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I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to pick the brain of New York Times ’bestselling author’ Robert Spencer.
Robert has been studying Islam for over thirty years and is widely regarded as an expert in his field.
Robert recently returned from the much heralded Stockholm Conference and announced the creation of Stop Islamization of Nations.
Robert Spencer features in some video debates that you can find in the ‘video’ section of this website.
Robert Spencer’s Bio from his website JihadWatch:
ROBERT SPENCER is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of twelve books, including two New York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (both Regnery). His latest book is Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam’s Obscure Origins (ISI).
Roberts’ books can be found >HERE<
Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community.
Spencer is the Associate Director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI). He is a weekly columnist for FrontPage Magazine and has written eleven monographs and well over three hundred articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism.
Spencer (MA, Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history in depth since 1980. As an Adjunct Fellow with the Free Congress Foundation in 2002 and 2003, he wrote a series of monographs on Islam: An Introduction to the Qur’an; Women and Islam; An Islamic Primer; Islam and the West; The Islamic Disinformation Lobby; Islam vs. Christianity; and Jihad in Context. More recently he has also written monographs for the David Horowitz Freedom Center: Islamophobia: Thought Crime of the Totalitarian Future (with David Horowitz); Obama and Islam (with David Horowitz); What Americans Need to Know About Jihad; The Violent Oppression of Women In Islam (with Phyllis Chesler); Islamic Leaders’ Plan for Genocide; and Muslim Persecution of Christians.
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Interview:
Vin Ienco: How did you start, what inspired you to learn more and to teach, tell us about your education on Islam?
Robert Spencer: I had a personal interest in the Middle East and the Islamic world from a very early age, as my family was from there and I grew up hearing wonderful stories about life there. Wanting to know more about what happened to my grandparents and how they came to America led me to study Islam, and ultimately, as it increasingly became a geopolitical issue, to consulting privately with several groups and individuals on Islam during the 1990s. After 9/11, one of these groups asked me to write a book to clarify some issues that were being obfuscated in the explanations of what motivated the attacks. That was my first book, “Islam Unveiled.”
V: How has publically discussing the controversial issue of Islam affected you personally?
R: It is rather strange being internationally notorious. I’ve experienced levels of vituperation, mendacity and abuse I would scarcely have thought possible. But I have met many wonderful people, personal heroes of mine before I ever wrote a book, such as Oriana Fallaci, Bat Ye’or, and Ibn Warraq, and become friends with them. I have witnessed many acts of courage and valor. I’ve seen, in short, the depths of evil and the heights of heroism, in ways I never would have imagined.
V: Dual arguments exist both within Islam and with non-Muslims – that on one hand, Islam is a religion of peace and yet others say Islam is dangerous. Do you think that the people of America will wake up and see the evidence in front of them and finally accept the truth?
R: Of course many people already do. There is an increasing gap between what most people know and what the mainstream media and the government tell them. But those two forces are actively preventing most people from waking up. Will that change? I don’t see any change on the horizon. But the force of events may eventually explode the media’s Big Lie.
V: Do you believe that Europe and Britain are collapsing under dhimmitude, like the ominous words found in on Bat Ye’or’s book, Eurabia ?
R: It’s rather obvious that they are. I do not believe either one is a lost cause, however.
V: We see, almost daily – the countless murders in Pakistan, Thailand, The Philippines, Nigeria and so many other countries around the globe where people are victims of Islamic terrorism and Islamification of their culture. In 1992, Samuel P Huntington gave a lecture at The American Enterprise Institute called, The Clash of Civilizations in which he theorized that the dominating source of future global conflict will be cultural. Do you believe that this is happening now?
R: Here again, it is rather obvious that it is. All over the globe, wherever Muslims and non-Muslims live together in close proximity, there is conflict. Huntington’s observations on this have been proven to be precisely correct.
V: A report issued earlier this year authored by Ihsan Bagby, Profesor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky., stated that mosque growth in the USA had reached 74 percent in the last decade. Who is funding this massive growth and why aren’t we seeing more opposition to their construction?
