I believe that only when Muslims themselves decide they need a reformation will there be a real chance at one. But it isn’t for you or me to say. I’m not a Muslim. I cannot tell a Muslim how he or she needs to resolve the deep—and perhaps irreconcilable—conflicts between their faith and freedom.
What I can do—what we all can do—is cast a harsh, bright light on the Muslim Brotherhood and other seemingly mainstream groups that are working to undermine our country’s institutions from within. We can support serious scholars attempting genuine reform—devout Muslims such as Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, Khaleel Mohammed, Ahmed Mansour, and Kassim Ahmad, who are making arguments rooted in the Quran but not smothered by it. We can highlight and support the work of American Muslims such as Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, Asra Nomani, Irshad Manji, and Zuhdi Jasser, who founded the Phoenix-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy.
But in the end, Islam will either reform itself or it will destroy itself. If it’s the latter, then our job is to trust in God, speak without fear, and make sure America isn’t destroyed along with it.
EPILOGUE
During the Second World War, many people, including many of those at the highest levels of our government, claimed ignorance to the holocaust under way. They had heard rumors and whispers, of course, but they could hide behind the fact that they didn’t know for sure what was going on.
This time there is no place to hide from the eternal eyes of judgment.
This time we do know for sure.
A few years ago, when I went to Auschwitz, I talked to a woman named Paulina. She was one of the righteous among the nations, the term used to refer to non-Jews who risked their lives to come to the aid of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.
“How do I do it?” I asked her. “How do I water the seed of righteousness in others? What do I do?”
She said to me, “Remember, the righteous didn’t suddenly become righteous. They just refused to go over the cliff with everyone else.”
The world is going over the cliff today. We all know it. But we don’t have to go with it. We can come to the aid of Muslims being tortured in the Middle East for not being “pure” enough. We can come to the aid of women being raped and butchered. We can come to the aid of homosexuals being thrown off the tops of buildings. We can defend children being murdered for such “crimes” as eating during Ramadan.
And we can stand with Christians who are being systematically abused, silenced, and exterminated by those claiming to adhere to the “religion of peace.”
As I write this, in places like Iraq and Syria, Christians are being tortured with a special kind of zeal. Killing them has become a high priority. If you live in a house with the mark of the Nazarene—which means that those inside worship Jesus of Nazareth—you are very likely to be killed.
Yet, in parts of the Middle East, even inside the caliphate, that symbol is becoming a unifying one—for Christians and non-Christians alike. I recently talked with someone who’d just returned from Egypt. He said that many people are being converted away from the Islamists because of how the Christians are handling their plight. These persecuted Christians are unsettling the butchers of ISIS. The Islamists did not expect the followers of Christ to remain so calm, so determined. They cannot understand why they haven’t broken their will. The answer is simple: They refuse to go over the cliff.
In decades to come, future generations will look back on these times and tell these stories of courage as well as those of cowardice. Of those who saw what was going on, and did nothing.
I want my posterity to tell the story of a righteous family that stood against all odds and said, “I am with the Nazarene. I am with the Jew, the homosexual, the atheist, or the Muslim who just wasn’t Muslim enough.”
I want you to be among the righteous too. You may not know what to do but just sharing this book and doing your own research to verify the truth of it will help do your part. We produced this book in paperback to keep your costs down so you could share it with a friend, but also so that you could put it in your back pocket or purse and refer to it when you begin to hear the lies being told by the politicians, or the mainstream media, the willfully blind and the ignorant.
God will not hold us blameless. Silence in the face of evil is evil itself. Not to stand is to stand. Not to speak is to speak.
So stand. Raise your hand and demand to be counted.
I will not go over the cliff with the rest of humanity. “Never again” is now.
All lives matter.
AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY GEORGE LANGE
GLENN BECK, the nationally syndicated radio host and founder of TheBlaze, is a twelve-time #1 bestselling author and is one of the few authors in history to have had #1 national bestsellers in the fiction, nonfiction, self-help, and children’s picture book genres. His recent fiction works include the thrillers Agenda 21, The Overton Window, and its sequel, The Eye of Moloch; his many nonfiction titles include Conform, Miracles and Massacres, Control, and Being George Washington. For more information about Glenn Beck, his books, and TheBlaze TV network, visit GlennBeck.com and TheBlaze.com.
