American Islam: Preliminary Remarks.
di Carlo Rossetti

1.

Islamic studies give much attention to Muslim communities in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Interestingly enough, American Islam has not attracted equal consideration, though Muslims have been implicated in a number of terrorist actions, well before September 11, in the United States. Perhaps the shock generated by the attacks on New York has made terrorism paramount in the study of Islam.
I suggest that American Islam, how Muslim are trying to understand, adjust and contribute to American democracy, is a phenomenon of the greatest comparative interest. As the immigration studies show, the United States is a test-case to monitor how ethnic and religious communities come to participate in an open society, accepting its underpinnings or rejecting them.
For centuries America has been an arena which has offered unprecedented opportunities to develop religious freedoms, protected by the Constitution and from the interference of political authorities.
The history of Jewish communities teaches us that America has generated both religious and civic commitment, a deep loyalty to the community’s religious tenets and a firm devotion to constitutional democracy.
This trend of immigrants creating new institutions in the American context to continue to forge religious identity while simultaneously fitting into and participating in American national culture is not new. Indeed, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish immigrants followed this pattern.
Some scholars have argued that the lack of a state religion and the right to free exercise of religion (First Amendment, U.S. Constitution) has created an environment of religious pluralism that is distinctly American . Religion has become part of American public discourse both socially, as a means of categorizing personal identities as linked to particular religions and politically, in the constant recreation of civil religion . According to Robert Bellah , American civil religion refers to the notion that the symbols, beliefs, and rituals that are key to the American socio-political sphere constitute a sacred structure.
How does Islam fit into the context of American civil religion in general, and how do Muslim faith-based voluntary organizations exemplify this fit, or lack thereof, into the American landscape in particular?
I wonder whether this could be the case of American Islam, as it has been the case with Protestantism and Catholicism, both re-directed toward the acceptance of a religious and ethical pluralism in an open context.
The democratization of American Islam would be of the greatest importance, given the USA predominance in the world. American Islam could be a source of democratic inspiration and policies in the Islamic regions of the world.


2.

The mainstream bodies that represent the Muslims, and their supporters, have always admired the American political system as an expression of the ideals of Islam. They find in many aspects of American values the realization of Islamic virtues. Their vision has been and continues to be, to bring America and Islam closer together, perhaps through sharing of their civilizations.
Zahara Jamal has conducted an interesting study of Muslim in the United States. A subject which has been long forgotten notwithstanding its increasing, dramatic, importance, especially after 9/11 and its aftermath.
Muslims in America reflect the diversity of cultures, ethnicities, traditions, and practices that constitutes the global Muslim community. They engage with the American context in which they are situated in a variety of ways, including through voluntarism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the summer of 2003, I explore how voluntarism among Nizari Ismailis and Sunni Muslims in Houston, Texas provides a lens to examine how they define and manage pluralism, and how they negotiate the intersection of religion, politics, and service in America. Sunnis comprise some 90 percent of the world’s one billion Muslims, while Shia Ismailis comprise roughly 1.5 percent. Of the six to eight million Muslims in America, approximately 80,000 Sunnis and 13, 000 Ismailis reside in Houston. Houston has the largest Ismaili community in the United States. It therefore offers a wide variety of Ismaili and Sunni Muslim volunteers to engage with.
While the voluntary work that many perform resonates with the Tocquevillian narrative of voluntarism as active citizenship and service for the common good , many Muslims do not see their voluntary commitments in terms of political participation as many Judeo-Christian communities in the United States seem to . Rather, both Sunnis and Ismailis Jamal interviewed in his investigation in Texas cited voluntarism as “fundamental” to Islam, as an expression of “Islamic ethics and values.” What does it mean to talk about voluntarism in these ways? Do these discursive practices form a “local knowledge” of what it means to be a “Muslim”? How do such articulations of the meanings of voluntarism articulate with those of a Tocquevillian-bent that colour American civil society today?
The Tocquevillian-bent is an interesting notion to discuss, because Tocqueville’ America stands on participation, commitment and citizenship.


3.

