Peter Beinart, Islam, and Critical Thinking
By Silas
“Islam: the mother lode of bad ideas!”
An argument about whether or not Islam should be branded as odious occurred recently on Bill Maher’s HBO show. Arguing against Islam were the atheists Bill Maher and Sam Harris, and defending Islam were liberal actor Ben Affleck and liberal/moderate NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof. The argument can be found on You Tube here: Maher vs Affleck
In response to this argument, Peter Beinart, an intelligent liberal political pundit and journalist, wrote an article criticizing Bill Maher’s position: “Bill Maher's Dangerous Critique of Islam.” You can find it here: Maher's Critique
I respect Mr. Beinart and I’ve always appreciated his work in “A Fighting Faith,” in which he said,
But, despite these differences, Islamist totalitarianism--like Soviet totalitarianism before it--threatens the United States and the aspirations of millions across the world. And, as long as that threat remains, defeating it must be liberalism's north star. (A Fighting Faith)
Unfortunately his Maher article displays a skin-deep and unthinking approach which fails to critically examine the evidence of Islam’s core values and tenets. Beinart’s article is a shallow gloss on a serious subject.
Early in the discussion Maher says,
Liberals need to stand up for liberal principles. This is what I said on last week’s show. Obviously I got a lot of hate for it. But all I’m saying is that liberal principles like freedom of speech, freedom to practice any religion you want without fear of violence, freedom to leave a religion, equality for women, equality for minorities, including homosexuals. These are liberal principles that liberals applaud for. But then when you say in the Muslim world this is what’s lacking then they get upset.
Sam Harris then elaborates on Maher’s point about the oppressive doctrines in Islam. Affleck and Kristof rise to Islam’s defense and the argument begins.
Beinart’s Argument
Beinart critiques Maher’s criticisms of Islam and points out two errors one of which is
The first is to be precise about what you’re opposing.
Then he uses Arthur Schlesinger’s critique of the Vietnam war against Maher and asserts that Maher is imprecise and ignorant of Islam:
And the engine of that overextension and misapplication was ignorance. … As Graham Greene wrote of Alden Pyle, the idealistic CIA agent in his novel, The Quiet American, “He was impregnably armoured by his good intentions and his ignorance.”
His argument’s strength is:
“Islam” is not violent or peaceful, dangerous or benign. Like every great religion, it includes a vast array of diverse and often contradictory teachings, which different people interpret in different ways in different places and times. … To lump together Indonesia and Yemen because both countries are mostly Muslim makes about as much sense as lumping together Ireland and the Dominican Republic because both countries are mostly Catholic.
Beinart is off target in his approach to Islam. It treats it like a mystical salad bar: anyone can mix and match anything and create a personal “Islam.” Therefore Beinart’s Islam is undefinable and anyone can make anything out of it per their personal interpretation.
Perhaps that would work as an approach to a mystical faith, but not Islam. Islam is a codified faith. It is both a spiritual and physical faith. It is martial, political, and cultural. It contains dietary laws, social laws, family laws, rules for dealing with Muslims and rules for dealing with non-Muslims. It defines righteous acts and sinful acts. It defines those who obey Muhammad and Allah as true Muslims and those who reject Muhammad as unbelievers – destined for hellfire. It has rules, regulations, and boundaries.
Islam is built upon the Quran and Muhammad’s life. The largest branch of Islam, the Sunni, (comprising some 85% of the world’s Muslims), have several jurisprudence schools of faith, (the primary are the Hanbali, Shafi’i, Maliki, and Hanifi), which have defined its primary tenets. While there are disagreements about minor theological points (like where to place your hands during prayer) they agree on the primary tenets.
Islam is not a gobbledygook faith which one interprets per whim, not a moldable lump of clay that one fashions per wish, not a blank canvas to paint as one desires. Instead its doctrines are the foundation for the faith for the believing Muslim. These tenets are found in the Quran and the study of Muhammad’s life. They are amplified by the hadith and sira.
