thewashingtonstandard--2020-10-28--Academic Tries to Rebut ‘The History of Jihad’ – Fails Miserably

A Jihad Watch reader has alerted me to an academic review of my book The History of Jihad : From Muhammad to ISIS by one Ahmed Achrati , who says that he “ graduated from Law School in Algeria and received an LL.M from the School of Law at NYU , and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
” Achrati adds : “ I Taught [ sic ; “ taught ” should not be capitalized in this instance , kids ] Law , Anthropology , Islamic Studies , and Language at different universities and colleges .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ courses , Anthropology and Qur ’ an & Modern Society as part of the Osher Program at Johns Hopkin [ sic ] University , and American University .
I am also a research volunteer at the Smithsonian NMAFA.
” His review serves as an illuminating example of how intellectually lazy and biased the academic environment has become in America today .
Achrati attempts to give the appearance of rational analysis , but the more one examines his points , the less there is to see , and the more he comes off as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Twitter screaming his illogic , sloganeering and propaganda as if it were Socratic wisdom .
Nonetheless , he is almost certain to gain the applause of his academic peers for his paper , and that also is an indication of how much American academia has degenerated .
Robert Spencer ’ s The History of Jihad : from Muhammad to ISIS , [ sic ; there shouldn ’ t be a comma there ] is aimed at re-enforcing [ sic ; the word he wants here is reinforcing ] the misconception that jihad is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an to engage in military warfare for the purpose of conquest and the imposition of worldwide Islam .
Spencer also denies the antiquity and authenticity of the Qur ’ an and the origin of Islam .
Like so many others , Achrati does not explain how and why so very many Muslims throughout Islamic history have gotten the idea that “ jihad is an obligation imposed by the Qur ’ an to engage in military warfare for the purpose of conquest and the imposition of worldwide Islam , ” and why so many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this “ misconception ” so stubbornly persist ?
Spencer asserts that the Qur ’ an did not exist until the time of the Abbasids , close to two hundred years after Muhammad ( d. 632 ) .
Actually , the Abbasid caliphate began in 750 , which is 118 years , not “ close to two hundred years , ” after the traditional date of Muhammad ’ s death .
And in The History of Jihad , I refer to “ the paucity of contemporary evidence of Muhammad ’ s life , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an before the early eighth century.
” ( p. 53 ) That ’ s the early 700 ’ s .
So what I actually say is that the Qur ’ an is roughly 100 years older than Achrati claims I say it is .
This is a minor point , but since Achrati is purporting to offer a refutation of my work , it reflects poorly on him that he doesn ’ t even get right what I say in the book .
“ There is considerable reason to believe , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history ” ( Spencer 2018,15 ) .
This assertion is contrary to historical , and archaeological evidence .
For example , Accelerator Mass Spectrometry ( AMS ) dating of one of the oldest known parchments of the Qur ’ an shows that it belonged to the period between AD 614 to AD 656 ( Sadeghi 2010 , 348 ; Hilali 2017 , 13-14 ) .
A recent discovery near Najran , Saudi Arabia , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name Umar Ibn al-Khattab ( Iambert 2014 ) .
This is so poorly reasoned that it ’ s embarrassing .
In case Achrati ’ s poor reasoning isn ’ t clear , I ’ ll spell it out : he attempts to refute my statement that there is “ considerable reason to believe that the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history ” by invoking an old copy of the Qur ’ an and a mention of Umar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be absolutely correct that there is a seventh-century copy of the Qur ’ an that still exists , and an Arabic inscription naming the caliph Umar , and it could still be true that “ the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history.
” The Qur ’ an actually contains very little information about Islam ’ s “ founding figures , ” or about the origins of Islam .
The fact that Umar is named somewhere is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he actually did everything that he is recorded as doing in Islamic accounts written a century or more after his death .
Confirmation of the antiquity of the Qur ’ an and the origins of Islam also comes from non-Muslim records .
Early events surrounding the crisis of succession , including the murder of the third caliph ‘ Uthman ( d.656 ) , are mentioned in Chinese annals , such as the T ’ ang History ( Hoyland 1997 , 251-252 , and n. 43 ) .
References to Islam are also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 634 AD ) ( Ibid .
526-527 ) ; the writings of the Syriac John Bar Penkaye ( Ibid.
, 532-533 ) ; and the chronicles of the Armenian Sebeos ( 645 AD ) ( Ibid .
534-535 ) .
The T ’ ang History dates from 1060 , and so has little or no value in establishing what happened several hundred years before in faraway Arabia .
It doesn ’ t mention any events after the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid ( 786-809 ) , and so could be a document that was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even Hoyland notes that “ later editorial activity is almost certain to have taken place ” ( Hoyland , 250 ) .
Achrati points to a Hoyland footnote that actually disproves what he is trying to use it to establish : in it , Hoyland states that the “ second king ” referred to in the T ’ ang History is probably Uthman , but he adds that while Uthman was indeed the “ second king , ” that is , the second caliph , Abu Bakr , who was the first caliph @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yet in canonical Islamic history , they ’ re both caliphs with exactly the same function .
So Hoyland is confirming my statement that “ the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history , ” and doing so in a passage that Achrati is invoking to claim my statement is false .
The Doctrina Jacobi , which was probably written by a Christian in Palestine between 634 and 640—that is , at the time of the earliest Arabian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an unnamed prophet who is still alive , traveling with his armies , whereas Muhammad is supposed to have died in 632 .
What ’ s more , this Saracen prophet , rather than proclaiming that he was Allah ’ s last prophet ( cf .
Qur ’ an 33:40 ) , was according to the Doctrina Jacobi “ proclaiming the advent of the anointed one , the Christ who was to come.
” No early Islamic sources say that Muhammad was still alive and traveling with his armies in the mid-630s , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that anyone else was to come ; on the contrary , he claimed to be “ the seal of the prophets ” ( Qur ’ an 33:40 ) .
Thus the Doctrina Jacobi also confirms my statement that there is “ considerable reason to believe that the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history.
” John bar Penkaye wrote about 690 , that is , just under sixty years after Muhammad is supposed to have died , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ offers none of the proliferation of detail about Muhammad ’ s words and deeds that we get in eighth and ninth century sources , and shows no awareness that such material even exists .
All he says is that the invaders “ were so attached to the traditions of Muhammad who was their teacher , that they inflicted the pain of death upon any one who seemed to contradict his tradition.
” So here again , his mention of Muhammad , which is scarcely more than a name-drop , is hardly a refutation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ considerable reason to believe that the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history.
” As Fred Donner has noted , “ these efforts to reconstruct Islam ’ s origins and to explain the historical context of the Qur ’ an in a manner that rejects completely the framework provided by Muslim tradition ” are simply unconvincing ( Donner 2011 , 28 ) .
Here ’ s something else Donner says : “ The problem is that this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is drawn not from documents or even stories dating from Muhammad ’ s time , but from literary sources that were compiled many years–sometimes centuries–later .
The fact that these stories are so much later , and shaped with very specific objectives in mind , means that they often do not tell us many things about which we would like to know more…There is also reason to suspect that some–perhaps many – of the incidents related in these sources are not reliable accounts of things that actually happened but rather are legends created @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Muhammad ’ s status as prophet , to help establish precedents shaping the later Muslim community ’ s ritual , social , or legal practices , or simply to fill out poorly known chapters in the life of their founder , about whom , understandably , later Muslims increasingly wished to know everything.
” ( Fred M. Donner , Muhammad and the Believers at the Origins of Islam ( Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press , 2010 ) , 50-51 . )
Through selective reading of historical evidence and circular reasoning , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the authenticity of the Qur ’ an using evidence derived from the very history he is denying .
As a proof that the Qur ’ an did not exist at the time of Muhammad , Spencer says that Sophronius , the patriarch of Jerusalem who turned the city to the Muslims , “ made no mention of the conquerors ’ coming with a new prophet , religion , or holy book ” ( p. 61 ) .
He then asserts that the Qur ’ an came to be only after the fall of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he attributes to the fact that Islam itself was at this time in an inchoate state , and the Qur ’ an “ not set in [ its ] final form until the Umayyads had ruled for four or five decades ” ( p. 90 ) .
Once again , embarrassing .
This is neither selective reading of evidence nor circular reasoning .
Achrati attributes to me something I do not say : to point out that the Qur ’ an was not set in its final form until a certain time is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Qur ’ an only came to be at that time .
The process of editing it was not instantaneous .
And if Sophronius in the 630s betrays no awareness of the conquerors coming with a new religion or holy book , and the Qur ’ an actually came into being later ( beginning in the 690s ) , there is no selectivity or circular reasoning in that at all .
Another example of the circularity of Spencer ’ s logic , he makes Khalid Ibn al-Walid the originator of the “ triple choice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war ) , which , he wrongly says “ became codified in the Qur ’ an ” ( p. 53 ) , when this rule exists only as a hadith .
Saying that something is in the Qur ’ an when it is really just a hadith is not circular logic .
Does Achrati even know what “ circular logic ” actually is ?
And anyway , the triple choice is actually in the Qur ’ an , contrary to Achrati ’ s claim : “ Fight them , till there is no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ( 8:39 ) — there ’ s the conversion part .
“ Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden , and do not practice the religion of truth , even if they are of the People of the Book — until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.
” ( 9:29 ) There ’ s war ( “ fight them ” ) and jizya .
Lacking a sound definition of jihad , Spencer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” a term not found in the Qur ’ an ( the terms juhd , jihad , jahada , and mujahidun are ) .
“ Jihadi ” has no substantive definition , leaving the term useless in identifying exactly who or what a jihadi is .
Presumably a jihadi is someone waging war in the cause of Islam , but this fails to address the problem posed by intra-Muslim fighting : Is the jihadi ISIS or the rest of the Muslims ?
What about Christian renegades who fight on the side of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) ?
“ Jihad ” means “ struggle ” ; I discuss the meaning of the term in Islamic theology and law on pages 11-13 of the book .
A jihadi is , obviously , a mujahid , one who wages jihad .
“ Is the jihadi ISIS or the rest of the Muslims ?
, ” both , if they are both fighting to establish or defend their vision of the Islamic state .
If one side or the other is fighting for another purpose , then they ’ re not jihadis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fight on the side of Muslims ?
” We call those “ useful idiots.
” What the term jihadi does signify is both Spencer ’ s distorted reading of the Qur ’ an and his lack of knowledge of Arabic .
Unlike qātala ( “ to battle , ” “ to fight ” ) , a transitive verb requiring an object to convey its meaning ( e.g.
, “ to fight ” someone or something ) , the verb jāhada is normally used in the intransitive form .
Only exceptionally did the Qur @ @ @ @ @ @ @ form ; four times out of twenty-eight occurrences , to be exact .
It is precisely this exceptional use of the transitive form of jāhada that gives this term its definite meaning and establishes a clear distinction between jihad ( “ exertion ” ) and qital ( “ fight , ” “ battle ” ) .
In other words , jihad as used in the Qur ’ an has no inherent connotation of violence .
Indeed , in one instance where the Qur ’ an uses jāhada in the transitive form , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unbelieving parents are doing to their Muslim sons and daughters : “ We have enjoined upon man goodness towards his parents ; but should they strive to make you associate other beings with Me [ wa in jāhadāka li-tushrika bī ] , obey them not ” ( 29:8 and 31:15 ) .
The word “ jihad ” does not refer to any specific action , much less to fighting or warring .
Jihad simply means “ exertion , ” regardless of who the agent might be or what specifically the action might involve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , then , jihad is the essence of an Islamic ethos .
It is an orientation toward God that defines a Muslim ’ s sensibilities and characterizes his or her daily comportment .
It is the realization of : “ Verily , I have surrendered my whole being unto God ” ( 3:20 ) .
Odd , then , that so many Muslims over 1,400 years somehow got the idea that jihad did have something to do with violence .
Did they get that idea from me ?
Achrati is glossing over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warfare against unbelievers , and Islamic law codifies that imperative , and that this warfare has gone on throughout history under the rubric of “ jihad.
” The renowned medieval Islamic scholar and jurist Ibn Taymiyya ( 1263-1328 ) directed that “ since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God ’ s entirely and God ’ s word is uppermost , therefore according to all Muslims , those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.
” This is also taught by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1955 book War and Peace in the Law of Islam , the Iraqi scholar Majid Khadduri says this about jihad : “ The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state .
The Islamic state , whose principal function was to put God ’ s law into practice , sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guess Ibn Taymiyya and Khadduri and a host of others are ignorant “ Islamophobes ” ?
Underscoring the ethical nature of jihad is also the fact that when Muslims were facing exile and persecution in Mecca and Medina , the Qur ’ an specifically imposed on them a duty “ to fight , ” but not the obligation to undertake jihad : “ Fighting is ordained for you [ kutiba ‘ laykum al-qital ] , though you dislike it ” ( 2:216 , 246 ; 4:77 ) .
The Qur ’ an further @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to fight ” [ hariḍal-mu ’ minina ‘ ala al-qital ] ( 8:65 ) , yet it did not mention jihad or prescribe it as a duty .
The clear Qur ’ anic distinction between jihad and qital seems to anticipate Spencer ’ s confusion when facing intra-Muslim fighting .
In describing Muslim-against-Muslim fighting , the Qur ’ an uses iqtatala , the reciprocal structure in Arabic which does not apply to intransitive verbs .
This is a distinction without a difference .
Yes , there are jihads that do not involve fighting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that throughout Islamic history , Muslims have referred to fighting against unbelievers , as well as against other Muslims they consider to be heretics , as jihad .
In a section titled “ Jihad against the Christians , ” Spencer makes the claim that “ Allah gave Muhammad a revelation commanding Muslims to fight against Jews and Christians until they accepted Islamic hegemony symbolized by payment of a poll tax ( jizya ) and discriminatory regulations that would ensure that they would be constantly reminded of their subordinate position ” ( p. 40 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the only verse in the Qur ’ an relating to jizya , a move designed to identify jihad with the collection of tax –implying that jihad is a revenue-driven enterprise .
To give a semblance of soundness to these assertions and to keep his reader in the dark , he deliberately omits the controlling passages of this verse ( 9:1-9:17 ) .
These verses name the enemies of Muhammad as the “ idolaters , ” and they Arabs who violated a treaty –and not the Christians or Jews , who fall under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Book.
” Achrati is apparently counting on his readers not actually opening the Qur ’ an , since if they did , they would find that Qur ’ an 9:29 tells Muslims explicitly to wage war against “ the People of the Book , ” that is , the very people he claims here that the verse is not talking about .
This is either inexcusable carelessness or plain dishonesty .
Spencer ’ s use of the term “ polytheists ” in place of “ idolaters ” is designed to give the impression @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ an are lawless undertakings that depend on human whims ( see , Abd al-Haleem ; also , Wills 2017 , 136-140 ; Kaltner 2011 , 198-199 ) .
How does Achrati know what I meant to imply ?
But his mind-reading is the last of it : here again , he seems to be counting on people not checking the references .
He is objecting to my quoting a hadith in which Muhammad says “ When you meet your enemies who are polytheists ” ( Sahih Muslim 4294 , quoted on p. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and suggests that I substituted the word “ polytheists ” for “ idolaters ” with nefarious intent .
In reality , however , the translation using the word “ polytheists ” was written by Muslims and for Muslims .
I have it in a four-volume set of Sahih Muslim translated by Abdul Hamid Siddiqui ( clearly an “ Islamophobe ” ) and published in New Delhi ; it can also be found online here .
Sunnah.com is a Muslim site ; if it is so terrible to use the word “ polytheists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this translation ?
To the contrary , this and other texts establish rules for fighting : “ Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress .
Indeed .
Allah does not like transgressors… .
kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you… And if they cease , then indeed , Allah is Forgiving and Merciful ” ( 2:190-192 ; also , 5:33-37 ; 22 : 39-40 ; 8:56-58 ) .
Spencer ’ s loathing of Islam is so visceral that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Muslims .
At first , we encounter Hitler bemoaning Charles Martel ’ s success in stopping the advances of Islam into Europe and crushing Christianity : “ Had Charles Martel not been victorious –already , you see , the world had fallen into the hands of the Jews , so gutless a thing was Christianity !
–then we should in all probability have been converted to Muhammadanism , that cult which glorifies heroism and which opens the seventh heaven to the bold warrior alone .
Then the Germanic races would have conquered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from doing so ” ( p. 95 ; see also , p. 292 ) .
It ’ s a strange academic world when quoting someone accurately becomes an offense .
Achrati offers no evidence that Hitler didn ’ t actually say these words .
He can ’ t , because Hitler did say it .
And if he did , why can his words not be reported ?
Finally , Spencer tops all of this off with the assertion that the Holocaust is the doing of a Muslim , the Palestinian Grand Mufti @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he says , “ testified at the Nuremburg Trials that the mufti had been a central figure in the planning of the genocide of the Jews ” ( p. 303 ) .
Here again : did Wisliczeny say that , or did he not ?
He did , and Achrati makes no attempt to establish otherwise .
So why can he not be quoted ?
And once again he misrepresents what I said : I don ’ t say that “ the Holocaust is the doing of a Muslim , ” and Wisliczeny @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that .
He says the Mufti was central in the planning of the genocide .
And that ’ s what I said he said .
The mention of the word “ Palestinian ” sends Spencer on a tangent defacing the history of Palestine .
Ignoring the historical record – ” Palestine ” is attested in a Twelfth Dynasty hieroglyph as Peleset , in the Assyrian inscriptions as Palashtu , Palastu , and Pilistu ; and in Herodotus ’ s Histories as Palaistiné –Spencer says “ Palestine ” is only a bureaucratic name that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attached to one of their districts in 134 AD ( p.309 ) .
Yes , that ’ s why the name was in the Bible for the Romans to pluck it out and apply it to Judea : it originally referred to the ancient Philistines , who are mentioned in other , non-Biblical sources .
But once again in keeping with Achrati ’ s carelessness with the facts , I never say “ Palestine ” was a “ bureaucratic name.
” It was the name of the Israelites ’ ancient enemies , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Jewish people from the area , thought it appropriate to use .
