Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law Hardcover – January 4, 2009

I was reading this important book at the time President Obama made his famous speech in Cairo, calling out for reconciliation between the Muslim world and the West, or, more specifically, the United States. In the speech, he tried to claim that there is a community of interests and values between the two cultures. He even pointed out that the first country to officially recognize the new American Republic was Morocco. He neglected to point out the fact that the first war the United States fought, just a few years later, was against the Arab Barbary Pirates, who were kidnapping Americans, selling them into slavery and forcing them to convert to Islam.Nonie Darwish's book shows how the attempt to somehow reconcile American and Islamic values is due to fail. The gulf is simply too wide. Many people point out that the United States has its essential value system, as first expressed by the Founding Fathers, being based on Jewish and Christian value systems. These both revered the Bible, and the Bible lays out a governmental system that prevents power from being concentrated in one person, or one institution, and the powers of the government are limited. Sharia law has no such provisions. Muslim rulers are given unlimited powers and their system even allows for the forcible overthrow of the existing government if the successor is "pious" (who is supposed to determine that?). How can these be reconciled?Within the realm of personal status, Nonie answers a question that has always puzzled me. Islam has many provisions for coercing people to convert to Islam even if they don't really believe in it. She even brings example from modern-day Egypt. Why would a religious group want to bring in people who are not really convinced of its truth? Nonie explains that Islam doesn't emphasize personal religious devotion so much as demand outward conformity with the group. A person who is coerced to convert can still be a "soldier in the army of Islam" in the eyes of the outside world, even if they more or less ignore the precepts of the religion.A major portion of the book is devoted to how Islam views and treats "dhimmmis", i.e. monotheist non-Muslims, such as Jews or Christians. Dhimmis must pay "protection money", called the "jizya" tax to the Muslim state and they must live in a degraded state compared to the Muslim population. A dhimmi who doesn't pay has NO rights and can be assaulted, sold into slavery, possibly even be killed. It is true that with the infiltration of Western influence in the 19th century into the Muslim world, such discriminatory taxation was officially abolished in the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim countries, but the attitude of Muslims towards dhimmis still exists and since the jizya tax is no longer paid, some Muslim extremists can claim that ALL dhimmis are fair targets.Nonie brings many examples from the Qur'an and the Hadiths of a very hostile attitude by Islam to Jews, Christians and other non-believers. She also shows how Sharia law gives wide scope for vigilante action against "non-believers" and "apostates". At this point, apologists for Islam will say something like "you don't understand, when these sources attack the Jews or Christians it means 'those who don't observe the divine law'". But Nonie points out that the vast majority of Muslims, even the very pious, don't know very much about their religion in the first place, so if a Muslim preacher quotes these inflammatory statements which seem to say that it is permitted to assault dhimmis, and even only one in ten of the listeners "misinterprets" it to meaning ALL dhimmis are legitimate targets (as on 9/11) and that one make the law into one's hands "for a good cause", that means that there are still a lot of people going around with possibly violent intention. Nonie points out that this is not merely theory, there is a long history of discrimination and violence by Muslims against dhimmis. She brings many examples from Egypt, which is one of the few Muslim countries to still have a large dhimmi (in this case, Coptic Christian) population. One hundred years ago, 20% of the Middle East was Christian, now it is 2%. If Islam is as tolerant as its apologists claim, why has this happened?Critics of Nonie will clain she doesn't know anything about Islam. This is blatant nonsense. She grew up first in Gaza, then in Egypt and received an excellent education. She grew up in an observant Muslim family. She has studied the Sharia. She knows what she is talking about. Those apologists for Islam have to explain why there is so much violence being carried out in the name of their religion, if it is indeed a "religion of peace". It is not enough to say "those who are carrying it out are not 'really' Muslims". They are getting the ideas from somewhere, and it is coming from radical Islamic preachers and thinkers. If the apologists really say that this is not "true Islam" why don't we hear them denouncing the extremists? In Britain, a bill was considered in the House of Commons banning "hate speech". Muslim leaders demanded that the bill specifically exempt the Qur'an and Hadith. What does this tell us about how these leaders view their Islam?Every concerned American should read this book and decide for himself if it is really possible to reconcile American values with those of Sharia-bound Islam.

