Islam has values, following the Koran and the example of Mohammed and they form people very profoundly and for some Muslims it creates a vision of a very different society and a hope it will be established.

Belief in one god, praying, charity, the five pillars, ethical moral objectives and messages in the Koran, the history of Islam. There are basic tenants in Islam that we universally believe in but I think it's very naive to think that Sharia, that legal rulings are derived in a vacuum, that people do not bring their own histories and politics and social pledges to bear when they interpret the Koran.

I met many Christians leaving the Middle East, hoping to come to Australia feeling they would leave behind a society where they were inferiors in their native lands and they are disturbed about the rise of more separate radical Islam in Australia, not necessarily the main stream but there is a voice.

We must recognise - both Muslims and non- Muslims, that the Koran is a text. We need human engagement with that text, so we have to understand that the rulings and the legal rulings are produced are channelled through the human mind, it's an interpretive act of a human being engaging and interacting with a text producing legal results. Because of that it's susceptible to flaws, it is not perfect. Nobody has perfect access to the divine will.

There needs to be more women scholars, and that is not something new, we need to return to the glorified past and get more women scholars involved to overcome the Fetahs of patriarchy.

Some people in the west have responded to the terrorist attacks by trying to look for everything that is positive in Islam. I think that was a strong response after 9/11, was to try to reach out as positively as possible.

One of the reasons why people in the west are nervous is they are reading the Koran, and the life of Mohammed and he is a prophet that declared he was victorious through terror and that is disturbing to people.