A quote from the heyday of the British Empire

In the days of Lord Curzon there had been a popular saying, 'lift a mullah's beard and you will find the Union Jack'. - from American Anti-Colonialism and the Dissolution of the British Empire, William Roger Louis International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 61, No. 3. (Summer, 1985), pp. 395-420, which you can find on the web.

I take the meaning that in those days, the British Empire was a major sponsor of religious obscurantism and fundamentalism among Muslims. Similar policies continue to this day. The US partnership with Saudi Arabia is one such. Sixty years of US-Pakistan relations with the US continuing to pump arms and aid to Pakistan's increasingly fundamentalist army is another (remember "Allah, America, Army - the 3 pillars of Pakistan" ?). The sponsorship of the Afghan Jihad is yet another.

The terrible costs of those policies are only now becoming somewhat apparent to the policy-makers.