1 to 7 of 7
Review Date: 5/29/2015
A publicity company offered this book to me for review; I was encouraged by the claim that the book resulted from 14 years of research and accepted in hopes I'd find an enlightened new viewpoint.
Alas, the book proved a disappointment. As one who has studied and written on Islam for more than a decade, I was shocked to find this work so poorly sourced. The book contains absolutely no footnotes, and its references, not listed until the last page, include only two authors apart from Yusuf Ali Abdullah, the English translator of the Quran, namely Marshall G.S. Hodgson (three volumes) and Akbar Shah Najeebabadi (three volumes). I see no evidence of 14 years worth of research here.
To his credit, author Mohammad Rehman admirably begins his prologue by wholeheartedly dedicating his work to all those who have suffered, and continue to suffer, whether it be for their color, race, religion or caste. Here, he recognizes 6 million Jewish victims of Hilter's Holocaust, Israeli civilian victims of suicide bombings and the victims of 9/11.
Similarly, in Part IV Rehman reviews the history and current status of the world's Islamic nations, recognizing many (though not all) atrocities committed by Islam historically and in our own era. Of Turkey, he writes, without sugar coating, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were deported and exterminated in the Armenian genocide.
Of Afghanistan, he writes, after Arab Muslims imported Islam in the 7th century, the Ghaznavids mostly by force converted to Islam the remaining non-Muslim areas. In Albania, too, Islam was spread...by force, a major legacy of 5 centuries of Ottoman rule. In 7th century Algeria, a large number of locals were converted by force to Islam; Ottoman piracy captured and sold approximately one million Europeans...as slaves.
He recognizes brutal force, violence and slavery as common denominators in the historical spread of Islam.
Yet in Part I, Rehman includes a brief summary of the life of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, and the inaccurate contention that Mohammed did not believe in aggression. In Part III, Rehman reiterates this idea, claiming that after Mohammed's death in 632, his followers conquered, plundered, and spread Islam in the wrong manner. (p. 237)
This interpretation, at best, looks naïve. At worst, it lacks honesty. Jihad warfare is a fundamental tenet of the Quran, embedded there as a divine institution incumbent upon all Muslims, to advance Islam until the one truth faith controls the entire world. The Quran outlines Islamic laws requiring religious war in many chapters and verses, including for example, 2:214-215; 4:76-79; 8:39-42; 9:5-6 and 9:29.
Sura 9, verse 5 states: So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush.
Sura 9, verse 29 states: Fight those who do not believe in Allah... and those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
Similarly, Sura 4, verses 76 through 79 call upon all Muslims to fight in the path of God and to exchange this present life for that which is to come. For warriors who die we will in the end give him a great reward.
Alas, Rehman's Part II citations and explanations of Islamic texts and theology look misleading, selective and incomplete. He omits many of the above citations. More on that shortly.
Strangely, however, Rehman believes the Quran alone is theologically sufficient for Muslims to follow; he says Muslims need no Hadith (sayings and deeds of Mohammed as confirmed by his companions), nor any other sacred text.
The vast majority of Islamic jurists, from the time of Mohammed through the Middle Ages to the present day, would disagree, but Rehman makes no reference to them. They include founders of all four major Sunni schools of IslamHanafi founder Abu Hanifa an-Numan (699-767), Maliki founder Malik ibn Anas (711-795), Shafi'i founder Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i (767-820) and Hanbali founder Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780-855). Many more besides consider Islam incomplete without the Hadith and indeed, the entire Sunna, including the Sira (biography of Mohammed), a life filled with bloody deeds and plunder.
In 627, for example, the Jewish Banu Qurayzah tribe in Yathrib (later renamed Medina) surrendered to Mohammed after a 25 day siege. He beheaded all males, numbering some 600 to 800, including boys still in puberty, forcibly converted and enslaved their wives and children and took their land and property as booty. You brothers of monkeys, has God disgraced you and brought His vengeance upon you? said Mohammed to his Jewish victims, according to his earliest Muslim biographer, Ibn Ishaq (d. 767-770).
Even if traditional Islamic jurists agreed with Rehman, however, the Quran itself belies his contention that Islam is all peace and light.
In Part II, Rehman provides selected contents of the Quran. He does present the first Quranic sura (chapter), otherwise known as Al-Fatiha, in its entirety.
Alas, he provides a muted translation, avoiding the true meaning of phrases that devout Muslims recite five times a day. Verse seven curses those who have evoked [Your] anger or of those who are astray, which Muslims commonly understand to mean Jews and Christians, the former being those who have evoked your anger and the latter being those who are astray. They pray not to be like these reviled non-Muslims, but only to follow Islam.
Innumerable Islamic jurists throughout the centuries confirm that meaning, including but not limited to ibn Hanbal (mentioned above), Alama Imad ud Din Ibn Kathir (14th century Sha'afi jurist), Moroccan Muslim cleric al-Maghili (d. 1505), and on and on and on.
Of the rest of the Quran, Rehman offers highly selective portionsexcluding many of the most offensive verses.
For example, from Sura 2, the author includes (also) mildly translated versions of verses 60 and 62, which seem to say that all believers have a place in heaven, including Jews and Christians. Alas, he omits verse 61, which curses the Jewish people, And they were covered with humiliation and poverty and returned with anger from Allah [upon them]. That was because they [repeatedly] disbelieved in the signs of Allah and killed the prophets without right. That was because they disobeyed and were [habitually] transgressing.