A good portion of Spencer ’ s book is aimed at stoking anti-Muslim sentiment among Europeans .
A sentence like that doesn ’ t belong in what purports to be an academic paper .
Achrati should show where he thinks the book is inaccurate , not pretend to know my motives , or anyone ’ s .
He traces the word “ Slav , ” a term applied to many Eastern Europeans , but one that has a negative connotation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ethnic designation ‘ Slav ’ is derived from the Arabic ‘ saqlab ’ , or ‘ slave ’ , ” he says ( p. 83 ) .
“ Slav ” , however , comes from the Byzantine Greek Σκλάβος ( Sklábos ) , which is rendered Sclavus in Medieval Latin , from which comes the Middle English “ slave.
” Σκλαβηνοί was affixed to groups of the trans-Danubian Barbaricum by Procopius of Caesarea ( d. 554 AD ) and Flavius Jordanes .
My source for the saqlab derivation , duly footnoted on p. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Hideous Trade : Economic Aspects of the ‘ Manufacture ’ and Sale of Eunuchs , ” Paideuma 45 ( 1999 ) : 139 .
Achrati , however , represents this as coming from me , as if I made it up , and gives no hint that there is more to the scholarly discussion of the derivation of this word than he represents in his paper .
Spencer goes on to invoke humiliating Ottoman victories in Europe , which he “ attributed in large part to the valor of the Bosnian Muslims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also praises the Crusades and later European colonialist enterprises .
Commenting on Radulph of Caen ’ s report that “ In al-Ma ’ rra , our troops boiled pagan adults in cooking-pots ; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled ” ( p. 148 ) , Spencer says that a famine struck the Crusaders army in Ma ’ arra , and “ increasingly desperate , they fell to cannibalism ” ( Ibid. )
.
Spencer then takes offenses at the fact that a Muslim historian , Ibn al-Munqith , described these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ p. 149 ) .
It is just “ difficult for the Crusaders to make a better impression , ” Spencer says ( Ibid. )
.
Achrati wrenches my statement out of context here to suggest that I think the Crusaders made an excellent impression by resorting to cannibalism .
Once again , this is either shockingly careless from an academic , or consciously dishonest .
As is quite clear from the passage in the book , I didn ’ t write this in praise of the Crusaders , but in reference to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that those who reject Allah are the “ worst of beasts , ” so that even if the Crusaders had behaved in an exemplary manner , they still wouldn ’ t have won respect from their foes .
Spencer ’ s personal bitterness extends to world history : “ Had the Crusaders traversed Europe inviting help from the Jews rather than killing them , the Crusaders might have arrived in the Middle East far stronger , and the history of the world would have been different in incalculable ways ” ( p. 148 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than one chance ; “ alliance with the Mongols was a lost opportunity for the Christian Europeans ” ( p. 168 ) .
There was talk about the Christians and the Mongols joining forces to fight the jihadis .
This did not happen .
That ’ s what a lost opportunity is .
There is no value judgment in that .
Spencer acknowledges that “ throughout history in the various Islamic domains : periods of relaxation of the dhimmi laws would be followed by periods of their reassertion , often in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ troubles of Muslims on the prosperity of the dhimmi , and on Allah ’ s anger that they had not been put in their place ” ( p. 205 ) .
Yet even the very restrictive decrees which he cites reveal a different reality from what he tries to generalize .
When the North African historian Ibn Naqash visited Egypt in the fourteenth century , he described Jews and Christians “ attired in the most elegant clothes , ” who “ rode on mules , mares and expensive horses ” ( p. 202 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ relaxation of the dhimmi laws ” looks like .
Ibn Naqash was offended because the Jews and Christians were not poor or subservient as Islamic law commands .
He made sure they returned to that state .
For Spencer and some in Western media , the terms jihadi is the modern-day version of the Romans ’ , “ Hannibal ante portas ” ( “ Hannibal is at the gates !
” ) .
Spencer ’ s misuse of the concept of jihad is a rallying cry for his Islamophobic followers .
Who is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or the Muslims who have been responsible for over 30,000 jihad attacks worldwide since 9/11 ?
For the hundreds of millions of Muslims who want to escape the influence of reactionary influences , this denigration of jihadis dangerous .
Ah , here we come to the heart of the matter : what I write is “ dangerous , ” you see , and so I must be silenced .
Has Achrati ever called actual jihad terrorists “ dangerous ” ?
One only need turn to the work of Islamic feminists to find @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wadud ’ s ( 2006 ) ; Katajun Amirpur ’ s New thinking in Islam : the jihad for democracy , freedom and women ’ s rights ( 2015 ) ; Hibba Abugideiri ’ s “ Hagar .
A Historical Model for ‘ Gender Jihad ’ ” ( 2001 ) ; and Muna Tatani ’ s “ Gender Justice and Gender Jihad : Possibilities and limits of Qur ’ anic Interpretations for Women ’ s Liberation , ” ( 2013 ) .
Discussions of this kind of jihad are entirely absent from Spencer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of which is to exert its own bitter Islamophobic influence in the world .
Right .
My book is about jihad warfare .
I make no apologies for that ; in fact , there is no other complete history of jihad warfare in the English language .
That Achrati here uses the word “ Islamophobic ” is the icing on the cake ; “ Islamophobia ” is a propaganda neologism designed to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women .
It has no actual content @ @ @ @ @ @ @ designed to smear and defame so as to induce people of good will to turn away from whatever is thus labeled .
It is therefore the absolute opposite of genuine academic inquiry .
But our nation ’ s colleges and universities long ago abandoned genuine academic inquiry .

Inaccuracies, false claims, tendentious propaganda – that’s academia today.
A Jihad Watch reader has alerted me to an academic review of my book The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by one Ahmed Achrati, who says that he “graduated from Law School in Algeria and received an LL.M from the School of Law at NYU, and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania.” Achrati adds: “I Taught [sic; “taught” should not be capitalized in this instance, kids] Law, Anthropology, Islamic Studies, and Language at different universities and colleges. Semi-retired, I am currently teaching two courses, Anthropology and Qur’an & Modern Society as part of the Osher Program at Johns Hopkin [sic] University, and American University. I am also a research volunteer at the Smithsonian NMAFA.”
His review serves as an illuminating example of how intellectually lazy and biased the academic environment has become in America today. Achrati attempts to give the appearance of rational analysis, but the more one examines his points, the less there is to see, and the more he comes off as something akin to an anonymous ranter on Twitter screaming his illogic, sloganeering and propaganda as if it were Socratic wisdom. Nonetheless, he is almost certain to gain the applause of his academic peers for his paper, and that also is an indication of how much American academia has degenerated.
Robert Spencer’s The History of Jihad: from Muhammad to ISIS, [sic; there shouldn’t be a comma there] is aimed at re-enforcing [sic; the word he wants here is reinforcing] the misconception that jihad is an obligation imposed by the Qur’an to engage in military warfare for the purpose of conquest and the imposition of worldwide Islam. Spencer also denies the antiquity and authenticity of the Qur’an and the origin of Islam.
Like so many others, Achrati does not explain how and why so very many Muslims throughout Islamic history have gotten the idea that “jihad is an obligation imposed by the Qur’an to engage in military warfare for the purpose of conquest and the imposition of worldwide Islam,” and why so many have this idea today. Why does this “misconception” so stubbornly persist?
Spencer asserts that the Qur’an did not exist until the time of the Abbasids, close to two hundred years after Muhammad (d. 632).
Actually, the Abbasid caliphate began in 750, which is 118 years, not “close to two hundred years,” after the traditional date of Muhammad’s death. And in The History of Jihad, I refer to “the paucity of contemporary evidence of Muhammad’s life, or of the existence of the Qur’an before the early eighth century.” (p. 53) That’s the early 700’s. So what I actually say is that the Qur’an is roughly 100 years older than Achrati claims I say it is. This is a minor point, but since Achrati is purporting to offer a refutation of my work, it reflects poorly on him that he doesn’t even get right what I say in the book.
“There is considerable reason to believe,” he says, “that the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history” (Spencer 2018,15). This assertion is contrary to historical, and archaeological evidence. For example, Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating of one of the oldest known parchments of the Qur’an shows that it belonged to the period between AD 614 to AD 656 (Sadeghi 2010, 348; Hilali 2017, 13-14). A recent discovery near Najran, Saudi Arabia, of an ancient Arabic inscription bears the name Umar Ibn al-Khattab (Iambert 2014).
This is so poorly reasoned that it’s embarrassing. In case Achrati’s poor reasoning isn’t clear, I’ll spell it out: he attempts to refute my statement that there is “considerable reason to believe that the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history” by invoking an old copy of the Qur’an and a mention of Umar ibn al-Khattab. In reality, he may be absolutely correct that there is a seventh-century copy of the Qur’an that still exists, and an Arabic inscription naming the caliph Umar, and it could still be true that “the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history.” The Qur’an actually contains very little information about Islam’s “founding figures,” or about the origins of Islam. The fact that Umar is named somewhere is still a very long way from establishing that he actually did everything that he is recorded as doing in Islamic accounts written a century or more after his death.
