https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270999/robert-spencers-surpassing-study-age-old-ongoing-hugh-fitzgerald
Robert Spencer’s The History of Jihad tells, in magnificent measure, the story of how, over 1400 years, the votaries of Islam have observed the religious duty of holy war, or Jihad, warfare against the Unbelievers. Reviewers sometimes insist that “if you can only read one book on the subject, read this one.” Here such insistence is not hyperbole. Spencer tells in lively fashion a deadly story, of how what started with a few dozen followers in a dusty town in western Arabia became today’s ideological empire of 1.6 billion members of the Islamic community or umma, mostly to be found in 57 Muslim-majority countries, but now also including hundreds of millions of Muslims in Europe, North America, and India.
How did this happen? How did Muhammad manage to survive early setbacks in Mecca to become the ruler of Arabia? Spencer offers overwhelming evidence that along with brute force, deceit and terror were Muhammad’s chief weapons. “War is deceit,” he insisted. He told his followers that “I have been made victorious through terror.” These — brute force, deceit, and terror — have remained the chief weapons of Jihad throughout history.
Spencer takes us through the campaigns that allowed Muhammad to go from near-fatal weakness to strength. Muhammad’s victory over a much larger enemy at the Battle of Badr in 624 signaled a change in his fortunes; he never looked back. Muhammad relied until 628 only on force to defeat his enemies. But in that year, he agreed to the Treaty of Al Hudaibiyya, which would become the first example of victory through guile. Muhammad had signed a truce treaty (hudna), with the Quraysh tribe of Mecca. It was to last ten years. One of its provisions required Muhammad to return to the Quraysh any member of the tribe who came to him. When a woman of the Quraysh came over to the Muslims, Muhammad broke the treaty (after 18 months) by refusing to send her back, claiming — wrongly — that the treaty only required him to send back men, not women. Muhammad was willing to break the treaty because his forces had grown stronger; he was now prepared to take on the Quraysh. The violation of this treaty by Muhammad has been the model for Muslim treaty-making with Unbelievers ever since; it was even mentioned by Yasser Arafat, to signal to his Muslim followers that they need not worry; he had no intention of meeting his commitments under any agreement signed with Israel. It would be salutary if those who today pressure Israel to sign this or that treaty with the “Palestinians” were to learn about the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya and, for many Muslims, its enduring significance.
