Bill Warner

The attack on the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001 is long past, but our understanding of what caused the attacks that day is vague in many people’s mind. People say that 9/11 was a terrorist act, but that conventional knowledge is wrong. Jihad is not performed by terrorists, but by Islamic jihadists. Unfortunately, those who are uninformed include politicians, clergy, media, and educators, among others.

A determined scholar can learn about the true nature of Islam, but history shows us that few are willing to do the work required to get the entire picture. The key idea is “the entire picture.” The first mental hurdle to clear is that Islam is only a religion. If Islam were only a religion, it would be of limited interest. As Panini shows us, Islam is a complete idea of civilization, not just a religion.

The idea of Islamic civilization means that we must study many aspects of civilization. The ongoing tragedy of most investigations of Islam is to confuse knowledge about one aspect of Islam with complete knowledge of Islam. We must know the whole truth, not just a half-truth of one area. An example of failure of partial knowledge is that for 1,400 years non-Muslims have attempted to resist Islam by the same tactics—such as compromise— again and again. But these historic failures are never examined for why they failed.

The greatest non-Muslim failure is the assumption that Islam is similar to non-Muslim civilizations. As Panini shows, Islam is sui generis, a thing without parallel or analogy. An example of a failure to see that Islam has no similarity to Western civilization is the ongoing attempt to use dialogue, not debate. Dialogue always works from the assumption that a compromise can be found. Once you understand Islamic doctrine, “compromise” can be seen as merely a half step towards annihilation.

Even those who know the history of the destruction of Christianity in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey, and Egypt do not understand the annihilation of Hindu and Buddhist civilizations. Islam and the Clash of Civilizations lays out a summary of the historic global jihad. It deserves a place on your bookshelf for this feature alone.

Then there is the matter of religion and philosophy. The biggest failure of non-Muslims is to think that Islam is like Christianity and Judaism. But, as Panini shows us, this is not true. It could be said that there are only two religions: Islam and all the rest. All similarities turn out to be an illusion. There is only one goal of Islamic philosophy: support and implementation of Islamic supremacy.

Panini also includes sidebar issues, such as Sufism, that help to fill out the complete picture on the subject of Islam. These side issues are important, since some of them are thought of as nooks and crannies that hold some goodness about Islam. But in the end, all of those glimmers of hope are shown to be devoid of success.

The chapters on current-day political dealings with Islam show us that non-Muslims do not have a clue about Islam. Only a systematic professional ignorance can produce such repeated failures and ongoing disasters. The Bushes, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton demonstrate that both Democrats and Republicans are blind, ignorant, and determined to use the powers of the state to crush any attempt to make decisions based on facts of doctrine or history. In light of the history shown, we see that the greatest failure of modern non-Muslim states is the refusal to teach the history of annihilation by Islam. Today’s politicians are blind, because their cultures have made them blind.

It is a straightforward but difficult intellectual task to write a book containing history, philosophy, current events, and Islamic doctrine. It is even more difficult to integrate all of the material into one book. But it is a task of the highest order to offer a solution to the problem. Islam and the Clash of Civilizations gives an answer to the question of what to do that is based on the idea of civilizational war and national politics. In short, a civilizational enemy requires a civilizational strategy.

Readers will find Islam and the Clash of Civilizations to be a holistic study of Islam that is well written and useful for novice and scholar alike.

Bill Warner Director

Center for the Study of Political Islam

Nashville, Tennessee