Robert Spencer's new book, The History of Jihad from Muhammad to ISIS, is a clarion call to Western civilization.  We are under assault by Islam from all sides in a war that has raged since 632, the date of Muhammad's death.  In trying to raise the alarm, Spencer is clearly one of the Paul Reveres of our time.  But who is willing to listen?

Spencer's opening observation sums up his book. 

There is no period since the beginning of Islam that was characterized by peaceful co-existence between Muslims and non-Muslims[.] ... There has always been, with virtually no interruption, jihad.  Nor is jihad in Islamic theology primarily, or even prominently anything but warfare against non-believers.

The rest of Spencer's well researched and thoroughly documented book is the details – fascinating, convincing, and frightening details that more that substantiate his case.

Spencer is one of the world's leading authorities on Islam.  He has written several bestselling books on Islam and is founder of Jihad Watch, a website that covers global Islamic attacks and activity on a daily basis.  It is a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, where Spencer is a Shillman fellow.  He also is co-founder of the organization Stop Islamization of America.  A tireless speaker and advocate, he has been banned from entering the U.K. despite the fact that the British government has no trouble allowing Islamic hate-preachers full access.

Of the Catholic faith (via the Melkites), Spencer has spent decades researching, studying, and observing the elements that fill this important book with records of events and, most damagingly, direct quotes from Qur'an, which "contain numerous exhortations to fight against the infidels, as do all the hadith collections of Muhammad's words and deeds."  More specifically, the scriptures command Muslims to "fight those who do not believe in Allah."  The historical record is chilling.  But Spencer's most damaging and convincing argument is to let the Muslims speak for themselves, including the prophet Muhammad, who bragged, "I have been victorious with terror."

The book sweeps the reader through Muhammad's own bloody conquests against Jews and other infidels, and then on through centuries of jihad, mass bloodshed from Spain to India, the Barbary Wars, the Ottoman Empire, and on into modern-day global terrorism.  There is no accurate body count, but it's certainly a staggering number.

His most alarming material is in the closing chapter, "The West Loses the Will to Live."  The well documented, ongoing jihad against Israel is more than enough for a book of its own.  The fall of the Shah of Iran triggered the globalization of modern jihad terrorism.  Spencer details the rise of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden along with the 9/11 attacks that were, not so shockingly, organized and funded by senior people in both Saudi Arabia and Iran.  Even worse were attempts by the Bush administration and the Obama administration to cover this up.  One can see the hand of Obama's CIA director, John Brennan, in a good deal of this.  Who can forget Obama's 2009 trip to Cairo, where he "acknowledged civilization's debt to Islam"?  Somehow he managed not to mention the slaughter of millions over the centuries in the name of Allah.

The Obama-supported Muslim Brotherhood, which has been labeled by some as a terrorist group, and its offshoot, CAIR, remain highly active in weakening America's resolve to resist the encroachment of Islam.  In February 2012, for instance, the Obama administration, led by John Brennan, purged thousands of documents about the threat of jihad from FBI's and other government training manuals, because they were allegedly "biased, false and highly offensive to Muslim groups." 

In other words, Spencer points out, "American was going to war against jihadists while forbidding itself to understand jihad."  Brennan, in fact, "was instrumental in the Obama administration's recasting of the defense against terror as a localized struggle against al-Qaeda."  This was after Spencer had led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Justice Department's Terrorism Advisory Council, and the U.S. intelligence community.

Meanwhile, the flood of Muslim immigrants into the West has accelerated.  Spencer concludes, "The failure of today's leadership and the international media to inform the public about what is really going on [is] an abdication of responsibility unparalleled in history."  Spencer believes that the leaders of Europe have "brought almost certain doom on their countries."  Reading daily dispatches, particularly from the U.K. and France, it is difficult to disagree.

Spencer is not a lone voice.  In his daily electronic ride across America warning of the increasing Islamic threat, he has active allies in Pamela Geller, David Horowitz, Brigitte Gabriel, Jamie Glazov, Raymond Ibrahim, and Glen Roberts, who have not been afraid to identify the ideological monster that threatens to destroy our Constitution and our way of life.  Robert's website, Religion of Peace, keeps daily track of jihadist attacks on a global basis: 33,943 since 9/11.  Islamic extremism and efforts to combat it were responsible for 84,000 deaths in 2017, according to a report from an organization founded by former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair.  The data found that there were 7,841 attacks in 48 countries in 2017; at least 47 Islamic extremist groups deliberately "orchestrated fatal campaigns against civilians."  Those attacks, the report says, were "designed to instill fear and erode public morale."

The real question is how to destroy the Islamic destroyers.  Amil Imani, writing for Pamela Geller's website, offers an action-specific list that includes holding to account politicians who sell themselves to Islamic advocacy groups; staying informed; and finding ways to actively wean ordinary Muslims off their religion of destruction, intolerance, backwardness, and death.  Muslims need to be openly challenged ideologically.  Do they accept sharia law (female genital mutilation, the right of a man to beat his wife, total subjugation of wives by their husbands, death for unmarried fornication and adultery, death to gays, death to critics of Islam, death for apostates) over America's constitutional law?  Is reform of Islam even a theoretical possibility?

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich echoes Spencer:

Western civilization is in a war.  We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background, and if they believe in Sharia, they should be deported.  Sharia is incompatible with Western civilization.  Modern Muslims who have given up Sharia – I am glad to have them as citizens.  Perfectly happy to have them next door.

On a personal note, I spent two exciting years in Beirut as chief of Middle East services for the Associated Press.  I had many Arab, Armenian, and Palestinian friends and employees.  Many of them were wonderful, lovely people who were fun to socialize and spend time with.  But this was before Jimmy Carter cut the floor out from under the Shah, paving the way for Ayatollah Khomeini to return from Paris to Tehran to assume leadership of the country.  My friends were what I would call cultural or secular Muslims.  They were not devout and did not pray five times a day.  As far as I knew, they were good people.  So it's important to separate good human beings from radical Islam wherever we can.

In his 2002 "Letter to the American people," bin Laden wrote that war against the United States will end:

... only with the submission of the United States to the warriors of jihad.  The first thing we are calling you to is Islam[.] ... [K]illing you and fighting you and terrorizing you, responding to your attacks, all are considered to be the great legitimate duty in our religion.  These actions are offerings to God.

Will any imam or devout Muslim challenge this or renounce it?

"The historical record speaks for itself," says Spencer, "even more loudly and clearly than it usually does.  It is my hope that readers with an open mind and a willingness to consider unwelcome facts ... will see this record for what it is and ponder carefully its implications for the future of free societies around the world."  In other words, Islam is coming, by land, sea, and air.  The warnings are all there.  It's time to recognize what is happening and bring it to a halt.

Frank Hawkins is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, Associated Press foreign correspondent, international businessman, senior newspaper company executive, founder and owner of several marketing companies, and published novelist.  He currently lives in retirement in North Carolina.