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The Muslims Religion in America Series Harry S. Stout of America General Editor A PERFECT BABEL OF CONFUSION Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies Randall Balmer THE PRESBYTERIAN CONTROVERSY Edited by Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates Bradley J. Longfield YVONNE YAZBECK HADDAD MORMONS AND THE BIBLE The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion Philip L. Barlow THE RUDE HAND OF INNOVATION Religion and Social Order in Albany, New York, 1652-1836 David G. Hackett SEASONS OF GRACE Colonial New England's Revival Tradition in Its British Context Michael J. Crawford THE MUSLIMS OF AMERICA edited by Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad (J New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1991 Oxford University Press ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland This book brings together studies on the religion of Islam as it is experienced in and associated companies LB Berlin Ibadan a variety of contexts in North America, in recognition of its expanding minor ity status in the United States and Canada. The papers collected in this volume Copyright © 1991 by Oxford University Press, Inc. were first presented at a conference devoted to the "Muslims of America," held Published by Oxford University Press in April 1989 on the Amherst campus of the University of Massachusetts, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 which was j ointly sponsored by the Department of History, the Near East Area Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press Studies Program, and the Arabic Club of the university, The project was AD rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, Department of Education, the Arabian American Oil Company, Five College electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Incorporated, and Mobiloil Corporation. Resources at the University of Massa chusetts were also provided by the Arabic Club, the Office of the Chancellor, Library of Congress. Cataloging-in-Publication Data the Department of History, the Faculty of Humanities and Fine Arts, the The Muslims of America / edited by Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad. p. cm. — (Religion in America series) International Programs Office, the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Includes bibliographical references. and the Near East Area Studies Program. The viewpoints and beliefs expressed ISBN 0-19-506728-2 in these papers are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect I. Islam—United States. 2. Muslims—United States, I. Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, 1935- the opinions of the sponsoring organizations. II. Series: Religion in America series The organizing committee of the conference wishes to express particular (Oxford University Press) thanks to the following individuals: Joseph Duffey, chancellor of the Univer BP67.U6M87 l»l 29T.0973—dc20 90-44510 sity of Massachusetts; Murray Schwartz, dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Fine Arts; Glenn Gordon, dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences; and Barbara Burn, director of the International Programs Office. Special acknowledgment is made of the contributions of Elizabeth Brewer, assistant dean for Area Studies and codirector of the conference, who was involved in all aspects of the undertaking since its inception. Robert Engle, conference coordinator, and Alice Izer and Kathleen Moore oversaw all local arrangements in connection with the conference. Gratitude is expressed to the chairs and respondents of the many panels conducted in the course of the conference. The chairs and respondents from the University of Massachusetts include Roland Sarti, chair of the Department of History; Elizabeth Brewer, assistant dean for Area Studies; Anna Tsing, professor of anthropology; Walter Denny, chair of the department of art history; W. Barnett Pearce, professor of communication; Adnan Haydar, director of the Near East Area Studies Program; Anwar Syed, professor of political science; Robert Griffith, professor of history. Other chairs and re spondents include John A. Petropulos, Amherst College; Jonathan Lippman, 13 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Mount Holyoke College; Willem Bijlefeld and David Kerr, Hartford Semi nary; Robert Haddad, Smith College; Allan D. Austin, Springfield College; Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper and Barbara Aswad, Wayne State University. vi Acknowledgments The final form of the present text is the result of the efforts of many people. Jane I. Smith and Elizabeth d'Amico provided editorial assistance for all of the papers. Alice Izer typed several versions of a number of manuscripts, and CONTENTS Kathleen Moore maintained general organizational, oversight of the collection as a whole. Gratitude and thanks are extended for all of these contributions, without which neither the project nor this volume would have been possible. Contributors ix Introduction: The Muslims of America 3 Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad I. The Muslims of the United States 1 Muslim Organizations in the United States 11 Gutbi Afahdi Ahmed 2 Estimate of Muslims Living in America 25 Carol L. Stone II. Perceptions of Muslims in the United States 3 Perspectives of the American Churches on Islam and the