Transcript: Robert Spencer Blog Interview

Here is the question and answer from the my interview  with Robert Spenceer here , author of the book, The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion. AUDIO HERE: Download robert_spencer_10906.wav
(run time 45 minutes)

Robert Spencer: Hi, Jerry, how are you?

Jerry Gordon: Good, you?

Robert Spencer: Good.

Jerry Gordon: I'd like to ask you a sort of general-context question about the eruption of Islam during its first century, and to draw to today's context. At the time that Islam was ... and boiling over of Arabian peninsula, the great sweep and conquest had basically what was a Greco-Roman empire, and its attention span was diverted. That's not unlike today.

Robert Spencer: Yeah, they were busy fighting the Persians, who were busy fighting them. That's correct.

Jerry Gordon: And along came other threats, such as the Norse, and a few others we could name.

Robert Spencer: Yeah, in the west they were busy with that and in the east with the Persians, largely.

Jerry Gordon: What did those empires consider the early Muslims to be, and why is it they slept?

Robert Spencer: Well, that's two questions, but really one question, because they considered them to be barbarians. They considered them to be generally not worth dealing with, and it wasn't so much that they underestimated them-- Well, I suppose they did underestimate them, but they just couldn't be bothered. You know, the last battle of Muhammad is not really a battle at all. It's his expedition to Tabouk, which was the north-eastern Arabian city on the border with Syria, and he wanted to engage the Byzantine army there, but probably the Byzantine army could have crushed him at that time, but instead they just withdrew. They just didn't want to deal with them. They had other things they wanted to deal with, and I don't think that they realized, I don't think that anybody possibly could have realized exactly what was going to happen with the Islamic armies pouring out of Arabia within the next ten years, and conquering huge expanses of territory

that now form the heart of what is know as the Islamic world. This contains a lesson for us today, I think, Jerry, in the sense that a lot of people think, well this is just a few bands of nuts who got lucky on 9/11, and really they're not going to be able to pull off anything like that yet, and once again, the non-Muslim world, although we have overwhelming superiority in firepower, technology, and so on, may underestimate the power of a tenacious group with a strong ideological motivation, and so this is something that we're once again at risk of major losses, and civilization-transforming losses, because of a tendency, I think, to underestimate the power of this.

Pamela: Hi, Mr. Spencer. This is Pamela, Atlas Shrugs. How are you?

Robert Spencer: Very well, you?

Pamela: Very well. I want to thank you for all your work.

Robert Spencer: Thank you.

Pamela: Okay, a couple quick things. I know everyone's into studying Islam, and understanding Islam, and I see that as part of the dhimmitude, a part of sucking us into being obsessed with Islam. My question to is two-fold. A, you are a Muslim, [this is wrong he is a Melkite Christian - Atlas] and I was wondering how hostile the Islamic world was to you, and secondly, I don't know if you've noticed an increase, an up tick, in Europe, in the Islamization of Europe, recently the strychnine in the Danish water, the riots in Sweden, in Belgium, and do you see something-- I mean, clearly something's happening, it's not static, but what's your take on that?

Robert Spencer: I think there's definitely an up tick of violence in Europe. I mean, it's Ramadan now, and so Ramadan is the holy month, and while it seems paradoxical to us, as non-Muslims, it's nonetheless-- If you understand that warfare in the name of God is something that God commands, then you're going to do that especially in a month that's dedicated to serving God in a particular way, and so we're seeing an up tick of this violence in Europe because it's Ramadan, primarily, but secondarily also because, yes, the groups in each of those countries are growing increasingly more assertive as they see that the authorities are generally supine and won't do anything to stand up to them, and so they're going to go as far as they can, as long as they don't see any resistance.

Pamela: How far is that?

Robert Spencer: Traditional Islamic law mandates that you don't fight jihad if you have no chance of winning, but they see that they have a very good chance of winning, and that chance of winning is precisely in our loss of will, our failure of will, and our inability to do the hard things that need to be done, to stand up to this problem. Now the first part of your question, I'm not quite sure I understood. Could you repeat it again please?

Pamela: I was wondering how hostile the Islamic world was to you.

Robert Spencer: Me personally?

Pamela: You personally, sir.

