By Robert Spencer
In his “The Faith Divide” blog at the Washington Post’s website, Eboo Patel took umbrage Monday at two recent reviews in the New York Times Book Review charging “Dishonesty About Islam in the NYT Book Review.” Patel was angry at favorable reviews of what he called “Bruce Bawer’s alarmist book Surrender” (about which he huffed, “the subtitle says it all: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom”) and Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (which was reviewed by Fouad Ajami). Yet while making the improbable claim that the New York Times printed material that was dishonest and negative about Islam, Patel showed himself to be not a little disingenuous – suggesting that before he call these reviewers on their alleged dishonesty, he should look to his own.
“Ajami,” complains Patel, “opens his piece by juxtaposing two disparate pieces of history: the departure of Spain’s last Muslim ruler in 1492, and the terrorist attacks on Madrid in 2004. ‘A circle was closed,’ Ajami writes, ‘and Islam was, once again, a matter of Western Europe.’” What is wrong with this? “The Muslim presence in medieval Spain,” asserts Patel, “is widely regarded as a time of tolerance, good government and support for the arts and education. In fact, Ajami himself wrote a positive review of one of the many books on that era, Maria Rosa Menocal’s The Ornament of the World. Placing Al-Andalus, as it was known, in the same breath as a ghastly terrorist attack - as if to say ‘Here’s what happens when Muslims are around’ - is beyond questionable. A dead fish wouldn’t want to be wrapped in a newspaper article with that level of intellectual dishonesty.” Read more ...
In his “The Faith Divide” blog at the Washington Post’s website, Eboo Patel took umbrage Monday at two recent reviews in the New York Times Book Review charging “Dishonesty About Islam in the NYT Book Review.” Patel was angry at favorable reviews of what he called “Bruce Bawer’s alarmist book Surrender” (about which he huffed, “the subtitle says it all: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom”) and Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (which was reviewed by Fouad Ajami). Yet while making the improbable claim that the New York Times printed material that was dishonest and negative about Islam, Patel showed himself to be not a little disingenuous – suggesting that before he call these reviewers on their alleged dishonesty, he should look to his own.
“Ajami,” complains Patel, “opens his piece by juxtaposing two disparate pieces of history: the departure of Spain’s last Muslim ruler in 1492, and the terrorist attacks on Madrid in 2004. ‘A circle was closed,’ Ajami writes, ‘and Islam was, once again, a matter of Western Europe.’” What is wrong with this? “The Muslim presence in medieval Spain,” asserts Patel, “is widely regarded as a time of tolerance, good government and support for the arts and education. In fact, Ajami himself wrote a positive review of one of the many books on that era, Maria Rosa Menocal’s The Ornament of the World. Placing Al-Andalus, as it was known, in the same breath as a ghastly terrorist attack - as if to say ‘Here’s what happens when Muslims are around’ - is beyond questionable. A dead fish wouldn’t want to be wrapped in a newspaper article with that level of intellectual dishonesty.” Read more ...
Source: FPM
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