Customer Reviews

Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest-Growing Faith

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Islam has been described as "The heaviest chains that ever shackled humanity." The Qur'an's authority in the Muslim world far surpasses the authority the Bible has held in the West. These direct quotes (mostly the Dawood translation from Arabic) are from the Qur'an via "Islam Unveiled:"

Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate. (Sura 9:73)

The true believers fight for the cause of God. But the infidels fight for the devil. Fight then against the friends of Satan. (Sura 4:76)

When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads...(Sura 47:4)

Slay them wherever you find them. (Sura 2:190)

Arrest them, besiege them. And lie in ambush everywhere for them. (Sura 9:5)

Mohammad is God's Apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another. (Sura 48:29)

But he forbids you to make friends with those who have fought against you on account of your religion and driven you from your homes or abetted others to do so. Those that make friends with them are wrongdoers. (Sura 60:9)

He that leaves his dwelling to fight for God and his apostle and is then overtaken by death, shall be rewarded by God. (Sura 4:100)

And theirs shall be the dark-eyed houris, chaste as hidden pearls: a guerdon for their deeds. (Sura 56:15-24)

The righteous shall recline on couches lined with thick brocade...Therein are bashful virgins whom neither man nor jinnee (spirit beings) will have touched before...Virgins as fair as coral and rubies. (Sura 55:54, 55, 56) (no mention is made in the Qur'an of what heaven is like for women).

Forbidden to you are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your paternal and maternal aunts...Also married women, except those whom you own as slaves. (Sura 4:23-24)

Blessed are the believers...who restrain their carnal desires (except with their wives and slave-girls, for these are lawful to them). (Sura 23:1)

As for the man or woman who is guilty of theft, cut off their hands to punish them for their crimes. (Sura 5:38)

Women are your fields; go, then, into your fields whence you please. (Sura 2:223)

Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. (Sura 4:34)

Just for comparison, the Old Testament has numerous passages that no Jew nor Christian would take as marching orders for today, nor do these stories have the status of divine commands. Both Jews and Christians have developed highly refined methods of allegorical interpretation through which they view bellicose scriptural passages - but for the Muslim, all of the Qur'an's commands are valid for all time. There have been many, many unsuccessful attempts throughout the history of Islam to temper the aggressive understanding of the Qur'an.

There is no Muslim version of "love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you," or "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn him the other, also." (Matthew 5:39 & 43)

Khomeini's vision of Islam: "Allah did not create men so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."

There are other written interpretations of law (Reliance of the Traveller, hadiths) worse and more specific than these quotes, but I have limited this review to the Qur'an. The natural human tendency for mercy has prevented the letter of the law from being followed in all times and places, but violent tenets are central to its text. Militants will always be able to make the case that they are standing for a return to purity in Islam.

Spencer considers the issues of peace vs war, moral values, human rights, respect for women, compatibility with democracy, compatibility with secularism, compatibility with science, and Muslim tolerance toward non-Muslims. In all cases, a literal interpretation of the Qur'an would result in Islam not only receiving a failing grade, but being expelled from school.

Khomeini: "Everything human beings can possibly know is already contained in the Qur'an and the hadith; only naive people can be made to believe there is knowledge beyond them."

"Unveiling Islam" should be read with the realization that it represents one of the more critical amongst the books about Islam you could choose. I still highly recommend this chilling synopsis of the problems associated with this fast growing religion.

The book's cover displays a chilling photograph of the eyes of Mohammed Atta, one of the Islamic terrorist hijackers involved in the September 11 2001 atrocities. A fitting lead into this study of Islam and the underlying hatred behind these and other acts of terrorism.

The writer has been a student of Islam for some 20 years and tries to explain without bias, what he personally declares as some of the misconceptions surrounding Islam. Whilst I might not agree with everything that the book contains, it is very well written and an extremely useful reference for those wishing to study these issues.

