Update [2007-3-4 17:25:11 by Ali Eteraz]: My response to Mr. Spencer's reponse to this post.

Robert Spencer just gave a reply to my answer of his editorial in the Emory University student publication.

My response is structured as follows: Part I relates to the internal inconsistency of Mr. Spencer’s post, Part II relates to Jihad, Islamic Law and Islamic Reform.

I also want to add that initially this was going to be a six part post. However, for the sake of maintaining the momentum of the dialogue I have cut it short and put forward only the more salient items (or the ones that occurred to me as I wrote while listening to Abida Parveen which mean I probably forgot a few things).

Part I: Internal Inconsistencies

Mr. Spencer’s reply is littered with major and minor forms of inconsistency. These inconsistencies are casual reminders that Mr. Spencer is not a scholar on Islam. I am no scholar of Islam either. I am a regular guy. In fact, I consider myself an (aspiring) novelist and amateur poet (all of my works are in English, even though it is my fourth language). Thus, the fact that even I am uncovering these glaring inconsistencies should be very troubling to Mr. Spencer especially as he goes forward towards debating academics with Phd's and such.

1 – Twice in his post Mr. Spencer states that the “gates of ijtihad are closed.” He makes the statement to reinforce the point that Islamic Law has not been evolving.

Ijtihad, according to Wiki, “is a technical term of Islamic law that describes the process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation of the legal sources, the Qur'an and the Sunnah.” According to Washington Times, “Ijtihad -- or hermeneutics -- refers to the institutionalized practice of interpreting Islamic law (sharia) to take into account changing historical circumstances and, therefore, different views.”

The phrase “Gates of Ijtihad are closed” is a reference made by eminent scholars like Joseph Schacht, JND Anderson and WM Watt referring to what they thought was an institutional effort by Muslim jurists themselves to limit the freedom to practice ijtihad. Thus, whenever someone says “the gates of ijtihad are closed!” (and some Muslims themselves say it, too), one is being extolled to accept that since the "gates are closed", Islamic Law has not been evolving.

This is what Mr. Spencer wants me to accept. Fair enough, for the time being I will accept that the gates of ijtihad were indeed closed.

Now that I have accepted it, perhaps Mr. Spencer will not mind explaining why he repeatedly contradicts his own views on the closure of the gates? He makes numerous statements in which he implicitly and explicitly accepts the existence of Islamic Reform. So I ask, which is it? Either the gates of ijtihad are closed, or Islamic Reform neither exists, nor can exist.

Here are some of those statements in which Mr. Spencer accepts the existence of Islamic Reform:

First, in reference to a reformist that I cited who limits the power to use force to the duly election state, Mr. Spencer gives Islamic Reform a hearty pat on the back:

I am glad to see this sort of thing, and hope that it gains a wide audience among Muslims, since at least to some degree it does directly challenge the jihadists on Islamic grounds.

Second, Mr. Spencer is forced to recognize that there is a difference of opinion between older Muslim jurists and contemporary Muslim jurists. If the gates of ijtihad are closed then why are jurists today rejecting the jurists of yore?

One might get the impression from Mr. Eteraz's piece that the positions of Akiti and Iftikhar represent the dominant view among Muslims today, who reject the position articulated by Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Qayyim and the rest.

Third,  Mr. Spencer actually himself goes so far as to recognize that there are even differences of opinion between contemporary Muslim scholars.

Unfortunately, however, there is a difference of opinion on this question among contemporary Islamic scholars.

If the gates of ijtihad were closed, shouldn’t all contemporary Muslim scholars be in agreement with one other?

Fourth, when confronted by the reality of Sheikh Ali Goma, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, whose rulings on Sunni family law break tremendously from historical jurists, Mr. Spencer gives up on the argument that the gates of ijtihad are closed, choosing to exclude the Grand Mufti by abandoning the argument about the closure of the gates of ijtihad, and instead opting to talk about Goma’s views on Israel. Mr. Spencer keeps asking me to be honest. Well, I am honestly asking, what exactly is Mr. Spencer’s methodological critique with respect to ijtihad? At the moment, I have no idea. Sometimes he says the gates are closed. Sometimes they are open long enough for a jurist to be condemned on the basis of a conflict that started in 1948.

