.... It is this messiness at the heart of contemporary Islam that needs to be highlighted even if it is less rhetorically gripping than a slavery-freedom narrative or has a less visceral appeal than an account of fatwas for or against public stoning for adultery.
All of us—not just academics and Islam watchers—need to recognize the real face (or faces, more accurately) of the 21st-century Muslim world, which is no less diverse and complex, nor less baffling, bemusing, and ennobling than its Abrahamic counterparts who happen to be, or choose to be, Christian, Jewish, or even secular.
One can opt for Islamophobia or Islamophilia, but either option misses the actual drama of today’s Muslim world, its enduring search for consensus and its multiple contestants for authority—both at home and abroad. [Religion Dispatches] Read more [via loonwatch.com]
