NEW HORIZONS of

MUSLIM DIASPORA
in NORTH AMERICA
and EUROPE

Edited by
MOHA ENNAJI
New Horizons of Muslim Diaspora in
North America and Europe
This page intentionally left blank
NEW HORIZONS OF MUSLIM
DIASPORA IN NORTH A MERICA
AND EUROPE

Edited by

Moha Ennaji

palgrave
macmillan
NEW HORIZONS OF MUSLIM DIASPORA IN NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE
Selection and editorial content Moha Ennaji 2016
Individual chapters their respective contributors 2016

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ISBN 978-1-137-56524-2
E-PDF ISBN: 9781137554963
DOI: 10.1057/9781137554963

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ennaji, Moha, editor of compilation.
Title: New horizons of Muslim diaspora in North America and Europe /
edited by Moha Ennaji.
Description: New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, [2016] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015033209 |

Subjects: LCSH: MuslimsWestern countries. | Muslim diaspora. |

MuslimsWestern countriesEthnic identity. | MuslimsCultural
assimilationWestern countries. | Multiculturalism. | United States
Ethnic relations. | EuropeEthnic relations.
Classification: LCC D842.42.M87 N48 2016 | DDC 305.6/97094dc23 LC
record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015033209
A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.
To my mother, with love
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 CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: Contextualizing Muslim Diaspora in North America

and Europe 1
Moha Ennaji

Part I Historical and Anthropological Background

1 A Season of Migration to the West: The Arab-Muslim
Diaspora in the United States; Political Ethos and Praxis 17
Younes Abouyoub
2 American Citizens of Arabic-Speaking Stock:
The Institute of Arab American Affairs and
Questions of Identity in the Debate over Palestine 35
Denise Laszewski Jenison
3 The Master, the Pir, and Their Followers in Diaspora:
Glens Followers (Hizmet) and the Maktab
Tariqat Oveyssi Shahmaghsoudi 53
Sherifa Zuhur
4 Muslim Diaspora in Europe and Cultural Diversity 71
Moha Ennaji

Part II Muslim Diaspora, Multiculturalism,

and Identity Issues
5 Multiculturalism and Belonging: Muslims in Canada 91
Haideh Moghissi
6 Im Not DifferentBecause Everybody Is Different:
Notions of Belonging among Muslims in the Netherlands 103
Lenie Brouwer
7 American Jihad: The Role of Shia Narratives on Shia
Political and Social Behavior in the United States 119
Cyrus Ali Contractor
8 Immigrant Food and Trans-memory of Home in Diana
Abu-Jabers The Language of Baklava and Elif Shafaks Honor 139
Eda Dedebas Dundar
viii Contents

Part III Reections on Muslim Diasporic Women

9 Women and Islam in the Western Media 153
Karen Vintges
10 Muslim North African Women and Migration in
the Context of Globalization 163
Fatima Sadiqi
11 Multiculturalism in Muslim America? The Case of Health
Disparities and Discrimination in Arab Detroit, Michigan 177
Marcia C. Inhorn
12 Voicing Resistance, Sharing Struggle: Muslim Women
Facing Canadian Gender, Race, and Ethnic Oppression 189
Naima Bendriss

Part IV Aspects of Integration, Discrimination,

and Islamophobia
13 Debating Salafism, Traditionalism, and Liberalism:
Muslims and the State in Germany 203
Susanne Schrter
14 Muslims in the Netherlands: A Threatening Community
or a Community under Threat? 229
Jan Jaap de Ruiter
15 Polygyny and the Performance of Gendered Power
among African American Muslims 243
Debra Majeed
16 Muslim-Americans: Between the Challenge of
Policing and Freedom of Expression 259
Elizabeth Bishop

Notes on Contributors 275

Index 281
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures
7.1 Causal mechanism for the essentialist hypothesis 121
7.2 Causal mechanism for the instrumentalist hypothesis 122
7.3a Causal mechanism for the trope hypothesis
if the essentialist hypothesis is valid 123
7.3b Causal mechanism for the trope hypothesis
if the instrumentalist hypothesis is valid 123

Table
1.1 Arab American population in key states 21
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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
his book includes chapters by experts and researchers in the field
of Islam, cultural studies, and migration. It critically reviews the
outcomes, implications, challenges, and achievements of Muslims
in North America and Europe. I would like to take this opportunity to
express my appreciation to all the authors of this book for their profes-
sional commitment, constructive and thought-provoking contributions.
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXTUALIZING
MUSLIM DIASPORA IN NORTH
A MERICA AND EUROPE
Moha Ennaji

D
emocratic Western societies are increasingly exposed to the
question of how to incorporate the plurality of cultures into
their principles. After two centuries in which the dynamics
of modernity set differences aside, the time seems ripe to restore Muslim
identities to the recognition they deserve.
Islamic culture and democracy are two concepts that have fueled much
debate in the late twentieth century and especially at the beginning of the
third millennium. For many researchers and experts, Islam and democ-
racy are considered equivocal concepts. For over a decade, debates have
been gaining political momentum between the proponents of the univer-
sality of the principle of democracy that overshadows cultural specificity
and others who view these two concepts as congruous, for democracy does
not preclude respect for cultural identity (Tibi 2009).
Criticism of Islam is based on the fact that some of its cultural values do not
obey democratic principles. Indeed, the discussion generally focuses on the
differences between culture, religion, gender, race, and class. None of the posi-
tions can make a distinction between claims of identity that are democratic
and those that are not, nor distinguish between fair and unfair differences.
The debate is complicated by new questions such as what is in fact
the significance of liberal freedoms of the individual if the minority to
which she/he belongs is oppressed by a dominant culture that denies her/
him any right to use their religion or to preserve tradition. How can the
Universalist movement accommodate full respect for cultures and their
religious reference? What do the concepts of tolerance and respect for dif-
ference involve? All these questions necessitate serious scientific debates.
It is well known that among the advantages of multiculturalism are cel-
ebration of diversity and respect of difference and otherness. This means
that multiculturalism is to be distinguished from strong assimilation mod-
els of integration.
However, two strong criticisms are leveled against this point of view.
The first criticism comes from the conservative Right, which specifies that
societies that encourage cultural diversity are by definition less cohesive
and less homogeneous because of internal conflicts and contradictions.
The second criticism, which comes from the political Left, suggests that
2 Moha Ennaji

while multiculturalism promotes difference, it does so within a preexist-

ing system of values (Kymlicka 2009). This implies that diasporic com-
munities and immigrants whose cultures are different may be accepted,
but rarely as equals. Nonetheless, their values would be rejected if they
were in contradiction with those that are predominant in the host soci-
ety. The two criticisms share the idea that multiculturalism as practiced
causes social tension, but their approaches stem from opposing attitudes,
one preferring greater uniformity and the other preferring greater differ-
ence (see Duncan 2004).
Liberal democracies foster multiculturalism and celebrate it as long
as it does not conflict with human rights, national legislation, the cul-
tural values of the host country, and the fundamentals of liberal democ-
racy. Therefore, the compatibility of multiculturalism with integration is
possible by stressing the fact that in a liberal democracy, the constraints
that integration imposes are crucial for the fostering of multiculturalism.
Integration demands a constant investment in immigrants. A society that
respects diversity must be prepared to remain actively engaged in building
bridges between cultures in the long term (Ennaji 2014: 9).
It is interesting to link the concept of multiculturalism or cultural
diversity to the phenomenon of transnationalism, which refers to the plu-
rality of cultural identities. Transnationalism expresses the continuation
of political and cultural ties with the country of origin. It is an important
aspect of globalization affecting migration (see Lacroix 2009).
Migrants also forge links with transnational immigrants from other
countries. In Europe, these transnational links between immigrants of
different origin are considerable, and therefore one can speak of terri-
tory and transnational spaces by establishing networks of social groups of
immigrants that maintain their own traditions and customs, and groups
with social ethics that set their own boundaries that coexist in host coun-
tries structured around the nation-state.
These transnational territories are represented by many cities in Europe,
creating a kind of globalization from below. These cities play a major role in
the process of globalization by contributing, to some extent, to the weak-
ening of the state and consolidating the political and social participation
of individuals in local public life. The globalized city allows immigrants to
participate in public life and city management. Many European Muslims
have become members of Parliament or of government cabinets, for exam-
ple, Khadija Dati, ex-minister of justice in France, and Ahmed Boutaleb, a
member of the Dutch Parliament (Chamie and DallOglio 2008).
During the past two decades, studies of diaspora and migration have
overlapped with each other and with work on globalization and trans-
nationalism. Entrenched in research on forced migrations, diaspora has
been studied both as a processthe movement of and interactions among
peoples from a familiar sociocultural backgroundand as a way of catego-
rizing and classifying data.
 Introduction 3

Diaspora and transnationalism change the traditional models of migra-

tion and pose new questions of nationality, citizenship, and residence.
What do dual or multiple nationalities entail in terms of rights and obli-
gations? How are matters such as national military service, taxation, and
social benefits dealt with when people live in more than one country and
have more than one nationality? These issues cause significant challenges
to the states administrative systems. Being transnational concerns, they
require bilateral and multilateral negotiations.1
In addition to all this is the fact that the Muslim diaspora does not cut
ties with their country of origin. Instead they maintain close relationships
with their families and their culture in the society of origin through social
media and other means of communication, and maintain close contacts
with members of their community in the host country (House-Soremekun
and Falola 2011). These links contribute to social and cultural changes
in Western countries of adoption: witness the transformation of North
Americas and Europes major cities by vibrant Muslim communities.

Muslim Diaspora between Adaptation and Integration

In the United States, Muslims stand for the third-largest faith, after
Christianity and Judaism, representing about 1 percent of the population
(Leonard 2003: 29). American Muslims originate from various geographi-
cal and cultural spaces, and are one of the most culturally diverse religious
groups in the United States according to a 2009 Gallup poll. Native-born
American Muslims are mainly African Americans who make up about a
quarter of the total Muslim population. Many of these have converted to
Islam during the last 70 years.
From the 1880s to 1914, several thousand Muslims immigrated to the
United States from the former territories of the Ottoman Empire and the
former Mughal Empire (Moghissi and Ghorashi 2010). The Muslim popu-
lation of the United States increased dramatically in the twentieth cen-
tury, with much of the growth driven by a comparatively high birth rate
and immigrant communities of mainly Arab and South Asian descent. In
2012, nearly 130,000 people from Islamic countries became legal residents
of the United Statesmore than in any year in the previous two decades
(Moghissi and Ghorashi ibid: Introduction).
In Canada, Muslims are the fastest growing religious minority. Across
the country, the Muslim population is growing at a rate exceeding other
religions, according to Statistics Canada and to the National Household
Survey released on May 2013. The Muslim population reached one mil-
lion, according to the survey, almost doubling its population for the third
consecutive decade.2
While Canada has not yet experienced the type of ethnic violence and
terrorist attacks that have taken place elsewhere, Muslims in this country
do not enjoy the acceptance of other religious minorities, and are a focal
4 Moha Ennaji

point for discomfort about immigrants not fitting into Canadian soci-
ety. By global standards, Canada is a welcoming multicultural society but
the Muslim community faces unique challenges with respect to religious
freedom, national security profiling, and the threat of security detentions
abroad (Ihsanoglu 2011; Moghissi and Ghorashi ibid).
Much of the problem stems from the fact that the Muslim community
is not well understood by other Canadians, whose impressions are formed
largely through simplistic stereotypes emphasizing negative characteris-
tics (e.g., men as terrorists, and widespread acceptance of honour killings).
The result is a dominant narrative of Muslims as different from others who
resist the adoption of Canadian values and so cannot be fully trusted.
In 2006, the Environics Institute conducted a national survey of
Muslims in Canada, focusing on the experience of Muslims and com-
paring Muslims in the United States with those in Europe. This study
revealed a Muslim community that does in fact strive to be part of the
broader Canadian society, while it is anxious about racism and poor eco-
nomic opportunities.
Today, the pain of 9/11 has diminished but public anxiety about the
integration of Muslim immigrants is high. The respected Pew Research
Center recently updated its own research with Muslim populations in the
United States and elsewhere, which also needs to be done in Canada.
In Europe, Muslims constitute approximately 8 percent of the popula-
tion. Muslim immigration to Europe (Ihsanoglu 2011), which goes back
to the end of World War II, may not be new, but the stigmatization of
diasporic Muslims today is unprecedented (see Ennaji 2014: Chapter 3).
Europe is wrestling with the dilemma of protecting its own values while
searching for the integration of its immigrants and Muslim minorities,
particularly second- and third-generation Muslims.3
The Council of Europe published a report in 2010 on Islam, and
Islamophobia in Europe, in which it stressed that Muslims who have lived
in Europe for centuries had contributed to European civilization.4 Yet,
the report remarked that today Muslims in Europe are marginalized and
segregated because of received ideas and resistance against their religion
and culture (Ihsanoglu 2011; Ramadan 2005).5
Muslim diasporic communities are heterogeneous and extremely
diverse. They are divided by class, gender, education, geography, working
and living conditions, social status, sociocultural background, rural-urban
differences, age, language, and color (Moghissi and Ghorashi 2010: 7). The
Muslim communities in Europe distinguish themselves according to their
national identity or ethnic origin (Phillip 2009: 11). Their concept of a
moderate Islam is a way to promote a pluralist Islam among Muslim com-
munities in Europe (Modood et al. 2006; Ramadan 2005).
In the long wake of 9/11, Islamophobia and stigmatization of Muslims
in the West have upsurged remarkably, and the Muslim diaspora has
often been homogenized and perceived as extremist, violent, and
opposed to the Western values of liberalism and democracy. However,
 Introduction 5

Muslim communities are more divided than united, as there are many
sects and subsections within Islam in addition to the Sunni-Shii dichot-
omy (Moghissi 2010: 1; Modood et al. 2006). Culturally there are many
differences among Muslims the world over: in Morocco, Iraq, Pakistan,
Iran, and Malaysia Muslims have very little in common. But when they
migrate to the West, all Muslims are flocked together under the homog-
enizing approach where their identity is primarily associated to their
faith, specifically to their Islamic names, with a supposition that any-
one with an Islamic or Arabic name is a practicing Muslim. The intrin-
sic essentialist stance toward Muslims in the West not only holds them
collectively responsible for the senseless violence committed by small
groups (Moghissi and Halleh 2010: 2), but also affects the perception
of the entire Muslim community. These attitudes, in turn, impact the
regulations and laws that usually steadily disseminate the already exist-
ing prejudices.
Nonetheless, the main ambition of the vast majority of the Muslim
diaspora is the realization of their dream, which is the improvement of
their well-being and that of their families. In general, their children are
drawn between two cultures: the culture of the country of origin and that
of the host country (see Ennaji 2010, 2014). Like the rest of the Muslim
diaspora, they are subject to Islamophobia because most Westerners con-
sider Islam a totalitarian religion that is incompatible with their values
and lifestyles (Ennaji 2014: Chapter 1; Ramadan 2005).
For most Western governments, the major concern is to establish poli-
cies that can consolidate the control and containment of Muslims who are
growing in number as a result of migration, family reunification, or birth
rate. These governments have developed security approaches that aim to
monitor and restrain the movements and activities of Muslims in Western
societies. The French law that bans the veil in public spaces is a good case
in point. Additionally, Switzerland banned the construction of minarets,
and in 2015 the Netherlands passed a law banning the wearing of the niqab
(veil covering all body except the eyes) in the public sphere.

The Theoretical Dimension

Many previous studies have focused on the issue of Islam in Western
societies since 9/11 and the depressing context of the war on terror and its
consequences. As a case in point, Phillip (2009) points out that European
countries have greatly focused on problems, but without offering solu-
tions. Instead of talking about the Islamic problemwhich is increasing
in Europe following the recent terrorist attacks in Paris in January 2015
Phillip (ibid) suggests that Europeans should give Muslims hope and join
forces with them to realize their dreams. Phillip (ibid) believes that there
are good reasons for hope in the future, and discards the prejudices made
against Muslim minorities in Europe. For him, the fear of Islam occurs in
a racist context, where Muslims are targeted. Phillip (ibid) argues that new
6 Moha Ennaji

divisions between Muslims and others echo colonial ideas of black and
white, colonized and colonizer, within practices of divide and rule.
Modood, Zapate-Barrero, and Ariandafyllidou (2006) discuss the
situation of Muslim populations in Europe. They analyze the European
facets of multiculturalism and immigration, arguing that political dis-
courses of multiculturalism have been influenced by the American
model; however, the European context is very dissimilar because in
Europe some ethnic and religious groups defy secularism and Western
notions of citizenship.
Ramadan (2005) argues that while the media are focused on radical
Islam, Muslims actively seek ways to live in harmony with their faith within
a Western context. Muslim youths are proactive as agents of change, as
they usually distance themselves from the old Islamic traditions and prac-
tices of their parents with the hope of coming up with a modern Islam that
is compatible with the cultural reality of the West. Ramadan (ibid) argues
that Muslims in the West can remain true to their Islamic faith while con-
tributing to the public life of Western secular societies. He refutes the
received idea that Islam must be defined in opposition to the West.
In his 2009 book, Ramadan contends that it is possible to find the
middle path between assimilating with the host country and living as a
Muslim. He shows that it is not impossible to live as a practicing Muslim
in culturally diverse Western states.
This book aims to do something different, however, which is to zero
in on diasporic Muslim communities in Europe and North America, and
reveal how they suffer from exclusion and Islamophobia, on one hand, and
how they contribute economically, politically, and socioculturally to their
host countries, as well as to their home countries.
When researching about Muslim diaspora in Europe and North
America, one understands, through the different authors and previous
studies, that the prime challenges are neither religious nor ethnic, but
economic and political, and that it is of paramount importance to address
issues such as intolerance, distrust, poverty, unemployment, racial dis-
crimination, and empowerment. Muslims and non-Muslims will be able
to create true third spaces of hope by focusing on the real problems, and
it is for this reason that this book is timely and pertinent (Ennaji 2014:
Chapter 10).

Objectives of the Book

The key objectives of this book are to (1) expose readers to scholarship on
Islam and Muslims in Europe and North America, and to the wider his-
torical and structural processes that have set the stage for the formation
of Muslim minorities in these Western societies; and (2) help readers and
students cultivate a greater command over current trends in social analysis
and theorization about citizenship, the integration of Muslims in secular
states, and the emergence of a European and American Islam.
 Introduction 7

Another major goal of this book is to open new avenues of thought and
other prospects to move to another phase of the debate on Muslim diaspora
that would link policy based on cultural differences to democratic culture
and to social justice.
The book also aims to deepen knowledge about Muslim communities
in Western countries and the cultures of Islam and its intersections with
the West, and to contribute to the dialogue of civilizations and to the rec-
ognition of the contribution of Islam and Muslims to democracy, diver-
sity, and peace in the world.
The book addresses issues on human rights and cultural diversity and
their role in the consolidation of democracy, development, and social
cohesion in the Western world. It focuses on Muslim diaspora in Europe
and North America, the challenges faced by Muslim minorities, and their
contributions to sustainable development and interfaith dialogue in the
host countries.
It equally examines nationally based as well as de-territorialized eth-
nic, class, and gender identities and solidarities; boundary formations and
deformations; conceptions of home, away, and return; processes of
assimilation, integration, accommodation, exclusion, and resistance; and
flows of labor, political ideologies, cultural products, and material goods.
These issues are addressed in the context of Muslim diaspora and migra-
tion, their political movements, intellectual developments, policy debates,
or theoretical formations. The book provides comparative and case
studies, analyses of government policies and institutional practices, and
theoretical explorations employing historical, ethnographic, geographic,
demographic, sociological, political, legal, literary, aesthetic, and eco-
nomic perspectives.
This book provides critical insights into some of the social topics related
to the homogenization and stereotyping of Muslims. It critically explores
the experiences of Muslims in Western societies, with a particular focus
not only on the themes of gender, home, and belonging, but also on the
broader issues related to multiculturalism, ethnicity, and the dominant
discourse on Islam and Muslims within diaspora.

