Wikipedia now has 55 million separate articles. It would be churlish to complain about them all. Some of them are very good, in fact; for example, the entry on the Russian playwright Alexander Griboyedov, whose Woe From Wit I studied, line by line, in Moscow, with a teacher at Patrice Lumumba University (I believe I am the only American to have studied with a faculty member at Lumumba U.). So is the one on Minkowski Space, which I have neither the time nor the space to discuss here, but you get my drift. Wikipedia does itself proud on that entry. It’s also got a good entry on Otto Loewi, on whose lap I sat, aged five, on the porch of the Dining Hall then attached to the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In history, I’ve enjoyed the entries — not too taxing — on Jean-Baptiste Kléber, Riccoldo di Monte di Croce, Quaestiones quaedam philosophicae, and the Standing Stones of Callanish. As for music, I have derived both profit and pleasure — and subsequent YouTube happiness — from the articles on Fats Waller, Andy Razaf, Al Bowlly, Annette Hanshaw, Ray Ventura, Rina Ketty, Vittorio de Sica, and Charles Trenet.
But then there are the entries that try men’s souls, are not up to snuff, leave something to be desired. Many of them have to do with Islam, Jihad, the Middle East, the Arab war on Israel, Muslim terrorism. Take a look, for example, at the Wikipedia entry on Mahmoud Abbas. It’s very long, but it manages to mention only the title of Abbas’ dissertation — and otherwise passes over in silence Abbas’ long history of Holocaust denial, which is a major, and most unattractive part, of his biography. The entry mentions the accusations about his corruption, but not the full size — $400 million — of the fortune he has amassed with his two son Yasser and Tareq. It quotes all of his conciliatory remarks made for a Western audience, but practically nothing of his much harsher rhetoric, for Arab and Muslim audiences, directed at denouncing the Jewish state. Abbas practices “war is deceit” — but you wouldn’t guess it from what is up at Wikipedia.
As for Jihad Watch, it is described at Wikipedia “as an anti-Muslim conspiracy website.” I have been reading Jihad Watch, since its inception, and I don’t remember ever seeing the writers for the site wallowing in, or even dipping a toe in, any conspiracy theories. Here’s Wikipedia’s hatchet job on the site:
Jihad Watch has widely been described as an anti-Muslim conspiracy blog. Jihad Watch has been criticized for its portrayal of Islam as a totalitarian political doctrine. Jihad Watch has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League as trafficking in Islamophobic conspiracy theories. Guardian writer Brian Whitaker described Jihad Watch as a “notoriously Islamophobic website”, while other critics such as Dinesh D’Souza, Karen Armstrong, and Cathy Young, pointed to what they see as “deliberate mischaracterizations” of Islam and Muslims by Spencer as inherently violent and therefore prone to terrorism. Spencer has denied such criticism, and has said that the term “Islamophobe” is “a tool used by Islamic apologists to silence criticism.” The website is labelled “unreliable” by NewsGuard as of October 2019.
Where has Spencer described all Muslims as “inherently violent? The texts – Qur’an, Hadith – of Islam certainly attempt to inculcate violence, but many Muslims, he constantly reminds his readers, choose not to follow the command to wage violent Jihad. He has never preached hatred of Muslims. Wikipedia is simply repeating what the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Karen Armstrong, and a host of other Defenders of the Faith — without the least evidence – charged Spencer with, hoping few will bother to consult the site and judge for themselves.
