But back to Bush's jarring gesture of inclusion, one unlikely to be reciprocated in Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia where Bibles are verboten. What does it mean? No known religious book besides the Koran seemingly inspires a religious vision of world political domination -- which, of course, includes America. Daniel Pipes, writing in Commentary magazine in 2001, reported on specific Muslim efforts to turn America into a Sharia-ruled caliphate. More recently, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) tells us, Ahmad Dewidar, the prominent imam of the Islamic Center in New York and a lecturer at Manhattan University, referred in an interview to mosque-talk of how the White House -- "through the domination of Islam and its ideas" -- would become the "Muslim House." Bush has begun to acknowledge such designs, as when in a recent speech he mentioned jihadists' goal of "totalitarian empire." But the president is still distorting history, both recent and ancient, by denying links between jihad war and Islamic teachings, derived in large part from the Koran.
After 9/11, Bush declared "Islam is peace." Now, he insists that "extremists" "distort the idea of jihad" into a rationale for terrorism. Maybe Bush will read his new Koran and discover that the idea of jihad is itself extreme. Better still, maybe Bush will go so far as to add another book to the White House collection: "The Legacy of Jihad" (Prometheus Books, 2005) by Andrew G. Bostom, MD. This extraordinary compendium of primary and secondary source material, much of it translated into English for the first time, elucidates the theory and practice of jihad over 1,400 years. With its chronological span across the centuries, "The Legacy of Jihad
" goes a long way toward bridging the void in Western understanding of the institutional role of jihad within Islam.
The White House may have its own Koran now, but the president's reckoning with the legacy of jihad is still overdue.