A number of social scientific studies of American Muslim communities provide primarily holistic, descriptive accounts of Arab-American, South Asian, and African American communities. They do not account for socio-religious practices with cross-national and cross-racial participation and salience . Few studies examine specific issues, such as political participation in the public sphere, family and gender issues, and adaptation of religious practices. Similarly, while some studies examine Ismailis historically as a community in North America or sociologically, in terms of family or youth-related issues , they do not examine American Ismailis from an anthropological perspective, nor do they focus on voluntarism. An ethnographic study of voluntarism – both as an epistemological category and an object/practice of analysis – thus offers a grounded perspective on daily practices of Sunnis and Ismailis that speaks to larger issues of Muslims as moral and political subjects, the nation-state, and relationships between religion, politics, and service. Within this analysis, special attention to Ismailis highlights the particulars of voluntarism specific to a group that has largely been left out of social scientific literature on Muslims in America.
Muslims in America represent a great many movements and identities: immigrant and indigenous, Sunni and Shi‘ite, conservative and liberal, orthodox and heterodox. While exact figures are difficult to determine, most estimates for the beginning of the 21st century put the number at around six million. Of these, well over half are members of first, second or third generation immigrant families.
While there were some Muslims among the African slaves who came to work in plantations in the American South, very few retained any kind of Islamic identity. It is generally considered, then, that the first Muslims to begin the process of becoming American were those who arrived in the West in the latter part of the 19th century. Migrations to America have taken place in what can be seen as a series of distinguishable periods, often called “waves,” although historians do not always agree on what constitutes a wave. The earliest arrivals came between 1875 and 1912 from the rural areas of what was known as Greater Syria, which included the current states of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine, then under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The majority of the men coming from this area were Christians, though some were Sunni, Shi‘i, ‘Alawi and Druze Muslims.
Mainly economically motivated single men, they worked as laborers and merchants, intending to stay only long enough to earn enough money to support their families back home. Some were fleeing conscription into the Turkish army. Gradually they began to settle in the East, the Middle West and as far as the Pacific coast. Most remain anonymous in the annals of American history.
After the end of the First World War, the demise of the Ottoman Empire resulted in a second wave of immigration from the Muslim Middle East. Not coincidentally, this was also the period of Western colonial rule under the mandate system created to “govern” Arab lands. The war had brought such devastation to Lebanon that many had to flee simply to survive. Significant numbers of Muslims decided to move West, now for political as well as economic reasons. Many joined relatives who had arrived earlier and were already established in America.
This second wave of immigration was curtailed, however, with the passage of U.S. immigration laws in 1921 and 1924 that imposed quotas on certain nations and peoples, including Arabs. During the 1930s, the movement of Muslims to America slowed to a dribble. Those living in the United States were now realizing that their dreams of returning home probably would not be fulfilled, and they needed the support and structure provided by their families. Immigration during this period was limited specifically to relatives of persons already resident in America.
The third identifiable period of immigration, from 1947 to 1960, again saw increasing numbers of Muslims arriving in the United States, now from countries well beyond the Middle East. The 1953 U.S. Nationality Act assigned each country an annual quota of immigrants. These arrivals were primarily from Western Europe, since the act was based on late 19th century population percentages in the U.S. Still Muslims began to come from such areas of the world as from Eastern Europe (primarily from Yugoslavia and Albania), the Soviet Union, and a few from India and Pakistan after the 1947 partition of the subcontinent, although the Asia exclusion act was still in effect. While many of the earlier Muslim immigrants had moved into rural as well as urban areas of America, those in this third wave tended to be urban in background, and made their homes almost exclusively in major cities such as New York and Chicago. Some were members of former ruling elite families abroad. They were generally more westernized than their predecessors, better educated, and came with the hope of receiving more education and technical training in America.
