There has never been a time when misconceptions about Islam and Muslims, and challenges that Muslims themselves face, have been so prevalent in the minds of people and so dominant in public discourse. It is true that misconceptions have existed for many centuries, especially among westerners. This is due to their ignorance about the religion of Islam and its history, and deliberate attempts by certain segments of the population to misconstrue the Qur'anic verses and or quote them out of context. The misconceptions are then propagated by some leaders of those countries, in particular politicians and evangelicals, and this filters down to the public at large via 24 7 broadcast media and social media, and becomes uncritically accepted by it. It is also true that challenges that Muslims face have emerged in the past century or two. Several have arisen as a result of external forces that impinged upon the Muslim world. The most important force was the advent of colonialism and the consequential policy of the complete separation of 'Church' and 'State'. There are, in addition, some internal forces that have compounded the problems.