You can't just read the Koran to understand Muslim life. You have to look at history, at personalities, at economics, and so on.

Again and again, when Westerners are perceived as denigrating Muhammad, the Koran, or Islam, Islamists demonstrate, riot or kill.

Any Westerner can now buy a Koran for a dollar and burn it, while any Muslim with a platform can transform that act into a fighting offense. As passions rise on both sides of the divide, Western provocateurs and Islamist hotheads have found each other, as confrontations occur with increasing frequency.

I'm a person that just likes to speak the truth, and I don't understand why in America it's such a big deal that we won't read the Koran and we won't look at history.

My career divides in two: before and after 9/11. In the first part I was trying to show that Islam is relevant to political concerns. If you want to understand Muslims, I argued, you need to understand the role of Islam in their lives. Now that seems obvious.

Economics, politics, and personalities are often inseparable.