Excellent. Not a beach book. Leaves no doubt that mainstream Islam is a bloodthirsty, oppressive religion.

This is highly selective and predictably biased. Not really worthy of
being dignified as "scholarship" at all as most balanced scholars of the history of Islam
will affirm.

Professor Bostom has accomplished a daring feat by refuting an age old myth within the discipline of Middle Eastern History. His thesis statement, that Jews were not treated better under Muslim auspices, cuts through preconceived notions. It is an immense work that will take the avid historian weeks to go through, but it is all worth the work. Even though he is not an historian by trade he still manages to conjure new and old muslim source material, which makes his case all the more solid. It is not only a wondrous scholarly achievement, it is a stab at the greater narrative of Islamic history and religiosity. Come one come all and take a walk on the historical wild side, cause you might never come back. Read it and enjoy.

Professor Bostom has accomplished a daring feat by refuting an age old myth within the discipline of Middle Eastern History. His thesis statement, that Jews were not treated better under Muslim auspices, cuts through preconceived notions. It is an immense work that will take the avid historian weeks to go through, but it is all worth the work. Even though he is not an historian by trade he still manages to conjure new and old muslim source material, which makes his case all the more solid. It is not only a wondrous scholarly achievement, it is a stab at the greater narrative of Islamic history and religiosity. Come one come all and take a walk on the historical wild side, cause you might never come back. Read it and enjoy.

As a non-Muslim who has done some minimal study of Islam, I found this book to be very one-sided and polemical. Even a non-expert like myself can easily identify the biases and one-sided arguments in this book. Given the somewhat understandable bias against Islam in the Western world, no doubt many people will find this book confirms their views of Islam. However, I would encourage those inclined to agree with the author to consider that many Muslims do not hate Jews and to do their own research on this subject by reading or talking to Muslims. Furthermore, consider that it would be quite easy for a Muslim to write a similarly-biased book arguing that Judaism or Christianity is at its core anti-Muslim.

Just from my own research I found at least 23 false argumnet through out the book.
Unfourtunately, some people just want to hate others. For those people, this book might be good.

In today's world where the threats of Radical Islamists may set fire to the whole world there are many apologists for Islam that say Jew Hatred is not part of "true" Islam. This work documents and exposes the truth from Muhammad to today using the most accepted references and Islamic scriptures to document his findings. If you want to understand the truth of the relationship between Islam, the Jewish people and thus the motivations behind Muslim actions today you need to read this book. This book exposes the very soul of Islam, the one all Muslims call the perfect example of a Muslim life lived and one all Muslims seek to copy, Muhammad as well as those that have followed after him not only in words but also in the actions they lived in their lives. This book is a MUST READ during this time in World History!!!

Rocky Latham

Andrew Bostom has produced a magisterial exposé of the foundations, development and impact of Islamic anti-semitism. Shrouded in perverse denial and historical revisionism, Islamic Jew-hatred is in fact grounded in the Qur'an and the life of Muhammad (the Sunna). Bostom has done the world a courageous service by exposing the roots together with the fruits of this persistent characteristic of Islamic theology and practice. In doing so, he has exposed and disarmed many deceits.
This will be a standard reference on Islam's treatment of the Jews for decades to come. A brilliant and confronting work, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism is a must-read for all who would understand Islam and its sacred history.

This book really twist facts. I will summarize my opinion in few sentences for the muslim haters:
- In the muslim books, the Quran and Sunna, jews and christians were referred to as the people of the book like the muslims. It is a must for muslims to believe in the old and new testament the way they came to the prophets: Moses and Jesus
- Jews and Christians were always free to practice their religion where muslims ruled, and were even treated evenly in the eyes of the law. Testimonies in the books can prove it. The history of Jerusalem can prove it.
- Jews and christians were given high positions in the muslim political and social systems. This applies to the present.
- In the history, I don't recall any slaughter of the jews by muslims, but I recall the ones by Romans, and the one by Europeans
- Last one: How could Muslims be anti-semitic if a big percentage of the muslims are Arabs and the Arabs are semitic as they descend from Sam. This point alone proves that the writer did not gather true facts.

Too much hatred towards muslims. I have seen good christians and Jews writing true historic events and giving credits where it is due.

