Karen Armstrong -- noodlehead.

David Thomson writes that "Karen Armstrong has been described as 'one of the world's most provocative and inclusive thinkers on the role of religion in the modern world.'"

The question is, "Which world?" Mr. Thompson shows that she is barely able to distinguish simple historical fact from a two-headed giraffe:

In her latest offering, Armstrong is again given free rein to mislead Guardian readers and, again, rewrite history. Armstrong asserts that, "until recently, no Muslim thinker had ever claimed [violent jihad] was a central tenet of Islam." In fact, contemporary jihadists pointedly draw upon theological traditions reaching back to Muhammad's own example. The Fifteenth Century historian and philosopher, Ibn Khaldun, summarised the consensus of five centuries of prior Sunni theology regarding jihad in his book, The Muqudimmah: "In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the. mission to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations." Shiite jurisprudence concurred with this consensus, as seen in al-Amili's manual of Shia law, Jami-i-Abbasi: "Islamic holy war against followers of other religions, such as Jews, is required unless they convert to Islam."

Given that Armstrong is regularly described as a "respected scholar" and an "expert on Islam", she must surely know of Khaldun and his sources, and must surely know how Muhammad conceived jihad primarily as an expansionist military endeavour. Armstrong must also be aware of the jihad campaigns of religious `cleansing' throughout the Arab Peninsula, in accord with Muhammad's purported death bed words. Likewise, the five centuries of jihad campaigns in India, during which tens of millions of Hindus and Buddhists were slaughtered or enslaved, along with similar campaigns in Egypt, Palestine, Armenia, Africa, Spain, etc. These campaigns are thoroughly - often triumphantly - documented by Islamic sources of the period and are available to any serious scholar.

See preceding post excerpting Ruth Dudley Edwards for depressing description of other witless Western intellectuals. It's one of zillions available, of course, but nothing less than bayoneting their offspring on the dining room table will wake these fools up.

"Islam's Hagiographer." By David Thompson, 2/23/07 <-- Dissecting Leftism, 2/28/07 (emphasis added).