What Now, Muslim Americans?

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25 Comments

Comment by Lama on November 14, 2008 at 9:21am

Check this Out: Commentary - Letter to Obama from Arsalan Iftikhar

Comment by Atif Ahmed Choudhury on November 14, 2008 at 3:28am

Hey guys-want to do your part to defend our man from cynics within our own community? Then check out my new topic on the Discussion Forum...YES WE CAN!

Comment by Atif Ahmed Choudhury on November 13, 2008 at 9:43pm

Brother Moussa I beg to differ but mashallah sister Zeenat defintely makes some extremely poignant (if not brutally honest) observations. Many of our fellow African American, Caucasian, Hispanic, and other reverted believers have justly complained about the fact that, far too often, mosques run by immigrant Muslims send back all of the contributions they raise back home without investing any of it in the Muslim ummah here. As an immigrant Muslim myself, I have personally witnessed this unfortunate phenomenon occuring within many of our communities. There are incredibly well-funded mosques in the US, while on the other end of the spectrum there are dilapidated mosques which are barely able to operate from month to month...but sadly we have yet to see any concrete (i.e. official) cooperation and aid from the former to the latter.

As far as uniting the mosques is concerned, our deen itself has made it perfectly clear that Islam is not about estalishing ethnic or nationalistic-based communities...it's about all of us actively coming together to acknowledge the oneness of Allah (SWT) to form and act as one united community. By its very definition this is what being an ummat al-mu'minin is all about! Personally I find it so depressing to go to cities like New York and see all of these homogenous mosques catering only to a certain demographic of Muslims...After all Islam's great strength is in our breathtaking diversity! Do we really want to go the way of Christianity and see our most precious ummah sliced up into "desi mosques", "Arab mosques", "black mosques", "white mosques" etc. ? These are the issues that our generation must address if we are to have any chance of forging a visible, united and empowered Muslim ummah here in America. After all Barack Obama may be able to bring about change for our nation, but only we can bring about change for our ummah.

Comment by Moussa on November 13, 2008 at 8:47pm

i have to disagree with the uniting different mosques idea. in the U.S. today, we have black churches, white churches, Mormon, Catholic, Protestant...etc. they are all different kinds of churches for different kinds of people, however, they stay united.

im not necessarely against uniting all mosques in the name of unity, i just think that it's not a necessity to unite them in order for us to better our community.

Comment by Zeenat on November 11, 2008 at 3:35pm

What next? Personally, I think we, Muslim Americans, need to focus our efforts on strengthening our communities across our country. It would be nice to come together as Muslim Americans. Why such strong divisions between the various groups? Not sure what the picture looks like for all communities - but here's an example for you - I grew up in the midwest and in our city there are 3 major mosques/communities. One is run primarily by South Asian immigrant physicians, the other is run by Arab American immigrant professionals, and the third is run by native born African Americans. The members of the first two mosques are always duking it out - fighting amongst each other for control. They even have fist fights at their board meetings - shameful, laughable and true (and a wonderful example for our young people). The imams of these two masjids are immigrants from the Middle East. The Imam of the inner city masjid is an African American who has served in the United States armed forces and who gives amazing khutbahs (or Friday sermons) that are relevant to me and my friends. The inner city masjid is small, and the masjid does not have the financial resources of the first two mosques - yet the congregation is very spiritually rich. Members of the first two masjids think nothing of writing $25,000 checks to their respective mosques - fine, dandy and quite charitable. But that money goes to purchasing things like a school bus for example. A well-intentioned school bus was purchased by one of the mosques to transport elderly members of the community to and from the mosque. A nice idea - but the bus hasn't been used even once and sits rusting on the property. Yes, we do have some real Einsteins running our mosques - and they sure do know a lot about prioritizing. Everytime I think of that bus, I think about how much good those contributions could have produced if they had been contributed to the inner city masjid. Nobody gets to know one another. Nobody takes the time to communicate, interact, get to know each others' strengths and weaknesses. My father, I am happy to say, is an exception. For all the years that we have resided there, and that's been all of my life, my father is the only person who regularly visits all three masjids (praying fajr at one, jumma at another, and Sunday afternoon at another). If the communities were to get together regularly, then perhaps we might be able to make some meaningful changes locally. And from those local changes, we may be able to springboard into influencing state initiatives that affect us, and so on and so forth. Unity - it is doable.

Comment by Zeenat on November 10, 2008 at 1:39am

WA, Vernon...I wholeheartedly agree with you. Our strength as a community truly does lie in our diversity. Only when our communities across the country begin to celebrate this diversity by strengthening ties amongst various groups of Muslim Americans - can we then begin to move forward as a significant constituency. Aren't we always taught that God made us into various nations and tribes so that we may come to know one another? Establish good relations with one another?

Comment by Vernon James Schubel on November 9, 2008 at 11:00am

ASA folks,

Just a thought. Wouldn't it be a wonderful sign if President elect Obama took the oath of office using his full name--Barack Hussein Obama. An American president taking the oath on a Bible using the name of his Kenyan father would affirm the diversity in America by affirming his own ethnic and religious heritage. When Colin Powell affirmed that a Muslim American child might aspire to President I thought specifically of my young son Mehmet Ali who has followed this election so carefully. How much would he be affirmed by the simple act of President Obama affirming his middle name? And what message would it send to the larger Muslim world?

One small step for a man, one giant leap for insaniyyat.

Khoda Hafiz,

Vernon

Comment by Vernon James Schubel on November 7, 2008 at 1:23pm

ASA Everybody,

It would be a shame for this community to disappear now that the election is over.

I was first drawn to MAFO when I heard Zeba Khan on NPR make the argument that "if we feel that we are too toxic in the political process how can we expect others to see us as less than toxic" (or something to that effect).
I have many thoughts on this--I need to avoid being professorial--but my central position is this: we need to embrace and emphasize our diversity within the Muslim-American community. Some of us our secular and progressive in our outlook. Some of us are shariah-minded in our piety. Our ranks include Sunni, Shi'a, Ismailis, Alevis, members of tariqats and numerous other religious allegiances. Some of us are South Asian in origin. Some Arab. Some African-
American. Some Turkish. Some converts. But we are all potential victims of Islamophobia. We all can come together on shared political values of tolerance, social justice and a fair-minded foreign policy. We should not get bogged down in issues of "what is the real Islam?" and "who are the real Muslims?" This group seems to be able to see our diversity as our strength and understand where our shared struggle is. And that struggle seems to be (at least for me) for Muslims--in all our diversity--to be seen as a legitimate part of the American tapestry.

In the New York Times article on Nov. 5th they called him Barack Hussein Obama. But this time it wasn't an attack. It was an affirmation of his diverse background, and thus potentially an affirmation of us and our legitimate place in American politics. Let us move forward with that in mind.

more to come....

Peace. Vernon

Comment by Lama on November 7, 2008 at 11:13am

Also, we're on the front page of the NY Times. yay!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/nyregion/07muslims.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Comment by Lama on November 7, 2008 at 11:12am

Emmanuel will not be at the forefront of the issue. Our focus must be on a good Secretary of State as well as Secretary of Defense. A great move would be appointing someone to exclusively handle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; that will not only help to move things along but also will be a sign that this administration takes the situation very seriously. Many have stated that Colin Powell would be a good person for a position like that..

We'll see. I'm not optimistic about a peace in the next 10 years, 20 years, or 50 years.

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