Author: Ibn Warraq

As Étienne Gilson (1884–1978), French philosopher and historian of philosophy, once observed of Medieval Europe: It is often said, and not without good reasons, that the civilization of the Middle Ages was an essentially religious one. Yet even in times of the Cathedrals and of the Crusades, not everybody was a saint; it would not …

Chinese thinking is a history of a gradual distancing of man from supernatural beings and their influence, ending in an essentially humanistic approach to life. From the Ch’un Ch’iu period (722–481 BCE) onward, there is a progressively more humanistic interpretation of laws and statutes, regarded previously as being of divine origin. Confucius (551–479 BCE Kǒng …

In the past sixty years or so, historians and theologians have pointed to what one of them has termed “the biblical sources of secularization.” Others believe that at the time of the Protestant Reformation, the recovery of the Hebraic worldview did much to foster the growth of a naturalistic outlook in the West. “Hebraic culture …

L’Islam en Questions One work published before February 1989, when Khomeini’s fatwa on Rushdie was pronounced, deserves mention. In L’Islam en Questions (Grasset, 1986), twenty-four Arab writers reply to the following five questions: Does Islam retain its universal vocation? Could Islam be a system of government for a modern state? Is an Islamic system of …

Atheism and Freethought in the Twentieth Century The Impact of Western Ideas The impact of modern, scientific ideas of the West in Iran in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was immediate and changed the outlook of the intellectuals dramatically, and often resulted in a rejection of Islam: in anti-clericalism, agnosticism, Westernism, anti-imperialism, glorification …

In the following examples gathered from anthropologists’ and travelers’ accounts of their sojourns among the Indians of the Amazon, one cannot really speak of “atheism” among the various tribes encountered—that is to say, there was no conscious denial of a deity. It is a more a question of their total lack of any concept of …

Unbelief in Indian Civilization Ever since Alexander the Great and his men came into contact with her, India has figured in the Western imagination as a land of spirituality, gurus, mystics, and a thousand gods that adorn an even greater number of temples and shrines. Modern Indian thinkers have perpetuated the myth of Indian spirituality; …

In previous installments of this article, Ibn Warraq chronicled a series of seemingly disingenuous comments by Qur’anic scholars insisting that their findings regarding the history of the Qur’an and Islam itself have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the religion. He discussed the necessary role of autonomy if historical scholarship is to achieve …

In Part 1 (June/July 2010), Ibn Warraq chronicled a series of seemingly disingenuous comments by scholars of the Qur’an insisting that their findings regarding the history of the Qur’an and Islam itself have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the religion. He referred to a letter in the New Statesman by scholar Michael …

A few years ago, I was invited to a conference at The Hague by Professor Hans Jansen, the great Arabist. After listening to grim papers all day long, Jansen and I headed for the nearest bar. I was to give my talk the next day, and I asked him what I should talk about. He …

In the previous issue of Free Inquiry, I began my report on a conference, “The Qur’an in Its Historical Context,” held at the University of Notre Dame in April 2009. That conference featured, among others, the controversial scholar Christoph Luxenberg (a pseudonym). I noted that the papers offered by many of the presenters were exciting …

The Catholic Notre Dame University of South Bend, Indiana, does not eschew controversy. In 2004, the university offered the Swiss Muslim Islamicist Tariq Ramadan a tenured position at its Institute for International Peace Studies. To the disappointment of his many supporters, Ramadan never took up his position because his visa was revoked by the State …

On May 5 and 6, 2009, several hundred scholars, intellectuals, and interested members of the public attended a special conference on “The Religious-Secul ar Divide: The U.S. Case” at Manhattan’s New School for Social Research. Edited papers from the conference will appear in the Fall 2009 issue of Social Research. The conference was funded in …

It is curious how certain writers suddenly become semantically persnickety when the term fascism is applied to Islam. I doubt if the same writers would voice similar concerns for the followers of Rush Limbaugh if someone labeled him “fascist.” The fact is, the term fascist is now legitimately applicable to a range of movements on …

Below, the author concludes an examination of significant figures in the medieval West’s appraisal of Islam. Parts 1 and 2 appeared in the previous two issues.—Eds. Riccoldo Da Monte Croce (1243–1320) Riccoldo was born in 1243 in Florence. He joined the Dominican Order at the age of twenty-four and traveled in the Middle East as …

With this article, Ibn Warraq continues the examination of significant figures in the medieval West’s appraisal of Islam that he began in the December 2007/Jan uary 2008 issue. In this installment, he focuses on Robert of Ketton (who probably died in the second half of the twelfth century) and Mark of Toledo (fl.1193–1216).—Eds. The Abbot …

Alphonse Mingana, surveying the writings of Christians of the seventh century—the colloquy between an Arab general and the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch, John I; the letters of Isho`yahb III, patriarch of Seleucia; and the chronicles of John Bar Penkaye—came to the conclusion that “the Christian historians of the whole of the seventh century had no …

In Part 1, which appeared in the June/July 2007 issue of Free Inquiry, Ibn Warraq explored the history of Islamic anti-Semitism. In part 2, which ap peared in the August/September 2007 issue, he examined its underpinnings in religious texts and culture. Here, that analysis is concluded.—Eds. By way of review, I distinguish three Islams. “Islam …

But It Will Also Be Transformed To ask whether Islam can come into the twenty-­first century is to ask whether Islam can be divorced from Islamic fundamentalism. Yet the root cause of Islamic fundamentalism is Islam itself. Poverty is not the root cause of Islamic fundamentalism.1 Modern Islamists are mostly middle­class young men who are …

Islam is deeply anti-woman. Islam is the fundamental cause of the repression of Muslim women and remains the major obstacle to the evolution of their position.1 Islam has always considered women as creatures inferior in every way: physically, intellectually, and morally. This negative vision is divinely sanctioned in the Koran, corroborated by the hadiths, and …