There is another cause, too. The critical analysis of and scholarship around the roots of Christianity has not yet occurred to the same degree with the roots of Islam. A worldwide campaign of intimidation and murder has been exceptionally successful in holding back that tide. Even today in the West the very few people who work on the origins of the Koran and engage in serious Koranic scholarship – such as Ibn Warraq and Christoph Luxenberg – publish their work under pseudonyms. And just as anyone deemed to have blasphemed the religion of Islam in the Muslim-majority world will find their life in danger, so across Europe the people who have engaged in criticism of the sources and the founder of Islam will find themselves under sufficient threat that they either stop, go into hiding or – like Hamed Abdel-Samad in Germany – live under police protection. This has certainly had an effect in protecting Islam for a time and slowing the tide of criticism of its origins and beliefs that is coming its way. Since 1989 the texts, ideas and even images of Islam have become so heavily policed and self-policed even in Western Europe that it would be understandable if a young person becoming politically and religiously aware in the last few decades might have arrived at the conclusion that the one thing our societies really do hold sacred and impervious to ridicule or criticism are the claims and teachings of Mohammed.