Muslim Community in North America 39 Byron L. Haines 4 The Muslim as the "Other": Representation and Self-image of the Muslims in America 53 Abubaker al-Shingiety III. Islamic Thought in the United States 5 Ismail R. al-Faruqi: Muslim Scholar-Activist 65 John L. Esposito 6 Seyyed Hossein Nasr: Defender of the Sacred and Islamic Traditionalism 80 Jane I. Smith 7 The Legacy of Fazlur Rahman 96 Frederick M. Denny IV. Islamic Activity in the United States 8 Political Activity of Muslims in America 111 Steven A, Johnson 9 Da'wah in the West 125 Larry A. Boston viii Contents 10 Muslims in Prison: Claims to Constitutional Protection of Religious Liberty 136 Kathleen Moore CONTRIBUTORS 11 Islamic Education in the United States and Canada: Conception and Practice of the Mamie Belief System 157 Nimat Hafez Barazangi V. Muslim Women in Intercultural Perspective Qutbi Ahmed, a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, is the director of the New York office of the 12 African-American Muslim Women 177 Muslim World League and the former president of the Islamic Society of Beverly Thomas McCloud North America. 13 Two-Way Acculturation: Muslim Women in America Between Individual Choice (Liminality) and Community Affiliation Nimat Hafez Barazangi was educated in Damascus University, Columbia (Communitas) 188 University, and Cornell University. Her research and teaching interests Marcia K. Hermansen center on multicultural pedagogical problems. She has published several papers on Muslim children's education, Muslim Arab youth, and Muslim/Arab women. Currently she is designing an action plan for VI. American Muslims and the Question of Identity Islamic education in North America based on the results of her 14 Islamic Issues for Muslims in the United States 205 dissertation. John O. Voli Frederick Mathewson Denny, associate professor of religious studies at the 15 American Foreign Policy in the Middle East and Its Impact on University of Colorado in Boulder, is the author of Islamic Ritual Practices: the Identity of Arab Muslims in the United States 217 A Slide Set and Teacher's Guide, An Introduction to Islam; The Holy Book Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad in Comparative Perspective, and numerous journal and encyclopedia 16 Convergence and Divergence in an Emergent Community: A articles on Islam and Islamic ritual. He has received several research Study of Challenges Facing U.S. Muslims 236 scholarships and has traveled extensively in the Muslim world. Sulayman S. Nyang John L. Esposüo, professor and director of international studies at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, is the author of Mam and Politics and Women in Muslim Family Law. He is the editor of Islam in Asia: Religion, Politics and Society, Voices of Resurgent Islam; Islam and Development: Religion and Sociopolitical Change; and coeditor of Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives. He has authored scores of journal articles on Islamic revival and Islam in the modem world. He has traveled extensively throughout the Muslim world and is involved with organizations working with Muslims in the United States. Byron Haines is the former director of the Office of Christian-Muslim Relations at the National Council of Churches. He is the author of several articles on Muslims in the United States and a coauthor of Christians and Muslims Together. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is the author of Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of History, and coauthor of Islamic Values in the United States and Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection. She is the coeditor of Islamic Impact and Women, Religion and Social Change. She has been engaged in X Contributors research on the Muslim community in the United States for the last ten years. Marcia Hermansen, associate professor of religion at San Diego State The Muslims University, has authored numerous articles on Islam in the subcontinent of America and is engaged in research on American women who convert to Islam and marry immigrants. She has written several articles on Islam and women. Steve A. Johnson lectures in Islamic studies at Christian Theological Seminary and is an instructor in the English department at Indiana University- Purdue University at Indianapolis. He is the former editor of Islamic Horizons and author of the booklet Dtfwah to Americans: Theory and Practice, as well as many articles on Islam. Beverly Thomas McCloud, an assistant professor of Islamic studies at De Paul University, has been studying the role of women in the African American Muslim community. Kathleen Moore is a doctoral candidate in the department of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Sulayman Nyang, chair of the department of Afro-American studies at Howard University, is a former editor of Journal of Muslim Social Sciences. Dr. Nyang has authored several articles on Muslims in the United States and is a coauthor of a forthcoming book on the Muslim community. Larry A. Poston is chairman of the department of Missiology at Nyack College, Nyack, N.Y. Abubaker Al Shingiety, a doctoral candidate in the department of commu nication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is the former secretary general of the Union of Sudanese Writers and former editor of the monthly Islamic Horizons. Jane I. Smith, vice president and academic