by Ahmet the Turk
Original Post: Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, July 25, 2014
Response:
I wasn’t aware that Geller had written an equally length refutal. Sometimes there is a section header titled message history, which hides the message instead of the history. I didn’t click to expand it, that’s why I didn’t see what Geller wrote, which is also lengthy. If you want me to discuss any part of it in detail please point it out, otherwise I am responding to the general drift of these accusations.
Turkish uses plenty of Arabic and Farsi vocabulary in exactly the same way English uses Latin and Greek words. I looked it up in the 1890 edition of the Redhouse dictionary. This dictionary was published when Turkey’s emperor officially had zimmi subjects and it was published by an American lexicographer, Sir James Redhouse, who was working for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. A zimmi (feminine zimmiye) is simply defined as “A non-Muslim subject of the Ottoman Empire or of a Muslim state.” Full stop.
There is a very commonly used word that comes from the same root, zimmet. Zimmet (pl. zimem) is defined here as follows: 1. A responsibility or obligation resulting from a trust, contract or promise; a duty. 2. The duty of tribute and obedience owed to the State of Islam by a non-Muslim subject. 3. Indebtedness. 4. A debt. 5. The debtor side of an account. “Zimmette kalmak” For a sum of money to remain owing or due. “Zimmete geçirmek” To pass to the debit of a man (in present day Turkish, embezzlement) etc. I am only going to save space by listing just the idioms connected with our subject “Ehl-i zimmet” A non-Muslim subject of the State of Islam or the Ottoman Empire. “Kabul-ü zimmet” An accepting the status of a non-Muslim subject of the Ottoman Empire. I can supply a scanned image of that page if requested.
As you can see, there is absolutely nothing insulting about the term zimmi. Let’s get that out of the way. I don’t know where Geller is getting her information from. Sometimes words change meaning when transferred from one language to another. The Turkish language title of the Australian movie “the Passion of the Christ” was initially translated incorrectly for this reason and was fixed only after loud protests. In Russia “Kuma” is your child’s godmother. In Turkey, it is your mistress living in the same house as your wife. In Germany “was ist das?” is a question, in Turkey it is a window pane that is hinged to the frame at the bottom edge. Arabic is a very complicated language, maybe Geller is confused or she has discovered something about the language that we don’t know in Turkey. After all we are not native speakers ourselves.
The zimmis are not drafted into the army but they pay poll tax. This practice was changed in the 19th century so that they were given the same status as Muslim subjects and paid the same tax and were drafted into the army, too. There were always complaints about them being treated as second class subjects. I was surprised to learn that churches were not allowed to ring bells until mid 19th century but then Switzerland is still struggling with the Muslim call to prayer so it isn’t fair to say that Muslims are very intolerant. The Zimmi communities and their churches were not under attack until Isis took charge of Syria and Iraq. Those monasteries and churches were still standing until Isis blew them up, Weren’t they?
On the subject churches, I have an interesting anecdote to say. During the Great War or the Great Jihad as it is sometimes known in Turkey, the Turkish army passed through Jerusalem. A derelict church caught the attention of Enver Pasha, the Deputy Commander in Chief. The Church of Nativity had fallen into disrepair because the clergymen responsible for its maintenance, each loyal to a different church, couldn’t agree on whose privilege it should be to carry out the repairs. Enver Pasha ordered them out, sent the engineers and had the church repaired. Even so, the war went badly for him, so perhaps that is something for you to think about, as a Christian I mean. On the other hand, several Christian churches in the Ottoman Empire, particularly the Haghia Sophia was converted to a mosque by decree. many Greeks still think it was a bad decision. Greece itself has demolished Turkish cemeteries, inculding the Turkish cemetery in Salonica after the last Balkan War. We still have “zimmi” cemeteries all over Turkey, including several in densely populated areas and the one that Australians love to visit. Some of them are not all being taken good care of
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For the behaviour of the Ottoman Empire towards non Muslims – see Gladstone and others. The slaughter and enslavement deserve harsher language than “intolerance”.
