Here is a thoughtful review of my book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, which you can get here. Fr. Schall, a great scholar of Islam and author of On Islam: A Chronological Record 2002-2018, emailed me when his review was published, saying: “your book is really good. No wonder they do everything they can to shut you down.”
“Does the West face ‘an almost certain doom’?” by James V. Schall, S.J., Catholic World Report, January 17, 2019:
What we see, in reading Robert Spencer’s The History of Jihad is an on-going clash that rises and falls in intensity according to the tides of war and the energy of the Islamic nations to fight them, and of their neighbors to resist them….
What Robert Spencer does in The History of Jihad is to carefully work his way, century by century, through the record of the greater and lesser wars of Islamic jihad, right up to the present. Yet, in a sense, the world has not seen many “jihadist wars” over the centuries. What we see is only one on-going clash that rises and falls in intensity according to the tides of war and the energy of the Islamic nations to fight them, and of their neighbors to resist them. The same issue is always at stake: namely does Islam rule the conquered or not? One can perhaps speak of jihad as merely a spiritual warfare. But jihad is also and primarily a military action against some definite enemy. Jihad itself is ruled by the Islamic concept of conquest and Islamic law. We always see that prisoners are taken as slaves. Booty is divided among the victors. Local idols are destroyed. Much blood flows.5
Islam is serious about itself. Spencer cites the following comment of Ruhollah Khomeini: “Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamist regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam.”6 Such a passage makes it clear why Islam is often called a “Puritan” faith. Even the harem, which seems like a place of delight, is ruled by custom and law. “The Qur’an dictates that a Muslim man may have sexual relations with ‘captives of the right-hand,’ that is, captured non-Muslim women. The Qur’an also says that women should veil themselves so that they may not be molested, with the implication being that if they are not veiled, they may indeed be molested.”7…
Spencer presents a narrative of the Islamic world and mind. He almost always presents Islamic history in terms of contemporary Muslim writers; he knows what Islamic thinkers use and present to justify their views. The reader also is aware that within Islam is found a dynamism that does not let it forget its own vocation of world conquest. Most Western thinkers will look for motives that are non-religious to explain the energy found in Islam. Yet, the evidence seems conclusive. Islam cannot rest if some non-Muslim part of the world continues to exist. We cannot pretend that war and bloodshed are not part of the historic record and of the teachings within Islam. So long as the Qur’an is kept in its integrity, these ideas will keep recurring within Islam.
Spencer does not think that the West will ultimately recognize the nature of this movement to conquer the world and to impose the Sharia on all nations as a sign of submission to Allah. He uses the word “doom”. He maintains that the people who would suffer most under Sharia are precisely those who cannot or will not take the teachings and historic record of Islam seriously. Spencer does not pretend to be a prophet, but he does offer a judgment based on a careful attention to facts. To diligently seek to oppose jihad and all that goes with it would be a turn of events that Spencer certainly hopes will come about. But if it is not to come about, it will be because it is prevented from doing so. And that requires a respectful and attentive look at what Islam has invariably done in the past and what its Holy Book outlines for it.
To read this book is to be caught up in many historic battles. It is to endure the sight of much bloodshed. It is to realize that historic Muslim victories have proved unchangeable. Islam is rapidly developing ways to practice jihad when it is not a major military power. It is learning how to rule and invade simply by immigration and settling in lands that tolerate it. It has learned to live in the West and to use its freedom to advance its own religious and cultural agenda. In the meantime, most of the non-Muslims in Muslim lands have been killed or have left the Near East. The persecution of Christians in the near-East goes on.8
Why—to answer the second part of Spencer’s thesis—are people so reluctant to see this historic record and the causes behind it? Several possibilities exist. 1) Liberalism does not take religion or permanent principles to be unchangeable. Therefore, when Muslims settle under democratic laws, they will gradually themselves become relativists. 2) The second is what I call the “sleeping dog thesis.” The adage “let sleeping dogs lie” means, in this case, that there is no sense in stirring up Muslim masses. The historical record is true and simply tells us to have nothing to do with Islam. 3) A third view would be that Islam is less dangerous than Christianity. Thus, given a choice, we should favor Islam. 4) The fourth reason is a legitimate fear of confronting such a fanatical foe. More bloodshed would arise from confronting it than leaving alone at all costs. In short, we do not confront Islam because we know, from reading Spencer’s book, what to expect.