dean at the Miff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, is the author of The Precious Paper and The Concept "Islam" in the History of Qur anic Exegesis. She is the coauthor of The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, the editor of Women in Contemporary Islamic Society, and coeditor of Introduction to Religions of the East: A Reader. She has written numerous journal and encyclopedia articles on Islam. Carol L, Stone is a research scientist at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. John O. Voll, chairman of the department of history at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, is the author of Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World, and coauthor of The Sudan: a Profile in Unity and Diversity. He has written countless articles on Islam in the Sudan and in the modern world. Introduction: The Muslims of America Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad The conference on the Muslims of America grew out of a desire to expand the scope of scholarly investigation of the growing Muslim community in the United States, heighten public awareness of the Muslim presence, and provide better understanding of the ways in which Muslims experience the United States and adapt to their institutions, as they become increasingly an indige nous part of America. American Muslims are experiencing both exhilaration at the opportunity to increase their numbers and develop their institutions and frustration and dismay as they continue to experience prejudice, intimidation, discrimination, misunderstanding, and even hatred. It is increasingly important, therefore, to take a fresh look at some of the ways in which they have succeeded in creating a distinct identity and establishing an Islamic community in North America. The dramatic growth in the number of Muslims in the United States has come about at a time when anger is rising among many American citizens toward Muslims overseas as well as hostility toward and discrimination against Ameri can Muslims. The situation of Muslims in America must be understood in terms of the dynamics of their relationship to their environment in the United States and its influence on the development of Islamic ideas throughout the modern world. Interest in the Muslims of America has grown in relation to their increasing presence in urban areas as wei as the development of their distinctive institu tions across the country. These include more than 600 mosques/Islamic cen ters, two Islamic colleges, scores of parochial day schools, several hundred weekend schools, women's organizations, youth groups, and professional and civic organizations. The leadership of the Muslim community has been pre dominantly in the hands of lay volunteers concerned about the maintenance of their heritage and the perpetuation of the faith by the next generation. In the last decade they have been able to organize several printing presses, book distribution centers, and national and regional denominational magazines to help guide the faithful in maintaining Islamic beliefs and practices in what is 3 4 Introduction: The Muslims of America Introduction: The Muslims of America 5 often an alien environment..1 Regular television2 and radio3 broadcasts feature tage of the immigration laws in the sixties and seventies are now seeking programs on Islam and the Arab heritage; tapes (both audio and video) of institutional support for educating their children in the traditions of their sermons and speeches are distributed through national networks. forefathers. The American media, in the form of newspaper reporting* and some tele The American experience has presented Muslims with a special challenge. vision programming5, have begun to take note of these developments. Scholarly They have unprecedented freedom to experiment with forms and structures for interest has been limited, either within the Muslim community itself or from the separation of religion and state away from the watchful eyes of wary social scientists concerned with ethnographic investigation and the social, eco governments and the criticism of traditionalists. At the same time, this freedom nomic, and psychological adjustment of immigrants to their North American is fraught with the danger of innovation and deviance; the great range of environment. American scholars of the humanities have tended to view Muslims options available in the American context carries the threat of sectarian in the United States as of marginal interest because of their small number as division and fragmentation. The essays in this volume are intended to initiate compared to the worldwide Muslim, community.6 Their importance has been scholarly investigation of such questions as whether a common understanding overshadowed by the tempestuous American relationship with Middle Eastern and interpretation of the Muslim experience exists in the United States; in countries. what way and to what degree the "imported" Islamic heritage, whether Iranian, Arab, Turkish, or Pakistani, affects the redefinition of Islam in the American The dramatic growth of the Muslim community in the United States is a context; how American Muslims in different areas and at different times have recent phenomenon, taking place primarily over the last three decades in been able to organize Islamic institutions while maintaining their full participa response to