that engaged in slavery and some that didn’t, that didn’t mean that slavery didn’t exist. The fact that Israelis are violating the human rights of Palestinians in the Gaza and West Bank isn’t undermined by their purported nice treatment of Arabs within their state. Moreover, the Palestinians have also recently engaged in democratic elections that were fair and free, but the results of this election were not recognized by Israel since terrorists won the elections. While it is undoubtedly true that terrorism should be combated, it is strange for the Israelis should object to negotiating with terrorists when several of their leaders were directly connected to terrorist organizations and have committed gross human rights abuses.
“Indeed, terrorism was one of the key tactics that the Zionists used when they were in a similarly weak position and trying to obtain their own state. It was Jewish terrorists from the infamous Irgun, a militant Zionist group, who in late 1937 introduced into Palestine the now-familiar practice of placing bombs in buses and large crowds. Benny Morris speculates that “the Arabs may well have learned the value of terrorist bombings from the Jews.” Between 1944 and 1947, several Zionist organizations used terrorist attacks to drive the British from Palestine and took the lives of many innocent civilians along the way. Israeli terrorists also murdered the UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948, because they opposed his proposal to internationalize Jerusalem. The perpetrators of these acts were not isolated extremists: the leaders of the murder plot were eventually granted amnesty by the Israeli government and one of them was later to the Knesset. Another terrorist leader, who approved of Bernadotte’s murder but was not tried, was future Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.” (p 102 of “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt)
Moreover, Israel has elected several individuals that engaged in terrorism or committed human rights abuses, such as Menachem Begin (who headed the terrorist organization Irgun and became prime minister) and Ariel Sharon (who was found by an Israeli investigatory commission to bear personal responsibility for the massacring of innocent Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by the Phalangists, a Christian milita, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 yet also elected prime minister.) It is supreme hypocrisy for Israelis to refuse to negotiate with a legally elected government, in spite of it having links to terrorism and human rights violations, while at the same time allowed similar individuals within Israel to become heads of state as well. (p 99, 102 of “The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt)
Also, assuming for the sake of argument that Israel can refuse to negotiate with the Palestinian government due to its terrorist links in spite of having a similar history, this still wouldn’t negate the right of return of Palestinians since the basis of their claim is historically unlinked to the current government which they have elected and arises from entirely different moral and legal claims. Arguing that the Palestinian right to return is negated by its form of government is ludicrous. No one would argue that Germans or Japanese lost ownership of their land due to the rise of the Nazis or Imperialist tendencies. After all, the Israeli claim to the right of the land is based on biblical references in spite of the political governance of the territory having switched hands between the Romans, Arabs, Turks, and British.
Fact #10: Israeli Claims to Being a Democracy are Undermined by its Ethnic and Religious Discrimination
As was pointed out above, one of the arguments used to justify Israeli ethnic cleansing and seizure of Palestinian land is that the Palestinians are anti-democratic terrorists whose values fundamentally clash with Western civilization. As was pointed out, such an argument doesn’t justify stealing Palestinian land and destroying their homes. Moreover, such an argument is sufficiently rebutted by the fact that Palestinians have begun adhering to democracy and this is not negated by the fact that they have elected individuals with terrorist ties since Israel has done the same exact thing.
Moreover, the Israeli version of democracy is severely limited by (1) its discriminatory treatment of Israeli Arabs and (2) its brutal treatment of the Palestinians.
