Muhammad: A Critical Biography

By Robert Spencer
(Bombardier Books, 352 pages, $35)
As the usual pace of American life slowed with the approach of the Thanksgiving holiday, one of the headlines that went unnoticed involved a decapitation. The Daily Mail reported that in France on the Tuesday before the holiday, a Muslim schoolgirl broke down in tears in court over the Oct. 16, 2020, murder of a French schoolteacher. Eighteen-year-old Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Chechen asylum-seeker, cut off Samuel Paty’s head. Anzorov was killed by police a short time later.
Anzorov was inspired to commit the murder by the social media posts of the girl’s father, Brahim Chnina. The reason? The girl claimed Paty had ordered Muslim students out of the classroom while he showed satirical pictures of the Prophet Muhammad that had originally appeared in the magazine Charlie Hebdo. Paty had shown the pictures in class as part of an ethics discussion but told Muslim students they could turn away if they wished.
The girl was not even in the class for the incident. She had been suspended from school for bad behavior and did not want to tell her parents the truth. Hence, the lie about Paty. On Tuesday, she told Paty’s family:
I know it’s hard to hear, but I wanted to apologise... I wanted to apologise sincerely. I’m sorry for destroying your life. I apologise for my lie that brought us all back here. Without me, no one would be here.
The girl made the statement during the trial of eight adults who are accused of being connected to Paty’s murder. A child lying to her parents about being suspended from school is not remarkable. The murder that resulted from it is — based on beliefs that are hundreds of years in the making.
The same can be said of those who chanted “From the river to the sea,” in many cases completely unaware of the river and sea to which they were referring, and who often supported the brutal Oct. 7 attack that launched the latest war in the region. The attack itself was the product...