Robert Spencer
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For other uses, see Robert Spencer (disambiguation).
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Robert Spencer

Born 1962 (age 45–46)
Nationality American
Genres Religion
Subjects Jihad, Islamic terrorism
Official website

Robert Bruce Spencer (born 1962) is an American author who writes articles and books relating to Islam and Islamic terrorism. He has published seven books, including two bestsellers. He is a contributor to the FrontPage magazine, directed by David Horowitz. He founded and currently directs the Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch websites that focus on Islamic terrorism-related events and various Jihad-activity worldwide.[1]

Contents

Biography

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Robert Spencer holds a Master's degree in the department of Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1986. His MA thesis is entitled The Monophysite in the Mirror and concerns the Christological controversies of the early Church, and their connection to various ecclesiological models. Spencer says it led him to study the Eastern Churches in depth, which "coalesced nicely" with his study of Islam.[2]

According to the biography at one of his websites,[1] Spencer began studying Islam in 1980 during his first year as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina. He wrote freelance articles for various publications between 1980 and 2001 on Catholic religious issues. In 2002, he became an adjunct fellow with the Free Congress Foundation. He wrote seven monographs on Islam for the Free Congress Foundation in 2002 and 2003. He is a regular columnist for FrontPageMagazine.com, and Human Events. His writings on Islam and other topics have been published in various other publications.

In 2006, he participated in a workshop on terrorist threats, jointly sponsored by the German Foreign Ministry and the United States Embassy Berlin.[3] In the same year, he conducted a workshop at the United States Central Command.[4] He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism on a variety of television networks, as well as on numerous radio programs.

His writings on Islam and other topics have been published in the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, Canada's National Post, FrontPage Magazine, WorldNetDaily, Human Events, National Review Online, and in other publications. He has consulted with United States Central Command and the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry, and frequently appears on global media networks such as the BBC, CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, PBS, C-Span, as well as on numerous radio programs including Michael Savage's Savage Nation, The Alan Colmes Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Neal Boortz Show, The Michael Medved Show, The Michael Reagan Show, The Andrew Wilkow Show, The Larry Elder Show, The Barbara Simpson Show, Vatican Radio amongst others.citation needed

Spencer's Views

Spencer has stated that "traditional Islam contains violent and supremacist elements," and that "its various schools unanimously teach warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers," and he calls for Muslims to fashion an interpretation of Islam that rejects violence and supremacism.[5] However, he does not feel those widely identified as moderate Muslims have adequately addressed this task, but instead tend to deflect scrutiny of Islam. Spencer posits that anyone pursuing his called-for reforms will face a difficult task, because "the radicals actually do have a stronger theoretical, theological, and legal basis within Islam for what they believe than the moderates do."[6]

Spencer has criticized the discussion of Islam by Western political leaders, journalists, and intellectuals. He has written that such figures often assert the peaceful nature of Islam as axiomatic, rather than engaging evidence to the contrary.

On matters of policy, Spencer called in his book The Truth about Muhammad for United States to "stop insisting that Islam is a religion of peace," find alternative energy sources to reduce dependence on Muslim states, make "aid contingent upon renunciation of the jihad ideology," "call upon the American Muslim advocacy groups to work against the jihad ideology," and revise immigration policies with the goal of preventing potential jihadists from entering the country.

Views on Spencer and his works

Daniel Pipes has said: "Robert Spencer and I have discussed the perceived differences in our view of Islam. He and I concluded that, although we have different emphases - he deals more with scriptures, I more with history - we have no disagreements."[7] He has also endorsed Spencer's books The Truth About Muhammad, and Onward Muslim Soldiers. Bat Ye'or,[8], Ibn Warraq[9], Ann Coulter, Don Feder, Michelle Malkin and David G. Dalin[10] are also among those who have a positive view of Spencer's works, while Khaleel Mohammed,[11] Dinesh D'Souza,[12] Karen Armstrong,[13] Cathy Young,[14] Stephen Schwartz (journalist),[15] and organizations such as CAIR,[16] and ADC[17] hold negative views.