And what is “NewsGuard” that we should take the epithet it affixes to Jihad Watch – “unreliable” – to heart? It’s a generally leftwing site, that sits in judgment on other sites. It can be counted on to disapprove of those who are critical of Islam, no matter how fact-based –that is, based on the texts and teachings of Islam, and on the 1,400 history of Islamic conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims – their criticism may be. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The visitor to Wikipedia would not know that every one of the critics referred to, or quoted, in the entry for Jihad Watch has been the object of previous criticism at Jihad Watch itself, and the calumny heaped on the site, by the critics cited by Wikipedia, is prompted not by carefully considered, disinterested analysis of what Spencer writes, but by the desire to undermine Jihad Watch, as payback for that criticism. A little Internet searching will offer examples of what has appeared at Jihad Watch about those critics — the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, Dinesh D’Souza, Karen Armstrong, and Cathy Young. And one has to ask — where are all those who have praised both Jihad Watch and Spencer? The single bit of praise allowed comes from the London-based Arab journalist Abdel Bari Atwan, who says that “most of the effective surveillance work tracking jihadi sites is being done not by the FBI or MI6, but by private groups. The best-known and most successful of those are [Internet] Haganah … SITE [Institute] … and Jihad Watch.” And that’s the extent of the praise JW receives at Wikipedia.
Why did Wikpedia leave out all mention of those who have offered praise for Jihad Watch and Spencer, including the world-famous apostates Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the pioneering scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or, the celebrated Italian left-wing journalist Oriana Fallaci, and so many more? You can find their necessarily abridged testimonies here. No doubt there have been attempts to rectify this imbalance in the overage, but there is a large army of Defenders of the Faith of Islam who spend their time making sure that Wikipedia entries offer praise of Islam, in all of its aspects, while calling into question its detractors, no matter how scholarly and textually based their criticisms may be. I am sure that were you, or I, or like-minded others, to add anything to Wikipedia’s entry on either Jihad Watch or Robert Spencer, our emendations would be swiftly taken down.
The other day I happened to look at the Wikipedia entry for Karen Armstrong, the ex-nun who is now the World’s Greatest Authority (or one of them, along with Bishop Desmond Tutu and others of that TED-talk honored ilk). Here’s a sample, from Wikipedia, of her thoughts on “compassion”:
She maintains that religious fundamentalism is not just a response to, but is a product of contemporary culture and for this reason concludes that, “We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.”
Awarded the $100,000 TED Prize in February 2008 [despite being many times a millionaire from her books, the compassionate Armstrong did not donate her prize money to charity] Armstrong called for drawing up a Charter for Compassion, in the spirit of the Golden Rule, to identify shared moral priorities across religious traditions, in order to foster global understanding and a peaceful world.” It was presented in Washington, D.C. in November 2009. Signatories include Queen Noor of Jordan, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Paul Simon.
“We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world.” Just look at that Mission Statement. That’s what distinguishes Karen Armstrong from ordinary people – she can come up with ideas like “compassion.” And only someone like Karen Armstrong – no, I daresay only Karen Armstrong herself – could have had the penetrating intellect, and the tender heart, to think of drawing up a “Charter for Compassion” to “foster global understanding and a peaceful world.” How does she manage to come up with such insights? No wonder Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Christian) and the Dalai Lama (Buddhist) and Queen Noor (Muslim) and Paul Simon (Jewish) all signed on; they could recognize that Karen Armstrong had hit upon a Very Important Thing. “Compassion.” And not just any compassion, but the kind that has been made into “a clear, luminous, and dynamic force in our polarized world.” Why didn’t you, why didn’t I, think of that?
Of course Karen Armstrong has won dozens of awards, given TED talks, been feted around the world. Her philosophy appears to be the usual interfaith outreach racket, with special attention to poor misunderstood Islam, the Cinderella of religions, with those two misshapen stepsisters Judaism and Christianity.
Here are just some of those awards:
In 1999 Armstrong received the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Media Award.
Armstrong was honoured by the New York Open Center in 2004 for her “profound understanding of religious traditions and their relation to the divine.”
She received an honorary degree as Doctor of Letters by Aston University in 2006.
In May 2008 she was awarded the Freedom of Worship Award by the Roosevelt Institute, one of four medals presented each year to men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to the Four Freedoms proclaimed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 as essential to democracy: freedom of speech and of worship, freedom from want and from fear. The institute stated that Armstrong had become “a significant voice, seeking mutual understanding in times of turbulence, confrontation and violence among religious groups.” It cited “her personal dedication to the ideal that peace can be found in religious understanding, for her teachings on compassion, and her appreciation for the positive sources of spirituality.”
