The Fifteen Century War: Islam's Violent Heritage

Rating:
Summary: EVANGELISM BY THE SWORD
Review: If you believe this book....the spreading of the faith by the sword is completely congruous with Islamic tenets, and was used by the Prophet Mohammad against the Meccans from the very beginning. Islam divides the world into Dar-al-Islam - the world of Islam, and Dar-al-Harb - the world of war. If the more than a billion Muslims in the world didn't support violent methods, wouldn't the peaceful majority drown out those few radicals? Their silence, however, is deafening. Either the majority secretly supports the fundamentalists, or they are totally cowed by a minority.

Allah's revelations to the Prophet in the 7th century covered every aspect of life so thoroughly that religion and politics are inseparable. The Koran and the Hadith (Traditions of the Prophet) are the basis for the melding together of religion, law, politics, & society. Man's institutions are made irrelevant, and there is no possible separation of church and state. The original writings were subject to interpretation by Islamic scholars until the 10th century, when the laws were frozen, making any further change a heresy.

More than 80% of the 22 Arab nations have a declining GNP and 70% of the population is 25 year old or less. This is fertile territory for the terror fraternity of radical Islam fundamentalists. Lots of schools exist where virtually nothing is taught but the Koran.

According to Norval, "The overwhelming majority of the pundits and decision makers in the West, including America's elites, say they have no problem with Islam, only with its violent extremist elements. These people are wrong and are turning a blind eye to history. The relationship between Islam and non-Islamic societies has been tense and full of conflict for almost fifteen centuries."

This book is full of lots of other information about the whole broad subject, but is lacking any thorough documentation that violence is advocated in the 2 main Islamic texts mentioned. At the same time, the subject matter is very believable, especially in view of what we observe in the world today, and I recommend it highly.



Rating:
Summary: One grievous fault, otherwise well worth reading
Review: Norval's sweeping indictment of Islam as the world's most violent great world religion--and not just in its extremist form--is difficult to discount. Would that it were not so. But, writing in an incisive, rapid-fire style similar to that of his colleague, retired army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (whom he often quotes and agrees with) Norval relies on words from the Prophet himself and his many followers as he cites historical and recent events to back up his argument, the main trust of which is that nothing can change bloody Islam and its fanatical hatred of the West. Let me quote him:

Islam is as dangerous a form of despotism, if not more so because of its religious sanction, than the political regimes of fascism or communism which ruled by political and military power while denying the relevance of religion. Militant Islam is more akin to the despotism of the ancient world, where religion and state were combined so that any opposition was at once heresy and treason, thus making the idea of a "loyal opposition" impossible. (p. 76)

And here he is quoting Muhammad: "The Lord destroy the Jews and Christians! Let there not remain any faith but that of Islam throughout the whole of Arabia..." Norval adds, "The followers of the faith have been hewing to those words and have been attempting to impose it on the rest of the world ever since." (p. 77)

He also reminds us of Ayatollah Khameni's words from 1987: "We are at war with the United States...If the suffering people of Lebanon have recourse to capturing a few citizens of the satanic power, they have every right to do so...The end justifies the means as long as it furthers the goal of the Islamic fundamentalist--reforming and/or spreading the faith." (p. 67)

Finally here Norval is on events from the 12th century: "The crusades, far from being an outrageous example of Western imperialism as is taught by our PC educational system, were a reaction to the Islamic invasion of the Holy Lands and centuries of Islamic jihad. The Islamic invaders had desecrated Christian places of worship and were savagely persecuting Christians." (p. 68)

Some of the book is devoted to Noval's ideas on war and how globalization, and what he sees as the weakening of nation states, has radically changed how wars will be fought. One of his themes is what he calls "the new world disorder" (p. 129 and elsewhere) characterized by "roving banditry" and the "stationary bandit warlord." He is relying on the writings of the late Mancur Olson, University of Maryland economics professor, who saw the formation of the nation state as the inevitable result of the biggest bandit (or warlord) wising up enough to become stationary and impose taxes on his subjects rather than just robbing them. This is perhaps another way of imagining how the unwritten "social contract" that we learned about in Poli Sci 101 came about.

Norval also relies on the thinking of Harvard University's Samuel Huntington, who famously sees the war on terrorism as "a clash of civilizations"...a "revival of the centuries-old clash between Islam and the Christian West..." (Norval's words from page 173)

With almost all of this I am in substantial agreement, including Norval's charge that "The root cause [of terrorism] is not poverty or illiteracy but the presuppositions of Islam" (p. 186). However, where we part company is in this assertion:

"We are...in the position of being under assault from without by a resurgent Islam, as well as from within as die-hard Marxists promote the suicidal Marxist ideology under the guise of multiculturalism in their continuing campaign to impose a communist paradise on the world."