Point being, even if I accept Mr. Spencer’s assertions that the gates of ijtihad are closed, Mr. Spencer’s own statements reveal that Islamic jurisprudence is alive and well and undergoing change.

Now that I have revealed Mr. Spencer’s views as inconsistent, perhaps I can be permitted an enunciation of my views on ijtihad. I believe this important for it is necessary for Muslims and non-Muslims alike to realize that there are alternative narratives out of the (inconsistent) dead ends that Mr. Spencer puts up.

In my view, the gates of ijtihad were never closed. I am relying here on the magisterial essay by Wael Hallaq (a Christian) published in 1984 which showed, almost to the point of the definitive, that the gates of jitihad were never closed.  Wael Hallaq: "Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?", International Journal of Middle East Studies, 16, 1 (1984), pp. 3-41. I personally think that the pace of ijtihad slowed down (especially when Baghdad with its millions of library books was sacked by the Mongols in 1258). I think the further slowing of pace had to do with political, economic and corruptive reasons which prevented Muslim people from appreciating the nuances of Islamic Jurisprudence. I believe that it is not too late for Muslim jurists to begin churning out powerful enunciations of creativity and reasoning (and extol average Muslims to do the same, which by the way, is happening). I think that in the 20th century, positive developments in Islamic Law with respect to the issue of violence against non-Muslims have been terribly hurt by what is called political Islam. This movement rejects the reality of ijtihad. It will not let Muslims accept the reality of the post WWII international human rights scheme and wants Muslims to accept the same as what Joseph Schacht and Mr. Spencer want Muslims to accept: namely, adjusting Islam to changing situations is imposible. Of course, I am not the first to pick up on this strange similarity of interests shared by Mr. Spencer and radical Islam. As Dinesh D’Souza, whom Mr. Spencer calls a “close friend” recently wrote:

It is Bin Laden's argument that radical Islam is true Islam. It is Bin Laden's contention that he is doing nothing more than what is commanded in the Koran and the Islamic tradition. And Robert Spencer essentially agress with Bin Laden! Spencer is willing to concede one of the world's great religions--one with more than a billion adherents worldwide--to the murderers of Al Qaeda. At one point in our CPAC debate he asked me to name a traditional Muslim, as if such a creature scarcely exists in the world.

2 – Since we’re talking about internal inconsistencies and I just mentioned Dinesh D’Souza, then I have to wonder why Mr. Spencer calls Mr. D’Souza a “close friend” just a few days after Mr. D’Souza called Mr. Spencer a “conservative Islamophobe.” It is quite possible that Mr. Spencer is such a gracious individual that he can forgive such things. [I tend to think that Mr. Spencer is indeed so gracious as I have been quite impressed by his behavior towards me in this debate]. However, does this mean that Mr. Spencer will acknowledge that he is, indeed, an Islamophobe? I doubt he would be OK with that. Thus one has to wonder: his close friendship with Dinesh D’Souza is inconsistent with his unwillingness to be termed an Islamophobe.

3 – Mr. Spencer is completely inconsistent about his views on the academy. First he says that the academy “should” be above politics. Should is a heavy word. As a Christian Mr. Spencer knows it is the word of the moral imperative.  Yet a few lines later, due to the fact “that the academy has already been politicized” Mr. Spencer wants that people find nothing wrong with him and Mr. Horowitz also politicizing the academy! That sounds utilitarian to me. Not at all something that someone who uses the language of the moral imperative would use. In short, Mr. Spencer doesn’t really believe that the academy should not be politicized. What he claims he wants – “the academy should be above politics” – and what he wants to do – debate with everyone including students and support Horowtiz' ads which conflate the religion of Islam with the terrorism of Hamas – are completely inconsistent.

