Indianapolis, Indiana

  If the attacks on Ahmadis in Lahore, Pakistan in May were not horrifying enough, the ensuing debate on Pakistani talk shows and television programmes was even more chilling. While condemning the attack, it seems Pakistanis were unwilling to deal with the underlying bigotry that permits such hatred.

Across the globe in the United States, on the same day as the attack in Lahore, the Manhattan Community Board in New York City voted to allow the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero despite opposition from several groups. This curious juxtaposition presents a timely illustration of ideas of American pluralism and Muslim identity brought into proximity by globalisation and migration.

Can Muslims expect tolerance from western nations where they are minorities when their own nations are unwilling to apply similar concepts? Do religiously diverse and pluralist societies have a greater burden to accommodate minorities as compared to Muslim-majority nations, or should they be as primordial in their concept of who counts as ‘American’? It is the interplay of these identities in the American context that is the subject of Professor Akbar Ahmed’s new book Journey into America: The challenge of Islam.

Given the ravages suffered by the Muslim American community following the arrest of the would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, the timing of the publication could not be better. In undertaking the research for the volume, Professor Ahmed took a Tocquevillian voyage across America, interviewing both Americans regarding their ideas of identity and Muslim Americans about their conceptions of faith and nation. The result is a compelling volume that poses some difficult yet crucial questions for both Muslims and Americans across 75 cities and 100 mosques.

The book’s central thesis is based on the interplay of three kinds of American identity with three consequent sorts of Muslim identity. Americans are loosely divided into ideological strains that demonstrate primordial, pluralist and predator identities.

The primordial identity is centred on the Mayflower and the original migrants to the United States who came to the country believing that the land had been granted to Christians. The pluralist identity is centred on the thoughts of leaders such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who believed that America was created to provide freedom from religious persecution. Finally, the predator identity has developed around the idea of zero tolerance for religious diversity and the belief of some settlers that all native tribes must be eliminated.

Ahmed divides Muslim Americans into literalists (approximately 30-40 per cent), modernists (also 30-40 per cent) and Sufis who make up the remainder. Expectedly, Muslim modernists are attracted to the pluralist strain of American identity that would both tolerate and accommodate their presence. And it is this strain that finds itself attacked in particular since 9/11 with the resurgence of the predator identity that seeks the elimination of Muslims from America and sees them as a persistent security threat.

In challenging the modernists — doctors, lawyers and businessmen who make up the visible leadership of the community — Ahmed questions the depth of their avowal of American identity and whether it is based primarily on material successes while remaining uninterested in the ideological foundations of their new home. In the words of activist Najah Bazzy whom Ahmed interviewed for the project, many of these modernist Muslims see “America as a giant ATM machine”. Ironically, as Ahmed points out, it is Salafist Muslim Americans that are most critical of American materialism from a spiritual perspective.

In thus delineating the complex terrain of the Muslim American landscape, Ahmed evades trite prescription and invites introspection. Does the presence of Salafist Muslim Americans who reject American identity values pose a threat to Muslim modernists? Can American Salafis disavow pluralism within Islam and yet expect it of American identity?

Another incipient taboo explored by Ahmed in the book is the Muslim American pursuit of ‘whiteness’. One example is the team’s visit to the Lebanese community in Dearborn that views itself as ‘Arab whites’ and calls black people ‘abd’, which means slave in Arabic. South Asians, raised in societies that venerate whiteness, are similarly obsessed with identifying with the white.

Professor Ahmed suggests that instead, Muslim American leaders need to look to the African American community for pointers on how to recreate the community’s self-image and extricate it from persistent identification with 9/11 and terrorism. Only if they do so will they be able to escape the self-loathing that Ahmed sees settling into the community after having been labelled ‘worthless’, ‘violent’ and even “inhuman” by mainstream American culture.

Ahmed’s final chapter brings a thought-provoking comparison between Thomas Jefferson, the founder of American pluralism, and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. The ideas of these two thinkers came to coalesce eerily in New York on 9/11. Sadly it seems both Americans and Pakistanis are only too willing to eviscerate the commitments these two founding fathers made towards tolerance and religious pluralism.

The decision by the Manhattan Community Board to establish a mosque near Ground Zero demonstrates the American impetus to continue holding on to that religious pluralism but its detractors demonstrate the danger that lurks in the background. Conversely in Pakistan, people condemn attacks on minorities but are unwilling to support the repeal of blasphemy laws that leave minorities vulnerable to persecution and ostracism. The legacy of Jinnah’s pluralism seems all but lost in the carnage of repeated attacks on those considered different.

