Michael, I'm too tired right now to comment in details your brilliant input, as I'd wished; but just wanted you to know how much I appreciate what you wrote.

And to add something VERY important - not only it's hard to point some great variety of Islamic cultural and scientific (or any kind, really) contributions, but Muslims are famous with their destructive nature of ruling during their yokes in Europe - they destroyed not only churches, insolently building mosques over their remains, but they also burned historical, literature and Christian religious books, thus trying to falsify - or simply erase - history of whole countries and events. There is no monetary measures to estimate the greatness of the loss they caused. The "great" ottoman empire was rotting from inside with greed, ignorance, bigotry, narrow-mindness, indolence and corruption, but they successfully managed to delay the development of many countries, and while the rest of the world was experiencing the Renaissance, these nations were struggling to simply survive in the conditions of maximum oppression and tyranny.

For a "religion" that was born latest from all the other biggest religions, http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/Religion.swf - for reference, and one that had impudently stolen their philosophical and religion admonitions from the rest of the above mentioned religions, it's mighty pathetic to try and claim superiority, and kill in the name of this delusion.

Thank you, Michael, for yet another piece of your thoughts worthy of bookmarking.

Why are you not writing on the subject?
Seriously?
I know you're a pornographer,, and I know you're good, but why, in the name of all that's holy are you not writing?

Excellent Michael...I loved that. Very courageous, and oh so true. Shalom.

Mr Lucas,

As a British Asian gay Muslim, it saddens me that you continue to spread your unreserved hatred for anything remotely Islamic. The points you raise in your response to the article in the Stanford Daily are fundamentally flawed, inaccurate and false. They have no grounding in history and are your personal, narrow minded and unsupported beliefs which have quite clearly been shaped by your stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Before I justify my points I would like to make clear that attempts to pass free speech as propaganda, which is what you have done to the writer of the article in the Stanford Daily, is as bad as propaganda itself. At least have the audacity to debase the points which were raised in the article before descending in to a typical xenophobic rant on how awful the Muslims are.

Firstly, who accused you of being a “stupid westerner”? If you believe that Rousseau, Hobbes, Burke and Europe’s great thinkers developed their philosophies in a little “Western” bubble then you are seriously mistaken. Nor do you have a racial right to claim these as your heirs. Philosophy whether it stems from Vedic, Islamic, Confucian or secular enlightenment is not about race. And attempts to do so, as you have done, only works to the disservice of what you claim to celebrate. And it is not a “fairy tale” that some great thinkers were Muslim. Ibn Khaldun, a Muslim from North Africa was a great philosopher and is in-fact considered by many to be one of the founding fathers of the social sciences. In addition the system of education in many academic institutions is based on an Islamic-model of supervision by the Professor. By highlighting this, I am not suggesting that Muslims are superior or that if it were not for the Muslims that Europe would be a backwater – but what I am highlighting is that Judeo-Christian civilisations and the Islamic civilisations interacted and as a result exchanged in science and the arts. It is not a matter of “who is better”. Comments like “mathematics was not invented by Islamists”, when many great Mathematicians were Muslims smacks of bigotry and racism. And attempts reduce figures like Plato to tools for nationalism and hatred for other civilisations and cultures as you have done, completely contradicts the philosophies of the philosophers themselves.

Secondly, Muslims are not monolithic and it is not affair to accuse them in general for all that is wrong in the world. Nor is it fair to blame them for history. In reference to Lebanon you comment that “you began strongly Islamizing [Lebanon] in the 1970s; today your dirty job there is nearly done.” By “you” do you mean the Muslims? Am I responsible for what happened in Lebanon in the 1970s before I was even born? Or do you believe it’s my fault because I’m Muslim? If anything your attempts to dehumanise Muslims, blame them for everything that is wrong and ridicule them as “bearded Mullahs” reflects only your xenophobic and blatantly racist beliefs.

Finally, I wanted comment on the issue of second class citizens. The idea of being a second class citizen is abhorrent. But pointing fingers at Ottoman Muslims in the 18th century is pointless. If you really cared about the issue of minority rights perhaps you should look more closely at the treatment of Palestinians in Israel, the impact of the apartheid wall on their lives and the existence of Jewish-only roads not to mention the Jewish-only settlements in illegally occupied land – on this let me end with a memorable quote from a former US President which held human rights close to his heart. “In the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, the Palestinian Territory apartheid exists in its more despicable forms.”