Confirmation of the antiquity of the Qur’an and the origins of Islam also comes from non-Muslim records. Early events surrounding the crisis of succession, including the murder of the third caliph ‘Uthman (d.656), are mentioned in Chinese annals, such as the T’ang History(Hoyland 1997, 251-252, and n. 43). References to Islam are also found in the Doctrina Jacobi(c. 634 AD) (Ibid. 526-527); the writings of the Syriac John Bar Penkaye (Ibid., 532-533); and the chronicles of the Armenian Sebeos (645 AD) (Ibid. 534-535).
The T’ang History dates from 1060, and so has little or no value in establishing what happened several hundred years before in faraway Arabia. It doesn’t mention any events after the caliphate of Harun al-Rashid (786-809), and so could be a document that was originally compiled at that time, but even Hoyland notes that “later editorial activity is almost certain to have taken place” (Hoyland, 250). Achrati points to a Hoyland footnote that actually disproves what he is trying to use it to establish: in it, Hoyland states that the “second king” referred to in the T’ang History is probably Uthman, but he adds that while Uthman was indeed the “second king,” that is, the second caliph, Abu Bakr, who was the first caliph, “had a different function.” Yet in canonical Islamic history, they’re both caliphs with exactly the same function. So Hoyland is confirming my statement that “the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history,” and doing so in a passage that Achrati is invoking to claim my statement is false.
The Doctrina Jacobi, which was probably written by a Christian in Palestine between 634 and 640—that is, at the time of the earliest Arabian conquests. But the Doctrina Jacobi describes an unnamed prophet who is still alive, traveling with his armies, whereas Muhammad is supposed to have died in 632. What’s more, this Saracen prophet, rather than proclaiming that he was Allah’s last prophet (cf. Qur’an 33:40), was according to the Doctrina Jacobi “proclaiming the advent of the anointed one, the Christ who was to come.” No early Islamic sources say that Muhammad was still alive and traveling with his armies in the mid-630s, and none say that he was preaching that anyone else was to come; on the contrary, he claimed to be “the seal of the prophets” (Qur’an 33:40). Thus the Doctrina Jacobi also confirms my statement that there is “considerable reason to believe that the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history.”
John bar Penkaye wrote about 690, that is, just under sixty years after Muhammad is supposed to have died, and he does mention him. But he offers none of the proliferation of detail about Muhammad’s words and deeds that we get in eighth and ninth century sources, and shows no awareness that such material even exists. All he says is that the invaders “were so attached to the traditions of Muhammad who was their teacher, that they inflicted the pain of death upon any one who seemed to contradict his tradition.” So here again, his mention of Muhammad, which is scarcely more than a name-drop, is hardly a refutation of the observation that that there is “considerable reason to believe that the origins of Islam and the lives of its founding figures are quite different from how they are reported in Islamic sacred history.”
As Fred Donner has noted, “these efforts to reconstruct Islam’s origins and to explain the historical context of the Qur’an in a manner that rejects completely the framework provided by Muslim tradition” are simply unconvincing (Donner 2011, 28).
Here’s something else Donner says: “The problem is that this detailed picture of Muhammad’s career is drawn not from documents or even stories dating from Muhammad’s time, but from literary sources that were compiled many years–sometimes centuries–later. The fact that these stories are so much later, and shaped with very specific objectives in mind, means that they often do not tell us many things about which we would like to know more…There is also reason to suspect that some–perhaps many – of the incidents related in these sources are not reliable accounts of things that actually happened but rather are legends created by later generations of Muslims to affirm Muhammad’s status as prophet, to help establish precedents shaping the later Muslim community’s ritual, social, or legal practices, or simply to fill out poorly known chapters in the life of their founder, about whom, understandably, later Muslims increasingly wished to know everything.” (Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers at the Origins of Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 50-51.)
Through selective reading of historical evidence and circular reasoning, Spencer tries to validate his denial of the authenticity of the Qur’an using evidence derived from the very history he is denying. As a proof that the Qur’an did not exist at the time of Muhammad, Spencer says that Sophronius, the patriarch of Jerusalem who turned the city to the Muslims, “made no mention of the conquerors’ coming with a new prophet, religion, or holy book” (p. 61). He then asserts that the Qur’an came to be only after the fall of the Umayyad dynasty itself –a fall which he attributes to the fact that Islam itself was at this time in an inchoate state, and the Qur’an “not set in [its] final form until the Umayyads had ruled for four or five decades” (p. 90).
Once again, embarrassing. This is neither selective reading of evidence nor circular reasoning. Achrati attributes to me something I do not say: to point out that the Qur’an was not set in its final form until a certain time is not at all to say that the Qur’an only came to be at that time. The process of editing it was not instantaneous. And if Sophronius in the 630s betrays no awareness of the conquerors coming with a new religion or holy book, and the Qur’an actually came into being later (beginning in the 690s), there is no selectivity or circular reasoning in that at all.
Another example of the circularity of Spencer’s logic, he makes Khalid Ibn al-Walid the originator of the “triple choice” (conversion, jizya, or war), which, he wrongly says “became codified in the Qur’an” (p. 53), when this rule exists only as a hadith.
Saying that something is in the Qur’an when it is really just a hadith is not circular logic. Does Achrati even know what “circular logic” actually is? And anyway, the triple choice is actually in the Qur’an, contrary to Achrati’s claim: “Fight them, till there is no persecution and religion is all for Allah” (8:39) — there’s the conversion part. “Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and do not practice the religion of truth, even if they are of the People of the Book — until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” (9:29) There’s war (“fight them”) and jizya.
Lacking a sound definition of jihad, Spencer resorts to using the neologism “jihadi,” a term not found in the Qur’an (the terms juhd, jihad, jahada, and mujahidun are). “Jihadi” has no substantive definition, leaving the term useless in identifying exactly who or what a jihadi is. Presumably a jihadi is someone waging war in the cause of Islam, but this fails to address the problem posed by intra-Muslim fighting: Is the jihadi ISIS or the rest of the Muslims? What about Christian renegades who fight on the side of Muslims (pp. 106 and 251-2)?
“Jihad” means “struggle”; I discuss the meaning of the term in Islamic theology and law on pages 11-13 of the book. A jihadi is, obviously, a mujahid, one who wages jihad. “Is the jihadi ISIS or the rest of the Muslims?,” both, if they are both fighting to establish or defend their vision of the Islamic state. If one side or the other is fighting for another purpose, then they’re not jihadis. “What about Christian renegades who fight on the side of Muslims?” We call those “useful idiots.”
What the term jihadi does signify is both Spencer’s distorted reading of the Qur’an and his lack of knowledge of Arabic. Unlike qātala (“to battle,” “to fight”), a transitive verb requiring an object to convey its meaning (e.g., “to fight” someone or something), the verb jāhada is normally used in the intransitive form. Only exceptionally did the Qur’an use jāhada in the transitive form; four times out of twenty-eight occurrences, to be exact. It is precisely this exceptional use of the transitive form of jāhada that gives this term its definite meaning and establishes a clear distinction between jihad (“exertion”) and qital (“fight,” “battle”). In other words, jihad as used in the Qur’an has no inherent connotation of violence.
Indeed, in one instance where the Qur’an uses jāhada in the transitive form, the action, jihad, applies to what unbelieving parents are doing to their Muslim sons and daughters: “We have enjoined upon man goodness towards his parents; but should they strive to make you associate other beings with Me [wa in jāhadāka li-tushrika bī], obey them not” (29:8 and 31:15). The word “jihad” does not refer to any specific action, much less to fighting or warring. Jihad simply means “exertion,” regardless of who the agent might be or what specifically the action might involve. From a Qur’anic perspective, then, jihad is the essence of an Islamic ethos. It is an orientation toward God that defines a Muslim’s sensibilities and characterizes his or her daily comportment. It is the realization of: “Verily, I have surrendered my whole being unto God” (3:20).
Odd, then, that so many Muslims over 1,400 years somehow got the idea that jihad did have something to do with violence. Did they get that idea from me? Achrati is glossing over the fact that the Qur’an teaches warfare against unbelievers, and Islamic law codifies that imperative, and that this warfare has gone on throughout history under the rubric of “jihad.” The renowned medieval Islamic scholar and jurist Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought.” This is also taught by modern-day scholars of Islam. In his 1955 book War and Peace in the Law of Islam, the Iraqi scholar Majid Khadduri says this about jihad: “The state which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the establishment of an imperial world state.” (P. 51)
I guess Ibn Taymiyya and Khadduri and a host of others are ignorant “Islamophobes”?
Underscoring the ethical nature of jihad is also the fact that when Muslims were facing exile and persecution in Mecca and Medina, the Qur’an specifically imposed on them a duty “to fight,” but not the obligation to undertake jihad: “Fighting is ordained for you [kutiba ‘laykum al-qital], though you dislike it” (2:216, 246; 4:77). The Qur’an further asked Muhammed to “urge the believers to fight” [hariḍal-mu’minina ‘ala al-qital] (8:65), yet it did not mention jihad or prescribe it as a duty.