4 - This one is not an inconsistency as much as a curiosity. Why does Mr. Spencer want to debate all these academics? Generally, in order to debate someone you have to be considered their "equal" in terms of accomplishment and credentials (not always, but that is the general rule). Mr. Spencer can debate Dinesh D'Souza because they are both conservative public intellectuals. I cannot debate Dinesh D'Souza because I'm a left-leaning libertarian who doesn't even have a book. Mr. Spencer wants to debate Omid Safi and Ernst and I'm sure a bunch of other academics. Yet Mr. Spencer lacks what an academic possesses: a PhD and tenure at a university. It would be very gracious indeed for an academic to "step down" and talk to Mr. Spencer. But the failure of an academic to be gracious isn't an indictment of anything. If anything, I think it would be a waste of Mr. Spencer's own time to debate with an academic. He'll end up with homework. Besides, those academic conferences are really boring. I request Mr. Spencer to avoid any congregation where the definition of fun is dissection of the farming habits of Egyptian villagers from 1861 to 1869.

5 - This one is neither an inconsistency nor a curiosity. It is a tangent. Mr. Spencer talks a lot about how he feels humiliated, attacked and beseiged by people who disagree with him. I do think he has a point. People should be civil to one another even when discussing something like radical Islam. However, Mr. Spencer is incredibly naive if he thinks that he's the only one who has to suffer the proverbial sling and arrows of the intellectual trolls. As I told him, I have been called a "shit weasel" by Islamophobes (among other things), and have been quite brutally treated at the Ann Coulter Chat Forum. So, if Mr. Spencer wants others to encourage a culture of respect, he needs to start with his own comments section which, if you read the Ann Coulter chat, contains quite a few characters reminiscent of my experience at the forum. If I see him begin a serious effort to eliminate hateful speech about Islam on his website I will reciprocate by doing the same about anyone who speaks hatefully about the ideas of Robert Spencer. I think this is more than fair since I already do not permit anyone to insult Mr. Spencer's religion or Jesus Christ.

Part II : Substantive Response on Islamic Law

Mr. Spencer’s inconsistencies do not mean that he did not make substantive points about Islamic Law in his post. He did. I will attempt to provide my critiques (and, gasp!, agreements) here.

1 – Mr. Spencer has now mentioned the Shafi’ manual (Shafi’ was the founder of one of the four Sunni schools of law) Reliance of the Traveler in three difference pieces of writing (two posts and one editorial). He says:

This is illustrated by the fact, which I mentioned in my letter to Emory but which you do not mention in your post, that the Shafi'i legal manual 'Umdat al-Salik, or Reliance of the Traveller, although it was first written centuries ago, was certified by Al-Azhar in 1991 as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy. Al-Azhar didn't say it was an illuminating historical artifact, or an insight into what Muslims used to believe long ago; they said it was a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy today. Yet it too contains material about the obligation of the Muslim umma to wage war against unbelievers in order to subjugate them as dhimmis under the rule of Islamic law.

It seems on its face a worthy point. There was a period in my own life when I wondered the same about the Reliance. However, I came to learn that the Reliance is itself a translation of a mideival tretise of law. Mr. Spencer, as was also true for me, probably does not understand the way Muslim jurists use treatieses of law: the treatises often provide the "black letter of the law" which in many cases is then rejected in commentary as inapplicable due to changed circumstances. It is kind of like how in American law students are taught the common law Rule Against Perpetuities from many centuries ago even though most states legislate their own version of the Rule which has nothing to do with the old school Rule Against Perpetuities. In other words, Al-Azhar certified the Reliance conscious of the fact that today’s jurists would reject it as inapplicable because rulings are no longer valid.

2 – Mr. Spencer makes a very good point which I think bears amplification. Namely, that jihadists don’t seem to acknowledge being bound by context. He says:

One of the biggest problems we have regarding the global jihad today is that jihadists cite Muhammad's example -- in other words, the example of a seventh-century man -- as normative for today. They don't seem to mind in the least flattening out the context and behaving as if Muhammad's example were outside time and normative for all times and places.