Themes Discussed
The book is organized around the following themes: (1) historical back-
ground and recent Muslim formation in Europe and North America;
(2) variations of Muslim roots and presence across Western countries;
(3) media portrayals and stigmatization of Muslim minorities; (4) differences
between Islam of Europe and Islam of America; (5) Islamic practices and
concerns in a Western context; (6) integration or marginalization in Europe
and America; (7) Islam, democratic states, and the New World Order; and
(8) Islamic organizations, international relations, and Islamophobia.
The book also debates the prospects of integrating Muslim minorities
into Western societies. It analyzes the complexity and diversity of Islam
8 Moha Ennaji

in Europe and North America. In Eastern Europe, Islamic minorities

are indigenous and have a long history of cohabitation with religious and
ethnic others, while in most of Western Europe and North America the
Islamic minorities constitute themselves through processes of immigra-
tion and are perceived more as inassimilable others. This book addresses
the different ways in which the West affects the perception of Muslim
minorities. It examines the different social, political, cultural, and eco-
nomic processes at work in European and American countries that shape
the interactions between these countries and their Islamic minorities.
Sixteen chapters have been selected to address various issues relevant to
Muslim minorities in Western democracies. The themes naturally inter-
twine, and issues such as identity, political representation, human rights,
rule of law, and gender directly or indirectly overlap through most of the
chapters. In more unambiguous words, this book is a collection of ground-
breaking chapters by top scholars across many disciplines, all of which
depict and scrutinize the substantial span of Muslim diaspora and cultural
diversity in Europe and North America. These fascinating essays illumi-
nate a plethora of issues that shape and define the everyday experiences
of diasporic Muslims, as well as explore the stereotypical clash between
Muslim and secular law. The book provides a new analysis of the com-
plexities of Muslims in the modern world, with a focus on family, gender,
and youth cultures.
Its novelty also lies in the fact that it analyzes a range of Muslim cul-
tures and behaviors in the West, as well as the process of adaptation and
integration of Muslim immigrants into Western societies. It begins with
the premise that diasporic Muslims are not uniform communities, and are
in fact shaped in their cultures and experiences by a complex grid of class,
ethnic, gender, religious, and regional factors, as well as by the cultural and
social influences of their adopted homes and countries of origin.

The Components of the Book

The chapters in this collection offer fresh, important insights in the expe-
riences of Muslims in Europe and North America, with a particular focus
on the themes of integration, class, gender, home, and belonging. They
all agree that it is erroneous to homogenize and fuse together individual
citizens from Muslim-majority societies and depict culture and religion as
defining their lives and identities.
The book is divided into four broad parts: (1) historical and anthro-
pological background of Muslim diaspora; (2) Muslim diaspora, cultural
diversity, and shifting identity issues; (3) reflections on Muslim diasporic
women; and (IV) aspects of integration, discrimination, and Islamophobia.
Each part brings to light a particular outlook and includes enlightening
chapters that discuss relevant topics such as ethnicity, diversity, family,
food, gender relations, and case studies on Muslim communities in Europe
and North America.
 Introduction 9

Chapters
Youssef Abouyoubs chapter about Arab Muslims in the United States
investigates the history and state of Arab migration, its various national
origins and identities, its image in the American culture, and its political
role. The chapter contends that Muslim Arab American diaspora became
visible starting from the sixties and grew in intensity in the eighties and
nineties with the rise of diverse ethnic institutions. The chapter argues
that this community today suffers from the negative stereotypes that are
widespread in the American society. Yet, Muslim Arab Americans have
recently made significant headway in the public sphere as they are a visible
community today.
Denise Laszewski Jenison discusses how the issue of identity perme-
ated numerous aspects of the debate over Palestine, particularly in the
1940s. For the recent Arab Muslim immigrants to the United States who
constituted the Institute of Arab American Affairs, identity was a core
component in their work to obtain US support for an independent Arab
Palestine. This chapter serves as a case study of the ways the institute
grappled with its own sense of identity while simultaneously challenging
American perceptions of Arabs, particularly in terms of religion and ideas
of democracy.
Sherifa Zuhur shows that Muslim movements in the United States
differ to a great extent in their goals, programs, and growth as organiza-
tions. In this chapter, she explores two very diverse Sufi movements. The
Maktab Tarigha Oveyssi Shahmaghsoudi Tariqat has arisen outside its
country of origin, Iran, and developed in a peaceful form in the United
States. The second, the Hizmet, or Glen movement, has flourished both
inside Turkey and in the West.
Moha Ennaji addresses the topic of cultural diversity and the relation-
ship between diasporic Muslims in Europe and their host and home coun-
tries of origin. He goes beyond the quantitative approach by analyzing
the cultural and emotional ramifications of Muslim diaspora in Europe.
The chapter proposes promoting a cultural strategy to the issue of Muslim
diaspora and discusses mechanisms that take into account the interests of
all stakeholders to effectively manage diversity.
Haideh Moghissis chapter analyzes the growing tendency among the
diaspora of Muslim origin to identify with cultural values and practices of
the originating country, or an imaginary Islamic world. It poses the ques-
tion of how effectively the ideological construction of Canada as a multi-
cultural society can reduce tensions between the need for self-identified
Muslim migrants to adapt, and their desire to maintain cultural continu-
ity, as well as between the economic need for inclusion and sociopolitical
forces of exclusion.
The chapter by Lenie Brouwer is a qualitative approach to the notion
of belonging of Dutch Muslim Moroccans living in Amsterdam. It out-
lines the public debate on the role of religion and social integration for this
10 Moha Ennaji

community, revealing that Dutch Moroccans feel very much at home in

Amsterdam, but in terms of national identity they do not see themselves
as Dutch.
Cyrus Contractors chapter is a description of the different approaches
to Shia political and social participation in the American context: quiet-
ist, accommodationist, and velyat. Through the use of extensive inter-
view data, including representatives of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and
leading Shia ulam in the United States, as well as primary and second-
ary textual sources, it becomes evident that different tropes of Shia narra-
tives are based on hotly contested interpretations of the faith, the role of
the ulam, and the permissibility of political participation.
Eda Dedebas Dundars chapter on immigrant food and trans-memory
of home shows how the kitchen experience in the diaspora becomes a
political tool not only by maintaining cultural communication between
the home and adopted countries and old and new lifestyles, but also by
demystifying the gender dimension of food production. The emergence of
this third space works in two different manners as developed in works by
two Middle Eastern women writers: Diana Abu-Jabers food memoir The
Language of Baklava (2006) and Elif Shafaks novel Honor (2011).
Karen Vintges discusses women and Islam in Western media, focusing
on recent debates in Europe. Reflecting on the way these debates are orga-
nized through the presentations and self-presentations of Muslim women
in the Western media, she considers these presentations part and parcel
of the mediatization of politics in the Western world. The chapter also
assesses how democracy and a cross-cultural feminist approach could gain
from this development.
Fatima Sadiqi treats the subject of Muslim women in Europe. She
relates the story of Muslim Moroccan women who have started partici-
pating in international migration since the 1980s. Today, they constitute
a large component of Moroccans living in Europe and America, without
counting illegal migration that is becoming increasingly feminine. The
chapter claims that the Muslim diaspora in Europe is not only feminized
but also young.
Marcia Inhorns chapter provides an ethnographic foray into the health
disparities faced by one of Americas most rapidly growing immigrant
populationsnamely, Arab Muslims, many of whom are resettled refugees
from Middle Eastern war zones. Four major areas of health disparity face
this growing Muslim immigrant population: namely, the lingering health
effects of war and torture; postwar reproductive health impairments,
including both male and female infertility; lives of poverty in resettlement
communities; and the lack of access to basic health care services in the
United States.
The chapter by Naima Bendriss outlines the demeaning represen-
tations of Muslim women in Canada. Aware of the negative social dis-
courses associated with them, Canadian women of Muslim origin respond
by developing various identity strategies. They are actively engaged in the
 Introduction 11

deconstruction of an assigned identity and the construction of a claimed

one by implementing individual and collective strategies.
Szsanne Schrter discusses Salafism and democracy in Germany. She
reveals that due to a new generation of preachers an aggressive Islam is
rising, which discards the prevalent values in German society and which
seeks direction solely from the Quran and Sunna (the way the Prophet
lived). This chapter reflects on the subsequent dispute over the impact of
Salafi youths on the mosques of a German city and focuses on the debate
between actors from government authorities and members of several
mosque communities.
In his chapter, Jan Jaap de Ruiter examines discourses about and atti-
tudes to the Muslim community in the Netherlands, focusing on the ques-
tion of Islamophobia. The chapter analyzes the Islamization argument put
forward by the Dutch Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders, wondering
whether Muslims constitute a threat to Dutch society or are themselves
threatened. The chapter also discusses the ideology of Jihadi-Salafi Islam
currents, and ends with some reflections on whether Dutch Muslims are a
threat or under threat.
Debra Majeed investigates the significant place of black masculinity
and femininity in the household decisions of African American Muslims.
She draws particular attention to polygamy issues and raises the question
of whether the everyday life of diasporic Muslim wives in North America
obliterates the stereotype of oppressed Muslim women and sexist Muslim
men or takes issues with attitudes to polygyny in Islam.
The chapter by Elizabeth Bishop examines attitudes to Muslim
Americans in two states: New York and Illinois. She argues that the
experience of Muslims in both states has to be analyzed in the context
of recent developments in policing to direct their interactions with local
stakeholders. The objective is to watch Muslim activities, mosques, and
community centers, which are often regarded as prone to extremsim and
terrorism. Bishops analysis is based on two cases studies, that of Kifah
and Moujard, who were both excluded and fired from the jobs offered
to them.
All in all, the authors in this book criticize the essentialist approach to
the concept of culture that reduces all diasporic Muslims to one category.
This approach ignores other important factors that shape the attitudes
and behaviors of Muslims in the West, particularly their socioeconomic
status, gender, age, level of education, social class, and attitude to religion
and to the Western lifestyle. The majority of Muslims in North America
and Europe are reluctant to be reduced to Muslim, although some of
them feel obliged to accept the label. In the Netherlands, for instance,
Muslims are asked to change their culture, especially women, if they want
to advance socioeconomically and integrate in the Dutch society (see
Vintges: this book; Ghorashi 2010: Chapter 2).
In this book, the various chapters reveal that diasporic Muslims are het-
erogeneous given their diverse cultures and ethnicities; they are actually
12 Moha Ennaji

divided, not united, and have different views and interpretations of Islam
and various attitudes and representations of Western realities. Due to
their marginalization and low social status, some Muslims may turn to
religion and traditional values and practices to overlook their socioeco-
nomic exclusion from the European or American society.

Notes
1. Van Kessel (2004), http://www.eclac.org/celade/proyectos/migracion
/VanKessel.doc (accessed October 23, 2014)
2. See the National Post, May 8, 2013, http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/08
/survey-shows-muslim-population-is-fastest-growing-religion-in-canada/
(accessed November 22, 2014).
3. See Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (2011), http://www.project-syndicate.org/com-
mentary/islam-and-in-the-west (accessed October 22, 2013).
4. Here is the report in question: http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/Doc/XrefView
HTML.asp?FileID=12479&Language=en (accessed October 23, 2014).
5. Read this article: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/islam-and
-in-the-west (accessed October 23, 2013).

Selected Bibliography
Chamie, Joshep, and DallOglio, Luca, eds. (2008). International Migration and
Development. Geneva and New York: Center for Migration Studies and
International Organization for Migration.
Duncan, Howard (2004). Multiculturalism as an Instrument for Integration. In
Migration and Cultural Diversity, edited by M. Ennaji. Fs: Publications of Fs
Saiss Association, pp. 1322.
Ennaji, Moha (2014). Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe. New York: Macmillan.
Ennaji, Moha (2010). Moroccan Migrants in Europe and Islamophobia.
Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 30, no. 1: 1420.
House-Soremekun, Bessie and Falola, Toyin, eds. (2011). Globalization and
Sustainable Development in Africa (Rochester Studies in African History and
the Diaspora). Rochester: Rochester University Press.
Ihsanoglu, Ekmeleddin (2011). Islam and/in the West. http://www.project
-syndicate.org/commentary/islam-and-in-the-west (accessed October 22,
2013).
Kymlicka, Will (2009). Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International
Politics of Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lacroix, Thomas (2009). Transnationalism and Development: The Example
of Moroccan Migrant Networks. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35,
no. 10, 16651678.
Leonard, Karen, I. (2003). Muslims in the United States: The State of Research. New
York: Russell Sage Foundation. Modood, Tariq, Ricardo Zapate-Barrero, and
Anna Ariandafyllidou (2006). Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A
European Approach. London: Routledge.
Moghissi, Haidehand Halleh Ghorashi, eds. (2010). Muslim Diaspora in the West.
Surrey: Ashgate.
 Introduction 13

Phillip, Richard (2009). Muslim Spaces of Hope: Geographies of Possibility in Britain

and the West. London: Zed Books.
Ramadan, Tariq (2009). Islam, the West and the Challenges of Modernity. London:
Islamic Foundation.
Ramadan, Tariq (2005). Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Tibi, Bassam (2009). Islams Predicament with Modernity: Politics, Religious Reform
and Cultural Change. London: Taylor & Francis.
PART I

HISTORICAL AND
A NTHROPOLOGICAL
BACKGROUND
 CHAPTER 1

A SEASON OF MIGRATION TO
THE WEST: T HE A RAB-MUSLIM
DIASPORA IN THE UNITED STATES;
POLITICAL ETHOS AND PRAXIS
Younes Abouyoub

Introduction
This chapter discusses the political ethos and praxis of the Arab American
community. Its main thesis is that this ethnic community is heterogeneous
and went through two main historical stages, World War I and the 1967
Arab-Israeli conflict, in the formation of its political identity. This chap-
ter argues that the Arab American political praxis emerged mainly, but not
exclusively, in the sixties and developed in the eighties with the formation
of different ethnic institutions and the Jesse Jackson presidential cam-
paign. Nevertheless, it still suffers to this day from many problems, among
which are the negative stereotypes prevalent in the American culture that
ascribe an essentialized otherness to the Arab-Muslim as an alien, the lack
of financial resources, the weak block vote of Arab Americans, a strong
nemesis embodied by the well-structured and generously financed Israeli
lobby, and, most of all, a dissonance with the fundamentals of US foreign
policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This said,
Arab Americans made cogent progress in the political realm as they are a
more visible community now. Arab Americans still need to seek political
alliances with other dominant minority ethnic groups like the Latinos or
the African Americans to be able to advocate effectively on issues of inter-
est to this constituency.1
Throughout their presence in the United States, Arab Americans had
to face numerous challenges economically, legally, and politically. Yet, the
last two decades were more trying than any other period before. The end
of the Cold War brought about a new geopolitical reality in which the
United States became the sole global superpower. This coincided domesti-
cally with the rise of the new radical Right, namely, the neoconservatives,
the Christian Evangelicals, and the pro-Israel Lobby. With the ascendency
of George W. Bush to the Oval Office came a group of neoconservatives,
18 Younes Abouyoub

whose influence was buttressed by a set of institutes, organizations, think

tanks, and forums that advocated for an American global expansion, uni-
lateralism, and preventive wars, with total disdain for international law.
The 9/11 terrorist attacks provided a launching pad for a set of poli-
cies internationally, and measures and laws domestically to pursue a well-
thought-out global strategy to achieve Pax Americana. The demonization
of Arab and Muslim Americans served as a justification for the war against
Afghanistan, but most of all for the invasion and destruction of Iraq.
Domestically, laws and regulations were enacted, thus abridging the civil
rights of Arab Americans, who became the perfect targets for investiga-
tion, prosecution, and criminalization under these laws (Hagopian 2004).
This situation had a severe negative impact on the already frail political
activity of Arab and Muslim Americans (Abouyoub 2009).

The Historical Development of Arab American Identity

Early Arab migrants, from 1870 until World War I, were driven out of their
homeland mainly because of economic necessities. While on the American
soil, they considered themselves as sojourners who, after bettering them-
selves financially, would return home. The idea of return turned out to be
an all-out myth. On the rare occasion where Arab Americans ventured
into politics, they lacked the knowledge that would have enabled them
to be effective players in the American political arena. Moreover, they
brought with them a distorted political paradigm from their homeland
countries, with their vertical system of power that yields negative political
identities to its subjects.2 They acted more like citizens of the Ottoman
Empire3 living temporarily away from the homeland in the United States
but not as part of the host country, both culturally and politically. The
gradual weakening of the Ottoman Empire, leading eventually to its
downfall after World War I, led the members of this community toward
altering their relationship with their homeland, and hence changing their
attitude toward the host country.4
Up to World War I Arab migrants were perceived, if European-
Americans paid attention to them at all, as a nuisance worthy of disdain
and rejection (Corsi 1935: 265266).5 This fact is of paramount importance
since this external perception of the Arab-Muslim community would
impact its members and give birth to different approaches to life within the
American society: Isolationists and Integrationists. The former approach,
which was widespread in the early period, advocated staying on the margin
of the American society, and devoting ones time to the business of mak-
ing money, with the least possible interaction with European-Americans
in order to avoid conflicts and problems. Arab-Muslim migrants who
believed in this approach stressed the virtue of law-abiding, living a good
moral life, and not letting their internal fights go public so as to require
police intervention. They felt that as guests in a foreign land, they had to
behave in order not to gall their hosts (Maloof 1974).
 A Season of Migration to the West 19

The second approach appeared because of World War I. Its champions

believed in the virtues of assimilating into the American society, but not
on an ideological ground. They simply thought that they should contribute
positively to the United States as an expression of gratitude for the pros-
perity they encountered in their host country. They urged members of the
community to join the US armed forces to fight in Cuba, and later on in
the Philippines during the Spanish-American war (Ward 1919).6 Whatever
the approach was, the locus of Arab political activity was intersectarian
and intracommunal. There was no such thing as an Arab or Muslim iden-
tity or an Arab-Muslim community, let alone an organized political activ-
ity in the service of a single, homogeneous community. Most, if not all,
literature written about the early period of the Arab-Muslim presence in
the United States agree on the idea that sect was a substitute for, and an
incarnation of, the community, country, and nation.7 But, international
political developments would eventually change this reality (Said 1997).
The end of World War I impacted Arab-Muslim Americans deeply.
The Ottomans lost the war, and their empire was carved between the
allied forces. Arab-Muslim migrants in the United States felt cut off from
the homeland, and consequently came closer to each other. A sense of sol-
idarity started emerging.8 The final blow came with the introduction of a
very strict and restrictive immigration quota system by the United States
in 1920. This system halted migration from the Arab-Muslim world, and
set the size of the community. Only after World War I could one speak of
an Arab American community (Suleiman 1994), because members of this
community realized that there was no possible return to the homeland,
especially because by then they had American-born and educated chil-
dren. This shift in attitude had substantial consequences on the politi-
cal praxis of Arab Americans. Intra- and intersectarian conflicts waned,
members of the community started looking for unity and solidarity, and a
stronger identification with the host country, combined with a desire for
a greater involvement in American political process,9 began. More efforts
were exerted to improve the image of the Arab-Muslim community in
the American society. Serious budding attempts were made to get the
government of the United States to support policy positions championed
by the Arab-Muslim community, especially regarding Palestine, mainly
with the establishment of the Arab American Affairs in New York City,
later on.10
By World War II, the Arab-Muslim American community had assimi-
lated and settled. The political identity of Arabs was entirely American.11
Several political developments would reverse this trend, though. Among the
main factors were the colonization of Palestine and the subsequent creation
of the state of Israel, which led to the displacement of hundreds of thou-
sands of Palestinians to different parts of the world, including the United
States, where some of these refugees had relatives. Furthermore, because
of the turmoil in the Middle East caused by the struggle for independence,
and later on by the postindependence uncertainties and instabilities, many
20 Younes Abouyoub

discontented intellectuals and professionals would set sail to the new world,
where they could achieve a better career (Zahlan 1981).
Because of their high educational achievements, new Arab migrants
were markedly distinct from the earlier generation. They also had came
an entirely different state of mind, since they were conscious that they
were migrating once and for all. Unlike the first migration wave, which
was economic, this one was political. Another difference with the pioneers
lies in the fact that their identity was Arabic, or rather Pan-Arabic.12 They
were eager to work for the advancement of the Arab nation and causes.
Yet, these newcomers did not jump into the American political arena right
away after their arrival. Rather, they took a while to build up the necessary
courage to be politically active. Once again, another international politi-
cal event would play a determining role in cueing this political appear-
ance on stage, that is, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.13 The shameful defeat of
the Arab armies had a devastating effect on the Arab community within
the United States, and awakened the third generation of Arab Americans
to the Arab component of their identity. By then, the circle became full,
and the American-born Arabs stopped seeing themselves as Americans of
Syrian or Lebanese backgrounds but rather as Arabs.

