In the video introduction to the Emir Stein Center’s ‘Why I Left the Far-Right’, Joram van Klaveren is shown in the Dutch parliament saying the following in Dutch: ‘Research shows that anti-Semitism and homophobic violence are rampant among Moroccans. The legitimacy for this misery: Islam. I call upon the government to abandon its fearful and politically correct attitude towards Islam and to acknowledge the negative influence of this evil ideology. I request the government that Islam be banned from the Netherlands as much as possible. Carry on with the agenda.’
While most of the speech is legitimate, the conclusion he draws in that speech is odd. Banning Islam ‘as much as possible’ would just drive it underground and hinder people from refuting Islam and bring Muslims out of it. Van Klaveren goes on to explain how he wanted to ban all Islamic schools, mosques and Qur’ans.
Van Klaveren’s statement ‘I am no longer a member of the far-right’ is hugely flawed. Beliefs about Islam as a religion, the sole reason he says he joined and left ‘the far-right’, do not actually denote being far-right. Since this is van Klaveren’s only explanation of what it means to be far-right, it seems he has no basis to call the party of Geert Wilders, the Party for Freedom, far-right. He also states that he opposed Islam in every way possible, but in reality, he only ever opposed it superficially, never theologically.
Van Klaveren then discusses his epiphany, which came during the writing of his book, eventually called ‘Apostate’. Van Klaveren says the book sought to provide ‘conclusive, theoretical groundings for all the objections I held’ against Islam. This is slightly confusing; I do not know whether he means theological rather than ‘theoretical’, but if his objections were grounded in reality to begin with, examining Islamic theology would have been essential to prove they were no more than empty claims.
Joram van Klaveren was formerly a Christian, although his misunderstandings of Christianity contribute a great deal to his confusion on these issues. His book, ‘Apostate’, is essentially a colossal straw man. It is also littered with terrible, cliché Islamic apologist thinking. Van Klaveren answers his own past objections to Islam thanks to the help and inspiration he received from Hamza Yusuf, Timothy Winter and Shabir Ally in particular. His book claims there is no Islamic doctrine mandating the killing of apostates, and states that Muhammad is described in Deuteronomy 18:18 (see a debate on this subject between Dr. Michael Brown and Nadir Ahmed). He also asserts that Jesus never claims to be God; that the Qur’an’s violent verses 9:111, 8:12-13 and 2:190 are commonly taken out of context; that Aisha was older than nine when Muhammad consummated his marriage with her; that Joseph was 90 when he married Mary at nine; that Sahih Muslim 2922, in which Muhammad says that ‘the last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him’ is invalid; that he does not believe in the jizyah or dhimmitude; and that Islam is not anti-Semitic. None of these claims are legitimate; not one is a remotely new challenge for Christian theologians. Had Joram van Klaveren actually sought answers on these issues, he would have found them easily.
Van Klaveren claims that his views about Islam were as a result of influence from a conservative, Protestant environment, but if he wants to argue that a core element of being against Islam is the hatred of Muslims, he has either lied here about his influences or he had incredibly odd encounters with conservatives and Protestants. The entire motivation from the Protestant, and general Christian, perspective to learn about and discuss Islam is to reach out to Muslims. He states that other religions, in the Protestant view, were seen as ‘wayward or wrong’, which is obvious; if two ideas are opposing and contradictory, one must be incorrect, hence wrong. In this instance, Islam claims to be a revelation from the same God, upholding the scripture of Jews and Christians, yet it preaches a very different message, especially about unbelievers, making it wayward. To note this, however, is not hateful, and does not incite hatred.
Joram van Klaveren started studying at University on September 11, 2001. He also cites the murder of Theo van Gogh and numerous ‘kidnappings, anti-Semitic attacks and beheadings’, ‘haphazard stabs, truck attacks and suicide attacks’, ‘the proclamation of caliphate by ISIS’ and Dutch jihadis emigrating to Syria as influences for his stance on Islam. It seems that van Klaveren’s lack of knowledge about the Islamic justification for such behavior resulted in his vulnerability to deception from Islamic apologists such as Hamza Yusuf, Timothy Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad) and Shabir Ally.
Violence by Muslims may not be based on Islamic teachings. But it also can be. The justification for the events of 9/11 is clear from the Qur’an. In Surah 2:193, Allah commands; ‘And engage in war with them until there be no sedition and the religion be to Allah. So if they desist, so there will be no transgression except on the unjust’. Surah 9:29 also includes the command from Allah to ‘Engage in war with those who do not believe in Allah nor in the last day.’
The murder of Theo van Gogh is also justified by the command of Allah. In Surah 5:33, we read that ‘Surely the reward of those who war against Allah and his messenger and go about to vandalize on the earth is only that they will be killed or crucified or have their hands and legs cut off on opposite sides or they will be banished from the earth. This is their disgrace in this world, and in the hereafter they will have a great torment.’ Similarly, slaughtering those who transgress against Allah by leaving Islam is also justified in the Qur’an. In Surah 4:89, Allah decrees; ‘They desire that you should become infidels as they are infidels so that you should be alike. So do not take any of them for friends until they emigrate for the sake of Allah. So if they turn away, so seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and do not take from them as friends or helpers.’
