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A war of ideas and more is underway within the Muslim world over its future direction. Will the Muslim world follow the guidance of Islamism or radical Islamic ideology and its known hostility to a moderate accommodation with modernity and democracy? Or will there emerge an alternative and potent view which combines fidelity to Islam with respect and appreciation for democracy?

This struggle is relatively new. For the past thirty years or more, Islamism and radical Islam has dominated the realm of ideas in the Muslim world. It has met with little ideological opposition, though it has been opposed politically by authoritarian regimes throughout the Muslim world. It has served, not coincidentally, as the background out of which contemporary Islamic terrorism has emerged. In the absence of moderate and democratic alternatives, sympathy for and the appeal of Islamism and radical Islamist ideology will only continue and possibly increase—especially among youth, a fact that makes the war on terrorism a potentially multi-generational conflict, rather than one of limited duration.

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, however, there has been a small but growing theological and intellectual challenge to Islamism and radical Islam within the Muslim community—and hence, a war of ideas. Where do matters stand today, and what might one say about the future? What is the strength of Islamist and radical ideology relative to its moderate alternatives? What are the key ideas, the major actors, and the crucial theatres? What institutions, both intellectual and practical, need the Muslim world develop to secure a free and peaceful future? The United States has a clear stake in the outcome of this struggle—but does America have any role to play in it?

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