Feeling under attack, Arabs turn to Islam for answers

At the Al Kaluti Mosque in a middle-class neighborhood of the Jordanian capital, hundreds more worshipers than the building can hold spill into the streets, a testament to the rallying capacity of Islam in troubled times.

The crush of mostly young men at Friday's prayers could be explained by the fact that this is Muslim holy month of Ramadan. But in Jordan, as across the region, the Iraq war is the latest of many factors that have Muslims turning to their faith for solace and answers.

"The occupation of Iraq, Palestine, American rhetoric about Islam, and the so-called war on terrorism - the feeling it is a fabrication to facilitate the taking of resources by American companies - all of these things help explain a higher interest in Islam," says Abdullateef Arabiyat, former secretary general of Jordan's Islamic Action Front.

"People feel their identity is under attack and are afraid," says Mr. Arabiyat, now the party's minority parliamentary leader. "That is unfortunate, as Muslims need to open up and close the gap between Islam and the modern world, but right now the effect is people turning inward."

Reflecting the general sense of mounting wrongs, the rhetoric of the mosque has turned more strident and political.

At the same time, Arab regimes are seen to be using the growing interest in Islam to ease social pressures and deflect attention from their own shortcomings. But the turn to Islam, coupled with the deepening unpopularity of the US, is also putting regimes in a delicate position as they seek to respond to US calls for aid in Iraq.

On Friday at Al Kaluti Mosque, one of Jordan's best-known sheikhs, Laith Shbeilat, focused on the need for charity during Ramadan. But he also lectured on occupation and resistance. "No occupation is good," he intoned, his words resonating from loudspeakers that blanket the surrounding blocks.

Earlier this year, many analysts warned a war in Iraq would inflame the "Arab street," risking instability and turning Arab public opinion against the US. While the street did not erupt, observers say the war, and occupation of an Arab country, have left people feeling under siege in a way that does not serve America's long-term interests.

"Resistance to the US is popular, but it is not politicizing actions," says Musa Schteiwi, director of the Jordan Center for Social Research. "People respond more as spectators than with a sense of participating in any resistance. The impact is in how they think about things."

Arabiyat agrees, saying that while the appeal of radicalized Islam is growing, the attraction so far is not to radical options. "It is not growing as a style of state," he says, noting a wide rejection among moderate Islamists like himself of Afghanistan's Taliban regime. "But [radical Islamists] are growing [in popularity] as a people against occupation. It is not their style of Islam that is attractive," he adds, "but the people they support in the world."

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