Israeli Arabs are discriminated against in a variety of ways, the two most prominent being property and marital restrictions. Although Israeli Arabs make up 17% of the total population, they are allotted only 3% of the land. Of this 3%, they can only build and live on 2% of it since 1% of the land is defined as agricultural land which cannot be built upon. Thus, 1.3 million people are forced to live on 2% of the land that their ancestors had previously 95% control of. (p 222-223 of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe) In addition to this property discrimination, there are marital restrictions on Israeli Arabs designed to control their population such as the “Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law” which prohibits Israeli Arabs from marrying Palestinians. Proponents of the law making contradictory arguments. First, they argue that the law isn’t discriminatory because it doesn’t explicitly mention Israeli Arabs, but when it is pointed out that only Israeli Arabs are likely to marry Palestinians, they justify it on the grounds that it is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks in Israel. The argument that the law is not facially discriminatory is irrelevant since the law is discriminatory in its effect and merely uses cleverly phrased legalese to hide its discriminatory purpose. The argument that the law is intended to protect Israeli national security is undermined by the fact that any children produced from such a marriage may live in Israel up until the age of 12 when they will be expelled. (The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law) Why would a child born from an Israeli Arab/Palestinian marriage that lives in Israel for 12 years suddenly decide to engage in terrorism? If the target was truly to prevent terrorism, it wouldn’t concern children at all – regardless of their age. This shows that the underlying purpose of the law is not to really prevent terrorism – but to control the Arab population within Israel under the guise of preventing terrorism which reveals the inherent discrimination against Arabs within Israel. Israelis will undoubtedly argue that Israeli Arabs are not discriminated against and have certain rights and can vote, get jobs, and do all sorts of things, but the discrimination that they face is not justified by these things any more than Jim Crow laws were justified on similar grounds (such as having literacy tests which were designed to prevent Blacks from voting).
Additionally, Israeli claims to democracy are undermined by its aggressive regulation and destruction of Christian and Muslim religious sites throughout the area. For example, after 1948, Israel seized all religious endowments including the properties within them, and “transferred them first to the Custodian, then to the state, and eventually sold them to Jewish public bodies and private citizens.” (p 217 of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe)
The following is an incomplete list of religious centers that were destroyed:
(1) Masjid al-Khayriyya destroyed and the city of Givatayim was built upon it,
(2) the rubble of the Birwa is presently beneath the cultivated land of the Jewish settlement of Ahihud,
(3) the 100 year old Mosque in Sarafand was destroyed by Israeli bulldozers on July 25, 2000,
(4) the mosques of Majdal and Qisarya were turned into restaurants,
(5) the Beersheba mosque was turned into a shop,
(6) the Ayn Hawd mosque was turned into a bar,
(7) part of the Zib mosque was turned into a resort village,
(8) the remains of the Ayn al-Zaytun mosque were turned into a milk farm in 2004,
(9) the Nabi Rubin mosque was blown up by Jewish fanatics in 1993,
(10) the Maqam of Shaykh Shehade was burned down in 2002,
(11) the Araba’in mosque of Baysan was ruined by an arson attack in March 2004,
(12) the Al-Umari and al-Bahr mosques in Tiberas were ruined in two similar attacks in June 2004,
(13) the al-Salam mosque in Zarughara was destroyed by bulldozers in 2003,
(14) the Maqam of Shaykh Sam’an near Kfar Saba was demolished in 2005 by unknown assailants,
(15) the Muslims were denied access to the mosque in Khalsa in the development town of Qiryat Shemona,
(16) the people of Kerem Maharal denied access to the mosque in the village of Ijzim, (17) the Wadi Hawarith mosque was ruined.
The following mosques or maqams were turned into synagogues:
(1) Wadi Unayn,
(2) Yazur,
(3) Kfar Inan,
(4) Daliyya,
(5) Abassiyya,
(6) Lifta mosque has been turned into a mikweh (Jewish ritual bath for women),
(pg 217-218 of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe)
The discrimination Israeli Arabs face, the destruction of religious sites, and the brutal treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank which amounts to state terrorism and collective punishment are indications that Israel’s human rights record is far from clear. Therefore, it cannot use the human rights abuses or the lack of democracy of the Palestinians as a bar to their claim of a right of return.
When one scrutinizes the totally of circumstances surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it becomes clear that the Palestinians have a right of return. Only by leaving out information or skewing important facts – such as how Robert Spencer has done – is the moral and legal argument minimized.
