The Eric Metaxas Show - Robert Spencer (Encore)
Episode Date: October 21, 2024Robert Spencer shares his latest book: "Muhammad: A Critical Biography". ...
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Noble gold investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments.
That's noble gold investments.com.
Welcome to the Eric Mataxis show.
We'll get you from point A to point B.
But if you're looking for point C, well, buddy, you're on your own.
But if you'll wait right here in just about the two minutes.
The bus to point C will be coming right by.
And now here's your Ralph Cramden of the Airways, Eric Mott, Texas.
Hey, the folks, welcome.
I'm going to tell you, there are very few people who have been as brave as my guest in this hour.
Robert Spencer has been very, very bold speaking against, oh, I don't know, radical Islam.
and he has a new book out called Muhammad A Critical Biography.
We clearly need to know what is really going on because there's been so much confusion over the years.
So it's a privilege right now to have on the author of the new book, Muhammad, A Critical Biography, Robert Spencer.
Welcome back, Robert.
Good to see again, Eric. Thank you.
Well, this is such an important subject and it's such an incendiary subject.
What led you, I mean, you've been writing about this kind of stuff for many years. As I said,
you've been just tremendous on this. What led you to think, okay, we need a biography of Muhammad?
Well, in the first place, because there is still general lack of understanding of how much Muhammad inspires contemporary jihad terrorists.
And so that in the first place is something that I think deforms our entire response to the terrorist threat in many different places around the world, including stateside inside the United States.
So that's one thing.
But also, I've been exploring this historically for a number of years.
And I wrote a book a few years ago called Did Muhammad Exist, that was an examination of exactly that question.
and this one goes deeper into that,
looking into the biographical material about Muhammad
that Islamic tradition shows us
and trying to evaluate whether it's historically accurate or not
and whether we can really know anything about this man at all
or even if he was real or just a fictional legendary construct.
And so in this book is about all of those things at once.
Well, you know, I've only...
heard things about Muhammad, and some of them are, they're not exactly flattering. Is it true
that he took a nine-year-old as his wife? Yeah, absolutely. And see, do you take, for example,
right now in the news, there's a story out of Malaysia where an Islamic group has been
discovered to be carrying out this incredible kind of industrialized sexual assault of children.
572 children as of this moment have been rescued from this group.
And the group is under widespread investigation for sexual assault of hundreds of children.
And this is on the example of Muhammad, who, when he was 54, consummated his marriage with a nine-year-old girl.
and because the Quran says he's the excellent example of conduct to be followed in every detail,
there are Muslims all over the world, obviously not all of them, but some of them,
who consider this to be perfectly acceptable behavior.
Many Islamic clerics also worldwide have said there's no minimum age for marriage
because of Muhammad's marriage to Aisha, the nine-year-old girl.
Yeah, so what happened there is child rape.
Let's be clear.
So if this is true,
Ben Muhammad is a child rapist.
And, you know, in the West, it's interesting because we can quibble about 14, 15, 16-year-olds,
different cultures, you know, do things differently.
When you're talking about a nine-year-old, it's horrifying on every level.
I don't think there's, you know.
And so that's, I wanted to go there first just because it's so shocking.
and most people don't know about that.
And I think to myself, when you know about that, what else is there to say?
I mean, that's just dramatic.
If you're looking to somebody, as you said, as a model figure, as a model for life, what do you do with that, right?
When we're talking about Jesus, you know, people are critical of Jesus.
But, you know, at least there's things that they're not that kind of.
of a deal breaker right there that strikes me as like a deal breaker and I really don't know where
you go with it. Do people just try to sweep it under the rug or do people just say it doesn't matter?
I mean, we have, you know, a lot of people in the world who identify as Muslims. Where does your
average non-radical Muslim take that information? Well, for years, Eric, in the West, there has been
an effort on the part of Islamic apologists to claim that the girl, Isha, was.
is actually older when Muhammad married her and that the traditions regarding her being nine
at the time of the child rape, as you quite rightly put it, these were supposedly later inauthentic
traditions. This is one thing that I address at length in the book and show that they are
on the same level as the traditions in Islamic history that are considered most reliable
about Muhammad. So that's one thing. But what's interesting is,
is that as the presence and the power of Muslims in the United States has grown,
it's become less common for Islamic spokesmen to try to explain away this problem
and say that she was actually older.