Robert Spencer: (laughter) It's funny. I was naive when about five years ago I published my first book on this. I hadn't planned to be doing this work publicly, but for a variety of circumstances ended up doing so, and I thought at that time that there was going to be a thoughtful response, to the book, to the points that I raised, and some attempt on the part of thoughtful Muslims, to engage the points that raised and come up with some kind of a meaningful response. Maybe not so far as to say a dialogue, but simply some kind of a discussion, and instead all I got was scorn and abuse, insults, misrepresentations, and lies about my work, my intentions, my character, my family, anything you can name, and this has not changed. At this point I don't really have any expectations, as a matter of fact, just the other day I got an email from a very prominent moderate Muslim, somebody who a lot of people look to with great hope as representing a real reform in Islam, and he was extremely contemptuous, calling me a liar, and claiming that I had invented a story that's in the new book that Muhammad married his daughter-in-law, and the idea that I invented that-- I mean, in response, I listed for him a number of the Islamic sources in which the story appears, and asked him how was it that I was able to actually get this into all these Muslim books. It's ridiculous, but I think that the level of denial is very high, and at the same time, of course, there have been threats. I was named specifically, by name, in an Al-Qaeda videotape by Adam Gadahn a couple of weeks ago.

Pamela: Yeah, I saw that.

Robert Spencer: And I don't have any illusions about the risks that this work involves, but at the same time I  think that's one of the reasons why it's all the more important because if we give into violent intimidation, and willingly restrict what we are willing to talk about, or consider ourselves free to talk about, then really we're not free at all.

Richard Baehr: Richard Baehr with American Thinker. Daniel Pipes likes to say that the solution to radical Islam is moderate Islam. Do you agree with that, or do you think that there's enough energy or encouragement from moderate Islam, do you think there's enough strength in their numbers, or leadership to make a difference. Because if you look at countries that people didn't think had much of an issue with Islamists before, like Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, that's where the most progress by the radicals has occurred int he last few years.

Robert Spencer: It's important to make several distinctions here. In the first place, I have 100% support for Dr. Pipes. I think he does immensely important work, and I admire him a great deal. He and I have actually discussed this question, and I don't want to speak for him, but I think that we generally agree that moderate Islam that needs to be the solution doesn't actually exist, and has to be formulated in today's society. Now, whether or not this is possible is another question, but the moderate Islam that prevailed in the countries that you named, and in some other places in the world over the last few centuries was a cultural Islam that deemphasized various aspects of various aspects, including jihad violence, but did not formulate any Islamic response to those aspects of Islamic theology, and so in other words you had a deemphasis that was simply based on not talking about these things, ignoring them. That was easy to do, in relatively closed societies. Now with technology, with the Internet, with instantaneous communications around the globe, it's impossible for these countries, where this kind of cultural Islam has prevailed, it's impossible for them to keep out the jihadist Islam, which bases its appeal on the Quran, and on Islamic tradition, and calls Muslims back to what it presents as the true Islam, and so the jihad recruitment is going on among the people who have been raised as cultural Muslims, and they are being appealed to on the basis of the idea that this is the genuine article, that they have fallen away from. Now, that's a very difficult thing to resist, and it makes it imperative in places where cultural Islam has become more or less benign, relatively benign, and developed a means of peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims, it's imperative for the ulama, for the Islamic authorities in those places to actively repudiate the theology of jihad, and to come up with an explicit rejection of it, because ignoring it just doesn't cut it anymore, now that you can go online and within five seconds come up with a Quranic case for jihad violence, or five or ten of them, and so the moderate Islam may be the solution, but ultimately moderate Islam is in retreat, everywhere in the world today, and there's no organized movement among American Muslims, or among Muslims in the West anywhere to counter the influence of jihad ideology. There is no sect or school of Islamic thought, Islam jurisprudence, that rejects the idea that it is part of the responsibility of the Muslim community to wage war against unbelievers in order to convert or subjugate them, and until these things are addressed, the prospects for moderate Islam are pretty dim.

Pamela: Wow.

Omri Ceren: Omri Ceren, Mere Rhetoric. I was wondering if I could piggy-back on a couple of the questions at the very beginning regarding Europe. If a moderate Islam can't be formed as an internal answer to Islam, what options does Europe have? They're not-- I mean it's a historically unprecedented situation, somewhat similar to Israel, where you have a sizable minority of people who might just be unassimilatable. Europe is not going ship people, ever again, ship people off on trains, quite correctly. What options do they have?

