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 The Work of a True Scholar in Islam. August 6, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Don't listen to the reviewers who say Robert Spencer is not knowledgeable enough about Islam. He could teach quite a few Muslims about their own books and history, I have studied it deeply for seven years myself.
Also bear in mind the doctrine of Al-Taqiyya and Kithman or kitman, which began as a shia practice (they claim)but is widespread in all of Islam to protect the faith from outside critcism for some of it's questionable teachings. I deal daily one on one with Moslems real time, online and they very frequently use this practice. Even posing as non-muslims in order to decieve others. It really is amazing how proud they are of outwitting.
Mohammad himself said it was ok to lie to enemies (and that all infidels are enemies) as well as to your wives, and instructed a few of his followers to join the enemy camp by claiming they were friends and abhorred Mohammad. Islam is in no way, shape or form similar to Christianity, so one must bear this in mind and not assume the religion says to be kind to unbelievers or love your enemies. It is actually the opposite school.
I have known of Robert Spencers work for some time now and he has always been impeccable and non judgemental in his work. This book is as equally fair and a valuable addition to anyone's library who wants to have concrete knowledge about Islam.
I do not hate Muslims. But I have come to strongly dislike Mohammadism amd what it has been doing to the people as a whole, who choose to closely follow Mohammads teachings.
 An evil book June 13, 2008
5 out of 24 found this review helpful
Robert Spencer produces a hateful, revisionist, and triumphalistic argument about why he thinks Christianity and the Western world (he conflates the two) are superior to Islam. Christianity is a religion of peace and dialogue and Islam a religion of terror and suppression. He accuses Christianity's detractors of "cherry-picking" evidence of the support of violence in the Old and New Testaments, but then goes on to do the same in his treatment of the Qu'ran and Christian history itself.
But the most basic error he makes is to dismiss the long and bloody history of Christian cruelty, forced conversion, slavery, destruction of native cultures, and environmental disaster with a flick of his temporal wand. Yes, there were Christians who did such things in the past, he notes, but this was not essential to Christian's message of peace and love for others. Besides, most of these more troublesome episodes of Christian history were not as bad as they seemed and have now passed. Christian anti-Semitism was not all that bad (especially compared with Muslim anti-Semitism). Slavery was a mistake and Christians finally figured that out.
Even if one accepts the latter point that such Christian atrocity-mongering has diminished (which is eminently debatable with good Christians in America still enthused for racial and gender inequality and positively foaming at the mouth for guns, capital punishment, and a vast nuclear arsenal) it is patently false to suggest that it was anything other than the Enlightenment, the throwing off of theocracies, and the embrace of secular, constitutional democracies, that spurred our best, though always fragile, efforts to live with our differences without killing each other.
No one is arguing, as Spencer seems to believe, that there are not Islamic terrorists and theocrats who wish to suppress people with Sharia law. They use religion to justify their violence. Yet Spencer ignores the consensus that most of the anger that drives such things is political rather than religious. It is anger at Western cultural hegemony, globalization, and the inequality of wealth that feeds the discontent of radical Islam.
Why should Christians who do evil get the benefit of the doubt that they simply missed the point of their faith's deeper teachings on peace in the pursuit of more worldly and self-serving ends, while Muslims do so because they are just following their religion? Because Spencer wants to goad on the great "Clash of Civilizations" view of the world and take up good, loving, Christian arms, if necessary, to defend the great Western civilization of peace and reason. With books like these, he and his ilk may just succeed.
informative book.... June 9, 2008
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
Spencer is well studied in islam... This is more of an eye openening / informative book rather than an "islam bashing" book as the bad rerviews here accuse. If you want to understand the jihadists of today you must understand the historical / religious roots of their belief. Spencer points out text in the koran / hadiths to the modern jihad and helps remove the whitewash of the "religion of peace". I thought it was a good read.
Great Factual Book By A Very Brave And Knowledgeable Man May 4, 2008
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
Robert Spencer is among only a handful of people in the United States that is not only a walking wealth of information on the religion of Islam, but has the courage to speak his convictions. This is a truly courageous act for which he receives numerous death threats from those "Religion of Peace" adherents. If you want to experience a very small taste of what his courage brings Mr. Spencer for exercising his freedom of speech rights, just peruse the 1-star ratings on this book. Mr. Spencer has always maintained a standing invitation to anyone wanting to debate his facts in an open and public discussion. Few have attempted to do so and those who have, always came out the losers. The reason is that Mr. Spencer does not speak from his emotions or personal bias, but from the scriptures of the Koran, the Sira and Hadith, as determined by the major religious teachings of all the major Sunni and Shia theological leaders in the world today.