What we have now are Islamic apologists who are actually openly saying,
yes, she was nine, and that's fine. That's great.
And it's become something that some very prominent high profile spokesman,
defenders of Islam now just own and say, we have no problem with this.
There's nothing wrong with this.
Muhammad did it, and it's good.
I want to talk also in the course of the conversation about, well, there are a lot of people in this country,
mostly secular people, who do not understand what religious liberty is, who don't
understand what an actual theocracy is.
And so they say unbelievably stupid things.
I mean, very educated people.
Some of them, friends of mine, still raise the specter of Christians want a theocracy or whatever.
I mean, they have no idea what they're saying.
It's antithetical to everything Christians believe, but they think it's a thing.
But actually, it's not a thing.
And Christians believe in religious liberty.
In other words, I believe what I believe, but I don't believe I can force others and shouldn't force others to believe it.
Because you can't force people.
they have consciences.
But when we're talking about Islam, Islam melts together government power with religion.
In other words, it's antithetical to what the Bible teaches.
And it is, it's not just acceptable, but it's how they function.
In other words, talking about Sharia law, this is essentially theocracy.
It's the reality of theocracy.
and somehow liberals give them a pass.
I'm not sure what is going on there.
But talk about it because I know in your book you deal with this,
that Muhammad was advocating conversion by force.
It's just bizarre.
Yeah, absolutely.
In the first place, Islam is inherently and essentially political,
supremacist, aggressive, and violent.
These things are all in the core texts.
And I think it's extraordinarily significant that, according to Islamic tradition,
Muhammad was a preacher.
That's all, a preacher.
He claimed to be a prophet in Mecca for the first 12 years of his career.
And then he moved to Medina and became for the first time a political and military leader,
as well as a preacher of religious ideas.
And it's that that is the beginning of Islam,
according to the Islamic calendar.
According to the Islamic calendar,
it's year 14 something right now.
I always forget what year it is,
but it counts not from when Muhammad was born
or when he died or when he became a prophet.
Year one in the Islamic calendar
is when Muhammad gained military and political power.
And so that's signaling to the world
that Islam is not fully Islam
without political and military power.
And so these things cannot be separated from it.
And it's not just making it.
talking, all the jihad groups in the world want to extend the hegemony of Islam.
Yeah.
I want to talk about that in the rest of the hour.
But just to be clear, roughly, when was he born and when did he die?
According to the traditions, he was born in 570, died in 632.
And was a problem from 610.
So we're talking with the author of Muhammad, a critical biography, Robert Spencer.
Muhammad, a critical biography.
We'll be right back.
Hey folks, we're officially in that time of the year where eating becomes way off balanced.
Parties, holidays, family gatherings always mean more snacks, more sweets, and generally indulging in all the wrong foods.
And when your eating habits get off balance, so can you.
That's why I strongly recommend balance of nature daily supplements.
Their fruits and veggie supplements are sourced from whole fruit and vegetable ingredients,
all the things you may be missing, all the things you need to make up for being off balance during this eating season.
Make sure you're getting more of a variety of fruit and vegetable ingredients every step of the way with balance of nature.
Start a trend toward better health today with my special startup offer.
Whether you order online or call them direct, you must use the promo code Eric to get 35% off plus free shipping and their money back guarantee.
Call them at 800, 2468, 751 and use discount code Eric or order online at balance of nature.com.
Use discount code Eric to get 35% off plus free shipping.
cow how do they do it there's a revolution happening right above our heads it's about to make silver more
precious than ever the sun's power is taking over the world it's growing so fast it'll be the biggest
source of electricity by the 2030s solar here's the kicker every single solar panel needs silver to work
we're talking about a silver paste web in every panel turning sunlight into power smart investors are
already making their move and that's where noble gold investments comes in with the silver IRA you
surf this incredible wave of growth. It doesn't matter who sits in the White House or what
Wall Street does. Solar power is unstoppable and silver is its secret weapon. As the world goes green,
your retirement could be going sterling silver. Don't let this opportunity slip through your fingers
in 2024. Visit noblegoldinvestments.com. You may get up to 10 free, brand new one-ounce
silver trump coins or a 10-ounce silver American flag bar with every qualifying IRA. That's
noble goldinvestments.com.