The Arab American Community

The Arab American community is not monolithic. There are differences,
mainly in the perception of the political praxis, between the pre-1967 gen-
erations and those who came after (Suleiman 1983: 2935). Besides, the
members of the community come from different countries14 with diverse
religious affiliations. They have not spent the same number of years within
the United States, and do not have the same degree of interactions with the
non-Arab segments of the American society (Patricia 1974). Finally, there is
a generational, a gender, and a socioeconomic hiatus. Nevertheless, they all
have a common language, that is, Arabic; they share the same Arab/Islamic
culture, and they have suffered from negative stereotyping and political
exclusion.15 The 2000 US census reveals that Arab Americans are relatively
better off than the general population, and have higher educational achieve-
ments and incomes as they hold managerial and professional positions.16

Arab American Population in Key States

In the first part of the twentieth century, besides building small
organizations, which mainly provided social services, Arab Americans
engaged in various forms of industrial labor strikes as a means to defend
the rights of their community. In 1912, textile mill workers in Lawrence,
Massachusetts, went on strike, and Arab Americans played an important
role in it. The strike was justified by the reduction of work hours and con-
sequently of wages. Some of the meetings of the strike committee were
held at St. Anthonys Maronite Church, and several Arab Americans were
 A Season of Migration to the West 21

part of the organizing committee (Ghosn 1912: 4). Out of 30,000 union
members, 2,500 were Arab Americans.17 Yet, the Arab community was not
unanimous in supporting the strike. Some of its members, through com-
munity newspapers, condemned it.18 In the 1970s, another social move-
ment was triggered, this time for foreign policy issues. Arab American
members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the auto plants in the
Detroit area protested against the UAWs use of the pension fund to buy
Israeli bonds (cf. Jabara 1974: 10; Ahmed 1975: 1722).
Furthermore, Arab migrants also confronted the issue of color and race.
They had to wage a long legal battle to be classified as white. In 1913, a fed-
eral judge from Charleston, South Carolina, denied Farid Shahids applica-
tion for naturalization, arguing that Syrians were not white. Another case
was presented before the court in 1914, as George Dow applied for citi-
zenship and was turned down, since, as a Syrian, he was considered from
Asian background, and Asians were barred from citizenship according to
the 1790 Citizenship Act. The Syrian community legally challenged these
decisions for nearly a decade, and after a series of court cases, Arabs were
finally accepted legally as whites, and therefore eligible for citizenship
in 1924. When the civil rights movement broke out in the sixties, how-
ever, Arab Americans partook in it, but could not reap some of its rewards
like other third-world minority groups, as they were already classified as
whites (Majaj 2000: 320337).
After having fought so hard to achieve whiteness in a society fixated
on issues of race and ethnicity, Arab Americans came to suffer later on
from this status. They are white, but not thoroughly (Naber 1980). They
have become an invisible minority ( Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Arab American population in key states

California 650,000
New York 410,000
Michigan 400,000
Florida 270,000
New Jersey 250,000
Texas 190,000
Illinois 180,000
Ohio 160,000
Massachusetts 160,000
Pennsylvania 150,000
Virginia 140,000
Maryland 60,000
New Hampshire 60,000
Source: US 2000 census.
22 Younes Abouyoub

Arab Americans Political Praxis

As previously noted, many organizations were created in the aftermath of
the 1967 war and the subsequent awakening of Arab Americans to their
common political ethos. Undoubtedly, prior to the 1967 Arab defeat, the
Arab American political ethos was inchoate and latent, and its praxis prac-
tically nonexistent. Generally, some Arabs retreated to their religious and
ethnic communities, while others, mainly Christian Lebanese and Syrians
from the second generation, completely assimilated into, and remained
apolitical with regard to the issues of the homeland of their parents. The
Christian Arabs fully embraced the American culture, and some of its
members achieved prominence, such as former senator George Mitchell,
and former governor and White House chief of staff under George Bush
senior, John Sununu, and so on.
Besides, Arab Americans abstained from speaking out loud on Arab
issues, as they felt that the American political field19 was inhospitable to
such demands. They feared facing social and economic repercussions if
they challenged the dominant creed (Ismael and Ismael 1976: 402). Arab
Muslims refrained from wearing their religious values on their sleeves
in a society that considered Protestantism the true religion chosen by
God (Karpat 1985: 183). It is safe to say that the Palestinian question
provided the ideological core around which Arab Americans coalesced.
The Arab American ethnopolitical rise came at the same moment as
the civil rights movement was unfolding, and with it came an increased
acceptance of ethnicity in the American society. Activists developed a
consciousness tinged with a deep sense of dissatisfaction arising from the
stereotypes and clichs surrounding Arab and Muslim culture and values
in America. A real effort was made to build institutions aimed at ethnic
self-affirmation.20
Consequently, organizations started appearing, such as the Association
of Arab American University Graduates (AAUG) in late 1967. This orga-
nization had an Arab agenda seeking to advance Arab causes and not
mere ethnic and sectarian interests. The priority of the AAUG was to
provide reliable and rigorous information about the Arab-Muslim world
and Arab Americans. It also sought to educate both Arab countries and
Arab intellectuals and political leaders about US policies and the political
process. This group consciousness was necessary, especially when both
Democratic and Republican parties were completely one-sided in their
support of Israel. The AAUG attempted to change what they perceived as
a biased position by siding with some politicians who advocated different
views, like Senator William Fullbright (Findely 1985). As there were no
other organizations at that time, the AAUG felt obliged to perform other
tasks that it lacked the tools and the funds for, such as political lobbying,
countering defamations and discrimination against Arabs and Muslims,
and promoting political activism among the Arab-Muslim community in
the United States.21
 A Season of Migration to the West 23

A decade later, former US senator James Abourezk founded the

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), todays most
important grassroots Arab American organization.22 It aims mainly
at traversing negative stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the media,
and discrimination against them at the professional, social, and political
levels.23
The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon was another turning point in
Arab Americans political mobilization as the membership of the ADC
and the National Association of Arab Americans24 swelled. Nevertheless,
this intense communal mobilization failed to translate into tangible
political gains, especially failure to secure congressional condemnation of
Israels role in the massacres of Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps
of Sabra and Shatila, or withholding of US aid. Jaded after this intense
emotional involvement with the Lebanese crisis, and disillusioned with
the fratricide fighting among Arabs and Muslims, many Arab Americans
simply lost hope in political activism as a tool to make a change (Orfalea
1989: 208222).Internal schisms led a faction headed by a cofounder of
the ADC, James Zogby, to leave the organization and create the Arab
American Institute (AAI) in 1984, together with a Palestinian-American
lawyer George Salem. The AAI advocated a greater bipartisan involve-
ment in the American political system both as voters and as candidates
for political office. While James Zogby was involved mainly with the
Democratic Party, George Salem was a Republican who had previously
led Ethnic Voters for the Reagan/Bush ticket in the 1984 presiden-
tial elections, and worked as a solicitor in the US Department of Labor
(Samhan 1987). The motto of the AAI is to create an enabling political
environment for Arab Americans, whether Democrats, Republicans, or
Independents, to seek office and get elected. However, more often than
not, when Arab Americans acted as champions of political issues of inter-
ests to them, they were not successful. Besides rationales endogenous
to Arab-Muslim political mobilization and organized activities, a poli-
tics of exclusion (Samhan 1987: 11; Zogby and Samhan 1987) still exists
toward them in the American society. This is mainly due to a discordance
with the elemental principles and objectives of US foreign policy in the
MENA region, a dominant political discourse extremely arduous to chal-
lenge, an inherited stereotyped vision of the Arab-Muslim as the enemy
in the time of the Crusades, negative media coverage, and the persistence
of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, besides the strong political nemesis
embodied by the more energetic, better funded and organized pro-Israeli
lobby in the American political field (see Said 1979; Shaheen 2001).When
members of the Arab community engaged in collecting funds for can-
didates during political campaigns, the money was returned25 because it
came from Arabs. The design of this symbolic violence has focused on
discrediting the Arab-Muslim community as alien and strips its members
of their Americanness. Arabs and Muslims are yet to free themselves of
24 Younes Abouyoub

this political racism and achieve full membership in the social fabric of
the American society.
This said, if the outcome of World War I was a crucial historical
moment in the process of integration of Arab Americans in the American
society, the candidacy of Reverend Jesse Jackson in 1984 and especially the
1988 presidential elections marked the birth of the Arab American con-
stituency. For the first time, a presidential candidate embodied the politi-
cal concerns of the Arab-Muslim community, and the Palestinian issue
became a legitimate item in the political agenda of American politics.
Truly, for the first time Arab Americans as a community backed the can-
didacy of a once single challenger. Even though Reverend Jacksons can-
didacy was unsuccessful and numerous political challenges still lay ahead
for Arab Americans, it can be safely stated that a constituency had come
of age.

The Enemy Within: Arab Americans and Post 9/11

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 had a profound impact on the Arab-Muslim
community in America. A peremptory collective patriotism altered both
European-Americans and Arab Americans lives. The September attacks
did not actually alter American attitudes, be it positive or negative, toward
Arab Americans, but rather reinforced preexisting perceptions and ste-
reotypes. It offered racists and xenophobes a rhetorical truism that could
legitimize their views, while it offered multiculturalists more reason to
promote inclusionary ideals (Lopez 1996).
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), hate crimes
against Arab and Muslim Americans increased by 1,700 percent between
2000 and 2001. Arab and Muslim Americans faced an upsurge in negative
stereotypes,26 and Muslim immigrants, more than any other immigrant
group, were met with negative attitudes.27 Since then, increased racial and
religious animosity has left Arabs, Muslims, Middle Easterners, and those
who bear stereotyped physical resemblance to members of these groups,
fearful of potential hatred and hostility (Hagopian 2004).
Thousands of American citizens and aliens alike, of Arab or Muslim
descent, were taken into custody and questioned by the FBI, the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, and state or local law enforce-
ment agencies. Hundreds were detained either because the FBI thought
they may have been connected one way or another with the 9/11 attacks
or because the FBI was unable, at least initially, to determine whether
they were connected to terrorism. These arrests were made under dif-
ferent categories. Sometimes they were called special interest arrests or
the absconder apprehension initiative, or were made under the so-called
Project Lookout, which was a watch list of people who the FBI wanted
to question in connection with the 9/11 attacks. This list was far-reaching
in its scope as it was sent to banks, travel agencies, car rental and trucking
companies, public libraries, businesses, and so on.
 A Season of Migration to the West 25

The post-September 2001 national frenzy condoned, silently or actively,

these arrests. By September 18, the FBI had received more than 96,000
tips from the public, most of which were trivial and had no connection
whatsoever with any terrorist activities. Special interest detainees were
held in secret detention centers, and some of them were put on planes
and shipped to destinations unfamiliar to them, leaving behind their
American life, families, spouses, and children. Capitalizing on this public
frenzy, a citizen-spy Terrorism Information and Prevention System pro-
gram (Operation TIPS) was put in place by the attorney general, while
other state efforts and entrepreneurial initiatives were launched, such as
the Community Anti-Terrorism Training Institute (CAT Eyes), which
aimed at training police and neighborhood watch groups to log any ter-
rorist indicators they may have noticed on the FBI website and report any
suspicious activities in their neighborhood. Furthermore, President Bush
issued an executive order that authorized an unprecedented National
Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program. This secret eavesdrop-
ping program allowed the surveillance of certain telephone calls placed
between a party in the United States and a party in a foreign country with-
out obtaining a warrant through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court.
Yet, the most infamous piece of legislation enacted on October 26,
2001, with almost no dissent in Congress, during this period was the USA
PATRIOT Act, which provided for a broad definition of terrorist activity,
and allowed deportation of noncitizens for nonviolent associational activ-
ity protected by the First Amendment, or to be imprisoned indefinitely.
According to this act, the government may search and seize Americans
papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation;
may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial; and may monitor religious
and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity. Moreover,
it may monitor conversations between attorneys and clients in federal
prisons and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes, and prosecute
librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone the govern-
ment subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation. Finally,
under this act Americans may be jailed without being charged or being
able to confront witnesses against them. Even though this act was theo-
retically applicable to all Americans, more often than not its provisions
targeted Arab and Muslim Americans.
For Arab and Muslim Americans, the post-9/11 era was not just a viola-
tion of national and citizen rights, but also of heritage and, for some, of
faith. The attacks were a particular affront to Arab-Muslim Americans,
which targeted their collective sense of cultural pride and religious belief,
as James Zogby noted (Submission to The United States Commission).
Within hours of the September 11 attacks, the tragedy and violence of that
terrible day were amplified by personal attacks on Americans of Arab,
Muslim, Sikh, and South Asian heritage. Even Hispanic Americans were
singled out for attack because of their physical similarities to Arabs and
26 Younes Abouyoub

Muslims. The so-called War on Terror waged after 9/11 seriously compro-
mised the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment rights of, mostly
but not exclusively, Arab Americans citizens and noncitizens alike. From
the USA PATRIOT Acts broad definition of domestic terrorism, to the
FBIs new powers of search and surveillance, to the indefinite detention
of both citizens and noncitizens without formal charges, the principles of
free speech, due process, and equal protection under the law were seri-
ously sapped.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, a wave of anti-Arab and anti-
Muslim backlash swamped the country. Passengers refused to travel on
planes where Arabs or Muslims were on board, and mosques were burnt or
vandalized. In 2003, the Council on American Islamic Relations reported
that hate crimes increased by 300 percent compared with 2001. The vio-
lence, discrimination, intolerance, and defamation that Arab and Muslim
Americans faced in this period were unprecedented in the history of this
communitys presence in the United States. This noticeable deterioration
of Arab Americans civil rights severely undermined their confidence in
their own rights and place within the American polity, which further com-
pounded their already frail political influence.

Waiting for Godot: The Obama Presidency

and the Politics of Hope
Without doubt, Barack Obamas 2008 presidential campaign invigorated
Americans enthusiasm for electoral politics and gave hope to millions of
Americans, from all walks of life, who had lost faith in the American polit-
ical system (Kenski, Hardy, and Kathleen 2010). A majority of Americans
held the Republicans accountable for their crimes against the Constitution
and human rights, for their violations of US and international laws, for
their lies and deceptions, and for their financial subterfuges. After a
long passage through the political wilderness during the G. W. Bush era
and the politics of exclusion and persecution after 9/11, Arab Americans
regained hope with the historical presidential election of Barack Obama.
Nevertheless, to their dismay this hope has so far failed to materialize,
and the promised change is yet to come.
For their part, Arab-Muslim Americans hoped that his candidacy
would usher in a new era marked with proven change in American policies
in issues that matter to them, namely, civil liberties and US foreign policy
in the Middle East. One year after he was elected, with extensive support
from the Arab American constituency, President Obama delivered his
landmark speech in Cairoa speech that was received largely with enthu-
siasm, both domestically and internationally in the Arab world, ready for
a new era of US policy. Nevertheless, these high hopes rapidly dwindled
as the newly elected president started cajoling the same powers within
the American political system. The appointments in his administration
 A Season of Migration to the West 27

were drawn from the same pool of American politicians responsible for
the usual American policies in the Middle East.
For instance, President Obama chose as his chief of staff Rahm Israel
Emanuel, a supporter of Bushs invasion of Iraq. Emanuel rose to promi-
nence in the Democratic Party as a result of his fund-raising connections to
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), of which he has
been a long-term supporter. His father was a member of Irgun.28 During
the 1991 Gulf War, Emanuel volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense
Forces. The Arab community was further dismayed when President
Obama, who used to work closely with Arab American issues and con-
cerns as an activist in Chicago, started hammering that the US bond with
Israel was unbreakable, that he would never compromise on the situation
of Israels security, and affirmed that Jerusalem should stay the undivided
capital of Israel, and that any deal between Israelis and Palestinians should
preserve Israels identity as a Jewish state. Finally, President Obama did
not follow through on his promises to close the Guantanamo detention
center and end US wars in the Middle East.
This sudden change in political stance prompted Arab American reac-
tions of disappointment and disapproval. In his Open Letter to presiden-
tial candidate Barack Obama,29 the political activist and several times
presidential candidate of Lebanese descent Ralph Nader pointed out that
his transformation from an articulate defender of Palestinian rights . . . to
a dittoman for the hard-line AIPAC lobby puts him at odds with a major-
ity of Jewish-Americans and 64% of Israelis. Nader quoted the Israeli
writer and peace advocate Uri Avnerys description of Obamas appear-
ance before AIPAC as an appearance that broke all records for obsequi-
ousness and fawning. Nader criticized Barack Obama for his utter lack
of political courage for caving in to demands of the hard-liners to prohibit
former president Jimmy Carter, who had been a fierce critic of Israeli poli-
cies, from speaking at the Democratic National Convention. Nader also
noted how Barack Obama reneged on his past promises and severed his
relations with Arab and Muslim-American communities to achieve his
political career goals:

A further illustration of your deficiency of character is the way you turned

your back on the Muslim-Americans in this country. You refused to send
surrogates to speak to voters at their events. Having visited numerous
churches and synagogues, you refused to visit a single Mosque in America.
Even George W. Bush visited the Grand Mosque in Washington D.C. after
9/11 to express proper sentiments of tolerance before a frightened major reli-
gious group of innocents. Although the New York Times published a major
article on June 24, 2008 titled Muslim Voters Detect a Snub from Obama
(by Andrea Elliott), citing examples of your aversion to these Americans
who come from all walks of life, who serve in the armed forces and who
work to live the American dream. Three days earlier the International
Herald Tribune published an article by Roger Cohen titled Why Obama
28 Younes Abouyoub

Should Visit a Mosque. None of these comments and reports change your
political bigotry against Muslim-Americanseven though your father was
a Muslim from Kenya.30

For his part, Palestinian American writer and activist Ali Abunimah
noted that on many occasions Obama refrained from criticizing the Israel
settlement policy, the wall construction, and the collective punishment
measures against millions of Palestinians, while defending Israels attack
on Lebanon as an act of a legitimate right to self-defense.31 It can be safely
stated that a majority of Arab and Muslim Americans, had great hopes in
Barack Obamas sudden rise to power, both as candidate and as president.
They believed in him and in his road map for change both domestically
and internationally. Yet, they were quickly disappointed as he slashed
their hopes for a real change by his lack of courage and his policy of old
wine in new bottles.