Islam and Empire
Robert Spencer’s attempts at stifling the Palestinian right of return by incorrectly analogizing it to the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople are weak since he leaves out crucial information regarding both historical events. However, such tactics aren’t anything new since one can establish a clear pattern and practice of behavior where he neglects to mention information that casts Islam in a favorable light and omits information that portrays anti-Islamic or anti-Muslim individuals or events in a negative light. He utilizes such tactics in his book “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).” The underlying thesis of this book, as well as his works over all, is that Islam is an imperialistic religion that is rooted in warfare and is fundamentally incompatible with Western civilization. Before critiquing this thesis, I would like to first critique the work itself. The book, like most of Spencer’s works contains several major flaws: (1) improper comparisons between different people, places, or events, (2) use of weak sources, and (3) leaving out crucial information.
One of the glaring flaws that Robert Spencer tends to make in his works is engaging in improper comparisons. For example, above I showed how the conquest of Constantinople to the Nakba was an improper comparison and a stronger comparison could be made to the conquest of the city during the Fourth Crusade. Concerning improper comparisons, the most prominent example in the book is his constant comparison between Jesus (alayhi salam) and Rasulullah (sallahu alayhi wa sallam). The analogy that Jesus was all about peace and Rasulullah (alaihumus salam) was all about war is flawed since Jesus was never the head of state. While the doctrine of turning the other cheek may have applied to individuals being wronged, it is difficult to conceive such a doctrine to become official state policy, especially when subsequent Christian states have never used Jesus’s teaching of non-violence as a prohibition on warfare in its totality – in fact we see the opposite. Several hundred years of the Crusades and writings by Christian theologians, such as St. Augustine’s writing on the Just War theory, are an indication that Christianity as a whole ascribes to the theory that warfare, at the bare minimum is a necessity at the level of states in an international context. Christianity, at its bare minimum, allows for defensive warfare. History, on the other hand, shows that Christianity was utilized by heads of state and the various Churches to justify not only offensive warfare, but also slavery, forced conversion, and colonialism. Spencer attempts to distinguish such actions from orthodox Christian doctrine by attempting to argue that oppressive actions by Christians shouldn’t be used to denigrate Christianity because those actors acted independently of the Catholic Church. However, this argument isn’t persuasive since several horrific actions occurred at the behest of the Church, such as the Crusades (which Spencer argues as defensive, which will be rebutted in future paragraphs), the Inquisition (which had direct links with the Catholic church), colonialism (the division of the world between Portuguese and Spanish domination was authorized by Papal bulls), or slavery in the New World.
Moreover, his argument can be equally applied to Muslim states. For example, the Ottoman state in many ways violated the Shar’iah, such as by forcibly conscripting Christian youth into their elite fighting force (the Janissaries), by taking on huge loans from European states, and by purportedly engaging in offensive jihad (Spencer argues that the Ottoman-Byzantine wars were not defensive from the perspective of the Ottomans, but offensive. Assuming that the warfare offensive jihad, then they clearly violated the Shari’ah, because even as Spencer himself recognizes, such a jihad requires the establishment of a Caliphate, and the Ottomans were not recognized as a Caliphate until much later in history; either Spencer must concede that the Ottomans engaged in defensive jihad, which is recognized even under Christianity and current international law, or that the Ottoman state violated the Shari’ah by engaging in offensive jihad, in which case the Shar’iah is not to blame). Additionally, Spencer contradicts his own argument that Christianity is a peaceful religion by arguing in his book that the bible sanctions warring against particular people and not an entire class of people such as the Hittite, Girgashite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, or Jebusite (p 29 of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades” by Robert Spencer) All of this shows that throughout his works, Spencer constantly compares apples to oranges by solely focusing on the life of Jesus (who was merely a preacher) and Muhammad (alayhi mus salam) who was not only a prophet, but a head of state, a diplomat, and a military commander. After all, even in America, the head of state is commander in chief of the military forces, so dividing political and military leadership is superfluous.
