Malise Ruthven: Can Islam Be Criticized?

There may be a crucial difference between being seen to trash the image of Muhammad publicly, as in the case of the Danish cartoons and the YouTube clip, and the deconstruction of that image using the tools of modern scholarship. Historian Tom Holland’s recent documentary Islam the Untold Story, based on his book In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, which questions the historicity of the Arabian prophet, drew protests from some Islamic scholars, and Britain’s Channel Four TV network cancelled a screening and public discussion after Holland received a torrent of abusive messages on Twitter. Nevertheless the program went out as scheduled, and it was accessible online. Above all it did not generate riots from Benghazi to Kabul.

Mein Blog befasst sich in einem umfassenden Sinn mit dem Verhältnis von Wissen, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Ein besonderes Augenmerk richte ich dabei auf die Aktivitäten des Medien- und Dienstleistungskonzern Bertelsmann und der Bertelsmann Stiftung.