Khaleel Mohammed, Louay M. Safi, and Carl Ernst assert that Spencer's scholarship and interpretations of Islam are fundamentally flawed - that he supports preconceived notions through selection bias - that he lacks genuine understanding and; that 'he has no academic training in Islamic studies whatsoever; his M.A. degree was in the field of early Christianity'.[18][19][20] For example, critics have objected to what they describe as Spencer's method of taking a position they deem to be radical (on apostasy, women, etc.) and then attribute that position to all of Islam, rather than situating it within ongoing discussions.[11]

Khaleel Mohammed and Spencer have had detailed discussions on FrontPage Magazine.[21][19][22][23] Carl Ernst and William Kenan have called him an "Islamophobe".[24] Ernst notes that Spencer's articles have never been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, nor are his publications similarly reviewed or edited by a qualified scholar and published by an academic or university publishers but by conservative presses such as Regnery Publishing.[24]

A french historian academic, I. Jablonka, from École Normale Supérieure in Paris, while studying similarities between the approaches to Islam of authors like Bat Ye'or, Robert Spencer, David Pryce-Jones and Daniel Pipes[25], describes Spencer as someone "who makes his specialty the denunciation of islamist menace" and underlines Spencer's bizarre political elucubrations: he notes that, according to Spencer, "islamist integrists drive European politics" to such a point that "Zapatero's victory in Spain after Madrid blasts is presented by Spencer as an ultimate victory of jihadists"; such declarations, according to Jablonka, underline the political lower parts and similarities between Spencer's work and Bat Ye'or's obsession with "Eurabia". For Jablonka, writings of authors like Spencer or Bat Ye'or should not be dismissed because of their lack of academic seriouness, or just because they appear to be insignificant crackpots of right-wing propaganda: they relentlessly intent to designate "new enemies for wars to come"[26].

Benazir Bhutto briefly criticised Robert Spencer in her book Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West as someone who "presents a skewed, one-sided, and inflammatory story that only helps sow the seeds of civilizational conflict".[27] Spencer made a response that noted that she had misattributed a quote to him that had actually been written by Ibn Warraq.[28]

Spencer's responses to some critics

In response to criticism, Spencer states that none of his critics have substantiated their claims of inaccuracy in his work, but content themselves with broad and vague accusations. He says:

"I present the work not on the basis of my credentials, but on the basis of the evidence I bring forth; evaluate it for yourself. One example: after I spoke at the University of North Carolina, Professor Carl Ernst of the university wrote a piece about me warning that my books were non-scholarly and were published by presses that he believed reflected a political agenda of which he did not approve. That kind of approach may impress some people, but Carl Ernst did not and cannot bring forth even a single example of a supposed inaccuracy in my work. I would, of course, be happy to debate Carl Ernst or any other scholar of Islam about Islam and jihad; this is a standing invitation."[1]

He has also said:

"It is amusing to me that some people like to focus on my credentials, when I have never made a secret of the fact that most of what I know about Islam comes from personal study. It is easier for them to talk about degrees than to find any inaccuracy in my work. Yet I present the work not on the basis of my credentials, but on the basis of the evidence I bring forth; evaluate it for yourself."[1]

Spencer has criticized academics at his web site writing that he opted not to enter any PhD program because he "could see [in 1986] that Middle East Studies and other departments were becoming highly politicized and retreating from genuine academic work".[29][1] About charges of "bigotry" and "hatred" from Ernst[30] and others he says:

"It is not an act of hatred against Muslims to point out the depredations of jihad ideology. It is a peculiar species of displacement and projection to accuse someone who exposes the hatred of one group of hatred himself: I believe in the equality of rights and dignity of all people, and that is why I oppose the global jihad. And I think that those who make the charge know better in any case: they use the charge as a tool to frighten the credulous and politically correct away from the truth."[30]

Concerning this version of his Wikipedia biography, dated March 5, 2008, Spencer has remarked that "it is relentlessly biased, and the negative spin is thoroughgoing."[2]

Spencer has also been engaged in a long dispute with Lawrence Auster. Auster says all Muslim immigration should be limited, whereas Spencer says only Islamofascists should be barred from entering the US.

