Is knowledge of Arabic necessary to write about Arabs or make policy toward them? Yes, sniff some of those who have learned the language, known as Arabists.
Antony T. Sullivan, for example, pulls rank in the journal Historically Speaking. Critiquing an article, “The Military Roots of Islam,” by two non-Arabists, George Nafziger and Mark Walton, he writes: “As one who believes that foreign language competence and accurate rendition of foreign words and concepts into English are important,” — note Sullivan’s puffed-up sense of self — “I must confess to considerable disappointment in the article.” And what devastating mistake did those authors make to undermine their thesis? Did they misunderstand jihad (Islamic holy war)? No, something much worse:
Most egregiously, the authors refer more than once to the Muslim direction of prayer as the qilbah. This is incorrect: Nafziger and Walton have reversed the second and third consonants of the Arabic word (root: qaaf-baa-laam). The correct word is qibla (accent on the first syllable), and in English that word is most commonly written with the spelling indicated. The system of transliteration recommended by the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the leading American scholarly journal in the field, holds that there is no reason to add an “h” to the final letter (taa marbuuta) of such words as qibla.
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Sullivan concludes on an even more pompous note: “It is unfortunate that those who do not have a firm command of Arabic opt to write on topics that demand linguistic competence. But this is unfortunately all too common in the times in which we live.”
But Nafziger and Walton correctly understand that war is “the principal process by which Islam spread throughout the world,” while Sullivan, despite his intimacy with taa marbuutas, propagates Islamist misinformation (“terrorism and Jihad are not identical twins but historic enemies”). His error fits a larger Arabist deceit, hiding the true meaning of jihad and pretending that it means self-improvement rather than offensive warfare.
Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan, offers another colorful instance of Arabist snobbism. His official biography proclaims he “commands Arabic, Persian and Urdu and reads some Turkish.” Preposterously, he argues that U.S. problems in Iraq resulted from a lack of Arabic-language ability: “We saw all the instant Middle East experts who knew no Arabic and had never lived in the Arab world or sometimes even been there who were paraded as knowledgeable sources.”
But his vaunted knowledge of many languages did not prevent Cole from giving horrible advice, such as encouraging Washington to trust the Muslim Brotherhood and negotiate with Hamas.
Thanks…always good to keep tabs on the BS academia is trying to throw at us.
Perhaps the Cold War would have been averted if we only had more Russian speakers at the State Department (hmmm, perhaps actually we had too many Russian speakers …cough…commie sympathizers… at the State Department, maybe the Cold War would have been averted if we had LESS Russian speakers at State).
Indeed the Civil War was due to our inherent and persistent lack of English ability (all the more reason to have every street sign, ballot, and government text available in Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Farsi and Canadian…yes the good Canadians can speak the Kings English so they would have a hard time reading our Americanish. Come to think of it at any government text our government writes is unreadable in any language…we can save loads if we don’t print any government materials…Pelosi would support it…no bother even having to vote for something to be allowed the privilege of reading what’s in it…just vote and then she can tell you what it was, the beauty is she can tell you different things to suit her needs on any given week…ah never mind she does this already).
Back to the topic at hand… Its definitive, WW2 would have been avoided if we only had a better command of Japanese and German languages. This would have made it easier for us to agree with our friends at State and believe German and Japanese propaganda. Then we’d have no need to go to war…after all the Germans and Japanese kept telling everyone they were the good guys…if only we understood.
Come to think of it, why am I wasting my time on the classics, I’m merely an unskilled boor unable to read the original Greek, the Hellenes are beyond my grasp. It’s ok to read Karl Marx in English because unlike the King James bible, Marx has been translated by our liberal academic friends and can be trusted to be the true scientific gospel that merits reading so us low brows can better ourselves by prostrating before the more equal than thou academic snoots.
Oh brother and we trust these knuckleheads to teach our children??
"Oh brother and we trust these knuckleheads to teach our children??"
