Hans Jansen wrote in
Middle East Quarterly that the "book amply documents the systematic and destructive character of Islamic jihad, refuting the much-repeated argument that jihad is a 'rich' concept that has many meanings and that jihad first of all signifies 'inner struggle.' Jihad is first of all war, bloodshed, subjugation, and expansion of the faith by violence."
Dean Barnett wrote in
The Weekly Standard that the book "is likely to be controversial because it traces a history that polite society often seems unwilling to discuss," while noting that it is "a thorough work; hardly an act of offensive jihad in the last 1,300 years has escaped Bostom's scholarship." In
The Jerusalem Post,
Raphael Israeli wrote that Bostom "deserves credit for this first huge step, to be followed by others. At any rate, this is one of those books with a long shelf-life, because whatever further investigation and interpretation is done, it will stand alone as the impressive accomplishment of an autodidact layman, which many specialists have reasons to envy." ==References==