KIM LAWTON, correspondent: The festival of Eid al-Adha begins with sacrifice. Those participating in the hajj, and all other Muslim families with the financial means, slaughter a sheep, lamb, goat, camel, or cow.

DAWUD WALID (Council on American Islamic Relations Michigan): This sacrifice is in remembrance of what the Qu’ran says, as well as the Bible, of when Abraham was inspired or he had a dream that he was to sacrifice one of his sons, and then God told Abraham that he did not have to sacrifice his son, and a ram came, and Abraham then sacrificed the ram.

LAWTON: American Muslims typically buy meat slaughtered according to Islamic requirements from a market or grocery store. The immediate family eats one-third of the meat. Another third is shared with the larger community of friends and relatives, and the rest is donated to the poor.

WALID: It’s a religious obligation for us to give to other people. We would not be good Muslims or following our religion, because the third pillar of Islam is charity, so we’re obligated to give charity.

LAWTON: In the United States, recipients include places such as Gleaner’s Community Food Bank of southeastern Michigan. They partner with over 400 outlets in their network of feeding programs to distribute thousands of pounds of frozen lamb meat donated by the Muslim community annually.

JOHN KASTLER (Gleaner’s Community Food Bank): It’s a high-protein item, and it’s certainly the type of food product that we really like to provide during the winter months where you get a nice, hearty meal out of the donation. Groups like the Salvation Army, the Cabbage & Soup Kitchen, the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, and different feeding programs around town will be able to enjoy this blessing.

LAWTON: Through the soup kitchens they operate, mosques and Islamic centers also serve as distribution sites. Those who come in to pray are offered bags of lamb to take home, as are all non-Muslims seeking food assistance.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Before President Obama left for Asia he visited Fort Hood in Texas, where 13 members of the military were killed allegedly by an Army psychiatrist who is an American-born Muslim:

President Obama at Fort Hood memorial service: “No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. For what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice—in this world and the next.”

The Fort Hood killings have raised questions about whether the accused shooter’s zeal about Islam could have played any role in the tragedy and about being Muslim in the US military.  Imam Yahya Hendi is the Muslim chaplain at both the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and at Georgetown University in Washington. He had met Major Hasan.

Imam, welcome. Is there anything in what you’ve heard or read about Major Hasan that could explain to you what happened?

The Obamas at Fort Hood memorial service

AM YAHYA HENDI: Actually, no. It is a shock for me. I met Major Hasan a few times, and every time I met him I understood him to be a loyal American, loving of his country, and he wanted to join the military in support of America.

ABERNETHY: Is there anything about his being a very devout Muslim that could explain to you his shooting?

HENDI: For me it was….

ABERNETHY: …his alleged shooting.

HENDI: For me, what happened on that Thursday (November 5) has nothing to do with Islam. Islam does not stand in support of such shooting. Actually, according to Islamic law what he did was criminal, immoral, and unethical and against the teachings of Islam in every way, shape, and form.

ABERNETHY: When he apparently—when he began shooting he shouted out “Allahu akbar” in Arabic—God is great.

HENDI: Yeah. You know Muslims use that phrase, “Allahu akbar,” like “Oh, gosh” in English, “Oh, my Lord, Oh, my God.” It does not really have a religious motivation always and all the time.

ABERNETHY: You have counseled a lot of Muslim soldiers and sailors and marines. Is there any conflict for some of them, at least sometimes, between being Muslim and then having to go some place where they are fighting Muslims?

HENDI: You know, overall most of the soldiers we have, Muslim soldiers in the US military, are loyal Americans and have joined the military, again, to defeat terrorism, to defeat extremism. After all, on September 11 we were attacked, and Islam gives Muslims and America the right to defend itself against terrorism and, therefore, Muslims should be proud and are proud of their service in the US military.

ABERNETHY: There’s a concept, if I understand it correctly, within Islam called the ummah, which is a sense of intense brotherhood with all other Muslims. Now does that conflict with having to go into Afghanistan?

HENDI: Actually, no. If I love my brother and when my brother does something wrong, Islam requires me to stop him from his wrongdoing. You know, Prophet Muhammad—and in the Koran we are told that we have to enjoin good and forbid evil. What happened on September 11 and the aftermath of that terrorism, extremism, what is happening in Pakistan, suicide bombing, and in Afghanistan is against the teachings of Islam, and Muslims are required to join any military in self-defense and to defeat terrorism.

ABERNETHY: What about in the Muslim community in this country? What’s going on there since the shootings?

