“ ‘So what’s your name,’ she said indifferently, taking off her black panties and tossing them with her toe to the cobwebby corner of the motel room just off the Turnpike in Iselin. He had a cowed look, watery eyes that wouldn’t settle on hers forthrightly, and office worker hands. She bet he worked in a cubicle.”

This is how the current installment of “Sex and the Umma,” opens, and this is part of what has sparked such controversy. “Sex and the Umma,” is the Islamic sex column portion of Muslim WakeUp!, a site and online publication that “seeks to bring together Muslims and non-Muslims in America and around the globe in efforts that celebrate cultural and spiritual diversity, tolerance, and understanding.” It is also now under attack from individuals who call themselves the Islamic Challenge Brigades and who claim that the web site is a “vile attack on Islam.” The Islamic Challenge Brigades also allege that the magazine’s publishers are “murtad,” or apostates, a term that can imply impending physical violence.

Muslim WakeUp! Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Nassef is in contact with the FBI about the situation, and Lloyd Grove, who covered the story for the shamelessly and unrelentingly gossipy New York Daily News, quoted FBI Special Agent Jim Margolin as stating: “Even if this were merely a denial-of-service attack, it would be a federal crime.”

Mimi Hanaoka