PBS may also be charged with
having broadcast religious propaganda in place of balanced educational,
instructional, and public information material, despite elaborate claims
to the contrary.
The Muslim Brotherhood, in a 1991 memoir, spoke of its "work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within."
The role played by radical individuals in a PBS broadcast and website
raises many serious questions, not just for the trustees of PBS, but
for national agencies responsible for accuracy in the U.S. media.
If PBS does not publicly correct this confusion and revoke its
association with the project, may we not ask just how trusted -- and
publicly financed -- this outlet should really be?
For more than ten years, the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
at the University of Connecticut has singled out America's Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS) as the country's
most trusted public institution. A 2012
poll for PBS,
carried out by independent survey consultants Harris Interactive and
ORC Online Caravan found that public trust in PBS (at 26%) was far
higher than in any other U.S. institution, such as the courts of law
(13%), newspapers (6%), the Federal government (5%) or Congress (4%).
That these figures have been consistent for so many years, would seem a
strong indicator of PBS's publicly funded role at the heart of America's
democracy. Almost
90% of US households with televisions watch PBS.
This resembles the situation in Great Britain, where the
BBC also tops a poll
on public trust: (31%) compared to the commercial channels (17%) and
the upmarket press (15%), who come in second and third place, and well
above politicians.
Public trust in the BBC, however, has
dropped severely
since the revelation of television presenter Jimmy Savile's extensive
paedophile escapades while working for the broadcaster. Savile apart,
there are many who seriously distrust the BBC's reputedly balanced news
coverage with respect
to Israel and
the Islamic world.
It is with Islam too that PBS betrays its own reputation for trustworthiness and lack of bias.
To explain this, it would help first to see how PBS ended up, no
doubt with the best of intentions, presenting to the American public a
series of apologetics about Islam -- all still available.
One can start by concentrating on just two items: a film entitled
Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, currently available on DVD; and a
website
of the same name based around it. Both the documentary and the
materials on the PBS website are more or less pure apologetics about
Muhammad and certain aspects of Islam. But more than that, serious
questions surround individuals who appear in the film and organizations
that contributed to its funding. Neither all the interviewees nor all of
the funding bodies can be said to have acted in bad faith. The focus is
on others, who have gravely exposed PBS to charges of inadequate
monitoring of textual content, interviewee selection, and association
with external agencies. They may also be charged with having broadcast,
through a film and on the internet, religious propaganda in place of
balanced educational, instructional, and public information material,
despite elaborate claims to the contrary.
The film
Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet premiered on December 18, 2002, to wide praise across America. A
Los Angeles Times
review described it as "a candid, thoughtful, flowing, visually
stunning film… that is as timely as documentaries get... this important
film delivers again and again." Others followed suit. The documentary
has since been rebroadcast on more than 600 individual PBS stations. The
U.S. viewership is estimated at more than 10 million. The documentary
received worldwide broadcast in many languages on National Geographic
International in December 2003, and to many other countries. The film is
used in thousands of communities, schools, universities, religious
congregations, and civic organizations throughout the United States to
increase Americans' "understanding" of Muslims and Islam.
Guides to
facilitate discussions of the film's themes are available through the
20,000 Dialogues project and the
Islam Project.
The DVD of the film was re-issued in 2011 and includes the dialogue
guide and lesson plans for teachers to use the film in the classroom.
This was clearly a major project that has done much to influence
American perceptions of Islam. In principle, a well-balanced film and
website, which emphasize the many positive aspects of Islam, are a
much-needed counter to many books and websites providing the American
public with exaggerated and inaccurate images of Islam and Muslims.
There is much to be gained from better knowledge and superior
information as a route to community integration within America's melting
pot. Such a project is exactly the sort of thing PBS
should be broadcasting. But with
Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet,
PBS lost its way and created not a balanced and educationally sound
approach to that purpose, but an explicit piece of Islamic propaganda
that presses all the buttons of Muslim missionizing (
da'wa) and apologetics.
If the film and the online text had been announced as aids for
proselytization, created by an Islamic foundation and designed to
attract potential converts, there would be no need to criticize it.