I completely agree. Since we agree, what does Mr. Spencer propose we do? I would be most keen to hear his ideas since I’ve never once read him propose a way out of this, our, problem. My guess is that he would say that Muslims should do away with following the example of Muhammad. Not sure that one is going to fly. Not to mention that some parts of Muhammad's life were incredibly beautiful so much so that even yours truly, who was once both an atheist and a denier of the revelation was forced to acknowledge it:

He was once an infant — who came fatherless into the world. He was once a child — who lost his mother at six. He was once a youth — who lost his dear grandfather at twelve. He was once an adolescent — who lost his guardian uncle to illness. In other words, Muhammad, long before he was a man, was alone. What? Protestation, again? Either you do not wish me to know his heart, or you do not know what loneliness can be. Which is it? Either way, without sorrow, there is no Muhammad. To know how Qurans and Shariah spilled from him, we must know how death ran after him. To know how he painted an altogether Eternal God on an Eternal Kursi, we must recognize that in every postulation of permanence, the backdrop is the feeling of longing. It has been the orphans, the fatherless, the motherless, the clanless, the lonely, who have left to mankind everything that claims to be eternal, whether it be law or word or image or god. Perhaps such children, through the gravity of their loss, have no choice but to create home in ways other than those of the rest of man. Name me a child who did not grow up on the fringes of loneliness and left for us some kind of idol, some kind of art, some kind of god. You show me one such child, and I will call him forgotten. 

Here is my idea: Muslim reformist jurists and free thinkers who are part of the Muslim community must reinforce, to the Muslim world, that jihadists are flattening out the context and behaving as if what they say about Muhammad is normative for all. This is the only thing that I believe will work. Throughout my life I have seen that the best counter to extremism in the Muslim community have been traditionalist scholars like Abdul Hakim Murad, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, the Naqshbandi Shaykhs, Muhammad Hashim Kamali, Sheikh Goma, and movements like the Nurcu in Turkey. It is quite true that these scholars are “conservative” in terms of their personal values (each one of them would be appalled to hear that I swear, that I’ve dated women, that I like to sculpt, and no strip clubs buddy). However, the fact remains that in terms of their social influence, they keep Muslim youth from turning to radical Islam. Since Mr. Spencer’s primary concern is with “watching jihad” one would think that he would appreciate the influence of traditionalist scholars such as this. They too “watch Jihad” and they do it from a position far more intimate and closer to it than a non-Muslim ever could. Such traditional Muslim scholars the world over (who, like I said, are not real party animals), are the biggest asset to the rule of law because they provide young Muslim men a counter narrative to the jihadi one.

Interestingly, it appears to me that Mr. Spencer represents about the only group on the face of the Western world who does not recognize the value of the traditional scholar. Counterterrorism groups, large parts of the Republican Party, and notable conservatives like Ralph Peters, D’Souza, Andrew Sullivan, the writers at TNR, National Review and even bloggers like The Anchoress, and large parts of Pajamas Media, have all concurred with my opinion. Instapundit has now linked to three major Eteraz.Org initiatives, all of which seeks. I’m starting to believe that Mr. Spencer’s opinion, that Islamic Law, in toto, is the problem, is not even mainstream within the conservative ranks; how can then the mainstream of United States really take it seriously (this goes to the promise I made to Mr. Spencer to explain to him why Muslims don’t engage with him).

3 – Mr. Spencer keeps bringing up Mawdudi as a way to suggest that Islamic Law in the 20th century is mimicking the theories of violence articulated by the classical scholars. Since I have been studying Mawdudi since the age of twelve and have very done a lot of studying of texts critical of his works, I feel that I should perhaps say a word or two about Mawdudi. (By the way for some anecdotes from my childhood on what usually happened when I studied Mawdudi, go here).

First of all, Mr. Spencer’s reliance upon Mawdudi’s articulation of Islamic Law flies in the face of Mr. Spencer’s other cherished view: the gates of ijtihad are closed. You see, Mawdudi actually believed in keeping the gates of ijtihad open. So when Mr. Spencer recognizes Mawdudi as an Islamic Law scholar, he actually affirms the whole point that I’ve been trying to make: Islamic Law changes based on the context in which various jurists emerge. Thank you Mr. Spencer.

