That is not to say that anti-American Islamist violence is necessarily waning.
Though having a staunch Marxist background, he now also takes to task certain leading leftists of Pakistan for failing to condemn Islamist violence.
Geifman has introduced the comparison between the pre-revolutionary Russian terrorist groups and the contemporary perpetrators of Islamist violence into the conversation on terrorism.
Time and again, bin Mahfouz used the law or the threat of legal action to ban books that tied him to Islamist violence.
Our graphic shows how the wave of Islamist violence reached a peak in the middle of the decade and then declined.
But they say that he didn't support Islamist violence.
Such was the disquiet in France about Islamist violence that Ramadan was barred from that country in 1995.
Right-wing Israelis argued that withdrawal rewarded Islamist violence and that rockets would soon be fired into Israel from the very areas being vacated.
The country has so far been spared the militant Islamist violence that has plagued some of its neighbours.
The obstacles seem formidable, but they need not block the struggle against Islamist violence.