SPME Highlights Late May Release of “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism”

Scholars for Peace in The Middle East (SPME) published this announcement in SPME News, March 5, 2008:   

DR. ANDREW BOSTOM AVAILABLE TO SPEAK IN THE U.S. AND CANADA ABOUT HIS NEW BOOK ON ISLAMIC ANTISEMITISM, THIS MAY/JUNE

Andrew G. Bostom, M.D., M.S. ( Brown University, Providence, RI ), is the author/editor of the highly acclaimed compendium The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. For example, Professor Johannes J.G. Jansen, one of The Netherland’s leading contemporary scholars of Islam-whose The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat’s Assassins and Islamic Resurgence in the Middle East (New York: Macmillan, 1986), and The Dual Nature of Islamic Fundamentalism (London: Hurst & Company, 1997) remain defining works on the Islamic movements that gave rise to Al Qaeda., wrote in his blurb for the book, “Bostom manages…to upset the conventional view in this fascinating and well-documented clinical study of jihad.” In a subsequent review of this book by Dr. Jansen published in The Middle East Quarterly (posted by SPME, and available here), he observed,   

Bostom’s book amply documents the systematic and destructive character of Islamic jihad, refuting the much-repeated argument that jihad is a “rich” concept that has many meanings and that jihad first of all signifies “inner struggle.”…Bostom not only presents us with classical mainstream Islamic sources and their justifications for jihad, plus witness reports from victims that survived by accident, etc., but he also quotes contemporary Muslim clerics… Jihad is first of all war, bloodshed, subjugation, and expansion of the faith by violence. The book implicitly devastates the fashionable but uninformed opinion that all religions are elaborations of the Golden Rule.   

Dr. Bostom was a contributor to the SPME sponsored “Post-colonial Theory and the Arab-Israeli Conflict” published in Israel Affairs, October 2007, Volume 4. His contribution entitled, “Negating the Legacy of Jihad in Palestine,” pp. 819-836, is available here.   

More on Andrew Bostom’s work can be found at www.andrewbostom.org, including a preview of his eagerly anticipated forthcoming book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History. Professor Steven T. Katz, director, Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, Boston University, and author of Post-Holocaust Dialogues and The Holocaust in Historical Context, endorsed the book writing,   

The publication of the present anthology of primary sources and secondary studies on the theme of Muslim antisemitism is a groundbreaking event of major scholarly, cultural, and political significance. Andrew Bostom has mined the relevant literature to produce the fullest record on this subject in existence. After the publication of his work, all the oft-repeated, but erroneous misunderstandings of a tolerant Islam, and of a medieval Jewish-Muslim ‘golden age’ will need to be permanently retired.   

And SPME’s own Professor Efraim Karsh, Head of Mediterranean Studies, University of London, and author of Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1789-1923 and Islamic Imperialism: A History has written,   

“It has long been a staple of anti-Israel propaganda that Muslims have never had anything against Judaism or Jews but only against Zionism and Zionists. Andrew Bostom debunks this spurious claim by exposing a deep and pervasive anti-Jewish bigotry dating to Islam’s earliest days, and indeed to the Muslim prophet Muhammad himself. Small wonder that some of the hoariest and most bizarre themes of European antisemitism should have struck a responsive chord when they made their way into the Islamic and Arab worlds over the course of the centuries, turning them into the most prolific producers of antisemitic ideas and attitudes in today’s world.”   

Dr. Bostom is available to speak in the U.S. and Canada about this new book on Islamic Antisemitism which will be released by May 21, 2008.