FRED DE SAM LAZARO, correspondent: Kashmir has long been known for its peaceful vistas but for the 13 million inhabitants this mountainous region has been anything but peaceful. It is one of the world’s most militarized places. India alone has an estimated 600,000 troops in the part it controls, four times the number of American soldiers who were in Iraq at the height of that war. Although it has a two-thirds Muslim majority, Kashmir as a whole is quite diverse, the southern region mostly Hindu, the northeast Buddhist. But for six decades this province with a land mass the size of Idaho has been bitterly fought over by India and Pakistan.

It all dates back to 1947, when the departing British decided to partition the newly independent India. Muslim majority areas were to form the new republic of Pakistan. But Kashmir had a Hindu ruler, and he opted under pressure to join India. That set off the first of three major wars between India and Pakistan, ending in a ceasefire with India controlling about two-thirds of Kashmir, Pakistan most of the rest. The so-called “line of control” that divided Kashmir has served as an international border for 65 years, but Kashmir has festered as a sore point between the Islamic republic of Pakistan and mostly Hindu India.

Although the conflict has long been cast in religious terms, Joseph Schwartzberg, a leading scholar on Kashmir, says it’s more complicated than that. And within Kashmir, he says, there’s a long tradition of tolerance.

PROFESSOR JOSEPH SCHWARTZBERG: The Hindus frequently attended religious ceremonies that were held by Muslims, and the converse was also true. In terms of actual day to day religious practices it was a fairly eclectic area, and the type of strident militaristic Islam that we think of when we think of, say, the Middle East—that was not present in Kashmir at all.

DE SAM LAZARO: That began to change in the 1980s in Indian-held Kashmir with more religious tension and extremism. Schwartzberg blames corruption, non-functioning local government, and meddling from India’s capital Delhi in local elections.

SCHWARTZBERG: India is a pretty good functioning democracy in most parts of the country, but with respect to Kashmir it was exceptional. They felt that they couldn’t afford to lose elections. They managed to rig election after election, and the people simply got fed up. In 1987—and it was a pretty corrupt administration, so the people just had it— they initiated a series of demonstrations which were put down with a heavy hand, and in 1989 it really got out of hand, and the Indian government moved in in force.

DE SAM LAZARO: The clampdown triggered a militant separatist insurgency—or vice versa, depending on who is telling the story. India has blamed Pakistan, especially its intelligence service, and Islamist extremist groups. Pakistan says it offers only moral support for the insurgents. Groups like Human Rights Watch blame militant groups, but they also finger Indian security forces for widespread abuses under the guise of rooting out militants. India insists that most are infiltrators from Pakistan-held regions and beyond. Tens of thousands of civilians have died or gone missing. Kashmir’s grand mufti, the top religious leader recognized by India’s government, also blames both sides for excesses, and his numbers are much higher.

BASHIR UDDIN AHMAD (Grand Mufti): Since 1989, when the situation became more critical, hundreds of thousands of people are missing and hundreds of thousands more have been killed. We have no knowledge of where they are. The killing continues unabated, and the situation is still simmering.

DE SAM LAZARO: In recent years, the Kashmir dispute has taken on a new dimension as India has announced plans to build several dams, seeking hydro-electric power for its fast-growing economy. But Kashmir’s rivers also irrigate the breadbaskets of both India and Pakistan. So far there have been no problems sharing the waters under an internationally brokered treaty in 1960. However, Pakistan says the Indian dams could affect seasonal water flows to its farmland.

KAMAL MAJIDULLA (Pakistan Presidential Advisor): It’s devastating, because if the waters are not available to me in the quantities that I need them at the time that I need them, then I’m looking at a very low productivity of my agricultural sector.

DE SAM LAZARO: Pakistan has taken its protest to arbitration provided for under the Indus water treaty. India insists it is in full compliance. However, the fact that India, being upstream, could in theory manipulate flows could be politically toxic, particularly after the severe floods Pakistan has endured in recent years.

Hafiz Saeed is a man the US government has branded a terrorist and for whose capture it has offered a $10 million bounty. Saeed has blamed India for worsening the flooding. Pakistani presidential advisor Kamal Majidulla says such rhetoric resonates among farmers who are hurting.

MAJIDULLA: The farming community, which otherwise could look after their children, are unable to do, so the children have been going off and staying in madrassas instead of going to the local school system, because the madrassas feed them. I’m not saying all madrassas are bad. They do perform a social function, and some of them perform a very good social function, but a fair number of them are not. And this is where the cannon fodder comes from. So there is a direct linkage between water availability, low agricultural productivity, and the rise of terrorism.

DE SAM LAZARO: Officials in India’s capital Delhi say the Pakistani fears of water treaty violations are overblown. Ashok Jaitly, a scholar at a Delhi-based think tank, says the bigger threat is poor conservation and water mismanagement on both sides.

ASHOK JAITLY (Energy Resource Institute): If you had a cooperation based on good scientific river basin management of the Indus basin, and that’s where the Indus water treaty does not provide for it, it only provides for sharing of water. It does not provide for scientific integrated river basin management. If you could have that, then I think a lot, I won’t say all the problems would be solved, but a lot of the problems between India and Pakistan would be resolved, or could be resolved.

DE SAM LAZARO: Back in Kashmir, long squeezed as its two nuclear armed neighbors fight over it, Mufti Bashar Uddin says growing numbers want no part of either.

MUFTI UDDIN: As a religious leader, I would tell the people that if the option of independence is offered, that would be the best bet for Kashmir.

