Alan

“A very dangerous principle is now being established as a social right: Thou shalt not hurt others with words.”
― Jonathan Rauch, Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought

“Impelled by the notions that science is oppression and criticism is violence, the central regulation of debate and inquiry is returning to respectability—this time in a humanitarian disguise.”
― Jonathan Rauch, Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought

“Patricia Crone famously quipped that, with regard to Muhammad's trade journeys in sīrah-maghāzī literature, "What the [Arabic] sources offer are fifteen equally fictitious versions of an event that never took place.”
― Sean Anthony, Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam

“This last report is particularly intriguing insofar as it implies that Muhammad received his call to prophethood not—as the most famous account would have it—atop Mount Hira occupied in prayerful meditation and acts of pious devotion but while shepherding flocks for wealthy Meccans.”
― Sean Anthony, Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam