Islamic Government Books

They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It

Brigitte Gabriel

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Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

They Must Be Stopped is New York Times bestselling author Brigitte Gabriel’s warning to the world: We can no longer ignore the growth of radical Islam--we must act soon, and powerfully. Gabriel challenges our western and politically-correct notions about Islam, demonstrating why radical Islam is so deadly and how we can halt its progress.

Brigitte Gabriel speaks her mind:

*Fundamentalist Islam is a religion rooted in 7th century teachings that are fundamentally opposed to democracy and equality.

*Radical Islamists are utterly contemptuous of all “infidels” (non-Muslims) and regard them as enemies worthy of death.

*Madrassas in America are increasing in number, and they are just one part of a growing radical Islamic army on US soil.

*Radical Islam exploits the US legal system and America’s protection of religion to spread its hatred for western values.

*America must organize a unified voice that says “enough” to political correctness, and demands that government officials and elected representatives do whatever is necessary to protect us.

Brigitte Gabriel has fearlessly faced down critics, death threats, and political correctness, and is one of the most sought after terrorism experts in the world. They Must Be Stopped is her clarion call to action. Gabriel thoroughly addresses the historical and religious basis of radical Islam, its frightening encroachment into societies around the world, and its abuses of democracy in the name of religion.

Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America

Brigitte Gabriel

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Political
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 350 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Her writing is eloquent and her passion tremendous."

--Publishers Weekly

“Brigitte Gabriel's words should be read, and studied carefully, by all the law enforcement and government officials of the West -- as well as by everyone who values freedom.”

-- Robert Spencer, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)

Brigitte Gabriel lost her childhood to militant Islam, when militant Muslims from throughout the Middle East poured into Lebanon and declared jihad against the Lebanese Christians. Because They Hate warns that the US is threatened by fundamentalist Islamic theology in the same way Lebanon was— radical Islam will stop at nothing short of domination of all non-Muslim countries.

Fiercely articulate and passionately committed, Because They Hate tells Gabriel's personal story as well as outlines the history, social movements, and religious divisions that have led to this critical historical conflict.

BRIGITTE GABRIEL is a US-based journalist and news producer who started her career as an anchor for World News, an evening Arabic news program. As a terrorism expert and the founder of the nonprofit organization ACT! for America, Brigitte Gabriel travels widely and speaks regularly on topics related to the Middle East. She has addressed audiences at the FBI, the United States Special Operations Command, the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Joint Forces Staff College, among others.

The Al Qaeda Reader

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Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

What do our enemies believe?  What motivates their war against the West?  What is their vision of the ideal Islamic society?  Surprisingly, more than five years after 9/11, there is very little understanding of these questions. 

Despite our tendency to dismiss Islamic extremism as profoundly irrational, al-Qaeda is not without a coherent body of beliefs.  Like other totalitarian movements, the movement’s leaders have rationalized their brutality in a number of published treatises.  Now, for the first time, The Al Qaeda Reader gathers together the essential texts and documents that trace the origin, history, and evolution of the ideas of al-Qaeda founders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden. 

This extraordinary collection of the key texts of the al-Qaeda movement—including incendiary materials never before translated into English—lays bare the minds, motives, messages, and ultimate goals of an enemy bent on total victory. Al-Qaeda’s chilling ideology calls for a relentless jihad against non-Muslim “infidels,” repudiates democracy in favor of Islamic law, stresses the importance of martyrdom, and mocks the notion of “moderate” Islam.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these works is how grounded they are in the traditional sources of Islamic theology: the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet. The founders of al-Qaeda use these sources as powerful weapons of persuasion, reminding followers (and would-be recruits) that Muhammad and his warriors spread Islam through the power of the sword and that the Koran is not merely allegory or history but literal truth that commands all Muslims to action.

In addition to laying bare al-Qaeda’s ultimate motives, The Al Qaeda Reader includes the organization’s propagandist speeches, which are directed primarily at Americans, Europeans, and Iraqis. Here, al-Qaeda’s many "official" accusations against the West are meticulously delineated, from standard complaints such as the Palestinian issue and Iraq to wholly unexpected ones concerning the U.S.’s exploitation of women and the environment.

Taken together, the Theology and Propaganda sections of this volume reveal the most comprehensive picture of al-Qaeda to date. They also highlight the double-speak of bin Laden and Zawahiri, who often say one thing to Muslims in their religious treatises ("We must hate and fight the West because Islam commands it") and another in their propaganda directed at the West ("The West is the aggressor and we are fighting back merely in self-defense").

Westerners from across the political spectrum will be fascinated and enlightened by The Al Qaeda Reader’s insights into the nature of Islamic texts and the ways in which al-Qaeda has used these texts to manufacture hatred against our civilization and our way of life.