DE SAM LAZARO: That seems highly unlikely—both India and Pakistan reject the idea. So, to most analysts, does any quick resolution of the Kashmir stalemate. In recent months, there’s been a thaw in relations between India and Pakistan, with proposals to vastly increase the amount of trade across the border. Coincidence or not, Kashmir has enjoyed one of its quietest periods in years. The natural beauty is once again luring tourists. In 2011, more than one million visitors came here, most of them Indian. It remains to be seen whether and how much more tourism and commerce can repair 65 years of suspicion and upheaval.

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

KATE SEELYE, correspondent: On the outskirts of Cairo, members and supporters of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood celebrate the start of a new political era. With nearly half the seats in parliament, the party is set to wield significant influence in Egypt. Newly elected deputy Azza al Jarf calls Egypt’s first free election in decades historic.

The Brotherhood has been waiting a long time for this moment. Formed in 1928 to promote Islam, it was later banned in Egypt and its leaders repeatedly imprisoned. But as secular autocrats have collapsed from Tunisia to Egypt, Islamist parties have stepped into the political vacuum, and groups like the Brotherhood are now riding a wave of popular support with their calls for social and economic justice. On election day in a poor Cairo suburb, Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Beltagy spelled out the party’s goals.

MOHAMED BELTAGY: We were oppressed and intimidated for 80 years, but today we are about to embark on a long journey to meet the needs of the people.

SEELYE: Beltagy and his party weren’t the only Islamists voted into parliament. The Noor Party, which advocates a more fundamentalist agenda, won nearly a quarter of the seats. Together, Egypt’s Islamists make up more than 70 percent of the new parliament. Liberal and youth parties account for the rest. Blogger Mahmoud Salem, who ran and lost in a district of Cairo, says youth candidates like himself didn’t stand a chance against the better known and funded Islamists.

MAHMOUD SALEM: The issue is that if you’re a party that only started three months ago you don’t have the chance to create the groundwork that is necessary. You know, as opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood who’s been around for 80 years, you know. So people vote for whoever they see in front of them.

SEELYE: It was young, secular Egyptians like Salem who sparked last year’s protests with their demands for justice and freedom. They were been sidelined in these elections, but Salem say he has no regrets.

SALEM: Now we get to play the role of the opposition, which is so much more fun, you know: Hey, Islamists, you wanted power? Fantastic. I want social justice now. Get it done.

SEELYE: But others worry democracy has been hijacked by parties they say have little respect for personal rights and freedoms.

PROFESSOR SAID SADEK (Professor of Political Science, The American University in Cairo): It is scary on many issues, especially the social issues, minorities, Christians. Also the status of women, civil liberties, personal liberties in general. What are they going to do with them?

SEELYE: Sadek says Egyptians have legitimate concerns about this parliament’s intentions, given the poor human rights records of Islamist-run countries like Sudan and Iran.

SADEK: Islam has many variety of readings and many interpretations. If they are going to adopt a moderate version, we all support them, but if they are going to adopt a very strict interpretation and they want to impose it on others, we’ll have trouble.

SEELYE: But in this working-class Cairo neighborhood, shoppers have other things on their mind. Many are struggling to get by. At this local food bank shoppers are snap up macaroni and lentils at wholesale prices provided by the Muslim Brotherhood. Nearly half of Egypt’s more than 80 million citizens live on less than two dollars a day, and economic despair fueled last year’s anti-government protests. For decades, the Brotherhood has provided for the poor, offering free health care, education, and other services. Now voters are hoping that the Brotherhood’s history of charitable work and its promises to improve people’s lives will lead to real change.

RAMADAN (Man at Food Distribution): The past government was dishonest. We hope the future will bring reforms.

SEELYE: Egypt faces many challenges. Buildings burned during last year’s protest are reminders of the country’s ongoing instability. Investment is down dramatically, as is tourism, which employs more than 10 percent of the population. Unemployment is surging. Corruption is rife. Given the country’s deep problems, the Brotherhood’s leaders say their priorities will be rebuilding Egypt’s economy and infrastructure, not pushing religion. Ossama Yassin is a Muslim brotherhood deputy in parliament.

OSSAMA YASSIN (Member of Parliament): We don’t want what’s known as a religious state. We want a modern, civil, democratic state belonging to the people.

SEELYE: Sensitive to concerns about an Islamist agenda, the Brotherhood has been moderating its religious language and emphasizing its respect for the rights of other religions and groups.

YASSIN: There is no basis for the liberals’ fears. The state we seek will guarantee freedoms and rights, like the freedom of religion and speech, the right to form groups and political parties, and the right to demonstrate.

SEELYE: By contrast, the Noor Party is calling for a religious state. This summer many of its fundamentalist supporters, known as Salafists, gathered in Cairo to demand an Islamic caliphate. Salafists once shunned democracy, claiming it gave the laws of man precedence over those of God. But today democracy offers them a chance to press for harsh religious legislation. Tarek Shaalan is a founding member of the Noor Party and holds a PhD from the University of Central Florida. He says his party seeks social justice and the strict application of Islamic law, including banning alcohol and segregating the sexes on Egypt’s beaches.

TAREK SHAALAN: The reason I want to make it segregated so I want to make the woman feel more comfortable, you understand me? Don’t look at Islam that we’re bringing a problem. No, we bring the solution, not the problem, okay?

SEELYE: Hard-line Salafist views have proliferated on religious channels here. It’s not uncommon to hear preachers like Yasser Borhami, a founder of the Noor Party, accuse Christians and Jews of being infidels. This kind of talk deeply worries Egypt’s Coptic Christian community of more than four million. Over the past several years, attacks on their community have grown. Churches have been burned and Copts killed. Salafists have been blamed for inciting sectarian violence, a charge Shaalan denies.

