Reading Up on Islam (Stocking Up on Intellectual Ammunition vs. the Islamofascists. GREAT List!)

Since 9-11, I've received numerous letters like this recent one: "What can be done to help educate people on the dangers that radical Islam poses to Western civilization? I don't think this ideological conflict will go away."

No, it won't. It is likely to be for the first half of the 21st century what the Cold War was for the last half of the 20th -- a long, subtle struggle with occasional days of fire. How to educate folks? Use of all media will be needed, but here's a list of books I've read and found useful. There are many more that I haven't read.

First, to understand radical Islam, some sense of basic Islam is essential, and that starts with the Quran. Muslims insist that unless you've read it in Arabic, you haven't read it. Maybe so, but in theology as well as in horseshoes, leaners are better than nothing, so I'd recommend either reading a translation on the Internet or buying the new Quran translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem that came out last year in paperback from Oxford University Press.

Some scholars now ask tough questions about the Quran's historicity. As I type with one hand, I'm holding in the other John Wainsbrough's "Quranic Studies" (2004) and Ibn Warraq's "The Origins of the Koran" (1998). Warraq left Islam after coming to believe the Muhammad story was a sham, and his books include "Why I Am Not a Muslim" (1995), "The Quest for the Historical Muhammad" (2000) and "Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out" (2003).

Second in importance within Islam after the Quran are the Hadith, massive works delineating how Muhammad supposedly dressed, ate, ingested and excreted food and drink, and so forth. Many Hadith collections are available online, but Ram Swarup's critical and succinct summary, "Understanding the Hadith: The Sacred Traditions of Islam" (2002), is a place to start. "Crossroads to Islam" by Yehuda Nevo and Judith Koren (2003) also gives useful insights into Muslim origins.

To understand how Islam affects non-Muslims (called "dhimmis"), read three books by historian Bat Ye'or. On top of my right foot now are "The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians Under Islam" (1985), "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam" (1996) and "Islam and Dhimmitude" (2002). A book edited by Robert Spencer, "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance" (2004), includes many useful short essays on dhimmitude. Bottom line: Non-Muslims living in Muslim-controlled lands have faced discrimination always, persecution often and death sometimes.

"Islam at the Crossroads" by Paul Marshall, Roberta Green and Lela Gilbert (2002) and several books by Spencer provide succinct overviews of past and present. It's also good to read material from the Islamophile side, so sitting on my left toes are Karen Armstrong's "Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet" (1993), Malise Ruthven's "Islam" (1997) and Richard Fletcher's "The Cross and the Crescent" (2003).

Now, with the foundations laid, we can proceed to books about radical Islam that I'm balancing on my knees, including "Sword of Islam" by John F. Murphy Jr. (2002) and Paul Marshall's "Radical Islam's Rules" (2005), which shows how Sharia law works in many Muslim-dominated countries. Daniel Pipes' "Militant Islam Reaches America" (2002) and David Horowitz's "Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left" (2004) tell of the threat to the good old, still asleep United States.

Those books suggest geopolitical responses, but in the long run theological responses are crucial, so I'd also recommend "Answering Islam," by Norman Geisler and Abdul Saleeb (2002); "Muslims and Christians at the Table," by Bruce McDowell and Anees Zaka (1999); "The Truth About Islam," by Anees Zaka and Diane Coleman (2004); and other books by George Braswell and by the Caner brothers.

Titles highlighted in red should be read with great skepticism. Titles highlighted in green are objective analyses of the topics they explore. Titles highlighted in blue focus on Islamic extremism. Titles in black held no special resonance with the reader. Let awareness and knowledge light your path.

BOOKS:

Ahmed, Akbar S., Islam Today: A Short Introduction to the Muslim World. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2002.

Ali, Maulana Muhammad, A Manual of Hadith. Columbus, OH: Ahmadiyya Anjuman Ishaat Islam Lahore Inc., 1941/2001.

Armstrong, Karen, Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World, New York: Anchor Books, 2001.

Armstrong, Karen, Islam: A Short History. New York: Modern Library, 2002.

Armstrong, Karen, Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet. San Francisco: Harper, 1993.

Churchill, Winston S., “The Culture and Glories of the Arab Race.” In Never Give In: The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches. New York: Hyperion, 2003.

DeLong-Bas, Natana J., Wahhabi Islam, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1999.

New! Dozier, Jr., Rush W., Why We Hate. New York: Contemporary Books, 2002.

Duggan, Alfred, The Story of the Crusades: 1097 - 1291; . London: Faber and Faber, 1963.

Esposito, John L. and Voll, John O., Islam and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Esposito, John L., Islam: The Straight Path, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Gerges, Fawaz A., America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests?. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. No. 5 in a collection of 7 volumes. London: Methuen & Co., 1911.

Harris, Lee, Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History, New York: Free Press, 2004.

New! Harris, Sam, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and The Future of Reason. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.

New! Horowitz, David, Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2004.

Horuani, Albert, A History of the Arab Peoples, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard, 2002.

Huntington, Samuel P., The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Johnson, Paul, A History of Christianity, New York: Touchstone Books, 1976.

Kepel, Gilles, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Lewis, Bernard, From Babel to Dragomans. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Lewis, Bernard, Islam and the West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Lewis, Bernard, Islam in History: Ideas, People, and Events in the Middle East, Chicago: Open Court, 1993.

Lewis, Bernard, What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Lewis, Bernard, The Political Language of Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

MacCulloch, Diarmaid, The Reformation: A History, New York: Viking Books, 2003.

Manji, Irshad, The Trouble With Islam Today, New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2003.

Menezes, Rev. J.L., The Life and Religion of Mohammed, Fort Collins, CO: Roman Catholic Books, 1912.

Mernissi, Fatima, Beyond the Veil, Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Murphy, John F., Jr., Sword of Islam, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002.

Paxton, Robert O., The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.

Pipes, Daniel, Militant Islam Reaches America. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.

Pryce-Jones, David, The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1989, 2002.

Qutb, Sayed, Milestones, Egypt, 1964. (Can be found at various sites on the net, for example, Milestones.)

Riley-Smith, Jonathon,The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

New! Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and Social Hope. London: Penguin Books, 1999.

New! Russell, Bertrand, On God and Religion. New York: Prometheus Books, 1986.

Selbourne, David, The Losing Battle With Islam, New York: Prometheus Books, 2005.

Spencer, Robert, Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest-Growing Faith. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002.

Spencer, Robert, Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003.

Spencer, Robert, The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims, Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2005.

The Quran (Text, Translation and Commentary), Translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, Inc., U.S Edition, 2001 (originally translated, 1934).

The Quran (The Glorious Quran), Translated by Muhammad M. Pickthall. 10th ed., Des Plaines, IL: Library of Islam, 1994 (originally translated, 1930).

The Quran (With Parallel Arabic Text), Translated by N.J. Dawood. London: Penguin Classics, 2000 Edition, (originally translated, 1956).

The Quran, Translated by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Trifkovic, Serge, The Sword of the Prophet, Boston: Regina Orthodox Press, 2002.

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