For phonetics:, Karen Armstrong the big time joke part deux!

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Dec 16, 2006 at 16:36

my dear phonetics al-faylsoof al-kabeer now we need to talk more about our darling Ms Armstrong's little biogrpahy of Muhammad.

Ms Armstrong makes it very clear that:

1. She did not consult the primary Arabic sources as she knows no Arabic. This is a fatal mistake when one writes any work of history as a good historian must consult the primary sources in their primary language and in this case it is Arabic.

2. What is mosrt bizarre is that she elected to go and see what they have at Hebrew University which is a great center for those that study Islam. She did not go to the place where Islam was supposed to have been born and that is Mecca and Medina. A good historian should visit the sites of his/her historical work.

But wait: Muhammad made it to Jerusalem and flew from Mecca to Jerusalem while riding al-Buraq in the story of al-Isra' wa al-Mi3raj. You think this is why Ms Armstrong decided to do her field work in Jerusalem?

3. Now turn to pages 11 and 12 and you will find that our dear Ms Armstrong declares that female circumcision or female genital mutilation or FMG is not-Islamic neither in origin nor in practice and it is nothing but conspiracy by feminists in the West to tarnish Islam. Then she tells the readers that FGM is only a sunna (oh I fogot that you know no Arabic Oh well) in one of the four major schools of Islamic Jurisprudence where FMG is recommended as "makrouma" (oh silly me you do not know any Arabic). She only says that this school is in Africa! What a racist! She also does not tell the reader which school is she talking about and do you know what? Is it becuase she is ignorant or a liar. So which one is it ya ayuha al-faylasoof al-kabeer?

4. Then more nonsense when she tells the readers that the Qur'an is silent about FMG therefore FMG is non-Islamic. But this wannabe historian does not tell the reader that the Qur'an is also silent about male circumcision but that does not stop Muslims from mutilating their boys! And do you know why she did not tell the readers that the Qur'an is sllent about male circumcision? Because she is ignorant and does not know

And this is only one paragraph in this poor history book

5. I can read about the life of Muhammad from the primary sources _in Arabic_ or from even far better sources that this poor book by this woman. We have Rodison and we have Watt's biographies and I can also read Ibn Hisham's redaction of Ibn Ishaq' sira in Arabic, something that this horrible woman cannot do. This horrible woman makes it clear that the source of her biography is from the works of Rodison and watt.

Then begs the question: we already have Watt's and Rodison's biographies extant then why do we need her little biography?

6. A real historian has to answer the follwoing question when writing about history: "what really happened?" Serious historians of early Islam (thanks to the works of Becker, Lammens, Goldziher and now Wansbrough) came to realize that the Sira (which is Mushmmad's biography) is _ is not an independent historical source_ (do you really know what this really means? With your bogus and poor education I very much doubt it)! The sira is nothing but a response by early Muslims to polemics against islam as well as a tool for tafseer/ta'weel of the Quranic logias and pericopes! Nothing is historical about it. So do we really know what really happened in the life of Muhammad? The answer is: No we do not.

Our dear Ms Armstrong in her feeble mind stays away from this view of the sira . She does not try to refute it. This is either because she is ignorant or she is in denial that there is nothing historical about the sira!

But the ultimate insult to this woman is that no serious student of the history of early islam would read such nonsense as her little biography of Muhammad!

So much for suggesting her little book as "Islam for dummies" You should be ashamed.

Stay tuned for more!

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