About Harold Rhode

One of the finest objective experts on Islam, Harold Rhode is a protégé of the great scholar and historian of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, and former senior official in the Pentagon, who has dedicated his life to exploring Islam and its historical richness. As a young student, Harold lived and studied in Iran, Turkey, and many parts of the Arab world. As a Pentagon official working in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Harold observed the reemergence of Islam and the threat that it would pose to liberal democracies around the world.

Rhode—nearly three decades of Pentagon service later, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute in New York, and Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs—sees clearly that the conflict between Islam and the West is far from over. From an Islamic point of view, such conflict can only end when the entire world converts to Islam. Notwithstanding the complete subjugation of the West, we will remain locked in an unending power struggle, unless the Muslims reexamine their sources and devise ways to live with non-Muslims. This amounts to nothing short of a "Thought Revolution” within Islam, one that is devoted to reforming its radical conceptions and casting aside calls for the destruction of the West. Sadly, this seems unlikely for the foreseeable future.

In the West, many progressives fail to appreciate religion, so they are incapable of comprehending the theological roots of these Islamic threats; what's more, they remain unable to imagine or combat them. The key to our success, Rhode contends, is rooted precisely in understanding the nature of Islamic violence—not as it has arisen these past 30 years (whether in the form of state-sponsored terrorism, mass murder, beheadings, rape or slavery), but rather how these crimes against humanity are being perpetrated in Mohammed’s name, since Islam was founded over fourteen centuries ago.

While remaining true to the principles of liberal democracy, in the spirit of his mentor, Bernard Lewis, Rhode grapples with Islam’s history and culture, and finds why so many of its adherents are committed to conquering and destroying the West. Harold's analysis and recommendations are honest attempts to understand the basis of Islam—in the hope that they will allow those who are confused to see the danger Islam poses to freedom and liberty around the world, and to show those have suffered under the terrible oppression caused by Islam what must be done to take a stand against it.