Between Robert Morey and Khaled Abou El Fadl

Well you might be wondering what Robert Morey, an infamous Christian Evangelist and Islamophobic hate-monger, and Khaled Abou El Fadl, a neo-Mu'tazilah Muslim scholar and "Muslim Martin Luther" wannabe, have in common. Well the answer to that is not much, if anything, other than the fact that the authors of this blog have posted lengthy comments in regards to them recently. Due to the effort that went into writing these two comments [(1)(2)], and in the hopes that our readers will find them beneficial, we decided to mention them here.

The first comment in question brought attention to an interesting exposé of "the pseudo-scholar and charlatan Robert Morey" that I came across on a Pakistani Christian website:

Facts about Robert A. Morey

As the excerpts below show, it seems that Christians in Pakistan don't have a very high opinion of the man:

"Robert A. Morey, treacherous thief, malicious person, third rate scholar, self appointed bishop, who is misleading the Christians and Pakistani Christians living in North America and with his spite, malice he has corrupted the Christianity."

"There is no doubt in my mind that Robert Morey is an Insane Monster misleading the Christians of North America. He claims to be a scholar and authority on Islam yet al he does or has done so far is nothing different that an 'illiterate Mullah' of a remote village of Pakistan. He is a 'fame hungry' person and will do any thing that could bring his name to lime light."

"Having no moral courage, Robert Morey immediately declared me a Muslim and he used filthy language. He wrote, you are probably a Muslim who want to kill those who awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity to find a place in Islamic whorehouse paradise. He totally ignored my first name 'Timotheus' and tried to hide behind my last name 'Nasir'. I was surprised that how could a Christian scholar ignored 'Timotheus' which is a Greek name translated in English, 'Timothy'."

"Therefore any degree awarded to any one that is not awarded in the month of March from Gujranwala Pakistan is forged, fake, illegal and fraud and Robert Morey stands guilty of all the charges that are mentioned above."

"He has been proven guilty of forgery, keeping and using illegal and fake degree and fraudulently using it with his name."

"In Robert Morey we found a man who is a thief, a liar, a cheat and a fraud."

I concluded this comment by stating that, "Based on the outright dishonesty of his writings, I can't say that I'm a bit surprised" by any of this—which, again please keep in mind, came from the pen of a Pakistani Christian.

The other comment that I wanted to bring attention to was posted by Mere Muslim a couple of days ago in regards to the Higher-Criticism blog's Khaled Abou El Fadl in Singapore announcement. I won't waste more keystrokes and electrons by re-posting that entire comment again here, especially since it's mostly a rehash of what was written last year in Playing Catch Up - Some Links, Thoughts and Tidbits—and please make sure you read the comments on this one.

We won't shy away from the accusation that this blog has Khaled Abou El Fadl in its proverbial sights. While it is true that we find some of his writings both valuable and fascinating, we also feel that they have the potential of doing untold harm to Muslims. This is not simply because they often seek to undermine traditional Islamic scholarship and the authentic sources of Islam, but because Dr. Abou El Fadl's writings are often used by non-Muslims who have been duped by them as a barometer to determine which Muslims are "good" (i.e. liberal and freedom-loving) and which Muslims are "bad" (i.e. practicing and fundamentalist). Indeed, based on the so-called "proofs" of Khaled Abou El Fadl, which run the range from very strained to being outright "childish", non-Muslims can certainly get the idea that certain aspects of our Deen are based upon nothing but "pre-Islamic Arab mythology" and sloppy medieval Islamic scholarship...and my God Almighty save us from all that.

In closing, I'll just say that in spite of his dubious role as the nemesis of traditional Muslim scholarship (a circle that he's very much not a part of), I don't doubt the Khaled Abou El Fadl's good intentions in trying to reform Islam (which ain't broke, so it don't need fixin') and I also recognize the value in his sometimes very insightful and fascinating analysis. However, in spite of this, I think he's going about his attempted reforms in very much the wrong way—most especially in regards to his strained attempts to undermine Muslim orthodoxy and orthopraxy that could potentially, if it hasn't already done so, bring harm to moderate and peace-loving Muslims . Although there's a lot more that needs to be said on this subject, I feel that I should concede the final word to Shaykh Abdal-Hakim Murad, who said in his Contentions 4:

We need an Erasmus, not a Luther.

Deen On...with hikmah.