HENDI: You know, American Muslims feel proud of being American, but at the same time are suspected on daily basis. Their religion is under siege; the community is under siege because of suspects. What we want America to do is to understand that we are a part of the fabric of America. We love America, our country, and we want to fight with everyone in defense of America.

ABERNETHY: Imam Yahya Hendi, many thanks.

HENDI: Thank you.

DEBORAH POTTER, correspondent: Almost 90 percent of the students at Rainbow Elementary School in Berlin are from immigrant families, most of them Muslim. Fitting in can be tough, because a lot of them can’t speak German—even though many of their families have been here for decades.

HEIDRUN BOEHMER (School Principal): When I started being a teacher more than thirty years ago I thought that problem we won’t have in ten years. They all will speak German. But they don’t.

POTTER: Heidrun Boehmer has watched her students struggle to succeed. About 75 percent never finish high school—more than double the national rate. In school and the outside world, their chances are limited by a complicated mix of social and economic issues, religion, and history.

Muslim immigrants, mainly from Turkey, first came here in large numbers in the 1960s, when Germany was facing a severe labor shortage. They were called “guest workers,” but most of them never went home. Instead, they brought their families and settled in neighborhoods like Neukolln in Berlin, where shop signs are in Turkish and Arabic, and satellite dishes bring in programs from back home. Storefront mosques are tucked behind fruit stands. Until ten years ago, immigrants could not become German citizens, and they still don’t have a chance at most government jobs. Integration just hasn’t happened.

RIEM SPIELHAUS (Humboldt University): People who live here since forty, fifty years, were born here in the third generation, are understood as foreigners, are understood as immigrants while they are not. They just have a different faith. So this debate leads to people thinking about their neighbors as problematic because they do have a different faith.

POTTER: Today, Germany has about four million Muslims—five percent of the population, making Islam the second largest religion. Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon and twice as many mosques as the United States. Young Muslims here describe themselves as more religious than their parents, in a country where few Christians go to church. Berlin is sometimes called the atheist capital of Europe. But while religious freedom is enshrined in the German constitution, public schools are required to offer Christian religious instruction. Leaders of Muslim organizations are now demanding Islamic religious instruction as well, and tensions are growing.

SPIELHAUS: The number of people that don’t want to live together with Muslims, that don’t want to have a mosque in their neighborhood—this number is rising.

POTTER: According to public opinion polls, the vast majority of Germans associate Islam with violence and terrorism, and they resent what they see as too many Muslims sponging off the German welfare system. But the country’s strong social safety net may be one reason why Germany has not seen the kind of violence that scorched Muslim neighborhoods in France a few years ago. Young Muslims there took to the streets, angry about unemployment and police brutality. Nothing like that has happened in Germany, even though the jobless rate in some Muslim neighborhoods hovers near 50 percent.

BARBARA JOHN (Office Against Discrimination): If there is no easy opportunity, or if they can’t make as much money as they get from the state as welfare money, they don’t work, of course. It’s not that they don’t want to work, it’s just reasoning, and they are rational people.

POTTER: Barbara John has spent 30 years dealing with integration issues, a task complicated by the fact that Germany has never had a policy of limiting immigration.

JOHN: It’s part of our history of Nazi times. We were guilty, and we still feel guilty, especially when it comes to minorities and to accepting people who are persecuted, and once we were, ourselves, able to give it, we could hardly say no, and now immigrants come, and they want to live in Germany, they want to be proud of this country, and the Germans themselves are not. So integration is difficult for these minorities.

POTTER: The government is now trying to help, offering subsidized language and culture classes for adults at a cost of about $200 million a year. But those who sign up don’t always come.

NADINE HASKE (German Language Teacher): Some of them, they’re not interested. But some of them, also, they have many problems here with immigration, problems that we can’t understand—problems with job, to find a job.

POTTER: The problems are all too apparent to Ender Cetin, who says Muslims want more than equal job opportunities. They want to feel truly accepted.

ENDER CETIN (Turkish-Islamic Union): We feel many, many attacks, not violence but in words, feel many, many kind of discrimination. This makes us also afraid a little bit. There’s a distance. That’s not so good for integration.

POTTER: Cetin was born in Germany but chose to retain his parents’ Turkish citizenship rather than give it up, as required by law, to become a German citizen. As a spokesman for the biggest mosque in Berlin, he now gives tours to school groups, hoping to make Islam seem less threatening.

CETIN: We have many, many questions also in these years and the questions are always the same. The question is—terrorism and Islam, can it be together?

ERDINC SINAC: Not every Muslim are terrorist, something like that, yeah? Sometimes in the TV it looks like that. Every Muslim looks like terrorist. It’s not true.

