A Real Sign Of Healing; A year after 3/11, the country's Muslims feel at home.(aftermath of Madrid train bombing )

Byline: Stryker McGuire and Mike Elkin

A year ago Madrid's cavernous Atocha train station was filled with twisted steel and mangled bodies, killed by suspected Islamist terrorists. Spain is an ancient battleground between Christians and Muslims. The bombings of March 11, 2004, posed the question: would it be so again?

The answer--no--is clear from an inconspicuous memorial at Atocha. It's a postmodern wall where people can leave their handprints or pen a message. Occasionally someone will scrawl an insult: "Look at how these immigrants thank us!" But another, possibly a Muslim, will write: "Don't generalize. We feel the same pain." Those who feared a backlash have been heartened. "I was afraid," says Mohammed Chaib, a Moroccan-born Muslim congressman in the Catalonian Parliament. And who could fault him, given history? In their attempts to end nearly eight centuries of Moorish rule, the architects of the Christian reconquista banished, killed or converted vast numbers of Muslims to "purify" the Iberian Peninsula. And yet in the past year, says Chaib, "society's behavior was exemplary."

Think of it as a new reconquista, but in reverse. The anniversary of March 11 finds a Spain that has rediscovered its Islamic past--and its Muslims. During the last year, newspapers have churned out stories on the "forgotten Spaniards." Though hard statistics are impossible to come by, Muslim leaders agree that the number of small, neighborhood mosques--so-called garage mosques--is on the rise. So is the number of Roman Catholics converting to Islam. "Just last week someone asked me if he could convert at home or on the Internet," laughs Mansur Escudero, secretary-general of the Islamic Commission of Spain.

After last year's explosions, Catholic and Muslim leaders reached out to one another across religious and historical divides. The government promised to implement a stalled 1992 agreement to fund the teaching of Islam at schools where at least 10 students request it. The regional government in Catalonia offered extracurricular Arabic-language and culture classes for the first time. Madrid set out to improve relations across the Strait of Gibraltar with Morocco, homeland to many Muslim immigrants; in January, Spain's King Juan Carlos addressed the Moroccan Parliament.

The record of reconciliation is by no means unblemished, of course. Despite the fact that the Islamic Commission estimates that 74,000 students have requested special religion classes, the government has been slow to come up with the money and the teachers. After 3/11 the regional government of Aragon proposed removing from its heraldic shield an ancient motif that depicts the decapitated heads of four Moors. That issue remains unresolved. Muslim immigrants still face discrimination in finding a job or place to live. And 3/11 occasioned instances of abuse: insults on the street, racist graffiti, suspicious looks on the Metro.

Still, Muslim leaders say they were surprised by the absence of any serious recrimination or retribution. There was virtually no violence. For their part, Muslim organizations and representatives from 400-odd mosques around the country quickly expressed solidarity. "We ...