Currently, many Americans automatically associate Muslims with terrorism. Conversely, many Muslims think negatively of the United States because much of Western ‘modernization’ includes secular tenets, which run contrary to the universal appeal of Islam. In an attempt to ameliorate the lack of understanding on both sides of this debate between Islamic ideology and Western philosophy, a series of interviews with Muslim students on the Rice University campus were conducted, with the objective of ascertaining whether living and learning in a center for Western thought had any impact on their interpretations of Qur’anic verses.
It is important to consider the reasons behind this conflict in order to ascertain its scale. Many of the complaints about the West given by Muslims concern both the practices encouraged by modernization as well as its forceful application by the West. As Michael Palmer wrote in his new book, The Last Crusade: Americanism and the Islamic Reformation, “To Islamists, modernization is secularism and Westernization, and as such it represents yet another set of foreign and un-Islamic concepts foisted on the ummah, or the Islamic ‘nation.’”1 Another possible reason for the negative Islamic sentiment towards modernization can be found in the holistic nature of Islam itself. Islam, if practiced correctly, has roots in all aspects of human life, including religion, politics, law, and the military. Palmer states:
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