Customer Reviews: Read 54 more reviews...
 A Damning Indictment From a True Believer June 26, 2007
M. Barrett (UK)
65 out of 75 found this review helpful
The author is probably the most religiously sincere man I have ever come across, and his current faith is revealed by the end of the book in a way which managed to impress even me, a life-long atheist with a very cynical view of all religion.
It is Husain's journey to this point that provides the narrative, and in his calm and transparent prose the author has managed to pen the most terrifying story I have ever read.
Here was an ordinary British Muslim with a loving and supportive family who started life a poster-boy for integration as a colour and faith-blind student at a multi-ethnic primary school. Without personal tragedy or disaster, without any poor experiences at the hands of the "Establishment", this happy schoolboy found himself recruiting "soldiers of Islam" to destroy his country, and toppled on the brink of taking that route himself.
So complete was his indoctrination that even years after his epiphany he found himself experiencing a uniquely Islamic doublethink when it came to the traditions and institutions of his country.
What terrifies about this book is the sheer ordinariness of Hussain's experience. Through no great genius or inspiration on the part of those who recruited him to the Islamist cause he found himself turning his back on family and nation, burning with a hatred for everyone outside his own small clique.
Husain was bright enough to see the cracks in Islamism - the lack of genuine Koranic scholarship, the transmutation of religion into politics, the racism at the heart of Saudi Arabia, and the exploitation of ignorance and disillusionment among young men. It is clear from his experience that most are not so well equipped.
This book provides an explanation not only for recent events in the UK but also across the wider world. A must-read for anyone with an interest in the future.
A disturbing Read August 19, 2007
Michael Kilbride (Pontefract, W. Yorks United Kingdom)
30 out of 35 found this review helpful
A truly outstanding book that works on so many levels, a personal journey, a review of contemporary Islamic life in Britain, a historical reference, an assessment of Islamic politics and many more. Husain's personal journey into extreme Islamic politics is quite frightening simply because it seemed so rapid and easy and also that extremist politics does seem to dominate the thinking of the young Muslims that he mixes with. If the type of thinking that he describes is half as dominant as this book seems to suggest then as a country we have a lot to worry about and more horrors like the attacks on London in 2005 are inevitable.
Having said that, I left this book with a new respect for the type of Islam that Husain eventually came to and indeed a respect for the picture of The Prophet that he paints. Stripped of the political manoeuvrings he shows Islam can be a compassionate and caring faith and one that has so much good in it that make the recent behaviours done it it's name all the more distasteful.
This book has given me more to think about than anything else I have read in the last couple of years.
A milestone in the scholarship of Islamists May 8, 2007
The Istor (Damascus, Syria)
48 out of 62 found this review helpful
The strength and the credibility of this book stem from the fact that its author Ed Hussain was an Islamist himself and that gives him a unique prospects to challenge the extremist tradition from within.Not surprisingly that his book has been under vicious attack and Hussain himself been subject of many threats since the news of his book were circulated.
Hussain tackles Wahhabism which is another version of Ku Klux Klan, only much more richer and far more successful in spreading its ideology that breads intolerance, racism and violence, and no matter whether you are Muslim or Christian, you are their foe unless you adhere to their fascist interpretation of Islam.
And here where Husain bestows us all Muslim and non Muslim alike a great favor in exposing the dire threat that this ideology of hatred poses to all of us. The suicide bombers who have rocked the streets of London, New York, Baghdad, Ramadi, Hila and Karkuk indiscriminately claiming the lives of tens thousands of innocent men women and children. The penetrators of these unspeakable acts of terror are those very same extremists that Hussain so courageously confronts in his book and calls for action to combat their ideology.
All those who believe in tolerance and co-existence among people from different races, cultures and faiths will want to keep this book within arm's reach. For the sweep and depth of this fascinating analysis is a must read for everybody.
Fatastically informative, inspiring and touching too. July 8, 2007
I. Losada (London)
21 out of 28 found this review helpful
I bought this book because I am aware that I 'should' know more about radical Islamic movements than I did. (I don't even like to label them that as I don't consider that extremists have anything to do with Islam) What I had not expected was to be so moved, touched and inspired by the book as well as informed. Husain has achieved something truly remarkable with this book, he has informed the world of how the beauty of Islam is being destroyed, he has told a story, but he has also achieved something more mystical, by reading this book we can sit in the company of the truly wise and humble heart that he has now become. In this way he has communicated true Islam and the love of The Prophet to us all. And I'm not a Muslim. Thank you Mohammed - both the Prophet and the Author. I, for one, will be recommennding this book, and the poetry of Rumi too. x
Deserves the widest possible readership - a wake-up call ! July 17, 2007
sgeoff (North Wales)
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
A book to be read by anyone who is interested in Islam (whether Muslim or not), in the background to terrorism, or in the future of Britain. It's readable, interesting, and at times very moving. It's also so informative about the different strands at work in Islam, and how extreme Islamists work tirelessly to influence the young in colleges and universities, creating a breeding ground for hatred and terror. And the author should know, because he was an active organiser for such groups for several years. A committed Muslim, Mohamed Hussain is fully aware of the hypocracy and double standards of American and British foreign policy, but is now horrified at the hyjacking of his religion into a political activism, in which all who don't follow their own narrow view are hated and despised. We follow the author's personal journey until finally he rejects what he calls "a shallow, anger-drived, aggression-fuelled form of political belief, based on exploiting Islam's adherents but remote from Islam's teachings."
Very revealing about the situation in Britain today, and the blind apathy of British authorities to what is happening, it also illustrates the horrific nature of the Saudi state (ally of the USA and Britain in the misdirected "war on terror") and the dangers of the Wahhabism which it continues to export. Every MP should read this book, and take the message to heart. It's a wake-up call for Muslim and non Muslim alike.
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