Akbar Ahmed‘s Islam Under Siege is an attempt to make sense of a rapidly transforming and dangerous world where ‘Westerners’ and ‘Muslims’ (as if the to are not inclusive!) are often pitted against each other as mortal enemies.  In his analysis, Ahmed explains what is going wrong in the Muslim world; why it is going wrong, and how we (both Muslims and non-Muslims) are to move ahead in the future.  The central thesis here is thus: ‘We need to look for answers in the challenging social order; in the sense of social breakdown; the feeling of the loss of honor and dignity’ (p. 13).  The book, then, ‘is an exercise in mapping the global landscape and pointing out the routes – and dangers – that lie ahead’ (p. 14).  Islam Under Siege was published by Polity Press in 2003 but remains highly relevant to contemporary affairs.