Arlandson never fails to disappoint

Arlandson never fails to disappoint. In his essay titled "Mosque and State in Early Islam", part of a series on Islamic Shariah published on Jihad Watch, he writes:

It is very difficult to find a moderate who seeks to reform early Islam on the mosque and state... One exception is Turkish journalist Mustafa Aykol [sic]...

If any Jihad Watch reader doesn't know that Mustafa Akyol is a Taqiyya snake as pernicious as Reza Aslan or Tariq Ramadan, then they haven't really been reading Jihad Watch carefully all these years.

And it only took me about 90 seconds to find this rotten cornerstone in Arlandson's seemingly stately edifice of a presentation.

Let's take a gander at old Mustafa, shall we?

1. Robert Spencer vs. Mustafa Akyol

[Akyol there wrote:]

...Recently Robert Spencer argued on Frontpage that I, once a "moderate Muslim," have joined the jihad against "infidels" and especially the state of Israel. Well, not really....

[Akyol then proceeds to blah blah blah; and here is Spencer's reply:]

Mustafa Akyol, oddly enough, seems in his note to equate “jihad” with “armed struggle,” and to ignore the jihad of the tongue, the jihad of the hand, the jihad of the heart, and the jihad against the lower self, all of which are abundantly represented in Islamic tradition. But for the record, I do not believe and did not intend to imply that Mustafa Akyol was going to blow himself up in a crowded restaurant in Tel Aviv, or hide explosives in his underwear and attempt to set them off on an airplane, or drive a bomb-rigged car into Times Square, or shoot soldiers on a U.S. Army base. I do not believe that he is ever going to take up arms in order to further the hegemony of Islamic law over the world — but that doesn’t mean that in endorsing the Jihad Flotilla, and accepting the Islamic supremacist Turkish government’s fantastic version of events, that he is not siding with the jihad against Israel, and hence with the larger global jihad of which the jihad against Israel is just one of many fronts, albeit the foremost.

2. Turkish columnist says that "liberal Muslim" Mustafa Akyol is actually an Islamic supremacist working for restoration of caliphate

[In Spencer's introduction:]

Turkish columnist Burak Bekdil with great interest: he characterizes the "liberal" Akyol as a pro-Sharia, pro-Erdogan Islamic supremacist. But undoubtedly a sly one.

Bekdil even says that Akyol is working to further "Islamists' global ambition to play the modern day, Muslim Trojan Horse at the gates of western civilization."

3. More soothing nonsense

This is a piece in which Spencer rips Akyol's Taqiyya Dawa to shreds, when Akyol has the gall to write:

...the Koran does not denounce Jewish and Christians an “unbelievers,” as it is often thought.

4. Akyol/Spencer, Round 4

In this piece, Spencer uses rather voluminously padded gloves and keeps on "applauding" Akyol for his attempts at reform -- all the while demonstrating that Akyol is curiously sidestepping the only effective way to reform Islam, which must begin by acknowledging the bad aspects in Islamic texts & tradition that obviously directly guide and inspire Islamic terrorism. While Spencer way too courteously avoids the obvious implication here, the intelligent reader can see it plain as the nose on his face: that Akyol is studiously avoiding the bad aspects at the heart of mainstream Islam not because he doesn't know they are there, but because he is trying to deceive us. No other explanation is possible, for someone as learned in his own tradition as is Mustafa Akyol.

I.e., that when Akyol writes such sentences as -- "In a nutshell, what I am trying to do is to show that the current terrorism under the name of Islam is not legitimate from an Islamic point of view" -- it is nothing short of a baldfaced lie that anyone with half a brain (not, apparently, including Prof. Arlandson, Ph.D.) can identify.

And take a look at the comments by ordinary civilian Jihad Watch readers without Ph.D.'s easily spotting the deception of Akyol and what it portends. Even eight years ago, in 2004, they (with a couple of mild exceptions) had more sense in their little finger than Arlandson's generous brain seems capable of (and I point this out notwithstanding my reservations about the learning curve of the average Jihad Watch reader; so where does that put Arlandson...?).

5. Bat Ye'or vs. Mustafa Akyol on Islam's "Golden Age"

Ms. Ye'or handily chops and filets Akyol and serves him up as an hors-d'oeuvre best served cold.

6. Flotilla Fraud Fallout: Another moderate Muslim joins the jihad -- Mustafa Akyol

In his introduction, Spencer writes:

Over the years I have seen it happen more than once: a plausible "moderate Muslim" appears on the scene and becomes the darling of hopeful non-Muslims who believe that he epitomizes the peaceful, reasonable face of Islam upon which they have placed so much hope (and based so much policy).

Hm...? Like Arlandson...?

7. Akyol Still Standing for Islam - and Against Terrorism

In his introduction, Spencer writes:

...Mustafa Akyol, whose earlier National Review articles attempting to show that Osama bin Laden and Company have hijacked the religion of peace I discussed here and here at some length, turns in a third entry that is as mind-numbingly disingenuous as it is windy and off-point.

There are many more articles on ol' Akyol on these many Google search pages.

What better, more vivid example could we have of the success of stealth jihad, than when a vaunted Ph.D. expert on Islam like Arlandson -- who is stolidly proceeding on his grand project of educating "...educators, journalists, legislators, city council members, judges, lawyers, government bureaucrats, think tank fellows, TV and radio talk show hosts, and everyone else who occupies the “check points” in society..." -- is himself fooled by a screamingly transparent False Moderate like Akyol!??