Customer Reviews

Islam (Opposing Viewpoints)

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This is a great tool to start thinking about Islam and some of the current issues regarding Islam and its relationship with the West. A chapter on terrorism is helpful but dated considering the events of 9/11. Still the book is useful in the broad range of opinions that it presents. Also has a handy "for further reading" list in each chapter if you want to dig deeper.

Perhaps the book should be updated post 9/11 since so much more has been written and said about the subject.

I first saw this book in my daughter's High School Library.
In theory, the book presented an intellectual inquiry into Islam from (alternating chapters) opposing viewpoints, a commendable task that can only enhance the understanding of any subject so undertaken. Indeed the "Opposing Viewpoints" series included books on American Foreign Policy, the Mid-East, Human Rights, Terrorism and some more...all subjects whose understanding can be deepened by such viewpoints. I could not help but notice that while the other topics for "Opposing Viewpoints" books were quite varied, none of them dealt with religion...except for Islam. Hesitantly but with certainty of experience, I delved into the book.

There is nothing wrong with an examination of a religion from opposing viewpoints and people may even make categorical statements that they distrust a faith (Islam) and that too, is acceptable. If someone makes a clear statement about Islam, even stating just how awful, deceitful and murderous it is based on this verse or that chapter in the Quran or on some event in history, they have my full support in making those statements. My problem begins when the "facts" they cite are clearly wrong or so twisted out of shape and so far taken out of context that they are unrecognizable for anything but a fantasy of a hate-monger. regrettably, every one of the "Opposing Viewpoints" were penned by people who seem to have more invested in self-promotion and hate-mongering than in an effort to discover a new perspective. Learned people like John Esposito, Robin Wright, Edward Said, Robert Fisk and Ali Mazrui were "balanced" by writers like Srdja Trefkovic, Daniel Pipes, Raphael Israeli and Martin Kramer.

While the first group consisted of people (Muslims and non-Muslim) who knew what they were talking about and people like Robert Fisk who has not been known to kiss up to anyone, the second group was distinguished by people who loved Israel and promoted hate against Arabs and Muslims in many of their writings elsewhere and people like Trefkovic who clearly was still smarting by the knowledge that not every Muslim had been slaughtered in the Balkans' genocidal war.

It made me want to question Jennifer Hurley, the editor.
I wanted to ask her what prompted this inquiry into faith and what made her look to Islam for this singular honor.
I wanted to ask her when she would be editing a similar "Opposing Viewpoints" book into Christianity, Judaism or Blacks in America?
For example, would she be doing a book on Judaism anytime soon?
Would it have excerpts from the "Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion"? After all, this is scholarly inquiry we are looking into.
Maybe include an article about how the Jews were behind the World Trade Center Bombings? Surely an article from a Nazi who would "prove" definitively how evil, murderous and deceitful Jews are?
What an enhancement to scholarly inquiry that would be! I can hardly wait to see how tolerantly the intellectuals of America incorporate such a book into its libraries and schools!

How about one studying the Blacks and their culture in America? I am sure there is plenty of room to include works by great White Supremist leaders from the US, South Africa, Germany and Britain.
This is what Intellectual freedom must mean! Examine opposing viewpoints and to Hell with the prime question as to whether the writers are being truthful or not.

Examining Islam is not like examining American Foreign Policy (also one book in the series) where there can be opposing opinions on the subject. While there can be opposing opinions on Islam, there can NOT be any difference in the facts of what is written in the Quran; it is either there or it is not. One can however, take a fragment of a verse or sentence, twist it to "illustrate" a view out of context and present it as fact. This would be similar to taking the Article of Faith of Islam ("There is no God but One God and Mohammed is His prophet"), taking the first four words ("There is no God") and saying, "See! Islam says there is not God!".

The anti-Islam authors did better; not only did they take quotes out of context, they took statements by violent fanatics and presented them as representing Islam and "therefore it is proven just how murderous and intolerant Islam is" Q.E.D. ("As demonstrated").

