when there is a crisis-when hostages are taken, or a bloody jihad is waged, or an ayatollah pronounces a death sentence upon a "blasphemous" novelist. Few Westerners recognize that beneath such head- line events lie ancient, tangled conflicts that go to the heart of Islamic faith and civilization, often threatening to divide it.
One such conflict-between worldly and spiritual authority-finds apt expres- sion in the 16th-century Persian painting featured on this page. It depicts an early...