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Islamism Comes to ParadiseLooking for Osama in the Maldives.

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

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Blame can also be assigned to President Maumoon Gayoom, an Egyptian-trained religious scholar who has run the Maldives since 1978. In the time-honored tradition of Muslim autocrats everywhere, Gayoom uses Islam to promote his legitimacy—his official biography notes proudly that he designed the calligraphy in the capital's main mosque—while dealing ruthlessly with secular political rivals. Under pressure from human rights groups and Western governments, Gayoom has eased up a bit on the repression and pledged to hold free presidential elections in 2008. But the net effect of his policies has been to create a hospitable environment for extremists. "I can hear people sharpening their knives," warned Mohammed Nasheed, who heads the largest opposition party and was released from house arrest in September, after more than a year in custody.

Nasheed wasn't the only one expressing worry about the fundamentalist trend. "Obviously it is the biggest threat to this country," Hassan Saeed, the attorney general, told me. He voiced particular concern about the latent threat to tourism, citing a 2005 incident in which fundamentalists attacked a Male shop for displaying a Santa Claus in its window.

Several people in Male suggested that I might learn more if I paid a visit to Himendhoo, one of the 200 or so "local islands"—as distinct from the capital—where most Maldivians live. Last fall, an Indian schoolteacher on the island was beaten nearly to death, allegedly because he was a Hindu and an English teacher, and police rounded up 30 islanders for starting an unauthorized mosque, which was then destroyed with sledgehammers. So, late one night, I boarded a wooden fishing boat called a dhoni for a storm-tossed eight-hour voyage.

Himendhoo was less than a mile long, a sleepy, palm-shaded settlement of concrete houses and sandy lanes that were empty of any cars. There were two government mosques, and many of the women wore black abayas and face veils—a fashion statement I hadn't seen in the capital. My host, whom I will call Majeed, was a young schoolteacher with a wispy beard who had been arrested in connection with the mosque episode. By his account, he and other islanders had decided to build their own mosque after clashing with government clerics over a liturgical matter relating to the dawn prayer. "We are only trying to follow what the Quran says and what the Prophet did," said Majeed, who was jailed for three weeks.

Majeed then took me to see the bungalow where the Indian teacher had been attacked. But he told a different story than the one I had heard in Male, insisting that the incident had been triggered not by religion but by a personal squabble. That sounded plausible, and I began to wonder whether Himendhoo was quite the hotbed of radicalism that had been described to me. In the scheme of things, the prayer dispute behind the mosque rebellion seemed pretty arcane. And while the island was obviously conservative, there was no prohibition on girls attending school or women holding jobs, even those connected with tourism. As we passed by the beach, I spotted a woman in an abaya sitting cross-legged in the shade of a palm tree, weaving mats from fronds. Majeed told me that the mats are sold to resorts for building guest cottages.

But there wasn't time to investigate further. As a foreigner, I wasn't supposed to visit any of the local islands without official permission, and I didn't want to push my luck by hanging around. I had arranged to spend the night on a nearby resort island and catch a seaplane back to Male the next morning. Majeed accompanied me to the beach, where a dhoni waited in the shallows. Before we parted, I asked a final question: "How do people here feel about Osama Bin Laden?" Majeed smiled bashfully. "I think here we have to support him," he said. "He is the person who is trying to spread the Islamic religion in the world." An hour later, I was sipping a Corona in an open-air restaurant, surrounded by Italians in bathing trunks and bikinis. A sign advertised a discoteca starting at 11 p.m.