Karen Armstrong

At the Guardian, Karen Armstrong, author of The Battle for God, A History of God, and The Great Transformation among others, takes the Pope to task for his recent comments and manages to drop these pearls of wisdom.

Our Islamophobia dates back to the time of the Crusades, and is entwined with our chronic anti-semitism.

Let's see wouldn't that instead date to about right here.

It was when the Christians of Europe were fighting brutal holy wars against Muslims in the Middle East that Islam first became known in the west as the religion of the sword.

See comment above.

Until the middle of the eighth century, Jews and Christians in the Muslim empire were actively discouraged from conversion to Islam, as, according to Qur'anic teaching, they had received authentic revelations of their own.

Of course the reluctance to force conversion wouldn't have anything to do with the special head tax and the land tax that infidels and not Moslems had to pay. Or with the desire to keep the faith within the hands of a small military elite ruling over a subject population. No, not all.