This story takes up a subject that has hitherto been off-limits. In that sense it breaks new ground for major media.

This medium-length story offers fascinating glimpses at the nuts and bolts of an Islamic religious approach to caring for people. Some of the cases it cites are ridiculous. Others are the simple and poignant stuff of family therapy and pastoral care everywhere. The writer makes the case that Islam is in a lot of trouble if the cases in the story are the norm for caring for people. But, one wonders whether the cases described are cherry-picked for their craziness.

The face of Jesus on a tortilla, Mary in the bark of a tree, a voice from heaven in the middle of the night telling someone to paint messages on the windows of their house. The compass the Times has got hold of is inaccurate and doesn't point in all directions. More bigotry-feeding partial truths from the hands behind the curtain.

This is an interesting article about an area that is rarely covered in the media, dead tree or otherwise. Some of the little vignettes, while fascinating in their way, are hard to accept as representative of the broader Islam faith because of the inherent weirdness they seem to convey; one wonders if the reporters and the NYT editors got it "right."