At a time of Islamophobic cultural animosities and the criminal and genocidal imperialism of the US, a defense of Islamic culture is in order but unfortunately Cole tends to distort the record of history in an excess of apologetics of Islamic history. One might well react strongly against figures such as Spenser in their endless diatribes against Islam, but the history of jihad can't unfortunately be resolved in a cover up.
Puzzled by this stance I examined Cole's own biographical remarks: his vaulting enthusiasm for sufis. I have moved in circles of sufism and found there a dark side range of ambiguous characters (The crypto-sufi Gurdjieff is an example) in a strange mafia of mystic ruffians (behind an immense and benign set of sufi front organizations confounded in their Islamic piety. Real sufis are not pious muslisms, but to say so is a lost cause. In any case, say no more, we see where Cole is coming from: he has become bewitched into becoming a drone mouthpiece for Islamic apologetics. Sufis are tricky people. Best to watch your step.
Better to have said nothing, but it you promote to excess the Islamic propaganda of peace given the sordid history of Islamic jihad, plunder and religious imperialism, the gesture will backfire and highlight the different sets of facts. And the Spenser's are ready with the alt-text. Google Jihad at Amazon and consider the immmense literature here pledge to arrive at the facts beyond the superficial and one-sided view of Cole, a leftist no less. I think the left should debrief Islmophobia, but it is not Islamophobia to expose the real facts of Islamic history.
I invite Cole if he wishes to do service against distortions against Moslems to review the real facts of 9/11 and the monumental cruelty of the false flag propaganda against them in that false flag op staged by the US and Israel, and not mouth off as do most cowardly leftists who have joined the cover up of the complex genocide against the Islamic world. That terrible legacy is not however justification for a cover up of the facts of the case of Islamic imperialist persecution by the US.

Many thanks to Simon Mabon, Professor of International Politics at Lancaster University and prominent Middle East specialist, for hosting me …

Source: Juan Cole on his new Book "Peace Movements in Islam" (Simon Mabon's Podcast)