New York Times" bestselling author and Islam expert Spencer offers an honest and telling portrait of the founder of Islam--a portrait that is unbounded by fear and political correctness, unflinching, and willing to face the hard facts about Muhammads life that continue to affect the world today.
{"itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":14.46,"ASIN":"1596985283","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":15.34,"ASIN":"1596981040","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":14.65,"ASIN":"0895260131","isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"1596985283::soDg4zGlcn4Q1%2BE0%2B5TGmgh6OY3UqspP44OcK72r4wMe%2BtJ5PvQPAPWQcw3TdbzOeyIagP1DgnKY%2BAdTJL0hWWoo1vujfrWB5NldIidyaKk%3D,1596981040::9kzwGvdbJ8toE4JUawTQLx8OHf4eqV9AdVIKfQ1%2B2ZHr70Caj%2FTA%2Bm7SbsN96cGTAM%2BZcE8k7vyBrbphQlHQ%2BLmDbw6OeDYtVX84PBHLgknd%2F3K8IVSo%2BQ%3D%3D,0895260131::CP82pjOv2yvr8%2BIU6VaNqGn6pxHyz0qq%2BGdBmPLXRzyXYPnc3xQI0qQSl4Ncd1DjNaUpB3%2FICqidIgqbGZ8CUa%2BXES9ATY25sbcTUDdq3oqBt6A5XPSH%2FQ%3D%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"currenyCode":"USD","shippingDetails":{"xz":"same","yz":"same","xy":"same","xyz":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["add to wishlist","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items"]}}
Muhammad: a frank look at his influential (and violent) life and teachings
In The Truth about Muhammad, New York Times bestselling author and Islam expert Robert Spencer offers an honest and telling portrait of the founder of Islam-perhaps the first such portrait in half a century-unbounded by fear and political correctness, unflinching, and willing to face the hard facts about Muhammad's life that continue to affect our world today.
From Muhammad's first "revelation" from Allah (which filled him with terror that he was demonpossessed) to his deathbed (from which he called down curses upon Jews and Christians), it's all here-told with extensive documentation from the sources that Muslims themselves consider most reliable about Muhammad.
Spencer details Muhammad's development from a preacher of hellfire and damnation into a political and military leader who expanded his rule by force of arms, promising his warriors luridly physical delights in Paradise if they were killed in his cause. He explains how the Qur'an's teaching on warfare against unbelievers developed-with constant war to establish the hegemony of Islamic law as the last stage.
Spencer also gives the truth about Muhammad's convenient "revelations" justifying his own licentiousness; his joy in the brutal murders of his enemies; and above all, his clear marching orders to his followers to convert non-Muslims to Islam-or force them to live as inferiors under Islamic rule.
In The Truth about Muhammad, you'll learn
- The truth about Muhammad's multiple marriages (including one to a nine-year-old) - How Muhammad set legal standards that make it virtually impossible to prove rape in Islamic countries - How Muhammad's example justifies jihad and terrorism - The real "Satanic verses" incident (not the Salman Rushdie version) that remains a scandal to Muslims - How Muhammad's faulty knowledge of Judaism and Christianity has influenced Islamic theology--and colored Muslim relations with Jews and Christians to this day.
Recognizing the true nature of Islam, Spencer argues, is essential for judging the prospects for largescale Islamic reform, the effective prosecution of the War on Terror, the democracy project in Afghanistan and Iraq, and immigration and border control to protect the United States from terrorism.
All of which makes it crucial for every citizen (and policymaker) who loves freedom to read and ponder The Truth about Muhammad.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
About the Author
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect GuideTM to Islam (and the Crusades), as well as four other books on Islam and terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions about the Worlds Fastest Growing Faith and Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West, as well as eight monographs and hundreds of articles. He lives in a secure, undisclosed location.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Product Details
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Regnery Publishing; First Edition edition (July 17, 2007)
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.
I found this book quite a comprehensive book about Muhammad, of whom I remember reading only a very abridged and flattering version in the third grade. It covers most of his life, and focussed mainly on his preachings that promoted intolerance of unbelievers, and in at least one case, of rival Muslims. There were some other unflattering facets of Muhammad's life that weren't covered here, but given the risk that the author took in the first place by writing this book, I suppose it's not a major shortcoming.