Conclusion
Not unlike their fellow countrymen, Arab and Muslim Americans care
mostly about issues related to jobs and the economy. These are by far
their top priorities, followed by foreign policy, health care, and education.
Much lower in importance are issues of immigration, budget, taxes, and
terrorism. On all these issues, with the exception of foreign policy, Arab-
Muslim Americans tend to lean toward the Democratic party, but when
it comes to determining which party will be the more honest broker in
handling the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian issue or dealing with terror-
ism and national security, most Arab-Muslim Americans lack confidence
in both parties.
There are roughly three million Arab Americans in the United States
today; more than 75 percent of this number is composed of the descen-
dants of migrants. According to US census data,32 Arab Americans have
one of the highest per capita incomes among ethno-racial minorities.
They also achieve a high degree of education, and have the highest per
capita self-ownership of businesses, participation, and managerial posi-
tions. Because Arab-Americans are a reliable voter group who go to the
polls in larger percentages than other groups, they could deliver the dif-
ference for candidates who listen to their concerns (Submission to The
United States Commission). According to repeated polls conducted by
Zogby International, around 88.5 percent of Arab Americans are regis-
tered to vote. This is a high registration rate, which if compared to the
other ethno-racial minorities, is surpassed only by African Americans.
In the 2000 election season, 14.5 percent of Arab American voters con-
tributed to a presidential campaign and the national Arab American reg-
istered voter database shows that these voters are well represented in 55
congressional districts across the country. They, thus, constitute between
1.5 and 4.5 percent of the total population.
 A Season of Migration to the West 29

The first Arab American organization grew out of the interaction

between the descendants of the first- and second-generation migrants
who were more educated, more politically aware, and more conscious of
their identity as Arabs and Muslims, willing to work for the advancement
of the Arab-Muslim causes. This event produced the Arab American
identity we know today. The fact that Arabs and Muslims are subjected to
stereotypes and hostile propaganda, especially after the 9/11 attacks, rein-
forces a feeling of persecution, and draws the members of this community
closer together. Discrimination and attempts of exclusion from politics,
especially by Zionist groups,33 helped to unite, and still does, the organized
community in its attempt to overcome obstacles in the way of its complete
integration and its real political participation.
Arab Americans have still a long way to go in order to assert their
position within the American political spectrum, and secure a balanced
US foreign policy in the Middle East. But it is incontestable that Arab
Americans have really make cogent progress in their political empower-
ment. Nowadays, one can speak of an Arab American constituency, while
it was unheard of three decades ago. Inarguably, we are talking about a
constituency that still cannot win the debate, but can at least partake in
it, and table a contending opinion. According to a poll conducted by James
Zogby, two-thirds of Arab Americans declared that they have some confi-
dence that their children will have a better life than theirs. This optimism is
shared by all the subgroups within the community, with immigrants being
the most optimistic about the future. This Arab and Muslim American
confidence in the prospects for the next generation stands out in marked
contrast to the attitudes of the American public at large where only one-
third are optimistic that their children will be better off in the future.
Arab-Muslim Americans are proud of their heritage and seem confident
about the future. Like the rest of Americans, they are concerned about the
state of politics in the United States and attentive to all the problems the
country is facing today. Regarding issues of foreign policy, the 2011 Arab
awakening, despite all its pitfalls and repeated frustrations, still offers
potential hope of a better future for Arabs and Muslims inside and out-
side the United States. If the Arab-Muslim people manage to regain their
sovereignty to chart their path independently for a better future and a
more decent life, this would have, without doubt, a compounding positive
effect on the political praxis of Arab-Muslim Americans by buttressing
their position in the American polity. Time will tell if this community will
manage to build on this momentum and keep progressing toward a real
presence in the American political field.

Notes
1. This chapter is a follow-up of my 2009 chapter titled The Levant
Migration to the United States: The Development of Communal Identity
and Patterns of Political Participation, in Global Politics in the Dawn of the
30 Younes Abouyoub

21st Century, ed. Akis Kalaitzidis (Athens, Greece: Athens Institute for
Education and Research, 2009), http://www.unaoc.org/ibis/wp-content/
uploads/2011/03/The-Levant-Migration-to-the-USA.pdf (accessed May
29, 2013). The current chapter is a follow-up only and does not reuse any
content from the above-mentioned published chapter.
2. The use of the term subjects is important since citizens have usually
rights and a possibility to express opinions more or less freely.
3. Before World War I, most Arab countries were under the Ottoman rule.
This is why they were referred to as Ottoman citizens or Turks in the immi-
gration documents. Until today, in many parts of Latin America Arabs are
referred to as Turcos, the Spanish equivalent term for Turk.
4. This does not mean that all of the Arab-Muslim community agreed on one
single position regarding the state in the homeland. Kawkab America
(Planet America), the first Arabic-language newspaper established in the
United States in 1892, declared, in its first issue, its unambiguous support
for the Ottoman State and sultan. Later on this attitude melted away.
5. On stereotypes targeting Arabs in the United States, see Ronald Stockton,
Ethnic Archetypes and the Arab Image (Michigan: University of Michigan,
1994).
6. In Arabic language. See also the website of the Arab Americans in the
US Army: http://www.patrioticapaam.org/index.html (accessed April 12,
2005).
7. For an account of the experience of early Arabs in America, see Philip K.
Hitti, The Syrians in America (New York: George H. Doran, 1924).
8. Furthermore, as US media emphasized the ideas of nationalism, patrio-
tism, and military service to prepare the public opinion for the US entry
into war siding with the allies against, partly, the Ottomans, the trend of
assimilationism received momentum.
9. This started with registrations for voting, partisanship, and some public
and political service at the local and state levels. Syrian Republican Clubs
and Syrian Democratic Clubs emerged in different parts of the United
States.
10. See Arab American Affairs Bulletin 5, no. 7, January 15, 1950.
11. Some students of the early period of the community claim that the assimi-
lation was so thorough that a near extinction of the Arab ethnicity took
place. See Philip M. Kayal and Jospeh M. Kayal, The Syrian-Lebanese in
America: A Study in Religion and Assimilation (Boston, MA: Twayne, 1975) ;
M. W. Suleiman, Arab-Americans and the Political Process, in The
Development of Arab-American Identity, ed. Ernest McCarus (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1994, 37 60).
12. Pan-Arabism as a political movement was created by a group of intellec-
tuals, particularly Michel Aflak, and embodied mainly in the charismatic
political figure of Gamal Abdel Nasser, former Egyptian president.
13. A huge body of literature exists on the subject. A good example of how
Arab Americans reacted to this war can be found in Edward Saids biogra-
phy, Out of Place (New York: First Vintage Books, 2000), and other writ-
ings of his.
14. In this regard, a comparison with the Latino community is highly inter-
esting as both communities show similar characteristics in their political
ethos and praxis.
 A Season of Migration to the West 31

15. For an excellent exploration of this idea, see Esther Benbassa, La Souffrance
Comme Identit (Paris: Fayard, 2007). The 1967 Arab defeat and the trauma
post the 9/11 attacks can be considered as unifying moments and politically
mobilizing events for Arab Americans.
16. Nevertheless, the poverty rate is at least four points higher (16.7 percent)
within the Arab community than in the general population (12.4 percent),
and this figure is even higher among the youth (22.2 and 16.6 percent,
respectively). Home ownership rates are also lower within the commu-
nity (55.4 percent) than in the general population (66.2 percent). Moreover,
socioeconomic disparities exist among the Arab community, that is, young
Iraqis and Palestinians have the highest poverty rates while Egyptian
Americans, for instance, have the highest percentage of high school and
university graduates (Angela Brittingham and Patricia de la Cruz, We
the People of Arab Ancestry in the United States, Washington, DC: US
Census 2000, Special Reports 21, http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs
/censr-21.pdf, 2005 [accessed April 4, 2015]).
17. See Farid Ghosn, The Lawrence Strike, Meraat-ul-Gharb, February 2,
1912.
18. Ibid.
19. I use the term field in the sense of Pierre Bourdieu and L. J. D. Wacquant,
Rponses . . . Pour une Anthropologie Rflexive (Paris: Le Seuil, 1992: 72). A field
can be compared to a market where producers and consumers of goods
interact. The producers, individuals who possess specific types of capital,
confront each other in order to control the amassment of the type of capi-
tal that ensures the domination of the field.
20. John Higham, Ethnic Leadership in America, p. 2, cited in Yossi Shain,
Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and Their
Homelands (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
21. These activities are carried out today by the Arab American Institute
(AAI) and the ADC, both based in Washington, DC, and created in 1985
and 1980, respectively.
22. The genuine desire of the this ethnic community to no longer be a hidden
minority is reflected in the theme of the first convention of this organiza-
tion: Arab Americans Come of Age.
23. See ADC website: www.adc.org, and Nabeel A. Khoury, The Arab Lobby:
Problems and Prospects, Middle East Journal 41, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 382.
24. An organization founded in 1972, which focuses mostly on issues of US for-
eign policy.
25. Political candidates Wilson Goode (Philadelphia mayoral race, 1983),
Robert Neall (Maryland congressional race, 1986), Joseph P. Kennedy II
(Massachusetts congressional race, 1986), Walter Mondale (presidential
race, 1984), and Hillary Clinton (New York Senate race, 2000) all returned
Arab American financial contributions.
26. American-Arab ADC, 2003.
27. Council of American Islamic Relations, 2003.
28. Irgun was a Jewish terrorist organization that used violence to drive the
British and Palestinians out of Palestine in order to create the Jewish
state.
29. Letter dated November 3, 2008, http://www.votenader.org/media/2008
/11/03/lettertoobama/ (accessed May 21, 2013).
32 Younes Abouyoub

30. For the entire letter, see http://www.votenader.org/media/2008/11/03

/lettertoobama/ (accessed May 21, 2014).
31. See www.atfl.org (accessed May 21, 2014).
32. 2010 US population census, http://www.census.gov/2010census/ (accessed
May 21, 2013).
33. This is an important element in the formation of Arab American organiza-
tions and feeling of solidarity between Arabs in the United States.

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Said, Edward W. (1979). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
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Websites
http://www.adc.org/
http://www.cair.com/
http://www.votenader.org/media/2008/11/03/lettertoobama/
www.atfl.org
http://www.census.gov/2010census/
http://www.patrioticapaam.org/index.html
 CHAPTER 2

A MERICAN CITIZENS OF ARABIC-

SPEAKING STOCK: THE INSTITUTE
OF A RAB A MERICAN A FFAIRS AND
QUESTIONS OF IDENTITY IN THE
DEBATE OVER PALESTINE
Denise Laszewski Jenison

Introduction
When it comes to the history of the United States and Israel, the general
understanding is that the US recognition of Israel was a foregone conclu-
sion. The pro-Zionist lobby had powerful allies, large numbers, and over-
whelming support among both the general public and politicians. Any
challenge or disagreement over that policy is largely attributed to the State
Department, often with the suggestion, if not outright accusations, that
anti-Semitism motivated such opposition. For decades, scholars mostly
ignored or dismissed the possibility of a concerted Arab American effort
to change US policy toward Palestine in the 1940s. The consensus stated
that the Arab American community was too small, too fragmented, and
too politically disinterested to have any kind of impact until the water-
shed year of 1967 (see Davidson 1999: 228; 2001: 170; Suleiman 2006: 3).
This understanding, however, is being questioned as historians begin to
take a closer look at the early political activities of the Arab immigrant
community in the United States. The evidence shows that, in fact, Arab
Americans were politically active prior to 1967, particularly when it came
to the debate over Palestine. By the end of World War II, the United States
played a dominant role in determining the future of Palestine and, as the
Arab and Jewish residents of Palestine struggled for control of the terri-
tory while the British prepared to withdraw, Zionist and Arab organiza-
tions battled to sway American public opinion.
This chapter contributes to this revision by presenting a case study of
Arab American efforts to convince their fellow Americans to support
the Arab position in the debate over Palestine following World War II.
It focuses on the Institute of Arab American Affairs, an organization
36 Denise Laszewski Jenison

created in 1944 to serve as a medium of good will and mutual under-

standing between the United States of America and the Arabic-speaking
countries and peoples everywhere (Constitution 1945: 1). One of the
challenges the institute faced was the lack of awareness and understand-
ing the American public had regarding the Middle East and the Arab
people. Though forced to disband in 1950 due to a lack of funds, the
institute was quite active during its tenure, publishing pamphlets and
newsletters, sending members to give speeches and testify in various
hearings about the Palestine question, and writing to politicians at all
levels in an effort to draw attention to the Arab side of the story. While
the institute never matched the numbers of the pro-Zionist side, it did
attract certain big names, such as Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., grandson of
former president Theodore Roosevelt and one of the countrys leading
Arabists, and Virginia Gildersleeve, dean of Barnard College (Wilford
2013).1 As the question of Palestine moved to the forefront of American
political debates following World War II, the institute took on the mul-
tifaceted challenge of identifying what it meant to be an American of
Arab descent, attempting to get others to join in that identification
and countering decades of outside identification, all while working to
promote the creation of an independent Arab Palestine. An examina-
tion of the institutes public offerings demonstrates an ongoing effort to
address issues of identity in terms of race, religion, and Americanness; to
combat the perception that Arabs were an exotic and foreign group, the
institute sought to emphasize the similarities between the two cultures.
This meant a continuation of the ongoing debate about the racial clas-
sification of Arabs (were they white or members of the Asiatic race?), an
attempt to demystify Islam and highlight Arab Christianity, and por-
traying the Arabs as inheritors of the American tradition brought to the
Middle East by American missionaries while simultaneously encourag-
ing Americans to live up to their own identity as the defenders of justice
and democracy.
The concept of identity, particularly as a category of analysis, has come
under increased scrutiny over the years, as it is continually reinterpreted
and forced into new contortions to cover an ever-increasing definition.
Eventually, it gets to the point where identity means everything and
nothing, thus losing its usefulness. In their article Beyond Identity,
Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper (2000) deconstruct the issues
inherent in using identity as a category of analysis and, even more help-
fully, propose alternative methods. Of particular use for this study is the
idea of identification, which focuses on how individuals or groups iden-
tify themselves or others in a particular situation. Unlike identity, which
suggests a core constant, identification suggests a more active process,
requiring both actors who are participating in the identifying as well as
acknowledging the particular context in which that action takes place (see
Brubaker and Cooper 2000; Cooper 2005).
 American Citizens of Arab-Speaking Stock 37

Race
When it came to the debate over Palestine and the efforts of Arab
Americans to express their identity for public consumption, the creation
of that identity drew from two main sources: the efforts of Arab American
organizations to establish an identity for themselves and the preexisting
identity the majority white Protestant American public held regarding the
Holy Land in particular and the Arab world in general. As World War II
drew to a close, it was obvious to those who supported an Arab Palestine
that Zionists and their supporters already had a clear advantage in shaping
the debate. Arab supporters had to contend with a long legacy of American
interactions with the idea of Palestine that came not from firsthand experi-
ences, but rather from books like the Bible or The Thousand and One Nights.
Throughout the nineteenth century, travelogues also played a significant
role in shaping American attitudes toward the Middle East (Amanat and
Bernhardsson 2007; Nance 2009).
These books, often written by missionaries to the region, cultivated an
image of the Holy Land as a backward, exotic locale, left to waste under
the control of Muslim Arabs; a place where Christian pilgrims could
forge a deeper connection with the Bible, but where they could also be
fooled and swindled by the array of false shrines; a land, in essence, that
called out for aid in development and rehabilitation. Nineteenth-century
travelogues thus played an important role in setting a foundation for
twentieth-century debates over Palestine by promoting negative stereo-
types of Arabs (predominately as underdeveloped, dishonest, lazy, dirty,
diseased, and followers of a strange and exotic religion) while encourag-
ing the association of Palestine with literal readings of the Bible, further
cementing the idea of Palestine as a home for the Jewish people. In gen-
eral, the travelogues of this period meshed nicely with later Zionist argu-
ments about the need for Jewish control in Palestine, while creating an
almost insurmountable challenge for the institute in its attempts to pres-
ent a more realistic view of the Arab people.
The formation of the Institute of Arab American Affairs owed much
to the influx of Arab immigration in the late nineteenth century and the
subsequent formation of Arab political and social groups. Arab immigra-
tion is often divided into two waves, the first dating from 1870 to World
War II and the second beginning after the war and continuing through the
present. While the postWorld War II immigrants varied greatly in terms
of home country and were predominately Muslim, Christians from the
Greater Syria region overwhelmingly made up the first wave. World fairs
and national expositions (such as the American Centennial Exposition of
1876 in Philadelphia) served as an introduction to the United States for
many Arabs, who used these opportunities to sell their goods and then
encouraged their fellow countrymen to come and do the same. Arab
immigrants often came to the United States, like so many others, in search
38 Denise Laszewski Jenison

of wealth and hoped to return home eventually. Michael Suleiman (1999)

refers to this as the sojourner mentality, identifying oneself as in, but
not part of, American society(Khalaf 1987: 1; Suleiman 1999: 14; Benson
and Kayal 2002). Many such immigrants found work as peddlers, tap-
ping into existing networks of earlier Syrian immigrants and faring well
for themselves. By the turn of the twentieth century, and especially after
World War I made travel between the United States and Ottoman ter-
ritory incredibly difficult, a transition was underway from the sojourner
mentality to a desire for permanent citizenship.
At the same time, however, rising nativism in the United States cre-
ated new obstacles for Arab immigrants who sought to become natural-
ized citizens. Since the early days of the United States, naturalization was
reserved for whites; nothing, however, specified what constituted white-
ness. Judges ruling on the issue determined whiteness based on a range
of factors including skin color, facial features, national origin, language,
culture, ancestry, the speculation of scientists, popular opinion, or some
combination of these factors (Lopez 2006: 2).
While some cases were generally more direct, especially regarding the
Chinese, immigrants from the Middle East posed a more complex prob-
lem. In 1899, the Bureau of Immigration initially identified Syrians and
Palestinians as Caucasians, but by 1906 Arabs were classified as Asiatics
and thus ineligible for naturalization (Naff 1993: 252). The most high-
profile case to deal with the issue was the naturalization of George Dow,
a Syrian immigrant living in Charleston, South Carolina. Dows applica-
tion first appeared before Judge Henry Smith in February 1914 who ruled
that Dows skin was darker than the usual person of European descent,
making him ineligible for naturalization. The Arab immigrant commu-
nity responded diligently to raise awareness and money for an appeal,
which went before the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals the following year.
The appeals court overturned Smiths decision, ruling that physically
the modern Syrians are of mixed Syrian, Arabian, and even Jewish blood.
They belong to the Semitic branch of the Caucasian race, thus widely dif-
fering from their rulers, the Turks, who are in origin Mongolian (ibid:
256257). The racial standing of Arabs appeared settled, at least in the eyes
of the law.
The American public, however, did not generally share the courts per-
ception; rather they often identified the Arabs with American Indians.
This identity was further cemented with the appearance of Arab horse-
men in Buffalo Bills Wild West show next to the 1893 Columbian
Exposition in Chicago as part of the Congress of Rough Riders. While
Arabs in these roles were often romanticized as heroic villains, making a
noble but doomed stand against European colonialism, many Americans
quickly drew comparisons between the nomadic Bedouins and their own
countrys experience with American Indians, who were also represented
in these shows (Nance 2009: 112, 115, 118; Kollin 2010: 57). This equation
of the two groups was quite problematic for Arabs. In the shows, Arab
 American Citizens of Arab-Speaking Stock 39

Bedouin riders attacked caravans as they made their way through the
deserts, much like the attacks of Indians on the covered wagons. As the
nineteenth century drew to a close, there was a rising sense of romanti-
cism about the vanishing Indian, especially on the East Coast. Similarly,
a growing romanticism was attached to the Bedouina nomadic desert
rider, free from the tyranny of civilized, modern life. Yet at the end of the
day, both Indian and Bedouin would have to make room for modernity
(Prucha 1986). Additionally, if the Arabs were the equivalent of American
Indians, an argument could be made that those who struggled against
them to settle and develop the land must be a new incarnation of American
pioneers.
The Jewish experience in Palestine indeed played strongly on American
conceptions of their own pioneer days. The Jews were seen as taming a
wild frontier, bringing Western values and knowledge to a land long left
to waste. In his popular 1944 pro-Zionist book, Palestine, Land of Promise,
Lowdermilk (1944) declared the colonization of Palestine was like that
of the United States, filled with hardships and dangers in both cases.
Like the American pioneers, those hardships and dangers included facing
a preexisting population determined to hold on to their land. This equiva-
lence was so prevalent that a British member of the 1946 Anglo-American
Committee of Inquiry noted with frustration that the American will
give the Jewish settler in Palestine the benefit of the doubt, and regard
the Arab as the aboriginal who must go down before the march of prog-
ress. After all, he only achieved his own freedom by a war of independence
against George III and if the Jew in Palestine comes into conflict with
George IIIs successors in colonial administration he is bound to win an
instinctive American sympathy (Crossman 1947; Suleiman 1988; Mart
1996). Arab supporters attempted to reframe the debate by encouraging
Americans to see the Arabs as the natural inheritors of the spirit of 1776,
reminding the American public that they too were a colonized people,
fighting the British for their independence. Such a reversal of the com-
mon perception, however, was unlikely and the view of the Arab-as-Indian
remained strong (Palestine Speaks).
Just as the Arab community in the United States rallied to challenge
their legal classification as Asiatics, so too did the institute opt to sepa-
rate themselves from the American Indian stereotype. While still facing a
significant battle, fighting a specific categorization was much more man-
ageable than attempting to overturn centuries of American racial hier-
archical thought. An article written by the institutes executive director,
Totah (1937), serves as a fitting example of how the institute handled the
Indian question. Noting that it was common to see the Arabs equated
with American Indians or the Australian native, Totah encouraged any-
one making such a mistake to review history and recall what the Arab
has contributed to medicine, science, mathematics and general culture,
for such a people cannot be put in the class with primitive natives
(ibid). This reference to a proud and progressive Arab/Islamic culture and
40 Denise Laszewski Jenison

history returned again and again throughout the institutes publications.

