I have blogged before about Robert Spencer's Religion of Peace?: Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't. I mention it again because of a useful interview just published by Bernard Chapin.
Spencer explains his books this way:
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) is a general overview of the elements of Islam that jihadists are using to recruit and motivate terrorists today. The Truth About Muhammad is a biography of the founder of Islam. Religion of Peace is neither of those things. It is an evaluation of the Christian theocracy scare (as enunciated by bestselling books such as American Fascists by Chris Hedges) and a comparison of various aspects of Christian and Islamic Scripture and history in order to demonstrate what the real threat is, and to resist the moral equivalence that blankets the popular culture today.
As for Muslim reaction to his books, Spencer says:
Invariably reactions from Muslims feature denial of the points I make about Islam, despite the fact that I work exclusively from Islamic sources and the words of Islamic spokesmen, plus personal abuse. I haven’t received a formal fatwa, but many death threats, including one from a man who was determined to kill me because Islam is a religion of peace. One of his messages read in part: “I will be violent against anyone who hurts muslim feelings about Prophet. It is a religion of peace for everyone until some duckhead sprews out his damn saliva on a sensitive topic as this. Spencer will be delivered.”
The interviewer, Bernard Chapin, asked about the allegation that Spencer ignores many of the positive passages in the Koran, to which Spencer responds:
This is wholly false, as anyone who read my books will know. In "Religion of Peace?" I discuss at length the passages of the Qur’an that enjoin tolerance of unbelievers, and explain how mainstream Muslim exegetes understand those passages in light of passages that enjoin violence. Also, I am now Blogging the Qur’an weekly at HotAir.com (archive here), going through the text cover to cover – no one can say I am ignoring any passage at all in this endeavor.