robert spencer's
ONWARD MUSLIM SOLDIERS
reviewed by
BASSAM M. MADANY
__________________
[Far
too often, after a promising initial launching or first run,
a distinguished book or film will disappear from public view
and go gently into oblivion. In the spirit of finally 'getting
it right,' Arts & Opinion tries to catch some of these on-their-way-out
works and return them to the dawn's early light. One such work
is Onward Muslim Soldiers by Robert Spencer.ed.]
Faiths
must not be allowed to hide their depradation
behind our toleration. Leon Wieseltier
The
title of this book could conceivably be a headline for a news
item in a Western newspaper. Throughout the closing days of
2003, and early in 2004, we lived with a heightened sense of
danger as the terror alerts kept rising, and several air flights
to the U.S. were canceled. Thanks to Robert Spencer’s
Onward Muslim Soldiers, we have on hand a non-varnished
description of this new era in global history.
Soon
after 9/11, September 2001, the contents of Muhammad Ata’s
suitcase were discovered. In it were found the Arabic text of
the instructions he gave his fellow-conspirators on the eve
of their horrific attack on New York and Washington, DC. After
exhorting them to remain calm, and rejoice in anticipation of
their attack on the symbols of the hated West, he quoted an
Arabic poem: “Smile in the face of death, O young man,
For you are on your way to immortality in paradise.” Then,
he went on quoting several Qur’anic texts to bolster their
resolve to become the vanguard of a new type of shuhada (martyrs)
in the path of Allah. What Ata’s hastily composed hand-written
notes revealed, Robert Spencer documents in his book on Islamic
Jihad.
What
we had observed in Spencer’s Islam Unveiled (2002),
we find strengthened and well-documented in Onward Muslim Soldiers.
The book has ample references to jihad in the authoritative
texts of Islam: the Qur’an, Hadith (plural: Ahadith),
as well as in the recognized commentaries of both Sunni and
Shi’ite Islam. Based on these texts and the history of
the Islamic conquests in Asia, Africa, and Europe, one cannot
avoid the conclusion that Jihad is part and parcel of the Islamic
tradition.
The
reason why many of our contemporaries find it difficult to accept
this fact is that they regard Islam as simply a religious faith,
like Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism,
and Shinto. But Islam is, and has always been, far more than
a religion in the accepted sense of the word. It began as a
religious faith in Mecca (610), and then it progressed into
an expansionist religio-political system from Medina (622).
Eventually Islam produced a distinctively Islamic culture and
worldview in Baghdad and Cordoba (after 800).
Most
Americans have an added difficulty as they seek to understand
Islam. The birth of the United States in 1776 occurred at a
time when the last major Islamic power, the Ottoman Empire,
was in a state of rapid decline. It finally disintegrated at
the end of World War I when most of its territories were taken
over by European colonialists. Up to the mid-forties of the
20th century, the United States had very little to do with Islamic
countries. The meeting of President Roosevelt with King Saud
on a U.S. destroyer in the Suez Canal during World War II, marked
the beginning of America’s practical encounter with Islam.
Now
Onward Muslim Soldiers provides us with this much needed
guide to understanding the true nature of Islam, and its attitude
to the rest of the world. This book is organized around three
parts. Part One deals with “Jihad Now.” Part Two
covers the history of jihad under the rubric of “Jihad
Then.” The title of Part Three is very disturbing, “The
Great Jihad Cover-Up.”
This
“Cover-Up” is evident, for example, in “The
Carolina Qur’an Controversy” related on page 145.
In 2002, the University of North Carolina assigned “a
translation of a part of the Qur’an to all incoming freshmen,”
that became a cause for genuine concern. The assigned book was
Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations,
translated by Michael Sells. The “early revelations”
of the subtitle are the Meccan suras . . . which preach tolerance
and mutual coexistence without a hint of the doctrines of jihad
and dhimmitude that unfold in the later Qur’anic revelations.”
Robert
Spencer asks: “what was such a misleading misrepresentation
designed to accomplish, especially in light of continuing threats
from terrorists?” Sells has defended his decision to translate
only early Meccan Suras on the grounds that they are the most
accessible introduction to the Qur’an and Islamic study
as a whole. That may be true, but taken in isolation as the
only book a young non-Muslim would read about Islam, Approaching
the Qur’an could be severely misleading about the
nature of the religion as a whole and about the intentions and
motives of Islamic terrorists, the very people who have made
Islam such a hot topic for students.
This
literary product of Professor Michael Sells, in keeping out
the Medinan chapters of the Qur’an, does not surprise
me. In May 2001, and later on in January 2002, PBS telecast
a documentary, “Islam: Empire of Faith.” This expert
on Islam was one of several Western commentators who contributed
to this program, whose very title was historically questionable.
How could the Islamic Empires of the Umayyads, Abbasids, Ottomans,
and the Mughals, be described as “Empires of Faith”
when they were all built on the “futuhat” i.e.,
on conquests? Neither Michael Sells nor any of his fellow-commentators
ever referred to the impact of jihad on the native populations
of the conquered territories, nor to such infamous institutions
as “dhimmitude.” The apex of disinformation in “Empire
of Faith” was reached when reference was made to the “devshirme”
system of the Ottomans in Eastern Europe. The Western scholar
described this barbaric institution of taking young Christian
boys from their families, forcibly Islamizing them, and enrolling
them in the elite Ottoman corps of the Janissaries as “recruitment.”
The
author concludes his book with these sober words. “The
theology and history of Islam bear out that this is how all
too many Muslims have always understood their law. Until Islam
undergoes a definitive and universal reform, this is how the
warriors of jihad understand it today and will continue to understand
it. This is the version of Islam that radical Muslims are pressing
forward with bombs and guns and threats around the world. That
is why the struggle against jihad is the struggle of every true
lover of freedom.” P. 304
Onward
Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West
is a much-needed book. To read it and digest its contents is
of utmost importance as we daily face the by-products of Jihadism
all over our world. We thank Robert Spencer for his excellent
work on a topic that remains as current as the daily newspaper,
radio and the television news.
Bassam
Michael Madany was the Arabic Broadcast minister of Back-to-God
Hour, the radio ministry of the Christian Reformed Church, from
1958-1994. He is the author of The Bible and Islam: A Basic
Guide to Sharing God’s Word with a Muslim.
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