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The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran [Paperback]

Robert Spencer
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (117 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 21, 2009
Written in an extremely accessible style by bestselling author Robert Spencer, "The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran" is a fact-based but light-hearted look at the key elements, values, and beliefs in the Koran.

Frequently Bought Together

The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran + The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) + The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion
Price for all three: $44.59

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Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

The Koran: It may be the most controversial book in the world. Some see it as a paean to peace, others call it a violent mandate for worldwide Islamic supremacy.

How can one book lead to such dramatically different conclusions? New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer reveals the truth in The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran: not many Westerners know what's in the Koran, since so few have actually read it -- even among the legions of politicians, diplomats, analysts, and editorial writers who vehemently insist that the Koran preaches tolerance.

Now, Spencer unveils the mysteries lying behind this powerful book, guiding readers through the controversies surrounding the Koran's origins and its most contentious passages. Stripping out the obsolete debates, Spencer focuses on the Koran's decrees toward Jews, Christians, and other Infidels, explaining how they were viewed in Muhammad's time, what they've supposedly done wrong, and most important, what the Koran has in store for them.

From the Back Cover

Praise for The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran

" Meticulous, comprehensive, indispensable. `I read the Koran so you don't have to,' Spencer writes--but even for those of us who have read the Koran, this is a richly illuminating work."
--Bruce Bawer, author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom and While Europe Slept

" Governing officials and media spokesmen may ignore Spencer's warnings, but they do so at their own risk, because Islamic jihadists are not ignoring what's in the Koran, and are working to destroy our freedoms in obedience to Koranic dictates. In illuminating for Westerners exactly what the Koran teaches, Spencer has performed a valuable service in the defense of Western civilization against the Islamic jihad."
--Geert Wilders, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Party for Freedom (PVV), the Netherlands

" Unlike most of today's self-styled experts, Robert Spencer won't tell you that `slay the idolaters wherever you find them' really means `love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.' In The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, Spencer shows once again that he is America's most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism, insisting that we come to grips with the words behind the ideology that fuels international terror."
--Andrew C. McCarthy, senior fellow at the National Review Institute and author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad


Product Details

  • Paperback: 260 pages
  • Publisher: Regnery Publishing; Fourth Impression edition (September 21, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1596981040
  • ISBN-13: 978-1596981041
  • Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 0.6 x 9.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (117 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,995 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ROBERT SPENCER is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of twelve books, including two New York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (both Regnery). His latest book is Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam's Obscure Origins (ISI).

Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community.

Spencer is the Associate Director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI). He is a weekly columnist for FrontPage Magazine and has written eleven monographs and well over three hundred articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism. In addition to the above books, he is the author of Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Encounter); Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West (Regnery); Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't (Regnery), a refutation of moral equivalence and call for all the beneficiaries and heirs of Judeo-Christian Western civilization, whatever their own religious or philosophical perspective may be, to defend it from the global jihad; Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs (Regnery), an expose of how jihadist groups are advancing their agenda in the U.S. today by means other than terrorist attacks; and The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran (Regnery). He is coauthor, with Daniel Ali, of Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics (Ascension), and editor of the essay collection The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims (Prometheus). He is coauthor, with Pamela Geller, of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War On America (Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster). Spencer's books have been translated into many languages, including Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Korean, and Bahasa Indonesia.

Along with his current weekly columns, for nearly ten years Spencer wrote the weekly Jihad Watch column at Human Events. He has completed a weekly Qur'an commentary at Jihad Watch, Blogging the Qur'an, which has been translated into Czech, Danish, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. He has served as a contributing writer to Steven Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism. His articles on Islam and other topics have appeared in the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Dallas Morning News, the New Criterion, the Journal of International Security Affairs, the UK's Guardian, Canada's National Post, Townhall, Middle East Quarterly, WorldNet Daily, First Things, Insight in the News, National Review Online, and many other journals.

Spencer has discussed jihad, Islam, and terrorism at a workshop sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the German Foreign Ministry. He has also appeared on the BBC, ABC News, CNN, FoxNews's O'Reilly Factor, the Sean Hannity Show, the Glenn Beck Show, Fox and Friends, and many other Fox programs, PBS, MSNBC, CNBC, C-Span, France24 and Croatia National Televison (HTV), as well as on numerous radio programs including Bill O'Reilly's Radio Factor, The Laura Ingraham Show, Bill Bennett's Morning in America, Michael Savage's Savage Nation, The Sean Hannity Show, The Alan Colmes Show, The G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Neal Boortz Show, The Michael Medved Show, The Michael Reagan Show, The Rusty Humphries Show, The Larry Elder Show, The Barbara Simpson Show, Vatican Radio, and many others. He has been a featured speaker at Dartmouth College, Stanford University, New York University, Brown University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary, Washington University of St. Louis, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and many other colleges and universities.

