The politicization of scholars, experts and media commentators post 9/11 has created a minefield for policymakers and the general public. Many are caught between the contending positions of seemingly qualified experts as well as a new cadre of Islamophobic authors and their revisionist readings of Islam and Islamic history. Today, we now have a new empirically grounded tool that enables us to go beyond the limited interpretations and opinions of experts when asking: What do Muslims think, what do they care about, and what do they want? The Gallup Organization has produced the largest, most comprehensive polling/study of Muslims ever…

Have you ever been sitting alone, on a coast, or in a calm place, where no one would interrupt your thoughts, that the question of the meaning of this life, of your beginning and your return, and the secret of your existing and the matter of your end concerned you?. Have you ever been sitting alone, on a coast, or in a calm place, where no one would interrupt your thoughts, that the question of the meaning of this life, of your beginning and your return, and the secret of your existing and the matter of your end concerned you?.Indeed,…

The relationship between Muslim-majority countries and the West is crucial and involves a number of major issues. The complexity of ideological and political relations and, above all, the phenomenon of attraction/repulsion can be observed both among politicians and intellectuals and among ordinary citizens. We certainly need some renewal of this relationship. Historically and ideologically, the ‘West vs Islam’ dichotomy has been constructed through a process both fraught and complex. To this day, it shapes perceptions of East and West at both extremes of the binary equation. There can be no substitute for frankness: A constant and implicit (and often explicit)…