Modern Muslim clerics do not, themselves, spread the idea that only Muslims will attain Heaven in the afterlife. The Quran says as much and Islamic jurists throughout the ages have interpreted Sura 2, verse 61 accordingly.
Rehman also omits citations and analysis of Sura 4, verses 47, 55 and 60, all containing hatred for Jews and curses upon them. I could go on and on.
In fact there are so many omissions and errors in this book that it would be impossible to list them all. In other words, it is deeply, deeply flawed.
I give Rehman credit for admitting a long history of Islamic atrocities. He seems to genuinely want peace among faiths and nations, a laudable goal to which all mankind should aspire.
Rehman appears to say that everyone after Mohammed misinterpreted his book, however. Alas, if one reads the Quran, no wonder everyone after Mohammed interpreted it as they did, for the book is pretty exclusionary and bloody, and not at all kind to women.
Rather than claim that Islamic actors throughout history have wronged their faith, it would seem far more productive for Rehman to join courageous souls like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq, among others, and push for genuine reform from withinto recognize the bloodiness central to Islamic theology and cleanse it.
An excellent book on Islam would be Heretic by Ms. Hirsi Ali; Also read Legacy of Islamic Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. I also highly recommend The Dhimmi by Bat Ye'or as well as her book The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude.
I am not allowed to answer private emails, unfortunately, but I hope that helps.
Alas, the book proved a disappointment. As one who has studied and written on Islam for more than a decade, I was shocked to find this work so poorly sourced. The book contains absolutely no footnotes, and its references, not listed until the last page, include only two authors apart from Yusuf Ali Abdullah, the English translator of the Quran, namely Marshall G.S. Hodgson (three volumes) and Akbar Shah Najeebabadi (three volumes). I see no evidence of 14 years worth of research here.
To his credit, author Mohammad Rehman admirably begins his prologue by wholeheartedly dedicating his work to all those who have suffered, and continue to suffer, whether it be for their color, race, religion or caste. Here, he recognizes 6 million Jewish victims of Hilter's Holocaust, Israeli civilian victims of suicide bombings and the victims of 9/11.
Similarly, in Part IV Rehman reviews the history and current status of the world's Islamic nations, recognizing many (though not all) atrocities committed by Islam historically and in our own era. Of Turkey, he writes, without sugar coating, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were deported and exterminated in the Armenian genocide.
Of Afghanistan, he writes, after Arab Muslims imported Islam in the 7th century, the Ghaznavids mostly by force converted to Islam the remaining non-Muslim areas. In Albania, too, Islam was spread...by force, a major legacy of 5 centuries of Ottoman rule. In 7th century Algeria, a large number of locals were converted by force to Islam; Ottoman piracy captured and sold approximately one million Europeans...as slaves.
He recognizes brutal force, violence and slavery as common denominators in the historical spread of Islam.
Yet in Part I, Rehman includes a brief summary of the life of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, and the inaccurate contention that Mohammed did not believe in aggression. In Part III, Rehman reiterates this idea, claiming that after Mohammed's death in 632, his followers conquered, plundered, and spread Islam in the wrong manner. (p. 237)
This interpretation, at best, looks naïve. At worst, it lacks honesty. Jihad warfare is a fundamental tenet of the Quran, embedded there as a divine institution incumbent upon all Muslims, to advance Islam until the one truth faith controls the entire world. The Quran outlines Islamic laws requiring religious war in many chapters and verses, including for example, 2:214-215; 4:76-79; 8:39-42; 9:5-6 and 9:29.
Sura 9, verse 5 states: So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush.
Sura 9, verse 29 states: Fight those who do not believe in Allah... and those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
Similarly, Sura 4, verses 76 through 79 call upon all Muslims to fight in the path of God and to exchange this present life for that which is to come. For warriors who die we will in the end give him a great reward.
Alas, Rehman's Part II citations and explanations of Islamic texts and theology look misleading, selective and incomplete. He omits many of the above citations. More on that shortly.
Strangely, however, Rehman believes the Quran alone is theologically sufficient for Muslims to follow; he says Muslims need no Hadith (sayings and deeds of Mohammed as confirmed by his companions), nor any other sacred text.
The vast majority of Islamic jurists, from the time of Mohammed through the Middle Ages to the present day, would disagree, but Rehman makes no reference to them. They include founders of all four major Sunni schools of IslamHanafi founder Abu Hanifa an-Numan (699-767), Maliki founder Malik ibn Anas (711-795), Shafi'i founder Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i (767-820) and Hanbali founder Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780-855). Many more besides consider Islam incomplete without the Hadith and indeed, the entire Sunna, including the Sira (biography of Mohammed), a life filled with bloody deeds and plunder.
In 627, for example, the Jewish Banu Qurayzah tribe in Yathrib (later renamed Medina) surrendered to Mohammed after a 25 day siege. He beheaded all males, numbering some 600 to 800, including boys still in puberty, forcibly converted and enslaved their wives and children and took their land and property as booty. You brothers of monkeys, has God disgraced you and brought His vengeance upon you? said Mohammed to his Jewish victims, according to his earliest Muslim biographer, Ibn Ishaq (d. 767-770).
Even if traditional Islamic jurists agreed with Rehman, however, the Quran itself belies his contention that Islam is all peace and light.
In Part II, Rehman provides selected contents of the Quran. He does present the first Quranic sura (chapter), otherwise known as Al-Fatiha, in its entirety.
