Why is it leftist academia? He's a Muslim.
I quite like Jonathan Brown, he is a cut above the average Muslim apologist in defending the Islamic tradition from an academic perspective. I often don't agree with him, but he's usually pretty interesting and I like to hear alternative views on Islamic history to balance out the other sources I read/hear.
I've no idea about what he said in this discussion, but he can be pretty matter of fact and tends to adopt the approach of 'the past doesn't always reflect 21st C Western morality'. For example, he will acknowledge that tradition states Muhammad married Aisha when she was very young, but will point out that this was normal in the past and didn't even become a topic of criticism for anti-Muslim figures until 100 or so years ago.
I'd like to see what he said in context before rushing to judgement, as he can be quite easy to misrepresent.
Non scientific academics are generally leftists. He is a Muslim convert and his department has received considerable funding from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. A Saudi prince alone donated $20 million dollars. It is an attempt by those countries to rewrite history to suit their agenda. Unlike science, a lot of social science can be twisted to suit agendas.
If he can defend rape, slavery and child molestation from 'another angle', then how can we even say those things are bad? How is he even a professor? He should be fired and disgraced. Would he defend the mass rapes happening in the Middle East right now? Would you say that you find it interesting if he did?
The problem with many people is that they don't realize that the world is not peace, the world is a competition of ideas and will. The Russians, the Gulf states, the Chinese and most of all the Americans are all trying to push their own ideas, history and culture of other states. This is either through war or subterfuge.
