The discussion on the reinterpretation of Islam remains largely confined to an intellectual elite, but even raising the topic erodes the taboo that the religion and those schooled in it are somehow infallible. The Baháʼí Faith in Iceland was the religion of 0.08% of the population of Iceland in 2023, organised into the Baháʼí Community (Baháʼí samfélagið). This coronation ceremony was witnessed and attended by the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, heads of different religions, dignitaries, prominent citizens, members of the sadhu community and people from all walks of life. When the mayhem in Iraq slows, events like the slaying in September of more than 300 people at a Russian school — half of them children — or some other attack in the Netherlands, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia or Spain labeled jihad by its perpetrators serves to fuel discussions on satellite television, in newspapers and around the dinner tables of ordinary Muslims. Additionally, during the communist period, the daughter of the leader Todor Zhivkov, Lyudmila Zhivkova (1942-1981), developed a strong interest in Eastern teachings and Russian Roerichism – itself, like Dunovism, being a Neo-Theosophical movement incorporating Eastern elements -, and popularised them in Bulgaria.

Though he acknowledges that modern science emerged in a religious framework, that Christianity greatly elevated the importance of science by sanctioning and religiously legitimizing it in the medieval period, and that Christianity created a favorable social context for it to grow; he argues that direct Christian beliefs or doctrines were not primary sources of scientific pursuits by natural philosophers, nor was Christianity, in and of itself, exclusively or directly necessary in developing or practicing modern science. Proponents of jihad argue that it is only natural for Iraqis and Palestinians to fight back, and point to what they call American hypocrisy. The hellish stream of images of American soldiers attacking mosques and other targets are juxtaposed with those of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi beheading civilian victims on his home videos as a Koranic verse including the line “Smite at their necks” scrolls underneath. Charles Lindbergh sympathized. The Apollo 11 crew reunited in space and later returned to Earth on July 24. Back on their home planet, Lindbergh – the first pilot to complete a solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean – wrote a letter to Collins. A universally recognized distress signal, SOS was first adopted as such by German telegraphers in the year 1905. Why’d they pick this letter combo?

According to the NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the first step is to make sure kids have plenty of opportunities to talk, and that those aren’t curtailed. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written records of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki in the 7th and 8th centuries. Islamic scholars and others from the hard-core faithful who shouted and lunged at the panelists to a degree that no journalist could ask a question. He describes as ridiculously archaic some Hadith, or sayings, attributed to Muhammad — all assembled in nine bulky volumes some 100 years after his death and now the last word on how the faithful should live. Like Israel, we were once not a people, but now we’re God’s people. People born on September 7 worry more about their health than is warranted. There are no opinion polls on the subject, but in talking to people on the streets, one gets the sense that they are grappling with these issues within their own understanding of their faith. One of the few positive effects of 9/11 has been renewed American interest in Islam and the Middle East. The wide public sympathy enjoyed by those fighting the American or Israeli soldiers, however, makes it difficult to mount any campaign against violence and terrorism, advocates of a change say.

The violence has not only reduced sympathy for just causes like ending the Israeli occupation, he says, but set off resentment against Muslims wherever they live. While few Muslims argue with the right to resist a military occupation, the problem is that such sweeping, ill-defined statements are interpreted as a mandate to undertake any violence, no matter how vicious. Mr. Rashed senses there is a movement in the Arab world, if perhaps not yet a consensus, that understands that Muslims have to start reining in their own rather than constantly complaining about injustice and unfairness. Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, director of the Dubai-based satellite network Al Arabiya and a well-known Saudi journalist, created a ruckus this fall with a newspaper column saying Muslims must confront the fact that most terrorist acts are perpetrated by Muslims. His remarks echo those of Sheik Yousef Qaradawi, an Egyptian-born, now Qatari cleric whose program “Islamic Law and Life” on Al Jazeera satellite television makes him about the most influential cleric among mainstream Sunni Muslims, the majority sect.