One of the most significant ways the world has changed since the terrible crime of September 11 has been a new rise of an ugly strain of Islamophobia throughout the Western world. Amid the terrible agony of the recent terror attack in Bali, it is easy to be tempted, once again, by angry thoughts. The pattern is there: from the horror of 9/11, to the suicide/homicide bombings in Israel, to the flaming frontiers of Albania, Bosnia, Chechnya or Kashmir, all the way down to the recent brutal hostage-taking and killings in a Moscow theater, it is in the name of Islam that innocent people have fallen victim to hideous terrorism and unthinkable cruelty. It is, therefore, well within reason to raise questions as to the very nature of Islam, and almost plausible to see everything
To understand the terrorist attacks we have witnessed recently in many places, we have to bear in mind that what we see is not so much "Islam" mobilized to fight against "the West," but a civilization in severe internal crisis. There are rising movements in Islam, the so-called "fundamentalists", but they do not represent Islam, or even the majority of Muslims. Islam is different and strange to us in the Western world, and there are elements in Islamic history and identity that make the lives of Osama bin Laden and his likes easier, when they come to "sell" their interpretation of religion to young and excitable men from the far reaches of Southeast Asia to the immigrant neighborhoods in Paris and London. But there is so much more to Islam than all that, as there is more to all great and comp
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