Another example of how Spencer makes improper analogies is by making erroneous comparisons between the rise of European civilization through “science and technology” and an alleged Islamic rejection of such knowledge resulting in a purported decline. The thesis that science and technology lead to the rise of Europe has come under attack from many historians, philosophers, social and economic theorists such as Janet Abu-Lughod, Kenneth Pomeranz, Andre Gunder Frank, Samir Amin, et al. Furthermore, such a thesis reveals the blatant hegemonic nature of the discourse on Islam since they these essentialist theories do not account for the domination of non-Muslim societies such as the Americas, Africa, or East Asia. The argument fails to account for the rise of Islam in the first place which was based on the same technological and scientific innovations that Spencer claims were suppressed. How can Islam account for the creation of scientific knowledge and the university system but also be the source of its decline? In terms of the theory that orthodoxy stifled heretical thought, no empirical evidence supports such an assertion, especially in areas where Ghazzalian orthodoxy had never penetrated, such as in Shia Safavid Iran or Mughal India (not to mention Muslim regimes in Africa and east Asia). How does the rise of the Ghazzalian world-view account for the alleged decline of science in non-Sunni and non-orthodox regions? Also, why did it take the Orthodox leadership something close to 800 years to stifle “the scientific impulse” within the Muslim world? This theory is not only shallow, it is incoherent. This theory also doesn’t account for why only certain areas of Europe, specifically Western Europe, were able to become hegemonic powers. What scientific technological innovations did medieval Poland, Norway, Portugal, Russia, or Spain, make that was significant in the rise of Western civilization in the modern era? Also, Western hegemony didn’t arise over night and there was a a plethora of Islamic hegemons formed even after the European renaissance such as the Ottoman, Mughal, and Safavid Empires, the Sokoto Caliphate, and the Aceh Sultanate, all of whom resisted Western penetration up until the industrial revolution. It can be argued that the peoples of the Asia and Africa were more “primitive” than the Muslim world, yet it isn’t until the industrial revolution that we see widespread European penetration of their respective heartlands. A decent argument can be made that the industrial revolution in Europe would not have happened but for the convergence of several events that had nothing to do with a supposed scientific or technological edge such as (1) the seizure of the Spice Trade by Portugal which had a devastating effect on Mameluke and Ottoman revenues, causing them to increase taxes, which produced internal revolts and undermined their territorial integrity, (2) diversion of the north African gold trade away from the Mediterranean and Indian system of trade that was Muslim dominated to the Atlantic and South Indian ocean trade system which was European dominated, providing Europeans sufficient capital to create a world system of global trade, (3) the decision of the Chinese to establish a bimetallic currency of gold and silver which made European monies from non-European areas useful for trade with East Asia, further separating the Muslim world from global trade, (4) the seizure and settlement of land in the Americas and elsewhere that enabled Europeans to grow land-intensive crops that would have authorized consumed energy and resources, the absence of which would have forced Europeans to devote more labor and persons to agriculture and less to industrial development, (5) the use of slave labor and capital that assisted in industrial development by creating a division of labor that freed up European labor to pursue non-agricultural projects, and so on and so forth. Spencer and other Eurocentrists don’t want to look at the history of colonialism, in spite of strong theoretical and empirical evidence that it contributed to the global domination of the world by Europeans and people of European descent because it shows the immoral roots of such domination. They don’t want to look at empirical research that indicates that areas in Africa that were subjected to colonialism and slavery are, unsurprisingly, some of the most underdeveloped regions in the world. It is easier to blame the cultural differences between the colonizer and the colonized than to look at historical evidence since it absolves the colonizer of any wrongdoing. Of course, there are limitations to the bigotry espoused by such thinkers. Instead of letting the historical record speak for itself, Spencer seeks to make improper analogies about Islam and the West in order to denigrate Islam and promote the West. These are two prime examples of Spencer’s practice of making improper comparisons in his works.
