Watching CarolC try to argue that Islam is no worse than any other religion is like trying to watch a worm wriggle off a hook with an especially large barb. The difference being that the worm didn't spike itself on deliberately. Also a barb does not grow bigger and bigger, as the nastiness of (modern) Islam increases the more one reads. A particularly good book on the license Islamic societies give to men and they way they repress women is 'My Feudal Lord' by Tehmina Durrani, by the ex-wife of a prominent Pakistani politician. If this is the way that an educated, articulated women can be treated by a man in public life one shudders to think what goes on in less affluent, less high-profile families.