We're talking to Robert Spencer, who has a brand new book out.
I've got to tell you, I'm excited.
It's called Muhammad, a critical biography.
This is really needed.
We need to understand what we're dealing with around the world.
And Robert, it's got to be frustrating to you to hear people, like when George W. Bush said,
Islam is a religion of peace.
And it is amazing to me, because I'm not here to demonize any group of people.
And I know that there are tons and tons of Muslims who are just cultural Muslims.
It's like when somebody says, well, I'm Irish, so I guess I'm Catholic.
And it's kind of meaningless.
But when we're talking about the religion itself and we're talking about its most radical
devoted adherents, to say it's a religion of peace is not just wrong.
It's the opposite.
I mean, you just said before we went to the break.
I mean, the whole goal of Islam on the model of Mahal.
Muhammad is to take over the world by force militarily, to threaten those who don't go along with it.
I mean, it's every secularist's scary nightmare of what they think religion is, except Christianity
is not that, but Islam on this model actually is.
And so you have people like George W. Bush very foolishly not addressing it.
So obviously you have for decades now addressed it, culminating.
in the new book, Muhammad a Critical biography.
But it just must frustrate you over the years to have people like President George W. Bush
talk that way because it's confusing.
Yeah, sure.
I mean, Bush really, he, right from the beginning, that was six days after 9-11.
And what he essentially did was hamstring honest efforts to deal with the motivating ideology behind the
terrorists that hit us on 9-11.
He, it went, it was able to be done.
And I actually instructed FBI and military for several years before Obama became president.
But it was always ferociously opposed, even within the FBI and the military, by people who thought, no, we can't talk about this.
Islam is peace.
You're just going to alienate peaceful Muslims and so on.
But, you know, it goes back to Sun Tzu.
You can't defeat an enemy you don't understand.
And what Bush did was make it impossible for us to understand who we were dealing with.
Well, I mean, it's interesting because, you know, I know that there are people Catholic integrationists or whatever who believe somehow that they want to, you know, they want to make law their faith or they want, you know, there's a continuum.
But there's no doubt that serious Muslim.
believe in Sharia.
I mean, we see it happening in Europe right now.
And so we really need clarification on this.
But the funny thing is, if we had Catholics in America,
you know, bombing places or threatening to bomb places
or trying to impose their version of Sharia,
everybody would be talking about it and, you know,
would deal with the theology and, you know, is this right?
Is this wrong?
But with Bush and others, this just,
just been the idea that we don't want to talk about it. And I think, look, it's fine to not talk about
it if they are not doing bad things. But the terrorism around the world means we have to talk about it.
Absolutely. See, if you ask the terrorists, if you look at what Al-Qaeda and ISIS and all the
rest of them say, everything that they do goes back to Islam. And they'd be the first to tell you
that. And so you're never going to understand them fully if you consistently just deny a priori,
that Islam has anything actually to do with their actions.
Has there been another biography of Muhammad in recent years?
I mean, did you write this just because you saw a hole, so to speak, that needed filling?
Because I think sometimes, I'm always amazed when you think,
hey, where can I get a good book on this or this?
And you realize there really hasn't been one.
Yeah.
There are plenty of hagiographical biographies.
Those are easy to find.
but I thought what we need is somebody who speaks honestly about Muhammad and about the historical value of these texts.
And so that's what this book is designed to do.
So what else is there in his story that we might not know?
I mean, the idea that he would quote unquote take a wife who's nine years old, I mean, that's pretty grim stuff to think about.
was that culturally acceptable in the early 7th century where he lived?
Where did he live at that time?
He lived in Arabia, in Mecca, and then moved pretty quickly after that to Medina.
And these are cities in southwestern Arabia.
This is all according to traditions that come from a couple hundred years after he lived,
but there isn't any competing information for where he's supposed to have lived.
The thing is, though, there are all kinds of problematic aspects of his story, and they're whitewashed in the West.
For example, I was reading an article not long ago, an Islamic scholar saying how wonderful the Islamic traditions were in giving us this human picture of Muhammad.
