The Secret Muslim Smear
Jon Henke asks,
In 2006, when he was asked if he was Jewish, George Allen (for whom I worked) said the questioner was “making aspersions.” Naturally, Lefties were outraged. Media Matters harangued the media for not pressing Allen on why he called questions about Jewishness an “aspersion”.
How is Barack Obama’s use of the word “smear” different than this? To paraphrase progressive blogger Lindsay Beyerstein, “Why the defensiveness? It’s as if he thinks being [Muslim] is a very bad thing.”
False rumors about Obama deserve bipartisan denunciation. But perhaps the media should begin asking Barack Obama why he thinks Muslim identity is a ‘smear’.
I don’t think that Barack Obama thinks there is anything wrong with identifying as a Muslim. But those who accuse Barack Obama of being a secret Muslim aren’t simply informing people of the fact that Obama is a Muslim. Rather, they are suggesting that he only claims to be a Christian, and that he in fact secretly practices another religion. The secrecy aspect of being a “secret Muslim” is relevant. Why? It suggests that the “secret Muslim” has something to hide, e.g., a radical Islamist agenda dedicated to the destruction of all that God-fearing Americans hold dear.
Keith Ellison, for example, is a practicing Muslim. Calling Ellison a “secret Muslim” is to say something that is simply false — it is less a smear than either a foolish mistake or a clumsy effort to suggest that Ellison isn’t entirely open about his religious beliefs. Calling him a “secret Wiccan,” in contrast, would constitute a smear, even if one believes that Wiccan religious practice merits our respect.
Henke notes that George Allen caught flack for his “aspersions” line. My sense is that reporters wanted to know if Allen was of Jewish origin, i.e., if he had Jewish ancestors, which is separate and distinct from whether Allen practices Judaism or embracing a Jewish identity. To suggest that Allen hails from a Jewish background hardly constitutes “casting aspersions.” But let’s say a reporter instead suggested that Allen was only telling voters that he was a believing Christian to woo them politically, and that he was in fact an observant Jew, but only in hiding. I mean, I think that would be a pretty strange charge — a smear even. Or, better yet, imagine if a reporter suggested that Allen was lying about being a believing Christian to distract the public from the fact that he is in fact a Zionist sleeper agent who intends to infiltrate the American government and hand over vital state secrets to the Israelis.
The accusation would be ludicrous, offensive, and it would definitely constitute a smear.
Note, however, that Obama supporters overreacted when Edward Luttwak suggested that radical Islamists would see Obama as a Muslim apostate. This was not a smear against Obama — it was a recognition that Islamists are insane. Clark Hoyt, the Times public editor, responded with a non sequitur.
I interviewed five Islamic scholars, at five American universities, recommended by a variety of sources as experts in the field. All of them said that Luttwak’s interpretation of Islamic law was wrong.
Which is, of course, irrelevant. Does Hoyt seriously believe that he could find five Islamic scholars at five American universities who would declare that the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was religiously sound? Of course not. Why? Were such Islamic scholars in tenured faculty positions at American universities, it would rightly spark outrage. Does this mean that it would be wrong for an American intellectual to suggest that Islamic scholars in the Islamic world might declare a fatwa against Rushdie on an American op-ed page? I hope not. That would be pretty damn stupid.
It is really great to know that scholars at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California are really stoked about the fact that Islamic jurisprudence is evolving in a hipper and more humane direction. But of course Luttwak’s “rigid, simplistic view of Islam” is not his own view — it is the view of the radical Islamists who, I’m guessing, sharply outnumber the progressive Muslim imams of Alameda County.
Hoyt wrote,
When writers purport to educate readers about complex matters, and they are arguably wrong, I think The Times cannot label it opinion and let it go at that.
When public editors purport to educate readers about complex matters, and they rely on a narrow group of extremely unrepresentative scholars, I think The Times should seriously consider firing him. The job of the public editor is not to pander to readers. It is to keep the newspaper honest. The Op-Ed page did not deserve to be dressed down, and neither did Luttwak. Hoyt owes them an apology.
