Perhaps no other article, later expanded into a book, helped define the position of many Western scholars better than Samuel P. Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations". In it Huntington argues that "the underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power it is the West, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the universality of their culture and believe that their superior, if declining, power imposes on them the obligation to extend that culture throughout the world. These are the basic ingredients that fuel conflict between Islam and the West". (pg. 5- A.G. Noorani). This has been adopted by many intellectuals and can sum up the bottom line for many Westerners on the whole. I would argue that this is fundamentally wrong and nothing more than a continued denigration of Islam as a religion. In contrast to this belief, scholars such as Bassam Tibi, A.G. Noorani and John Esposito maintain that Islamic societies are reacting to the modernization and globalization sweeping across all nations, not just as a conflict with the West.
One only needs to read the writings of a few Islamic scholars, those that have lived as a Muslim, those that have seen the increasing popularity of Islamists firsthand, for proof that there exists a different line of reasoning. Bassam Tibi is one such author. In his book, "Islam between Culture and Politics", Tibi argues that the current crisis in Islamic society can be attributed to the politicism of Islam and that this has become the greatest barrier to the continued modernization of Muslim cultures. Tibi shows that this politicization "is an expression of a revolt against the West against the value system related to them" (pg. xii - Tibi), but not as an inherent threat to the West as a whole.