changes in American immigration laws and the demands of the tion in the American mainstream; and how Muslims have drawn on their labor market. The majority of recent Muslim immigrants are university gradu heritage, their theological structures, and their attendant religious institutions, ates, part of the "brain, drain" of persons who have joined the ranks of in either the traditional or some refashioned form, to create a cohesive milieu American professionals. (There are, for example, an estimated six thousand in the United States. Muslim medical doctors in the United States.) They are economically inte grated into the American middle class but. appear to be increasingly alienated If it is true that intellectual and institutional activity becomes more intense by American attitudes toward. Islam and Muslims. during periods of crisis, does Islam either function as a kind of refuge or take The impact of American Muslims on the ideological formation of contem the initiative in the quest to provide meaning and relevance in an ever-changing porary Islam generally and on Muslim people overseas has been overlooked. environment? Are Muslim intellectuals active in seeking a creative reordering In the last four decades, the United States has become a center of Islamic of life and a cohesive worldview? Do they perceive their role as providing intellectual ferment as an increasing number of Muslim students (estimated at community stability and integration, or are they marginal actors outside the times to be over a hundred thousand a year) have enrolled in American arena of power who strive to stem the tide of apathy and erosion of support colleges and universities.7 Their understanding of Islam, and its role in the among members? Studies in this volume focus on the range of ways in which world is being shaped and reshaped in the American milieu. Muslim intellectu Muslims have responded to the challenge of maintaining their identity and als and leaders who have become a significant part of the American academic living out their faith in the American context. scene have been able to provide an interpretation of Islam relevant to life in the The volume is organized into six sections, taking the reader from specific United States as well, as to the modern world. Their' writings and ideas have details and descriptions through material that is more suggestive and interpre been exported by students returning to their home countries to assume leader tive. In the first section Gutbi Mahdi Ahmad discusses the organizational ship positions in the Muslim world. In this manner the opinions and interpre structures of American Muslims, primarily Sunni, providing historical back tations of American. Muslims have influenced persons in the Middle East, ground, reasons why Muslims have chosen to configure themselves in formal Africa, and Southeast Asia. Their Islamic worldviews have also been attractive organizations, and an overview of the major groups in North America today to many indigenous Americans, both black and white, who have converted to and the constituencies they serve. The essay concludes with an introduction to Islam in the last four decades.8 some Islamic subgroups, including the American Muslim Mission, Darul Islam, and the Ansarullah. Next Carol Stone offers a detailed projection of the Initial investigation suggests that the number of Muslims who participate number of Muslims living in America today, extrapolating from 1980 Census in Islamic institutions in America is small, but such participation can be seen Bureau emigration statistics. Looking at proportions of Muslim populations to increase during periods of stress. Recent international events and the reac across the world and estimated numbers of immigrants, she calculates that tions of the American public to them seem to have stimulated Muslims to there are some 4 million Muslims in the United States today, with the largest become involved in community activities on social, political, and educational communities in California, New York, and Illinois. levels. Much of this activity is designed to influence the views of the general American public—specifically to blunt the negative image presented by the In the second section Byron Haines and Abubaker Al Shingiety deal with press. Also, many in the generation of Muslim young people who took advan- ways in which Muslims have been, and continue to be, perceived by non- 4 Introduction: The Muslims of America Introduction: The Muslims of America 5 often an alien environment.1 Regular television2 and radio3 broadcasts feature tags of the immigration laws in the sixties and seventies are now seeking programs on Islam and the Arab heritage; tapes (both audio and video) of institutional support for educating their children in the traditions of their sermons and speeches are distributed through national networks. forefathers. The American media, in the form of newspaper reporting4 and some tele The American experience has presented Muslims with a special challenge. vision programming5, have begun to take note of these developments. Scholarly Tr.ey have unprecedented freedom to experiment with forms and structures for interest has been limited, either within the Muslim community itself or from :he separation of religion and state away from the watchful eyes of wary social scientists concerned with ethnographic investigation and the social, eco