The Koran, explained.

At last, a readable and honest guide to the book that inspires terrorists worldwide: the Koran.

The Conservative Book Club has made my new book, The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, a main selection for this month. Here is their review of the book:

If we don't know the Koran, we can't defeat the jihadists: Osama bin Laden, the masterminds of 9/11 and those who have perpetrated the over 13,000 jihad attacks worldwide since 9/11 repeatedly point to it as their inspiration and authority, explaining that they're committing acts of terrorism and hate because of it. Yet the Koran is not an easy read -- it has been called "wrist-slittingly boring," as well as confusing, contradictory, and muddled. But Robert Spencer reads the Koran so that you don't have to! Now, in The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, Spencer, the bestselling author and Islam expert, shows exactly what's in the Koran, and why every military and intelligence official -- and every American -- should be concerned about this revered and reviled holy book. This witty and breezily written guide to the Koran explains who those who have vowed to destroy us think they are, what they think they're doing, and what they hope to accomplish.

Spencer explains what the Koran says about who Infidels are and what must be done about them; its appallingly harsh teachings on women; what it really says about warfare against Infidels; its strange teachings on Christians and Christianity; and its relentless demonization of the people whom the Koran identifies as the chief enemies of the Muslims: the Jews. He shows how the Koran developed, why central Muslim claims about it are false, and even provides a revealing and disquieting glimpse into the Hadith, the traditions of Muhammad that for Muslims worldwide are second in authority only to the Koran itself.

A huge number of policy decisions are predicated upon the assumption that the Koran teaches peace, and that those who brandish Korans and commit violence are misunderstanding their own religion and perverting the teachings of their own holy book. These include U.S. government postures toward Pakistan and Egypt; immigration matters; airport security procedures; military strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan; domestic anti-terror policies; and our acquiescence to Saudi Arabia's Islamic proselytizing campaign in America and many other countries. That's why The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran is so urgently needed: it shows how and why U.S. policies in these areas are not only wrong but dangerous to our national security -- and sounds a clarion call for a restoration of sanity on these issues in our national security establishment.

Proof: the Koran is just about the opposite of a "book of peace":

* Why most government and media analysts dare not even question the assumption that the Koran is peaceful

* How sacred texts are not entirely determined by what the faithful wish to see in them

* Infidels: why Allah hates them, and what he has in store for them -- straight from the Koran

* The strange story of how the Koran was compiled -- and the explosive significance of the existence of alternate versions

* The worst sin of all for Muslims: it's worse than murder, worse than rape, worse than genocide, and you're probably committing it

* The Muslim claim that the Koranic text was never altered -- why it's false, and why this matters

* Why it is so easy for non-Muslim readers reading English translations of the Koran to miss some of its most violent and worrisome passages

* The passages of the Koran that mandate warfare against unbelievers: why in traditional Islam they take precedence over more peaceful passages

* The little-noted and violent corollary to the Koran's famous passages forbidding the killing of innocent people

* But doesn't the Koran promise salvation to Jews and Christians? The truth about this celebrated passage

* How the Koran retells stories of the Biblical prophets but alters them to support Muhammad's claim to be a prophet

* Moses: the Koran's frequent retellings of the Exodus story -- and the all-important element of that story that the Muslim book leaves out every time

* The Islamic prophet Muhammad: why the Koran is essentially all about him

* Telling signs that the Koran was not delivered from heaven in pristine form, but was compiled from earlier Jewish, Christian, and pagan sources

* Koranic Jew-hatred: proof that Islamic anti-Semitism is not an import from Christianity, as many have claimed

* Are the Koran's violent commandments are largely meaningless, since similar ones are found in the Bible?

* The surprising and disquieting truth behind Islam's professed respect for other religions and reverence for their central figures

* The extraordinary implications of the Koran's preposterous teachings about Abraham, Moses and Jesus

* The alarming teachings of the Koran on women: how it reduces women to the status of commodities, and even teaches that women are deficient intellectually

* The Koran: does it really contain miraculous prophecies and other evidence of divine origin?

* The strange Islamic phenomena of "temporary wives" and "temporary husbands" -- and how justification for both comes from the Koran

* Love your enemies -- and other things the Koran doesn't say

* Barack Obama's June 2009 speech to the Islamic world: an object lesson in the hazards of not understanding the Koran

* How mistakes and false assumptions about Islam and the Koran is today leading the U.S. to make serious foreign policy errors

* What Infidels can and must do to defend free societies against those who take the Koran's message of violence and supremacism to heart

"Meticulous, comprehensive, indispensable. 'I read the Koran so you don't have to,' Spencer writes, but even for those of us who have read the Koran, this is a richly illuminating work." -- Bruce Bawer, author of Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom and While Europe Slept.

"Governing officials and media spokesmen may ignore Spencer's warnings, but they do so at their own risk, because Islamic jihadists are not ignoring what's in the Koran, and are working to destroy our freedoms in obedience to Koranic dictates. In illuminating for Westerners exactly what the Koran teaches, Spencer has performed a valuable service in the defense of Western civilization against the Islamic jihad." -- Geert Wilders, Member of Parliament and Chairman of the Party for Freedom (PVV), the Netherlands

"Unlike most of today's self-styled experts, Robert Spencer won't tell you that 'slay the idolaters wherever you find them' really means 'love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.' In The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, Spencer shows once again that he is America's most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism, insisting that we come to grips with the words behind the ideology that fuels international terror." -- Andrew C. McCarthy, senior fellow at the National Review Institute and author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad.

"Robert Spencer incarnates intellectual courage when, all over the world, governments, intellectuals, churches, universities and media crawl under a hegemonic Universal Caliphate's New Order. His achievement in the battle for the survival of free speech and dignity of man will remain as a fundamental monument to the love of, and the self-sacrifice for, liberty. In our epoch of intellectual jihadism, this honest book is essential to understand the challenges of the twenty-first century." -- Bat Ye'or, author of Eurabia; The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam and Islam and Dhimmitude

"Tony Blair calls the Koran 'progressive [and] humanitarian' but Robert Spencer has actually read the scripture and begs to differ. In an informed, sardonic antidote to the usual soft-peddling of the Koran, he concludes that its actual contents should alarm infidels and prompt them to defend their 'freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the legal equality of all people.' " -- Daniel Pipes, director, Middle East Forum

"For 1,400 years Muslim leadership spread misinformation and covered up what is in the Koran, even criminalizing exposing the truth or asking questions. The truth is too scary for many, both Muslims and non-Muslims. I thank Robert Spencer for bringing the truth of what is in the Koran to non-Muslims." -- Nonie Darwish, ex-Muslim and author of Now They Call Me Infidel

"This book is an incisive analysis of how Islamic jihadists read the Koran and understand it to be commanding them to wage war against non-Muslims. Military and intelligence analysts, as well as all Americans interested in protecting our freedoms, will find The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran to be a valuable guide to the thought processes and core beliefs of Muslim terrorists." -- Steven Emerson, author of American Jihad