In the 1946 pamphlet, Arab Progress in Palestine, the institute provided an
overview of the many economic and cultural developments happening in
Palestine. First came the orange industry: the institute made sure to point
out that Arabs introduced the fruit to Europe, just as they did Arabic
numerals. Though a seemingly offhanded remark, the mention of Arabic
numerals was a pointed one, reminding readers of Arab contributions to
civilization long before the rise of Europe (Institute of Arab American
Affairs 1946: 4).
Despite the important contributions Arabs made to civilization, the
institute understood that labels were important. One of the first ques-
tions members had to answer was how to refer to themselves and their
community. Minutes from early meetings hint at the level of debate over
the issue, as members pondered the pros and cons of Arabs or Arabic-
speaking when referencing [their] people. Dr. Hitti, the first and tem-
porary executive director, strongly objected to the use of the term Arabs,
though without specifying why. After that, however, the institutes litera-
ture overwhelmingly used the terms Arabic-speaking or Americans of
Arabic-speaking stock (Fortnightly 1945; Minutes 1945).
There are several reasons why the institute may have chosen to use the
phrase Arabic-speaking rather than Arab. First, Arabic-speaking,
and especially Americans of Arabic-speaking stock, suggested that the
Arab aspect of the groups identity was secondary and a feature of lan-
guage rather than race or ethnicity. This point was emphasized in the
institutes pamphlet, Introducing the Arabs to Americans. The opening page
reiterated the idea that the Arabs belong to the Caucasian branch of the
human family and, like the Jewish people, were Semites, connected to
the ancient Hebrews, Phoenicians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. Arab, in
this view, was not a racial category, but simply a linguistic characteriza-
tion. As a result, Arabic-speaking Americans suggested an assimilated
group of the same racial category that happened to retain another lan-
guage, while simply using the term Arab would only continue to high-
light the otherness of the organization and its members (Totah 1948).
This serves as another example of how members engaged in the process
of identification. The institutes publications specifically tailored the
idea of Arab to align with identities to which Americans may have been
more receptive.
Second, such terminology may have helped differentiate the institute
and its American status from the Arab Office in Washington, DC. The
Arab Office, which opened in July 1945, was the outgrowth of a meeting
of Arab governments looking to create a lobbying group in the United
States to combat Zionist propaganda. Unlike the institute, the Arab
Office was clearly a foreign organization, registered under the Foreign
Agents Registration Act. There was already an awareness of the potential
problems from such a working relationship with a foreign government
 American Citizens of Arab-Speaking Stock 41

organization; contacts at the State Department advised the institute

to keep such work under cover while also warning that the Office of
Strategic Services had an informer in the institute who was reporting on
their every move (Miller 2004: 307). While the institutes documents do
not refer to the issue of informants, the group did face periodic accusa-
tions from opponents of being a foreign propaganda group and was often
confused with the Arab Office. The more the institute could emphasize
its American roots, the better it would be. When calling for subscriptions
and memberships at the end of the Bulletin, the institute framed itself
as a free democratic organization speaking in the name of American
democracy (The Bulletin 1945c: 8, 1946: 8). In his letters to government
officials such as President Harry S. Truman or Secretary of State George
Marshall, Totah opened by emphasizing that institute leaders critiqued
US positions on Palestine as American citizens (Letter from Khalil
Totah 1945 and 1947). Likewise, when Zionists and their supporters chal-
lenged the institute or Totah himself, he nearly always situated his posi-
tion as an American citizen. For example, during a radio debate on the
question of Palestine, panelists repeatedly dismissed the Arab world as
lacking in democracy and progress. Totah replied by first pointing out
developments in the Arab world and finished with a critique of American
racial standards, stating that the United States should let the Arabs look
after their own democracy and let us hereI speak as an American citi-
zenlook after our own democracy in Georgia, for example (How Can
Peace 1946: 15). This once again demonstrates Totahs desire to identify
as an American and push others to recognize him as such. The statement
creates an us versus them binary, but the us with whom Totah identi-
fies was not the country of his birth, but the country of his choicethe
United States.
Third, the terminology of Arabic-speaking Americans reflected the
fact that there was no overarching consensus of what being Arab in
America meant. Statistics about the number of Arab immigrants had long
been distorted thanks to immigration officials inability or unwillingness
to properly identify the ethnicity of arrivals from the Near East; Turk,
Arab, and Syrian were all used interchangeably. Organizations formed
around World War I faced growing battles between those who wanted to
differentiate Syrian and Lebanese identity, rather than remaining under
the umbrella of Syrian/Greater Syria. Perhaps more importantly, con-
sideration had to be given to how Americans would interpret the word
Arab. Upon hearing it, would they imagine a dynamic people with a long
history of contributing to civilization, a mix of Christians and Muslims
who praised the work of American missionaries and saw themselves as
the inheritors of American ideals in the Middle East, marching forward
on the path to progress? Or would they simply picture a Bedouin nomad
riding through the Arab desert as a relic of a bygone era, or a follower of a
strange and exotic religion to which no American could relate?
42 Denise Laszewski Jenison

Religion
The issue of religion, like that of race, posed potential roadblocks for the
institutes hope of building a stronger bond with the general American
public, as most Americans viewed Islam negatively and with great suspi-
cion. American missionaries to the Middle East in the nineteenth century
wrote home that the Arabs were of a much higher racial standing than
other groups, specifically the Hawaiians and Africans; Islam, in their
view, however, kept the Arabs from progressing any farther. By the twen-
tieth century, this perception of Islam as completely dominating the lives
of the Arab people and being an enemy of modernization still held sway
(Makdisi 2010; Jacobs 2011).
Like many of the first wave immigrants and their descendants, the mem-
bers of the institute were largely Christian. The institutes Christian ties
were reflected in its monthly bulletin, which recognized Christian holi-
days (wishing readers a Merry Christmas or Happy Easter, for instance)
while omitting Muslim ones. Additionally, Khalil Totah, the institutes
long-serving executive director and a Quaker from Ramallah who served
as principal at the Friends Boy School in that city during the 1930s, often
praised the work of American missionaries in helping cement ties between
Arabs and Americans; articles predicted that American Christians would
fully support the Arab perspective on Palestine once they were able to
shake off the blinders of Zionist propaganda. (See, for example, Shibil
1946 and Totah 1948.)
Even so, it was clear that in order to have a chance at connecting with
the American public, the institute had to address the issues and stereo-
types surrounding Islam.
The primary strategy, when examining the institutes publications, was
to place Islam in the same religious tradition as Christianity and Judaism,
with an emphasis on how both Muslims and Christians in Palestine were
under threat from the Zionist project. It was evident that Islam played a
significant role in Arab life, and the institute did not shy away from that.
In his pamphlet, Introducing the Arabs to Americans, Totah repeated the idea
that to many Muslims, Islam meant more than Christianity does to pres-
ent-day Americans in terms of informing daily life. To further illustrate
this fact, he took a quote from the New Testament, writing, St. Pauls
words in whom we live and move and have our being are a good illustration
of the place of God and religion in the minds of Moslems. He concluded
his pamphlet by drawing connections between American ideals and Islam,
writing that to perhaps a greater extent than any other people, the Arabs
share with Americans a passionate love of freedom. They are completely
democratic; according to the Koran [sic], all men are absolutely equal, and
none can suffer discrimination (Totah 1948: 11, 3435). There are several
ways in which Totahs words subtly challenged stereotypes of Islam. First,
the reference to Christianitys role to present-day Americans suggested
that present-day Muslims shared a religious devotion on par with previous
 American Citizens of Arab-Speaking Stock 43

American generations. Instead of creating an image of fanatics, it proposed

a shared kinship with devoted Christian pilgrims coming to America and
building their city on the hill. Second, and more directly, Totahs use of
the New Testament to explain Muslim religious devotion worked to place
Islam in the family of the Abrahamic faiths. Third, by connecting the
Quran and equal rights, Totah flipped the traditional view of Islam as
an impediment to democracy to portraying Islam as a template for dem-
ocratic rule and protection of minority rights. Following the discussion
of Islam in the life of Arabs, Totah goes on to note the large number of
Christian Arabs living in Palestine, building on previous speeches and
publications by institute members. In testimony to Congress, Dr. Philip
K. Hitti explained the significance of Palestine in the Islamic faith, as the
third holy city and also the first direction toward which Muslims faced
when praying before turning to Mecca. He concluded by noting that the
land was even more sacred to the Christians, which composed a signifi-
cant minority in Palestine, with a larger population at that time than the
Jews (Testimony 1945: 12). These points together served to downplay
the sense of foreignness of Islam and Arabs, while emphasizing a closer
relationship between Christian Americans and Christian Arabs.
Another concern when it came to religion was challenging the strong
connections many Americans made between the current debate over
Palestine and the Bible stories that they learned as children in Sunday
school. Those stories seemed to clearly mark the Jews as the Chosen
People and Palestine as their promised land. The Arabs did not appear in
these stories and thus were easily dismissed as late arrivals or usurpers of
the region. It was then up to the institute and its supporters to bring the
Arabs back into the story. Part of this strategy appeared in the debate over
race, as mentioned earlier. By designating Arabness as being related to
language and culture, not a specific ethnicity or race, the institute could
ascribe the ancestry of the current inhabitants to a variety of ancient peo-
ples who appeared in the Bible, such as the Assyrians, the Babylonians,
and even the ancient Hebrews themselves. More often than not, however,
it was the Canaanites to whom the institute compared modern Arabs. The
institutes manifesto reinforced this idea, describing the so-called Arabs
of Palestine as the descendants of the early native stock which inhabited
the land of Canaan before the advent of Joshua, or even of Abraham. Once
again, it was the adoption of the Arabic language, not any change in the eth-
nic makeup of the people, which brought the designation of Arab (Totah
ibid). This connection to the Canaanites was present among supporters of
an Arab Palestine prior to the institutes founding. In February 1944, the
US House of Representatives held hearings regarding a proposed resolu-
tion that would commit the United States to ending the restrictive quotas
on Jewish immigration into Palestine in order to provide a full opportu-
nity for colonization, so that the Jewish people may ultimately reconsti-
tute Palestine as a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth. This was a
significant departure from the language of the Balfour Declaration, which
44 Denise Laszewski Jenison

only allowed for a national home, generating great concern among Arab
Americans, some of whom Congress invited to testify. Dr. Hitti presented
the Arab case and, in a style befitting of a renowned scholar, began his tes-
timony by giving the committee a brief lesson in Arab Palestines history,
the exotic nature of the Zionist program, and the promises made to the
Arabs, and oppressed people generally, by the League of Nations, Wilsons
Fourteen Points, and the Atlantic Charter. His focus, however, quickly
became religion. The fifty million Arabs in Palestine, he explained, were
the descendants of the Canaanites who lived in Palestine long before the
Hebrews entered [it] under Joshua. By invoking a Biblical story that would
be instantly recognizable to a Christian audience, Hitti not only connected
the Arabs to the Bible but also showed that they were a solid presence
in Palestine, unlike the ancient Hebrews who appeared and disappeared
from the landscape throughout history (Testimony 1945: 12). The reso-
lution ended up being shelved, not as result of the arguments put forth by
Hitti, but rather due to pressure from the War Department, which feared
it could have a negative impact on the war effort. This line of reasoning,
however, maintained its place in the institutes public messages.
While this emphasis on the presence of Arabs in the Old Testament
context continued, the Zionist side sought to limit its importance. This is
seen in a pair of articles the New Leader ran in 1946. It invited Totah and
M. Z. Frank, a Zionist supporter, to each write an article for their respec-
tive side in the Palestine debate. In his, Totah brought up the biblical refer-
ences as one part of his argument. In his rebutting article, Frank remarked
that Totahs references to biblical history were charming, but the Jews
have long outgrown the concept of Joshua. Has Mr. Totah? (Frank 1946:
9). Since the connections between biblical prophecies concerning Palestine
and the Jews were so deeply ingrained in many Americans minds (includ-
ing President Harry S. Truman), there was little need for Zionist support-
ers to actively promote the religious narrative. For the institute and other
supporters of an Arab Palestine, however, the argument still needed to be
made. Clearly, though, the issue of Palestine was not going to be decided
on the basis of religion alone.

American Exceptionalism
American ideals of justice and democracy and, more importantly,
Americans identity of themselves as exceptionally devoted to the defense
of those ideals, proved an important battleground for the institute. While
issues of race and religion served as significant ways to identify themselves
more closely with the American majority, appeals to the United States to
uphold its values by supporting an Arab Palestine were a bedrock of the
institutes public message. Throughout the first few years of the institutes
existence the language of its publications and members speeches gener-
ally fell into a style I label the friendly educator. The institute often took
the position that the reason Americans sided with the Zionist argument
 American Citizens of Arab-Speaking Stock 45

was simply due to a lack of knowledge and a misplaced loyalty to Bible

stories learned in Sunday school. If the Arabs could properly present their
side, the reasoning went, Americans would be compelled by their sense of
fairness and commitment to democracy and national self-determination
to support an independent Arab-controlled Palestine. In other words, the
friendly educator sought to remind Americans of their idealized identity
and encouraged them to consider whether their actions lived up to their
beliefs. It was the members unique position of being both American and
of Arabic-speaking stock that allowed the institute to fulfill its role as a
bridge between the two worlds, challenging the United States to live up to
its identity as defender of justice and democracy when it came to Palestine.
For example, the first major publication of the institute, its Manifesto
distributed to delegates gathered at the United Nations Conference in San
Francisco in 1945, opened and closed with quotes from two American doc-
uments: Woodrow Wilsons Fourteen Points and the Atlantic Charter,
with both selections emphasizing US commitments to national self-
determination.
While critical of the US governments Zionist-friendly policy toward
Palestine, the friendly educator language tempered those critiques with
praise for American ideals or the good, but ultimately misplaced, inten-
tions of policy makers. The first policy recommendation the institute
challenged were calls for the British to remove restrictions on Jewish
immigration to Palestine. On July 4, 1945, 37 governors approved a peti-
tion to Truman requesting mass Jewish immigration to Palestine and the
transformation of that country into a Jewish commonwealth. The insti-
tute responded not with outright condemnation, but by reminding the gov-
ernors that such an action was contrary to the moral principles for which
our Government has consistently stood. It would result in the complete
domination of the majority population and possibly their eventual evic-
tion by a minority, outside group. When President Truman issued a call
for more Jewish immigration into Palestine in late 1945, the institute first
commended his desire to solve the humanitarian problem facing Jewish
survivors of the Holocaust. While his heart was in the right place, how-
ever, the institute wanted Truman to recognize that such a policy would
completely contradict American values of justice and democracy. The
Zionists, the institute explained in a telegram to Truman, would not allow
democracy until they constituted the majority. Such a position meant cre-
ating a government without the consent of the governed, an affront to
the principles upon which the United States was built (The Bulletin 1945a:
78, 1945b: 78; Letter to Harry Truman). Though ultimately unsuccess-
ful, the purpose of the friendly educator language was to show Americans
an ideal version of themselves and ask them how their attitudes and poli-
cies toward Palestine compared to that ideal.
Reactions to such educational attempts were mixed, at best. The insti-
tute printed excerpts of five replies received from the governors, none of
which showed a road to Damascus moment. Two (the governors of Florida
46 Denise Laszewski Jenison

and Georgia) simply stated that they did not concur in the petition to
Truman. The other three (governors of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and
Indiana) acknowledged the merit and the general lack of understand-
ing of the Arab position. While these responses validated the institutes
contention that Americans needed to be educated about Palestine and
the Arab cause, they did not necessarily prove that the recipients of such
knowledge underwent some kind of conversion. The institute publicized
any instance of American politicians, religious leaders, news organizations,
or general citizens promoting the Arab side. The fact that none of these
governors were mentioned again, and that the responses published were
noncommittal, suggests that the majority remained allied to the Zionist
cause. As for Truman, he never responded to any of the institutes tele-
grams, letters, or other outreach attempts. The best the institute got was
State Department acknowledgment that its messages had been received
(The Bulletin 1945a: 8).
Following these disappointing forays into the political debate over
Palestine, the November issue of The Bulletin triumphantly reported the
release of a letter from Franklin Roosevelt to King Ibn Saud of Saudi
Arabia. The letter, dated April 5, 1945, assured Ibn Saud that Roosevelt
would take no action . . . which might prove hostile to the Arab world. This
letter, the institute jubilantly argued, was added proof of the fundamental
rightness of the Arab cause and vindicated the idea that once Americans
became aware of the facts about Palestine, there can be but one attitude
possible for a great democrat and a great American as the late President
Roosevelt: support for Arab Palestine. Roosevelts expressed sympathy
with the Zionist cause was simply incompatible with himself and with
the great American traditions, which were in line with the Arab cause.
In addition to Woodrow Wilsons Fourteen Points, this letter became a
key example of presidential assurance to the Arabs of the application of
the principles of democracy in their countries. The Arab Office also ran
a full-page ad in the New York Times after the release of Roosevelts letter.
The ad, according to the institutes coverage, not only reiterated the Arab
position, listing and refuting eight Zionist claims, but also took quotes
from the aforementioned writings of Wilson and Roosevelt, as well as
Trumans speech on Navy Day (October 27, 1945). The institute reported
that others referred to this as the first big gun of enlightening publicity
fired by the Arabs in the United States (The Bulletin 1945c: 2, 56).
When US policy then took a definitive turn toward establishing a
Jewish state, the institute reprimanded the decision in the language of a
betrayal. This was particularly obvious in the institutes response to the
passage of the UN Partition Plan on November 29, 1947. The vote for par-
tition sealed the doom of the deeply-rooted friendship between the Arab
world and the United States . . . Here was a friendshipbuilt up slowly and
solidly over more than a century of time by non-imperialistically minded
Americanswrecked within the span of half a dozen minutes. The bitter-
ness, anger, and sense of betrayal were palpable throughout the December
 American Citizens of Arab-Speaking Stock 47

issue of The Bulletin, though directed specifically at one group: vote-

minded American politicians. The opening article juxtaposed images of
selfless American citizens who went to the Middle East as unselfish, ide-
alistically minded missionaries and teachers, noble expounders of that
great Christian principle of doing unto others as you would have others
do unto you, with politicians willing to sacrifice those ideals for the sake
of 47 electoral votes (The Bulletin 1947: 12).2 The institute did not want to
wholly condemn the United States, so it tried to shame politicians while
still upholding a virtuous image of real Americans.
While holding up this idealized American identity, the institute also
worked hard to establish the Arabs, not Zionist Jews, as the true inheritors
of American-style democracy. Again and again, the institutes public mes-
sages questioned why, if the Jews were supposed to be bringing democracy
to Palestine, it had to wait until the Jews were the majority? The insti-
tute often called for an immediate democratic vote for the inhabitants of
Palestine, Jewish and Arab alike, to determine what the future of Palestine
should be, rather than leave it up to foreign powers to decide (see Totah
1946). Though it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of any particu-
lar line of argument, Totahs appearance on a radio debate, Town Meeting,
gives a sense of both the opposition the institute faced as well as the popu-
larity of the democracy argument. The debate took place on August 15,
1946 and was broadcast across the nation. Four speakers were present:
Dr. James G. McDonald, an American who served on the Anglo-American
Committee of Inquiry in 1946,3 Dr. James C. Heller, the vice president
of the Zionist Organization of America, Mr. Philip Jordan, the first sec-
retary of the British Embassy, and Dr. Totah, representing the institute.
The transcript of the debate makes clear that the crowd was largely recep-
tive to the Zionist side, applauding often during McDonald and Hellers
speeches, with no applause for either Totah or Jordan during their opening
remarks. Even the Speakers Column insert in the published transcript
implied a pro-Zionist sympathy: both McDonald and Hellers biographies
contained several paragraphs each, describing the mens education, jobs,
and activities. Totah and Jordan, meanwhile, received one sentence apiece;
Totah was listed simply as executive director of the Institute of Arab
American Affairs and Jordan was described as formerly chief foreign cor-
respondent and war correspondent for the London News-Chronicle, Philip
Jordan is a First Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C.
When Totah questioned whether Jewish refugees in Europe should come
to the United States, the audience shouted, then cheered at McDonalds
response that they all wanted to go to Palestine. Mail received after the
debate aired showed that those who cared to write strongly disagreed with
Totahs arguments and the Arab position in general. But during the audi-
ence question portion of the debate, Totahs response to a query about cre-
ating a joint Arab-Jewish committee to settle the problem was met with
applause. He answered that the issue of Palestine should be settled by
its own people, both Arabs and Jews, now in Palestine . . . Thats the only
48 Denise Laszewski Jenison

democratic way. Let the Jews and Arabs in one house, duly elected, vote on
this explosive issue of immigration and all the other issues. Its their busi-
ness and nobody elses (How Can Peace 1946). While far from conclusive
about the wider public reception of the institutes message, this provides
a glimpse into the environment in which the institute operated and sug-
gests that the idea of leaving the Jews and Arabs to settle the problem on
their own through democratic means had the potential to gain public sup-
port. Despite this promising moment, however, the institute was unable to
break through the dominating narrative that it was the Jews of European
descent who would bring democracy to Palestine.

