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Global JihadThe future in the face of militant IslamTerrorism to come?GLOBAL JIHAD The politically correct view of Islam is that it is a religion of peace. This book tells a very different story, tracing the violent stream of Islam, jihad, through the centuries up to the present time. In a way, this is a somewhat frightening book, but it is a book that we should all read, carefully and prayerfully. It’s all here: jihad in the Qur’an, jihad in the life and teaching of Muhammad, jihad and how it has operated throughout Muslim history, jihad in today’s world, jihad and the New York catastrophe. Chapter 13 deals with suicide bombers, known in the Islamic world as martyrs, not suicides. The sheer detail of the historical evidence is amazing: on page 158 we have the gruesome details of the decapitation of 700 Spaniards in 807, followed by an account of the Bulgaria decapitation of 3,000 men who had surrendered to the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid. Of course, the Church has in the past behaved with similar cruelty, but there is a difference: firstly, we have stopped it, and secondly, that cruelty had no support at all from the teaching or example of Jesus. As Sookhdeo shows, Islam continues the trajectory of violence into the present time, and can base it on the Qur’an, on Muslim traditions, and on the example set by Muhammad himself. On page 62, Sookhdeo records the fact that Muhammad was personally engaged in some 27 military campaigns, and organised 59 others. There is a glimmer of hope offered here: an account in chapter 16 of ‘Muslims Against Violence’. It is striking that so far as I know it is only the Ahmadi Muslims as a group who have clearly rejected violence as a way of advancing the cause of Islam — and they are counted by orthodox Muslims as heretics! This book will probably attract heavy criticism from some reviewers because it is so unpalatable to the current policy of supporting the polite fiction that Muhammad himself and Islam in general are alike peaceful. Inevitably, of course, there is another side of Islam’s history to be written: the history of those times when Muslims and Christians and Jews lived peaceably side by side. But then that was not the purpose of this book. What Sookhdeo is concerned about, as he has made clear in the sub-title of his book, is how this trajectory of violence, this on-going jihad, is going to impact the rest of us in the coming years. It’s a big book (444 pages of text, seven appendixes, a helpful explanation of some Arabic terms, 49 pages of bibliography and 1,133 footnotes!). Thoroughly researched. Not a book to be read through at one go. But very useful for anyone wanting to understand more about jihad, and suicide bombings, and paradise, and beheadings and just where the Islamists are heading. But a word of caution: not all Muslims are like those pictured in this book. Dr. Peter Cotterell, © Evangelicals Now - February 2008 |