Asked Thursday whether he would debate Maajid Nawaz, Robert Spencer replied: “Yes, of course I would. But Maajid Nawaz won’t debate me.” It isn’t hard to understand why that is true. Maajid Nawaz has an image to protect: that of being an all-knowing Muslim reformist who’s never wrong. He presents himself as a softer, gentler, more articulate Muslim than the jihadis walking around in a rage and ready to explode at the mention of Muhammad’s name. He’s part dandy, but always makes sure to look like he’s stepped out of the office, with his tailored suits, ties, and pastel socks. He’s clean, serious, and ready for business. It all looks a bit gay to me, and I’m a gay man who would not be caught dead in half of what he parades around in. Maajid is a Muslim, and he’s visually trying to sell us a cool, funky and fashionable version of Islam, as he sits behind desks or on stages talking and debating with people about the merits of Islam and how truly peaceful it is. He’ll spout this tripe to uninformed and lazy interviewers, who sit and nod their heads like those plastic dogs you sit on the dashboard of your car. And if Maajid is ever in a debate, the viewer is led to believe that he’s engaging with an actual expert on Islamic theology, but more often than not Maajid is dealing with one-dimensional fundamentalists, or “far-right bigots” who don’t know the truth about Islam. He’ll debate anyone, it seems — anyone except for Robert Spencer.

Maajid likes to demolish his opponents by dazzling them with his knowledge of Islamic theology and law, and thereby trouncing and disposing of another Islamophobe, all of which adds to his public image of being the new kind of Muslim. He likes to sit on LBC radio and call out women who defend wearing the niqab, and all of this makes him look like the future of Islam to those people who refuse to admit the real truth about Islam, and who instead put their blinkers on and pin their hopes on Maajid. Most of these “head in the sand” types in the UK are white non-Muslims: Daily Mail or The Sun readers, purveyors of not very good journalism at the least. Maajid doesn’t have a large Muslim following. Muslims are following the hardline imams instead. Robert Spencer, together with Pamela Geller, is perhaps the world’s greatest Islamophobe. Robert has multiple best-selling books on the topic of the real Islam. Doesn’t Robert seem like the ideal candidate for Maajid to debate, and to ruin intellectually and scripturally? If you were Maajid, and if you defended Islam so vehemently, wouldn’t you want to wreck the career of a man who seeks to expose Islam for what it truly is? There could be no better target for Maajid than Robert Spencer. If Maajid won a debate with Robert, this would more than likely lead to Robert’s book sales plummeting, and put an end to his Jihad Watch website, because he would be exposed as a fraud and a charlatan.

The truth of the matter is that Maajid knows that in a debate with Robert Spencer, he would come away looking like the hypocritical fool that he is, and his money-making industry would come crashing down around him. At best, he would have to agree with virtually everything Robert has to say on Islam, and in this way he would be legitimizing Robert, and I don’t think that is something Maajid wants to do. Imagine being outwitted on camera, with all of your shortcomings revealed. Imagine your interpretations and your sources being refuted. In light of all that, I can’t imagine why Maajid would ever dare debate Robert. Yet Maajid even speaks Arabic (always an essential ingredient if one wants to criticize Islam, as we are repeatedly told), so surely he would have the advantage and upper hand. Maajid has lost in debates before, most notably to Douglas Murray and Ayaan Hirsi Ali at an event in which he tried and failed to convince the audience that Islam is a religion of peace (no more preposterous suggestion could have been put forward, because Islam was born in bloodshed and it continues in bloodshed and rape to this day). Maajid was putting his points to the audience, together with a practicing Muslima, and it’s my thought that he imagined the audience would side with him because he was up against a white non-Muslim man and a woman who was smeared as an Islamophobe. Notably, shortly after that event, Maajid told the media that his knowledge and views on Islam were ever-evolving. Well how about staying off the air, and out of the media, until you’ve reached a conclusive and definitive stance on Islam, Maajid?

In any debate with Robert Spencer, Maajid could only come away the loser, which is why he is avoiding the meeting. In the event of Maajid being exposed by Robert, his Islamophobia empire would crumble, and perhaps Robert Spencer would be allowed to enter the UK again, redeemed and forgiven. The Quilliam organisation are filled with hypocrites. One journalist called Tommy Robinson “far-right,” and couldn’t back up his stance when confronted, and another Quilliam “researcher” falsely labeled Spencer and Geller “alt-right,” while Maajid crowdfunded in order to pay lawyers to sue the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for calling him names. There’s a double standard and hypocrisy at play here. Maajid and company get to demonize others, including Robert Spencer, but no one can dare call into question the learning and the character of the dapper, pink sock-wearing Maajid. Nor will he appear alongside Robert Spencer in public in order settle matters once and for all as to who is telling the real truth about Islam.