The author offers a personal account of her experiences as a Muslim in the United States, dispelling many of the myths and misunderstandings about Muslims and comparing Islamic values to American ethical values.

"There has never been an America without Muslims"--so begins Amir Hussain, one of the most important scholars and teachers of Islam in America. Hussain, who is himself an American Muslim, contends that Muslims played an essential role in the creation and cultivation of the United States. Memories of 9/11 and the rise of global terrorism fuel concerns about American Muslims. The fear of American Muslims in part stems from the stereotype that all followers of Islam are violent extremists who want to overturn the American way of life. Inherent to this stereotype is the popular misconception that Islam is a new religion to America. In Muslims and the Making of America Hussain directly addresses both of these stereotypes. Far from undermining America, Islam and American Muslims have been, and continue to be, important threads in the fabric of American life. Hussain chronicles the history of Islam in America to underscore the valuable cultural influence of Muslims on American life. He then rivets attention on music, sports, and culture as key areas in which Muslims have shaped and transformed American identity. America, Hussain concludes, would not exist as it does today without the essential contributions made by its Muslim citizens.

Considers the question: what does it mean to be Muslim and American? In Islam Is a Foreign Country, Zareena Grewal explores some of the most pressing debates about and among American Muslims: what does it mean to be Muslim and American? Who has the authority to speak for Islam and to lead the stunningly diverse population of American Muslims? Do their ties to the larger Muslim world undermine their efforts to make Islam an American religion? Offering rich insights into these questions and more, Grewal follows the journeys of American Muslim youth who travel in global, underground Islamic networks. Devoutly religious and often politically disaffected, these young men and women are in search of a home for themselves and their tradition. Through their stories, Grewal captures the multiple directions of the global flows of people, practices, and ideas that connect U.S. mosques to the Muslim world. By examining the tension between American Muslims’ ambivalence toward the American mainstream and their desire to enter it, Grewal puts contemporary debates about Islam in the context of a long history of American racial and religious exclusions. Probing the competing obligations of American Muslims to the nation and to the umma (the global community of Muslim believers), Islam is a Foreign Country investigates the meaning of American citizenship and the place of Islam in a global age.

Winner of the 2016 Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Arab American Book Award A collection of insightful and heartbreaking essays on Muslim-American life after 9/11 Over the last few years, Moustafa Bayoumi has been an extra in Sex and the City 2 playing a generic Arab, a terrorist suspect (or at least his namesake “Mustafa Bayoumi” was) in a detective novel, the subject of a trumped-up controversy because a book he had written was seen by right-wing media as pushing an “anti-American, pro-Islam” agenda, and was asked by a U.S. citizenship officer to drop his middle name of Mohamed. Others have endured far worse fates. Sweeping arrests following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 led to the incarceration and deportation of thousands of Arabs and Muslims, based almost solely on their national origin and immigration status. The NYPD, with help from the CIA, has aggressively spied on Muslims in the New York area as they go about their ordinary lives, from noting where they get their hair cut to eavesdropping on conversations in cafés. In This Muslim American Life, Moustafa Bayoumi reveals what the War on Terror looks like from the vantage point of Muslim Americans, highlighting the profound effect this surveillance has had on how they live their lives. To be a Muslim American today often means to exist in an absurd space between exotic and dangerous, victim and villain, simply because of the assumptions people carry about you. In gripping essays, Bayoumi exposes how contemporary politics, movies, novels, media experts and more have together produced a culture of fear and suspicion that not only willfully forgets the Muslim-American past, but also threatens all of our civil liberties in the present.

What is it like to be a young Muslim in America? Many young Americans cherish an American dream, 'that all men are created equal. And the election of America's first black President in 2008 has shown that America has moved forward. Yet since 9/11 Muslim Americans have faced renewed challenges, with their loyalty and sense of belonging being questioned. Nahid Kabir takes you on a journey into the ideas, outlooks and identity of young Muslims in Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York and Virginia. Based on around 400 in-depth interviews with young Muslims, discover the similarities and differences between ethnic and racial groups such as Iranians, Arab Americans and African Americans. Find out how they rate President Obama as a national and world leader, where they stand on the Israeli-Palestine issue and how the media impacts on them.

As the U.S. Muslim population continues to grow, Islamic schools are springing up across the American landscape. Especially since the events of 9/11, many have become concerned about what kind of teaching is going on behind the walls of these schools, and whether it might serve to foster the seditious purposes of Islamist extremism. The essays collected in this volume look behind those walls and discover both efforts to provide excellent instruction following national educational standards and attempts to inculcate Islamic values and protect students from what are seen as the dangers of secularism and the compromising values of American culture. Also considered here are other dimensions of American Islamic education, including: new forms of institutions for youth and college-age Muslims; home-schooling; the impact of educational media on young children; and the kind of training being offered by Muslim chaplains in universities, hospitals, prisons, and other such settings. Finally the authors look at the ways in which Muslims are rising to the task of educating the American public about Islam in the face of increasing hostility and prejudice. This timely volume is the first dedicated entirely to the neglected topic of Islamic education.