Beinart does not understand that the Islamists are those who advocate, and obediently enforce, an Islamic way of life, an Islamic culture, and an Islamic spiritual and geo-political system. In other words, the Islamists wish to establish and incorporate real Islam, Muhammad’s Islam. It is this real Islam that Maher and Harris criticize and Beinart fails to understand.
Let’s use Maher’s criticisms and test Beinart’s argument. Maher criticized Islam for these points:
1. freedom of speech
2. freedom to practice any religion you want without fear of violence
3. freedom to leave a religion
4. equality for women
5. equality for minorities
6. equality for homosexuals.
1) Freedom of speech. Does Islam allow for freedom of speech? In this context the answer is a resounding “No.” The Shafi’i school of Islam states that if someone criticizes Muhammad or Islam he is considered an apostate and could even be killed. The Reliance of the Traveller defines what constitutes acts of apostasy, one of which is:
- to speak words that imply unbelief such as “Allah is the third of three.” or “I am Allah” – unless one’s tongue has run away with one, or one is quoting another, …
- to revile Allah or His messenger
- to deny the existence of Allah
- to be sarcastic about Allah’s name, His command, His interdiction, His promise, or His threat1
I could quote more examples but you get the point.
There is an interesting hadith example of a female slave being murdered by her owner for criticizing Muhammad. The slave owner was exculpated by Muhammad. Note Muhammad’s reaction before and after he learned that she was murdered for criticizing him.
Narrated Abdullah Ibn Abbas:
A blind man had a slave-mother who used to abuse the Prophet and disparage him. He forbade her but she did not stop. He rebuked her but she did not give up her habit. One night she began to slander the Prophet and abuse him. So he took a dagger, placed it on her belly, pressed it, and killed her. A child who came between her legs was smeared with the blood that was there. When the morning came, the Prophet was informed about it.
He assembled the people and said: I adjure by Allah the man who has done this action and I adjure him by my right to him that he should stand up. Jumping over the necks of the people and trembling the man stood up.
He sat before the Prophet and said: Apostle of Allah! I am her master; she used to abuse you and disparage you. I forbade her, but she did not stop, and I rebuked her, but she did not abandon her habit. I have two sons like pearls from her, and she was my companion. Last night she began to abuse and disparage you. So I took a dagger, put it on her belly and pressed it till I killed her.
Thereupon the Prophet said: Oh be witness, no retaliation is payable for her blood.2
Muhammad sanctioned a murder for a critical opinion. To this very day Muslims kill others who insult Muhammad. Just ask the New York Times to print the Muhammad cartoons. If Kristof really believes that real Islam isn’t so bad, perhaps he could persuade its editors to print them? Don’t hold your breath. From Muhammad’s time until now devout Muslims kill Muhammad’s critics. How could freedom of speech be allowed in Islam? The theological and textual evidence shows that freedom of speech to criticize things Islamic is not allowed by Islam. Throughout history some Muslim countries and cultures have allowed it, but Islam does not allow it.
Here is a link to an article on free speech under Muhammad:
Muhammad's Critics and Their Deaths
Maher 1, Beinart 0
2) Freedom to practice any religion you want without fear of violence. Does Islam allow for freedom of religion without fear of violence? No. While the Quran does not state explicitly that apostates should be killed, some Muslim scholars, like Abul Ala Mawdudi, have argued that verses like 9:11 & 12 allows for the killing of apostates.
On the other hand, the sahih hadith collections of Bukhari and Muslim, and Malik’s Muwatta, state clearly and forcefully that an apostate is to be killed.
