I’m honored by this advance review of my new book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS. Loren Rosson, who proofread the manuscript, has this to say about the book. Click here to preorder The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS.
“Coming Soon: The History of Jihad,” by Loren Rosson, May 25, 2018:
At last comes the book I’ve been hoping someone would write: a complete chronicle of Islam’s holy wars. That’s 1400 years of jihad, told without apology in razor-sharp prose. It represents the crown and summit of Robert Spencer’s work, and he should be proud of what he’s done here.
I had the honor of proof-reading The History of Jihad and can testify to its excellence. The book’s value lies not only in its scope — it covers every single jihad theater, from Arabia to Persia, North Africa to Europe, Spain to India, Tel Aviv to New York City — but also its explanatory power. Spencer relies heavily on primary sources and the words of contemporary witnesses, so the reader gets a good impression of how it was to experience the jihad. Repeating without fail are cycles of brutality and piety, and the clear religious motives of the Muslims. Jihadists have always been candid about their reason for waging war — to subjugate infidels under the rule of Islam — but people in the 21st century have a hard time accepting this, and have grasped at every possible explanation except the obvious one. Studies have proven that there is no correlation between Islamic terrorism and poverty; there are as many middle-class and well-to-do jihadists as poor ones. Unlike most of human warfare, holy war is waged primarily for spiritual reward, and it operates irrespective of rational purpose. It takes the guardrails off civilization, and you can’t reason with it. Spencer’s book is a horror drama as much as an historical one, and I couldn’t put it down.
It’s rare to see myths about Islam debunked so thoroughly, though we got another one recently from Dario Fernandez-Morera in The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise (2016). The reality of Islamic Spain is that there was no fruitful cooperation between faiths. The Muslims were less friendly to Jews and Christians than American Southern whites were to blacks before civil rights. In Spencer’s book, the same conclusion is drawn in all times and places:
“There is no period since the beginning of Islam that was characterized by large-scale peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims. There was no time when mainstream and dominant Islamic authorities taught the equality of non-Muslims with Muslims, or the obsolescence of jihad warfare. There was no Era of Good Feeling, no Golden Age of Tolerance, no Paradise of Proto-Multiculturalism. There has always been, with virtually no interruption, jihad.”
This isn’t a controversial point to competent historians, but it’s not what most people believe or are willing to say….
Read the rest here, and preorder your copy of The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS here.