The clothing police are cracking down on streaks of vibrant color, bands of glittering crystal and sexy leopard skin prints popping up on the runway—or rather, in this case, in Saudi Arabia's marketplaces.

France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim population, and striking a balance between Islamic traditions and secular French values isn’t always simple.

The newly formed Arab Coalition for Darfur condemned the Muslim world for its silence on the atrocities in Darfur during the 35th Organization of the Islamic Conference, a meeting of the foreign ministers of 57 Muslim nations.

WIDE ANGLE goes behind the scenes at Arab television channel MBC in Cairo for an inside look at the hit all-female talk show, KALAM NAWAEM, whose hosts are using the power of transnational satellite TV to push social reform.

Globally, the Shia account for an estimated 10 or 15 percent of the Muslim population, but in the Middle East their numbers are much higher: they dominate the population of Iran, compose a majority in Iraq, and are significant minorities in other nations.

The Shia rejected the authority of the Umayyad dynasty, claiming that the Umayyads were usurpers and demanding that leadership go to the direct descendants of the Prophet. The Shia rose in the city of al-Kufah (south of Karbala, in present-day Iraq) and, in 680 A.D., invited Ali's son Hussein to join them and be their leader.

For years, Turkey's pious Muslims have been pushed to the fringes of the stridently secular country. Now Muslims are embracing capitalism and commerce.

The jostling together of European fads, age-old rural folkways and Islamic fervor has been a fact of Turkish life for a long time.

Following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, his third wife, Aisha bint Abu Bakar becomes one of four people to transmit the "hadiths," or the words and deeds of Muhammad considered by many Muslims to be important tools for discerning the Qur'an.

Links to information on Islam, education for women, and women's rights organizations.

Many modern debates about "women's status in Islam" focus on topics such as polygamy, the veil, and a few verses from the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an, that seem to impose female subordination -- to men in general and husbands in particular.

Will the kingdom will find a path to democratic reform or succumb to a rising tide of Islamic extremism.

Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a crisis. Its population is growing faster than its economy, its welfare state is rapidly deteriorating, regional and sectarian resentments are rising, and the disaffected are increasingly turning to radical Islamic activism.

Learn where Sunni and Shia Muslims live with this map of the Islamic world.