"Narrated Abdullah: Allah's Messenger said, "The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Messenger, cannot be shed except in three cases: in Qisas (equality in punishment) for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam (Apostate) and leaves the Muslims."3
'Abdullah (b. Mas'ud) reported Allah's Messenger as saying: It is not permissible to take the life of a Muslim who bears testimony (to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and I am the Messenger of Allah, but in one of the three cases: the married adulterer, a life for life, and the deserter of his Din (Islam), abandoning the community.4
Zaid b. Aslam reported that the Apostle declared that the man who leaves the fold of Islam should be executed. Muwatta of Imam Malik #14105
Again, here is the Reliance of the Traveller stating that if a Muslim were to leave his faith he is to be killed.
o8.1 When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed.6
Here are several articles on the subject:
The Law of Apostasy in Islam Must Change
The Punishment for Apostasy from Islam
Why Islam Today Shuts Down Freedom of Religion
The theological and textual evidence shows that freedom of religion is not allowed by Islam. Throughout history some Muslim countries and cultures have allowed it, but Islam does not allow it.
Maher 2, Beinart 0.
3) Freedom to leave a religion. The answer is obvious from the evidence presented above.
Maher 3, Beinart 0.
4) Equality for women. Are women equal to men under Islam? This could be a nuanced discussion. For example they are equal under God’s judgment. But the context here is are they equal under Islamic cultural and social law? The answer is no. The Quran itself states that men are superior to women and that disobedient wives are to be beaten:
4:34 Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. Then if they obey you, take no further action against them. Surely God is high, supreme.7
Likewise here is a hadith from Bukhari that details Islamic wife beating:
"Narrated Ikrima: 'Rifaa divorced his wife whereupon Abdur-Rahman married her. Aisha said that the lady came wearing a green veil and complained to her (Aisha) and showed her a green spot on her skin caused by beating. It was the habit of ladies to support each other, so when Allah's messenger came, Aisha said, "I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes! When Abdur-Rahman heard that his wife had gone to the prophet, he came with his two sons from another wife. She said, "By Allah! I have done no wrong to him, but he is impotent and is as useless to me as this," holding and showing the fringe of her garment. Abdur-Rahman said, "By Allah, O Allah's messenger! She has told a lie. I am very strong and can satisfy her, but she is disobedient and wants to go back to Rifaa." Allah's messenger said to her, "If that is your intention, then know that it is unlawful for you to remarry Rifaa unless Abdur-Rahman has had sexual intercourse with you." The prophet saw two boys with Abdur-Rahman and asked (him), "Are these your sons?" On that Abdur-Rahman said, "Yes." The prophet said, "You claim what you claim (that he is impotent)? But by Allah, these boys resemble him as a crow resembles a crow.""8
Notice this women was beaten and bruised by her husband and Muhammad justified him. Aisha commented that even the pagan women were treated better!
Here are some related articles:
The Place of Women in Pure Islam
This is an easy point. You could go through those articles to find many, many, examples of a women’s inequality in Islam. While some Muslim countries have elected female Prime Ministers that does not obviate a women’s 2nd class status in Islam.
Maher 4, Beinart 0.
5) Equality for minorities. Does Islam allow for minorities to have the same civil rights as non-Muslims? Again the answer is no. The Quran establishes the destruction or subjection of non-Muslim minorities.
For pagans and atheists there is 9:5:
9:5 When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. If they repent and take to prayer and render the alms levy, allow them to go their way. God is forgiving and merciful.9
For Christians and Jews there is 9:29
"Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day and who forbid not what Allah and His messenger have forbidden – who do not practice the religion of truth, being of those who have been given the Book – until they pay the poll tax out of hand and are humbled."10
Under early Islam pagans were required to convert to Islam or be killed. Jews and Christians had to either convert to Islam, pay an extortion tax “jizyah”, or fight and die. Also note these non-Muslims were classified as “Dhimmies.” They were marked and abused and had to pay the jizyah in a state of humiliation. These dhimmies were treated by the Muslims much the same way the Nazi’s treated the Jews before things escalated to the gas chambers. I suspect Beinart would understand that point.