The clear Qur’anic distinction between jihad and qital seems to anticipate Spencer’s confusion when facing intra-Muslim fighting. In describing Muslim-against-Muslim fighting, the Qur’an uses iqtatala, the reciprocal structure in Arabic which does not apply to intransitive verbs.
This is a distinction without a difference. Yes, there are jihads that do not involve fighting. They do not negate the fact that throughout Islamic history, Muslims have referred to fighting against unbelievers, as well as against other Muslims they consider to be heretics, as jihad.
In a section titled “Jihad against the Christians,” Spencer makes the claim that “Allah gave Muhammad a revelation commanding Muslims to fight against Jews and Christians until they accepted Islamic hegemony symbolized by payment of a poll tax (jizya) and discriminatory regulations that would ensure that they would be constantly reminded of their subordinate position” (p. 40). He then focuses on 9:29, the only verse in the Qur’an relating to jizya, a move designed to identify jihad with the collection of tax –implying that jihad is a revenue-driven enterprise. To give a semblance of soundness to these assertions and to keep his reader in the dark, he deliberately omits the controlling passages of this verse (9:1-9:17). These verses name the enemies of Muhammad as the “idolaters,” and they Arabs who violated a treaty –and not the Christians or Jews, who fall under the category of “People of the Book.”
Achrati is apparently counting on his readers not actually opening the Qur’an, since if they did, they would find that Qur’an 9:29 tells Muslims explicitly to wage war against “the People of the Book,” that is, the very people he claims here that the verse is not talking about. This is either inexcusable carelessness or plain dishonesty.
Spencer’s use of the term “polytheists” in place of “idolaters” is designed to give the impression that war and killing in the Qur’an are lawless undertakings that depend on human whims(see, Abd al-Haleem; also, Wills 2017, 136-140; Kaltner 2011, 198-199).
How does Achrati know what I meant to imply? But his mind-reading is the last of it: here again, he seems to be counting on people not checking the references. He is objecting to my quoting a hadith in which Muhammad says “When you meet your enemies who are polytheists” (Sahih Muslim 4294, quoted on p. 40 of The History of Jihad), and suggests that I substituted the word “polytheists” for “idolaters” with nefarious intent. In reality, however, the translation using the word “polytheists” was written by Muslims and for Muslims. I have it in a four-volume set of Sahih Muslim translated by Abdul Hamid Siddiqui (clearly an “Islamophobe”) and published in New Delhi; it can also be found online here. Sunnah.com is a Muslim site; if it is so terrible to use the word “polytheists” here, why does Sunnah.com use this translation?
To the contrary, this and other texts establish rules for fighting: “Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors…. kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you… And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful” (2:190-192; also, 5:33-37; 22: 39-40; 8:56-58).
Spencer’s loathing of Islam is so visceral that he invokes Hitler to maximize his vilification of Muslims. At first, we encounter Hitler bemoaning Charles Martel’s success in stopping the advances of Islam into Europe and crushing Christianity: “Had Charles Martel not been victorious –already, you see, the world had fallen into the hands of the Jews, so gutless a thing was Christianity! –then we should in all probability have been converted to Muhammadanism, that cult which glorifies heroism and which opens the seventh heaven to the bold warrior alone. Then the Germanic races would have conquered the world. Christianity alone prevented them from doing so” (p. 95; see also, p. 292).
It’s a strange academic world when quoting someone accurately becomes an offense. Achrati offers no evidence that Hitler didn’t actually say these words. He can’t, because Hitler did say it. And if he did, why can his words not be reported?
Finally, Spencer tops all of this off with the assertion that the Holocaust is the doing of a Muslim, the Palestinian Grand Mufti al-Husein of Jerusalem. Dieter Wisliczeny, he says, “testified at the Nuremburg Trials that the mufti had been a central figure in the planning of the genocide of the Jews” (p. 303).
Here again: did Wisliczeny say that, or did he not? He did, and Achrati makes no attempt to establish otherwise. So why can he not be quoted? And once again he misrepresents what I said: I don’t say that “the Holocaust is the doing of a Muslim,” and Wisliczeny’s quote doesn’t say that. He says the Mufti was central in the planning of the genocide. And that’s what I said he said.
The mention of the word “Palestinian” sends Spencer on a tangent defacing the history of Palestine. Ignoring the historical record –”Palestine” is attested in a Twelfth Dynasty hieroglyph as Peleset, in the Assyrian inscriptions as Palashtu, Palastu, and Pilistu; and in Herodotus’ s Histories as Palaistiné –Spencer says “Palestine” is only a bureaucratic name that the Romans plucked from the Bible and attached to one of their districts in 134 AD (p.309).
Yes, that’s why the name was in the Bible for the Romans to pluck it out and apply it to Judea: it originally referred to the ancient Philistines, who are mentioned in other, non-Biblical sources. But once again in keeping with Achrati’s carelessness with the facts, I never say “Palestine” was a “bureaucratic name.” It was the name of the Israelites’ ancient enemies, which is why the Romans, having exiled the Jewish people from the area, thought it appropriate to use.
A good portion of Spencer’s book is aimed at stoking anti-Muslim sentiment among Europeans.
A sentence like that doesn’t belong in what purports to be an academic paper. Achrati should show where he thinks the book is inaccurate, not pretend to know my motives, or anyone’s.
He traces the word “Slav,” a term applied to many Eastern Europeans, but one that has a negative connotation, to the Arabs. The “ethnic designation ‘Slav’ is derived from the Arabic ‘saqlab’, or ‘slave’,” he says (p. 83). “Slav”, however, comes from the Byzantine Greek Σκλάβος (Sklábos), which is rendered Sclavus in Medieval Latin, from which comes the Middle English “slave.” Σκλαβηνοί was affixed to groups of the trans-Danubian Barbaricum by Procopius of Caesarea (d. 554 AD) and Flavius Jordanes.
My source for the saqlab derivation, duly footnoted on p. 83, was Jan Hogendorn, “The Hideous Trade: Economic Aspects of the ‘Manufacture’ and Sale of Eunuchs,” Paideuma 45 (1999): 139. Achrati, however, represents this as coming from me, as if I made it up, and gives no hint that there is more to the scholarly discussion of the derivation of this word than he represents in his paper.
Spencer goes on to invoke humiliating Ottoman victories in Europe, which he “attributed in large part to the valor of the Bosnian Muslims” (p. 253). He also praises the Crusades and later European colonialist enterprises. Commenting on Radulph of Caen’s report that “In al-Ma’rra, our troops boiled pagan adults in cooking-pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled” (p. 148), Spencer says that a famine struck the Crusaders army in Ma’arra, and “increasingly desperate, they fell to cannibalism” (Ibid.). Spencer then takes offenses at the fact that a Muslim historian, Ibn al-Munqith, described these child-eating Crusaders “as beasts” (p. 149). It is just “difficult for the Crusaders to make a better impression,” Spencer says (Ibid.).
Achrati wrenches my statement out of context here to suggest that I think the Crusaders made an excellent impression by resorting to cannibalism. Once again, this is either shockingly careless from an academic, or consciously dishonest. As is quite clear from the passage in the book, I didn’t write this in praise of the Crusaders, but in reference to the fact that the Qur’an says that those who reject Allah are the “worst of beasts,” so that even if the Crusaders had behaved in an exemplary manner, they still wouldn’t have won respect from their foes.
Spencer’s personal bitterness extends to world history: “Had the Crusaders traversed Europe inviting help from the Jews rather than killing them, the Crusaders might have arrived in the Middle East far stronger, and the history of the world would have been different in incalculable ways” (p. 148).
What? It wouldn’t?
Hélas, the Europeans lost more than one chance; “alliance with the Mongols was a lost opportunity for the Christian Europeans” (p. 168).
There was talk about the Christians and the Mongols joining forces to fight the jihadis. This did not happen. That’s what a lost opportunity is. There is no value judgment in that.
Spencer acknowledges that “throughout history in the various Islamic domains: periods of relaxation of the dhimmi laws would be followed by periods of their reassertion, often in the context of revivalist movements that blamed the troubles of Muslims on the prosperity of the dhimmi, and on Allah’s anger that they had not been put in their place” (p. 205). Yet even the very restrictive decrees which he cites reveal a different reality from what he tries to generalize. When the North African historian Ibn Naqash visited Egypt in the fourteenth century, he described Jews and Christians “attired in the most elegant clothes,” who “rode on mules, mares and expensive horses” (p. 202).
That’s what “relaxation of the dhimmi laws” looks like. Ibn Naqash was offended because the Jews and Christians were not poor or subservient as Islamic law commands. He made sure they returned to that state.
For Spencer and some in Western media, the terms jihadi is the modern-day version of the Romans’, “Hannibal ante portas” (“Hannibal is at the gates!”). Spencer’s misuse of the concept of jihad is a rallying cry for his Islamophobic followers.
Who is misusing the concept of jihad? Me, or the Muslims who have been responsible for over 30,000 jihad attacks worldwide since 9/11?
For the hundreds of millions of Muslims who want to escape the influence of reactionary influences, this denigration of jihadis dangerous.
Ah, here we come to the heart of the matter: what I write is “dangerous,” you see, and so I must be silenced. Has Achrati ever called actual jihad terrorists “dangerous”?
