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.