Stunning offer! Free book rights!

"Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out," the new book from WND Books, stirred the industry before its release with its No. 1 spot in Amazon's Islamic category, and since then has reached the top of the top of the best-sellers list at Shop.WND.com.

Now in an unprecedented move, WND Books and its parent company WorldNetDaily are announcing that the foreign publication rights for the book by former Muslims are being offered free to a Mideast publisher.

The book, which features a picture of an unveiled Muhammad on the cover, already has been condemned by the Council on American Islamic Relations for the contributions of the brave – and few – who have left Islam, defying the death sentence imposed by the Quran for that "offense."

"This book is put out by WND Publishing (sic), which promotes hate every day on its extremist anti-Muslim hate site," Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR, told the New York Daily News.

"If Muslims rioted around the world after a Danish newspaper published a political cartoon making fun of Muhammad, what will they do in response to this?" wondered Joseph Farah, himself a former Middle East correspondent of Lebanese and Syrian ancestry and now the founder and editor of WorldNetDaily.

The book is edited by British journalist Susan Crimp and Islam expert Joel Richardson, using a pseudonym because he already has had death threats against him. It is filled with first-person stories of former radicals who began to question the Quran and ultimately changed their lives.

Khaled Waleed, for instance, said he was indoctrinated with the same type of teaching as fellow Saudi Arabian Osama bin Laden.

"Our teacher and other Islamic scholars told us that as Muslims, we are the best people in the world," he writes. "I listened to my imams and was disturbed when they used abusive language to describe non-Muslims as the grandsons of monkeys and pigs ... [they] told me that it was my duty to revile and ridicule non-Muslims."

Waleed says the attack on the World Trade Center changed him: "On Sept. 11, 2001, I saw the real face of Islam. I saw the happiness on the faces of our people because so many infidels were slaughtered so easily. I saw many people who started thanking Allah for this massacre."

Another former Muslim wrote in "Why I Left Islam": "The Quran is full of verses that teach killing of unbelievers and how Allah would torture them after they die. There are no lessons on morality, justice, honesty, or love. The only message of the Quran is to believe in Allah and his messenger."

Still another added: "I don’t exactly remember what wrote doubt in my mind. Maybe it is Lord Buddha and his teachings or a glance at Jesus and his sufferings…then quite shockingly I realized my beloved prophet is a misfit."

Yet another: "People who have not lived in Dar Al-Islam cannot and will not understand the level of indoctrination Muslims undergo for their entire lives … If you’ve never used your mind but rather simply lived under the culture of submission ("Islam" means "submission"), your ability to think withers."

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times best-sellers ""The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)" and "The Truth about Muhammad," says about "Why I Left Islam":

"Powerfully written and deeply compelling, these accounts of people of conscience who left Islam are rendered all the more poignant by the realization that each one of them, whatever their status or situation, lives under the death sentence mandated by the Muslim Prophet Muhammad for apostates from Islam. This book should be required reading for human rights activists and all those who value the dignity of the human person, so that they will see why this horrific denial of the freedom of conscience within Islam must be resisted by all people of good will."

Foreign rights sales are important to publishers and it's rare that they are offered for free. But officials for WND Books and WorldNetDaily want "the raw and honest stories in 'Why We Left Islam' … read by Muslims around the world, with the goal of sparking an honest discussion about Islam, freedom of speech and human rights in the very lands where Muslims predominate."

The publishers recognize that industry, within the Mideast, "is not noted for its interest in dissenting views."

"It's easy to find elaborately printed copies of the famously anti-Semitic screed 'The Protocol of the Elders of Zion' in bookstores through the region, [but] books that question Islamic practices and history are virtually non-existent," the company stated.

But the new offer is framed to "to propel this fast-growing religion into the sort of self-examination that it desperately needs."

"If we at WorldNetDaily can use 'Why We Left Islam' to bring positive change by giving former Muslims a platform to explain why they abandoned their cherished faith then we've done what books were created to do – educate and liberate," said Eric Jackson, executive vice president for strategy for the company.

WND Books, the publishing division of WorldNetDaily, the Internet's leading independent news site, will review all applicants and offer free rights to the publisher or publishers who best can get the book widely distributed in the region. E-mails from those interested should be directed to [email protected].

Consumers also can obtain individual copies of the book here.