Damage control: After Robert Spencer event, Stanford hosts Muslim speaker who falsely claims “Islam” means “peace”
It was perhaps inevitable that despite going to every possible length to make sure that as few students as possible heard what I actually said, Stanford administrators would still be so afraid that some students would go off the Leftist reservation and start thinking for themselves that they had to bring in a speaker who would soothe the student body back to sleep with the lies that are currently acceptable to the political and academic elites. After all, after I was screamed at by fascist students for an hour and a half at the University of Buffalo, even though I barely got a word in edgewise, administrators there made sure their students were thoroughly buffaloed by not one, but two Muslim speakers, both of whom defamed me and lied brazenly, knowing that they had the warm approval of the university to do both.
And so now Stanford, in its never-ending quest to stamp out all diversity of opinion, hosts Karim Khan, QC, and the lies pile up like sexual assault charges against Tariq Ramadan. There is no record, meanwhile, of Stanford’s fascist deans Nanci Howe and Snehal Naik engineering any disruption of Khan’s lecture, as they did at mine. Lies about Islam are just fine with Stanford’s administrators; it’s the truth they can’t stand.
Much more below.
“International lawyer Karim Khan argues peace at core of Islam,” by Justin Daniels, Stanford Daily, December 1, 2017:
International lawyer and prosecutor Karim Khan QC argued that human rights are at the core of Islam in a Thursday talk on campus sponsored by the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice.Khan, a Muslim himself, opened his talk at the Stanford Humanities by highlighting the peace and universal tolerance that Islam teaches. Islam, he said, means peace; the standard Muslim greeting means, “upon you, peace.” He stressed that this “you” refers not just to Muslims but to all of humanity.”
In reality, “Islam” means submission, not peace. Nor does the “you” in “Peace be upon you” refer not just to Muslims but to all of humanity. Islamic law directs Muslims to say “Peace be upon you” only to fellow Muslims. To a non-Muslim, they are to say, “Peace be upon those who are rightly guided,” i.e., Peace be upon the Muslims.”
In fact, Khan believes that tolerance is at the core of Islam, citing the Ashtiname of Muhammad as a “shining example” of Islamic human rights from 628 CE. The Ashtiname of Muhammad is a covenant written by the prophet Muhammad guaranteeing the protection of Christians.“We are with them,” the text reads. “I, my servants, my followers defend them … No compulsion is to be on them. Their judges are not to be removed, nor their monks from their monasteries.”Furthermore, the text calls on Muslims to defend the Christians, saying that “no one is to force them to travel or fight” and that “the Muslims will fight for them.”
The Achtiname is indeed supposed to have been written by Muhammad around 628 to the monks of St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai. Unfortunately, it is of even more doubtful authenticity than everything else about Muhammad’s life. Muhammad is supposed to have died in 632; the Muslims conquered Egypt between 639 and 641. The document says of the Christians, “No one shall bear arms against them.” So were the conquerors transgressing against Muhammad’s command issued just over a decade before their invasion of Egypt?
There is no mention of this document in any remotely contemporary Islamic sources. Among other anomalies, it bears a drawing of a mosque with a minaret, although minarets weren’t put on mosques until long after the time Muhammad is supposed to have lived, which is why Muslim hardliners consider them unacceptable innovation (bid’a).
The document exempts the monks of St. Catherine’s monastery from paying the jizya. While it is conceivable that Muhammad, believing he bore the authority of Allah, would exempt them from an obligation specified by Allah himself in the Qur’an (9:29), the Achtiname specifies that Christians of Egypt are to pay a jizya only of twelve drachmas. Yet according to the seventh-century Coptic bishop John of Nikiou, who had firsthand knowledge of what happened when the Arabs invaded Egypt, Christians in Egypt “came to the point of offering their children in exchange for the enormous sums that they had to pay each month.”
The Achtiname, in short, bears all the earmarks of being an early medieval Christian forgery, perhaps developed by the monks themselves in order to protect the monastery and Egyptian Christians from the depredations of zealous Muslims. Modern scholars doubt its authenticity, and the prevailing opinion among Muslims is likewise dubious.
When asked about Robert Spencer, the controversial conservative writer and self-proclaimed Islamophobe who spoke on campus Nov.14, Khan said that many of the Islamic verses Spencer cited were taken out of context.
Such as? Example, please? Funny how all my critics get all general when talking about how wrong I am. Anyway, why do so many jihad terrorists take these verses out of context in the same way?
“The case put forward by [Spencer] is born of a lack of information and maybe a smidgen of prejudice,” he said.
And Khan bases this analysis of my work on what?
However, he stressed that Spencer is free to make his own decisions.
Thanks, bud. Appreciate your permission. I’m free to make my own decisions, just not free to speak to students at Stanford.
I’d be glad to debate you, Mr. Khan, on whether or not the Qur’an teaches violence against unbelievers. You will, however, either contemptuously dismiss this invitation or ignore it altogether. That in itself is telling.
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