I’ve come to see the accuracy in Hughes’ main point (though Archer raises some good objections on secondary ones). ‘Islamic studies’ in the US seems more and more like the establishment’s immune response to ‘the Islamic threat’: ...

https://readingreligion.org/books/islam-and-tyranny-authenticity

2. ... with actual Muslim scholars cowed into silence, the academy yields a crop of ‘progressive’ Muslim profs who teach a deconstructed Islam for the world’s urban progressive elite. ...

3. ... This replacement clergy may rail against the system (and I agree with many of these points and rail along with them), but no more than any other committed, activist prof. Their Muslimness, their theism, their connection to Tradition has been squeezed out of existence. ...

4.There are certainly exceptions (I’d name them but don’t want to toxify them), but many I’ve seen actually despise their own religion. They argue with passion that it never really existed. Exactly what students need to see for the immune response to work. Muslim problem solved.

5. What I’m have to say impresses me is how this socio-biological machinery works. It doesn’t need a plan because the carrots and sticks, the predilections and secret fears of the academy, philanthropy, state and media are all long established.

6. The 2007 Rand report on “Building Moderate Muslim Networks” reads less like a plan and more like a description of how our state/society was always going to handle this ‘problem.’

7. Hughes does not come at this from my POV, but where we meet is that neither of us thinks the academy is a place for saying which understanding of religion is correct. I do that in my off hours!...

8. I’ve heard of a prominent prof who taught students all about “Islam & lgbtq” but never taught them the massive, massive majority view of Islamic tradition or Muslims worldwide on the topic/s. ...

9. How are those students being well educated by such a selective, effectively prescriptive view? Ok time to check how many chocolate chips I have in the fridge.

10. Btw I think it’s great for Muslim profs to “do theology” in books and talks and even to put on that hat in class occasionally, but that should be distinct from their academic publication and teaching.

11. And also btw I stand fully behind the *academic* quality of all my Yaqeen writings.