The American voter needs to be aware of what is happening in our country. NancyStealth Jihad in the West: A Conversation with Robert Spencer
Grégoire Canlorbe, a journalist, currently lives in Paris. He has conducted interviews for journals such as Man and the Economy, founded by Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase, and think tanks such as Mises Institute and Gatestone Institute. Contact: gregoire.canlorbe@wanadoo.fr
September 16, 2026EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: The U.S. faces a similar threat from short-sighted and self-serving leaders of our own. The Democrats are busy encouraging the growth of Muslim political power while insisting on ignoring the political, supremacist, expansionist and violent aspects of Sharia. Few politicians are aware of the nature and magnitude of the threat, or are resolved to do anything about it. If this continues, we will eventually face our own May 29, 1453 — the fall of Constantinople to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II after a 53-day siege
- Stealth jihad is well advanced in the U.S., with the entire American left enabling and aiding the expansion of Muslim political power, without realizing or caring that they are supporting a radically intolerant and supremacist ideology.
- We see in particular [in Europe] the increase of churches being bought and transformed into mosques. Muslims in general prefer this to building new buildings: the transformation of a church into a mosque is for them a visible manifestation of Islam’s victory, superiority over Christianity, and coming hegemony.
- Hundreds of years of jihad attacks weakened and ultimately destroyed the Roman Empire in Constantinople. The failure to get help from the West… played a large role in Constantinople’s ultimate fall, as well as disunity among the leaders of the empire itself. Some were even short-sighted and self-serving enough to seek and obtain help from Muslim forces.
- The U.S. faces a similar threat from short-sighted and self-serving leaders of our own. The Democrats are busy encouraging the growth of Muslim political power, while insisting on ignoring the political, supremacist, expansionist and violent aspects of Sharia. Few politicians are aware of the nature and magnitude of the threat, or are resolved to do anything about it. If this continues, we will eventually face our own May 29, 1453 — the fall of Constantinople ….
- [P]robably all religions are affected, even though there are some notable individuals who have not been afraid to speak out — or prevented from doing so.
- Robert Bruce Spencer is a Christian American scholar writing on topics including Islam, Orthodoxy, and the Byzantine Empire. The director of Jihad Watch, he is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He has led seminars on Islam and jihad for organizations like the FBI, the United States Central Command, and the U.S. intelligence community.
- Grégoire Canlorbe: Please tell us about the different ways of jihad. What is the extent of their work in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world?
Robert Spencer: There are many forms of jihad. Besides armed jihad, there is jihad of the tongue, jihad of the pen, jihad of the pocketbook and many more. The goal of all of them is to destroy the existing order of non-Muslim states and replace that order with the hegemony of Sharia.
Stealth jihad is well advanced in the U.S., with the entire American left enabling and aiding the expansion of Muslim political power, without realizing or caring that they are supporting a radically intolerant and supremacist ideology. In Europe, this process is already even farther advanced due to the high level of Muslim migration, which could lead to civil war, as well as, demographically, to Islamic states on the continent — and in Britain — before the end of this century. Russia is not exempt from this phenomenon, but currently has fewer Muslims, and therefore less jihad.
Canlorbe: How do you assess the future of America, which was founded as a Christian nation?
- Spencer: America has, to a much lesser extent than Europe but nevertheless unmistakably, cast off its Christian heritage to a tremendous degree. The popular culture, educational system and mass media are actively anti-Christian, and have managed a large-scale transformation of public attitudes and beliefs over the last half-century. This has created a vacuum which Islam is eager to fill, as it is doing in Europe. We see in particular the increase of churches being bought and transformed into mosques. Muslims in general prefer this to building new buildings: the transformation of a church into a mosque is for them a visible manifestation of Islam’s victory, superiority over Christianity, and coming hegemony.Canlorbe: You write about the Byzantine civilization and how it preserved the legacy of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem. What were those values it inherited? How did they contribute to making the Byzantine world so different both from the Islamic civilization, and from Catholic Europe?
- Spencer: The Byzantines, who always referred to themselves simply as Romans and believed they were simply Romans living in the Roman Empire, were responsible — not the Muslims, as is commonly claimed — for preserving the classics of ancient pre-Christian Greek literature. These writings were the foundation of the Byzantine curriculum right up until it fell in 1453. The writings of Plato and Aristotle, as well as of literary figures such as Aeschylus and Euripides, laid the foundations of the Western political, philosophical, scientific and literary traditions. As such, their influence is still felt today even among people who never read their works or even heard of them.Islamic civilization developed quite differently. We hear a great deal about the Muslim philosophers who influenced Thomas Aquinas and others; we hear less about how they were considered heretics among Muslims. Al-Ghazali condemned them in The Incoherence of the Philosophers and effectively killed the Islamic philosophical tradition. It continued, but under a cloud and never with as much influence as it had before. Even worse, al-Ghazali, for all of his own philosophical accomplishment, reinforced an anti-intellectualism in the Islamic world that retarded scientific development and persists to this day.
- Catholic Europe, likewise, had little knowledge of Plato and Aristotle until Gemistos Plethon began lecturing on their works in Florence in the mid-fifteenth century, leading to the Renaissance. The debt that the West owes to Byzantium is as immense as it is little noted.Canlorbe: How do you account for the fall of Constantinople? What lessons should the U.S. draw from that event in the history of the West?
Spencer: Hundreds of years of jihad attacks weakened and ultimately destroyed the Roman Empire in Constantinople. The failure to get help from the West, stemming from suspicions arising from the Great Schism, played a large role in Constantinople’s ultimate fall, as well as disunity among the leaders of the empire itself. Some were even short-sighted and self-serving enough to seek and obtain help from Muslim forces.
- The U.S. faces a similar threat from short-sighted and self-serving leaders of our own. The Democrats are busy encouraging the growth of Muslim political power while insisting on ignoring the political, supremacist, expansionist and violent aspects of Sharia. Few politicians are aware of the nature and magnitude of the threat, or are resolved to do anything about it. If this continues, we will eventually face our own May 29, 1453 — the fall of Constantinople to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II after a 53-day siege.Canlorbe: When it comes to the sin of self-imposed submission to Islam, do you believe that some religions are more affected than others?
Spencer: No, probably all religions are affected, even though there are some notable individuals who have not been afraid to speak out — or prevented from doing so.
Grégoire Canlorbe, a journalist, currently lives in Paris. He has conducted interviews for journals such as Man and the Economy, founded by Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase, and think tanks such as Mises Institute and Gatestone Institute. Contact: gregoire.canlorbe@wanadoo.fr