She also received the TED Prize 2008.
In 2009 she was awarded the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize by the University of Tübingen.
Armstrong was honoured with the Nationalencyklopedin’s International Knowledge Award 2011 “for her long standing work of bringing knowledge to others about the significance of religion to humankind and, in particular, for pointing out the similarities between religions. Through a series of books and award-winning lectures she reaches out as a peace-making voice at a time when world events are becoming increasingly linked to religion.”
On 12 May 2010, she was made honorary Doctor of Divinity by Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario).
On 30 November 2011 (St Andrew’s Day), Armstrong was made honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Saint Andrews.
On 20 March 2012, Karen Armstrong was awarded the 2011/12 Jack P. Blaney Award for Dialogue for her work in advancing understanding about and among world religions.
In 2013, she was awarded the Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding by the British Academy “in recognition of her body of work that has made a significant contribution to understanding the elements of overlap and commonality in different cultures and religions”.
On 3 June 2014, she was made an honorary Doctor of Divinity by McGill University.
In 2017 Armstrong was bestowed Princess of Asturias award in recognition of her investigations into world religions.
My own reading of her works – or as much as I could stand of them, for they were a perfect example of New Age mush. Jejune, banal, nauseating – those are some of the adjectives that came to mind as I tried to read her stuff. I find Karen Armstrong thoroughly Pecksniffian – an adjective derived from Mr. Pecksniff in Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, that is to say, “An unctuous hypocrite, a person who affects benevolence or pretends to have high moral principles; (also) a person who interferes officiously in the business of others.” Yes, that will do: Karen Armstrong is “an unctuous hypocrite.”
I was saddened to see that in her entire, quite long Wikipedia entry, only one person is quoted as being critical of her. That person was me. And while I had written at Jihad Watch about Karen Armstrong several times, and at length, the only thing Wikipedia chose to quote was my taking issue with her describing Christopher Columbus as a convert to Christianity. Here’s how it read in Wikipedia: “Hugh Fitzgerald, writing for the New English Review [I wrote the piece for Jihad Watch; it was subsequently reprinted elsewhere; whenever Wikipedia can avoid mentioning Jihad Watch, it does] criticized Armstrong’s description of Christopher Columbus as a “Jewish convert to Catholicism”, a theory that Fitzgerald suggests is not supported in mainstream academia.”
I didn’t “suggest” that “mainstream academia” does not support Armstrong’s belief that Columbus was a “Jewish convert to Catholicism.” I said that no one, anywhere, except for Armstrong herself, has ever maintained that Columbus was a Jewish convert to Catholicism. A few scholars have said that since Columbus came from a family of Genoese wool merchants and many of those in the wool trade in Italy were Jews, it is plausible that Columbus’ family had originally – a few generations back — been Jewish and then converted to Catholicism, as Salvador de Madariaga has argued. Armstrong must be a poor scholar indeed not to have known that Columbus was Catholic from birth.
Here is what I wrote in the piece on Armstrong, from which a single sentence was quoted at Wikipedia:
Armstrong offers no authority for her statement [that Columbus was a “Jewish convert to Catholicism”]. But why should she? Her purpose here is twofold. What better way to establish, in her vulgar, “some-of-my-best-friends-and-discoverers-of-the-New-World-are-Jewish” way, than to claim Columbus for the Jews (of course, assuming that people still honor Columbus for his deeds of derring-do, which would exclude the Ward Churchills of this world). At the same time, she can have this “Jewish” Columbus be depicted as part of a larger problem, for now he, that “Jewish convert to Catholicism,” has embraced the (non-existent) aggressive military plans of Ferdinand and Isabella. Columbus [Armstrong thinks] did not obtain royal support in order to find a new trading route to the East (now that the Muslim conquests in Byzantium had totally blocked the overland routes), or along the way to spread the Gospel but, she claims, he went to find the best route to “India, where Christians could establish a military base for another crusade against Islam.”
