Why Afghanistan has reacted so sharply to threat of Quran burning - CSMonitor.com

Why Afghanistan has reacted so sharply to threat of Quran burning - CSMonitor.com: "The 14th century Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun studied early Muslim kingdoms and dynasties that sought to exert central government control over often-fractious populations that resented such control and often fell to or were weakened by rivalries among their own elites. He found those that lasted longest, and most successfully, were ones that used Islam to cut across tribal and cultural rivalries. Religion acted as a sort of political glue that could tamp down the centrifugal forces of tribal allegiance."