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ALSO BY GLENN BECK
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Control: Exposing the Truth About Guns
Agenda 21
Cowards: What Politicians, Radicals, and the Media Refuse to Say
Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man, as You’ve Never Seen Him
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The Original Argument: The Federalists’ Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century
The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life
Broke: The Plan to Restore Our Trust, Truth, and Treasure
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Idiots Unplugged: Truth for Those Who Care to Listen (audiobook)
The Christmas Sweater: A Picture Book
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government
Glenn Beck’s Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine
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An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World’s Biggest Problems
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NOTES
INTRODUCTION: JEFFERSON’S QURAN
“it’s the largest library in the world” “Fascinating Facts,” Library of Congress, accessed June 10, 2015, http://www.loc.gov/about/fascinating-facts/. • “one of the first English translations of the Quran” Denise A. Spellberg, Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2013), p. 85. • “only Founding Father to have a basic understanding of Arabic” Alexandra Méav Jerome, “The Jefferson Qur’an,” Oxford Islamic Studies Online, accessed June 10, 2015, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/Public/focus/essay1009_jefferson.html. • “championed the creation of an Oriental languages department” Alexandra Méav Jerome, “The Jefferson Qur’an,” Oxford Islamic Studies Online, accessed June 10, 2015, http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/Pub
lic/focus/essay1009_jefferson.html. • “neither had undergone a reformation” Denise A. Spellberg, Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: Islam and the Founders (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2013), p. 105. • “ founded on the Laws of their Prophet’ ” “American Commissioners to John Jay, 28 March 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed June 10, 2015, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01–09–02–0315. • “ ‘sure to go to Paradise’ ” “American Commissioners to John Jay, 28 March 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed June 10, 2015, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01–09–02–0315. • “ ‘they were almost always successful’ ” “American Commissioners to John Jay, 28 March 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed June 10, 2015, http://founders.archives.gov/documents /Jefferson/01–09–02–0315. • “subjected to American courts” Center for Security Policy, “Poll of U.S. Muslims Reveals Ominous Levels of Support for Islamic Supremacists’ Doctrine of Shariah, Jihad,” June 23, 2015. http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/06/23/nationwide-poll-of-us-muslims-shows-thousands-support-shariah-jihad. • “ ‘so small that they could not be defined as stones’ ” Amnesty International, “Iran: Death by Stoning, a Grotesque and Unacceptable Penalty,” press release, January 15, 2008, https://www.amnesty.org/press-releases/2008/01/iran-death-stoning-grotesque-and-unacceptable-penalty-20080115/. • “ up to 74 lashes’ ” Islamic Penal Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran—Book Five, Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, July 18,2013, http://iranhrdc.org/english/human-rights-documents/iranian-codes/1000000351-islamic-penal-code-of-the-islamic-republic-of-iran-book-five.html#21. • “ increasingly implemented in public’ ” Amnesty International, “Amnesty International Report 2014/15,” accessed June 10, 2015, https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/. • “Even crucifixion is not off-limits” Jacob Siegel, “Islamic Extremists Now Crucifying People in Syria—and Tweeting Out the Pictures,” The Daily Beast, April 30, 2014, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/30/islamic-extremists-now-crucifying-people-in-syria-and-tweeting-out-the-pictures.html.
