Book review - The Sword of the Prophet

I just finished reading The Sword of the Prophet by Serge Trifkovic, which I thought was a quick and revealing read. It is the self proclaimed "politically incorrect guide to Islam," and holds no bars. After a couple chapters portraying the down and dirty of Islam's history and central tenets, Trifkovic exhaustively lays out the policy failures throughout the last few decades which have put us where we are today. The one consistent policy failure, as portrayed in the book, is political tolerance of the dangerous aspects of the religion. Among these are intolerance of non-believers, hatred for Jews, and mistreatment of women. The point is made repeatedly that there is no moderate Islam - a topic which could be strongly argued, but is startlingly supported by recent polls revealing the broad level of support for terrorist actions throughout the Muslim world. Trifkovic also does a good job of exploring Saudi Arabia, the elephant in the room. It's absolutely shocking how backward Saudi Arabia society is under Shari'a law, and how much money and power the Saudi's use for the advancement of Islam throughout the world (including the U.S.).

I'm a big person on small interesting details - here are a couple of shocking ones from this book:

--> The GDP excluding oil of the entire Middle East is less than that of Finland's alone.

--> One California public school requires teaching of Islam in one of its classes, including "a day in the life of a Muslim" where girls practice wearing headscarfs and they go through the motion of daily prayers.

The book is not a pleasant read - there is nothing comforting about fundamentalist Islam - but it is a necessary one for anyone looking for a start in education of this religion and culture.