Bridge senior research fellow Mobashra Tazamal interviewed Denari Duffner about her recently published book, Islamophobia: What Christians Should Know (and Do) about Anti-Muslim Discrimination. Currently a Georgetown doctoral student in theological and religious studies, she has a long history of erroneous statements concerning Islamic doctrine. Now she worries that Christians “only see kind of negative manifestations of Islam in the media” and “are not aware of all the ways that Muslims are doing good for them” — virtues she never elucidated.
Denari Duffner condemned past New York City police surveillance of Muslim neighborhoods and individuals, including Asad Dandia, who led a “Muslim charity group.” Yet American police have used similar techniques in ethnoreligious communities to find criminal elements, such as the Italian mafia. Foreign police forces also regularly surveil radical mosques.
The New York City program “was basically created with the premise that Muslims are inherently suspect; that Muslims are prone to violence, are seditious,” Denari Duffner said, as if Muslim communities could not be legitimate targets of policy scrutiny. “Some of these programs around the country actually are looking to stir up trouble” with “entrapment, luring Muslims into committing crimes that can then be charged for terrorism,” she claimed. Yet such “sting” operations are again a normal law enforcement tool, no less necessary for catching criminally minded individuals when dealing with jihad terrorism than any other crime.
”‘Islamophobia’ brings the Right and the Left together,” Denari Duffner lamented. Progressives “have made some of the most anti-Muslim comments that I have ever heard,” she elaborated, while failing to acknowledge that Islam sparks controversies apparent to people from diverse backgrounds. “So much of our self-definition as Western people is contingent on having this view of Muslims as the opposite of whatever we see ourselves to be,” she stated, “as progressive and supportive of women’s rights, and democratic and peaceful.”
To exemplify this “Islamophobia” across the political spectrum, Denari Duffner highlighted the collaboration between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Robert Spencer. Ali, a “former Muslim who gained a huge following in a lot of liberal circles,” is often “talking about the ills of Islam to your NPR audience,” Denari Duffner said.
Denari Duffner further displayed her superficiality when discussing Spencer, an authority on Islam and bestselling author. Using sweeping comments she condemns in others, she claimed Spencer operates “in these neocon circles,” a common euphemism for Jewish intellectuals. Moreover, Spencer has consistently criticized neoconservative democratic regime change strategies in Muslim-majority countries like Iraq.
Spencer was again mentioned in the discussion over what Tazamal called the “Catholic wing of the ‘Islamophobia’ industry,” as the Catholic Denari Duffner had analyzed. Before leaving the Catholic Church, Spencer “for many years was writing specifically for Catholics,” Denari Duffner stated. She also criticized the Turning Point Project of the Catholic William Kilpatrick, an insightful former Boston College professor, which works “to basically freak Catholics out about Islam,” she said.
Denari Duffner tried to downplay centuries of jihadist assaults upon Christian communities that eradicated Christianity from its historic homeland in the Middle East. “We often see ourselves with these rose-colored glasses,” she said, acknowledging that “both sides have harmed one another but have also done tremendous good for the other.”
This pollyannaish view of Islam undergirds Denari Duffner’s broader claim to “actively debunk stereotypical or untrue claims made about Islam.” She asserted that “Muslims are just as indigenous to India as Hindus,” a blatantly ahistorical claim given that Muslim conquerors subjugated India after many centuries of Hindu preeminence. Breezily overlooking troublesome Islamic doctrines like wife-beating, she dismissed that some “Muslim men have a penchant for being oppressive to women” as a view that reduces “Muslims to dehumanized, threatening people.”
“Anti-Muslim tropes are tools that governments can use,” Denari Duffner stated, as if jihadist threats are figments of imagination. For Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, “whenever he wanted to try to delegitimize the opposition, they were cast as terrorists,” she stated. But studies have documented the presence of jihadists among Assad’s opposition.
Likewise, “Israel is able to justify its policy of dominance of the Palestinians,” Denari Duffner said, as “Palestinians are the quintessential terrorist Muslims” for Israelis and others. Such sympathy for the Palestinians whitewashes the jihad they and other Muslims have waged against Zionism and Israel. Yet she asserted that Israel gets a “blank check to do whatever they want.”
An uncritical approach to Islam undercuts Denari Duffner’s belief that interactions with Muslims will end “Islamophobia.” “I have had such positive experiences getting to know Muslims as classmates in college, and if everyone could have this experience, then this problem of ‘Islamophobia’ would go away,” she once assumed. Unlike her, however, many others base their worldviews on empirical facts rather than fantasy. Thus, she has come to realize that “‘Islamophobia’ isn’t going to go away if people simply get to know Muslims.”
