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Everywhere one looks there are good reasons for Muslims to question the Islamic revivalist creed. The outcomes of more than two centuries of theological fervor are not looking good. Muslim states are not realizing the utopian goals set by these movements. Indeed the opposite is the case: again and again, wherever revivalist movements have gained the ascendancy, human misery has only increased. Too many Muslim states continue to be models of poverty and economic failure, despite all those female heads being covered up.

One inevitable consequence of this trend is disenchantment with Islam, and a growing sense of alienation from the religion. The manifest failure of the revivalist creed creates a sense of anxiety that Islam is under threat, not from the infidel West, but from reputational damage caused by the revivalists themselves. It is a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

Recently General Sisi has been hailed by the population of Egypt, not merely as a liberator of the nation from the ravages of Muslim Brotherhood rule, but as the Savior of Islam: he is now a man on a mission is to save the religion. In a recent speech Sisi called for a 'new vision and modern, comprehensive understanding of the religion of Islam'. Sisi would rescue Islam's reputation, by improving 'the image of this religion in front of the world, after Islam has been for decades convicted of violence and destruction around the world, due to the crimes falsely committed in the name of Islam'.

By 'crimes' Sisi no doubt has in mind the prosecution of former President Morsi now underway in the Egyptian courts. Among other charges, Morsi is alleged to have been in league with Al-Qaida.

Sisi's statement represents a rejection of Islamic revivalism, because at the core of all revivalist movements is a desire to reinstate and vindicate the institution of jihad, as a symbol and a means of Islam's longer-for 'success'. Thus the eminent Deobandi Jurist Muhammad T. Usmani wrote in Islam and Modernism: "Aggressive Jehad is lawful even today... Its justification cannot be veiled … we should venerate ... this expansionism with complete self-confidence".

While Sisi's comments imply a concern for the image of Islam 'in front of the world' – i.e. in the eyes of all, including non-Muslims – the deeper, more visceral angst will be about whether Muslims will come to doubt their own faith.

This anxiety is not just theoretical. Christian aid workers in the Middle East have recently been reporting thousands of Muslim Syrian refugees who are leaving Islam to embrace the Christian faith. There was a remarkable growth of conversions to Christianity among Algerians in the wake of the Islamist regime in the earlier 1990's. There are also many reports of explosive church growth in Iran, in a context of declining mosque attendance and widespread disillusionment with Islam among young Iranians.

It seems that the more intensely a nation is shaped by Islamist revivalism or radical jihad, the more likely it is that significant numbers of Muslims will want to leave Islam. This is not surprising: one cannot promise utopia and fail to deliver without risking reputational damage to Islam itself.

Another symptom of decline in confidence in Islam is the plummeting birthrates in Islamic states, no least of all in Iran. David Goldman has pointed out that lower birthrates tend to be correlated with loss of confidence and decline in faith: "A lack of desire for children is typically a symptom of civilizational decline."

Paradoxically, the revivalist movements have sought to promote the success of Islam but their actual trajectory provides strong evidence against Islam's ability to solve the problems of living well in this world.

This issue arose in an unusual recent interview on Egyptian television of a burqa-clad woman who declared her intention to leave Islam and become a Christian.

In the interview the woman rejects Islam on the grounds that if Islam was a valid faith, its followers would not be killing each other: "There is no (true) Islam, because (genuine) Muslims do not kill (other) Muslim(s), brothers do not kill their brothers, brothers do not send people from Hamas or Gaza to bomb us and kill us here; brothers do not kill their brothers in the police; brothers do not kill their brothers in the army." In essence this woman is agreeing with General Sisi's observation that some Muslism are causing Islam to be 'convicted' of violence.

