Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 256 pages
- Published by: Regnery Publishing, Inc. September 15, 2006
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 1596980281
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-1596980280
-
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
- Weighs: 14.4 ounces
Product Description
In this startling new book,
New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer, provides a warts-and-all portrait of the Prophet of Islam and draws out what his life implies for reforming Islam and repulsing Islamic terrorists. Spencer relies solely on primary sources considered reliable by Muslims and evaluates modern biographies to show how Muhammad has been changed for Western audiences, lulling them into consoling but false conclusions.
From the Inside Flap
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.
Reader ReviewsSince 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. --Alyssa A. Lappen
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