The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban

Sarah Chayes

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Interesting but poorly written 1 out of 5 stars.
5 of 9 people found this review helpful.

An utterly confusing account of the war in Afghanistan. Its merit is that it gives the reader a probably realistic impression of the complexity and intransparency of Afghan politics and history...nothing is what it seems. Its flaws are chronological disorder, personal grudges and reporter-centrism...("look at me getting the real dope against all odds" and "look at me, the only sensitive observer").

Editorial Review:

As a former star reporter for NPR, Sarah Chayes developed a devoted listenership for her on-site reports on conflicts around the world. In The Punishment of Virtue, she reveals the misguided U.S. policy in Afghanistan in the wake of the defeat of the Taliban, which has severely undermined the effort to build democracy and allowed corrupt tribal warlords back into positions of power and the Taliban to re-infiltrate the country. This is an eyeopening chronicle that highlights the often infuriating realities of a vital front in the war on terror, exposing deeper, fundamental problems with current U.S. strategy.

Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West

Benazir Bhutto

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Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October 2007, after eight years of exile, hopeful that she could be a catalyst for change. Upon a tumultuous reception, she survived a suicide-bomb attack that killed nearly two hundred of her countrymen. But she continued to forge ahead, with more courage and conviction than ever, since she knew that time was running out—for the future of her nation, and for her life.

In Reconciliation, Bhutto recounts in gripping detail her final months in Pakistan and offers a bold new agenda for how to stem the tide of Islamic radicalism and to rediscover the values of tolerance and justice that lie at the heart of her religion. With extremist Islam on the rise throughout the world, the peaceful, pluralistic message of Islam has been exploited and manipulated by fanatics. Bhutto persuasively argues that America and Britain are fueling this turn toward radicalization by supporting groups that serve only short-term interests. She believed that by enabling dictators, the West was actually contributing to the frustration and extremism that lead to terrorism. With her experience governing Pakistan and living and studying in the West, Benazir Bhutto was versed in the complexities of the conflict from both sides. She was a renaissance woman who offered a way out.

In this riveting and deeply insightful book, Bhutto explores the complicated history between the Middle East and the West. She traces the roots of international terrorism across the world, including American support for Pakistani general Zia-ul-Haq, who destroyed political parties, eliminated an independent judiciary, marginalized NGOs, suspended the protection of human rights, and aligned Pakistani intelligence agencies with the most radical elements of the Afghan mujahideen. She speaks out not just to the West, but to the Muslims across the globe who are at a crossroads between the past and the future, between education and ignorance, between peace and terrorism, and between dictatorship and democracy. Democracy and Islam are not incompatible, and the clash between Islam and the West is not inevitable. Bhutto presents an image of modern Islam that defies the negative caricatures often seen in the West. After reading this book, it will become even clearer what the world has lost by her assassination.

Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia

Ahmed Rashid

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Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the aftermath of September 11, as Americans tried to figure out what they were up against, many of them turned to Ahmed Rashid's masterful book Taliban, the single best account of Afghanistan's murderous regime. With Jihad, Rashid offers an indispensable companion volume on five of Afghanistan's neighbors--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--and "the New Great Game" about to be waged over them between China, Russia, and the United States. "The vast, empty landscape dotted with oases of vibrant populations and political ferment, sitting on the world's last great untapped natural energy reserves, is almost as unknown to Westerners as it was to Europeans in the Middle Ages," writes Rashid, a Pakistani journalist with extensive experience reporting from the region. He describes the area's "growing instability," which he credits to a strain of militant Islam just like the form propagated by the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. One of the most interesting parts of Jihad concerns Juma Namangani, a shadowy rebel leader in Uzbekistan who has "cultivated an air of mystery that [is] even more extreme than that of the secretive [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar." Rashid concludes that radical Islam will remain popular in Central Asia as long as the governments there are oppressive. We ignore this part of the world at our peril, and there is no better guide to it than Rashid. --John Miller

Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism: A Call to Action

George Weigel

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

“History must be made to march in the direction of genuine human progress; world affairs have no intrinsic momentum that necessarily results in the victory of decency. Maintaining the morale necessary to achieving progress in history requires us to live our lives, today, against a moral horizon of responsibility that is wider and deeper than the quest for personal satisfactions. The future of our civilization does not rest merely on the advance of material wealth and technological prowess; the future of the West turns on the question of whether our spiritual aspirations are noble or base.”
—from Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism

More than half a decade after 9/11, safe passage through a moment of history fraught with both peril and possibility requires Americans across the political spectrum to see things as they are.