Have you read Luttwak’s article? The term “Islamist” is never used. He talks about “Muslims” throughout. He makes factual claims about what Muslim law states and what Muslim clerics would permit. He cites not even one Muslim to back up these claims.
— Algernon · Jun 19, 02:18 AM · #
If I had to bet, I would bet that Obama only claims to be a Christian, and secretly believes in no religion. Certainly, there is little in his 1995 autobiography to suggest he believes the tenets of Christianity. His “conversion” experience while listening to Rev. Wright sermonize about how “the white man’s greed runs a world in need” is essentially a feeling of racial solidarity, of finally feeling black enough.
— Steve Sailer · Jun 19, 03:26 AM · #
“If I had to bet, I would bet that Obama only claims to be a Christian, and secretly believes in no religion. “
ah, a return to the time of jefferson then? :-)
“He makes factual claims about what Muslim law states and what Muslim clerics would permit.”
but is it true? like much in religion…it depends….
— razib · Jun 19, 03:46 AM · #
How do you get the interpretation that Hoyt was asking those Islamic scholars about their personal opinion? He could have been asking American scholars about their opinion of the current interpretation of Islamic law, as practiced in the Muslim world. It seems to me that his phrasing is unfortunately ambiguous, but I don’t get how you (and I believe Alan Jacobs did the same thing), get to the alternate interpretation. Have I missed something?
— Justin · Jun 19, 04:38 AM · #
I can’t understand how Edward Luttwak ends up gettting the better of this. Hoyt went and talked to tenured scholars on the subject; Luttwak, by contrast, just pulled his thesis out of a Daniel Pipes newsletter. Moreover, Luttwak—a right wing military historian—doesn’t have a line on his resume that would suggest he is knowledgeable about the subtleties of Islamic juridical opinion (domestic or foreign) on this delicate subject. And let’s not forget that against a pile of expert refutations, no one—so far as I know—has brought forth an Islamic law scholar of any nationality to endorse Luttwak’s claims.
Imagine if the Washington Post invited Noam Chomsky to write a long piece for its pages about how John McCain could die in office because he might have contracted a venereal disease from fooling around with Vicki Iseman. That would be an outrage, right? Whereas if the opinion were based on material credible evidence and offered by an expert in the subject, you might have fewer objections . . . No?
— southpaw · Jun 19, 06:04 AM · #
“He could have been asking American scholars about their opinion of the current interpretation of Islamic law, as practiced in the Muslim world.”
i’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty, and obviously i’m not a expert, but, i think it is important to remember that there is no current interpretation of law as much as laws. IOW, there’s a lot of interpretation and various flavors. to have a genuine scholarly refutation a selection of half a dozen islamic scholars won’t do because what you really need a good distribution of the range of opinion and the frequency of those opinions.
as for luttwak’s interpretation, he obviously overplayed his hand. but, it is customary in islam to presume that religion is patrilineal and within muslim nations laws for apostasy are strict. the inference is pretty clear. OTOH, most religious law exhibits a great deal of “flexibility” due to local contingencies. the flexibility in the hands of islamic radicals is the problem. consider spain and india. osama bin laden & co. implausibly believe that these are muslim lands and so should be ruled and dominated by muslims. why does he believe this despite their non-muslim majorities and long history of non-muslim rule? osama & co. like to pretend as if all lands ever under the domination of muslims is part of the dar-al-islam. most islamic scholars will tell you this really isn’t a practically implementable position, and some might even riposte that spain and india are muslim lands so long as muslims are able to freely practice their religion (this is now the standard formula for rationalizing the residence of muslims under kufar temporal power). but the critical point is that flexibility does exist for a variety of self-interested interpretations.
let me grant that luttwak presented a caricature which exhibited a lack of deep knowledge. unfortunately the response was in many ways just as childish. as alan’s earlier post implied if you read between the subtext of the quoted responses it’s rather clear that the issue isn’t that cut & dried and there are many legalistic details to be fleshed out. as it is most anti-luttwak partisans simply presented the final conclusion (as opposed to the logic and what that entails about the context and framework in which these scholars were operating) and declared Q.E.D.
