prophet of God [...] the command to
propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is
always obligatory, when it can be made
effective. The commands of the prophet may
be performed alike, by fraud, or by
force.^229But following the shock of the attack on America in
September 2001, it would be almost impossible to find an
academic expert who would concur with what had been
the educated view of Islam in the previous centuries.
Before 9/11 academic experts were prepared to tell the
public the truth about the interconnectedness of jihad and
the expansion of Islam. To the extent that the truth about
Islam has been told to the general public in the past few
decades, this has come mostly from people who are neither
professional journalists nor professional academics.^230
Famous names in this regard are people like Bat Ye’or,
Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom, etc. These people have
filled the gap left by journalists and academics. One name
which is often overlooked in this regard is Paul Fregosi,
whose publisher in the mid 1990s decided to cancel the
contract for Fregosiʼs book on Islam’s unending war against
Christendom.
Fregosi’s book Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests
from the 7th to the 21st Centuries was to be published by
one of Britain’s major publishers. The publisher
accepted Jihad in the West, announced it [the
book] in its spring 1997 catalogue, and copy-