Book-ban

The government of Pakistan announced on 20 December 2006 its ban on Robert Spencer's book, The Truth About Muhammad, citing "objectionable material" as the cause.[31]

"Invitation to Islam" from Al Qaeda

On 2 September 2006 a video called "Invitation to Islam" surfaced. It featured Adam Gadahn, spokesman for the Islamist terrorist group Al Qaeda, with a brief appearance also by Ayman al-Zawahiri. [32] In the video, Gadahn named Spencer in a list of "Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants" which included George W. Bush, and that if he "were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam."[33]

Spencer responded with an article in Frontpage Magazine in which he publicly rejected Gadahn's offer and responded with his own counter-offer:

I invite you [Gadahn] to accept the Bill of Rights, and enter into the brotherhood of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. My invitation does not focus on my religion, although I invite you to that also, but rather on a framework within which people of differing faiths can live in peace, harmony, and mutual respect–provided that none of the groups involved cherishes supremacist ambitions to subjugate the others.[34]

Bibliography

Best sellers

Others

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Bio from Jihadwatch.org".
  2. ^ a b "Jihad Watch: Wikipedia and Robert Spencer".
  3. ^ "012304.php". www.jihadwatch.org.
  4. ^ "011546.php". www.jihadwatch.org.
  5. ^ http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/021661.php
  6. ^ An Interview With Robert Spencer - Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views)
  7. ^ Reply to Pipes' reply to Rick H. - Reader comments at DanielPipes.org
  8. ^ Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye'or, p. 31, 107, 206
  9. ^ Ibn Warraq contributed to The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims, edited by Spencer
  10. ^ Books by Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer
  11. ^ a b "Home page of Muhammad Khaleel".
  12. ^ Dinesh D'Souza (2007-03-02). "Letting Bin Laden Define Islam".
  13. ^ Armstrong, Karen (April 27 2007), "Balancing the Prophet", FT.com (Financial Times), <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4a05a4a4-f134-11db-838b-000b5df10621.html>  Armstrong writes "he makes basic and bad mistakes of fact", but doesn't cite any here, concentrating on what she says are omissions.
  14. ^ "The Jihad Against Muslims".
  15. ^ "A Schwartz-Spencer Exchange".
  16. ^ "CAIR press release" (November 11, 2005).
  17. ^ "ADC Op-ed: "Violence is a human, not an Islamic trait"". American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (February 3, 2004).
  18. ^ Louay M. Safi (December 29 2005). "Will the Extreme Right Succeed? Turning the War on Terror into a War on Islam".
  19. ^ a b "Response to Spencer's "Muslim Feminism?"". FrontPage Magazine.
  20. ^ "Home page of Muhammad Khaleel". - Comments on his discussions with Spencer accessible at 8/28/2006 - The comments are "archived in a prior version of this article".
  21. ^ "Muslim Feminism? by Spencer".
  22. ^ "Response to Khaleel Mohammed".
  23. ^ "Spencer vs. Mohammed, Round II".
  24. ^ a b "Notes on the Ideological Patrons of an Islamophobe, Robert Spencer" (html). Retrieved on 2007-02-14.
  25. ^ La peur de l'Islam, Bat Ye'or et le spectre de l'Eurabie, [1].
  26. ^ ibid.
  27. ^ Benazir Bhutto, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West, Harper, 2008, p.245
  28. ^ Jihad Watch: Parting words from Benazir Bhutto
  29. ^ "005715.php". www.jihadwatch.org.
  30. ^ a b "012899.php". www.jihadwatch.org.
  31. ^ "Pakistan bans Roberts' book about Prophet Muhammad".
  32. ^ Allahpundit (2006-09-02). "Video: Al Qaeda tells U.S. to convert or die". HotAir.com.
  33. ^ "Special Dispatch Series - No. 1281". memri.org.
  34. ^ Robert Spencer (September 6, 2006). "My Invitation From al-Qaeda", Frontpage Magazine. 
  35. ^ Best Sellers - Hardcover Nonfiction - NYT
  36. ^ Paperback Nonfiction - NYT

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