Customer Reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
(117)
3.8 out of 5 stars
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
376 of 428 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Koran Quran Guide September 12, 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is not a new translation of the Muslim's holy book: The Koran/Quran. Nor is it a chapter-by-chapter review of the Koran, whereby each chapter is analyzed and explained. Instead, as implied in its title, it is a well-written "Guide" to the Koran. Essentially, the author has selected 75 or so significant topics discussed in the Koran and explains their current significance to Muslims, and how jihadists may use them to justify their attacks against "infidels" (including Muslims whom the jihadists believe are not on the `Straight Path' in following Islam). The author compares passages from both the Koran and the Bible, and explains the many differences of similar stories in them. Some of these topics include: abrogation/changes in Koranic verses (ayats); the devil sleeps in your nose; Adam & Eve; Abel & Cain (why the crow?), the jizya tax, King Solomon's problem with the Queen of Sheba's hairy legs; Jesus and his flying clay birds; some of Muhammad's raids; slavery of the `right hand'; how the Jews and Christians `corrupted' their holy books; the Isaac vs. Ishmael sacrifice dispute; Moses and the Pharaoh differences; did Allah promise Israel to the Jews?; hot hellfire for the kuffars; can Jews and Christians be `tolerated' by Muslims if the former were created from `apes and pigs' by Allah?; did Muhammad actually ride to Jerusalem?; were all Jewish prophets really Muslims?; was Jesus neither divine nor crucified?; wife beating; and much more. Besides selecting topics from just the Koran, the author also discusses current topical-issues being raised by U.S. Pres. Obama, the fundamentalist Osama bin Laden, and miscellaneous Muslim spokesmen. The author discusses the historical development of the Koran. Besides quoting merely from the Koran, the author also quotes from other Islamic sources (such as the hadith) to help explain some poignant topic. As the author himself commented: "This is not a general guide to the Koran" (p. 20). To read a chapter-by-chapter review of Mohammad's "Koran," see the "Bogging the Quran" serial at the author's JIHAD WATCH website. Hopefully, someday this series will be reprinted in book form. If you want more of an analysis of the Quran itself, I suggest "Introduction to the Qur'an" by W. Montgomery Watt (and Richard Bell); Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1970 (ISBN 0-7486-0597-5).
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196 of 242 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Shining some light into the Koran's opacity and dubiety September 27, 2009
By ChrisLA
Format:Paperback
While there will never be a level playing field for addressing the contents of the Koran, Spencer goes overboard to present the opinions of apologists for Islam along side the concerns voiced by those who are alarmed by the contents of Islam's sacred book. The readers, at least, are informed of the opposing views and can assess their merits.

As a "Guide," the book pulls together the fragments of themes which are actually scattered in various parts of the Koran, explains illusions which would not be understood by the average English reader -- such as "right hand possesses" and "striving in the way of Allah", highlights the many contradictory themes, and compares the descriptions of events recorded by the "all-knowing Allah" with existing pre-Islamic accounts of the same events. Thanks to Spencer's patient unravelling of the Gordian knot, readers will gain new insights into many of familiar themes in religious history and theology.

But Spencer acknowledges on page 97 that all of this new knowledge may not help Infidels vis-a-vis Muslims: ". . [t]he Koran consistently assumes that the Infidels are not people who have come to a good faith decision that Islam is false. . . In the Koran, those who reject Islam are never acting out of sincere conviction. . . so anyone who rejects it must not be dong so out of intellectual or spiritual conviction, but out of narrow self-interest or desire for material gain. . . In other words, their unbelief in Islam is . . sheer perversity."

