One of Nicholas' editions of The New Statesman displays on the front cover "THE NEW POOR: Ann Pettifor on the First World Debt crisis". Instantly aware of the pettiness of concentrating on this rather than the kind of poverty that actually kills people, I nonetheless definitively agreed with it to Nicholas, saying that I wished that my education did not depend on a huge loan. I seem to recall favouring a graduate tax at the time when it was still being debated rather than put up with. A while back, I was really pleased to find out about this story about Islamic banking. I think it was in Mere Christianity that C.S. Lewis mentioned, as a sideline, that he was slightly uneasy about the idea that three great world religions were all opposed to borrowing at interest (We seem to have got used to the idea, but you'll remember of course that we used to bully the Jews into doing it). [Sigh]

While you ponder that you might as well also check out "Jesus through Muslim eyes" by Prof Tarif Khalidi. I think the chap must be fairly liberal, otherwise he might be less inclined to use words like "rewrites" and "re-invents" about a prophet.