The fourth and most recent wave of Muslim immigration has come after 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson sponsored an immigrant bill that repealed the longstanding quota system based on a static notion of national American diversity. This was a signal act in American history, making it possible for the first time since the early part of the twentieth century for someone to enter the country regardless of his or her national or ethnic origin. Immigration of people from Western Europe began to decline significantly, with a corresponding growth in the numbers of persons arriving from the Middle East and Asia. More than half of these immigrants have been Muslim.
Until the last several decades of the twentieth century, then, most Muslim have chosen to come to the U.S. for purposes of economic betterment or education, with some emigrating after the first world war because of political turmoil. It is just such turmoil that has been the reason for much of the recent Muslim arrival in America. A number of specific events in various parts of the Islamic world have brought immigrants and refugees to the West seeking escape and asylum. The humiliating defeat of Arabs and Muslims by Israelis in 1967 was disastrous for Palestinians, after which many began an exodus to Western Europe and America that still continues. The Lebanese civil war and its aftermath have been the cause of significant numbers of Lebanese coming to the United States.
After the Iranian Revolution and ascent to power of Imam Khomeini in 1979, following nearly a decade of debilitating war between Iran and Iraq, some Iranians could no longer remain in their homeland and came westward. Many have settled in America, with significant numbers relocating in California. Iranian Muslims continue to suffer from American prejudice against Iran as a result of the anti-American invective of the Ayatollah and his followers. It is estimated that there are nearly a million Iranians in the U.S. today. Since the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and the so-called “Gulf War,” large numbers of Kurds have come to the U.S. Also newly-arrived for reasons of political strife and civil war are Muslims from Somalia, Sudan and other African nations, Afghanistan, and refugees of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.
For decades various forms of strife in India and Pakistan, including the breaking away of East Pakistan to form Bangladesh, anti-Muslim pogroms in India, and conflicts in Kashmir, have encouraged many from the sub-continent to seek a calmer environment in the West. England and the United States have been especially popular destinations. While Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis have been a small part of the Muslim immigration to America all through the 20th century, in the last several decades their ranks have grown significantly and today probably number over a million. Pakistani and Indian Muslims, many of whom are skilled professionals such as doctors and engineers, have played an important role in the development of Muslim political groups in America and in lay leadership of mosque communities. Today more and more Muslims are arriving from countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, also highly trained and assuming positions of leadership in American Islam.
Arab Muslims, both Sunni and Shi‘i, continue to comprise a significant proportion of the Islamic community in America. They are increasingly highly educated and successful professionals, and are also leaders in the development of a trans-national, trans-ethnic American Islam. Turks, Eastern Europeans, and members of numerous African nations including Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, Cameroon, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Tanzania and many others are highly visible members of the complex community that constitutes the American umma. Immigrant Muslims have the unique responsibility for working out not only how to most effectively relate to and work with each other, but also how to coalesce with members of various African American Muslim movements. Africans immigrants sometimes find this particularly complicating as non-Muslim American citizens often fail to distinguish between Black Africans and Black Americans who identify themselves as Muslim.
Gradually, as the Muslim immigrant community became much larger, much more diversified, much better educated and much more articulate about its own self-understanding, attempts to integrate fully have given way to more sophisticated discussions about the importance of living in America but not necessarily assimilating to its culture. Part of the context for such discussions has come from the formation of Muslim communities, Sunni and Shi‘ite, across rural and urban America, and in more recent years of organizations representing religious, political, professional and social forms of association.