(speaking to Tarek Shaalan): You acknowledge that there have been growing attacks on Christians in this country?

SHAALAN: Well, I don’t want to see it this way. It’s not because of religion. It’s because of lots of other things, you know?

SEELYE: The Noor Party’s positions have been criticized by the Muslim Brotherhood. The two Islamist parties are rivals, but in Cairo cafes where Egyptians debate the future, some worry that Noor’s ultraconservative agenda may pull the Muslim Brotherhood to the right. The best protection for minority and women’s rights lies in the drafting of Egypt’s new constitution, according to Coptic community leader Mona Makram Ebeid, who is also an advisor to Egypt’s ruling military authority.

MONA MAKRAM EBEID (Member of Advisory Council to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces): I think the biggest battle now that we all must focus on is the constitution.

SEELYE: Makram Ebeid says parliament will appoint an assembly this spring to draft the constitution. She insists it must address the concerns of all of Egypt’s communities.

MAKRAM EBEID: I hope that the majority of the Muslim brothers, who are much more moderate and much more professional, will be able to have a fair constitution which takes into consideration the rights of every individual in this country, of every citizen in the country, whether it’s economic rights, social rights, political rights, religious rights, cultural rights.

SEELYE: In Tahrir Square, where the protests began just over a year ago, demonstrators continue to demand those rights. Democracy is very fragile here. Egypt is now run by a heavy-handed military which took over when Mubarak stepped down. The generals say they’ll transfer power after presidential elections this summer, but some have doubts. Nevertheless, Islamists long banned in Egyptian political life have new responsibilities and a new sense of accountability. And Makram Ebeid believes that will have a moderating effect.

MAKRAM EBEID: So I don’t think that they will be able so much to impose their own views or change the personality of Egypt as they wish, because I think that this will make them lose their popularity. The more there is an opening to democracy, the more the process of democratization will be, will go ahead, and the more they will come more to the center.

SEELYE: While some might disagree, few dispute the importance of Egypt’s democratic opening. The test will be safeguarding the process so that future voters can choose to re-elect their parliamentarians or not.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Kate Seelye in Cairo.

KIM LAWTON (Correspondent): In New York’s Times Square, it was an unexpected sight: Nestled amid ads for rum and hit TV shows, a sign proclaiming that Muslims are for peace. The billboard was part of a high-profile campaign by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA.

HARRIS ZAFAR (National Spokesman, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA): We just want people to know if you’re going to judge Islam, judge it based off its true teachings, not based off of this political ideology that’s now all over the Internet and all over television.

LAWTON: Ahmadis have been active in several cities across the country sponsoring bus ads and leafleting drives, trying to get out the message that Muslims are for peace, for loyalty, and for life. They say ten years after 9/11, that message is more important than ever.

ZAFAR: We want to stress that there are Muslims, especially living in America, that emphasize on peace, liberty, democracy and just the freedoms that Americans love, and there have been so many people that ask where are these modern Muslims that promote these ideals, and we’ve been promoting these ideals for a long time.

LAWTON: The campaign has disturbed some Muslims who resent the idea of the controversial Ahmadiyya Muslim Community speaking for Islam. Many mainstream Muslims say they, too, hold those ideals, although they have significant theological differences with Ahmadis. John Esposito teaches Islamic studies at Georgetown University.

JOHN ESPOSITO (Professor of Islamic Studies, Georgetown University): The majority of Muslims would view the Ahmadiyya— the Ahmadiyya would either be seen as not Muslim, or they would certainly be seen as a very, very marginal group, you know, at best by most mainstream Muslims.

LAWTON: The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is a reform movement that grew out of Sunni Islam. It was founded in 1889 in India by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed to be the metaphorical second coming of Jesus and the divine guide, whose appearance was foretold by the Prophet Muhammad. Most Ahmadis believe he was the long-awaited mahdi or messiah.

SALIHA MALIK (National President, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA Women’s Auxiliary): We believe that the promised messiah has come, as he was promised by the Holy Prophet so many years ago, 14 centuries ago. He came according to all those prophecies at the right time, and we have accepted him.

LAWTON: Naseem Mahdi is national vice-president and missionary-in-charge of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA. He says Mirza Ghulam Ahmad came to bring Muslims back to the true teachings of Islam.

NASEEM MAHDI (National Vice President, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA): According to the prophecies of Prophet Muhammad, that when the messiah would come he will be a sort of an arbitrator. He used the word arbitrator. That he will tell you what is right and what is wrong, because with the passage of time, Muslims have practically abandoned the real teaching of Islam, the real teaching of the Holy Qur’an.

ESPOSITO: In Islam, the notion is that the Prophet Mohammad is the final prophet, the last of the prophets, and so then the question becomes for, in the eyes of many other Muslims, are these people really Muslims or not?

LAWTON: Many Ahmadis respond that while they do believe Muhammad was the final prophet to bring the law, that didn’t preclude a prophet like Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from coming to bring Muslims back to that final law.

ZAFAR: He came to revive the teachings of God, and he came bringing the truth.

LAWTON: Mirza Ghulam Ahmad preached what he called “jihad of the pen” or persuasion through discourse, saying that violence was not necessary to defend and propagate Islam.

ZAFAR: He said we live in a time where jihad, an aggressive jihad by the sword, is no longer needed, because you don’t have to ever defend freedom of religion physically. He said we live in a time where you’re no longer physically attacked simply for being a Muslim. So he said jihad by the sword is done.

