Middle Eastern Signals Demand Our Attention

Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini befuddled the West once again early this year, when he offered millions to anyone who would kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses. While diplomats, publishers, and writers fumed about the outrageous murder contract, no doubt the public’s vision of Islam — and that of many Christians as well — was further blurred.

Lessons to learn from the way Christian writers have reacted to Muslims and the Islamic faith.

John Esposito, arguably the most influential non-Muslim American scholar on Islam, at times sounds prophetic. His book The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (1992) suggests Islam is a threat to the West—particularly America.