Having been transformed into a “Jewish convert to Catholicism,” Columbus can more conveniently be depicted by Armstrong as a Pentagon Proto-Neo-Con, Jewish-but-also-Christian-fundamentalist, off on his voyage to “establish a military base” for “another crusade against Islam.” A regular Donald Rumsfeld, negotiating for American bases in Uzbekistan. And Kyrgyzstan.
The most useful thing I can do now is to post one of my previous pieces on Armstrong, written for JW. I chose to comment on the first paragraph of an article by Armstrong that appeared in The Guardian. It offers examples of her many historical howlers, over decades of peddling feelgood nostrums (“We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world”). and nonsense that apparently impress so many including, alas, those who contribute to Wikipedia.
I’ll put it up tomorrow.
Walter Sieruk says
Karen Armstrong had written something so absurd as “The Jews had their prophets but the Arabs had no prophet of their own until Muhammad…”
Armstrong had written nonsense ., As seen in the Bible God has chosen, so far, to sent all genuine prophet to people through the Jewish line of descent .
The most important thing to understand is that by reading the Bible any person will discover that Jesus , the Prophet ,Priest and King is for all humankind Arabs Jews, French Greeks and so forth. Everyone all humans Jesus loves all people and He is more than enough for all persons
The different Christian Arabs I’ve met through the years have all embraced only Jesus as their final and Supreme Prophet and accepted Him as the Lord and complete and total savior by Him paying the price of their sin on the cross for them, As found ,in Second Corinthians 5:21. That verse also applies to and for all humans.
The “scholar” Armstrong had only exposed her own ignorance by writing as she did
mortimer says
Someone paid Armstrong to write soothing propaganda for Islam.
gravenimage says
Karen Armstrong has a long and troubled history of embracing humiliation and abasement–I think this is at least part of the answer to her sucking up to Islam.
Walter Sieruk says
Armstrong with her foolish folly expressed in writing about the idea idea about the times past wrote “The Jews had Jesus walk among in their land but the Arabs had no one in their land until the comming of Muhammad.”
Her thought of that nonsense. invalid and false.,
For both the Arab and Jews as well as the French ,Dutch , English and all other people have Jesus waiting for them to come to Him . Jesus is more than enough for all people.
As Jesus so clearly declared ” I am the way, the the truth ,and thel life,. No one comes to the Father except by Me.” John 14:6.
Likewise, Jesus also taught ” I have come to give live,and that they may have it more abundantly” John 10:10.
Jonty Dee says
Jews don’t need Jesus who basically re-packaged what was already written in the Talmud for pagan consumption. Nothing about the history of Christendom would validate its much lauded principles that were observed only in their breach. Armstrong is nothing but a bigot and apologist for terror. That she is lauded is not surprising. This world is heading into a new dark age from which it is unlikely to emerge.
Rob Porter says
Regardless of what Wikipedia might wish us to believe about Karem Armstrong and Robert Spencer, the fact is that too many occasions I found Armstrong a terrible liar. In one article she claimed that the Crusaders had never defeated Saladin in battle, a complete lie. In 1177 young Baldwin IV’s small Crusader army utterly thrashed Saladin at Montgisard. Not once did Saladin defeat Richard the Lionheart in battle and at Jaffa was humiliated. So this woman is a disgraceful liar and horrible historian. It’s a fact that before a Jewish friend introduced me to Jihad Watch I had done considerable amount of study regarding Islam and its savage conquest of lands, but finer points of Islam no one has taught me more than has Robert Spencer. But it’s not only with Robert and Armstrong that I’ve read some biased nonsense in Wikipedia, so now view anything it says with a degree if skepticism. Like many empty Nobel prizes, such as that bestowed on first rate liar, Barack Obama, nowadays one should view with scepticism any award handed out to the likes of Armstrong or anyone else. Objectivity, impartiality and honesty have gone the way of the dodo bird.
southern_icelion says
Everybody… Who still is using Mozilla Firefox – uninstall now, they are a clear, anti-free speech/anti-Conservatives fascist developer who actively is supporting censorship and who is actively anti-Western population/culture and supports mass migration.
