The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims

By Andrew G. Bostom

Book Overview

This book reveals how, for well over a millennium and across three continents - Asia, Africa, and Europe - non-Muslims who were vanquished by jihad wars became forced tributaries (called dhimmi in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591023076
• ISBN13: 9781591023074
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 759 Pages
• Weight: 2.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 6.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive, treatment of military Jihad and it's relationship to slavery

This book is a very comprehensive treatment of the unique Islamic phenomena of Jihad (often called the 6th pillar of Islam). The book is very heavily footnoted and will be a guide for scholars for many years. It is clear that although there is a personal dimension to Jihad, the portion emphasizing violent raiding, war, and subjection of other people has been a major activity of Muslims since the 620's and continues today. Any description of Islam as the religion of peace only refers to relations between Muslims. (Even there it has seldom been peaceful). As for a Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, and any other "non-believers" it has been an unending source of forced conversion, murder, rape, genocide, and slavery. Even before an areas occupation and rule by Muslims, raids for booty and slaves might be an annual occurrence. In the area of Afghanistan-Pakistan-India these raids depopulated areas, destroyed the culture, and impoverished the survivors for a period of 500 years. The Muslins then took over and governed much of the area for another 500 years. The intense hate between Hindus and Muslims has very long roots and ample justification. The area now dominated by Islam was once over 90% Christian and Zoroastrian, now these two faiths comprise about 1% of the population in that area. How did that happen? Bostom and the other authors provide the answer and it sure wasn't preaching, convincing and converting. In addition to major sections by Bostom there are sections by 20 other major contributors and historical writings by a number of Muslim writers making up 40 separate sections. A number of items are translated into English for the first time in this book. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who has any doubts about the motivations of the Islamic Jihadists we now face. It is apparent that the usual descriptions of the Western Crusades into the Holy land as violent, cruel and bloody may be accurate, but they were of such trivial magnitude as to be described as mere pinpricks against the long tide of bloody conquest and enslavement that has been Islamic Jihad. It took me at least 4 times as long to read as the usual non-fiction, but I consider it to be one of the most essential in the long list of books one must read to become familiar with Islam.

Encyclopaedic, timely and eye-opening.

Having recently read Paul Fregosi's excellent book on this subject entitled "Jihad in the West; Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries", I resolved to investigate this subject further and this study did not disappoint me in it's depth and encyclopaedic content. Spanning over 700 pages, the amount of detail provided here is breathtaking and the references are innumerable but the text is commendably readable. As with Fregosi's work, the writer also strives to provide an objective analysis wherever possible without attacking the fundamental aspects of the Islamic religion - instead attempting to concentrate on the context of it's implications & relationship to the furtherance of Jihad itself. However, this extensive study includes essays and commentary from many learned scholars of Jihad, and it's early claim to provide comprehensive and meticulously documented research soon becomes substantiated as the reader is confronted with realms of evidence and eyewitness accounts, amid an abundance of Muslim theological and judicial texts etc.. Among eight different parts, separate sections are also provided giving direct reference to Jihad in both the Koran and the Hadith, together with an appropriate exegesis by what are cited as the greatest classical and modern commentators, that dispel the argument that Jihad has only been justified by an alleged misinterpretation. The book begins by providing the reader with the context surrounding the cover illustration which depicts events surrounding the surrender of the Jewish Qurayzah tribe to Muhammad and it's alleged treatment at the hands of the Islamic Prophet. The text describes how the Jewish tribe were purported to have aided the forces of Muhammad's enemies and how they were subsequently isolated and besieged. The study proceeds to cite how all pleas for mercy, were rejected and how the Jewish tribe were henceforth delivered for judgment in Medina. The ensuing judgment described as resulting in some six to nine hundred Jewish men purportedly being beheaded in front of Muhammad and their decapitated bodies buried in already excavated trenches. Further context being provided as to how the young Jewish males, women and children were allegedly sold into slavery and their property and land confiscated. Muhammad himself is also cited as having taken a Jewish captive for his wife. Conversely the book illustrates how the Jewish tribe of the Qurayzah ceased to exist. The book then proceeds to examine the worldwide impact of a multitude of named Jihad campaigns over 1300 years against non-Muslims which the book declares were characterised by massacre, enslavement and pillage, whereby the reader is confronted with how such military conquests have subdued millions of indigenous peoples and the expropriation of vast expanses of land. One notable historical example described in the text is that of the massacre of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks. The extent of the indiscriminate slaught

The proof is in the comments (some of them)

Judging by what the 1-star voters had to say, this book just proves the point. If you honestly address the history of Islam and Jihad, you are automatically labeled a bigot, a Muslim-hater, a Neocon, whatever. It's safe to say that these people are: A) Muslim themselves B) Fooled by "The Religion of Peace" rhetoric C) All of the above Proof lies within the Qu'ran itself. Just browse through 2:193, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4 and a plethora of other verses that are predominant in their book... especially the hadith Sahih Muslim 4294 where Muhammed says non-believers will either convert, be subjugated into slavery, or be killed. I know it's a lot easier for most people to turn a blind eye and label anyone critical of Islam a bigot. That's what happens when the truth is so disturbing.

