Prophet Muhammad, who is revered as the messenger of Allah among Muslim communities, has been a controversial historical figure. Some see him as a mass murderer who slaughtered thousands of non-believers (Kafirs) while others see him as a mystic figure. In recent years, the debates surrounding terrorism and Islam have taken a new shape. A number of writers have dared to question the founder of Islam. We will talk about such authors and their work here:
The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion
Robert Spencer
Muhammad: a frank look at his influential (and violent) life and teachings
In The Truth about Muhammad, New York Times bestselling author and Islam expert Robert Spencer offers an honest and telling portrait of the founder of Islam-perhaps the first such portrait in half a century-unbounded by fear and political correctness, unflinching, and willing to face the hard facts about Muhammad's life that continue to affect our world today.
From Muhammad's first "revelation" from Allah (which filled him with terror that he was demon-possessed) to his deathbed (from which he called down curses upon Jews and Christians), it's all here-told with extensive documentation from the sources that Muslims themselves consider most reliable about Muhammad.
Spencer details Muhammad's development from a preacher of hellfire and damnation into a political and military leader who expanded his rule by force of arms, promising his warriors luridly physical delights in Paradise if they were killed in his cause. He explains how the Qur'an's teaching on warfare against unbelievers developed with constant war to establish the hegemony of Islamic law as the last stage.
Spencer also gives the truth about Muhammad's convenient "revelations" justifying his own licentiousness; his joy in the brutal murders of his enemies; and above all, his clear marching orders to his followers to convert non-Muslims to Islam-or force them to live as inferiors under Islamic rule.
In The Truth about Muhammad, you'll learn
- The truth about Muhammad's multiple marriages (including one to a nine-year-old) - How Muhammad set legal standards that make it virtually impossible to prove rape in Islamic countries - How Muhammad's example justifies jihad and terrorism - The real "Satanic verses" incident (not the Salman Rushdie version) that remains a scandal to Muslims - How Muhammad's faulty knowledge of Judaism and Christianity has influenced Islamic theology--and colored Muslim relations with Jews and Christians to this day.
Recognizing the true nature of Islam, Spencer argues, is essential for judging the prospects for largescale Islamic reform, the effective prosecution of the War on Terror, the democracy project in Afghanistan and Iraq, and immigration and border control to protect the United States from terrorism.
All of which makes it crucial for every citizen (and policymaker) who loves the freedom to read and ponder The Truth about Muhammad.
Why do we recommend this book?
Robert Spencer knows his books. His thesis comprising commentary on the life of prophet Muhammad leaves no stone unturned to cover all the arenas of Muhammad’s life and personality. In this book, he has come up with solid historical shreds of evidence that acquaint the reader about the chronology of Muhammad’s life and his ascent from a preacher to a political and military leader. Robert writes how Muhammad justifies violence, loot, rape against non-believers in the name of Islam.
Understanding Muhammad
Ali Sina
Understanding Muhammad is a psychobiography of Allah’s Prophet. It seeks to unveil the mystery of that man. Historians tell us Muhammad used to withdraw to a cave, spending days wrapped in his thoughts. He heard bells ringing and had ghostly visions. He thought he was demon-possessed until his wife reassured him he had become a prophet. Convinced of his status, he was intolerant of those who rejected him, assassinated those who criticized him, raided, looted, and massacred entire populations. He reduced thousands to slavery, raped, and allowed his men to rape female captives. All of this, he did with a clear conscience and a sense of entitlement.
He was magnanimous toward those who admired him but vengeful toward those who did not. He believed he was the most perfect human creation and the universe's raison d'être. Muhammad was no ordinary man. He was a narcissist.
Understanding Muhammad, ventures beyond the stories. Focusing on the "why" rather than the "what," it unravels the mystique of one of the most enigmatic and influential men in history.
Why do we recommend this book?
Ali Sina is brave enough to talk about the vagaries attached with the founder of Islam. In one such instance, he talks about Muhammad’s wife and how she made Muhammad realize that he was a Prophet. Apart from this, he talks about the mass assassination of non-believers done by the Prophet in the name of Islam. Moreover, Ali Sina touches upon the topic of iconoclasm that became a major part of the commanders of Muhammad.
The quest for Historical Muhammad
Ibn Warraq
More than one hundred years ago Western scholars began to investigate the origins of Islam, using the highest standards of objective historical scholarship of the time. Their aim was to determine what could be known about Muhammad and the rise of early Islam quite apart from the pious and totally unobjective traditions preserved by the Muslim religious community. In some ways, this research was inspired by a similar investigation of Christianity made famous by Albert Schweitzer's Quest of the Historical Jesus. Today although much has been learned about early Christianity, little comparable progress has been made in the field of Islamic Studies. Here objective historical research has long been severely handicapped both by the resistance of Muslim societies to the Western analysis of their sacred traditions and by the apologetic approaches of many Western scholars, who have compromised their investigations for fear of offending Muslim sensibilities.
