Faraan: Some time ago, a book entitled “The professors” (The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America) written by “David Horowitz” was published in the United States. The subject of this book is the introduction of one hundred and one university professors whose crime was to speak about the Holocaust and the Jews in their classrooms and books. In addition to publishing this book, professors at other universities have been warned not to use their work because these people have crossed the red line. In general, when freedom is unlimited, it creates problems that will ultimately limit it. The following text introduces “Professor Hamid Algar “, one of the one hundred and one professors discussed by the author of the book.
Professor Hamid Algar
University of California, Berkeley
— Professor of Persian and Islamic studies, University of California, Berkeley
— Supporter of the Ayatollah Khomeni
— The war on terror is America’s aggression against the Muslim world.
Born in 1940, Hamid Algar has been a member of the UC Berkeley faculty since 1965. He is the biographer of Iran’s Islamic dictator, the Ayatollah Khomeni, and ranks among the world’s leading historians of Islam. He teaches courses on Persian literature, the history of Islam, and Shi’ism, Sufism; he has written books and articles on each of these subjects, including more than one hundred articles in the Encyclopaedia Iranica. He is also a ferocious critic of the United States and Israel.
Professor Algar personally met with Khomeini during the latter’s exile in Paris, and again several times after the Iranian revolution of 1979. He translated many of Khomeini’s writings and speeches and wrote a book about those works, titled The Roots of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Professor Algar considers the Iranian revolution “the most significant, hopeful, and profound event in the entirety of contemporary Islamic history.”
In an address honoring Khomeini in 1994, Algar advocated global jihad: “Let us remember the comprehensive jihad that starts with our own persons and should also embrace our communal and political lives and if necessary go to the point of taking weapons in our hands to defeat the enemies of Islam.” Algar immediately defined those enemies: “Let us remember the clear analysis of the West that Imam (Khomeini) gave us … as a collection of international bandits . . . which has consolidated itself since Imam’s death. Let us also remember his insistence that the abominable genocide state of Israel completely disappear from the face of the globe.”
In Professor Algar’s view, there is no “clash of civilizations” between Middle Eastern Islam and the
West. “That’s one of those meaningless slogans which people hold seminars and write books about,” he says, “which presumes an inherent and irreducible antagonism. But what may be underway is the launching of World War IV [with “WW III” having been the Cold War], as it’s been called, most recently by James Woolsey [former director of the CIA].”7 Professor Algar is skeptical about the U.S. government’s assurance that the current war on terror “isn’t a war against Islam.” According to Professor Algar, “‘World War IV’ clearly focuses on Middle Eastern Muslim states.”
Professor Algar sees America’s war on terror largely as a product of America’s imperialistic and aggressive impulses, which he says are aimed at fulfilling the goals of an agenda that long predated 9/11. The modus operandi, in his view, is the calculated replacement of one perceived threat—Communism—with a new perceived threat—Islam. “There always has to be a focus for hostility,” he says, “to keep the juices pumped and the military machine well supplied. Now, somewhat improbably, Islam—or Muslims and Muslim countries—are fulfilling that role of a global long-term threat.”
In Professor Algar’s view, Americans identify their adversary as “militant” Islam because “it’s not politically correct to say you’re against a religion as such. Therefore, an adjective has to be supplied: militant Islam, extremist Islam, Islamic terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, political Islam. I would say that the Muslim world, or specifically the Muslim Middle East, has been chosen not because it is strong, a menace, or a threat; but, on the contrary, because it is an extremely weak and impotent adversary.” He gives no credence to suggestions that militant Islam chose the West as its enemy through the attacks of 9/11 and many previous acts of anti-Western terrorism. According to Professor Algar, the
aggression that led to the War on Terror was instigated by the West.
In 1998, Professor Algar verbally harassed and spat on members of UC Berkeley’s Armenian Student Association, who were commemorating the genocide of Armenians by the Turks. “It was not a genocide, but I wish it were, you lying pigs,” Shake Hovsepian quoted Algar for Usanogh: Periodical of Armenian Students . “You are distorting the truth about history. You stupid Armenians; you deserve to be massacred!”
The university administration at Berkeley, whose antennae are usually exquisitely sensitive to any sign of “insensitivity” among its faculty or students, had no reaction to these remarks from its most prominent professor of Islamic studies.
Research: Joseph D’Hippolito