Denari Duffner combines a willful blindness toward all things Islamic with an ahistorical, highly critical approach to the West in general and Christianity in particular. It is a virtue to see the humanity of others, but it is the job of the scholar to tell the truth regardless of the cost. In finding fault primarily with her own kind while denying inconvenient facts about the “Other,” Denari-Duffner rejects this key academic obligation. Legislators, policymakers, theologians, and others should reject Georgetown’s peddlers of “Islamophobia” for what they are: charlatans undermining the West’s ability to define and defend itself.
Andrew E. Harrod, a Middle East Forum Campus Watch Fellow, freelance researcher, and writer, is a fellow with the Lawfare Project. Follow him on Twitter: @AEHarrod. This article is crossposted from The American Spectator.
Walter Sieruk says
That poor naive Christian girl who is holding up that sign must really have no idea that the Qu ‘ran strongly denies the Christian Bible doctrine of the Deity of Jesus or the awful things contained in the Qu ”ran that it has written in it about Christians .
Those propagandists for Islam have must have had ,obviously, completely beguiled her.
Raja says
Walter Sieruk,
May be she is bribed by Saudi Arabia or some terrorist organisation.
How can someone love koran that is antithetical to bible (she being a christian), logic and commonsense?
This is one of the most disgusting snaps on koran. If she is standing up for koran, how much has she read or understood it? And as a christian how much has she studied the bible? Possible none. With such poor antecedents she should not be “shouting from roof top”!
Koran is more of a concocted-plagiarized book, a cleverly invented narrative to subjugate the world for the devil, as he knew from the scriptures that the Arabs would be a “thorn in the flesh” for the rest of the world.Islam is a self propelled war machine wherein even non Arabs would not be ashamed of the mechanics of it and the ill treatment/genocide of non Muslims.
https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/963-ishmael-his-hand-against-every-man
gravenimage says
I think she more has a fantasy view of Islam.
Kepha says
+1
Brenda says
She’s not a real Christian. She is only using the Christian narrative to make room for Western Islamization.
mortimer says
The Koran is a troop motivator … it is not ‘loveable’.
The Koran is an arrest warrant for Jews and Christians, a death warrant for Hindus, pagans and atheists, and the Koran is a decree that deputizes Muslims to be bounty hunters who carry out Allah’s orders to attack, exterminate, enslave, subjugate and convert all non-Muslims.
The Koran has no good in it for KAFIRS (non-Muslims). To the contrary, the Koran commands ethnic cleansing and genocide. NOT a loveable at all.
joan_of_ark2005 says
That picture shows that girl holding up that sign. It’s so sad, that she doesn’t know the bible, she doesn’t know God, because God specifically said, that “they’ll be no other gods before me”.
She’s such an idiot, because she doesn’t even realize she’s supposedly worshipping TWO gods!
Brenrod says
If she loves the Quran she must also relish the slaughter of Jews as their Hadiths state that at the end of times every rock and tree will call out to Muslims and Allah to kill the Jew hiding behind them.
Although I give every Muslim I meet the benefit of the doubt that he may be ignorant about his Gods command to slaughter, I remain cautious and vigilant because so many Muslims have engaged In slaughter and other obscenity in the name of their God and their religion.
IanB says
I doubt the silly girl holding the placard has read the Qur’an or if she has she hasn’t understood it and it’s threats to non-muslims. It’s more likely to be crass virtue signalling.
fadeye@yahoo.com says
I laughed at that photo & was going to ask how Old it is since that guy behind her to the left looks like Robin Williams. ..but only half his face is shown
Prince Eugene of Savoy says
Duffner loves the Qur’an. Which verse is her favorite? There are literally dozens in the Qur’an that sanction violence committed against non-Muslim people, those kafirs, the worst word in human language. One example is: Qur’an 9:29 orders Muslims to fight all unbelievers until the Christians and Jews among them pay a never-ending slave tax with willing submission and feel themselves subdued. The fate of those who resist, or any other category of kafir, is convert to Islam or be killed.
End PC says
“Islamophobia” has got to be the most ridiculous word ever invented, even Naziphobia wouldn’t come close.
All anyone needs to know about any ideology/”religion” to condemn right off as fearful and horrible is that is calls for the execution of any who leave it or blasphemes against it or its “prophet.” That’s Islam in spades. Just read the un-abrogated verses of the Qur’an, as in the Medina sura’s 2 – 5, 8, esp 9, & 98:6, or look how it’s actually practiced in Islamic lands oppressing women & persecuting Christians, or look at its extremely violent history of conquest, plunder, slave taking (including sex slaves sanctioned in Qur’an 4:24, 23:6, 33:50) and subjugation.
