At the present stage of world development, issues concerning the role of Islam in world history and world politics, its relations with other civilizations have become relevant. We are talking, first of all, about the long historical confrontation, the ongoing conflict of Islam with the West, with the Christian world. This article is devoted to the problem of conflict/dialogue between the Western world and the world of Islam. The subject of the article is the factors that impede the dialogue of these worlds as two world civilizations, create cultural-political and cultural-historical conditions for the existence and exacerbation of deep differences between these civilizations, and in the modern conditions of a transboundary, increasingly unstable and uncertain world - translate these differences in the context of mutual claims towards each other. The purpose of the study is to identify the main historical causes and dynamics (historical stages) of the onset and exacerbation of conflict between European and Islamic civilizations: first between Islam and Christianity, and then - in New and Modern times - between Islam and the West. When developing the subject of the study, the close connection of the analysis of intercivilizational relations with its conceptual and terminological apparatus and the experience of scientific interpretation of the history of civilizations and intercivilizational relations was taken into account. Methods were used: religious studies, terminological analysis.The dominant versions of the history of the conflict between Islam and Christianity, Islam and the West in the world and Russian science are considered, its main stages are characterized. The concept of the underlying factors of this conflict, due to the nature of both civilizations, the tense cultural and historical ties of Islam and Christianity, is proposed. The conclusion is made about the deep causes of the conflict, their rootedness in the fundamental issues of power and culture, cultural and political influence, control, beliefs and identity.