ESPOSITO: For many Muslims, and certainly in South Asia as the movement was developing, extraordinarily controversial, rejected, it was seen as the equivalent of heresy.

LAWTON: And that view persists. Today there are millions, some say tens of millions, of Ahmadi Muslims spread across 195 countries. In many parts of Asia and the Middle East they face severe persecution. In Pakistan, Ahmadis are even officially declared non-Muslim. They are legally forbidden to call themselves Muslims or their houses of worship mosques. And they are frequent targets of violence.

MAHDI: I go with this fear that during the night I might get a phone call that some of my very close loved ones have been kidnapped or killed or their properties have been looted, and this kind of fear is going on, and nobody can do anything.

LAWTON: Mahdi says it’s painful, but his faith forbids any kind of retaliation.

MAHDI: Islam promotes peace, and Islam does not need any kind of blood-shedding in the name of Islam.

LAWTON: According to Esposito, despite the persecution, Ahmadis have a strong missionary tradition.

ESPOSITO: Ahmadiyya in general are very concerned about spreading their faith. That’s very much part of what they do.

LAWTON: Ahmadis established a community in the US in 1920. They claim they were the first official American-Muslim organization. Their US headquarters is in Maryland, and they have thousands of members here. After the events of 9/11, Ahmadi leaders say they realized the need to do even more aggressive outreach, and the Muslims for Peace campaign began. They ratcheted the campaign up even further after the failed terrorism plot by a Muslim-American in Times Square.

ZAFAR:We noticed that after the failed Times Square bombing attempt by Faisal Shahzad in May of 2010, that there was what people kept referring to as a deafening silence within the Muslim community. So that’s where we decided, well, hey, we’ve been here the longest, It’s incumbent upon us to do something.

LAWTON: They developed another project called Muslims for Loyalty, which emphasized the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings that Muslims should be loyal to the countries where they live.

LAWTON: For the tenth anniversary of 9/11, they launched a blood drive called Muslims for Life. Their goal was to collect 10,000 units of blood.

MAHDI: Ten-thousand units would save 30,000 lives, which would be ten times the lives lost on that day of heinous crime against humanity ten years ago. We are promoting a religion which gives life and not destruction, which promotes peace and not terrorism, and this is not just a statement, but giving our blood.

LAWTON: They ended up collecting nearly 12,000 units of blood, and they’re continuing to hold other blood drive events. Ahmadi outreach includes an active women’s movement.

MALIK: We are given a voice. Our community, the women have a voice. And we have, we are very well educated, and we are very knowledgeable about our religion.

LAWTON: And in many communities, Ahmadis are deeply involved in interfaith dialogue, although that can complicate relationships with mainstream Muslims. Esposito says US Ahmadis have an influence beyond their numbers.

ESPOSITO: Although they are a relatively small percentage of the American Muslim community, they play a significant role. They’ve been out there doing their work, but far more, I think, well organized and visible in terms of the public-relation side of things.

LAWTON: Ahmadis say they are just trying to live out the tenets of their faith.

ZAFAR: As part of the Ahmadi Muslim community, we believe that we have a true message, and we want people to know it.

LAWTON: And they pledge to continue those efforts, despite the controversy they may generate.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

VIRGINIA RAGUIN, Professor, College of the Holy Cross: Pilgrimages are undertaken because people want to move beyond their normal, mundane life. They can be a one-day pilgrimage, from one town to another town, on a particular feast day. They can be a weekend. They can be actually years.

In the past, pilgrimage really was vital in Christian religion, certainly in Muslim and in Buddhist. Only Islam requires the pilgrimage — the Hajj — so that it is one of the five pillars of Islam. However, that is nuanced: only if you are financially and physically able.

On pilgrimage, people experience the same activities; therefore, it produces a sense of camaraderie, a sense of sharing.

Constantly we see that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So that all three religions use handy objects to help focus people’s thoughts; and prayer beads are some of the most ubiquitous. Prayer rugs that were brought by people, especially on the Hajj, where they could kneel down and then pray during the days of their journey. Qur’ans, small ones, were often carried with people.

One of the most common kinds of souvenirs is absolutely the simplest: stones. Stones or dirt from the ground. People who have been on the Hajj and who have engaged in one of the rituals — which is the ‘stoning of Satan’– invariably, they bring some of those stones home with them. You also have Muslims with clay from Karbala, or other holy places, pressed together, that they then use in prayer.

Although the doctrinal core of these religions differ, the practices that they use to help focus believers onto what is important, they are the same.

Often in these three religions, you have an experience of circumambulation, walking around a site. The Ka’ba is circumambulated during the performance of the Hajj — people walk seven times around this small building. Circumambulation, either of mountain or of a Stupa or another holy site in the Buddhist religion is one of the most common ways of making a pilgrimage. And, for Christians, certainly they’ll circulate around the icons sometimes, or the statue, that they are venerating. People look for this physical activity that helps them find an interior focus. Physical hardship can be transformative.

One of the things the Christians, the Buddhists, and the Muslims constantly come back to is humility. They make the effort, but God grants the grace.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: Disposing of a sacred text: In Judaism, when a Torah becomes too worn to use any longer it is reverently buried. Some Christians do the same thing with the Christian Bible. And Muslims? You may be surprised to hear that some Muslims say a Qur’an should be burned. We talked with Jihad Turk, director of religious affairs at the Islamic Center of Southern California.

IMAM JIHAD TURK (Director of Religious Affairs, Islamic Center of Southern California): The Qur’an as an idea is something that is in the hearts and the minds of the believers and followers of Islam. It’s not the actual text. It’s not the piece of paper. Muslims don’t worship the text of the Qur’an or destroy the Qur’an.

