Islam in this twenty-first century is caught between three inter-related forces - globalization, international terrorism and the rise of the American Empire. This book examines those forces from the perspective of the rise and fall of civilizations. If Edward Gibbon and Arnold Toynbee could trace the decline of the Roman Empire to the challenge of Christianity, should we now anticipate the decline of the American Empire through the challenge of Islam? Ali Mazrui analyses the stresses and strains of relations between Islam and the West in this tense era.