A faith with many faces: Islam is monotheistic, but as a religion it never has been monolithic. Theological, ethnic, historical and political divisions have divided Muslims for centuries

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 19, 2001 | by David R. Sands

Christian doctrine holds believers will receive a glorified physical body in heaven. But the hereafter is used in all religions to motivate the individual to deeds of self-sacrifice, says Carol Zaleski, a Smith College professor who coauthored The Book of Heaven. "Sensual language is used when more abstract terms fall dead," she says. "The latter does not reach the imagination and inspire hope."

JULIA DUIN WRITES FOR Insight's SISTER PUBLICATION, THE WASHINGTON TIMES.

RELATED ARTICLE: What about Wahhabism?

Wahhabism, a strict form of Muslim orthodoxy backed by Saudi Arabia's wealth and its members' missionary zeal, may be overshadowing alternative strands of Islam in the United States. Said to be the strictest of four legal schools of Islam, it is more likely to claim itself as "true Islam" and expect other Muslims to conform.

The strand was revived by a religious leader named Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab, who joined forces with the military founder of the Saudi dynasty. "The royals, in alliance with the United States, used Wahhabism in the Middle East to drum up support against secular socialism," says Sulayman Nyang, a professor of Islam at Howard University, who notes that the sect was backed by the Saudi royal family during the Cold War. "What we see today is some leaders demanding a rigidity that is really not Islamic. They want to show off as being more pious.

Muslims abroad use the Wahhabi term negatively "to mean fundamentalist, fascist," says Nyang. In Western countries, its adherents can be divisive in their missionary zeal. But Azizah al-Hibri, a law professor at the University of Richmond, thinks Wahhabism is merely part of religious diversity working itself out in America, not a major split among the faithful.

"The problem is that some ideas have more funding than others," says al-Hibri, referring to Saudi funding of Wahhabi schools, literature and religious teachers. But its influence in the United States, imported with immigration, has softened over the years. "It has a strong presence, and that makes it an issue for people who are not Wahhabi," she says. "But it's not a split in Islam. It is part of the marketplace of ideas."

Wahhabism also has been characterized as an ardent political critic of Muslim regimes that secularize. It hopes to enforce a more literal interpretation of the Koran, Islam's holy book, in social custom and criminal law, says Khalid Duran, a Muslim scholar who is of the Sufi, or more mystical, persuasion.

One Sufi leader, Sheik Hisham Kabbani, who founded the Islamic Supreme Council of America as an alternative to Wahhabi influence, stirred an explosive debate on the issue in 1999. In a State Department hearing, he said that 80 percent of the nation's mosques had been taken over by imams with Wahhabilike loyalties. Estimates of the number of mosques, or prayer centers, in the United States range from 1,200 to 3,000.

LARRY WITHAM WRITES FOR Insight's SISTER PUBLICATION, THE WASHINGTON TIMES.

DAVID R. SANDS WRITES FOR Insight's SISTER PUBLICATION, THE WASHINGTON TIMES.