Al-Kindi: It is fitting for us not to be ashamed of acknowledging truth, and to assimilate it from whatever source it comes to us. There is nothing of higher value than truth itself. It never cheapens or abases he who seeks. ibid.
At Claremont the Pope commanded the knights of Europe to capture what he believed were rightfully Christian cities and kill any Muslims that stood in their way. Rageh Omaar, Christianity: A History s1e4: Crusades, Channe 4 2009
What followed was the first major massacre of the Crusades. Hundreds perhaps thousands of Muslims were butchered here. From now on this kind of wholesale slaughter would be the calling card of Crusaders in many of the cities they conquered. ibid.
Most people will find it hard to believe that the Crusaders committed acts of cannibalism, but these acts were actually recorded by the Crusaders themselves. ibid.
But it was events in the twentieth century that transformed Saladin into a cult figure. The War against the Crusaders is now seen as Islam’s greatest victory against the West. ibid.
But yet in Europe I am struck by the opposite: by the absence of history and the knowledge of this chapter of Christian history. ibid.
1,400 years ago a man born here in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, changed the course of world history. For one a half billion Muslims he is the last and greatest of that long line of prophets who brought the word of God to humanity. He laid the foundations for a religion – Islam. Rageh Omaar, The Life of Muhammad 1/3: The Seeker, BBC 2011
To the north was Christian Byzantium ... To the east was ... the remains of the great Persian empire. ibid.
Most recently a Danish cartoon portrayed him as a terrorist with a bomb in his turban. This led to an explosion of anger and protest right across the Muslim world. ibid.
An orphan at the tender age of six. ibid.
The charge by some historians is that after Muhammad’s death Muslim historians deliberately exaggerated the importance of Mecca. ibid.
According to Muslim tradition Muhammad was meditating as usual and he fell asleep. But then suddenly he awoke in abject terror, his body was shaking uncontrollably. He later described the experience as if an angel had him in such a tight suffocating embrace that he felt that his life was being squeezed out of him. ibid.
His illiteracy has become central to their faith. ibid.
In Mecca, Muhammad and his followers were now public enemy number one. ibid.
Muhammad is then supposed to receive another revelation that told him his apparent acceptance of the old gods had actually been inspired by Satan. Hence, why these verses were later called The Satanic Verses. ibid.
This issue was then taken over by Ayatollah Khamenei, the then leader of the Islamic republic of Iran, who declared a fatwa ... The fatwa has never been lifted. ibid.
According to Muslim tradition one night after falling asleep at the kazbah in Mecca Muhammad was transported on a metaphysical journey to a place hundreds of miles north, a city that is also holy to Christians and Jews – Jerusalem. Rageh Omaar, The Life of Muhammad 2/3: Holy Wars
He would abandon his tribal life completely. ibid.
Muhammad was now not only the prophet of a new religion, he was also effectively the political leader of the community here in Medina. ibid.
One Muslim group though the Sufis claim to try to replicate Muhammad’s mystical experience of God through intense prayer, the chanting of God’s name and singing verses from the Koran. Rageh Omaar, The Life of Muhammad 3/3: Holy Peace
Sharia Law – the sacred law of Islam – is very different: it only came into existence two centuries after Muhammad’s death. ibid.
This act of veiling or covering has had a profound effect on Muslim women, and also how the outside world views Muslims’ attitudes to women in general. ibid.
In January 630 [A.D.] the Prophet gathered a massive army of ten thousand men and marched towards Mecca ... Muhammad declared he forgave all his former enemies. ibid.
Within just a generation of Muhammad’s death his closest companions and family were already squabbling, breaking out into open and bloody warfare that led to the deep schism that still exists in the Muslim world today, between Sunni and Shia. ibid.
Divine in form, sacred in function: holy buildings are amongst the most beautiful and the most enduring achievements of mankind. John McCarthy, Art of Faith: Islam, Sky Arts 2008
The Muslims built the first great masterpiece of Islamic art: the Dome of the Rock. ibid.
One of the most significant of these early mosques was built at Kairouan in modern Tunisia. ibid.
The advancing Muslim armies took control of much of Spain. ibid.
Everyone calls this the Blue Mosque but it’s official name is Sultan Ahmed Mosque. ibid.
The Taj Mahal ... remains serene, glowing and glorious, a sublime achievement of beauty and faith. ibid.
Assyafaah Mosque, Singapore: completed in 2004. ibid.
They are centres for communities and venues for learning. ibid.
Only 15% of Muslims are Arab. Inside Islam – What a Billion Muslims Really Think, 2009
Does the West Respect the Muslim World? – No ... The majority of Americans agreed. ibid.
Militants ... A fraction of 1%. ibid.
A distorted vision of a wider reality. ibid.
There’s very little difference between men’s and women’s agreement that women should be working in any job they are qualified for. ibid.
Terrorism they believe is against their faith. ibid.
America simply not seeing them as equals. ibid.
7% we found said that 9/11 was completely justified. ibid.
They are as likely as the American public to reject attacks targeting civilians. ibid.
The primary victims of terrorists are Muslims. ibid.
1%: they are politically radical ... They really fit the profile of a revolutionary rather than a political zealot. ibid.
Of course he’s [Muhammad] not a prophet. I mean he is an epileptic plagiarist. He’s a man who went into spasm to order, and summoned the same angel as he was jealous of the Christians for having ... It’s a boring plagiarism of the worst bits of Judaism and Christianity. Unoriginal rip-off by someone who is clearly mentally ill. Christopher Hitchens, ‘Islam and the West’
But Islam when examined is not much more than an obvious ill-arranged set of plagiarisms. Christopher Hitchens
Islam is currently undergoing a convulsion of violence, and that is the problem we face. It doesn’t seem to be able to find enough textual authority for any of its mullahs to really denounce the idea of Holy War. But President Bush is in a position where he hopes for the emergence of secularism in the Muslim world. Christopher Hitchens, interview Iraq: Conflict & Hope
The Muslim world can know no peace until everyone has become Muslim. Christopher Hitchens, interview Divine Impulses
The Wahhabi want to kill the Shia; the Shia really hate the Wahabi. Get used to it. Anyone who says, don’t let’s offend Muslim opinion doesn’t know what Muslim opinion is. Doesn’t know what happened in Afghanistan. Doesn’t know what’s happening in Iran and Iraq now. There is no such thing as a unified Muslim opinion. There never will be. Christopher Hitchens, in conversation with Stephen Fry
The Labour government in Britain ... made the historic mistake in assuming that these communities are represented by their mosques, their mullahs. Christopher Hitchens, interview Reddit online
I know a number of the editors declined to publish those cartoons in the United States. One paper in Canada did. One in France, or two. I think one in Sweden. That was about it. All of them had a hard time. Christopher Hitchens, lecture ‘Islam and the West’
There is a civil war within Islam. ibid.
The toxic form that religion takes is the Islamic form. Christopher Hitchens v Rabbi David Wolpe, debate Boston 2010
Don’t waste my time. It’s bullshit. ibid.
There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all. It initially fulfilled a need among Arabs for a distinctive or special creed, and is forever identified with their language and their impressive later conquests. Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great p129
Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require. ibid. p129
It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing – absolutely nothing – in its teachings that even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption. ibid. p129