General Information: Orthodoxy & Islam
Orthodox Christians need to raise their level of awareness about the threat of Islam. These articles and books really opened my eyes to the Islamic Faith and helped me to see the "dangers at our doorstep".
Islam 101, by Gregory Davis, an Orthodox Christian, author and filmmaker.
St. John of Damascus's Critique of Islam, from his monumental book Fount of Knowledge (early 8th century).
The Muslim Advance and American Collaboration, by James George Jatras.
A Definitive Reply to Islam, by [Name withheld at author's request].
Orthodoxy and Islam, a collection of articles maintained by Fr. John Whiteford.
Political Correctness: The Revenge of Marxism. An incredibly insightful article that discusses cultural Marxism (a.k.a., multiculturalism) and how this is helping Islam defeat the West. I highly recommend you also read "Why There is a Culture War: Gramsci and Tocqueville in America" for a better understanding of Gramsci's role in the development of cultural Marxism.
Dr. Andrew Bostom, an M.D., has written an outstanding book on jihad entitled The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims. Check out his Web site for some interesting articles, book excerpts, and this fascinating interview wherein he states that 9/11 shook him out of his complacency and ignorance, leading him to read voraciously about Islam and learn the real truth about it. Hats off to this doctor for using his skills and resources to fight Islam.
Recommended Blogs to Track
Recommended DVDs
Islam: What the West Needs to Know
As of September, 2007 this is the best DVD I've seen on Islam. This is a must-see documentary! It is co-produced and directed by a pious Orthodox Christian, Gregory Davis, who is also the author of Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World
Recommended Books
Religion of Peace?: Islam's War Against the World, by Gregory M. Davis
Book Description (taken from Amazon.com): Virtually every contemporary Western leader has expressed the view that Islam is a peaceful religion and that those who commit violence in its name are fanatics who misinterpret its tenets. This widely circulated claim is false.
Relying primarily on Islam's own sources, Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World demonstrates that Islam is a violent, expansionary ideology that seeks the subjugation and destruction of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government. Further, it shows that the jihadis that Westerners have been indoctrinated to believe are extremists, are actually in the mainstream....
From the PublisherIs the "War on Terror" Based on a False Hope?
In the days following 9/11, George W. Bush assured America and the world that Islam was a "religion of peace" and that the violent followers of Osama Bin Laden had twisted the true Muslim faith. Acting on this belief, President Bush and other Western leaders sent troops to the Middle East in an effort to bring freedom and democracy to the Muslim world.
But what if this "understanding" of Islam is based not on fact, but instead on equal parts wishful thinking and Islamic deceit? It would mean that the entire War on Terror is based on a faulty—and increasingly deadly—premise.
In Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World, author and filmmaker Gregory M. Davis rebuts the notion that Islam is a great faith in desperate need of a Reformation. Instead, he exposes it as a form of totalitarianism, a belief system that orders its adherents not to baptize all nations, but to conquer and subdue them. Islamic law's governance of every aspect of religious, political, and personal action has far more in common with Nazism than with the tenets of Christianity or Judaism.
Davis details how Islamic thought divides the world into two spheres locked in perpetual combat: dar al-Islam ("House of Islam," where Islamic law predominates), and dar al-harb ("House of War," the rest of the world). This concise yet thorough book leaves no doubt as to why most of the world's modern conflicts are connected to Islam—and calls into question why Western elites refuse to acknowledge Islam's violent nature. Religion of Peace? Islam's War Against the World is nothing less than a wake-up call to all civilized nations—and one they ignore at their peril.
The Sword of the Prophet, by Serge Trifkovic
Dr. Trifkovic has done a great service in writing this fairly short and well-researched survey of the history, theology, and (bad) fruits of Islam. He also analyzes how the West has interacted with Islam in recent history, calling our diplomacy "appeasement", and rightly pointing out the many shortcomings in our diplomacy that have contributed to global terrorism against the West. This is a hard-hitting book that makes statements about Islam by President Bush appear very unwise and bereft of a sound understanding of Islam's true heart and orientation, which is jihad (holy war) against the infidels.
Dr. Trifkovic writes convincingly that Islam's theology, history and impact on the world should definitely lead us to conclude that it is not, as many Western academic elites and the news media would have us believe, a "religion of peace.
Many thanks go out to Frank Schaeffer and Regina Orthodox Press for publishing this shocking and important exposé.
Defeating Jihad, by Serge Trifkovic
This is the sequel to Sword of the Prophet. As of July 2006 I think this is the best book on Islam to date. Every adult should read this book in order to understand the threat of Islam per se, not just "radical Islam" (as opposed to the mythical "peace-loving nature of 'true' Islam"). Dr. Trifkovic and Frank Schaeffer are courageous Orthodox Christians for publishing books on the truth of Islam.
- Defeating Jihad on Amazon.com
- Chapter 3, "Jihad"
- Chapter 8, "London's Bombs and Sleepwalkers"
- An Interview with Serge Trifkovic about this book
The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude: Seventh-Twentieth Century, by Bat Ye'or
"Bat Yeor...made her reputation by documenting the tragic fate of the dhimmi Christians of the East, in lands conquered by Islam. Classical Islam prescribes a state of existence for subject Jews and Christians under which they must live as second-class citizens, paying a special tax to their Muslim rulers, living under special rules, and not granted the same basic human rights enjoyed by Muslims. Bat Yeor, born a Jew in Egypt but exiled to Europe, is the best-known historian of what she has termed dhimmitude, and has written three books on the subject." (taken from the National Review Online Web site)
Not only does she detail the "dhimmi mentality," which threatens to be adopted by Europeans and Americans, she raises important questions for Orthodox Christians. Our history has been one of faithful witness, courage, appeasement, and betrayal. Her books also lend much support to Dr. Trifkovic's hardline, less optimistic position. In the Foreward by Jacques Ellul you find the following excerpts that contradict Dr. Pipes' assertions that 1) we have solid grounds for being hopeful that Islam can be changed; 2) that what we see in terrorism is purely a 20th-century-style ideology that derives from Islam, but is not Islam per se:
"But whatever the evolution [of Islam resulting from interaction with the West], it must never be forgotten that it can only be superficial because doctrine and conduct are based on a religious foundation: even if this may seem to be weakened or modified, nevertheless what I have elsewhere called the 'persistance of religiousness' remains unchanged. In other words, even if the rites, structures, and customs are all that continue to exist of a once-strong religion—today, seemingly neglected—these visible survivals only need a spark for everything immediately to revive, sometimes violently. And this process is described in a masterly fashion in this book. The situation that was thought to be dislocated and lapsed suddenly revives, and we are again faced with the fundamental choice: the world is still divided between the world of Islam and the world of war. And inside the umma [the Muslim community], the only possible existence for the infidel is dhimmitude [essentially, a meager existence under the oppressive Shari'a Law]...."
"Hostage-taking, terrorism, the destruction of Lebanese Christianity, the weakening of Eastern Churches...: all of this recalls precisely the resurgence of the traditional policy of Islam. Indeed, many Muslim governments try to combat the Islamist trend, but to succeed would require a total recasting of mentalities, a desacralization of jihad, a self-critical awareness of Islamic imperialism, an acceptance of the secular nature of political power and the rejection of certain Koranic dogmas. Of course, after all the changes that we have seen taking place in the [former] Soviet Union it is not unthinkable, but what a global change that would imply: a change in a whole historical trend and the reform of a remarkably structured religion!" (emphasis mine)