Islam's difficult road Modern Muslims face hard choices, says Kishwer Falkner

The maelstrom of change in the late 20th century only served to accelerate the demise of traditional Islamic society, a process under way since the First World War. The Muslim world emerged from these tumultuous decades significantly poorer and more unequal. Its per capita income is only 10 per cent of that in the west. At the same time, extremes of wealth and poverty co-exist within it. Within the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, an association of 57 Muslim states, the per capita income of the 14 oil exporters is seven times that of the poorest 21 countries.

The story of the resurgence of Islam is in many ways the story of the backlash against western modernity and of the contradictions in Muslim societies. But Muslim rejection of untrammelled consumption and heightened individualism has resulted in an elevation of an outward religiosity at the cost of a deeper sense of the good life. It is unlikely to restore a genuine Islamic civilisation at peace with itself and the outside world. Grappling with these themes of change and crisis, Ali A Allawi, a former minister in the Iraqi postwar governments, provides a survey of Muslim theology, philosophy and history. The Crisis of Islamic Civilisation takes the reader through two centuries of Islam's retreat in the face of imperialism, modernity and globalisation, followed by persistent attempts at renewal.