There are reasons to doubt the authenticity of this interview: it could well be anti-Brotherhood propaganda, effectively saying "Look what a mess the Brotherhood have created: it is so bad that now Muslims are even thinking of leaving Islam because of all the violence and killing being done by Muslims." Nevertheless, even if this interview is propaganda – and some of what the woman says does sound quite peculiar – what is important is that the interview reflects a growing desire to give air space to the sense of disenchantment caused by the violent acts of the revivalists. Even as propaganda – if that is what this video is – it points to public anxiety about Islam being judged and found wanting because of the deeds of the reformers.

In the first part of the 20th century, the Dutch Arabist C. Snouck Hurgronje predicted that Islam would follow the path of Christianity in Europe, and become toothless. Muslims, he argued, would relegate Islam to the domain of personal piety, eschatology and the next life. He regarded the marginalization of Islamic practice – i.e. of sharia law – as inevitable, under the dominance of European values. He wrote in The Achehnese, "The … laws and institutions of Islam will share the same fate [as the laws of the Bible] … their study will gradually take the place of their practice. … Such is our prediction as to the future of Islam, which we utter with all the more confidence as symptoms of its realization have already appeared."

The opposite has proved to be true. The trend Snouck Hurgonje saw proved illusory and short-lived: in the post-colonial area, revivalist movements gathered force and credibility among Muslims the world over, until they became the dominant theological trend of twentieth century Islam. It is telling that Snouck Hurgonje completely underestimated the Wahhabi movement when he wrote: "The Wahhabite movement, which set Arabia in a tumult on the threshold of the nineteenth century … was subdued by Mohammad Ali and Wahhabitism has since been confined to an insignificant sect…"

Confidence in Islam is now being punctured as the bitter fruits of violent Islamist revolutions become more apparent. Snouck Hugronje also observed that "All uniformity of public and domestic life that prevails among Mohammedans of difference races… owes its origin to external force. The foreign missionaries of Islam were her fighting men, and her internal propaganda was the work of her police." While force may have worked in the past, it is not working as well today. In the modern era, with mobile phones and ready access to information via the internet, the attempt to impose conformity based upon the use of force is more likely to result in disillusionment. Today people know better and can find out information to help them choose what to believe.

Islamic revivalist groups are being convicted by Muslim public opinion of damaging the reputation of Islam itself, and this can only lead to further spiritual disorietation among Muslim populations. The first crisis of Islam led to such far-reaching effects, from the re-Islamicization of Muslim communities around the globe, to the 9-11 atrocity. The second crisis of Islam will also have a far-reaching impact no less profound in its effects.

For a long time revivalist movements have offered the only serious Islamic theological response to the first crisis of Islam. They were the only dog on the street. Now that this second crisis is unfolding and revealing its bitter fruit to the Muslim world, the manifest failure of Islamic revivalism means that there is no remaining theological safe-haven left where Islam can hide. The spiritual disorientation caused by revivalist movements, which only bring conflict and death instead of the promised utopia, will increasingly lead some Muslims to agree with the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, that 'Islam is the problem'.

While some will welcome this development, it will almost certainly lead to increasing political and social destabilization of Muslim societies, including aggressive backlash reactions in the form of attempts to shore up Islam's credibility. Communism, another utopian ideology, was also discredited due to its many abject failures, from Stalin to Pol Pot, but this did not prevent some from remaining true believers, even to this day.

The Australian Imams Council, in response to reports of under-age marriages among Australian Muslims, recently stated "any religion ... should not be held accountable for violations by its followers." Yet this is the nub of the matter and a naming of an anxiety gripping the Muslim world: Muslims will hold Islam accountable when Islamic revivalists promise utopia but deliver chaos and human rights abuses.

The Iranian nuclear threat is serious, not only because of traditional Shi'ite infidel hatred, but also because Iran's leaders are undoubtedly aware that the hold of Islam upon ordinary Iranians is slipping away. Spiritually, the revolution has failed. A nuclear bomb could be deployed as a desperate ploy to shore up Islam's credibility. It is the unpredictability of such 'backlash' reactions to the decline of Islam that is particularly concerning in the times ahead.