Contributor(s): Ali A. Allawi | The increasing religiosity of Muslim societies and the spectacular rise of political Islam have served to mask the seeping of vitality from Islamic civilization. If Muslims do not muster the inner resources of their faith to fashion a civilising outer presence, then Islam as a civilisation may indeed disappear. Ali A. Allawi has served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance in the Iraqi postwar governments. A graduate of Harvard University and MIT, he is Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, Oxford. He has written two books: The Crisis of Islamic Civilization (Yale 2009) and The Occupation of Iraq (Yale 2007).