If you expect nuance this is not the book for you. The book is direct and does not mince words with what Islam is about. We ponder why Muslim countries are not as free as our own and assume that the core values of the religion are incidental to a countries development.
Readers who have read the works of Alvin Schmidtt grasp that despite lofty theologians claims Mohammad is quite different from Jesus or Moses. Mohammad was very much a product of the harsh desert and his teachings are a theological rationalization of the Arab lifestyle of raiding. The notion of either Jesus raiding to secure treasure is not part of his teachings. Moses did lead military matters but not for the purpose of financial gain. The Jews refer to Moses as our teacher. For in Judaism the teacher is the most revered of roles.
Judaism and Christianity are religions where authority is frequently questioned and challenged Kings are accountable to God. This challenging of authority is unheard of in Islam and consequently we feign surprise that its societies are more totalitarian than their Western counterparts.
The above does not imply that every Muslim is inherently evil. Far from it, the average Muslim is a decent chap with the same concerns as the rest of us. Unfortunately, the community has the problem of foreign financed leadership that is beholden to a political version of the religion that is mostly at odds with the ethos of our founding fathers. In essence decent men of faith like Stephen Schwartz of the Center for Islamic Pluralism are being drowned out by the foreign financed CAIRs.
In America politics should respect and honor religion from afar. Those clowns like the Duck mock the religious right while pretending Marxist churches and CAIR are somehow different animals. In his own way the Duck is more doctrinaire fundamentalist than the folks at the 700 Club he mocks. He could switch a Koran and Manifesto and repeat 90% of his lines.
When reading Sultan's book we are supposed to be shocked by the brutality of life in Syria. Sadly, those of us familiar with real lives are not shocked by horrific abuse.
In their self righteous rants, the religious fanatics pretend America is decadent while treating their women slightly better than domestic animals. Every society has abuse, but in America it is not condoned by society. Society values women and children and officials will protect those who can not protect themselves. A woman coming into a clinic with cigarette burns from a husband will get some sort of counseling. Hopefully, the social worker will have learned more than Marx and be able to be a professional. This is not to say that domestic violence does not occur in other cultures, just it is not officially condoned.
If you are looking for thought provoking blunt words Sultan is for you. If you are looking for nuance make another selection.
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Beak I have several friends who had been involved in Christian ministries behind the Iron Curtain in the late 70s through the 80s. Most had visited several Middle Eastern nations as well. Everyone of them said the totalitarian oppression in Communist countries paled in comparison to that in Islamic countries, even in supposedly "moderate" Egypt. My aunt spent three years living in Iraq, Egypt and Morocco long before the notion of Khomeini, Al Queda, Hezbollah and the like. On a personal level she liked the people and made friends there. However, even in that earlier era, the religious/political atmosphere of those countries was nothing to write home about, let alone emulate.
It's unfortunate that Wafa Sultan, Walid Shoebat and those like them get marginal coverage by the lame stream media. But as I recall, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was also shunned by the press, once he made it clear that the Soviet communists were not nice people you could negotiate or work with.
"Sadly, those of us familiar with real lives are not shocked by horrific abuse."
Beak, that is a silly comparison. Of course there are battered wifes, raped daughters and sisters and sexually abused little boys in Western families, but it is not, so to say, system-resident there. It is NOT considered good clinical practice to laugh at a woman who received cigarette burns from her husband and to perform an abortion without anaesthetics to punish her. In Western countries all this is considered felonious. Not so in Muslim countries. Something like that is not just permitted, it is called for by Islamic law.
And they treat their women a darn sight worse than domestic animals.
"If you are looking for thought provoking blunt words Sultan is for you. If you are looking for nuance make another selection."
And what "nuance" might that be? That they don't stone little girls to death anymore but hang them, as it happens in Iran? That is about as "nuanced" as it gets. There IS NO "nuance". Full stop! There is just Islam.
A God Who Hates is a grim book and rivals Brigitte Gabriel's book in that regard.
IMO, both books should be required reading -- particularly for Islamophiles.
Editrix
There are those that can't handle a blunt assessment of fact.
I want to point out reading the part about the wives of the prophet was painful even though I knew the facts.
Now I want to stress the story of Zainab was an outrage in its day and Sultan's stories about adoption ring sadly true.
People did marry at a younger age because life expectancy was shorter. I am not certain that consumating a union at nine was ever normal but twelve may sadly have been a possibility.
Onto the Jewish wife, this was a local custom not limited to Muslims. Wives were acquired through wardare in the Old Testament. Now the difference between a raid for profit and a military campaign means something to me but is in the area of nuance.
Alligator, do you know that Solzhenitsyn was a Tsarist who believed the Russian people must endure a level of suffering to redeem the world ?
In other words, a bit crazy. Do your research before you enter the complicated matter of trying to understand another culture.
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