This is
a response to Dawah Films videos “Problem with Klingschor”. While the video is
well put together, I find his approach problematic particularly his approach to
Scholars of Islam. DawahFilms begins by describing Klingschor as an
Anti-Islamic apologist. This is incorrect, since Apologetics is
defined as the act of defending ones position or creed[1]. Klingschor usually
doesn’t do this unless when responding to critics. As far as I know he does
not have a well-defined position. DawahFilms goes on to comment on Klinchshor’s
Video “The Problem with Criticizing Islam”. He accuses Klinchshor for
maintaining a Bias like his opponents [2]. This is apparently on
account of Klinchchor committing the fallacy of vested interest. If we take definition
of this fallacy to its logical conclusion then that would mean that Klingschor
rejects the position of his opponents because they have something to gain from
their position[3]. From his original video, I do not find an example of that but
correct me if I’m wrong. His main issue is that these people present a distorted
image of Islam because of their highly subjective and miss informed
understanding of the religion. He goes
on to say that Klingschor’s rationalist and skeptical outlook is itself a Bias.
I don’t see how this is the case. Rationalism
is a theoretical framework rather than a bias. It allows subjects to be broken
down to components that could be understood by the human faculty of reason. Similarly
modern science use methodological naturalism as their framework [4].
That is natural phenomena can be
explained without appeal to the supernatural. The same way a culture or
civilization can be studied without the presuppositions the culture makes. Now
I move on to the main point of my video. Now Bias in the social sciences is inevitable
because most of us have strong feelings and opinions about the social
world. Sociologists try to create
theories on explaining human societies. These theories are an attempt to
explain the big picture such as how a certain society came to be and what is
its future[5]. Examples are change theories like Marxism. In the
course of constructing these overarching theories, it’s very easy to for
scholars to slip in their subjective ideas; at least unconsciously. This is
complicated by the fact that there is no one “true” social theory that explains
everything about human society. Now you may ask what the point of this is. I
think it’s definitely important to understand the nature of social sciences
when looking at works done by scholars on Islam or any culture for that matter.
DawahFilms goes on to illustrate how Scholars on Islam, that
is scholars in the West, differ on their study of Islamic culture and
civilization. This is to be expected because of the nature of social sciences.
Even though they are still human being and not free from bias, they are expected
to uphold academic integrity. The scholars Klingschor mentioned study different
aspects of Islam and approach it from different perspectives. For example
Angelika Neuwirth[6] in her latest works studies the cultural
setting behind the emergence of the Qur’an. She is part of Corpus Coranicum project which attempts to reconstruct the
Qur’an using higher textual criticism [7]. This is the first time
higher criticism is applied to the Qur’an. Higher criticism simply means the
attempt to reconstruct the time, place, author and motivation behind a certain
text so studying the cultural milieu is important. Patricia Crone is another scholar known for
work on Hagarism in 1977, which is a shame because she has done a lot of work
since then[8]. She focuses on the political history and economics of
the Early Muslim empires. She occasionally discusses theology like in Hagarism.
A good example of her work is “The First Century Concept of Hijra” where Crone
examines how Hijra was a term used for military mobilization in the early Muslim
empire[9].
Now it is difficult
to establish consensus or Ijma on Early muslim history because of a number of
reasons. Neuwirth discusses this in “The Quran in Context: Historical and
Literary Investigation in to the Qur’anic Milieu”, which is a collection of
essay by various authors on the Qur’an and Islamic theology. In the introduction she attributes the lack
consensus to “There is no critical edition of the text, no free access to all
of the relevant manuscript evidence, no clear conception of the cultural and
linguistic profile of the milieu within which it has emerges, no consensus on
basic issues of methodology, a significant amount of mutual distrust among
scholars, and- what is perhaps the single most important obstacle to scholarly
progress”[10]. Any one interested in the different schools within
Islamic Studies in the West; have a look at the paper on the Sana’a
Manuscript I have provided[11]. So when we look at the current state of
Islamic Studies it might look pretty messy. However this is because we might
have a modernist perspective on Islamic civilization; where we believe that one
theory or narrative might explain the totality of this culture. A post-modern
perspective might explain the discrepancies currently in academia. Post
Modernism holds that there is no universally “true” theory that could explain every
facet of human society [12]. It puts an emphasis on the particular
truths of a given time and place. So it that sense, the current academic
theories on Islam can be true with the context of their approach to a given
topic. Perhaps we need multiple “truths” to explain the multifaceted and
complex nature of Islamic society. I also have an issue with DawahFilms
discrediting the historian Tom Holland. It is true that he hasn’t written any
academic paper on Islam but I don't think that's relevant. He is a popular historian who has written books on classical
antiquity. His book “In the Shadow of the Sword”, traces the developments of the
near east of late antiquity leading up to the rise of Islam. This book was the
basis for the Channel 4 documentary. For
a non-specialist this book is very well researched. If you look through his
bibliography, you’ll see that that Holland references many scholars on Islam
and late antiquity. This book is a good introduction to anyone interested in
the early history of Islam. So I recommend it.
So that concludes
my response.
References
[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apologetics
[2] Refer to
DawahFilm’s video 9:30
[3] His source on
the definition of the Vested Interest Fallacy actually has a good example of
the fallacy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#VestedInterest
[4] For a
comprehensive understanding of methodological naturalism refer to the entry
from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/#MetNat
[5] This is from my
sociology textbook: Joanne Naiman, How
Societies Work: Class, Power, and Change, 5th edition. pp. 17
[7] http://en.qantara.de/The-Reader-Maketh-the-Book/17298c17803i1p77/index.html
[8]https://www.google.ca/search?q=Patricia+Crone&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1
[8]https://www.google.ca/search?q=Patricia+Crone&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1
[9]http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4057424?uid=3739448&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=21101610119607.
You should be able access JSTOR through a university library website.
[10]The quote is on page 1. For the ebook: http://tinyurl.com/bafrp92.
[11] http://www.scribd.com/doc/110978941/Sanaa-1-and-the-Origins-of-the-Qur-An. Refer to pages 2-5
[12] Simplified
definition of Post-Modernism from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/gengloss/postm-body.html