Although it’s not sacred or something that’s worshiped, it is considered the representation of the sacred word of God, and given that it’s a representation of it, a Muslim would want to make sure that it’s treated respectfully.

When Muslims want to respectfully dispose of a text of the Qur’an that is no longer usable, we will burn it. So if someone, for example, in their own private collection or library had a text of the Qur’an that was damaged or that was in disrepair, so the binding was ruined, etc., or it got torn, they might bring it by to the Islamic Center and ask that someone here dispose of it properly if they were unsure how to do that. And what I’ll do is I’ll take it to my fireplace at home and burn it there in the fireplace. So I sort of take the pages out and then burn it to make sure that it gets thoroughly charred and is no longer recognizable as script.

In the Islamic tradition, it’s the Arabic that is really considered the authentic, original scripture. The very early scripture of the Qur’an—when it was first collated and put into a binding there were a lot of loose papers around, and this was about 1,400 years ago. The first companions of Muhammad, led under the leadership of the third caliph, Uthman, actually instructed the followers to take all of those pages and burn them, and so that kind of set the precedent as to what should be done. If you burn it, it destroys the word, the ink on the paper. It’s no longer perceptible, and so therefore it is no longer scripture. It’s just ashes at that point.

ABERNETHY: For Muslims, according to Jihad Turk, when done with the proper intent the burning of a damaged or worn out Qur,an is in no way disrespectful. The specific paper and ink may be gone, he says, but the sacred word of God endures.

The striking thing about 9/11 was the sense of unity it produced. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Americans were united. We had the sense that we had all been attacked, that we were all in this together, and that we all knew what we were defending.

References to Pearl Harbor sprang readily to mind. This would be our moment to stand up and stand together, the way our parents and grandparents had come together to defend freedom in the middle of the last century. And because we knew that the values of democracy, and liberty, and personal choice that we were defending are universal human aspirations, we were confident that the rest of the world would stand with us.

At least that was how it seemed at the time. The striking thing, ten years later, is the polarization of our domestic politics and the fragmentation of our global alliances. The historical analogies that now seem most appropriate come not from our times of national unity, but from the decades when we were most divided against ourselves. The news as I hear it from Washington almost every day does not remind me of the “greatest generation” or even of the crusading years of the Cold War. For someone who reads a lot of history, the news from Washington recalls the bitter ideological divisions that gridlocked our national government in the decades before the Civil War. The economic news of the day reminds me of the conflicts of race, class, and ethnicity that marked the end of the Gilded Age.

What went wrong? I think that where we find ourselves today reflects a lack of moral and political realism in our adjustment to the world after 9/11. Our immediate reactions were unifying and effective, but our long-term response has often been dysfunctional.

In some respects, this lack of realism after 9/11 was merely a continuation of the unrealistic way that we were relating to the world before 9/11. Ten years and one day ago, we were still celebrating the tenth anniversary of the end of the Cold War and the beginning of a new era of prosperity and global democracy. No one imagined that global capitalism would diminish America’s power in the global economy, rather than expand it; and nobody seemed to be thinking that the end of superpower rivalry might unleash new kinds of threats that had been kept in check by the superpowers trying to watch their own backs. Afghanistan became a terrorist haven because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and 9/11 happened in part at least because we weren’t being sufficiently realistic about the new world situation to see that problem coming.

So we weren’t being realistic about the new global realities before 9/11. We tend to talk about 9/11 as “the day everything changed.” And so it did, in many individual lives and in some ways in our politics as a whole. But that simple phrase that we have heard so often this week slogan masks a more complex reality. William Dobson wrote an essay in Foreign Policy a few years back that he titled, “The day that nothing much changed.” That’s too simple, too; but what Dobson was trying to point out is that the changes that we began to take seriously on 9/11 had begun at least a decade earlier, and we had not begun to think about how the world would be different over the long run because of them.

We still haven’t done that.

Immediately, we responded well to the crisis, and many of the remembrances on this 10th anniversary reflect a kind of nostalgia for the unity, effectiveness, and courage of those first responses. But just as a political realist knows that history does not end, a moral realist has to recognize that courage keeps fear in check. It does not eliminate it. And an effective response does not mean that all of our problems are solved. It means we have gained some breathing space to figure out what the next problem is going to be.

There was courage and unity after 9/11, but there was also fear and suspicion. Fears provoked by the background of the hijackers spilled over into ethnic profiling and helped to fuel a general antagonism toward immigrants. Fear also gave rise to aggressive expressions of Christian nationalism. It was confusing to watch military operations targeted against a terrorist network and its individual leaders, rather than against another state. We were not sure who the enemy was or how we would know when the war was finished, and the early assurances that this was not a war against Islam did not always hold up against the crusading rhetoric that takes over precisely when we are not quite sure what we are doing. We have decided that we like these ultimate choices between good and evil, God and the devil, because they spare us the trouble of understanding the ambiguous realities and interim choices that will have to be made on the way to a different kind of world order than we had before 9/11, and, more importantly, before 1989.

We are still waiting for a strategic vision that can guide us in a multipolar world where states are not the only actors, and where religion and business seem to be competing to determine which of them will fill the vacuum created by the diminished powers of government.