Robert Spencer: That's a very difficult question, and ultimately it's going to have to be faced. One of the things that I can say right now is that you're absolutely right, but that you're going to be hard-pressed to find European authorities who would admit that the situation is in that kind of crisis, and that's part of the reason why it is. There is immense denial about the compatibility of Islam with Western pluralism, or the incompatibility of it, and yet it is Muslims themselves-- You don't have to got o me to find any idea that Islam might be incompatible with Western pluralism, that's something that's loudly proclaimed by Muslims themselves in Europe today. Diab Abu Jah Jah of the European League has said, "Assimilation is cultural rape," and he stands firm on the idea that Muslims must not assimilate, must reject Western society, Western values. Tariq Ramadan really says essentially the same thing in a slightly softer way, and so you have a-- What are they going to do about it? Well I think the first thing they have to do is recognize that there is a problem, and then call forthrightly upon the Muslim groups in Europe to reject explicitly the elements of Sharia law, Islamic law, that are incompatible with Western pluralism, or if they don't reject them, then to understand that they're not welcome in the country. Now, that doesn't mean shipping people off on trains to camps but it does mean some hard looks at immigration, and whether they really want to continue with the open immigration policies that they're pursuing now.

Allen Roth: This is Allen Roth. Robert, towards the end of your book you have a list of things that non-Muslim governments can do. It's entitled "What is to be done?" Just on the point that you were making now. One of your recommendations is to revise immigration policies with the jihad ideology in view.

Robert Spencer: Yes

Allen Roth: Could you just give us a brief overview of what you're getting at there?

Robert Spencer: Yes, I'll be very specific in the American framework there's an application for a visa, an application to enter the country that says, "Are you a member of a terrorist group?" and then there's a asterisk next to the question that goes down to the bottom of the page, and on the bottom of the page it says, "A positive answer to this question does not necessarily mean you will be denied entry." Now that's a very strange, shortsighted, ultimately suicidal thing to have on there. I mean, why even ask the question if you simultaneously say it doesn't matter? And asking a simple question like that is not going to get you anywhere. I think what needs to be done is that the immigration application for people who want to come here to work, to study, to settle, whatever, ought to be revised to ask some hard questions about, "Do you believe that the United States constitution ought to be replaced ultimately by Islamic law, even through peaceful means? Do you believe that women should enjoy equality of rights before the law with men? That religious minorities ought to enjoy equality of rights with Muslims in Islamic societies, or in non-Muslim societies that Muslims are ultimately to grow in numbers until they can assert Islamic law over the society?" These kinds of questions, obviously we wouldn't be expecting honest answers, or full answers from the people who are filling out these forms, but once they're on record then explaining that this is how they feel, once they're on record denying all these things, then immigration authorities have something to go on so it's been made explicit, that people who want to replace the US Constitution with Sharia are not welcome here, and that we're going defend ourselves against that, and so it becomes a deportable offense to be dishonest about this.

Question: I live in Toledo, which has a very Muslim large population. I think it's just behind Dearborn in terms of size, and on ... here the Muslims, and the Jews, and the Christians seems to get along very well, they seem to be very well integrated. In fact, when you have some of the inner-city ... in our town, you see all three of those religious very well represented and after 9/11 when I think the head Imam over at the ... mosque, which I think they're the largest in the Midwest, said that they were Americans first and Muslims second, ... basically show how much they are very integrated in this country. But recently, we've been getting more reports that ... starting to ... assimilate, but they might be forming a little bit more pockets here in the States, kind of like in Europe. Are you starting to see that as well?

