Boreal

Birds of a Feather

Reads well, but shops would be very reluctant to stock something on this subject that isn't by a scholar or authority of some kind or other. If you could get some endorsements.

In looking to satisfy a publisher’s requirement that I obtain the endorsement of a recognized religious expert before they would consider publishing Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice, the then Rector of Ottawa's Saint Paul University arranged for me to meet with an eminent European theologian and guest lecturer who had written extensively on Islam and the Koran.

He asked if my book presented the Koran and the Prophet in a positive light.

I said "no, not always."

He declined to even glance at my manuscript.

"There was no point," he explained "the Bible also contains questionable passages, and for him to endorse a book that offered even mild criticisms of the Koranic text was to invite retaliation in kind, which would only benefit the enemies of religion."

I was reminded of this meeting when I read that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Douglas Williams, had chastised the British government for urging Muslims to discard the face covering veil, the niqab, warning that if they did, "they would advance the cause of secularism in British society.”

Bernard Payeur, October 30, 2006