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| Terror Networks |
| The Legacy of Jihad |
| 2006-10-20 |
| A review of Andrew Bostom's book The Legacy of Jihad. The review was written by Lee Harris, author of Civilization and Its Enemies. The review was published in the new issue of Policy Review. This post is the first two paragraphs and the conclusion of the review. For anyone wishing to understand jihad — that “peculiar institution” of Islam — Andrew Bostom has provided an immense service with The Legacy of Jihad. Beginning with a splendid 80-page survey and overview of the history of that subject by Bostom himself, followed by an extensive anthology of writings on the topic of jihad and some of its accompanying features, this book, the product of exhaustive scholarly research, is written with a profound sense of urgency. Bostom, a professor of medicine at Brown who became a passionately committed scholar of Islam after 9/11, wants his readers to grapple themselves with the historical evidence and to come to their own conclusions about the significance of jihad. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that for him there are few challenges facing the liberal West today greater than that posed by radical Islam’s revival of the classical ideal of jihad. In his acknowledgments, Bostom expresses the touching wish that his own children and their children may “thrive in a world where the devastating institution of jihad has been acknowledged, renounced, dismantled, and relegated forever to the dustbin of history by Muslims themselves.” Yet, after reading and pondering this invaluable book, it is difficult not to ask, Why should Muslims renounce and dismantle an institution that, while it may have been devastating to those who have been its victims, has nevertheless been the historical agent by which Islamic culture has come to dominate such a vast expanse of our planet? What would prompt any culture to abandon a tradition that has permitted it not only to expand immensely from its original home, but also to make permanent conquests of so many hearts and minds? |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #1 So the only good... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-10-20 11:08 |