Why is it that of all the "Islamic" organisations that there are, it is al-Qaida that has among the highest proportions of converts? Why is it that other young Muslims, whose fathers and forefathers were clean shaven and dressed in shirts and trousers, now opt instead to don robes and grow lengthy beards? It is often those who laugh last who laugh loudest. Along with phenomena such as "Mecca Cola" and "halal McDonalds", these are among the questions considered by the French scholar Olivier Roy in his recent book, Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways, which outlines what he perceives to be the divorce of religion from culture in faiths and across the globe.
At the turn of the last millennium, the Economist playfully published an obituary for God. Many used to believe that modernisation and industrialisation heralded the advance of rational thought, secularism and a decline of public interest in organised religion. Church attendance in many Anglican parishes has been declining for years, and many church buildings have been converted to serve other, more popular purposes. Given the option to pay a religious tax, in Spain thousands of Catholic households are year on year opting not to do so. In the US, the number of Catholics attending religious seminaries has plummeted. Among Muslims too, traditional Sufi observances have declined among many populations.
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