Muslims have the same rights as evangelical Christians, Mormons,
Jehovah's Witnesses, Baha'is, or the followers of any other missionary
religion, sect or cult, to produce and disseminate material explaining
and summoning others to their faith. But for such a blatant document of
apologetics to be spread throughout America in the guise of a PBS
broadcast creates quite a different issue.
Because they carry the PBS imprimatur, the film and the website
appear to carry an authority beyond that of a self-certified enterprise.
Because they have solicited advice from academics, their validity and
objectivity appear assured. Because the dominant voice in the
documentary is that of Karen Armstrong, a non-Muslim and former nun, the
appearance of a strong Islamic input is negated. These and other
factors lend the work a spurious authority. We are indeed on treacherous
waters. To show just how treacherous these waters are, one must start
by looking at the sponsorship of the film and the individuals taking
part in it.
Of the 18 sponsors of the film, only two are non-Muslim and 16 are
Muslim trusts, foundations and individuals. The full list of donors is
only given on the film, not on the website. It should be clear from this
alone that it would be much to expect great balance. Many of these
sponsors seem perfectly above-board, and represent individuals who are
pious Muslims and who define themselves as loyal Americans. They do not
give cause for concern. Some are respectable in themselves but carry
other associations.
Arabian Bulk Trade,
for example, is a commercial enterprise, but it is based in Saudi
Arabia, where the official religion is hardline Wahhabi Islam. Others
seem less transparent and are linked to dubious organizations.
The
Sabadia Family Foundation is run by disgraced defense contractor,
Rahim Sabadia
(Abdur Rahim Noormohamed), a major funder of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), outed in 2008 as an unindicted
co-conspirator in the trial of the
Holy Land Foundation,
a significant source of funds to the terrorist group Hamas. Sabadia
donated money directly to the Holy Land Foundation (and indirectly to
Hamas), and to the American Muslim Foundation. This latter organization
was founded and run by a leading Islamist,
Abdurahman Alamoudi,
a financier of al-Qa'ida and an active supporter of Hamas, Hizbullah,
and other terror groups. Alamoudi is currently serving a 23-year prison
sentence for, among other things, involvement in a conspiracy to
assassinate a Saudi prince.
Sabadia has also donated generously to
Islamic Relief USA, a charity
linked directly to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and to radical mosques and imams in the U.S. Among these is the
Masjid Al-Islam in Oakland, whose imam,
Abdul Alim Musa, founded
As-Sabiqun, a Hamas-supporting, anti-integrationist, anti-American radical Islamic entity.
Sabadia himself has a criminal record dating back to 1985.
Immigration authorities ordered him out of America ten years earlier,
but he used subterfuge to remain and become a U.S. citizen.
David Rusin has explained:
According to a decision
from an Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) district director
dated May 23, 1977, Noormohamed/Sabadia entered the U.S. from
Switzerland in January 1976 on a non-immigrant visa for business in New
York on behalf of a textile company. He soon went to Dallas and joined
his brother Moosa in a separate venture exporting electronics. When his
six-month admission was nearly up, Noormohamed/Sabadia applied for
permanent residence based on the claim that he was a qualified investor.
The INS official ruled that he did not meet the requirements, rejected
his application, and instructed him to leave the country, declaring: "It
can only be concluded that you and your brother did not enter the
United States in good faith as non-immigrants without any intention of
circumventing the quota restrictions of the Immigration and Nationality
Act, as amended." In other words, they had planned to remain in the U.S.
from the start. The INS district director dismissed a motion to reconsider his decision, the INS regional commissioner affirmed the denial, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas backed the INS, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals approved the ruling. Yet Noormohamed/Sabadia managed to stay.
In 2010, he lost his secret-level clearance with the U.S. Navy, and
in 2014 he was tried for making "a materially false, fictitious, and
fraudulent statement and representation in a matter within the
jurisdiction of a department or agency of the United States."
[1]
Can PBS or the video's production company, Kikim Media, have been
carrying out due diligence when taking money from a man such as Rahim
Sabadia? Apparently not. Did they do so for any of the institutions and
individuals who financed or took part in the film? Quite possibly not.
