The American Thinker
Sept 9 2005

A challenge to Islamic correctness
September 9th, 2005

Book Review

The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims by
Andrew Bostom (Editor); Foreword by Ibn Warraq. 2005. New York:
Prometheus Books. Price $28 (HB).

Jihad is now one of the most widely discussed words in the world’s
lexicon. Once regarded as an arcane and academic subject, the 9/11
attacks and the more recent London bombings have brought the chilling
reality of it to every home. Most think it is a form of religious
war, something like the Crusades. This comparison is altogether
inadequate, for the war is only the beginning. Jihad should be seen
as a complete political and economic system that often includes
selective genocide and slavery. All this is presented in exhaustive
detail in The Legacy of Jihad compiled by Dr. Andrew Bostom. It is
the one indispensable source book needed to understand the threat
that the world faces today.

There is no shortage of experts who tell us that Jihad really is an
inner struggle against one’s own baser instincts – like yoga and
meditation in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. This `Islamically
correct’ explanation – never followed by the Jihadis – is belied both by
Muslim literature and by historical experience. Ibn Khaldun (1332 –
1406), one of the greatest thinkers of Islam, if not the greatest,
saw Jihad as an aggressive war of expansion with the religious
obligation to convert everyone. He calls it Islam’s `universal
mission’:

`The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the
holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of
defense… Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.’
[emphasis added]

According to Sayyid Qutb (d. 1966):

`…wherever an Islamic community exists… it has a God-given right to
step forward and take control of the political authority… When God
restrained Muslims from Jihad for a certain period, it was a question
of strategy rather than of principle…’

We need look no further to understand the so-called `root causes’ of
Jihad.

It is impossible to do justice to such a monumental work in a brief
review beyond noting its main themes. The author begins appropriately
with a hundred-page exposition titled Jihad Conquests and the
Imposition of Dhimmitude. To appreciate Jihad we must understand the
concept of dhimmitude, the state of mind induced by Jihadi terror.
According to The Quranic Concept of War sponsored by General
Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan, the founder of Talibanism:

`Terror struck into the hearts of the enemy is not only a means, it
is the end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent’s
heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved… Terror is
not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy; it is the decision
we wish to impose upon him.’ [emphasis added]

This brings up an important point: terrorism cannot be separated from
Jihad, and Jihad cannot be removed from Islam. This is the reality
that we are dealing with. Every Jihadi knows this; it is time others
did too.

The book gives a comprehensive survey – many from the primary sources
going back the Quran and the Hadits. It shows how the orthodox view
of Jihad has changed not at all. In the section The Law of War: The
Jihad Majid Khadduri makes the important point that Islam abolished
all kinds of warfare except Jihad.

Should one think that all this is in the past and `reform’ can change
it, here is a sobering reminder by Bassam Tibi in his War and Peace
in Islam:

`Though the Islamic world has made many cultural adjustments to the
modern international system, there has been no cultural
accommodation, no rigorously critical rethinking of Islamic
tradition.’

According to this worldview:

`World peace, the final stage …is reached only with the conversion or
submission of all mankind to Islam.’

The book contains a comprehensive discussion of various Jihadi
campaigns spanning the period from the first century of Islam to the
present day – from Spain to the Indian subcontinent. A major bonus is
the set of color-coded maps and other illustrations giving a vivid
picture of the expansion of Islam at the cost of other nations.

Several important documents appear in English for the first time.
These include primary works in Arabic and Persian as well as
neglected modern works in modern European languages by scholars such
as Fagnan, Angelov, and Alexandrescu-Dresca Bulgaru. The work is
particularly valuable in shedding light on the horrific experience of
the Balkan nations under Ottoman rule. This is valuable in
understanding the current turmoil in the Balkans where the Muslims
are invariably cast as victims, while all the blame is placed on the
Serbs and the Croatians.

This raises an important but politically incorrect question: how did
the Hindu civilization manage to survive while the mighty empires of
Eastern Christianity, Zoroastrian Persia and the Buddhist kingdoms of
Central Asia crumbled before the onslaught? Even in India, Buddhism
was all but extinguished, while Hindu leaders rose to defend and
finally defeat Islam, though at great cost.

Genocide is often a direct consequence of Jihad though it is glossed
over by `Islamically correct’ historians. The book gives contemporary
and even eyewitness accounts of various genocides from the time of
the Prophet to present day Africa. This includes not only the Turkish
massacre of the Armenians, but also the so-called `ethnic’ conflict
in Sudan, which is the direct consequence of the revival of Jihadism.

Like genocide, slavery is also an integral part of Jihad. In fact
most Islamic regimes were based on slave economy. The Legacy of Jihad
has a sixty-page section on Jihad slavery. It makes for chilling
reading. Particularly disturbing is the revival of slavery and slave
trade in Sudan as a direct consequence of the resurgence of Islam and
the emphasis on Jihad.

John Eibner mentions one particular slave raid in 1987 in which more
than a thousand Dhinka civilians were roasted alive in railway box
cars in the town of El Diein in southern Sudan. (This was repeated in
Godhra, India in 2002 when 57 Hindu pilgrims, mostly women and
children, were burnt alive when the two bogies comprising the ladies’
compartments were set on fire.)

What is disturbing in this resurgence of slavery is the attitude of
international agencies, including the U.N. Eibner notes that the U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan has never publicly condemned the revival
of slavery under Jihad. A decade ago, the Cambodian dictator Pol Pot
also received U.N. support until his `Killing Fields’ became
impossible to ignore.

The documentation is so profuse, much of it recorded by Muslims
themselves, the reader begins to wonder why all this has been kept
away from the public by Islamic scholars and academics whose job it
is to inform. As the great Islamic scholar and critic Ibn Warraq (the
author of Why I am Not A Muslim) asks in his brilliant Foreword: why
did it take Dr. Andrew Bostom, not an Islamic scholar but a medical
scientist, to bring out this monumental compilation? Where were the
Orientalists, historians, Islamic scholars and other sundry
academics?

The answer: Islamic correctness driven by dhimmitude.

[Editor’s note: Andrew Bostom, author of the book, is a contributor
to The American Thinker. Further information on The Legacy of Jihad
may be found here. The book may be ordered here.]

N.S. Rajaram divides his time between Oklahoma City and Bangalore,
India.