POTTER: Erdinc Sinac came here from Turkey at age five and recently became a German citizen.

SINAC: I go to school, learn very good German. For me it’s okay, and I have not problems.

POTTER: In the long term, Germany needs immigrants. The country’s birth rate is one of the lowest in Europe, the cost of its social programs among the highest.

JOHN: We have to consider these people as our future, too. They are—their children, the children of the immigrants, are our children, are the children in Germany, they are the children of everybody, and we have to care for them and look after them and give them a better education, give them a good education, so why shouldn’t they be successful? It’s everything in human nature that can make them successful, and we are a country that has money, and we have educators, so we should improve our system.

POTTER: But there’s a long way to go. Other Western democracies have similar problems, but a new study by an international economic group says Germany does about the worst job of providing equal opportunities for immigrants and their children.

For Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, I’m Deborah Potter in Berlin.

BOB FAW, correspondent: At Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee, four-year-old Ethan Barker might seem carefree. But his parents, Chris and Tamara, are frightened about Ethan’s upcoming brain surgery. So when neurosurgeon Dr. Stephanie Einhaus asks if the family would like to pray, they readily agree.

DR. STEPHANIE EINHAUS (praying with family): We come before your throne today, Lord, asking for your blessing on this sweet child of yours.

FAW: Ethan’s surgery is delicate. Einhaus takes a bone from his skull and modifies it to cover a space created by an earlier surgery.

DR. EINHAUS: (in operating room): …the bone of the skull is kind of in two layers and so you can split it like an Oreo cookie…

FAW: For this skilled practitioner, praying benefits her as much as the patient’s family.

DR. EINHAUS: If I’m having a hard time doing something, getting a catheter in a fluid space, I’ll just pause and in my own head I will pray, “Please, Lord, help me get this right.”

FAW: Einhaus says praying with families helps them with the stress and gives them hope.

DR. EINHAUS: It helps them to hold on to something to get through, you know, that crisis that’s going on. Most people want to do it. They’re like, they’re so relieved.

FAW: Eleven-year-old Holly Barkley, about to undergo surgery to drain fluid from her brain, does not face a crisis.

DR. EINHAUS (to patient): How’s your head feeling?

FAW: But her family also wants to pray.

DR. EINHAUS (praying with family): I pray that you will let this family feel your power, let them feel your peace, Lord…

FAW: Prayers like that, family members agree, can bring comfort.

CHRIS BARKLEY: It puts a sense of comfort in you. Normally, doctors don’t do that, and it probably makes people feel closer to the doctor. You want them to care just as much as you do.

LAURA YOUNG (Holly Barkley’s mother): It was more of the Lord was on our side, and it told me then it was going to be okay, and you know I was ready to—if anything came out negative, I was ready to face it.

DR. EINHAUS (to Ethan’s family): Hello. We are all done, and it went great.

FAW: Einhaus, raised Catholic and now a Southern Baptist, was once reluctant to pray with patients in the beginning for fear of being ridiculed. But as time went on she felt more comfortable asking patients if they would like to pray.

DR. EINHAUS: Once you start doing it you realize how much people really like doing it and how powerful it can be as a support for not only the patient but for the families.

FAW: You regard your role as a physician as a kind of ministry.

DR. EINHAUS: I do, I absolutely do.

FAW: In this part of the Bible belt, many patients—like Marletta Scott, facing difficult triple bypass heart surgery at Methodist South Hospital—say they would welcome a chance to pray with their doctor, even though Marletta Scott’s doctor, heart surgeon Alim Khandekhar, happens to be Muslim.

MARLETTA SCOTT: He did explain to me that, overall, that, you know, it was in the Lord’s hands and that he’d be watching over him as well as me during this procedure. I mean, and that’s all that we can ask for.

FAW: That makes you feel good, that gives you comfort?

MARLETTA SCOTT: Yeah, it does.

FAW: in his 32 years of professional experience, Khandekhar says he has found that patients with faith often recover faster.

DR. ALIM KHANDEKHAR: Because they rely not only on the doctors, the medicine, but they rely on a power that is more powerful than all of them, that puts them at ease with themselves, at ease with the decision they are making.

FAW: What all this suggests, especially in this part of the country, is a growing trend by physicians to treat physical and spiritual problems together. After all, says the founder of this Memphis clinic, 50 percent of the patients who come here for primary care do not have medical problems.

DR. SCOTT MORRIS (Founder, Church Health Center, and United Methodist Minister): Many of our physical complaints come about because of our spirits being broken. What they need is a way for us to help them deal with this spiritual devastation.