Business and religion each claim a comprehensive solution to the disputes that split communities and set political parties against one another. Business insists that the market can best allocate resources and, over the long run, do the most to increase our wealth, so we should all agree, whatever our individual preferences might be, to live by the judgments of the market. Religion, at least some versions of religion, insists that it has a way of life that transcends cultural change and moral uncertainty, so we should all agree, whatever our individual preferences might be, to live by the judgments of God. Both Islamic and Western religious movements, usually characterized as “fundamentalist,” insist that market forces and the desires they create must not be allowed to shape the lives of the faithful. And business around the world insists that religion must not interfere with freedom, meaning especially the freedom of people to desire what business has to sell and the freedom of business to sell it.

Meanwhile, the wider public, unpersuaded by either religious or economic fundamentalists, is like an individual suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. We are unable to return to the old world we thought we understood, but we cannot tolerate the noise and uncertainty of the new world, either. There are no quick solutions to these problems, and certainly no simple ones. But the future of freedom may depend on whether a traumatized American public can tolerate a higher level of ambiguity, a world of interim solutions and recurrent problems where nothing is as black and white or as red, white, and blue as we would like it to be.

Robin Lovin is the Cary M. Maguire University Professor of Ethics at Southern Methodist University.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: In New York’s mid-Hudson Valley, Aziz Ahsan, his wife, and three kids are looking at some old photos. These family times are becoming increasingly rare now that the two oldest children are in college. Ahsan says he values these moments more than ever.

AZIZ AHSAN: 9/11 for me was an event that made my relationship with my family stronger, because now that every time I look at my family I am thankful that I am alive. I can touch them, I can feel them, and so it has created a stronger bond.

LAWTON: Ahsan, who is Muslim, was at the World Trade Center on 9/11. He went to the post office there to buy a special new Islamic-themed stamp. Just after he left the plane hit, and he was struck by pieces of the crumbling tower. Hours later, Ahsan was able to make his way home covered in debris, with serious eye injuries.

SHAHZAD AHSAN: I remember walking over to him and wanting to hug him, and he said, “No, don’t. Wait. Don’t get all this stuff on you.” But I just hugged him anyway because I just had to.

LAWTON: Ahsan put his debris-covered clothes in a bag. He says he hasn’t opened it again since he showed them to me nine years ago. He keeps the bag in his garage and hopes to donate the clothes to a 9/11 museum. Shahzad was 13 when the attacks occurred. He told me he felt a backlash from people who blamed all Muslims.

SHAHZAD AHSAN (file interview): I couldn’t understand why people would hate Muslims when they were the victims of the attack as well.

LAWTON: Ahsan decided he and his family should reach out to their community and show a different view of Islam. He got involved in local causes, was appointed to the zoning board of appeals, and successfully ran for president of the school board.

AZIZ AHSAN: When people like myself and others who stood up and made Muslim a household name or became part of the news stories on a regular basis, it made it that much easier for people to realize that Muslims are in our community.

LAWTON: He and his family created and now sell a Muslim identity symbol. It can be placed in a window or on a desk and in its large form, a public park.

AZIZ AHSAN: I just want to make people aware that we are proud to be Americans, and we’re proud to be Muslims.

LAWTON: The Ahsans also got involved with interfaith projects. Shahzad and several Muslim friends worked with Jewish teens on a “Salaam-Shalom” video project to create awareness about anti-religious bigotry and bullying.

SHAHZAD AHSAN: When I was younger my father was really big on trying to get me to understand that this is important. Even what seems like small events are important, because you might be the first Muslim friend someone’s ever had.

LAWTON: Shahzad is now studying political science at the University of Chicago and hopes to find positive ways of portraying American Muslims. His father says that’s the lesson they all learned from 9/11.

AZIZ AHSAN: Those opportunities became much more available after 9/11, and for people like me who participated, got involved, reached out, the community reached back, and it’s important for the rest of the Muslim American community to get more involved. Don’t be shy. Don’t be afraid.

LAWTON: In western Pennsylvania, the small town of Shanksville looks much the same as it did ten years ago before passenger resistance brought down hijacked Flight 93. But this town was indelibly altered on that day.

REV. ROBERT WAY (St. John Lutheran Church, Clearfield, Penn.): The spiritual lesson I think that we probably learned, really, was that we are one, that as a people we are one, that Shanksville people are not different than New York people, aren’t different than Washington, D.C. people, that we’re all the same people.

LAWTON: Lutheran pastor Robert Way had arrived in Shanksville just days before 9/11. It was his first church assignment.

WAY (file interview): I honestly do not believe that the people of this area would have welcomed me as openly as they have already had it not been for the flight. I think it has really framed what my ministry has been but also has opened not only myself to them, but their lives to me.

LAWTON: He says the crash continues to have a spiritual impact for him.

WAY: Probably emboldened more in my spirit, just to understand that evil is a part of our world. Evil can touch even those of us who are in rural western Pennsylvania.

LAWTON: Ten years after 9/11, Way has just arrived at a new assignment at St. John Lutheran Church in Clearfield, about 70 miles away. But he remains heavily involved in Shanksville. He’s an ambassador for the Flight 93 National Memorial and volunteers at the park every week, retelling the story of what happened there, both the tragedy and the heroism.

WAY: I believe the site really is a site of social engagement and calling people into that engagement once again. We have often used the term that the people aboard the plane really stepped up to the plate, and now it’s our turn to step up to the plate, and the people of Shanksville have done that.

LAWTON: At the site of Ground Zero in New York, Greek Orthodox parishioners are frustrated that plans to rebuild St. Nicholas Church have been locked in stalemate.

JIM KOKOTAS (American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association): They were here before the twin towers, were here before the stock exchange was here, and they deserve the right to be rebuilt. The people need a place to worship.

