Robert Spencer has an article in Frontpage Magazine about UC Irvine Professor Emeritus of Religon Jack Miles. In my 18 years of teaching part-time in the UCI Extension, I never met Jack Miles, but then again, I met very few professors or teachers other than those I worked with. (Outside of those folks, whose friendship I cherish, I didn't miss much-especially in the humanities.)
Anyway, Miles was interviewed by Religion News and made some very interesting comments about the merciful nature of Allah.
https://religionnews.com/2019/01/22/more-merciful-than-yahweh-jack-miles-on-god-in-the-quran/
Here is Spencer's take on Miles' comments:
My turn.
Miles sounds like Rip Van Winkle. He has been asleep for the past 20 years-or maybe 1400 years. I taught part-time at UCI from 1996-2018 and attended way too many of the anti-Israel events sponsored by the Muslim Student Union every May. You would not believe the vicious speakers they have sponsored over the years. Amir Abdel Ali, Alim Abdul Musa, Mohamed al-Asi, crazy George Galloway, Hatem Bazian, Ben White and on and on. How many times I heard speakers call for the destruction of Israel. How many times have I heard insults thrown at Jews. I would invite MIles to attend the week long hate week that MSU puts on every May. Now they walk around with their faces hidden behind Palestinian keffiyas, chanting, and getting in peoples' faces trying to intimidate them. Whenever Jewish students put on a pro-Israel event, it gets disrupted necessitating the campus police to respond.
Miles sounds like Rip Van Winkle. He has been asleep for the past 20 years-or maybe 1400 years. I taught part-time at UCI from 1996-2018 and attended way too many of the anti-Israel events sponsored by the Muslim Student Union every May. You would not believe the vicious speakers they have sponsored over the years. Amir Abdel Ali, Alim Abdul Musa, Mohamed al-Asi, crazy George Galloway, Hatem Bazian, Ben White and on and on. How many times I heard speakers call for the destruction of Israel. How many times have I heard insults thrown at Jews. I would invite MIles to attend the week long hate week that MSU puts on every May. Now they walk around with their faces hidden behind Palestinian keffiyas, chanting, and getting in peoples' faces trying to intimidate them. Whenever Jewish students put on a pro-Israel event, it gets disrupted necessitating the campus police to respond.
Miles should wake up and follow the news in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere. People are dying every day. In virtually every Muslim majority country, non-Muslims are persecuted.
Miles should learn how to read the Koran. The chapters are not in chronological order. Placed in order, they perfectly mirror Mohammed's beginnings as a prophet with his peaceful preaching in Mecca followed by his life as a warlord in Medina spreading Islam by the sword. One sees how the language in the Koran goes from the benign to the violent and hateful. Sura 9 is the last major sura before Mohammed's death. It is arguably the most hateful and violent.
So how do the Muslim scholars make sense of the contradictions? Very simple. The principle of abrogation means that in the case of conflict between verses in the Koran, that revealed later in time abrogates that revealed earlier. Sura 9 basically abrogates every peaceful verse in the Koran.
I would also note that the Koran (which to Muslims is the word of Allah passed down to Mohammad by the Archangel Gabriel) has many commandments to kill Jews, Christians and infidels in general. I also note that many imams around the world call out to Allah in their sermons to kill said Christians, Jews and infidels in general. Yet Miles offers this:
"I offer examples of great violence from Jewish and Christian Scriptures and note that we don’t deduce from that that all Jews and Christians are terrorists in waiting. If we don’t do that for ourselves, we shouldn’t do it for Muslims. But that’s a secondary motive, I would say. Once you get that out of the way, you’re free to look at the text, look at the characters and the episodes. That’s a pleasure. It’s a fascination."
I am not an expert on the Old or New Testaments, and I know there are troubling verses especially in the Old Testament. Yet I would suggest that for hundreds of years now, Christians and Jews have not acted on those verses. And no, the Holocaust had nothing to do with "defending" Christianity or because the Nazis disagreed with Jews in religious matters. To them it was about race, not religion. If you want to drag up the Crusades, fine, but I will argue that both sides were engaged in mutual combat (Christians also killed defenseless Jews as well.) Again, that was hundreds of years ago. Today, non-Muslims are being killed in the name of verses in the Koran. ISIS will point them all out to you before they cut off your head. The violent verses in the Koran are not just found in dusty pages nobody pays any attention to anymore. They are real and very current. Sorry, Dr Miles, but too many people are still dying in Allah's name.
I would also note that the Koran (which to Muslims is the word of Allah passed down to Mohammad by the Archangel Gabriel) has many commandments to kill Jews, Christians and infidels in general. I also note that many imams around the world call out to Allah in their sermons to kill said Christians, Jews and infidels in general. Yet Miles offers this:
"I offer examples of great violence from Jewish and Christian Scriptures and note that we don’t deduce from that that all Jews and Christians are terrorists in waiting. If we don’t do that for ourselves, we shouldn’t do it for Muslims. But that’s a secondary motive, I would say. Once you get that out of the way, you’re free to look at the text, look at the characters and the episodes. That’s a pleasure. It’s a fascination."
I am not an expert on the Old or New Testaments, and I know there are troubling verses especially in the Old Testament. Yet I would suggest that for hundreds of years now, Christians and Jews have not acted on those verses. And no, the Holocaust had nothing to do with "defending" Christianity or because the Nazis disagreed with Jews in religious matters. To them it was about race, not religion. If you want to drag up the Crusades, fine, but I will argue that both sides were engaged in mutual combat (Christians also killed defenseless Jews as well.) Again, that was hundreds of years ago. Today, non-Muslims are being killed in the name of verses in the Koran. ISIS will point them all out to you before they cut off your head. The violent verses in the Koran are not just found in dusty pages nobody pays any attention to anymore. They are real and very current. Sorry, Dr Miles, but too many people are still dying in Allah's name.
A shame that Miles made it all the way to retirement without learning much about Islam.
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