In addition to making weak analogies, Spencer uses weak sources to substantiate his claim, the most prominent of which is Ibn Ishaq’s “Sirat Rasul Allah (SWT)” which contains narrations of various degrees (sahih, hasan, deaf, and mawduh) and does not provide the reader with any analysis of whether the narration he cites to is an authentic narration or a fabricated narration. Another example is Joseph Schacht’s “An Introduction to Islamic Law” which has been utterly rebutted by subsequent scholars such as Mustafa al-Azami. Al-Azami identifies Schacht’s main theses are (1) that the Prophet did not legislate and the law fell outside of the sphere of religion, (2) that the early schools of law did not base their decisions on hadeeth, (3) the opponents of the schools of law fabricated hadeeth in order to create its own source of authority, (4) the schools of law attempted to resist such factions but when they could not, participated in the wholesale fabrication of hadeeth as well, (5) during the second and third centuries, the fuqaha interpolated their legal verdicts into the words of the Prophet, (6) therefore, all of the traditions from the Prophet are suspect, and (7) the system of isnad carries no probative value. (p 1-2 of “On Schacht’s Origins of Muhammad Jurisprudence” by M. Mustafa al-Azami”) al-Azami systematically refutes each and ever single argument raised by Schacht by citing historical references and using rational arguments. In response to the notion that the Prophet didn’t legislate, al-Azami points out various actions that indicate his role as legislator, such as pronouncing decrees, adjudicating in criminal and civil cases, appointing judges and arbitrators, and the many pronouncements in the Qur’an that concern purely legal matters. In refuting his assertion that the early madhaib didn’t utilize hadeeth, al-Azami points out the obvious: that many of the founders of the schools of law wrote compilations of hadeeth and used those as a basis for deducing rulings, from scholars such as Imam Malik’s “al-Muwatta” to Imam Bukhari “Jami al-Sahih” which are both hadeeth compilations, but also the basis of their rulings. In refuting his contention that hadeeth were wholesale fabricated by traditionalists and anti-traditionalist, al-Azami points out that many of the narrations that Schacht claimed were fabricated actually existed in early hadeeth literature. Of course, the purpose of this post isn’t to regurgitate the entire book, but sufficed to say, al-Azami’s critique of Schacht is devastating. Spencer could have chosen a better source to understand Islamic jurisprudence that weren’t based on weak assumptions, misinformation, and omissions, but he chose one that deliberately maligned the Islamic legal tradition as a reference in order to invalidate it. He does the same thing by citing books for the Crusades that tend to rely solely on European accounts and he ignores Arab views of the Crusades such as “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes” by Amin Malouf and others. When Spencer does utilize traditional Islamic sources, such as Reliance of the Traveler, he does so in order to malign it as well by citing “classical” as opposed to “modern” scholarship on important legal issues. The use of biased sources or the use of unbiased sources but used in a biased manner reveals the overall bias inherent in Spencer’s writing.
However, by far, the biggest problem with Spencer’s work is that he systematically leaves out important information in order to substantiate his two main theses: (1) that Christianity is a passive, non-violent religion that only engages in defensive warfare and (2) Islam is an aggressive, violent religion that is imperialistic and seeks world domination. Spencer’s frequent omissions have already been shown above in the section on the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel, and they exist in abundance in his book as well. His portrays Muhammad (sallahu alayhi wa sallam) as a militant early on in his life who became a charlatan that preached peacefully until he was rejected by his tribe and reacted by resorting to violence. While it is true that Muhammad (sallahu alayhi wa sallam) had engaged in two local wars prior to prophethood, Spencer fails to mention that his role in these wars was minimal. He did not fight against anyone or kill anyone, but simply collected arrows. In fact, throughout his life, Muhammad (sallahu alayhi wa sallam) only killed one man in the many battles he fought in - was merely scratched by a weapon carried by Muhammad and died several days after the battle. If Spencer can find a single example of Muhammad killing anyone in a battle, perhaps his argument might have more credence. Similarly, Spencer completely omits the fierce persecution that the early Muslims were subjected to. Spencer portrays Surat al-Lahab as a violent reaction to Abu Lahab for rejecting the message of Islam. Firstly, the revelation in question doesn’t incite anyone to kill Abu Lahab, it merely states that him and his wife will go to hellfire for eternity and be punished by God. Secondly, Spencer fails to mention that Abu Lahab was chief persecutor of the nascent Muslim community, and not merely someone who rejected Islam. He would fling stones at Muhammad (sallahu alayhi wa sallam) constantly, ridicule him in public, and throw goat entrails on him while he