At the beginning of this millennium, the same apprehensions are being voiced from Cairo to Jakarta. Muslim fears, though exaggerated, will not be assuaged in the face of the West marshalling its enormous military and intellectual forces against the Muslim nations. If anything, their anxieties are heightened by the media's systematic attempt to conjure up the image of Islam as the number one threat to the West. Already, several writers have drawn the battlelines between Islam and Christendom. The bosses in Stockholm have rewarded one of them, V. S. Naipaul, an Islam- baiter.

It is easy critiquing the West and offering guidance to Bush & Co. as to what they should do. Their conduct, in Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and West Asia, deserves loud and strong criticism. Yet, the lamentation must cease and give way to introspection, to a reappraisal of the crisis that afflicts Muslim societies, and to a careful reordering of priorities. The survival of Islam is not at stake, the progress and prosperity of the Muslims are. Self- delusion and misplaced confidence - and that may well be the unfortunate outcome of the ``successful'' September 11 attack - can only make their position more awkward and vulnerable.

Moving away from the anti-Western rhetoric, it is important to highlight the dismal failure of the Muslim nations to meet the very minimum standards of good governance. Someone has to explain why Osama and the Taliban target the West and not the regimes West Asia. Someone has to analyse the absence or weakness of democratic movements in Muslim countries. Someone has to tell us, furthermore, about the passive role of the Muslim intelligentsia and its acquiescence in political repression. What one needs is a powerful internal critique, free of religious rhetoric, which will set the Muslim societies on the right course and free their people from the stranglehold of oppressive governments. One thing is sure: no longer can the West be a convenient scapegoat for the ills that plague their countries.

In theory, the Muslim communities are not answerable to anyone else; in practice, their conduct is under close scrutiny. They must get their act together not because others want them to, but because sooner or later the forces of reaction and bigotry within their own ranks will overwhelm them. The enemy lies within the boundaries of a nation-state, acquiring only in specific situations a transnational dimension. The enemy is not Samuel Huntington, Salman Rushdie or Naipaul, but those who destroy statutes at Bamiyan, impose dress codes, and enforce a version of Islam that goes against the spirit and letter of the Koran.

The enemies are those who flout the Prophet's following injunction: ``O believers, be you securers of justice, witnesses for God, even though it be against yourselves, or your parents and kinsmen, whether it concerns rich or poor, for God is nearer to you than both. And do not follow caprice, so as to swerve (from the truth).'' It is this search for truth and justice that must go on, in the traditions pioneered by the Sufis.

The elusive notion of umma(international community) or the political ideology of pan-Islamism need not sway a Muslim. The finer definition of what constitutes Sharianeed not be his sole concern. He needs to hold, rather than abrogate, his right to hold an independent opinion about right and wrong, good and evil. What he needs is to act according to his conscience and remind himself that he must be ``securers of justice'' not only for his brethren but the whole international community, of Muslims and non-Muslims to which we belong. Historical situations in which certain deductions are made from the Koran are no longer relevant; the Mutazalites in Baghdad, and Syed Ahmad Khan and Maulana Azad in our own country, repudiated them long ago. The Urdu poet Akbar Illahabadi ridiculed the type of casuistry practised by the ulama:

``You can wear these souls and shoes
And make love to Miss D'Souze
If only you fast and pray
You can live and love as you choose.''

Doubtless, the Muslims are inheritors of a great and glorious civilisation. Indeed, no one can deny to them the right to lead their lives in accordance with the injunctions of the Koran, the highest authority, and to regard the Prophet of Islam as the model of a perfect man. At the same time, they cannot regard themselves as the sole possessors and upholders of true belief without coming into conflict with other religious traditions. Central to the idea of Unity of Existence (wahdatal- wujud),expounded by the great thinker Ibn Arabi, is the acknowledgement of a Muslim community accepting the right of non- Muslims to profess their own faith. Taking our cue from the Sufi saints and the Persian and Urdu poets in India, we have every reason to reinforce and popularise such ideas.

While it is hard to believe that so eclectic a view will merit worldwide acceptance, a change in the mindset of the Islamists, in particular, will make the categories of darul-Islam(land of Islam) and darul-harb(land of war) irrelevant. That is when jehadin the modern world, in the sense in which Osama bin Laden or the terrorists in Kashmir use it, will lose its popular appeal. In the world of today, a secular idiom, as indeed secular goals, can be the sole raison d'etrefor waging war against the internal and external enemy. Expressions such as jehadand jehadisare used rhetorically, with disastrous effects, to legitimise non-secular goals and ideologies. The Taliban or the Pakistan-funded mercenaries in Kashmir best exemplify this.

Admittedly, the judgments of some Western scholars are prejudiced, but the traditional presentations of Islam are woefully inadequate. The point to stress is that ``The West'' is neither a unified entity nor is it inimical to Islam. Conversely, the ideology of Islam is not antithetical to Western ideas and institutions. Still, in the aftermath of the September 11 happenings, a great deal needs to be done to build bridges not between Islam and the West but between the Muslim countries and the rest of the world. When that happens we will not have to light candles to mourn the victims of terrorism.