INSIDE ISLAM: A GUIDE FOR CATHOLICS

by Daniel Ali and Robert Spencer

Ascension Press, 2003 179 pages, $11.99 To order: (800) 376-0520 ascensionpress.com

Like many American Catholics, I'm a latecomer to Islam. Until I started my research for a history text in 1999, the religion existed to me in outline form:

Then came Sept. 11, 2001. Suddenly Islam was neither a distant, exotic religion nor one with which the West could passively coexist.

It is this new awareness that informs Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics, co-written by Daniel Ali, a Kurd expatriate and Catholic convert, and Robert Spencer, an author who has sounded the alarm against Islam in two other books and on his Web site, Jihad Watch (jihadwatch.org).

A factual, if polemical, collection of questions and answers, the book is a thorough overview of how the religion has developed, its beliefs and practices, how Muslims understand Christianity and why Christians can — and should — evangelize Muslims. For a proper perspective, the book concludes with the must-read Vatican II document Nostra Aetate, on the relation of the Church to non-Christian religions.

Every Catholic can learn something from this well-researched and accessible book, and the facts are fascinating. The reader will find out a Muslim's very different conception of God (Allah is a slave master, not a father), how Islam can be at once a “religion of peace” and justify war against the infidel, the concept of jihad as not a political aberration but a duty of Islam, the Muslim's esteem of Mary, why the Muslim accepts Jesus as a prophet but denies the Crucifixion and how an apparently mysterious religion has, in fact, little mystery at all.

By examining Islam, Spencer and Ali build a compelling apologetic for the veracity of Christianity. Even with the authors exercising a certain restraint — no calls for a crusade here — the reader will likely find himself face down before the nearest tabernacle in deep gratitude or examining himself for her lethargy in failing to proclaim the good news far and wide.

I once interviewed Ali before a lecture he gave with Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa. There is nothing like the testimony of a convert to excite the believer — especially a convert who risks his life by leaving one faith for another. I wished Inside Islam had more of his personal story, more about the Christians whose example prompted him to begin his search for truth outside Islam, more about how his sense of justice was violated by his fellow Iraqis' lack of concern for the persecution of the Kurds. For conversion is not a mental exercise only but a matter of the heart as well.

Inside Islam makes it clear that the great difference between the two religions is not prayer habits or cultural backdrop or sacred writings but ultimately the startling central character of Christianity — Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the inescapable Man of all history. The Muslim might attempt to diminish him, just as the secular man ignores him. But if anyone sincerely seeks to understand what we believe about him — if he sees him, alive, in the hope of his own heart — he will be pierced.

Perhaps Catholics should read this book just to light a fire in their hearts for evangelism. And then do something with it, like take a Muslim to the movies. There's a good one out right now.

Ellen Rossini writes from Richardson, Texas.