Customer Reviews

Extreme Islam: Anti-American Propaganda of Muslim Fundamentalism

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After the tragedy of September 11, a lot of misinformation has circulated about the beliefs of the Islamic extremists who were deemed responsible for these events. In this publication by Feral House Press, we are able to see first hand the beliefs of many Islamic extremists as seen in their propaganda literature and political cartoons. The book includes various materials of all sorts from individuals ranging from Yassar Arafat and the Palestinians to Muammar al Qaddafi to Sadaam Hussein to Usamah bin Ladin. Much of this material is difficult to sort through and very disturbing given that it often involves threats of death to various Americans and calls for Jihad. Given the viciousness of many of these groups and the recent events that have brought them to the fore, it is important for Americans to examine these materials from noted terrorists. It should be noted that not all the material presented here is from terrorists nor is all of it even Islamic. All in all, this book provides a disturbing look into a world much different from that which exists in the West.

Feral House has always stood on the cutting edge. Many of their titles have presented extreme and controversial ideas and images. (Apocalypse Culture I and II, Kooks, Lords of Chaos) During this time one thing that has always held true for Feral House books is how even handed they are in their presentation. The information is offered without bias or judgment. Feral House has always published their books so as to require the reader to think and draw their own conclusions. With "Extreme Islam", Adam Parfrey and Feral House have once again published a thought provoking book filled with an abundance of text that you will most likely never see presented in any mainstream venue.
The timing on the release of this book is perfect. As our president stands in front of the country and presents the thought that Islam is a religion of peace and kindness, "Extreme Islam" becomes a very important document. After reading just a handful of the texts in this book you may get the sinking feeling that perhaps someone has a different definition of peace than you do. For example, when on page 2, I read how someone can be killed simply for rejecting the Muslim religion, well; doubt begins to creep into my mind on the concept of peace, love and kindness.
Reading further into the book one gets to see an even more frightening picture being painted. The reader gets a glimpse of the erotic afterlife that awaits the suicide bomber. Other writing includes "You Have Made Me Your Human Bomb," written in a way that seeks to justify suicide bombings. Following that is a very interesting interview with a female highjacker. She relays a first person account of her highjacking and also provides a short interview. An ode to Anthrax is included, lamenting that it has not taken enough American lives. Texts from Usamah Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, as well as Qaddafi also appear. A frightening primer for preparations for Jihad is included, as are letters of instruction to the highjackers of September 11th. A brutal list of Taliban restrictions against women is provided, as are some examples of what happens when one has been perceived to have broken one of thse rules.
Don't get the idea that this is a one sided presentation either. No, Parfrey has included some equally scary pieces by extreme Zionists, Zionist Christians, as well a disturbing piece from Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. Also included are pieces on the civil war in Algeria, a Nation of Islam Q & A, an interview with a Russian Fundamentalist, as well as text regarding the genocide of Muslims by the Serbs. To sum it all up, there are over 50 separate pieces of writing in this book and they are not all from a Middle Eastern fundamentalist Muslim's viewpoint. Parfrey knows that presenting only one side of the argument does not make for a challenge or require any thought, with that in mind he tries to provide a good amount of information from the many sides of this situation.
As Parfrey states in his introduction, " the purpose of "Extreme Islam" is not to harm, but to understand. Understanding requires asking hard questions, and the reading of all relative materials." With that in mind, it is easy to see that Parfrey has done a lot of research on this long planned title. Further along in his introduction Parfrey implores that "Americans would do well to study the arguments of those who despise us rather than parading around in a patriotic haze," as we so often do. America has lost its feeling of invincibility and now it can see clearly that it is hated by many. Parfrey provides the background material in "Extreme Islam" so that we can see a little clearer why we are considered "The Great Satan."
Granted I doubt that every Muslim feels this way. However, enough do hold this opinion as to cause harm to the previously unscathed mainland of America. With worldwide communication becoming easier every day it is conceivable that these extreme ideas will grow as more people get access to them. America bears the brunt of this hatred and America needs to see and understand this information as well. With "Extreme Islam" Adam Parfrey has presented a well researched primer on anti-American sentiment that should be required reading for every American in this post September 11th landscape.