— razib · Jun 19, 09:54 AM · #
Razib seems about right here: Luttwak’s piece was probably overstated, but with just a bit of nuancing, it seems pretty plausible. There probably are a decent number of Muslims who think that because Obama’s father has a Muslim background, Obama himself should count as originally Muslim and, thus, that his embrace of Christianity is apostasy. Whether they would actually do anything about that, or whether the numbers of people who would actually think this are large or small is anyone’s guess – and the “experts” so assiduously consulted by Hoyt seem irrelevant on this point. It doesn’t matter what a bunch of comfortable American academics think, does it? It matters what people who think you shouldn’t display cucumbers and tomatoes together think.
Of course, for that matter, they’d probably be interested in attacking Obama simply because he’s the American president more than on account of his purported apostasy.
— Michael Simpson · Jun 19, 10:35 AM · #
Common, people, stop accusing Mr. Salam of inconsistencies. It is true, radical Islamists are not mentioned in Mr. Luttwak’s article by name. Luttwak talks exclusively about regular average Muslims. For example, “most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known…” But if one grasps that “most citizens of the Islamic world” are radical Islamists, the contradiction disappears. I, for one, am glad there are scholars like Mr. Salam and Mr. Luttwak, who understand the true danger presented by the teaming hordes of those blood-thirsty foaming-at-the-mouth citizens of the Islamic world!
— phasearth · Jun 19, 11:27 AM · #
Justin hits where I would’ve at the criticism of Hoyt — surely those scholars are in a position to say something about how they feel the Islamic world as a whole would view law, rather than what their personal opinions are. But, moreover, they were giving their input in the aftermath of Luttwak’s article so you’d figure they know what’s being asked of them (or at least some would).
Simpson makes a nice point too which is that Luttwak’s article is fundamentally suspect anyhow since it’s kind of a moot point why a given American president is an assassination target…
— Sanjay · Jun 19, 02:09 PM · #
I only know the Luttwak article by reputation, and for all I know he was chewing peyote buttons. But phasearth’s pseudo-Swiftian jibe doesn’t fly. If (and I subject the question of “if” to those who know better than I) “most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified” by Obama’s supposed apostasy, and if all radical Islamists are part of the Islamic world (a truism that does not need defending), then logically most radical Islamists would be horrified by Obama’s apostasy, unless they have some exeptional reason not to be offended, which seems unlikely. It’s if b —> c, and all a’s are b’s, then a —> c. It does not require saying all b’s are a’s, and it’s a bit of libel to suggest that’s what Salam meant.
— Blar · Jun 19, 05:41 PM · #
Razib, I went back and looked at Alan’s posts. At least one of Hoyt’s quotations cited by Alan indicated that most Muslims jurists around the world would probably say Obama is not an apostate. The real question here is not whether someone could find a pretext in Islamic law to view Obama as an apostate, but whether it would be a charge that would inflame the Muslim world, and that question depends on whether influential Muslim jurists or other leaders would make the charge.
Incidentally, I recommend rereading the Luttwak piece. It’s pretty uncompromising. He refers to how muslim law is “universally understood” and so on. It’s an overbearing piece, given that he was shown to be on shaky ground.
— Justin · Jun 20, 12:43 AM · #
I’m no expert in Sharia law or the Muslim faith either, but I get my news from the NYTimes and other traditional news sources. It seems to me, however, that one doesn’t need to be an expert to deem Lutwalk’s piece basically credible or Hoyt’s piece disingenuous. In point of fact, there is a large subsegment of the Muslim world that might indeed share the point of view that Obama is an apostate. Just yesterday there was a quote from Libya’s Quaddafy referring to Obama as a “Muslim Brother” so unless he has joined a vast right wing conspiracy…
As for Obama’s Christianity it may well be a political convenience. For that matter, so too may be McCain’s.
— Snort · Jun 22, 04:26 PM · #