Alas, he provides a muted translation, avoiding the true meaning of phrases that devout Muslims recite five times a day. Verse seven curses those who have evoked [Your] anger or of those who are astray, which Muslims commonly understand to mean Jews and Christians, the former being those who have evoked your anger and the latter being those who are astray. They pray not to be like these reviled non-Muslims, but only to follow Islam.
Innumerable Islamic jurists throughout the centuries confirm that meaning, including but not limited to ibn Hanbal (mentioned above), Alama Imad ud Din Ibn Kathir (14th century Sha'afi jurist), Moroccan Muslim cleric al-Maghili (d. 1505), and on and on and on.
Of the rest of the Quran, Rehman offers highly selective portionsexcluding many of the most offensive verses.
For example, from Sura 2, the author includes (also) mildly translated versions of verses 60 and 62, which seem to say that all believers have a place in heaven, including Jews and Christians. Alas, he omits verse 61, which curses the Jewish people, And they were covered with humiliation and poverty and returned with anger from Allah [upon them]. That was because they [repeatedly] disbelieved in the signs of Allah and killed the prophets without right. That was because they disobeyed and were [habitually] transgressing.
Modern Muslim clerics do not, themselves, spread the idea that only Muslims will attain Heaven in the afterlife. The Quran says as much and Islamic jurists throughout the ages have interpreted Sura 2, verse 61 accordingly.
Rehman also omits citations and analysis of Sura 4, verses 47, 55 and 60, all containing hatred for Jews and curses upon them. I could go on and on.
In fact there are so many omissions and errors in this book that it would be impossible to list them all. In other words, it is deeply, deeply flawed.
I give Rehman credit for admitting a long history of Islamic atrocities. He seems to genuinely want peace among faiths and nations, a laudable goal to which all mankind should aspire.
Rehman appears to say that everyone after Mohammed misinterpreted his book, however. Alas, if one reads the Quran, no wonder everyone after Mohammed interpreted it as they did, for the book is pretty exclusionary and bloody, and not at all kind to women.
Rather than claim that Islamic actors throughout history have wronged their faith, it would seem far more productive for Rehman to join courageous souls like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq, among others, and push for genuine reform from withinto recognize the bloodiness central to Islamic theology and cleanse it.
An excellent book on Islam would be Heretic by Ms. Hirsi Ali; Also read Legacy of Islamic Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. I also highly recommend The Dhimmi by Bat Ye'or as well as her book The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude.
I am not allowed to answer private emails, unfortunately, but I hope that helps.
Review Date: 9/17/2014
This book is a complete pile of horse manure. As regards the actual role of slavery in Islam, and Islam's reverence for slavery, one would be far better off reading The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa by John Alembillah Azumah.
Review Date: 6/20/2011
Khaled Hosseini infuses Kite Runner with a wealth of individual characters of every stripe, and a subtlety and humanity that spans its pages from the first to the last. While I liked it slightly less well, Hosseini's Thousand Splendid Suns is an equally artistic work. Expecting that sort of depth and literary development, I ordered this book through Amazon's Vine program.
Alas, I must agree with two previous Vine reviewers: This book does not remotely fulfill its buildup. This is a shallow tale, laying totally flat and uninspired on its pages, populated by caricatures, not well-developed personalities with a genuine range of human emotion. Everything here is predictable, recited as if by rote.
The book opens into a 1941 November dawn pastoral scene in Ein Hod, a small Arab village east of Haifa during the olive harvest. Alas, the author almost immediately launches into statements on Muslim prayers and declarations of faith, painting the flimsiest of verbal landscapes. One might expect details of the sounds and sights on the land greeting local peasants, as they rise at 5 a.m. to reach their groves with baskets before their neighbors.
But one finds no landmarks described, no special home or grove, no familiar hillside. Instead, the author regularly splashes her first pages of prose with trite and formulaic phrases --- e.g. "noble fruit" and "sun-bleached hills" --- ringing hollow and false notes from the start. Already on page three, stick-figure characters begin insulting one another, albeit smilingly, but without explanation.
One begins to know the family with the introduction of the Bedouin girl Dalia, in chapter three. The friendship previously described, between Hasan and the crippled Ari Perlstein, whose parents settled in Jerusalem after fleeing from Germany, hangs on the weakest, most superficial language. It also puts words into Ari's mouth that no self-respecting young Jewish man, in 1942 Jerusalem, would have uttered.
Readers are supposed to believe that Ari, like all others who broach the topic in the first 25 pages, damns Zionists, considers them dogs and sons of dogs, and opposes a Jewish homeland, too. The author also implies that Arabs in Ein Hod thus far have been completely peace-loving and aliens to violence --- despite their rabid hatred of Jews, whom they freely label "Yahood, Jews, Zionists, Dogs, Sons of Whores, Filth" (pp. 24-25) --- entirely in keeping with the age-old jihad doctrine, especially fervent when directed at the Jewish people. Israel's creation had and has nothing whatever to do with its espousal.
Uneducated readers may be swayed by this one-sided portrayal of events. But by late 1947 and early 1948, Arab gangs had mass murdered hundreds of unarmed men, women and children in Jerusalem, Hebron, and villages throughout northern Israel, Etzion, the Jezreel Valley and east. Hitler's ally, Jerusalem Mufti Hajj Amin el-Hussaini, who sealed the mass murder of Hungarian Jews, also sought to slaughter all Israel's Jews. And in January 1948, Arabs cut the Tel Aviv to Jerusalem road. Their sniper fire indiscriminately killed everyone who ventured there. Even armored convoys and vehicles were dubbed rolling death traps.