The anti-Islamophobia industry is well funded and full of apologist peddling fantasy Islams for profit and deceit. It’s hard to believe they’re fooling anyone except the most willfully ignorant.
James Lincoln says
Maybe, just maybe, Denari Duffner will someday regret that photo that will be forever available on the Internet…
tim gallagher says
Yes, James, that sign has to be about the dumbest thing I have ever seen. The Koran is full of hatred for all non-believers, including Christians, and calls on Muslims to kill them, so that sign is staggeringly stupid. The woman holding up that sign would know nothing about the evil content of the Koran, but she would also be one of those doormat type of Christians, one of those Christians who think that being a Christian means just caving in and turning the other cheek to everyone and everything, even the diabolical ideology, Islam, and just being endlessly tolerant.. Christianity and Islam are complete opposites, so that sign makes no sense at all to anyone who knows anything about islam’s nature.
Brenrod says
Blissfully ignorant or disingenuously evil?
Wellington says
With you, James, and also in accord with tim gallagher’s comment to your post.
There is dumb and then there is super dumb. Duffner is in the latter category but she’s young and so enlightenment is yet possible for her.
Hope springs eternal. Better in this case or this young woman will become an old woman never figuring out how the world really works—and young fools are tolerable but old fools simply are not.
tim gallagher says
Thanks, Wellington. As you say, the woman in the photo is young and might well learn about islam and wake up. It took me quite a while to wake up to islam. Muslims started to arrive in Australia in large numbers in the mid-1970s, and I can recall that i thought it would be OK since I knew bugger all about islam. Muslims began to behave badly, in their usual way, and I began to try to figure out what the problem was with them. That was in the late 1980s and into the early 1990s and I turned 40 in 1990. I soon found out the vile content of Islam. One of the earliest books I read about Islam was Robert Spencer’s “Islam Unveiled” which was in the local library. So I was pretty old when I woke up. Here’s hoping this young woman wakes up. I can imagine how the Muslims would be laughing at this young woman’s gullibility and her stupid sign.
john smith says
Tim we have all been there, completely ignorant about islamic doctrine. I was on youtube one evening and I just happened to stumble across a video exposing the ugly side of islam, then I checked out another, then another, by the end of the evening my eyes had been opened, and I had become a fully fledged islamaphobe. From that moment onwards I’ve made it my duty to inform others about this evil death cult.
As for this girl holding up the notice, she is still young and is still learning, there is every chance her opinions will change in a few years, the same as mine did. Yes as a teenager I also leaned to the left, but as Wellington pointed out, “young fools are tolerable but old fools simply not.”
gravenimage says
Tim, this is common–most of us were ignorant about the threat of Islam at one time.
But we weren’t out there with signs lauding the Qur’an, either.
tim gallagher says
Thanks for the comments, john and gravenimage. When I first began to try to figure out what was wrong with Muslims, because here in Australia and everywhere else I could see that they were a big problem with terrorism, rape gangs, other criminality, I can recall that I came across Ali Sina, the ex-Muslim, who had a blog called Faith Freedom, i think it was. He tore into islam, so that did help wake me up. I haven’t looked at his blog for years. Also, Ibn Warraq’s book, “why I’m not a Muslim”. By 2001, I had begun to write to our politicians calling on them to end Muslim migration. It takes time to wake up to Islam, and the young woman in this photo may well wake up to reality. On people being awake to islam, way back in 1979, a Belgian guy, who was touring Australia, and was a friend of a friend of mine, said to me, (he must have noticed a few Muslims around back then) “Australia is a great place. Don’t let Muslims in or they will wreck the place.” Way back then. He was so right, though I didn’t realise it at the time. Way back in 1979!!. His prediction seems amazingly early to me when I think back on it. Like you, john, I do try to wake people up about islam’s vile nature. I can see some of my left wing friends waking up and having a tougher attitude to islam over the years. gravenimage, no, I never would have been out there holding a sign like the woman, but I have met Christians who would have that attitude she has. Endless tolerance and niceness is their take on what being a Christian is all about..
Raja says
James Lincoln,
I won’t be surprised if she is on the radar of the terrorists / target for murder to prove that islam is not a peaceful “religion”. Islam has already done to one idiotic couple who had said that they don’t believe evil exists. Rest is history.
gravenimage says
Good exchange.
Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says
Thank you, Andrew E. Harrod, for this review of Denari Duffner’s book “What Christians Should Know (and Do) about Anti-Muslim Discrimination”. You write, “Denari Duffner combines a willful blindness toward all things Islamic with an ahistorical, highly critical approach to the West in general and Christianity in particular.” Did you really mean to say this? I challenge you on the word “all”. One part of “all things Islamic” is the doctrine of jinns. How is Duffner willfully blind about jinns? Is the word “jinn” or “jinni” listed in the index of her book? Is she critical of Christian theologians’ deficiencies in jinnology?
Johnny B says
If a Christian says he or she LOVES the Quran, they are either not Christian at all or never read the thing. There’s absolutely no way a book that repeats over and over again how Jesus is not the son of God and was never crucified and that Christians and Jews are pigs and apes that needs to be humiliated and submitted and finally killed at the last day can be “loved” by a Christian??? Give me a break, please :(((
gravenimage says
+1
Kepha says
Agree with all the people saddened by the sign in the picture. While I’m all for Christians and Muslims speaking with and understanding each other (rather than killing), I only pray that there would be Christians knowledgeable enough about their own faith to note their honest disagreements. A Jesus who is neither both fully God and fully man nor one who gave his life on the cross for our sins and truly rose from the dead on the third day is not the Jesus I know. Too much of this sort of all smiles and goodwill ecumenicism depends on Christian ignorance of their own Scriptures and confession.
Johnny B says
War is never a good thing to begin with. One of the problems in relation to Islam here in the West is that most people today have no affiliation with Christianity at all any longer and they like to think it’s just a religion with a violent history and no different, basically, from Islam. If you’re Christian you know what it says about treating other, incl. your worst enemies, and if you ever read the Quran and the Hadiths you know that the two religions are not just not the same in this regard; they could not be more different. I know many Muslims today don’t follow their religion closely, just like many Christians don’t. But I can assure you, it will be a very different story if we ever get to a point where Islam becomes the majority religion and those who actually do follow Islam to the letter begin to set the agenda. It will NOT be the so called “moderate” Muslims. We cannot let that happen the name of tolerance, political correctness, and peace, which has always been temporary anyway throughout history.
Kepha says
ABsolutely, Johnny.
gravenimage says
Georgetown’s Bridge Initiative: Manufactured ‘Islamophobia’
…………
Not surprised that the dishonest Denari Duffner could not find any actual examples of “all the ways that Muslims are doing good for” us.
E T says
Education City invests in US Universities: Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern and Georgetown. Qatar Foundation covers expenses for these institutions. They invested over 400 million in Education City. IIIT to shape Islamic Studies.
George Mason University, Abdulaziz SAchedina, IIIT chair in Islamic studies, gift of 1.5 million.
Cemil Aydin, member of IIIT’s council of Scholare – Chapel Hill
gravenimage says
Yes–scary stuff, E T.
Giacomo Latta says
The US constitution is a muslim-Christian Understanding document. The US is hard-wired as a democracy which Islam can never accept as it is a fascist anti-democratic cult. So, Georgetown, understand that.
OLD GUY says
This is what the Saudi and other islamic countries have purchased with their millions of dollars donated to our colleges and universities. Brainwash our youth and you will change our country forever.
Walter Sieruk says
That Christian girl holding up that sign is actually showing that she is totally unaware and uninformed of the actual nature of the Qu ‘ran..
A person to really understand this subject needs to look back in time before the coming of Muhammad and then the Qu ’ran. Back to the First Century AD which was the time of early Christian church. For the Early Christian Church had and now in modern times, the Christian church still has the Gospel of Christ, First Corinthians 15:1-4.
Much later, in time, came Muhammad and he gave much information, that many believe to be divine, some of which is said to have been obtained from an angle from heaven. This information was written down on different objects and things Those written words in different objects was then compiled together and then eventually went into the composition of what is now called the Qu ‘ran.
The Koran is actually, that is in reality, another gospel, apart and greatly different from the Gospel of the Christian Church. Such a thing was predicted in the Bible. For the Bible does warn about those who will come and offer to people another gospel other than the one shown above, First Corinthians 15:1-4. For it is warned about any other “gospel” in the Bible.
For it is written in the Bible “Though we or an angle from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so I say now again, if any man preaches any other gospel unto you than ye have received, let him be accursed.” Galatians 1:8, 9. [K.J.V.]
gravenimage says
Denari Duffner is claiming that the 9/11 Museum needs to be “reformed”. because saying anyting negative about the 9/11 attack is a “desire for violent revenge”. Sick stuff:
https://twitter.com/bridgeinit/status/1422572968580890631