Product Description

Studio: Wea-des Moines Video Release Date: 10/02/2007

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Product Details

Publisher	Disinformation
UPC	826262003890
Number Of Discs	1
Original Release Date	2007-07-17
EAN	0826262003890
MPN	RKOD620038D
Format	DVD Color DVD NTSC
Directed By	Gregory M. Davis,Bryan Daly
Release Date	2007-07-17
Label	Disinformation
Region Code	0
Title	Islam: What the West Needs to Know
Studio	Disinformation
Starring	Robert Spencer,Walid Shoebat,Bat Yeor,Serge Trifkovic,Abdullah Al-Araby
Running Time	98 minutes
Theatrical Release Date	2007-07-17
MPAA Rating	NR (Not Rated)
Aspect Ratio	1.33:1
Manufacturer	Disinformation

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Customer Reviews

Islam:What the West Needs to know.

Review by Jose Lopez, 2010-07-07

Everybody has to see this whether Moslem(Muslim),Jewish or Christian or Atheist or Gnostic. It might not go over well with fundamentalists and apologetic leftists,Exposing myths such as the "religion of peace",From the time of the moors in Spain and savages persecuting Catholics(who apologists later decried the Crusades as an unprovoked unjust thing).There is people like walid shoebat(a former PLO member)and other scholars,It's on netflix or you can rent it.Don't let fascists tell you other wise.

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Narrow-minded, full of half-truths and outright lies

Review by sg12, 2010-06-26

I am a Christian, living in the Midwest United States and have an advanced degree in religion with an emphasis on the study of Islam, from its creation to the present day, as well as on Christianity. I have read the Koran in its entirety and written a number of academic papers on various aspects, including the relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims and the concept of "jihad."

Largely for these reasons, I found it extremely hard to make it through this film. It was an extremely frustrating experience for me. The worst thing about the so-called "faith documentary" is the fact that it presents a half-truth as an all encompassing view of Islam. Neither I nor any scholar of Islam will deny the fact that there are passages of the Koran and Hadith that encourage violence, in particular towards non-Muslims. There are (at least) two major problems with ONLY presenting these passages, though; first, there are as many if not more passages in these texts that encourage an attitude of acceptance and tolerance towards people of other faiths, especially other monotheists, Christians and Jews, who are referred to as "people of the book." Second, doing so fails to fully explain the historical context of these verses. There are essentially three periods here: 1)Early period in which Islam is starting out and has very few followers. At this time they have no power and must be peaceful and try to attract followers. Verses encourage tolerance and peace. 2) Middle period in which Islam has grown and is coming under attack. Verses admit the possibility of violence but only when attacked; only as a defensive strategy. 3) Later period, Islam is more powerful and looking to expand its influence. Verses include the (in)famous "verse of the sword" encouraging violence. Many religious scholars postulate that the political situation of Mohammad and his followers had a lot to do with the progression of these verses, something which the film touches on, but does not fully explain. The violence seen in the later periods may have had more to do with the will of some of the original Islamic leaders to create an empire and expand their power than anything else.

The people (I cannot bring myself to use the word "scholars" here) interviewed in the film also appear to take for granted the idea of abrogation, that if two passages of the Koran contradict one another, the later one is the one to be followed. This is not always the case within Islam, as they suggest. Especially concerning the theme of violence more than any other, abrogation has been debated and, in many cases, denied. That is, many if not nearly all major Islamic scholars do not believe that the verse of the sword completely refutes the previous verses from earlier periods. For most Muslims, these peaceful and violent verses are taken side-by-side, as most will tell you that they should be.

