Islam Without Apologetics

Bruce S. Thornton, City Journal:

The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, by Andrew G. Bostom (Prometheus Books, 766 pp., $39.95)

According to received wisdom, an Islamic faith that once tolerantly coexisted with Jews and Christians has been traumatized by the twentieth century and its destructive ideologies (such as fascism, communism, and nationalism), by the depredations of European colonialism and imperialism, and by the displacements wrought by globalization. These developments, according to such apologists as John Esposito and Reza Aslan, have given rise to a distortion of Islam, one manifested not just in “Islamist” terror but also in the virulent anti-Semitism visible today throughout the Middle East and in Europe’s Muslim communities. A religious culture that once embraced the kindred “people of the book”—Jews and Christians—has now been infected by European anti-Semitism, just one more way that Western cultural dysfunctions have damaged the traditions of a proud faith.

The problem with this tale, as Andrew Bostom documents in The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, is that it isn’t true. A physician and professor of medicine at Brown University, Bostom demonstrated a doctor’s fidelity to empirical evidence in his previous book, The Legacy of Islamic Jihad, showing how violence against the infidel is central to Islamic doctrine, theology, and jurisprudence. He now performs a similar service in examining Islamic anti-Semitism, exploding the delusional myths with which too many in the West obscure the truth of Muslim Jew-hatred.

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