I actually have alot of respect for the Islamic faith, and for those who truly practice it. It's a stringent religion that demands a great deal from its followers, and at its core, it posits a very rigid moral code. More than any other holy book, the Quran spells out rules for its followers conduct and daily lives in great detail. Thing is, I'm apparently the only person who's ever actually read the thing.

Huston Smith, in The World's Religions, refers to Islam as having been a "civilizing fire," which took a loosely-knit culture of ruthless barbarians and turned them into a devout people and a political force that hadn't been seen since the fall of Rome. Remember, these are the guys that conquered Persia–something neither the Romans or Greeks had ever been able to do.

In short order, Islam became not just a religion, but an empire that covered more land than any other before it. While the West collapsed under superstition, plague and petty territorial chest-beating, the Muslims were making huge advances in science, medicine, and mathematics. Unlike the Catholic West, the Muslim Empire showed a greater deal of religious tolerance than any other political entity. Even while they were at war with the Crusaders, they were sharing ideas with them and preserving the ideas and works of Greek and Roman antiquity, things that were all but lost or discarded in the West. Sure, we can give credit for the Renaissance to the Italians and French, but the Muslims were the real caretakers of this knowledge for over a millenium.

(The Arabs took the concept of "zero" from the Indians and developed it into our current numerical system, without which we'd still be using Roman numerals. All but the most commonly seen stars in the night sky have Arabic names, and they had already started grinding sophisticated optics, as well as understanding the relationship between hygiene and infection. They were also on the way towards understanding electricity.)

If this comes as a surprise, blame our horrific public school system, which, if you're lucky, gives brief (if any) attention to this before jumping forward to the Crusades. Truth be told, the Crusades were launched by a power-hungry Pope, based on a pack of lies, and continued on false pretenses by people who were nothing more than pirates, brigands and barbarians.

There's a great book written by Amin Malouf called The Crusades through Arab Eyes that should be taught in tandem with any history of the Crusades. In it, he describes the relations between the Muslims and the West, and reading the sources, you can practically hear the horror and shock that the Arabs felt when confronted by the idiocy of their European contemporaries in areas like medicine and strategy.

Somewhere down the line, it all went wrong, though. Long before the final death-rattle of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, Islam had started to fracture (already in 1099, the empire was split into three conflicting factions). With this loss of coherency, the Arab world began to sink into its equivalent of our Dark Ages ("Middle Ages," my ass–read about them. They were Dark.). As with Europe, secular institutions gradually lost power, literacy rates plummeted, and religious fundamentalism became the order of the day.

Only problem is, when the people can't read, you can tell them whatever you want, and they don't know any different. Which brings us to the current sorry state of affairs. You've no doubt heard about the current uproar over the cartoons published in the Jyllands-Posten, which has already resulted in people getting killed. Over cartoons.

Here's the best part: most of the cartoons are simple, inoffensive illustrations of the prophet Muhammed. That's it. Somebody somewhere came out, saying that any depiction of the prophet was forbidden by the Quran and called for blood, and here we are.

Hmmm…I've read the Quran, and I don't recall anything of the sort. Depictions of God are forbidden, because God to the Muslims has no material aspect, and none is to be assigned to him, but no such rule applies to the prophet, who, as the Quran reminds us, was only human.

In fact, there are countless paintings done by Muslims depicting the prophet, usually receiving the word from Gabriel. But if a Danish newspaper does it, it's blasphemy, and buildings get burned. It's okay for Imams (who seem to have little if any knowledge of the Quran) to preach hatred, intolerance and violence, but they raise holy hell if anyone criticizes them.

Let's get a few of things clear here:

• "Jihad" doesn't mean "killing innocent bystanders with car bombs." It means "striving." It implies an evangelical mandate to, among other things, defend the Islamic faith and spread it to others. Christianity has similar aspects. Though it was used by Kirij al-Arslan and others during the Crusades as a rallying point, it has a far wider and greater meaning. One can serve the concept of Jihad by simply living piously and in harmony with his neighbors.
• The Quran is very emphatic and specific about suicide. It is a sin, and under no circumstances does it buy you any love from the man upstairs.
• Though the Quran lays out rules for war, it specifically forbids the harming of women, children or noncombatants. Again, anyone who does this buys themselves not a clutch of virgins, but a spot in Hell, a piece of real estate about which the Quran is also very specific.

So…what the heck happened? Why are people believing otherwise? Because they don't know any better. Far from the enlightened monarchies of the 10th century, the current political institutions hoard 90% of the wealth to a select few and keep a firm boot on the neck of the common man. Things like reading, thinking independently, questioning authority…all the things we take for granted, those are forbidden concepts in the current Islamic world.

Even so, people inevitably start to grumble and ask why. The answer? Find a scapegoat! Let's see…we'll blame the United States! Why do they have nice things? Because they're the Great Satan! Now it becomes easier to (mis)direct the anger of a repressed, illiterate and hopelessly poor people to the point that they're willing to perform unspeakable acts without question. All in the name of religion. The only problem is that this isn't Islam. It's an awful concoction of hypocrisy, politics and anger, with just enough of the Quran thrown in and distorted to sound authentic.

And no, I'm not so smug to deny that the Catholic church did the exact same thing many times over. The only difference is that now, the catapault and battering ram have been supplanted by the 7.62mm round and enriched Uranium, and the consequences are far greater and more wide-reaching.

So, what will it take to fix things? Believe it or not, I think we may be on to the right track in Iraq. What we need is to raise one generation that knows freedom and literacy, that knows to question the arbitrary orders and pronouncements of men in high places. Knowledge has a way of spreading like wildfire, and once you have it, there's no stamping it out.

Thing is, that takes time. And as we've seen, it will cost many lives. But we can't just be the world's policeman, and we certainly can't be the bully the Imams claim us to be, and that's exactly what will happen if we back out now. We need to commit to the long-haul in Iraq and let democracy take seed. Once you have a generation of adults who have tasted freedom since childhood, they won't be willing to give it up without a fight.

Islam and democracy aren't fundementally at odds. True, an Islamic government must by definition have some religious aspect, but that only implies a firm moral hand on the parts of the leaders. An enlightened, re-invigorated Islam would be an amazing thing to see, and it can happen, but not without help.