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/
Use Brave browser instead.
https://brave.com/
Ensure that everyone knows it too on alternative social media platforms you are using!
marc says
I agree, there are many alternatives to FireFox, and brave is looking to be the best for most uses.
bob says
Brave browser donates (BAT coins) to pro-islam-apologist websites like wikipedia (and other similar websites), everytime a Brave user visits wikipedia with Brave browser. This is the default with brave browser unless one changes it manually.
Why should anybody be supporting such a browser?
At least with firefox, you are not donating to pro-islam-apologist websites, and it is free software so you are not even supporting firefox.
Stang says
Oh so from the frying pan into the pot. Yes I said that backwards Who do you think started and owns Brave? I looked it up over a year ago. I can not remember his name, but he was a google developer and friend of Zuckberg. Do you think google is a better proponent of free speech? Think again. Do you think that the big guys google, Facebook, Twitter would let someone move in that does not tow the company line? I think not. Beware of big tech dressed in street cloths double speak isn’t reserved for politicians.
Infidel says
No, the guy who started Brave was a CEO of Mozilla who got cancelled b’cos years ago, he had opposed Gay marriage. There is nothing to suggest that he’s a woketivist
guy says
what a cosmopolitan and worldly woman with a mainstream media curriculum!
11B40 says
Greetings:
Your mention of Patrice Lumumba brought to mind the time after his murder when his body was yet to be recovered. In my Bronx neighborhood, the observation went, “They found Lumumba’s body…in Kasavubu’s stomach.”.
guy says
Kasa-vubu, the snake man
Siddi Nasrani says
A few Quotes from Karen Armstrong, ” Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at least, a man dying in a devastating, disgraceful, helpless death.
Compassion is not a popular virtue.
Mohammed was not an apparent failure. He was a dazzling success, politically as well as spiritually, and Islam went from strength to strength to strength.
Not somebody I would take lectures from.
Pssst, Do you think that she is trying to fool us ?
Wellington says
She could possibly be trying to fool us but I think it more likely that she has fooled herself, though in a way that has made her quite affluent. In the final analysis, it’s deuce difficult to accurately read a mind that is full of mush.
James Lincoln says
Wellington,
Likely to be more financially profitable – and safer – to be an islamophile / muslim apologist than to be an anti-jihadist.
But then you have to live with yourself…
gravenimage says
Muhammed was a “success” only in the sense that Attilla the Hun was a success, as well…
Infidel says
If Genghiz Khan had the religious fervor that Mohammed had, the entire swath of Asia from Balasagun to Basra and from Tabriz to Karachi would today be practicing Shamanism, rather than islam
tim gallagher says
Siddi, what monumentally dumb views ARmstrong seems to hold. So she leaves out the fact of Christ’s resurrection, that he defeated death and rose from the dead. Very biased, she dishonestly tells only half the story (ie his death not his resurrection). And Muhammad a success! If you consider a disgusting ideology which has lasted 1400 miserable and evil years and murdered around 270 million people so far as a success, then that piece of crap Muhammad (who I don’t think even existed but was made up later on) is a success. For the well being of the human race, I see islam as a total failure and a completely evil curse. Publishers should have told Armstrong that her ideas are complete bullshit and not worth publishing, but I guess such rubbish does sell some books. I wonder if she truly believes the garbage she puts in her books. If she actually believes this nonsense, then, as you say, Wellington, she has a mind of mush.
Kepha says
I’d scarcely say that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is non-success.
gravenimage says
Agreed, Tim and Kepha.
