These calls are no doubt having an effect on recruitment for Muslim causes hostile to the West. On Saturday, Al-Jazeera correspondent Diyar al-Umari broadcast a report about a slough of non-Iraqi volunteers who had come to a training camp near Baghdad to prepare to carry out urban warfare suicide missions against American soldiers. Abu Izz al-Din, a Syrian preacher, said that Iraq's jihadis would defeat American arms. "No nation can attain the weapon of martyrdom seekers, regardless of the technological and scientific advancement they might have," he argued. "The weapon of martyrdom seekers is special to the Muslim nation. We will be able to confront them with this weapon, Allah willing."

Another man, Abu Abd al-Rahman, told Al-Jazeera that he left his wife and children in Egypt, and surreptitiously sneaked into Iraq. "You are well aware of what is happening against Iraq," he told al-Umari. "This is clearly an injustice against an Arab, Muslim country."

Such divisive cultural language has had an unsettling way of appearing in discussions about modern geopolitical battles. Shortly after the terrorist attacks, President Bush himself said "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while." To those looking warily at the West as heirs to the brutal Crusades, this was resonant -- so resonant that after the Pentagon heard objections from the Muslim community that "Operation Infinite Justice" would offend Muslims because they believe only Allah can mete out infinite justice, the Pentagon changed the name of the operation to "Enduring Freedom."

It was of little consequence. Bush's comments fit in nicely with the remarks, made around the same time by Osama bin Laden, of events having "divided the whole world into two sides," those being "the side of believers and the side of infidels."

"He said the 'crusade,'" Bakri says. "Tony Blair said 'my Christian conscience is clear.' You must understand, the religious obligations, they carry whether in the West or in the East."

"That was a mistake," Ali S. Asani, a professor of Islamic studies at Harvard University, says of Bush's use of the c-word, "and even though he retracted that and said 'That's not what I meant,'" it was spread all over the world.

Other U.S. religious leaders, however, stepped up for a little holy war of their own. In November 2001, the Rev. Franklin Graham told NBC Nightly News that Muslims pray to "a different God" and that Islam "is a very evil and wicked religion." In June 2002, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Rev. Jerry Vines, drew applause when in a speech at the SBC Pastors' Conference he called the Prophet Mohammed a "demon-possessed pedophile." In September 2002, television evangelist Pat Robertson told Fox News Channel that Mohammed "was an absolute wild-eyed fanatic. He was a robber and a brigand." Islam, Robertson said, is "a monumental scam." In October 2002, the Rev. Jerry Falwell told CBS' "60 Minutes" that he thought "Mohammed was a terrorist."

"He -- I read enough of the history of his life written by both Muslims and -- and -- non-Muslims, that he was a -- a violent man, a man of war," Falwell said. "Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses. And I think that Mohammed set an opposite example."

These remarks do not end at the Atlantic or Pacific oceans. Indeed, they always make news around the world, passed on by those imams who agree with the Christian leaders' apparent longing for Armageddon.

And combined with other news items, especially when taken out of context, it all paints a rather ugly picture. Every story that could be used to paint a portrait of a new Crusade -- allegations of racial profiling of Arab and Muslim Americans; reports that the FBI is conducting surveillance against mosques; the fact that only one of the 25 countries whose visitors have to register with the U.S. government is non-Muslim -- "all these things get transmitted around the world through relatives, friends and especially the Internet," Asani says. "Aside from what's happening with Iraq, there's a perception that Muslims are being targeted in the U.S., which has added more fuel to this perception that this is a war against Islam."

Last November, Asani recalls, "the Canadian government issued a travel advisory to Canadian Muslims thinking of traveling in the U.S.," encouraging those born in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria to avoid it altogether. "That got reported around the world," he says, at the same time that the State Department launched its public diplomacy campaign, a videotape about Muslims in America."

Not surprisingly, many of these recent Muslim religious calls to war are emanating from Iraq. Last Thursday, according to the Iraqi News Agency, 30 prominent Iraqi Muslims issued a fatwa calling for jihad. Dr. Shaykh Abd-al-Malik Abd-al-Rahman al-Sa'di, writing on behalf of his group, wrote that "the U.S. administration and its evil and infidel allies ... seek destruction, hegemony and a ban on freedoms in our Arab and Islamic world. They also seek to plunder its resources and undermine its existence and independence." President Bush, he wrote, has pledged "another Crusade," like the ones from the last Gulf War and the creation of Israel in 1948, "to destroy the Muslim countries and their resources."

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