With Peace,
Kanai, London

Dear Mr. British Asian Gay Muslim,

I certainly have no time to address your long and repetitive monologue. But I think you missed the point of my latest article. Which was the simple question: What has the Muslim contribution been to humanity? I gave you names and I told you there are thousands more, from musicians to philosophers to scientists to poets to entertainers. The list of Christians and Jews is way too long and as I said would take days to write, and even then it would not be complete.

So could you please enlighten me with several names of the followers of the Prophet who actually contributed to any of the above mentioned-by-you areas and fields? I repeat, I only know about Averroe and Omar Quyam. You are only able to come up with Ibn Khaldun, whom I would not compare to Plato or Aristotle or Homer and Spinoza and company, just the same as I would not put Omar Quyam on the same level as Shakespeare.

So can you squeeze a few more names out for me? As far as I see, your letter still is just a bunch of words with no names to back it up with. And the reason why is simple... there are no other names. So enough with bullshit, Mr. British Asian Gay Muslim. If you cannot come up with names, then shut your big mouth.

With Peace back to you,
-Michael Lucas

I am glad to see Michael your reply to the British Muslim Gay, I myself am not British but English and have also listened to this repetitive nonsense from muslims on the TV and again when they are challenged to give names and accomplishments they dont have much !! I am glad you point this out Michael. Islam is an odd religion, its founder was a man called Mohammed who started out as a reasonably good man, but is a classic example of power going to his head and turns into a very bad man, when he asks mr god what he thinks of him god says mohammed is a great sinner, this is in the Koran. Effectively he cobbled together some ideas based on judaism and a bit of christianity and claimed it came from god or at least an angel! he was very unsuccessful and all his original followers left and became christian. he had tried working for a living and marrying a rich old lady but decided in the end robbery and murder paid better and to this end set up a gang of hoodlums or desert pirates! they stole and murdered people and he came out with prophesies to justify it all. women are second class because he had people executed for adultery and was then caught byone wife having sex in her bed with woman he was not married to, with his lawyers mind he invented the idea that a womans opinion was only worth half a man and so got off his own death sentence. he enjoyed raping women and one of his wives was only six years old, which disgusted the people of his time , he tried to encourage this behaviour but in his own time he was unsuccessful in this. His prophesies and knowledge from god was of course wrong he insists that moses had a sister miriam who was the mother of jesus and they were therefore contemporaries, this revelation proved rather embarassing in his own lifetime ! he does seem to have been cowardly but rather good at military tactics and planning. the koran is wrong in many many areas it is a mishmash of jewish and christian ideas and myths but often in wrong order etc. after his death there is effectively a dogfight about who will get control of the 'empire' but it is run tolerantly for a long time eventually some 50 to 70 years after his death they look back and try to gather together the info about mohammed and his times. the empire becomes increasingly a caliphate with central power and dictatorship and so the need to justify this with an historical idea. this is when the koran is written down, it contains many errors is largely incomprehensible and even contains verses that date to before the time of mohammed , it is written in syriac which is not the original lanaguage of mohammed, the life of mohammed was written down but later the life story had to be 'altered' to fit with moslem beliefs the version we have was written nearly 200 years after his death! also there are many discrepancies between contemporary accounts, the archeology on the one hand and on the other muslim beliefs - for instance muslim belief tells us that they worship in the direction of mecca, but contemporaries tell us they worship in the direction of jerusalem, what is the truth?, well all early mosques and muslim burials point to jerusalem it is getting on for 200 years before they point to mecca!and before the time of mohammed many aristocratic arabs were abrahamists who believed in the one god of the jews and christians further the dome of the rock mosque was not built by muslims but by abrahamists and its original purpose and build puts direction of prayer to the rock not mecca further it was open to all religions and people who believed in one god not just the followers of mohammed, later as muslims got control of empire it became a muslim mosque and they made sure others were not allowed in. the mosque dome of the rock was built long after the death of mohammed but before anyone had seen a koran and yet it is claimed that mohammed went to this dome of the rock mosque and had visions there, most extraordinary as it did not exist in his lifetime! i am afraid islam is a pack of lies from start to finish. so how do these cults become mainstream, well look at mormonism or in our own times the much maligned but generally harmless scientologists - complete rubbish can be very popular !!!

Very well said Mr. Lucas. Keep letting your voice be heard.