Anyone who has a genuine interest in current affairs or, like me, studied international relations or has an interest in religion will probably be aware of much of the material in this book. However, it is clear by what is written in the mainstream media and what is said by politicians they have no clue about the true nature of the person that Muslims consider their prophet of Allah.
This book uses the words of Muhammed, the Koran, the Hadiths, and contempories to describe the man and his mission to spread the word of Allah to all. He clearly demonstrates his feelings towards Jews, Christians, and every other religion or lack thereof in the world. It is pretty bad for Jews for whom he has nary a good word, and not that great for Christians, but it's either conversion or death for all those not of the book. (They are not offered non-Muslim tax and limited rights under Islam.) Muhammad has a bit of sympathy for people of the book who fail to recognise him as the Last Prophet; at least in the early days of his mission. It is not surprising that Jihadists take delight in killing Jews considering the actions of their prophet.
Now Spencer is charitable about the whole pedophilia charge against Muhammad, pointing out quite rightly that in a historical context the marrying of 5- and 6-year-old girls was common for the region and would not be seen as unusual. This does not mean that we should not view this and the other maltreatment of women (i.e. they have no rights, they are property, pre-puberty marriage, etc) as practiced in the Muslim world today as ghastly as it truly is. The Prophet made it clear that the penalty for apostasy (leaving Islam) is death, as it is for blasphemy.
This book should be required reading for all politicians, journalists, teachers, professors, and students, or anyone else who is trying to convince the rest of us that Islam is a religion of peace. It is clearly not, and the Prophet of Islam never meant it to be so.
It is no wonder that Robert Spencer is under constant guard and constantly under death threats. So why not at least reward the risk he takes with a read of his book?
This book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand what motivates Muslims, whether they are Islamists or just everyday believers.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mohjho
"This book is essential reading for anyone trying to understand what motivates Muslims, whether they are Islamists or just everyday believers."
How about actually reading the Koran instead?
2 - Andrew ian Dodge
Well that would be good as well. Read the Koran as well as reading Spencer's book. That is what I have done; well I read the Koran back in the late 80s.
3 - BL
Reading the Koran is useful and necessary but it is also necessary to read all the other sources that Robert Spencer has read such as the collections of hadith. It is inescapable however, that the more original Mohammedan sources you read, you arrive at the conclusion that Mohammedanism is spread by violence and the only peace it contains is the peaceful sleep of the dead who resist it.
4 - S.T.M
Or even the peaceful sleep of the dead who don't resist radical Islam and just get caught up in the machinations ... and therein lies the problem.
My view: if the penalty is the same for everyone who is branded an "unbeliever", person of The Book or not, you might as well give yourself the satisfaction of resisting.
The problem with jihadists is they don't understand this. They think we'll be cowed by their violence and what they see as the rightness of their cause.
They don't understand that it makes us all the more determined to stay the course we have been on for many centuries.
It's worth noting that what is going on today is nothing different to what has been going on for the past 1200 years, so perhaps we don't need to panic - yet.
But we DO need to keep resisting.
5 - Abu Bilal Adams
Obviously there are a many of people that are haters of the truth. Islam is the religion of peace and submission. Allah sent Muhammad (Prayers and Peace be upon Him) as a mercy to All of Mankind. There has always been haters of the Truth that Islam would bring to a World corrupted by false worship and unchecked Desires. Allah sent Muhammad to free Mankind from the servitude of Man or Men, and to attach mankind to the servitude of their Creator Allah the Most High.
I'll take submission to Allah over Chaos and Anarchy anytime. Christians and Jews have taken the gloves off, so Muslims are just reacting and trying their best to maintain what is best and Sacred; which is their Religion, Culture, and Identity. We don't want to be like the Jews and Christians. The Qur'an states that "They will never be satisfied until you follow their way (religion)"
6 - Andrew ian Dodge
...and submission
Therein lies the problem mate. Submission means slavery and we ain't having any of it. Live Free or Die.
7 - Donnie Marler
"Christians and Jews have taken the gloves off, so Muslims are just reacting and trying their best to maintain what is best and Sacred;"
This should be in the dictionary next to Sanctimonious Bullshit.
8 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Abu Bilal,
You are welcome to the submission offered in Islam. When you find yourself doing things and believing in things that your conscience tells you (or should tell you, since you are obviously a convert) are all wrong (like female genital mutilation), you can write us all about how great Islam is.
But that ain't the point. The point is that we non-Moslems are not interested in having your shit rammed down our throats - and let's get real specific here - we Jews, particularly those of us who take Judaism seriously, are not interested in attempted by Moslems to kill us off.
Take off the gloves? Shit, boy, you haven't even seen what happens when we Jews take off the gloves. The last time we "took off the gloves" was when a young army officer massacred a village in Jordan, men women and children alike, to teach the damned Fidayun not to kill our people. That was over 50 years ago.
