A social and religious revolution is also underway. All the leading religious scholars — both in the Muslim world and among the Muslim minorities in the US, Canada and Europe — have rejected terrorism. Just a day before the July 2005 subway bombings in London, there was a conference in Jordan of 200 leading Muslim scholars, including representatives of Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa of Egypt and Ayatollah Syed Ali Sistani, the most senior cleric in Iraq. They condemned not only terrorism but also the tendency of militant Muslims to brand moderate Muslims as infidels. In December 2005, more than fifty leaders of Muslim nations, meeting in Mecca, issued an unprecedented call to fight terrorism: “The Islamic nation is in a crisis... We need decisive action to fight deviant ideas because they are used to justify terrorism.”4

Some of the reforms are being introduced from the top down, as in authoritarian Pakistan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. But the biggest push is coming from grassroots movements. Rather than reflexively defending Muslim nations, many Muslims are beginning to speak out against human rights violations across the Muslim world. Formal and informal debates are underway about the rights and wrongs of violence in the name of religion. Muslims are as revolted by terrorism as anybody else — more so, because they have been its biggest victims.

Muslims will come to terms with Israel in direct proportion to the easing of harsh Israeli treatment of Palestinians and the progress on peace. It is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, not the Judaism of the Israelis, which angers Arabs, including Christian Arabs, and the larger Muslim world. Israel has every right to exist and prosper, but so do the Palestinians. One is not possible without the other. A rapprochement is already underway. Besides Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, which have had close bilateral ties with Israel, other nations are moving toward opening up relations. When President Pervez Musharraf spoke to a Jewish group in New York in August 2005, there were only muted protests back in Pakistan. The Bush administration’s belated bid for peace in the Middle East, starting with an Arab-Israeli summit in Annapolis, Maryland, in November 2007, was welcomed across the Muslim world.

An increasing number of Muslims, including Arabs, are challenging the orthodox clerical establishment and long-standing conservative interpretations of religious texts. In South, Southeast and East Asia there is a growing impatience with the semi-literate clerical class. Muslims in the West, benefiting from their democratic freedoms, are challenging orthodoxy and moving away from culture-specific religious practices.

The most credible reformist voices belong to those calling for changes on Islamic terms, rather than emulating Western models. It is the pious who are making the most headway against militancy. Women, not surprisingly, are leading the debate, not just on gender issues but on pluralism and liberalism.