LAWTON: St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was the only house of worship destroyed on 9/11. When the towers fell, the tiny church never stood a chance.

JOHN PITSIKALIS (St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Paris) (file interview): The debris from the south tower literally pancaked our church. You know, it was an unbelievable amount of debris on it.

LAWTON: Only a few remnants were dug out of the rubble: two torn icons, a charred Bible, and some liturgical items, including a twisted candelabra. Most congregation members began worshiping at another Greek Orthodox church in Brooklyn while the church made plans to rebuild. But all rebuilding at Ground Zero is being overseen by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Greek Orthodox officials and the Port Authority had a preliminary agreement to rebuild the church at a different location nearby, but negotiations broke down. The church accused the Port Authority of reneging, and the Port Authority accused the church of making too many demands. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese filed a federal lawsuit earlier this year, and because of it neither church officials nor the Port Authority are commenting. Meanwhile, Orthodox parishioners are trying to ramp up pressure for a resolution. They say a rebuilt St. Nicholas would provide spiritual support for people of all faiths.

KOKOTAS: This is now a sacred ground, and whatever your denomination is you have to respect the fact that many lives were lost. So the role of the church and that relationship with God and oneself plays an even more important role for the people that are going to be coming here, and St. Nicholas could fill that role for these people.

LAWTON: At Congregation Mount Sinai in Brooklyn Heights, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik says the lingering spiritual impact of 9/11 is profound. He was and still is a chaplain for the New York Fire Department and says he’s been especially inspired by the families of the 343 fire fighters who died on 9/11.

RABBI JOSEPH POTASNIK (Congregation Mount Sinai, Brooklyn Heights, NY): So this is a special reminder of many, many special people who are in our midst and who were in our midst.

LAWTON: Potasnik has experienced 9/11’s aftermath on several fronts: as an FDNY chaplain, executive vice-president of the New York Board of Rabbis, and spiritual leader of a synagogue just across the river from Ground Zero. The twin towers loomed large for his congregation, such as during High Holiday services, when they would walk down to the water for the traditional Tashlikh ritual. Eight years ago, Potasnik told us his people had been deeply scarred.

POTASNIK (file interview): You can’t often heal a scar, but you can cover it, and what we try to do, at least in the spiritual world, is teach people how to cover some of those scars so they can continue to live, and life still has meaning and purpose.

LAWTON: I asked him if some healing has now occurred.

POTASNIK: The healing has taken place because we’re inspired by those who have lost so much and yet love so much and want to live so much. I meet families all the time that have a hole in their hearts, and yet they continue to bring comfort to others. Have we healed? Yes. Healed with a hole. It’s never a complete healing, but at least there is that willingness to write a new chapter of life.

LAWTON: Postasnik has seen some new interreligious tensions, such as the controversy over plans to build an Islamic center near Ground Zero. But he says 9/11 has also opened the door for more interfaith cooperation.

POTASNIK: Those who destroyed those buildings, they wanted to separate us. They don’t want to see Muslims, Jews, and Christians and all the other groupings standing with one another. So the best message that we can convey to those that hate us is, “You will not prevent us from being one family.”

LAWTON: The 9/11 tenth anniversary, he says, is stirring up lots of memories and emotions. This photo was taken when Potasnik visited a makeshift shrine for his fellow fire department chaplain, Father Mychal Judge, who died with other first responders on 9/11.

POTASNIK: The day before 9/11 in the year 2001, I was together with Father Mychal Judge. We stood at a rededication of a fire house. He said in life you have to learn to hold on to memory, hold on to the moment, and hold on to one another. That’s what he said the day before he lost his life. Isn’t that what we’re doing on this anniversary? Isn’t this what we are doing every day?

LAWTON: And if we’re not, he says we should be.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: Ten years after 9/11, relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the US remain complicated. In many areas, tensions have been on the rise. There has been sharp controversy surrounding a proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero, and according to pew, proposed mosques in 36 other locations have also encountered community resistance. There’s also been a growing debate over Islamic religious law or shariah. Measures to restrict or ban the use of shariah have been introduced in nearly two dozen states. Yet in other areas the last 10 years have brought a new spirit of dialogue and cooperation. Kim Lawton has our report.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: As Muslims were observing Ramadan, an unlikely group gathered in Syracuse at the Islamic Society of Central New York mosque. Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and Bahai women joined their Muslim friends for the traditional iftar meal that breaks the daytime fast. The event was organized by Women Transcending Boundaries or WTB,  a grassroots group that started in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. These women didn’t know each other ten years ago, and they admit they probably still wouldn’t. But 9/11 changed everything.

DANYA WELLMON (Cofounder, WTB): WTB took a negative, you know, a really tragic, tragic situation and made something positive from it.

BETSY WIGGINS (Cofounder, WTB): The relationships with these women have enriched my life enormously, have expanded my view of the world in a way that I would never have known before.

LAWTON: Experts say the attacks of 9/11 have had a dramatic impact on interfaith relations in America. But that impact has been felt in complicated and sometimes contradictory ways. On one hand, there has been an unprecedented wave of new interfaith activities, with Muslims playing key roles. At the same time, however, there’s been a growing wave of religious division and public distrust of Muslims.

PROFESSOR SCOTT APPLEBY (University of Notre Dame): The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the repercussions of that trauma put Islam front and center for everyone, everyone in the religious world, and so without 9/11 we would not have had to confront Islam, frankly.

LAWTON: Scott Appleby is director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

APPLEBY:  There developed a variety of initiatives around the country, interfaith dialogue groups meeting together in parishes or in synagogues or in mosques.

