The Alwaleed bin Talal Chair
Meet Jonathan AC Brown – the Alwaleed bin Talal Chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and the Director of the Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding.
Sarah Brown (no relation, I’m pretty sure) at Harry’s Place tells us what he’s been doing lately:
Brown has recently hit the headlines for defending the practices of slavery and concubinage in a lecture. Like many apologists he borrows from discourses more usually associated with secular liberalism to soothe his listeners’ ears. Some use the language of human rights and liberalism to defend illiberal practices. Brown disingenuously invokes postmodern relativist uncertainty to trivialise rape. Here are some excerpts from his justification (taken from this piece at the Daily Banter).
It’s very hard to have this discussion because we think of, let’s say in the modern United States, the sine qua non of morally correct sex is consent. We think of people as autonomous agents. Everybody’s an autonomous agent and it’s the consent of that autonomous agent that makes a sexual action acceptable. Correct?
You can tell what’s coming next – oh gosh it’s way more complicated than that, hurble burble – all in the most general terms, as if this had nothing to do with men forcing sex on women, and with women’s subordination by men, and with patriarchy as a system that sees to it that men have autonomy while women do not. Easy for him, in short.
Sarah goes on:
With horrible sophistry, in a calm and chatty tone, Brown presents the fact that we cannot do exactly what we feel like all the time (or will pay a price if we try to do so) as a justification for rape. Here, via Tom Holland, is another statement on the topic (from 2015).
“But it’s not possible to say that slavery is inherently, absolutely, categorically immoral in all times and places, since it was allowed by the Quran and the Prophet.”
Excuse me?
On the contrary – it’s the other way around. It’s entirely possible to say that the Quran and the Prophet were dead wrong to allow slavery, and contemporary academics who say otherwise are both wrong and immoral.
Do you think that has potatoes in it? Or is it more like gumbo?
Hmmm….my blockquote disappeared in that one – I had blockquoted “outrage soup”, but the black hole that hovers over my house stealing bookmarks, socks, and other assorted things apparently just stole my blockquote.
And when the great reckoning of opinions happens..
It’s really weird that people can’t see that refusing to even discuss certain topics emboldens the person bringing up the topic. Sadly this is the place we live.
Is he an equal opportunity wrong and immoral chair? Do Jews and Christians, as Peoples of the Book, get to do slavery too, since their sacred scrawls accept and condone it? Stoning adulterers? How about killing apostates and heretics? What’s sauce for the Quran is sauce for the Torah and New Testament. Is this how Muslim Christian understanding works?
When did I say it was rational? When did I say we should all get behind it?
The current modern world has a large percentage of voters who don’t like immigration, and will vote against it. That’s a fact. Your contribution doesn’t change that.
Sounds like a Muslim version of the Divine Command Theory of ethics: If God says it’s moral then it’s moral. [Hope it’s ok to post a link]:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_command_theory
Plato/Socrates did a good job destroying the divine command theory with the Euthyphro dilemma, 2,300 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma
Ok, and while you’re quoting socrates the voters are doing whatever the feel represents their interests. The world has changed, failing to realise and take some account of it is your problem, not mine.
Yeah, we should totally throw away all thought, knowledge and advancement humanity has achieved, because ‘voters’.
Well, and what a deafening silence from our hectoring and cloudily vague Cb as to how he is taking account of, and addressing, our changed world – or does he (I suspect it’s a ‘he’) think that the passive acceptance of whatever comes along constitutes realisation and ‘taking account’?
Well, blogs with a more conservative bent have been all over this centre for ‘understanding’ and this ‘toon scholar for quite some time now.
The penchant for perverting language on the part of certain adepts of a certain religion was quite clearly articulated by Maimonides in His ‘Epistle to The Jews of Yemen’ back in the 12th century. The Apostles of Allah, noted Maimonides, will invoke the concepts and language of the both Talmud and New Testament if only to stand those concepts and that language on its head in the service of Islam. More recently, these theocratic feminists and eco-warriors have turned those efforts towards co-opting the language and discourse of feminism and environmentalism, not just in a bid to demonstrate how relevant and hip The Prophet is, but also in an effort to dishonestly and deceitfully retrofit Islam with qualities, properties, concepts and ideas…it never possessed. When it comes to proof of this process, what better Exhibit ‘A’ than convert Jonathan Brown himself?
The issue is not What this *think-tank* propagates, but rather Why it is allowed to operate and Why it has become THE go-to place for academics and progressives seeking serious info on Islam.
There’s one other glaring question that’s never asked, and it’s this: How come none of these centres for interfaith understanding are ever located in Saudi Arabia? Why do they always set up shop in places where interfaith tolerance and understanding already exist? After all, it’s the religious-apartheid Saudis who have the biggest lessons to learn in all of this.
Oh, how intolerant that is, because other cultures think different than we do. I blame human rights on imperialistic colonialism.
And we have a steady trickle of terra-cotta-necked fundy preachers right here in the USA, who make the same arguments from Da Bybul.
It is nice to note how White and Native Brown appears to be. Deportations and walls are SUCH a smart response to toxic ideology.
Sastra@12
Yes, indeed. I’m sure those slaves in sub Saharan Africa, women stoned to death for ‘adultery’,victims of ‘honor’ murders and the Dalits of India all took, or take comfort in their rich cultural traditions. None of that White racist nonsense about human rights for them. Unfortunately we rarely hear from them.
No silence, deafening or otherwise. I don’t comment on many blogs. Unfortunately we’re in the position we’re in. People are pissed, rightly or wrongly, how is ignoring their feelings working out for you? I’d say not great, feel free to disagree and tell me how the world is perfectly fjne. I’d love to have that discussion. Please enlighten me, oh wise ine! P
Cb it’s not clear what you’re even talking about. Your first two comments had nothing to do with the post, and you’d only commented once before (so they weren’t a continuation of some previous discussion).
What bit of it is unclear? There are leftists who will defend Conservative Islamists, and people are annoyed about that. I wasn’t criticising you in this regard, you’ve been admirably consistent on this. When I said that people are voting against this (rightly or wrongly) people said I was wrong, I maintain that I’m not wrong.
That clarifies. Yours @ 3 and especially 5 were less clear.
*looks again*
Oh I think I see what happened. Your 5 was responding to Your Name’s not Bruce? I don’t think YNNB was talking to you, but rather responding directly to the post.
I could have been clearer about who or what I was responding to. If that’s the issue then I apologise.
Yes, I was responding to the original post.
Cb – no problem.