 I spoke to [ historian of Islam ] Bernard Lewis about this , and he said that the big difference between our case and the Rushdie affair is that Rushdie is perceived as an apostate by the Muslims while , in our case , Muslims were insisting on applying Islamic law to what non @-@ Muslims are doing in non ‑ Muslim countries . In that sense , he said it is a kind of unique case that might indicate that Europe is perceived as some kind of intermediate state between the Muslim world and the non @-@ Muslim world . 
