The Arab countries, and indeed the whole world, have already suffered greatly from the ugly violence of terrorism that cloaks itself in the mantel of Islam. This type of terrorism was bred in the Muslim countries, where it was nurtured and developed in the climate of autocratic regimes that suppressed freedoms and closed the channels of political participation. The oppressiveness of the ruling regimes was compounded by a religious despotism in which the states' official religious institutions claim the possession of the absolute truth.

The religious institutions are never reluctant to legitimize the regime's policies, but in exchange they expect the state to reciprocate by protecting the clerics' authority to oversee all matters that are deemed to fall within the moral sphere. The most hated by the clerics are the liberal intellectuals and the advocates of secularism who wish to separate state and church.
In spite of the fact that both the Ministry of Endowment and Al Azhar possess the necessary means (mosques, educational religious institutions and, mass media) for implementing religious reforms that would produce an enlightened interpretation of Islam that enhances civil society and liberty, they have instead clung desperately to the ossified interpretations of Islam established by medieval scholars. There is nothing at present more urgent than a concerned effort by enlightened intellectuals and civil society associations to force open the doors of ijtihad that would permit a modern exegesis (reading) of Islam's holy text. The Ibn Khaldun Workshop on" Islam and reform", held in October 2004 was a daring initiative that should be pursued and developed by civil society organizations that seek real reform and that aim to liberate the Islamic World from both religious and political despotism.