The new Charlie Hebdo cover

PrettyGirlLost

Viczaesar said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Viczaesar said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

Viczaesar said:

I really wish Reza Aslan wasn't being used by the media as the primary source on Islam.  There are so many people who are better scholars and more appropriate sources.

Which are?

Pretty  much anyone who actually has a degree in Islamic Studies from a reputable Religious Studies program and/or teaches Islam at a reputable department, but off the top of my head Amir Hussein (editor for the JAAR and Prof. at LMU), Nathan French (Miami U. in Ohio), Mohammad Khalil (Michigan), Sherman Jackson (USC), Ahmad Atif Ahmad (UCSB), Malika Zeghal (Harvard), Asad Ahmed (UC Berkeley). 

And lay people who aren't religious studies majors would be able to discern reputable vs non reputable how?

Why isn't Aslan reputable?

I'm asking these questions because this isn't my primary field, and religious studies and geo- political based opinions and information seem more subjective and subjected to the personal bias of the scholar, and that makes it difficult to know who is credible and who is not.  It's probably likely to spot the outright nuts, bigots, and extremists, but how do you tell who is giving accurate info and who is just bullshitting?

My first sentence was "I really wish Reza Aslan wasn't being used by the media as the primary source on Islam."  I didn't say anything about lay people discerning reputability.  In fact, that's why I wish the media wasn't focusing on Aslan.  He's shiny and outspoken and thus gets attention, when there are many more reputable scholars that I wish the media focused on instead.  I'm not criticizing you for citing the interview with him.  I know, as a lay person I'm asking you what criteria you use to evaluate credibility.  I know what programs and journals are reputable sources for molecular biology because that's my field, but as far as religious studies- Harvard vs LMU vs UC Berkley. . . it's all Greek to me.  Can we probably assume Ivy League scholars are credible?  Maybe, but the Lancet was a pretty high impact journal and it fell victim to Wakefield and his bogus and defamed Autism study.  Which was why I asked for names of people you thought were a better source on the subject.  I wouldn't want to write someone off because I mistakenly thought their school wasn't prestigious enough, kwim?  But if someone is a hack I want to know that too.

I'm going to have to be careful about how much I say about Aslan in order to keep my anonymity, but basically he not an expert on Islam (or Christianity, for that matter) and he deliberately misrepresents his degrees.  He's a professor of creative writing, not of religion.  His PhD is in Sociology, not in Religious Studies, and nobody from the Religious Studies department at that institution (one of the top programs in the nation) signed off on his dissertation, for specific reasons.  Ah inside info!!!!  Did he have Religious Studies faculty on is board at all or they just had such issues with his thesis that they refused to be on the board?  Very interesting.  So let's pretend that none of that controversy existed- is there a reason a terminal degree in Sociology would automatically discredit a person from being a credible source on religion?  Sociology is the study of social behaviors, institutions and constructs, right?  Am I mislabeling it?  And religion is both an institution and a social construct that largely influences people's behaviors, right?  Or is it more that he isn't the best source because he teaches creative writing rather than actively teaching in his field?

Scholars of academic religion (as opposed to theology) are no more likely to be biased than scholars of history  or anthropology or sociology or art history or (fill in the blank).  I was comparing social sciences with natural sciences.  Can people be biased in those fields? Sure, and I guess that would lead them to crappy studies based on crappy study design, and some unethical people do manipulate their data to prove a hypothesis in order to get publications which equals grant money which equals power, but the truth usually outs them.  Because there's data they are required to make publicly available and when you massage it to your own end your peers are unable to reproduce your findings with your own data.  Kinda what happened in the infamous Autism study.  With Aslan it's hard because he appears to have a good academic pedigree (that's how he presents himself).  Exactly.  After I heard his NPR interview I looked him up and to me his pedigree was legit- Harvard School of Divinity, etc.  He seems comparable to those you mentioned above.  And sure there is some controversy around him, but at 1st pass I wasn't really surprised- writing about religion, especially Christianity and Islam, is bound to ruffle people's feathers depending on what you write.  Generally, though, I'd pay attention to what degree they have and from where, and where they teach and/or publish.  I wouldn't say that Aslan is the worst source the media could use, but he's also certainly not the best, not by a long shot, which is unfortunate.

Again, I'm not asking these questions to be combative, I'm just trying to get more info.  I appreciate the info you are sharing, thank you.

AlexisA01

Correction, The only way in my culture it is deemed acceptable to depict my Prophet Muhammad is by the light blocking out his face.  There are scrolls that show battles of Islam and it has the figure of what is suppose to be our Prophet but his face is blocked out by the golden light. It is incredible offensive to depict my Prophet the way they did. You also do not depict Mohammed in any other way other than a learning tool (the scrolls of the battles) because we do not worship Muhammad. So yes there are followings that are mentioned in context in our Book that prohibit to depiction Muhammad as well that introduced it to become a cultural, religious, and respectful norm to be followed.   

 Satire or not, why would anybody want to go there. France has had some increasing problems with the Muslim Community for a while now. Even the Sunni is broken down into extremist and not so extremist groups. I am very vocal about this on here but I am just done with the labeling of all Muslims being terrorist, especially this week. I spent a good deal dealing with crap from patients and other people trying to make sure I am not a terrorist or to make sure I am not going to do anything over the attacks. Even on my social media, comments are out there jokingly from friends and co-workers.  If anybody would like to know about my culture, Islam, or anything relating to it, feel free to send me a message. I have a conference I will be attending so I can try and get back to you as quickly as I can.

novella1186 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

There "are no Koranic prohibitions against depictions of the Prophet Muhammad" according to religious scholar Reza Asla: http://www.npr.org/2015/01/10/376381089/depictions-of-muhammad-arent-explicity-forbidden-says-scholar

"It's certainly a cultural taboo, but that taboo arose organically and through a long period of time, which is why, precisely as you say, the history of Islam teems with thousands and thousands of images of the Prophet Muhammad from his childhood, various scenes from his biography, all the way, really, to the end of his life. It's a very common thing that we see throughout Islam's history."