Mawdudi’s example also helps illustrate how exactly Islamic Law evolves and reform. In the mid 1940’s Mawdudi concluded that anyone who converted from Islam had to be put to death. Yet, by the early 1970’s numerous students of his broke away from him, founded their own school, and rejected this conclusion.  These students then provided their own Islamic legal critique of why there is no death penalty for apostasy and how Mawdud and others were wrong. Mr. Spencer should be familiar with all this because he and I have had a back and forth on the issue of apostasy before. In that discussion, too, he kept citing back to classical scholars who are no longer relevant, while I repeatedly put forward the opinion of scholars today.
 
4 – One has to return to the fundamental reason that I took exception to Mr. Spencer’s Emory Editorial and found it to be "full of glaring errors." His thesis was that “jihad [meaning violent jihad] is a constant element of mainstream Islamic theology.”  Mr. Spencer, claims about the “mainstream” of anything need a lot more substantiation than references to Shaykh Abdullah Azzam (spiritual founder of al-Qaeda), or Zarqawi’s opinions on Islamic Law (who didn’t even graduate elementary school), or the legal pronunciations of Osama Bin Laden or Mukhlas Imron. Yet here, in order to prove a claim about the “mainstream” Mr. Spencer offers the opinions of criminals and illiterate ones at that. Pardon me if I remain unconvinced.
 
In this context, though, Mr. Spencer offers me a challenge:

Will Mr. Eteraz kindly produce Islamic jurists who argue that Muslims should not wage war against unbelievers -- as unbelievers -- under any circumstances.

I certainly would if Mr. Spencer could produce contemporary mainstream jurists outside of OBL and militant fringe groups who say that Muslims should wage unconditional war against unbelievers solely for their unbelief? There isn’t one. [In fact, when OBL, who is not a scholar, first issued his fatwa in 1999, he didn't say that war against the West had to be an unconditional war against inidels but only as long as the West retreated]. The burden of producing a scholar today that says what Mr. Spencer believes is the true theory of Islamic law with regard to jihad, rests with Mr. Spencer and he has, and will, fail to produce.

The reason for that failure is quite simple: average Muslims themselves don’t want to wage unconditional war against unbelievers. It is therefore no surprise that they do not have scholars agitating for this.

In Mr. Spencer’s defense, he does keep coming back to Seyyid Qutb and Mawdudi, who, I concede are two 20th century "ballers" i.e. heavy weights. However, the fact of the matter is, that for the large part, Qutb and Mawdudi exist outside the Islamic legal tradition. They were more akin to “free thinkers” than jurists. Mawdudi, for example, was a journalist. Qutb was a Marxist revolutionary before turning to writing his exegesis of the Quran. Their opinions on violence and killing apostates have certainly been influential in some quarters. I grant that without a moment of reluctance. However, one has to do a lot more analysis of the legacy of these two men than to say simply that they extolled violence against the non-believers:

a) Some elements of Mawdudi and Qutb’s opinions have actually advanced the state of Islamic reform. Obviously I’m not talking about their opinions on violence which have been quite regressive. But, for example, Qutb’s exegesis of the Quran has been relied on by Muslim feminists to justify re-reading Quranic verses from a more feminist perspective. A feminist, whose book, Quran and Women, radically re-reads problematic verses about women to show that a wife cannot be beaten under verse 4:34, once stated in a lecture – at Emory University no less – that she realized that she could question the established reading about the Quran on the issue of women after she read Qutb! In other words, while in the hands of Bin Laden and Yemeni terrorists, Qutb's legacy is indeed violent; in the hands of a feminist Muslim, it is enlightening. All this doesn't mean that I like Qutb all that much but it does reveal that there is far more to him than just meets the eye or what Mr. Spencer selectively imparts to his readers.

