Robert Spencer/Criticism Temp

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[edit] Criticism

• "Spencer cherry picks few out of the hundreds verses that deal with issues of peace and war, and misrepresents Islam by arguing that the Quran directs Muslims to fight non-Muslims on the account of having different faith. He does that by obscuring both the textual and historical contexts of the verses he cites." [1] [2]

• • Spencer bases his "representation of Islam on its worst examples while carefully shielding both Christianity and the West from comparable critique" [3]

• "Spencer attributes beliefs etc to the Qur'an when in fact they are NOT from the Qur’an but tradition." [4] Specifically, Spencer overweights the sayings of Muhammad, while ignoring the contrary verses in the Quran, even though the sayings do "not have the authority of the Qur'an and was made up long after Muhammad died." [5]

• Spencer ignores non-religious motivations of conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims. [6]

• Spencer "falls into the Orientalist trap of trying to use Islamic legal compendiums dating back well over 600 years...to define for all times what Muslims think about a particular issue." [7]

• Spencer has no formal training in Islamic studies and his works do not meet scholarly standards:
  • Spencer's "books are not scholarly, and they do not pass the review of blind refereed evaluation practiced by university presses. They are instead supported by specific political and ideological interests through think-tanks and private foundations.are instead supported by specific political and ideological interests through think-tanks and private foundations" [8].
  • "Spencer portrays himself as a scholar of Islam, and that he is not. He misquotes verses of the Qur'an, takes things out of context, and shamelessly lies."[9]
  • "Spencer's study is not the critical, experienced account it claims to be. It's intellectually dishonest" [10]

• Some Islamic-American and Arab-American groups, such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and The Council on American-Islamic Relations, have accused Spencer for inciting hatred towards Islam.
  • "CAIR-LA has learned that Robert Spencer, who operates the “Jihad Watch” Internet hate site, spoke at Temple Shalom for the Arts during a Yom Kippur event. Spencer’s website is notorious for its depiction of Islam as an inherently violent faith that is a threat to world peace." -- November 11, 2005. CAIR press release [11]
  • "Since 9/11, right-wing evangelical preachers such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, and commentators such as Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes, have spared no effort to spread fear and hatred of Islam and the growing American Muslim community." -- American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, [12]