Of course the return of Islamic government to Asia Minor will not deter some people from going to conferences there – indeed they would be well advised to visit the underground Churches (before they are all destroyed).
As for Enver Pasha – he died well (and that matters – it matters a lot).
Charging on horseback into the Soviet machine guns (alone) is much better than I will likely die.
Enver Bay could have lived on – as a nobody in some European city (before dying in some backstreet gutter somewhere – where I will likely end up), but he choose the death of a warrior (in the lands of his ancestors – before they came to Asia Minor).
And I applaud his choice – even though I lack the courage to do the same thing.
He died well – he died very well.
I’m no fan of Islam, as I’ve made clear in many comments. But Spencer’s approach to the Quran, as with many other opponents, always reminds me of the Dawkins-Atheist style approach to the Bible. You’re not really trying to understand it, you’re just looking for the embarrassing bits with which to slag it off. I feel some expertise commenting on this, because I used to be that kind of atheist, armed with a list of awkward Bible verses I’d reel off any time the subject came up and thinking them a sort of slam-dunk “win”.
The histories and cultures of the Three Big Ones are enormously complicated and important, and that includes how they have all contained different movements with different interpretations. Spencer seems to fall into this strange trap of saying that the current form of Islamic Fundamentalism is literally “the one true Islam” and any others aren’t, so he’s actually agreeing with the Jihadists. Which is a bit odd and counterproductive.
But then, this seems quite a common position among anti-muslims at the moment; in most place I frequent, it seems whenever I suggest that Islam needs to find a way forward into modernity, there is an immediate chorus of “that is impossible, because the only possible form of it is the jihadist one”.
Bit defeatist really.
The problem with lumping Islam in as part of ‘the big three’, is the notion that it is somehow similar or equal to the other two in terms of the ability to “reform” the faith.
Of course, Islam differs from the others because it is understood to be the direct words of God himself passed through the channel of the prophet Mohammed. In addition, it is more than a religiosity or spirituality, it is a code to living life itself…….not just for Muslims who practice it, but for everybody else in their midst too.
I think this means it would be terribly hard to ‘reform’ Islam in the way that, say, Christianity has been changed (and turned into some kind of Church of the Latter Day Marx, complete with the MarxBishop of Canterbury).
Muslims are terribly resistant to deviating from the Koran and Hadith, to say the least. In fact, I suggest they look down with scorn at how pathetic and weak the Church has been in abandoning many aspects of their traditional faith teachings and positions.
Islam is still a heavily proselytising faith which – without any question of doubt in my mind – seeks to turn the ‘land of war’ (non Muslim lands) into the ‘land of peace’ (Islamic ruled lands).
It is not necessarily so sinister as it sounds, from their perspective. The battle need not necessarily be ‘bloody war’, but perhaps a metaphorical war, with which they aim to being this “peace” to world – which would only be achieved when there is no other system to life than Islam.
When Muslims talk of being a religion of “peace” – I personally bear this aspect of the ultimate goal in mind: They want to bring peace, which means, unfortunately for everybody else, submission, because there can never be peace when Islam shares territory with non Muslims, or even different sects of Muslims!
Again, I do not think it is necessarily done by violence or ‘jihad’ – it is now much more mundane than that…… extremely large families, cosseting themselves off from the degradation of modern Western culture, pushing their own agendas and community interests, getting into positions of power and influence – no matter what the political party colour, they will always look after their own Islamic community and interests.
They are thinking of the long game, whilst our own communities and governments are thinking only in terms of the next four/five year cycle.
Well meaning liberal people often look at me in amazement when I suggest that Muslims seek to take over Britain and one day make it under the heel of Islamic conformance, then Islamic dominance.
‘How could I be so ignorant and nasty’ – is the general look on their face. How can their Muslim friend, Shabbaz, possibly want to do this? Obviously I am just reading the ‘hate propaganda’ in the Daily Mail, or whatever…….
