Christopher A. Bail
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691159423
- eISBN:
- 9781400852628
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691159423.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Middle Eastern Studies
In July 2010, Terry Jones, the pastor of a small fundamentalist church in Florida, announced plans to burn two hundred Qur'ans on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Though he ended up ...
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In July 2010, Terry Jones, the pastor of a small fundamentalist church in Florida, announced plans to burn two hundred Qur'ans on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Though he ended up canceling the stunt in the face of widespread public backlash, his threat sparked violent protests across the Muslim world that left at least twenty people dead. This book demonstrates how the beliefs of fanatics like Jones are inspired by a rapidly expanding network of anti-Muslim organizations that exert profound influence on American understanding of Islam. The book traces how the anti-Muslim narrative of the political fringe has captivated large segments of the American media, government, and general public, validating the views of extremists who argue that the United States is at war with Islam and marginalizing mainstream Muslim-Americans who are uniquely positioned to discredit such claims. Drawing on cultural sociology, social network theory, and social psychology, the book shows how anti-Muslim organizations gained visibility in the public sphere, commandeered a sense of legitimacy, and redefined the contours of contemporary debate, shifting it ever outward toward the fringe. The book illustrates the author's pioneering theoretical argument through a big-data analysis of more than one hundred organizations struggling to shape public discourse about Islam, tracing their impact on hundreds of thousands of newspaper articles, television transcripts, legislative debates, and social media messages produced since the September 11 attacks. The book also features in-depth interviews with the leaders of these organizations, providing a rare look at how anti-Muslim organizations entered the American mainstream.Less
In July 2010, Terry Jones, the pastor of a small fundamentalist church in Florida, announced plans to burn two hundred Qur'ans on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Though he ended up canceling the stunt in the face of widespread public backlash, his threat sparked violent protests across the Muslim world that left at least twenty people dead. This book demonstrates how the beliefs of fanatics like Jones are inspired by a rapidly expanding network of anti-Muslim organizations that exert profound influence on American understanding of Islam. The book traces how the anti-Muslim narrative of the political fringe has captivated large segments of the American media, government, and general public, validating the views of extremists who argue that the United States is at war with Islam and marginalizing mainstream Muslim-Americans who are uniquely positioned to discredit such claims. Drawing on cultural sociology, social network theory, and social psychology, the book shows how anti-Muslim organizations gained visibility in the public sphere, commandeered a sense of legitimacy, and redefined the contours of contemporary debate, shifting it ever outward toward the fringe. The book illustrates the author's pioneering theoretical argument through a big-data analysis of more than one hundred organizations struggling to shape public discourse about Islam, tracing their impact on hundreds of thousands of newspaper articles, television transcripts, legislative debates, and social media messages produced since the September 11 attacks. The book also features in-depth interviews with the leaders of these organizations, providing a rare look at how anti-Muslim organizations entered the American mainstream.
Kathleen M. Moore
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387810
- eISBN:
- 9780199777242
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387810.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter offers an overview of the exceptional circumstances that Muslims face in the United States after September 11, 2001. The concept of pluralism, as fact and theory, is discussed in light ...
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This chapter offers an overview of the exceptional circumstances that Muslims face in the United States after September 11, 2001. The concept of pluralism, as fact and theory, is discussed in light of what the Muslim American experience has to tell us about the limits of tolerance. The situation of Muslims in the United States gives rise to both an internal struggle about what it means to be pluralistic and to an outward struggle to negotiate rights and liberties in a climate of fear that has intensified since 9/11. The chapter looks at the challenges facing Muslims in the United States, where they simultaneously seek to maintain ties with the worldwide Muslim community (ummah) and also pursue a uniquely “American” set of political and legal concerns. The chapter defines the exceptional circumstances under which the discursive construction of pluralism and Muslim American identity occur. These circumstances are characterized by the siege mentality that saturates much of the attention focused so intently on Muslims in the United States since the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. The agency found in the slippage in the fragmented and mobile subject of “Muslim” identity is illustrated when Muslims are narrated, and narrate themselves, into the multicultural nation and state. The implications of the post-9/11 backlash for the pursuit of justice and the vicissitudes of American pluralism are discussed.Less
This chapter offers an overview of the exceptional circumstances that Muslims face in the United States after September 11, 2001. The concept of pluralism, as fact and theory, is discussed in light of what the Muslim American experience has to tell us about the limits of tolerance. The situation of Muslims in the United States gives rise to both an internal struggle about what it means to be pluralistic and to an outward struggle to negotiate rights and liberties in a climate of fear that has intensified since 9/11. The chapter looks at the challenges facing Muslims in the United States, where they simultaneously seek to maintain ties with the worldwide Muslim community (ummah) and also pursue a uniquely “American” set of political and legal concerns. The chapter defines the exceptional circumstances under which the discursive construction of pluralism and Muslim American identity occur. These circumstances are characterized by the siege mentality that saturates much of the attention focused so intently on Muslims in the United States since the terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. The agency found in the slippage in the fragmented and mobile subject of “Muslim” identity is illustrated when Muslims are narrated, and narrate themselves, into the multicultural nation and state. The implications of the post-9/11 backlash for the pursuit of justice and the vicissitudes of American pluralism are discussed.