One only need turn to the work of Islamic feminists to find jihad in its true meaning: Amina Wadud’s Inside the Gender Jihad (2006); Katajun Amirpur’s New thinking in Islam: the jihad for democracy, freedom and women’s rights (2015); Hibba Abugideiri’s “Hagar. A Historical Model for ‘Gender Jihad’” (2001); and Muna Tatani’s “Gender Justice and Gender Jihad: Possibilities and limits of Qur’anic Interpretations for Women’s Liberation,” (2013). Discussions of this kind of jihad are entirely absent from Spencer’s polemic, the sole purpose of which is to exert its own bitter Islamophobic influence in the world.
Right. My book is about jihad warfare. I make no apologies for that; in fact, there is no other complete history of jihad warfare in the English language. That Achrati here uses the word “Islamophobic” is the icing on the cake; “Islamophobia” is a propaganda neologism designed to intimidate people into thinking it wrong to oppose jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women. It has no actual content as a concept; it is solely designed to smear and defame so as to induce people of good will to turn away from whatever is thus labeled. It is therefore the absolute opposite of genuine academic inquiry. But our nation’s colleges and universities long ago abandoned genuine academic inquiry.
Article posted with permission from Robert Spencer


thewashingtonstandard--2020-10-28--Spanish Doctors Stage Walkout In COVID Tyranny Pushback

Doctors across Spain walked out of hospitals and clinics on Tuesday in what media outlets have called the first medical strike to rock the country in 25 years .
The doctors are protesting the coronavirus tyranny and economic terrorism committed in the name of health .
As the coronavirus scamdemic continues to rage across Spain , where the Health Ministry reported another 18,418 new daily cases on Tuesday , doctors are beginning to strike .
This latest walkout was called in defiance of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez ’ s latest emergency order , which was implemented on Sunday , according @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and nurses to report to any of a range of assignments that could be handed to them by the government during the state of emergency , which could be in place for months .
Doctors complained that the new law violated their rights , and compromised the standard of care for patients , as doctors would end up working in an area they weren ’ t specialized in .
The strike will continue indefinitely , with doctors set to continue striking on the last Tuesday of every month until a deal has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 200,000 new cases were confirmed in Spain over the previous two weeks , and cases on Tuesday were up 33 % compared with the prior week .
And over the last 24 hours , another 267 people have died .
CV-1984 : Tyranny in Texas As Police Show Up At El Paso Residents ’ Doorsteps Ordering Quarantine Spain ’ s hospitals harbor nearly 16,700 active COVID-19 patients – up more than 600 compared to Monday , with one-quarter of all the country ’ s ICU units used to treat those with an infectious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Test For The New World Order Protests tend to pop up when people feel backed into a corner and can no longer run .
Their last option is to fight back against tyranny .
If we aren ’ t there yet , we will be very soon .

Doctors across Spain walked out of hospitals and clinics on Tuesday in what media outlets have called the first medical strike to rock the country in 25 years. The doctors are protesting the coronavirus tyranny and economic terrorism committed in the name of health.
As the coronavirus scamdemic continues to rage across Spain, where the Health Ministry reported another 18,418 new daily cases on Tuesday, doctors are beginning to strike. This latest walkout was called in defiance of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s latest emergency order, which was implemented on Sunday, according to ZeroHedge.
The order requires doctors and nurses to report to any of a range of assignments that could be handed to them by the government during the state of emergency, which could be in place for months.
Doctors complained that the new law violated their rights, and compromised the standard of care for patients, as doctors would end up working in an area they weren’t specialized in.
The strike will continue indefinitely, with doctors set to continue striking on the last Tuesday of every month until a deal has been reached.
For the first time, 200,000 new cases were confirmed in Spain over the previous two weeks, and cases on Tuesday were up 33% compared with the prior week. And over the last 24 hours, another 267 people have died.
“The Health Ministry hasn’t even dignified us with a meeting to try and get us to call off the strike,” he told Spanish health journal iSanidad.
CV-1984: Tyranny in Texas As Police Show Up At El Paso Residents’ Doorsteps Ordering Quarantine
Spain’s hospitals harbor nearly 16,700 active COVID-19 patients – up more than 600 compared to Monday, with one-quarter of all the country’s ICU units used to treat those with an infectious disease.
Australia is a Full-Scale Pilot Test For The New World Order
Protests tend to pop up when people feel backed into a corner and can no longer run. Their last option is to fight back against tyranny. If we aren’t there yet, we will be very soon.
Article posted with permission from Mac Slavo


thewashingtonstandard--2020-10-28--Why I’m A One-Issue Voter

Why I’m A One-Issue Voter

The issue of abortion has barely come up in the debates of Election 2020 .
But for many of us , it is still the issue that matters most .
I am a one issue voter , without apology , and that issue is abortion .
I ’ m against it .
If a politician thinks it is acceptable – whatever the rhetoric – to deliberately kill a living , developing human being in the womb , that politician is wrong .
And he or she will never have my vote .
The issue of life is so basic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ listed in our nation ’ s birth certificate , the Declaration of Independence .
Without life , how can there be liberty or the pursuit of happiness or the right to property ?
Or any other right ?
Those politicians who get the issue of life wrong tend to get just about everything else wrong .
With the window to the womb science provides today , the emperor has no clothes when they say that a baby is not being killed .
Remember the case of Abby Johnson , manager of a Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Employee of the Year , ” who resigned her lucrative position when she saw a sonogram of an abortion in her own clinic ?
She suddenly realized that this was not a clump of tissue being cleansed away .
This was a tiny little human being in the making , fighting a losing battle against a high-power suction machine .
Her book ( with Cindy Lambert ) , “ Unplanned , ” chronicles all this .
In this election , there has arisen a group that claims to be “ evangelical ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pro-abortion politicians .
Who are they fooling ?
What they claim is that the “ pro-life ” position goes beyond simply the issue of abortion to such issues as “ climate change.
” All they ’ re doing is attempting to dilute the phrase “ pro-life ” so that it loses its real meaning : opposition to abortion .
For example , they claim that being “ pro-life ” means being against racism , which they inconsistently argue somehow necessitates voting for pro-abortion candidates .
Imagine that – fighting racism by supporting black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kills almost 30 percent of black children in the womb – and more than half of them in New York City .
It is well-documented that Margaret Sanger , the founder of Planned Parenthood , the nation ’ s largest abortion provider , was a racist .
On Dec. 10 , 1939 , in a letter to her board member Dr. Clarence J .
Gamble , Sanger wrote , “ We don ’ t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.
” Alveda King , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me in a television interview : “ During her lifetime Dr. Margaret Sanger said ‘ colored ’ people are like weeds and they need to be exterminated.
” No wonder the vast majority of Planned Parenthood facilities – to this day – are in the minority neighborhoods .
Former Vice President Joe Biden used to be ( supposedly ) “ moderately pro-choice , ” but now he ’ s shifted to the position of accepting abortion up to the moment of birth .
And he believes we the taxpayers should fund it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As attorney general of California , Kamala Harris prosecuted and persecuted David Daleiden , the pro-life whistleblower who made “ 60 Minutes ” -style undercover videos , documenting that abortionists were trafficking in baby body parts for profit .
In contrast , President Donald Trump has been described by Steven Ertelt , editor of Lifenews.com , as “ the most pro-life president in history.
” Since a president chooses judges and the Senate confirms or rejects them , abortion is definitely on the ballot in Election 2020 .
And there is stark @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this life-and-death issue .
At D. James Kennedy Ministries , we provide a simple party platform comparison on a variety of key issues .
Here ’ s the comparison on the issue of life : • Republicans : “ We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which can not be infringed.
” • “ Democrats believe that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services , including safe and legal abortion.
” • The Word of God @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parts ; you knitted me together in my mother ’ s womb .
I praise you , for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
” ( Psalm 139:13-14 ) We hear endlessly about evils from Americans in times past – especially slavery .
I firmly believe that future generations will look back at us and see the rampant practice of abortion , and they will judge us for the slaughter of millions of unborn babies – even more deplorable in light of the window to the womb we have through modern technology .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the issue of life is the most important of these .
Thomas Jefferson said that he trembled when he considered that God is just and that His justice can not slumber forever .
No , indeed it won ’ t .

The issue of abortion has barely come up in the debates of Election 2020. But for many of us, it is still the issue that matters most.
I am a one issue voter, without apology, and that issue is abortion. I’m against it. If a politician thinks it is acceptable – whatever the rhetoric – to deliberately kill a living, developing human being in the womb, that politician is wrong. And he or she will never have my vote.
The issue of life is so basic. It is even the first Creator-given right listed in our nation’s birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence. Without life, how can there be liberty or the pursuit of happiness or the right to property? Or any other right?
Those politicians who get the issue of life wrong tend to get just about everything else wrong.
With the window to the womb science provides today, the emperor has no clothes when they say that a baby is not being killed.
Remember the case of Abby Johnson , manager of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic and “Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year,” who resigned her lucrative position when she saw a sonogram of an abortion in her own clinic? She suddenly realized that this was not a clump of tissue being cleansed away. This was a tiny little human being in the making, fighting a losing battle against a high-power suction machine. Her book (with Cindy Lambert ), “Unplanned ,” chronicles all this.