The book states at the outset that most Westerners know very little about Islam and had little or no idea of the depth of hatred and hostility facing the West prior to September 11. The writer proceeds to declare that whilst the very many innocent Moslems should not be held guilty by association following these terrorist attacks, the likes of Osama bin Laden and co. actually meant precisely what they said & far from being extremists or perverters of Islam, they actually interpret Islam's tenets correctly.

The book addresses how for many decades, endless incidents of violence, murder & terrorism have been publicly declared as `having nothing to do with Islam'. Claims still being echoed by senior Western politicians who blindly insist that Islam is a `peaceful religion' ignoring Islamic calls for worldwide domination and the destruction of the West and Israel. The book stating that to bracket Islam and peace is just wishful thinking with reference to the Islamic fighting against it's neighbours along the perimeter of the Islamic world, citing the violence against Hindus in India, Communists & Buddhists, Chinese, Jews and some `Christian' entities.

Islamic `tolerance' of other religions is also studied with reference to the Quranic statement that `anyone who converts from Islam to Christianity deserves to die'. Numerous incidents are mentioned where those refusing to convert to Islam have been instantly executed on the spot.

Amongst the many other issues addressed are the distressing treatment of women & how they are victimised under Shariah or Islamic law plus the appalling human rights record in the Islamic world. Slavery still surviving in some Islamic countries such as Sudan, Saudi Arabia & Mauritania, together with the still present dhimmi status attached to non-Moslems who are still regarded as second class, inferior citizens. There is also an analysis of why the Islamic region is such a fertile breeding ground for violence.

Looking into the Islamic mindset, we see how many modern day Moslems are being fed on a Quranic diet of anti-Jewish/anti-Western diatribe. The book studies the incentives and fervour behind Islamic homicide/suicide bombings, citing the rewards for such actions outlined in the Quran under Sura 56; 15-24. An example is quoted of a 11 year old Palestinian youth publicly declaring to his class-mates, "...I will make my body a bomb that will blast the flesh of Zionists, the sons of pigs and monkeys...I will tear their bodies into little pieces and cause them more pain than they will ever know." -His classmates responding "Allah Akhbar (God is great)" and his Palestinian teacher shouting, "May the virgins give you pleasure!"

Speaking with a deep concern, I consider that this book is valuable in alerting people to the dangers of Islam which have impacted our lives and will no doubt impact our lives even more in the near future. There are two reasons which we must all be knowledgeable about this religion. Despite what many people say, what politicians and the media profess, Islam can here be seen as indeed a religion of war and bloodshed & that it is intent upon world domination. This is confirmed throughout many sections of the Quran and Hadith, the two main literary sources of Islam. To blindly ignore this, irrespective of how honourable the motives might seem, invites disaster.

Might I respectfully recommend to those interested in these issues, another book on this subject by two learned professors Ergun Caner & Emir Caner, both of whom have converted from Islam to Christianity entitled " Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs" and also "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude: Seventh-Twentieth Century" by Bat Ye'or. Thank you.

This is a deeply unsettling little volume, because it offers scant hope that the West can live at peace with Islam unless the religion changes radically, and even less hope that that is possible. Still, the questions Islam Unveiled poses and the answers it provides are hard to dismiss, and given the urgency of the times, necessary to ask.

If Spencer is right, the West faces a primitive, violent, and fiercely chauvinistic religion whose followers, to the extent that they are pious adherents to its teachings, cannot be reasoned with, only resisted. Islam is at its core inimical to democracy and human rights as we in the West understand them. To expect Muslims to drop their belligerence toward the West, which has existed since Islam's founding in the 7th century, is to expect them to jettison core values of their faith - something for which there is no precedent in Islamic history.