But from my perspective, it is obvious what Islam does – what it wants to achieve, and why, therefore, it is not likely to be reformed or allowed to be reformed.
It is also obvious to me that if you are Muslim, if you genuinely do believe in the ideology of Islam (that it is the “best system to life” that does not have the “ills” of the worst elements of western liberal democracies), then why wouldn’t they want to expand and change society itself for “the better”.
You would hardly expect a massive amount of Communists who believe in that ideology and system to life as not wanting to become dominant in society, albeit with the “best intentions” and “betterment” in their mind….where, again, just like Communists, they think they can “do it right this time” because the “true” version of it has “never been implemented properly”……
It may be defeatist to say there is no easy way out of this mess, that Islam cannot be changed in a way to strip it of these intentions and tendencies, but I think any sober judgement of it can only lead to those conclusions.
I would not go as far as the Jihad Watch and Pam Geller route, and suggest they are all going to turn into violent Jihadi types (!), but the dynamic of Islam should be obvious for all to see – including recent world affairs and historical events over the last 1000 years.
I think it only comes a shock to people in the West because we have forgotten why we battled to keep it all out of Europe in the first place, have been scared with massive warfare between ourselves – and have since been indoctrinated with a ‘new religion’ of our own, which similarly allows little dissent.
The old battle of Islam and ‘Christendom’ has never stopped or gone away. This time is not really different from any other, although I think we kid ourselves that it is.
The only difference this time is that people have largely given up the fight, that their own civilisation is ‘so corrupt that it stinks’, that our leaders, even leaders of the Church, welcome their own ultimate annihilation in the name of tolerance and diversity.
Minor point, on your last paragraph. I’ve been on and off for some time trying to source this “so corrupt it stinks” quote which does the rounds, since it’s very popular. It’s supposed to have come from Willi Muenzenberg, a Comintern geezer who set up various front groups for the Commies before either committing suicide or being assassinated by Stalin (take your pick), and it’s meant to prove the Frankfurt School thing.
So far as I can tell, the quote sources to Ralph De Toledano, an American conservative who wrote a book called “Cry Havoc!” which claims that Muenzenberg and Lukacs set up the Frankfurt School as a front, and the original quote is, “We will take over the intellectuals. We will make America stink.”, which doesn’t have anything about either “corruption” or “the West” in it- both of which are routinely put into the quote- so it seems people are routinely paraphrasing it to suit an agenda these days.
These days it seems to met that every good quote turns out to be false, so I’m a bit sceptical. But I can’t find anywhere to get hold of de Toledano’s book, and there don’t seem to be any online versions, so I’m stymied at that point.
It is interesting that the quote may not have the basis upon which it is often used. I suppose I am pre-inclined to follow the notion that the Frankfurt School was a purposefully radical force determined to transform, or bring down, the prevalent Western civilisation.
I should be more careful when it comes to taking these titbits of expressions for granted, although I did not really present it as a quote.
It was more aimed to make the point that, compared to the past, I think we are a different kind of civilisation, one that has been hollowed out, emasculated, stripped of sense of purpose and identity, even religiosity which may have once seen off a rival, a country/civilisation which is indeed often corrupt in its ‘official’ actions, and one which is not always so easy to defend or ‘fight for’ when being advanced against and supplanted with something else which does have some pride and a purpose.
“Spencer’s approach to the Quran, as with many other opponents, always reminds me of the Dawkins-Atheist style approach to the Bible… Spencer seems to fall into this strange trap of saying that the current form of Islamic Fundamentalism is literally “the one true Islam” and any others aren’t, so he’s actually agreeing with the Jihadists. Which is a bit odd and counterproductive.”
