Today on the Truth Perspective we begin our foray into the wide, labyrinthine world of Western Islamic studies, probing the big question of Islamic origins, looking at both the conditions under which it originated and the relation between the violent jihadists today and the religion of the 7th to 9th centuries. Basing our discussion on Peter Townsend's The Mecca Mystery: Probing the Black Hole at the Heart of Islam and Shiraz Maher's Salafi-Jihadism: The History of an Idea, we take a look at...