The Koran, writes Spencer, is more central to the Islamic faith than the Bible is to Christianity. Muslims believe it was revealed directly from God to the Prophet Muhammad. He will find there many divine instructions to make constant war on the infidel, who is only to be given the choice of conversion, slave-like subjugation (in historian Bat Yeor's word, dhimmitude) - or death. And throughout Islamic history, that's exactly how Muslim societies have behaved toward non-Muslims, who are by the very fact of their unbelief not considered innocents in the eternal, divinely mandated conflict.

Undeniably, Christians have in the past committed many despicable acts in the name of God, but they did so in violation of scriptural teaching, not in fulfillment of it, as in Islam.

This literalism has profound consequences for the way Muslims live. Unlike in Christianity, there is no scriptural mandate for separation of church and state in Islam, making secular democracy an alien and hostile concept. Women have few rights over and against their husbands, who may legally beat them, and men in general.

Enslaving infidels and raping infidel women are justified under Koranic law (and still occur in some Muslim lands).

Spencer does not believe that Islam can be tamed. While Muslims in the West live in peace, prosperity and religious liberty, Christians and other non-Muslims are persecuted, sometimes unto death, throughout the Muslim world today.

Because Islam demands death for heretics, moderate Muslims will always risk their lives by offering more liberal interpretations of their faith.

And most crucially, in his view, Islam cannot be other than a religion of violence. "Of course, most Muslims will never be terrorists. The problem is that ... Islam's violent elements are rooted in its central texts," Spencer writes. His final verdict on Islam is sobering, particularly when one considers the rapidly increasing Islamic presence in Europe.

Is Islam Unveiled pessimism, or realism? We can only know for sure if we have a serious public discussion of the issues Spencer raises in this important (but unsatisfyingly brief) book
Spencer may be wrong - until we hear from this supposed vast silent majority of peace-loving Muslims, the answers Spencer gives go a long way to explain the hatred, violence, backwardness, and fanaticism endemic to the Islamic world.

This book should be on the "must read" list of anyone who still feels that Islam is a religion of peace. Islam Unveiled provides up-to-date, documented evidence to the contrary. While rising above the shrill Islam-bashing books so common today and while allowing opposing voices a fair hearing as well, the book is blunt and bold in its assessment that the militant Islam is deeply engrained in the Koran, and "moderate" Moslems have no voice in stopping the terrorism and violence against non-Moslems. Spencer writes, "Islamic civilization is supposed to be superior to that of unbelievers, but at this stage of human history is clearly isn't . . . If the West's technological superiority can't be matched, it can at least be assaulted."

I am sure that those mono-star reviewers that have attacked Mr. Spencer have not gotten beyond the cover of the book. To anyone who saw Mr. Spencer on CSPAN, it is clear that he is not anti-Muslim or anti-Islam. Mr. Spencer was adament in his talk that he was not referring to the one billion plus Muslims in the world, but a minority of radicals/fundamentalists (he said 10-15%) that were interpreting the Quuran too narrowly or selectively for their own political gain. Muslims would be wise not to call what Mr. Spencer says rubbish as most of his arguments are gleaned directly from the Holy Quuran itself. Mr. Spencer is not advocating any religion as superior or denegrading Islam. He is bringing up important points that most would like to ignore for fear of appearing politically incorrect. Radical Islam can never be a minor issue in a religion with over a billion adherents. Mr. Spencer's figure of 10% would still mean over a million Muslims demonizing the West.
The cries on this board to remove Mr. Spencer's book say far more about the mindset of some Muslims than anything meaningful about the work itself. They clarify one of Spencer's main themes-
moderate Muslims prefer to stick their heads in the sand instead of confronting the radicals in their midst.

In his final chapter, Spencer writes: "[i]t would be too pessimistic to say that there are no peaceful strains of Islam, but it would be imprudent to ignore the fact that deeply imbedded in the central documents of the religion is an all-encompassing vision of a theocratic state that is fundamentally different from and opposed to the post-Enlightenment Christian values of the West."

