I read this piece by Salman Rushdi. Did not think much of it. It is the kind of editorials that I have been reading in the New York Times regularly since Sep. 11. But Rushdi here mentions that "Christ, in the Koran, is born in an oasis, under a palm tree." In fact, the Qur'an only mentions that "وَاذْكُرْ فِي الْكِتَابِ مَرْيَمَ إِذِ انْتَبَذَتْ مِنْ أَهْلِهَا مَكَانًا شَرْقِيًّا" (Relate in the Book Mary, when she withdrew from her family to a place in the East); and then "فَأَجَاءَهَا الْمَخَاضُ إِلَى جِذْعِ النَّخْلَةِ " (And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree). That is all.