Category Archives: Islam in America

Faith confronts culture in “American Dervish”

Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Judaism, Literature


Author Ayad Akhtar, left

by JENNIFER S. BRYSON, Contending Modernities, August 7, 2012

American Dervish, by American actor and author Ayad Akhtar, is set in one of the many places in the world with vibrant Muslim communities. In this case: Wisconsin.

Akhtar skillfully develops wonderful characters. As I delved into this novel I kept wanting to find more and more time to read so I could find out what would happen to characters such as the main figure Hayat; Mina, a dear family friend; and Mina’s suitor, the kind Jewish doctor Nathan. Also, Akhtar powerfully tackles the serious, generally taboo topics of Jew-hatred and domestic abuse. (This courageous novel goes beyond abstract “anti-Semitism”; American Dervish confronts outright hatred and its real-life consequences.)

Quran “translation” conundrum

Along the way, American Dervish has one of the most interesting wrestling matches I’ve seen yet over whether or not to make the Quran accessible in languages other than Arabic for people who do not know Arabic. (While I as a non-Muslim am an onlooker to these intra-Muslim “wrestling” matches, I myself have sat through more than a few Catholic Masses in Latin trying to figure out why we weren’t using a language the people present would actually understand.) Continue reading Faith confronts culture in “American Dervish” →

Hell to Pay?

Anthropology/Sociology, Gender and Sexuality, Islam in America, Islamophobia


It as heartening to note that several prominent Republican politicians, especially John McCain, immediately repudiated the offensive letter that Michele Bachmann and several of her tea-party ilk sent on official House letterhead to government agencies asking for an investigation of Huma Abedin, a well-respected professional aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. When the news first unfolded, I was pleased to applaud the range of reaction in a previous post. Then on July 24, Tarek Fateh published a commentary in the neocon tabloid Toronto Sun called “Beating Up on Bachman.” My initial thought was to ignore the piece altogether, but then it was picked up, in a longer version no less, by the Huffington Post, which generally does not promote neocon causes. But I suppose Huff Post and the Toronto Sun do share something in common: the Toronto Sun‘s daily sunshine-drenched pin-up girls and Huff Post’s penchant to dwell on the arousing apparel of superstar actresses.

Tarek Fateh is a prolific op-ed writer of the kind that rarely provides edification and almost always proffers conspiratorial rumors. He is, in effect, the Fouad Ajami of Canada. I will pass on his argument, which is innuendo in defense of offensive innuendo, and focus on one statement, which is a gem:

To put this in context, imagine a political aide to Henry Kissinger being the daughter of two members of the Soviet communist party politburo. There would have been hell to pay.

Hell to pay? This is a helluva stretch. Continue reading Hell to Pay? →

Islam and America: A Moroccan View

Books You Should Read, Ethics, Immigration Issues, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America



[Webshaykh’s note: The Moroccan American scholar Anouar Majid, Founding Director of the Center for Global Humanities and Associate Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of New England, has recently published a book well worth reading. Following on his earlier analysis of the evolving relations between America and the Islamic world, this is a personal foray that calls for building a future of mutual respect without prejudice. Below is a brief excerpt, but I heartily endorse reading the entire book, Islam and America.]

I know for a fact that Muslims and Americans can engage in meaningful discussions that can lead to progress, if such discussions are anchored in some knowledge of history. I witnessed such debates in Rabat, Morocco’s capital. in 2005, after I had given a lecture to a packed hall of Moroccan and American students, as well as a couple of officers from the US embassy, on the meaning of American freedom. At that time, the US government was trying hard to reach Muslims, but Muslim skepticism and fear were aggravated by US military actions in the region and by the aspersions cast on their religion in the media. Still, the topic of freedom generated such a lively debate that it planted the idea for this project in my consciousness.

As I did with the topic of freedom in Rabat, I am using this book to survey American-Muslim relations within the old clash of religions before we ask ourselves –Muslims and non-Muslims alike –whether our beliefs and prejudices still make sense today. I wouldn’t be surprised if my readers –American and Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian, Jew and Arab, or just simply religious and secular – found themselves uncomfortable at different points in the narrative. No nation, religion, or ethnicity gets a free pass, not because I want to be provocative, but because I am at a point in my life when, both intellectually and, even more importantly, emotionally, such rigid tribal divisions mean very little to me. The blind passions they engender are plunging our already fractured world into a deepening abyss. If gun lobbyists in the United States often claim that people – not guns – kill, then we must make sure that people carrying guns are not ideologically predisposed to shoot. I do respect the intensity of religion or nationalist convictions, but I also hope that such sentiments do not prevent us from engaging in serious conversations about our common future.

Excerpt from Anouar Majid, Islam and America: Building a Future without Prejudice (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012, p. 20).

The Weakness of Romney’s Right

Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Obama Administration


If one thing is clear in the build-up to the 2012 presidential election, it is that the Republican candidate Mitt Romney is less someone most Americans want to vote for than Barack Obama is someone that many people do not want to vote for. The elephant in the debate room, or at least one of the herd that has swelled with the ramping up of polemical rhetoric on all sides, is Islam. Not the real Islam, which most Americans would have a hard time recognizing anyway, but two prominent distortions. The most conservative born-again, Bible-believing Christians, often lumped together in the loose term “Evangelical,” have long viewed Mormonism as a dangerous cult modeled after Islam. Some of these same folk, including those less devout who drink a redneck portion of beer and say they belong to a tea party, have decided that President Obama is really a Muslim. So for the conspiratorial fringe, this election boils down to voting for one Muslim (or should I say Mohammedan) or another.

No doubt many of the Bible-believing saints are praying for the Rapture before November. Let’s face it: what would Jesus do if his choice was between voting for a Mormon (that born-againers say are heretics) or a stealth Muslim (as the birthers contend)? I suspect few would quote the biblical passage (Matthew 22:21) where Jesus says “Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” since taxation is obviously Satanic. Besides, Caesar died a long time ago. And I imagine that the Sermon on the Mount mantra of not smiting back, when someone is cheeky. and not resisting evil would also not be quoted. If you happen to be a Mormon, of which there are over 6 million in the United States, then you would expect Jesus to vote for Mitt, since Mormons teach that Jesus has returned to visit various Mormon leaders here in America, as recently as 1918. Muslims are not very likely to vote for Romney because the Mormon church borrowed several ideas (like a divine book delivered by an angel and polygyny) from Islam. So the right wing that has come to vote Republican without thinking is really between the Rock of Ages and a hard place. Continue reading The Weakness of Romney’s Right →

MBBBB (Muslim Brotherhood Bashing by Bachman)

Ethics, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue


Anti-Obama propaganda on Americans Stand with Israel website

Ellison Challenges Bachmann: Put Up or Shut Up

by James Zogby, The Huffington Post, July 14, 2012

A few weeks back, the sensation-seeking Representative Michele Bachmann did her best imitation of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy. She and four of her Congressional colleagues released letters they had collectively sent to the Inspectors General of the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, and the Office of the Directorate of National Intelligence calling on them to investigate whether “influence operations conducted by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood” have “had an impact on the federal government’s national security policies.”

Warning of “determined efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood to penetrate and subvert the American government as part of its ‘civilizational jihad'” the representatives wanted the Inspectors General to identify the Muslims who were influencing U.S. policy.

In making these charges, Bachmann and her cohorts were relying on the work of a Washington-based group the Center for Security Policy — a notorious player in the anti-Muslim industry that has been working for several years to smear Muslim American groups. The head of the Center served as one of Bachmann’s advisers during her ill-fated run for the presidency and the only source cited in the Congressional letters was the Center’s “training program,” “The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within.” Continue reading MBBBB (Muslim Brotherhood Bashing by Bachman) →

Tabsir Redux: An American Treaty on Religion

Algeria, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Orientalist Art


Yes, a treaty and not a Humean treatise, although Hume’s treatise on Religion no doubt had an influence on the creators of the text. The third treaty established by the young United States, recently liberated from British rule, with the nations of the “Barbary Coast” was with the Bey of Algiers in 1797. Like the earlier two treaties, the focus was on maritime trade in the Mediterranean and the problem of Barbary “pirates” as well as neutrality of the Barbary states when the U.S. was battling other “Christian” powers. Our Founding Fathers (for surely those members of Congress in 1797 were as close to being Founding Fathers as Sarah Palin’s contorted dubbing of John Quincy Adams, who had just turned 20 and had yet to enter politics) were obviously not working hard to free slaves (as these treaties will bear out), but they did stress a point that many rightwing pundits conveniently gloss over: the United States was not created as a “Christian nation.”

As you read the treaty below, in celebration of the 4th of July, note article 11 in particular. It turns out that the translation provided to Congress by Joseph Barlow, is not very accurate and the original Arabic version did not contain what we find in Article 11. But in fact, Congress never knew that and only saw the version printed here; this was accepted unanimously and then acknowledged as well by President John Adams at the time. So it was certainly not the contention of the Dey of Algiers that the U.S. was not a Christian nation, but an idea that resonated well with the young Congress.