Juliane Hammer
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691190877
- eISBN:
- 9780691194387
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691190877.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Sociology of Religion
This book chronicles and examines the efforts, stories, arguments, and strategies of individuals and organizations doing Muslim anti-domestic violence work in the United States. Looking at ...
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This book chronicles and examines the efforts, stories, arguments, and strategies of individuals and organizations doing Muslim anti-domestic violence work in the United States. Looking at connections among ethical practices, gender norms, and religious interpretation, the book demonstrates how Muslim advocates mobilize a rich religious tradition in community efforts against domestic violence, and identify religion and culture as resources or roadblocks to prevent harm and to restore family peace. The book paints a vivid picture of the challenges such advocacy work encounters. The insecurities of American Muslim communities facing intolerance and Islamophobia lead to additional challenges in acknowledging and confronting problems of spousal abuse, and the book reveals how Muslim anti-domestic violence workers combine the methods of the mainstream secular anti-domestic violence movement with Muslim perspectives and interpretations. Identifying a range of Muslim anti-domestic violence approaches, the book argues that at certain times and in certain situations it may be imperative to combat domestic abuse by endorsing notions of “protective patriarchy”—even though service providers may hold feminist views critical of patriarchal assumptions. It links Muslim advocacy efforts to the larger domestic violence crisis in the United States, and shows how, through extensive family and community networks, advocates participate in and further debates about family, gender, and marriage in global Muslim communities. Highlighting the place of Islam as an American religion, the book delves into the efforts made by Muslim Americans against domestic violence and the ways this refashions the society at large.Less
This book chronicles and examines the efforts, stories, arguments, and strategies of individuals and organizations doing Muslim anti-domestic violence work in the United States. Looking at connections among ethical practices, gender norms, and religious interpretation, the book demonstrates how Muslim advocates mobilize a rich religious tradition in community efforts against domestic violence, and identify religion and culture as resources or roadblocks to prevent harm and to restore family peace. The book paints a vivid picture of the challenges such advocacy work encounters. The insecurities of American Muslim communities facing intolerance and Islamophobia lead to additional challenges in acknowledging and confronting problems of spousal abuse, and the book reveals how Muslim anti-domestic violence workers combine the methods of the mainstream secular anti-domestic violence movement with Muslim perspectives and interpretations. Identifying a range of Muslim anti-domestic violence approaches, the book argues that at certain times and in certain situations it may be imperative to combat domestic abuse by endorsing notions of “protective patriarchy”—even though service providers may hold feminist views critical of patriarchal assumptions. It links Muslim advocacy efforts to the larger domestic violence crisis in the United States, and shows how, through extensive family and community networks, advocates participate in and further debates about family, gender, and marriage in global Muslim communities. Highlighting the place of Islam as an American religion, the book delves into the efforts made by Muslim Americans against domestic violence and the ways this refashions the society at large.
Alisa Perkins
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781479828012
- eISBN:
- 9781479877218
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479828012.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Muslim American City studies how Muslim Americans test the boundaries of American pluralism as a model for secular inclusion. This ethnographic work focuses on the perspectives of both Muslims and ...