4.

There are few places in the United States today in which one does not find Muslims living, working and sending their children to public schools, and where some kind of recognizable facility for worship (mosque, renovated house, storefront) is not available.
The first Muslim communities in America were in the Middle West. In North Dakota, Muslims organized for prayers in the very early 1900s, in Indiana an Islamic Center of sorts was begun as early as 1914, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa is the home of the oldest mosque still in use. Dearborn, Michigan, outside Detroit, has long been home to both Sunni and Shi‘i Muslims from many parts of the Middle East. Many Dearbornites have been drawn by the opportunity to work at the Ford Motor Plant, and having formed a community have been joined by other Muslims. Together with Middle Eastern Christians, they form the largest Arab settlement in the country.
Other major American cities have figured prominently as favorable locations for Muslim immigrating to America. The shipyards in Quincy, Massachusetts, on the outskirts of Boston, have provided jobs since the late 1800s. The current Islamic Center of New England was the dream of a small group of families who settled there in the early part of the 20th century, and is now a major mosque complex serving business people, teachers and other professionals as well as merchants and blue-collar workers. Islam has been present and visible in New York City for over a century. For most of its history the largest city in the U.S., New York has been home to a rich variety of racial-ethnic groups, and its Muslim population has included merchant seamen, tradesmen, entertainers, white-collar professionals, and owners of major businesses.
Muslims in New York represent a broad spectrum of nationalities from virtually every country in the world. Mosque building activity has flourished in New York, and has been the subject of several recent journalistic photographic essays. National Islamic organizations find the city a particularly fruitful place to extend their activities, and a large number of elementary and upper-level Islamic schools, as well as Muslim stores and businesses, are springing up all over the city.
An early home to immigrant Muslims was Chicago, Illinois, which some claim had more Muslims in residence in the early 1900s than any other American city. Today they are from the Middle East, India, Central Asia, and many other parts of the world. Muslims in Chicago are active in promoting their faith, providing a range of services to the Islamic community and interacting with one another as well as with non-Muslims. More than 40 Muslim groups have been established in greater Chicago.
Muslims in both Los Angeles and San Francisco have found an agreeable climate in which to flourish. They too represent most geographical and cultural areas of the Muslim world, most recently Afghanis, Somalis and citizens of other African countries. The Islamic Center of Southern California is one of the largest Muslim entities in the United States, its well-trained staff widely known for their writings and community leadership, and an imposing physical plant that provides virtually every service that the immigrant Muslim community might possibly need.
Let’s dispose of the common misconception that Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans are one and the same. In fact, most Arab Americans are not Muslim and most Muslim Americans are not Arab. According to the 2000 census there are 1.2 million Americans of Arab descent of whom only 24% are Muslim, according to the 2000 census. There are many Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant. They are also highly successful with an above average median household income of $52.000 and an astonishing inter-marriage rate of over 75%, suggesting they are well on the way toward blending with the American melting pot.
A 2004 Zogby International Survey shows that about one third of Muslim-Americans are of South Asian descent; 26% are Arabs and another 20% are American blacks. In fact, until 2001, Americans had no idea of how many Muslim lived in the United States. All major Islam advocacy groups put the number at above six million. Yet all independent surveys put the number at no more than three million while the most credible study to date, by Chicago National Opinion Research Center, estimates the total Muslim population at 1.886.000.
But it is clear that Muslim-Americans have fared well in the United States. The Zogby Survey found that 59% of the Muslim population have at least an undergraduate education, making them the most highly educated group in America. Muslim-Americans are also the richest Muslim community in the world, with four-in-five earning more than $25 .000 a year and one-in-three more than 75%.
In terms of civic participation, 82% are registered to vote, half of them as Democrats. Muslim-Americans have reached America legally, unlike many Muslims in Europe and Britain. And illegal immigrants have been deported after September 2001. According to the Washington basedSaudi Institute, illegal immigrants are no more than a few thousands.
According to Ishan Baghy of the University of Kentucky the average mosque-goer is 34 years old, married with children, has at least a bachelor’s degree, and earns about $74.000 a year.
Finally, Muslim-Americans benefit from leaders who, despite some notable exceptions, are generally more responsible than Muslim leaders in Britain and Europe. Be enough to compare the forthright condemnations of terrorism by the Los Angeles based Public Affair Council to the tortuous declaration released by Tariq Ramadan in France and the jahdist positions taken by some prominent leaders in Britain.
Immigrant Muslims face enormous challenges as residents of America, which they are addressing in a variety of ways. They must consider questions of identity, occupation, dress, acculturation, relationships between different racial and ethnic Muslim groups as well as with other American Muslims, how and where to school their children, appropriate roles and opportunities for women, and a range of other concerns. Many are moving from a phase of dissociation from American life to more active participation in political and social arenas. Members of the immigrant community are providing important leadership to all American Muslims as they search for individual and communal answers to what it means to live in diaspora. American Muslims appear to be moving into another stage of identity in which these kinds of issues are being resolved in new and creative ways. The result may well be that a truly American Islam, woven from the fabric of many national, racial and ethnic identities, is in the process of emerging.
Moore argues that "there is a distinctively American Muslim experience which is the product of a particular social environment." To discern what this might be, she focuses on the role of U.S. civil law in Muslim lives. The subject matter of Al-Mughtaribun (Arabic for "emigrants," also a hint of a pun on the word "Westernizers,") ranges widely and includes Muslim efforts to emigrate to the United States a century ago, Muslim prisoners in American jails, "hate-crime" legislation, and attempts to build mosques in suburban areas.
Ghanea Bassiri, an Iranian doctoral student at Harvard, read widely, sent out a questionnaire, and talked to American Muslims. The result is perhaps the most sophisticated study to date of Muslim attitudes in the United States. Immigrant and convert Muslims alike share a deeply ambivalent attitude toward American culture. They find immorality rampant in the country ("culturally retarded" is one interviewee's colorful term) but see it as an exciting place of opportunity-not just for economic gain, but as a place "to live Islam." This ambivalence, Ghanea Bassiri finds, has direct political implications: "a significant number of Muslims, particularly immigrant Muslims, do not have close ties or loyalty to the United States." Indeed, his questionnaire shows that twelve out of fifteen immigrants and even five out of fifteen converts feel more allegiance to a foreign country than to the United States.
Furthermore, Ganea Bassiri finds that Muslims in the United States "are undecided about what Islam is and requires."
Taking advantage of America's unique religious freedom, they insist on exploring their Islamic identity and are buoyantly self-confident about their potential to lead the Muslim world. This attitude, when coupled with the enormous ethnic and sectarian diversity of American Islam, translates into a disunity that has prevented American Muslims from influencing American politics.


