A cosmic war is like a ritual drama in which participants act out on Earth a battle they believe is actually taking place in the heavens.

Over the last few years, the Islamic world has produced more female presidents and prime ministers than both Europe and North America combined.

When I was in the US, I felt that the discourse there surrounding Muslims as the other, problematising Muslims and Islam as the other was very similar to what we find in Australia, which is that the image of Islam is a constructed image in the West. We are starting from a point of view that Islam and Muslims - well Islam is a violent, misogynistic, hateful religion and that is where the debate always starts from - that presumption underlies the discourse.

A cosmic war is like a ritual drama in which participants act out on Earth a battle they believe is actually taking place in the heavens.

Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament and fluency in Biblical Greek who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades who also happens to be Muslim.

My biography of Jesus is probably the first popular biography that does not use the New Testament as its primary source material.

It is the job of the historian to say what is likely, and of faith to say what is possible.