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dispatches: Notes from different corners of the world.

Islamism Comes to ParadiseLooking for Osama in the Maldives.

By John Lancaster
Posted Monday, May 28, 2007, at 7:24 AM ET

Fixing me with a fierce scowl, the imam made it clear I was unwelcome. I can't say I was surprised. Somewhere in his 50s, he wore the long beard and calf-length pants that marked him as a follower of Wahhabiism, the strict fundamentalist brand of Islam that originated in Saudi Arabia. But I was not in Saudi Arabia. I was in the Maldives, the remote and lovely island chain in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka and southern India.

True, the Maldives is a Muslim country—exclusively so, since the practice of other religions is illegal—and has been since 1153, when the king at the time fell under the sway of an Arab traveler and ordered his subjects to convert. The islands had been predominantly Buddhist, a faith they shared with Sri Lanka, whose Sinhala language is similar to Divehi, the native Maldivian tongue.

But if Islam has a long history in the Maldives, it's not the kind of place you associate with hostile mullahs. Quite the opposite, in fact. With a population of just 360,000, the archipelago is dotted with luxurious private resorts—think Robinson Crusoe with plunge pools—and is a magnet for celebrities such as Tom Cruise, who honeymooned there in December. In Male, the cramped little island capital, tourists are relatively scarce. But the atmosphere, at least at first, seems laid-back and globalized. The skyline is dominated by modern, pastel-colored apartment blocks that would not look out of place in South Florida, and the streets are jammed with shiny new motorbikes, many piloted by sinewy young men in dreadlocks and baggy shorts. I even saw one young woman in a T-shirt that read, "Good Girls Don't Get Caught."

Still, there is no mistaking the Maldives' Islamic character. Alcohol can only be sold to foreigners at resorts, and nearly everyone I spoke with remarked on the growing popularity of beards and headscarves. When I caught up with the surly imam in Male not long ago, he was preparing for afternoon prayers in an illicit and supposedly clandestine mosque, which was hidden behind a row of stores. After he shooed me away, I retreated across the street and watched as a steady trickle of young men—all bearded and sporting abbreviated trousers—disappeared into the alley that led to the mosque. When they emerged a little while later, none of them would talk to me, either.

Some fear the worst is yet to come. In spring 2006, authorities announced the arrest in Sri Lanka of three Maldivians—two women and a man—who allegedly were heading to militant training camps in Pakistan. Charges have since been dropped, and when I spoke to Fatimah Nisreen, a policeman's daughter who was accused of helping to arrange the trip, she asserted that the man had been escorting the women to Pakistan so he could marry them—something he couldn't do at home. But the 26-year-old also described herself as "totally obsessed with Islam" and acknowledged that she regularly visited an extremist Web site, although she has yet to make up her mind about Osama Bin Laden: "There are things I support, and there are things I can't decide on him."

As elsewhere, the growth of fundamentalist influence can be traced in part to Saudi Arabia, which built a seven-story-high school in Male—the Islamic Studies Institute—whose curriculum runs heavily to Arabic and the Quran. Moreover, many young Maldivians have studied at madrassas in the Middle East and Pakistan, where some have been recruited by militants. At a counseling center for recovering heroin addicts in Male, I met Ahmed Shah, a former recruit who nervously puffed on a cigarette as he told me of the 31 days he spent at a militant training camp in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, during a break from religious studies in Lahore. The camp was run by Lashkar-e-Tayyba, a Pakistani extremist group that U.S. officials have linked to al-Qaida. Now 28, Shah recalled the camp fondly. "So many Maldivians were training there," he said.