5.

Over the last century, immigration regulations, restrictions on naturalization and citizenship, and laws revoking civil liberties have racialized and gendered (Asian) Muslims in America, situating even those Muslims who are American citizens in a differential relationship to the political and cultural institutions of the nation-state, including the national citizenry.
Yet data indicates that the United States’ production of political subjects through naturalization and citizenship is neither the exclusive nor the primary narrative that entails subject-formation for Muslims in America. Rather, the making present of Islamic history in the American context is the primary narrative.
The Muslims JamaI interviewed claimed that their selfhoods are emerging through the practice of Quranic injunctions and embodiment of Prophet Muhammad’s teachings regarding ethical social conduct.
In the American Sunni context, authority is vested in the Quran and Sunna (the tradition of Prophet Muhammad). This authority is localized through the Sunni imam, or prayer leader, who delivers weekly sermons on Quranic passages and teachings. He is often chosen by his mosque community based on the level of his religious knowledge, moral action, and authority in his mosque. His role has expanded in the American context: he is no longer simply a religious leader, but also a provider of social services and a liaison to American society. In contrast, in the Ismaili context, authority is vested in the Ismaili Imam, presently the Aga Khan IV, whom Ismailis believe is a divinely inspired direct descendant of Prophet Muhammad and his cousin, Imam Ali. Always a male legatee designated by his predecessor, the Ismaili Imam interprets the Quran and offers spiritual and material guidance to the global Ismaili community.
Hence, unlike other Muslims in America, Sunnis and non-Ismaili Shia alike, who have no single spiritual leader or centralized system of administration, Ismailis have a centralized hierarchy of authority, led by the Ismaili Imam. While Sunnis and Ismailis both draw on a notion of Islamic ethics to frame their understandings and practices of voluntary work, Ismailis often also draw on the guidance of the present Imam in articulating voluntary practices. Each hereditary Ismaili Imam, as the legatee of the Prophet's authority, actualizes the Prophetic paradigm of suffusing spirituality in the quotidian. By guiding Ismailis how to balance the spiritual and the material in an Islamic ethical context, the Imam thus mediates for Ismailis not only the intersection of the pragmatic and the spiritual, but also local moral worlds and universal Islamic ethics.

Hence, one young Ismaili woman told Jamal,
“Ethics are essential to Ismailis—it fosters creativity. The Imam does not let us forget what those [ethics] are… Through action, we can pass [voluntarism and ethics] on to our kids—the ethic of helping others, of pursuing knowledge despite our circumstances” .

Another Ismaili professional mentioned,
“[The Imam] shows how ethics are paramount and keep the [global Muslim] ummah together in a broader framework” (ibid).

Similarly, his brother commented,
“when I have time, I am self-motivated to volunteer because I can see the impact, see the performance benchmarks. When I don’t have time, the Imam’s guidance motivates me...[to remember that] it’s my responsibility to volunteer” (ibid).

