I am so pleased and proud to have been described in glowing terms by the US-based Christian-Right pamphleteer Robert Spencer.
For those of you who don’t know, Spencer is the author of a variety of books "exposing" what he sees as the violent and sinister reality of Islamic theology and Muslim cultures.
Spencer wants the whole world to believe about Muslims what Nazi propagandists wanted Europeans to believe about Jews – that we are part of a huge conspiracy to destroy civilisation, that we are economic leeches and that our faith and cultures are inherently violent and psychopathic.
So when someone of this looney-tune mentality attacks and defames me, it only adds credibility to my humble efforts in building bridges between people.
Spencer, of course, isn’t interested in building bridges. His purpose in life is to generate as much hatred as possible toward anything and anyone with even the slightest relation to Islam. He is prepared to use all sorts of pseudo-scholarly methods in pursuit of his war-mongering purpose.
Spencer’s latest attack can be found on his Jihad Watch website posting for April 30 2006, entitled “A trip to the nuthouse”.
I’m not sure if the purpose of his title is to describe his own experiences with peanut allergy or whether he is casting aspersions on millions of people of all faiths and background who struggle with mental illness.
He then brings to his readers an offering of “on-the-record and for-the-record replies to various hacks, nuts, ideologues, jealous lovers, and conspiracy theorists.”
Certainly Spencer is most qualified to identify conspiracy theorists. After all, much of his work represents an attempt to prove that 1.2 billion Muslims are all involved in an evil conspiracy to destroy the world.
Things get more amusing when he describes me as a member of “the clown parade”. He describes my comments and criticisms of Messrs Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson as “outlandish false charges”.
Of course my charges are false. Daniel Pipes never wrote an article in which he suggested that persecuting and lynching Muslims was an effective deterrent against civilians being kidnapped in Iraq. It was just a figment of my imagination.
And as for Steve Emerson, we all know how wonderfully friendly he is to all North American Muslims. We know he has never suggested that most American mosques are used as training grounds for terrorist campaigns.
Just as we know Robert Spencer has never written any books suggesting mainstream Islam teaches Muslims to lie and kill to achieve certain religious and political goals. Such claims are all just plain fictional.
For those of you who don’t know, Spencer is the author of a variety of books "exposing" what he sees as the violent and sinister reality of Islamic theology and Muslim cultures.
Spencer wants the whole world to believe about Muslims what Nazi propagandists wanted Europeans to believe about Jews – that we are part of a huge conspiracy to destroy civilisation, that we are economic leeches and that our faith and cultures are inherently violent and psychopathic.
So when someone of this looney-tune mentality attacks and defames me, it only adds credibility to my humble efforts in building bridges between people.
Spencer, of course, isn’t interested in building bridges. His purpose in life is to generate as much hatred as possible toward anything and anyone with even the slightest relation to Islam. He is prepared to use all sorts of pseudo-scholarly methods in pursuit of his war-mongering purpose.
Spencer’s latest attack can be found on his Jihad Watch website posting for April 30 2006, entitled “A trip to the nuthouse”.
I’m not sure if the purpose of his title is to describe his own experiences with peanut allergy or whether he is casting aspersions on millions of people of all faiths and background who struggle with mental illness.
He then brings to his readers an offering of “on-the-record and for-the-record replies to various hacks, nuts, ideologues, jealous lovers, and conspiracy theorists.”
Certainly Spencer is most qualified to identify conspiracy theorists. After all, much of his work represents an attempt to prove that 1.2 billion Muslims are all involved in an evil conspiracy to destroy the world.
Things get more amusing when he describes me as a member of “the clown parade”. He describes my comments and criticisms of Messrs Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson as “outlandish false charges”.
Of course my charges are false. Daniel Pipes never wrote an article in which he suggested that persecuting and lynching Muslims was an effective deterrent against civilians being kidnapped in Iraq. It was just a figment of my imagination.
And as for Steve Emerson, we all know how wonderfully friendly he is to all North American Muslims. We know he has never suggested that most American mosques are used as training grounds for terrorist campaigns.
Just as we know Robert Spencer has never written any books suggesting mainstream Islam teaches Muslims to lie and kill to achieve certain religious and political goals. Such claims are all just plain fictional.
Readers, please give me a few moments to go outside and call my pet flying pigs to join me for dinner ...
... ok, thanks for that. Anyhow, returning to this discussion, I must congratulate Mr Spencer on one sentence in his piece which really says it all. Here it is.
I have never described myself as a "Middle East expert" or an expert on anything.
Yes, Mr Spencer, you certainly aren’t an expert. You are a propagandist. And a very clumsy one at that!
© Irfan Yusuf 2006
... ok, thanks for that. Anyhow, returning to this discussion, I must congratulate Mr Spencer on one sentence in his piece which really says it all. Here it is.
I have never described myself as a "Middle East expert" or an expert on anything.
Yes, Mr Spencer, you certainly aren’t an expert. You are a propagandist. And a very clumsy one at that!
© Irfan Yusuf 2006