In this election, there has arisen a group that claims to be “evangelical” and “pro-life” that in reality supports pro-abortion politicians. Who are they fooling? What they claim is that the “pro-life” position goes beyond simply the issue of abortion to such issues as “climate change.” All they’re doing is attempting to dilute the phrase “pro-life” so that it loses its real meaning: opposition to abortion.
For example, they claim that being “pro-life” means being against racism, which they inconsistently argue somehow necessitates voting for pro-abortion candidates. Imagine that – fighting racism by supporting black genocide. The fact is, abortion kills almost 30 percent of black children in the womb – and more than half of them in New York City.
It is well-documented that Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, was a racist.
On Dec. 10, 1939, in a letter to her board member Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, Sanger wrote, “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”
Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., told me in a television interview: “During her lifetime Dr. Margaret Sanger said ‘colored’ people are like weeds and they need to be exterminated.” No wonder the vast majority of Planned Parenthood facilities – to this day – are in the minority neighborhoods.
Former Vice President Joe Biden used to be (supposedly) “moderately pro-choice,” but now he’s shifted to the position of accepting abortion up to the moment of birth. And he believes we the taxpayers should fund it. His running mate is fiercely pro-abortion. As attorney general of California, Kamala Harris prosecuted and persecuted David Daleiden, the pro-life whistleblower who made “60 Minutes”-style undercover videos, documenting that abortionists were trafficking in baby body parts for profit.
In contrast, President Donald Trump has been described by Steven Ertelt, editor of Lifenews.com, as “the most pro-life president in history.”
Since a president chooses judges and the Senate confirms or rejects them, abortion is definitely on the ballot in Election 2020. And there is stark contrast between where the parties stand on this life-and-death issue.
At D. James Kennedy Ministries, we provide a simple party platform comparison on a variety of key issues. Here’s the comparison on the issue of life:
Republicans: “We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.”
“Democrats believe that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion.”
The Word of God: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139:13-14)
We hear endlessly about evils from Americans in times past – especially slavery. I firmly believe that future generations will look back at us and see the rampant practice of abortion, and they will judge us for the slaughter of millions of unborn babies – even more deplorable in light of the window to the womb we have through modern technology.
Christians need to vote our values, and the issue of life is the most important of these.
Thomas Jefferson said that he trembled when he considered that God is just and that His justice cannot slumber forever. No, indeed it won’t.
Article posted with permission from Jerry Newcombe


thewashingtonstandard--2020-10-28--Our State Of Police

Our State Of Police

Editor ’ s Note : The following piece was written by Daniel Greenfield back in 2014 .
We ’ ve come a long way since then though , and I thought it enlightening to repost it for your consideration , especially in light of the tyranny we are seeing before us today .
America does not have a police state .
Yet .
East Germany had a police state .
Syria has a police state .
In police states , the government is afraid of the people .
Our government is not all that afraid of us .
Despite the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the training drills and TV shows where survivalists overrun the country , the people in charge don ’ t wake up every morning worrying about a revolution .
If they did , then two people in your neighborhood would be informing on you weekly .
We don ’ t have militarized police forces , Transportation Security Administration agents and National Security Agency eavesdropping because the government is afraid of us , but because the government ’ s policies have made life unlivable without them .
The KGB wasn ’ t there to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police state is .
And those parts of it that aren ’ t fly under the radar every time the Chicago death toll for the year appears on the evening news .
The police escalation that shows up on countless videos exists because the people demanded it .
And the people demanded it because liberal social policies made entire cities unlivable .
The militarized police forces out of cities like Los Angeles filtered down to the suburbs and the rural areas as the same policies and populations that made cities unlivable began spreading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the right , worked in tandem with the social policies of the left , to dull the pain of those policies .
That “ dulling ” has become the new role of conservative politicians in America who manage the disaster instead of rolling it back .
The left realized that without the police state , its policies faced a much broader level of rejection so it learned to tolerate the pigs and the man .
Urban areas were still a disaster , but relentless computerized policing reduced crime enough to make it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ visible crime statistics however were only the symptoms of the problem .
The left had been right about that .
It was just wrong about the cause .
It was the cause all along .
Its social policies had created social problems that the police state managed .
Having armed goons patrol the streets made cities viable again .
And that brought in the tax base which allowed the left to experiment with more of the same social policies .
The Giulianis made it safe for the Bloombergs and then the De Blasios @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way Bush ’ s war policies paved the way for the Obama years by dulling the pain of international terrorism .
The international manifestations of the police state dulled the impact of Islamic terrorism without addressing the cause .
The cause was not , as the left and some libertarians believed , foreign policy , but immigration .
The collision of populations and ideologies led to September 11 ; using the very planes , that made international immigration so easy , as weapons .
The War on Terror with its spectacle of targeted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ addressing the real problem , dulling the pain so that no one would pay too much attention to the next planeload of Pakistanis , Syrians or Somalis showing up in America .
It ’ s tempting to connect the two , to assume that the social policies are there to enable the police state , but the people behind one or the other are two arms that can ’ t find each other .
The class warriors can ’ t conceive that their enthusiasm for cultural breakdowns and economic depression somehow causes crime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t grasp that all they ’ re doing is making it easier for the people responsible for the mess to make it worse .
And even if they do ; what other options are out there ?
We ’ ve become very good at symptom management and at not thinking about the underlying problem .
Our medical establishment turns out high tech symptom management medications that let you go on living your life and canoeing or mountain climbing in drug commercials and our law enforcement , security and military establishments are good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whether it ’ s drones , surveillance or computerized tracking of all offenses in a given area .
The Republicans are aware that problems don ’ t really get solved , but they are unwilling to deal with the causes .
The sad state of the mainstream right is that it believes in holding the line , in managing the symptoms , and when the line is pushed back , it has no answers and no solutions .
The left has plenty of solutions , but they are the same solutions that cause @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a problem of failed societies , both at home and abroad .
Some of these societies encompass entire countries while others are limited to a city or a neighborhood .
In these places , the social contract has broken down .
The only thing that keeps the people living in them from killing each other is the threat of naked force , the vendetta and the lynch mob and honor and shame .
The right tackles failed societies with 70 percent policing to 30 percent welfare while the left goes with a 70 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There ’ s a fundamental difference in consequences with a 70 percent welfare mix being unlivable and a 70 percent policing mix being manageable so long as you don ’ t mind losing your civil liberties when you get caught up at the wrong time and place .
But the differences in philosophy are less profound .
The right is forced to accept the necessity of the welfare state and the left has to accept the police state .
Republicans have to hand out free stuff and Democrats have to drone .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that makes Democrats different from Republicans .
It ’ s the distinction that they make between ends and means that explains why they are so much alike until they get too close to having unchallenged power with no one to stop them .
The left tries to “ save ” the people of failed societies by taking care of them and tries to appease them by minimizing resistance .
The more they are taken care of , the less they take care of themselves and the more entitled they become .
The more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the more violent they become .
Eventually , this cycle hits a peak which requires police or military intervention .
If the intervention is successful , the cycle is dampened , the right declares victory and the left agonizes .
If it is not successful , then the left declares victory and mixes its existing policies together with some version of the police state .
Either way , the cycle continues and the problem resurfaces .
Since we can ’ t address the problem , we instead blindly address the symptoms .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ listens in on everyone .
The police treat everyone like a potential spree killer .
Every school has to be locked down and put on zero tolerance .
Every cop is following a script that leads to a taser at best , and a bullet at worst .
Everyone has a plan for killing everyone else .
That ’ s not the traditional police state .
The cops aren ’ t the Superego , they ’ re the Id , doing the dirty work that no one wants to talk about so that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is alright .
While society pretends that everything is working , those with the guns know that nothing works and lose faith in the system and in society .
The people we pay to protect us from failed societies take on some of the aspects of failed societies , looking into the abyss and seeing the abyss inside themselves .
If the cycle continues , then at some point our state of police may become a police state , but that ’ s not the likeliest option anymore .
Police states work with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are good tools for dealing with the middle class .
They ’ re not much good for people with no sense of consequences or concern for the future whose life is shaped by magical thinking .
In the United States , it ’ s not the populations that drift in and out of jail who find the police terrifying , but those who don ’ t .
There is no police state for the former .
The middle class citizen looks warily through the window of his home like the bars of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through a bad neighborhood , it ’ s the police officers inside who feel like they are in a cage .
The police state is about control and our state of police exists to control the areas that are becoming uncontrollable .
The same problem exists internationally .
American diplomats can bully the UK over the EU or intimidate Israel into releasing terrorists , but they can ’ t do much to Afghanistan , Pakistan or the Palestinian Authority .
There ’ s only one thing you can do to people who don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because they don ’ t think in terms of consequences and live for little else except conflict .
And so eventually the middle class people and the middle class countries get tired of policing bad neighborhoods and bad countries and retreat to their own little zones of security policed by increasingly ruthless tactics as the violence outside grows and the walls begin coming down .
And then it ’ s Rome and the barbarians all over again .