In Jamal’s view, thus Sunnis and Ismailis interviewed in Houston, Texas, differed in the ways in which they defined, spoke about, and conducted voluntary service, with each group drawing on distinct sources of authority and knowledge to shape their articulations of voluntarism.
We can draw some insights on American Islam from another community study, in Denver. The research report by the Harvard research student Abbas Barzegar on M.I.L.A., Muslims Intent on Learning and Activism, provides a further insight into American Islam. .
M.I.L.A. is non-profit community organization dedicated to increasing activism and learning amongst Denver’s Muslim population. An underlying goal of the organization is to provide a space for Muslims to participate in the religion of Islam who have otherwise been disenchanted with traditional mosque activities and/or attitudes. Nonetheless, the community hopes to bring together otherwise disparate groups of Muslims, such as Shi’ites and Sunnis or the younger and older generations, in order to foster community cohesion. The organization also makes efforts to increase education about Islam to the surrounding non-Muslim community.
M.I.L.A. was founded by the efforts of few long-standing members of the Colorado Muslim community. Members of Islamic groups across Colorado conducted initial meetings in order to discuss general concerns of the community and the possibilities to address them. Although formally the group became established a few months after September 11, 2001, the process of organizing had begun much prior to that event, indicating that M.I.L.A. is not simply a reactionary group.
The community achieves its ambitious goals by organizing itself as a non-sectarian and non-hierarchical set of individuals and groups who work together on various projects under the auspices of a steering committee that functions more like an organizational network and reporting group than an administrative body. M.I.L.A. hosts large community events once a month that include outside speakers, panel discussions and seminars for educators and professionals. The group also hosts Quranic study sessions, community service projects, and new Muslim support groups aimed at providing the convert to Islam a welcoming environment to learn the new way of life.
M.I.L.A. has made it a point not to interfere with surrounding mosque activities by not trying to replace religious services such as prayer. By in large, members of M.I.L.A. are, so to speak, educated ‘lay’ religious leaders; keeping in mind that Islam does not have a clergy. The group prides itself on being an extremely tolerant space open to a variety of ideas and religious orientations. It has succeeded to a large degree in the fact that M.I.L.A. event announcements and flyers can be seen in nearly every one of the Denver area’s mosques.
Another point of success has been seen in the community’s reaction to M.I.L.A. The group has hosted influential speakers such Hamza Yusef, Tariq Ramadan and others, which have drawn large crowds of both Muslims and non-Muslims. At such events you find members of the Muslim community who might never otherwise occupy the same space. M.I.L.A. events are perhaps the only place in Colorado that you can witness Sunni, Shi’a, and Sufi speakers sharing a panel discussion in a non-polemical and constructive context. It is also one of the only places where you might find women speakers addressing both female and male audiences.
The success of M.I.L.A. has not come without obstacles and criticism. It has been negatively stereotyped by many for having an ‘excessively liberal’ nature and irresponsible approach to Islamic learning. At times it has been formally protested by Sunni Islamic centers for hosting Shi’a speakers and members in surrounding communities disagree with the lack of gender separation.

One area Muslim who had never even attended a M.I.L.A. function asserted “I would rather not hold hands with Christians and Jews and sing Kumbaya”.

An obvious example of the misunderstanding the organization has aroused in the larger Muslim community of Colorado.
Whether constructive or insulting, M.I.L.A. organizers and participants manage criticism by simply understanding that it is something that “comes with the territory” when attempting to inspire dynamism and change in the Muslim community; they rarely allow criticism to deter them from their larger goals. In addition to the attractiveness of its activities, the core reason behind M.I.L.A.’s success has been the passionate and dedicated efforts of its members. There is not a participant in the organization that is not actively enabling, engaging or inspiring leadership and community dynamism. A testament to the success of the group can be seen through its membership that is comprised of South Asian, Arab, African American, Latino and Caucasian Muslims.
It is difficult to assess the size of the organization due to its permeable and networked nature. However, at a given potluck or other M.I.L.A. activity, attendance usually is in the range of several dozen.
The organization, like many others across the United States is an example of the formation of creative institutions of Islamic organization and leadership that is unique to Muslims in America. Currently, the group has expanded its volunteer corps in order to facilitate its Ansar, or ‘helper’ program which, aims at assisting needy families of both Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds in the Denver area.

