The Redhunter

As the title implies, Spencer's book is divided into two main parts and a short third section. The first is an overview of Islam as he sees it, and the second is a historical overview of the crusades. There is a shorter section on "Today's Jihad".

The short version of his overview of Islam is that it is a religion of war which is intolerant of anyone who will not submit and is used to oppress women. The chapter titles for this section tell the story

Muhammed: Prophet of War The Qur'an: Book of War Islam: Religion of War Islam: Religion of Intolerance Islam Oppresses Women Islamic Law: Lie, Steal, and Kill How Allah Killed Science The Lure of Islamic Paradise Islam-Spread by the Sword? You Bet

I have not read the Quoran, so I really can't say how accurate Spencer's work is. But I can read the newspaper, and I have figured out by now that a whole lot of Muslims would indeed agree with Spencer's interpretation of their religion. They just think it's a good thing.

I do not want to get into a "Christianity/Judiasm vs Islam" here, but one point needs to be made. According to Spencer, the Quoran teaches that war must be fought against unbelievers all over the world until they are defeated and Islam rules. The old Testament books of the Bible teach only that the Jews occupy land promised them by God and make war upon those people, and those people only. Therefore, unless you are a Hittite, Cannanite, Jebusite, or Philistine, you've got nothing to worry about from even the most fundamentalist Christian or Jew.

Spencer's thesis is that Islam was not "hijacked" by extremists who have "misinterpreted" the Quoran, but that Islam is in and of itself a violent religion. This does not mean, he stresses, that all Muslims are violent or subscribe to the jihad:

...there are enormous numbers of Muslims in the United States and around the world who want nothing to do with today's global jihad. While their theological foundation is weak, many are heroically laboring to create a viable moderate Islam that will allow Muslims to coexist peacefully with their non-Muslim neighbors. They are to be commended, but make no mistake: This moderate Islam does not exist to any significant extent in the world today.

In other words, "moderate" Muslims are those who simply don't follow their own faith.

All of this raises the question; if Islam is so bad, how can we possibly succeed in Iraq? Again, we need to recognize that as Spencer says "there are enormous numbers of Muslims ...who want nothing to do with today's global jihad." Many of those, as we are seeing, are in Iraq.

The solution, I think, is that Islam needs a true reform movement. "Moderate" Islam isn't enough, for clearly they are not able to stop the extremists. As Walid Phares says, we are in a war of ideas, but it's so much not the West against Islam, as it is modernity against ancient ways of thinking. The war is being fought within Islam, and within the West. Right now it's the moderates vs the extremists in Islam, and in the West it's those who see the danger vs the new breed of anti-antijihadists (or anti-antiterrorists, as you wish. They are the intellectual heirs to the leftist anti-anticommunism of the Cold War).

By "reform", I mean that the text of the Quoran and the Hadith need to be reexamined and reinterpreted. The hard passages must not be ignored. These reformers will have their job cut out for them, and arguable have a more difficult task than even Martin Luther, John Calvin, and their heirs did for Christianity.

The Crusades

Whatever the merits of his views on Islam, Spencer is on more solid ground when discussing the Crusades. His technique here is simply to cite historical events and let them speak for themselves. Here is a brief chronology

622 - 632 A.D. Mohammed leads armies in conquering the Arabian peninsula

632 - Mohammed dies

634 - A small seaborne invasion of India is mounted

635 - Damascus falls to Muslim armies, and the whole of the region shortly thereafter

668 & 717 - Muslim armies lay seige to Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), capitol of the Byzantine Empire, but fail to take the city

639 - The Muslim invasion of Egypt begins

633-656 - The Muslim conquest and defeat of the Persian Empire

647 - 709 - The conquest of North Africa by Muslim armies

664 - Muslim armies invade India

711 - Muslim armies under Tariq ibn-Ziyad invade what is today Spain. By 715 the conquest is complete. After this conquest they head north into what is today France. They will rule all or part of the Iberian peninsula until 1492

732 - A Muslim (Moorish) army is defeated by Charles Martel ("the Hammer") at a location between Tours and Poiters in what is today France

792 & 848 - Additional Muslim armies attack what is today France but are defeated

827 - Muslim armies invade Italy and Sicily. In 846 they reach Rome, but after exacting a promise of tribute from the Pope they do not sack the city. The Muslims eventually leave Italy, but occupy Sicily until 1091, when they are driven out by the Normans

1071 - An army of Seljuk Turks defeat the Byzantines at the Armenian town of Manzikert, leaving them free to occupy Asia Minor (the modern-day Turkish peninsula)

Note all of this occurs before the first Crusade is called

1095 - Pope Urban II receives an appeal for help from the Emperor of Byzantium, who has been under attack from the Muslim Caliphate for several centuries. He issues his call to what becomes the First Crusade in response.

The Crusades, therefore, were really a response to several hundred years of unending assault by Muslim armies who did all they could to conquer the Christian world. They were an attempt to recapture land once held by Christian and Jewish nations or empires. They were, then, a defensive operation. Their practical effect was to relieve Europe from attack for a few centuries while we took the war to the Muslims.

The point of all this is not so much to justify the Crusades as it it to demolish the PC myth of "poor innocent Muslims sitting around minding their own business when the bad Crusaders swept down on them committing atrocities."

And, of course, after the Crusaders were defeated and their new kingdoms demolished, Islam started right up again attacking the West. Their last big assault (before our modern war, anyway), was an attack upon Vienna, Austria, by a Turkish army in 1683.

All in all this is a worthwhile book. If nothing else it demolishes many politically correct mantras about Islam. Those who want more from Spencer will want to consult his The Truth About Muhammed. However, none of these can really be called scholarly books, so readers who want an in depth and complete treatment of Islam will have to go elsewhere.