The author neither relates these undeniable facts --- nor correctly recounts Ein Hod's early history. Ein Hod did not endure Roman, Byzantine, Caliphate, Crusader and Mamluk rule, as the author claims.
Actually, the village was founded in 1189 by Iraqis --- relations of Saladin's commander Hussam al-Din Abu al-Hija. In 1596, just 44 people lived there; by the late 19th century, Ein Hod was still home to only 50.
But the author's greatest outrage is her description of supposed July 24, 1948 events, purportedly derived from an Associated Press report of Israeli planes and troops launching "a massive artillery and aerial bombardment" in "an unprovoked attack."
In fact, Ein Hod's Arab residents had abandoned the village by May 1948, Benny Morris' inaccurate "reports" of "July 15" events notwithstanding.
One can forgive some historical inaccuracies in an historical novel. It's a novel, of course. And to be sure, there are some tender moments, when characters take on sympathetic personalities --- momentarily expanding beyond their straw-man frames. For pages at a stretch, readers can sometimes get lost in the story.
Then along come figures spouting hateful slogans and propaganda, such as the Arab epithets for Jews quoted above. The author also portrays ridiculous paper-doll Israeli soldiers, framed by nuns or nurses shouting that they're no better than Nazis. Thus I must also agree with other reviewers that descriptions here of Israelis are far from the reality I've experienced, even at the tensest of border crossings or check points.
Overall, the novel is weak and its historical spine, unconscionably lopsided. The frame upon which this author hangs her feeble "plot" is but transparent propaganda --- far from the artistic work the publishers promise, with all the subtlety and beauty of a club.
One must presume that, under its previous 2007 title, Scar of David sold poorly. Why else repackage a lame four-year-old book and hype it under such a dramatically different new title?
---Alyssa A. Lappen
Alas, I must agree with two previous Vine reviewers: This book does not remotely fulfill its buildup. This is a shallow tale, laying totally flat and uninspired on its pages, populated by caricatures, not well-developed personalities with a genuine range of human emotion. Everything here is predictable, recited as if by rote.
The book opens into a 1941 November dawn pastoral scene in Ein Hod, a small Arab village east of Haifa during the olive harvest. Alas, the author almost immediately launches into statements on Muslim prayers and declarations of faith, painting the flimsiest of verbal landscapes. One might expect details of the sounds and sights on the land greeting local peasants, as they rise at 5 a.m. to reach their groves with baskets before their neighbors.
But one finds no landmarks described, no special home or grove, no familiar hillside. Instead, the author regularly splashes her first pages of prose with trite and formulaic phrases --- e.g. "noble fruit" and "sun-bleached hills" --- ringing hollow and false notes from the start. Already on page three, stick-figure characters begin insulting one another, albeit smilingly, but without explanation.
One begins to know the family with the introduction of the Bedouin girl Dalia, in chapter three. The friendship previously described, between Hasan and the crippled Ari Perlstein, whose parents settled in Jerusalem after fleeing from Germany, hangs on the weakest, most superficial language. It also puts words into Ari's mouth that no self-respecting young Jewish man, in 1942 Jerusalem, would have uttered.
Readers are supposed to believe that Ari, like all others who broach the topic in the first 25 pages, damns Zionists, considers them dogs and sons of dogs, and opposes a Jewish homeland, too. The author also implies that Arabs in Ein Hod thus far have been completely peace-loving and aliens to violence --- despite their rabid hatred of Jews, whom they freely label "Yahood, Jews, Zionists, Dogs, Sons of Whores, Filth" (pp. 24-25) --- entirely in keeping with the age-old jihad doctrine, especially fervent when directed at the Jewish people. Israel's creation had and has nothing whatever to do with its espousal.
Uneducated readers may be swayed by this one-sided portrayal of events. But by late 1947 and early 1948, Arab gangs had mass murdered hundreds of unarmed men, women and children in Jerusalem, Hebron, and villages throughout northern Israel, Etzion, the Jezreel Valley and east. Hitler's ally, Jerusalem Mufti Hajj Amin el-Hussaini, who sealed the mass murder of Hungarian Jews, also sought to slaughter all Israel's Jews. And in January 1948, Arabs cut the Tel Aviv to Jerusalem road. Their sniper fire indiscriminately killed everyone who ventured there. Even armored convoys and vehicles were dubbed rolling death traps.
The author neither relates these undeniable facts --- nor correctly recounts Ein Hod's early history. Ein Hod did not endure Roman, Byzantine, Caliphate, Crusader and Mamluk rule, as the author claims.
Actually, the village was founded in 1189 by Iraqis --- relations of Saladin's commander Hussam al-Din Abu al-Hija. In 1596, just 44 people lived there; by the late 19th century, Ein Hod was still home to only 50.
But the author's greatest outrage is her description of supposed July 24, 1948 events, purportedly derived from an Associated Press report of Israeli planes and troops launching "a massive artillery and aerial bombardment" in "an unprovoked attack."
In fact, Ein Hod's Arab residents had abandoned the village by May 1948, Benny Morris' inaccurate "reports" of "July 15" events notwithstanding.
One can forgive some historical inaccuracies in an historical novel. It's a novel, of course. And to be sure, there are some tender moments, when characters take on sympathetic personalities --- momentarily expanding beyond their straw-man frames. For pages at a stretch, readers can sometimes get lost in the story.
Then along come figures spouting hateful slogans and propaganda, such as the Arab epithets for Jews quoted above. The author also portrays ridiculous paper-doll Israeli soldiers, framed by nuns or nurses shouting that they're no better than Nazis. Thus I must also agree with other reviewers that descriptions here of Israelis are far from the reality I've experienced, even at the tensest of border crossings or check points.