Another sponsor was the
Irfan Kathwari Foundation, a pro-integration body founded by
M. Farooq Kathwari,
a Kashmiri American whose son Irfan went to Afghanistan to fight the
Russians and died as a jihad fighter during an attack on Kabul. The
foundation's participation in the film certainly makes sense in an
integrationist context. But Kathwari is himself not above suspicion of
radical Islamist links. In 2004, he was a speaker at the annual conference of ISNA, the
Islamic Society of North America,
previously identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front organization as
well as an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land
Foundation.
Five years later, he sponsored and acted as the keynote speaker at a
conference held by the Kashmir Corps and co-sponsored by the
Muslim Student Association (MSU), a Saudi-funded organization established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. and an associate of ISNA.
The Muslim Brotherhood, in a 1991 memoir, spoke of its "work in America as a kind of grand
jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within," and referred to the MSU as an associate body.
[2]
According to Militant Islam Monitor, Kathwari and his family are "high profile promoters of the Kashmiri separatist cause."
Kathwari's work for integration may be genuine, inspired by the
growing alienation of Muslims in the U.S. But his connections to Muslim
Brotherhood-linked bodies suggest at best a lack of care in his
associations and identify him, not as a thorough radical, but as a
believer with strong convictions that influence the causes to which his
foundation donates.
It is difficult to report on the remaining eleven individuals and
couples who have donated to the PBS project, often because it is
difficult to identify them distinctly from others of the same name.
Those who can be identified appear to be without connections to any form
of Islamic radicalism. There is, however, one exception.
Jukaku Tayeb, who has served as president of the
Michigan chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (
CAIR),
which was recently declared a terrorist group by the United Arab
Emirates and Egypt. There he served under its executive director,
Dawud Walid, an anti-American, anti-Israeli radical. Here again, it would seem as if due diligence was not performed.
A total of 20 advisors, all apparently acting in a personal capacity,
worked with the production team. Of these, only three are non-Muslims
-- but non-Muslims with a marked reputation as apologists for Islam. The
majority seem above reproach and are not remarkable as providers of
information on the life of the prophet or the beliefs and activities of
ordinary Muslims living in the United States. There is much to be
commended in the latter thread, as will be seen when we come to examine
the individuals who appear in the film to share their convictions and
personal histories.
Some of the advisors, however, give cause for concern.
Muzammil Siddiqi studied initially at the Salafi Islamic University of Medina, the world's core educational centre for Islamic radicalism.
[3]
From 1976 to 1980, he worked for the Wahhabi Muslim World League's
Office to the United Nations. He later acted as president of the Muslim
Brotherhood-linked Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) between 1997
and 2000, before being invited to act as an advisor to the Muhammad film
project. He has made
public statements endorsing the execution of homosexuals and
has called for the eventual governance of the U.S. by Muslims through shari'a law. As early as 1992, he acted as a translator for
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, "The Blind Sheikh," a radical terrorist imam who planned the
first World Trade Center bombing
one year later. Siddiqi supported jihad in Afghanistan and Israel, and
stated that he hopes for an Islamic state to control what is now Israel
and the Palestinian territories. All his links from an early age are
terrorist-connected and radical. How did the PBS fail to see this when
none of the information was secret?
Ingrid Mattson, a convert to Islam, was described as, "Perhaps the most noticed figure among American Muslim women" in a 2010
New York Times article. She served as the head of ISNA up to 2010. Campus Watch has used direct quotations from her speeches and writings to
identify her as a radical.
Mattson says that "People of faith have a certain kind of solidarity
with others of their faith community that transcends the basic rights
and duties of citizenship." She denies that there are jihadist sleeper
cells in the U.S. She defends the extremist Wahhabi form of Islam. She
praises the father of modern Islamic radicalism, Abu Ala Mawdudi. She
has claimed more than once that "Muslim women have the same legal rights
as Muslim men," which is patent nonsense.
