The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion Paperback – July 17, 2007

will buy one for a muslim neighbor

Robert Spencer has done it again, producing another highly readable but scholarly treatise on the most important issue of our time - the struggle of the West against Islamofacism. If you read this book you will know more about the actual Muhammad than almost everyone, past or present, has known or does know. This includes Muslims themselves. Spencer carves away the layers of myth that have accumulated around the persona of the self-proclaimed prophet, using the double-bladed scalpel of "history" and "reason". Spencer's goal is to find out what Muhammad "was really like."The idea persists in Western and Eastern minds that Muhammad was a man of peace who established a world-wide religion of peace. It is generally assumed that only in modern times has a small faction of religious radicals committed crimes in the name of Muhammad. The gentle Prophet himself, if he were alive, would certainly not approve of these deadly deeds committed in his name. But Spencer's research leads to the opposite conclusion: Muhammad was primarily a man of aggressive violence and irrationality. He was himself the prototype of the modern day Islamofascist Jihad terrorist.This conclusion is based on an exhaustive study of all the available Islamic texts. There exists an enormous body of "sacred" Islamic writing about the life and revelations of Muhammad. Spencer has spent years closely examining all these holy texts of Islam, using comparative analysis to arrive at the core beliefs about Muhammad, his life and works.First are the Suras of the Qur'an, piecemeal revelations that Muhammad (570-632 AD) claims to have received from the angel Gabriel over a twenty-three year prophetic career. The first of these are poetic ramblings bearing close resemblance to passages from the Old and New Testament, the Talmud, Zoroastrianism, and heretical Christian sects such as the Nestorians, Gnostics and Manicheans. All these sources were extant in Arabia at the time of Mohammad's life.Due to the fragmentary quality of the Suras early Muslims elaborated additional sources to provide context for the Qur'an: tafsir (commentary) and hadith (traditions about the Prophet). In the ninth century one of the most respected scholars collected over 300,000 ahadith (plural for hadith). He finally chose two thousand as authentic. His collection fills nine volumes. This is just one of six collections, some of even greater length.In addition to the above mass of information is the sira, which is the biography of Muhammad, the first of which did not appear until 150 years after his death. There arose in the eighth and ninth centuries a number of Muslim jurists and scholars who wrote contrary accounts of Muhammad's life and quarreled amongst themselves as to which account was authentic. On two matters they all agree: Muhammad was virulently anti-Jewish and anti-Christian.The last half of the Qur'an is filled with "ex post facto" revelations. For instance after Muhammad married his daughter-in-law he received a convenient revelation with Allah's approval. Then in his later years the prophet became increasingly engaged in wars of expansion; slaughtering and beheading people, gouging out their eyes with nails, cutting off their limbs, and capturing their wives and daughters as slaves. After each successful campaign he would receive a revelation with Allah's stamp of approval.By using only sources approved by Islamic law as authentic Spencer has invited a rebuttal by Muslim scholars on their own ground. No argument has come forward. There has not been, and will not be, such a rejoinder. Spencer has built an irrefutable description of the "real" Muhammad from within the Islamic canon.We are profoundly indebted to Robert Spencer. Writing as an individual, unaffiliated with any academic institution, he is able to tell the truth as he finds it in his researches. It tells you something about the followers of Muhammad that Spencer has to remain in hiding for fear of his life. And in his "acknowledgements" he is unable to mention by name the many people who have helped him in his undertaking. They too live under the death threat of the Islamofacists.There is a deep sickness lying at the heart of Islam, and it's source can be found in the darkness of Muhammad's own heart.

A truly enlightening book written by Robert Spencer. I appreciate this book because he addresses all the goods and bads of Muhammad's ministry. The controversial aspects to Muhammad's time on Earth were intriguing because it seems like the type of things Muslims would (and do) try to cover up. Yet, Spencer points out how real even these gritty details are because even the Pro-Muhammad historians have to at least acknowledge their existence if they are going to paint over or fudge the details. His coverage of the fiasco of the Satanic Verses was my favorite part of the book. His conclusions regarding the Satanic verses incident are also hold a lot of truth to them, but I won't spoil them.The reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5 were some things that did come across as low blows in what may be seen as a personal attack on Islam. He criticizes Islam over certain historical facts that someone can turn around and give to Mr. Spencer (a self-proclaimed Eastern Catholic) over historical details in Christianity. They don't really work when attacking Christianity, and it is clear they don't seem to work with Islam either.Robert Spencer is very passionate in what he does, but it is clear he is not an Islamophobe. He treats the subject very respectfully, albeit boldly. The end of the book that sums up the negative aspects of Muhammad is also treated very respectfully. Given that Mr. Spencer puts his life on the line to talk about Islam, it is surprising that he maintains such a cool head when discussing these matters intellectually.One final thing that I agree with him involving his writing both this book and his other book "Did Muhammad Exist?"- he wrote both of these books to see if it could be done. He wanted to approach Muhammad and Islam from a similar historical criticism approach that secular scholars do to Christianity. He wanted to see if society, as well as Muslims around the world, would tolerate a scholarly approach towards Islam without resorting to hatred, violence, and retribution- but also that the conversation could continue. It doesn't seem like too many people are eager to join in Robert Spencer's conversations, and one can understand why. Yet, this is still early in the conversation that Mr. Spencer is revving up. I hope everyone can keep their heads cool and read this book as an intellectual investigation. One doesn't have to come to the same conclusions Mr. Spencer does, but at least by reading this they can come to a better reason as to why they disagree. All in all, a great read.