LAWTON: In Syracuse, Betsy Wiggins says she feels like she was living in a bubble before 9/11. She was raised Presbyterian and attends a United Methodist church. After the 9/11 attacks, she was disturbed by reports of a backlash against local Muslim women. Betsy’s husband, Jim, had been active in interfaith efforts. At his encouragement, she called the imam at the local mosque.

WIGGINS: And I said, “I am ignorant about Islam, far more ignorant than I want to be, and I want to do something, and I’m especially concerned about Muslim women. Can you tell me someone I can talk to?”

LAWTON: The imam put her in touch with Danya Wellmon.  Wellmon had grown up Methodist, but after a time of spiritual searching converted to Islam in 1992. She says the days after 9/11 were difficult for members of her mosque.

WELLMON:  We did get the phone calls, the harassment. Many Muslim families kept their children home from school, you know, there was the name calling. I know myself, I was run off the road one time and called a terrorist, and it was very scary.

LAWTON: Wellmon says she was surprised but pleased to get Wiggins’s call.

WELLMON: Oh, gosh, we talked for hours on the phone, and then she invited me to her house for coffee to, you know, carry on, to carry on this conversation.

WIGGINS:  She parked right outside there, and she sat in the car for a while, and I could see that she was anxious. She had never met me before, so I went outside, and I just extended my hand and I said, “Please come in,” and she took my hand.

LAWTON: The conversation in Wiggins’s breakfast nook also went on for hours.

WIGGINS: We talked about the things that women are concerned about. We talked about our community, we talked about our families, we talked about this pervasive atmosphere of ignorance and violence and how troubling it was to see it surface in our community.

WELLMON: We both decided, gee, this conversation really should go beyond the both of us.

LAWTON: They each invited nine friends to join them at Wiggins’s house two weeks later. Two weeks after that, 40 women came, and they knew they had struck a chord. They decided to formalize the group and called it Women Transcending Boundaries. Today, there are more than 500 women on WTB’s listserve. They learn about one another’s faith traditions through building relationships. The conversations are open and honest. The group uses what it calls a strict “ouch” policy.

WIGGINS: If anyone feels offended or hurt by anything they can just say, “Ouch,” and we stop and we say, “What is it?” And that person can say, “That really hurt my feelings.”

WELLMON: I think we provided that space and that venue for many women to have the opportunity to come together of different traditions and to really get to know one another.

LAWTON: While the past decade may have brought new interfaith understanding, it has also brought expanded interfaith tensions.

APPLEBY:  Islam has taken the place of the Soviet Union as the next great enemy of the free world, and partly that’s understandable given Al Qaeda, given the threat of Islamic radicalism, the proliferation of jihadist movements. But, of course, those movements are a tiny minority of the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

LAWTON: Earlier this year, the House Committee on Homeland Security held a series of controversial hearings examining what it called “radicalization” in the American Muslim community.

REP. PETER KING (R-NY): Al Qaeda is actively targeting the American Muslim community for recruitment.

LAWTON: High profile protests against a proposed Islamic center near the site of Ground Zero stoked tensions, as did widely-reported campaigns to burn Qurans. Meanwhile, more than 20 states have debated measures that would bar judges from considering shariah or Islamic law. The polarization has seeped into many local communities. In Nashville, Tennessee, Zainab Elberry is a Muslim activist who has been involved in interfaith work for more than 30 years. She says in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 she was heartened by the flood of support from the community. She received many invitations from religious groups that wanted to know more about her faith.

ZAINAB ELBERRY (Muslim Activist): By that time Islam was known to America with a bang, unfortunately, and at that point I tried my best to educate and to share information with as many people as possible.

LAWTON: She says interfaith relations were largely good. But then things began to change about two years ago. In several US communities, including her own, anti-Islamic groups began spreading a message alleging that Muslim extremists were plotting a stealth campaign to take over America.

ELBERRY: It was really disheartening. I was sad, and I really was a little scared, to be honest with you.

LAWTON: In the town of Mufreesboro, just outside Nashville, there were sustained protests and vandalism surrounding the proposed expansion of the Islamic center. Tennessee legislators debated a measure that would have criminalized the practice of shariah, with some politicians even questioning whether Islam should be considered a religion.

ELBERRY: We are Muslims, but we are also part of the community. It could be me today. It could be another denomination or another tomorrow. We cannot to allow that to continue.

LAWTON: Appleby blames the media for helping to foment a negative atmosphere.

APPLEBY: There’s a general climate that’s sour in our country, and many people have recognized it, and of course interfaith dialogue, constructive relationship between Christians and Muslims—that suffers in a climate like this.

LAWTON: Yet, in some cases, the challenges have generated new interfaith projects. In response to the King hearings, a broad coalition of top religious leaders formed a new initiative called “Shoulder to Shoulder,” which they said would promote tolerance. In Syracuse, Women Transcending Boundaries is trying to put dialogue into action. WTB has gotten involved in a host of service projects, such as a community garden for refugee women. On this day, women from Bhutan were picking fresh vegetables to feed their families.

SARO KUMAR (WTB Member): We don’t speak their language, but from our smiles, our reaching out to them, they feel welcome.

LAWTON: Last year around the anniversary of 9/11, WTB organized a weekend of service projects around the area.  They called it “Acts of Kindness” or A-OK! Weekend. This year, they’re working with several community groups for an even bigger A-OK! event.

WELLMON: We have so much more that we can build here, something positive, than to, you know, stay focused on what divides us.

LAWTON: And they believe that should be the ultimate message of 9/11.

I’m Kim Lawton in Syracuse, New York.