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Robert Bruce Spencer (1962 - ) is an American scholar and writer focusing on Islam and Jihad. He the author of six books, including two bestsellers, on topics related to Islam and terrorism, is the founder and director of the Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch websites that focus on Islamist terrorism-related events.

Biography

Robert Spencer holds a Master's degree in Religious Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1986.

He began his career in 1979 at the University of North Carolina. His MA thesis is entitled "The Monophysite in the Mirror" and concerns the conversion of John Henry Newman to Catholicism in 1845 and Newman's denunciation of the Church of England as monophysite.

According to the biography at one of his websites, Spencer began studying Islam in 1980 during his first year as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina. He wrote freelance articles for various publications between 1980 and 2001 on Catholic religious issues. In 2002, he became an adjunct fellow with the Free Congress Foundation. He wrote seven monographs on Islam for the Free Congress Foundation in 2002 and 2003. He is a regular columnist for FrontPageMagazine.com, and Human Events. His writings on Islam and other topics have been published in various other publications.

In 2006, he participated in a workshop on terrorist threats, jointly sponsored by the German Foreign Ministry and the United States Embassy Berlin . In the same year, he conducted a workshop at the United States Central Command . He has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism on a variety of television networks, as well as on numerous radio programs.

In late October 2006, Robert Spencer commented on the efficacy of his work:

I have spoken about the jihad ideology on the BBC, the VOA, numerous other radio and television outlets, and to audiences all over this country, as well as in Europe and Israel. I've spoken at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry, given presentations to U.S. Central Command and to a Joint Terrorism Task Force group, and also addressed influential fora that I am not at liberty to name. I've given information on jihadist activity to media outlets on which (or in which, as the case may be) I've never appeared personally, including ABC News, the Washington Post, and the O'Reilly Factor. And I've written two books that made the New York Times Bestseller List. All this is personally gratifying, but it is all much more important as an indication that, increasingly, word is getting out. The truth is getting out.

His writings on Islam and other topics have been published in the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, Canada's National Post, FrontPage Magazine, WorldNetDaily, Human Events, National Review Online, and many other publications. He has consulted with United States Central Command and the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry, and frequently appears on global media networks such as well as on the BBC, CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, PBS, C-Span, as well as on numerous radio programs including Michael Savage's Savage Nation, The Alan Colmes Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Neal Boortz Show, The Michael Medved Show, The Michael Reagan Show, The Larry Elder Show, The Barbara Simpson Show, Vatican Radio amongst others.

Views on Spencer and his works

Daniel Pipes, Bat Ye'or, and Ibn Warraq are among those who have a positive view of Spencer's works, while Khaleel Mohammed and organizations such as CAIR, and ADC hold negative views.

Khaleel Mohammed, Louay M. Safi and Carl Ernst assert that Spencer's scholarship and interpretations of Islam are fundamentally flawed - that he supports preconceived notions through selection bias - that he lacks genuine understanding and; that 'he has no academic training in Islamic studies whatsoever; his M.A. degree was in the field of early Christianity'. For example, critics have objected to what they see as Spencer's method of taking some Muslim interpretations and then using them to characterize all Muslims or what he implies is the real Islam; cf. for example Mark LeVine . They object to what they view as Spencer's method in taking a radical position (on apostasy, women, etc) and then attibute that position to all of Islam, rather than situating it within ongoing discussions. Khaleel Mohammed and Spencer have had detailed discussions on Front Page Magazine.

Additionally, Al-Qaeda has also singled Spencer, along with several other individuals out for criticism.

