Customer Reviews

The Rise of the Islamic Empire and the Threat to the West

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I read this book a couple of years ago, and thought it all sounded plausible, although shocking. I noticed some of the reviewers of his book dismissed him as paranoid, and were insulted by his warnings, taking it as an affront to Islam. After the events of Sept. 11, does anyone want to dismiss him as "alarmist" anymore?

By and large, Muslims are peaceful people, but to quote directly from the Koran, "Fight and slay the unbelievers wherever you find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war." (Surah IX:5) It only takes a small percentage of people to take that to an extreme, and even before the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, evidence around the world abounds that that small but very destructive group of extremists obviously do.

Anthony Dennis examines fundamentalist Islam and how it has been used in a cynical and calculated fashion by ruthless dictators, politicians and terrorist movements in their own countries and further afield.

The author claims that due to the vacuum left by the death of the worldwide ideology of communism, which had captured so many people, Islam is rising to fill this space. With the building of military, political and economic alliances in the newly independent Central Asian Muslim countries, fundamental Islam has already become the new language of political conflict and control in these and other parts of the world.

The threat that the spread of such fundamentalism presents to the West is examined in some detail. The context of this fundamentalism being on a collision course on so many levels with the Western world, Europe, US and Israel cannot be ignored and such a study as this should be welcomed with open arms. This is not the time for burying one's head in the sand as events will soon pass us by and we could easily be swept away.

The author also examines the Cold War legacy, the history and origins of Islam and their relationship with other religions, together with freedom of expression and women's rights.

The book describes how the Muslim world is arming itself at a faster and more determined pace than the West, and how it has now become the most militarised region on the planet. The motives and agendas behind such a military build up are scrutinized. The writer proceeds to describe how, like it's Muslim predecessors, the Islamic empire of the 21st century also has an appetite for territorial expansion and military conquest. The writer then states that a modern worldwide jihad against non-Muslim populations and societies, complete with nuclear weapons, promises to bring the highest casualty rates in the history of mankind.

When one considers such statements and this study in the context of the present situation relating to US President Bush, the UN and Iraq, the prospect and relevancy is quite chilling. It certainly will open your eyes.

If you are concerned about Western security, be it in the US, Europe, UK or the situation surrounding the Arab hostilities against Israel, then get this book. We all need to be aware of what we are presently on a collision course with. The author has written this book very well indeed. It is presented without any racism, hostility or panic mongering. He bases his statements on established facts and provides a chilling insight into the possibility of future terrorist attacks by extremist Muslim fundamentalists.

To write about the fundamentalist Muslim movement (the 'radical fringe' of political Islam) is to touch on a raw and throbbing nerve, as some of the reviews below so aptly demonstrate. The subject is inherently emotional, the battle lines clearly drawn. Westerners immediately trumpet this title as a battle cry to resist "jihad." Some of the reviewers with names indicating a more Arab or Muslim background similarly take the opposite tack and condemn the book (probably without ever reading it) as anti-Muslim. Both types of review are inaccurate to a substantial degree. Dennis does not call for an offensive war against the Muslim world nor does he condemn the entire Muslim world and its political aspirations. Rather, he surprisingly lets some of the radical Muslim leaders speak for themselves and lets them describe their own very troubling (and even violent) political agenda against the non-Muslim world. Like an artful trial lawyer, the author reels his quarry in and lets them indict themselves with their own language of hate. For all that, I thought the book was quite balanced. Dennis, I believe, is not a Jew. He is not an Arab. He doesn't even raise the Arab-Israeli dispute as far as I can tell flipping back through the pages, other than one, brief passing reference to it in an historical chapter. Rather, he speaks as an objective outsider. There is no vitriolic hatred of Muslims or of Islam, only ethical concern for the language of hate which he points out some Middle Eastern leaders have espoused against Westerners and against American civilians. Rather than either condemnning this book or rushing to embrace it like it was some sort of wild-eyed call to counterattack, I think readers - and those whose reviews have been previously posted - would do well to treat and accept the book on its own terms, and not try to use it for propaganda for either side.

Dennis says this about Islam on the very first page of the book: "Islam is one of the great religions of the world. Its tenets of peace, mercy, charity toward those less fortunate, respect for life and longstanding tradition of tolerance toward those of other faiths are qualities to be universally admired. The world would indeed be a better place in many respects if more members of the world community used the Koran...as the touchstone for their public and private actions." Does that sound like hate to you?

This refreshingly original book offers a thorough examination of the transnational Muslim Fundamentalist movement and the threat it poses to the national interests of the West. Mr. Dennis offers an unapologetic and unabashed view of the dangerous leading figures in Islamic politics and their deadly intentions. It is about time that leading journalists and the U.S. Government start paying attention to the persuasive arguments of this book before we are exposed to an attack from these groups. Mr. Dennis has done a great service by providing this insightful analysis of the horriying global threat.

I first read this book in 1998...too bad more of our politicians didn't. It was a cry in the wilderness..a wake up call that no one paid attention to. I can't find my copy, so I'm buying a new one...that's how important this book is. I live only 40 miles from the Mexican border, "terrorist alley", the new path for terrorists to enter our country, and guess what...no one is listening again. There is a war going on right here on the border and the Border Patrol is not up to the challenge, there are too few of them and they are out-gunned by the drug and people smugglers who make tens of thousands of dollars smuggling middle eastern men across our southern border. Read the book and write your representatives.