Brilliant, factual and up to date

When we speak of the expanse of the Roman empire, the Persian empire, Alexander, the Isralite nation or the formation of nation states in Europe we do not shy away from dwelling on and in fact reveling in the nature of these movements. Nations don't simply take over parts of the world by mistake or overnight. People in general do not convert en masse to religions other then their own. However when we address the history of Islam we have become conditioned to believe that Islam just existed, it sort of magically came into being and 1/3 of the world magically came under its sway overnight. Then we are told that barbarous Christian's intent only on greed and murder assaulted peaceful Islam through crusades from Spain to the Holy land. This evil crusading didn't stop until colonialism extended over almost all Muslims. This is the classic western and Islamic narrative. But its not the whole story. There was a time when Muslims too reveled in their accomplishments, their great campaigns against infidels and the great booty, then they realized that such stories didn't read well in the new anti-war tolerant secular west and they presented the rise of Islam differently. There was a time when accounts reveled in Mohammad of Ghaznis destruction of thousands of `idolatrous temples' in India and his `200,000 slaves' that he took back with him in the 11th century. Now we are told that Islam is basically indigenous to India, it never colonized India, it just mushroomed up suddenly. History books today wont tell any readers that the ottoman empire was a colonial empire that colonized Arabs in the middle east and Christians in Eastern Europe, instead we are told that the Ottoman empire sort of peacefully conquered ¼ of Europe and then it was the evil Europeans who had designs on carving up that `sick man of Europe' and forcing the ottomans to enact laws that protected minorities and ended slavery. This book opens our eyes. This book dares to ask the questions "How did Islam expand?" and "what happened to non-Muslims in conquered areas?". In a sense what is being asked also is `how did north Africa and the middle east become Arabic and Anatolia Turkish?' Without war and genocide its not possible that any of these regions would look as they do today. In the 7th century when Islam conquered parts of Persia and Byzantium the region was 90% Zoroastrian and Christian. Today it is roughly 1% of those two faiths. What happened to them. This book shows that the Islamic treatment of non-Muslims amounted to the fate of those conquered in the new world by Europeans. Non-Muslims were discriminated against, made slaves, raped and then became second class citizens. In an insatiable thirst for slaves and women for harems(places of sexual slavery) Islam declared Jihads deep into Africa and Europe, depopulating Eastern Europe and the coast of Africa. The experience of natives was the same as the fate of native in the Americas...genocide and eventually conver

Startlingly complete

The politically correct would have it that Islam is a religion of peace, but in this far-ranging collection of Muslim and non-Muslim eyewitness accounts, theological treatises by great Muslim scholars and jurists throughout history and historical surveys of superb historians, Islam has in fact practiced a grisly jihad campaign against non-Muslims from its earliest days, in the hope of satisfying the Prophet Mohammed's end goal---forcing the "one true faith" upon the entire world. In 759 pages, divided into eight parts, Dr. Andrew Bostom has provided a fantastic compendium of historical surveys; jihad literature; classical Muslim scholarly treatises; historical overviews from important 20th century historians; foldout, color-coded maps; eyewitness accounts of jihad campaigns from the Near East, Asia Minor, Europe and the Indian subcontinent; historical and contemporary accounts of jihad slavery; and Muslim and non-Muslim chronicles and eyewitness accounts of jihad campaigns. It is hard, after viewing these compelling accounts and histories, to continue to believe that radical Islamists are in fact all that radical. For Islam, at its core, seems to be a faith bent upon the conquest and subjugation of non-Muslims. In part two, Bostom collects many jihadist teachings in the Qur'an, for example, Qur'an chapter 9, verse 29, "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and his apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of truth even if they are the people of the book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." These teachings fill all of two pages in the text. But Bostom does not stop there. The third chapter is devoted to classical and modern teachings of Qur'anic commentators on Chapter 9, verse 29. Al-Suyuti (d. 1505 CE), for example, writes "Fight those who don't believe in God nor in the Last Day [Unless they believe in the Prophet God bless him and grant him peace] nor hold what is forbidden that which God and His emissary have forbidden [e.g. Wine] nor embrace the true faith [which is firm and abrogates other faiths, i.e., the Islamic religion] from among [for distinguishing] those who were given the Book [i.e., the Jews and Christians] until they give the head-tax [i.e., the annual taxes imposed on them] (l'an yadinl) humbly submissive, and obedient to Islam's rule." Also commenting on the Qur'anic chapter 9, verse 29 are al-Zamakshari (d. 1144), al Tabari (d. 923), al-Beidawi (d. 1286), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966) and al-Azhar, al-Muntakhab Fii Tafsir al-Qur'aan al-Kariim, 1985. Let no one say that Bostom has taken these teachings out of context, for the classical and contemporary commentators interpret the passage in precisely the same way as it appears. Chapter 4 is then devoted to jihad in the Hadith, with commentary from Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Part 3 presents the classical writings of Muslim theologians