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Muslim American City studies how Muslim Americans test the boundaries of American pluralism as a model for secular inclusion. This ethnographic work focuses on the perspectives of both Muslims and non-Muslims in Hamtramck, Michigan, a small city situated within the larger metro Detroit region that has one of the highest concentrations of Muslim residents of any US city. Once famous as a center of Polish American life, Hamtramck’s now has a population that is at least 40 percent Muslim. Drawing attention to Muslim American expressions of religious and cultural identity in civic life—particularly in response to discrimination and gender stereotyping—the book questions the popular assumption that the religiosity of Muslim minorities hinders their capacity for full citizenship in secular societies, a viewpoint that has long played into hackneyed arguments about the supposed incompatibility between Islam and democracy. The study approaches the incorporation of Yemeni, Bangladeshi, and African American Muslim groups in Hamtramck as a social, spatial, and material process that also involves well-established Polish Catholic, African American Christian, and other non-Muslim Hamtramck residents. Extending theory on group identity, boundary formation, gender, and space-making, the book examines how Hamtramck residents mutually reconfigure symbolic divides in public debates and everyday exchanges, including and excluding others based on moral identifications or distinctions across race, ethnicity, and religion. The various negotiations of public space examined in this text advance the book’s main argument: that Muslim and non-Muslim co-residents expand the boundaries of belonging together, by engaging in social and material exchanges across lines of difference.Less
Muslim American City studies how Muslim Americans test the boundaries of American pluralism as a model for secular inclusion. This ethnographic work focuses on the perspectives of both Muslims and non-Muslims in Hamtramck, Michigan, a small city situated within the larger metro Detroit region that has one of the highest concentrations of Muslim residents of any US city. Once famous as a center of Polish American life, Hamtramck’s now has a population that is at least 40 percent Muslim. Drawing attention to Muslim American expressions of religious and cultural identity in civic life—particularly in response to discrimination and gender stereotyping—the book questions the popular assumption that the religiosity of Muslim minorities hinders their capacity for full citizenship in secular societies, a viewpoint that has long played into hackneyed arguments about the supposed incompatibility between Islam and democracy. The study approaches the incorporation of Yemeni, Bangladeshi, and African American Muslim groups in Hamtramck as a social, spatial, and material process that also involves well-established Polish Catholic, African American Christian, and other non-Muslim Hamtramck residents. Extending theory on group identity, boundary formation, gender, and space-making, the book examines how Hamtramck residents mutually reconfigure symbolic divides in public debates and everyday exchanges, including and excluding others based on moral identifications or distinctions across race, ethnicity, and religion. The various negotiations of public space examined in this text advance the book’s main argument: that Muslim and non-Muslim co-residents expand the boundaries of belonging together, by engaging in social and material exchanges across lines of difference.
Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Jane I. Smith, and Kathleen M. Moore
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195177831
- eISBN:
- 9780199850716
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195177831.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
The author presents vital issues facing Muslim women in America and provides distinct characterization of how Muslim women understand themselves as Americans and how to define themselves so as to be ...
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The author presents vital issues facing Muslim women in America and provides distinct characterization of how Muslim women understand themselves as Americans and how to define themselves so as to be understood by their fellow citizens.Less
The author presents vital issues facing Muslim women in America and provides distinct characterization of how Muslim women understand themselves as Americans and how to define themselves so as to be understood by their fellow citizens.
Nadia Inji Khan
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195375206
- eISBN:
- 9780199852307
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195375206.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
Just as loving parents have their children take vaccines, loving Muslim parents instill a healthy regimen of Islam for their children, hoping to safeguard their American offspring from perceived and ...