governments and the criticism of traditionalists. At the same time, this freedom nomic, and psychological adjustment of immigrants to their North American is fraught with the danger of innovation and deviance; the great range of environment. American scholars of the humanities have tended to view Muslims options available in the American context carries the threat of sectarian in the United States as of marginal interest because of their small number as division and fragmentation. The essays in this volume are intended to initiate compared to the worldwide Muslim community.6 Their importance has been scholarly investigation of such questions as whether a common understanding overshadowed by the tempestuous American relationship with Middle Eastern and interpretation of the Muslim experience exists in the United States; in countries. w - at way and to what degree the "imported" Islamic heritage, whether Iranian, Arab, Turkish, or Pakistani, affects the redefinition of Islam in the American The dramatic growth of the Muslim community in the United States is a context; how American Muslims in different areas and at different times have recent phenomenon, taking place primarily over the last three decades in been able to organize Islamic institutions while maintaining their full participa response to changes in American immigration laws and the demands of the tion m the American mainstream; and how Muslims have drawn on their labor market. The majority of recent Muslim immigrants are university gradu heritage, their theological structures, and their attendant religious institutions, ates, part of the "brain drain" of persons who have joined the ranks of in either the traditional or some refashioned form, to create a cohesive milieu American professionals. (There are, for example, an estimated six thousand :n the United States. Muslim medical doctors in the United States.) They are economically inte grated into the American middle class but appear to be increasingly alienated If it is true that intellectual and institutional activity becomes more intense by American attitudes toward Islam and Muslims. during periods of crisis, does Islam either function as a kind of refuge or take The impact of American Muslims on the ideological formation of contem t'r.L- initiative in the quest to provide meaning and relevance in an ever-changing porary Islam generally and on Muslim people overseas has been overlooked. em irunment? Are Muslim intellectuals active in seeking a creative reordering In the last four decades, the United States has become a center of Islamic of life and a cohesive worldview? Do they perceive their role as providing intellectual ferment as an increasing number of Muslim students (estimated at community stability and integration, or are they marginal actors outside the times to be over a hundred thousand a year) have enrolled in American arena of power who strive to stem the tide of apathy and erosion of support colleges and universities.7 Their understanding of Islam and its role in the among members? Studies in this volume focus on the range of ways in which world is being shaped and reshaped in the American milieu. Muslim intellectu Muslims have responded to the challenge of maintaining their identity and als and leaders who have become a significant part of the American academic living out their faith in the American context. scene have been able to provide an interpretation of Islam relevant to life in the The volume is organized into six sections, taking; the reader from specific United States as well as to the modern world. Their writings and ideas have details and descriptions through material that is more suggestive and interpre been exported by students returning to their home countries to assume leader tive In the first section Gutbi Mahdi Ahmad discusses the organizational ship positions in the Muslim world. In this manner the opinions .and interpre Mruc:ures of American Muslims, primarily Sunni, providing historical back tations of American Muslims have influenced persons in the Middle East, ground, reasons why Muslims have chosen to configure themselves in formal Africa, and Southeast Asia. Their Islamic worldviews have also been attractive organizations, and an overview of the major groups in North America today to many indigenous Americans, both black and white, who have converted to and the constituencies they serve. The essay concludes with an introduction to Islam in the last four decades.8 some Islamic subgroups, including the American Muslim Mission, Darul Islam, and the Ansarullah. Next Carol Stone offers a detailed projection of the Initial investigation suggests that the number of Muslims who participate number of Muslims living in America today, extrapolating from 1980 Census in Islamic institutions in America is small, but such participation can be seen Bureau emigration statistics. Looking at proportions of Muslim populations to increase during periods of stress. Recent international events and the reac across the world and estimated numbers of immigrants, she calculates that tions of the American public to them seem to have stimulated Muslims to there are some 4 million Muslims in the United States today, with the largest become involved in community activities on social, political, and educational communities in California, New York, and Illinois. levels. Much of this activity is designed to