TurningPoint USA group presents Robert Spencer on UCLA campus - under heavy security

Robert Spencer addressing UCLA's TurningPoint USA club

Robert Spencer, a critical scholar of political Islam, founded and runs Jihad Watch. He addressed a public audience at UCLA's Royce Hall on Monday, March 4, 2019 organized by Charlie Kirk's TurningPoint USA (this by the college clubs of Southern California) which was attended by club members and members of the public. 

While the audience was very supportive, the security was very tight. A few older students (who appeared to be Muslim) arrived late and after listening for awhile, departed early. 

Transcript: [Applause]

Robert Spencer: "A few years ago, Barack Obama went to Cairo and he spoke at al-Azhar, which is the foremost institution in Sunni Islam and he made an outreach speech to the Islamic world that was very famous at the time. You may have heard about it. And he chose a lot hard to speak because of its prestige and its centrality and influence among Muslims of oh hello the among sunni muslims worldwide and so i thought that it would be appropriate to start off with a couple of quotes from this guide I brought here which is called Reliance of the Traveler. It is certified by al-Azhar as it conforms to the practice and faith of the Orthodox Sunni community and that is the certification of the general Department for research writing and translation at al-Azhar,so if you want to know what Islam is all about they're saying this is it conforms to the practice and faith of the Orthodox learning community and in this book you can read that the Muslim community has the responsibility it's

here section o nine-point eight if you've got it with you it makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians in order to, excuse me, until they become Muslim or else pay the non-muslim poll tax. The Calif and of course there is no Calif right now get to that but the Kayla fights all other people's until they become Muslim or are permitted to live under the protection of the Islamic state if they either become Muslim or agree to pay the poll tax. Now when we are speaking about

societies that protect human rights and make sure that equal protection of the law is afforded to all people and the people of different perspectives can live together in mutual respect and harmony. 

Then we are talking about something that is very different from this that is enjoining warfare against people simply because they hold to another faith. Now this is a matter of

serious concern because there are people who believe in this and consider it their responsibility before God to wage war in accordance with these directives and others that I could show you. 

And this is a very serious issue that results in human rights abuses and the oppression of a great many people not only around the world today but also throughout history for the last 1400 years one of the odd and paradoxical things about the public discourse today is that this kind of issue cannot be discussed without claims or charges that the people who note this are actually the villains and I'm sure that some of you think that here tonight that people who call attention to these doctrines of warfare and oppression which I will detail in a greater length in the next few minutes are actually the villains- and that the people who actually hold to the beliefs that it is a responsibility that they have to fulfill their religion to make war on those who do not hold it they are the actually the victims who have to be protected it's an odd and paradoxical situation it's testable testimony actually to the power of propaganda. 

And I hope that we can have a discussion about it today tonight that takes account of the realities of the situation that I think are scant at all too often particularly on university campuses today what we have is obviously if this is written in this book and this is certified by this highest authority

in this religious tradition then we're going to have some of the people not all of them to be sure but some of the people in this religious tradition believing that they must do these things and then we look out in the world and wesee that that is what happening there are people who are acting in this way and so is it wrong to take note of that and wrong to oppose it in the name of the freedom of societies in which people do live together in mutual respect and harmony without one group trying to conquer or gain a Gemini over the other. Can we talk about that? Because, of course, it's not only that book either. I also brought the Quran the holy book of Islam now of course the Quran is in Arabic and it can't really be translated according to Islamic teaching it's not really the Quran if it's not in Arabic but there are translations that are made for Muslims by Muslims so that Muslims who

don't speak Arabic which are most of the Muslims in the world today can understand what the holy book says. [Applause]