And there are several stories, the guy says, where he is depicted as laughing so hard that you could see his back teeth.
And this is a charming detail, says the contemporary historian.
And then you go to those actual stories.
And what he's laughing about is that there was a rival warrior taunting the Muslims.
And one of his cracked marksman shoots him dead.
And then Muhammad is laughing because the guy gets shot dead.
And so this is the kind of whitewashing of the tradition that we get in the West.
I mean, I think we have to be clear again that what we're dealing with.
for example, when you talk about Christianity, there's no doubt that Jesus elevated women in a way that was radical.
There's no doubt that in the New Testament you have a respect for marriage, for women.
It's really radical stuff.
When you look at Islam, there's no doubt that women are second-class citizens, genuinely, not just sort of.
I mean, it's kind of an amazing thing.
And again, you have to wonder why the left doesn't react more strongly.
Because when they talk about, you know, these boogeymen that they raise up, like the handmaids tail or whatever, this is that in reality.
This is the subjugation of women in reality, not just some fantasy.
Oh, yeah.
And, well, I think the left loves Islam because it hates Christianity and hates the West, hates American civilization, the whole Western civilization.
the whole Western civilization, and consequently they see each other as allies because they have a common enemy.
But yeah, you know, it's funny that you look into Islamic tradition.
Islamic apologists today will tell you Muhammad improved the condition of women in the 7th century.
But actually, you look at the real stories that Muslims themselves were writing and circulating about Muhammad and women.
And you have Aisha, the famed child bride, saying, for example,
I have never seen women suffer like the believing women do.
And a woman comes to Muhammad and she's all bruised because her husband beat her and he tells her to go back and try to please her husband more ardently.
This kind of thing is all through Islamic tradition.
It didn't improve the situation of women.
Quite the contrary.
And that's according to the Islamic sources themselves.
Well, and again, of course, it's true today.
We're not talking about the 7th century.
We're talking about in the 21st century.
We have, you know, women being treated abominably.
You know, and again, you know, to get back to theocracy,
Sharia law has come to Europe and it would love to come here.
Talk a little bit about that.
What is Sharia law?
Sharia is the, it's considered to be the perfect law of Allah,
as enunciated in the Quran and Suna,
which is the traditions derived from the traditions about Muhammad
that we've been discussing today.
And it covers pretty much every aspect of life.
As a matter of fact, I don't think there's a single thing
that you can think of to do as a human being
that is not covered by some law in Sharia.
It covers everything.
And that includes also the governance of society.
And so what's happened in Europe is that you have Muslims
who have come in large numbers,
and they don't care about,
about the law of the land.
They don't have any respect for the law of the land
because the Quran says the infidels are the most vile of created beings,
while the Muslims are the best of people on earth
in joining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.
And that's Sharia.
So they come establish these enclaves where Sharia is enforced
and the law of the land is essentially ignored.
As the Muslim population in Europe grows,
the Sharia areas are growing
and the non-Muslim areas are diminishing.
And this is the whole idea, really, ultimately,
to conquer and Islamize Europe.
And there are many migrants who have been recorded saying
that, yes, they didn't come to Europe to get a good job
or to escape from a war.
They came to Europe to bring Islam there.
And we're not kidding.
In other words, this is the goal.
And it's why they have contempt.
I mean, imagine the contempt they must have
for their gutless,
Howard Lee hosts.
The idea that in Great Britain or in Germany,
they wouldn't vet these people.
They just would say, come on in.
It's astonishing naivete.
And you can imagine the contempt that these Muslims have for the people who think
that they're being generous who are hosting them.
We'll be right back.
We're talking to Robert Spencer, author of a brand new biography,
Muhammad, a critical biography.
I like knowing exactly where my meat comes from. And with Moink, that place is from small family farms all across the country.
And you can help save the family farm and get access to the highest quality meat when you join the Moink movement today.
Moink farmers farm like our grandparents did. And that means meat tastes like it should.
Moink delivers grass-fed beef and lamb, pastured pork and chicken. A sustainable wild-caught, Alaska, and salmon delivered straight to your door.
The Moint difference is one you can taste. And you can feel good knowing you're helping family farms stay financially independent too.