Adam Parfrey is best known for his "Apocalypse Culture" volumes: two fat anthologies of horrific material collected from the far fringes of American culture. He has taken the same approach with "Extreme Islam", a gathering of stunning documents culled from the fundamentalist Muslim areas of the world. Here you will find shocking, repulsive stuff: calls for the murder of Jews and Americans. Hate-filled cartoons, drawings, and postage stamps(!) The final instructions for the September 11 hijackers. A manual on how to torture prisoners. Osama bin Laden's 1998 declaration of war against America. This stuff will give you nightmares because, unlike the isolated freaks in "Apocalypse Culture", these people are well-financed, seeking weapons of mass destruction, and are driving much of what is happening in the world today. As Parfrey notes, much of this material remained untranslated from the Arabic until just recently. The authors must have thought we weren't paying attention. Well, they have our attention now.

I give high praises to Mr. Parfrey's endeavour. An excellent book which should be revealing to many readers, especially those in the "Western" world.

I find no fault within the book whatsoever. However, it is not the ultimate resource on the subject. Mr. Parfrey accesses much of the lurid propaganda from the internet and some travels. However if you lived in countries that I have lived in one would find a plethora more of this irrational, hateful representations. For example, the Urdu-language press in Pakistan daily spins yarns and pictures dipicting American child-killings and "Hindu-Zionist" conspiracies not unlike the German press did during the Nazi regime.

This book reveals the substantial conspiracy culture of hatred prevalent in the Arab countries and Pakistan (not all Moslem countries). This must be troubling for many Western readers, as evidenced by Mr. Jean Leonard's review of the work. A culture of denial must explain statements like only "1 in 1000" people in these cultures support this view. It's not a majority, but certainly a dangerous third. Mr. Leonard adds some esoteric disputes about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute to impugn the author ad hominem, and claims that the book, concededly good, is an attack on what he sees as the "dispossessed."

This book, and other resources should inform the reader that it is not the "dispossessed" who are the perpetrators of this culture, but the "possessed" of wealth and power, mixed with religion, seeking to channel hatreds and discontent in different directions than home. The propaganda comes from the top.

This book is the antidote to omissions and misinformation perpetrated by the Western media elites. Rather than coming from a political motivation, which is not wrong in itself, Mr. Parfrey is coming from his interest in apocalyptism, as indicated by the other works he has offered and available at Amazon. Mr. Parfrey's interest in this regard is quite relevant to the topic of this book.

I'm amazed (and grateful) someone has finally taken heart to put such an important book together.

Deftly edited by Adam Parfrey, Extreme Islam: Anti-American Propaganda Of Muslim Fundamentalism is a timely and much needed contribution to the current national dialogue brought about by the events of 9/11 and the presidentially declared war against Islamic terrorism networks. Extreme Islam is an informative and alarming compilation of primary sources drawn from Muslim fundamentalism including fatwas, interviews, essays, political cartoons, paintings, poems, and stories graphically and textually showcasing the messianic context of Islam that advocates the complete destruction of all ideological enemies -- including the "Great Satan" of secularism, the United States of America. Also included are original documents of Christian and Jewish fundamentalism and a remarkable and little-known plot to destroy al-Aqsa (one of Islam's holiest shrines) for the specific purpose of fomenting world war and the coming of the Apocalypse. Extreme Islam is strongly recommended reading for students of International Studies in general, and the nature of contemporary political terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism in particular.

Extreme Islam displays a world of reaction and hate which I began to comprehend since the 11 September tragedy, but could not visualise. To say the least, this book supplies the visuals. The editor has an excellent eye for representational and other propaganda, and he gives it a space to speak for itself. I must agree with comments that this sort of matter is supressed(omitted) from discourse about the subject of Islamic Fundamentalism by people who claim erudition, for reasons of maintaining a victimhood for certain peoples in the world, or just establishment political correctness.

I recommend this text.

Feral House has established itself over the years as perhaps the finest existant publisher of books that explore what the bulk of society often deems to be esoteric, strange, or dangerous. Topics have run the gamut from Weimar Berlin to Norweigan black metal to Jack Parsons to the phenomenon of bubblegum music, and many and varied points in between. Yet, while fully acknowledging the tremendous work that has been done previously, I doubt they've ever published a more significant or important book than Extreme Islam.