Sheikh Nasrallah's "rocket therapy" in July moved a lot of Israelis damned close to taking the gloves off again. For the sake of your fellow Moslems, the next time you bend down on the prayer rug facing Mecca, you better pray damned hard that they don't do it again - either from south Lebanon, Gaza, Samaria or Iran. And keep praying.
The next time, Israelis might forget the restraint thay normally practice, tell the commie shits who run the army here to go fuck themselves and start marching east, blowing Arab Moslems to bits in Haifa, Qalqiliya, Jenin, Ramallah all the way to the Jordan - and shooting the Arabs in the back as they flee.
All you schmucks who call us Nazi now will get a dose of what it is like when we make "Palestine" howl. You will see what a massacre mentality looks like when the "Jewish Street" gets mad.
You do not want to rouse the Lions of Judah, for it will be your undoing.
9 - Lady Dragonfyre
Obviously there are a many of people that are haters of the truth.
We don't hate truth; we hate being threatened, blown up, and decapitated. We hate having to wonder when and where the next barbaric Muslim rampage will be.
I'll take submission to Allah over Chaos and Anarchy anytime.
Name one Islamic country that enjoys peace and a stable, orderly society.
Christians and Jews have taken the gloves off, so Muslims are just reacting and trying their best to maintain what is best and Sacred; which is their Religion, Culture, and Identity.
Our religions, cultures, and identities are very sacred to us, too. That's why WE resist your attempts to convert every nation on this earth to Islam.
We don't want to be like the Jews and Christians. The Qur'an states that "They will never be satisfied until you follow their way (religion)"
The opposite is true. Muslims will not be satisfied until all non-Muslims are either converted or dead.
10 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Having made clear that Jews will only tolerate this "join us or die philosophy" so far, I also should make clear (for the 300th time) that Islam has been overtaken by a rebel cult that has been rejected by normative Islam in the past, the Wahhabi, and much ot the terrorist acts can be attributed to the ideas that they push in the name of Islam. Islam can be cleansed of this cancer, but it will be a bloody mess.
Once it is cleansed of this cancer, Moslems will see their true duty, and will be able to sit and negotiate peace with the rightful owners of the Land of Israel, the Children of Jacob.
I do not advocate Jewish massacres of Moslems. But I must make clear that at some point the porvocations of a "non people," the "Palestinians," will provoke Jews to murder them off and give them the fate their clerics jump up and down in calling for for us. That is the true danger of the "extremists" who masquerade as Moslems and who provoke us to violence with murder and terror.
11 - SFC SKI
What the majority of moderate Muslims, especially those in the West, need to realize is that barrring their vocal opposition to extremists, the extremists will become the de facto face of Islam for many. Extremists may cause terror, and intimidation, but sooner or later, many will not be intimidated and will strike back at any Muslims they see. It's not right, but it is human nature, and it is preventable if the Muslim majority can take back their religion from extremists.
12 - S.T.M
I'm with Lady Dragonfyre and Ruvy on this ... if someone can tell me why my friend's beautiful 15-year-old daughter (and 201 other people) needed to be blown to smithereens in Kuta Beach four years ago on a birthday trip to Bali simply because she wasn't a muslim, I'd like to hear that reason.
And to Abu Bilal: the more this kind of stuff happens, the more determined we non-muslims are to resist islamists and jihadists (as opposed to ordinary muslims).
Please stop telling people that islam is a religion of peace. That is an unbelievably offensive notion to many people around the world right now. There are a dozen or more contradictory and conflicting passages in the Quran in relation to this. Here's an example: one says there should be no compulsion in religion, that we should all be friends and get to know each other. Another says muslims should kill the unbelievers. Which one is right, or are both considered right and does it all just depend on what you want to believe?
Right now, islam is not portraying itself as a religion of peace, no matter how deluded some of its followers are in thinking this is the case; it's rightfully regarded as a religion of intolerance and violence, and it is the islamists who have started the violence.
They will undoubtedly reap what they sow, and those ordinary muslims who don't stand up and condemn the murderously misguided psychopaths who do these evil acts in the name of islam will no doubt also be caught up in this maelstrom.
So if you're looking for scapegoats, blame them, not us. They are trying to make us despise you.
And sadly, they are succeeding.
13 - Bliffle
Abu: "Christians and Jews have taken the gloves off, so Muslims are just reacting and trying their best to maintain what is best and Sacred;..."
Sounds like an excuse for Homicide Bombers.
14 - Andrew Ian Dodge
S.T.M. yeah that is the point of the book. If one is a literalist Muslim (and they are all suppose to) Islam is anything but religion but one of war, conquest, subjugation and slavery. Kaffir have very few rights in Islam as they are unbelievers so not worthy.
15 - William Hopper
And so I enter the fray...
First off, the word Islam MEANS "submission", specifically the submission to the "will of Allah as revealed by Mohammed."