I would love to find out from Mountlake Terrace High School or the Edmonds School system, just how this title got selected and if it was donated, by whom and how this happened. I cannot say more to them because then every detractor of Islam will have a platform to point and show how these bug-eyed, foaming Muslims are demanding censorship.
I believe this title should remain on the shelves just to show how bigoted some books can be, how easy it is to insert them in the minds of impressionable youths and how gullible our academic, intellectual and political "leaders" can get...or how easily they can be cowed into silence.

A few highlights:

The series' editors David Bender and Bruno Leone present a lofty foreword with a quote from Jefferson, "...difference of opinion leads to inquiry and inquiry to truth".. How wonderful! I would have supposed that differences of opinions presented would at least not be based on deliberate misrepresentation that would be easy to spot for someone who knows better but not for someone (young student) who believes everything in print to be the truth.

The introduction, presumably put together by the editor Jennifer Hurley, presented such a skeletal and ambiguous outline of Islam so as to make it applicable to almost any of the works of fiction by people like Trefkovic, Pipes and Israeli et al. She has no hesitation in noting atrocities carried out by Muslim extremists and making the connection to Islam but she seems not to note any similar or worst atrocities carried out by Jewish or Christian extremists...after all, this book is not about them, it is about ISLAM! Checkmate.

The first chapter is by Trefkovic, a Serb who probably still can't get over the fact that not all Muslims were exterminated out of former Yugoslavia. He begins by a story of an event that I have never heard of but let us give him that one just for argument's sake. He goes on to mention the killings of the Bani Qurayzah in such twisted and deceptive terms that I had a hard time believing it was the same event. This was the execution of the Jewish tribe of Bani Qurayzay who had broken their treaty with the besieged Muslims in Medina and almost succeeded in have the entire Muslim population exterminated. The judgment was passed by a judge chosen by the Bani Qurayzah for his sympathy towards the tribe. Notable is the fact that after this event, there were still several Jewish tribes that continued to live un Medina along with Muslims. they kept their side of the treaty of peace and were never bothered by Muslims.
His quotes form the Quran are false and partial, his definition of Jihad is false, his description of the non-Muslims living under Muslim rule is unrecognizable even by history books written by Jews or Christians. His quotes from modern authors include other Muslim-Haters like Bat Yeor and he makes an easy connection of some of the acts of the Ottoman Empire, as representing Islam.

The third chapter is by Martin Kramer, Director of the Moshe Dayan Center for M-E and African Studies at Tel Aviv Univ.
It is indeed unfortunate that so many Jews and Jewish organizations should make the connection that to defend Israel REQUIRES spreading hate against Arabs and Islam; Kramer is no exception. He quotes Pipes (one bigot lending credence to another), twists the definition of Sharia to Quran status, takes actions and statements by Muslim extremists and Bingo! we have an evil, untrustworthy Islam! Q.E.D. again.

The fifth chapter is by Daniel Pipes, the darling of Jewish institutions that wish to promote hate and suspicion against Islam and Arabs under the veneer of intellectual discourse. What can anyone say about Pipes that hasn't already been said? According to him, "militant Islam" is the bane of "Judeo-Christian" Western values and must be eradicated; he also said that I (yes, moi) am "the face of militant Islam" because I once strongly protested the invitation to him by the Jewish Federation of Seattle. He in turn, lends credence to Stephen Emerson, the noted "expert on Terrorism" who once emphatically stated on national TV that the Oklahoma bombing was the work of Muslims because "see how many mosques there are in Oklahoma City".
Pipes went on to decry how intimidating atmosphere is created by Muslims against any contrarian views of Islam...I could not help but recall his organization, "Campus Watch" that intimidates and persecutes any teacher or professor who is seem as being anti-Israel. According to Pipes, CAIR is a Terrorist-sympathizing organization that aggressively protects ("terrorist") Hamas and also promotes hate towards Jews. Having followed CAIR information briefs for years, I have YET to see any that could even be stretched to conform to such slanderous twists.

The book goes on and on but by now, I am sure readers get the picture.

I am sure the books "proving" the inferiority of the Black Man in South Africa and the books "proving" the viciousness of the Jew could not have been put together in better form than this book. Lots of people have fallen for the theories in those "works", I am certain lots more will fall for this book.