The first edition of this book came out in 1996 and was reissued in 2001 (the edition found here) after 9/11. Author Anthony Dennis was so very accurate and so correct in his predictions about the global threat posed by the Muslim fundamentalists. This book is more relevant with each passing day. I periodically turn to it to make sense of current international events and find that as time goes on, more and more predictions contained in this book indeed come to pass! Scary but a must read.

This book shows the west the dire peril it is facing from
a fascist ideology
As a Hindu Indian, we have had to deal with this menace for 1400 years. To read the destructive impact of Islam on India
visit bharatvani.org

This book does an excellent job of explaining the "mindset," political agenda (both domestic and international) and inner dynamics of the Muslim fundamentalist movement. The author Anthony J. Dennis discusses several ominous and extremely important developments within the Muslim world which, amazingly, have not been previously reported or covered in the Western media to date: For example, the results of the Islamic-Arab Popular Conference held in Khartoum, Sudan in April of 1991 in which Islamic fundamentalist leaders, guerilla groups, movements, political parties and assorted others (e.g., Sudan's Turabi) hammered out an ominous and darkly violent six point manifesto calling for the overthrow of several Middle Eastern governments which happen to be allies of the United States and for the political unification of the entire region under the fiery banner of fundamentalist Islam. Violent imagery and calls for the necessity of pursuing "attacks" against Westerners and Western interests were also included. Interestingly, Dennis informs us that Sudan's Hassan al-Turabi also called for burying the theological hatchet between Sunni and Shia Islam so that Muslims of both major sects could cooperate together even more effectively on the political front against Western interests. "The Rise of the Islamic Empire and the Threat to the West" is a powerful and effective book because Dennis consistently uses some very compelling block quotes underneath the heading of each chapter of the book in which he quotes various leaders of the fundamentalist world making ominous and violent threats against American and Western citizens. Dennis does not blacken the names and reputations of these people. He lets them do that themselves by reproducing their speeches and other statements (in translation from recognized international sources), and by discussing at length their political agenda and world view. At the end, you'll agree with Dennis that "fundamentalist Islam is" indeed more than a religion today, it is "an aggressive [politico-religious] ideology characterized by i) a high degree of self-consciousness, coordination and planning among participants from many different nations, ii) a specialized revolutionary vocabulary (e.g., "the Great Satan," "global arrogance"), and iii) a "game plan" for regional conquest." I also especially liked and was impressed by Dennis's intellectually sophisticated discussion of Islam's potential role in nation-building throughout North Africa, Central Asia and the Middle Eastern region. Dennis makes the point that fundamentalist Islam functions much like nationalism in other regions of the world by giving its people a common outlook, values, world view, culture and, in many cases, even a common language (the Koran is written in Arabic - the "mother tongue" of all Muslims). The Rise of the Islamic Empire and the Threat to the West is a thoughtful meditation on the potential of fundamentalist Islam to provide the essential "glue" that may lead to the creation of an Islamic confederation which would be profoundly hostile to Western society and interests (according to its own words and deeds). As such, this is the only book I have seen or come across to date anywhere which gives serious and explicit attention to the intriguing question of whether the Soviet Union's death and the end of the Cold War will lead to the "birth" of new nations (or confederations of nations) as yet unknown. See also the endorsement statements from U.S. diplomats, assistant cabinet secretaries and other cognoscenti from government and the foreign policy field - quite impressive! Keep looking at your world map. We have witnessed the complete disintegration of the Soviet Union in the last few years - it should seem no more far-fetched, at least in the realm of statistics, to suppose that with the current social and economic disorders in that part of the world, that Dennis's "Islamic Empire" may in fact come into being in the next five or ten years! This guy is imaginative and bold but his reasoning makes logical sense.

Mr. Dennis presents a cogent and insightful anaylsis of the global threat posed by the radical terrorist groups who have become increasingly powerful in recent years. Unforunately, our foreign policy establishment has ignored this threat and left us completely vulnerable to potential terrorist attacks. The bombings in Africa clearly demonstrate that Mr. Dennis is right on the mark.

Madelyn Albright and William Cohen should immediately consult this author and read this book.

Dennis provides an excellent analysis of the growing threat from expansionist Islam. Alarmingly, this is a threat that will soon affect all of us in the West, thanks to misguided foreign policy decisions and uncontrolled third world immigration from Muslim countries. But this threat is nothing new -- Islam has slaughtered, conquered, and subjugated Christians and other non-Muslims for centuries, as any reading of the histories of Spain, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Balkans will demonstrate (not to mention the histories of Turkey, India, North Africa, and Central Asia, which were all savagely conquered by Islamic armies in the past). Islam is too often portrayed by our ignorant media as a harmless faith -- but the truth is that Islam is a pagan doctrine which demands, among other things, that Muslims kill all non-believers! Most Americans don't realise the truth about Islam, so this book will do much to eliminate such ignorance. To some extent I agree with Muslim critiques of arrogant American imperialism, but American power is nothing compared to the horrors unleashed by a resurgent Islam. I suggest that this book be read in conjunction with similar works by Bat Ye'or and Paul Fregosi (both available at Amazon.com). Dennis writes in a scholarly, lucid manner, and I found his arguments compelling and most welcome. Well done!