As the world reacts to the host of Islamic State terrorist attacks that brought tragedy and death to Paris, Muslim scholars, clerics and lay people alike are speaking up about the troubles within the house of Islam. They are asserting, as loudly as the media will project, that no single authority truly speaks for the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, that terror is anathema to Islam’s religious ethic and that tension among its branches—particularly the Sunni and Shiite sects—needs to be addressed.

Some of these issues date back more than 80 years, to when the Ottoman Empire (then the highest authority in Sunni Islam) was defeated in World War I and replaced by a new Turkish Republic that inherited the empire’s ruins. Now, the culturally diverse and decentralized population of 21st-century Muslims is dealing with the implications of not having a single coherent authority in one of the world’s biggest faiths. The most urgent question is how to assert a universal disavowal of the Islamic State. But another that is gaining traction is the simple and yet complex question: Who should control Islam’s holiest sites?

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