Bond's Pathetic Review
Review written by Julian Bond, the former Director of the Christian Muslim Forum.
‘Mohammed’s Koran’ is written by renowned Islamophobe and former leader of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson alongside Peter McLoughlin.
This pathetic review exposes its bias by beginning with an ad hominem attack. No such thing as "an Islamophobe", someone with an irrational fear of Islam. Only fools have no rational fear of Islam, when in 15 years this 5% of the UK have dwarfed the IRA terrorist attacks in the preceding 150 years. Maybe the terrorists haven't killed or injured someone you know, they have undoubtedly affected your life - being nearly-stripped at the airport and taking 3 hours to get on a plane, queuing to have your bag searched to enter a museum, or having to weave your way through the anti-Muslim barriers that have been put around government buildings and Christmas markets. Every one of these is a reminder of how our lives are transformed by the efforts to thwart Muslims from killing us. Besides this your daughters have reason to fear Muslims, since in the UK this community has targeted schoolgirls for rape on "an industrial scale" for going on 40 years (see this newspaper article from 1975). Your freedom to criticise Islam has been taken away from you, and the same government who created this law guaranteed that it would not apply to Muslims (and this law was created to prevent anyone exposing the Muslim rape gangs). If you don't have reasons to fear Islam then you are either deluded or you live nowhere near Muslims. Back to Bond's supposed refutation...
This isn’t really a book about the Qur’an and it isn’t going to help you understand it.
Our book contains an entire Koran, annotated to highlight how violent and hateful is "the religion of peace". No other Koran in history has simultaneously explained both the chronology of the Koran and proven how this chronology (along with abrogation) expose that Islam is a religion of war.
The co-authors have massive chips on their shoulders, as they make clear in their book.
Ad hominem. We'll take his refutation of our book apart almost sentence by sentence. Instead of engaging with the book he claims to be reviewing, you will notice he does the opposite - relying on claims that have nothing to do with the content of the book.
They tell us that those in positions of power are lying to us about Islam.
We prove that Islam is a religion of war, that this was known by the educated classes before 9/11, but that since 9/11 American Presidents and British Prime Ministers have lied and called Islam "a religion of peace" after every terrorist attack by Muslims. As we show, their lies have even become official propaganda taught in schools.
They have a huge expectation (or claim to have one) that the leaders of British society should be informing/educating us about Islam. This is the language of the playground and social media, it is very familiar to those of us who are peace activists with an online presence involved in both virtual and real peace campaigning. The authors are not interested in peace. Peace depends on being constructive.
Our book condemns violence, and points out that those who cannot grasp that are stupid. QED.
This book is offered as an antidote to the ‘lies’ being told about Islam by giving us fear and death instead. It is not a book which seeks to educate or create understanding, whatever the authors may claim, as is clear from the front cover. It has been designed to create as much fear, hate, distrust and confrontation as possible. I have not wanted to be seen with it while reading it, it looks like a racist, intolerant pamphlet. It is fair to say that there is no chance of misinterpreting the cover or of being in any doubt about what is inside. Unless you particularly wish to find out about conspiracy thinking, how not to read the Qur’an or to have some insight into the extremist outlook of the authors there is actually no need to read it.
The 600 five star reviews at Amazon's UK and US websites show that 99% of verified readers disagree with this bigoted and baseless review.
The Arabic writing on a black background on the cover is the shahadah (‘testimony’), the Islamic declaration of faith – ‘There is none worthy of worship except God and Muhammad is God’s Messenger.’ It is not a declaration of war or a threat. However, a non-Muslim reader will look at it and see the flag of ISIS. Of course the authors never tell us the meaning of these Arabic words.
The reviewer is either stupid or bigoted - he apparently did not notice that the front cover is explained on the very first page of the book, the page that follows the title page. Where we placed this explanation is the STANDARD place in the publishing industry where the cover of a book is explained. And on that standard page we explain what the Arabic text on the front of the cover means. It is the same text emblazoned on the flags of the slavers/rapists who joined ISIS. This reviewer could not even engage with the cover of the book without revealing his blinkered view of the text.
This imagery is accompanied by a sword below which are drips of blood, another reference to ISIS. It is infantile.
The cover announces that it is about Muslims – ‘Why Muslims Kill for Islam’ – not ISIS, not extremists, not terrorists. It would be possible to engage positively with a book that had the title ‘Why Some Muslims Kill for Islam’ or ‘Why Extremist Muslims Kill for Islam.’ But no, this is about fearing for your safety from all Muslims.
Muslim terrorists read the same Koran as all other Muslims. When Bond can provide us with a clear criterion by which anyone can tell which Muslim will wake up tomorrow and become a killer, then there may be some way of distinguishing Jihadis from Muslims. Within the book we make it clear: the Jihadis are the advance guard. The quotation on the back of the book also makes this clear: the Koran commands the tactic that not all Muslims should go off and become killers at once. So in amongst those Muslims who are not killers are devout Muslims who are waiting for the right moment to strike. And they are following the commands of the Koran when they kill and when they are hesitating before killing.
It’s fine for anyone to write about the threat of extremism (though it is not the biggest threat to life in Western societies) and terrorism.