[4]
She has spoken of the "brutality" of the Israel government. She rejects
dialogue or friendship with many non-Muslims: "it is not permitted for a
Muslim to maintain a close friendship with a highly intelligent person
who engages him or her in stimulating conversation, if that person
continuously derides the sacred." (All citations are based on the Campus
Watch article.) Again, no due diligence seems to have been carried out
by PBS.
Another advisor,
Zahid Bukhari, later served as
president
of the Islamic Council of North America (ICNA), co-founded the National
Islamic Shura Council, which consists of ISNA and ICNA, and has been
chaired by the formerly mentioned Muzammil Siddiqi. Bukhari has stated
that "Muslims may have difficulties with ... Jews because of founding of
the state of Israel."
Azizah al-Hibri, a Lebanese-American woman who has
played down
the influence of Wahhabism in the U.S., has condemned the Western press
for "sensationalizing" Taliban atrocities in order to "attack Islam;"
cautioned the United States against fighting Osama bin Laden
during the month of Ramadan; has supported a
Salafi approach to modernity, and has
asserted that Islamic jurisprudence is superior to Western codes of law. She has
written and lectured extensively on Islam's compatibility with women's rights, human rights, and democracy by
whitewashing the elements of Islamic doctrine and law that contradict these values.
In line with this, Al-Hibri has bafflingly asserted that the Qur'an
encourages freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and democratic,
consultative government. Indeed, she adds, even more bafflingly, the
very concept of the separation of church and state came from Islam. None
of those statements is true, nor can anyone who has read the Qur'an or
studied shari'a law imagine they are. Given that the
punishment for apostasy in Islam is
death, and that Islam means "submission,"
[5]
neither freedom of religion nor freedom of thought seems to be an
Islamic value. And since an authentic Muslim society must rely on laws
"revealed" by God, which may not be altered or added to, and must be
governed by a caliph (or, for the Shi'a, an Imam), democracy and
democratic laws, which are created by man, are totally anathema.
There is more whitewashing of this kind in the narratives and testimonies within the film and the texts on the website.
Finally, less is known of advisor Faizul Khan, other than that he was
an ISNA member and the Assistant Director of the Wahhabi Muslim World
League chapter in New York.
Again, there is nothing to suggest that the majority of the film
project's funders and advisors are anything but sincere, moderate and
patriotic American Muslims. However, several who have been and, in some
cases, still are associated with radical Islamist organizations, are
clearly propagandists working to an agenda that exaggerates the glories
of Islam while whitewashing the negative aspects of the faith or the
activities of Wahhabis, Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood or other people
whose long-term aim is to supplant a democratic America with a strict
form of Islamic rule. Today's radicals take their inspiration from a
range of writers whose works are freely available in the United States:
Hasan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (1906-1949);
Sayyid Qutb, the MB's most famous ideologue (1906-1966), and
Sayyid Abu'l-A'la Mawdudi.
These men, like their hundreds of thousands of protégés round the
world, advocated a total remaking of all political systems, replacing
democracy with absolutist Islamic rule under the jurisdiction of shari'a
law.
The role played by radical individuals in a PBS broadcast and website
raises many serious questions, not just for the trustees of the PBS but
for national agencies responsible for accuracy in the U.S. media.
Let us examine the identities of the individuals who appear in the
film as narrators or interviewees. As with the donors and advisors,
doubtless most of those who took part in the film were innocent of
ulterior motives. Najah Bazzy, a Muslim Critical Care Nurse from
Dearborn, for example, comes across as a shining example of a devout
woman devoted to her patients, an American citizen whose family is well
integrated in wider society, and a model of faith-inspired care for
humanity. So too, Kevin James, a convert who works as a Supervising Fire
Marshall for the New York Fire Department and who was one of the
firemen to attend the World Trade Center after its destruction on
9/11/2001, is a fine American whose faith inspires him to his duties as a
citizen and service within his faith community. Much of the film is
devoted to showing the many ways in which Muslim Americans strive for
acceptance and to do good in the world. They are solid refutations of
the tirades many Muslims in the West have suffered.