Conclusion
Throughout its tenure, the institute actively constructed an identity for
Arabs that would hopefully create closer ties between Arabs and Americans
and increase support for an independent Arab Palestine. The emphasis
on language as the defining characteristic of being Arab allowed Arab
Americans to present themselves as members of the same racial group as
the majority of Americans, while also suggesting a common heritage with
ancient peoples connected to the Holy Land. This dovetailed nicely with
a similar effort to reframe the dominant religious narrative that the Jews
had lived long in Palestine while the Arabs were recent arrivals with no
real historical claim to the land. By linking the current Arab inhabitants
with the ancient Canaanites, the institute could tap into the same bibli-
cal stories American Christians used to fill in their understanding of the
Holy Land and chip away at the Zionist hold over it. At the same time,
the institute worked to place Islam itself in the same family as Judaism
and Christianity, challenging the idea that Islam was a foreign religion to
which no American could relate and that stood in the way of progress and
democracy. Finally, the institute strove to reinforce Americans own iden-
tity of the United States as the defenders of liberty, justice, and democ-
racy, using that identity to challenge US policy in the region; if Americans
could come to see the Arabs in Palestine as the underdogs, fighting for
independence and a democratic solution, Americans would be driven to
live up to their identity to support the Arab position.
In the end, however, the institute was unable to alter the perceptions
most Americans had regarding the situation in Palestine. The struggle was
not simply about the facts surrounding the debate over Palestine, but also
about core issues of identity. While the institute attempted to portray the
Arabs and the Americans as closely linked, the American population iden-
tified more strongly with the Zionist position. Americans continued to per-
ceive the Arabs as backward, foreign, and in need of outside assistance to
establish a working modern democracy, something that only the Zionists
could achieve. Even so, the institute remained a proponent of the United
States, challenging Americans to live up to their exceptional ideals, values,
 American Citizens of Arab-Speaking Stock 49

and virtues. The failure to create an independent Arab Palestine hurt the
members of the institute not simply as Arabs, but also as Americans.

Notes
1. Roosevelt and Gildersleeve also worked together on a different pro-Arab
lobby group, the Committee for Justice and Peace in the Holy Land, cre-
ated in 1948, which served as the forerunner to the American Friends of the
Middle East, which had ties to the CIA. For more on this topic, see Hugh
Wilford, Americas Great Game: The CIAs Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the
Modern Middle East (New York: Basic Books, 2013).
2. This is not the first time the Golden Rule appears in The Bulletin.
3. Convened in December 1945, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry
was a joint effort by the United States and Great Britain to discuss the issue
of Jewish immigration into Palestine and find a solution for the Displaced
Persons problem in Europe.

References
Archives
Khalil Totah Archives. Berkeley, CA.
Philip Hitti Papers. Immigration History Research Center, University of
Minnesota.
National Archives at College Park. College Park, MD.

Books and Articles

Abu-Laban, Baha, and Michael W. Suleiman, eds. (1989). Arab Americans:
Continuity and Change. Belmont: Association of Arab-American University
Graduates.
Amanat, Abbas, and Magnus T. Bernhardsson, eds. (2007). U.S.-Middle East
Historical Encounters: A Critical Survey. Gainesville: University Press of
Florida.
Bawardi, Hani (2014). The Making of Arab Americans: From Syrian Nationalism to
U.S. Citizenship. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Benson, Kathleen, and Philip M. Kayal, eds. (2002). A Community of Many Worlds:
Arab Americans in New York City. New York: Museum of the City of New York/
Syracuse University Press.
Brubaker, Roger, and Frederick Cooper (2000). Beyond Identity. Theory and
Society 29: 147.
The Bulletin. Vol. 1, no. 2. August 15, 1945a.
The Bulletin. Vol. 1, no. 3. September 15, 1945b.
The Bulletin. Vol. 1, no. 5. November 15, 1945c.
The Bulletin. Vol. 1, no. 10. April 15, 1946.
The Bulletin. Vol. 3, no. 6. December 15, 1947.
Constitution of the Institute of Arab American Affairs. New York: Institute of
Arab American Affairs, 1945.
50 Denise Laszewski Jenison

Cooper, Frederick (2005). Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History.

Berkeley: University of California Press.
Crossman, Richard (1947). Palestine Mandate: A Personal Record. New York:
Harper.
Davidson, Lawrence (2001). Americas Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from
Balfour to Israeli Statehood. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.
Davidson, Lawrence (1999). Debating Palestine: Arab-American Challenges
to Zionism 19171932. In Arabs in America: Building a New Future, edited by
Michael, W. Suleiman. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1999,
228229.
Dippie, Brian W. (1991). The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian
Policy. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Fortnightly Meeting of the Office Staff, Aug. 9, 1945. Khalil Totah Archives.
Frank, M. Z. (1946). A Nation in Exilethe Case for Zionism. The New Leader,
January 19, 1946, 9.
Hooglund, Eric J., ed. (1987). Crossing the Waters: Arabic-Speaking Immigrants to the
United States before 1940. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
How Can Peace Be Brought to Palestine? Town Meeting: Bulletin of Americas
Town Meeting of the Air, American Broadcast Co. Vol. 12, no. 16. New York:
August 15, 1946. Khalil Totah Archives.
Institute of Arab American Affairs (1946). Arab Progress in Palestine. New York:
Institute of Arab American Affairs.
Institute of Arab American Affairs (1945). Papers on Palestine: A Collection of
Statements, Articles and Letters Dealing with the Palestine Problem. New York:
Institute of Arab American Affairs.
Institute of Arab American Affairs (1945). The Manifesto of the Institute of Arab
American Affairs on Palestine. New York: Institute of Arab American Affairs.
Jacobs, Matthew F. (2011). Imagining the Middle East: The Building of an American
Foreign Policy, 19181967. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Khalaf, Samir (1987). The Background and Causes of Lebanese/Syrian
Immigration to the United States before World War I. In Crossing the Waters:
Arabic-Speaking Immigrants to the United States before 1940, Eric J. Hooglund.
Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 127.
Kollin, Susan (2010). Remember, Youre the Good Guy: Hidalgo, American
Identity, and Histories of the Western. American Studies 51, no. 1/2: 525.
Letter from Khalil Totah to Harry S. Truman, Oct. 4, 1945. Khalil Totah
Archives.
Letter from Khalil Totah to George C. Marshall, Sept. 10, 1947. Khalil Totah
Archives.
Lopez, Ian Haney (2006). White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race. New York:
New York University Press.
Lowdermilk, Walter (1944). Palestine, Land of Promise. New York: Harper.
Makdisi, Ussama (2010). Faith Misplaced: The Broken Promise of U.S-Arab Relations
18202001. New York: Public Affairs.
Mart, Michelle (1996). Tough Guys and American Cold War Policy: Images of
Israel, 19481960. Diplomatic History 20, no. 3: 357380.
Miller, Rory (2004). More Sinned against Than Sinning? The Case of the Arab
Office, Washington, 19451948. Diplomacy and Statecraft 15: 303325.
Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting, Aug. 2, 1945. Khalil Totah
Archives.
 American Citizens of Arab-Speaking Stock 51

Naff, Alixa (1993). Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
Nance, Susan (2009). How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790
1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Palestine Speaks. Petition, undated, n. p., Khalil Totah Archives.
Prucha, Francis Paul (1986). The Great Father: The United States Government and the
American Indians. Abridged edition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Shibil, Jabir (1946). The Palestine Reality. New York: Institute of Arab American
Affairs.
Suleiman, Michael W. (2006). American Arabs and Political Participation:
Proceedings of a Conference Sponsored by the Division of United States
Studies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Washington,
DC.
Suleiman, Michael W., ed. (1999). Arabs in America: Building a New Future.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press: 228229.
Suleiman, Michael W. (1988). The Arabs in the Mind of America. Brattleboro:
Amana Books.
Testimony of Professor Philip K. Hitti before the Committee on Foreign
Affairs, House of Representatives. (1945). In Papers on Palestine: A Collection of
Statements, Articles and Letters Dealing with the Palestine Problem. New York, NY:
Institute of Arab American Affairs.
Totah, Khalil (1948). Introducing Arabs to Americans. New York: Institute of Arab
American Affairs.
Totah, Khalil (1946). Letter to the Editor. The New York Times, August 15, 1947,
n. p.
Wilford, Hugh (2013). Americas Great Game: The CIAs Secret Arabists and the
Shaping of the Modern Middle East. New York: Basic Books.
 CHAPTER 3

THE MASTER, THE PIR, AND

THEIR FOLLOWERS IN DIASPORA:
GLENS FOLLOWERS (HIZMET) AND
THE M AKTAB TARIQAT OVEYSSI
SHAHMAGHSOUDI
Sherifa Zuhur

Introduction
Muslim organizations and movements in the United States have deliber-
ated their visibility and moderated their actions to attract the faithful,
or to disable negative public attention. They have discussed the ways in
which they innovate in order to flourish in the West; whether to open to
and recruit outsiders; and how to deal with adversity, discrimination, or
outright attacks and challenges. We may perceive these debates embedded
in groups self-presentation on websites or through other means. While
serious challenges may develop from within their own organizations and
countries of origin, many hostile responses in the United States arise from
the Right-wing mobilization against Muslim organizations that intensi-
fied with the 1973 oil crisis and the November 1979 to January 1981 US
hostage crisis in Iran, and anti-immigrant sentiment of factions like the
Tea Party. Such paranoia has certainly heightened since the attack on the
Twin Towers on September 11, 2011 and the growth of violent salafi jihad-
ist organizations.
An entire subarea of counterterrorism studies focuses on the member-
ship of such groups, the psychological and doctrinal reasons for recruit-
ment, and rationale for their growth. Much less attention has been given
to the development and relative value of nonviolent Muslim movements
and organizations in the West.
Muslim movements in the United States vary greatly in their pro-
grams, goals of survival, maintenance, or growth as organizations. In
this chapter, I explore two very different movements; both are Sufi,
although only one is explicitly so. The first, the Maktab Tarigha Oveyssi
(MTO) Shahmaghsoudi Tariqat has arisen outside its homeland, Iran,
54 Sherifa Zuhur

and flourished in a quietist mode in the West, usually eschewing politi-

cal positions, except when certain disputes threatened the movements
branding. The second, the Hizmet, or Glen movement, has emerged
both in Turkey and internationally. In Turkey, both its founder, Fethullah
Glenand, and his subsidiary networks are perceived as a political chal-
lenge to the currently prominent Adalet ve Kalk nma Partisi ( Justice and
Development Party, hereafter AKP) and the current Turkish president,
and former prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Curiously, both move-
mentsthe Hizmet and the AKP are misperceived by most Americans (as
is true of the other movement covered below MTO Shahmaghsoudi), and
only their most controversial features are followed to any degree in the
media. That may be a consequence of the lack of media coverage on Iran
or Turkey except for stories with direct bearing on the binational relation-
ships with the United States, as in the 2014 efforts at rapprochement with
Iran.
MTO Shahmaghsoudi is one of the Uwaysi Sufi orders, being a Shii
branch of the Kubrawiyya Sufi order (tariqa). It is the largest Iranian
Sufi order operating outside Iran. The term Uwaysi has three different
meanings: (a) one who follows an order of Uways al-Karni, who was given
the Prophet Muhammads cloak, a sign of esoteric transmission (and since
the leaders of this group in the United States are Iranian, the name is more
often rendered Oveyssi); (b) Uwaysi transmission refers to a Sufi who has
received Sufi knowledge from a deceased master in the Uwaysi method
`alam al-arwahwithout meeting him physically, just as Uways al-Qarni
did not physically meet the Prophet Muhammad but was inspired by him
and a recipient of his nass (esoteric knowledge). This aspect of Sufism is
profoundly important, connecting the believer with a past murshid via
read or sung poetry, or other texts, and legitimizing the mystical process
of inspiration beyond the living master;1 or (c) it means those descended
from Uways al-Qarni, for example, those living in Hyderabad India (Shah
Angha 1995: 5).

All Knowledge is Humanitys Legacy, but One

Does Not Receive It until One Truly Seeks
It, Salaheddin Ali Nader Shah Angha
Two Uwaysi branches developed in the United States resulting from a
leadership dispute by the children of Shah Maghsoud Sadegh Angha who
introduced the order to the West. He was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1916, and
became the Sufi master or pir of the order in 1962. A succession of 42 mas-
ters ( pirs) from Hazrat Gharani to the present master, his son, Mawlana
Salaheddin Ali Nader Shah Angha (born in 1945 in Tehran) are listed in the
orders genealogy (Angha 1986: v). Upon Shah Maghsoud Sadegh Anghas
emigration to California in 1979, the order grew from small teaching ses-
sions meeting in homes and apartments to a multinational operation. In
 The Master, the Pir, and Their Followers 55

the United States, centers were established in New York, Chicago, Miami,
Orlando, Tampa, St. Louis, Sacramento, Denver, Salt Lake City, Columbus,
Albuquerque, Plainsboro, San Diego, Atlanta, Virginia Beach, Portland,
Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Washington, DC, Falls River, and
Virginia, plus nine centers in the San Francisco Bay area and eight centers
in Los Angeles and suburbs (Zuhur and Wilcox 2000) because a large por-
tion of the membership is located in the San Francisco and Los Angeles
areas2(Takim 2009: 45). The main activities differentiating such centers
from other mainstream Muslim mosques are (a) their observance of the
dhikr (literally, remembrance [of Allah]) ceremony, which is common to
traditional Sufi orders. As this order is an ecstatic one, music and move-
ment are part of its Sufi dhikr, as is crying and great emotion by its partici-
pants; and (b) their educational sessions, classes, and activities promoting
further education, as, for example, in Sufi meditation.
Shah Maghsoud Sadegh Anghas eldest child, Dr. (Sayyida) Nahid
Angha along with her husband, Dr. Shah Nazar Syed Ali Kianfar, a dis-
ciple of her father, founded their own International Association of Sufism.
She claimed leadership of her fathers order, establishing it as the Uwaysi
Tarighat. His son, Sayyid Nader Angha, also claimed leadership, claiming
that he was designated as the orders pir by his father in 1970.
As a result of this dispute, in 1983, the MTO Shahmaghsoudi order
expelled Nahid and her husband, and when they established their own
order, using the same traditions and trademark symbol, which dates back
6070 years, Nader Anghas order took his sisters organization to court
asking for determination over the leadership of the group and ownership
of its intellectual property and trademark, which, in turn, have commer-
cial implications. When the district court declined to rule on who was
the legitimate leader of the order, the MTO appealed and the US Court
of Appeals, Ninth District claimed it would use neutral, secular princi-
ples to determine the matter (US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, June 17,
1999).
Many divisions over leadership and schisms in Sufi movements took
place in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Iran; familial disputes over
leadership are not very uncommon (Lewisohn 1998, 1999). Similarly, in
American religious and political families, bitter disputes have taken place,
as with the heirs of Martin Luther King Junior, who sued each other
over rights to possess his Bible, Nobel prize, and other property. This
familial dispute did not cause too much damage in terms of the MTO
Shahmaghsoudi orders growth, perhaps because Iranians assumed the
son would inherit his fathers legacy, or because his sister remained active
in her similar mission to teach Sufism. Many of the MTO students (Gulens
movement also refers to students rather than devotees or adherents) are
of Persian descent; but the proportion of Americans was increasing even
20 years ago. Simultaneous translation services from/to Farsi, Turkish, and
English were provided. The centers were well tended and funded through
the membership, supplied with fresh flowers, and the members/students
56 Sherifa Zuhur

wore white clothing. The vast majority of students have college degrees,
and quite a few had graduate degrees.3
The Oveyssis cannot return to Iran where Sufis have been suppressed
since the Islamic Republic was established; clashes took place in 2006 and
2009; in 2011 two Sufi lawyers were given harsh prison sentences (Adib
2013). The order was under attack as the state had seized property of the
deceased pir. However, the organization does not expend its efforts pro-
pagandizing against the Islamic republic of Iran, although it is obvious
that its position on a variety of religious issues conflicts with that of the
state, for example, on the doctrine of vilayet-e faqih (the rule of the cleric,
by which Khomeini assumed his governance). Unlike the Gulenists, the
followers of MTO Shahmaghsoudi do not appear to be pursuing political
power within their country of origin.
The other main sources of danger to such a movement come from (a)
salafisms expansion in mainstream Islam in the United States resulting
in Sunni Muslims hostility to Sufism in rather general terms and (b) more
specifically negative and suspicious views by those Muslim organizations
related to the Muslim Brotherhood. (As Turkeys AKP may be considered
a sister or allied movement, it has curiously agreed with Glens move-
ment intent to pursue a larger role for religion in Turkey, but opposed the
Gulenists out of political competitiveness and because the AKP cannot
regulate that movements activities).
Carl Ernst (2006: 32) made many interesting observations about Western
Sufi groups primarily related to their roles in globalization; in accordance
with the times, they began to employ the Internet (and now social media);
women are very important in the organizations, and such movements are
part of a trend to make profits from religion as in the particular dispute
over familial leadership of the MTO Shahmaghsoudi. Ernst (ibid) notes
that Nahids organization gathers Sufis all over the United States in an
annual congresssomething that never occurred in the past, and certainly
not in Muslim majority countries.
That effort is not only part of a process to commodify Sufism, but also
a campaign to educate Americans; to show them what Sufism may offer as
contemporary sensibilities, and attract them as followers. Insisting that
Americans fit into Muslim norms, taking Muslim names or eschewing
their own identities is not very much a part of this movement, although
critics have said the pir is involved in naming the children of Iranian mem-
bers of the order.
Both Maghsoudi siblings have been very active organizationally and
intellectually, and their rivalry has even manifested in two organizations
devoted to the connection of Sufism with psychology, thus tapping into
the professional fields of mental healththe Sufi Psychology Forum and
the Sufi Psychology Association headed by Lynne Wilcox and coming out
of MTO Shahmaghsoudi. The MTO Shahmaghsoudi is much larger than
Naheds organization; it had 50 centers in California alone by 2000, and
spread more widely and beyond the United States, in part, by the claim
 The Master, the Pir, and Their Followers 57