was praying, and torture the other early Muslims as well. His wife would tie bundles of thorns with ropes of twisted palm-leaf fiber and throw them in the paths were Muhammad would walk. In addition to failing to omit Abu Lahab’s actions, Spencer also completely omits to mention that the Companions (radhi allahu anhum) were humiliated, beaten, tortured, and boycotted by the Pagans as well without doing anything to instigate such treatment other than practicing their faith or calling people to it. The uncle of Uthman would wrap him up in a mat and then set fire under him. Umm Mus’ab bin ‘Umar starved her son. Bilal would be beaten by his master when he converted. A rope would be wrapped around his neck and street boys would drag him by it. He would also be tortured by being crushed by heavy stones. Ammar and his parents would be forced to lie in the burning sand and beaten or thrown onto burning embers. His father died as a result and his mother was bayoneted by Abu Jahl. Abu Fakeeh would be dragged by his feet throughout the street. Khabbab bin al-Aratt would have his hair pulled and choked by it and also be forced to lie on a burning coal and crushed with a big rock in order to prevent him from escaping. The early Muslims were subjected to a boycott, had their property seized, and were evicted from their own homes. (See “Ar Raheeq al Makhtum” by Shaykh Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri which is comprised of authentic narrations, as opposed to the sources that Spencer utilizes).
Clearly, the early Muslims were persecuted while they resided in Makkah and such persecution continued even after they migrated to Madinah. However, the difference between the community in Makkah and Madinah was that the latter comprised a political community, a state. Obviously, states must engage in warfare, at the very least to defend themselves from foreign engage. Spencer’s treatment of Islam is also biased in this manner, by leaving out actions that gave Muslims a justifiable reason to engage in warfare against aggressors. Its hard to see how the early Muslim wars were “imperialist” when the wars themselves were against political communities that had engaged in the persecution of Muslims. Furthermore, many of the battles between the “imperialistic” Muslims and the “non-violent” non-Muslims involved families fighting against families: fathers against sons, brothers against brothers, husbands against their in-laws, masters against slaves, etc. Spencer mentions how Muhammad initiated raiding before the Battle of Badr and argues that he was the aggressor, but fails to mention that the “wealth” of the caravans that were “attacked” were actually those belonging to the Muslims which they were forced to leave behind when they immigrated. After all, Muhammad (sallahu alayhi wa sallam) didn’t target any of the other many caravans that were constantly moving throughout Arabia, but only those that were either hauling the property of Muslims or were from tribes that had persecuted Muslims in the first place. (See “Ar Raheeq al Makhtum” by Shaykh Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri).
In terms of the non-Arabian wars, a decent argument can be made that they were also defensive as well. The cause of war between the Muhammadan state and the Ghassanians and their Byzantine protectors was the fact that the former had murdered Muslim diplomat who invited them to Islam (and no, they were not offered Islam, jizyah, or warfare, they were invited to Islam and that’s it). Muhammad (sallahu alayhi wa sallam) had sent al-Harith bin ‘Umair al-Azdi to the ruler of Busra with a letter and was intercepted by Sharhabeel bin ‘Amr al-Ghassani, the governor of al-Balqa and a vassal of the Byzantine Empire, and beheaded. Such an action was obviously an act of war. The Muslims responded by sending an small army, only 3,000, against roughly 200,000 soldiers as such. The Byzantine Empire supported its protectorate by sending its own forces and by doing so, entered into a de facto state of war with Muslims. Once the Byzantine Empire entered into warfare against Muslims, then it follows that they would engage in warfare with all of the Byzantine Empire and not just particular regions. Spencer deceitfully attempts to divide the Byzantine Empire into different sections and argues that the Muslims systematically attacked them but Syria, Egypt, and North Africa (along with Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem) were not separate territories, but all either directly or indirectly allied with the Byzantine Empire. Once the Byzantine Empire engaged in war with Madina, the entire Empire was open to being attacked. The Muslims wars, then, were not wars of aggression, but wars of defense – and they won. The Crusades, then, can’t be claimed to be “defensive” attempts to recapture “Christian” territory when the Christian states were themselves aggressors against Muslims. The Muslim invasion of other territories was also generally linked to legitimate acts of warfare: Persia was invaded due under similar abuse of diplomats, India was invaded after Muslim women were enslaved and abused, Spain was invaded after the rape of an Arab women, etc. While it is undoubtedly true that Muslim states initiated warfare aggressively, it doesn’t necessarily follow that Islam itself supports aggressive warfare, but more on this later.