Treaty of Peace and Friendship, signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796 (3 Ramada I, A. H. 1211), and at Algiers January 3, 1797 (4 Rajab, A. H. 1211). Original in Arabic. Submitted to the Senate May 29, 1797. (Message of May 26, 1797.) Resolution of advice and consent June 7, 1797. Ratified by the United States June 10, 1797. As to the ratification generally, see the notes. Proclaimed Jane 10, 1797.

[Translation]
Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary.

ARTICLE 1.
There is a firm and perpetual Peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and subjects of Tripoli of Barbary, made by the free consent of both parties, and guaranteed by the most potent Dey & regency of Algiers.

ARTICLE 2.
If any goods belonging to any nation with which either of the parties is at war shall be loaded on board of vessels belonging to the other party they shall pass free, and no attempt shall be made to take or detain them.

ARTICLE 3.
If any citizens, subjects or effects belonging to either party shall be found on board a prize vessel taken from an enemy by the other party, such citizens or subjects shall be set at liberty, and the effects restored to the owners. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: An American Treaty on Religion →

First words since…..burying a 16-year old angel

Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America


Calligraphy by Hassan Massoudy, an Iraqi artist based in Paris

by Omid Safi, Religion News Service, April 22, 2011

On Thursday, I went to the funeral of a 16-year old angel.

This was not a child, faceless and nameless, that you see buried in a newspaper. This was a child born to a family that I adore, a family whose whole lives has been spent in service to humanity. I was there when this angel came home from the hospital, and I used to babysit her when her mother, a leading scholar of Islamic studies, was finishing her PhD.

This was a child that every one of her teachers called the single most brilliant, creative, and inspiring child they had ever taught.

We put her body in the ground, the machines lowered a cement block on top of the coffin, and each of us scattered a handful of dirt, a rose, and tears, on her grave. Her adopted aunts and uncles sat by the graveside, and recited Qur’an verses to keep her soul company on the journey back to God.

We wept as few of us have ever wept before. We have not stopped crying. This is the kind of weeping that taps into a shattering of a heart.

High school kids with tattoos and dyed hair wept. Those of us who are parents wept for this child, for this family, confronting what is every parent’s absolute worst nightmare. Teachers wept.

Her mother stood up before us, beginning in the name of God, and catching her breath several times as she spoke through tears, softly and clearly. She thanked God for the gift of this beautiful child, for each one of the 16 years. She acknowledged that each of us felt that parents should not bury their own children, but we are not given any guarantees. She said gracefully that while she “strongly disagrees” with God’s plan to call her angel home, she abides in faith and is grateful.

I am a scholar of religion. Pondering these large questions of life—and sadly, death—is what I do, what I am supposed to do. I have looked into my own tradition, Islam, as well as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and others, to find some semblance of explanation, of meaning. Continue reading First words since…..burying a 16-year old angel →

Confessions of a Would be Muslim Reformer (sort of)

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Gender and Sexuality, Humor and Satire, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islamophobia, Wahhabi


by Omid Safi, Religious News Service, April 1, 2012

I have been doing a lot of soul-searching, and I have reached a few important conclusions. Speaking as a moderate Muslim, I realize that my community is primitive, backwards, mired in tradition, and in need of massive help from KONY 2012 people to reform this tradition to catch up with the luminosity of secular West.

I know that there is a trouble with Islam today, and everyday. I also want to have gay-friendly mosques where people can just go have a beer after the optional prayer services, ‘cause that is what it means to be a progressive Muslim.

Because all the secret jihadists (and the FBI people who have infiltrated them) just want to impose this Shari’a thing on us, and for some reason all that beer drinking and hooking up seems to be frowned upon in that Shari’a thing.

With that, and in the name of She who is the source of All-Mercy, here are the fruits of my search. If anyone wants to put me in touch with Fox News or MEMRI, please do so, I’ll recite all these on camera—just contact my agent, and he can tell you my appearance fee. I know that we are in need of a Muslim Reformation, and I am working on my “Martin Luther of Islam” speech. I can’t quite make it up to ML’s 95 theses, but I have got a good head start below. With that, “I give you permission to think freely”:

First, speaking as a Muslim, I am so disappointed in my Muslim brother Barack Hussein Obama. He eats pork, drinks alcohol, regularly attends church service, had his daughters baptized, has yet to set foot in a mosque since becoming president, kisses AIPAC’s behind, authorizes indefinite detentions, and has seen many Muslims killed by his drone attacks and ongoing wars. Really, a pathetic Muslim if ever there was one. I mean, if I wanted a Muslim ruler that would do all the above, I would move back to the Muslim countries where most of the rulers do that kind of stuff anyway, and the food is a little better than here. Continue reading Confessions of a Would be Muslim Reformer (sort of) →