Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, writes:

“If al-Qaeda indeed carried out this act, it is a great victory for it,” declared Dr Hani al-Siba’i in an interview on the al Jazeera satellite television channel the day after the London bombings. “It rubbed the noses of the world’s eight most powerful countries in the mud.” He went on to say that it was legitimate for al-Qaeda to target civilians because “the term ‘civilians’ does not exist in Islamic religious law in the modern Western sense. People are either of Dar al-Harb [the domain of war, meaning territory ruled by non-Muslims] or not.”

And where are you most likely to bump into Dr al-Siba’i? Why, in London, where he is the Director of the al-Maqreze Centre for Historical Studies….

The official line is that this is the work of a criminal minority, and should not be blamed on Islam or the wider Muslim community. Quite so. The trouble is that this criminal minority considers that it is acting on the basis of Islam. And it seems to be hatching its schemes right under the noses of the wider Muslim community.

The above is from Ferguson’s 7/17/02 piece in the Telegraph: Hat tip: Bob Andrews