In this incisive, engaging study of the present danger and what we must do to prevail against it, George Weigel, one of America’s foremost public intellectuals, does precisely that: he sees, and describes, things as they are—and as they might be. Drawing on a quarter century of experience at the intersection of moral argument and public policy, he describes rigorously and clearly the threat posed by global jihadism: the religiously inspired ideology which teaches that it is the moral obligation of all Muslims to employ whatever means are necessary to compel the world’s submission to Islam. Exploring that ideology’s theological, social, cultural, and political roots, Weigel points a new direction for both public policy and interreligious dialogue, one that meets the challenge of jihadism forthrightly while creating the conditions for a less threatening, more mutually enriching encounter between Islam and the West.

Essential reading in a time of momentous political decisions, Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism is a clarion call for a new seriousness of debate and a new clarity of purpose in American public life.

Beyond Terror and Martyrdom: The Future of the Middle East

Gilles Kepel

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Editorial Review:

Since 2001, two dominant worldviews have clashed in the global arena: a neoconservative nightmare of an insidious Islamic terrorist threat to civilized life, and a jihadist myth of martyrdom through the slaughter of infidels. Across the airwaves and on the ground, an ill-defined and uncontrollable war has raged between these two opposing scenarios. Deadly images and threats—from the televised beheading of Western hostages to graphic pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib, from the destruction wrought by suicide bombers in London and Madrid to civilian deaths at the hands of American occupation forces in Iraq—have polarized populations on both sides of this divide.

Yet, as the noted Middle East scholar and commentator Gilles Kepel demonstrates, President Bush’s War on Terror masks a complex political agenda in the Middle East—enforcing democracy, accessing Iraqi oil, securing Israel, and seeking regime change in Iran. Osama bin Laden’s call for martyrs to rise up against the apostate and hasten the dawn of a universal Islamic state papers over a fractured, fragmented Islamic world that is waging war against itself.

Beyond Terror and Martyrdom sounds the alarm to the West and to Islam that both of these exhausted narratives are bankrupt—neither productive of democratic change in the Middle East nor of unity in Islam. Kepel urges us to escape the ideological quagmire of terrorism and martyrdom and explore the terms of a new and constructive dialogue between Islam and the West, one for which Europe, with its expanding and restless Muslim populations, may be the proving ground.

(20080922)

Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror

Mahmood Mamdani

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Misleading Title 3 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Labeled Good Muslim Bad Muslim and with an introductory chapter concerning the misconception between fundamental and political Islam in Western discourse, I ASSUMED this book would have something to do with that. Unfortunately, it dissembled as a genealogical history of modern Islamic terrorism which, undeniably, in Mamdani's case, has purely Western, and specifically, American and Israeli roots. In reality this book is nothing more than a indictment of American history, Israeli history, Spanish history, British history, Dutch history, French history, but never Afghani history, Nicaraguan history, Sudanese history. Nothing but diatribe, although, and why I give it three stars - it is incredibly well-written, engaging, beautifully cited, authenticated, and accurate (you know, on that scholarly level which though causes it to be a compact thesis and self-sustaining, doesn't really cover the whole truth).
student,
amherst college

Editorial Review:

In this brilliant look at the rise of political Islam, the distinguished political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani brings his expertise and insight to bear on a question many Americans have been asking since 9/11: how did this happen? Good Muslim, Bad Muslim is a provocative and important book that will profoundly change our understanding both of Islamist politics and the way America is perceived in the world today.

Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam

Mark Levine

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Subjects -> Entertainment -> Music -> Musical Genres -> Heavy Metal
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Music -> General
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Music -> General AAS

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

“We play heavy metal because our lives are heavy metal.”
—Reda Zine, one of the founders of the Moroccan heavy-metal scene

“Music is the weapon of the future.”
—Fela Kuti

An eighteen-year-old Moroccan who loves Black Sabbath. A twenty-two-year-old rapper from the Gaza Strip. A young Lebanese singer who quotes Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” They are as representative of the world of Islam today as the conservatives and extremists we see every night on the news. Heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, and reggae are each the music of protest, and in many cases considered immoral in the Muslim world. This music may also turn out to be the soundtrack of a revolution unfolding across that world.

Why, despite governmental attempts to control and censor them, do these musicians and fans keep playing and listening? Partly, of course, for the joy of self-expression, but also because, in this region, everything is political. In Heavy Metal Islam, Mark LeVine explores the influence of Western music on the Middle East through interviews with musicians and fans, introducing us young Muslims struggling to reconcile their religion with a passion for music and a desire for change. The result is a revealing tour of contemporary Islamic culture through the evolving music scene in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Heavy Metal Islam is a surprising, wildly entertaining foray into a historically authoritarian region where music just might be the true democratizing force.