If knowledge is power, this book will be very useful for policy makers and opinion leaders.
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185 of 231 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Contribution By Robert Spencer September 8, 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
After reading this book, my impression of Mr. Spencer remains unchanged. He met his usual high standards. His work is an important contribution to the debate about Islam that can be so full of deception and inaccuracies. As one can see by reading my other reviews of Robert Spencer's books, I enthusiastically endorse his work. His command of the subject matter is flawless and undeniable. He supports his facts and opinions with unassailable citations. Mr. Spencer has a natural talent for stating his case and proving it. Moreover, he takes what would appear to be at first blush to be a dry subject and makes it interesting by illustrating how the Qu'ran plays such an important role in terrible events around the World. It is hard for those who are unfamiliar with the hadiths and history of Muhammad to understand large segments of the Qu'ran and it is for that reason that I believe this work is so important. Those who lack the time to thoroughly examine Islamic doctrine for themselves can gain an understanding that meets or exceeds their needs by simply reading this book and "The Truth About Muhammad." Both books can be easily read in a day or two and readers will advance their ability to understand political issues related to Islam and can avoid falling for the numerous deceptions advanced to hide the true nature of the Islamic faith. My only hesitation in endorsing this book is that Mr. Spencer is so adept at organization and presentation that one might gain the false perception that the Qu'ran is an organized, logically written book, but the truth is that it is hard to imagine that a more poorly written and organized book than the Qu'ran could be produced. One needs to read the original to see that the Qu'ran is what it appears to be - a book that was created and organized by early Muslims that had little experience in reading and writing books. It follows that the Qu'ran is about as well written and organized as the work of a first grade class and far from being evidence of Muhammad's claim that he was called by God to be humanity's Messenger, it is proof positive that he was but one of many pretenders, albeit one that was successful in this life. This book will make you realize that even if one accepted the false assertion that Islamic doctrine stems solely from the Qu'ran as many Islamic apologists seem to try and suggest, a Qu'ran only Islam may be less clear and therefore more susceptible to false claims about its meaning, but it is no less a religion of violence than is Islam based on the Qu'ran, hadith and history of Muhammad.

I would like to close with one last thought. A democracy is only as strong as its voters as it is the will of those who vote that ultimately control the direction the nation will take. As voters we have an obligation to be informed so that we may cast our vote wisely and not waste it by falling prey to slick propaganda and deception. Mr. Spencer's latest work will help you meet your obligation to cast an informed vote on some of the most important issues of our time so please buy it and read it as soon as you can. You will not regret it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars My Opinion
The info is great , but I wanted to play this in my car, unfortunately it doesn't play in my car...
Published 2 days ago by Richard D.Post,Sr.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
Recommend this book to everyone. Tells the Americans & our allies the need to reject sharie law. A don't miss book.
Published 12 days ago by tom
5.0 out of 5 stars On time and what I had expected.
Amazon always delivers. The subject was what l had expected it to be. The Koran may be something that needs a closer look into.
Published 15 days ago by Mark
5.0 out of 5 stars Knows what he is talking about
Nothing compares to reading from a person that has studied the Koran for years. Sadly, most Americans don't know what hits them. Read more
Published 15 days ago by Robert Marshall
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read
All the stuff others are fearful of divulging. Highly recommended for anybody curious as to the inner workings of this system.
Published 24 days ago by James Nicholson
5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book On Islam For The Novice
This book was instrumental in my introduction to Islam.
I have since read many books on the subject. Read more
Published 2 months ago by G. Frudakis
5.0 out of 5 stars Informative
Always wanted to know why "the religion of peace" kills so many people". Read this book and you too will know.
Published 2 months ago by R. H. ODean
3.0 out of 5 stars Book concerning the Koran
Very interesting book. It was helpful in understanding some of the teachings of the Koran. Seemed a little dated.for this century.
Published 3 months ago by Dr. Bert O. Miller
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read
I admit to being unfamilar with the Koran. This gave me a great deal of insight to the book and how it influences the hardline segment of Islam.
Published 4 months ago by J. Hunter
5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Helpful
I bought this many years ago. It is easy to understand and was truly helpful. I highly recommend to all who are interested in understanding the Koran.
Published 4 months ago by Sherry
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Islam (ONLY Facts... please)
You seem to be living in complete ignorance of some very relevant facts: Owing to Sharia (Islamic law) and customs, in Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive; in sub-Saharan nations, pubescent girls are ritually circumcised to deny them the pleasure of sexual intercourse with men; and in... Read more
Feb 15, 2010 by Richard Wible |  See all 9 posts
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I think it's a play on those "Complete Idiot" guides.

Granted, it doesn't make much sense. :)
Nov 3, 2009 by Ronald Craig |  See all 3 posts
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