My only suggestions by which this book could have been improved: - Include a chart that showed Muhammad's family tree, highlighting the 'Rightly Guided Caliphs' and the Shia imams descended from Muhammad; - Include a chapter about the aftermath of Muhammad's death, and how Caliph Umar ibn Khattib overran the entire Middle East, and also cover the schism between Umar and Ali that went on to split the ummah between the Sunni and Shia - Include a map of Arabia that showed all the places in Muhammed's life - not just Mecca & Medina, but Khaybar, Nakla, Taif, Tabuk, et al
Despite these minor omissions, I highly recommend this book to anybody who is staring with a blank slate and wants to find out more about Muhammad to understand what Muslims mean when they make their public statements (as opposed to what we think they mean.
Since September 2000, at the beginning of the latest phase in the Arab Muslim jihad against the Jewish people in Israel, I have done extensive reading on the history of Islam in a concerted effort to determine the cause. During my early months and years of research, I felt confounded by Islam, which scholars often described as a faith, at its core, moderate and peaceful. Lord knows, I long believed them.
Unfortunately, the more I read, the more discouraged I have become as to the true nature of Islam, and its founder.
Much, though hardly all, of my expanding base of knowledge, has come from Robert Spencer, whose books I have read both with pleasure and dismay--pleasure, because he writes and researches so well, and dismay, because his books so discourage one regarding the onerous tasks that now face Western civilization. Like it or not, we are increasingly imperiled by, and simultaneously, oblivious to the global political ambitions of resurgent Islam.
These dangers appear genuinely contemporary after one learns the details of Muhammad's dealings with the Jewish Banu Qurayzah tribe of Yathrub (Medina).
After sending a secret Muslim convert, Nu'aym bin Mas'ud, to sabotage a Qurayzah alliance with the pagan Quraysh, Muhammad debased the Jews as "brothers of monkeys." This language, as Spencer dutifully notes, "also made its way into the Qur'an"--in chapters 2 (verses 62-65), 5 (verses 59-60) and 7 (verse 166)--and is routinely invoked by current-day Muslim leaders.
Citing the famed A. Guillaume's 1955 translation of Ibn Ishaq's Life of Muhammad (Sirat Rasul Allah), Spencer notes that Muhammad's forces "laid siege to the Qurayzah strongholds for twenty-five days, until... 'they were sorely pressed' and, as Muhammad had warned, 'God cast terror into their hearts'." At this juncture, the leader of the Qurayzah offered his people three choices--to accept Muhammad and Islam, to kill their wives and children and fight Muhammad unencumbered, or to ambush Muhammad on the Sabbath.
The Qurayzah ignored their leader's counsel and, instead, surrendered to the Muslims. Muhammad asked Sa'd bin Mu'adh to determine their fate--and he in turn ruled that "their warriors should be killed and their children and women be taken as captives." Muhammad himself then went into the Medina market and dug trenches into which some the heads of at least 600 or 700 Qurayzah men (possibly, 800 or 900) would be struck. One boy who had not yet "begun to grow hair" later reputedly explained that this factor determined whether a boy was deemed a boy--and spared--or a man, and killed.
Every drop of non-Muslim blood Muhammad spilled, he deemed to have set "a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day, and who engages much in the praise of Allah" (Qur'an, chapter 33, verse 21).
It's all too clear, five years after 9/11, that most Americans lack the motivation to read the Koran--which is neither long, nor impregnable. If they had it, the public would soon discover that even the mildest of translations, which omit the most offensive verses and explicit terms, prove enlightening.
But Spencer's 224-page biography of Muhammad, based entirely on the most important and authentic of Muslim sources, is well-positioned to fill the deficit for even those readers most devoid of educational motivation.
Robert Spencer is one of the voices speaking clearly about where the Jihadists derive their core beliefs and patterns for their actions. The title of this book is not speaking against Islam or saying that Muslims are hiding some secret about their faith (although there are some difficult points they do not like to discuss much). What the title of the book is referring to is the false notion that the Western multi-culturalists like to peddle: that Islam is principally a religion of peace and that our conflict with them comes from not treating them as if they were another kind of Congregationalist sect.