Of the sixteen named participants, only three are non-Muslims,
although viewers may be forgiven for thinking that Karen Armstrong, who
provides the strongest voice here, is the most devoted to Muhammad as a
great man and a prophet. The materials on the website were written and
edited by Michael Wolfe of Kikim Media, a convert; Alexander Kroenemer,
co-founder of Unity Productions Foundation, also a convert, and Michael
Schwarz, a Jew, and by members of the advisory board.
Karen Armstrong, who provides the strongest voice in the film Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet,
comes across as a starry-eyed ingénue and the most devoted to Muhammad
as a great man and a prophet. Her incompetence as a historian and her
naivety in uncritical defense of her idol make her dangerous. (Image
source: Video screenshot from Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet)
|
Professor John Voll
of Georgetown University is a recognized scholar of Islam who appears
several times in the movie. His credentials should not be questioned,
but his evident bias towards Muhammad and Islam makes him less a neutral
observer than an apologist. When the University of South Florida (USF)
fired
Sami Al-Arian, a professor charged with aiding the terrorist group
Palestinian Islamic Jihad,
Voll condemned USF
for "caving in to public pressure at the expense of academic
integrity," citing "McCarthyite popular pressures for dismissal." Arian
was finally
deported from the United States on February 6, 2015.
Voll has also tried to explain away Islamic terrorism as a hostile
response to American power, suggesting that, if American might were
absent, there would be no need for terrorism. This leaves unexplained
earlier Salafi rejection of the West in general from fear of modernity,
democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and human rights
legislation.
Another prominent speaker is
M. Cherif Bassiouni,
Emeritus Professor of Law at DePaul University, where he taught from
1964-2012. He is an Egyptian-American who moved to the U.S. in 1961.
Bassiouni is often referred to as
"the father of international criminal law" and is the author of a book entitled,
Crimes against Humanity.
He has held many positions in the United Nations, has received awards
and medals by the dozen, and in 1999 was nominated for a Nobel Prize. A
formidable figure indeed, it is not surprising that he was chosen to
speak several times in the film. An intelligent and persuasive author
who speaks about the dangers of "Islamophobia" and modern jihadi
violence, he nevertheless dismisses critics of Islam and defends several
extremist groups. In a 2007
interview
with Iran's Press TV, Bassiouni opposed the boycott of Hamas. "Hamas,"
he says, "was democratically elected and is not a violent movement. The
statement in its charter about Israel's destruction does not imply it
poses a threat to Israel or the world. This is just not true," he
stressed.
That a man of such erudition and a compelling knowledge of human
rights would say that Hamas "is not a violent movement" is profoundly
worrying. In a lengthy
essay
published by Loonwatch in 2010, Bassiouni writes well about genuine
Islamophobia but defends Hamas, the Holy Land Foundation, CAIR, ISNA and
other groups. He also attacks Israel for defending itself -- without
suggesting what else it might do, apart from surrender -- and argues, as
so many do, that Islamist terrorism has nothing to do with Islam or the
Qur'an.
This, despite the constant use of Qur'anic verses and
hadith selections by Islamic State, Hamas, al-Qa'ida and others to justify their actions in conformity with the shari'a law of
jihad. This is congruent with Bassiouni's
membership
of the Advisory Board of the Free Gaza Movement, alongside some of the
most notorious anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activists, from Noam Chomsky
to John Pilger and British Baroness Tonge. In 2010, Bassiouni
openly supported the Free Gaza Movement and its
flotilla,
which not only included armed extremists, but also broke maritime law
by entering a restricted area without permission. That was hardly an
honest position for an acclaimed professor of law to take. On several
occasions, he
challenged the FBI
in court for the right to amend documents in which he was linked with
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and other paramilitary
organizations. On each occasion, his appeals were turned down.
Here, perhaps more than ever, it is clear that PBS did not exercise
due diligence. Bassiouni will have seemed beyond reproach, but it is
perfectly clear that in his defense of Islam, he is an extremist. He
uses his position to cover up anything that might prove either an
embarrassment to Muslims or a criticism of Islam. He has
argued, for example, in the
Chicago Tribune
and elsewhere, that Islamic law does not punish apostasy -- a statement
that might have come as a surprise to the many thousands of Muslim
apostates and heretics who have been executed from the time of Muhammad
to the present day. In its
Freedom of Thought 2013
report, the International Humanist and Ethical Union found that
apostates (including atheists) and blasphemers can be sentenced to death
in 13 countries, all of which are Muslim states. To what extent,
therefore, can Bassiouni be trusted as an objective authority on Islamic
law?