Robert Spencer: It kind of all going together, unfortunately. I mean, I'm glad to hear what you're saying. At the same time, it makes alarm bells go off for me, not because I don't believe the Imam in Toledo, but because I know about some other stories that I can tell you, for example, down the road in Cleveland, of course you're probably familiar with Fawaz Damra. Fawaz Damra was the imam of the largest mosque in Cleveland. Before that he was in Brooklyn, New York. He was a signer of the ... Temple of North America's condemnation of terrorism in 2004, I believe it was, and he was well known, prominent, as a moderate Muslim leader who went to these interfaith meetings and had good relationships with Jews and Christians in the area, and unfortunately, he was captured on videotape-- it came out at the Sami Al-Arian trial-- the computer science professor in Florida who was on trial for being a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad out of south Florida, and he was seen saying terrorism-- Damra, that is-- was seen as saying terrorism is the path to liberation and it turned out that the had some ties himself to terrorist groups and was ultimately deported. Now, does that mean that the guy in Toledo is not honest? Certainly not. I'm not saying that at all. But there is a level of deception here that is regularly exercised, so unfortunately we can't always take things at face value. The San Diego police chief a few years ago, he said a funny thing. He said we go to these kumbaya meetings at the local mosque, and then we go back to the office and find out that the guys who we were just with, who were just offering to help us, are on the terror watch list, and this is something that has to be reckoned with. But I know that that's not quite your question. The question is about Muslims who have assimilated and Muslims who haven't, and what I'm really trying to is reframe the question. Another case I case I can point out in this context is that of ... Awash, who is about as assimilated as you can get. He was an Intel executive in the 90s. He was given $325,000 a year, if I recall correctly, from Intel. He has some computer books that he had written, he was a real whiz, as well as a pillar of his community, out in Portland, and a leader in various civic groups, and so on, who suddenly, and rather unaccountably, grew his beard long, and began to wear Muslim dress, and ultimately he wound up serving time, because he had tried to go over to Central Asia to join up with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and to fight against Americans, and to get others to do so as well. The problem is that there is no distinction within the American Muslim community or any other, between the moderates and the radicals, or the between the people who will fight against Americans ultimately, or who consider themselves Americans first, as you said. People pass from one to the other. This is an unfortunate fact. It may be politically incorrect to point it out, but nonetheless it is the case and that's simply something that we have to reckon with, that we need to call upon, I think, people like the imam in Toledo, and others, to actively work against the problem of people with jihadist sympathies, and to teach against this thing. It's really astounding to me that five years after 9/11, there's no program in the self-professed moderate American mosques to fight against the jihad ideology. I think that's very telling, and there's this quiet-- And so, have things gotten worse? In a certain sense, the lines are being drawn, but ultimately I think things are not always what they would seem to be right from the beginning, with all too many of these self-professed moderate leaders, and that all the America Muslim groups need to work much more honestly, actively, and energetically against the jihad ideology, if we are willing to take their professed moderation seriously.

Question: Because you had mentioned that if there's ... for them to put out a face, because that's what they're told to do. They're supposed to lie-- everything that they're supposed to do to not let people know what their true intentions are, and that's very scary. That's very scary.

Robert Spencer: Yeah, but these things are in the Quran. The Quran says, chapter 3 verse 28, "Don't treat Jews and Christians as your friends and protectors, unless you're doing it to guard yourself against them." And the traditional commentators, mainstream Muslim commentators on that verse explain that that means that you can pretend to be their friends in order to bade the effort for the Muslims, the Muslim cause, so there's a tradition, actually, that says, "We smile in their faces and then we curse them behind their backs." And this is something that is a part of Islamic tradition, this kind of deception of unbelievers. It doesn't do us any good to act as if, well, this is something kind of unsavory, or insulting, and so we're not going to talk about it, or acknowledge that it exists.

Pamela: But why would they change, if they're succeeding? Why would they change? I mean this our approach in America, is kumbaya and to work behind the scenes. They have a different approach in each country. Why would they change? They're succeeding. This is what I don't understand. It's counter intuitive to me.

Robert Spencer: Well, I think that they have a kind of approach in the United States because I think that they realize, they reckon in any case, that a more confrontational approach will only raise resistance to them in America.

Pamela: Right.

Robert Spencer: Whereas in Europe, it seems pretty clear, that the jihad groups figure that they can get away with quite a bit more, and so they're much more assertive and much less inclined to assimilate.

Pamela: But it's working.

Avi Green: This is Avi Green of Tel-Chai nation. My question is, is President Bush serious about fighting Islamic terrorism, or is the War on Terrorism just another case of a politician saying one thing and doing another?