FAW: So here at the Church Health Center, which since 1987 has treated 60,000 low-income people without health insurance, the spiritual needs of a patient are addressed before they ever see a doctor.

DR. MORRIS: From my point of view, if we want to be healthier, you must have a healthy spirit as well as a healthy body. We know, I think, in our heart of hearts, that being at peace, being bathed in what a person perceives as the love of God, makes people healthier faster.

FAW: But mixing prayer with medicine can cause problems, especially when the goal of reducing suffering conflicts with the wishes of devout patients. For example, a recent AMA [American Medical Association] study found that patients of faith demand and get more aggressive treatment than is medically warranted, and there are also concerns that a patient can be exploited if a doctor uses prayer to proselytize, to promote certain beliefs.

PROFESSOR MARK MUESSE (Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Rhodes College): It might take the form of a particular kind of prayer that the patient might be uncomfortable with. It might include accepting certain kinds of creedal statements that the patient would not otherwise accept.

FAW: At Rhodes College, where he teaches comparative religion, Mark Muesse also worries that praying with a patient could compromise a doctor’s relationship with a patient.

PROF. MUESSE: There could be a boundary crossed there, that a doctor begins to lose his objectivity in relationship to a patient. You’re losing some of the critical distance, I think, that’s oftentimes necessary for proper medical treatment.

FAW: Physicians like Einhaus counter that even if that boundary is crossed, no harm need result.

DR. EINHAUS: No matter what, you’re going to develop a relationship with your patients, okay? So the fact that I’m praying with them may make that bond a little stronger, but in no way would it affect my judgment.

FAW: And that element of compassion, physicians argue, is what is often missing in the training many doctors receive.

DR. KHANDEKAR: During my training, you know, being a cardiac surgeon, I don’t think that part has been stressed enough. It helps me to have another power behind me to do what I do. I do not think enough doctors use this power.

FAW: Here, though, that recognition—that the spiritual can affect the physical—seems to be growing.

PROF. MUESSE: In the past, you know, doctors would take care of the body, and the ministers and the chaplains would take care of the soul, but now we’re seeing that those two things cannot be separated.

FAW: Shortly after his surgery, Ethan was almost as playful as before. Holly, too, was doing just fine. For each, medical technology prevailed.  But in this medical theatre, more and more physicians seem to be sharing a belief that there is more at work here than science and skill.

DR. EINHAUS: We’re not always in control. God’s always in control, and so things may not turn out the way we want them to. We may not like it.  We may not understand it this side of eternity. But we have to trust that he is still in control and that if they go and they die, that heaven is really a good place.

FAW: Here, where there is recognition that when in comes to healing, fixing the body alone is an incomplete, indeed, flawed approach.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly this is Bob Faw in Memphis, Tennessee.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: This past week in Washington, the administration’s top political, military, and diplomatic leaders gathered to think through US options in Afghanistan. On October 7, the US will have been involved militarily in Afghanistan for eight years. What’s our mission there? Can it be achieved, and what are the moral dimensions of the debate? William Galston is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. He brings to the discussion a strong grounding in the just war tradition. Bill, welcome.

WILLIAM GALSTON (Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution): Good to be here.

ABERNETHY: What can we say about what the mission in Afghanistan should be?

GALSTON: Well, we have to understand the mission in light of 9/11. The attack on the United States, which killed thousands of civilians, was conceived and launched by Al-Quaeda using Afghanistan as a base, with the Taliban government sheltering them, and the piece of the mission on which everyone agrees is the importance, the urgency, and the moral justification, the defensive justification, of making sure that Afghanistan cannot again serve as a base for terrorist attacks on the United States.

ABERNETHY: Okay, so what are the means to that end? How do we do it?

GALSTON: That’s one of the questions that’s being debated in Washington right now, and there are two basic options. Option number one is to try to create an Afghan government that is legitimate, enjoys the consent of the people, and has the capacity to prevent Al-Quaeda and other terrorist groups from acting on its territory. The other possibility is to abandon the hope of creating such a government on the grounds that we don’t have the capacity to do it, and focus instead on direct attacks on Al-Quaeda and other terrorists, using drones, using bombs…

ABERNETHY: In Pakistan as well as …

GALSTON: …and special forces, in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, absolutely.

ABERNETHY: And so can we do either of those?

GALSTON: That is a very important question, as we learned so painfully decades ago in Vietnam. It is wrong not to ask the question at the threshold, can we do what we want to do? It is immoral to send young people, young American men and women, to die in pursuit of an end that cannot be attained, and it is even worse if political leaders have good reason in advance to believe that the end that they are publicly declaring is unobtainable, and the worst of all is to use American troops for the immediate political advantage of the party of the administration in power.

