In this paper, we develop a sliding method for the fractional Laplacian. We first obtain the key ingredients needed in the sliding method either in a bounded domain or in the whole space, such as narrow region principles and maximum principles in unbounded domains. Then using semi-linear equations involving the fractional Laplacian in both bounded domains and in the whole space, we illustrate how this new sliding method can be employed to obtain monotonicity of solutions. Some new ideas are introduced, among which, one is to use the Poisson integral representation of s-subharmonic functions in deriving the maximum principle, and the other is to estimate the singular integrals defining the fractional Laplacians along a sequence of approximate maximum points by using a generalized average inequality. We believe that this new inequality will become a useful tool in analyzing fractional equations.