Exposing Robert Spencer: Juvenlie Hadith Interpretations

One very distinct similarity between Robert Spencer and modern day Salafis is their inability to distinguish between hadith and fiqh. Muslims know hadiths to be the corpus of sayings and descriptions of actions of the Prophet Muhammad, prayers and peace be upon him. Hadith is not synonymous with Sunnah, or the regular/habitual actions of the Prophet. His Sunnah consisted of what scholars have agreed upon in each of the respected four Sunnis schools of fiqh to be his, prayers and peace be upon him, normative actions. For example, he once urinated standing up. It is known that he did this in order to demonstrate to his Companions that urinating standing up is not prohibited, but only disliked (i.e., nor haram or prohibited). An example of his normative actions was that he prayed two rakats before the fard salat of Fajr or Subh.

One of the things that I have noticed about Robert Spencer is how similar he is in his interpretations of hadith to Salafis. Many of us know of the great debates that went on in university campuses and masajids all over America in the 1990s between exponents of the Salafi school of thought and traditionalists. It was a battle between adopting long standing orthodoxy against modern interpretations of hadith and fiqh amongst other subjects. It seems to me that the traditionalists won out on the speaker circuit as we see a substantial amount of traditionalist speakers roaming from one major Muslim convention to the next. But on the grassroots level the Salafi interpretation and outlook is still very dominant. Masajids are littered with Saudi hadith and fiqh books. Those books provide the usual Qur'an and Sunnah mantra that predominates in the Salafi way of thinking - a thinking that overlooks the thousand year effort of Muslim scholars to codify the deen of Allah. The traditionalist system or the classical system if you prefer is much more nuanced and less inclined to allow beginners to meddle within itself. The Salafi system on the other hand is more than happy to have beginners jump into classical texts and to take away whatever they want from them -even if they are wholly wrong and in complete opposition to the rulings classical scholars derived from those same texts.

A very real example of this type of pseudo scholarship is committed by Spencer. I have noted in many other posts on this blog how Spencer manipulates or takes out of context or blatantly gets wrong points of the Islamic faith. I recently saw three new points that made me astonished to say the least. These were some very juvenile interpretations by Spencer, who at the very least attempts to portray himself as a respectable scholar on Islam.

Spencer was answering criticism by al-Arabiyya about his book on the Prophet, peace and prayers be upon him. In the reply to al-Arabiyya Spencer defends himself against three charges. I will go through them one by one:

The book claims that Muhammad said terrorism made him victorious and that he used to tempt people with paradise so they would crush his enemies.

Yeah, I made all that up, and cast it into the canonical hadith by means of my Zionist black arts.

"I have been made victorious with terror" -- so says Muhammad not according to me, but according to Bukhari (Vol. 4, Book 52, Number 220). Sahih Bukhari is the hadith collection, that is, the collection of traditions of Muhammad, that Muslims consider most reliable.

This is probably the most juvenile attempt at scholarship I have seen Spencer take and he quotes this hadith quite often. When the Prophet says "terror" does he mean "terrorism?" Obviously he does not, but Spencer feels free to make the two words synonymous. When we click on the link Spencer provides it takes us to the USC hadith web compendium, which shows us th hadith from Sahih Bukhari. The relevant hadith states the following:

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220:

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah's Apostle said, "I have been sent with the shortest expressions bearing the widest meanings, and I have been made victorious with terror (cast in the hearts of the enemy), and while I was sleeping, the keys of the treasures of the world were brought to me and put in my hand."

As you can see, what is being implied with "terror" is that the enemies of Islam during the time of the Prophet had "terror" or fear or any other synonym of terror you could think of put into their hearts so they would be scared of fighting the Muslims. I think that's quite obvious to anyone who reads the hadith in context and without Spencer's pathetic attempt at manipulation. Spencer doesn't even attempt to distance himself from the al-Arabiyya statement, which says that Spencer says that Muhammad said "terrorism" made him victorious. There is quite a difference between having fear or "terror" put into the hearts of your opponents (through various means - like angels coming down from the heavens) and "terrorism," which the U.S. State Department defines as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." If Spencer wants to stand by that definition then he will presumably have to answer questions about how what defined "terrorism" in seventh century Arabia. He will also have to answer why he did not quote the entire hadith and what exactly the word translated as "terror" means in the original Arabic - did it mean terrorism as we understand it today? It's good homework for Spencer.

The second point comes up in the same sentence, where Spencer is noted by al-Arabiyya as stating that the Prophet would tempt his Companions with Paradise in order to fight his enemies.