Here are some related articles:
Rights of non-Muslims in an Islamic State
Throughout history non-Muslims have fared well (occasionally in Islamic Spain), or suffered extreme persecution and massacre, (practically every Muslim country in the world has had times where Christians and Jews were persecuted, massacred, and disenfranchised from society. This includes Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt, etc.). However, Islam prescribes a 2nd class status for non-Muslims. Even in beloved Egypt, a fellow Christian told me that he felt like a foreigner in his home country.
Maher 5, Beinart 0.
6) Equality for homosexuals. What does Islam proscribe for homosexuals in society? The Quran does not address homosexuality explicitly but some Muslim scholars interpret various passages and denouncing it. But the sahih hadith does condemn it:
Narrated Ibn 'Abbas:
The Prophet cursed the effeminate men and those women who assume the similitude (manners) of men. He also said, "Turn them out of your houses." He turned such-and-such person out, and 'Umar also turned out such-and-such person.11
Likewise hadith from the Sunan of Abu Dawud state:
Ibn ‘Abbas reported the Apostle of Allah as saying: If you find anyone doing as Lot’s people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done.12
Ibn ‘Abbas said: If a man who is not married is seized committing sodomy, he will be stoned to death.13
On “Sodomy and Lesbianism” The Reliance of the Traveller states:
p17.1 In more than one place in the Holy Koran, Allah recounts to us the story of Lot’s people, and know He destroyed them for their wicked practice. There is consensus among both Muslims and the followers of all other religions that sodomy is an enormity. It is even viler and uglier than adultery.14 p.664
Several more statements follow the above and commands that homosexuals be killed.
You can see the following article on this topic.
Of course homosexually existed in Islamic lands from Muhammad’s time on. Today there are a few mosques worldwide that welcome homosexuals. However, Maher is correct: Islam condemns homosexuality with prejudice.
Maher 6, Beinart 0.
CONCLUSION
In this very short work I’ve used Maher’s comments that Beinart found fault with and showed that Maher’s criticisms are accurate. Beinart is wrong on each and every point.
Earlier I quoted two of Beinart’s criticisms of Maher:
The first is to be precise about what you’re opposing.
And the engine of that overextension and misapplication was ignorance. … As Graham Greene wrote of Alden Pyle, the idealistic CIA agent in his novel, The Quiet American, “He was impregnably armoured by his good intentions and his ignorance.”
But it is Beinart, not Maher, who is guilty of imprecision and ignorance in regards to Islam. He builds his argument upon sand: his argument; anemic: it has no root, it has no foundation.
Beinart is ignorant about Islam. He does not understand it and he conflates Islam with “build your own faith” mysticism. It’s understandable that Ben Affleck swims in Islamic ignorance. No one should expect more from an actor than good acting. But it is an inexcusable embarrassment for Beinart. He is capable of better.
Throughout history different Islamic countries and cultures have incorporated Islam to different levels. Some Muslim cultures have been open and tolerant, others harsh and brutal. Beinart objected to “lumping Indonesia and Yemen together.” But I believe it to be fair to compare them. Islamism is growing in Indonesia and there is no reason to believe it will recede. Here’s a recent article highlighting “radical” Islam on the move there.
For a deeper contrast compare Indonesia to Egypt. In the 1950s you could find numerous Egyptian movies in which the females showed a little cleavage, people drank alcohol, and rarely did you see a female lead wear a hijab. Even Umm Kulthom, the greatest singer in Arab history, did not wear a hijab when she performed! (Don’t believe me, google her). Today, how many Muslim women do you find going hijabless in public?
Egyptian culture was far more free, far more “liberal” than it is today. Imagine, an entire country has regressed culturally. Its grown weaker, more backwards, more inept. The Egyptian people are a great people and they deserve better than the fermenting, maggot ridden, food Islam has fed them.