Having revealed the extremism of some of the project's funders,
advisors and on-screen speakers, it is important to say again that there
is much in the film that pleases. The most regular presence is the
critical care nurse Najah Baggy, at work, with her family, and
volunteering with a charity. Kevin James, the fireman and arson
investigator, is a charismatic and sincere advocate of balanced
integration. Muslims such as these are ordinary Americans who order
their lives through a pious application of the ethics and principles of a
deeply ingrained religious faith.
There are lessons to be learned from such scenes, lessons of
tolerance towards Muslims who are actively well-integrated within U.S.
society, who understand American values, and who are no different from
the country's loyal Jews, Mormons, Amish, Baha'is, and other members of
minority faith communities.
It is not this aspect of the film that deserves criticism. Quite the
opposite. What causes concern is simply the powerful influence exerted
on film and text by Muslims who are, as shown, not particularly
integrated or who positively resist any real integration at all.
Equally, it is important to focus on the narrative of the prophet
Muhammad that runs through the documentary and the online texts. As
mentioned, this narrative is far from balanced or neutral. It does not
serve as a genuine educational text, despite having been circulated so
widely to American schools and college students in the absence of
anything to reflect a different point of view -- not least a neutral and
accurate interpretation of Muhammad and Islam.
The narrative of the film is thoroughly hagiographic. Hagiography is
not considered as a proper basis for history in modern U.S.
non-religious educational institutions. The film's Muhammad narrative
departs not an inch from traditional Islamic accounts, from Ibn Ishaq to
current missionary pamphlets. It avoids any of the issues that have
been raised about Muhammad's life and prophetic career over the past
sixty or so years by Western scholars, such as
William Montgomery Watt, the French Marxist historian and linguist
Maxime Rodinson, whose biography
Mohammed
was controversial in the Muslim world, or Princeton's Patricia Crone,
whose erudite and groundbreaking studies of the earliest Islamic period
sent ripples through academic circles.
In order to exemplify this lack of critical content and attitude, it will be enough to focus on the contribution made to
Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet by popular British writer Karen Armstrong, of whom
Hugh Fitzgerald has written:
"For Karen Armstrong history does not exist. It is putty in the hands
of the person who writes about history. You use it to make a point, to
do good as you see it. And whatever you need to twist or omit is
justified by the purity of your intentions -- and Karen Armstrong always
has the purest of intentions."
Here are some examples of Armstrong's take on Islam, taken almost at random from her book,
Islam: A Short History
(2000). "The emancipation of women was a project dear to the Prophet's
heart" (p. 14), or "... Jews, like Christians, enjoyed full religious
liberty in the Islamic empires. Anti-Semitism is a Christian vice....
Hatred of the Jews became marked in the Muslim world only after the
creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent loss of Arab
Palestine" (p. 18), or this: "the word
islam is etymologically related to
salam
[peace], and in these early years Islam did promote cohesion and
concord" (p. 21)." This last really does show Armstrong's
amateurishness. The words
islam and
salam do indeed come from the same root, but
islam is derived from a totally different verbal form and means "submission," not "peace."
On screen, Armstrong comes across as a starry-eyed ingénue, even more
in awe and wonderment of the prophet of Islam than any of the Muslims
in the film. Her incompetence as a historian and her naivety in
uncritical defense of her idol make her a dangerous woman, insofar as
she blocks all routes to an as-accurate-as-possible understanding of a
man who brought about great changes in the world, yet sparked off
centuries of
jihad, unequal treatment of non-Muslims; divided the
world between his believers and all other humans, and who must,
therefore, be subjected to a combination of praise and criticism.