"These cultural taboos have become fixed in the minds of particularly Sunni Muslims who adhere to a puritanical, ultraorthodox brand of Islam."

The Sunni form of Islam is an extremist, fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, as far as I understand it.  Sunnism comes from Wahhabism, which is an extremist form of Islam originating out of Saudi Arabia in the 1700s and became their official religious doctrine in 1932.

Right, what I read is that the Quran doesn't explicitly state that it's wrong to visually depict Muhammad, and it was common/normal to do so prior to the 1500s. 

I'm obviously not Muslim and I don't know a ton about it, so that's why I thought it would be interesting to have a discussion on this here. There's a lot I just don't understand about the entire situation. 

Viczaesar

I'm happy to share to the best of my ability without saying more than I'm at liberty to share (RE Aslan in particular).  I actually have the same masters degree he does, from Harvard Divinity School; it doesn't make you an expert in anything, though it's a good stepping stone to a PhD.  It's not so much what he writes that gets our (that is, scholars') hackles up (his book on Jesus was surprising to non-academics but for those of us in the field it's actually a POV that has been around a long time and is not exactly new or unusual, though not universally held).  It's the way he presents himself as an expert on things that he's not.  He is not an expert in the New Testament and early Christianity.  He is not an expert in Islam.  He had nobody with a background in either of those areas on his dissertation committee.  Pretty much anybody at a not-for-profit University who has a degree specifically in Islamic studies and who teaches Islamic studies would be a more knowledgeable and more credible source, though I will admit that I've only skimmed what he's said on this topic and haven't seen anything against which I would take the time to argue.  I'm also not a specialist in Islam.  (I have had problems with his statements in the past on issues that are closer to my own field of specialization.) 

Wrote more but deleted it as it edges into some dangerous territory for me to post.  Suffice it to say that there was considerable debate in the academic community after his Fox interview about the way he presents his degrees and expertise. 

The top graduate programs in Religious Studies are published and would be a place to start if you wanted to certify if someone came from a reputable program.  Here are the top departments, as of the last National Research Council report (2010):
http://www.phds.org/rankings/religion

I've written and rewritten this post about 5 times, so I hope it makes sense and is not too disjointed!

kkitkat79

So what if some Muslims, Jews, Christians, whatever are offended? Nothing happens when one is offended. One doesn't go oh, I was offended and now I have leprosy. When did "sticks and stones... " stop being relevant? A mature adult should be able to get over something offensive to them without much difficulty, it's part of life.

Viczaesar

Interestingly, I'm reviewing a recently started journal in my field for submission information and when scrolling the topics published just now I found a review of Aslan's book on Jesus by a pretty big name in the field, Richard Horsley.  He says at one point: "While Zealot is not a book that would have been written by someone trained in New Testament studies today, it shares what were the standard assumptions and conceptual apparatus until forty or fifty years ago, and it collapses back into those old assumptions and concepts some of the serious attempts to challenge them made around thirty years ago."   Funny timing, considering this thread. 

chibiyui

AlexisA01 said:

Correction, The only way in my culture it is deemed acceptable to depict my Prophet Muhammad is by the light blocking out his face.  There are scrolls that show battles of Islam and it has the figure of what is suppose to be our Prophet but his face is blocked out by the golden light. It is incredible offensive to depict my Prophet the way they did. You also do not depict Mohammed in any other way other than a learning tool (the scrolls of the battles) because we do not worship Muhammad. So yes there are followings that are mentioned in context in our Book that prohibit to depiction Muhammad as well that introduced it to become a cultural, religious, and respectful norm to be followed.   

 Satire or not, why would anybody want to go there. France has had some increasing problems with the Muslim Community for a while now. Even the Sunni is broken down into extremist and not so extremist groups. I am very vocal about this on here but I am just done with the labeling of all Muslims being terrorist, especially this week. I spent a good deal dealing with crap from patients and other people trying to make sure I am not a terrorist or to make sure I am not going to do anything over the attacks. Even on my social media, comments are out there jokingly from friends and co-workers.  If anybody would like to know about my culture, Islam, or anything relating to it, feel free to send me a message. I have a conference I will be attending so I can try and get back to you as quickly as I can.

novella1186 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

There "are no Koranic prohibitions against depictions of the Prophet Muhammad" according to religious scholar Reza Asla: http://www.npr.org/2015/01/10/376381089/depictions-of-muhammad-arent-explicity-forbidden-says-scholar

"It's certainly a cultural taboo, but that taboo arose organically and through a long period of time, which is why, precisely as you say, the history of Islam teems with thousands and thousands of images of the Prophet Muhammad from his childhood, various scenes from his biography, all the way, really, to the end of his life. It's a very common thing that we see throughout Islam's history."

"These cultural taboos have become fixed in the minds of particularly Sunni Muslims who adhere to a puritanical, ultraorthodox brand of Islam."

The Sunni form of Islam is an extremist, fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, as far as I understand it.  Sunnism comes from Wahhabism, which is an extremist form of Islam originating out of Saudi Arabia in the 1700s and became their official religious doctrine in 1932.

Right, what I read is that the Quran doesn't explicitly state that it's wrong to visually depict Muhammad, and it was common/normal to do so prior to the 1500s. 

I'm obviously not Muslim and I don't know a ton about it, so that's why I thought it would be interesting to have a discussion on this here. There's a lot I just don't understand about the entire situation. 

I'm really sorry to hear that your patients and other people have been giving you a hard time about this.