And that about sums up the book. At every turn, Spencer acknowledges that Islam has plenty of adherents who believe in Western-style liberalism: live and let live, separation of church and state, allegorical interpretation of harsher scriptural passages or an understanding that such passages are no longer in force, etc. But he doesn't talk about them, because the point of this book is that Islam has a dark side. Which is to say, many Muslims believe in and practice a pretty savage faith.

This, of course, is no surprise at all, if you read the news. The Miss World-induced riots, "honor killings" in Jordan, death threats made against Salman Rushdie and other writers, female circumcision in North Africa, the Saudi girls burned to death in their school because the police wouldn't allow them outside without veils, the teenage girl sentenced by a Pakistani court to be gang-raped as punishment for a moral indiscretion of her brother, you name it; the Muslim world has quite a few barbarians.

What Spencer does that is interesting is examine the Islamic world in respect of various social or political issues -- human rights, liberal democracy, feminism, separation of church and state -- setting out the abuses of some Muslims and showing how those abuses, while they may look horrible to Westerners and to liberal Muslims, are fully compatible with Islam's fundamental documents, the Qur'an and the hadiths. In other words, it's too simplistic to call these people "bad Muslims," or to say that Islam condemns what they do.

Along the way, Spencer throws in some relevant and interesting history (the Crusades, the intellectual contributions of medieval Islam, etc.) and a staggering wealth of illustrative examples. His writing is lucid and engaging throughout. Highly recommended.

An excellent summary of what the Western world is up against. An absolute must-read these days.

A thought on the negative reviews: they all seem to have been written by people who either have been brainwashed by the radical left schools and/or media, or those who simply have never read the books -- or both, I suspect. (See all the negative reviews of other books on Islam on Amazon; always vicious, personal attacks, with no comments on the content, and almost always anonymous.)

Dustin Byrd's review below is a perfect example of those mad-dog attacks. Comparing the author to the Nazis?! Please. Has he read the book? It is based on what the radical Muslims themselves have said and written!

Why is it so hard to see that this expose on how Islam is not entirely a "religion pf peace" is not a call to war against all Muslims? Does Byrd and other apologists for islam think that, by contrast, all Germans were bad? That's dumb! All it took, however, back in the 1930's, at the beginnning, was just a small group of true believers. Or maybe Byrd thinks we shouldn't have fought Fascism?

Whatever one's view of Islam is, and no matter what beautiful passages one may find in the Koran, we must remember that the WTC was and NOT destroyed by desperate environmentalists, freedom fighters etc., but by people fueled by religious fervor. And it was not Christian, Buddist or Jewish.

Please read this book.

Every Westerner and non-Muslim should read this book. Almost everyday, Islam is in the news. It is almost always associated with terrorism, hijackings, bombings and Muslim clerics (including many who are based in the US and UK) who preach hatred against Jews and America. How many American or British born Muslims have declared war on America? Yet, American and British Muslims (both converts and immigrants) and their politically correct apologist allies like Karen Armstrong maintain that "Islam means Peace". So, which is the real Islam?

In all honesty, let me say this... I grew up in a Muslim country. Never have I heard that "Islam means Peace" or "Islam respects women". Any Westerner who believes them has little or no understanding of the Quran and the Hadith or Islam in general. If the Bible and the Torah were amended so that Christians and Jews are now obliged to kill apostates and blasphemers, conquer the world for their religions would we then be able to say that "Christianity and Judaism mean Peace too". If Muslim women are allowed to have up to four husbands, divorce any of them anytime by simply saying 'talaq' three times and if a Muslim man can only prove that he was raped by having four righteous female Muslim witnesses,....if Muslim men are obliged to cover their heads and their bodies..... can we then finally say that "Islam respects men too".

