No-one comes out of this incident well. The Iraqi immigrant who burned the book outside a Stockholm mosque most obviously – the burning of books has a poor historical reputation in Europe. But also the crowds of Muslims who demonstrated violently against the event in other countries, and have given the Turkish president another excuse to block Sweden’s joining of NATO; what on earth has a perceived insult to a religion to do with national defence? And of course it’s ridiculous that destroying a single copy of a ‘sacred’ text should give such offence to anyone, let alone a whole religion; which must itself damage the reputation of that religion – or of any organised religion – among rational people.

Thirdly, however: the Swedish authorities should have realised the harm the burning might cause, which would have been a practical if not a very principled excuse for disallowing it; which the police did initially, until overruled by the courts. Sweden is strong on ‘free speech’; but it also has laws against ‘incitement’, which I imagine were behind the police’s initial ban. We live in irrational times, which require us to appease even religious bigotry occasionally. If Sweden is to be condemned, it’s for its innocence; which is at least to be preferred to the bigotry of Salwan Momika (the arsonist) and the Moslem fanatics who are demonstrating against him.