Islam And The Jews: The unfinished battle

Everything about this book is vital and important. It is written very well, especially considering that the author is well versed in the Quran as well as the Bible. The Middle East today cannot be understood without the ideas summarized in this book. This book inspired me to read the Quran directly and to study various critiques. After my study, I go back to this book for its accuracy and its truthful rendition of Islamic thought. The author is a great man.

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.

A good read!

I’ve read the author’s previous book on Jesus and Muhammad and must say this book also matches that book in level of information. Much of the information in the book is reiterated in this book. Given the current 2023 Israel-Hamas War, I thought it would be a good time to read books regarding the topic. The author has two Doctorates in Islamic and Christian studies so he’s well informed to both. As a ex Muslim and having growing up in Nasser era Egypt, he knows how Arabs feel about the State of Israel and Jews in particular. In the book he argues, using experience, the Quran, and hadiths, that Islamic religion and culture is the main driving force in the Arab conflict and refusal to make peace. And it’s a convincing book.That said, I will be taking a star off due to two facts. One was the author saying that the Reformation was God punishing the “Roman” Catholic Church by taking away its power. That does not fit with the scriptures saying God desires us to be one. Two he presents the Crusades as morally equivalent to Jihab and does little explanation about the events themselves or why they were fought. (No mention of the Byzantine emperor’s call for aid because of Islamic advances in Anatolia, the Muslim occupation of Spain, or Arab slave raids in the Mediterranean.) I will acknowledge though this book is about 21 years old and the author was educated in an evangelical Protestant university and probably social bubble. Hopefully if he ever does a revised edition, he’ll work on some of the scholarship regard this and writing format.All in all it’s an easy read and can be finished in two days at an average pace.

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.