Islam has not always been thus ...

Take a look at this. It's a page of the Qur'an. Now look again: it's annotated and written over. Admittedly it's commentary, but nevertheless the pages of the book have been added to and the words 'violated'. I had understood that Muslims wouldn't treat the Qur'an this way; just goes to show that things have not always been as they are for many today.
Early Nigerian Koranic manuscripts
On a similar tack, it is possible to find Muslim pictures of Mohammed from the first centuries of the Islamic era.
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