Overall, the novel is weak and its historical spine, unconscionably lopsided. The frame upon which this author hangs her feeble "plot" is but transparent propaganda --- far from the artistic work the publishers promise, with all the subtlety and beauty of a club.
One must presume that, under its previous 2007 title, Scar of David sold poorly. Why else repackage a lame four-year-old book and hype it under such a dramatically different new title?
---Alyssa A. Lappen
Peace Be Upon You: Fourteen Centuries of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Conflict and Cooperation
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
1
Author:
Book Type: Paperback
1
Review Date: 5/31/2011
This is a pathetic account of the relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims, which bends all historical facts to make Arab and Muslim aggression against the Jewish people and Christians look mild in comparison to European aggression against Islam. Nothing could be further from the truth. Karabell puts a few isolated historical events under a microscope, and draws overarching conclusions, but does so without honestly presenting the facts concerning basic theological differences and the overall historical records.
The first warning shot across the bow comes on the first page of Chapter One. Karabell states, as if fact, that in about the year 610, Muhammed ibn Abdullah "began to hear the voice of God, and for the first time, God spoke in Arabic." Generally one might expect only Muslim believers to state the history this way --- not historians supposedly working as objective reporters of events.
A second comes in the fact that Karabell quickly conflates the two distinct parts of the Koran --- those chapters concerning events before Mohammed's migration to from Mecca to Yathrub (later renamed, Medina), and those chapters that came after. As all genuine scholars of Islam will attest, faithful Muslims believe the 22 chapters depicting the latter period abrogated the 92 kinder and gentler chapters that tell of the former. This principle, described in Arabic as An-Nasikh wal-Mansukh. This "science of abrogation" gives the deciding power to verses of the Nasikh, over the abrogated Mansukh chapters. Thus, the 22 later chapters are filled with violence and hatred towards Jews and Christians, and order Muslim believers to defeat the "infidel" faiths, however long it might take them. And they outweigh anything and everything in the former abrogated ones.
While the spare footnotes to the first chapter do cite some reliable sources, Karabell all too quickly makes it clear that he takes genuine and renowned scholars of Islam such as Bat Ye'or ([[ASIN:0838636780 Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, 7th-20th Centuries)]] and [[ASIN:0231132913 Patricia Crone]] (God's Rule - Government and Islam: 6 Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought) as lightweights. Meanwhile, he leans heavily on highly inaccurate and biased authors like Karen Armstrong and Richard Bulliet. The former's books, various Saudi interests have purchased in large quantities to stock American universities and public libraries. The latter is (among other things) an apologist for Turkey's current Islamist government, and among those Columbia University Middle East history professors responsible for the university's recent nickname, Bir Zeit on the Hudson.
Karabell takes isolated episodes of Islamic violence against Christians and Jews and pretends that they were anything but defining. He omits, however, a vast number of other violent episodes of Muslims against Christians and Jews, not to mention Hindus and Zoroastrians. According to the Hindi scholar of Islam, K.S. Lal ([[ASIN:8185689032 Legacy of Muslim Rule in India]] and [[ASIN:8185689679 Muslim Slave System in Medieval India]]), for example, the subcontinent's Muslim conquerors murdered some 100 million people, not counting tens of millions transported as slaves.
For an honest history of the relations between the three major faiths (and indeed others including the Hindu faith and Zoroastrianism), one would be far better served to rely on Bat Ye'or (predominantly, Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, but also [[ASIN:0838632629 Dhimmi]], [[ASIN:0838639437 Islam and Dhimmitude]] and [[ASIN:083864077X Eurabia]]), and Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, a Brown University renal specialist and professor of medicine, and the current generation's most thorough scholar of Islamic suppression of non-Muslims (in [[ASIN:1591026024 Legacy of Jihad]] and [[ASIN:1591025540 Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism]]). Do also read Robert Spencer's important accounting of [[ASIN:1596985283 Muhammad]]'s life, and its impact on current events.
Please. If you MUST read this book, make it a point also to read the far more honest and complete scholars noted above, among others. Karabell is a revisionist.
---Alyssa A. Lappen
The first warning shot across the bow comes on the first page of Chapter One. Karabell states, as if fact, that in about the year 610, Muhammed ibn Abdullah "began to hear the voice of God, and for the first time, God spoke in Arabic." Generally one might expect only Muslim believers to state the history this way --- not historians supposedly working as objective reporters of events.
A second comes in the fact that Karabell quickly conflates the two distinct parts of the Koran --- those chapters concerning events before Mohammed's migration to from Mecca to Yathrub (later renamed, Medina), and those chapters that came after. As all genuine scholars of Islam will attest, faithful Muslims believe the 22 chapters depicting the latter period abrogated the 92 kinder and gentler chapters that tell of the former. This principle, described in Arabic as An-Nasikh wal-Mansukh. This "science of abrogation" gives the deciding power to verses of the Nasikh, over the abrogated Mansukh chapters. Thus, the 22 later chapters are filled with violence and hatred towards Jews and Christians, and order Muslim believers to defeat the "infidel" faiths, however long it might take them. And they outweigh anything and everything in the former abrogated ones.