His many detractors don't offer any evidence that what Mr. Spencer writes and says is in error, they simply do what ignorant bullies do the world over. They threaten and resort to character assassination, which is all they are left with when confronted by the truth. Almost every single book authored by Mr. Spencer has made the New York Times Bestseller list, and for good reason. Hasn't anyone noticed how the "Religion of Peace" followers rioted over the Danish cartoons, the short video "Fitna," the murder of Danish citizen Theo Van Gogh, the endless fatwa's calling for the murder of those who speak out against the "Religion of Peace," such as Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses? Has anyone noticed the worldwide celebratory crowds of thousands of Muslims around the world, who are so quick to publicly celebrate the Iranian takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979? Or the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983? And of course the worldwide euphoric eruption of sheer joy from Muslims around the world on 9/11?
More to the point, has any one else noticed the deafening silence from the Muslim community against these same acts? Mr. Spencer's book "Religion of Peace" is factual and well written. I would highly recommend any of his books and eagerly await his future ones as well. If you don't want to know what is going on in the world of Dar al-Islam then go back to sleep, but if you are interested in your future and the future of our children, then I would read every article or book written by the superbly knowledgeable and talented Robert Spencer.
misrepresentation of a major world religion April 18, 2008
10 out of 37 found this review helpful
It's astonishing that other reviewers think this book presents "facts". It is a starkly ignorant book (and this is an understatement) of vast swathes of Islamic history which, if examined, would disprove its main theses almost point by point (for e.g. that Islam is the "religion of the sword", rejects rationality, etc). Islam is not perfect, and no religion is, but it is downright dishonest to take a look at a book (the Quran) and base your judgment of an entire culture on it. Look at the history of a culture and how it USED the book as a civilizational project. In this respect, Islam has been astonishingly open and tolerant. Again, I am not saying Islam is perfect, but the above picture is so ignorant and biased that it doesn't take much research to show that it is grossly distorting.
An even cursory acquaintance with Islamic civilization and history ought to dispel such long-standing ideologies as the above (not to mention that Christianity waged battles of the sword in the Mideast and the Americas of horrifying proportions, in which millions of people died (the Spanish Conquistadors or Columbus were peaceful Christians?!! read the historical record and see for yourself what a wonderful and loving Christians they were). Despite that, and despite being a non-religious person, I condemn neither Islam nor Christianity wholesale as faiths). Religions are not coherent bodies of belief; hell, not even philosophy is, and it is one of the most systematic attempts in human history to systematize our beliefs about the world, so how could religion be?
For the historically challenged like our author:
even in medieval times, there were debates over the question of reason and its relation to faith in Islam. The great Muslim philosopher Averroes went so far as to say that philosopher and prophets are on an equal footing, i.e. that prophets have no more claim on the truth than do philosophers. There were even atheists in the history of Islam, one of them for instance was the great physicist Ibn al-Haitham, and the great poet al-Ma'ari.
finally, Islamic philosophy and science had an enormous impact on Western thought and have been one of the prime sources (often unacknowledged) behind the development of Western modernity. They went far beyond the Greek philosophers and scientists they learned from and developed the scientific method before even the great Bacon. read a good history of science and you'll see that immediately (for instance the renowned BBC science historian James Burke in his series which you can find on youtube, called The Day the Universe Changed, shows this very clearly. And that's just he tip of the iceberg as far as Muslim contributions to science and rational inquiry go).
so one can only conclude that far from Islam being irrational, it is the book that is.
so please spare us the hate-mongering in the guise of "facts", since the book is clearly deeply under-infomred! and please dear reviewers who bought this cheap trick of a book, don't be so gullible as to base wholesale condemnations of entire civilizations and cultures on one or even several biased accounts. surely one has to be more responsible and inquire and search for oneself what the truth of such matters is. after all, isn't this an Emersonian (and American) virtue, of "self-reliance"? or do you simply abandon critical judgment and rationality when Islam is under discussion?
so before accusing others of being irrational barbarians, let's look at ourselves in the mirror when we so heinously misrepresent and condemn an ENTIRE civilization. we ought to be more responsible as citizens of a democracy.
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