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Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries Hardcover – October 1, 1998
| Paul Fregosi (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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- Print length442 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPrometheus
- Publication dateOctober 1, 1998
- Dimensions5.6 x 1.09 x 8.4 inches
- ISBN-101573922471
- ISBN-13978-1573922470
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". . . one of the greatly readable primers on Islamic jihad . . ." -- Sunday Star, August 21, 2003
"...powerful study...controversial book." -- Educational Book Review (India), March 2000
"Fregosi writes with a fine sense of balance...with immense gusto." -- The Economist
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Product details
- Publisher : Prometheus (October 1, 1998)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 442 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1573922471
- ISBN-13 : 978-1573922470
- Item Weight : 1.8 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.6 x 1.09 x 8.4 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #246,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #124 in History of Islam
- #352 in Middle Eastern Politics
- #620 in European Politics Books
- Customer Reviews:
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The author presents his story in an easily read and fluent manner which makes it almost pleasant to go through one event after another even though they on most instances are atrocious and very frequently horrifying. Still this is a story of unrelenting, religious warfare and conquest under the banner of Islam, verged by the sword, and in the name of the man called Mohammed, seeking to subdue the whole known world to the yoke of Mohammedanism. It is a story that has to be told, but has not been as well told in its entirety in any other book as it is in this one. Hence it is a useful, indeed a necessary, text for anyone wishing to explore the bloody trail of Islamic fundamentalism.
The only thing I would wish for is that this author would apply his immense abilities using his deep-going knowledge to the task of writing another book, and then on the wars waged by Islam in those parts of ghe world not dealt with in this one - that is to Islamic conquests in Asia and in Africa. They were no less atrocious than the ones fought in Europe and also need to be dealt with in depth.
Today, this conflict between Europe and Islam is again on the rise. Sadly, this time, it is rising because the governments of the European Continent have no intention of stopping it and are even proactively importing Muslims by the tens of thousands - the vast majority being military aged men- into their countries. The results are disastrous and the disasters are, as any clear-thinking person could have easily predicted, growing in number and intensity. In the past, European nations were able to eventually defeat the Muslim invaders who sought, for over a thousand years, to conquer Europe. It is not clear that they even have the will to do so today. Hence the critical importance of this book. The old adage remains true - those who remain ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it.
Muslims and others of the anti-Christian crowd like to cite the Crusades as the beginning of the Jihad, but Fregosi blows that out of water by giving 1,300 years of examples of Jihad. He begins by giving the reader a look into the origins of the Islamic faith. Fregosi cuts right to the chase by exposing the Prophet Muhammad for what he truly was; a thief, a pedophile and a murderer. I get the picture of a Charles Manson with 600,000,000 followers. He goes on to expose many of the myths perpetrated by the Islamic faith, such as the Holiness of Jerusalem to the Muslims. We have been force fed to believe Jerusalem holds significant religious value to the Muslims because Muhammad spent time there. It turns out, his only time there by way of a "night walk" which appears to have been little more than a 7th century acid trip. In short, Fregosi gives us information about Islam that we will never get from the evening news.
I don't want to give the false impression that this is little more than Islam bashing, because that is not the case. Fregosi also goes out of his way to present two sides to this story. When Christians and other groups wrongly treated or abused Muslims, Fregosi is quick to point it out.
This isn't just a book about Jihad either. This book gives the reader a basic insight into much about the Arab world that is largely unknown to western culture, such as politics, in-fighting among Arabs, social trends and much more. I know of no other source where the reader can obtain so much information about the Muslim world in a single volume.
As this book has been on the market for several years now, it has been condemned by many who claim it to be a work of biased hatred. To those people I would simply ask a few true or false questions.
1) Fregosi states that Islamic Jihad against the infidels has been going on for over 1,300 years. True or False
2) In a March 1941 radio address from Berlin to the Arab countries, the Grand Mufti, al-Haj Mohamed Amin al Hussein, called on his listeners to "kill the Jews wherever you find them," for, he said, "this pleases God, history and religion." True or False
3) Islam considers itself doctrinally a religion where destiny is to dominate and rule the world. True or False
4) History gives us undisputable evidence that the Prophet Muhammad was a thief, a pedophile and a murderer. True or False
If one were able to dispute that all of these and many other statements were true, then you might be able to call this book a work of biased hatred, but they are all true statements. If detractors chose to be obtuse about the truth and be obdurate in their belief, then that is their problem, not the authors.