Of all the other errors and white lies in this film I only wish to mention one more, obvious thing. This film paints Islam with an extremely violent past and present. Both are true, but that does NOT mean that Islam is an inherently violent religion. As to the past, you just have to look at the history of Christianity to see just as much violence. Look at the Christian crusades, look at the expulsion of Jews by Christians throughout Europe from the 1200s onwards, look at the Inquisition. In fact, many of the punishments that they quote in this film from the Koran also appear in the Old Testament, a key Judeo-Christian text. To say that Islam has a more violent history than other religions is quite simply wrong. As to present violence, yes, it is true that many countries with a predominantly Muslim population are more violent places today than predominantly Christian or Buddhist or multi-religous countries. Still, to blame all of this violence on Islam is near-sighted and fallacious. So much of it has to do with the political situations of these countries, and for many the only way that they can justify this sort of violence is by masking it with religion, using the types of verses cited in this film. This does not make Islam a violent religion, it just places it alongside other religions in history as vehicles of manipulation, used to rationalize violence. The same has happened and continues to happen in the name of Christianity. Islam is no more inherently violent a religion than Christianity. The film fails to distinguish between causation and correlation. What we see here is merely a correlation. Islam seems more violent because more Muslims live in politically unstable environments. Islam is not the cause of this turmoil and violence, but merely a tool used by fundamentalists to mask what they are truly doing, another victim of the situation that many of these countries find themselves in. To say otherwise goes against all logic.

The film also fails to adequately explain the "dhimmi" relationship between Muslims and people of the book throughout history, as it fails to adequately explain virtually every concept it touches on. If you would like to get a good, well-rounded and completely unbiased view of Islam, I highly recommend the book "The Vision of Islam" by Murata and Chittick (and just to make it clear, I have only read their works, I am not trying to make a shameless plug for them. I merely think that they provide one of the better explanations of Islam out there and this book would be very useful for many in the West.) This film, however, will do nothing but stir up greater fear towards this religion and its followers. It is a fundamentalist and extremist response to the extremely small group of Islamic extremists responsible for recent terrorist actions. Just as Islamic extremists twist the Koran to justify violence and manipulate people, so does this film twist the Islamic tradition to accomplish their agenda of increasing fear and distrust in the West towards Muslims. Honestly - and I do not write these words lightly - the makers of this film should be ashamed of themselves, and I am terrified at the prospect of people in the West watching this film and blindly believing every word. Please, please do not help to increase the general ignorance towards Islam plaguing this country. If you watch this film you owe it to yourself and to the millions of Muslims around the world to also seek out a source that provides a more unbiased portrayal of Islam. Then, hopefully you will see that Islam is a much more peaceful, or at the very least much more complex and diverse, religion than the makers of this film would like you to think.

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Don't Believe in Yahweh Jesus Christ? That is messed up.

Review by I Love Yahweh Yeshua Christ!, 2010-06-25

Islam: What the West needs to know is a documentary that President Barack Hussein Obama II plus future Presidents of U.S.A. and even the Whole United States of America's Government need to see and pay attention too especially to what Walid Shoebat, Abdullah Al-Araby and Serge Trifkovic said in this documentary. I personally am suspicious of any Religion that does NOT believe in the Immanuel Messiah the Nazarene at least the way Judaism and Christianity believe. I only gave Islam: What the West needs to know five stars because of the history lessons and the indepth knowledge of Islam. I would have given this documentary three stars because Islam, the Koran and Prophet Muhammad is a Fake Religion that is sending ALL its followers to Hell and the Lake of Fire. Only the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth/Immanuel Messiah the Nazarene can forgive you of your Sins and send you to Paradise and Heaven. If I hurt you-you would like me to apologize to you the same thing is with Sin, Transgression and Iniquity when it is done it hurts Yahweh Jesus Messiah NOT Allah or Muhammad.

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Obligatory for every western adult!

Review by Mark Twain, 2010-06-20

This is an expertly crafted documentary.
It explains the link between islams history, islams teachings and todays terror attacks all around the world.
Every adult in the west should see this!
This concerns us all.

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"The Third Jihad" is better

Review by Caraculiambro, 2010-06-13

The three movies I know of on this subject are:

1. "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West (2005)" 28 million of which were mailed as part of newspaper circulars to American homes.
2. This one, "Islam: What the West Needs to Know" (2006).
3. "The Third Jihad" (2009).

I have seen -- and own -- them all. In my opinion, this one, "Islam: What the West Needs to Know," is the weakest of the three, although they did a fantastic job with the dynamic maps.

Mainly it consists of interviews with Robert Spencer and Waleed Shoebat, interspersed with actual quotes from the Koran on screen that you have to read. It's clearly laid out, but I don't think it's a very effective format for a movie. "Obsession" has much more engaging visuals, while "The Third Jihad" lays out the relevance of all this as a threat to an open, democratic society far better than anything Spencer & Co. did here.

If you're going to see just one of these, it should be the last one, "The Third Jihad."

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