I got a perfect score

in this BBC quiz about Islam. Perhaps that has led me to look kindly on it. It’s very much the BBC view, but I accept a certain delicacy is necessary here. In several cases I gave the answer I knew they wanted while maintaining reservations. Jihad certainly can mean interior struggle -but the non-PC “holy war” translation is enthusastically accepted by many Muslims. That figure for the projected US Muslim population is based on figures for the present population that are contested; estimates vary by a factor of three and the BBC has gone for the higher end. Divorce can indeed be initiated by man or woman, but what they do not say is that the rules are not symmetrical. Finally, I found it a little odd that there wasn’t a “Muslims believe” wrapped round the statement that “Islam began in the Arabian Peninsula in 610 when the prophet Muhammad began to receive his revelations of the direct word of God,” but I attribute that to a condescending mindset that is willing to humour all religions equally rather than to acceptance of the tenets of Islam at the BBC.