I have recently finished reading "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism by Bostom." I could not put the book down. I read it three times, perhaps more. I am still reading it again.
Bostom's presentation, organization and source material being vaster than my previous exposure gave an immersion that was both compelling and revealing.
I am familiar with the Koran having studied from the very well done edition "Revised and Edited by The Presidency of Islamic Researches, IFTA, Call and Guidance" published by the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur-an. I have also read from various books such as "The Meaning of the Quran by Maududi" which is published by Islamic Publications (Pvt) Ltd. Lahore. There are parts of the Koran that impressed me with its adoption of the high moral and religious teaching of the Old Testament and parts that astounded me in its banality. I do believe that the Koran was written for its audience at that time. Perhaps for those people it fulfilled and gave them what was then needed. Certainly the commentary and Judicial decision of the Muslim community give greater insight into the meaning the Koran has for its community and geography.

But Bostom has now done a great service to those who want to learn. Every once in a while a book is created by a dedicated individual like Bostom who possesses the skill, commitment and time to exhaustively exclaim on a subject in a fully dispositive and authoritative manner. Whether that book is in the sciences or law or history does not matter. What matters is that such a book shines and leaves much of the related literature behind. You feel that having read the book its point is proven and that little else on that question needs to be told.

What Bostom has done is using unimpeachable sources and fully reliable documentation he has forcefully presented the argument that those who adhere to Islam cannot live in peace and equality with other faiths and peoples. Yes, he couches this argument as being directly related to the literature of conflict between Jews and Muslims, and of that he shows there is no doubt whatsoever. But his presentation leave no question that the legally formalized hatred toward Jews and Israel is fully transferable and perhaps equally directed to our Western Civilization and tradition and that of every other civilization Western or otherwise. And he does this largely but not exclusively with the documentation of various time periods from the Islamic community and others present in the community.

Keep in mind that Bostom in this book is not interested in the validity or merit of the Islamic faith. This is not an attack upon the religious choices made by those who are Muslim. It is though a clear and unassailable portrayal of the Islamic world as Islam views those non-Muslims who make up the rest of humanity. And is shows Islamic law and practice as a shadow and whip upon the human dignity and a miserable weight upon the future of the rest of humanity.

IF the beliefs and practices of the majority of those who adhere to Islam are truly as reflected in the sources and literature that Bostom has collected, then humanity will have a continuing nightmare that will only be resolved by the defeat and repudiation of such practices and ideas.
His work provides an insight in what Israel must cope with on a daily basis and with why Israel is only the first of many targets in this attack upon civilization as we know it. The Muslim world now has full and complete access to Western science and technology. If Bostom is correct then Islamic Law will use Western attainments as a sword to destroy what Islam perceives as its enemy and an incompatible civilization. Bostom has provided a valuable academic and scholarly discourse of this haunting problem. Kenneth Ellman, ke@kennethellman.com

"Whenever a Jew is killed, it is for the benefit of Islam." Andrew Bostom was working on a book about Islamic treatment of "dhimmis," "infidels" or non-Muslims, when he came across this quote by Sufi jurist Sirhindi (d. 1621). The virulence of this quote inspired Bostom to put his general work on Islamic treatment of dhimmis aside, for the moment, and to focus on Islamic anti-Semitism.

Andrew Bostom, a medical doctor, is a careful and ethical researcher and writer. Nowawdays, there is so much political frenzy around the question of Islam, that readers often fear that they are exposed to more heat than light in best-selling books. When reading Andrew Bostom, readers need not worry that they are being spoon fed propaganda.

Bostom works his way with painstaking slowness and exactitude through mountains of primary sources, and he presents that data to the reader, with full citations to original texts. Bostom uses Islam's own documents, including Islamic legal documents on Jews, and historical accounts of Jewish life in Muslim lands, to support his inevitable conclusion: from the earliest days, from the founding of Islam by Mohammed, and from Islam's central text, the Koran, anti-Semitism has been a central aspect of Islam, and any reform of this aspect of Islam will be very difficult.

Bostom effectively debunks three oft-repeated Islam-apologist myths: the alleged Islamic Golden Age, that Muslims learned their anti-Semitism from Christians or the West, and that anti-Semitism arose in the Muslim world only after the recognition of the state of Israel.

There was no "Islamic Golden Age" when persons of various faiths lived in peace and harmony under wise, tolerant Islamic rulers, Bostom insists. From the days of Mohammed, non-Muslims under Muslim rule were subject to taxation, humiliation, oppression, exile, and murder. Bostom devotes great energy to proving this through historical analysis.