influence the views of the general American public—specifically to blunt the negative image presented by the In the second section Byron Haines and Abubaker Al Shingiety deal with press. Also, many in the generation of Muslim young people who took advan- ways in which Muslims have been, and continue to be, perceived by non- 6 Introduction: The Muslims of America Introduction: The Muslims of America 7 Muslims in the American milieu. Haines traces the attitudes of Christian describe American. Muslims in terms of their philosophies of da'wah, or groups to Islam and Muslims through an analysis of documents published by mission. He sees a basic division between those who are interested only in or on behalf of a variety of churches and denominations. He sees a general making sure the Islamic community remains true to its ideals (the "defensive decline in anti-Muslim rhetoric and in many cases an attempt at more objective pacifists") and those who wish to convert non-Muslims to the faith (the understanding, though in some cases the old "conversion" polemics still per- "offensive activists"). He explores the historical background of Muslim mis tiin. Implicit in his presentation, is a projection of implications for present and sionary movements in America, examining the roles of such groups as the future relationships between Christian churches and the community of Islam. Ikhwan al-Muslimin, the Jama'at-i-lslami, the Muslim Student Association, Shingiety uses the Nation of Islam as a case in point to illustrate his thesis that and others that actively promote da'wah. there is a dialectical relationship between the way the West views and repre Kathleen Moore discusses the fate of Muslims who have come up against sents Islam and the image Muslims have of themselves. He sees the Nation as the American legal system. Her detailed study of Islam and the U.S. Constitu typical of those groups that attempt to break away from the American ethno tion examines the rights of Muslims to the free exercise of their religion in centric model and move to a more "orthodox" position in a broader historical prison. Among the issues considered are diet, dress, grooming, conduct of and geographical context. prayers, and other religious activities in the general context of potential dis Three contemporary Islamic scholars who have made a significant impact criminatory treatment. on the American academic community are the subject of the third section. In an examination of Islamic education in North America Nimat Hafez John Esposito presents the life and thought of the late Palestinian scholar Barazangi posits four underlying presuppositions that distinguish Islamic and Ismail al-Faruqi, tracing, his movement from Arabism to a more comprehen Western worldviews and shows how these affect philosophies, of education. She sive view of Islam as the integrating factor for all aspects of culture, doctrine, presents the results of interviews of forty immigrant families in five major and faith. Esposito stresses the importance of Faruqi's Western training and his American cities concerning education and the transfer of Islamic values. Bara broad familiarity with Christian theological diciplir.es for both his scholarship zangi encourages a new approach to the education of North American Muslim and his role in interfaith discussion. By integrating thought and action, know children designed to help preserve Islamic identity in Western society. ing and doing, Faruqi was an eloquent spokesperson for Islam in the American Beverly Thomas McCloud and Marcia Hermansen discuss aspects of the educational establishment. role of Muslim women in the American context. McCloud treats Sunni Afri Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Iranian expatriot and prolific interpreter of Islam, in can-American women, drawing on her oral history research in a community in his many roles .as apologist, philosopher, mystic, and interpreter of the physical Philadelphia. Looking specifically at issues and problems confronted by Afri sciences is presented by Jane Smith. Nasr argues throughout his writings for can-American women who choose to convert from Christianity to Islam, she what he calls Islamic traditionalism over against modernism, rationalism, presents four categories of converts in the persons of four individuals (fictional evolutionism, and fundamentalism. Deeply versed in Western philosophy, but synthesized from personal conversations) who reveal a range of responses theology, and psychology, he sees all contemporary religion as having moved to the issue of what it means to be a convert to Islam. Hermansen then from its grounding in what he calls scientia sacra. discusses ways in which American Muslim women choose to express their The life and work of Fazlur Rahman, the recently deceased Pakistani Islamic identity, with specific reference to women's religious meetings and scholar, are described by Frederick Denny. Three aspects of Rahman's marriage arrangements. The discussion covers life-styles, dress, and other thought—the philosophical-theological, moral-ethical, and religious-commu "patterns and symbols of acculturation. " Hermansen concludes that immigrant nal—are presented as integrated aspects of his personality and his life as a women in America tend to affirm their identity as Muslims in a number of scholar. An articulate interpreter of Islam, Rahman concentrated