There is something deeper than irony in the tendency of both Spencer and the Dawkins-style skeptics (the so-called “New Atheists”) to rely on (and thereby to endorse) the self-evaluation of those they are most trying to denigrate. This has been noticed before. An American reviewer, commenting on Sam Harris’s “The End of Faith”, observed that Harris is
“willing to completely concede the definition of Christianity to the Christians he dislikes most. Does he trust their judgment when it comes to the age of the earth? No, Does he share their moral evaluation of gay marriage? No. In fact, it is hard to find any topic at all related to Christianity on which he agrees with these people. This makes it all the more mysterious that, the moment we come to the question of what Christianity is, he is their #1 biggest fan, absolutely convinced that they have precisely and accurately captured it.”
When I suggested that something deeper than irony ties the Spencer and Dawkins-oid approaches together, I was thinking of ideological symbiosis. In each case, the conflicting viewpoints feed on each other, strengthen each other, and validate each other, because each helps to justify the existence and activism of the other. In a word, they *need* each other – to the point that either position would likely generate its opposite number spontaneously, if it didn’t already exist.
Yes, I agree. And if anyone gives atheism a bad name, it’s the irritating Harris.
To give the Devil his due (so to speak) Dawkins, Dennett, Harris & Hitchens (sounds like a law firm!) *have* succeeded in doing one thing they set out to accomplish — they have coarsened and “ad hominized” the public conversation about religion and spirituality. Condescension and insult are now the normal modes of discourse on the subject.
Mohammed did what he did – Muslims do not try and hide it (why should they? after all mainstream Islam DEFINES “good” as what God commands – and Mohamed was the perfect example of the “submission” to the these commands which is what the word “Islam” means).
For example when an old blind poet mocked Mohammed – off went the killers to murder the old blind poet, and when a pregnant female poet protested against the murder, killers were just sent after her as well.
This does not sound like the sort of behaviour one would get from Jesus or Buddha.
Concerned Briton is correct – not over P. Geller thinking that every nominal “Muslim” is going to go round chopping off heads (she does not think that), but on his basic point about the nature of the Koran to mainstream (believing) Muslims.
To a Jew the Torah is (mostly) the words of man (not God) – inspired by God, but not the actual words of God (the Ten Commandments are an exception to this) – that is why there is a vast literature of interpretation (the Talmud) largely made up of “it does not really mean what it says here……not literally” (or course in much more long winded language) as the Torah (the books of law in the Bible) are the words of men (although inspired men – still just humans) one can do that.
But what was the early Muslim battle cry against the Jews in Arabia (in a war that is basically still going on – not a huge distance from Arabia) – it was “raise your hand”.
This did not mean “surrender” (although not all Jews were killed if they did surrender, some were enslaved – for example there is an old Muslim story that an enslaved Jewess poisoned Mohammed in revenge for the murder of her family) – it meant “take your hand off the text of the Holy Book”.
It referred to the practice of Jews of placing one’s’ hand over nasty bits of the Torah when reading aloud (in case someone overheard the death-for-adultery or whatever stuff, and acted on it literally).
To the new “Muslims” this was an outrageous practice – an open defiance of the WILL of God.
The idea that “reason” has some sort of status over and above the literal words on the page vile (utterly vile – punishable by death).
There was (much later) an effort to introduce reason (as a standard) into Islam – but it was defeated (smashed – a thousand years ago).
The mainstream Islamic view is as follows…..
The Koran was not first written some years after the death of Mohammed.
No that was a just a copy of the original Koran – which is as old as the universe (and is with God).
“How did God know what Mohammed would need guidance about and so on” – easy, predestination (the standard way of “answering” any question).
God is the author of it – not of a tiny bit of it (such as the Ten Commandments),but the whole thing.
What is “good” – good is what God commands.
What is “evil” – evil is what God forbids.
If God (via the sacred texts 0 commands something (anything – anything at all) it can not be “evil” – by definition. And resisting any command can not be “good”.
So if your father is an enemy of Islam, if your mother or sister is an enemy of Islam…… well you know what to do……
The cause (submission to the commands of God) is the only good, the only right;
How do people think that Mohammed attracted so many young men to his cause so quickly? Building a mighty army from nothing.
