295 of 313 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Now I understand, January 26, 2009
This review is from: Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law (Hardcover)
Darwish's unique background enables her to clearly explain Islam to the Western reader. Although I read a few books on Islam after 9/11, this was the first description that enabled me to understand why there was not more outrage from moderate Muslims and religious leaders when thousands of American civilians were murdered in Islam's name.
An important part of the understanding began with Darwish's explanation that Islam is not just a religion -- It is also a political and legal system. Darwish supports this assertion with scriptural statistics as well as concrete examples. Identifying political Islam helped this reader to consider it more objectively. Like many others, it is difficult for me to criticize another's religion (even silently in my own mind), but it is not hard to criticize a political or legal system that oppresses people. Thus, I could not reconcile 9/11 or dehumanization with religious Islam, but I can easily see how political Islam encourages such abuses.
Darwish spent her first thirty years in Egypt and understands that "Most Muslims judge Islam by their kind, tolerant Muslim grandparents who prayed five times every day." But this did not prevent her from seeing extreme human rights abuses enforced through Sharia - which is now declared by forty-five Muslim countries to override the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
She points out that while Westerners generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each individual, Islamic law (Sharia) teaches that non-Muslims should be subjugated or killed in this world. Peace and prosperity for one's children is not as important as assuring that Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.
While Westerners tend to think that all religions encourage some form of the golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics - one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and subjugate others.
While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a personal understanding of and relationship with God, Sharia advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that could be interpreted as criticism. It's hard to imagine, that in this day and age, Islamic scholars agree that those who criticize Islam or choose to stop being Muslim should be executed. Sadly, while talk of an Islamic reformation is common and even assumed by many in the West, such murmurings in the Middle East are silenced through intimidation.
While Westerners are accustomed to an increase in religious tolerance over time, Darwish explains how petrodollars are being used to grow an extremely intolerant form of political Islam in her native Egypt and elsewhere. The statistics she cites are chilling.
In addition to describing Sharia, Darwish warns of the threat to the west and offers policy prescriptions for political leaders and voters. Nonie Darwish is clearly an immigrant whose unusual perspective enriches our culture. This reader is grateful that she risks her life to publicly speak in defense of her adopted country.
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151 of 164 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Epiphany, January 8, 2009
This review is from: Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law (Hardcover)
The sympathy and genuine love that Ms. Darwish possesses for her people of origin, drives her to expose how they have been shackled by a 7th century religious zealotry which may ultimately lead to their own demise and that of the entire civilized world. Ms. Darwish, with much scholarly research, applies the yeoman's work to expose Islam as a skewed ideology which advocates pedophilia , slavery, subjugation of women, murder of homosexuals, and mayhem upon all infidels; fear, loathing and hate are sown and cultivated in the Koran, Hadith and Sharia, containing over 35,200 calls for death, decapitation, murder, and perpetrating fear and chaos upon non-Muslims.
The intolerable supremacist nature of Islam must be universally acknowledged both in the Muslim world as well as the Western world. No one will be safe until there is a total revolution calling for the absolute reformation of Islam. It is imperative for the victims who live under the ummah of Islam (women, children, dhimmis, homosexuals, and slaves) as well as the entire world and until such time there can be no conceivable way to transcend the violence that pursues the destruction of all beliefs outside of Islam.
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129 of 142 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sharia Law and its horrific impact clearly spelled out, January 9, 2009
This review is from: Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law (Hardcover)
I finally understood what Sharia Islamic law is and its horrific impact in oppressing human rights, especially women. Darwish connected the dots between the Laws of Islam, jihad and the disconnect between Muslim and non-Muslim society. An easy to read book that is a warning to the West. A must read.
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