The Islamic world seems to lack the ability to confront the challenge of modernism and has chosen instead to turn inwards towards Islam as a political paradigm. As a result, there appears to be a reluctance to adopt democratic principles of government. This is due at the level of ideas to a failure to embrace secularism in the collective sphere, as occurred in Europe. The cause for this failure lies in the marginalization of the Hellenistic philosophical tradition in the twelfth century, despite the role of the falsafah movement. Yet contemporary moderate Islamic and Islamist thinkers are turning back to such paradigms in order to be able to incorporate the political implications of modernism into the new Islamic project.