Spencer's responses to critics

In response to criticism, Spencer states that none of his critics have substantiated their claims of inaccuracy in his work, but content themselves with broad and vague accusations. He says: "I present the work not on the basis of my credentials, but on the basis of the evidence I bring forth; evaluate it for yourself. One example: after I spoke at the University of North Carolina, Professor Carl Ernst of the university wrote a piece about me warning that my books were non-scholarly and were published by presses that he believed reflected a political agenda of which he did not approve. That kind of approach may impress some people, but Carl Ernst did not and cannot bring forth even a single example of a supposed inaccuracy in my work. I would, of course, be happy to debate Carl Ernst or any other scholar of Islam about Islam and jihad; this is a standing invitation.". He has also said "It is amusing to me that some people like to focus on my credentials, when I have never made a secret of the fact that most of what I know about Islam comes from personal study. It is easier for them to talk about degrees than to find any inaccuracy in my work. Yet I present the work not on the basis of my credentials, but on the basis of the evidence I bring forth; evaluate it for yourself.". Spencer has criticized academics at his web site writing that he opted not to enter any PhD program because he "could see that Middle East Studies and other departments were becoming highly politicized and retreating from genuine academic work". About charges of "bigotry" and "hatred" from Ernst and others he says: "It is not an act of hatred against Muslims to point out the depredations of jihad ideology. It is a peculiar species of displacement and projection to accuse someone who exposes the hatred of one group of hatred himself: I believe in the equality of rights and dignity of all people, and that is why I oppose the global jihad. And I think that those who make the charge know better in any case: they use the charge as a tool to frighten the credulous and politically correct away from the truth."

Book-ban

The government of Pakistan announced on 20 December 2006 its ban on Robert Spencers' book "The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion" citing "objectionable material" as the cause.

"Invitation to Islam"

On 2 September 2006 a video called "Invitation to Islam" featuring Adam Gadahn with a brief appearance also by Ayman al-Zawahiri . In the video, Gadahn named Spencer in a list of "Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants" which included George W. Bush, and that if he "were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam."

Spencer responded with an article in Frontpage Magazine ("My Invitation From al-Qaeda", September 6, 2006) in which he publicly rejected Gadahn's offer and responded with his own counter-offer:

I invite you to accept the Bill of Rights, and enter into the brotherhood of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. My invitation does not focus on my religion, although I invite you to that also, but rather on a framework within which people of differing faiths can live in peace, harmony, and mutual respect – provided that none of the groups involved cherishes supremacist ambitions to subjugate the others.

Books

• The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion, Regnery Publishing 2006 (NYT bestseller list ])
• The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims (editor), Prometheus Books, 2005. ISBN 1-59102-249-5
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades), Regnery Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-89526-013-1 (NYT bestseller list)
• Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West, Regnery Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-89526-100-6
• Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics (with Daniel Ali), Ascension Press, 2003. ISBN 0-9659228-5-5
• Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Foreword by David Pryce-Jones), Encounter Books, 2002. ISBN 1-893554-58-9

Video clips

• Video of Robert Spencer on FoxNews

References

This article has an unclear citation style. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation and footnoting. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

1. ^ Bio from Jihadwatch.org
2. http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/013772.php
3. CAIR: Islamists Fooling the Establishment by Daniel Pipes and Sharon Chadha, Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2006
4. Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye'or, p. 31, 107, 206
5. (who contributed to The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims, edited by Spencer)
6. ^ Home page of Muhammad Khaleel Cite error: The named reference "Khaleel" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
7. November 11, 2005. CAIR press release
8. ADC Op-ed: "Violence is a human, not an Islamic trait", American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, February 3, 2004
9. Will the Extreme Right Succeed? Turning the War on Terror into a War on Islam by Louay M. Safi, Dec 29 2005
10. ^ Response to Spencer's "Muslim Feminism?" from FrontPage Magazine
11. See paragraph 6
12. Muslim Feminism? by Spencer
13. Response to Khaleel Mohammed
14. Spencer vs. Mohammed, Round II

External links

• Robert Spencer's Front Page Magazine column archive
• JihadWatch weblog
• Dhimmiwatch weblog
• List of articles by Robert Spencer
• "Notes on the Ideological Patrons of an Islamophobe, Robert Spencer" by Professor Carl W. Ernst of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Robert Spencer Interview on C-Span
• Hear Robert Spencer Interviewed [http://www.stevenrinehart.com/uploads/SpencerInterview.mp3 A 40 minute Interview with Robert Spencer

• Islam-related controversies
• Non-Muslim Islamic scholars
• Christian history
• Muslim history
• Roman Catholic theologians
• Christian writers
• American Middle Eastern studies
• Critics of Islam
• Islam critical scholars