When a female suicide bomber tried to blow up another Muslim woman's wedding, for many it epitomised the tensions in modern Islam, Mary Fitzgerald
The call of the muezzin sounds different in Amman. In this city built on seven hills the Muslim summons to prayer bounces and echoes through the deep valleys that cleave Jordan's sprawling capital. It's a sound that Nadia al-Alami has found comforting since childhood, a sound she says reinforces her sense of faith.
In many ways, Nadia is a typical modern Muslim woman. She prays. She fasts at Ramadan. She watches the younger generation of Muslim preachers on TV because she likes the way they apply Islam to contemporary life. Although she doesn't wear hijab - the Muslim headscarf - many of her friends do. She felt offended by the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad but abhorred the violent protests that followed. At ease with her faith, the 24-year-old graduate describes Islam as her compass - "It's the deepest, most basic thing I depend on. It's my connection with God. It's what gives me directions for the map of my life."
Faith is also important to Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman whose brother died fighting US troops in Falluja. Last November Sajida and her husband stood among guests at Nadia's wedding reception in an Amman hotel, explosives belts strapped around their waists. Her husband detonated his belt but Sajida failed to set off hers. The bombing claimed the lives of 27 wedding guests, including Nadia's parents and her husband Ashraf's father.
Admitting responsibility, Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his organisation al-Qaeda in Iraq employed language echoing that used to justify similar attacks in New York, London, Madrid, Bali, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco. The intention was not to kill Muslims, they insisted, rather to target "the dens of evil that were established on Muslim soil in Amman, in order to protect the faith and raise the banner of tawhid [ monotheism]".
Sajida later appeared on Jordanian state TV, wearing a white headscarf and the explosives belt she failed to detonate. With a calm voice, she explained how she and her husband had carried out the attack. "He took a corner, and I took a corner," she said. "There was a wedding in the hotel, children, women and men. My husband detonated his belt. I tried to detonate mine, but it did not explode. I went out. The people started running and I ran away with them."
At the opening of her trial last month, where she appeared veiled and chained at the ankles, Sajida was defiant. "I have God to defend me," she said.
Nadia and Sajida frame what many have described as a battle for the soul of Islam, an ideological struggle that has taken on a new urgency in the wake of the September 11th attacks.
Repelled by those who use violence in the name of Islam, ordinary Muslims throughout the world are refusing to allow their religion to be hijacked by an intolerant minority fuelled by what they see as obscurantist ideology.
"Using the name of Islam to justify this violence is making the world see us Muslims as terrorists," Nadia says, shaking her head. She says her faith has grown stronger since the bombings and she plans to start wearing hijab later this year.
"The people who do this kind of thing are terrorists. They do not have any relationship with Islam. When I saw Sajida wearing hijab on TV, I was shocked. How dare she? The people who killed my parents have nothing to do with my religion.
"The message of Islam is peace. Peace with ourselves, peace with others, peace with the whole universe."
The debate within the Islamic world is not just limited to combating extremism. Nor is it something new - the Muslim faith has always included different schools of thought and varying interpretations. What makes it different this time is the increasing sense of urgency.
Fourteen centuries after the Prophet Muhammad received the divine revelations that would form its core, Islam stands at a critical juncture. The world's fastest growing religion is caught in an existential dilemma, experiencing one of the most dynamic revivals in its history while trying to establish what it means to be Muslim in a globalised world dominated by a secular West that appears to many omnipotent, even predatory, in its politics, economy and culture.
As Sally (36), an Egyptian Muslim whose British husband converted to Islam, puts it: "We are different. That doesn't mean that we hate the West and what it stands for. It just means that we are different and we don't necessarily want to be like you. We want that difference respected."
The debate about the meaning and message of Islam in the 21st century takes place every day in mosques, study groups and televised sermons across the Muslim world from Cairo to Jakarta, as traditionalists and those who see themselves as reformers try to mesh Islamic principles and precepts with the realities of modern life.
In a faith with no central authority and no formal clergy, it is no easy task. The result is a cacophony of competing voices - from the moderate to the extreme - all claiming to hold the only true version of Islam. The spectrum of this debate reflects the immense diversity of the Muslim world, divided as it is by geography, language, culture and often turbulent histories.
Far from being homogenous, Islam is practised and observed differently across countries and cultures. Embracing some 1.4 billion people, ranging from the taxi driver in Indonesia who unfurls his prayer mat at the side of the road when he hears the muezzin, to the Egyptian student who wears her sequinned headscarf with the latest boho chic fashion, its vast territory stretches eastward from the west coast of Africa to Indonesia.
Muslims form the majority in some 45 countries, with the largest number concentrated in Asia. Among them are members of three main groups - Sunni, Shia, and Sufi - all of which splinter into various subdivisions and sects.
Muslims talk of an Islamic reawakening that has been building for decades, powered by a groundswell in personal piety that is not limited just to the poor and disadvantaged. Whether it's more women choosing to wear hijab or more men shunning alcohol, many Muslim countries have witnessed a surge in devotion matched by strict observance of Islamic rituals.
It is not all confined to the personal. Financial institutions have sprung up offering a range of alternatives for saving, lending and investment that respect Islam's strict prohibition on interest. Technology has helped too - through the internet, satellite TV and telecommunications, the core idea of umma (community of believers) has taken on a whole new meaning, particularly for young Muslims eager to carve out a distinct faith-based identity.
They use Muslim matchmaking websites to find husbands or wives and use online fatwa services for advice on how to live their lives. They prefer to watch young TV preachers instead of the bearded sheikhs of the past and listen to modern reworkings of nasheed, Islamic devotional singing. Their mobile phones are as likely to ring with an exhortation to Allah as the latest hit.
For some Muslims, this revitalised sense of faith has crossed over to the ballot box. In recent years Islamist political parties of all hues, from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan, Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Justice and Development party in Turkey, have made electoral gains by espousing democracy within a frame based on and protective of Islamic values. Underpinning all this is the idea that Islam is not merely a faith but an all-encompassing social system.
Many in Europe and the US have viewed these developments with dismay or fear, equating the rise of political Islam in particular with extremism and militancy. They question Islamist politicians' commitment to democracy and their position on the role of women and minorities.
In return, many Muslims accuse the West of being hostile towards Islam and Muslims. They cite US foreign policy and the publication of newspaper cartoonslampooning the Prophet Muhammad to support the sense that theirs is an embattled faith.
Amr Khaled, one of the Muslim world's most popular and influential TV preachers, believes there are misunderstandings on both sides. He recently attended a conference in Denmark to discuss the impact of the cartoon controversy.
"Many people in the West believe all Muslims are extremists and that Islam leads people to become extremists. That's just not true. Muslims have to accept part of the responsibility for this image but so do some people in the West," he says.
"There is a lack of justice, freedom and rights in many Muslim countries and in a lot of cases this is backed up by the West. These conditions encourage extremist thinking and terrorism.
"I believe there is extremism on both sides but we must not allow their voices to become louder than ours."
maryfitzgerald@irish-times.ie