\u201d\u02dcMuslim communities in the West,\u201d\u009d wrote Graham Fuller and Ian Lesser in 1995 (\u201cThe Geopolitics of Islam and the West\u201d\u009d), \u201care more likely to exert influence on their countries and cultures of origin rather than receive influences from them; over time they may have a substantive effect on the perceptions of secularization and minority rights in the Middle East.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
This shift\u201d\u201dfrom the American Muslim community being perceived as foreign and an extension of the Middle East and South Asia to American Muslims instead influencing the East\u201d\u201dis the direction in which Muslims are heading. Rampant authoritarianism in the Muslim world and the regression of Muslim religious establishments funded by the same autocratic governments currently make Islamic reform unlikely in the region.<\/p>\n
American Muslims can significantly contribute to the revival of Islam and restore human dignity as a central principle of the faith. From despotic regimes to religious extremism, authoritarianism in the Middle East and South Asia has devastated modern Islamic thought over the last few centuries. American Muslims have the freedom and the intellectual capacity to create positive change for Islamic reform.<\/p>\n