The Gap is not a Muslim world (half-true)

■"Struggle For the Soul of Islam," by Bill Powell, Time, 13 September 2004, p. 53.

■"Shaking Up Islam in America," by Asra W. Nomani, Time, 13 September 2004, p. 66.

The first article also caught my eye primarily in terms of a map, a global one that delineates the worldwide distro of Muslims as a percent of national populations.

Yes, a good chunk of the Gap (the center North) is defined by predominately Muslim-centric states in Southwest Asia and North Africa, but that only accounts for about 40 (max, 50) percent of the Gap's total population. The rest is largely Christian (Catholics and Protestants, with evangelicals and Mormoms gaining fast), whose version of those religions is likewise far more fundamentalist than their counterparts in the Core.

Thinking about that Core-Gap delta in religious fundamentalism brings us to the issue of what happens when the Core integrates Gap regions. The answer is that both sides are changed: the Core gets re-fundamentalized somewhat, while the Gap gets reformed.

Impossible you say? Wait til the U.S. Catholic church imports enough young firebrand priests from Africa and Latin America. But also check out the women-led reform elements within the U.S. Muslim community. This civil war within Islam has more than one front. As the activist-author of the secondTime article boasts (with some real conviction )"The rest of the Muslim world is watching how reform takes hold in America."