Sputnik News “Cambridge University Vice-Chancellor Stephen Toope said on Sunday that a two-month fellowship offer to Jordan Peterson was withdrawn “as a consequence” of the institution becoming aware of an image in which the psychology professor is pictured with a man wearing an “I’m a proud Islamophobe” shirt last month.”
The wisdom of a psychology professor encouraging someone to be proud about their phobias must be questioned. Much of what Prof Peterson has to say makes much sense, but allowing himself to be seen to be endorsing such a message is disappointing.
I think the best observation on the ignorance of the man on the right is that even the spelling of the word Islamaphobe, as the red line shows me in wordpress, is an error. We could stop there, and leave the matter for people to find out for themselves. But let us go into what is on the t-shirt so as to be helpful to the other proudly ignorant people out there.
Not all the points on the t-shirt can be read but let us go into them:
pedophilia – This refers to the case of one of the wives of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) who was pledged in marriage to him while she was a child. The marriage has various reports on her age and the age at which the marriage was consummated. Some accounts say she was 9 years old, other accounts say it was later. The general ruling historically has been that once a woman is physically developed and having menstruation, then she is old enough to get married with the consent of her parent or guardian. Her consent is also needed as she is a party to the contract even when relatively young. Current laws in the US and elsewhere vary a lot and need reform due to the open door to abuse the current law has where sex between two people is presumed to be consensual as long as they reach some age, that varies in the US between 13 and 21, and which takes no account of consent of guardians and parents. Men seeking to have marriage with much younger wives is fine and normal, age should not be a barrier other than the consideration of the health and establishing proper consent. We might look at Charlie Chaplin as a useful example who married a teenage girl when he was in his fifties and they remained happily married over 30 years. Much more can be said about this, you can read more on
https://investigatingislam.org/ending-the-epidemic-of-sexual-abuse/ .
rape – I don’t know what this refers to there is no sanction for rape in Islam. Sex is strictly within Islamic marriage which is a contract of proven consent to have sex. It is worth noting that there has always been fault free divorce from Islamic marriage and a woman has always had the right to divorce her husband if for no other reason than because of how he poorly performs in bed – much to the shock of Christians who found this out.
wife-beating – This refers to a famous verse in the Qur’an which gives permission to a husband to hit his wife. Actually, the verse in question sets out the only legitimate reason a husband might hit his wife and this is so restrictive as to amount to a complete banning on hitting a wife unless it is the last resort to stopping her violate all the husbands rights and take his property and children and abandon without a divorce settlement. This is explained in
https://investigatingislam.org/when-you-can-hit-your-wife/
slavery – Far from endorsing slavery, Islam encouraged freeing of slaves and clearly prohibits all taking free people into slavery. The only way someone can become a slave in traditional islamic law is as prisoner of war. Today life sentences for murder effectively make some people slaves of the state. Other than this the need for involuntary manual labour has been filled by machines, and keeping people in captivity is rarely profitable. For that reason slavery is thankfully not as big a problem as it was. There are still however many poorly treated workers around the world who live in conditions of what is now referred to as modern slavery, often this is connected to organised crime. Helping people trapped in slavery like situations due to poverty is a basic principle of the obligatory wealth redistribution tax in Islam – zakat, which has explicitly as one of its categories the freeing of captives / slaves.
