LONDON -- The problem is that the world is actually a very provincial place. Most people in the non-Muslim parts of the world have never been in any Muslim country, so if Muslims anywhere in the world do something really stupid, they will readily believe that those actions are typical of Islam -- and of course, the headlines will suggest that they ical. Like, for example, the headlines after the Taliban regime of Afghanistan blew up the giant 1,700-year-old Buddha statues of Bamiyan last week.

It was vandalism and cultural intolerance on a massive scale, and rightly condemned by people and governments around the world, including most Muslim governments. But it is worth noting, now that the huge Bamiyan statues are gone -- the taller of the two was 56 meters high -- that the largest graven image from ancient times still surviving in the world is the Great Sphinx of Egypt. And Egypt has been under Muslim rule for about 1,300 years.

All the Muslim regimes of Egypt, like all the previous Muslim governments of Afghanistan for over 1,000 years, protected the pre-Muslim heritage of their countries. The Taliban mullahs who now rule the country are fanatical hicks from the deepest countryside who have been further radicalized by two decades of incessant war, but to imply that their behavior is typical of Islam is slander.