Was it more than coincidence that the attacks of 9/11 occurred in the year 2001, which the UN had declared the Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations? 9/11 is all the more ironic, since the UN declaration had been suggested by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami as a response to the "clash of civilizations' thesis. Subsequently, America's largely unilateral behavior seemed to confirm the worst fears that Huntington's (1996) thesis had aroused.¹ And yet parallel to the predictable xenophobic reaction, there has also been a deeper interest in Islam and Muslims, whom the Western lay public finally perceived, for better or worse, as already in their midst. In spite, or perhaps because, of these developments on the world's stage, for much of the lay public, intercultural and interreligious dialogue appears to be the only viable antidote to the poison of religious and political extremism fed by cultural misunderstanding.