The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, Edited by Andrew Bostom, Prometheus Books, 750 pp. $28.
Reviewed by Rael Jean Isaac

The famous Jewish philosopher and physician Maimonides, often cited as an example of the fruitful symbiosis of Jewish and Islamic culture, had this to say of Arabs: "The Arabs have persecuted us severely and passed harmful and discriminatory legislation against us...Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase and hate us as much as they."

If this was the assessment even of Maimonides, how then to explain the widespread view of a golden age of Islamic tolerance? In his introduction to this invaluable compendium of source materials on the religious roots of jihad and the impact on those conquered in its holy wars, Ibn Warraq notes how Jews have contributed to the misperception of Islam. He quotes the dean of Middle Eastern studies Bernard Lewis who makes no bones that the golden age of equal rights was an illusion, noting "the myth was invented by Jews in nineteenth-century Europe as a reproach to Christians."

No one who even dips into Bostom's book can maintain a rosy view of Islam’s effect on human welfare. For example, Part 6 chronicles the impact of the Islamic conquests in the Near East, Europe, Asia Minor and the Indian subcontinent where Muslim invaders are estimated to have killed an incredible 70 million people over centuries. Everywhere advancing Islam laid waste to hitherto prosperous regions. An enthusiastic description of an attack on an Indian town noted: "The blood of the infidels flowed so copiously that the stream was discoloured and people were unable to drink it...Praise be to Allah." Often the only reason a remnant of the existing population was left alive -- in a state of dhimmitude or outright slavery -- was the fear of Muslim leaders that there would be no one to provide for the basic needs of the jihadists, preventing them from moving on to further conquests. Section 8 provides poignant eyewitness accounts over 1300 years of the cruelty meted out to subject populations in both Asia and Europe.

This volume makes it clear that Islam is a religion whose mission is conquest (and eventual conversion) of the world. When one group of Muslims assumes responsibility for jihad, others are relieved of this duty. It is thus no wonder that radical Muslims believe they act on behalf of the entire umma. Bostom shows that even terror is an old and familiar tool: according to the book The Quranic Concept of War, "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."

But Bostom does more than show the terrible effects of Islamic warfare. Early sections (after his own lengthy and useful overview) offer primary sources -- texts on jihad (holy war as a religious duty) from the Koran and hadiths and subsequent opinions on jihad laid down by Sunni and Shi'ite theologians and jurists. Bostom also provides analyses from early twentieth century scholars of Islam (before the field of Middle Eastern studies was corrupted by the current crop of academic apologists). Much of this material is available here for the first time: Bostom has included hitherto unpublished sources and had a number of essays translated into English from Arabic and Persian as well as from European languages.

All this is the more extraordinary because Bostom is not a scholar of Islam but a medical doctor, a clinical epidemiologist. It has taken a non-specialist, an autodidact, to fill the gap left by scholars whose education has left them with a "trained incapacity" to portray the reality of Islam. Raphael Israeli, professor of Islamic Civilization at the Hebrew University, praises Bostom for being “sensitive and wise enough to tell the essential from the marginal, meticulous enough to reflect the spirit of the texts, thorough enough to understand the sub-texts, and diligent and conscientious enough to leave no stone unturned in his effort to transmit a complete message."

This is not a book that can be read through in one or even several sittings. Above all it is a resource which should be consulted by U.S. and European legislators, policy makers and media opinion-shapers. At present the public is fed what classics professor Bruce Thornton aptly describes as "a reduction of history to a melodrama in which a noble, tolerant, cultured Islamic world has been unjustly attacked by an intolerant, greedy West addled by Christian bigotry and racist stereotypes of bloodthirsty jihadist warriors. All the problems in the Middle East today, in this Orwellian rewriting of history, thus derive not from anything dysfunctional in Islam or Arab regimes but rather in the sins of the West and its Middle Eastern minion, Israel."

There is no better antidote to this nonsense than Andrew Bostom's The Legacy of Jihad.