Some critics claim no Arabic fluency is needed to critique Islam authoritatively.

Evidence

Ibn Warraq begs to differ: “You do not need to know Arabic to criticize Islam or the Koran … Paul Kurts does not know Arabic but he did a great job on Islam in his book The Transcendental Temptation” — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 532 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Having discovered the historical Muhammad in 2000, in 2002 Ibn Warraq went on to tell his readers about what the Quran really says in a book by that title. He spends the Introduction trying to disguise the fact that he does not know Arabic. “Muslims in general,” he writes, “have a tendency to disarm any criticisms of Islam and in particular the Koran by asking if the critic has read the Koran in the original Arabic … ” He complains of their “almost mystical and rather irrational attitude to the untranslatability of the Koran.” (There are Muslims who have the same attitude toward Hamlet and the Bhagavad-Gita.) Hiding behind the irrelevant fact that for the majority of Muslims Arabic is the liturgical language of their faith (as Latin has been for Christians and Hebrew for Jews—who often do not speak it) rather than the functional language of their quotidian and literary lives, Ibn Warraq proceeds to deliver a phantasmagoric account of the “Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic” division of languages—only to hide his ignorance of Arabic, which is particularly embarrassing for someone publishing a book on What the Koran Really Says—not merely says, or nearly says, but really says. — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 519 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

It is impossible that Ricoldo should have had the knowledge necessary to discuss the Qur’an on anything like equal terms with Muslim theological teachers or students. Mediaeval contempt for the Islamic world as unphilosophical contrasts strangely with our modern concept of the mediaeval Latin West as wholly indebted for its philosophy to the Islamic East. Even if the modern view is correct, we need not assume mediaeval hypocrisy, but just a lack of historical perspective. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1995 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Ibn Warraq argues Arabic fluency is unnecessary for valid critique of Islam. — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 532; Western critics cannot transcend the Islamophobic frame from outside — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 60; A critic of the Quran can publish on it without knowing Arabic — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 519 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Ibn Warraq argues Arabic fluency is unnecessary for valid critique of Islam. #exemplifies (0.95) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 532
• A critic of the Quran can publish on it without knowing Arabic #exemplifies (0.93) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 519
• Medieval Christian critics of Islam lacked Arabic competence and historical perspective #complicates (0.78) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1995
• Western critics cannot transcend the Islamophobic frame from outside #complicates (0.75) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 60