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Order Robert Spencer’s new book, The Tragedy of Islam: Failure and Excuses: HERE.
It’s official: the list of Robert Spencer’s books is now longer than some books. No, not really, but it’s getting there. I frankly don’t know how he does it, because everything he writes is terrific. And although he keeps returning to his chief (but hardly his only) topic, namely Islam, he always has new information and new insights to offer – indeed, whole new angles to explore. So it is with his extremely engaging new volume, The Tragedy of Islam: Failure and Excuses. As he himself writes in his acknowledgments, he has “tried to express here something that doesn’t appear in my other books.” And what is that something? Well, in those other books, Spencer has delved into such topics as the life of Muhammed, the possible non-existence of Muhammed, the Koran, jihad, stealth jihad, the Crusades, and Islam’s treatment of women. This time around, his emphasis is on “exposing the contradictions” in the lies that Westerners have been told, since 9/11, “about the superior morals and history of the culture that has given rise to numerous deadly terror attacks.”
Needless to say, it’s depressing that in the wake of so many deadly terror attacks, and in the wake of countless other demonstrations of the radical shortcomings of Islam, such exposure should even be necessary. But it is. Millions of Americans actually believe that a U.S. under sharia would be just fine – or perhaps even better than what we have now. It wouldn’t. “In keeping with Islamic law,” explains Spencer, “a majority-Muslim United States would likely criminalize behaviors that Islam forbids: the sale and consumption of alcohol and pork, the use of interest in financial transactions, and more. The veil would almost certainly be made mandatory for women, as it is in the Islamic Republic of Iran and other Sharia states. Certain behaviors, such as homosexual acts, fornication, and adultery could also be criminalized, while polygamy would be legalized.” Every American should know such things by now. It’s the fault of our politicians, journalists, and educators that millions don’t.
Oh, and one more thing: if America were to turn Islamic, the economy would tank. America’s wealth, you see, was created by the Protestant work ethic; the poverty of Muslim countries – except, naturally, for those that have reaped the benefits of oil wealth – is owing to Islam’s utter lack of a work ethic. This goes all the way back to Muhammed, who, instead of encouraging his followers to become farmers or merchants or tradesmen, urged them to raid and steal and plunder; as Spencer writes, he inculcated in them “an aversion to manual labor,” a belief that “work is a curse,” and “a spirit of parasitism,” whereby the wealth of Islamic polities has always been derived almost exclusively from the labor of subjugated peoples. No subjugated peoples, then, no wealth. Hence Islam, when it lacks a hard-working, productive class of subordinate heathens, is nothing more than a formula for poverty – a fact that has resulted, over history, in a series of Muslim polities that Spencer calls “failed societies.” Yes, thanks to its fixation on conquest, Islam may well have done a remarkable job of expanding over the centuries, but what exactly did it bring to its newly conquered territories other than ignorance, intolerance, and a demand that their new underlings provide them with the cash they themselves were incapable of earning?
Failure is a running theme in this book, because Islam is failure. One of Spencer’s chapter titles is “Failure Breeds Jihad.” How so? Because the more that Islam leads to socioeconomic decay, the clearer the solution is, at least according to the cockeyed logic of Islam: spread the faith even further afield, and Allah will reward you with good fortune. Other chapters explore the objectively irrational but deeply ingrained Islamic connections between (a) failure and Jew-hatred and (b) failure and suspicion of outsiders. Another chapter, entitled “The Fictional Palace of Islamic Achievements” (this book is called The Tragedy of Islam, but when certain things, such as this chapter title, make one laugh out loud, one reflects that it might well have been entitled The Comedy of Islam), makes quick work of the absurd claims, often made by respected historians, that Muslims were the real minds behind such inventions as the airplane – which some Andalusian genius is said to have demonstrated in the year 852, no less. Still other chapters focus on the perverse phenomenon, which has been observed for centuries, of famous Westerners who’ve had a soft spot for Islam (among them Luther, Voltaire, Gibbon, Carlyle, and Washington Irving) and of Westerners (notably Thomas Jefferson, Einstein, Neil Armstrong, Jacques Cousteau, and Morgan Freeman – now there’s an idea for a fantasy dinner party) who’ve been falsely described as having converted to Islam.
Alas, there’s hardly any need to invent false converts to Islam, because there have been more than enough real ones, many of whom have become skillful practitioners of violent jihad. Among them: Mujahida bint Isamah, who having taken advantage of the opportunity to become a physician in Britain, joined ISIS and posted on Twitter a photo of herself holding a severed head along with the caption “Dream job, a terrorist doc.” Then there’s Mike Hawash, an Intel executive in Portland, Oregon, who became a recruiter for al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The perpetrator of the 2017 Westminster Bridge attack was a convert, too. The list goes on – and on and on. If so many of these converts manage to fly under the radar of the law, it’s because there’s a strong disinclination among officials throughout the West to upset “the dogma that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance that has nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.”