While the spare footnotes to the first chapter do cite some reliable sources, Karabell all too quickly makes it clear that he takes genuine and renowned scholars of Islam such as Bat Ye'or ([[ASIN:0838636780 Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, 7th-20th Centuries)]] and [[ASIN:0231132913 Patricia Crone]] (God's Rule - Government and Islam: 6 Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Thought) as lightweights. Meanwhile, he leans heavily on highly inaccurate and biased authors like Karen Armstrong and Richard Bulliet. The former's books, various Saudi interests have purchased in large quantities to stock American universities and public libraries. The latter is (among other things) an apologist for Turkey's current Islamist government, and among those Columbia University Middle East history professors responsible for the university's recent nickname, Bir Zeit on the Hudson.
Karabell takes isolated episodes of Islamic violence against Christians and Jews and pretends that they were anything but defining. He omits, however, a vast number of other violent episodes of Muslims against Christians and Jews, not to mention Hindus and Zoroastrians. According to the Hindi scholar of Islam, K.S. Lal ([[ASIN:8185689032 Legacy of Muslim Rule in India]] and [[ASIN:8185689679 Muslim Slave System in Medieval India]]), for example, the subcontinent's Muslim conquerors murdered some 100 million people, not counting tens of millions transported as slaves.
For an honest history of the relations between the three major faiths (and indeed others including the Hindu faith and Zoroastrianism), one would be far better served to rely on Bat Ye'or (predominantly, Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, but also [[ASIN:0838632629 Dhimmi]], [[ASIN:0838639437 Islam and Dhimmitude]] and [[ASIN:083864077X Eurabia]]), and Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, a Brown University renal specialist and professor of medicine, and the current generation's most thorough scholar of Islamic suppression of non-Muslims (in [[ASIN:1591026024 Legacy of Jihad]] and [[ASIN:1591025540 Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism]]). Do also read Robert Spencer's important accounting of [[ASIN:1596985283 Muhammad]]'s life, and its impact on current events.
Please. If you MUST read this book, make it a point also to read the far more honest and complete scholars noted above, among others. Karabell is a revisionist.
---Alyssa A. Lappen
The Wave: Man, God, and the Ballot Box in the Middle East (HOOVER INST PRESS PUBLICATION)
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
1
Author:
Book Type: Hardcover
1
Review Date: 7/20/2012
Reuel Marc Gerecht may have spent a lot of time in the Middle East, and speak fluent Arabic, but he totally lacks understanding of Islam and Islamic law, and his contention that democracy and Islam can be successfully married and produce a better calmer region is startling for its lack of depth. This view, quite frankly, is that of a man overly taken with his own worth, and is beyond foolish. It is quite dangerous.
Do not read this book. And do not listen to his foolish ideas.
The Muslim Brotherhood is taking over Egypt, and that country will soon look a lot more like genocidal Sudan than any democracy decent people --- in the East or the West --- might hope for.
It will be particularly dire for Coptic Christians, who are rightly terrified, and already the target of open killing sprees.
Do not read this book. And do not listen to his foolish ideas.
The Muslim Brotherhood is taking over Egypt, and that country will soon look a lot more like genocidal Sudan than any democracy decent people --- in the East or the West --- might hope for.
It will be particularly dire for Coptic Christians, who are rightly terrified, and already the target of open killing sprees.
Review Date: 6/20/2011
Imam Feisal Rauf, the central figure in the coterie planning a huge mosque just off Ground Zero, is a full-throated champion of the very same Muslim theologians and jurists identified in a landmark NYPD report as central to promoting the Islamic religious bigotry that fuels modern jihad terrorism.Wahhabism.
Whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists, Wahhabism is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the state Shintoism of imperial Japan. We would never have allowed a Shinto shrine at the site of the Pearl Harbor carnage especially one to serve as a recruiting station for Tokyos militarists while World War II was still on. For the same reasons, we must say no to a Wahhabi mosque at Ground Zero.
This fact alone should compel Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg to withdraw their support for the proposed mosque.
In August 2007, the NYPD released Radicalization in the West The Homegrown Threat. This landmark 90-page report looked at the threat that had become apparent since 9/11, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna, NY, to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ.
The report noted that Saudi Wahhabi scholars feed the jihadist ideology, legitimizing an extreme intolerance toward non-Muslims, especially Jews, Christians and Hindus. In particular, the analysts noted that the journey of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadis often begins in a Wahhabi mosque.
The term Wahhabi refers to the 18th century founder of this austere Islamic tradition, Muhammad bin Abdul al-Wahhab, who claimed inspiration from 14th century jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah.
At least two of Imam Raufs books, a 2000 treatise on Islamic law and his 2004 Whats Right with Islam, laud the implementation of sharia including within America and the rejuvenating Islamic religious spirit of Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Wahhab.
He also lionizes as two ostensible modernists Jamal al-Dinal-Afghani (d. 1897), and his student Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905). In fact, both defended the Wahhabis, praised the salutary influence of Ibn Taymiyyah and promoted the pretense that sha ria despite its permanent advocacy of jihad and dehumanizing injunctions on non-Muslims and women was somehow compatible with Western concepts of human rights, as in our own Bill of Rights.
In short, Feisal Raufs public image as a devotee of the contemplative Sufi school of Islam cannot change the fact that his writings directed at Muslims are full of praise for the most noxious and dangerous Muslim thinkers.
Indeed, even the classical Sufi master that Rauf extols, the 12th-century jurist Abu Hamed Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, issued opinions on jihad and the imposition of Islamic law on the vanquished non-Muslim populations that were as bellicose and bigoted as those of Ibn Taymiyyah.