Keep American farming going by signing up at moinkbox.com slash Eric right now, and listeners of this show get free bacon for a year.
You choose the meat delivered in every box like ribbyes, chicken breasts, pork chops, or salmon fillets, and so much more.
Plus, a free year of bacon, and you can cancel it any time.
That's one whole year of the best bacon you'll ever taste, but only for a limited time.
Spelled M-O-I-N-K-box.com.
dot com slash Eric. That's moinkbox.com
slash Eric.
Moinkbox.com slash Eric.
Hey, this is Eric Mettaxis.
For years, I've told you about Nutrametics, a professional supplement brand trusted by doctors
since 1993.
Nutrametics offers a variety of health bundles.
Whether you want to support your immune system, improve your sleep, promote joint
comfort or detoxification support, Nutrimetics has a health bundle right for you.
The best part about Nutrimetics, every year they donate a minimum of 50% of their
profits to Christian.
charities and missions. That's right, 50% of their profits. Nutrametics has a goal of surpassing
$100 million in giving by 2030. Many of you take supplements already. Switch to Nutrametics.
It's the highest quality and they donate 50% of their profits. Get 15% off by using the code
Eric during checkout. Go to Nutrametics.com and search health bundles. Support your health while
helping others in need. Go to Nutrametics. That's N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com. Newtrametics.com. Use the code
Eric for 15% off.
Again, Nutrametics, N-U-T-R-A-M-E-D-I-X.com.
Neutrametics.com, use the code Eric for 15% off.
Folks, is a new biography of Muhammad.
It is a critical biography.
It's by Robert Spencer, who is my guest right now.
Robert, I want to make clear, you know, this is not about demonizing Muslims.
There are a lot of people who are cultural Muslims.
And I think of, you know, if you grow up in a place like Saudi Arabia or any of these,
but you don't really have any options.
But what we're trying to do is look at who was Muhammad.
Is he somebody you really want to follow?
Is it okay if you follow him?
Where will that lead?
And so it's clearly not all bad, but the bad is horrifying.
And I always want to make clear to people that in C.S. Lewis's book, A Horse and His Boy, I think is the title.
It's one of the Four Narnia Chronicles.
but he talks about this group of people, the calomines, who are essentially Muslims and they worship a god called Tash, who's a kind of a scary demonic god.
But he makes clear, C.S. Lewis does, that some of these caler memes in their hearts are worshipping Aslan.
In other words, they're naive about the theology of what they're worshipping. Their view of God is beautiful or benign at least.
And I know that there are many people who claim to worship one thing.
You know, there are many people who say, I am a Christian.
I believe in this and this and this.
And then you look at their lives and you say, you don't believe in that.
You say you believe in it.
You may think you believe it.
Maybe you were baptized or maybe you, you know, take communion here or there.
But your life doesn't line up with what you claim to believe.
And so that cuts in both directions.
I think that there are people that are, they're cultural Muslims.
They're just living their lives.
but they're not for what radical Muslims are for.
And I think it's important to make that distinction because I have often in New York City,
I get in a conversation with a cab driver and, you know, his name is some Islamic name or whatever.
But when he talks about his kids and about America, it's pretty clear he likes what he has here in America.
He likes the opportunity for his kids.
He doesn't seem to be on board with the overthrow of what he's enjoying.
And so there's a continuum in terms of faith, you know, what people actually believe, what they say they believe.
So it's just important to say that, I think, because not everyone who identifies as a Christian and not everyone who identifies as a Muslim really knows much about that faith necessarily or is living it out.
Oh, absolutely, Eric.
As a matter of fact, that's even more acute in the Islamic world because of the Arab centrism of it all.
that if you are going to go to mosque and participate in the five daily prayers,
you have to pray in Arabic, you have to recite Quran in Arabic.
Now, most of the Muslims in the world today are not native speakers of Arabic.
And there are young boys in Pakistan and other countries who memorize the whole Quran
without having the slightest idea what it's saying.
I actually was talking to a guy once years ago, and he said,
I'm very proud of my religion, and I've memorized almost the entire Quran.
One day I intend to get one of those translations and find out what it says.