ISIS’ killing of unbelievers under their flag of the seal of the Muhammad is also justified on Islamic grounds. In Surah 9:5, we see Allah command: ‘So when the forbidden months are passed, so kill the polytheists wherever you find them, and take them and besiege them and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush; so if they repent and perform the prayer and bring the legal alms, so leave their way free.’ Verses such as 47:4, ‘So when you meet those who became infidels, so strike the necks until you have made a great slaughter among them’ and 8:12-13, ‘I will cast a terror into the hearts of those who became infidels. So strike above their necks, and strike off every finger from them’, also legitimise the actions of ISIS and similar groups. To see the justification and motivation set out for ISIS’ actions today, among similar groups, watch the in depth, hard-hitting documentary film ‘Art Of Imposture’ on my website, narrated by Usama Dakdok and created by ‘NTAuthority’.
Joram van Klaveren claims a ‘more nuanced view of Islam’ slowly developed in his mind, but he commits a serious fallacy of equivocation in assuming that the direct, perfect, unchangeable, eternal, perfectly-preserved word of Allah can in any way be changed. He then refers to Professor Abdal Hakim Murad, Timothy Winter, of Cambridge University as his first influence to help settle his objections, which vanished one by one. This is probably an instance of inflated ego; if van Klaveren’s objections to Islam did not have any basis in Islamic theology, then they were baseless and easy to overcome. Murad, rather than refuting genuine theological objections, probably answered van Klaveren’s questions with common Islamic apologetic responses, which van Klaveren would never have previously encountered. His suggestion here amounts to the straw man that anti-Islam thinking is based on only false accusations rather than on actual Islamic theology and that all objections disappear when we look at the Islamic sources; this is plainly incorrect.
If he was really anti-Islam going into writing the book, why didn’t he seek the counsel of skilled and knowledgeable opponents of Islam? He cites Robert Spencer multiple times in the book, yet seems to ignore all of his theological arguments. After concluding his research, he says that ‘Islam was no longer a religion that promoted violence, hatred, anti-Semitism or categorised non-Muslims and women as inferior Muslims or stridently opposed democracy’. Yet Allah commands violence in over seventy verses of the Qur’an, and hates unbelievers, especially Jews and Christians, who in Surah 98:6 are described as ‘the worst of creatures’. The testimony of women is worth half of a man and women are men’s property when married, refuting his claim that women in Islam are not seen as inferior.
Van Klaveren claims he received ‘surprisingly satisfying answers to my existing Christian questions about specific dogmas such as the Trinity, the sacrifice of Christ and original sin’. To go to Islam to get questions about the Trinity answered is ironic, not least because Allah himself describes the Trinity incorrectly in Surah 5:116. Allah asks the Islamic Jesus; ‘O ‘Isā [Jesus], son of Mary, did you say to the people, ‘Take me and my mother as two gods, other than Allah’?’
The person of Muhammad became critical for Joram van Klaveren’s ‘personal search to find God’. He asks whether Muhammad was really a messenger and prophet or a deceiver, and comes to the conclusion that he was more than a special man, with ‘almost supernatural patience’. I would like to see the Islamic sources that show Muhammad as patient; he was, on the contrary, quick to act, especially against perceived slights. In Ibn Ishaq, p.311, Muhammad sees Um-Habib crawling as a baby and remarks; ‘If she grows up and I am still alive, I will marry her’. His patience evidently did not prevent him from proposing marriage, as she is on his list of proposals.
He also attributes ‘care, love, guidance and above all dedication’ to Muhammad. We ask Joram van Klaveren to answer our impossible challenge: show a single verse in the Qur’an that preaches love to an unbeliever.
We also dispute that dedication claim, as Muhammad seemed to work Allah around his own schedule. In Surah 33:53, Allah commands through Muhammad: ‘O you who have believed, do not enter the houses of the prophet, except when it is permitted to you, for a meal, but not waiting while it is being prepared. But if you were invited, so enter, so when you have eaten, so depart. And do not engage in familiar conversation, surely this would harm the prophet. So he would be shy of you, and Allah is not shy of the truth. And when you would ask for anything from them, so ask them from behind a veil. This will be purer for your hearts and for their hearts. And you must not harm the messenger of Allah, nor have sex with (marry) his wives after him, forever. Surely this is a great offense with Allah.’ Rather than dedicating himself to complying with the will of Allah, it appears as if he is compelling Allah to dedicate himself to the will of Muhammad.
Joram van Klaveren says in conclusion that the far-right, which he has incorrectly defined, ‘presents a reality which strips away all nuance’. This is disingenuous in light of his ignoring of numerous key passages of the Qur’an and Hadith. He proclaims that the ‘far-right’ ‘answers real problems with lies’, but does not actually show any of these lies in the video. He also fails to refute the strongest challenges to Islam as violent or justifying violence in the video or his book, ‘Apostate’, which means his assertion that ‘Islam is not the enemy’ remains unfounded.