Word: secularism
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Last weekend, replicating a Sunday-morning ritual of my secular youth, I bought a copy of The New York Times. I brought it back to my common room, and eventually my roommates drifted in and rifled through the paper to find the good sections. When we were draped over futon and chair and carpet, reading each other passages from the paper—“Hey, can you believe what Condoleeza Rice said?”—it reminded me of those childhood Sunday mornings, except with less competition for the sports section. When I glanced...
...exhort their rank and file to slaughter Iraqis cooperating with the U.S. and the interim government. On one tape, a man named Sheik Abu Anas al-Shami, one of al-Zarqawi's key commanders and a member of the organization's religious committee, preaches that any nation built on secular principles is "in the light of Islamic law a tyrannical infidel and blasphemous state." Anyone associated with it, he continues--especially soldiers and police, whether or not they are good Muslims--may be murdered, as "they do not represent themselves; they are means in the hands of the tyrants." Even...
...devolve to the moderate Shi'ites and Sunnis or to the fundamentalist insurgents of both sects who have made parts of the country terrorist sanctuaries? Will pro-democracy reformers in Iran wrest power from the country's aging theocrats or be squelched by a new crackdown? Can Pakistan's secular government and Saudi Arabia's ruling family survive the increasingly violent campaign waged by bin Laden--linked extremists to destroy them both? Here's a glimpse at the global war for the future of Islam--and what it may mean for the rest of the world...
...effort to draw students away from Saudi-funded fundamentalist madrasahs, or religious schools, where 1.5 million Pakistani children spend nearly all their time memorizing the Koran in Arabic, even though few Pakistanis speak the language. Pakistanis say that so far the government has failed to build new secular schools that would provide an alternative to the madrasahs. Religious conservatives are trying to expand their reach: a Pakistani cleric and Member of Parliament has launched a campaign to shut down cybercafes throughout the country, describing the Internet as a "red-light district...
...home to 135,000 U.S. troops: Iraq. Among the many unintended consequences of this war is that some of the most harrowing terrorist acts being carried out in the name of Islam are taking place in a country the U.S. had hoped to transform into a model of secular democracy in the Middle East. The chances that Iraq will resemble that ideal soon are all but gone. The danger now is that control could slip into the hands of jihadists--as parts of the so-called Sunni triangle already have--intent on establishing their own fundamentalist regime that could become...