Islam and the Jews: The Unfinished Battle

by Mark A. Gabriel

Book Overview

What fuels the conflict? There are powerful cultural and spiritual forces that explain... *Why Palestinians reject peace offers *Why radical Muslims attach Israel's supporters, especially Americans... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0884199568
• ISBN13: 9780884199564
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Charisma House
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Another Eye-Opener of a Book from Mark Gabriel

I am deeply indebted to Dr. Gabriel for helping me to understand some very important things about Islam, the Holy Koran, and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Here are some of the most crucial points the author explains: 1. Muhammad lived and preached in Mecca for a number of years, attempting to win Jewish converts with friendly persuasion and preaching in favor of tolerance. When this did not work, he turned against the Jews and declared he had received new revelations instructing all Muslims to either kill non-believers who would not convert, force them to pay a tax, or drive them into exile. The fate of all non-believers was in the hands of the Moslems. 2. After moving his base of operations to Medina, Muhammad personally led 27 massacres against Jews, and preached that jihad was a requirement for all faithful Moslem believers. Conversion and control was by the sword. 3. Anyone who attempts to read the Koran needs to have an edition that makes it clear which chapters were written in Mecca and which were written in Medina. The chapters are not chronological. The Medina scriptures supersede the Mecca scriptures, and make them obsolete if there is any contradiction. 4. Moslems believe that Abraham was the first Moslem, and that the Jews have corrupted the Torah by removing any prophecy regarding the eventual birth of Muhammad and his Islamic teachings. 5. The life story of Abraham and his sons Ishmael and Isaac, as Moslems believe it, is much different from the account in the book of Genesis. According to Islam, it was not Isaac that the Lord commanded Abraham to sacrifice, but Ishmael. 6. The goal of Moslems is to rid Jerusalem of all non-Moslems, because their presence in the city "corrupts" the great mosque that now stands atop the Dome of the Rock. 7. Jesus is regarded as merely a Jewish prophet, and his teachings are far less important than those of Muhammad, who was supposed to be the last and final prophet. 8. The ultimate goal of Islam is to conquer the world, theologically and politically. All other religions and secular governments must be abolished. If these claims and other aspects of Islamic faith sound strange, shocking, or perhaps absurd, you will enjoy reading Mark Gabriel's book. Many Moslems will object to what Gabriel has written and deny that they believe some of these things. Nevertheless, Gabriel gives an accurate picture of what Islam really teaches, and makes it clear that the so-called "radical" Moslems aren't really radical at all, but rather practicing their faith as the Prophet Muhammed intended and the Koran (Medina scritures) teaches. He quotes extensively from the Koran and explains each of the above points very clearly and without apology. If you want to learn the absolute truth about Islam, this and Gabriel's other books are what you need.

Read this book if you only have limited time about this topic

I am Chinese. But I want to learn more about the continuous conflicts between Arabs and Jews (between Islam and Judaism, now I should say, after reading this book). I bought several books besides "Islam and the Jews," such as one edited by Robert Spencer, one written by Bernard Lewis, and one written by Bat Ye'or. The book by Mark Gabriel is the easiest to read and understand. One of the reviewers said that this book has a "bad" writing style equivalent to that of a 10-year old. I should say that this book is so easy to read so that even a 10-year old will grasp the ideas very well. The writing style of Gabriel is causal, unlike the scholarly and paintaking style of Ye'or and others. For example, Ye'or wrote an entire book about Dhimmitude; Gabriel described what I need to know tersely in one chapter (Chapter 18). Despite the causal writing style, the materials are serious, the analysis great, and the attitude sincere. Gabriel, formerly an Imam and a professor in Islamic history, is now a Christian. He dedicated two chapters to preach about Christianity as a means to resolve the Islam-Judaism conflict(like other reviewers, I don't think that will work). If Gabriel has a hidden agenda in his book, I guess it is related more to his current faith in Christianity than his bias against Islam. Everything he said seems very objective to me. If you want to have a reasonably good and credible understanding about the conflicts in the Middle East and about those Islamic radicals, you need only to spend three hours on Gabriel's book.

