Daniel Pipes

About the author: Daniel Pipes is the director of the Middle East Forum, a think tank that works to define and promote American interests in the Middle East, and a columnist for both the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post. He has written numerous books, including Militant Islam Reaches America, In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power, and Slave Soldiers and Islam.

Islam is a complex faith that celebrates a rich culture and history in the Middle East and should not be confused with Islamic fundamentalism, a modern permutation of Islam. Muslims—as adherents of Islam are called—have devised three political responses to modernity. Secularists emulate the West, reformists appropriate some aspects of Western culture without acknowledging it, and fundamentalists reject Western influences. Islamic fundamentalism, or...