Next week in Oxford, two of western Islam‘s leading religious thinkers – Hamza Yusuf and Tariq Ramadan – will come together for the first time to discuss the hotly debated topic of Islamic reform. Does it matter? And why should we pay attention to what they have to say?

For the generation of western-born Muslims who came of age in Europe and North America in the 90s, Yusuf and Ramadan are leading figureheads in Islamic revivalism in the west. Charismatic and eloquent, their call for an authentic western Islam has resonated with their young audiences.

They are likely to emphasise their commonalities next week, but Yusuf and Ramadan approach religious revival from different traditions and locations. Yusuf is a traditionally trained American imam who focuses on personal spiritual reform and education, while Ramadan is a European philosopher who speaks of legal reform and the public engagement of western Muslims as active citizens.

Their influence recognised on both sides of the Atlantic, Yusuf and Ramadan have been wooed and disdained by western governments and feted and berated in the court of public opinion. Ramadan went from being hailed as a new Muslim Luther to being a lightning conductor for the debate about Islamism and Muslim integration, particularly on the left. He was until recently banned from entering the US, while Caroline Fourest and Paul Berman have devoted entire books to unmasking what they see as the dangerous, radical Ramadan.

Today two basic questions are being asked ever more insistently about Islam. The first is whether Muslims can prosper and live harmoniously in the west. This is a question not of Islamic reform but of how robust democratic processes of inclusion are. The second is whether Islamic values are compatible with the Enlightenment idea of universal reason being beyond culture, religion or history. Some argue that a liberal Islam compatible with secular democracy is possible, while others think that Islam, like all religion, can only ultimately be incompatible with the post-Enlightenment west.

Although Ramadan and Yusuf have sought to preserve traditional moral values while advocating full participation in wider society, they have not addressed the issue of Islam’s compatibility with radical Enlightenment values. Both may have reservations about whether universal reason can be made part of a coherent and recognisable Islamic world-view, and might stand against an aggressive demand for assimilation, one that would be rejected as unfair by Muslims more comfortable with multiculturalism.

To take a concrete example, Europe was shocked by Ramadan’s call in 2003 to merely suspend the sharia law of stoning adulterers: why had he not simply called for its abolition? Was this pure deceit or an awkward tacit secularism that is the lived reality for many western Muslims? Many Muslims caught in the polarised debate about Islamic reform would privately admit to personal awkwardness over such issues. Among the difficult questions they face is why radical reformers in the Muslim world often have to live under the threat of violence.

So it will be intriguing to see how directly Ramadan and Yusuf tackle the bugbears of Islamic reform next week. It is to be hoped that they avoid easy talk of unity and a retreat into semantics. They need to debate their mutual differences constructively, talk frankly about the politics, promise and pitfalls of Islamic reform, and dare to answer some of their more strident critics head-on. The times we live in demand nothing less.

Yahya Birt is commissioning editor at Kube Publishing