David Margoliouth warned us not to be too credulous about the authenticity of so-called pre-Islamic poetry. Two of his principal arguments were the p… - Ibn Warraq

This book is first and foremost an assertion of my right to criticize everything and anything in Islam - even to blaspheme, to make errors, to satirize, and mock.

Ibn Warraq is the pen-name of the author whose parents emigrated from India to Pakistan as a result of the Partition. He was brought up in Pakistan, which was supposed to be an Islamic Republic. His experience revealed to him that the Muslims of India had been cheated in the name of Islam and its projected principles of equality, free will and democracy. As he grew up, he noticed that Islam had become an effective tool of convenient morality and achieving political goals; a religious or secular leader could prove anything from the Koran and Hadith to suit his purpose, yet every faithful believes that there is no contradiction in the verses of the Koran!

Perhaps the writer who has best identified the problems within the Muslim world is the philosopher Ibn Warraq, of Pakistani origin, author of Why I Am Not a Muslim. That this courageous man writes under a pseudonym shows that even in the West he does not feel safe.