Robert Spencer: Well, that's a good question. Unfortunately, I do think that in one sense, the President's response has been very good and forceful, and in another-- Well, obviously, I've been a critic of the democratization of Iraq project, actually since before it began, not because I supported Saddam Hussein and I'm some kind of an appeaser or something, but for completely different reasons. I don't think that the President has shown sufficient understanding of the jihad intelligence, or of the Sharia impulse within Islam, and the fact that any government that is based on consensus is going to be under pressure from those who think that the state should be governed by Islamic law. This is always going to be true, such that even when you have elections, the jihadists will win, and we've seen this again and again in the Middle East. In Iraq and Afghanistan now you have the Sharia being listed in the constitution as the highest law of the land, and so the question is, now you have by virtue of American power, a regime in Iraq and a regime in Afghanistan that effectively denies equality of rights to women and to religious minorities, and we saw that with the Abdul Rahman case in Afghanistan, where he was put on trial after converting from Islam to Christianity, because Islamic law forbids people to leave Islam on pain of death. Now international pressure was able to be brought to bear to save him and get him out of the country. Unfortunately, there are many many other people who are in the same situation, who never get that kind of international attention, and so ultimately, I don't know what the President's intentions are, and I have a lot of respect for the forcefulness of his response, which I think is something that was needed, and which might not have come from the opposition. At the same time, I think there are many ways in which his response has been out of focus, and ultimately, ..., even counter-productive, if we are really going to understand that what we are doing is defending ourselves against a global jihad, but I don't that that is generally understood in Washington?

Allen Roth: Is there a question from someone who hasn't spoken yet?

Ocean Guy: Yes, this is Ocean Guy from Somewhere on A1A. ... differences on the spread of Islam in Europe and in the US, in the way that Islam confronts liberal democracies. In particular, are there differences here that should comfort us or scare us?

Robert Spencer: I think it's largely a matter of numbers. In Europe, the Islamic numbers are much larger than they are in the United States, and in many countries, and they're growing much more quickly, so that if you look at the demographics, you have a great likelihood that France, that Holland, that Germany and Italy, possibly England also, could have Islamic majorities by mid-century, or by the end of the century, and that's a very serious matter, that involves the question of whether those countries are going to become Islamic states, or be fighting civil wars. In America, you have a much smaller population, and I think that that's one of the main reasons why you don't see the same kind of activity here. The Islamic populations historically when they move into countries, have become much more assertive with their numbers, and here I think we see some much dissimulation and dishonesty, abetted of course by the mainstream media, and unfortunately by all too many government officials, ... get this idea of Islam being a religion of peace and so on, which ultimately keeps us from taking the steps that we need to take in order to defend ourselves fully against the magnitude of this problem. But it ultimately comes to the fact that this is one of the best strategies they can pursue with the numbers that they have.

Omri Ceren:: ... suggestions

Omri Ceren: I'm sorry, this is Omri Ceren again from Mere Rhetoric. ... suggestions in addition to it being a quantitative difference between Europe and the United States. Things like skill requirements on visa applications, have created a Muslim population that is just more tenable to secularism and to being persuaded by arguments toward moderation. Are you saying that that's not a genuine dynamic, that that's just on the surface?

Robert Spencer: I think that that's genuine. I'm not sure that it has the value that a lot of people put on it, but I think there's something real there. I mean, after all, we have to face the fact that in Europe assimilation has been actively discouraged for 30 years. It was ironic with the riots in France last summer, that we were hearing the French being blamed for not assimilating its Muslim population, when that Muslim population resisted assimilation from the beginning, and as Bat Yeor has pointed out in the great book "Eurabia", the non-assimilation was something that was agreed upon by the European Union at the behest of the Arab league from agreements going back to the early 1970s, and so for France to be criticized now for something that it did at the behest of the Arab League, and has continued to do for 30 years, it's more than ironic, really, because you have Muslim populations that have resisted assimilation and not wanted it, and now they're blaming them for not having it, and this kind of dynamic has not been nearly as strong in America, where there has been more assimilation, and there has not been any kind of, at least any public, protocol on the part of the United States government saying that it would protect any Muslim populations from assimilating into American society. Of course there are problems with assimilation in general being rejected as a model for immigrants across the board, but that's a separate question. I do think that there is a great difference between the way that the Muslim populations in Europe and in America are behaving because of that, because of the attitudes toward assimilation pursued by the respective governments, as well as because of the numbers.?

Pamela: Yeah, it's Pamela, Atlas Shrugs. Don't you think it's trickier here in America?

Robert Spencer: Trickier?

Pamela: Yeah, trickier. I mean the whole kumbaya, the whole patina of getting along, and you see how CAIR, the Council of American-Islamic Relations, and MPAC operates. Isn't it a little bit more difficult to rebuke and to fight?

Robert Spencer: Yeah, I see what you're saying. Certainly, it's much more open in Europe, and you have European leaders, you have Hani Ramadan, the brother of the great supposed reformer Tariq Ramadan. Hani wrote an article in Le Monde in Paris, a few years ago, advocating stoning for adultery. That's certainly nothing we're ever going to see from Ibrahim Hooper and Nihad Awad. Salam Al-Marayati of MPAC is the same way. All these guys are very slick, and you're right, actually, Pamela I would agree in that regard that it's a lot harder to try to explain to Americans what it is that we're dealing because of the cognitive dissonance that is involved and because they hear that you can turn on the television any day and see these guys making these bland denials of anything that I'm saying, anything that the jihadists are saying about Islam and violence, and they're excoriating as bigotry or racism any honest look at what it is in the Islamic texts that's giving rise to this violence, and so that does make it more difficult, certainly.

Pamela: Yeah.

Allen Roth: Okay, I am going to bring this to a close. I think this was a very interesting discussion. I would like to thank Robert Spencer,

Robert Spencer: Thank you.

Allen Roth: --and I would also like to urge the bloggers, which I know you'll do anyway, to make reference to his new book, which again, I think is extremely important on many levels, called "The Truth about Muhammad." It is available now, and a recording of this will be on the One Jerusalem web site later today, and again I want to thank everyone for participating, and we'll be back to you shortly.

Pamela: Mr. Spencer, thank you, Mr. Spencer.

Comments

[DoctorDentons]

Pam: Thank you for a great blog...this is a keeper.

[john jay]

pamela:

i have sent a recommendation to each person on my mailing list, with an attention span sufficient to encompass the gist of things, that he or she read the trascribed interview with robert spencer. very, very good. good questions, good responses. how about mark steyn next?

very nice the way you and your fellow interviewers give your speakers the room to explain themselves, without being constantly interrupted. very nice indeed.

john jay

[Lorenzo]

This interview has some real meat to it. Knowing where we stand now is critical to forward discourse with all. We need to work diligent to stem the rising tide of terror, here and in Iraq.

The Truth about Mohammed must be exposed via the whole internet, the mode that has given rise!

Lorin

[sms2007]

Many people have been quoting the Quran out of context in an effort to show that Islam promotes violence. A recent op-ed piece by Robert Spencer is a high profile example.
This is pure nonsense. Thomas and others doing this are taking selected passages and reading them completely out of context to support whatever argument they wish to make. I can do the same thing with the Bible.
Here are some choice passages from the KJV Bible which when read in isolation makes the Bible appear to be a primer for evil:
1) In Leviticus 25:44-46, the Lord tells the Israelites it's OK to own slaves, provided they are strangers or heathens.
--Oh, so you can make strangers slaves and mistreat them… what a fairness and peace concept of Bible???
2) In Samuel 15:2-3, the Lord orders Saul to kill all the Amalekite men, women and infants.
--Hmmm… kill even women and infants… spare no one…what a Barbarism Bible is teaching??? Is it really peaceful teaching from Bible or a preaching or barbarism???
3) In Exodus 15:3, the Bible tells us the Lord is a man of war.
--- And Jesus supposed to be Lord? So, is he man of War????
4) In Numbers 31, the Lord tells Moses to kill all the Midianites, sparing only the virgins.
----Spare the virgins but kill everyone else. What virgins? Are the pervert, sex addicts or violent sexual fantics???
5) In Deuteronomy 13:6-16, the Lord instructs Israel to kill anyone who worships a different god or who worships the Lord differently.
--- Kill everyone who worships a different god??? What kind of peace Christianity and Bible is teaching?????
6) In Mark 7:9, Jesus is critical of the Jews for not killing their disobedient children as prescribed by Old Testament law.
---Jesus is critical of Jews for not killing??? I see Jesus is preaching killing.
7) In Luke 19:22-27, Jesus orders killed anyone who refuses to be ruled by him.
-- Brutal Jesus who order to kill everyone because they refuse his rule.
Context is important, of course, and many of these seeming cruelties disappear when read as such. However, this would not stop a Christian terrorist from interpreting the Bible in a manner necessary to concoct a religious justification for unspeakable horrors, as Pope Urban II did, for example, when he preached the First Crusade in 1095 or as many American preachers did when they used Leviticus to defend slavery.
Political and religious extremists have abused Islamic, Jewish, or Christian scriptures continuously throughout history. Robert Spencer, a man who claims to be Christian, would do well to learn something of his own faith s scriptures and history before accusing Islam s Quran of promoting violence. I consider Robert Spencer a hatemonger and hate preacher based upon made-up, out of context preaching.