of legitimacy as forty-second leader by Nader Angha, by associating itself

with modern themes, like peace and the role of spirituality in todays life
and by refraining from political activity with a few exceptions. It is now
active in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Like Sayyid Hossein Nasr, an academic Sufi scholar in the United
States, the Oveyssis have emphasized the relationship of Sufism, science,
and technology (Nasr 1968). Sayyid Nader Angha utilized his training as
a physicist and understanding of science to amplify long-held Sufi philo-
sophical propositions. Within the affiliated Sufi Psychology Association,
this effort to use Sufism for scientific purposes, and vice versa, is like-
wise emphasized. Beyond science, the pir, Nader Angha has authored a
number of books, including those on leadership theories, and on peace
(Shah Angha 1994) and has lectured on specific topics, such as Sufism is
Wisdom, Sufism is Islam, Sufism is Love, which have been published
in booklet format and on the Internet (Shah Angha n.d.).
Unlike the Inayat Khan (established by a Chishti Sufi and musician who
immigrated to the United States) Sufi project, the MTO Shahmaghsoudi
order insists that its members are Muslims and must observe traditional
Muslim practices such as prayer, fasting during Ramadan, and so on. They
do not attempt to gain adherents by representing Sufism as being other
than Islam. In contrast, the International Association of Sufism did not
require its followers to follow Islam (Hermansen 2000: 175176), although
they too learn Sufi rituals.
However, like many Sufis, the MTO Shahmaghsoudi are less visible to
Americans than are those who attend large community mosques or belong
to Muslim community associations, such as the Muslim Public Affairs
Council, Islamic Studies of North America, or the Council on American-
Islamic Relations, which contain a fairly large number of Sunni Islamists
who disapprove of Sufism. Conflicts with anti-Sufi Muslims are averted
as the MTO Shahmaghsoudi meet in their own centers, which also serve
as the khaniqa, the traditional Sufi location for enactment of the dhikr or
remembrance (of God) ceremony.
The MTO Shahmaghsoudis followers are composed of first-gener-
ation immigrant Muslims, Muslims born in the United Statesboth
these groups are usually Shia in originand also converts. The MTO
Shahmaghsoudi has occasionally been accused of being a cult by outsid-
ers, and by a disgruntled former member for unspecified reasons. It also
survived an episode during which two members defrauded other MTO
members, allegedly of $800,000 and then were indicted and imprisoned
for tax evasion (and the anonymous disgruntled former member may be
one of these two alleged fraudsters).
The normal effort made to maintain a quiet and apolitical stance by
the Shahmaghsoudi order was disrupted by the above episode and then
with an international controversy, not with US Right-wingers but with
an icon of the fashion industry, Roberto Cavalli of Italy. Cavallis use of
the orders trademarked logo, which represents the name of Allah, `Ali,
58 Sherifa Zuhur

and the Arabic letters, alif, lam, and mim, which represent the opening of
the heart (MTO Shahmaghsoudi, n. d.) was used by Cavalli, who rotated
the symbol 90 degrees and claims it is a symbol of a snake bite, and lust,
and sexuality. The Sufis launched a social media campaign against Cavalli
and actually demonstrated in Chicago, London, and Toronto, Canada, in
August 2014 and launched a social media campaign #TakeOffJustLogo
(Sadoghi n. d.).
In California, the MTO Shahmaghsoudi filed a lawsuit in US District
Court in Los Angeles in July for the use of its emblem in the Just Cavalli
line of fashion, perfume, and other products. The campaign of demonstra-
tions and efforts against Cavallis use of the logo was led by students of
the movement rather than the trustees (The Fashion Law 2014), although
they are no doubt supervised by their leaders in the movement. The move-
ments website explains its logo but does not reference the lawsuit.

Glens Movement, Hizmet: Studying Physics,

Mathematics and Chemistry Is Worshipping
AllahFethullah Glen (Beauchamp 2014)
The Glen or Hizmet (Service) movement has grown exponentially since
the late 1990s in the United States, whereas the MTO Shahmaghsoudi
movement has increased rather more slowly since its earlier expansion.
The Glen movement is the subject of a positive documentary film, Love
is a Verb,4 and also of a rather critical Turkish film, Takva: A Mans Fear of
God (2006). The Glen movement also apparently shied away from noto-
riety in the United States, but has been drawn into controversy in Turkey
by attacks from Prime Minister Recep Erdogan on Fethullah Glen him-
self, and by Right-wing critics of Gulenist charter schools in the United
States. Glen, born near Erzerum, Turkey, in 1948, is known as the hoca-
effendi (respected teacher), who like Nader Angha spreads his wisdom
spiritual and educational. His students are called Fethullahclar (backers
or followers). Unlike Nader Angha Shah Maghsoudi, Glen does not have
an advanced Western education; he attended only five years of elemen-
tary school, but was a (spiritual) student of Shaykh Saidi Kurdi [Nursi]
(18781960), a Kurdish Sunni theologian and leader of the Nurcu move-
ment (Mizell 2007). Saidi Nursi opposed Ataturks secularist philosophy
and was persecuted for much of his life for promoting a religious revival.
Glen became an imam/preacher in Edirne, and his own movement arose
from a cluster of Nurcu reading circles. He was charged in Turkey with
anti-secular activities. To obtain treatment for diabetes and hypertension,
he received permission to remain in the United States and settled in 1998
in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, in the Poconos. Meanwhile in Turkey, he
was tried in absentia in 2000, for supposedly infiltrating Turkeys mili-
tary schools in an effort to take over the country; the lawsuit was dropped
in 2008. He maintains guards around his rural property in Pennsylvania,
 The Master, the Pir, and Their Followers 59

which is not a state particularly friendly to immigrants, especially Muslims.

Most Pennsylvanians cannot distinguish Turks from Arabs, or Muslims
from Sikhs.5
From his guarded retreat, he preaches, writes, and guides his estimated
one million to eight million followers via television and the Internet. His
male followers do not marry until the age of 50, and then do so only with
his and the abis (elder leaders) permission. Like him, they are expected
to live as ascetics, fast twice a week, pray, and study assiduously (Ycel
2010).
Glen does not ask his followers to proselytizeinstead they are
asked to live as temsil, to provide examples of a virtuous and charitable
Islamic way of life. At the same time, he is a Turkish nationalist and some
of his organizations promote business ties with Turkey, for example, in
the Turkish-Irish Educational and Cultural Societys provision of trips to
Turkey for non-Turks6 (Berlinski 2012). The worth of Glens institutions
is estimated at between $20 and $50 billion (ibid).
Americans were mostly unaware of the original controversy between
Glen and the Turkish government, which has heightened under President
Erdogan. At first, certain conservative American sources accused Glen
of being behind the AKPs rise, and indeed the two organizations share
certain goals of Islamic revival, but they are rivals. Critics of Glens move-
ment noted that former Central Intelligence Agency official Graham Fuller
backed Glens petition to remain in the United States, and that noted
universities, like Georgetown, have mounted conferences sponsored by
Glen; former president Clinton had spoken positively of Glenwas the
US backing an anti-secular Turkish leader (Sharon-Krespin 2009)? This
assertion now seems rather dated in light of the AKPs ascension in Turkey
and its attacks on Gulen. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, American Right-
wing Islamophobic organizations pushing anti-shariah and anti-Muslim
agenda began protesting Glens network of charter schools (Beauchamp
2014; Mezzacappa 2014).7
Ironically, Right-wing groups had used parochial school vouchers to
remove their own children from racially integrated public schools, but
objected to the charter school movement in the hands of minority (African
American) administrators and pupils, or, in this case, Muslims. It was
apparently heinous to have a school board made up of Turks, Croatians,
and Bosniansthere should be people of other ethnic backgrounds
(Coniff 2014). There were accusations of financial fraudthat funds were
used to bring in foreign teachers and that these teachers and Turkish
administrators were required to send portions of their paychecks back
to Turkey (ibid). An organized American anti-Glen campaignwith
assistance from Turks who oppose the organizationenlists the charter
schools and Gulenist organizations in each state (Citizens Against Public
Interest Lobbying in Schools n. d.) and also the various business and cul-
tural organizations linked with the group. Those accusing Glen, both of
success and of ulterior motives, admitted that the charter schools were
60 Sherifa Zuhur

not promoting Islamism. However, some lobbied accusations that because

the movement is religious in nature, and hierarchical, it must perforce
be psychologically damaging to its followers by enforcing group think
(NOVA 2008; Berlinkski 2013). Similar accusations made of the MTO
Shahmaghsoudi group by a disgruntled follower were mentioned above.
Among the groups targeting Glens schools were Brigitte Gabriels
ACT for America! (a conservative initiative highly critical of Muslim
activism) and the Gaffney Center for Security Policy, which partnered
with the Eagle Forum, which mainly represents women social values activ-
ists and proponents of the home school movement. Their overall objec-
tion was twofoldto Muslims who would supposedly teach children to
hate America and to President Obamas support of charter schools, which
would arguably funnel taxpayer money to such educational alternatives
(Ali et al. 2011). That the Glen schools are modernist, Western, secular,
and claim superior teaching of sciences and mathematics, and opposed to
the salafist emphasis of other Muslim organizations is of little import to
such Rightist organizations.
In the 1990s, 144 schools operated in the United States. In other coun-
tries like Pakistan, Glens schools offer an alternative to madrasah educa-
tion. Glen network schools have been very successful in Central Asia,
where they have capitalized on Turkish or Turkic language speakers (Balci
2014). In Turkey, some sources held that 75 percent of students attended
Gulenist schools or institutes. Hizmet is also involved in interfaith activi-
ties and has its own media, in Turkish and in English, and business and
lobbying groups including the Rumi Forum.
In Utah, a whistle-blower campaign led to the closing of the Beehive
Science and Technology Academy in Utahthe whistle-blowing teachers
main complaint was that many teachers and administrators were Turkish.
It closed but reopened (Beauchamp 2014). Thirty-three Glen schools
receive a reported $100 million a year in taxpayer funds. The Glen move-
ment also rather strikingly counters a Turkish AKP influence among aca-
demics and intellectuals.8 Because the movement has attracted intense
scrutiny by Islamophobes, there is more information circulating about its
structure.

Din Siyasete alet edil memlidir (Religion Must Not Be

Exploited as a Political Instrument)Fethullah Glen
The above statement applies to Glens rivals, the AKP, and encapsu-
lates what his followers believe to be his moderation. However, in Turkey,
Hizmet reportedly expanded in the police and military, resulting in wide-
spread arrests and charges of terrorism against Glen, along with the
AKPs Erdogan announcement that he would seek extradition of Glen
from the United States (NBC News 2014). In December 2014, 27 follow-
ers of Glen were arrested in Turkey (Peker 2014) and a media campaign
 The Master, the Pir, and Their Followers 61

(pro and con) has heated up the issue overseas, but very little coverage of
the issue remains in the mainstream US or European media. Pursuit of the
Gulenists, like Erdogans attacks on secularists in the military in Turkey,
is a political strategy. The exposure of internal enemies was most ben-
eficial to the AKP since 2008, and will doubtless feature once again in
Turkeys upcoming elections.
Despite all these suspicions, many Americans continued to tolerate
the Gulenistsparticularly in higher education where their network has
expanded, perhaps due to their lack of awareness of the movement. Certain
Americans are, however, aware that those attacking the Gulenists repre-
sent Right-wing forces, as in legal complaints filed against a Turkish com-
munity center in Richardson, Texas, in 2014.9 Americans also continued
to join the MTO Shahmaghsoudi movement, even as Americans became
more hostile to Muslims following 9/11. This is no doubt because both
groups are regarded as moderate groupsthe Gulenist schools as secular
and the Oveyssis as a force contrasting with jihadi salafism. While we do
not know if Americans were attracted to or concerned by the two lead-
ers of these movements with any statistical certainty, American religious
movements are often led by charismatic figures, and the idea of specially
guided leadership and the brotherhood (or sisterhood) of faith is not
necessarily suspicious to those attracted to spiritual membership. Some
important differences distinguish the two movements. In contrast with
the MTO Shahmaghsoudi movement, where women attend services and
sessions in numbers equal to or more than men, and seem to dominate the
teaching of Sufi meditation (tamarkoz), there are no female spiritual stu-
dents of Glenin in the United States (although there are women support-
ers of Glen). In Turkey where segregated facilities exist, the movement
has female graduate students. The MTO Shahmaghsoudi order presents
men and women as spiritual equals despite their greatly variant historical
experiences, so the lack of segregation in the movement contrasts with
gender politics within the Iranian-American community at large. Glen
has made some statements regarding women that appear to contrast
strongly with Erdogans antifeminist statements. When asked if womens
role was limited to motherhood, he responded:

No, it is not. The noble position of motherhood aside, our general opin-
ion about women is that, while taking into account their specific needs,
it should be made possible for them to take on every role, including the
jobs of physician, military officer, judge and president of a country. As a
matter of fact, in every aspect of life throughout history Muslim women
made contributions to their society. In the golden age (referring to the
years during Mohammeds lifetime) starting with Aisha, Hafsa, and Um
Salama (the Prophets wives), women had their places among the jurists
and they taught men.
When these examples are taken into consideration, it would be clearly
understood that it is out of the question to restrict the lives of women,
62 Sherifa Zuhur

narrowing down their activities. Unfortunately, the isolation of women

from social activities in some places today, a practice that stems from the
misinterpretation of Islamic sources, has been a subject of a worldwide pro-
paganda campaign against Islam. (Tarabay 2013)

We can also ask whether there are important differences in being explic-
itly, or implicitly, a Sufi movement. Glen has stated: Although I do not
belong to any Sufi order and I have never attempted to establish one, I can
say that the righteous masters of Sufism have influenced me greatly (ibid).
This is obvious in his study and teaching program, lifestyle promotion of
education, and concerns about the need for democracy and reform, not
only in Turkey, but also in Islam. Given the Islamist and anti-Sufi orienta-
tion of both the AKP and mainstream Sunni organizations in America,
certain Turkish and American Muslim elements would automatically dis-
count Glen, as they oppose the mystical and apolitical stances of Sufi
movements, their use of leaders as intermediaries, and their belief in nass,
or inherited baraka (blessedness or spiritual charisma). Others, given
Turkeys important tradition of Sufi tariqat, would be attracted to such a
movement.

Secrecy
A female follower of the MTO Shahmaghsoudi asked this question in a
teaching session: Should we make ourselves known [as Sufis] to other
Muslims or Americans? And should we invite them to our group?10 This
session was attended by nonmembers (my own religious studies students
who included two salafi young men from Kashmir who believed that Sufis
are not Muslims). The pir carefully considered the question, and turned
it back on the questioner in typical Sufi style: What do you think you
should do? The questioner said that she was concerned about danger for
the movement or its khaniqah (the place of Sufi worship). In that case, the
master advised, perhaps you should not tell any but those who are ready
to observe or to study with us. But, he then emphasized, much as Glen
does, that the followers be an example of good Muslims to others.

Sufi Ideals
The particularly Sufi pursuit of gradual enlightenment and Oneness or
unity with Allah has a very specific purpose above and beyond the obser-
vance of those actions required of all Muslims. Discussions of wisdom,
peace, and love, of learning or knowledge of the heart (as opposed to
purely intellectual knowledge) are very much a part of both movements,
and may well be the aspect most attractive to new adherents. Because
many Sufis do not attend the large mosques in major population centers,
or belong to large community groups dominated by Islamists, they have
not been studied to the same degree as other Muslims in the West, or, at
 The Master, the Pir, and Their Followers 63

least, as little as other unmosqued Muslims. Nevertheless, members of

the MTO Shahmaghsoudi order or the Hizmet are socially engaged and
gain valuable support from their fellow adherents. Both are concerned
with self-development, which has become a general theme in American
life above and beyond religious movementspeople are constantly diet-
ing, attempting to become more fit, less stressed, to decrease their car-
bon footprint, and so on. Self-improvement is perceived as a virtue, even
when attached to faith movements that uphold shariahand are therefore
less accommodating or hybrid than other movements.11 In the philosophi-
cal, rather than religious, space inhabited by such movements in America,
Muslims tend to identify with the universalist aims of self-improvement
in Sufi movements or Hizmet. They are, after all, not living in countries
where governments may have presented Sufism as a way of countering
jihadist trends, as, for example, in Morocco (al-Ashraf 2010). Also, Sufi
movements are not identified in America with traditional practices and
groups in the same way that they are, for example, in Egypt, in the mawalid
and noisy rituals of various orders.

Traditionalism and Innovation

The MTO and Gulenists pursuit of Sufi ideals is, in some ways, less tradi-
tionalist than their counterparts rituals in their countries of origin. Both
movements, nonetheless, teach classical principles as well. As Imam `Ali,
the Prophet Muhammads son-in-law, was considered the first Sufi, and
his teachings are also essential to the Shia, and the Pir Ovyessi instructs
from his ideas (Shah Angha 2000). Fethullah Glen has written on tafsir
(Quranic exegesis), sirah (biography of the Prophet), fiqh (jurisprudence),
tasawwuf (Sufism), and kalam (legal and philosophical reasoning) accord-
ing to Ergun Capan. His teaching method is textually based12 (Gulen
Movement n.d.; Tarabay 2013). Glen and Nader Angha both address
modern topics as well, for instance, contemporary concerns with terror-
ism by Muslims, which they decry.

Come to the Orchard in Spring. There Is Light and

Sweethearts in the Pomegranate FlowersRumi13
The expansion of the two movements into the areas of counselor educa-
tion, psychology, and education is another profound similarity, which goes
beyond the mere creation of a network or a business empire. Instead these
efforts appear to be a useful means of extending the principles of religious
study, or, in some cases, Sufi beliefs and techniques to the professional
lives of the members and personal growth of potential students. The
MTO Shahmaghsoudi Sufi Psychology Association describes the study
of the order as a therapeutic process in which the novice may feel calmer
and be able to give up small addictions (Sufi Psychology Association
n. d.). The association holds annual conferences at which formal papers
64 Sherifa Zuhur

are presented; as attendees are from many backgrounds, rather than only
one type of scientific background, these are oriented toward a general
audience, and professional attendees may earn continuing education
credits.
The leader of the MTO Shahmaghsoudi movement, Nader Angha, is
most probably unable to return to Iran so long as the activist Shia govern-
ment of the Islamic Republic is in place. However, some allegations were
made, attacking the organization, which indicate that some followers of
Angha reside in a Sufi Abad compound in Karaj, Iran. This may have
been an effort to confuse readers on social media by alluding to recent
attacks on Sufis in Iran. Readers are assumed to perceive Gulens possible
return to Turkey as far more likely, or a dangerous possibility. Perhaps this
distinction is falsely created through media articles or seems to hold cur-
rency because the Glen movement is supported by a larger proportion of
the Turkish native and immigrant population in comparison to the per-
centage of Sufis in the immigrant Iranian population.
Iranian immigrants to the United States came in three waves, accord-
ing to sociologists, Pir Ovayssi and his son, being part of the first
prerevolutionarywave. Iranian-Americans experienced prejudice,
discrimination and sometimes violence (Public Affairs Alliance of
Iranian-Americans 2014: 10) prior to, and in response to, the US hostage
crisis in Iran, and later on, as part of anti-Muslim sentiment post 9/11. Very
few formal studies of religiosity among Iranian-Americans exist; the pre-
1979 wave of immigrants were quite secular, and the second wave featured
many more minoritiesJews, Bahais, Christians, and Sunnis (and perhaps
Sufis) than would be statistically found in Iran. We might expect fewer
Iranian-Americans of the 1.5 generation (those who were adolescents upon
immigrating) or of those born in the United States to be attracted to the
Shahmaghsoudi order, but it is not clear that this is the case. The actual
Iranian-American population is of disputed size, ranging from 480,000 to
1 million or even 2 million because not all self-identify as Iranian.
Turkish immigration to the United States had increased up to World
War I, but thereafter, restrictive immigration policies were in place until
1950, and were liberalized after 1965. Many Turks arriving in the 1960s
and 1970s were educated professionals, and greater numbers of less-
skilled workers have arrived more recently. Many Turks have arrived from
Krasnodar (Russia), the Balkans, and Cyprus. About 500,000 Turks are
thought to live in the United States today (Assaker 2012).
In both immigrant communities, many individuals continue to speak
Farsi, other Iranian languages (like Azeri), or Turkish at home whether
they were fluent in English or gained fluency in the United States. Both
Iranian-Americans in the MTO Shahmaghsoudi movement and Turkish-
Americans in Glens movement are made up of a large number of well-
educated and economically mobile individuals. The percentage of Sufis
among Iranian-Americans is, however, far less (since both Sunni and Sufi
Iranians are estimated at 9 percent of Irans population) than the possible
 The Master, the Pir, and Their Followers 65

percentage of Turkish-Americans who follow Gulen, who do not repre-

sent a small minority.
The two movements provide an interesting contrast of religious move-
ments in exile, each posed now against official state religious and political
entities, who fear and oppose other organized movements. Sufism, which
is said to be quietist, whenever possible, has not always been so.
The Gulenist movement has been accused of being anti-Iran and
extremely opposed to Shism. As the AKP was involved in a trading scan-
dal with Iranians in 2014, perhaps Hizmets stance is seen as both sec-
tarian and political aimed at the AKP (Kutahyali 2014).14 Glen has also
been accused of making anti-Semitic statements, which he has described
as anti-Zionist. Thus, although the two groups stand against the ruling
powers in their own countries of origin, and have various similarities, they
are not necessarily allies.

