Kamal Saleem

I agree with the reviewers who are concerned by the sensationalism and inconsistencies in this book. It sounds very much like someone cashing in on the insecurities of Americans regarding Islam. The fact that it was co-written by Sarah Palin's biographer should surely raise a flag about its political and cultural angle! The patronising appeals to Americans to open their benighted eyes to the Islamic terror conspiracy taking place around them plays to the same fears as so many conspiracy-theory TV dramas. Look at the Middle East - Islamic terrorists are a threat to Muslims, they kill more Muslims than anyone else, and their agenda is about the Middle East. 9/11 happened not because of some spy-novel plot such as Saleem dreams up, but a few hotheads who flew undetected below the radar. Threats to the USA come from Americans themselves. This book cashes in on the reluctance to accept this fact.

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Rereading these reviews and thinking about recent events (October 2014) leads me to some further observations.

1) The importance of critical reading. That involves, among other things, the need for evidence. One man's word and a bunch of claims that are unverifiable, backed by facts that can be culled from Wikipedia, is not compelling evidence. Critical reading also involves being aware of one's own cultural assumptions while reading. If I have a view of Islam shaped by conservative or popular opinion, then I may well be receptive of books such as this which reinforce those opinions. I will also be aware of how accounts of "truth" play to emotion and intuition as much as to fact. I think it telling that so many reviewers praise this book as a spy thriller. Let's not confuse literary merit and veracity.

2) Ignorance about Islam is worrying. I am not a Muslim and have no desire to provide an apology for Islam. But many people seem to equate Muslims with bomb-wielding "towel heads". I know some Muslims (Saudi). I have the world's largest Muslim-majority nation to my north (Indonesia). I have made some study of Islam. Criticize it for what it is, not for the mistruths propagated in certain circles. You may even find yourself appreciating some of it (shock, horror!) This book does nothing to advance any kind of understanding.

3) Conspiracy theories are (excuse the heated language) crap. People are incapable of the finely-honed conspiracies that TV drama and cinema continuously dish up. Muslim conspirators in the West are isolated and dangerously clumsy. Atrocities happen, but they are the work of isolated fanatics. The real damage is done in Muslim-majority countries by good old fashioned thuggery, tribalism and guerilla warfare. Most Westerners killed by Islamic radicals went to where the radicals are. That includes US troops killed in Iraq. Islamists don't want to turn us into Muslims. They just want us out of their part of the world so that they can impose their brand of Islam. Which most Muslims reject. This book does absolutely nothing to inform us about this real Islamist threat...to other Muslims!

What this book does do is to reinforce a certain cultural view of Islam and, ultimately, to legitimate that culture's view of itself against The Other it claims is threatening it. In other words, this is not ultimately a book about Islam, but about America.… (lisätietoja)

Kamal Saleem’s career as a radical Muslim terrorist began at his mother’s knee. Her daily Islamic family devotions ingrained in her young son the precepts that he would build his early life upon – killing for the glory of Allah. His first missions as a seven-year-old saw him smuggling weapons and watching his fellow playmates mowed down by automatic weapons. Clearly, most readers of his memoirs will have much different childhood memories than his.

Saleem (a pseudonym due to serious death threads from jihadists) shares his rather graphic memoirs in the hopes of wakening those living in our accepting (and often naïve) culture with the realities of the dangers radical Islam poses. Grippingly written with the help of Lynn Vincent, it is hard to pull away from the story he shares, and it is one that will linger with me for a great while.

More striking than even his detailed admissions of violence and conspiracy committed in the name of Islam is his meeting with the true and living God; the only force capable of turning him from the path of destruction he had lived on for so many years.

The Blood of Lambs is easy to read and incredibly engrossing. I have always had a difficult time getting a handle on the situation in the Middle East, but reading of major events and skirmishes through Saleem’s eyes helps me to see things in a personal, and therefore memorable way.

Perhaps more importantly, it calls us to be aware of the tactics Islamists use to deceive, convert, and recruit terrorists even within the bounds of their target countries. Believers are called to be as wise as serpents however, so being aware of the tactics at work helps us know how to watch for, counter, and most importantly pray for those who would see our violent destruction. . It would be easy to slip into a spirit of paranoid fear after reading Salam’s memoir, so it is important to remember that God is sovereign and holds us in His hands.

Any reader with even a passing interest in the ongoing war on terror, Christian/Muslim relations, radical Islam, or terrorism but without an extensive background in these topics will be well served by Saleem’s first-hand account and insiders point of view.

Reviewed at quiverfullfamily.com… (lisätietoja)