A Much-Needed Voice

This book provides a much-needed voice in the marketplace of ideas. It answers many questions that well-meaning people have about the conflict in the Middle East and is particularly helpful in that the author (raised as a Muslim in Egypt)has served as a well-respected Quranic scholar at the University of Cairo. It is unfortunate that another reviewer decided to shout in capital letters and call Dr. Gabriel names. I suspect that person was not aware of Dr. Gabriel's curriculum vitae. I encourage all people who are confused by the mixed message of the Quran to learn from Dr. Gabriel's book the concepts of hadith and nasikh. Very helpful book.

Warning, Not Politically Correct

We have all heard how Islam is a religion of peace and that there are just a few extremists that are abusing the religion to kill and torture innocent people. What we have not heard enough about is how Islam has a violent side and history that is not all that "peaceful." To deny the truths that Dr. Gabriel writes about is to bury your head in the sand and hope that it is all better when you pull it out (if you ever do). As he says, he did not write this book to hurt Muslims but to help them. Islam needs to mature as a world religion and welcome the 21st century. This does not mean trying to take the world back to medieval times where women could not have a formal education and non-Muslims were treated as second-class citizens or, even worse, killed. In order to solve any problem, you first need to recognize what the real problem is. Dr. Gabriel believes, and is convincing, that he knows what the problem with Islam is and how to help correct it. For those armchair Americans who think they know all about Islam from their living room TVs, this is a man who has lived it, not just read about it or seen it on TV. I would trust his opinion much more than most of the other negative posts I have seen on this site. Buy the book and hear the real story of Islam from an honest man who had the incredible intellectual courage to change his mind.

How the Quran Views Non-Muslims

I served in the U.S. Army back in 1991 when we liberated Kuwait (sorry, I didn't find Saddam back then). That started my interest in Islam, after noticing that the public buses in Saudi Arabia had signs on the front door directing: "Women enter through rear door." Why so? -- and what gives with all of these veiled women, and why were poor, foreign women with young babies begging for alms on the streets? ISLAM AND THE JEWS cites verses in the Quran explaining the separation of the sexes in public places. (The begging women turned out to be divorced women left on the streets to survive.) What I really find so valuable about this book in how the author cites specifically numbered Surahs(paragraphs-verses)from the Quran/Koran in revealing the beliefs of Allah as given to the Angel Gabriel as spoken/recorded by Muhammad. One can read the many other current books discussing Islam, but very few cite specific verses from the Quran to explain or justify WHY and/or HOW a Muslim is supposed to follow Islam. This ex-Muslim Egyptian-born author details why there appear to be "contradictions" within the Quran. Why is it reported in the American press that Islam respects Jews and Christians? This book explains that when the Jews would not follow Muhammad's revelations, that he then received a new revelation that the only "good" Jews or Christians were those who would pay a tax(zakat) to the Muslims -- essentially, a "protection racket." This ex-Muslim author must be revealing the "truth" about the fundamentals of Islam, after all, just look at the sad, poor, embarrassing bad-mouthings that are written by his critics: they just don't like his documentation. I have two of the Qurans mentioned in this book, the moderate Ali translation, as well as the English translation published by the religious ministry of Saudi Arabia: The Noble Quran. I have looked at EVERY citation listed by this author, EACH one is a true and correct quotation! The author explains that the Quran is not written in a straight timeline sequence. It is recorded from the largest chapters to the shortest -- hence, the chronological dates of each chapter are all mixed up. One has to refer to another booklet to see how scholars believe the chapters were revealed to Muhammad by date. What is really enligtening in this book is that the author explains how Muhammad's (Allah's) views changed about Jews. Originally, Muhammad had tolerance for the Jews while he tried to entice them to convert to Islam and pay taxes to him. However, when they didn't, Muhammad told his followers that it was okay to wage war against the non-Islams and loot their valuables. This author's companion book: "Islam and Terrorism" makes a wonderful revelation (with specific verse citations) as to how the Quran justifies Usama/Osama bin Landen's suicide-bomber attacks against Christians.