And so this is something that, you know, it actually leads to another situation where I had a friend a few years back who was an immigration lawyer, and he helped a lot of Somalis get into the United States.
And he said that some of them thought that being a Muslim meant being kind, being charitable, being generous and magnanimous.
and they had no idea of the existence of any of these problematic aspects.
Well, see, that's what I'm saying.
So if you have somebody who says, oh, I'm a Muslim, and they see it as, you know,
all of the good things you just mentioned, it's radically different from what we're talking about.
And so I don't want people to think this means Muslim people are all like this or believe all these things.
Most of them, honestly, are dramatically ignorant.
But again, it's the elites, it's the leaders, it's the radical Islamists who are, you know, guilty of taking what Muhammad said and did very seriously as the model for their lives.
And that's why your book is so important.
So what else should we talk about from your book that we might not know, that others might not know?
There's a great deal, as a matter of fact, the Islamic traditions are full of stories that I think would shock a lot of people.
For example, Muhammad is depicted as having a very intimate relationship with a man named Dihal Calbi who is caught spending the night in Muhammad's house.
and when the people ask him why he's there sleeping in his bed, he says, oh, that's the angel Gabriel.
And this is, I think, it's a very curious series of stories, but it also explains why you have the curious situation in many parts of the Islamic world.
And a lot of people who served in Iraq and Afghanistan can attest to this.
While homosexuality is officially forbidden and frowned upon, it's nonetheless widely practiced.
And there seems to be an ambiguity there that goes back to the ambiguous example of Muhammad himself in this regard.
And yet Islamic law is very harsh when dealing with homosexuality.
Yes.
Well, it seems to be that the cultural accommodation that you find in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere is that if you get married and have children,
then that's fine. If you, on the other hand, declare homosexuality as a lifestyle that you are gay in the Western sense, then that can get you thrown off the top of the tall building.
So it's not the practice of it. It's not the act. It's this declaration that it's a good thing. Very interesting. We'll be right back, folks, talking to Robert Spencer, the author of a brand new book, Muhammad, a critical biography.
A large retail store just canceled a huge order leaving My Pillow with a ton of extra My Pillows.
But you know what? That's their loss and your gain.
For the first time ever, you can get a standard classic My Pillow for wholesale prices, only 1488.
But it gets better for a limited time.
They're offering their entire classic collection at wholesale prices.
Get Queen Size My Pillows for just 1888.
Upgrade to a King for only a dollar more.
Get the body pillows for 2988 and multi-use MyPillows for only 988.
Go to MyPillow.com, use promo code Eric or call 800-978-3057 to take advantage of wholesale pricing for the first time ever.
On top of that, receive free shipping on orders over $75.
They have never been offered this low before.
There are limited quantities at this price, so the limit is 10 and once they're gone, they're gone.
Go to MyPillow.com or call 800-9783057.
3057, use promo code Eric to get the standard my pillow for only 1488, the lowest price ever.
From the creators of Jesus Revolution comes a new film that's bound to touch your heart,
White Bird, a wonder story.
Discover the moving tale of Julian as he encounters his grandmother's incredible journey
to escape Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
Based on the beloved book by the best-selling author of Wonder,
this inspiring film demonstrates how one simple act of kindness can create ripples that last a lifetime.
directed by the visionary behind Finding Neverland and featuring stellar performances by Julian Anderson and Academy Award winner Helen Mirren, Whitebird promises to be a cinematic experience you won't forget.
Catch it in theaters now.
For tickets and more details, visit whitebird.mobody.
That's whitebird.
That's whitebird.
movie.
Welcome back talking to Robert Spencer, author of a brand new book, Muhammad, a critical biography.
Robert, what led you into the world of studying Islam critically as you do?
I have to say, I think I've told you this before, but I grew up in the Greek Orthodox Church.
And when you're hanging out with Greeks growing up in the Greek community, you're aware of the
evils of the Turks and the Muslim subjugation of Greek Christians in the Ottoman Empire.
It's gruesome. It's horrible. It's a classic example of theocracy, of wielding the sword to threaten
people, to subjugate people who are of a different faith.
How did you come to the subject?
Well, Eric, I can tell you, I find that in the Greek Orthodox community,
people know what the Turks did to the Greeks,
but they don't generally know why the Turks did it.