ABERNETHY: One of the issues here is whether we can create the trust of the Afghan people in our ability to stay and do what’s necessary. Can they trust us to see it through?

GALSTON: That is a critical question, because by having anything to do with us in these remote villages they are risking their lives, and it would be wrong of us to send a signal that we’re in for the long haul and then leave our local allies in the lurch. Unfortunately, we have done that from time to time since the Second World War, and the results are never pretty, and the policy is never justified. If we tell people that they can depend on us, we’ve given a solemn promise on which they are wagering their lives, and we better honor that promise.

ABERNETHY: And so how do you come out, quickly? How do you come out on it?

GALSTON: I think that we have to go forward, and I have reluctantly concluded that an investment of additional troops represents the best way forward. Others that I respect differ with that conclusion.

ABERNETHY: William Galston of the Brookings Institution, many thanks.

GALSTON: My pleasure.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO, correspondent: Jakarta looks like any other modern Asian capital, but here, alongside the glittering office towers, you’ll also find imposing houses of worship. At the Istiqlal mosque recently, about 10,000 worshipers gathered for Friday noon prayer. It’s part of a religious revival that’s been taking place alongside a booming economy in recent decades. It is visible in mosques—and in malls. At this crowded shopping center, the most popular garment seems to be the head scarf.

INDONESIAN WOMAN: I’m here because Islam tells women to wear the scarf.

Dewi Fortuna Anwar

DE SAM LAZARO: This 40-year-old accountant began covering her hair three years ago.

INDONESIAN WOMAN: I feel ashamed, because I should have been wearing it since I was young, but at least I am wearing it now.

DE SAM LAZARO: Islam is making a comeback in Indonesia along with democracy that began 10 years ago. For years after independence from the Dutch in 1945, and then under decades of Suharto’s dictatorship, religion was officially tolerated at best.

DR. DEWI FORTUNA ANWAR (Indonesian Institute of Sciences): Islam and the traditional, customary laws were regarded as being backward and primarily blamed for, you know, the defeat for many Muslim countries under European rule, so that many of the earlier nationalist leaders, many of the educated elite, in fact, turned their back on religion, and among the younger generation there seems to be a greater willingness both to be openly religious and to be modern and educated at same times. I think maybe this is not just a search for greater spiritual anchor, but also I think it’s greater self-confidence.

DE SAM LAZARO: She and others say this growth of religious expression is spawned by the new democratic freedoms. It’s neither fundamentalist nor militant, notwithstanding recent terrorist incidents. Bombings in two Jakarta hotels killed nine people last July, and a 2002 attack in the tourist haven of Bali killed more than 200. But religion scholar Ulil Abdalla, with the liberal Islamic Youth Association, says such extremism is not widespread.

ULIL ABDALLA (Islamic Youth Association): For some people, Islam as practiced in this country is corrupted. Movies and food and, you know, lifestyle and so forth, it’s pretty much influenced by the American cultures. So when radical Islamic ideologies was introduced by some activists to Indonesia, it appealed to young people, but that’s, you know, the appeal is limited to a fringe in the society. It’s not a predominant trend.

Ulil Abdalla

DE SAM LAZARO: The more accurate gauge, he says, is Indonesia’s recent election, in which secular incumbent [president] Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won easily. Islamist parties, which had surged to 40 percent of the vote in 2004, lost ground, to less than 30 percent.

ULIL ABDALLA: Some people feared that if democracy, if the democratic space is opened it will allow Islamist party to dominate the arena. That is not true.

DE SAM LAZARO: Significantly, the reaction of the Islamist and other parties after the election indicates a commitment to democracy, says Anies Baswedan, a scholar of political Islam.

ANIES BASWEDAN (Paramadina University): We have around 40 parties. Only nine were able to gain seats in the house, yet we do not see significant problems from supporters who are not having their parties in the house. Acceptance to political result, democratic result, is very important.

DE SAM LAZARO: He says Indonesians, especially the 14 percent who survive on less than a dollar a day, have much more pragmatic concerns—food prices, the economy in general, and corruption—even voters who’d like to impose stricter Islamic law or sharia.

MARTA: From what I understand about Islamic states, the people live in prosperity, and the law is enforced very strictly. Those who steal, those who are corrupt, they cut off their hand, rather than here, where people who can bribe judges and police get away with things.

DE SAM LAZARO: Yet Marta, who like many Indonesians uses just one name, voted for the secular president. So did his neighbor, Samsuddin, who praises a government initiative that’s helped the poor.

