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Three days ago Charlie Hebdo was virtually unknown outside its tight circle of devoted readers. Its weekly print run was 60,000, barely a tenth that of its rival, Le Canard Enchainé. Today it is known and lionised on every continent. Its cartoonists are heroes. When those who survived Wednesday’s massacre in Paris produce next week’s issue, a million copies will be printed and they will undoubtedly sell out. If the suspects being sought last night in a forest west of Reims hoped to scare the voices of freedom into mute submission, they failed spectacularly. The shootings were a challenge to western liberal media, so often accused of wielding power without responsibility. To note that the media has risen to the challenge is not self-congratulation but a statement of the inevitable. The hate and violence peddled by Islamic State, al-Qaeda and their hangers-on is delusional. This is not a matter of opinion but of truth, and truth will out. It has been written ineradicably across the web in a wave of defiance and caustic wit, and it confirms that the gunmen, already showing signs of desperation in their choice of soft targets, have inflicted on their cause a serious defeat. France must now turn that defeat to advantage, and the wider Muslim world must learn from it. Calls for French unity in the face of such a tragedy have been movingly answered. As President Hollande met Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysée Palace and sent invitations to Marine Le Pen and other party leaders, the National Assembly met in special session. The session ended with a spontaneous rendition of La Marseillaise. Moderate French Muslims count themselves among the enfants de la patrie who are the protagonists of the French national anthem. France’s Muslim Council urged imams to condemn all violence “in the strongest possible way”. Mosques, for the most part, observed a minute’s silence that brought even the Paris Metro to a standstill. Muslim children held up placards bearing the by now familiar slogan, “not in my name”. Words have meaning, yet they are also cheap. Seen in a global context, Wednesday’s attack was merely the latest in an appalling litany, and moderate Islam needs to do more to stop it. This implies a vital duty for Muslim clerics who must embrace a new role actively deradicalising their followers. It also imposes an urgent responsibility on Muslim political leaders. One controversial figure who appears to have understood this is Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In a remarkable speech to imams last week to mark the birthday of Muhammad, he called for a “religious revolution” to prevent the Islamic world being “lost by our own hands”. He said it was “inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire Islamic world to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world”. What is “inconceivable” to Mr al-Sisi is, of course, happening. His critics accuse him of fostering extremism by driving fundamentalists underground. His agenda is more strategic than moral, but he has an ardent following and he has seen the Muslim world’s leadership vacuum for what it is. Mr al-Sisi is not unique. Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, has championed moderate political Islam at home and abroad. But too few have joined him in the effort, and Turkey’s President Erdogan has tarnished his legacy before even leaving office by pandering to extremists at the expense of Turkish secularism. The critical distinction between moderate and extreme Islam is ultimately for moderates to draw. It is a fallacy to suppose they have already done enough. They need to get drawing, knowing as Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists did that the pencil is mightier than the Kalashnikov.