Human rights transcend local or ethnocentric values, conferring equal dignity and value on all humanity regardless of sex, ethnicity, sexual preference, or religion. It is in the West that human rights are most respected.

Slavery had very little to do with the economic success of the West. Just look at the facts and figures and how much slavery actually contributed to development.

As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next.

Of course slavery and the Muslims were deeply implicated in the slave trade, Islam was an Imperialist religion which destroyed Christianity in the Near East, yet nobody mentions those facts.

Discussions of Western civilization are too often confined to works of high art that reflect a relatively narrow element of public taste and experience.

Not only is the West so successful economically, but it leads the world scientifically, and culturally.

We cannot hope to win the ideological battle against Islam without criticism of Islam, it is essential that we continue to criticize Islam.