In world of many faiths, Islam needs to change

In world of many faiths, Islam needs to change (the view from Istanbul) | 3/17/2006 | Ron Coody A few cartoons involving Muhammad have generated a firestorm that refuses to go out. Just a couple of weeks ago, a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina rented a jeep and drove it through a student plaza on the campus, injuring nine people, including a visiting scholar. Police are still investigating the crime, but one factor that may have contributed is that the campus paper printed one of the now infamous caricatures of Muhammad, arousing the anger of many Muslims. The driver, an Iranian Muslim, has plainly said he attacked the campus because it was the will of Allah. I live a basically quiet, safe life in Istanbul, Turkey. My neighbors are Muslims, all of them. Turkey is 99.9 percent Muslim. This statistic, of course, doesnﾒt reveal the important sub-groups that exist here. For example, about 20 percent of the population is Alevi, a Shiite sect that has a very liberal attitude toward religious traditions. Turkish Alevis are some of the countryﾒs strongest supporters of democracy, because without it they might suffer oppression from the Sunni majority. And then there are all the ﾓsecularﾔ Sunni Turks. These are folks who drink, dress just like ﾓChristianﾔ Europeans, and interpret their religion liberally. Many of these would be agnostic or even atheist. The devout Muslims, too, (most of them, as best I can tell) donﾒt seem particularly hostile. They work hard and take care of their families. They send their kids to school and take vacations when they can. There is one problem they seem to have, though. They find it hard, if not impossible, to envision a world where Islam is not dominant. In our section of the city, Muslims recently held a conference called ﾓCan cultures associate with one another?ﾔ Such a question would seem absurd in our multicultural milieu, but it is a very real concern in a homogenous culture that allows little to no opportunity for dissent. This is the thorny part of the whole Islamic question. The word Islam means ﾓsubmitﾔ (not ﾓpeace,ﾔ contrary to popular misinformation). It is a comprehensive system of faith and practice that covers not only the inward and interrelational world of individuals but the whole of society. Until 1923, when Kemal Ataturk abolished the Caliphate, the Islamic world had a spiritual and political head who ruled from his seat in Istanbul. Those Muslims styled as ﾓjihadistsﾔ are waging a war to re-establish this sacred office. But even for the less extreme Muslim, the existence of any society of people not submitted to Allah is in itself somewhat a provocation. It seems without some kind of reform within Islam, just stopping the printing of a few cartoons wonﾒt stop the tension. In the meantime, the people who arenﾒt ﾓsubmittedﾔ must be willing to weather the storm.