Yet whatever pretty illusions some Westerners may harbor, seriously reflective Muslims know better. They’re aware that Islam is a mess – which can be an uncomfortable fact for them to deal with, given that Allah himself has told them that Islam is perfect. And the more that the Internet exposes them to the remarkable intellectual and cultural achievements of other cultures, the more powerfully they’re reminded of Islam’s fundamental mediocrity. Now, any culture other than Islam might respond to its inferiority with a strong impulse for self-improvement, a determination to become a light unto the nations. Not Islam. As we’ve already seen, productive work is not on the Muslim menu. No, in Islam, an awareness of inferiority leads to shame, and shame leads to hate, and hate leads to a lust for revenge – period. If Israel is such an obsession among Muslims, it’s not just because the Koran commands them to loathe Jews, but also because these objects of their divinely directed loathing have turned their tiny patch of desert into a booming modern economy – one that shames every Islamic state on earth, past or present.
Spencer doesn’t neglect to note that where Islam is concerned, we’re living in a strange time. “It would be one of the supreme ironies of history,” writes Spencer, “if the West embraced Islam just as Iran and other areas of the Islamic world were liberating themselves from it.” Ironic indeed. The Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan all signed the Abraham Accords with Israel. While several Western European countries have fulminated against America’s war on Iran, Islamic states like Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait have supported it. During his presidency, Donald Trump seems to have talked many major Islamic governments into turning away from the Islamic tradition of war and poverty and embracing, instead, the opportunity to give their people peace and prosperity. If this development continues, it will truly mark a historic turning point for Islam. Meanwhile, however, much of Europe is already in the grip of Islam at its most truculent, and, given the continued inability of many if not most native Europeans to understand – and withstand – the enemy within, the prospects for the future of European liberty look bleak indeed. As Spencer puts it in his closing sentences, an Islamic Europe seems unlikely to differ significantly “from an Islamic Middle East, an Islamic North Africa, and an Islamic Asia.” How lamentable it is that while Spencer – more, probably, than anyone else, certainly in the English language – has striven over the past quarter century to sound the alarm, all too few readers have heeded his warning. Yes, his efforts may be quixotic. But that doesn’t make them any less heroic.
Islam has been a tragedy for over 1400 years. Common sense asks the question: “how come enlightened societies have put up with something so evil for so long?
And how come our societies are embracing this tragedy?
Our societies are embracing Islam because they have rejected Christianity. The divine punishment is that they are handed over to Satan and his prophet Muhammad.
On the contrary, it is the values and principles of Judeo-Christianity that have enabled Islam to spread and gain strength in Western countries. There is a pressing need to limit the influence of Christian parties, organizations, and churches on immigration policies.
Ignorance! If “educators” have taught you that the United States is evil and was founded unjustly, if you’ve been brainwashed into thinking that all cultures have equal value and all people want the same things, and you had no religious formation, you may think that Islam isn’t that bad.
Sharia would be difficult for Americans to swallow, but the Left will think up all kinds of nasty names for anyone who is concerned about the push of Islam in the USA.
Islam claims that it initiated a “golden age” when it conquered its vast territories. I think that what happened is that Islam didn’t really want to convert nearly everyone, at least at first, because the Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and others worked, paid their extra taxes, and thus supported the muslims in the manner to which they became accustomed. That came to an end when those who were oppressed decided to become at least nominal muslims to end the civil handicaps that being in the “infidel” class exposed them. Then, the conquered areas devolved into poverty-stricken, ignorant hellholes.
Read the section in Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, that covers the conditions in the Holy Land. That will be our future if we aren’t careful. Reject Sharia!!
Islam is like the mafia, you’re in it for life or your dead. I firmly believe that its greatest recruiting benefit is that ugly, unwashed, no talent men can get laid, either by owning their wive(s), or by raping the infidels.
Mr. Bawer writes in paragraph 7: “The Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan all signed the Abraham Accords with Israel. While several Western European countries have fulminated against America’s war on Iran, Islamic states like Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait have supported it. During his presidency, Donald Trump seems to have talked many major Islamic governments into turning away from the Islamic tradition of war and poverty and embracing, instead, the opportunity to give their people peace and prosperity. If this development continues, it will truly mark a historic turning point for Islam.”
I don’t believe President Trump talked these countries into anything. They probably believe that they can establish a global caliphate faster and with less danger to themselves by waging civilizational jihad against the West rather than violent jihad. I’m afraid the Abraham Accords and the investments that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are going to make in the U.S. (after their talks with President Trump) are just deception, with the intent to get advanced Western technology and to increase their influence in America – to America’s detriment as a constitutional federal republic (representative democracy). This influence will allow them to increase their push for Sharia Law in America.
I have followed Robert Spencer since 2002 and bought my first book of his (Islam Unveiled) then.
