It began in
Bosnia, where Islamic nationalism was reborn as Serb shells rained
down on Europe's ancient Muslim heartland. It was the start of a
three-year odyssey into the hearts and minds of Muslim Europe and
America, a journey by which Adam LeBor set out to discover what
it means to be a Muslim in the 90s, living in the West, but with
a heart turned east. He met Muslim soldiers on the front lines of
Bosnia who, abandoned by Europe, rediscovered Islam. He met with
exiled Muslim dissidents in London - a city now referred to as the
intellectual capital of the Arab world. He spoke to Turkish rappers
in Berlin and young Algerian artists in Marseilles, both in the
vanguard of a new European-Muslim culture that straddles the gulf
between two disparate worlds. He witnessed Turkey's Islamic revival
from the back streets of Istanbul, where Muslim women, their heads
covered, work in twentieth-century offices and nervous brothel keepers
wonder how long they can stay in business. And in the United States
he met with Muslim lobbyists who are demanding a presence in the
corridors of power as a new wave of Black Americans are turning
to Islam in their rage against the white establishment. |
Islam
and Christianity are at a crossroads, argues LeBor, but a global
media, a global economy, and a new mix of cultures mean that a symbiosis
of the best of both worlds will be the result, not the violent clash
of creeds that so many on both sides expect. |