The police state and the welfare state aren ’ t answers , they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t fix the social problems that , in some cases , its welfare state helped cause .
It certainly can ’ t fix those that predate its intervention .
Its efforts are all the more hopeless because it attributes the cause to its usual suspects of capitalism and intolerance so that it never addresses the problems , instead it uses people from failed societies as ammo in a cultural war .
The right ’ s tactics temporarily contain the worst of the violence , but not its expansion or its causes .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ is its mechanical blindness , it ’ s fear of offending anyone or singling anyone out that it resolves with wholesale intimidation .
Oppressing everyone to avoid oppressing anyone is the egalitarian ethos gone mad .
Police states deal in random terror to intimidate everyone .
Our state of police deals in random terror because that way everyone is equal .
But the problems that brought this state of police into being are not evenly distributed .
And a solution whose distribution ignores the distribution of the problem can not succeed .
Our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a collision of cultures .
The police state and the welfare state attempt to manage that collision without acknowledging it .
The domestic police state would be far less necessary if we stopped importing the populations who are most likely to be in need of it and the same goes for the domestic welfare state .
Internationally , we can scrap the welfare state and concentrate our firepower on larger threats rather than chasing down every goat herder with an RPG in the name of stabilizing another failed society that will stabilize .

Editor’s Note: The following piece was written by Daniel Greenfield back in 2014. We’ve come a long way since then though, and I thought it enlightening to repost it for your consideration, especially in light of the tyranny we are seeing before us today.
America does not have a police state. Yet. East Germany had a police state. Syria has a police state. In police states, the government is afraid of the people. Our government is not all that afraid of us. Despite the liberal paranoia about militias and assault rifles, the training drills and TV shows where survivalists overrun the country, the people in charge don’t wake up every morning worrying about a revolution. If they did, then two people in your neighborhood would be informing on you weekly.
We don’t have militarized police forces, Transportation Security Administration agents and National Security Agency eavesdropping because the government is afraid of us, but because the government’s policies have made life unlivable without them. The KGB wasn’t there to protect Russians from each other. Our police state is. And those parts of it that aren’t fly under the radar every time the Chicago death toll for the year appears on the evening news.
The police escalation that shows up on countless videos exists because the people demanded it. And the people demanded it because liberal social policies made entire cities unlivable. The militarized police forces out of cities like Los Angeles filtered down to the suburbs and the rural areas as the same policies and populations that made cities unlivable began spreading outward.
The police state, associated with the right, worked in tandem with the social policies of the left, to dull the pain of those policies. That “dulling” has become the new role of conservative politicians in America who manage the disaster instead of rolling it back. The left realized that without the police state, its policies faced a much broader level of rejection so it learned to tolerate the pigs and the man.
Urban areas were still a disaster, but relentless computerized policing reduced crime enough to make it appear that things had improved. The visible crime statistics however were only the symptoms of the problem. The left had been right about that. It was just wrong about the cause. It was the cause all along. Its social policies had created social problems that the police state managed.
Having armed goons patrol the streets made cities viable again. And that brought in the tax base which allowed the left to experiment with more of the same social policies. The Giulianis made it safe for the Bloombergs and then the De Blasios to come back. In the same way Bush’s war policies paved the way for the Obama years by dulling the pain of international terrorism.
The international manifestations of the police state dulled the impact of Islamic terrorism without addressing the cause. The cause was not, as the left and some libertarians believed, foreign policy, but immigration. The collision of populations and ideologies led to September 11; using the very planes, that made international immigration so easy, as weapons.
The War on Terror with its spectacle of targeted drone strikes slowed down the terrorists without addressing the real problem, dulling the pain so that no one would pay too much attention to the next planeload of Pakistanis, Syrians or Somalis showing up in America.
It’s tempting to connect the two, to assume that the social policies are there to enable the police state, but the people behind one or the other are two arms that can’t find each other. The class warriors can’t conceive that their enthusiasm for cultural breakdowns and economic depression somehow causes crime and the law and order types can’t grasp that all they’re doing is making it easier for the people responsible for the mess to make it worse. And even if they do; what other options are out there?
We’ve become very good at symptom management and at not thinking about the underlying problem. Our medical establishment turns out high tech symptom management medications that let you go on living your life and canoeing or mountain climbing in drug commercials and our law enforcement, security and military establishments are good at their own high tech symptom management whether it’s drones, surveillance or computerized tracking of all offenses in a given area.
The Republicans are aware that problems don’t really get solved, but they are unwilling to deal with the causes. The sad state of the mainstream right is that it believes in holding the line, in managing the symptoms, and when the line is pushed back, it has no answers and no solutions. The left has plenty of solutions, but they are the same solutions that cause the problems.
What we have is a problem of failed societies, both at home and abroad. Some of these societies encompass entire countries while others are limited to a city or a neighborhood. In these places, the social contract has broken down. The only thing that keeps the people living in them from killing each other is the threat of naked force, the vendetta and the lynch mob and honor and shame.
The right tackles failed societies with 70 percent policing to 30 percent welfare while the left goes with a 70 percent welfare to 30 percent policing mix. There’s a fundamental difference in consequences with a 70 percent welfare mix being unlivable and a 70 percent policing mix being manageable so long as you don’t mind losing your civil liberties when you get caught up at the wrong time and place.
But the differences in philosophy are less profound. The right is forced to accept the necessity of the welfare state and the left has to accept the police state. Republicans have to hand out free stuff and Democrats have to drone. It’s the emphasis in priorities that makes Democrats different from Republicans. It’s the distinction that they make between ends and means that explains why they are so much alike until they get too close to having unchallenged power with no one to stop them.
The left tries to “save” the people of failed societies by taking care of them and tries to appease them by minimizing resistance. The more they are taken care of, the less they take care of themselves and the more entitled they become. The more they are appeased in response to violence, the more violent they become. Eventually, this cycle hits a peak which requires police or military intervention. If the intervention is successful, the cycle is dampened, the right declares victory and the left agonizes. If it is not successful, then the left declares victory and mixes its existing policies together with some version of the police state. Either way, the cycle continues and the problem resurfaces.
Since we can’t address the problem, we instead blindly address the symptoms. The TSA gropes everyone. The NSA listens in on everyone. The police treat everyone like a potential spree killer. Every school has to be locked down and put on zero tolerance. Every cop is following a script that leads to a taser at best, and a bullet at worst. Everyone has a plan for killing everyone else.
That’s not the traditional police state. The cops aren’t the Superego, they’re the Id, doing the dirty work that no one wants to talk about so that we can go on pretending that everything is alright. While society pretends that everything is working, those with the guns know that nothing works and lose faith in the system and in society. The people we pay to protect us from failed societies take on some of the aspects of failed societies, looking into the abyss and seeing the abyss inside themselves.
If the cycle continues, then at some point our state of police may become a police state, but that’s not the likeliest option anymore. Police states work with people who generally behave themselves. They are good tools for dealing with the middle class. They’re not much good for people with no sense of consequences or concern for the future whose life is shaped by magical thinking.
In the United States, it’s not the populations that drift in and out of jail who find the police terrifying, but those who don’t. There is no police state for the former. The middle class citizen looks warily through the window of his home like the bars of a cage but when the cop car drives through a bad neighborhood, it’s the police officers inside who feel like they are in a cage. The police state is about control and our state of police exists to control the areas that are becoming uncontrollable.
The same problem exists internationally. American diplomats can bully the UK over the EU or intimidate Israel into releasing terrorists, but they can’t do much to Afghanistan, Pakistan or the Palestinian Authority. There’s only one thing you can do to people who don’t care about what happens next because they don’t think in terms of consequences and live for little else except conflict.
And so eventually the middle class people and the middle class countries get tired of policing bad neighborhoods and bad countries and retreat to their own little zones of security policed by increasingly ruthless tactics as the violence outside grows and the walls begin coming down. And then it’s Rome and the barbarians all over again.
The police state and the welfare state aren’t answers, they’re denials of reality.
The left can’t fix the social problems that, in some cases, its welfare state helped cause. It certainly can’t fix those that predate its intervention. Its efforts are all the more hopeless because it attributes the cause to its usual suspects of capitalism and intolerance so that it never addresses the problems, instead it uses people from failed societies as ammo in a cultural war. The right’s tactics temporarily contain the worst of the violence, but not its expansion or its causes.
The very problem with a police state is its mechanical blindness, it’s fear of offending anyone or singling anyone out that it resolves with wholesale intimidation. Oppressing everyone to avoid oppressing anyone is the egalitarian ethos gone mad. Police states deal in random terror to intimidate everyone. Our state of police deals in random terror because that way everyone is equal.
But the problems that brought this state of police into being are not evenly distributed. And a solution whose distribution ignores the distribution of the problem cannot succeed. Our police state has been brought about by a collision of cultures. The police state and the welfare state attempt to manage that collision without acknowledging it.
The domestic police state would be far less necessary if we stopped importing the populations who are most likely to be in need of it and the same goes for the domestic welfare state. Internationally, we can scrap the welfare state and concentrate our firepower on larger threats rather than chasing down every goat herder with an RPG in the name of stabilizing another failed society that will stabilize.
Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield