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Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam
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Average Rating:  out of 9 Reviews
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Price: $26.00
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Sale: $13.00
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Manufacturer: Random House
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EAN (European Article Number): 9781400066537
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Hardcover
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Author: David G. Dalin::John F. Rothmann
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Publisher: Random House
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Edition: 1
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Dewey Decimal Number: 956.9404092
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Publication Date: 2008-06-24
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Reading Level: 240
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Description: A chilling, fascinating, and nearly forgotten historical figure is resurrected in a riveting work that links the fascism of the last century with the terrorism of our own. Written with verve and extraordinary access to primary sources in several languages, Icon of Evil is the definitive account of the man who during World War II was called “the führer of the Arab world” and whose ugly legacy lives on today.
In 1921, the beneficiary of an appointment the British would live to regret, Haj Amin al-Husseini became the mufti of Jerusalem, the most eminent and influential Islamic leader in the Middle East. For years, al-Husseini fomented violence in the region against the Jews he loathed and wished to destroy. Forced out in 1937, he eventually found his way to the country whose legions he desperately wished to join: Nazi Germany.
Here, with new and disturbing details, David G. Dalin and John F. Rothmann show how al-Husseini ingratiated himself with his hero, Adolf Hitler, becoming, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, an “honorary Aryan,” while dreaming of being installed Nazi leader of the Middle East. Al-Husseini would later recruit more than 100,000 Muslims in Europe to fight in divisions of the Waffen-SS, and obstruct negotiations with the Allies that might have allowed four thousand Jewish children to escape to Palestine. Some believe that al-Husseini even inspired Hitler to implement the Final Solution. At war’s end, al-Husseini escaped indictment at Nuremberg and was harbored in France before being given a hero’s welcome in Egypt.
Icon of Evil chronicles al-Husseini’s postwar relationships with such influential Islamic figures as the radical theoretician Sayyid Qutb and Saddam Hussein’s powerful uncle, General Khairallah Talfah, and his crucial mentoring of the young Yasser Arafat. Finally, it provides compelling evidence that al-Husseini’s actions and writings serve as inspirations today to the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations pledged to destroy Israel and the United States.
Revelatory and unsettling, Icon of Evil reveals an essential character in the worst crimes of the modern era. It is an important addition to our understanding of the past, present, and future of radical Islam.
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: Chilling revelations, references should have been more direct |
Date: 2008-09-23 |
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Details: A proof of the bridge formed between old and new anti-Semitism in the person of Mohammed Amin Al-Husseini. Jew hatred has mutated from racist genocide to blinkered anti Israel prejudice. The authors depict the principal agent of this transformation the Grand Mufti of Palestine, President of the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine, and a chief instrument in the convening of the World Islamic Congress.
Al-Husseini was a close associate of Himmler, Eichmann, and von Ribbetrop, held an audience with Hitler on 28th September 1941, acted as Nazi arabic radio propagandist for 3 years from Berlin, influenced Nazi policy, for example of Jewish escape from the slaughter, and the formation of the Bosnian Muslim Waffen-SS corps responsible for the murder of 12,600 Bosnian Jews. He was reported by Eichmann aide Dieter Wisliceny to have visited Auschwitz, and to have incited systematic extermination. On 21/9/44 he broadcast of '11 M Jews in Europe', he knew this represented a deficit of 6M.
There is much more to shock and surprise in this short but potent volume, especially the Mufti's legacy to Arafat, Saddam Hussein's uncle and his links with Qutb father of the Brotherhood.
One is lead to wonder repeatedly why such plain and profound evils are so little discussed or so little known, and the reasons are not hard to find in the text.
Eye opening as it is, there are two flaws in its testimony. First there is too much speculation about the Mufti's thought life, conversations and attitudes - a more clinical, less ornamented account would have been wiser. Second the references are almost entirely from secondary sources, even quotes from Mein Kampf (hardly the most difficult book to reference) or the most seminal of events to the book the audience with the Fuhrer (though the translated text of the German minutes of the meeting and the Mufti's diary are in the appendices). This considerably weakens the polemical value of the work, nevertheless a vital and valuable resource for students of the Middle East. |
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Review Summary: Hitlers Mufti |
Date: 2008-09-23 |
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Details: Interesting/factual but the conclusions are repeated and repeated and repeated resulting in aboaring book that is three timeslonger than needed. I finally gave up and moved on to followon chapter rather than read the same thing over and over again. |
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Review Summary: A Must Read |
Date: 2008-09-18 |
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Details: What an eye opener! This book is of great importance for everyone . This is a must read! The authors give the history of the Islamic mufti's connection with Hitler, their desire to irradicate the Jews, and shows the connection to the terrorist of today. The comment that..."this brings to light a story not so much forgotten as deliberately concealed" couldn't be more true! I Urge everyone to educate yourself on this most important bit of history as it is directley affecting us today and will continue to in the future. |
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Review Summary: Should have been a classic |
Date: 2008-09-15 |
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Details: I agree with D. Hunsicker's review: This is an important book, but a poorly written one. The "what if" chapter imagining what al-Husseini might have done if Hitler won the war is inappropriate in a history book. Given al-Husseini's role in fomenting anti-Jewish hatred among Muslim populations, given his role in making pro-Nazi propaganda broadcasts into the Middle East from Berlin in WWII, and given his role in helping recruit Muslims into the Wehrmacht and SS, there was plenty of real, factual history to work with here. So why all the what-ifs and hyperbole? The attempts to tie al-Husseini to every anti-semitic Arab and Muslim leader on the contemporary scene are ridiculous, while his real-life crimes are glossed over. It would have been much better to have included more transcripts of his radio broadcasts, to have gone into more detail of his work on behalf of the Nazis, of his post-war work in whipping up anti-Jewish bigotry. Instead, too much of the book is superficial. Coming from professors at Stanford and USF, such a poorly organized, poorly written book is a huge disappointment. Hopefully, another book on this topic using the same source material can be written to provide a more rigorous critique of al-Husseini's crimes against humanity. |
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Review Summary: This book is a ridiculous polemic |
Date: 2008-08-23 |
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Details: I give this two stars only because there are so few books available on al-Husseini and I was glad to find something on the subject. But unfortunately, this book is a ridiculous polemic that tries to paint al-Husseini as a major figure in the Holocaust and claims that secular Arab dictators like Saddam Hussein were radical Islamists who are part of a vast terrorist conspiracy...maybe Dick Cheney was a ghost writer for this piece of fiction. Oh and speaking of fiction, one whole chapter is a crazy "what if" scenario that has the Germans defeating the British in WWII and al-Husseini leading the Holocaust in "Londonistan" where prominent U.S. Jewish figures, like Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter, are unable to escape the onrushing German army and die in concentration camps. This is just way over the top.
This is not to say that al-Husseini wasn't a horrible anti-Semite and that anti-Jewish sentiment doesn't permeate much of the discourse of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the Arab side. But this book does nothing productive in terms of really addressing these problems. Frankly, it probably hurts the authors cause more than it helps it because they've turned it into a laughable caricature. |
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