Customer Reviews

The Losing Battle With Islam

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David Selbourne's "The Losing Battle With Islam" is the quintessential guide to understanding the past and present Islamic movement. Selbourne traces in excrutiating detail the history of violence and the Islamic rebirth. I find nothing particularly objectionable in the discourse and believe he makes a good case for Western misunderstanding of the Muslim sense of moral superiority and belief in the eventual triumph. I only have a bachelors degree and found Mr. Selbourne's Oxford style of writing difficult to get through and it took me a long time to read. That may just be me, but I did find the book very informative. He does not, however, offer any solution for the "losing battle." Good not Great!

David Selbourne's The Losing Battle With Islam is an essential key to understanding the modern Islamic revival from 1947 to the present, and how the rise of Muslim fundamentalism in many countries is partially due to an uncomprehending response in Western society. Information from numerous sources seeks a median course in examining how the West has reacted to Islam, the role of media and reporting in these reactions, and how many of the issues of Islam have been missed. His argument is that no matter how you look at it, the economic, social and religious rise of Islam is motivated by a sense of Muslim determination to free their world from Western subordination: a determination which could hold wide-ranging impact for the West.

Indonesia: 265,000 Chinese Killed(1965), India/Pakistan: 500,000 Hindus and Sikhs Killes(1948), Israel/Palestine: over 4000 Jews killed(1920-2005), Sudan: 500,000 Christians and Africans killed91970-2005), Russia, China, Thailand, America, Nigeria, Phillipines and the list goes on. In short the entire world is threatened by the rise of Islamism, or militant Islam. Not only is the world threatened, but the world is dying and the world is losing. From Singapore to Argentine states are being overun, even parts of Paris are now off limits.

This book is a catalouge of how this happaned, how it is that a small ideeology, from a few men such as Sayd Qutb and Al-Banna grew into a threat to all the free peoples of earth. While the west and the democracies fought Nazism and Communism they didnt see the threat that was slowly gaining strength.

Islamist victories and 'holy wars' have been fought in Afghanistan(1980s), Algeria(1990s), Lebanon(1970s) and are now spreading to the Balkans(1990s), Kashmir, Xinjiang, Phillipines, Europe, Chechnya and of course the never ending issues in the Palestinian territories. This book covers them all, not neccesarily as they have been laid down her,e but rather on a baord sweeping approach, examing why it is in the West the most liberal human rights groups support Islamism(an ideology that encourages stoning homosexuals and taking away womens equality) while at the same time Western democracy will fail in the Muslim world, or in worst case simply usher in Islamism faster.

The book also deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, fairly, justly, although perhaps too much so for those partisans who have such strong feelings to swallow. Perhaps not enough attention is paid to Africa, where we see that one by one countries have become enslaved to Islamism so that Norrhtern Nigeria has Sharia law and even places like Kenya are plagued by terror.

A seminal work, helpful and honest.

Seth J. Frantzman

This well written book brings to light several important facts.

The only thing more shocking than the ridiculous level of violence coming out of the Islamic world is the genuine indifference shown by most of those Muslims who are not directly involved. Though the number of terrorists is relatively small, they are sustained by the apathy of hundreds of millions, even in the heart of the Western world. One of the biggest questions asked in the aftermath of 9/11 was "where's the outrage?" as Americans had trouble understanding why Muslims did not act as people of other religions would have in the wake of a horrific mass murder committed in the name of their faith.

The simple fact is that Islam is not like other religions. The roots of the faith, the history, and the teachings from basic texts explain both the violence and the apathy that sustains it. Despite the drive that Westerners have to believe that other people are just like us, and that other religions are just like ours, it is anti-intellectual to ignore the broad evidence that demands otherwise.

This is an excellent historical review or Islam. The book has an enormous amount of information concerning Arabic studies.

Yes, there are plenty of things in this book that I very strongly disagree with. And I'll tell you of some of them. But I think everyone ought to read it.

The author has plenty to say about both anti-Muslim and pro-Muslim excesses, especially by those in the media. And it goes into great detail about many of the Islamist untruths and evasions that we've all been bombarded with.

I looked at what Selbourne had to say about Israel with special interest because I know plenty about it. He makes the excellent point that both Israel's friends and foes exaggerate little Israel's importance.

On the topic of Jerusalem, the author makes another good point. A Muslim said that Israel's interest in Jerusalem "is almost atavistic." Well, as Selbourne says, it is atavistic. And to his credit, he implies that such an attitude just might be praiseworthy.

Suppose you see a dress for sale and notice that it is a copy of a dress worn by your great-grandmother. If you decide to buy that dress for that reason (even though it is expensive), your interest in that dress is indeed atavistic. But this attitude ought not be condemned, and it probably ought to be praised. If you stole the dress, that would be wrong, but there's no reason to expect you to do that.

Similarly, I see nothing wrong with Jews expressing an interest in living in Jerusalem, the capital of their ancestors (not to mention their present capital).

The author even seems to know some English! He actually uses the word "etiology," a word I used in one of my earlier reviews, although I wondered if that word might appear a little too, um, arcane.

There's plenty of stuff the author gets wrong. He says that "illegal Israeli settlement" in the West Bank "is a rank injustice." And that it is a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. And that the 1947 UN Partition Plan for the British Mandate was somehow unfair to the Arabs. And that Arafat's "unremitting desire to see the creation" of a Levantine Arab state "was not less admirable in principle" than the desire of some Jews to create Israel. And he finds a few moral equivalences between Israel and its attackers that I feel are bogus.

But then he simply rips the anti-Zionists to shreds, in some respects to a greater extent than I've seen in any other book (and I've seen a huge number of books). We see the lies, the taunts, and the ill will. All in incredible detail. As well as the threats (many of the form "if we hit you, do not hit us back or we'll hit you again").

Normally, I'd give a book that made the errors I mentioned above one star. But I'm giving this one four stars, and, as I said before, I think everyone ought to read it.

I originally heard David on the Michael Savage show and was quite impressed on his frankness and articulation of the West's war with radical Islam. This book was one of the better ones that I've read on the subject, it's a shame David Selbourne is not more well known here in America.

This book was so insightful on it's criticism of the Western Nation's indecisiveness of the onslaught of the Islamic march. At the end of each chapter I would think to myself, I wish our President of the United States would read this book and learn something from it.