please let us know who decides who is an authority on the subject and who is not. Thank you!

Update:

Philippines: Jihadist kidnappers demand $2 million for 79-year-old Irish priest

“When an adult male is taken captive, the caliph considers the interests … (of Islam and the Muslims) and decides between the prisoner’s death, slavery, release without paying anything, or ransoming himself in exchange for money or for a Muslim captive held by the enemy.” — ‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.14

An update on this story. “Kidnappers demand $2M for Irish priest hostage,” from the Manila Times, November 1 Link

Your attitude shines right through – I think we know the answer.

First of all, let me ask you: do you want an army that promotes violence against Jews?

So you’re not an enemy agent? You are not a supporter of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizb ut Tahrir, Abu Sayyaf, the Muslim Brotherhood, Jemiyah Islamiyah or Hezbollah, which are all designated terrorist organizations? You don’t support the Taliban or Al Qaeda? Are you not a supporter of the unindicted coconspirator CAIR? You don’t agree with this statement from a former CAIR employee: “The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” ???

Is it not your religious obligation to remove all obstacles to the spread of Islam in the US where you have settled behind enemy lines, Sherifa? You don’t do da’awa? You are not a mole like Hesham Islam in the state department? You don’t believe the traditions of your prophet, wherein it is written: “The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: ‘Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,’ except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 41, Number 6985) and you don’t make pig noises when talking about Jews? (Koran 5:60)

Wonderful!

What a relief!

Yes, Sherifa, you are right: it is -not yet- “a crime to be a Muslim or a specialist writing about Islamist movements”.

However, if you’re a specialist, as you claim, and you are entrusted with lecturing our troops (who will deal with Muslims in the battlefield) then why do you teach falsehoods that contradict Islamic scriptures?

Are you sure you are not another Nada Nadim Prouty? Are you not on the same wavelength with Aafia Siddiqui? You don’t support Sami al-Arian? Why not?

As a scholar, why don’t you back your claim that Islam does NOT promote kidnappings and violence against civilians with the relevant sura or hadith? Since Robert Spencer has already put your false claims through the shredder, would you like me to do the same?

* Happy to oblige, Sherifa. Anytime!

PS: for starters, please explain the concept of ‘civilians’ according to Islamic scripture! Thank you!

The poster knows zip about the issues at the American University in Cairo. Very different institution. AUC did not call the Hilali Quran an evil and intolerant book like the War College lChaplain and ruin my ratings by writing I was “uncollegial” for asking for a place to pray like the SSI chair! No-one at AUC followed me around to private events to attack me for representing terrorism! No-one at AUC wrote me 100s of emails calling me a liar. The AUC did not allow me to be sexually assaulted and harassed without doing anything! The EEOC IS the venue for such complaints, but I have no faith in it & I hope the Army leadership DOES something.
AUC (less known, I believe to pajamasmedia) has faculty governance, limited tenure, and academic freedom bounded differently. Admin kowtowed in the 1990s to aspects of culture wars raging btw liberals and Islamists. Book banning, recycling of faculty and unfair employment practices abounded — unfair to Egyptians in certain ways, unfair to Americans & non-Egyptians in others. AUC caved in to uproar over an old book, Rodinson’s Muhammad, & a talented young faculty member lost his job; then Samia Mehrez was attacked for assigning Khubz al-Hafi & was threatened with expulsion. Most of us who supported them lost our jobs. Many others did too, due to lack of procedures available to US university faculty. EEO was an issue because of the horribly unfair departmental practices, some hiring only non-Egyptians, others only Egyptians in contradiction to US law.

So whoever wrote this based some of their angry efforts above on, I believe, a petittion written in my defense from years ago still out there on the Web. This person doesn’t know about the petitions written to defend others, and actions taken to defend other peers, including some now at other military service colleges in the US because academics have to go somewhere.

Too bad, poster, you only understand the kind of solidarity that extends to those of your own race, religion and narrow viewpoint, whereas in a way, the often ineffective solidarity extended by writers, journalists and academics is a far more admirable type.