b) Mr. Spencer believes that when Qutb and Mawdudi call on Muslims to establish an Islamic State even by violence, it means that they are calling for the killing of non-Muslims for their unbelief. Mr. Spencer conflates these two concepts without thinking them through. When a scholar calls for the establishment of an Islamic State by violence, that violence is almost always directed at Muslims themselves, not non-Muslims. Qutb’s revolutionary calls were directed at Egyptians, asking Egyptians to overthrow the dictatorship of the Marxist Gamal Abdul Nasser. (Mawdudi actually never called for the establishment of an Islamic State by violence, but even if he did, the state he was referring to was Pakistan which is majority Muslim. Ultimately Mawdudi stopped agitating to make Pakistan into an Islamic State once the word “God” was inserted in the constitution). Point is that linking Qutb and Mawdudi to violence is quite easy because of their aggressive and supremacist language. However, limiting their influence, or altogether dethroning them, is quite easy as well. If it weren't so easy, Mawdudi's students, within the course of his life wouldn't have refuted him.

6 – The issue of the silence of the mythical silent majority. Mr. Spencer and others often believe it quite reasonable to ask that if Muslims truly do reject violence then why aren’t they protesting against the jihadists. This is absurd.

First of all, I am not even going to get into the simple fact that many Muslims live in Western backed tyrannies (see e.g. Saudi Arabia’s royal family’s relationships with the Bushes, or the $ 2 billion in aid that the blogger detaining government of Mubarak receives) which repress any public protest. Second, this argument is not merely irrational, it is illogical. The opposite of violence isn’t protest. It is withholding from violence. When Muslims stay “silent” what they are actually doing is the opposite of violence. This should be elementary. Think of it in other terms: silence, or inaction, is an act itself. When Martin Luther King Jr. created a non-violent movement, what exactly did they do? Yell, scream, chant and fight? No. They stayed silent. Let me reiterate that: when we talk about non-violence, we talk about staying silent and inert. Reflect on that then ask why the standards change when applied to Muslims. As for why Muslims in the United States don’t protest: we don’t feel we need to. We are good American citizens. Our median per capita income is the second highest of any group (after Indian Americans). There are numerous Muslims in the armed forces. You can meet Muslim marines on my website who served this country in Yugoslavia, Iraq and other theaters. For more substantiation of my point, consider what one popular Sunni Shaykh has to say about what Muslims in the West need to believe:

When one lives in a particular country, one agrees verbally, in writing or effectively to adhere to the rules and regulations of that country. This, according to the Shariah, is considered to be a promise, agreement and trust. One is obliged to fulfil the trust regardless of whether it is contracted with a friend, enemy, Muslim, non-Muslim or a government. The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) and his Companions (Allah be pleased with them all) always stood by their word and did not breach any trust or agreement, as it is clear from the books of Sunnah and history. Thus, to break a promise or breach a trust of even a non-Muslim is absolutely unlawful and considered a sign of being a hypocrite (munafiq).

Allah Most High states:

“And fulfil (every) engagement (ahd), for (every) engagement will be enquired into (on the day of reckoning).” (Surah al-Isra, v. 34)

Similarly, Allah Most High states:

Allah does command you to render back your trusts to those to whom they are due, and when you judge between people that you judge with justice.” (Surah al-Nisa, v. 58)

And regarding the one who breaks an agreement and is guilty of treachery, Allah Almighty says:

“Allah loves not the treacherous.” (Surah al-Anfal, v. 58)

Sayyiduna Abu Huraira (Allah be pleased with him) narrates that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) said: “The signs of a hypocrite are three: When he speaks he lies, when he makes a promise he breaks it, and when he is given a trust he breaches it.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, no. 33)

Sayyiduna Abd Allah ibn Amr (Allah be pleased with him) narrates that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) said: “Four traits, if found in an individual, then he will be a complete hypocrite (munafiq), and if an individual possesses one of these four, he will have one portion of nifaq: When he is given a trust he breaches it, when he speaks he lies, when he makes an agreement (ahd) he is guilty of treachery and disloyalty (gadar), and when he disputes he is fouled mouth.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, no. 34).