Also relevant is the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow program run by the American Society for Muslim Advancement, an organization founded by Rauf and now run by his wife. Among the future leaders it has recognized are one of the co-authors of a denunciation of the NYPD report, a counter-report endorsed by all major Wahhabi-front organizations in America. Another future leader of interest to New Yorkers: Debbie Almontaser, the onetime head of the citys Khalil Gibran Academy.
More revealing is the fact that Rauf himself has refused to sign a straightforward pledge to repudiate the threat from authoritative sharia to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims, a pledge issued nine months ago by ex-Muslims under threat for their apostasy. That refusal is a tacit admission that Rauf believes that sharia trumps such fundamental Western principles as freedom of conscience.
Wahhabism whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the state Shintoism of imperial Japan. We would never have allowed a Shinto shrine at the site of the Pearl Harbor carnage especially one to serve as a recruiting station for Tokyos militarists while World War II was still on.
For the same reasons, we must say no to a Wahhabi mosque at Ground Zero.
Andrew G. Bostom, M.D., M.S. (Providence, RI), is the author of the highly acclaimed The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. More on his work can be found at www.andrewbostom.org, including a preview of his eagerly anticipated forthcoming book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History.
Whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists, Wahhabism is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the state Shintoism of imperial Japan. We would never have allowed a Shinto shrine at the site of the Pearl Harbor carnage especially one to serve as a recruiting station for Tokyos militarists while World War II was still on. For the same reasons, we must say no to a Wahhabi mosque at Ground Zero.
This fact alone should compel Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg to withdraw their support for the proposed mosque.
In August 2007, the NYPD released Radicalization in the West The Homegrown Threat. This landmark 90-page report looked at the threat that had become apparent since 9/11, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna, NY, to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ.
The report noted that Saudi Wahhabi scholars feed the jihadist ideology, legitimizing an extreme intolerance toward non-Muslims, especially Jews, Christians and Hindus. In particular, the analysts noted that the journey of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadis often begins in a Wahhabi mosque.
The term Wahhabi refers to the 18th century founder of this austere Islamic tradition, Muhammad bin Abdul al-Wahhab, who claimed inspiration from 14th century jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah.
At least two of Imam Raufs books, a 2000 treatise on Islamic law and his 2004 Whats Right with Islam, laud the implementation of sharia including within America and the rejuvenating Islamic religious spirit of Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Wahhab.
He also lionizes as two ostensible modernists Jamal al-Dinal-Afghani (d. 1897), and his student Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905). In fact, both defended the Wahhabis, praised the salutary influence of Ibn Taymiyyah and promoted the pretense that sha ria despite its permanent advocacy of jihad and dehumanizing injunctions on non-Muslims and women was somehow compatible with Western concepts of human rights, as in our own Bill of Rights.
In short, Feisal Raufs public image as a devotee of the contemplative Sufi school of Islam cannot change the fact that his writings directed at Muslims are full of praise for the most noxious and dangerous Muslim thinkers.
Indeed, even the classical Sufi master that Rauf extols, the 12th-century jurist Abu Hamed Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, issued opinions on jihad and the imposition of Islamic law on the vanquished non-Muslim populations that were as bellicose and bigoted as those of Ibn Taymiyyah.
Also relevant is the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow program run by the American Society for Muslim Advancement, an organization founded by Rauf and now run by his wife. Among the future leaders it has recognized are one of the co-authors of a denunciation of the NYPD report, a counter-report endorsed by all major Wahhabi-front organizations in America. Another future leader of interest to New Yorkers: Debbie Almontaser, the onetime head of the citys Khalil Gibran Academy.
More revealing is the fact that Rauf himself has refused to sign a straightforward pledge to repudiate the threat from authoritative sharia to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims, a pledge issued nine months ago by ex-Muslims under threat for their apostasy. That refusal is a tacit admission that Rauf believes that sharia trumps such fundamental Western principles as freedom of conscience.
Wahhabism whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the state Shintoism of imperial Japan. We would never have allowed a Shinto shrine at the site of the Pearl Harbor carnage especially one to serve as a recruiting station for Tokyos militarists while World War II was still on.
For the same reasons, we must say no to a Wahhabi mosque at Ground Zero.
Andrew G. Bostom, M.D., M.S. (Providence, RI), is the author of the highly acclaimed The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. More on his work can be found at www.andrewbostom.org, including a preview of his eagerly anticipated forthcoming book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History.
Review Date: 4/14/2011
Imam Feisal Rauf, the central figure in the coterie planning a huge mosque just off Ground Zero, is a full-throated champion of the very same Muslim theologians and jurists identified in a landmark NYPD report as central to promoting the Islamic religious bigotry that fuels modern jihad terrorism.Wahhabism.
Whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists, Wahhabism is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the state Shintoism of imperial Japan. We would never have allowed a Shinto shrine at the site of the Pearl Harbor carnage especially one to serve as a recruiting station for Tokyos militarists while World War II was still on. For the same reasons, we must say no to a Wahhabi mosque at Ground Zero.
This fact alone should compel Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg to withdraw their support for the proposed mosque.
In August 2007, the NYPD released Radicalization in the West The Homegrown Threat. This landmark 90-page report looked at the threat that had become apparent since 9/11, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna, NY, to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ.
The report noted that Saudi Wahhabi scholars feed the jihadist ideology, legitimizing an extreme intolerance toward non-Muslims, especially Jews, Christians and Hindus. In particular, the analysts noted that the journey of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadis often begins in a Wahhabi mosque.
The term Wahhabi refers to the 18th century founder of this austere Islamic tradition, Muhammad bin Abdul al-Wahhab, who claimed inspiration from 14th century jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah.
