Welcome to the home of the English Defence LeagueIslam: The Untold Story - A Review
Category: EDL News Published on Monday, 03 September 2012 21:05 Written by Pyrus Hits: 2574
Channel 4's recent documentary 'Islam: The Untold Story' seems to have stirred up some controversy.
A lot of the criticism seems to be based on the accusation that Islam might be 'made up'. Whilst that idea might not be terribly shocking (especially to the atheists amongst us), it was evidently quite upsetting for the Muslim Council of Britain who criticised the historian Tom Holland's 'total lack of understanding'.
For 'total lack of understanding' read 'failure to believe what they believe', because that is, of course, what this comes down to. Sadly, it seems the Muslim Council of Britain isn't particularly keen on dissenting opinions, preferring instead to write them off as "grossly unbalanced" or examples of "misrepresentation".
Tom Holland has addressed some of his critics here. But whilst it may be fun to watch some of the less tolerant members of the Muslim community seethe with rage, we too could have asked a little more of the documentary.
What follows is a review courtesy of the EDL LGBT division.
Islam: The Untold Story
The programme starts by describing Islam as Arabic imperialism (a view which is, of course, ignored by the anti-imperialist leftards -- they object to imperialism, except when it's imperial domination by people who the leftards have adopted as their mascots).
To ancient civilisations, the Arabs were the most barbaric people. But history says that following the foundation of Islam they took over the Middle East and defeated the Roman Empire. Tom Holland goes on to undermine this view (putting forward a view that looks like it is consonant with Robert Spencer's last "Islamophobic" book).
Holland interviews Prof. Crone, from Oxford who points out how there is almost no historical evidence for Mohammed's existence. But the ludicrously deferential Tom Holland just goes and accepts the Chinese whispers of toothless old bedouins, merely because they believe fervently. The idiot even prays to Allah alongside the Muslims. And then he wonders why they believe so fervently -- disbelief is not permitted! What a dhimmi loon. Perhaps if he'd insisted he was an atheist (or a polytheist) then he might have seen how hostile they were to him, and he'd have grasped why they are incapable of critical thought.
The programme states that in the 630s Arabs took over Jerusalem "by peaceful negotiation". But the next expert then describes them as "conquerors". Can Channel 4 not bring itself to say that they invaded the lands, and that the "peaceful negotiations" would have been in place of mass executions? The programme does go on to say that it was not clear what the religion of these Arabs was. There's no sign of Mohammed. Coins didn't appear with Mo's name on them until 60 years after his death.
No mention of Mecca is made in any Islamic text until over 100 years after Mohammed's death. Evidence is presented that the geographical details of the Qur’an make more sense as it coming from Syria rather than Arabia.
Since all the evidence points away from there being any factual, historical basis to the Muslim story of Mohammed, the programme presents an expert saying that there has to be more to life than rationality! That may well be, but without rationality, academic disciplines are reduced to emotion, opinion and bluster. The bearded expert then goes on later to say: not having evidence for something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. That's not the attitude of a scholar, it's the attitude of a fantasist. He says that Muslims don't like being treated as if they are children, and western experts are doctors. But the research on the Sanaa Qur’an could only be done by the funds and expertise of German scholars.
Holland states that the Arabs conquered half the world, and yet there was no mention of Mohammed or Mecca at the time. Islam may not have produced the Arab empire; the Arab empire may have constructed the narrative of Mo to control the empire.
Tom Holland speaks to a Christian priest, who answers that it is not relevant if any of the historical or geographical details are wrong. The implication is that Muslims would adopt the same attitude. Which is, of course, 100% wrong. Channel 4 obviously didn't dare show how a Muslim sheikh would respond to such an assertion about Islam.
Still, this was a far less deferential programme than Al Beebazeera's last year. But there is still a long way to go before channels which, even 50 years ago, would have been scathingly critical about Christianity get anywhere near treating Islam with equal rationality.
These kinds of programmes should have been done in the 1970s. But it seems that the media, politicians and academics have been determined in the last 50 years to keep us ignorant about Islam.
I doubt this programme would have been made if the EDL did not exist.