Introduction The world is passing through the phase of rapid technological advancements and scientific achievements. Along with these, globalisation and other concepts like liberal democracy and secularism are making us perceive the world in a more dynamic and convergent nature. There are more economic interdependence, communications and other shared interests among countries. With newly found business strategies like business outsourcing and increasing international business collaborations portrays the trend in a more positively influencing manner. The apparent economic gains that can be assumed of this condition naturally elicit overwhelming response from key nations on the world map. Some scholars like Anwar (1998) even predict this trend to give rise to a new world civilization that will suppress all conflicts of nations and the world as a whole. 1 On the other side, the concepts of liberal democracy and secularism are drawing criticism from a considerable proportion of people. Some people and, indeed, nations see these concepts as the outcomes of western attitude of dominance on the world. Moreover, many developing and third world countries are cynic of this mainly western notion of globalisation. For, the issue of secularism has different implications in regard to different communities. 2 Also, there is a surge in various conflicts across countries, of which religious conflicts are important and of particular interest to the present discussion. There have been many incidents of terrorist activities in recent years, affecting many countries. 1 as cited in Fox J. & Sandler S. (2004), ‘The Clash of Civilizations Debate’ in Bringing Religion into International Relations , p. 120. 2 Cady L. E., ‘Categories, Conflicts, and Conundrums: Ethics and the Religious/Secular Divide’ in War and Border Crossings. Ethics When Cultures Clash . Eds. French P. & Short J (2005). Incidents like the September 11 th attack in the United States are highlighting the Islamic terrorist activities. Apart from these, the growing tensions among communities, especially between the Western and the Islamic, are causing intellectual elite to think on cause and effect situations of these conflicts. In order to conclude whether or not religious conflicts are taking us back from the post-enlightenment trends to medieval periods, we need to analyse the possible reasons behind these tensions. Body It seems appropriate to start the main discussion with the highly debated Huntington’s ‘clash of civilizations’ hypothesis, as it gives an overview of various interrelated factors. He classifies the world population into different civilizations and predicts that civilizational conflicts will be intense in the post-cold war era. 3 According to him, civilizations evolve with people sharing various common aspects such as language, history and religion, among others. 4 In his further analysis of the concept, the religious influence becomes evident, as he by himself classifies civilizations with much weightage on religion. The hypothesis leads to a prediction of three types of conflicts in the world. They are- tensions that may rise between icons of different civilizations (core state con