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This week’s “book I want to read (but haven’t yet)” is Raymond Ibrahim’s Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. The book is pitched as a long, battle-driven military history: landmark encounters, vivid narration, and a claim that these wars illuminate modern hostilities. It’s explicitly framed as “Islam vs. the West” as a historical through-line, and it advertises heavy use of primary sources (notably Arabic and Greek) to tell that story. (Barnes & Noble)

The thesis, as Ibrahim presents it in descriptions and interviews, is that the conflict is not merely politics or economics—it’s substantially religious and civilizational in motive and self-understanding across centuries. In short: jihad (as an animating concept) and sacred duty are treated as durable drivers; key episodes are used to argue continuity rather than accident. Even the “origin story” in some blurbs is framed in explicitly religious terms (conversion demand → refusal → centuries-long jihad on Christendom), which signals the interpretive lens: ideas and theology matter, and they matter a lot. (Better World Books)

Why I’m flagging it for the DWR Sunday Religious Disservice: it’s a strong claim, not a neutral survey—and it’s the kind of claim you should read with a second book open beside it. Supportive reviews praise it as a bracing corrective to “sanitized” histories; skeptical academic commentary warns that it can function as an intervention that frames Islam first and foremost through antagonism and “civilizational conflict,” which can flatten variation across time, place, and Muslim societies. So the honest pitch is: this is Ibrahim’s argument; it may sharpen your sight—or narrow it—depending on what you pair it with. (catholicworldreport.com)

Endnotes

• Publisher/retailer description (scope + primary sources framing): (Barnes & Noble)
• “Origin story” / jihad framing in overview copy: (Better World Books)
• Interview-style framing of “landmark battles” thesis: (Middle East Forum)
• Critical scholarly pushback (civilizational conflict lens): (Reddit)