SAMSUDDIN: Number one is cash for poor families, and the second is cheap rice. We get $10 a month in cash and 15 kilos of rice. We are a Muslim family, but we are not that strict. I voted for the party that is already helping people. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Islamic or not.

Anies Baswedan

DE SAM LAZARO: That kind of sentiment has moved Islamist parties to the center.

ANIES BASWEDAN: People understand now, campaigning, that “we are Muslims, we are an Islamic party, this is a sharia platform” does not sell. People ask, “Tell me what else, tell me in reality, what will you deliver beyond the slogans?”

FAHRI HAMZAH (Member of Parliament): We don’t name it sharia, because if you name it sharia people then from beginning suspicious to see.

DE SAM LAZARO: Fahri Hamzah is a Member of Parliament with the most successful Islamist party, called Prosperity and Justice, which joined the ruling coalition government. Although it once campaigned for Islamic law and more conservative women’s attire, Hamzah says they are happy to govern by consensus in a liberal democratic framework.

FAHRI HAMZAH: We are an Islamic party, but what we talk about Islam is Islam as the universal value, because we believe every religion, you know, inspired by God. We follow this direction that anti-corruption is Islamic agenda, clean government is Islamic agenda, you know, welfare, manage our economy, open economy, you know, liberalize our economy is one of the, you know, good agenda.

DE SAM LAZARO: That interpretation might well have its roots in the history of Islam in this vast, diverse archipelago.

DR. DEWI FORTUNA ANWAR: We are used to living in differences. Indonesia is composed of islands, over 17,000 islands and over 700 different ethnic groups with different languages, different cultural traditions. Islam came to Indonesia fairly late, from 12th century up, mostly through traders and Sufi teachers. They found Indonesia already very rich layers of cultures, and to be accepted a new belief, a new religion would have to adapt to local circumstances from the beginning. I think that was the case when Hinduism came here and when Buddhism came here and then when Islam came here, when Christianity also came here.

Fahri Hamzah

DE SAM LAZARO: So even though it’s 85 percent Muslim today, Islam here reflects Indonesia’s polyglot culture, readily evident in architecture, language, even in the mall scarf shops.

YUDI TOZA (Shop Owner): We believe in Indonesia that Islam is more modern, more moderate. People who wear the plain dress, it’s not our way.

ROSA LESTARI (Shop Clerk): It will look strange if an Indonesian woman wore that kind of plain clothes, especially nowadays. They probably think you are a terrorist’s wife.

DE SAM LAZARO: Shop owner, saleswoman, and customer told us there’s no contradiction between Islam and fashion, that the notion of a plainly dressed, fully covered woman is—foreign. Shopping here was Nur Inani, who was buying for customers in her own clothing business in the island of Sumatra.

NUR INANI: Mostly they are looking for clothes this long and this long, which is basically covering the butt and the arms. I look for the dress first, and then I will find the matching scarf, the color, the style.

DE SAM LAZARO: Terrorist incidents aside, Indonesia is enjoying a period of stability rarely seen in its independent history. Indonesians are free to choose their government, and they are free to pursue religion, and they’ve made it clear in elections that they want to pursue each separately, that is, to keep religion out of government.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro in Jakarta.

RAHIMA ULLAH: This week it’s towards the end of summer, and we were lucky enough to be able to enroll in this summer horseback riding camp. My sister, Jasmin, is the 16-year-old, and my eight-year-old daughter, Sakina, they’re both in the camp spiritually and mentally preparing for Ramadan in this natural setting. For me nature, and for Muslims in general, nature is this great, awesome sign of God’s creation. Muslims are very excited about Ramadan. A lot of people will describe it in a metaphorical sense of as expecting a month-long guest because of all the excitement surrounding it in terms of being with your family, establishing and reestablishing your relationship with God and those around you.

We follow the lunar calendar, and so every year Ramadan moves up in the year. This year it’s in the summertime. It’s going to be more than twelve hours that – no eating, no drinking the whole day, and you’re still supposed to do all the things that you’d normally do. So, yeah, it’s a challenge, definitely, but I’m still looking forward to it.

Two of the things that people look forward to every year during Ramadan would be the iftars, which is when we break our fasts at the end of the day, at sunset, and then the prayers, the special Ramadan prayers that come after our evening prayers.

JASMIN ULLAH: It’s — you’re supposed to start fasting when you hit puberty, so for guys and girls it’s different ages.

SAKINA AHMAD: I started my fast when I was six. It was hard. I kept on breaking it by accident.