The effect of this book upon me was to make me feel grateful to the author for warning both myself and others of the threat posed to freedom by Islam. It opened my eyes wider than they had been before, deluging me with evidence, evidence and more evidence. Nonie Darwish quotes the Qur'an, the Hadiths (traditional sayings of the Prophet Mohommed) fatwas and Islamic scholars and cites the ways in which Sharia law has been imposed on Muslim societies, and its repercussions, upon Muslims and upon non-Muslims surviving in Islamic societies as unequals whose very lives are at perpetual risk under Sharia, and whose murders would probably not even be investigated. Honour killings are committed by family members, and family members and any other Muslim may kill an apostate from Islam, of which the author herself is one - it is a social and political system that inflicts cruelty upon its own members and upon non-Muslims, and no-one is allowed to leave it!Despite this, Nonie Darwish says support for Sharia law is only 10-15% in Islamic countries, but is 40% in more radicalized British Muslim society, and limited Sharia law was adopted in Canada, though it is now overturned. The threat to the West is thus real, and is growing as more Muslims flee to the West and import fundamentalism with them and as more petrodollars flood Saudi Arabia, which is promoting the building of mosques and using money to further the spead of Islam in the West.As to the outcry this book might evoke from some sectors, let Nonie Darwish speak, as she states at the end of her "Introduction", for herself:"The purpose of this book is not to spread hatred of a people, but to tell the truth about the wickedness of Islamic Sharia law. Islam is at the gates. Western democracies are underestimating a major threat that will push their futures to a point of no return. The West must either wake up to the danger today or submit unconditionally tomorrow."And, as she points out, Islam means "submission"! And in more ways than one!I recommend this book - everyone should know what is going on in the World with regards to Islamic jihad and the movement to impose Sharia law on all of us, so that we would then be classed as nothing more than "dhimmis" in our own countries! (From the "Eplogue"): "Sharia is Islam and Islam is Sharia, and both are for the preservation of seventh-century Arabian culture, politics and way of life, which could not survive in this day and age except under the sword." And seventh-century Arabian Bedouin society was a very harsh and cruel society, which Nonie Darwish describes - slavery, conquest, subjugation, theft, booty, and female submission. Mohommed made this culture law, and imposed it on non-Arab civilizations, such as the Egyptians. As then so it is now - through conquest and conversion, forced or otherwise, the West faces the bleak prospect of being Arab-ized and subjugated by Islam and Sharia law. This is the purpose of Islam - to impose itself upon the whole World, and legislators in the West above all others, as the author says, need to be aware of the global threat posed by Islam and Sharia law to our precious freedoms. In Islamic countries there is no freedom of speech and freedom of thought - no-one can speak against Islam. But the internet has made this book available in Islamic countries, and so I recommend it to all Muslims, as with non-Muslims, to all alike.

This is a book written by a woman who's experienced the horrors of the Islamic system from the inside, and she gives a graphic account of its world view, - the whole system is built on a "police state" mentality of fear, where anyone asking any questions is automatically setting themselves up as a target for trouble from family, neighbours and on upward. All must believe what they are told, anyone not acting against a questioner is also quilty. Asking questions leads to a death sentence here, and hell afterwards! This book should be read by us all, particularly by those who think that incorporating sharia principles into western laws is a good idea. Emphatically sharia is only good for the few old men at the top who exploit all those below, through fear. The book shows how islam & sharia combine to oppress all women and all but a few men, ie those who are not at the top. The book would an eye opener to all those who think of all religions in "warm & fuzzy" terms and that religions simply call on us to love each other etc.

It's sad to see that this book is all to real, the west don't want to believe that Islam is so cruel. Sadness apart the God i know and love is a God of truth, justice, grace, peace, mercy and above all else love. I too lived as a Muslim for many years and all I saw was hate, cruelty, pride, anger, resentment, control and lack of integrity. Jesus is the only solution to this world not political correctness but truth told in love, Jesus said you will know them by their fruit, I just hope and pray Jesus will turn lives around for good. I thank you for being brave enough to write this book with such brutal honesty but in a careful and considered way. Thank you.

Read this book. It explains the cultural background to the Koran and the life of Muhammed and goes on to explain Sharia. The author is an Egyptian woman who grew up as a Muslim woman, then moved to the States to marry. Highly Recommended. Read it

At last a true account in which the pernicious ideology of sharia is exposed. .What hypocrisy. You can definatly see that this is a code made by men and for men. Read it & get informed!

Absolutely fascinating, very alarming, everyone should read this book. Nonie Darwish had been very brave to write this candid account. If only part of it is true we are in big trouble already.