Rage in the Streets.(Islamic protests in Europe)

Just as night fell and the Ramadan fast was set to break last Tuesday, murder shattered Antwerp's fragile calm. A deranged white neighbor shot Mohamed Achrak, 27, as the popular young teacher stood outside his parents' home. As word spread, stunned kids on the streets of Borgerhout, an immigrant-heavy enclave of the Belgian city, summoned others on mobile phones and headed for its main drag. Soon they were smashing car windows and shopfronts, dodging tear-gas canisters and hurling stones at police. By late the next day, 160 were in jail. But it's the arrest that came last Thursday that municipal officials and police say is the important one. To hear them tell it, Dyab Abou Jahjah, an Arab leader, had been waiting for just such an incident. He swooped in to rally the young crowds and, according to police, incited them to riot.

The violence came as a shock to many in Belgium's tight-knit Muslim communities, and older and more established members quickly condemned it. But last week's events raised vital questions: Who speaks for the Muslims of Belgium? Or of France? Or Europe, for that matter? The answers, increasingly, may depend on the age of the person you are talking to. In many parts of Europe, Muslim activism appears to be undergoing a tumultuous generational shift, pitting frustrated second- or third-generation Muslim Europeans against the aging first-generation leaders who have traditionally represented them. Fed up with infighting among various ethnic and nationalist factions in the Muslim community, and spurred to action by world events, these younger Muslim Europeans are finding common cause by turning against their elders and taking matters into their own hands.

Such is the struggle between Abou Jahjah and Nordin Maloujamoum, head of the Muslim Executive in Belgium, a committee set up as a liaison with the government. Maloujamoum claims Abou Jahjah is unknown in the community--or was, until all the publicity--and that Abou Jahjah's group has only 100 members. Abou Jahjah is "an extremist," Maloujamoum told NEWSWEEK. But to hear his detractors tell it, it's Maloujamoum who is the puppet. The Muslim Executive in Belgium that Maloujamoum represents is more or less a creature of the state. The 17-member committee was created through elections in 1999, but only after Belgian authorities openly and controversially screened candidates for undesirable elements.

And there's the rub. To some, these government-sanctioned groups are filled with old-guard figureheads who seem hopelessly out of ...