Robert Bruce Spencer is a writer and researcher on Islam and Jihad. He has written six books, including two bestsellers, on topics related to Islam and terrorism, is the founder and current director of the Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch websites offering opinions on Islam and Islamist terrorism-related events, and is currently a columnist writing for Front Page Magazine. ^[1]

Biography

Robert Spencer holds a Master's degree in Religious Studies in the field of early Christianity from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1986.

He began his career in 1979 at the University of North Carolina. His MA thesis is entitled "The Monophysite in the Mirror" (concerning the conversion of John Henry Newman to Catholicism in 1837 and Newman's denunciation of the Church of England as monophysite).

His biography[7] states that he has studied Islam for twenty-five years, beginning in 1980 during his first year as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina. Spencer's MA thesis is titled "The monophysite in the mirror"^[2] on the subject the conversion of John Henry Newman to Catholicism in 1837 and Newman's denouciation of the Church of England as monophysite.

Spencer opted not to enter any PhD program because he "could see even then that Middle East Studies and other departments were becoming highly politicized and retreating from genuine academic work"^[3]. He has written seven monographs on Islam for the Free Congress Foundation: An Introduction to the Qur'an, Women and Islam, An Islamic Primer, Islam and the West, The Islamic Disinformation Lobby, Islam vs. Christianity, and Jihad in Context.

Robert Spencer is currently the director of JihadWatch and an Adjunct Fellow of the Free Congress Foundation. He was (and some outdated bios claim he still is, although the organization is defunct) a board member of the Christian-Islamic Forum^[4], a Catholic group that some falsely claim was dedicated to the conversion of Muslims to Christianity using interpretations of Islamic scripture rather than the Christian materials ^[5]. He has also co-written Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics with the founder of the Forum Daniel Ali. In this book, Spencer reasserts his goals: "As a Christian, I take even greater satisfaction in the present book, because both Daniel and I believe it will be a powerful tool to equip Catholics to become better witnesses of their own faith." However, he says of his work with Jihad Watch: "I envision Jihad Watch as an opportunity for all the actual and potential victims of jihad violence and oppression -- Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, secular Muslims, atheists, whatever -- to join together to defend universal human rights. There are many things about which we all disagree, but at this point we need to unite simply in order to survive. We can sort out our disagreements later."^[6]

His writings on Islam and other topics have been published in the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, Canada's National Post, FrontPage Magazine, WorldNetDaily, Human Events, National Review Online, and many other publications. He has consulted with United States Central Command and the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry on Islam and jihad, and has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism on global media networks such as well as on the BBC, CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, PBS, C-Span, as well as on numerous radio programs including Michael Savage's Savage Nation, The Alan Colmes Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Neal Boortz Show, The Michael Medved Show, The Michael Reagan Show, The Larry Elder Show, The Barbara Simpson Show, Vatican Radio amongst others.

Controversy

Professor Carl Ernst states that Spencer's

books are not scholarly, and they do not pass the review of blind refereed evaluation practiced by university presses. They are instead supported by specific political and ideological interests through think-tanks and private foundations. They need to be evaluated differently from scholarly studies, since their agenda does not have to do with the scholarly goals of the humanities and the social sciences. In particular, the lectures given by authors such as Spencer on college campuses may be misunderstood as being equivalent to scholarly research. While it certainly may be acknowledged that scholarship has political implications, independent research needs to be distinguished from hired polemics. The publications of Spencer belong to the class of Islamophobic extremism that is promoted and supported by right-wing organizations, who are perpetuating a type of bigotry similar to anti-Semitism and racial prejudice. They are to be viewed with great suspicion by anyone who wishes to find reliable and scholarly information on the subject of Islam. I make these remarks because Spencer was invited to speak at UNC-Chapel Hill in the spring of 2004; I shared these observations with UNC students at the time to indicate that his views have no basis in scholarship (he has no academic training in Islamic studies whatever; his M.A. degree was in the field of early Christianity).^[7]

In response, Spencer says [8]: "I present the work not on the basis of my credentials, but on the basis of the evidence I bring forth; evaluate it for yourself. One example: after I spoke at the University of North Carolina, Professor Carl Ernst of the university wrote a piece about me warning that my books were non-scholarly and were published by presses that he believed reflected a political agenda of which he did not approve. That kind of approach may impress some people, but Carl Ernst did not (and cannot) bring forth even a single example of a supposed inaccuracy in my work. I would, of course, be happy to debate Carl Ernst or any other scholar of Islam about Islam and jihad; this is a standing invitation."

About charges of "bigotry" and "hatred" from Ernst and others he says: "It is not an act of hatred against Muslims to point out the depredations of jihad ideology. It is a peculiar species of displacement and projection to accuse someone who exposes the hatred of one group of hatred himself: I believe in the equality of rights and dignity of all people, and that is why I oppose the global jihad. And I think that those who make the charge know better in any case: they use the charge as a tool to frighten the credulous and politically correct away from the truth."

Documentary

• Islam: What the West Needs to Know

Bibliography

• The Truth About Muhammad: The Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion, Regnery Publishing 2006
• The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims (editor), Prometheus Books, 2005. ISBN 1-59102-249-5
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (And the Crusades), Regnery Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-89526-013-1
• Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West, Regnery Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-89526-100-6
• Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics (with Daniel Ali), Ascension Press, 2003. ISBN 0-9659228-5-5
• Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Foreword by David Pryce-Jones), Encounter Books, 2002. ISBN 1-893554-58-9

Additionally, Spencer has written seven monographs on Islam for the Free Congress Foundation: An Introduction to the Qur'an, Women and Islam, An Islamic Primer, Islam and the West, The Islamic Disinformation Lobby, Islam vs. Christianity, and Jihad in Context.

References

External links

• Robert Spencer's Front Page Magazine column archive
• JihadWatch weblog
• Dhimmiwatch weblog
• Robert Spencer on Fox News
• Robert Spencer Interview on C-Span