Here’s a good piece by Christopher Caldwell on the rise of Islam in France: Veiled Threat. (Hat tip: DP.)

French politicians were apt to brag during the Iraq war of how clearly their voice was heard in the Arab world. France indeed has sway there, but at the price that it must listen attentively to the Arab world’s wishes. The mufti of Egypt has darkly warned Chirac that the anti-veil law would “destroy the social peace of French society.” The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has called it “an interference in the realm of Muslims’ personal and religious liberty.” And Hezbollah wrote that angry letter to Chirac. Interior Minister Sarkozy was thus heartened when Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, the hugely influential imam of al-Azhar theological institute in Egypt, told him that France had the right to ban the veil. While Sarkozy’s visit was presented as a drop-in after a vacation, it was obviously of high diplomatic import.

But alongside any cheer that Sarkozy may feel at this triumph of diplomacy, it must be sobering to know that France needs a nihil obstat from Muslim clerics abroad before it can pass a piece of domestic legislation. More sobering still is an increasing tendency among Muslim theologians to count France as part of Dar al-Islam (“the House of Islam”).