The cold, hard, non-politically correct truth is, the predominantly Christian west is at war with the Muslim world. That war isn't going to stop in our lifetimes. If you believe, as I do, that it is best to know your enemy, then this book is a must read. If you think the Muslim desire to destroy the infidel was brought about by recent western interference in the Middle East, then wake up and buy this book.
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A contention is held in the book that the described Muslim military conquests of centuries past, and the terrorist campaigns of the modern day, share much more than just the same name of “Jihad” but also encompass what the book cites as the Muslim "distaste for and basic antagonism to" the entire non-Muslim world that is described herein as being seen to be “blasphemers and infidels”.
While some readers may find such comments to be contentious or inflammatory, the book submits these subjects to a meticulous scrutiny with a view to presenting an appropriate context to these assertions.
Throughout it is clear that the writer strives to provide an objective analysis wherever possible without attacking the fundamental aspects of the Islamic religion - instead attempting to concentrate on the context of it’s implications & relationship to the furtherance of Jihad itself.
The writer states that Jihad has possibly been the most unrecorded and disregarded major event of history and introduces his study as perhaps being one of the first pertaining to the subject of Jihad, arguing that history has largely ignored what are described as the Muslim attacks and invasions of Europe from the seventh to the twentieth centuries, instead being content to remain transfixed on the Christian Crusades.
Beginning his investigations from the time of Muhammad and the writing of the Islamic Koran in the early 7th century, the text illustrates in commendable detail the origins of Jihad during that period and throughout the wars of some 1,300 years ago in Arabia, during which the study depicts how Muhammad purportedly fought against what he describes as the pagan Arab tribes of the peninsula, allegedly demanding that they acknowledge his suzerainty and convert to Islam itself.
Although this work is not written from the platform of any religious persuasion, the reader is confronted with a direct comparison between the Christian Crusades and Islamic Jihad. The study illustrating how Muhammad purportedly cited to his followers that the “sword” is the key to heaven and hell, but that Christ had said to his followers some six hundred years earlier, that he who lives by the “sword” shall perish by the sword.
The writer drawing attention to what he calls the ethical differences between Islam and Christianity, with Christians who kill being responsible for ignoring the words of Christ, but that Muslims who kill are following the commands given to them.
Recognition is also given in the study to how many devout followers of Islam allegedly believe that the Crusades are a prime factor for what is cited as the “confrontation between Christendom and Islam” and therefore believe that it was the Crusaders who “forced” Islam to create Jihad as a means of self defence.
Due detail is provided to illustrate how Jihad had already been in action against Christendom for nearly five hundred years before the Crusades were launched in 1096.
As an aside, the book makes reference to a number of factors/comparisons including how, in Europe today, Muslims can worship in their own mosques but that some Muslim countries forbid Christians to practice their own faith or build churches for their own worship, with even stricter restrictions being placed upon Judaism. Another factor referred to is how Muslims are forbidden to change their religion at the risk of their own lives, with apostasy being punishable by death. The book recognises what it describes as the often uncritical devotion of Muslims in regard to their Prophet Muhammad, while citing that any criticism or the Prophet or attack upon Islam is also undertaken under similar risk.
As the investigation into the history and precepts of Jihad progresses, the study declares that the purpose of Jihad became, and allegedly still is, to “expand and extend Islam” until the whole world is under Islamic rule.
Jihad also being further clarified in the text as purportedly being what is cited as the permanent state of hostility maintained by Islam against the rest of the world, with or without hostility, for the purpose of obtaining sovereignty over more territory.
One notable quote mentioned is that of the contemporary Ayatollah Khomeini who allegedly referred to Jihad in the following context; “...the conquest of non-Muslim territory. The domination of Koranic law from one end of the earth to the other..is the final goal...of this war of conquest.”
Another reference is also made to a further statement from he same Islamic leader, who recently died, where he describes eleven unclean things as being urine, excrement, sperm, blood, a dog, a pig, bones, a non-Muslim man and woman, wine, beer and the perspiration of the camel that eats filth. Such reference being made to explicate the mind-set behind the precepts investigated in this work which proceeds to cover nearly one and a half thousand years of European and Islamic military and political confrontation.
Italy, Sicily, Portugal, France, Spain, Austria, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Rumania, Wallachia, Albania, Moldavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Armenia, Georgia, Poland, Ukraine, eastern and southern Russia are all cited as being battlefields where Islam either conquered or was conquered.
The details surrounding some of the ensuing conflicts are at times quite graphic but this is an essential study for anyone interesting in the history of Islam and how many proponents may perceive it’s future. Highly recommended.