Christ also has quite a legacy in the success of Christianity. Christians have not been able to live up to this model perfectly, of course, but it has still led to the most civilized societies in the history of the world.
tim gallagher says
I agree with you, gravenimage, that Christianity, with its high ideals, has helped to civilise the human race and has helped produce the most humane and decent societies the human race has known. The way that I judge things islam, with its disgustingly evil and barbaric attitudes to all aspects of human life, can only seen as an abject failure, which has kept many people back in the dark ages when they could have progressed to something better. Armstrong seems like a complete idiot on Islam, although I actually got a short book she wrote on St Paul (I think it might have been the only one in the library) out of the library and found it pretty good. It was quite a few years ago so my memory of the book is not all that clear, but I recall that I enjoyed it.
gravenimage says
Thanks, Tim.
Hoi Polloi says
anti-Muslim conspiracy website… If their own book and culture are an anti-Muslim conspiracy, then yes, since all RS and other writers here do is report and illustrate facts. I think these people get some kind of bonus for every use of the word conspiracy. If it’s any consolation, I have read Slate for years, watched it go further and further left, and can report that even their commenters have written off the SPLC. Also, thanks for illuminating me regarding KA.
Jon Sobieski says
Stylized BS is a gift. Amazing how far you can go. Kudos Karen!
James Lincoln says
Wikipedia is totally a mixed bag…
If you’re looking up the specifications of a 1965 Pontiac GTO or the results of the 1986 PGA Masters Tournament (Go Jack!), it’s generally factual. And because of this, the average person thinks that other articles in Wikipedia reach the same level of accuracy.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Any article that is the least bit political / opinion in nature has been heavily wordsmithed by the far left.
Reader beware…
gravenimage says
+1
James says
Slate started out as leftist, from its inception.
Patrick White says
Wikipedia is now so thick with emotional editorialising and partisan championing, it has become almost unusable.
I never donate to them.
gravenimage says
Wikipedia, Karen Armstrong, and Me
……………………
Karen Armstong is no scholar–and Wikipedia may be a good place to start for an overview of topics–but only so long as they have no contemporary political aspect. If they do, then “political correctness” is chosen over truth almost every time.
Aussie Infidel says
Jihad Watch is described at Wikipedia “as an anti-Muslim conspiracy website”. What Rubbish! I too have been reading Jihad Watch since its inception almost 20 years ago – and I’ve spoken with Robert Spencer and listened to his talks on a number of occasions. I don’t ever remember Robert or JW readers engaging in conspiracy theories. Much of the commentary on JW – both by Robert and contributors – is backed up by references to news articles and the Islamic scriptures themselves.
“Guardian writer Brian Whitaker described Jihad Watch as a “notoriously Islamophobic website”. The Guardian is a leftist rag critical of anyone with conservative or anti-Islamic views. For non-Muslims to be fearful of Islam is hardly a phobia, because the Islamic scriptures continually urge jihadis to kill unbelievers”. Is the Guardian not aware of that core tenet of Islam? Or do they believe naively that if they support the mullahs, they will be granted exemption?
“Armstrong called for drawing up a Charter for Compassion, in the spirit of the Golden Rule, to identify shared moral priorities across religious traditions”.
There is already a Charter for Compassion; it’s called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But the Muslim states rejected the UDHR, and drew up their own Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam; but the CDHRI is in accord with the Sharia, which grants human rights only to Muslims; so it is in direct contrast to the UDHR. If Armstrong imagines that the Muslims will ever accept a universal Golden Rule, she does not understand Islam at all. Islam is a totalitarian, supremacist ideology which does not tolerate any other creed or culture. The only way she would be allowed to live in an Islamic state, is to become a dhimmi.
I am deeply disappointed in Wikipedia’s coverage not only of JW but other similar websites and organisations of which I am a member. Wikipedia’s problem is that it allows outsiders to edit its content – and many of those editors are leftist or Muslim academics who make it their business to oppose any viewpoints they don’t like. I have donated to Wikipedia a number of times in the past, but won’t be doing so again.
Islam is hell-bent on conquering the world for Allah, and if Muslim sympathizers don’t understand that agenda, they should spend more time reading the Quran, Hadith and Sira.
gravenimage says
+1
Walter Sieruk says
It may truly said of Karen Armstrong ,regardless if she knows it or not ,is an actural , real, tool of the Devil.