Firstly, well done David Boaz for allowing us a fitful glimpse at your real potential. Pity about that last patronising remark to "Irfy", though- so silly; spoiled the rest- also apply your advice to him, to yourself first ).
David, you succeeded spectacularly where atleast one other individual failed, in actually contextualising ( most of ) your comments.
This was unlike that individual who mentioned the Almohad reaction in twelfth-century Spain. What wasn't mentioned, of course, was that the general reaction in a previously increasingly tolerant and less militaristic Islamic world, followed the appalling atrocities of the early crusades. A "war on terror", perhaps, was launched by new regimes in places like Egypt, when it became clear that Saladin and other more chivalrous types could not provide an effectual response to Crusaderist savagery.
As for 'refusos' and 'conversos' fleeing intolerance to Holland, one might of thought an excellent place to start here would have been during the reign of "Christian" Ferdinand and Isabella and their successors in the 16th century.
At least David Boaz had the integrity to indirectly acknowlege this, and that's a lot better than others involved here.

I believe these comments in an article I found identify the source of the problem quite well:

On Sunday, Toronto-based columnist, David Warren, wrote in the Ottawa Citizen on the media-instigated uproar that has led to retaliatory attacks in Israel against Christian churches and clergy and the murder of a nun in Somalia.

By manipulating the event, Warren says, the BBC was "having a little mischief. The kind of mischief that is likely to end with Catholic priests and faithful butchered around the Muslim world."

Warren wrote, "The BBC appears to have been quickest off the mark, to send around the world in many languages";word that the Pope had insulted the Prophet of Islam, during an address in Bavaria."

While the pope, Warren said, was not offering a "crude anti-Islamic polemic," the content of the Pope's speech, and his key questions in the dialogue between religions and the secular world, will now be ignored.

Warren pointed to coverage by Rahul Tandon who implied that, since his election as Pope, though Benedict has "surprised many with his attempts to improve dialogue with the Muslim world", there have been signs of his earlier views." These Tandon identified as "theological conservatism."

"From now on." Warren writes, "the reporting will be about the Muslim rage, and whether the Vatican has apologized yet. That is the "drama" the media will seek to capture -- the drama of the cockfight -- because they know no better kind"

As a result those who should not be in Abraham's kitchen are going beserk and anti-Christian bigots are having a field day claiming it is proof positive that Christians are bigots.

Thanks, Ifran, for your eloquent article.

If only you were around when Victorian government was drafting its Racial and Religious Vilification legislation, which is now being used by the Islamic Council of Victoria to silence two Christian pastors who dared open the Koran and critique its contents.

Assuming that you have heard about this case, I am surprised didn’t mention it in your article.

The ICV used the courts and jurisprudence like a heavy club to silence the words of their intellectual opponents right in the heat of Abraham’s kitchen. The legislation has backfired, threatening rights to free speech, stifling debate between Christians and Muslims, creating suspicion and antagonism between the two, the very opposite of what the law intended. Hopefully the Bracks government can repeal the law without too much embarrassment.

Michael Viljoen

Boaz, thanks for your comment that the Muslims have had a rough time recently from GWB. Yet it could be believed that Middle East history over the last 90 years has had us whites, including little Israel, almost pushing them into their own Dark Ages. It is well to remember that it was Muslim scholars, also with a knowledge of Greek philosophy which helped Christians get out of their own Dark Ages, as can be proven by an historical account of the life of St Thomas Aquinas.

As I have mentioned before Boaz, even with the risk of again being called a lefty bleeding heart, we still owe them, and so I have also suggested that we take a lesson not only from the Sermon on the Mount, but also from Nelson Mandela who performed the miracle of softly and almost lovingly calming down the South African white arparthaidists who were much more cruel and callous than most Islamics.

The story of Mandela is probably the most wonderful miracle of the age, Boaz, let's pray that we learn the lesson.

George C - WA

Funguy, the point I was making with snapshots here and there in world history, is that I'm fed up with the Islamic world being painted out as some wonderful carnival of tolerance.

How do you think the "Islamic World" got that way? Through invasion and conquest of course. How do you think formerly Buddhist Pakistan, Afghanistan, Xinjiang and Bangladesh become Muslim? When I lived in Japan I often noted the look of utter disappointment and loss when I mentioned to Japanese students that the fabled Mahayana Buddhist mystical holy land of Gandhara is today none other than the dour, hardline, Sharia-ruled, intolerant Muslim Pakistan. What a devastating let down...Another example - the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan are a long line of Buddhist images to be desecrated by Muslims in Central Asia - it took 20 Century explosives technology and Saudi funding to finally complete the job on these biggest statues of all.

And Funguy, you conveniently ignored the institutionalised debasement of non-Muslims under dhimmitude, didn't you?

You made me cry Irfan, I love your new Tibetan Islamic Buddhist sect, it is more appealing than the Arabic Islamic sect; I don’t know how much Dialect interpretation it takes to read and understand what is and what is not: But for You Irfan , here is the very first “Quranic” conversion to the English language ; published in the year 1732: For the British Parliament; 1000 pages of it. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7440
Although I would remind you in relation to the Jews (WW11) and the great Satan : “USA” and the Atom bomb, you just cant drop that Post-modern solipsism in you moral equivalent; Can you.

Two points that will send the demons screaming:
If Christianity and the Anglo sphere did not do what they had to do in WW11, then it would be a simple uncomplicated fact Irfan. You would not be here today.