RAHIMA ULLAH: Really, what’s actually encouraged is throughout the year we should be fasting every once in a while as extra fasts.

ABDUL-MALIK AHMAD: I try as much as I can not only to fast in Ramadan but also regularly throughout the year. It’s usually suggested that we fast on Mondays and Thursdays. Those are the days where the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, fasted.

JASMIN ULLAH: And during Ramadan actually being angry and acting on your anger breaks your fast, so it’s very much an emotional discipline as well as a physical discipline.

ABDUL-MALIK AHMAD: The discipline that we practice during Ramadan is the same kind of discipline that we try to promote in the martial arts—restraining from anger, treating people properly, just taking care of yourself spiritually and physically. The martial art style I do is called pencak silat. You’re supposed to use the skills that you learn for peace and for helping other people and not for violent means or violent reasons.

Native Deen music video: “Ramadan in here, Ramadan is here. Alright. it’s a blessed month…”

ABDUL-MALIK AHMAD: As Native Deen, in our songs we try to give Muslims pride about their faith, and we also teach other people a little bit about Islam. One of the things that we really wanted to promote in our song is the feeling of happiness: Ramadan’s here. Get close to God. Fast, but also be happy. It’s a time of hardship, yes, because you’re fasting from sun-up to sundown. But there’s a lot of joy in it. We see families getting together for the iftar or the break-fast.

RAHIMA ULLAH: It’s very special to see that mosque just packed with people. It’s such a warm, wonderful feeling to be around so many people who all have this goal of pleasing God. Even if we think our relationship with God and the people around us are great, there’s always a way to get better. And so Ramadan is that really intense, focused way of doing that, of fasting and working on our own selves and then working on our relationships to others and ultimately our relationship to God.

ABDUL-MALIK AHMAD: There’s a prayer that we always say: “Grant us good in this life and good in the hereafter.” A lot of prayers that we do in Ramadan is really asking us for in the next life, in paradise, in heaven, that we attain the highest levels of heaven, to maybe see our beloved Prophet Muhammad when we’re there.

KATE SEELYE: Here at al Azhar, one of the Muslim world’s oldest and most respected centers of learning and worship, Muslims come to study and pray and to ask how to live a devout life in the modern world. They come for fatwas — religious rulings that are nonbinding. Clerics give advice on how to be good Muslims in matters of religion, family and even finance.
This vendor says fatwas are indispensable.

MOHAMMED (through translator): You feel very reassured after getting a fatwa, and you know you can build your future plans on it.

SEELYE: But recently, some of Azhar’s fatwas have come under criticism. Last year a cleric ruled that an unmarried man and woman could work together alone, which is normally forbidden in Islam, but only if the woman established a maternal relationship with her colleague by breastfeeding him five times. The cleric was suspended for his fatwa, which raised questions about Islam’s relationship with modernity.

In Egypt, the modern and the traditional live side by side. Like other developing countries, Egypt has been flooded in the last decade with new technologies like satellite TV and the Internet, and that’s exposed this conservative society to a confusing mix of Western values and culture.

Dr. Ragab Abu Malih

Islam Online is trying to help Muslims navigate this fast-changing environment. It’s one of the Muslim world’s most popular Internet sites and provides religious advice as well as counseling and information about health, science, and culture in both Arabic and English.

Clerics like Ragab Abu Malih take questions during live fatwa sessions four times a day. He says he receives more than 700 queries daily but can only answer a fraction of them.

Dr. RAGAB ABU MALIH (Managing Editor, Shari’ah Section, Islam Online, through translator): I think if we answered the 700 questions, then more would come. People are asking questions they never had before because of new technologies and influences.

SEELYE: Questions include whether it’s permissible to find a spouse through the Internet. Can a man divorce his wife in a text message? And what about Internet chatting? Flirting between men and women is forbidden in Islam, but can they chat online? According to clerics here, it’s best if a third party monitors the chat.

ABU MALIH (through translator): The Qur’an did not mention these details in their entirety, but it guides us in our advice.

SEELYE:  But critics question the advice being given. Islam Online may be using modern technology, but it’s spreading a very traditional message. The cleric who founded the site, Yousef Qaradawi, is considered a moderate in the region. But his fatwas have opposed women traveling alone without a male guardian, and he’s ruled against women being heads of state.

For secular Muslims like Dalia Ziade, such views are decidedly anti-modern. Ziade is a human rights activist. The 26-year-old accuses religious institutions in Egypt of spreading fundamentalist beliefs, like the veiling of women.