Yes, it is. Notice he offers no other greater threat. The head of MI5 says the terrorist threat in the UK is now higher than at any time in his 34 year career. France (with a Muslim population twice that of the UK) is in a state of emergency and has had the army on the streets for several years -- and still France cannot stop all the Muslim terrorists.
This is not that book. Instead it is heading towards hostile confrontation, it has, without reservation, chosen the ‘Dark Side’.
Yet, for all that the authors are hostile, even more so are they ridiculous. In its aim to be deadly serious its nonsense is almost humorous. Thus in the Introduction (p.7) we read (in bold, this book has more bold text than any other book in the history of publishing!):
“If you are a Muslim, please put this book down. We do not wish you to become a killer because this book leads you to understand the doctrines and history of Islam more thoroughly.”
Clearly our book did not have ENOUGH bold text, since this fool who thinks himself capable of writing a refutation couldn't even look for an explanation in the standard place where the cover art of a book is explained.
It makes me want to give this book to Muslim friends so that they can read it and say, ‘Sorry Tommy, we’re still peaceful and you don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I have done so on a few occasions, one was so appalled that he took a photograph of it. This suggestion is an enormous statement of ego, which blinds the authors to the hard factthat Muslims are overwhelmingly not killers because Islam is not telling them to kill.
Naked assertion - simply ignores the hundreds of pages of evidence and footnotes in Mohammed's Koran. Nowhere in his review does he actually address the content of our book, which explains exactly why Muslims kill for Islam: such killing is the way in which Islam offers them guaranteed access to Paradise (and without such access, they face an eternity in Hell being burned alive over and over and over for eternity).
It takes an extremist, whether ISIS or McLoughlin and Robinson, to tell them that they should be killing. We will not be taking lessons on Islam from you Tommy. It is almost as if he wants a fight. But he is aware that Muslims will not choose to read his book.
Once again, the reviewer is either stupid or is lying. We denounce killing and yet he libels us by accusing us of being extremists like ISIS. The Introduction is sandwiched by two statements:
a) the book starts by saying we don't want any Muslim to read this book because we don't want our proof about Islam being a religion of war to inspire them to kill
b) the end of the Introduction says we think that any doctrine is evil that commands its followers to kill those who do not follow that doctrine.
By this stage it should be clear to you that Bond is either a bigot or an incompetent reader.
The back cover gives more insight into the nature of the book stating that the ‘educated elite … have been actively deceiving the rest of the population [about Islam].’ The authors are not happy because they want to be the ones who are deceiving us about Islam.
Our book contains nearly 600 footnotes pointing to the scholars of Islam (Muslims and non-Muslims). Anyone who wishes to verify the claims we make in the book can follow the references in the footnotes. Obviously, Bond has little grasp of the nature of scholarship and the practice of providing evidence to support claims. Hence, in what he considers to be a refutation of our book, he provides no evidence that the book is wrong.
They do, however, stop short of telling us where their ground-breaking (they describe it as ‘revolutionary’) work will lead once people are able to ‘expose the lies which paralyse the West’s discussions of Islam.’
We state that we want democratic change. The Grand Lie of "the religion of peace" is systematically used to deceive the public and to stop the public demanding such democratic change. A recent survey by Chatham House showed that 47% of the UK wanted no more Muslim immigration. Yet from the 1250 politicians in the House of Commons and the House of Lords there is NOT ONE who represents the view of those 47% of voters.
In fact there has been a lot of discussion about Islam and this book is not adding anything but intolerance and ego to that discussion. It is even doubtful whether the authors understand the processes of education (or choose not to for propaganda purposes) when they mention teachers who ‘indoctrinate your children or force them to attend a mosque.’ Finally they do the work of ISIS for them by telling us that ‘Islam offers two options: submit or die.’ The authors are not to be trusted, they are extremists.
Another fallacy - the argument from authority. We don't demand that anyone trusts us. Unlike the exponents of The Grand Lie we show hundreds of pages of evidence and footnotes to substantiate our claims. Only a dishonest review would fail to address the substance of the book. Does he find a single quote that is incorrect, or a single citation that is wrong? No. It is the works cited in those hundreds of footnotes which people can judge trustworthy or not.
Andrew Bostom (who has a similar outlook to McLoughlin and Robinson) describes them as ‘courageous’; they are not courageous, rather they are preachers of fear. As another example of this, they quote Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – ‘Islam is the religion of fighting’ – we don’t take lessons on Islam from him either, why would we?
Thousands of Muslims residing in Europe DID take lessons from Baghdadi (unlike Bond, Baghdadi has a PhD in Koranic Studies from an Islamic University). If it hadn't been for the schools, media, politicians, police exhorting Muslims not to join ISIS there would have been even more thousands of followers of "the religion of peace" who went off to practice their halal enslavement, rape and slaughter of Yazidis.
The book itself opens by stating that Islam is a religion of war and that this ‘truth’ has been suppressed, which is an incredible statement given the vocal anti-Islam message of the two authors over a number of years. They will have heard numerous others saying the same as them. Soon after we read that it is the ‘elite’ who marginalise what they describe as ‘explicit articulations of Islam’ by describing those who do so as Islamist extremists. The authors share the outlook of others that Islamism is not distinct from Islam.
