Not long ago the local paper here in Secure Undisclosed Locationville ran a large photo of a pair of hijab-wearing Muslim ladies happily looking at a book. The caption explained that the local library had recently accepted a donation of books on Islam from the Council on American Islamic Relations’s Library Project. The library was happy to be able to provide library patrons with information about this faith that it was so important for Americans to understand.
The problem, of course, is that CAIR’s booklist is severely flawed, giving no hint of why or how tenets of Islam gave rise to a global network of terrorists. Anyone who reads only CAIR’s books about Islam will come away with no understanding of how the war on terror came about, or what can be done about it.
But now there is an alternative. The Free Congress Foundation, of which I am an adjunct fellow, has put together an alternative list of books to give libraries a more balanced view of Islam. I am grateful to see that my new book Onward Muslim Soldiers is on the list, which is a particular honor given that classics such as Bat Ye’or’s Islam and Dhimmitude and David S. Margoliouth’s The Early Development of Mohammedanism are also included.
Paul Weyrich and FCF don’t have Saudi millions behind them to get these books into libraries for free, but you can help them with donations and by getting the word out to your local library that if they stock CAIR’s books, in the name of fairness they should stock these alternatives also.