Multiple personalities in Muslim rage

Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

At the height of the latest Islamic rage, one of the Muslim world’s first media-celebrity imams told worshippers they were witnessing a clash of civilizations. But just not the kind you think.

This one also is within Islam, and it helps explain the multiple personalities of the fury.

It’s political: The uncompromising ethos of extremism clawing for any gains against more-moderate voices. It’s social: Fed by an explosive blend of economic stagnation, anger over U.S.-led wars and — in some places — frustrations as the soaring hopes of the Arab Spring hit the grinding realities of rebuilding.

And it cuts deeply into questions that have added resonance in a hyper-connected world that moves at the quicksilver pace of the Web: how to co-exist with the free-speech openness of the West and whether violence ever is a valid response.

“Our manner of protesting should reflect sense and reason,” urged Egyptian-born cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi in his Friday sermon in Qatar’s capital Doha, where he has found a worldwide audience through the web and a show on the pan-Arab network Al-Jazeera.

Yet such appeals — though frequent from many Islamic leaders and scholars in the past week — have competed against opposing calls that can tap deeper passions. Political factions and hard-line clerics across the Muslim world have been quick to try to capitalize on other perceived offenses against the faith.

“There’s no doubt that every Muslim feels in some ways deeply troubled by any insults to the Prophet Muhammad, but how many have seen the video of this movie to make up their own minds? Very few,” said Sami al-Faraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies. “You need someone to organize the protests and, in effect, throw the switch.”

It’s come in many forms.

Ultraconservative Islamists apparently have taken the lead in protests in Arab Spring countries such as Tunisia and Egypt in a show of force against the new leadership and their Western allies.

In a curious battle of perceptions, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood- led government called out riot troops to protect the U.S. Embassy against protesters also claiming to “defend” Islam.

In Libya, U.S. investigators are examining whether armed militants used the uproar over the film as cover to a launch pre-planned attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, killing the ambassador and three other Americans.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said Sunday the attack was not coordinated and premeditated, but others have challenged that view.

Crowds in Yemen condemned the film — but also chanted against the continued U.S. military presence such as drone strikes that have targeted suspected al-Qaida leaders.

“Obviously, there’s a latent anti-Americanism that is coming out,” Salman Shaikh, director of The Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. “But that is only part of this,” he said. “This is primarily about a struggle for the soul of these states.”