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Just as loving parents have their children take vaccines, loving Muslim parents instill a healthy regimen of Islam for their children, hoping to safeguard their American offspring from perceived and real societal ills. This chapter investigates the various “vaccines” or burgeoning religious institutions that aim to “inoculate” young Sunni Muslim Americans with the religious background necessary to face the challenges of forming a sustainable hybrid identity. First, it looks at the various motives students may have for pursuing a religious education: whether it is for a Muslim's idea of leisure activity, the solidification of social networks, facilitating identity construction, alleviating the paucity of credible Muslim American religious scholars, or simply to know God and His will. Second, it considers models of religious education, citing specific popular institutions, their history, their organizational structure, and their target audience. It explores the physical setup of the classrooms with an eye on gender, pedagogical style, and curriculum. The chapter features models based on some of the more frequented venues cited. The institutions under consideration are generally part-time seminaries that either specifically target or attract young college-aged Muslims in the 18–24 age bracket.Less
Just as loving parents have their children take vaccines, loving Muslim parents instill a healthy regimen of Islam for their children, hoping to safeguard their American offspring from perceived and real societal ills. This chapter investigates the various “vaccines” or burgeoning religious institutions that aim to “inoculate” young Sunni Muslim Americans with the religious background necessary to face the challenges of forming a sustainable hybrid identity. First, it looks at the various motives students may have for pursuing a religious education: whether it is for a Muslim's idea of leisure activity, the solidification of social networks, facilitating identity construction, alleviating the paucity of credible Muslim American religious scholars, or simply to know God and His will. Second, it considers models of religious education, citing specific popular institutions, their history, their organizational structure, and their target audience. It explores the physical setup of the classrooms with an eye on gender, pedagogical style, and curriculum. The chapter features models based on some of the more frequented venues cited. The institutions under consideration are generally part-time seminaries that either specifically target or attract young college-aged Muslims in the 18–24 age bracket.
Ahmed Afzal
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479855346
- eISBN:
- 9781479851638
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479855346.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This book offers an engaging and insightful look at contemporary Muslim American life in Texas. It illuminates the dynamics of the Pakistani Muslim community in Houston, a city with one of the ...
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This book offers an engaging and insightful look at contemporary Muslim American life in Texas. It illuminates the dynamics of the Pakistani Muslim community in Houston, a city with one of the largest Muslim populations in the south and southwestern United States. Drawing on interviews and participant observation, the book explores everyday Muslim lives at the intersection of race, class, profession, gender, sexuality, and religious sectarian affiliation to demonstrate the complexity of the South Asian experience. It incorporates narratives of gay Muslim American men of Pakistani descent, countering the presumed heteronormativity evident in most of the social science scholarship on Muslim Americans and revealing deeply felt affiliations to Islam through ritual and practice. It also includes narratives of members of the highly skilled Shia Ismaili Muslim labor force employed in corporate America, of Pakistani ethnic entrepreneurs, the working class and the working poor employed in Pakistani ethnic businesses, of community activists, and of radio program hosts. Decentering dominant framings that flatten understandings of transnational Islam and Muslim Americans, such as “terrorist” on the one hand, and “model minority” on the other, the book offers a glimpse into a variety of lived experiences. It shows how specificities of class, Islamic sectarian affiliation, citizenship status, gender, and sexuality shape transnational identities and mediate racism, marginalities, and abjection.Less
This book offers an engaging and insightful look at contemporary Muslim American life in Texas. It illuminates the dynamics of the Pakistani Muslim community in Houston, a city with one of the largest Muslim populations in the south and southwestern United States. Drawing on interviews and participant observation, the book explores everyday Muslim lives at the intersection of race, class, profession, gender, sexuality, and religious sectarian affiliation to demonstrate the complexity of the South Asian experience. It incorporates narratives of gay Muslim American men of Pakistani descent, countering the presumed heteronormativity evident in most of the social science scholarship on Muslim Americans and revealing deeply felt affiliations to Islam through ritual and practice. It also includes narratives of members of the highly skilled Shia Ismaili Muslim labor force employed in corporate America, of Pakistani ethnic entrepreneurs, the working class and the working poor employed in Pakistani ethnic businesses, of community activists, and of radio program hosts. Decentering dominant framings that flatten understandings of transnational Islam and Muslim Americans, such as “terrorist” on the one hand, and “model minority” on the other, the book offers a glimpse into a variety of lived experiences. It shows how specificities of class, Islamic sectarian affiliation, citizenship status, gender, and sexuality shape transnational identities and mediate racism, marginalities, and abjection.
John O'Brien
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691197111
- eISBN:
- 9781400888696
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691197111.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter examines two distinct models through which members of the Legendz attempted to reconcile the contradictions between Islamic expectations of premarital gender relations and their ...
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This chapter examines two distinct models through which members of the Legendz attempted to reconcile the contradictions between Islamic expectations of premarital gender relations and their participation in American-style teenage romantic relationships. Yusuf and Salman sought to manage this dilemma by articulating and pursuing an overtly Islamic approach to dating which they called “keeping it halal.” “Keeping it halal” entailed an explicit labeling of their romantic activity as Islamically appropriate (halal) as well as a stated commitment to setting specific limits on physical intimacy. This approach was initially attractive to these young men because it promised a level of cultural clarity and emphasized an attractive similarity between states of romantic love and Islamic piety. While “keeping it halal” worked well as an articulated aspiration and an initial guide for young Muslim Americans' behavior while dating in America, its effectiveness as a lasting strategy for reconciling teenage dating and Islamic morality eventually fell short for those who attempted it. Exemplifying an alternative approach to managing the dilemma of dating as a young Muslim, Abdul, Muhammad, and Fuad avoided articulating their dating relationships within an explicitly Islamic moral framework or by setting clear boundaries on physical intimacy. Instead, they emphasized the aspects of their relationships that aligned with a culture of romantic love while trying to keep Islamic understandings present but marginal and the possibility of physical intimacy alive but obscure by discussing such subjects in strategically ambiguous ways.Less
This chapter examines two distinct models through which members of the Legendz attempted to reconcile the contradictions between Islamic expectations of premarital gender relations and their participation in American-style teenage romantic relationships. Yusuf and Salman sought to manage this dilemma by articulating and pursuing an overtly Islamic approach to dating which they called “keeping it halal.” “Keeping it halal” entailed an explicit labeling of their romantic activity as Islamically appropriate (halal) as well as a stated commitment to setting specific limits on physical intimacy. This approach was initially attractive to these young men because it promised a level of cultural clarity and emphasized an attractive similarity between states of romantic love and Islamic piety. While “keeping it halal” worked well as an articulated aspiration and an initial guide for young Muslim Americans' behavior while dating in America, its effectiveness as a lasting strategy for reconciling teenage dating and Islamic morality eventually fell short for those who attempted it. Exemplifying an alternative approach to managing the dilemma of dating as a young Muslim, Abdul, Muhammad, and Fuad avoided articulating their dating relationships within an explicitly Islamic moral framework or by setting clear boundaries on physical intimacy. Instead, they emphasized the aspects of their relationships that aligned with a culture of romantic love while trying to keep Islamic understandings present but marginal and the possibility of physical intimacy alive but obscure by discussing such subjects in strategically ambiguous ways.
Mucahit Bilici
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226049564
- eISBN:
- 9780226922874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226922874.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter focuses on the difficulty some Muslims have in seeing America as a homeland. It first discusses the concept of home and what it means to feel at home. It then considers the cultural ...
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This chapter focuses on the difficulty some Muslims have in seeing America as a homeland. It first discusses the concept of home and what it means to feel at home. It then considers the cultural idioms or topoi with which early Muslim immigrants and Muslims in the early stages of their immigration made sense of their presence in America. This diasporic moment and vocabulary changed over time as exposure and interaction led to a more nuanced understanding. There are also crucial juridical tools by which Muslims religiously interpret America and produce an articulation of America as “home.” The fundamental question that this chapter answers is: how do Muslims naturalize the United States in Islam?Less
This chapter focuses on the difficulty some Muslims have in seeing America as a homeland. It first discusses the concept of home and what it means to feel at home. It then considers the cultural idioms or topoi with which early Muslim immigrants and Muslims in the early stages of their immigration made sense of their presence in America. This diasporic moment and vocabulary changed over time as exposure and interaction led to a more nuanced understanding. There are also crucial juridical tools by which Muslims religiously interpret America and produce an articulation of America as “home.” The fundamental question that this chapter answers is: how do Muslims naturalize the United States in Islam?
Junaid Rana
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823278602
- eISBN:
- 9780823280629
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823278602.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter considers the ways in which Muslim Americans and subjectivity have been—from the outset—integral to Ethnic Studies as a distinct political, racial, and identarian project.
This chapter considers the ways in which Muslim Americans and subjectivity have been—from the outset—integral to Ethnic Studies as a distinct political, racial, and identarian project.
Alisa Perkins
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781479828012
- eISBN:
- 9781479877218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479828012.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The introduction lays out the central assertions of the study: that Muslims’ experiences in urban America test pluralism as a model of secular inclusion, and that Muslims and non-Muslims expand the ...
