Even I cannot fault Irfan Yusuf on this.

The fact that Islam was tolerant of other faiths - perhaps even more tolerant than the other faiths were of Islam - and Muslims used scholarly argument rather than violence - is to be found in history books available to anyone who cares to read them.

Now, the other religions have moved forward, but Islam has become more confrontationist, more violent and less able to deal with inevitable and relatively harmless criticism?

I wonder why this is.

You are one of the moderate voices within Islam Irfan,

The Pope, known as a scholar and intellectual, made comment on a period of history. Even if their veracity is historically debateable, it is as you say, they show current significance and are confirmed as a truth. Your voice counters this.

Good artcile Irfan,

Ignorance of each other beliefs and can only be dealt with through dialogue. Answering ignorance with violence is not the way forward.
Dialogue should be the one and only way forward to progress humanity.

Welll.. a 7 fold amen to Irfan for this article. In short 'EXACTLY'.

Liegh...I suspect that the tolerance you mention in Spain was due to the rather firm hold the Muslims had on the place. They did not feel threatened.

Today, such is not the case. We have pseudo "Messiah" GWB and company, and the 'American Century Project' etc.. and with the Tabuk style "Hi Mohamed I'm on the same page as you now"(GWB) pre-emptive attacks on those suspected of harbouring possible 'anti US feelings',
the Islamic world feels like it is getting the rough end of the historical stick.... and indeed it is. But I say 'what goes around comes around'.

I also suspect, that even in Spain, if anyone made serious criticism of Mohammed himself, things might have been different, but I'm only guessing there.

We don't need 'religious vilification laws' we need robust adherants to their faiths who CAN stand the heat and give a good response to what is said about them.

Things I am not afraid of being spoken harshly and openly about:

1/ Genocides in the Old Testament.
2/ Atrocities perpetrated by the Catholic Church in South America and during the Inquisition.
3/ European religious wars... Catholics V Protestants, v anabaptists v Calvinists etc etc...
4/ Crusades and the associated land grabs and blood baths.
5/ Christ's sexuality (sometimes claimed by homosexual activists to have been homosexual)

To me, each of the above is a wonderful gateway to a better understanding of God and knowing Him in Christ.

In the same way, Muslims must not be afraid to have Mohamed and Islam itself criticized on the basis of their own foundation documents.

Robust debate does not mean you "hate" your opponent. :)
The belief that anothers ideas are wrong and distasteful, should bring compassion toward him for his ignorance, however sincere he is.

Irfy.. you could do well to re-visit this truth

It's a good article, and along with the other posters, I can't help but agree.

Now I've never been one to be shy about blasphemy, though I prefer to blaspheme in a respectable manner, and use at least, semi reasoned arguments.

There was a time (and, yeah, it was long ago) when criticism of christianity was similarly abhorred. Think joan-of-arc and galileo.

Fortunately, the Christian world has been able to evolve beyond this, and I believe this is due in part to the fact that a higher proportion of Christian believers live in the first world.

Yeah, this is going to be one of those soft lefty dialogues, but bear with me.
Sure plenty of christians live in poor countries - but the establishment and spread of christianity came about via the dissemination from the comparatively developed western world - missionaries, colonists and the like. Thus, the establishment of the religion was founded in this way.

Now plenty of muslims, and dare I say the majority, have evolved their beliefs similarly. One need look no further than the posts of Irfan and Fellow Human. Again, two people who have not (and I'm making an assumption here) spent their lives growing up surrounded by fundamentalist, third world dogma.

Basically, what I'm getting at is belief begets belief. It isn't the precise nature of christianity or islam that is causing difficulty here, it is the interpretation, and one who has been raised in an unsophisticated dogmatic environment will adopt that. Be it a christian dogma, muslim, hindu or even republican (sorry, couldn't resist).

It isn't just the muslim faith - this hypothesis is corroborated by the horror stories you hear coming out of poorest india, or the tribesmen of west papua.

And just to add another point to that - the rise and fall of the sophistication and peaceful attitudes in the muslim faith can be tied to the affluence of the middle east.

While the western world was scrabbling around getting its act together, the muslim world was studying the stars and philosophy.

Now the bulk of the muslim world is poor, and hey hey, the people there have regressed somewhat in their acceptance of other faiths... I guess what I'm getting at is that it is the sophistication of the individual that determines their reaction to a criticism of their faith. Not the faith itself.