FEW topics are as bitterly contested today as the nature of Islam. America has just elected a president who speaks pointedly of "Islamic terrorism"; his predecessor balked at connecting Islam with violence and said those who did, including terrorists, were misreading the faith. In Western intellectual debates, meanwhile, some maintain that Islam stultifies its followers, either because of its core teachings or because in the 11th century Islamic theology turned its back on emphasising human reason. Others retort indignantly that the Islamic world's problems are the fault of its Western foes, from crusaders to European colonists, who bruised the collective Muslim psyche.
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