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The introduction lays out the central assertions of the study: that Muslims’ experiences in urban America test pluralism as a model of secular inclusion, and that Muslims and non-Muslims expand the boundaries of belonging together by engaging in social, spatial, and material exchanges across lines of difference. Because anxieties over Muslim minorities are often expressed through the idiom of gender, this study further asserts that contestations over Muslim women’s visibility and queer Muslim visibility provide significant opportunities for the elaboration of difference. After describing the context of the study and its interlocutors, the introduction discusses the challenges faced by scholars who focus on Muslim American identity as an object of analysis in the post-9/11 age. These challenges include representational dilemmas inherent in studying individuals from many backgrounds under a unified signifier, and in offering counter-representations of a group that is often stereotyped in media and popular accounts marked by Islamophobia.Less
The introduction lays out the central assertions of the study: that Muslims’ experiences in urban America test pluralism as a model of secular inclusion, and that Muslims and non-Muslims expand the boundaries of belonging together by engaging in social, spatial, and material exchanges across lines of difference. Because anxieties over Muslim minorities are often expressed through the idiom of gender, this study further asserts that contestations over Muslim women’s visibility and queer Muslim visibility provide significant opportunities for the elaboration of difference. After describing the context of the study and its interlocutors, the introduction discusses the challenges faced by scholars who focus on Muslim American identity as an object of analysis in the post-9/11 age. These challenges include representational dilemmas inherent in studying individuals from many backgrounds under a unified signifier, and in offering counter-representations of a group that is often stereotyped in media and popular accounts marked by Islamophobia.
Alisa Perkins
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781479828012
- eISBN:
- 9781479877218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479828012.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter discusses how Hamtramck residents engaged in public debates over the adhān, the Muslim call to prayer traditionally broadcast five times a day in Muslim-majority nations. The chapter ...
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This chapter discusses how Hamtramck residents engaged in public debates over the adhān, the Muslim call to prayer traditionally broadcast five times a day in Muslim-majority nations. The chapter introduces the concept of the “urban sensorium” to discuss how individuals on both sides of the debate described the adhān as rhythm that either facilitated or compromised harmonious relationships between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans, and how residents engaged in shared listening as a mode of spatial and temporal embodied practice across religious lines. Expressions of Islamophobia fomented by media coverage of the call-to-prayer campaign gave rise to an interfaith alliance in which Hamtramck Muslim and Catholic Americans publicly demonstrated new forms of identification with one another. The chapter considers how Muslim sound altered social and sensory dimensions of city life and how the debates presented opportunities to expand the sensory and cultural boundaries of municipal belonging.Less
This chapter discusses how Hamtramck residents engaged in public debates over the adhān, the Muslim call to prayer traditionally broadcast five times a day in Muslim-majority nations. The chapter introduces the concept of the “urban sensorium” to discuss how individuals on both sides of the debate described the adhān as rhythm that either facilitated or compromised harmonious relationships between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans, and how residents engaged in shared listening as a mode of spatial and temporal embodied practice across religious lines. Expressions of Islamophobia fomented by media coverage of the call-to-prayer campaign gave rise to an interfaith alliance in which Hamtramck Muslim and Catholic Americans publicly demonstrated new forms of identification with one another. The chapter considers how Muslim sound altered social and sensory dimensions of city life and how the debates presented opportunities to expand the sensory and cultural boundaries of municipal belonging.
Alisa Perkins
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781479828012
- eISBN:
- 9781479877218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479828012.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter discusses how Muslim and non-Muslim American residents in Hamtramck became embroiled in contestation over a proposed municipal ordinance involving the rights of LGBTQ residents to equal ...