Ahmed’s book is evocatively written and traverses a breadth of scholarship and experience. Read in the aftermath of the tragedy in the Ahmadi community and the furore over Facebook, it seems to ask whether Muslims and Muslim Americans belong in the ummah only when it is victimised and not when it victimises.

The religious intolerance and racial prejudice which remains unquestioned within the Muslim American community has the same basis of discrimination which among Americans encourages the profiling and victimisation of Muslims. Unless this root similarity is recognised, both Jinnah and Jefferson’s dreams of pluralism, brought together so eloquently in this book, may for ever be lost.

Awesome.

I can understand the sentiment. But sentiment is not necessarily fact or fair or just or honest.

All the tariqas, all the waqfs, and all the other cultural systems destsroyed in the western cultural imperialist programme have left Muslims (and most of the non-western world) floundering. Appreciate the history, the true depths and colour of the perspective, the actual challenges .. before you pass random judgement on the present.

>>> While condemning the attack, it seems Pakistanis were unwilling to deal with the underlying bigotry that permits such hatred.

Firstly, should we judge American notions of pluralism by their talk shows and Muslim nations by their government policies instead? What a bizarre reach. Pakistanis condemned the attacks but didn't deal with the bigotry on a tv show you watched. Do Americans do the same with regards to their foreign policy? Come on.

>>> Can Muslims expect tolerance from western nations where they are minorities when their own nations are unwilling to apply similar concepts?

Ahem ... I'm South African. My nationality is South African. I expect MY government to treat me with the respect as enshrined in MY countries constitution. Are Muslims now part of some multi-national citizenry? This article has a fair position to take .. are Muslims fair minded in our view of the world and do we as minorities transact fairly with the majority?

Can you imagine the uproar if you said Jewish Americans are divided into 30% literal orthodox nihilists who want the world to end with the return of the messiah and.. Wealthy African Americans and Latinos show no loyalty to the United States, only its material benefits ... blah blah blah.

>>> The religious intolerance and racial prejudice which remains unquestioned within the Muslim American community has the same basis of discrimination which among Americans encourages the profiling and victimisation of Muslims.

Racism and discrimination do not go UNQUESTIONED. Muslims take these issues seriously. VERY SERIOUSLY all the time. Its not the questions that are lacking, but practical, progressive and reformative answers. We lack the resources, platform and will to culture ourselves correctly. Any amount of simplistic sociology study without a decent scientific measurement (with such random estimations as 30-40% literalist) is racist, stupid and ultimately counterproductive.

This kneejerk reaction to placate Americans by criticizing Muslims randomly and praising Americans generally might do some good for PR, but only exhascerbates the actual problems.

Speaking of victims and victimizers... and Pakistan... and Faisal Shahzad. Latest home video from the Pakistani Taliban: The Faisal Shahzad Bombs Square Revenge Show! Be amazed at his excellent English! Be amazed at his militant couture outfit! Be enthralled by the high quality video that can be produced in (or around) a cave. Be impressed by his repetitive/nearly monotone use of religious terminology. And lastly, be bored to bloody tears by the boilerplate proclamations of impending Islamic world domination. Lady Gaga... watch out!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us+canada-10639800

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/American_Empire/American_Empire_page.html

Why bother understanding history and politics objectively and honestly, when you can play to popular sentiment and make knee-jerk and emotional arguments to feel better about yourself. Note the discussion about Pakistan and how easily you blur the lines between the present-day Taliban and Pakistanis.


CROW >>> Be enthralled by the high quality video that can be produced in (or around) a cave.

More quality than most of your distracting non-relevant posts. Showing your typical finnesse, "because it was on tv, it had to be more important than if it weren't". You'd think the topic itself under discussion was an optional extra. Just a little question to run past you Crow, since we've veered off to victims and victimisers (why not discuss the the lives of native of Americans in reservations?), I'd like you to answer these two question:

How many civilians have died in Taliban interventions in the past 40 years and of what ethnic/religious background were these victims? Then answer how many civilians and what ethnic/religious backgrounds have died in American interventions in the past 40 years? Its a crude and quantifiable question, but a factual answer will be simple enough to interpret by anyone with half a conscience.