In the current situation, joining in the struggle for democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere may enable some of these movements to further what can be a theocratic and pan-Islamic agenda. If their ultimate aim is the restoration of the Caliphate, the recovery of lands lost to Islam and the establishment of a single, worldwide Umma, we must ask: what is the commitment to democracy? Is it to achieve power democratically to fulfil aims which are essentially undemocratic? The acid test for a democratic society is whether a party or a movement is not only willing to take power to govern but whether it is also willing to relinquish it. In this matter, we must say that the jury is out on whether Islamist groups would be willing to give up power. If their success at the ballot box is seen as a "manifest victory" (fath mubin) of their faith, how will this be reconciled with a subsequent defeat at the same box? The world needs to know the answers to such questions.

On its own of course, democracy is not enough. It could turn out just to be a tyranny of propagandised and radicalised masses unless and until it is accompanied by the guarantee of liberty. Such a guarantee must extend to groups like women, non-Muslims and even Muslims who do not belong to the dominant version of Islam in a particular country. It must include not only the freedom to worship but of expression, belief, the ability to manifest one's belief in daily living and the possibility of changing one's belief without fear of legal sanction. In other words, the freedoms guaranteed by the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. Alongside liberty, we need the will to create and maintain an ordered society based on the rule of law and on equality for all before the law. Without such order, democracy will not mean much to minorities, women and other disadvantaged groups. Only a society based on the rule of law will be able to provide a strong civil society, a free press and an independent judiciary.

There are two false ideas from which we must guard ourselves. The first, prevalent among some diplomats and politicians, is that an improved economic situation will deal with extreme forms of Islamism. While it is true that an adverse economic situation affects the recruitment of the young to radical causes, we must not ignore the ideological bases of such movements. It can also be shown that these arise and flourish as much in oil-rich states as in poorer ones. We need to engage with ideologies themselves in terms of their relationship to Islam's foundational texts, to history, to traditional forms of decision-making and governance and to the present beliefs and values of the international community of nations.

The second false idea, espoused by most Muslims and some Christian leaders involved in dialogue with Islam, is that a true Islamic state will, by its very nature, "protect" non-Muslims. I am sorry to have to say that history does not suggest that such will be the case. There have, undoubtedly, been periods of tolerance when Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and others have been able to contribute to the Islamic societies in which they have lived. The structured discrimination and injustice of the dhimma, however, has always prevented their full participation and has, indeed, led to periodic persecution and violence. We must be very careful about using terms like "protection" in this context as it can be seen as a translation of dhimma. Whatever the history, non-Muslims in the Islamic world today wish to be free citizens with equal rights under the law and not dhimmas.