Here are some of Armstrong's ruminations on Muhammad and his impact
on Arab society, taken from the PBS documentary: "He [Muhammad] brought
peace and new hope to Arabia." In fact, immediately after Muhammad's
death on June 8, 632, rivalries between his Meccan and Medinan followers
burst out, while many Arab tribes abandoned the new faith. The first
caliph,
Abu Bakr,
sent out armed forces to drive the apostate tribes back to Islam or to
slaughter those who refused, thereby launching the Wars of the
Ridda
(Apostasy) that lasted for a year or more. Under the third and fourth
caliphs, civil war broke out between Muslims. Muhammad's grandson
Husayn, with his family and followers were slaughtered ruthlessly by the
forces of the Caliph Yazid at the Battle of Karbala in 680. And while
all this was happening, half the world was reeling under the impact of
the Arab jihad conquests. "Peace and new hope?"
Armstrong praises Muhammad's care for the well-being of women without
mentioning his use of captured women as concubines for his troops, or
men's freedom to divorce their wives or to marry more than one woman and
take concubines. She discusses Muhammad's most beloved wife, A'isha,
but make no mention of her being nine years old when her marriage was
consummated. She deals with the massacre in 627 of the males of a Jewish
tribe, the
Banu Qurayza,
and the enslavement of all their women and children, but in doing so,
she places all the blame on the Jews, describing their many supposed
defects, and agreeing that they were punished for supposed treachery.
She summarizes matters thus: "This cannot be seen as anti-Semitism
per se. Muhammad had nothing against the Jewish people
per se or the Jewish religion." It is as if she has never read the
Qur'an's many anti-Semitic verses dictated in his later years. Here are some:
- "God has cursed them [the Jews] on account of their unbelief, so they do not believe but a little." Qur'an 4:46.
- "See how they [the Jews] forge the lie against God, and this is sufficient as a manifest sin." [4:50]
- "For the iniquity of the Jews did We forbid them the good things
which had been made lawful for them and for their hindering many
(people) from God's way. And their taking usury though indeed they were
forbidden it and their devouring the property of people falsely, and We
have prepared for the unbelievers from among them a painful
chastisement."
- "On account of their [the Children of Israel] breaking their
covenant, We cursed them and made their hearts hard; they altered the
words [of God] from their places and they neglected a portion of what
they were reminded of; and you shall always discover treachery in them
excepting a few of them; so pardon them and turn away; surely Allah
loves those who do good (to others)."
At 1:22:56, Armstrong develops this simplistic account of Muhammad
and the Jews: "The Qur'an continues to tell Muslims to honour the
peoples of the Book [Jews and Christians] and to honour their religions
as authentic."
In fact, the later passages of the Qur'an do nothing of the sort, as
we have just seen; Armstrong, who claims to be a scholar of Islam,
should know that. Jewish and Christian beliefs are derided (such as that
the Trinity constitutes polytheism; that Jesus is not the Son of God;
that the crucifixion was a fake; that the Torah and Gospels were
tampered with by their priests and rabbis), and that Muslims are told
not to take Jews and Christians as friends: "O you who believe! do not
take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each
other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he
is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people." (Qur'an
5:51 and elsewhere).
According to al-Bukhari, the words: "those who earn Thine anger and those who go astray" in the most recited
sura (1) of the Qur'an refers specifically
to the Jews and Christians (
Sahih al-Bukhari, vol. 1, Book 12, hadith 749).
Armstrong then goes on: "And the Jewish tribes who had not given help
to the Meccans continued to live in Medina completely unmolested.
Muhammad was not trying to exterminate and to get rid of very dangerous
internal enemies." What on earth is she saying? The massacre of the Banu
Qurayza took place in the year 627, immediately after the Battle of the
Trench. By then Muhammad had already expelled the other two Jewish
tribes in Medina: the Banu Qaynuqa in 624 and the Nadir in 625. And
Armstrong fails to mention that in 628 Muhammad himself led an
expedition to the Jewish oasis of Khaybar, where the Banu Nadir had
found refuge with other Jewish tribes. Muhammad then defeated the Jews
in the Battle of Khaybar, took their land and imposed heavy quotas on
their produce afterwards. Has Armstrong never heard the oft-repeated
chant "
Khaybar, Khaybar, Ya Yahud: Jaysh Muhammad sa-ya'ud"? "[Remember] Khaybar, oh you Jews: the army of Muhammad is coming back!"?