At least two of Imam Raufs books, a 2000 treatise on Islamic law and his 2004 Whats Right with Islam, laud the implementation of sharia including within America and the rejuvenating Islamic religious spirit of Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Wahhab.
He also lionizes as two ostensible modernists Jamal al-Dinal-Afghani (d. 1897), and his student Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905). In fact, both defended the Wahhabis, praised the salutary influence of Ibn Taymiyyah and promoted the pretense that sha ria despite its permanent advocacy of jihad and dehumanizing injunctions on non-Muslims and women was somehow compatible with Western concepts of human rights, as in our own Bill of Rights.
In short, Feisal Raufs public image as a devotee of the contemplative Sufi school of Islam cannot change the fact that his writings directed at Muslims are full of praise for the most noxious and dangerous Muslim thinkers.
Indeed, even the classical Sufi master that Rauf extols, the 12th-century jurist Abu Hamed Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, issued opinions on jihad and the imposition of Islamic law on the vanquished non-Muslim populations that were as bellicose and bigoted as those of Ibn Taymiyyah.
Also relevant is the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow program run by the American Society for Muslim Advancement, an organization founded by Rauf and now run by his wife. Among the future leaders it has recognized are one of the co-authors of a denunciation of the NYPD report, a counter-report endorsed by all major Wahhabi-front organizations in America. Another future leader of interest to New Yorkers: Debbie Almontaser, the onetime head of the citys Khalil Gibran Academy.
More revealing is the fact that Rauf himself has refused to sign a straightforward pledge to repudiate the threat from authoritative sharia to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims, a pledge issued nine months ago by ex-Muslims under threat for their apostasy. That refusal is a tacit admission that Rauf believes that sharia trumps such fundamental Western principles as freedom of conscience.
Wahhabism whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the state Shintoism of imperial Japan. We would never have allowed a Shinto shrine at the site of the Pearl Harbor carnage especially one to serve as a recruiting station for Tokyos militarists while World War II was still on.
For the same reasons, we must say no to a Wahhabi mosque at Ground Zero.
Andrew G. Bostom, M.D., M.S. (Providence, RI), is the author of the highly acclaimed The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. More on his work can be found at www.andrewbostom.org, including a preview of his eagerly anticipated forthcoming book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History.
Whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists, Wahhabism is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the state Shintoism of imperial Japan. We would never have allowed a Shinto shrine at the site of the Pearl Harbor carnage especially one to serve as a recruiting station for Tokyos militarists while World War II was still on. For the same reasons, we must say no to a Wahhabi mosque at Ground Zero.
This fact alone should compel Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg to withdraw their support for the proposed mosque.
In August 2007, the NYPD released Radicalization in the West The Homegrown Threat. This landmark 90-page report looked at the threat that had become apparent since 9/11, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna, NY, to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ.
The report noted that Saudi Wahhabi scholars feed the jihadist ideology, legitimizing an extreme intolerance toward non-Muslims, especially Jews, Christians and Hindus. In particular, the analysts noted that the journey of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadis often begins in a Wahhabi mosque.
The term Wahhabi refers to the 18th century founder of this austere Islamic tradition, Muhammad bin Abdul al-Wahhab, who claimed inspiration from 14th century jurist Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah.
At least two of Imam Raufs books, a 2000 treatise on Islamic law and his 2004 Whats Right with Islam, laud the implementation of sharia including within America and the rejuvenating Islamic religious spirit of Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Wahhab.
He also lionizes as two ostensible modernists Jamal al-Dinal-Afghani (d. 1897), and his student Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905). In fact, both defended the Wahhabis, praised the salutary influence of Ibn Taymiyyah and promoted the pretense that sha ria despite its permanent advocacy of jihad and dehumanizing injunctions on non-Muslims and women was somehow compatible with Western concepts of human rights, as in our own Bill of Rights.
In short, Feisal Raufs public image as a devotee of the contemplative Sufi school of Islam cannot change the fact that his writings directed at Muslims are full of praise for the most noxious and dangerous Muslim thinkers.
Indeed, even the classical Sufi master that Rauf extols, the 12th-century jurist Abu Hamed Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali, issued opinions on jihad and the imposition of Islamic law on the vanquished non-Muslim populations that were as bellicose and bigoted as those of Ibn Taymiyyah.
Also relevant is the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow program run by the American Society for Muslim Advancement, an organization founded by Rauf and now run by his wife. Among the future leaders it has recognized are one of the co-authors of a denunciation of the NYPD report, a counter-report endorsed by all major Wahhabi-front organizations in America. Another future leader of interest to New Yorkers: Debbie Almontaser, the onetime head of the citys Khalil Gibran Academy.
More revealing is the fact that Rauf himself has refused to sign a straightforward pledge to repudiate the threat from authoritative sharia to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims, a pledge issued nine months ago by ex-Muslims under threat for their apostasy. That refusal is a tacit admission that Rauf believes that sharia trumps such fundamental Western principles as freedom of conscience.
Wahhabism whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the state Shintoism of imperial Japan. We would never have allowed a Shinto shrine at the site of the Pearl Harbor carnage especially one to serve as a recruiting station for Tokyos militarists while World War II was still on.
For the same reasons, we must say no to a Wahhabi mosque at Ground Zero.
Andrew G. Bostom, M.D., M.S. (Providence, RI), is the author of the highly acclaimed The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. More on his work can be found at www.andrewbostom.org, including a preview of his eagerly anticipated forthcoming book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History.
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