A fantastic refutation by Danios of Loonwatch. Click the link above for the full article.
Spencer is hawking his new book, which he is pushing as a “scholarly work” about how Muhammad didn’t exist. His home page boasts that Robert Spencer is “[t]he acclaimed scholar of Islam”, “[a] serious scholar”, and “a brilliant scholar.”
I have pointed out in the past that Spencer is not a scholar of any sort–especially not on anything related to Islam. He simply does not have the academic qualifications to claim this. What other “scholar” do you know of that doesn’t even have a master’s or PhD degree on the subject he claims to be a “scholar” of? He only has a one-year master’s degree in “the field of early Christianity”. How does that make him an “acclaimed scholar of Islam”?
Another major problem with Spencer’s claim to scholarship is that he simply does not speak or understand Arabic. This much has been apparent in the past, and it becomes painstakingly obvious in his latest response to me (as I shall show below). I don’t think Spencer needs to know Arabic to criticize Islam (as some Muslim apologists insist), but I do think he needs to know it in order to be considered a “scholar of Islam” (a title he claims)–let alone “[t]he acclaimed scholar of Islam.”
Combine (1) not having any academic qualifications whatsoever with (2) not knowing Arabic and you have a situation like this: imagine some random blogger claiming to be “a world renowned physician” without ever having (1) gone to medical school and (2) without ever having studied or learned anatomy. Such a blogger might be able to bring up good points about the field of medicine, but nobody in their right mind would consider him a “world renowned physician”–and if he claimed any such thing, his credibility would be shattered.
The need to understand Arabic in order to be a “scholar of Islam” cannot become more apparent than it is now with Spencer’s latest reply. And here’s why: Spencer argues (see quote above) that thehadith (saying of the Prophet Muhammad) found in Haykal’s Hayat Muhammad contradicts the one in Ibn Sa’d's Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir. He argues that Haykal may have reproduced another hadith that contradicts the one found in Ibn Sa’d's book, or even that Haykal may have engaged in academic deceit (i.e. “altered this tradition for apologetic purposes”). That’s a serious and bold claim to make against Haykal.
Yet, had Spencer simply been able to read Arabic, he would have realized that the hadith in Haykal’sHayat Muhammad and Ibn Sa’d's Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir are the exact same! They are word-for-word identical. In other words, Haykal took the hadith from Ibn Sa’d's book. That Spencer couldn’t see this speaks volumes about his “scholarship.” So, Spencer’s blathering on about Haykal finding another contradictory hadith or of manipulating the text is indicative of his sophomoric “scholarship.”
How could Haykal have reproduced another hadith or have manipulated the text when in fact the wording in both Haykal’s book and Ibn Sa’d's is the exact same?
0 comments:
Post a Comment