I can’t think of one thing he ever wrote about Islam in books or articles that was false.
I’ve learned so much from him over the years and know he is hated by many for simply telling the truth.
His humor and wit are also remarkable
A modern-day Paul Revere he is. I hope one day he will be recognized as a great brave truth teller in times where telling the truth was not only unpopular but could be deadly. Alas, he even had two attempts on his life.
Mr. Spencer deserves every ounce of praise for his body of work that has been constantly informing the west about the Islamic scourge that is more powerful and prevalent than ever.
Apparently the West is deaf or chooses not to take Spencer’s warnings seriously. Islam is still viewed as something benign across many nations, including the US.
The most interesting thing to me is the lack of work ethic. But actually that is why the academics get along so well with islam. Of course that extends to journalists as well. yap yap yap!
All religions (including Judaism and Christianity) by their very nature when practiced seriously and comprehensively, in their pure form, lead to the politics of a totalitarian theocracy.
When Christianity was practiced seriously and comprehensively it too resulted in the poverty and stagnation of the Dark and Middle Ages.
The roots of totalitarianism are in religion. Marxism shares all of the fundamental philosophical fundamentals of religion under the pretense of being secular and scientific.
It is not enough to fight against a negative, to fight against a negative without understanding how to fight for it’s antidote is futile. One must know how to fight philosophically and intellectually for Laissez-
Faire Capitalism, the positive which is the antidote to mysticism, irrationality, unreason, religion, theocracy.
Forget Religion. Follow Jesus!
“Do not resist an evil person”, “Turn the other cheek”, “Love your enemies”, those are the words of Jesus from the Sermon On The Mount.
Why would I want to follow that advice? It’s precisely the suicidal altruism that’s destroying the West.
Jesus said, “turn the other cheek” but didn’t say what to do afterwards.
I suppose he left that to the individual.
I heard that sometime in my youth. I can’t recall for sure if it came from a movie, book or boyhood friend. Oddly, I’m thinking it was probably a Catholic Priest.
Spot on! This is partially why I’ve abandoned my native Judaism, as have so many Jews.
I ask the Jews “where is your High Priest?” He is so much closer than they ever imagined and yet they cannot find him because they don’t have faith in the blood Jesus presented in Heaven, they have no Blood to cover their sin… Sad.
Jews did not “sin”.
And Jews, unlike Christians and Muslims, do NOT believe in human sacrifice.
The devil is so crafty that he makes some people think he doesn’t exist. Other people he has to make think that his name is Christ.
Just remember, there are people who critique Judaism and Christianity the way Spencer critiques Islam.
Do yourself a favor and read Nichomanean Ethics, by Aristotle or anything by Cicero if you need organic principles and morality in your life. I’m reading about Buddha right now.
Maybe you have never learned what Judaism is and is not. If you had, you might love it as much as I do.
The “dark” and “middle” ages are c0ncepts no longer taken seriously by serious historians. It’s an old and outdated narrative.
When the nihilism and irrationality coming out of the universities and the intellectuals suits the Christians (Historical Denialism), they embrace it, and when it doesn’t they call it atheistic nihilism.
When a scientific theory SEEMS to support Holy Scripture (Big Bang Theory) the Christians celebrate it.
But when a scientific theory demolishes Holy Scripture (The Theory of Evolution) the Christians attack it.
How convenient.
OK then don’t follow Jesus. Because Objectivism, on a worldwide scale is just so much more successful and influential.
And for the millionth time, the worn out musings of Lenny Piehole from 1986. THX’s oldie but goodie.
I guess you haven’t heard T, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is a sign of insanity.
Apparently there was a resurgence in signups at churches over this past Easter. Sucks to be you.
THX trusts “the science”. That really worked out well,
Any American who thinks Sharia Law in the U.S. is fine is absolutely nuts. Islam is a dangerous cult, promoting evil and death and founded by a pedophile who raped a 9 year old girl when he was in his fifties. Nothing about Islam is acceptable and it’s time the West faced up to that fact.
Islam is not even a religion in the usual sense, but an aggressively expansionist militant utilitarian collectivist ideology under color of religion that is necessarily the government. It bills itself as a total way of life, which is, on it’s face, totalitarian. It is a universal economic failure everywhere it does not have money coming out of the ground and makes for very unhappy societies when one man can have 4 wives and 3 other men have to go without, and resort to homosexuality which is only superficially forbidden by Islam, or they can resort to rape, and if the woman reports it she will be hanged because her word is worth half what a man’s is and she’s required to have 3 male witnesses on her side. Good luck with that!