Second big point here... all the surrah that free-thinking and loving Muslims keep taking about ARE SUBROGATED PASSAGES OF THE KORAN. They are all in the early part of the book (before Mohammedand took over Medina and had an army to back him up) and they are contradicted by later passages. By Muslim law these older passaged are "subrogated", meaning they are rendered null and void.
So, when Mohaommed says to treat the "people of the book" as uninformed children to be taught, not killed, it is SUBRAGATED by all the later passages that say things like "Islam should be taught by the sword."
The Muslims who posted above may indeed be decent and peace loving people. If so, I admire you. But as happens in all religions, that which you have found to be good and kind and loving in Islam came from you, not the religion.
16 - Nancy
I've read the Qu'ran, AND the Hadith, AND other commentaries by Muslim scholars, and I can absolutely asset that Islam is no religion of peace; it preaches & condones violence, murder, and use of force against any and all non-muslims for the least & least justifiable of reasons. Muhammad himself started out as a moderate man, but as he gained power, he became corrupted by it, as his history attests. By the end, he was as much a power-mad monster as Pol Pot or Mao Tse-Tung. So much for Islam.
17 - BruthaBill
In my opinion the problem with the Islamic approach to religous conversion is the application of force to accomplish that conversion. It seems to me that peace is a mutual respect and lack of agression between two parties, an acceptance of the others rights to personal choice. Peace that is forced submission is not peace.
If Islam is so great and wonderful as a religion then the use of force to increase it's population would be unnecessary. The freedom of Islam is to become a slave to Islamic Law. Free from choice, free from thought, free from prosperity, free from music, free from free speech, and if you're not a Muslim free from life. Islam is the ultimate control religion and Muhammed was the ultimate control freak.
Yes the world is chaotic. Yes there is evil in the world. The way one deals with and responds to those challenges is the process of learning and enlightenment and personal growth. We are tempered in the crucible of those experiences. In my mind the effect of Islam is to lock everyone up in a strait jacket of conformity shielding them from temptation and worldly experiences.
Therein lies the problem. Such notions are the antithesis of western culture and thought. Freedom is more important than security and social conformity. Muhammed was right in that regard. The only way to completely subjugate the world to Islam is through the use of force. In no other way would the population of the world give up thir individual rights for the "freedom" of no rights.
18 - Marty Dodge
An interview with Robert Spencer can be found on SNN this week.
19 - Jason
The funny thing is while this book is most likely completely true, many Christians are just as blind following their own religion. What many fail to realize is that churches in America came at the cost of nearly exterminating multiple native populations in middle, south, and north America. Not to mention millions of African slaves being displaced, raped, murdered, etc. No, natives did not object to European settlers building and establishing religion in the new land; yet the settlers and colonial authorities decided to push them off the land and/or try to convert as many million to Christianity as possible (if not, they were killed) because their ignorant asses were scared of freakin spirits and pow-wow smoke. WTF.
What pisses me off about Islamic extermists is that they are still trying to "spread Islam", but they're just straight-up murdering people and not spreading any real message of faith. You don't see modern-day Jews or Christians doing this. (At least not in the name of RELIGION).
I hope people write more books like this, especially on other religions. The term monothiestic means nothing to me since there are so many religions which claim they're the real deal. Literature like this lets one see that there is a higher level of spirituality and religious following apart from the money-sucking Church on the corner, or the AK-47-smuggling Mosque downtown. In my eyes, the only TRUE UNADULTERATED RELIGIONS are: ZIONISM, BUDDHISM, HINDUISM. If you want a real religon, choose one of those 3. (and I am Agnostic)
20 - rrrr
I am a Muslim woman and I find it fascinating how Jews and Christians criticize Muhammed for violence against "unbelievers" and especially against Jews even while the old testment is filled with episode after episode of mass slaughter of Men, women and children all in the name of Judaism! In the old testement no one, not even babies are spared so as to not contaminate the holy land of Israel with unbelievers. In ancient Israel, virgins are sometimes spared so they can be raped and used and concubines.
Than ofcourse you have Jesus and Christianity. Jesus is the most passive aggressive character in the Bible. He seems to teach love and compassion, but obvious in his message is the most intolerant concept that those who do not believe in him will not be saved and are in fact heathens and sinners that will go to hell. Ironically, it is the Jews who understood the potential for evil of his teachings and successuful murdered him. It is because of the concept of the unsaved heathen that the armies of Christian Europe were able to justify the enslavement and mass slaughter of millions of non-christians in Africa and the new world.
Muhammed never ordered the killing and mass slaughter of Jews and Christians because of their religion. That is why at least half the global jewsih population is from the Middle East (sephardic and Bukharin).
Spenser is trying to cover the crimes of Christian Europe by making a case against Islam. When it comes to murder and slaughter, the facts tell differently and Islam is simply not in the same league as Christianity.
I challenge you to read the bible.