This column was translated into English by advisers ofMuslim World League Secretary General Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa.

As the United States and Iran exchange military strikes and the Middle East braces for further escalation, a familiar and perilous reflex is resurfacing: the urge to cast geopolitical conflict as a civilizational one. To suggest that military confrontation reflects an inevitable clash between Islam and the West. To place entire faith communities under suspicion for actions taken by governments they neither control nor represent. 

This framing is not only false. It is strategically reckless. 

At this very moment, more than 2 billion Muslims around the world are observing Ramadan – praying, giving to charity, gathering with family and serving their communities. In American and European cities, they are doing so while going to work, attending school and contributing to public life. This quiet, ordinary reality stands in stark contrast to a persistent claim: that Islam and Western society are locked in an inevitable conflict.

Such a claim blurs a crucial distinction between governments and the millions of ordinary people who live thousands of miles from any battlefield. When international tensions rise – when missiles are launched, bases are struck and fears of regional war dominate headlines – that distinction is often the first casualty.

In recent weeks, rhetoric in several Western democracies has revived an old insinuation: that Islam is inherently incompatible with Western life. Congressional hearings, speeches and policy proposals have echoed the suggestion that Muslims, by virtue of their faith, cannot fully belong.

During moments of geopolitical strain, suspicion hardens. It begins to shape how communities are policed, how immigrants are treated, how children are viewed in classrooms, how equal citizenship is practiced in daily life.

Muslim exclusion is a recruitment tool for radical organizations like ISIS and al-Qaida

The consequences are measurable. From Britain to the United States, anti-Muslim incidents have risen sharply in recent years. Global insecurity – war, migration pressures, economic anxiety – often produces scapegoats. Muslims are reduced from neighbors and fellow citizens to a faceless symbolic bloc in a broader struggle.

Once that narrative takes hold, it distorts basic facts. Muslim citizens serve at every level of public life: in Congress, in hospitals, in city halls, in the armed forces, in classrooms. They are not guests in Western societies; they are participants in shaping them.

In my decades confronting violent extremism, I have seen how exclusion becomes a recruitment tool. Groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida insist that Muslims can never truly belong in Western societies. They eagerly cite hostile rhetoric as proof. When geopolitical conflict is described as evidence of a civilizational war, it hands extremists on all sides exactly the story they seek.

Rejecting the “clash of civilizations” narrative is therefore not only a moral imperative; it is a strategic necessity. Social cohesion is a cornerstone of public safety. Where pluralism is strong, extremist ideologies struggle to gain traction. Where it erodes, they find fertile ground.

This conviction has guided my work to build partnerships across faiths: engaging with the Vatican, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jewish and Christian leaders, and leading delegations of Muslim scholars to Auschwitz and Srebrenica to confront antisemitism, genocide denial and every form of dehumanization. These efforts do not erase differences in belief. They ensure that disagreement never hardens into division.

This Ramadan arrives at a particularly sensitive moment, as images of conflict dominate public discourse and emotions understandably run high. It offers a civic opportunity – especially in the United States – to reject the false clash narrative before it calcifies into public consensus.

Real choice is not between Islam and the West

Avoiding that outcome requires steady choices from multiple parts of society:

Political leaders can set the tone by drawing a clear distinction between confronting hostile states and affirming the equal belonging of Muslim citizens.

Security institutions can reinforce that trust by treating community partnership as an essential element of public safety.

Media and digital platforms can resist amplifying language that turns a geopolitical conflict into a civilizational one.

And local communities can continue the quiet work of everyday contact – sharing meals, volunteering together, showing in practice that differences are normal and, regardless of their nature, do not dissolve common citizenship. 

These steps are not symbolic gestures. They are practical safeguards against the social fragmentation that makes societies less secure, not more.

History suggests that wars eventually end, but narratives about who belongs can endure long after the final ceasefire. If the Iran conflict is framed as a struggle between civilizations, the damage will not be limited to foreign policy. It will also reshape how children are treated in classrooms, how families are viewed in neighborhoods, how citizenship itself is understood.

The real choice facing Western societies today is not between Islam and the West. It is between allowing fear to narrow the definition of belonging or reaffirming, even in moments of crisis, that pluralism is a source of strength rather than weakness. 

This Ramadan, the decisive test will not occur only on distant battlefields. It will also unfold in how Americans speak to one another, protect one another and recognize one another as equal members of the same civic community. 

Rejecting the myth of an inevitable clash is not an act of denial about conflict abroad. It is an act of confidence in the possibility of coexistence at home.

Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa is secretary general of the Muslim World League, representing 1,200 scholars across 139 countries. A leading Islamic theologian, he has confronted Islamophobia at the United Nations General Assembly and advanced interfaith dialogue through historic engagement with the Vatican. He also led delegations of Muslim leaders to Auschwitz and Srebrenica, standing against Holocaust denial and extremism. His writing has appeared in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph and The Independent.

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