Because he (and those who came after him) took all the darkest desires in the human heart (especially of useful young men – the desire for violence and for plunder and enslaved women) and suggested a way they could be indulged (indeed MUST be indulged) whilst the young men could still feel good about themselves (indeed feel specially good about themselves).
And there are more subtle pleasures (for older men) – for example deceiving the enemy.
Lying to achieve an objective is common among humans – but most humans feel bad about doing it (especially if the lies are gross – such as signing a peace-and-friendship treaty with people one is planning to murder in their sleep).
But what if one could do this sort of thing and still feel good about one’s self – indeed feel really good about one’s self (and boast about one’s cleverness to adoring fans).
Christians (and Jews) have done terrible things – but there is always that nasty bit about having to hide (or even deny) what one has done (not being able to boast about it openly – to the applause of one’s peers). Even if one is not found out there is that person in the mirror – whose eyes one finds it hard to face.
Islam offers “freedom” from all this – freedom from the crushing burden of shame and guilt.
One is not going to get a Thomas Aquinas (or a Richard Hooker) into this closed system – not going to happen (no way).
There was a major effort – but, as I said, it was crushed more than a thousand years ago (and had Mohammed still been alive, he would have led the crushing).
“But Islam produced wonderful civilisations”.
Somewhat over stated (for example the BBC practice of standing in front of Roman ruins and talking about Islam – as if the ruins in the backdrop are somehow connected to the subject being talked about), but not totally so. For example some of the buildings created under Islamic rule are wonderful.
But there is a big difference between a nominal Muslim (a “yes, whatever – just let me get on with reading Aristotle” “Muslim”) and a believing one.
Brooks Alexander – if God exists abuse can not hurt him.
Although, yes, the mess that pubic discussion of religion has become does do harm – it does harm to human beings.
However, Christians must not respond to attacks (even vile attacks) from “intellectuals” by becoming “anti intellectual”.
That was the mistake that was made in the 1920s (when the “fundamentalist” movement was hijacked by statists such as William Jennings Bryan) and it is still being made.
“…if God exists abuse can not hurt him.”
Indeed – He certainly doesn’t need my feeble effort to defend Him from a skeptic’s verbal vehemence which doesn’t really affect Him in the first place.
However, that seemingly self-evident conclusion doesn’t seem to deter the militant skeptics themselves, who still seem determined to defame and abuse the very concept (“name”) of God – a spectacle worth pointing to in its own right as a symptom of human psychological derangement, and an illustration of the extent to which the behavior of humans – even of “rationalists” – is governed by reflexive (i.e., non-rational) reactions.
That doesn’t bode well for the future of religious dialogue (I guess “multilogue” would be the term for a public conversation) – and you’re certainly correct that the increasing rancor of opposing ideologies will have its destructive fallout on actual human beings, not primarily on either “faith” or “skepticism”.
As for resorting to anti-intellectualism, that (hopefully) should not be a problem on this forum. Nevertheless, it is unavoidable that a certain number of people will adopt that posture as the simplest and most effective defensive measure to protect their own beliefs. It clearly require the least intellectual effort (just reject all intellectually-based criticism), and it provides the greatest belief-protection (no significant challenge makes it through that filter).
The problem is, to a certain extent, endemic to Christianity for the reason that it is truly a universal religion, intended for every human being, regardless of their circumstances. What that means is that at any point in history, the composition of the Church (the body of believing Christians) will reflect the classic “bell-curve”, with the really smart ones dwindling down to vanishing numbers at the farther end, and a great herd of mediocre intellects clustered together at the top of the curve. Those are people likely to be attracted to anti-intellectualism simply for its mental efficiency – it offers more “bang for the buck”.
In a sense, Christians shouldn’t want it any other way. Any religion composed strictly of smart people would only thereby confirm that it is NOT a universal religion, applicable to human beings across the board, but an exclusive club. In fact, that was precisely the battle St. Paul fought with the Gnostics – people who (among other things) put themselves on a spiritually higher plane than “ordinary” believers. By the way, St. Paul won – the Good News is for everybody.
