IN THE WAKE OF THE 9/11 ATTACKS, President Bush famously referred to Islam as a “religion of peace.” To display solidarity with this notion, politicians of all rank in both America and Europe hurriedly made their way to the nearest mosque to show that, in spite of the destruction of the World Trade Center, they bore no animus to Islam. Andrew Bostom, a Rhode Island based physician, had a different reaction. Until September 11 Bostom had been completely absorbed in his medical career. Afterwards, he began a singular effort to learn as much about Islam as possible.
The results of Bostom’s study have recently been published in book form. The Legacy of Jihad, for which Bostom is both editor and a contributing writer, studies jihad from the 7th century to the present day. It is a thorough work; hardly an act of offensive jihad in the last 1,300 years has escaped Bostom’s scholarship.
