Hazleton has historically provided worthwhile analysis on Islam and Prophet Muhammad and should be commended and appreciated for doing so. In this piece, however, Hazleton commits a few errors.

Everyone knows his name. He was, and still is, one of the most influential figures of all time, yet most of us have little real sense of the man himself.

It is time for lay-leaders, clerics and religious judges who flagrantly contradict the Quran to be by-passed as irrelevant and pariahs of our society. They should instead be forced to answer: Why are they defending an oppressive pre-Islamic culture?

For all the modern-day injustice committed against Muslims through Western foreign policy, the bitter truth is that Muslims are more often than not their own worst enemies. Believers across different factions need to take an honest look at history and awake to a new consciousness.

The world is a better place because Prophet Muhammad survived against his opponents and won. And even as the Prophet showed grace and clemency to his enemies, so must his heirs do so today.

At a time when efforts to ban sharia law have been tabled in some two dozen states, it would be interesting to know what precisely their sponsors are hoping to prohibit -- because their target has a 1,400-year history that extends deep into the realms of faith.

The tragedy is that Muslim men have been denied the wise council of Muslim women, when according to Allah that's something we need.