On the Frankfurt School – well these Marxists said they were opposed to Western Civilisation (which they called “capitalism”) and wished to destroy this “capitalism” via “cultural” means – so why should I doubt what they said about themselves? Just because Concerned Briton says it does not mean it is automatically wrong.
The irony is that many of the first Frankfurt School were from Jewish families – and some had fond hopes that Israel would be a socialist place.
That sounds absurd to young ears – used to thinking of Israel as sort of Texas in the Middle East (full of evil religious business owning capitalists with “old fashioned” family structures and big guns).
But Israel was not always like that. For example I have stood in the offices of the Hafia electric company – it had a Jewish owner, that did not stop the Israeli government stealing it after independence (there was a lot dirty stuff like that – the Israeli Labour party were bunch of stealing shits).
Also remember the Ottoman landed property structure (basically unchanged under the British mandate).
One reason that Jews could not just buy all the land (with loans from the Rothschild family or whatever – remember the land was mostly fairly barren anyway, it took years of work to transform it) was that there was little privately owned land to buy.
Most land (by Ottoman Law) was state owned. There was some privately owned land in the area (and about half of it was indeed bought by Jews – the other half of the original private land has Muslim landowners to this day), but most of the land was owned by the state (although some of the tenants had security of tenure under the Ottomans – it gets complicated).
So who controlled THE STATE determined who would get access to the land.
It was easy to see how this might have a socialist interpretation…….
The evolution of Israel into a “right wing” country would have astonished most socialists back in the 1940s.
Oddly enough the orthodox Marxists (not the Frankfurt School – but the orthodox Stalinists) predicted it would happen.
Any country that is based (at heart) on Jewish religious claims will end up “capitalist” thought Stalin (and not just because he was an anti-Semite although he was).
Some Jews reject Judaism for Marxism (of various sorts) – but a country based on Jewish religious claims is going to end up rejecting socialism for Judaism (so thought Stalin – and he was correct).
Even atheist Israelis I have met think like Texans.
The Israeli left may still control the universities – but they have been in decline for decades now.
Paul, this is very interesting, particularly as I was thinking of asking Alisa about the state of Leftism in Israel just now. Here, the story is still that the Left is very strong in Israel and that she is slowly succumbing to it just as we are. (Well, more slowly, but that it is happening in Israel too). I am glad to hear that that is not true. (Yes, Israel has moved away from her original socialist plan, but aside from that is the left gaining ground? — that’s what I meant.)
Somewhere today — where? — I read that to the left, Israel is a proxy for America: Hating Israel (or being anti-Israel, I suppose) is hating America. And vice-versa.
This might be the more interesting social shift in the Jewish world-
http://forward.com/articles/177405/the-creeping-jewish-fundamentalism-in-our-midst/?p=all
On a more general point, my hackles rise when I hear of “America hating”. It seems that there is some confusion between “hating America” and “hating what America does“. Take me; I’m interested in liberty, and threats to it. And I think there is a reasonable argument that the greatest threat to liberty on a global scale at the current time is an ideological suite whose source is the Anglosphere, with America in the lead by a significant margin. Whatever you want to call it- Progressivism, Political Correctness, whatever- powered by an organised international network that makes the Comintern look like rank amateurs, it is coming from America, with the rest of the Anglosphere toddling along behind like ducklings behind a big fat duck, and dragging the rest of the world in our collective wake.
And that doesn’t start us on the repeated, disastrous meddling in other nations- the latest catastrophe being the US pumping billions into another staged revolution in Ukraine, with the inevitable unintended consequences.
I hate the word “hate”. It is rarely appropriate (and we may note that its modern routine deployment as a curse word is an American innovation- “hate speech” anyone?). But something like “criticism” or “disapproval” of the USA seems appropriate at this time.