The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) clearly gave guidance as how to one’s behaviour should be towards a person with whom one has an agreement or a covenant.

Safwan ibn Sulaim narrates from a number of Companions of the Messenger of Allah (Allah be pleased with them all) on the authority of their fathers who were relatives of each other, that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) said: “Beware, if anyone oppresses (or wrongs) the one with whom one has a agreement (mu’ahid), or diminishes his right, or forces him to work beyond his capacity, or takes from him anything without his consent, I shall plead for him on the Day of Judgment.” (Sunan Abu Dawud, no. 3047)

The above Hadith is quite clear, in that a Muslim is obliged to fulfil the covenant or agreement of even a non-Muslim. If such an agreement (ahd) takes place, then one will be considered to have safeguarded his life, wealth and property. It will be unlawful (haram), as mentioned quite clearly in the Hadith, to take any wealth of the one with whom there is an agreement without his consent. This categorically rules out the notion of some who consider taking of government wealth even by unlawful means to be permissible.

Whether or not over the long term the collective silent treatment by the Muslim community towards the jihadists will be successful is another question altogether. I believe that it will not make the problem go away. I believe that you have to make fun of the jihadist argument (as I do here and here and here), reduce it to rubble intellectually (as I do here to Bin Laden and here to Zarqawi) and give Muslim states all the authority they need to hunt militants.

However, there are many Muslims who believe that the militants are so fringe that even talking to them is absolutely worthless. “Why should I waste my time reacting to Osama when he is so obviously acting against the dictates of Islam,” is something I hear often. So reflect on this: by virtue of the fact that I take the time to intellectually rebut an illiterate idiot like Zarqawi I’m actually giving the jihadist more credence and validation than the average Muslim walking around in Karachi who simply ignores Zarqawi in favor of going to work. My protest is satire and intellect; most Muslims choose the easier kind of protest. I can't say that I blame them. Writing doesn't pay.

Ultimately, this explains why I have often been extolled by Muslims themselves not to focus my literary skills or organizational effort to rebut jihadists, but to provide a workable and acceptable narrative for the average Muslim. That is part of the reason why Eteraz.Org exists and will go into Arabic and Farsi in the future. In case, people have not read our about page, it states simply:

Eteraz.Org is an online forum whose goal is to mobilize people of conscience throughout the world to identify, discuss, and take action on political and religious issues involving Islam and the Muslim world. Eteraz seeks a humanist vision of Islam for the future and looks to illuminate the wisdom and spirituality that made Islam a great religion historically by creating community, promoting informed opinions and more than anything else, moving its members to real world action.

Most, if not all topics touching on the religion and politics of Islam are appropriate at Eteraz. This forum represents people of widely diverging (and even conflicting) theologies. However, the soul of Eteraz is, and always has been, a) the simple idea that every human, man or woman, believer or atheist, wealthy or poor, has the same intrinsic worth, and can only be judged on the basis of his actions; and b) that it takes more than emails, and more than flowery articles, to stand up for the intrinsic worth of individuals.

In other words, every day when I get up, I provide a way for thousands of global citizens to do precisely what Mr. Spencer think is impossible, and his commentators think cannot happen: the construction of an alternative narrative to extremism. Writers from our site have appeared in the NYT, quoted by all sorts of mainstream magazines, written in Middle Eastern media, regularly speak to Muslim communities, and we do all this on a part time basis without asking for money, maintaining our regular jobs, not running a single ad on our website or even having a benefactor raising thousands of dollars for us. Part of the reason we don’t turn this into a career is because we don’t want to. We want to be free to be able to post music, discuss sex, swear, and talk about our laptops.

And yet, for all of our informality, I firmly believe ours, at Eteraz.Org, is the truly important kind of work (since other people like Tariq Ramadan, Manji, and Goma, have their own style of going about it).

As such, correcting Mr. Spencer’s errors is not something I have much interest in. I find his obsession with jihad a little boring – and frankly so does Hugh Fitzgerald from his own website. The real work to be done is in encouraging creativity and creating a culture of introspection. Jihadwatch can’t do that. That is the bottomline. That is why whenever put to the test, all Mr. Spencer can ask for is a "debate" and not a "collaboration."

