Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions about the World's Fastest-Growing Faith

by Robert Spencer

Book Overview

In Islam Unveiled, Robert Spencer dares to face the hard questions about what the Islamic religion actually teaches--and the potentially ominous implications of those teachings for the future of both... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1893554589
• ISBN13: 9781893554580
• Release Date: October 2002
• Publisher: Encounter Books
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Doesn't Islam speaks for itself?

Every Westerner and non-Muslim should read this book. Almost everyday, Islam is in the news. It is almost always associated with terrorism, hijackings, bombings and Muslim clerics (including many who are based in the US and UK) who preach hatred against Jews and America. How many American or British born Muslims have declared war on America? Yet, American and British Muslims (both converts and immigrants) and their politically correct apologist allies like Karen Armstrong maintain that "Islam means Peace". So, which is the real Islam? In all honesty, let me say this... I grew up in a Muslim country. Never have I heard that "Islam means Peace" or "Islam respects women". Any Westerner who believes them has little or no understanding of the Quran and the Hadith or Islam in general. If the Bible and the Torah were amended so that Christians and Jews are now obliged to kill apostates and blasphemers, conquer the world for their religions would we then be able to say that "Christianity and Judaism mean Peace too". If Muslim women are allowed to have up to four husbands, divorce any of them anytime by simply saying 'talaq' three times and if a Muslim man can only prove that he was raped by having four righteous female Muslim witnesses,....if Muslim men are obliged to cover their heads and their bodies..... can we then finally say that "Islam respects men too". What Muslims preach to their fellow Muslims and to Western potential converts are diametrically opposed. In the West, after every violent act committed in the name of Islam such as 9/11, many Westerners would before judging Islam, go out and buy books about Islam and start asking Muslims about Islam. Muslim proselyters take advantage of this fair minded thinking of Westerners together with their pre-conceived notion that all religions are the same (i.e. all religions teaches one to do good or all religions are equally guilty of causing friction and hatred). If Westerners are willing to set aside their political correctness, the fact that Islam is fundamentally a violent religion will be self-evident. Imagine if a group of Christian extremists were to hijack a plane and in the name of Christ, crashed it into a building full of innocent people in a Muslim country causing thousands to lose their loved ones. Would not the Christians of the world condemn them? On September 11th 2001, something similar happened in New York and there was great rejoicing throughout the Muslim world (including in my own country, which was not disclosed by the Western media for fear of a backlash against the Muslims living in the West). When surveys were conducted, they found a significant number of Muslims (the majority in many countries) who were very much supportive of September 11th. And for those Muslims who condemned the attack, their condemnation was a qualified one (i.e. there was some sort of justification such as US support for Israel). WHY IS THAT??? Now imagine, what would it take to get Christians, Jews, etc

Denial in Glass Houses

I am sure that those mono-star reviewers that have attacked Mr. Spencer have not gotten beyond the cover of the book. To anyone who saw Mr. Spencer on CSPAN, it is clear that he is not anti-Muslim or anti-Islam. Mr. Spencer was adament in his talk that he was not referring to the one billion plus Muslims in the world, but a minority of radicals/fundamentalists (he said 10-15%) that were interpreting the Quuran too narrowly or selectively for their own political gain. Muslims would be wise not to call what Mr. Spencer says rubbish as most of his arguments are gleaned directly from the Holy Quuran itself. Mr. Spencer is not advocating any religion as superior or denegrading Islam. He is bringing up important points that most would like to ignore for fear of appearing politically incorrect. Radical Islam can never be a minor issue in a religion with over a billion adherents. Mr. Spencer's figure of 10% would still mean over a million Muslims demonizing the West.The cries on this board to remove Mr. Spencer's book say far more about the mindset of some Muslims than anything meaningful about the work itself. They clarify one of Spencer's main themes-moderate Muslims prefer to stick their heads in the sand instead of confronting the radicals in their midst.

Blunt and Bold, Well-Documented Assessment of Islam Today

This book should be on the "must read" list of anyone who still feels that Islam is a religion of peace. Islam Unveiled provides up-to-date, documented evidence to the contrary. While rising above the shrill Islam-bashing books so common today and while allowing opposing voices a fair hearing as well, the book is blunt and bold in its assessment that the militant Islam is deeply engrained in the Koran, and "moderate" Moslems have no voice in stopping the terrorism and violence against non-Moslems. Spencer writes, "Islamic civilization is supposed to be superior to that of unbelievers, but at this stage of human history is clearly isn't . . . If the West's technological superiority can't be matched, it can at least be assaulted."

honest & thought provoking

This is a deeply unsettling little volume, because it offers scant hope that the West can live at peace with Islam unless the religion changes radically, and even less hope that that is possible. Still, the questions Islam Unveiled poses and the answers it provides are hard to dismiss, and given the urgency of the times, necessary to ask. If Spencer is right, the West faces a primitive, violent, and fiercely chauvinistic religion whose followers, to the extent that they are pious adherents to its teachings, cannot be reasoned with, only resisted. Islam is at its core inimical to democracy and human rights as we in the West understand them. To expect Muslims to drop their belligerence toward the West, which has existed since Islam's founding in the 7th century, is to expect them to jettison core values of their faith - something for which there is no precedent in Islamic history.The Koran, writes Spencer, is more central to the Islamic faith than the Bible is to Christianity. Muslims believe it was revealed directly from God to the Prophet Muhammad. He will find there many divine instructions to make constant war on the infidel, who is only to be given the choice of conversion, slave-like subjugation (in historian Bat Yeor's word, dhimmitude) - or death. And throughout Islamic history, that's exactly how Muslim societies have behaved toward non-Muslims, who are by the very fact of their unbelief not considered innocents in the eternal, divinely mandated conflict.Undeniably, Christians have in the past committed many despicable acts in the name of God, but they did so in violation of scriptural teaching, not in fulfillment of it, as in Islam. This literalism has profound consequences for the way Muslims live. Unlike in Christianity, there is no scriptural mandate for separation of church and state in Islam, making secular democracy an alien and hostile concept. Women have few rights over and against their husbands, who may legally beat them, and men in general. Enslaving infidels and raping infidel women are justified under Koranic law (and still occur in some Muslim lands). Spencer does not believe that Islam can be tamed. While Muslims in the West live in peace, prosperity and religious liberty, Christians and other non-Muslims are persecuted, sometimes unto death, throughout the Muslim world today. Because Islam demands death for heretics, moderate Muslims will always risk their lives by offering more liberal interpretations of their faith. And most crucially, in his view, Islam cannot be other than a religion of violence. "Of course, most Muslims will never be terrorists. The problem is that ... Islam's violent elements are rooted in its central texts," Spencer writes. His final verdict on Islam is sobering, particularly when one considers the rapidly increasing Islamic presence in Europe. Is Islam Unveiled pessimism, or realism? We can only know for sure if we have a serious public discussion of the issues Spencer raises in this important (b