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 Faces of Islam-Photos
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Courtesy of MSNBC
Free at last
A schoolgirl dashes for home in tiny Brunei, a country of some 330,000 devout Muslims. Health care, local telephone service and education are free -- largesse known as "shellfare," a reference to Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the giant petroleum corporation that pumps crude from Brunei's offshore oil fields and cash into the government's coffers. In the last decade, Brunei has sought to counter modernization and Western values with a national ideology that stresses Malay culture, the monarchy and Islam.
Modesty meets chic
Western fashion meets Muslim tradition in the chic shopping center at the base of the world's tallest building, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Like much of the developing world, Malaysia embraces American popular culture. But the government, like a stern parent, reviews every movie, television show, book, and performance, deleting violence and #######, and guarding against perceived violations of Islamic values.
The prayers of thousands
Prostrate before God, 20,000 worshippers fill Jakarta's Istiqlal Mosque, the national mosque of Indonesia, for Friday prayers. When the mosque opened in 1978 after 17 years of construction, Indonesians of all religions took pride in the colossal achievement, one of the country's first big post-independence building projects. The Istiqlal Mosque is sometimes compared to other mammoth places of worship on the island of Java -- the Buddhist pyramid of Borobudur and the Hindu temples of Prambanan.
Catch of the day
At sunrise, fishermen from the Muslim village of Marang, on Malaysia's east coast, net their quarry at low tide. Few coastal vistas can compare with the view across the Marang River estuary, where fishing boats come and go with the South China Sea tides. The ocean brought Muslim traders to Southeast Asia, where coastal villages and ports were the first to convert to Islam
Clashing visions of Islam
Religion and politics meet on the streets of Jakarta, the convulsed Indonesian capital, where Muslim demonstrators demand jihad, or holy war, against government corruption. Rival groups with different visions of Islam and of Indonesia's future have shaken the most populous island of Java, reflecting a combustible split between rural Muslims known for their religious tolerance and a conservative urban elite.
An architectural melange
Typical of the British Raj architectural style, spires of the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station frame the soaring skyscrapers of a modern Islamic state in Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia. British colonial architects favored the domes, arches and airy interiors typical of Muslim India and the Middle East.
Commerce with an Islamic twist
For a country that two decades ago was primarily a producer of tea, rubber, tin and cooking oil, Malaysia is now one of the world's largest exporters of semiconductors and disk drives. At Intersil Technology, Muslim workers are allowed to wear the Islamic head scarf and given time off the assembly line for prayers.
A beautiful bounty
One of the most colorful markets in Southeast Asia, the octagonal Central Market in Kota Bharu overflows with the ingredients for Malay curry puffs, spring rolls, vegetable salads and barbecue sauces.
Preparing for prayers
Adhering to the ritual of ablution, a Muslim splashes water on his feet before prayers at the Kapitan Kling Mosque in Georgetown on Malaysia's Penang Island. Some Muslim worshippers symbolically sprinkle water on their hands and feet, but others wash themselves thoroughly, especially after an illness or sexual intimacy
Girl talk and noon prayers
after noontime prayers, students at Asshiddiqiyah Islamic College outside Jakarta put on the thick-soled sneakers popular with teens everywhere. Students talk of pursuing careers in medicine, law and education. A few want to enter politics
Sacrificial cow
"God, this is a sacrifice to you," chant Muslims as they severe the head of a cow at the Tengku Tengah Zaharah Mosque near Kuala Terengganu in Malaysia to mark the Eid al-adha festival of sacrifice. The holiday comes at the end of the annual pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and symbolically recalls Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismail. Meat from such sacrifices is given to the poor, sometimes touching off food riots in Indonesia.
Family time
Gathered around the television and newspapers, a Muslim family in Kota Bharu quietly passes the Eid-ul-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the month-long Ramadan fast. It is not uncommon on Malaysia's conservative east coast to see women wearing the tudung head scarf even inside their own homes and in the presence of male relatives.
Bringing in the leaves
Children help with the harvest on Lombok Island, where hardscrabble Muslim Sasak farmers have turned rice terraces into tobacco plantations. Most of the island's population lives on a narrow 16-mile strip of land between high mountains and the surrounding Indian Ocean, Bali Sea and Lombok Strait.
Two ways to say hello
Wearing a heavy-metal band T-shirt, a Malay Muslim offers a traditional Islamic greeting of a hand placed over the heart, while his companion prefers the traditional handshake. In the Malaysian state of Kelantan, men often wear Batik sarongs and wrap their ######### in turban style. But Western clothing, especially ubiquitous denim jeans and T-shirts, is increasingly common in villages that are embracing the modern world of mobile phones, television and city jobs in high-tech manufacturing plants.
Religious rite of passage
Learning the Koran in the original Arabic, students meet in small groups after school to study with a tutor at the Baiturrahman Great Mosque at Banda Aceh, capital of the Indonesian province of Aceh. Parents pay what they can for the Koran reading classes, which are a rite of passage for young people in devoutly Muslim Aceh and much of the Muslim world of Southeast Asia
Pride in modesty
Young women in Kuala Lumpur have embraced the Islamic head scarf, both as a sign of piety and as a symbol of pride in being a Muslim. Once, few Malay women covered themselves in public, but the practice has become increasingly popular since the Iranian revolution, an event that influenced Muslims worldwide, and with the increasing numbers of Malaysian students studying at universities in the Middle East
An afternoon nap
Friday prayer-goers are in no hurry to return to their offices or homes, preferring instead to slumber in the cool of the open-air National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur. Part shelter and meeting hall, mosques serve as a buffer from the turmoil of the outside world, especially
Marriage unites families
A wedding unites two Indonesians. A Muslim cleric, far left, reads from the Koran over a portable public address system, binding Ade Indriani, the bride, and Ridwan Hendrir during a ceremony in the Sumatra capital of Medan.
Islam at play
Even on the playground, students at Muslim schools like this one in Tanjung Pinang in Indonesia's Riau Islands learn the values of Islam justice, charity, mercy, self-denial and tolerance that guide their daily lives. Launched as an alternative to deteriorating public education, thousands of new Islamic schools in Indonesia are graduating a generation of students who want Islam to play a greater role in setting a national agenda
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