And that was what led me into it.
My family was actually exiled from Chesmeh in Turkey, what is now Turkey.
They were Greek Orthodox Christians there for, who knows, since time immemorial,
and were exiled in 1916.
after declining the invitation to convert to Islam.
And this was part of the general Armenian and Greek and Assyrian genocides
and the total ethnic cleansing of Asia Minor,
of the historic Christian communities that had lived there.
And when I was young, I would speak to my grandparents,
and they would tell me how wonderful it was over there
and how beautiful and how much they loved living there.
And I would say, why did you leave?
We were exiled.
Why were you exiled?
And then they would go silent.
So I wanted to know.
And the study of that question, if you pursue it, leads right into Islam.
Because it wasn't that the Turks were just mean because they were Turks.
It was because they were animated by Islamic principles of supremacism that led them to want the Christians either to convert to Islam or to be subjugated under the hegemony of Islamic law or leave the area.
Yeah, I mean, anybody,
who is not aware, if you're Greek as I am, you know, you know that what was called Asia Minor,
which today we call Turkey, that was Greek, that was the Byzantine Empire for many, many,
many centuries.
What we now call Istanbul was called Constantinople.
It was all part of larger Greece, greater Greece.
And it's fascinating because when you read the Old Testament and you're reading about
Ephesus and you're reading about all these different places. It was it was part of the Greek
empire. It's so interesting really to think that that's changed so dramatically. Of course,
in 1821, the Greeks rose up. They had a revolution. They threw off the Ottoman yoke,
but they didn't reclaim what we today call Turkey. They just reclaimed Greece and parts of Greece,
Crete eventually, but it is a fascinating history, and at the heart of it is what we're talking about.
This is Islam versus Christendom at the heart.
Yeah. Oh, it definitely is. As a matter of fact, the reason why the Ottomans wanted to destroy the Byzantine Empire and tried for many years, as I discussed at length actually in an earlier book, Empire of God, how the Byzantine saved civilization. The reason was all going back to Islam, that they wanted to establish the victory of Islam and its supremacy, its superiority to Christianity. So they wanted to conquer Constant.
Antinople, and particularly to turn Ayes Sophia, which was the grandest cathedral in the whole
Christian world, into a mosque, which they finally accomplished after 700 years of trying in
1453. And so the fact of Ayesopia as a mosque, which of course Erdogan just reaffirmed and
turned it into a mosque again a few years ago after it had been a museum, is to show that
Islam has triumphed over Christianity. This is why Islam has a tendency to appropriate the
holy places of other peoples. That's why there are two mosques on the temple mountain Jerusalem
and why there are mosques on the sites of ancient Hindu temples all over India. They're showing
the victory and supremacy of Islam. Well, I wrote a book called Is Atheism Dead? And in that,
as I talk about a number of archaeological sites, biblical archaeological sites,
you see this over and over that in the seventh century with the rise of Islam, the Muslims
come into what we think of as the Holy Land and they, you know, wipe out the churches and build
mosques over them. I know that that happened. There's a church over the house where Jesus,
Mary, and Joseph lived. Most people don't know about this. I write about it in my book as atheism,
that. I was myself astonished to think that this was there. But the reason we don't know about
it is because in the seventh century, there were two churches there before, but the Muslims wiped it out, built a mosque.
I mean, it's just, you know, the centuries pass and only recently has this been rediscovered.
But this is what they do. And it's, you know, as you're saying, this is, that was the idea of what they did with Agia Sofia, which I know, Erdogan in Turkey sounds like a wicked
man to me, but he allowed it to become a mosque, which is really a slap in the face of Christians
around the world. Oh, yeah. And he did it deliberately because he wanted to reassert that he was
operating Turkey on Islamic principles. He's been rolling back Kamala secularism now, ever since he was
prime minister before he became president. And so he's actually even claimed the lands that once
belonged to the Ottoman Empire. We'll see if he follows through. But that's
That is essentially a declaration of war against Greece and the other surrounding countries.
Well, yeah, it's amazing.
And the idea that we want them to be part of NATO, it's just absolutely bizarre to me, absolutely bizarre.
Just a minute left, anything we've left that we should mention.
