‘No, no one against us. Against me, for what? … They love me, all my people with me, they love me all. They will die to protect me, my people.’ Qaddafi, 27 February 2011

Are dictators mad, or are they intelligent people who don’t know when to quit? Are they aware that their people hate them, or do they have a mixture of narcissistic, paranoid, delusional, hysterical and sociopathic personality disorders that shield them from the truth?

Generations of Western writers from the Crusades down to the present day have claimed to depict the life and personality of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Over the course of thirteen centuries, biased and stubbornly negative representations have persisted, presenting images which bear no resemblance to the noble figure familiar to Muslims. Muhammad in Europe traces this consistent tradition of distortion and provides an account of the reasons behind it.

‘In England, where Madame Tussaud virtually reinvented the queue, it is a national avocation and an integral part of the English gene. English people queue at the drop of a hat. They will form queues to get into queues. It is not what you are queuing for . . . it is how you do it.’ No doubt a description of ourselves that we are all familiar with, yet we must leave it to Maruf Khawaja to explain the slight spin put on the ‘oh so British’ pursuit of queueing by the inhabitants of the UAE!