You must understand that Islam is a fundamentally violent religion, as opposed to Christianity. These words were spoken to me in Islamabad in 1994 by an apostate professor whose name I cannot reveal here, because apostasy, under traditional Islam, means death.
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Back then, my knowledge about Islam was limited. The professors two sentences, moreover, formed a sharp contrast with the things another Pakistani in Islamabad had said to me about Islam. This was a friend who, I would later realize, had given me a picture of Islam based on the things Muhammed had said and done in the years immediately after he had claimed to have been vouchsafed revelations by the angel Gabriel a time, that is, when the founder of Islam was powerless, mild-mannered, merciful, and humble.
In time, I came to understand that my friend had helped herself to the more delectable morsels from the Islamic candy dish and tossed out the not-so-tasty ones. In Islam, however (and no Islamic scholar will dispute this), it is Muhammeds unpalatable later statements and actions that is, the ones attributed to Muhammed, the man of great worldly power that have the last word.
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Pakistan is not the Pakistan you last visited in 2004, warned friends of mine before my visit. On my arrival in Islamabad, which until a few years ago was considered a free Western enclave, my friends advised me: Dont say a word in public about Muhammed or Islam. A fear of terrorism lay over the capital like a thick carpet.
