The Practice of Islam in America

The Practice of Islam in America
Author: Edward E. Curtis IV
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2017-12-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1479882674

"Muslims have always been part of the United States, but very little is known about how Muslim Americans practice their religion. How do they pray? What's it like to go on pilgrimage to Mecca? What rituals accompany the birth of a child, a wedding, or the death of a loved one? What holidays do Muslims celebrate and what charities do they support? How do they learn about the Qur'an? [This book] introduces readers to the way Islam is lived in the United States, offering ... portraits of Muslim American life passages, ethical actions, religious holidays, prayer, pilgrimage, and other religious activities"--Back cover.

A History of Islam in America

A History of Islam in America
Author: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2010-04-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139788914

Muslims began arriving in the New World long before the rise of the Atlantic slave trade. Kambiz GhaneaBassiri's fascinating book traces the history of Muslims in the United States and their different waves of immigration and conversion across five centuries, through colonial and antebellum America, through world wars and civil rights struggles, to the contemporary era. The book tells the often deeply moving stories of individual Muslims and their lives as immigrants and citizens within the broad context of the American religious experience, showing how that experience has been integral to the evolution of American Muslim institutions and practices. This is a unique and intelligent portrayal of a diverse religious community and its relationship with America. It will serve as a strong antidote to the current politicized dichotomy between Islam and the West, which has come to dominate the study of Muslims in America and further afield.

Muslim American City

Muslim American City
Author: Alisa Perkins
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2020-07-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1479892017

Explores how Muslim Americans test the boundaries of American pluralism In 2004, the al-Islah Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, set off a contentious controversy when it requested permission to use loudspeakers to broadcast the adhān, or Islamic call to prayer. The issue gained international notoriety when media outlets from around the world flocked to the city to report on what had become a civil battle between religious tolerance and Islamophobic sentiment. The Hamtramck council voted unanimously to allow mosques to broadcast the adhān, making it one of the few US cities to officially permit it through specific legislation. Muslim American City explores how debates over Muslim Americans’ use of both public and political space have challenged and ultimately reshaped the boundaries of urban belonging. Drawing on more than ten years of ethnographic research in Hamtramck, which boasts one of the largest concentrations of Muslim residents of any American city, Alisa Perkins shows how the Muslim American population has grown and asserted itself in public life. She explores, for example, the efforts of Muslim American women to maintain gender norms in neighborhoods, mosques, and schools, as well as Muslim Americans’ efforts to organize public responses to municipal initiatives. Her in-depth fieldwork incorporates the perspectives of both Muslims and non-Muslims, including Polish Catholics, African American Protestants, and other city residents. Drawing particular attention to Muslim American expressions of religious and cultural identity in civil life—particularly in response to discrimination and stereotyping—Perkins questions the popular assumption that the religiosity of Muslim minorities hinders their capacity for full citizenship in secular societies. She shows how Muslims and non-Muslims have, through their negotiations over the issues over the use of space, together invested Muslim practice with new forms of social capital and challenged nationalist and secularist notions of belonging.

Islam and America

Islam and America
Author: George W. Braswell
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2005
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780805424782

A recognized expert on the religion of Islam and Muslim beliefs and practices gives Americans answers to the 31 most-asked questions about the religion and its adherents.

A Battle for the Soul of Islam

A Battle for the Soul of Islam
Author: M. Zuhdi Jasser
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2012-06-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1451657986

Among the unsettling social shifts in the wake of 9/11 was the global attention paid to Islam. Here in the United States, we became divided, often sadly along partisan lines, between those who believed every Muslim was a potential threat and those who believed no Muslim could do wrong. For conservative Wisconsin native and former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, these radical times meant facing a new reality as a devout Muslim and a patriot—a certain betrayal within his faith, and a need to answer a question that crossed the minds of even the most sensitive and politically correct: “Can a good Muslim be a good American as well?” Jasser founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) to instill in young American Muslims an appreciation for the distinctively positive impact that this nation’s ideals of liberty have had upon the world. As a nationally recognized expert on Muslim radicalization, he offers non-Muslims a definitive comprehension of the difference between Islam and the spiritual cancer known as Islamism, or political Islam, and how violence and extremism run counter to Islam’s true teachings. As he persuasively argues, until we acknowledge the threat of Islamism in all its forms, the majority of Americans will be gulled into recognizing only the most obvious: terrorism. In A Battle for the Soul of Islam, Jasser embraces both his faith and his country while asking hard questions: * Are American Muslim children learning entitlement as victims, or are they being taught individual responsibility and critical thinking? * Are poisonous conspiracy theories dividing their American identity, or are they gaining exposure to reason, nationalism, and patriotism? * Are Muslims publicly critical of the Islamist movements of the Middle East, or do they remain silent on aspects of religious doctrine that conflict with modernity and universal equality? * Is the American press downplaying the seditious threat of homegrown Islamist radicalism and the influence of Islamists’ propaganda arm on our governmental policies? * Is our culture of political correctness a major obstacle toward long-overdue Muslim reform against Islamism? All these years after 9/11, it’s time for us to understand the true threat of Islamism. It is a Muslim problem that needs a Muslim solution, and A Battle for the Soul of Islam builds a solid, balanced, and imperative must-read foundation for the fight.

Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975

Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975
Author: Edward E. Curtis
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2006
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0807830542

Edward E. Curtis IV offers the first comprehensive examination of the rituals, ethics, theologies, and religious narratives of the Nation of Islam, showing how the movement combined elements of Afro-Eurasian Islamic traditions with African American traditions to create a new form of Islamic faith. --from publisher description.

Exploring Islam

Exploring Islam
Author: Salih Sayilgan
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2021-09-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1506468039

Exploring Islam is a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to the foundations of the Islamic faith, including its history, theology, and spiritual practice. The book also deals with issues such as jihad, the status of women, and the various sectarian divisions in Islam. Most distinctive about this work is its analysis of the lived experience of Muslims in modern American life. The book explores questions such as: - What are the foundations of Islam? - How do Muslims relate to and interpret the Qur'an? - Who is the Prophet Muhammad? - What does Shari'a law really mean? - What are the major themes of Islamic theology? - What are the theological and political issues that led to divisions among Muslims? - Do Muslims and Christians believe in the same God? - How do Muslims practice Islam in America? - What are the challenges and opportunities for American Muslims? In addressing these questions, Sayilgan offers readers a perspective that is scholarly, judicious, and engaging.

American Islam

American Islam
Author: Paul M. Barrett
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2007-12-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0374708304

Vivid, dramatic portraits of Muslims in America in the years after 9/11, as they define themselves in a religious subculture torn between moderation and extremism There are as many as six million Muslims in the United States today. Islam (together with Christianity and Judaism) is now an American faith, and the challenges Muslims face as they reconcile their intense and demanding faith with our chaotic and permissive society are recognizable to all of us. From West Virginia to northern Idaho, American Islam takes readers into Muslim homes, mosques, and private gatherings to introduce a population of striking variety. The central characters range from a charismatic black imam schooled in the militancy of the Nation of Islam to the daughter of an Indian immigrant family whose feminist views divided her father's mosque in West Virginia. Here are lives in conflict, reflecting in different ways the turmoil affecting the religion worldwide. An intricate mixture of ideologies and cultures, American Muslims include immigrants and native born, black and white converts, those who are well integrated into the larger society and those who are alienated and extreme in their political views. Even as many American Muslims succeed in material terms and enrich our society, Islam is enmeshed in controversy in the United States, as thousands of American Muslims have been investigated and interrogated in the wake of 9/11. American Islam is an intimate and vivid group portrait of American Muslims in a time of turmoil and promise.

Islam in Urban America

Islam in Urban America
Author: Garbi Schmidt
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2004
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781592132249

In recent years, world events have trained a harsh spotlight on the Muslim religion and its adherents. The misunderstanding and bias against Muslims in the United States not only persists but has deepened. In this detailed study of an immigrant community in Chicago, Garbi Schmidt considers the formation and meaning of an "American Islam." This vivid portrait of the people and the institutions that draw them together contributes to the academic literature on ethnic and religious identity at the same time as it depicts an immigrant community's struggle against bias and forces that threaten its cohesion. Chicago has long been home to Muslim immigrants from numerous countries in the Middle East and South Asia. For some members of these groups religion carries more weight than ethnic identity in the American context and enables them to form and participate in a broad spectrum of institutions that support their religious and social interests. Schmidt offers her observations of the schools and student associations that serve young Muslims as well as the social, religious, and political organizations that serve adults. By looking at the ways in which children, adolescents, and adults come together in these institutions, she is able to show the dynamic process in which a variegated American Muslim identity takes shape. Readers will come away from this book with a better understanding of the ideological and cultural differences among Muslims and a greater appreciation of their struggles in becoming Americans. Author note: Garbi Schmidt is a senior researcher and coordinator of the ethnic minorities initiative at the Danish National Institute of Social Research, Copenhagen.

History of the Nation of Islam

History of the Nation of Islam
Author: Elijah Muhammad
Publisher: Elijah Muhammad Books
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2008-11-06
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1884855881

This book is an interview of Elijah Muhammad explaining his initial encounter with his teacher, Master Fard Muhammad and how his messengership came about. The subjects discussed are Master Fard Muhammad's whereabouts, the races and what makes a devil and satan. He answers questions dealing the concept of divine and how ideas are perfected. More basic subjects include Malcolm X, Noble Drew Ali, C. Eric Lincoln, Udom, and a comprehensive range of information.