Another interesting case of “blurring dogmatic boundaries” is the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Order, studied by Miranda Mirrow of Reed College . It is a group that branched off from the Halveti-Jerrahi Sufi Order in 1995 in order to honor formally shaykhs Muzaffer Ashki al-Jerrahi and Nur al Jerrahi and to base itself more strictly on their teachings. In Portland, very little interest in the Nur Ashki Jerrahi order existed until the Sufi Prison Project began in the late 1990s, and to date almost all of the order's activities revolve around this project.
The man who began the Sufi Prison Project is a former inmate of the Oregon correctional facilities who has kept ties with some of his fellow prisoners to this day. After his release in 1991, he found spiritual guidance lacking in the local prison system. After his own conversion to Islam during his incarceration, he became interested in Sufism. He joined a Sufi order in 1992 and went through the process necessary to have the Department of Corrections approve "Sufism" as a religion that could be taught and practiced in the prisons . Thus began the Sufi Prison Project.
In 1999, this man discovered that a shaykha (a female shaykh) for the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Order had performed an initiation into the order for an inmate in Washington State from her home in New York. This long distance initiation, described as a spiritual transmission, was a way for new members to join the order without the actual presence of a shaykh or shaykha. Immediately, the man in charge of the Sufi Prison Project contacted the shaykha with a list of more than fifteen person, all of whom were initiated into the order long-distance.
The two prisons with an interest in Sufism were Oregon State Penitentiary and Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute. Since this first initiation, interest in Sufism has grown steadily in the two prisons. About twenty men attend the meetings, which occur once or twice a month for about two hours at a time. Generally during these meetings the men perform wird, a supplication to God, and chant prayers specific to the Nur Ashki Jerrahi order. Once a year the shaykha from New York comes to see the activities of the Sufi Prison Project, to meet with inmates, and perform initiations as needed.
None of the inmates who attend the Sufi meetings are required to be Muslim. In fact, many of them associate themselves with a number of different faiths. However, they are quasi-Islamic in the sense that they acknowledge Sufism as a mystical tradition within Islam and hold that Prophet Muhammad is a messenger of God to whom the Quran was revealed. Some of the prisoners have taken shahada (Muslim declaration of faith), but it is uncommon to find prisoners who adhere only to Islamic practices and principles. Outside of the prisons, the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Order has also attracted a few followers. Ex-convicts, as well as family members of inmates, occasionally have attended dhikr (“remembrance”) ceremonies led by the coordinator of the Project. Since the shaykha's visit to Portland from New York in summer of 2004, the group, which currently has around ten members outside of the prison system, is making a more concerted effort to hold weekly dhikr ceremonies outside of prisons.
No less interesting it is the complexity of the attitude to terrorism and the discussion on dogmatic wahabism and its rigidly closed cosmology. Abdal-Hakim Murad has explicitly called for a public statement that the 9/11 terrorists are against Islam.
He writes:
Muslims cannot deny forever that doctrinal extremism can lead to political extremism. They must realise that it is traditional Islam, the only possible alternative to their position, which owns rich resources for the respectful acknowledgement of difference within itself, and with unbelievers

He recalls that two years ago, Shaykh Hisham Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, warned of the dangers of mass terrorism to American cities. And he was brushed aside as a dangerous alarmist. According to Murad, Muslim organisations are beginning to regret their treatment of him. He thinks the movement for traditional Islam will become enormously strengthened in the aftermath of the recent events, accompanied by a mass exodus from Wahabism, leaving behind only a merciless hardcore of well-financed zealots.

Those who have tried to take over the controls of Islam, after reading books from we-know-where, will have to relinquish them, because we now know their destination


6.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

American-Muslims tend to be role models both as Americans and Muslims. American pluralism, rights of communication and expression, religious freedom, separation between churches and states, the legal order, are powerful factors for a full-fledged fulfillment of the different Muslim traditions and communities. An unique situation, by comparison to the Islamic states where religious majorities do usually dominate on minorities, as in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran. So freedom of conscience, a pillar of American constitutionalism, is a mostly treasured asset for Muslims and Muslim communities and a condition for the purity of their religious life.
Paradoxically enough, rather than the Middle East, Asia and Africa, America is the arena where Islamic traditions can flourish and prosper untrammeled by religious or military despotism or a combination of the two. A predicament which has caused so much suffering to Islam.
The Muslim religion obligates members to donate a portion of their annual income to the less fortunate. Some have opted to give cash and forgo tax credits because of concerns over the government's interest in Islamic charities, said attorney LaDale George of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago.
American Islam is under the Federal Government pressure to ensure that donations and charities, Zakat, reach the proper beneficiaries, instead of terrorist groups.

Pakistan Links writes:

The crisis created presents the Muslims with a golden opportunity to step forward and show their commitment to the nation. Reaching out to their fellow Americans, in sympathy and prayers, such as the nationally televised church service in which a Muslim imam delivered a benediction (du’a), was admirable. Cooperation with political leaders and law enforcement authorities has been commendable, and condemnation of the despicable act of September 11, the human thing to do.

The activist segment of the community have donated blood, made contributions to the Red Cross and collected funds for the support of the victims. A number of Islamic centers and mosques have held open house and reached out to the neighbours at the grassroots.

The leadership of the major Muslim organizations, AMC, CAIR, AMA and MPAC, has been particularly active in maintaining communication with the nation’s leaders, including the White House. The highly publicized visit to the Washington mosque by President George Bush was a singularly significant event for the American Muslims.

The mainstream bodies that represent the Muslims, and their supporters, have always admired the American political system as an expression of the ideals of Islam. They find in many aspects of American values the realization of Islamic virtues. Their vision has been and continues to be, to bring America and Islam closer together, perhaps through sharing of their civilizations.

