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Economic in presentation but rich with intellectual and cultural dividends, this episode of
Frontline makes Western understanding of the varieties of Islamic culture relatively easy. Essentially,
Muslims maintains that the Muslim or Muslim-influenced societies of Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Turkey, etc., are no more uniform than the modern societies of the U.S., Spain, Poland, and Belgium--thus rendering generalizations moot. What is true, as we find in this program, is that Muslims everywhere face incompatibilities between Islamic principles and modernism.
Muslims focuses on the degree of those incompatibilities, and what different nations in the Arab world and Asia are doing about it. Typically,
Frontline's investigation is more street-level than abstract. We meet sundry sheiks and ayatollahs providing Koran-derived counsel and legal opinion for ordinary people, but we also meet Muslim men and women embracing both tradition and, say, Western tourism or professions for women. A fascinating and vital documentary promoting cultural understanding.
--Tom Keogh
