Faith and fears as Muslims mark Ramadan

As the sun rose over mosque after mosque across the globe, the muezzins waited for their shadows to gather at their feet, then one by one climbed into minarets, picked up microphones or simply lifted their voices to issue their call:

"God is great! I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger. Come to prayers, come to salvation . . . "

As they do every week, hundreds of millions of people responded to that call Friday. From six continents they faced Mecca, the city where Islam was born, like the spokes of a giant wheel. They came wearing robes and sarongs or coats and ties, T-shirts and tracksuits or cloaks and head scarves. They bowed their heads and fell to their knees, then touched their foreheads to the ground, honoring the holiest day of the week in the holiest month of the year.

Reporters from The Associated Press visited mosques around the world Friday to take the pulse of the faithful at a time of upheaval in Islam. They found believers who, for all their cultural and geographical diversity, share an anger over Iraq and the Palestinians and a feeling that their religion is under threat from the West.

"Muslims are getting united now," said Mamdouh Habbal, a 61-year-lawyer attending prayers at Cairo's majestic Al-Azhar mosque. "Unfortunately, they're united in one thing: hatred toward America. Even an old man like me, it has hit me. And I've never known hatred my entire life."

Indeed, preachers and believers across the globe described a Muslim world of 1 billion believers under attack from threats both spiritual and worldly. They warned of decaying morals and declining traditions — and of what they called a U.S.-led campaign to tear Islam apart.

"What is happening now in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan is a war against Islam, a crusade, an old war in new clothing," Youssef Abu Sneineh said in his sermon to at least 150,000 people at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque.

In Qom, Iran, the preacher claimed fraud in the recent presidential election in neighboring Afghanistan, in which U.S.-backed interim leader Hamid Karzai is expected to win big, and the congregation chanted: "Death to America."

Mohammed Aslam, a 65-year-old retired school teacher, emerged from prayers in Islamabad, Pakistan, saying he prayed to God to forgive his sins, protect his family and unite Muslims.

Then he added: "I prayed that America be destroyed and Bush face defeat because he has unleashed oppression against Muslims everywhere in the world."