According to Dr. Walid A. Fatihi, instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston has recently become a center of Islamic proselytizing aimed at Christians. On September 22, 2001, Al-Fatihi sent a letter to the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram Al-Arabi, in which he described the unfolding of events since September 11:

"...From the first day, the media began to insinuate that Muslim Arab hands were behind this incident. At noon, the directors and administration of the Islamic Center of Boston held an emergency meeting, and I stayed on the line with them from my clinic. We decided to hold a blood drive, and we set up a committee to contact the Red Cross and organize it for us. We invited the media to cover the event..."

"All of us tried to grab onto every scrap of information that would indicate that Muslim Arab hands were not involved in the loathsome crime. Yes, my brothers and sisters, we tried to prove our humanity on the day we found ourselves attacked from all sides. Our hearts bled and our spokesman said that proselytizing in the name of Allah had been set back 50 years in the U.S. and in the entire world..."

"On Saturday, September 15, I went with my wife and children to the biggest church in Boston, [Trinity Church in] Copley Square, by official invitation of the Islamic Society of Boston, to represent Islam by special invitation of the senators of Boston. Present were the mayor of Boston, his wife, and the heads of the universities. There were more than 1,000 people there, with media coverage by one of Boston's main television stations. We were received like ambassadors. I sat with my wife and children in the front row, next to the mayor's wife. In his sermon, the priest defended Islam as a monotheistic religion, telling the audience that I represented the Islamic Society of Boston."

"After the sermon was over, he stood at my side as I read an official statement issued by the leading Muslim clerics condemning the incident [i.e. the attacks]. The statement explained Islam's stance and principles, and its sublime precepts. Afterwards, I read Koran verses translated into English...

"On Sunday, September 16, the Islamic Society of Boston issued an open invitation to the Islamic Center in Cambridge, located between Harvard and MIT. We did not expect more than 100 people, but to our surprise more than 1,000 people came, among them the neighbours, the university lecturers, members of the clergy, and even the leaders of the priests from the nearby churches, who invited us to speak on Islam. All expressed solidarity with Muslims. Many questions flowed to us. Everyone wanted to know about Islam and to understand its precepts."

That same day, I was invited again to participate in a meeting in the church, and again I saw the same things. On Thursday, a delegation of 300 students and lecturers from Harvard visited the center of the Islamic Society of Boston, accompanied by the American Ambassador to Vienna. They sat on the floor of the mosque, which was filled to capacity. We explained to them the precepts of Islam, and defended it from any suspicions [promulgated in the media]. I again read to them from the verses of Allah, and [their] eyes filled with tears. The audience was moved, and many asked to participate in the weekly lessons for non-Muslims held by the Islamic Center..."

"On Friday, September 21, the Muslims participated in a closed meeting with the governor of Massachusetts. In the meeting, a discussion was held on introducing Islam into the school curriculum, to inform the [American] people and to fight racism against Muslims arising from the American people's ignorance regarding the religion. With the governor's support, measures to examine implementation of this goal were agreed upon..."

"These are only some of the examples of what happened and is happening in the city of Boston, and in many other American cities, during these days. '

Islamic organizations are increasingly drawn into a civic national and international arena, as collective and unitary actors, in the debate on civil rights, security, religious freedom and international politics. It is a very important and new voice which will count much over the next years. Muslim organizations could become a key resource in the constitutional politics both domestic and international we badly need. I mean a voice speaking against the Wahabist Lobby, endorsing pluralism and tolerance.
This does not mean there aren’t any problems. One comes in the form of U.S. mosques founded by Saudi Arabia, which can serve as a conduit for the kingdom’s extreme Wahabist brand of Islam. Another is that, while most Muslim-Americans have successfully integrated into American life, there remain culturally isolated and impoverished enclaves of Muslim immigrants. It was in just such an enclave like Jersey City that the disciples of Sheick Omar Abdel Rahman planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Similarly, in Lodi, California, where two Pakistani men have been charged with attending terrorist training camps.
However, nobody can anticipate the long-term trajectory of American Islam. There is no guarantee that first-rate Western education nor economic affluence offers an inoculation against extremism. Be enough to recall the career of Mohammed Atta, educated at the Technical University of Hamburg and Daniel Pearl’s killer, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheick, who did undergraduate works at the London School of Economics and Political Science.