There is much more. Read the whole thing here.
ntesdorf says
High praise from the Horse’s Mouth.
Emilie Green says
Schall’s the real McCoy. A couple of years ago I read his Realism and Islam, found at,
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2016/04/17/realism-and-islam/
Emilie Green says
What apples to oil filters – Fram’s pay me now or pay me later – will be applied against us by Muslims,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHug0AIhVoQ
mortimer says
Very good, Emilie. We will pay much more to ARREST SHARIA LAW down the road when Islamic vigilantes are simply EVERYWHERE. The enforcement of DISCRIMINATORY Sharia law through vigilantism is normative Islam, rather than an aberration.
mgoldberg says
I’m not Catholic, but I’ve wondered how such realistic, thoroughly well informed and thoughtful writers and thinks, like Schall and George Weigel were faring in the catholic world of education and theologic commentary. Weigel I first read back in about 2007 and he was spot on as is Schall. Meanwhile the coup d’etat within the Catholic hierarchy ala the Pope has erased any evidence of their impact upon the Catholic world.
gravenimage says
Thanks for that link, Emilie.
Barbara says
“better red than dead” that was Senator ID Frank Church. This was 9 years after the end of WWII.
Better to be ignorant than fight for a descent life style. Islam is all about slavery but alive. Fight Islam and people will die. Has anyone noticed they murder their own. Being passive or fighting you get murdered.
A coward dies a thousand times. A brave man dies but once.
Rufolino says
In short, the West DOES NOT WANT to oppose Islam, for a host of reasons.
In so doing, the West is signing its own eventual Death-Warrant.
mortimer says
Father Schall certainly ‘gets it’ … “What we see, in reading Robert Spencer’s The History of Jihad is an on-going clash that rises and falls in intensity according to the tides of war and the energy of the Islamic nations to fight them.”
Walter Sieruk says
In the book written by the scholar and expert on subjects of Islam and Islamic terrorism , Robert Spencer, which has the title of THE HISTORY OF JIHAD FROM MUHAMMAD TO ISIS on pages 367, 368 it’s revealed that “The early twenty –first century saw a sharp rise in jihad massacres perpetrated all over the West by individuals or small groups of Muslims : in London ,Manchester , Paris, Toulouse, nice, Amsterdam , Madrid, Brussels, Munich, Copenhagen Malmo, Stockholm, Turku [in Finland] ,Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Beslan ,among other places.”
Furthermore, those Muslim migrants who were allowed to enter Britain a along with the other countries of Western Europe with result in them not only being ungrateful but even worse yet many of those Muslim migrants becoming so very arrogant to the point that they became criminals . As in some of them engaged in rioting and even rapes of the European girls and women. In addition to this vile brutal behavior by the heinous Muslim who were kindly permitted to enter the nations of Europe to live, As the countries of ,for example France, Germany Sweden, Denmark etc. This unthankful Islamic spirit on the part of those lawless violent Muslims who immigrated to the countries of Europe may be explain, in part, by the fact that the Muslim fundamentalist group that even had the president of Egypt assassinated in the month of October of the year 1981 has a fifty –five booklet that is was written only for Muslims fundamentalists but was later discover by non-Muslims. This booklet’s title is THE NEGLECTED DUTY. One scholar, Johannes Jansen who had thoroughly investigated Islam and Islamic terrorism has even discover that those Muslims, who had entered Europe of behaved in violent and heinous ways, are actually action out what they view and a sacred individual duty of the jihad as by engaging in awful violent criminal action in non-Muslim lands . As Jansen revealed that jihad booklet of Islam, THE NEGLECTED DUTY “contains all the ideological material needed to justify the attacks of 9/11 or any other acts of terror committed to frighten non-Muslims. And he thinks the document explains the criminal behavior of suburban and center –city immigrant youngsters in many European cities; its author clearly ‘sees Islam as license to kill rob and commit arson.’ “ [1] Nevertheless, many of the apologists for Islam still have that blatant gall , in spite of all the facts of reality, to actually make the claim the Islam is a “peaceful religion.” What a totally false to make that Islam is “a peaceful religion “What Bull! A “peaceful religion” indeed.
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Ibn Warraq pages 308, 309.
gravenimage says
Islam scholar to Robert Spencer: “Your book is really good. No wonder they do everything they can to shut you down.”
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Excellent review. Thank you.