The other main thesis that Spencer attempts to make is that Christian states were generally more tolerant and passive than Muslim states, and only engaged in warfare when necessary. While it is true that the Catholic Church treated Jews fairly well, the same can’t be said of the Greek Orthodox Church or the Protestant movement (see Martin Luther’s “On the Jews and their Lies” and the fact that he actively worked towards expelling Jews. Nonetheless, the theory and practice of Christian states diverged. The Third Council of Toledo in 589 required Jews to convert. Jews were expelled from France in 1254, in England in 1290, in Spain in 1481, in Portugal in 1496, and were massacred in South India by the Portuguese in the 1500s as well. There was also the various Inquisitions that were either directly under the control of the Catholic Church or authorized by it and employed Bishops and Arch-Bishops to target heretics, Jews, and Muslims.
Spencer completely omits the connections between military orders, such as the Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller, and the Catholic Church. Spencer argues that these military orders were part of the Crusades and are justifiable since the Crusades were defensive. The argument that the Crusades were defensive has been deconstructed above, but assuming for the sake of the argument that the Crusades were defensive, it still doesn’t account for the the Wendish crusades which were authorized by papal bull by Pope Eugenius III against pagan slavs. It also doesn’t account for how Portuguese and Spanish slavery were authorized by papal bulls: the Dum Diversas by Pope Nicholas V (authorized slavery of Muslims and pagans, 1452 [note buene: this is one year before the conquest of Constantinople]), reaffirmed by Pope Calixtus III in the Etsti Cuncti (1456), renewed by Pope Sixtus in 1481 and Pope Leo X in 1514 in the Precelse Denotionis, extended to the Americas by Pope Alexander VI in the Inter Cetera (1493) and wasn’t banned until the Sublimus Dei of Pope Paul III in 1537, but that didn’t stop Europeans from doing it until much later. The notion that Christians only engaged in “defensive” warfare doesn’t account for the papal bulls that granted Europeans dominions over non-Europeans such as the Romanus Pontifex by Pope Nicholas V (granted Catholic countries of Europe dominion over all lands “discovered” by them and authorized their seizure and enslavement of non-Christians, 1455), the Aeterni Regis by Pope Sixtus IV (confirmed the Treaty of Alcavocas which divided the whole world into Spanish and Portuguese spheres and specifically granted all land south of the Canary Islands in Africa to Portugal, 1481), the Dudum Siquidem (granted all mainlands and islands that belonged to India to Spain, 1493), etc. Military Orders played a pivotal role in early Iberian expansion. Prince Henry the Navigator, Manuel I, and Vasco Da Gama were all members of the Order of Christ. His argument collapses when one scrutinizes that there are plenty of Jihads against European expansion where no European sovereignty (territorial or religious) existed such as the jihads that were launched to recapture territory seized by Spain and Portugal following the conquest of Granada, the jihad against the Spanish and later against the Americans starting with Lapu-Lapu in the Philippines, the jihad against the Russians in Central Asia, the jihad against the British in India and Afghanistan, the jihad against France in North Africa, the jihad against Europeans in Western and Eastern Africa, the jihad against the Dutch in Southeast Asia, etc. If Christian states only engaged in warfare against Muslims to seize land they allegedly stole from them and Muslim states were imperialist states, then why has so much of the warfare in the past 500 years been between European states seizing land, people, and resources in non-European areas? Is it entirely possible that many of these “jihads” were not aggressive at all, but mere conflagrations involving people defending their homelands? Spencer is forced to concede that, at the very least, some Jihads were legitimate defensive wars and some European wars were aggressive, imperialist ventures that were either openly or nominally authorized by Christian clergy.
