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The traditions of any religion are multifarious. It is easy, therefore, to quote so selectively that the main thrust of the faith is distorted. But Spencer is not interested in balance. He picks out only those aspects of Islamic tradition that support his thesis. For example, he cites only passages from the Koran that are hostile to Jews and Christians and does not mention the numerous verses that insist on the continuity of Islam with the People of the Book: "Say to them: We believe what you believe; your God and our God is one."

This misconception occurs when one reads the koran as organized rather than as chronologically written. Unlike the bible the Koran is organized by the length of the Shuras with the longest coming first and the shortest last. If read in chronological order one would see that the people of the book comments occur at the beginning and change into hatred after the "prophet" was rejected by jews and christians in medina after his "flight". The early passages were an attempt to win over jews and christians. But after jews and christians saw what a pos moohamad was they turned against him. Thus the later hateful passages.