This book seemingly offers a window onto the world of Islamists--those jihadis also known as radical Islam. With only the book's strange ideas to go on, Western readers might easily conclude that its authors were unreal, but the news at present is filled with the deeds of such thinkers. As explained herein, the author's name is a pseudonym, not for one person, but a group who call themselves "leaders of the Congress of the Sunni Sect of Islam." They claim "nonalignment and neutral status within the political party arena of these United States." While nominally U.S. citizens, these authors consider themselves non-allied.
Soon enough, they contradict that claim, announcing themselves as heirs to the World War II "Axis powers" and those Middle Eastern "Islamic powers" that transferred authority and wealth "to their black children" in 1944 or 1945 as the Axis faced certain defeat.
The authors pay homage to Hazrat Mirza Qhulam Ahmed, the 19th century Indian founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, which many (perhaps most) Sunni Muslims consider a heretic sect--owing to Ahmed's reputed claim to be a prophet. (The Ahmadiyyas insist he never made this claim). According to Patrick Sookhdeo (A People Betrayed, 2002) and Ibn Warraq (Why I am Not a Muslim) Ahmadiyyas are an oppressed Pakistani minority.
Whether this text accurately represents Ahmadiyya views, I cannot judge.
Of its own accord, the text appears virtually worthless, excepting for intelligence on how some of America's enemies think.
The book claims that Islam is superior to all other faiths and will ultimately assume control of the entire world. It also claims that Islam offers a vision of peace. It announces the "beginning of the Muslim era."
Unfortunately, however, the peace envisioned by this slight 117-page volume can be achieved only at such time as all mankind accepts Islam and all land worldwide becomes an Islamic "trust" (or waqf).
Such a "peace" would, by its own definition, eliminate all religious (and cultural) diversities among men, making its conception of peace, also by definition, severely flawed.
Even without these elements, the book is sadly deficient. For it also exposes the authors' intense dislike for Western civilization, ideas and liberties.
The authors pretend to condemn all violence done in Islam's name--especially the atrocities on September 11 2001.
They also pretend to apologize for historical and current "Islamic thoughts and practices" that have "been the cause of millions of people being killed and millions of other people being homeless" (p.4). They even allow, "In the name of few if any religions have more wrongs been done to humanity than those done in the name of" their sect of Islam (p. 29).
These would be incredible, historic Islamic admissions of guilt, except that the book provides only one remedy for all wrongs "done in Allah's name:" Simply, that "the day of judgment that awaits us." That's it. All wrongs committed in Islam's name are excused as "the misunderstanding of Holy Prophet's mandate from God...."
Supposedly Islam holds "there is no compulsion in religion." But the authors also provide an apologia of Mohammed's "wars of conversion of the children of Ishmael" (p. 79). They were committed "out of love for mankind." The early Islamic conquests were "retaliation undertaken" by mystical Islamic leaders "after attacks upon holy places in the doctrines of Islam, after attacks upon the members of the mystical body of Islam" and after attacks on people whom Islam establishes as "international in dimension and character, and without national boundaries" (pp. 79-81).
In plain English, this reads like an excuse to attack anyone, on any pretext, anywhere, provided that a Muslim judges the victim opposed to Islam. And indeed, the writers earlier explained that when and where ever Muslims are "threatened" (whatever that means), "we will take appropriate military action" (p. 23). They add, "mercy doesn't manifest itself by way of gentleness in all circumstances" (p. 23-4).
It's hard to believe that these writers belong to an oppressed Pakistani sect, so explicit are their dislikes of others.
They label all Westerners who disavow Islam as "fascists," implicitly inferior "to the House of Ishmael." While pretending to have sympathy, they openly deride adherents to "the Bible, or the Torah." Christians and Jews, according to their creed, are "racists" (p. 29).
They describe the world's current leaders as "the progeny of white Nordic barbarians" (p. 29). Europeans are "white barbarians from the north" (p. 30). Despite Western tolerance of societies and cultures unlike ours, these authors condemn "white Nordic racists" and "their American counterparts" who pretend to be "superior" (p. 29).
The world's "new definition of morality," they claim, should "come from Islam" (p.6). Only this path, they say, offers "life-affirming holiness."
Islam, the authors claim, is on a journey "toward perfection" and a "return to a habitat" including God's presence.
Alas, their vision of "peace," by their own words, is grossly exclusionary and hateful, as it counts all non-Muslims as barbarians and racists.
--Alyssa A. Lappen