Islam is a wicked, ugly, faith. It kills or strangles all that is non-Islamic. Muhammad strived to obey Allah in establishing Allah’s kingdom on earth. All that resisted his will were subjected, killed, or driven off. Near the end of his life Muhammad sent his men on distant campaigns to subject more non-Muslims to Allah’s, and his, rule. Following his death, his Caliph “companions,” his friends who knew him best and loved him the most, continued these brutal, imperial, wars of expansion.
Earlier I quoted Beinart’s excellent statement in “A Fighting Faith”:
But, despite these differences, Islamist totalitarianism--like Soviet totalitarianism before it--threatens the United States and the aspirations of millions across the world. And, as long as that threat remains, defeating it must be liberalism's north star.
Contrast that to what Maher said:
Liberals need to stand up for liberal principles. … But all I’m saying is that liberal principles like freedom of speech, freedom to practice any religion you want without fear of violence, freedom to leave a religion, equality for women, equality for minorities, including homosexuals. These are liberal principles that liberals applaud for. But then when you say in the Muslim world this is what’s lacking then they get upset.
Do you notice the similarity between what Beinart said 10 years ago and what Maher said? Maher wants liberals to stand up against Islam’s totalitarianism. Beinart is in an intellectual fog which caused him to loose sight of the north star.
Ten years ago it might have been excusable for Beinart to be unable to distinguish between Islam and Islamist totalitarianism, but today it is not. Real Islam, Muhammad’s Islam, is what Maher denounced. And it should be denounced. It’s time for Beinart to join the fight: Islamist totalitarianism is real Islam.
A CHALLENGE TO LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES LIKE BEINART WHO THINK ISLAM IS BENIGN
Here are two links that highlight my point and undermine Beinart’s, Affleck’s and Kristof’s. The first shows notable Muslim clerics and leaders urging war, i.e. jihad, against the West. The second shows the anemic Muslim attempts at criticizing ISIS and other acts of Islamic terrorism. There are far more than a “radical few” who wish destruction upon the West. There is a muscle of hatred in Islam’s body, in the corporate Muslim body today. Just like Muhammad, Muslims are working hard to use that strength to destroy or subject all that is non-Islamic.
1) Muslim Leaders Declare Aim Of World Domination
Muslim Leaders Declare Aim of World Domination
2) Check Out CAIR's Rally Against ISIS
REFERENCES
1. Misri, Ahmad, “Reliance of the Traveler”, Amana, Beltsville, MD, 1994 section o8.7, page 597
2. Abu Dawud, Suliman, “Sunan”, al-Madina, New Delhi, 1985, translated by A. Hasan, Book 38, Number 4348
3. Bukhari, Muhammad, “Sahih Bukhari”, Kitab Bhavan, New Delhi, India, 1987, translated by M. Khan, volume 9, #17
4. Muslim, Abu’l-Husain, “Sahih Muslim”, International Islamic Publishing House, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1971, translated by A. Siddiqi, Book 016, Number 4152
5. Malik, "Muwatta", Taj Company, New Dehli, India, 1985,
6. Misri, Ahmad, “Reliance of the Traveler”, Amana, Beltsville, MD, 1994 section o8.1, page 595
7. Dawood, N. J., “The Koran”, Penguin, London, England, 1995
8. Bukhari, Muhammad, “Sahih Bukhari”, Kitab Bhavan, New Delhi, India, 1987, translated by M. Khan, volume 7, # 715
9. Dawood, N. J., “The Koran”, Penguin, London, England, 1995
10. ibid
11. Bukhari, Muhammad, “Sahih Bukhari”, Kitab Bhavan, New Delhi, India, 1987, translated by M. Khan, volume 8, #820
12. Abu Dawud, Suliman, “Sunan”, al-Madina, New Delhi, 1985, translated by A. Hasan, #4447
13. ibid, #4448
14. Misri, Ahmad, “Reliance of the Traveler”, Amana, Beltsville, MD, 1994 section o8.7, page 664