7 – Mr. Spencer raises a point in passing without realizing how important it is.

One chief one is that most majority-Muslim nations today are not ruled solely by Islamic law. Sharia is only fully in place in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Thank you! Finally someone realizes what I have been talking about all along: that to blame everything on Islamic Law makes no sense when the laws of the Muslim world itself are not exclusively Islamic! [I personally don’t want the laws of the Muslim world to be further Islamized but that’s another story which can be investigated by looking at this poll I set up]. Fact is, that even Iran contains significant amounts of Swiss and French civil law. If I am not mistaken, an Iranian court consists of a panel of three judges: one is an expert of Swiss Law, another of French and the lead judge of Islamic Law. I confess that I am not completely certain about the make up of the Iranian court, but this much is enough to make the point.

In any event, since it is clear that even Muslim majority countries are not fully running Islamic Law, our focus as people who want to address problems in the Muslim world, cannot merely be on “reforming Islam” or “reforming Islamic Law.”

Rather, our focus has to be on a) making sure that Muslims are freely able to create legislation and b) to monitor that legislation to make sure that it complies with international human rights schemes. The operative actor in today's world is not the jurist; it is the state. You cannot talk about reforming the laws of the Muslim world independently of talking about the state. 

A great example of how the laws of a Muslim nation undergo change is the Pakistan’s Women’s Protection Bill. I encourage everyone to go through the entire chronicle of how the bill was passed (see link within this post). One will quickly see that it wasn’t just appeals to Islam that carried the day to advance women's rights. There were numerous other political and intellectual issues that entered the fray: the make up of the parliament, who had power in the media, the influence of global NGO's, attempted intimidation, even Comedy Central. Seeing this legislation in action revealed to me that if people really care about what is happening in the Muslim world – to women, to apostates, to atheists, to Christians, to dissenters, the focus had to be on what laws the GOVERNMENT is passing, not what opinions the jurists are obsessing over. I make this point in this post when I state:

In a Muslim country, the ijma of scholars means nothing unless the GOVERNMENT OF THAT COUNTRY is willing to execute their consensus. If a government doesn’t manifest the consensus, it matters nothing what the scholars are consensing about.

The point, therefore, is simple. Talking about the history and future of Islamic Law will only get us so far (mostly to long posts like this which are probably better written by PhD candidates at Uchicago). The more important work is to find out more about how Muslim legislation occurs and how it can be influenced. (Of course, having democracies would be nice too).

In pursuit of this vision I created the Muslim Countries Legislation Project. Our community is in the midst of creating an international network of people who will inform our site on pending “hot” legislation. Again, it has to be kept in mind that we do all our work part time, without advertising and without people raising money for us.

As such I issue Mr. Spencer a challenge: use some of your resources to help us compile the information we are looking for. Certainly you have far more money than us. Certainly, with your qualifications and the qualifications of all the people around you and all the writings about the Muslim world you do, there must be countless hundreds of people in the Muslim world whom you can call upon to help us gather this information. You have my email address.

By the way, I just want to note that the $500 bucks Mr. Spencer's benefactor spent to publish the anti-Islamic ad at Emory that started this entire debate would have allowed someone like me to purchase two fax machines so that I did not have to wait for people in Iran or Pakistan to type up the bills or PDF them. Or I could have purchased an MP3 recorder to use for compiling (and sharing) conversations with Islamic activists whom I meet when I travel. Mr. Spencer has often stated that he wants to see Muslim reformists succeed. My suggestion is that he start collaborating with them.

Or he can keep "debating."

Anyhow, this dialogue will reveal that unless someone buys into the fundamental premise of Muslim activism -- that change is real -- there isn't much that is tangible that is produced from these dialogues. A number of Eteraz.Org commentators predicted precisely such a fizzled out conclusion before I even got started.

In any event, Mr. Spencer the esteemed elder can have the final word.