Muslims did not learn their anti-Semitism from Christianity. Muslims who had never met a Jew or a Christian brought their culturally-ingrained anti-Semitism with them into India, a largely Hindu and Buddhist sub-continent. Nor did they aquire anti-Semitism from Scientific Racism's or Nazism's racial disdain for Jews. Arabs are Semites, just as Jews are. Muslims forced Jews to wear distinctive badges more than a thousand years before Hitler did so. Christians also had to wear identifying badges under Muslim leaders.

The Koran is replete with anti-Semitic verses, most notoriously, the ones equating Jews with "pigs and monkeys." There is also the hadith, or saying of Mohammed, that rocks will speak to Muslims, asking them to kill Jews. These verses are freely cited by Islamic religious leaders today, as Muslim sermons posted on youtube reveals. Mohammed, the founder of Islam, exercised murderous hostility toward Jews.

It will be very difficult to discover reformers within Islam who wish to co-exist with Jews in respect and tolerance; it will be even harder for those reformers to realize their dreams. Islam leaves no room for reform, especially when it comes to hostility to non-Muslims, especially Jews. The Koran is believed to be the perfect, unchanging, eternal word of God, and the Muslim God refers to Jews as monkey and pigs.

Bostom's book is essential reading for those hoping to understand the truth about Islam.

Andrew Bostom does humanity a great service to historians, theologians, sociologists, archeologists, Christians, Jews, and Musims by writing this huge book. This book is a database of historical accounts (unaltered and complete) on Islamic sentiments towards Christians, but mainly Jews, throughout the centuries up to today's manifestations anti-Hebrew ideology with incredible detail. One should buy this book just to have an exhaustive history of Muslim persecutions, anti-semitic laws, punishments, stereotypes, beliefs, and even disgust of Christians and Hebrews from the primary sources and secondary sources of Islamic texts.

This book lets history represent itself and allows for the historical Muslims to speak their minds and views as they originally did in their allotted time. Through this book, Historical Islam can be scrutinized and compared to Modern Islam to see if the situation between Muslims and Jews has gotten any better through out the centuries. The Qu'ran is given extensive treatment as well and the contributing authors document verses of the Qu'ran, passages of the Sira (the early biographies of Muhammad) and the Hadith (the traditions of the Muslims) that are used by anti-semitic Muslims to justify their views on their supposed fallen Hebrew and Christian brothers. Along with this, a huge amount of historical testimony, expert commentary, multiple stories of Muslims in power throughout history express their sentiments toward the Hebrew. The origins of Muslim anti-Semitism are documented, including detailed accounts of Muhammad's encounter with the Hebrews during his lifetime.

The book is dense and informative and is to be seen as a historical database for Muslims and non-Muslims in terms of history of relations and views between Muslims and Hebrews. Muslims and non-Muslims should read this book and decide for themselves as to whether Islam was ever completely friendly to the Hebrews and Christians and how Islam has affected world history.

Here are the Parts and Chapter titles of the book (not all chapters will be named since there are so many. It's ridiculous. But, I will mention as many as possible):

Part 1: Islamic Antisemetism - Jew Hatred in Islam
1. A Survey of It's Theological-Juridical Origins and Historical Manifestations

Part 2: Anti-Jewish Motifs in the Quran and It's Exegesis
2. Quranic Verses
3. Jew Hatred in the Islamic Tradition and Koranic Exegesis

Part 3: Anti-Jewish Motifs in the Hadith
4. Excerpts form the Canonical Hadith Collections
5. Jews and Muslims according to the Hadith

Part 4: Anti-Jewish Motifs in the Sira
6. Muhammad's Jewish Adversaries at Medina
7. The Affair of the Banu Qaynuqa
8. The Assassination of Ka'b b. al-Ashraf
9. The Brothers Muhayysisa and Huwayyisa
10. The Raid against the Banu Nadir
11. The Extermination of the Banu Qurayza
12. Muhammad and the Jews of Khaybar
13. Excerpts form the Sira of Ibn Sa'd
14. Muhammad at Khaybar
15. History of the Jews of Medina