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This chapter discusses how Muslim and non-Muslim American residents in Hamtramck became embroiled in contestation over a proposed municipal ordinance involving the rights of LGBTQ residents to equal access in housing, employment, and public accommodation. The issue brought about an identity rupture between progressives and conservatives in the city, sundering interfaith relationships that had been formed earlier, while new alliances were being built. The chapter analyzes how a sense of moral urgency onboth sides contributed to a temporal sensibility shift that I call “ordinance time.” This schema entailed a loosening of civility standards in rhetorical comportment, encouraging the public expression of Islamophobia and homophobia. In attending to both the pace and tenor of social relations during this tense period, the chapter considers the essentialism attached to religious and secular moralities, while addressing how the municipal debate influenced boundary formation processes.Less
This chapter discusses how Muslim and non-Muslim American residents in Hamtramck became embroiled in contestation over a proposed municipal ordinance involving the rights of LGBTQ residents to equal access in housing, employment, and public accommodation. The issue brought about an identity rupture between progressives and conservatives in the city, sundering interfaith relationships that had been formed earlier, while new alliances were being built. The chapter analyzes how a sense of moral urgency onboth sides contributed to a temporal sensibility shift that I call “ordinance time.” This schema entailed a loosening of civility standards in rhetorical comportment, encouraging the public expression of Islamophobia and homophobia. In attending to both the pace and tenor of social relations during this tense period, the chapter considers the essentialism attached to religious and secular moralities, while addressing how the municipal debate influenced boundary formation processes.
Ahmed Afzal
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479855346
- eISBN:
- 9781479851638
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479855346.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This introductory chapter frames this community-centered ethnographic study of the Pakistani experience in Houston over a ten-year period, from 2001 to 2011. Given the heightened U.S.-government ...
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This introductory chapter frames this community-centered ethnographic study of the Pakistani experience in Houston over a ten-year period, from 2001 to 2011. Given the heightened U.S.-government surveillance and the racializing of Muslim Americans during the last decade, it challenges commonly held perceptions regarding the complicity of Islam with global terrorism. The book itself includes narratives that reflect the internal diversity of the Pakistani population and includes members of the highly skilled Shia Ismaili Muslim labor force employed in corporate America; Pakistani ethnic entrepreneurs, and the working class and the working poor employed in Pakistani ethnic businesses; gay Muslim American men of Pakistani descent; community activists; and radio program hosts. These narratives provide glimpses into the variety of lived experiences of Pakistani Americans and show how specificities of class, profession, religious sectarian affiliation, citizenship status, gender, and sexuality shape transnational identities, and mediate racism, marginalities and abjection.Less
This introductory chapter frames this community-centered ethnographic study of the Pakistani experience in Houston over a ten-year period, from 2001 to 2011. Given the heightened U.S.-government surveillance and the racializing of Muslim Americans during the last decade, it challenges commonly held perceptions regarding the complicity of Islam with global terrorism. The book itself includes narratives that reflect the internal diversity of the Pakistani population and includes members of the highly skilled Shia Ismaili Muslim labor force employed in corporate America; Pakistani ethnic entrepreneurs, and the working class and the working poor employed in Pakistani ethnic businesses; gay Muslim American men of Pakistani descent; community activists; and radio program hosts. These narratives provide glimpses into the variety of lived experiences of Pakistani Americans and show how specificities of class, profession, religious sectarian affiliation, citizenship status, gender, and sexuality shape transnational identities, and mediate racism, marginalities and abjection.
Stephen K. Rice and William S. Parkin
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814776155
- eISBN:
- 9780814777480
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814776155.003.0019
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
This chapter analyzes criminal justice scholarship studies on Muslim Americans. It combines structural, sociopolitical, and codal perspectives that have dominated discourse related to Muslim ...
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This chapter analyzes criminal justice scholarship studies on Muslim Americans. It combines structural, sociopolitical, and codal perspectives that have dominated discourse related to Muslim Americans with social psychological principles. These principles must be given a more prominent position in explaining deference, defiance, and the effective rule of law. Law enforcement scholars and practitioners must transcend the so-called “United States of Fighting Terrorism”—an orientation that blinds the system from seeing how the interpersonal and intrapsychic processes that received considerable support in explaining trust in the law among Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics must be applied to Muslims who have experienced differential treatment in the years since 9/11.Less
This chapter analyzes criminal justice scholarship studies on Muslim Americans. It combines structural, sociopolitical, and codal perspectives that have dominated discourse related to Muslim Americans with social psychological principles. These principles must be given a more prominent position in explaining deference, defiance, and the effective rule of law. Law enforcement scholars and practitioners must transcend the so-called “United States of Fighting Terrorism”—an orientation that blinds the system from seeing how the interpersonal and intrapsychic processes that received considerable support in explaining trust in the law among Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics must be applied to Muslims who have experienced differential treatment in the years since 9/11.