This strange anachronistic statement is quote, unquote from page 198, and reveals that Norval is not playing with a full deck or is still fighting the ghost of the Cold War. He goes on to quote Martin Van Creveld who opines, "Muhammad's recent revival may yet bring on that of the Christian Lord, and He will not be the Lord of love but of battles." Norval follows this enthusiasm with his own, "We cannot return to the glory days of the past, but we can hope that Van Creveld's statement about the revival of the Christian Lord comes true--and quickly at that." (p. 199)

Clearly Norval and Osama bin Laden agree on one thing: they are both true believers who want to "bring it on."

Fortunately I think most of the world (of non-fundamentalists) believe that there is a way around a horrific religious war implied by such thinking. However, I am not so sure, given the present mindset of the Bush administration, that we are not falling into bin Laden's trap. Norval complains that a "cult of multiculturalism dominates the American elites" (p. 198), but in fact it is the "born again" Christians in the person of George W. Bush and others in his administration that clearly constitutes American elitist power--at least as of this writing.

Two other points: (1) this book was written before the Bush administration invaded Iraq (actually Norval obliquely predicted that such an action would help with Al Qaeda's recruiting efforts, as it has); and (2) this book is poorly edited with many typos and a lot of needless repetition. Norval didn't bother with footnotes or a bibliography.

In conclusion let me say that this book, despite its shortcomings, is very much worth reading mainly because if there's one thing Norval knows very well indeed, it is warfare in the mindset of the religious fanatic.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightening
Review: This book in a fast and highly accessible 200 pages, cuts to the central issues facing Islam and consequently the West, today. A former U.S. Marine who heads the Selous Foundation in Washington D.C., the author seems to comprehend the major articles of Islamic faith, tradition, law and history concerning enshrined Muslim war doctrine.

The author carefully points out that since Islam holds Muhammad the last Prophet of God on earth, whatever was revealed to him "represents God's last word on the subject." As he notes, this unquestioning acceptance of Islamic dogma fixes a dilemma at the heart of Islamic life: How can the Muslim world adjust its 7th century theology to live at peace with 21st century non-Muslims and Western civilization?

Norval notes that Islamic law, or Shari'a as known to Muslims, derives from four sources in the following order of priority: Koran (supposed to be the revelations of Allah to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel, and therefore unquestionable); the Prophet's sayings and traditions or Hadith; legal consensus of Islamic jurists (e.g. Shafi'i jurist al-Mawardi, d. 1058, and the Maliki, Ibn Kaldun, d. 1046) and finally Islamic scholars' analogical reasoning.

The author allows that the fourth source of Islamic law holds the key to 21st century Islamic reform. But he also believes strict limitations within the bounds of authenticated and accepted words and deeds of the Prophet very nearly fixes even modern-day itijihad--the interpretive reasoning by general consensus of Islamic religious leaders or ulema--in stone from the outset.

While Islamic consensus continued to develop through the 10th century, Norval contends, learned Islamic legal scholars subsequently decided also by consensus that virtually everything open to interpretation by general agreement "was complete. Nothing more was to be done. Independent reasoning-itijihad--was no longer necessary."

Such thinking naturally tends to reject Western-style political norms, coalition-building and compromise and relegate them and Western logic, reasoning and thinkers (definitively including traditional Western liberals in this category) to what fundamentalist Muslims consider the forces of Satan. This limits Islamic openness to change, Norval contends, and would explain why Muslim world "disagreements can quickly escalate into bloody violence."

The frank discussion provides a healthy and robust consideration of Islam's effects on the Muslim and modern worlds.

This would probably offend anyone who considers questions or criticism of Islamic precepts equivalent to hatred of all Islamic persons and things.

Unfortunately, however, the Islamic world's current political and economic states seem to demand precisely such questioning and criticism as this refreshing book might generate among those willing to consider its arguments.

My biggest criticism concerns Norval's complete lack of footnotes and bibliography. Fortunately, in most instances, he attributes to authors by name directly within his text. Alas, he does not always provide specific titles or articles from which he draws, making it impossible in those cases for diligent researchers to follow up further.

The discussion, however, is most enlightening, and in line with much offered by other eminent scholars of Islamic law and jurisprudence.

--Alyssa A. Lappen