It's not a matter of trust. If you can't afford to send your kids to private school, public school is all there is. Most places have laws requiring children to go to school (or be home schooled).
"Trust" here is like, do we trust our government to run our country?
I came in expecting to disagree with you, but have come to the same conclusions. "Whoever has learned Arabic can take pride in this achievement without boasting that it trumps other qualifications. It is one tool among many, not a status." As someone who speaks both Arabic and Persian, absolutely, Mr. Pipes, absolutely. Juan Cole often makes good points and has done some excellent scholarship, but is blinded by his own Chamberlainesque ideology. Sadly, this characterizes Oriental Studies as a whole here in America: a field dominated not by pure academics, but by those pushing political agendas, whether Islamist, pro-Israeli, Orientalist (with Said's meaning), or, like Cole, exceedingly conciliatory.
after 9-11,I know all I need to know about islam.
I see nothing but arrogance and whining. there is an add on discovery channel , I think called islam in America. this woman (arab) tells of being on an airline and an other woman (non-arab) looked at her with concern. The arab woman says" i teach course about women like you." I wish she would have said that to me. We would have locked horns.
Actually I tend to disagree - if you are writing serious scholarship on Islam, you should be able to read Islamic documents, and the Qur'an, in its native language, Arabic.
As a Catholic, I have a huge problem with those who write serious scholarship on Catholicism without knowing Latin, or for that matter, New Testament Greek. Learning a language isn't rocket science - if this is your job, then take it seriously.
Do you have any reason for being upset that they don't know Latin, or does it just impress your friends and make you feel smart?
Mr. pipes is right...leftists, including "cultural Catholics", love to learn the trendiest things without any intellectual big picture in mind.
That's why they listen to biologists and physicists about philosophy and theology but find a problem listening to historians who don't know every language of every culture they study! (Can we quit pretending that every culture is its own field of study???)
By the way most Persians look at you funny if you ask them about speaking "Persian".. The language is called Farsi. (I guess "Persianists" are too busy arguing with "Arabists" to figure this out!)
Yes, I do have a reason for being upset if they do not know Latin - there is nothing more frustrating than a liberal quoting scripture or quoting canon law or quoting a Church document in English to back up their point, only to be completely wrong and misinformed in their conclusion because the English translation they used is not accurate. Things do get lost in translation, and if you are going to be an 'expert' in a particular field you should know that field's language(s) of choice.
And most "leftist" Catholics don't know Latin...it's the conservative ones who do.
I am no expert in Latin myself, and I do not know Greek, but I am not a scholar on Catholicism. If I were, I would learn the language of the field I'm studying and writing about.
Knowing Arabic can't hurt, and the dependency on a third-party translator is always a risk. It is also a risk to read the writings of al Qaeda and others through the lense of a Western left-leaning liberal.
Linguistic ability with a consequent knowledge of multiple languages does not imply an ability to think clearly in any of them. Juan Cole particularly and, apparently, A.T. Sullivan exemplify this well.
So by this measure it's not possible to write about China without fluency in Chinese yet so many do. But once again Arabs, Islam, and Muslims are treated differently when there is a point to be made.
So to those who agree with Mr. Pipes, who are your favorite writers on America who have no knowledge of English?
Those who are not fluent in the language of a nation are forced to rely on translations. Their understanding is derivative and of a lower order. Fluency is a necessary but insufficient requirement for grasping the finer pints of another nation. One can be fluent and still foolish but the wisest man on earth will not understand another civilisation fully without a knowledge of the language.
So yes, one can make policy and pronouncements about Arabs or any foreigners without knowing their language but the product will be hampered by such ignorance.
While Sullivan sneers at other scholars for mis-rendering an Arabic word, the equivalent of an accidental typo, he writes idiotic sentences like this--"But this is unfortunately all too common in the times in which we live.”
I teach technical writing at a major American university, and we know the importance of distinguishing between a report that completely fails to understand an issue and a compelling, well-written report that has an accidental typo.
This is an important distinction that Sullivan needs to learn, too.
