ABSTRACT
Islam is experiencing an identity crisis that has precipitated a world crisis. Radical Islamists are in the news almost every day, yet Westerners are taught that radical Islamism is not “true Islam.” Islam, we are told, means peace, yet that public identity is typically not reflected in the social mirror of the popular press. Every time a suicide bomb is detonated, the image of a peaceful Islam is exploded along with it. In the popular mind, Islam is as Islam does. Another yardstick by which Islamic claims to a peaceful authenticity are measured is the treatment of religious minorities within an Islamic state. Both Islamic and Western states, generally, claim to respect human rights, within the context of Islamic and democratic ideals, respectively. A Western nation-state’s identity as a democracy will be measured not only against its own democratic ideals, but against an emerging body of international human rights law. Whether by national or international standards, the acid test of democracy is its treatment of minorities. The same holds true for Islamic states. For all of the rhetoric professing Islam’s respect for human rights, human wrongs within the modern Muslim world must still be addressed, even if not redressed.
