In an interesting review and critique of Professor Efraim Karsh's new book, Islamic Imperialism—A History, Andrew G. Bostom finds an occasion to quote Ibn Warraq, a secularist of Pakistani origin, who compared British imperialism in India with Islamic imperialism saying
Do we still have to apologize, for example, for the British Empire, when, in fact, the British presence in India led to the Indian Renaissance, resulted in famine relief, railways, roads and irrigation schemes, eradication of cholera, the civil service, the establishment of a universal educational system where none existed before, the institution of elected parliamentary democracy, and the rule of law? What of the British architecture of Bombay and Calcutta. The British even gave back to the Indians their own past it was European scholarship, archaeology and research that uncovered the greatness that was India; it was British government that did its best to save and conserve the monuments that were a witness to that past gory. British Imperialilsm preserved where earlier Islamic Imperialism destroyed thousands of Hindu temples.