And then there is boy play, Baza Bachi, widely practiced in Afghanistan. (see the documentary The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan) Often in Muslim families the youngest boy becomes the sexual outlet for the father and older sons. Imagine how that poor kid grows up. Inbreeding is rampant under Islam with first cousin marriages being the norm, which also does not make for a happy or prosperous society, nor does the fact that Islam makes men it’s slaves by giving them their own slaves, their women. That brings us to female genital mutilation (FGM) which is done to restrict all pleasure in sex to the male, and then there is honor killing, all of the victims of which are curiously female.
Islam is Communism with deity. Islam like Communism is based on slaving the populous in favor of ruling class elites. -a.k.a Religious overlords such as The Mullahs-. Muslims didn’t create, invent anything. All they did is steal and plagiarize other peoples work. Actually Islam is bastardized version of Judaism. According to it Abraham, Yitzhak and Jacob were the original Muslims not Jewish. Moreover Islam claims Abraham did not tried to scarify Yitzhak but Ishmael.
Abraham Accords indeed.
I look forward to read the book that I pre-ordered in January,
Our fear of “Islamophobia” is so great that no-one mentions the numbers of people who are leaving Islam. A con trick is being perpetrated on the West, because those who do migrational jihad are, of course, committed, so we are given a picture of a much more assured movement than is the case in the countries from which the migrants come. In I¶an, for example, 50,000 of their 75,000 mosques have fallen into disuse. https://www.christiandaily.com/news/iran-a-complex-context-where-god-is-growing-the-church
I¶an should read Iran.
General Mike Flynn @GenFlynn:
The death toll of the protestors is north of 90K. That was a week ago.
Feb 6, 2026
https://x.com/GenFlynn/status/2019754247324086510
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Goldie Ghamari | گلسا قمری 🇮🇷 @gghamari:
‘The audacity of spitting in the face of an entire nation that’s lost over 90,000 people, murdered by the Islamic Regime for wanting
@PahlaviReza to lead the country from an Islamic Dictatorship to a democracy.
Shame on Toronto Star for calling HRH Reza Pahlavi an “opportunist”.’
X, Feb 16, 2026
[https://x.com/gghamari/status/2023550188300960091]
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[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 41 (Wednesday, March 4, 2026)]
[House].
[Pages H2395-H2412].
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov].
Mr. MEUSER. Mr. Speaker..
Because of this regime’s reign of terror, their own civilians rose up and protested, Mr. Speaker. Over the last 2 months, there are reports that as many as 90,000 Iranian civilians were murdered.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CREC-2026-03-04/html/CREC-2026-03-04-pt1-PgH2395.htm
—-
A cry for freedom from Iran | Opinion
By Attieh Fard. 4 March 2026.
Iranian Christian, Attieh Fard shares the anguish and hope surrounding Iran’s uprising, calling for urgent action and solidarity with those fighting for freedom.
Mar 4, 2026 — … murdered. The numbers are likely higher, with some reports suggesting that as many as 90,000 were killed, within just two days.
Women were shot in their eyes and bellies. There were also reports of teenage girls being detained in unknown locations and some subjected to rape.
https://www.womanalive.co.uk/opinion/a-cry-for-freedom-from-iran/21106.article
—-
Samanyasin @isamanyasin:
#IranMassacre.
According to reports and eyewitness accounts, over 90,000 innocent people have been killed in Iran simply for seeking freedom.
Even one execution destroys not just a life, but an entire family.
Every death leaves wounds that never heal.
@LeoTerrellDOJ
Feb 22, 2026
https://x.com/isamanyasin/status/2025625711822672217
Can anyone be surprised that Iran in the Straight of Hormuz than just being the toll taker?
Devout Muslim, help me understand something.
If I blow myself up in a crowded non-Muslim market, then I get to go to heaven to be greeted as a faithful martyr and rewarded with 70 odd, yet eager….what….virgins, who will satisfy my every sexual whim? Wow, that’s great! Come to think about it, I knew of such a place in New Orleans years ago except for one pesky little problem, there weren’t any virgins. I have one other question for you about Shia’s twelfth Mahdi and the great, worldwide holocaust, but I’ll leave that for another day.
Another fine summary by Bruce Bawer of another fine intellectual effort by Robert Spencer. My only criticism is this:
“…according to the cockeyed logic of Islam.”
It doesn’t do justice to the problem of Islam by labelling its logic as cockeyed. What Islam represents is “stone age logic”. It represents a logic that many people throughout the world possess. This fact alone explains why communism and Islam have any appeal at all. Using their ingrained stone age thinking people can use false thinking like zero-sum economics or a primitive moral code that “might makes right” to support awful ideas and action.
Is there much distinction between the model inherent to Islam of using conquest to gather wealth and the welfare model of citizens within wealthy Western societies who often show little taste for effort? In fast, conquest as way of gathering wealth is why all empires have used conquest and many have used conquest exclusively.
To combat communism and Islam, I think, requires that we tackle the problem of stone age logic and thinking so prevalent in our societies and seemingly promoted by our public education systems.