Hindu students at Rutgers University recently introduced a petition asking Rutgers University to take action against South Asian History Professor Audrey Truschke because of “the bigotry being peddled against Hindus via continued derision of our religion, our deities, and our sacred texts.” Truschke, said the petition, “falsely linked Hindus with extremists and white supremacists rioting at Capitol Hill; claimed that the Bhagavad Gita, a central Hindu sacred text, ‘rationalizes mass slaughter’ and violence”; “Whitewashed Hindu genocide by Mughal king Aurangzeb (death toll of 4.6 million)”; and much more. But Rutgers, knowing who the protected victim classes are and who they aren’t, waved away the petitioners by claiming a commitment to “academic freedom.” Sure, and the sun sets in a muddy pool near Los Angeles.
OpIndia reported Tuesday that Rutgers released a statement declaring: “Rutgers emphatically supports Professor Truschke, academic freedom in pursuing her scholarship, abhors the vile messages and threats that are being directed at her, and calls for an immediate end to them.”
The Rutgers statement also emphasized the importance of “academic freedom”: “Scholarship is sometimes controversial, perhaps especially when it is at the interface of history and religion, but the freedom to pursue such scholarship, as Professor Truschke does rigorously, is at the heart of the academic enterprise.”’
Yeah, sure, Rutgers. Academic freedom, you say? Support for controversial scholarship, you say? How many open supporters of President Trump are on your faculty? How many of your professors would dare affirm the simple, obvious, and readily demonstrable fact that core Islamic texts contain numerous exhortations to warfare against unbelievers? “Academic freedom,” eh, Rutgers? Great. I’ll be there in the fall to teach a seminar on the history of jihad against India. See y’all then, eh?
Truschke, freshly affirmed for parroting positions that are acceptable to the leftist neofascists who control American academia, expressed her gratitude to Rutgers while simultaneously striking the victimhood pose that is standard procedure nowadays for everyone on the left who faces even the mildest criticism: “The Rutgers administration has released a statement of support. Rutgers backs academic freedom, including of controversial subjects. I also thank my university administration for calling an immediate end to the vile messages and threats directed at me.”
Rutgers doesn’t really care about academic freedom at all. It was a foregone conclusion that the university would defend Truschke, since her “scholarship” is devoted to whitewashing the bloody record of Islamic jihad. If she were a critic of that jihad and a reliable historian of the jihad against India, Rutgers would not only not be talking about “academic freedom,” but it would have fired her by now, if it had ever hired her at all.
Truschke is a great defender of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, whom she portrays as a Muslim Gandhi. The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS introduces you to the real Aurangzeb, beyond these ridiculous academic myths, not from the work of “later-day historians,” but in his own words and the words of eyewitnesses to his deeds. Aurangzeb in 1670 issued this decree: “Every idol-house built during the last 10 or 12 years, whether with brick or clay, should be demolished without delay. Also, do not allow the crushed Hindus and despicable infidels to repair their old temples.”
A Muslim historian, Saqa Mustad Khan, writing just after Aurangzeb died in 1707, reported that in January 1680, Aurangzeb “went to view lake Udaisagar, constructed by the Rana, and ordered all the three temples on its banks to be demolished.” The following day, “Hasan Ali Khan brought to the Emperor twenty camel-loads of tents and other things captured from the Rana’s palace and reported that one hundred and seventy-two other temples in the environs of Udaipur had been destroyed.” Later that year, “Abu Turab, who had been sent to demolish the temples of Amber, returned to Court…and reported that he had pulled down sixty-six temples.”
Bakhtawar Khan, a nobleman during Aurangzeb’s reign, was also pleased, noting that “Hindu writers have been entirely excluded from holding public offices, and all the worshipping places of the infidels and great temples of these infamous people have been thrown down and destroyed in a manner which excites astonishment at the successful completion of so difficult a task.”
You won’t learn all this at Rutgers or any American university. They’re all too busy teaching academic fictions such as those Audrey Truschke retails to her hapless victim students, and warning their young charges about the dangers of “Islamophobia.”
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member