There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world and you’d be hard pressed to find more than a handful of actual Democratic countries.

(CNSNews.com) — What political parties call themselves is less important than what they do, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday night, referring to Islamist parties boosted by this year’s upheavals in the Arab world.

Addressing a National Democratic Institute (NDI) awards dinner, Clinton tackled head-on an issue that has given rise to growing anxiety in recent months — concerns that the so-called “Arab spring” will catapult anti-U.S. Islamists to power.

Concern centers on the projected rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the victory of the Islamist Ennahdha party in Tunisia’s elections for a constituent assembly late last month, and Libyan interim leaders’ remarks about the primacy of Islamic law (shari’a).

Clinton in her speech implicitly dismissed the notion that Islam and democracy cannot coexist.

“The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous and wrong,” she said. “They do it in this country every day.”