Yes. Even though the Koran doesn't advise murder and intolerance? Or does it?

The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books. I was not there, but I will take my oath that it is not the word of the archangel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad obeying the word of god. And like all the other holy books, the Koran is replete with contradiction and incoherence. But incitement to violence?

One of the very few things on which all those texts are very firm is a continual incitement to violence and intolerance. That's consistent in the Bible and the Koran and the Torah, all of the supposed holy books of the desert monotheisms. But only the Muslims have responded with violence in recent times.

No, I would certainly not say that was true. The armed settlers on the West Bank. The people who blow up abortion clinics in the U.S. They believe they don't just have divine permission. They believe they had divine mandate. And it's not possible to say holy books don't tell them that. It's not. Does the British government's P.C.-ness hurt the efforts of moderate Muslims to temper extremism?

Yes, it does, because the granting of audiences and positions to people like Mr. Bunglawala makes the assumption that he's in some way a spokesman, a claim I don't think he could easily prove. It certainly shouldn't be granted. How does that have an impact on moderate Muslims?

It means that they find, to their annoyance, that the most extreme elements in their community are being recognized as interlocutors instead of themselves. I've heard a lot of secular Pakistanis complain that the cops, when they think we better go talk to the community, walk straight past them and head for the imam at the mosque, assuming that he's the one they want to talk to. Which means, of course, pretty soon these are the people who'll be handing out the welfare payments. They'll become the go-to people. Because they'll have a grant from the taxpayers, and they'll be the administrators of it. They will become the reps. It's a big, big mistake. We're going to regret it hugely. Did you know that St. Paul's Cathedral almost invited the families of the bombers to memorial services for the victims?

No. But nothing about the utter fatuity of the Church of England would surprise me. The Church of England supported the fatwa on Salman. In common with the Vatican and the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, they all said the problem was not the offering of money for murder. The problem was blasphemy. They unanimously said that. Well, perfect for me. That's what I thought they thought. Given the choice, which do you think is worse, aids or condoms? Condoms. Which do you think is worse, incitement to murder by an insane, senile theocrat offering money in his own name for the killing of a civilian, or a chapter in a novel you haven't read? Obviously the second is worse. There you have it. This is not from extremists. This is from the mainstream. Lawrence Wright says in his one-man show, "My Trip to al-Qaeda," that getting along with women is a large part of what civilization is about. He got a knowing laugh for the line, and another when he said that it's difficult to be a terrorist if your girlfriend doesn't want you to be one.

They won't have girlfriends, these poor saps. If you look at any Muslim society and you make a scale of how developed they are, and how successful the economy is, it's a straight line. It depends on how much they emancipate their women. It's as simple as that. It is no surprise societies such as Saudi Arabia and Sudan stagnate. And then, not content with stagnating, and imploding, want to export the resulting violence and blame it on a crusader-Zionist conspiracy. This is why the situation that this creates is unbelievably dangerous. Very menacing. Very frightening situation. Because it's self-sustaining. You try and run a society out of the Koran, as the Taliban do … well, everything collapses. The whole society goes into a free fall. And are they going to blame this on their ideology? Of course not. Susan Sontag wrote that September 11 occurred "as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions." Do you think Israel's fight against Muslim fundamentalism is the West's fight?