R: 80% of mosques in America are funded in whole or part by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which is a Muslim Brotherhood entity that receives funding from Saudi Arabia. We aren’t seeing more opposition to this construction because of the media drumbeat that such opposition, even to Muslim Brotherhood mosques, constitutes “racism,” “bigotry,” and “Islamophobia.” It is, however, not in the least “racist” to oppose entities funded by groups linked to an organization dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.”
V: Since the publication and the subsequent global reaction to the jyllands-posten ’mohammed cartoons’ of 31 September, 2005, do you think that freedom of speech and freedom of expression has been compromised, if not destroyed?
R: Not destroyed. But under severe attack, spearheaded by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation with willing cooperation from Western leaders, including Obama and Hillary Clinton.
V: What are your thoughts on the OIC backed blasphemy laws being looked at by the UN and their impact on the First Amendment?
R: They are designed to destroy the First Amendment.
V: Why does Islam need blasphemy laws?
R: Blasphemy laws are widely used in Pakistan to victimize minority groups, seize their land, take their jobs, etc. In general, only a deeply insecure culture that cannot deal rationally with criticism needs to use force to shut down dissent.
V: How entrenched is the Muslim Brotherhood via their countless proxies into American society and politics?
R: Far more deeply than most people know. Congressman Ellison rails against Congressman Bachmann for calling for an investigation into Muslim Brotherhood influence in the government, and yet Ellison took $13,350 from a Muslim Brotherhood group, the Muslim American Society, to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca. And many, many others are similarly compromised.
V: Recently, The Pew Research Centre released a report stating that 17 percent of American people believe Obama is a Muslim, an increase of 5 percent since 2008. In your view, why do so many people still believe that he is a Muslim?
R: Because everything he has done as President has aided the Islamic supremacist agenda internationally (most notably, aiding the Muslim Brotherhood in the “Arab Spring,” refusing to aid the Iranian demonstrators in 2009) and domestically (his DoJ joining lawsuits against schools and businesses that have denied special accommodation to Muslims, etc.).
V: How do you feel about people trying to build a causal relationship between your writing and the outcome of events in Norway on 22 July 2011?
R: It isn’t me: it is a cynical attempt to destroy the counter-jihad movement in general. In reality, Breivik said at his trial that he was inspired by al-Qaeda, and said in his manifesto that he wanted to work with Hamas, and quoted many, many people, including Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy, but they’re never blamed for what he did. The attempt to portray his actions as the outcome of his reading my work ignores what he said and what I say, and makes no more sense than blaming the Beatles for the Manson murders since Manson claimed to have received his orders to kill from the lyrics of Beatles songs.
V: According to a report issued by the Center for American Progress, released in August 2011, you were named on a list as a ’misinformation expert.’ What do you think is the underlying agenda of people making such comments?
R: They want to obscure the truth about the jihad and Islamic supremacism, so that resistance to them will be disarmed and they can advance unimpeded.
V: You are noted as being a New York Times ’bestselling author’, with an impressive array of educational books on Islam. Your latest book, the controversial Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure Origins, was slammed before it was released, an interesting feat indeed. What made you look deep into one of the many facts that the Muslims were first called “Ishmaelites” and although there were references to parts of a Koran, a complete book wasnt noted by John of Damascus 98 years after Muhammed died?
R: When I wrote my biography of Muhammad, The Truth About Muhammad, in 2006, I wanted to provide readers with the life of Muhammad as depicted in the earliest Muslim sources. I explained in that book that those sources were actually quite late and of dubious historical value, and wanted after that to explore that point in greater detail. In this new book, that is what I did.
V: For the readers of this interview, can you give an insight into the inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock in 691 CE, built on the Temple Mount that was completed in 957 BCE?
R: It is one of the first mentions of Muhammad as a prophet, but the language used of him is identical to that used of Jesus elsewhere in the inscription and apart from one line about Muhammad, in the main inscription the bulk of what is written is about Jesus. There is a general absence of material about Muhammad dating from before this, aside from some usages in which it appears to be a title, not a proper name — “The Praised One.” This has led some scholars to postulate that the whole inscription is about Jesus, and that Muhammad is a title being applied to him.
V: Some final thoughts on what Americans can do to ‘push-back’ against this incessant march?
R: Educate yourselves. Be persistent. Fight for justice and equality of rights. Never give up.
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