homophobia – In Islam homosexuality is considered a sin. People can and do get attached to their sinful ways. It is not good for them objectively. Homosexuals are wracked with shame and guilt even when openly accepted by all those around them. This is the primary reason that they are far more likely to commit suicide than non-homosexuals. There are many other factors that cause objective harm. Essentially, they know that they are going against their biological needs and due to its harm – which ultimately leads to a willful failure to have children and invest in the future – it is considered in Islam as “haram” : forbidden. We are forbidden to harm ourselves and others and this is why homosexuality is a sin. I recently had to work next to an openly gay man. This didn’t cause any issues with me. But he did joke constantly about how he was going to kill himself, and confessed at one point – as with all serious things, jokily, that yes he was probably suffering from PTSD – Post “Traumatic sex” Disorder. Fundamentally, Muslims view homosexuality as a bad choice and don’t accept the dogma that it is something that cannot be changed. For more read
https://investigatingislam.org/the-sexual-preference-identity-fallacy/
misogyny – This idea that Islam somehow is anti-women is a result of centuries of Western culture having done so. Women were the property of men, when they married all their property became that of their husbands, they had no ability to get divorced. The first born son inherited everything. Women who had any independent knowledge were subject to periodic witch hunts. All of this is true of western ‘civilisation’ and all of it is false about islamic civilisation. It is one gigantic projection of Western guilt about the historic misogyny of the now Post Christian West onto the Muslim world. Islam gave women inheritance rights, as well rights to maintenance from their husbands and other male relatives, it established their spiritual equal status to men and corrected many practices that were discriminatory to women. It removed taboos against marrying divorced women, against having them witness contracts, it forbade the practice of burying infant girls alive. This literal killing off of baby girls is still widespread in chinese and indian cultures though these days we usually find out the gender before birth and so this is often done via abortions see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-selective_abortion
violence against women and children – this is just a repetition of the earlier false claims, so see above…
killing apostates – this is a subject of some juristic dispute, although it is pretty clear cut. The Qur’an famously forbids forcing people to stay Muslim in the verse 2:256 “there is no coercion in the religion, right guidance is free from falling into traps” you can read more at https://investigatingislam.org/the-apostasy-controversy/
funding terror groups – Islam as a religion does not condone any violence to innocents, quite the opposite. You can find many articles on this blog and elsewhere. What I can say is that it has been established Western foreign policy to fund pretty much any extremist group that threatens a non-allied government. The west funded whoever they could including terrorists fighting Russia in proxy wars in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, and more recently in Iraq and Syria where al-qaeda is now as it was 30 years ago being funded and armed by the good old USA. It also funded the contras, and all manner of extremist groups. In Britain we knew they also funded the IRA. This only goes into recent history. But it goes back much further, to funding the wahabi extremists, Lawrence of Arabia, privateers (pirates working for the monarch of the day) etc, etc…. This is just the non-state acts of terror. If we define terrorism to include political acts of violence targeting civilians by governments, the list is practically endless, including the entire terrible basis of mutually assured destruction of the cold war.
shariah courts – Muslims have chosen to resolve their disputes according to the moral laws of their religion, this is their freedom of conscience. However, unlike in almost all situations in the West, in the Muslim world Jews and Christians and others have run their own courts allowing non-Muslims to resolve their disputes according to their own religions. This real freedom of religion practiced for centuries in the Muslim world and only stopped by colonial rule that forced one law for everyone, is what has yet to be achieved in the West. This fear of being ruled by laws you don’t agree with is another case of Western projection of their own guilt onto the Muslim world. Islam has actively established freedom of religion including having your own courts as a fundamental aspect of freedom of conscience which is the primary principle of Islamic politics. For more readhttps://investigatingislam.org/the-10-principles-of-islamic-politics/
terror attacks – repetition doesn’t make it true see above
putting women in tents – There are many different cultural dresses for women across the Muslim world. In some places loose fitting tent like structures serve well to protect from the searing light of the sun and to give ample convection for cooling. This includes Arabia where this is the traditional practice of both men and women. Separating climate factors from the religious reasons, what Islam teaches is modesty for both men and women and it has different manifestations. Men are attracted sexually to different displays by women than visa versa for deep biological reasons. Excessive displays of wealth and of beauty can increase the likelihood of some kind of attack in the street, and for this reason women are specifically instructed to be careful to be modest so that they are recognised but not assaulted. The men who were doing the assaulting are also threatened with reprisals. All of this guidance in Islam is there for us to keep away from harm, nothing more.