Well, I do think Muhammad, a critical biography is going to open a lot of people's eyes.
People tend to assume that the founder of a great religion is somebody who was,
extraordinarily wise or magnanimous and that he's a great person. And it's shocking to Westerners
when they encounter what Islamic tradition itself tells us about Muhammad. Well, it's important.
I'm just grateful for, you know, you've done this for decades. You've been a student of this stuff.
But the fact that you've written a biography is, you know, it's a joyful thing to me,
not just because I've written biographies, but because I believe in the
of telling these these stories.
So folks, pick up a copy, Robert Spencer's new book, brand new book, Muhammad, a critical
biography.
Robert Spencer, congratulations.
And thanks for being my guest.
Thank you.
Chris, can I hit pause for a second?
I keep realizing that we're only able to do this program because we have these amazing
sponsors.
Yeah, we have a lot of friends out there, a lot of friends.
And I want to mention, we got a couple of new ones, actually.
Metashare, let me read this because this is important.
Metashare is one of our sponsors.
Obviously, inflation is very big.
I don't need to sell anybody on that, especially for those who are 65 or older, living on a fixed income.
And one of the biggest challenges, this is where MediShare comes in.
one of the big challenges is health care.
So even if you have Medicare parts A and B, they're still out-of-pocket expenses.
It adds up.
Here's the good news.
MediShare 65 plus is designed to fill those gaps and to help protect you from rising
health care costs.
It's just $99 a month up to age 85.
So that's $99 for peace of mind.
With Medeshire's solid 30-year track record, you're joining a trusted community of people
helping each other.
Business owners, pastors,
retirees, people just like you.
Why wait?
Call today at 866-88 Bible.
That's 866-88 Bible.
Medi-Share at 866-88 Bible.
Call them today.
Okay, that's Medi-Share.
$99.
That's great.
I also want to mention a new sponsor, Tunnel to Towers.
A lot of folks already know about them.
Yeah, they do great work.
They, we know that it's about veterans, right, who've served our country.
Many of them, this is sick.
Many of them are homeless.
So one example, Glenda Williams is a U.S. Army veteran who faced homelessness along with her five kids.
That should not happen, right?
She was struggling to keep up with rent and basic living expenses.
She lived in a dilapidated unit with rodents and mold.
The Tunnel to Towers Foundation's homeless veteran program provided Glenda with not just shelter,
but also a safe and secure environment where she and her kids can thrive.
Imagine folks what it would mean to be a veteran who'd served your country like Glenda
and know that folks were there to make sure your family had a safe, stable home,
a solid foundation to begin anew for her family and many others like them.
Friends like you make all the difference,
which is why we're asking you to donate $11 a month to tunnel to towers at t2t.org.
that's T, the number two, t.org.
T2T.org.
We're just proud to partner with Tunnels to Towers and with MediShare on the program.
$11 a month.
That's crazy.
I think that's how much my pumpkin spice latte was that I kick off the autumn with last week.
That's what I heard.
I get the venty, venty.
Shame on you for buying that junk.
I know.
That sugary junk.
I also want to mention another partner is the Hemp,
Heritage Foundation.
They're the folks behind Project
2025. Oh,
perhaps you've heard of it.
If you go to their website for that,
it's 2.5truth.com.
2.5truth.com.
It's kind of amazing
because the left
is really freaked out by Project
2025. And that's one of the reasons
you've got to love the Heritage
Foundation. They do this.
you know, whenever it looks like there's going to be a conservative coming into the White House
and by God's grace, Donald Trump will get in there.
How does he hit the ground running?
Project 2025 will help so you can check it out at 25truth.com.
And before I go, yeah, it's kind of like Pelosi saying we need to pass it to see what's in it.
So Trump needs to win.
So we can see what's in 2025.
Right.
Yeah, 25truth.com.
And by the way, before I go, let me remind you to see the film vindicating Trump by our friend
Dinesh D'Souza.
Honestly, folks, when somebody puts out a movie like this, we have an obligation to go and see it.
Vindicating Trump, you can get tickets online at vindicatingtrump.com.
That's vindicatingtrump.com.
And we're proud to partner with our friend Dinesh D'Souza.
Check it out, vindicating trump.com.