PART ONE: ISLAM 101
CHAPTER ONE: ISLAM AND END TIMES
“ would be conquerors of Constantinople’ ” Muslim ibn al-Hajjah, Sahih Muslim, Hadith 6924, trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui, The Only Quran, accessed June 10, 2015, http://www.theonlyquran.com/hadith/Sahih-Muslim/?volume=41&chapter=9. • “ slaughtering your people on your streets’ ” “Gruesome Islamic State Video Announces Death of Peter Kassig,” The Clarion Project, November 16, 2014, http://www.clarionproject.org/news/gruesome-islamic-state-video-announces-death-peter-kassig. • “open road to Istanbul and Europe beyond” William McCants, “ISIS Fantasies of an Apocalyptic Showdown in Northern Syria,” Markaz (blog), Brookings, October 3, 2014, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2014/10/03-isis-apocalyptic-showdown-syria-mccants. • “picture of St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican” Umberto Bacchi, “Isis Magazine Dabiq Threatens ‘Rome Crusaders’ Flying Islamic State Flag at Vatican on Front Cover,” International Business Times, October 13, 2014, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-magazine-dabiq-threatens-rome-crusaders-flying-islamic-state-flag-vatican-front-cover-1469712. • “ Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic.’ ” Graeme Wood, “What ISIS Really Wants,” The Atlantic, March 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/. • “ and in the shades of black smoke’ ” Quran 56:42–43. • “ He knows best what they are doing’ ” Quran 39:68–70. • “ and hair all over his body’ ” “The Dajjāl’s Physical Features,” The Dajjaāl: Knowing the False Messiah, accessed June 10, 2015, http://www.authentic-translations.com/dajjal/texts/Dajjal-4.pdf. • “on the road between Iraq and Syria” Anne Speckhard, “End Times Brewing: An Apocalyptic View on al-Baghdadi’s Declaration of a Caliphate in Iraq and the Flow of Foreign Fighters Coming from the West,” The Blog (blog), The Huffington Post (UK), June 30, 2014), http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/anne-speckhard/isis-iraq_b_5541693.html. • “Seventy thousand Jews will be seduced” Tom Porter, “Isis Uses Picture of ‘Cyclops Baby’ to Recruit Fighters for Apocalyptic Battle,” International Business Times, September 14, 2013, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-use-picture-cyclops-baby-recruit-fighters-apocalyptic-battle-1465323. • “on social media of supposedly one-eyed babies” Fitry Yhanis, Twitter post, August 19, 2014, 10:17 a.m., https://twitter.com/xfitryyuhanisx/status/501734749719646209. • “actual real-life children born with one eye” Tom Porter, “Isis Uses Picture of ‘Cyclops Baby’ to Recruit Fighters for Apocalyptic Battle,” International Business Times, September 14, 2013, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-use-picture-cyclops-baby-recruit-fighters-apocalyptic-battle-1465323. • “Sunnis make up 85 to 90 percent” “Sunnis and Shia: Islam’s Ancient Schism,” BBC News, June 20, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16047709. • “in the Shia tradition, continues to this day” Bernd Kaussler, “Is the End Nigh for the Islamic Republic?” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology 13 (January 2012): 69–90, http://www.hudson.org/content/researchattachments/attachment/1271/kaussler.pdf. • “ What! Is he still alive?’ ” Muhammad Baqir As-Sadr, An Inquiry Concerning Al-Mahdi (Self-published and printed by CreateSpace, 2014). • “almost exclusively (90–95 percent) Shia” “The World Fact Book: Iran” Central Intelligence Agency, accessed June 11, 2015, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html. • “ he will behead the Western leaders’ ” Reza Kahlili, “Leading Iranian Ayatollah: Islamic Messiah ‘Will Behead Western Leaders,’ ” The Daily Caller, March 16, 2014, http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/16/leading-iranian-ayatollah-islamic-messiah-will-behead-western-leaders/. • “ beads like pearls would scatter from it’ ” “Translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 41: The Book Pertaining to the Turmoil and Portents of the Last Hour,” University of Southern California Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement, accessed June 11, 2015, http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/hadith/muslim/041-smt.php. • “ their blood on Jesus’s lance’ ” Muslim ibn al-Hajjah, Sahih Muslim, Hadith 6924, trans. Abdul Hamid Siddiqui, The Only Quran, accessed June 10, 2015, http://www.theonlyquran.com/hadith/Sahih-Muslim/?volume=41&chapter=9. • “ to be hopeful about these developments’ ” Bill Kristol, interview by Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Fox News, February 13, 2011. • “ that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant’ ” David Remnick, “Going the Distance: On and Off the Road with Barack Obama,” The New Yorker, January 27, 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/27/going-the-distance-2?currentPage=all. • “ Iraq is not for the Iraqis’ ” Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, Isis: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015), p. 1. • “ attacking the remaining targets and opposing the authorities’ ” Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, Isis: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015), p. 1, 41. • “frightening (others) and masquerading’ ” Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, Isis: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015), p. 1, 41. • “ during their weddings’ ” Rory McCarthy and Qais al-Bashir, “Suicide Bomb Attack Kills 22 at Mosque Wedding,” The Guardian, January 21, 2005, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/22/iraq.rorymccarthy. • “ they beheaded captives” Ted Thornhill, “Raped, Tortured, Forced to Watch Beheadings, Then Beaten When They Tried to Kill Themselves: Yazidi Girls Reveal the Hell They Endured During ISIS Captivity,” Daily Mail, October 1, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2776268/Raped-tortured-forced-watch-beheadings-beaten-tried-kill-Yazidi-girls-reveal-hell-endured-witnessed-ISIS-captivity.html. • “ abducted children to train as suicide bombers’ ” John Hall, “ISIS Are Forcing Captured Yazidi Children to Train as Islamist Soldiers and Brainwashing Mentally Handicapped Boys into Becoming Suicide Bombers, Iraqi Politician Reveals,” Daily Mail, May 13, 2015, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3079975/ISIS-forcing-captured-Yazidi-children-train-Islamist-soldiers-brainwashing
-mentally-handicapped-boys-suicide-bombers-Iraqi-politician-reveals.html. • “enslaved and raped by ISIS fighters” Sameer N. Yacoub, “Iraqi Official: Hundreds of Yazidi Women Held Captive by Islamic State,” The Huffington Post, August 8, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/08/yazidi-women-captive_n_5662805.html. • “Caliphate will be ruled from Jerusalem” Mytheos Holt, “Egyptian Cleric Claims Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate Will Make Jerusalem ‘the Capital of the Caliphate,’ ” TheBlaze, May 7, 2012, http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/05/07/egyptian-cleric-claims-muslim-brotherhood-presidential-candidate-will-make-jerusalem-the-capital-of-the-caliphate/.
CHAPTER 2: FROM REVELATION TO EMPIRE
“had been transformed into something else entirely” “The Life of Muhammad,” PBS, accessed June 11, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/timeline_html.shtml. • “have been subjected to death threats” Tom Holland, “When I Questioned the History of Muhammad,” The Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-i-questioned-the-history-of-muhammad-1420821462. • “and then to others in his tribe” “The Life of Muhammad,” PBS, accessed June 11, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/timeline_html.shtml. • “whose name shall be Ahmed” Quran 61: 6. • “a result of trickery by the Devil” Quran 22: 52. • “ Allah is All-Knower, All-Wise’ ” Quran 22:52. • “those convinced of the divinity of his message” “The Life of Muhammad,” PBS, accessed June 11, 2015, http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/timeline_html.shtml. • “tone of his message changed dramatically” Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd Ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). • “those who wronged them and treated them badly” “The Founding of the Community” Sacred Texts, accessed June 11, 2015, http://www.sacred-texts.com/isl/isl/isl12.htm. • “ does not like the Mufsidun (mischief-makers)’ ” Quran 5:64. • “ then surely he is one of them’ ” Quran 5:51. • “ they have been performing’ ” Quran 5:63 • “ until the way lays down its burdens’ ” Quran 47: 3–4. • “and subsequent dynasties after Ali’s death” Council on Foreign Relations, “The Struggle Between Sunni and Shia Muslims Explained,” Newsweek, December 14, 2014, http://www.newsweek.com/struggle-between-sunni-and-shia-muslims-explained-291419. • “or Shia—the ‘party of Ali’ ” “Sunnis and Shia: Islam’s Ancient Schism,” BBC News, June 20, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16047709. • “complete written document until years after Muhammad’s death” Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Qur’an,” accessed June 12, 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487666/Quran/261599/Compilation. • “nearly 180 years after the prophet’s death” Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Hadith,” accessed June 12, 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/251132/Hadith/68899/The-compilations. • “from fines to amputation to hanging or beheading” Nina Rastogi, “Decapitation and the Muslim World,” Slate, February 20, 2009, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/02/decapitation_and_the_muslim_world.html. • “ will be a great torment’ ” Quran 16:06. • “ who reverts from Islam and leaves the Muslims’ ” Muhammad al-Bukhari, Sahih al-Bukhari 4:52, Hadith 260. • “at the Battle of Tours in 732” Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Battle of Tours,” accessed June 12, 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/600883/Battle-of-Tours. • “ how disease spreads and how it can be healed’ ” Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on a New Beginning,” (lecture, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009). • “ network of commerce and communications’ ” Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 6.