particularly characteristic ways, including participation in Muslim women's organizations. on the understanding and interpretation of the Qur'an and its themes, philo The last section of the volume contains three essays dealing with identity sophical theology, ethics, and the question of Islam and modernity. Denny issues faced by American Muslims. John Voll distinguishes between two types of gives special emphasis to Rahman's twin legacies of intellect and morality. such issues—those affecting Muslim minorities in any country at any time and The next section of the volume presents various aspects of Islamic activity. those specific to Western postindustrial or postmodern society. He calls on Ismail Steve Johnson discusses political involvement both among groups of Muslims Faruqi's image of Muslims as making a hijra or emigration to the West, project and between Muslims and non-Muslims in the larger society. He suggests ing the vision of America as a kind of modern Medina with the potential for a reasons for some Muslim groups' opposition to political activity in America, similar transformation of society. Yvonne Haddad traces the changes in Ameri distinguishing between Muslims and Arabs as political activists and noting the can foreign policy that have taken place over the last four decades in relation to difficulty some Muslims have in associating with Christian Arabs in political the Middle East and their impact on. how American Muslims frame their own organizations. Various ethnic groups are characterized as to the degree of their identity. A steadily increasing sense of frustration and disillusionment has led to a participation in the American political scene. Next Larry Posten attempts to growing number of persons in this country actively committed to an Islamic 8 Introduction: The Muslims of America identity. Also considering challenges facing Muslims in the United States, Sulay- man Nyang posits four specific needs: to maintain an Islamic identity, to defend I Islamic institutions, to build Islamic economic structures, and to find ways to participate in American political life. Although clear differences exist among Muslims, he say s, rituals and values hold them together. Nyang also distinguishes between what he calls the assimilationist and the simulationist Muslim, the first setting Islamic identity over against identity as an American and the second T HE MUSLIMS finding ways to reconcile both affiliations. It is clear that these studies are the beginning of what must be an even more OF T HE UNITED STATES farreaching effort. Much work remains to be done on such topics as Islamic society in relation to American social and diplomatic history, the ways in which a new community is formed by individuals from a variety of national and social backgrounds, the role(s) of the mosque, the development of Islamic leadership, attempts to create an Islamic economic system, the establishment of Islamic businesses to meet specific Islamic needs as well as ethnic prefer ences, the integration of black Americans into an Islamic system, and the inte gration of Muslims into the American black culture. The present volume is the first of what must be ongoing efforts to organize and present the research of a wide range of scholars dedicated to an examina tion of Islam in the American context.. Notes 1. For a list of available material, see Yvonne Haddad, "Muslims in America: A Select Bibliography," The Muslim World 76 (1986): 93-122. 2. The producers of two television programs are seeking national outlets for their products. These include "The Arabic Hour," which is produced in Boston and telecast in Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and a new weekly series on Islam produced in Los Angeles. There are other groups with local access, including a youth group in Virginia. 3. The most widely heard radio personality is Warith Deem Muhammad, the leader of what used to be called the American Muslim Mission, whose weekly broadcasts are carried by over thirty stations. Other local programs are heard in New York City and Houston. 4. Stories have recently appeared in The Atlanta Constitution and Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Times, the Orange County Register, the San Francisco Examiner, the Washington limes, and the Chicago Sun. 5. Radio Canada of Quebec and WNBC have carried stories about Muslims in the New York area, as have "CBS Morning News," Monitor TV, CNN, and WCBS. Issues have been discussed by Morton Downey and Phil Donahue, and on "60 Minutes." 6. There are an estimated 3 million to 4 million Muslims in America, more than the total membership of the Episcopal Church or of the United Church of Christ. The number of Muslims in the world is estimated at eight hundred fifty million to one billion. 7. For example, there were twenty-eight thousand Iranian students studying in the United States in .1978. 8. Such persons are estimated at about one million.

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This collection brings together sixteen previously unpublished essays about the history, organization, challenges, responses, outstanding thinkers, and future prospects of the Muslim community in the United States and Canada. Both Muslims and non-Muslims are represented among the contributors, who i
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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.