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There have been huge Muslim demonstrations against cartoons depicting Muhammad and any other perceived insult against Islam. But I am unaware of a single demonstration of Muslims against Muslim terror directed at non-Muslims.

Again and again, when Westerners are perceived as denigrating Muhammad, the Koran, or Islam, Islamists demonstrate, riot or kill.

When I was writing 'The Satanic Verses,' if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal.

I really don't want to portray the Islamists as simply evil, the way it's often done in the west.

Religion and political cartoons, as you may have heard, make a difficult couple, ever since that day of 2005, when a bunch of cartoonists in Denmark drew cartoons that had repercussions all over the world - demonstrations, fatwa, they provoked violence. People died in the violence.

We Egyptians reject any kind of assault or insult against our prophet.

Violence is almost an everyday occurrence in some Muslim lands: it should not be exacerbated by revenge attacks on more innocent families and communities.

The caricature of Islam as a violent and intolerant religion is horrendously incomplete. Remember that those standing up to Muslim fanatics are mostly Muslims.

One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image.

There are fear mongers who talk about Islam as somehow it is an incubator of hate... remember Christians, like the Westboro Baptist Church, are just as capable of promoting intolerance.