Virgins? What Virgins?

This title features dedicated mailing and e-mail campaign to religious interest media & organisations. In this wide-ranging collection of insightful, controversial, and often-wry essays, Ibn Warraq the renowned author of “Why I Am Not a Muslim” has brought together a selection of his best work on the Koran and various problems posed by the interaction of Islam with the West. The title of the collection comes from an article that originally appeared in the “London Guardian” on recent textual studies of the Koran. This research suggests that, contrary to a longstanding Muslim belief about the afterlife, a harem of beautiful virgins may not be waiting for the faithful male departed in heaven. Other topics covered in this title include the totalitarian nature of contemporary political Islam, the potential for an Islamic Reformation comparable to the Protestant Reformation in the West, Warraq’s own upbringing in Pakistan and Britain, the controversy surrounding the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, and even a commentary on heavy metal music in a Muslim setting.