There is too much of a literalist reading of the Qur’an (a trait also adopted by anti-Islamists in the West). There is too little ijtehad (interpretative renewal) as called for by Islam to keep believers in tune with their times. Theological rigidity and narrowmindedness have led, among other things, to Sunni hostility toward the minority Shiites.

Muslims complain about the West’s double standards, yet they have their own. While they often criticize the United States and Europe for mistreating Muslims, they rarely speak up against the persecution of non-Muslims by Muslims. They also show a high tolerance for Muslims killing fellow Muslims. The Sudanese genocide of the non-Arab Muslims of Darfur drew mostly silence. The overt and subtle racism of the oil-rich Arab states toward the millions of their guest workers goes unmourned.

Muslims do not have much to be proud of in the contemporary world. So they take comfort in their burgeoning numbers. At the turn of the millennium in 2000, there were many learned papers projecting the rise in the Muslim population. But if Muslims have not achieved much at 1.3 billion, they are not likely to at 1.5 billion, either.

To escape the present, many Muslims hark back to their glorious past: how Islam was a reform movement; how Muslims led the world in knowledge, in architecture, astronomy, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, medicine, natural sciences, philosophy and physics; how classical Arabic forms inspired Hebrew poetry;32 and how the Islamic empires were successful primarily because, with some egregious exceptions, they nurtured the local cultures and respected the religions of their non-Muslim majority populations. This is why Egypt and Syria remained non-Muslim under Muslim rule for 300 years and 600 years, respectively, and India always remained majority Hindu.

As true as all that history is, it is not very helpful today unless Muslims learn something from it — to value human life; accept each other’s religious differences; respect other faiths; return to their historic culture of academic excellence, scientific inquiry and economic self-reliance; and learn to live with differences of opinion and the periodic rancorous debates that mark democracies. It may be unfair to berate ordinary Muslims, given that too many are struggling to survive; nearly half live under authoritarian regimes where they can speak up only on pain of being incarcerated, tortured or killed; and they are helpless spectators to the sufferings of fellow Muslims in an unjust world order. Yet Muslims have no choice but to confront their challenges, for Allah never changes a people’s state unless they change what’s in themselves (13:11).

Laughing at the Siege

September 11, 2001 changed the world. It also cracked open the market for Muslim comics. Not long after 9/11, the following joke was making the rounds: