Ethiopians Fear for Their Interfaith Oasis

But he acknowledged a shift, particularly among young Muslims, which he and other leaders described not as fundamentalism but as a desire to become more devoted and, perhaps, to recover a religion their parents lost.

"They are now detaching themselves from the old culture," Mousa said. "The mixed culture is degenerating."

And so when the violence erupted in Jima last October, the news arrived in Dese amid a changing atmosphere.

With rumors swirling, the mayor -- whose first name, Jemal, is Muslim and last name, Kassahun, is Christian -- called a meeting of the city's religious leaders, including a Muslim sheik who has a Christian uncle, and a Christian pastor who has a Muslim grandfather.

"There were these confused people, Christian-to-Muslim converts, who tried to instigate people," the sheik, Hadji Mustafa Mohammed, said about the rumormongers. "But we took measures and brought it to a halt."

The leaders agreed that the violence in Jima must have been the fault of outsiders, or motivated by an Ethiopian political group trying to use religion to destabilize the area, which a government investigation also concluded.

The reaction has been similar elsewhere in Ethiopia, where the notion that the violence could have been instigated by Ethiopian Muslims and Christians has remained somehow unthinkable.

"When I first saw the tape, I couldn't finish it," said Aissetu Barry, a Christian and director of the Interfaith Peace-Building Initiative in Addis Ababa, referring to the scenes of carnage on the Jima video.

"I thought it must be external people, because there is no way we could have done this to ourselves. I saw the tape with a Muslim friend, and she cried, too," Barry said.

As they tried to understand what had happened, people in Dese considered their own families, friendships and neighborhoods.

"We Christians and Muslims have been together in good times and bad times," said Endris Ahmed of the local Islamic Affairs Council. "We decided that this is not going to be spoiled."

The tensions subsided, and life went on in Dese, where the tinny, amplified Muslim calls to prayer and rhythmic readings from the Orthodox Bible float across each dawn and dusk.

One recent evening, Nurye Seid commented that the speakers seemed to have become louder lately, a sign, he figured, of the kind of low-level religious competition that he is beginning to feel within his own family.

The high school geography teacher, a Muslim, married a Christian woman in a civil ceremony last year, and now they have a son nearly a year old.

So far, however, they have been unable to decide whether to raise him as a Muslim or Christian. In fact, they have not even given the child a name.

Seid's parents are hoping for Abubakr. His wife's parents are pulling for Abel.

For the time being, though, they are calling the child Abush, which, roughly translated, means baby.

"We have arguments sometimes," said Seid, adding that neither he nor his wife is particularly religious. "I think different cultures are more difficult to resolve, but this religious issue can be solved through discussions."