And what about that bit about Paradise? Here's another ahadith: "On the day of the battle of Uhud, a man came to the Prophet and said, 'Can you tell me where I will be if I should get martyred?' The Prophet replied, 'In Paradise.' The man threw away some dates he was carrying in his hand, and fought till he was martyred" (Bukhari Volume 5, Book 59, Number 377).

Yes, more of Spencer's lies!

Well, I can't say he is lying, but it is also obvious here that what Spencer is attempting to do is portray the Prophet as some sort of brainwashing opportunist who said whatever would appeal to his Companions in order to get them to do his work. Spencer can interpret this hadith as he wants, but to those who are unaware the Prophet had told his Companions many times before the Battle of Uhud about what the rewards would be for one who fought and died in combat for the sake of God. The example of Haritha, the young boy killed before the Battle of Badr began, is sufficient as an example. The other point is that there were many Companions who saw the souls of those slain in battle being taken by the angels up into the heavens and their bodies washed as they ascended upward. It's one thing to tempt someone to do something, but another thing to cause people to see angels flying around during a battle.

Moving along, Spencer says that the Prophet,peace and prayers be upon him, broke the Treaty of Hudaibiya.

The author also accuses Muhammad of treason, breaching the Treaty of Hudaybiya with the Meccan tribe of Quraish, and instigating Muslims to kill Jews.

According to Muhammad's earliest biographer, Ibn Ishaq, the Treaty of Hudaybiya contained this provision: "If anyone comes to Muhammad without the permission of his guardian he will return him to them; and if anyone of those with Muhammad comes to Quraysh they will not return him to him."

That is, those fleeing the Quraysh and seeking refuge with the Muslims would be returned to the Quraysh, while those fleeing the Muslims and seeking refuge with the Quraysh would not be returned to the Muslims.

But soon thereafter a woman of the Quraysh, Umm Kulthum, joined the Muslims in Medina; her two brothers came to Muhammad, asking that they be returned “in accordance with the agreement between him and the Quraysh at Hudaybiya.” But Muhammad refused: Allah forbade it. He gave Muhammad a new revelation: “O ye who believe! When there come to you believing women refugees, examine and test them: Allah knows best as to their faith: if ye ascertain that they are believers, then send them not back to the unbelievers” (Qur’an 60:10).

In refusing to send Umm Kulthum back to the Quraysh, Muhammad broke the treaty. Although Muslim apologists have claimed throughout history that the Quraysh broke it first, this incident came before all those by the Quraysh that Muslims point to as treaty violations.

This is easily answered by referring to Martin Lings' Muhammad. On page 259 he says "So when Umm Kulthum's two full brothers came to take her back, the Prophet refused to let them have her, and Quraysh accepted his refusal without protest. There had been no mention of women in the treaty." Lings notes that the revelation came to the Prophet before Umm Kulthum escaped to Medina. Lings' biography is noted to be almost a carbon copy translation of ibn Hisham's biography of the Messenger of Allah, peace and prayers be upon him. If the Muslims had broken the treaty it could be easily assumed that the Quraysh would have been looking to wage another battle or at the very least to promote the news that the Prophet had finally shown signs of being treacherous. But to no avail, the Quraysh, much to Spencer's disappointment, made no fuss about women coming back. This sort of thing is called a loop hole and the Prophet made use of it and coincidentally the Quraysh did not protest the action. The treaty remained in tact until confederates of Quraysh broke the treaty and allowed the Muslims to finally wage the final battle which would consolidate their hold over the Hejaz.

Last but not least, Spencer says the Prophet said to kill all Jews.

And as for the bit about killing Jews, both of the earliest biographers of Muhammad, Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Sa'd, both zealous Muslims, record his telling his followers at a certain point: “Kill any Jew that falls into your power.”

I tried to find his source on this. I don't own a copy of either seerah he mentions. I Googled the statement and found his book through Google Books. In it, Spencer says that this was a "blanket command" ordered by the Prophet. Also, he says that "This was not a military order." He says this statement was issued after the assassination of Ka'b ibn Ashraf right after the Battle of Badr. If what Spencer says is true then the Companions should have been rid of the Bani Qurayzah (a Jewish tribe living in Medina) much earlier than after the Battle of the Trench because they were still living in Medina when this statement was uttered by the Prophet. If it was a blanket command and was not a military order then what did the statement mean exactly? Spencer does not clarify, but the assumption he implies in his book is that Muslims should kill any Jew they encounter. Again, this assumption does not work because the Bani Qurayzah were still living as neighbors of the Muslims within Medina.

In any case, all of the points Spencer brings up demonstrate once again either his lack of knowledge about Islamic sources or his disdain and negative opinion of the Prophet of Islam. There is a reason he is invited almost solely by right wing organizations. He is not a credible source on Islam. In fact, his scholarship is as shoddy as most Salafi scholars. It seems the two were made for one another.