We prove in the book that the concept of Islamism was invented in the West in the recent decades. We point out that even a moderate Muslim academic in the West who wrote an entire book on Islamism couldn't come up with any definition that holds water. But you shouldn't expect Bond to actually engage with the content of our book. Those Muslims who kill for Islam don't describe themselves as "Islamists" but as "Muslims".
The authors have no problem in telling us what Islam is, even though they stand against Islam. Of course this leads on to ‘your child’ being ‘deceived at school’ (p.8).
Again, we prove this by citing the evidence. But Bond deliberately chooses to ignore the evidence.
The authors want to tell us that Islam is monolithic (is anything?) and have no space to admit that Muslims don’t agree with everything that scholars in the past have written (or that the world has changed a lot since then, it is ISIS who want to take us back to the past).
It appears Bond didn't get beyond page 10 of our 400 page book. Notice that even then he ignores our paragraphs in those first few pages where we point out that, in the years immediately after 9/11 while the families of the dead were still grieving, moderate Muslims in the UK (converts who have published many previous books on Islam) spent huge amounts of effort translating and publishing the tafsir of Qurtubi. This book by the scholar Qurtubi tells Muslims that the Koran's commands to kill the unbelievers are eternal and they include the right to kill non-Muslims who have DONE NOTHING to harm Muslims. If Bond was an honest reviewer he would have engaged with this problem. Instead, he ignores it, even though it is all proven in the first few pages of our book.
Yes, they can be wrong and may easily depart from the actual meaning of the Qur’an, paralleling what happens in the Christian theological tradition. They then take to task Muslims who denounce atrocities and acts of terrorism as, for them, the views of ancient scholars outweigh contemporary public statements.
If we had the space to engage with the supposed denunciations of terrorism by Muslims, it would be easily provable that such denunciations are nearly always specious and/or qualified (e.g. condemning attacks on the "innocent", when Islam only defines Muslims as "innocent").
Who knows why the authors cannot see this? Muslims are standing up against violent interpretations and don’t agree with all that scholars said in the past, even if they translate them.
No, they're not. At the drop of a hat Muslims can get 10,000 of their people to protest outside Google's offices in London (over a movie on YouTube about Mohammed). Where are the demonstrations in London of 10,000 Muslims protesting about Islamic terrorism? Nowhere to be seen.
McLoughlin and Robinson could engage with Islam constructively, as they are on the same side, but no. The ‘jihadis’ reward in Paradise is another important building block for the authors. Yet for the vast majority of Muslims who are actually following Islam it is a mark of extremism.
The authors want to take us back in time to the world of war of the Middle Ages with their appeal to the outmoded terms – Dar al-Harb (house, or land, of war) and Dar al-Islam (land of peace). As the world changes and democratic politics spreads terms like this cannot be mapped onto the world in the same way – Europe has been a House of Peace since the end of the second world war, while there is much war in the Middle East (though of course ‘peaceful’ nations have been good at exporting war overseas). And religion is behind neither of these, while politics is.
We cite mainstream experts from the end of the 20th century -- such as Prof Bernard Lewis, Prof. Samuel Huntington, etc. -- showing that Islam fundamentally sees the world in terms of a never-ending War against all that is not Islamic. Bond again wants to ignore all the expert opinion we cite in the book.
Contemporary Muslim assessments have described Western countries as more peaceful and more ‘Islamic’ than Muslim-majority nations. Anyone who approaches the Qur’an with the key of war and what they believe to be ‘jihad’ is on the wrong track, and the Qur’an even tells the reader this (a message the authors do not wish to hear, they would rather deal with Islam as the enemy).
The entire purpose of Mohammed's Koran is to prove that apologists like Bond have no basis for their belief. Jihad is even known as the 6th pillar of Islam. And our book proves that for centuries before 9/11 the Islamic experts in the West emphasized the role of Jihad.
But, more importantly, for all that the authors (and others) see war at the heart of Islam, it is at the heart of their own outlook. They want to shape our attitudes by bringing war and hate into the conversation (because you don’t spread love by telling people that your neighbour’s religion wants your death) and it is easy to tell lies about Islam in our society.
We denounce killing, yet again he libels us and misrepresents what is in the book. Once again, Bond chooses to ignore the hundreds of quotations and citations in the book. He is either too stupid to review our book or is deliberately lying about the content.
In fact they had a great opportunity to engage with the Qur’an’s message of peace instead and promote that. It’s not easy to trust someone who accuses so many others of lying.
If the Koran had a message of peace we would not have a problem where 5% of the UK's population produces thousands and thousands of Muslims who want to kill us. It is only "the religion of peace" which produces these thousands of terrorists. Bond has no explanation for why these thousands of Muslims want to kill us. And he doesn't want anyone to read our explanation, an explanation which is substantiated by hundreds of footnotes pointing to the works of experts.
In the face of over 30,000 Islamic terrorist attacks across the world since 9/11, Bond thinks they only way to engage with the Koran is to lie and pretend it is a message of peace.