Karen Armstrong the wannabe historian

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Apr 29, 2007 at 08:45

Hi prof. Pipes

As you might be aware, Karen Armstrong wrote a book review of Robert Spencer's book "The truth about Muhammad" and I do realize that Robert is a big boy and he can respond to this wannabe historian, but I wish to post a rather long response to her review and in the process expose her for what she is: another apologist for Islamo-fascism. I hope this will be OK. Readers can find her review at

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/4a05a4a4-fl34-11db-838b-ooob5dfl0621.html

Karen Armstrong, the poor historian, just wrote a review of Robert Spencer's book "The truth about Muhammad' and I will review her poor and tendentious review, and I will start with an example to show that a good historian must read the primary source in the primary language of the source of his/her quote.

Ms Armstrong admits in her biography of Muhammad that she does not know Arabic and that the source of her biography was the works of Watt and Radison! It means that her biography is in actual fact is a review of the works of both authors! So much for bogus scholarship.

Now here is my example: Ms Armstrong quotes Q29:46 as evidence that the God of the Muslims is the same one as the God of the jews and Christians and she uses the following translation (notice that she does not give credit to the source of her translation and I call this plagiarsim): "Say to them We believe what you believe your God and our God is one."

Now let us see what this verse really says:

1. Wa qulu or and say (plural)

2. aamanna or we believed (this is read in present tense as we believe due to grammatical aspect)

3. bil ladhi or with the

4. anzala ilayna or sent down/revealed to us

5. wa anzala ilaykum or sent down/revealed to you

6. wa ilahina or and our God

7. wa ilahukum or your God

8. wahid or one

So the verse says: "And say (plural) we believe in what was revealed to us and revealed to you and your God and your God is one."

Now read again her poor and tendentious transaltion

Notice that if the verse would have said "wa ilahina wa ilahukum NAFSU AL-WAHID"

Or "and our God and your God is the same one" (nafsu al-wahid means the same one) then I would agree with her but this is not what the verse is saying. And if one is to agree with her incorrect reading of the verse then I would say to Ms Armstong: Congratulations this means that Jesus is Allah! But again may be she is correct because the Qur'an really says that Jesus is a prophet and a God. Go figure. More damaging to her case is that in Q9:30 Allah accuses both Jews and Christians of being polytheists. Go figure again.

So much for this poor historian, and stay tuned for more.

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