Conservative Ecumenism: Politically Incorrect Meditations on Islam and the West

These are not propitious times to attempt to comment objectively on relations between Islam and the West. ¹ In the United States, Islam has come to be widely identified with terrorism and frequently is assumed to constitute a surrogate, perhaps in tandem with Confucian China, for the late USSR as an exigent geostrategic threat. In the Muslim world, a small minority of extremists disfigure the third of the three monotheistic revelations by invoking putative religious sanctions for actions that are baldly criminal. Terrorism by individuals who call themselves Muslims constitutes first and foremost a direct attack on the tolerance, compassion, and mercy that historically have characterised Islam both as creed and practice. ² However, extremism is not limited to the Arab Middle East, or indeed to the Muslim world. In fact, it may well be that since 11 September 2001, it is in the United States itself where ideological extremism may have become most obvious, and where obstacles to understanding between civilisations have now assumed their most intimidating forms.