A congenitally optimistic Canadian I may be, but as a journalist tethered to reality, I can say with some confidence that we may, at last, be on the cusp of a new era of understanding.

Inshallah, God willing.

Notes

1 The Politics

2. Associated Press, “Afghan Violence Spikes to Record Levels,” October 1, 2007.

4. G. Burnham, et al., “Mortality After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: A Cross-sectional Cluster Sample Survey,” The Lancet 368, October 2006, 1421-28.

6. Hamit Dardagan, co-founder of Iraq Body Count, in an interview with the author, September 2007.

8. Pew Global Attitudes Project, “The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims View Each Other,” June 22, 2006.

9. UNICEF report on the effects of economic sanctions on Iraq, 1999.

10. CBS, 60 Minutes, December 5, 1996.

11. Figures as of 2002. Time, November 11, 2002.

12. Human Rights Watch, “US: Close Legal Loopholes Allowing Contractors to Act with Impunity: US Contractors in Iraq, Afghanistan Must Be Held Liable for Criminal Activity,” October 2, 2007.

13. New York Times editorial, “Abu Ghraib Swept Under the Carpet,” August 30, 2007.

14. Amnesty International, “Below the Radar: Secret Flights to Torture and ‘Disappearances,’” April 4, 2006.

16. Deborah Charles, “Justice Dept. Report Faults Post-9/11 Detention Practice,” Washington Post, June 2, 2003.

17. “Targets of Suspicion: The Impact of Post-9/11 Polices on Muslims, Arabs and South Asians in the U.S.,” Immigration Policy in Focus, Vol. 3, Issue 2, May 2004.

18. Haroon Siddiqui, “Ayatollah Ashcroft’s Law,” Toronto Star, June 12, 2003.

19. Criminal Terrorism Enforcement, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, TRAC, Syracuse University, September 4, 2006.

20. James Yee, For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005).

22. The “torture memo” was written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, a.k.a. Dr. Yes, August 2002.

23. Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen, “Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations,” New York Times, October 4, 2007.

25. UN News Center, New York, “Confronting Islamophobia,” December 7, 2004.

26. Tariq Ali, Bush in Babylon: The Recolonization of Iraq (London: Verso, 2003), 214.

27. International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, www.ihf-hr.org/documents; Cornell University, www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Dec.04/muslim.poll.bpf.htm/; Associated Press, “Warning Issued on Rising Racism in Europe,” September 14, 2004; BBC, “Anti-Muslim Bias Spreads in EU,” March 7, 2005, www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/Europe/4325225.stm; The Times, London, “Muslims Face Rising Suspicion in Europe,” December 19, 2004; Claudia Deane and Darryl Frears, “Negative Perception of Islam Increasing,” Washington Post, March 9, 2006.

28. Dennis Prager on Townhall.com, November 28, 2006.

29. The sayings of the Prophet have been drawn mainly from three sources: Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, trans./ed., Sahih Al-Bukhari Summarized, Arabic-English, (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Dar-us-Salam Books, 1994); Abdullah al-Suharwady, Sayings of Muhammad (Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1905, 1995); Thomas Cleary, trans. The Wisdom of the Prophet: Sayings of Muhammad (Boston: Shambhala, 2001).

30. Arab Human Development Report, United Nations, 2004.

31. Quotations from the Qur’an are mostly from M.M. Pickthall, The Qur’an Translated (Washington, DC, ICSFP, 2005).

32. Eric Ormsby, “From Arabic to Hebrew,” New York Times Magazine, May 6, 2007, a review of The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, 950-1492, by Peter Cole (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).

2 European Muslims

2. Agence France Presse, “Mohammed Likely to Top British Boys’ Name,” June 6, 2007.