Shoemaker against the independents

Stephen Shoemaker entered our radar with "Christmas in the Quran" which was a sleeper-classic, breaking out into the mainstream in, exactly, an Ibn Warraq book - of that title. Over the past decade Shoemaker came out with The Death of a Prophet and The Apocalypse of Empire - the latter of which should have been a classic. Let's read Creating the Qur'an.

Shoemaker's prose-style was never top-tier; Creating the Qur'an has similar issues I'd had with The Death of a Prophet. Much ink is flung at other scholarship, Nicolai Sinai's work featuring as a particular foil. And there's this p. 83, which I cannot pass over:

... some scholars, particularly those who wish to maintain the traditional Nöldekean-Schwallian paradigm, have sought to dismiss any results that do not conform with this paradigm as resulting from improper analyses by these labs—notably, those at the University of Lyon and the University of Kiel. It is quite troubling to find young scholars, some of whom are not even trained in any field related to early Islamic studies, carelessly launching allegations about the shabby work done at these institutions with no basis other than the fact that the results do not agree with their presuppositions. One will find such comments mostly on social media, the use of which as an often uncritical, unreviewed, and unprofessional academic forum to disseminate opinions has become highly problematic. Islamic history should not be the product of social media influencers, regardless of their academic credentials.

On the one hand: I appreciate that Shoemaker is inside my tent, pointing his squirtpen outside. It's nice also that this para stands against Credentialism. But.

First off - here's a classic instance of Shoemakerian prose, repeating himself (dismiss any results that do not conform with this paradigm, no basis other than the fact that the results do not agree with their presuppositions). The term young scholars reads like ad-hominem. And I cannot help but feel like when he's blasting all "social media" that a lot of his ink is going to spray such allies as are doing work independently of the academy, perhaps independent for good reason. (Ibn Warraq is in the biblio offset from the other Banû as "Warraq, Ibn". There's no Robert Spencer nor Daniel Gibson nor even Yehuda Nevo.)

Chapter 5 narrowly approves Mark Durie on Qur'anic [sic] Arabic, with footnote 93 serving to distance Shoemaker from Durie's assumption that all Qur'an should be ascribed to Nabataea - which footnote and which distancing I endorse. Although: I will say that Shoemaker even by his own criteria could have taken time over Durie's thesis on what the Arab leadership might have believed before the Quran. However independent is Durie, Durie did get this one published in an academic press.