It is in this context that Ibn Warraq presents this important anthology of the best studies of Muhammad and early Islam ranging from the very beginnings of Islamic Studies in the nineteenth century to contemporary research. In his selection and in an introductory essay, Warraq makes it clear that some very serious scholarly controversies lie at the heart of Islam. First, the Koran itself, the Muslim sacred scripture and the foundation of Islamic culture, is called into question as to the basis for the objective historical knowledge of Muhammad. Some scholars have also questioned the reliability of most of the other early Arabic documents that supposedly attest to events in the life of Muhammad and his followers.
Was the Koran dictated by Muhammad at all? Was it actually compiled any earlier than a hundred years after the Prophet's death? How much of Muslim sacred tradition, in the light of objective historical analysis, must be dismissed as unreliable hearsay? Were the motives of the first Muslim conquerors during the Jihad truly religious in nature or largely mercenary? These disturbing questions, long suppressed throughout the history of Islamic scholarship, are here raised again in these erudite and thoroughly researched essays by noted scholars.
Why do we recommend this book?
Ibn Warraq has tried to fill in the vacuum created by the lack of research about Muhammad and Islam. For years, Muslim societies have resisted and opposed any kind of research on their sacred texts by researchers from the non-Muslim world. Any attempt to critique Muhammad and Islam has, for years, meant murder of the writers or researchers. Despite this, Ibn Warraq has done an exemplary job to come up with some of the most crucial and hard-hitting truths about Muhammad.
Sharia Versus Freedom
Andrew G. Bostom
Author Andrew G. Bostom expands upon his two previous groundbreaking compendia, The Legacy of Jihad and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, with this collection of his own recent essays on Sharia - Islamic law. The book elucidates, unapologetically, Sharia's defining Islamic religious principles and the consequences of its application across space and time, focusing upon contemporary illustrations.
A wealth of unambiguous evidence is marshaled, distilled, and analyzed, including objective, erudite studies of Sharia by leading scholars of Islam; the acknowledgment of Sharia's global "resurgence," even by contemporary academic apologists for Islam; an abundance of recent polling data from Muslim nations and Muslim immigrant communities in the West confirming the ongoing, widespread adherence to Sharia's tenets; the plaintive warnings and admonitions of contemporary Muslim intellectuals - freethinkers and believers, alike - about the incompatibility of Sharia with modern, Western-derived conceptions of universal human rights; and the overt promulgation by authoritative, mainstream international and North American Islamic religious and political organizations of traditional, Sharia-based Muslim legal systems as an integrated whole (i.e., extending well beyond mere "family-law aspects" of Sharia).
Johannes J. G. Jansen, Professor for Contemporary Islamic Thought Emeritus at Utrecht University, says this book "will prove sobering to even staunch optimists."
Why do we recommend this book?
Sharia has always been seen as the source of bigotry and orthodox behavior of Muslims across the globe. In many Muslim countries, the constitution is based on Sharia law which consists of regressive practices inherent for centuries. Sharia has been widely criticized for its anti-woman nature. Many laws of Sharia proscribe women from walking alone or without Hijab. Sharia allows a Muslim man to beat his wife. The author has tried to address a number of regressive practices like these.
The History of Jihad
Robert Spencer
The comprehensive history of the role of war and terror in the spread of Islam.
It is taken for granted, even among many Washington policymakers, that Islam is a fundamentally peaceful religion and that Islamic jihad terrorism is something relatively new, a product of the economic and political ferment of the twentieth century. But in The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS, Islamic scholar Robert Spencer proves definitively that Islamic terror is as old as Islam itself, as old as Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, who said “I have been made victorious through terror.”
Spencer briskly traces the 1,400-year war of Islamic jihadis against the rest of the world, detailing the jihad against Europe, including the 700-year struggle to conquer Constantinople; the jihad in Spain, where non-Muslims fought for another 700 years to get the jihadi invaders out of the country; and the jihad against India, where Muslim warriors and conquerors wrought unparalleled and unfathomable devastation in the name of their religion.
Told in great part in the words of contemporary chroniclers themselves, both Muslim and non-Muslim, The History of Jihad shows that jihad warfare has been a constant of Islam from its very beginnings, and present-day jihad terrorism proceeds along exactly the same ideological and theological foundations as did the great Islamic warrior states and jihad commanders of the past.
The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS is the first one-volume history of jihad in the English language, and the first book to tell the whole truth about Islam’s bloody history in an age when Islamic jihadis are more assertive in Western countries than they have been for centuries. This book is indispensable to understanding the geopolitical situation of the twenty-first century, and ultimately to formulating strategies to reform Islam and defeat radical terror.
Why do we recommend this book?
Jihad, primarily known as a holy war among Muslims, has been the main source of violence and terror in a number of countries. Inscribed in Islamic verses, this controversial holy war has been the reason behind millions of killings since Islam came into existence. Robert Spencer tries to capture such incidents where Jihad played a key role in butchering non-believers.
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