Very interesting and provocative study of Islam. As always, it is a minuscule bunch of radicals, using and unproved fact as a tool for control of the people

thank you ibn warraq for your courage and insight into a relgion that enslaves its followers by denying them the right to leave islam.

This essay should have included a reference to iconoclasm, the 8th-century Byzantine Christian anti-image movement that overlaps with the early centuries of Islam. My understanding is that the iconoclast/iconodule controversy helps account for the paucity of 3-D religious Byzantine art. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm for some basics

U people are still in dark, Prophet Mohammad(P.B.U.H) was messenger of Almighty God, he wanna save whole mankind from hell.

Re: Mr. Sayles statement: "They have elastic standards for themselves, but extremely rigid for all others."

I think it much more accurate to state:

"He has elastic standards for himself, but extremely rigid for all others."

The Morlocks are conquering the Eloi. H.G. Wells predicted as much over a century ago.

A wonderful historical review that reveals the tragic irony of our liberal West's bankruptcy in moral courage as we endeavour to promote 'freedom'— a freedom that eludes many under the yoke of bigoted clerics. Additionally, it is the impoverished intellectual and artistic wasteland of Islam's 1,000 year prohibition on intellectual freedom, the suppression of ijtihad (the mental correlate of physical struggle—jihad) that has resulted in the religious intolerance of the Taliban and other extremists.

It seems to me that today's Muslims use this issue solely to intimidate - successfully in light of the craven cowardice of those in the traditional media.

Photography is also a form of man-made image making. But the Muslims have embraced photography like everyone else. Is that not so?

I still cannot believe that Yale University Press, as described in this article, should have failed to present the caricatures that are the object of this scholarly book published by the YUP. "Lux et Veritas", 'Light and Truth' is the University's official motto... What a shame!!!

A Muslim on the staff of the Stockton, CA Public Libraries got rid of Christian art books by selling them through the Friends of the Stockton Public Library outlet store.Books in excellent condition were sold at bargain prices; one-tenth of the going used book rates.
With these mostly-Catholic art and architecture books gone, the next to go were Fine Arts and figure art that were deemed offensive to Muslim sensibilities. They have elastic standards for themselves, but extremely ridgid for all others.

An aggressive, dangerous political ideology masquerading as a religion. It's all about power.