Jihad In The West Muslim Conquests From The 7th To The 21st Centu [Hardcover]

Paul Fregosi deserves a great deal of credit for returning this history to those of us who are sorely tired of the "hate the West" propaganda that our intellectual elites pump out on a daily basis. The latest version of this phenom is the "Islamic civilization good, Christendom civilization bad" paradigm that is so prevalent in Western media and academia today. An anonymous academic of Islamic studies recently told the NY Times, "You can't say anything but sugary nonsense about Islam on college campuses today." The powerful twin silencers of our political correctness cult and the threat of violence a la the Rushdie affair have colluded to deprive us of the true history of Islamic civilization, even here in the "free" West.

Undeterred by the fact that the originally intended publisher of this book, Little Brown, declined to publish his book due to fear of a violent Rushdie-like reaction, the courageous Fregosi dishes out anything but sugary nonsense in this well-written book.

He introduces us to a long line of Ottoman Sultans who make the worst medieval monarchs of France or England look like Boy Scouts in comparison. Using the Quranic verse denouncing "mischief as worse than homicide" as justification, the triumphant heirs to the Ottoman throne routinely murdered their brothers, sons, half-brothers, male cousins and nephews to ensure a "peaceful" succession to the trhone. (Even three-year-old toddlers and pregnant concubines of the previous Sultan were not spared). Each Sultan and most wealthy nobles maintained huge harems of women captured by slavers to serve as "concubines" -- i.e. sex slaves who had little choice in the matter. Even in the pre-Enlightenment times, Westerners would have considered this practice as "rape" but the Ottoman nobles considered it God's law as outlined in the Quran. The Ottomans also depended heavily on assassination as both a domestic and foreign policy tool. Those who displeased the Sultan, high or low, could count on a silent throttling or poisoning or summary beheading on any pretext, without benefit of trial. One Sultan had his entire harem of nearly three hundred concubines executed simply because he suspected that one of them was unfaithful.

That was the way that the Ottomans treated their own kind; imagine how they treated those they considered their "enemies." Here's an example: when one Ottoman conqueror slaughtered a garrison of several hundred Christian troops guarding a Mediterranean fort, he had their dead bodies laid out in a huge rectangle and ordered wooden planks to be placed upon them. Then he and his troops gathered around this unusual table and ate a picnic meal off of it.

Fregosi outlines the constant, often unilateral attacks that were visited on European Christendom by first the Moors and secondly, the Ottomans. He introduces us to long-forgotten heroes who fought valiantly to stem the tide of these vicious attacks: Janos Hunyadi of Hungary; Jan III Sobieski of Poland, Skanderberg of Albania; Don Juan of Austria (today, chiefly remembered as the prototypical "Latin Lover" rather than the hero of the decisive naval Battle of Lepanto, which checked Ottoman hegemony in the Mediterraneon.) He rehabilitates the image of the much-maligned Isabella of Spain and correctly points out that the Reconquesta of Spain -- often portrayed by the politically correct as the regrettable triumph of Christian fanaticism over Muslim "tolerance" -- was actually the brutal nationalistic struggle of an indigenous people intent on driving out an alien occupier. (After all, the official language of "Muslim Spain" was Arabic, not Spanish.)

I am not opposed to giving Islamic civilization its due for its many positive achievements. But neither do I support the current fashion of softening, disguising and discounting the dark side of this belief system's past, out of fear of causing another Rushdie situation or for the politically correct sake of avoiding the "hurt feelings" of Muslims. All other religions and belief systems are subjected to rigorous analysis in our popular press, on our college campuses and in scholarly books. We do a disservice to ourselves when we exempt Islam from this process because of fear or political correctness, but this is the prevailing norm we encounter today, except for those rare instances when a courageous author like Paul Fregosi steps forward to remind us of the truth.

As another reviewer noted, this book is a welcome antidote to prevailing propaganda pumped out by "historians" such as Karen Armstrong. Published by an obscure house called Prometheus Books, this work doesn't have the benefit of the marketing budget or cushy magazine reviews that push along a Karen Armstrong book. But it has gained an audience, largely through word of mouth. I recommend that readers not only purchase it but pass it along to their friends to continue this word of mouth trend.