Future of Political Islam

September 11; vitriolic rhetoric against the United States by prominent Muslims; the war against terrorism shifts from Afghanistan to the Philippines and Indonesia. It is easy to believe Islam and Muslims are enemies of the West; it is also wrong. This survey of trends in the Muslim world, from Morocco to the Philippines, contends that while political Islam is the dominant intellectual current, a focus on radicalism and extremism blinds us from another trend: liberal political Islam.