Stealth Jihad by Robert Spencer

By M. N. Himed
This is a review of the book: Stealth Jihad. How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. This is the 7th book written by Robert Spencer since 2002 that supposedly warns Americans and Non-Muslims in general of the threat they face from radical Islam and its jihadist aspect. While Spencer goes out of his way to ensure that readers know that the majority of Muslims are peaceful and the title of his book suggests that he is only condemning the radical aspect of Islam, the actual words in his book testify that he is opposed to Islam in general.

His last book, The Truth about Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion, warned the U.S. to "stop insisting that Islam is a religion of peace" while he bended the truth on the life of the Prophet Muhammad and focused on his life during war time.

The most intolerant religion happens to be the religion of all the peaceful Muslims that Spencer says he is not against, but who he is offending by claiming their religion is a religion of War. Even the late Benzair Bhutto claimed in her book, that Spencer is guilty of presenting "a skewed, one-sided, and inflammatory story." If a liberal Muslim like Bhutto believed this, then we must be suspicious of what Spencer has to say.

The book starts out by calmly giving us statements from Muslim leaders who say they are out to turn the United States into a nation run by Sharia law and he calls these Muslims "the most influential leaders in the U.S." One of those high-ranking leaders is Sami al-Arian who is quoted as saying "Let us damn America to death." This is a Palestinian immigrant who gained his Phd in computer engineering and has spent the last 5 years in prison. It would not be farfetched to think that most Muslims living in America don't even know who this man is.

The other Muslim leader in the U.S. is Ibrahim Hooper, a high ranking member of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. Hooper once made an offhand remark that he would not mind if the U.S. government became Islamic in the future and said he would not do anything violent to promote it. If Mr. Hooper is a leading and influential spokesman for Muslims in America, then I guess he should making a fatwa anytime soon based on his great knowledge of Islamic law. These are the only influential Muslim spokespeople mentioned, unless you consider a Muslim college student from Queensborough, NY who said "Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah" as quoted from Aaron Klein from a Muslim Student Association meeting.

When Spencer is not busy bashing Islam, he is giving the thumbs up to people who are actively fighting against the surge of Islam in America. Congresswoman Sue Myrick of North Carolina is praised by Spencer and he backs up her 10 point "Wake Up America" plan to battle radical Islam. This is the same Sue Myrick who criticized the Justice Department just for sending representatives to a convention held by the Islamic Society of North America because she thought they were a group of "radical jihadists."

It would be frightening indeed if all Muslims or most Muslims wanted Sharia law to be implemented in the West, but this is an exaggeration of monumental proportions. Spencer quotes in his book Sheikh Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi Muslim, who said that 80% of mosques in the U.S. are run by "extremist ideologies."

ISNA, a group which condemns Islamic terrorism at nearly every convention they have had since 9-11, is one of eight major U.S. Muslim organizations that issued a joint statement to Kabbani which demanded that he retract his accusation or prove it and an additional 100 Muslim groups and people have endorsed the condemnation and asked that he publicly make the financial details of the tax-exempt organizations which he runs.

Spencer's book ends with advice that we should be aware and active in stopping Muslims from increasing their power in the West and he implies that we should have suspicion towards any Muslim group or mosque in the U.S., whether they are peaceful or not. One must wonder if this preconceived notion of fearing Muslims is not a form of "stealth racism" which is similar to how Jews were perceived prior to Adolf Hitler getting into power.