Those that are interested in/entertained by extremist thought would have had ample reason to purchase this book previous to September 11. However, in light of the events of that day and those that followed, the potential audience has increased exponentially. Anyone interested in the study of history knows that you can't do better than accessing primary source material (that which the individuals/groups in question ACTUALLY SAID) when attempting to understand any sort of historical phenomenon. That's the method used in Extreme Islam; letting the players involved speak for themselves. You get testimonials from a quasi-Marxist Palestinian woman involved in 1970s hijackings, an admonishment from the Ayatollah Khomenni to a former compatriot in the Iranian Revolution he later deemed to be "too liberal," an interview w/ the founder of Hamas, and plenty of material dedicated to the "stars" of the present, Osama Bin Ladin and the Taliban. Lest anyone believe this is a one-sided presentation, the work of Zionist extremists (and Zionist Christian extremists as well) is laid bare for your perusal as well.

We in the West get a muddled picture of Islam from the conventional media. We're told over and over again that Islam is a religion of "peace," and that Al-Queda and Bin Ladin and the Taliban aren't true representatives of Muslim thought. Is that accurate, or is there something "wrong" that is inherent in Muslim thought and its expression, political and otherwise? While this book can't possibly answer that question in any conclusive way, it will, at the very least, raise serious questions in the mind of any objective reader as to the true nature of this oft-misunderstood belief system. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Good selection of "propaganda." Perhaps propaganda is the wrong word, the proponents of the hate messages in this book sound like they believe what they are saying without ulterior motive.

The book is oriented towards written works and transcripts. It's all very shocking. Well worth a read to remind us of the insanity of this world. I give it five stars because its very good, and there is no other book I've seen to compare it to. It is unique.

This is a valuable source work. One caveat: To avoid the reading becoming an adventure in hate literature, the reader needs to keep the title in mind - this is a selection of the extreme, thus extremely unrepresentative of mainstream Islam.
For instance, the book opens with a selection on executing apostates (Muslims who leave Islam) and the sexual bliss awaiting martyrs in the afterlife. Perhaps 1 in 1,000 Muslims literally believe such things.

One value of the book is that the issues that anger the authors of this anthology are also of concern to moderates throughout the world, and not only in Islamic countries. Western readers may be surprised to learn of the vehemence of this resentment.

An indication of the editor's own political stance is his piece on the 1929 anti-Jewish riots in Hebron / Al-Khalil. He states that Arab rioters murdered 129 Jews. Human Rights Watch counts 67 deaths, and notes that other "Other Palestinian Arabs sheltered their Jewish neighbours; today the Zionist Archives preserve a list of 435 Jews who found a safe haven in homes in Hebron during the carnage" - a fact the author blandly ignores.

This leads one to ask if the author's motive is to promote understanding, or to incite blind hatred? He certainly does not mention that what instigated the 1929 uprising was fear of what eventually did happen: further Jewish immigration, occupation and expulsion of the indigenous population.

The author's own contribution reveals his book for what it is, part of a concerted campaign to demonize the dispossessed.

This book documents some of the most extreme propaganda and writings in the Islamic world reprinting the actual writings. While a high percentage of the Muslim world would probably at the least in an armchair sort of way advocate and/or sympathize with most of whats in this book, at least in a similar vein to a Muslim I once worked with who said although he wouldn't have the courage to kill him with his own hands he still advocated the death of Salman Rushdie, the authors of this book neglect to mention that for years the United States government openly promoted and funded some of the most extreme Islamic factions in the middle east, including out and out founding Al-Queda. I honestly have to wonder how much of the rhetoric that made it into this book was covertly penned by the CIA.

While the stone age behavior of much of the Muslim world can't be denied I also couldn't help but notice that the co-author of this book is also the author of a book that sought to demonize Asatru/Odinists (2/3 of that book wasn't even about Odinism but instead Christian Identity and the Church of the Creator) and also a book about the Nation of Islam. Two groups that certain "hate watchdog" groups seek to paint as boogeymen to scare people into donating money to their organizations so I have to also question the motivations of the publication of this book. Its an interesting read because you get to read some of the most extreme doctrines in the Muslim world, and this book is probably at the top of every chickenhawk neo-cons reading list, but like I said I just don't trust the motivations behind the publication of this book.