In a fairly recent posting here (Conservatives for Islam), I mentioned among other things how one group of conservatives (or at least their more vocal and influential representatives) -- the "Voegelinians" -- have demonstrated appalling ignorance of Islam. For example, on October 26, 2001, just a few weeks after 911, Fritz Wagner, an éminence grise of that group, wrote:
"In any event, with the help of Maryam Sharief and Peter von Sivers, I have tried to learn something about Islam and what we are dealing with when we talk about "Islam". As Richard Geldard put it: "Islam is not the problem."
I recently was Googling around and became reminded of a worse statement by ol' Fritz, in a footnote to the document in question, which he wrote in the wake of 911 (and, as I noted grimly in my above-linked previous posting, reiterated 10 years later without any signs of having learned a damn thing):
This friend is Ms. Maryam Sharief, an Oxonian of deep learning and memory, spiritual depth and richness—a person whom I feel privledged to know.
Other than the grief I guess I want to visit upon myself in my grimly pessimistic, masochistic depression at our West for its suicidally benighted neurosis in this regard, I also noted an interesting thing: This apparently very important person, Maryam Sharief, esteemed so highly by one of the grand doyens of the Voegelinians, and an academic in her own right (yea, an Oxonian) who was into Voegelin (as I recount in the above-linked essay and through further links therein), has no paper trail at all at the official Voegelin View website (with which Fritz Wagner has been deeply involved since the beginning, as far as I can tell). When one Googles another name mentioned in Fritz's footnotes, for example, one Peter von Sivers, one finds he has contributed a few things over the years there. But with this apparently very important person, Maryam Sharief, who (along with Richard Geldard, whoever the hell he is) so profoundly helped Fritz Wagner see that "Islam is not the problem" -- she has not done anything with regard to Voegelin since? That seems most curious. I Googled "maryam sharief voegelin" (without specifying the Voegelin View website) just to make sure; and sure enough -- nothing. One wonders what happened to her. Did she settle down to become a baby factory for some Muslim husband (along with another wife or 2, or 3...?). Was she murdered by her Muslim husband, or btothers, or uncles, or father (or combination thereof) in an honor killing...? Has she gone on to fry bigger fish with some Muslim Brotherhood or generously UAE-funded consortium or Jihad-of-the-Think-Tank...?
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