In the same section, Armstrong further distorts history when she says
that, after his victory over the Meccans, Muhammad "stopped the
fighting." This is also a total re-write of historical fact. During his
career, Muhammad ordered or accompanied
one hundred raids and expeditions.
He conquered Mecca in December 629. Between then and his death in 632,
he sent out forces on 28 expeditions and battles, including an
expedition to Tabuk, which effectively began the Arab invasion of the
Byzantine empire and the wider Arab conquests to the east and west. In
May 632, about three months before his death, Muhammad sent out an army
under Usama bin Zayd that invaded Palestine. The local population there
were "slaughtered" by Muslims, who went about "destroying, burning and
taking as many captives as they could".
[6]
Why on earth would a PBS documentary feature -- more prominently than
anyone -- a woman with no academic expertise in Islam, no apparent
knowledge of any Islamic language, no background in Islamic historical
research, who delivered a hagiographic approach to the biography of the
prophet -- all accompanied by a marked tendency to exaggerate, distort,
and omit facts? And this lack is coupled with her own uncritical
missionary zeal for her spiritual quest in the belief that all religions
are wonderful and that everything about Islam is unbelievably,
super-duper, far above all we have ever thought. Why would a
non-historian with evangelical zeal for fantasy be allowed to speak in
any film even purporting to be a documentary?
It would matter far less if this were aired as fiction, or a project by an overtly recognized Muslim
da'wa [outreach] organization.
The problem is that the propaganda and apologetics are hidden from
the public, and the whole thing is presented under the flag of America's
most trusted institution. If PBS does not publicly correct this
confusion and revoke its association with the project, may we not ask
just how trusted -- and publicly-financed -- this outlet should really
be?
Denis MacEoin is a lecturer in Arabic and Islamic
Studies and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. He
has contributed to the massive "Encyclopedia of Islam" (2nd ed.), the "Encyclopedia Iranica," the "Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam in the Modern World" and other reference works on Islam.
[1] For further details of Sabadia, see David J. Rusin, "
Rahim Sabadia: Portrait of a Disgraced Defense Contractor,"
PJ Media, 28 May 2014, and Matt Pearce, Brook Williams, "
Did Islamic charities cost security contractor his security clearance?"
Orange County Register, June 3, 2011, and an
Immigration and Naturalization Service document.
[2] For more on the MSA, see "
Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA),"
Discover the Networks, and links listed there; also,
links here.
[3] For fuller details of this institution and its role in radicalizing Muslims in the West, see Chris Heffelfinger,
Radical Islam in America: Salafism's Journey from Arabia to the West,
Washington D.C., 2011, pp. 64 ff.; Michael Farquhar, "The Islamic
University of Medina since 1961: The Politics of Religious Mission and
the Making of Modern Salafi Pedagogy," Conference paper.
[4]
In Islamic law, a woman can only marry one man at a time, whereas a man
may marry up to four women and take concubines. A Muslim woman may only
marry a Muslim, but a Muslim man may also marry a Jewish or Christian
woman. A woman's inheritance is normally half that of a man's. In cases
of divorce, a woman may only be granted custody of her children up to
the age of seven, whereupon it is automatically awarded to the father. A
man has the right to divorce his wife just by saying "I divorce you,"
but a woman must apply for a
khula, for which she has to return
her dowry, obtain her husband's consent, and seek a judicial ruling. If a
man wants to remarry a divorced wife, she has to marry and have sexual
relations with another man, who must then divorce her. A man is legally
entitled to demand sex with his wife at any time or in any place, and if
she does not comply "the angels will curse her until dawn." In
countries such as Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, women are required
to wear part or full veils. Men have few restrictions on dress.
[5] The word "islam" is a verbal noun from the Arabic verb
aslama.
Aslama is from the same root as
salama,
meaning to make peace, but it is a totally different form of the root,
which produces several complete verbs, nouns, adjectives etc.
Âslama means "to surrender or to submit".
[6] Moshe Gil,
A History of Palestine, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 31-32
