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MESSAGES TO THE WORLD: THE STATEMENTS OF OSAMA BIN LADENLawrence says that bin Laden is fundamentally a “poet”—and that his fanatical ideology puts him in line with Left Behind writers Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. This, he says, is exactly why the al-Qaeda spokesperson’s “hollow” message is so attractive to angry Arabs. ... Osama bin Laden repeatedly cites the Qur’an, but he cites it in the way that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson cite the New Testament. You can make scripture fit your worldview and bin Laden had done this extraordinarily well with...

Western society misunderstands Osama bin Laden because only "scraps and sound bites" have portrayed him in the past, says a Duke University professor who has compiled and edited the al-Qaida leader's writings. Some of bin Laden's letters have been inaccessible, and previous English translations of them from Arabic have been flawed, said Bruce Lawrence, a religion professor and authority on Islam and medieval religion. But the picture that comes out of the comprehensive and annotated collection of bin Laden's writings, "Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden," shows the terrorist chieftain has considerable talent to challenge the...