Because of the centrality of Muhammad to Islam, Spencer takes us through what can be known about the life of Muhammad. However, the Qur'an alone is not enough for that task. The author also uses the Hadith (traditions about Muhammad), and the Sira (a biography of Muhammad written down 150 years after his death). Using these secondary sources helps illuminate what the Qur'an is saying to the believers through their Prophet.
As Spencer takes us through Muhammad's life and conquests, we learn the sources and traditions for what the Jihadists do today. Rather than twisting or hijacking the faith as some claim, there is a reason that so many within Islam feel proud and agree with the way the Jihadists act towards non-believers, what is preached against believers in their mosques, and the constant work to establish Sharia as a replacement for established law all over the world. This is what Muslims have done since their beginning and what they feel their mission is today. To them, all non-Muslim culture is inferior and all non-believers deserve second-class status at best. Tolerance and equality with non-believers is not possible according to Muhammad's teachings, even on his deathbed.
This paragraph of Spencer's sums up the core of the book:
"It is nothing short of staggering that the myth of Islamic tolerance could have gained such currency in the teeth of Muhammad's open contempt and hatred for Jews and Christians, incitements of violence against them, and calls that they be converted or subjugated. While human nature is everywhere the same and Muslims can, of course, act as tolerantly as anyone else, the example of Muhammad, the highest model for human behavior [according to Muslim belief - CSM], constantly pulls them in a different direction. The fact that Western analysts ignore all this demonstrates the ease with which people can be convinced of something they wish to believe, regardless of overwhelming evidence to the contrary." (pp. 182-183)
The author also provides a chapter showing how the examples from Muhammad's life are preached and lived today, including jihad, violence against unbelievers, death penalty for apostates, and the marriage of young (very young) girls in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Spencer is quite clear that the marriage of young girls was not unusual in Muhammad's life and place, but despite the changes in the modern world it is the power of these traditions that keeps such practices alive.
This is a respectful book, but does not shy away from difficult examples or teachings. Spencer does not go out of his way to try and create a kinder and gentler Muhammad, but he doesn't create a negative caricature of the man a billion people regard as a great prophet. Spencer is also clear about the inferior status of Jews, Christians, and Pagans in the Muslim view of the world. He even shows how Muhammad "corrected" Christian teaching about Jesus in the Qur'an. Among other things, the Muslim scripture declares that Jesus was not the Son of God nor was he crucified.
This is a very interesting and informative book. Yes, it scares the heck out of the mainstream media, but that only shows the intolerance of Islam towards anyone who even raises difficult issues about the faith in even a respectful way. There are thousands of books on Christianity that are much harsher and are actually virulent and no one thinks twice about promoting them everywhere. But if you get the imams railing against you, well, like Spencer, Steve Emerson, and others, you need to live in "secure undisclosed locations". I don't know why you even need any more proof than that for the thesis of this book about the intolerance of Islam towards non-believers.
If the Apostle Paul called himself the Chief of Sinners, I can definitely handle the OJ comment. I am not a woman hater, but realizing that is the least of your problems. I regret that I did not originally respond to your lazy statement/question with the authority of Scripture. I repent of that... Read more
"Several self-identified Muslims have rushed to denounce the book as absolutely false."
Add to this the PC multiculturalist Islam apologists offended by absence of respect in Spencer's book. I would not be surprise if found that most of them are Left (some clearly are e.g. Desert... Read more
M.K. Adams - you are mistaken. Americans are not all Christians and George W. Bush is not Jesus. American military went to war with the Vietnamese Communist Government. The war was fought against Communism and not not in the name of Jesus Christ. Christ clearly taught that conversion was up to... Read more
Yes, it's interesting that more and more, scholars are finding out just how much Mohammed ripped off from both Christianity and Judaism.
The lastest findings were Christian Apocryphal books and ancient hymnals that he ripped off, using as his own material. It's no wonder that he would... Read more
You had better hope the following truth does not "spread and shine:"
1. Islamic nations execute those who witness or proseletyze the Christian faith. 2. Islamic nations execute those who wish to convert from Islam to another religion. 3. Islam is the most misogynist religion in the... Read more