What Muslims preach to their fellow Muslims and to Western potential converts are diametrically opposed. In the West, after every violent act committed in the name of Islam such as 9/11, many Westerners would before judging Islam, go out and buy books about Islam and start asking Muslims about Islam. Muslim proselyters take advantage of this fair minded thinking of Westerners together with their pre-conceived notion that all religions are the same (i.e. all religions teaches one to do good or all religions are equally guilty of causing friction and hatred).

If Westerners are willing to set aside their political correctness, the fact that Islam is fundamentally a violent religion will be self-evident. Imagine if a group of Christian extremists were to hijack a plane and in the name of Christ, crashed it into a building full of innocent people in a Muslim country causing thousands to lose their loved ones. Would not the Christians of the world condemn them?

On September 11th 2001, something similar happened in New York and there was great rejoicing throughout the Muslim world (including in my own country, which was not disclosed by the Western media for fear of a backlash against the Muslims living in the West). When surveys were conducted, they found a significant number of Muslims (the majority in many countries) who were very much supportive of September 11th. And for those Muslims who condemned the attack, their condemnation was a qualified one (i.e. there was some sort of justification such as US support for Israel). WHY IS THAT??? Now imagine, what would it take to get Christians, Jews, etc. to support such atrocity?

Muslims say that on 9/11 it was "ISLAM WHICH WAS HIJACKED". If that was the case, I would presume that these Muslims would declare that Allah would naturally sent these HIJACKERS OF ISLAM to Hell !!! But of course, that is not the case. How do you think Allah should deal with the hundreds of thousands in Muslim countries who cheered, celebrated, danced on the streets, shoot in the air after they saw ISLAM BEING HIJACKED on 9/11 ??? ...

The truth is that the Prophet Muhammad who is the founder of Islam, himself expelled 2 Jewish tribes from Medina (i.e. Banu Nadir and Banu Qoreiga) after seizing their possessions and decapitated all adult males of a third (Banu Quraiza) and enslaved the women and children. He fought 66 offensive wars in total to spread a religion which acknowledges him as prophet. All Muslims would know that "There is no compulsion in religion" of the Quran was made way earlier when Muhammad was in Mecca (when he was confident he could win the Meccans solely by his preaching!) and has since been abrogated.

War against unbelievers is fundamental to Islam and Jihad is obligation of every able-bodied Muslim man. There are about 123 verses in the Quran exhorting violence including Jihad. A 'martyr' (i.e. a Muslim who dies in a Jihad) is ensure a place in Paradise with 72 virgins for his enjoyment. Which other religion teaches that?

Please read this book together with Ibn Waraq's "Why I am not a Muslim" and Bat Yeor's "Dhimmi" and "Decline of Christianity".

As usual, people that gave this book a 1 star (probably never read it) provide the same arguments for why we should not buy it and why Amazon should not be selling it on their website. Let me remind these people that, while suppressing free speech might be the norm in most Muslim countries, it is not tolerated in the free world. They want people to read the Qur'an but they forbid the translation of the book from Arabic. They want you to believe that all the people that are converting to Islam do so out of conviction even though they don't speak a word of Arabic! I grew up in the Middle East with Arabic as my native language and I have a hard time understanding the Qur'an. The disturbing thing about Islam for me is that the peaceful and faithful Muslims are reluctant to condemn the actions of the fanatics. Maybe it stems from the fact that Islam teaches that a Muslim should always stand by another Muslim brother whether he is an oppressor or oppressed.

N.B:
Islam is growing at a fast pace for a simple reason: Demographics. While most Christian families in the Western world have one or two kids, Muslim families have many more kids. I believe that bearing children is a God given gift that should be respected and admired. That said, polygamy is the norm in most Muslim countries and it's particularly appealing to a lot of tribal people in sub-Saharan Africa.

The critics of this book should really attempt a read of it. It appears the most critical of the book have not read the book, apparently afraid they may be exposed to a different look and perspective of a religion that teaches its adherents that it is theologically justifiable to kill and steal from the "infidels"/non-believers. ... A good read for those not afraid ofdiffering viewpoints.