Part 5: Muslim Jurists, Theologians, and Scholars on the Jews: Classical and Postmodern Era
16. The First Jews Oath in Islam
17. Why the Muslims Prefer the Christians to the Jews
18. A Renegade Jew as the Source of the Shi'ite "Heresy" and the Conspiracy to Destroy the Early Islamic Caliphate
20. A Collection of Legal Opinions Demonstrating the Attitudes of Muslim Jurists and Citizens towards Jews of Muslim Spain and North Africa, 15th-19th Centuries
21. Anti Jewish Anecdotes from an Anti-Dhimmi Treatise
25. "Adversos Judaeos": A Treatise from Maghrib

Part 6: Muslim Jurists, Theologians, and Scholars on the Jews: Modern Era
26. Our Struggle with the Jews
27. The Jews in the Qu'ran
28. The Jewish Attitude toward Islam and Muslims in Early Islam
33. Our War with the Jews Is in the Name of Islam
34. The Jews of Today Bear Responsibility for their Forefathers' Crime against Jesus
35. The Jews' Twenty Bad Traits as Described in the Qu'ran

Part 7: The Jews of Arab Muslim Lands: Historical Maps

Part 8: The Dhimmi Condition for Jews, and the Muslim Jew Hatred: Early Islam through the Modern Era
37. Evidence on the Poll Tax from Non-Muslim Sources: A Geniza Study
38. Concerning the Situation of Jews and Christians in Seville at the Beginning of the 12th Century
41. Moses b. Samuel, a Jewish Katib in Damascus, and His Pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca
43. The Pact of Umar in Morocco: A Reappraisal of Muslim-Jewish Relations
44. New Documents Regarding Attacks upon Jewish Religious Observance in Morocco During the Late 19th Century
45. Jews under Muslim Rule II: Morocco 1903-1912
46. A Moroccan Jewish Experience: A Revisionist View
48. "Outcaste": Shi'a Intolerance
49. The Expulsion of Yemenite Jewry to Mawza' in 1679-80 in Light of Recently Discovered Sources
50. Conversion to Islam among Yemenite Jews under Zaydi Rule: The Positions of Zaydi Law, the Imam, and the Muslim Society
52. Palestine under the Rule of Ibrahim Pasha
53. The Dhimmi Factor in the Exodus of Jews from Arab Countries
55. Modern Egyptian Jew Hatred: Indigenous Elements and Foreign Influences
56. Judaism and Islam as Opposites
57. Islamic Fundamentalism, Antisemetism, and Anti-Zionism
58. Based on Qu'ranic Verses, Interpretations, and Traditions, Muslim Clerics State: The Jews are Descendents of Apes, Pigs, and Other Animals
59. Jews as "Christ Killers" in Islam
60. Antisemetism in (Contemporary) Islam: Europe in the Conflict between Tolerance and Ideology

Part 9: Documents and Eyewitness Accounts
61. Decrees of Dhimmitude, 850-1905
62. Jews as Dhimmis and Muslim Chattel, 1790-1949
63. Two Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the Modern Era before the Creation of Israel: Baghdad (1941) and Tripolitania (1945)
64. Light-Skinned Egyptian Muslim Repeatedly Beaten by His Co-religionists for "Looking Jewish"
65." Jews in Grave Danger in All Muslim Lands"
66. New York Times Reports on the Exodus of Jews from the Arab Muslim Middle East, 1955-1962
67. An Eyewitness Account of the Anti-Jewish Riots in Tunis at the Outbreak of the Six-Day War (1967)
68. A Libyan Jew Breaks Her Silence Thirty-Six Years after Surviving the 1967 Tripolitan Pogrom
69. The Modern Rhetoric of Antisemetic Jihad Genocide

Appendixes

Bravo for Bostom and Company! This book is an excellent reference and deserves a wide audience, especially the Muslim audience. Muslims should read this to understand they history of anti-semitism and non-Muslims like Christians, but mainly Jews should read this too for the friendly and unfriendly history of their ancestors and see what some of them had to put up with.

Forget everything that you have ever read claiming that modern Islamic Antisemitism and Arab hatred for Israel was born of Nazi propaganda.

This book will teach you the actual origin of this hatred---the teachings of Mohammed, the Islamic Caliphs who followed him, the companions and scholars who recorded the Hadith (sayings and deeds of Mohammed) and the jurists who wrote Islamic law.

If you read nothing else on the Middle East or Islam this year---or ever---be sure to read this book, from cover to cover. It buries all the lies you've been reading in the mainstream press about the moderation embedded in fundamental Islam.

You'll never believe those press lies again. Nor should anyone.

---Alyssa A. Lappen