Furthermore, the theory of Islamic imperialism and coerced conversion doesn’t explain how large non-Muslim minorities still existed in Muslim lands up until today, such as the Jews, Parsees, Hindus, Buddhists, and various Christian groups (Coptic, Greek, Syriac, etc). It also doesn’t explain how Islam spread in the absence of warfare. The theory of Islamic imperialism also doesn’t explain the spread of Islam in the absence of an “Islamic state” such as in Central Asia (who forced the Golden Hord and the Turks to convert?), Eastern China, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia (which Muslim state invaded Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country today, and forced everyone to become Muslim?). Also, what about today, which “Islamic states” are forcing people to convert in the Americas, in Western countries or in Africa, such as in Rwanda where thousands have converted to Islam?
Spencer leaves out all of this important information regarding the cause of wars between Muslim and non-Muslim states or how Islam spread beyond the realm of Islamic states and instead focuses on quoting classical Muslim jurists. He himself recognizes that there was a distinction between defensive and offensive jihad. Defensive jihad, as highlighted above, is entirely justifiable and recognized not only in Christianity, but presently under international law. Offensive jihad has been portrayed by classical scholars as a war of aggression in order to convey to the non-Muslims the might of Islam. However, Spencer fails to mention several important tidbits of information: (1) offensive jihad could only be conduced by the Caliph, (2) not all classical jurists recognized the legitimacy of offensive jihad, such as the entirety of the Hanbali madhab which has staunchly rejected it. This is important because even if it is assumed that those “aggressive” Muslim states were engaging in offensive jihad, it doesn’t follow that they were doing so according to Islamic law. For example, Sultan Mehmet wasn’t recognized as the Caliph at the time of the conquest of Constantinople and the Ottomans didn’t claim this title until much later in their history. Thus, if the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople was a manifestation of offensive jihad, and not part of the broader Christian-Muslim wars that was waged for centuries, then his actions were in violation of the Shari’ah. The same can obviously be said of today’s radical Islamic militant groups, such as al-Qaeda (who claim their jihad is defensive) who are not recognized as Caliphs nor have they even claimed it. In fact, their entire goal in engaging in terrorism is to restore the Caliphate. Moreover, if any Muslim states or groups engaged in the killing of civilians, they are also in violation of the Shari’ah. Spencer’s quoting of Islamic scholarship is selective. While he quotes Bin Laden’s fatwas justifying the killing of civilians, he ignores the fatwas of ‘Ulema throughout antiquity and today that reject it, such as Deobandi ‘Ulema and others (See “Defending the Civilians”). While he quotes from classical scholarship in offensive jihad, he fails to quote contemporary scholars who reject offensive jihad, such as Dr. Sherman Jackson or Imam Zaid Shakir, on the grounds that it was only to ensure the creation of an international system of order and it is now obsolete due to the present of organizations that now fulfill this function such as the United Nations.
Conclusion: Is Robert Spencer an Islamophobe?
In his book “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam”, Robert Spencer argues that the use of the term “Islamophobe” is merely a tactic from radical Islamists to stifle legitimate critique of terrorism and the alleged imperialistic tendencies of Islam and Muslims. However, it has been shown that Spencer systematically engages in important omissions, weak comparisons, and misrepresentations in virtually all of his speeches, posts, and books. These tactics reveal that his underlying objective is to malign Islam and it exposes the inherent bias and bigotry he has to Islam and Muslims. Thus, it is entirely justifiable for him to be condemned as an Islamophobe.
(NOTE: If I have left out some citations, I will come back and insert them at a later time)
http://jinnzaman.hadithuna.com/is-robert-spencer-an-islamophobe/
Abdullah M started this discussion 1 year ago. ( )
