Sitting at an outdoor cafe one late Sunday afternoon in the old city of Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, I had an unusual experience. Church bells began ringing at the Panagia Phaneromeni, an 18th-century Greek Orthodox church just across from the cafe. Then, about 20 minutes later, the nearby strains of an Islamic call to prayer filtered in. Gripped by its hauntingly beautiful tones, I left the cafe and followed the sound to try to get a better listen. Walking through the labyrinth of narrow streets that pervade Nicosia's old town, I suddenly came to a barricade in the street; I had quite literally hit a wall and could go no farther. As I soon realized, the call to prayer came from the Selimiye Mosque, Nicosia's largest and most famous. And though it stood just a few hundred meters from the cafe where I had just been, Selimiye Mosque was...