taqiyya – this is a word that means protecting yourself. It comes from the time when converts to Islam were being tortured and killed by the non-Muslims around them and the question arose about what if they told their torturers what they wanted to hear – i.e. they renounced their faith? If they only said those things without believing in them what is their status? The answer came in the Qur’an that as long as their heart is still firm in faith then being forced into denouncing the faith by threat of death and torture would be forgiven. Some people extend this permission to doing all kinds of deceptions and wrongs falsely claiming they were forced into doing so. This is their lie and they will be held accountable for it by God, if no one else.
anti- semitism – this is another projection of Western guilt onto the Muslim world. Jews lived and continue to live around the Muslim world for centuries while they were periodically expelled from Christian europe if not slaughtered en masse there. Their golden age was in the Muslim world. Today thanks to Israel, many people wrongly blame all Jews for the behaviour of some of them, but that is by design, and just as the briefly existing “so called” Islamic state was far from Islamic (see
https://investigatingislam.org/islamic-state-a-cartoon-caricature-of-islam/ ) the “jewish state” has become a problem for Jews, see
http://investigatingislam.org/israel-the-jewish-problem/
female genital mutilation – this is not something done anywhere outside of Africa. It has nothing particular to do with Islam and was a cultural practice. When Muslims first encountered it they had various opinions. The most that any Muslim jurist would argue is that if people want to do it and they argue that it has benefits, then that is their choice. This to me is a weak abdication of responsibility. We can study these things and establish on sound medical evidence if such interventions on the body have any likely benefits and it is up to society to allow or forbid them based on this evidence. The guiding principle in all of this is that if it is harmful it is haram – (it is actually quite possible that the English word “harm” comes from the Arabic word haram). There is nothing in the Qur’an about any such interventions, but then there is nothing in the Qur’an about brushing teeth or cutting hair and fingernails, piercing ears, noses or whatever. Basically, FGM has no ruling in Islam other than if it is harmful it is haram – which is my opinion based on what I know about it.
praying for the destruction of Israel – Muslims want to see an end to oppression and some think that only the end of Israel would achieve that. It is more complex. This on its own would not fix all the other problem of oppression, but it is the nail sticking up most that gets hit first – and that is by design. Zionists think they have Western governments wrapped around their fingers, let me assure them the perception is mutual. It has often been thus. They get each other to do their dirty work – the sabbath goy. But it works both ways, and ultimately this ploy does not absolve you for the sins you have done.
racism – seriously? Muslims are from every race on earth and racism has been condemned in Islam from the time of the prophet Muhammad, including clearly in the Qur’an itself. Ok, the “Nation of Islam” group in the USA has been racist in the past but read a bit about Malcolm X and his discovery of true islam on the pilgrimage to Makkah. The NoI has a lot of very deviant beliefs which have no foundation in any sincere study of the sources of Islam in Qur’an and the accounts of prophet Muhammad’s life.
segregating women – gender segregation does happen to prevent unwanted physical and potentially sexual contact. This is mainly in places where people are crowded together and is done for pragmatic reasons which vary hugely across the Muslim world, but in particular this includes in most mosques where people often need to squeeze in due to numbers. Again, what matters is the prevention of harm, and that is up to each community to apply its reasoning given its situation to do what is best for the people. There is literally no ruling in either Qur’an or authentic accounts of the Prophet’s life that require gender segregation as a principle.
The last point on the t-shirt is about bacon, which is perhaps the least healthy ,yet most widely eaten, food on the planet. Then there is something I cannot make out about freedom of the individual.
We are all accountable for our actions and so, yes we are free, and government must not infringe on that individual freedom, as it is the basis of how we are held to account by God for our actions. Any forced belief or action against our conscience is contrary to Islam.
However, you will, as I will, be held to account for any willful ignorance, and how we form our opinions on an insincere and incomplete assessment of the evidence.
You as an individual are held to account for your deeds and me for mine.
Professor Jordan Peterson should have known better and I hope he learns his lesson not to let such photos be made of him. “No shirts with slogans on them” could be a rule to go with. As for the man next to him, may God guide him and teach him how to do a spell check.