Dalia Ziade

DALIA ZIADE (Cairo Office Director, American Islamic Congress): In my mother’s age, when she was my age, I see her photos. It was tremendously different. It was, you know, she wore short skirts and she used to wear t-shirts without sleeves, sleeveless t-shirts, and nobody used to ask her or to instruct her not to wear this or wear that.

SEELYE: Ziade says in today’s environment she has to wear a headscarf in order not to be harassed. She blames this on what she calls the growing piety movement.

Ms. ZIADE: Everyone now believes that if only he gets religious, all his problems will be solved.

SEELYE: As part of her work, Ziade’s been compiling fatwas that target women. Some clerics say they can’t walk on the same side of the street as men. This fatwa from a high-profile Islamist claims they’re not fit to be judges. Ziade says in this day and age the principles of modernity should be universal — principles like the acceptance of individual and women’s rights, reason, doubt, and the separation of mosque and state. Instead, she says, Islamists are taking Egypt back to another era.

Ms. ZIADE: You know, now I can travel anywhere in the world through my Internet connection. I can go to the U.S right now and see anything there. So how come in this open communication with the whole world I’m still in prison with these ideas?

SEELYE: These ideas like…

Ms. ZIADE: These fundamentalist ideas that go back 1,400 years ago.

SEELYE: Egyptians have always been religious, but just a few decades ago society was far more secular. Now Islam is increasingly part of the public sphere. Qur’anic chants are played in taxis, restaurants, and shops. Signs encouraging women to wear the headscarf are plastered on walls. The Niqab, the full face covering virtually unseen in the past, is increasingly common. More and more men display prayer bumps on their foreheads. The piety trend, say analysts, is fueled by political frustration, poverty, and increasing Saudi influence, and it also has the support of much of Egypt’s middle and professional classes.

Ahmad Abu Haiba

Ahmad Abu Haiba is a prominent media professional. He’s launching the region’s first Islamic music video channel to spread faith-based values. This video is about a farmer’s dreams of going to Mecca.

AHMAD ABU HAIBA (Executive Director, 4Shbab TV): This is how a Muslim should be: he’s a good man, he has good relations with all the people around him, he loves kids, he loves simple people.

SEELYE: Abu Haiba named his station  4Shebab, or “For Youth” in English. He says he’s using the power of satellite TV to help rebuild a Muslim youth identity.

Mr. ABU HAIBA: We don’t have a clear, stable, strong identity, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to help the young people to establish their identity. This is the same identity that the Prophet Muhammad presented to his companions.

SEELYE: Abu Haiba hopes his videos will help counter some of what he says are the negative influences of Western music videos and television.

ABU HAIBA: And this drove us now to drugs and relationships, which really doesn’t fit with our culture.

SEELYE: In contrast, his videos emphasize community and family values, like respect for elders. Women mainly play the role of wives and mothers in the background. Abu Haiba says he doesn’t choose to embrace the principles of modernity, because they’re not in keeping with Islamic values.

ABU HAIBA: I don’t think that modernity is part of these values. I mean, when I learn Islam I know there’s a part of it that cares about people’s life and people’s life changes. But still always the major values and the major pillars as it is never change with time. Modernity is something linked with time, and Islam is timeless.

SEELYE: That view of Islam is the problem today, says Gamal al Banna, a reformist cleric. He says Islamists have a fixed reading of the Qur’an because long ago scholars banned new interpretations of the religious texts.

Gamal al Banna

GAMAL AL-BANNA (President, Islamic Revival Movement, through translator): The religious institutions tell us that innovation will lead us down the wrong path. Anything that has to do with innovation is dangerous, and that’s wrong. You can’t say that religious opinions made over 1,000 years ago are valid for all times. We must have a revolution in the understanding of Islam, a revolution almost like Martin Luther’s.

SEELYE: Until then, says Banna, Islam will not be able to accommodate itself to the modern world. The 88-year-old has written dozens of books about the need for the renewal of Islam and the importance of the separation of religion and state. He’s even issued a fatwa saying Muslim women don’t have to cover their hair. Banna says Muslims must stop relying on scholars to interpret the holy texts. Instead, he says, they should read the Qur’an directly, keeping in mind its emphasis on knowledge and wisdom.

Mr. AL BANNA (through translator): The Qur’anic verse goes, “It was revealed to them, the Qur’an and wisdom.” The search for wisdom has proven itself to be a successful experiment for all peoples and all times. We have to adapt, and we have to learn from all other experiences with wisdom so that Islam isn’t a closed box, but it has an open window to the world.

SEELYE: Banna believes such reform will take place, but long after his lifetime.

For RELIGION AND ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Kate Seelye in Cairo.