Conclusion
Both movements benefited greatly from their ability to operate from the
United States, or other Western countries outside the control of Iranian
or Turkish state power, even though anti-Muslim discrimination impacts
them. The apolitical tendencies of the MTO Shahmaghsoudi movement,
which did not seek any sort of media attention even when its sacred sym-
bols were appropriated by Just Cavalli, and which has not made public
statements on its position vis--vis the Iranian government, have allowed
the movement breathing space to survive and prosper. At the same time,
the MTO Shahmaghsoudi order competes at some level with many other
Sufi movements in the United States. Non-Muslims are alerted to such
movements by publications and public speeches of Nader Angha, or by
the recommendation of those studying with his orders teachers. As they
should become Muslims (and not all do), this speaks of a certain type
of person, typically described as a seeker. Others who are Muslims, but
not traditional followers of the order, may also be drawn into the order.
Negative publicity would impact both types of followers (and probably
has); however, many Americans are sanguine about the media. MTO
Shahmaghsoudi may have more difficulty with aspects of their coreligion-
ists and their approach to Islam and Sufism that actually derives, at least in
part, from Iranian culture. Whereas the MTO Shahmaghsoudi claims a
more universalist orientation, for example, disapproving of the sexism and
oppression of women as practiced in Iran, nevertheless, explanations of
the role of women in Islam is a much-debated issue within the movement,
and addressed in a few of its publications.
The Gulenists represent their movement as being open to the world,
but outsiders see it conversely, as either preserving Turkish Muslim tradi-
tions, or creating an authoritarian inner space. Gulenists try to explain
the recruitment of both Turkic Muslims and non-Muslims by the attrac-
tiveness of their overall philosophy, claiming to accept local culture and
66 Sherifa Zuhur

intermarriages (Bacik and Kurt 2014). In fact, it appears that Turkish/

Turkic immigrants are drawn to the movements aim to help individuals,
center them, and provide them with the tools of Turkish identity, language,
culture, and conservative Islamic valuesa process that took place for
Turkish immigrants in Europe prior to the Glen movements growth in
the United States (ibid).
On a smaller scale, the MTO Shahmaghsoudi movement similarly oper-
ates Persian language schools in the United States, Canada, and Europe.15
In addition to language training, which helps immigrants maintain their
own cultural identity, the Sufi practice of MTO Shahmaghsoudi offers
adherents a way of being Persian or Muslim without identifying with the
Islamic Republic of Irans state-defined religiosity. With Irans public
executions and adverse relationship with the United States, positive cul-
tural and religious associations are as important to this community as to
Turkish-Americans.

Notes
1. A long and detailed explanation is provided in the context of an inshad
(religious poetic songs) performance (Michael Frishkopf, Tarab in Mystic
Sufi Chant in Egypt, in Colors of Enchantment: Theater, Dance, Music, and
the Visual Arts in the Middle East, ed. Sherifa Zuhur [Cairo: American
University in Cairo Press, 2001 (2nd ed. 2003), 233269]).
2. According to LIyakat Takim, the membership of MTO Shahmaghsoudi is
much larger than the Nimatullahi-Gonabadi Sufi order.
3. Demographic information from MTO Shahmaghsoudi Headquarters,
Washington, DC.
4. Trailer available here: http://www.loveisaverbmovie.com/movie/ (accessed
February 25, 2015).
5. Personal observations based on my own period of residence in
Pennsylvania.
6. According to Jonathan Lacey cited by Claire Berlinski (2012), Who
Is Fetullah G len?, City Journal Autumn, http://www.city-journal.
org/2012/22_4_fethullah-gulen.html (accessed January 2, 2015).
7. Other legal actions were taken as against the Truebright Academy in
Olney, Pennsylvania, which had a small enrollment of 300, alleging dis-
crimination in favor of Turkish employees by Americans (Dale Mezzacappa
(2014), State Appeal Board Holds Decision to Close Truebright Academy
Charter, The Notebook, December 9, http://thenotebook.org/blog/148021
/state-appeals-board-upholds-decision-close-truebright-academy-charter
[accessed December 10, 2014]).
8. This dynamic is noticeable on a Turkish-led academic e-list with a large
number of Turkish and pro-Islamist members, the Sociology of Islam list
hosted by Portland State University.
9. In Richardson, Texas, Right-wing groups were targeting a Turkish cultural
center in the summer of 2014.
10. Observations of teaching sessions at the MTO Shahmaghsoudi center,
Sacramento, California, 1999.
 The Master, the Pir, and Their Followers 67

11. Here I use the term accommodating in the sense that Marcia Hermansen
uses world accommodating. Marcia Hermansen (2000), Hybrid Identity
Formations in Muslim America: The Case of American Sufi Movements,
The Muslim World 90, nos. 12: 160.
12. He says he continues to study fiqh, Quranic commentary (tafsir), hadith
commentary, and Sufism ( Jamie Tarabay [2013], A Rare Meeting with
Reclusive Spiritual Leader Fethullah Gulen, The Atlantic, August 14, http://
w w w.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/a-rare-meeting-
with-reclusive-turkish-spiritual-leader-fethullah-gulen/278662/ [accessed
December 27, 2014]) and reads 200 pages a day. (Gulen Movement n. d.).
13. Banner headline of the Sufi Psychology Association website. A sub-
association of the MTO Shahmaghsoudi, where Sufism is defined as find-
ing and traveling the way to connection with the source of Light. http://
www.sufipsychology.org/en/information.html (accessed January 2, 2015).
14. Here an anti-Gulenist article points out some of the slurs used by pro-
Gulen journalists (Rasim Ozan Kutahyali (2014), Gulenists Use Hate
Speech against Shiites, Iranians, AlMonitor, March 5, http://www
.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/turkey-gulen-hate-speech
-shiites-iran.html# [accessed January 4, 2015]).
15. The location of these schools is listed here: http://persian-school.org
/ (accessed January 3, 2015).

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 CHAPTER 4

MUSLIM DIASPORA IN EUROPE

AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Moha Ennaji

Introduction
This chapter addresses the theme of cultural diversity and the relation-
ship between Muslim diaspora in Europe and their countries of origin
and destination, an important dimension of identity issues that have been
recently raised. I will attempt to go beyond the quantitative research
already undertaken on Moroccan diaspora, which focuses on material
phenomena. My analysis is geared to the cultural and emotional ramifica-
tions of Moroccan Muslim diaspora in Europe.
The chapter proposes promoting a cultural strategy to the issue of
Muslim diaspora and discusses mechanisms that take into account the
interests of all stakeholders to effectively manage diversity. It highlights
the benefits and role of multiculturalism in the integration of Muslim
diaspora in European countries and the ramifications of these communi-
ties for cultural diversity.
The chapter includes four sections. The first section is a historical and
sociological background of Moroccan Muslims in Europe. The second
section deals with Islam and Muslim diaspora in France, Spain, Belgium,
the Netherlands, and Italy. The third section tackles the issue of multiple
identities, and the fourth section discusses the contributions and role of
Muslim nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and associations in the
integration of diaspora.
The methodology adopted is based on the collection of data for a larger
project on Moroccan Muslims in Europe, during which I conducted 116
semi-structured interviews with intellectuals, students, and activists, and
NGO members across Europe during the period between September
2007 and February 2014 (Ennaji 2014). I also conducted interviews over
the phone with researchers in the field and corresponded by email with
other activists and scholars. The chapter relies on media reports and previ-
ous publications as well.
72 Moha Ennaji

The theoretical framework used is based on Kymlika (2009) and

Kymlika and Patten (2003), who argue that minorities rights are linked to
the claim for their recognition as part of the nation; their demands prove
the multicultural aspect of the nation, and its diversity at the linguistic,
cultural, and political levels. The chapter also adopts Bourdieus (1986)
approach, which shows how the social order is progressively inscribed in
peoples minds through cultural products including systems of educa-
tion, language, judgments, values, methods of classification, and activi-
ties of everyday life (Bourdieu 1986: 471). These forms of capital may be
equally important, and can be accumulated and transferred from one
arena to another. These all lead to an unconscious acceptance of social
differences and hierarchies, to a sense of ones place and to behaviours of
self-exclusion (ibid: 141).

Background
Since the second half of the twentieth century, societies have become
increasingly complex and multicultural because of migration and global-
ization.1 As a consequence, the rights of minorities to gradually acquire a
new dimension in democratic countries, and demands for respect of cul-
tural diversity have become stronger.
It is well known that among the advantages of multiculturalism are
celebration of diversity, respect of differences, and otherness. This means
that multiculturalism is to be distinguished from strong assimilation mod-
els of integration (see Ennaji 2010 and 2014).
However, two strong criticisms are levelled against this point of view.
The first criticism, which comes from the conservative Right, specifies
that societies that encourage cultural diversity tend to be less cohesive
and less homogeneous because of internal tensions and contradictions.
The second criticism, which stems from the political Left, suggests that
while multiculturalism promotes difference, it does so within a preexist-
ing system of values. This implies that diasporic Muslims whose cultures
are different may be accepted, but rarely as equals. Nonetheless, their
values would be rejected if they contradicted those that are prevalent in
the host society. The two criticisms share the idea that multicultural-
ism, as practiced, sparks social conflict, but their approaches stem from
opposing attitudes, with one preferring greater uniformity and the other
favoring greater difference (see Duncan 2004; Ennaji 2012; Kymlika and
Patten 2003).
Most liberal democracies foster multiculturalism as long as it does not
conflict with human rights, national legislation, the cultural values of the
host country, and the fundamentals of liberal democracy. Thus, the com-
patibility of multiculturalism with integration is possible by stressing the
fact that in a liberal democracy, the constraints that integration imposes
are crucial for the fostering of multiculturalism. A society that respects
 Muslim Diaspora in Europe 73

diversity must be prepared to remain actively engaged in building bridges

between cultures in the long term (Ramadan 2013).
It is interesting to link the concept of multiculturalism or cultural diver-
sity to the phenomenon of transnationalism, which refers to the plurality
of cultural identities. Transnationalism also expresses the continuation
of political and cultural ties with the country of origin. It is an impor-
tant aspect of globalization affecting Muslim diaspora and migration (see
Okome and Vaughan 2012).2
Diaspora and migration flows have immediate and important conse-
quences on society. The first consequence is spatial, because space is the
most crucial basis of migrants since the migration project has a direct link
with the abandonment of the homeland for the host country. The second
consequence is related to the immigrants strategy to live in a different
social context or society in which he or she has to adjust while contrib-
uting to its transformation or its redefinition. This kind of space trans-
formation can be considered from the intermediate spaces between the
individual and the State (Aubarell and Aragal 2004), since different cul-
tures and identities come together in a space that was designed as a homo-
geneous society. This cultural encounter raises the problem of managing
cultural diversity in conformity to its history and its new reality in order
to reconcile multiculturalism and social cohesion (Ennaji 2014: Chapter 3;
Daoud 2011: Chapter 1).
Cultural diversity in Western countries, which is partly the result of
migration flows, is a source of wealth and progress that should not be per-
ceived as a threat provided it is well managed by governments and com-
munities. Respect for cultural diversity protects minorities in democratic
countries and contributes to the integration of diasporas. Emphasis should
be placed on the importance of education and media in educating young
people and diasporas in the host countries as to the solution of migration
problems (Ben Jelloun 2009).

Islam and Muslims in Europe

Muslims in Europe and Moroccans in particular are generally united by a
sense of belonging to the Muslim nation and ardently claim their nation-
ality of origin. As a case in point, Moroccan men and women, even natu-
ralized, that is, in possession of the passport of the host country, feel that
they are first Moroccan, then Arab, or Amazigh, and Muslim (see Ennaji
2014: Chapter 9). However, today Islamic identity is remarkably signifi-
cant because of global Islam and the expansion of Islamism the world
over.
Islam is one of the major factors enabling Muslim diaspora to preserve
their cultural and religious identities, giving meaning to their lives in the
host countries. Their feelings of belonging to the Islamic culture of ori-
gin and permanent nostalgia of the homeland are generally more apparent
74 Moha Ennaji

among women than among men (Phaneuf 2012) because of their strong
attachment to the culture or origin.
In the current global context, where Islam has been unfairly subject
to misinterpretation and is perceived as an obstacle to the integration of
Muslim immigrants, European democracies struggle to define the treat-
ment of Muslim diaspora and their relations with citizens and to assess
the work that remains to be done for the recognition and respect of their
origins, cultural values, and identity.
The majority of diasporic Muslims practice Islam privately in order
to avoid ideologies circulated in European mosques and Islamic centres.
Thus, Islam can be confined to private space and can be separated from
the state (Modood et al. 2006).
This situation entails a significant alteration in the conception and prac-
tice of Islam: first, aspects that are normally public have become private
(like marriage and divorce); second, there is a separation between Islam
and the public space; and third, this characteristic makes Islam a personal
matter, which promotes secularism and the dichotomy between religious
and civic life (Ramadan 2005). The following sections examine the situ-
ation of Muslim Moroccans in seven countries: the Netherlands, France,
Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain.

Muslims in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Spain,

Germany, Italy, and Great Britain
In this section, the focus will be on Moroccan Muslims in Europe, most of
whom live in France (over one million). Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Germany, and Italy have become host countries for Moroccans in recent
years. For instance, Italy hosts 379,000 and Spain 547,000 Muslim
Moroccans. A considerable number of Moroccans also reside in the
Netherlands (340,000), Belgium (285,000), and Germany (130,000). More
than 26,000 of them live in the United Kingdom (figures are from the
Moroccan Ministry of the Moroccan Community Abroad). The accurate
figure of Moroccan diaspora in Europe is unidentified given the consider-
able number of illegal migrants (Brouwer, this book).3

Moroccan Muslims in the Netherlands

Moroccan Muslims hold the second place after the Turks in Europe and
form the chief North African community in Europe and the prevalent
Muslim group in the Netherlands.
Family reunification led to an increasing number of Moroccans in
Europe. In 2003, the registered immigrant population with Moroccan
citizenship in the Netherlands reached around 300,000 people (de Haas
2007). Most Moroccans there are workers or employees, and only a few
are employers or independent businessmen. Like other Muslims, they face
integration issues, unstable employment, and difficult working conditions.
 Muslim Diaspora in Europe 75

According to the national official statistics of 2002, the average annual

earnings of a North African worker were around 12,200 euros, which is
lower than the average income of a native Dutch worker (22,870 euros).
Moroccan workers are among the poorest category, and in 2012 their earn-
ings decreased owing to the financial global crisis (see Musette et al. 2004:
65; Ennaji 2010).
Moroccan Muslims in the Netherlands generally adopt their Muslim
culture by conviction, because they prefer to associate with other Muslims.
According to Moha Ennaji (2014: Chapter 8), many Moroccan young
people claimed that they had deliberately chosen Islam as a religion. For
Ketner (2008: 130), Muslims suffer from racial discrimination, but it
appears that Islam gives them more power. In fact, the Moroccan youth
in the Netherlands faces many difficulties related to marginalization,
xenophobia, alienation, lack of integration, the divide between Islamic
and Western culture, and unemployment.
In addition to the beliefs they receive from their parents, most young
Moroccans rely on other sources such as the Internet, libraries, Muslim
associations, and mosque, which has helped develop their own percep-
tions about Islam.

Moroccan Muslims in France

France hosts the largest community of Moroccans in Europe, which is
today the second principal diaspora after the Algerians (36 percent). The
direct descendants of Moroccan immigrants in France outnumber immi-
grants, representing 11 percent of the population of France.4
Following the riots of November 2005 in French cities and outskirts
banlieues, many European observers were concerned that these poi-
gnant events could spill over to other European countries with vast Muslim
populations. The amalgamation between violence and Islam was obvious.
However, the riots were caused by the injustice and racism faced by Muslim
groups in France, not because the rioters were Muslims or Arabs.5
The usually dire social situation of Muslim diasporas in France is a factor
favoring the increase of extremism and xenophobia. For instance, unem-
ployment among the Muslim youth reached 40 percent in 2012 (Ebrahim
2006).6 Given the hard reality in which they survived, Muslims became
anxious and alarmed (Ramadan 2005).
Notwithstanding his unsupportive attitude toward Islam and undocu-
mented migration, Nicholas Sarkozy, was the first French interior min-
ister to set up the French equivalent of UKs Muslim Council of Britain,
the Conseil Francais De Culte Musulman in 2005. After the 9/11 terror-
ist attacks, the racist expression Sale ArabDirty Arabs has been sup-
planted by another negative word Les Islamistes or Les Barbus (the
Bearded ones).
Sadly, 148 Muslim graves in the military cemetery of Notre-Dame-de-
Lorette, near Arras, were desecrated on April 6, 2008. President Nicolas
76 Moha Ennaji

Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon expressed outrage at a hei-

nous act.7

Moroccans in Belgium
A survey by Saaf, Sidi Hida, and Aghbal (2009) indicated that 242,802
Moroccan Muslims were residing in Belgium, about 20 percent of whom
were concentrated in Brussels in 2008. Others resided in Antwerp, Liege,
and Hainaut, in the region of Charleroi and in Limburg.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, Moroccan immigrants have unemployment rates much
higher than those of native Belgians. Activists and media reported cases
where Moroccans with university degrees could not find employment for
years, and their job and apartment applications were turned down because
of their Muslim names.
Since 2008, the government has enforced tough regulations concern-
ing income, language, and time requirements for the process of integra-
tion. Under these restrictive powerful migration policies, migrants from
outside the European Union can take jobs only if there are no European
candidates.
Sturdy immigration laws have rendered Muslim women dependent on
their husbands and conspicuously disadvantaged and exposed them to
domestic violence. The study also revealed that Moroccan married women
who arrived in Belgium in 2000 were the most socioeconomically deprived,
as only one-third of them found a job three years later compared to higher
rates of Eastern Europeans. Women and the youth remained marginalized
in the labor market because of discrimination, lack of technological and
professional skills, or male pressure on women to stay at home (ibid).
While the liberalization of the Belgian Code of Citizenship has been
reformed to promote the integration of immigrants, its impact remains
partial and has not led to major gains in the labor market for naturalized
immigrants. However, this liberalization may open prospects for future
Muslim generations. Many Belgian Muslims feel discriminated against in
the job market or have to work hard for small salaries, often doing jobs
below their qualifications.

Muslim Moroccans in Spain

The majority of Moroccan Muslim diaspora have family, relatives, or
friends in Spain. In line with earlier findings, it may be stated that both
men and women are generally satisfied with regard to employment and
quality of life here. Those who plan to return home are mainly single and
highly educated, or they may be married with children but unemployed.
Many send remittances back home, despite xenophobia and racism
against them, in the face of their loneliness and marginalization in the
host country. Their children are torn between the culture of the coun-
try of origin and that of the host country. As a result, the children slowly
lose their Moroccan identity, and become unaccepted in both societies.
 Muslim Diaspora in Europe 77

In some cases, the social relationships between parents and children are
tense, because (Muslim) children in Europe have a lot of independence
and are often uncontrolled by their parents (Ben Jelloun 2009: 139).
Attitudes toward Moroccan Muslim diaspora are rather unfavorable,
for many stereotypes and false value judgments against this community
are held by the political Right. The terrible events in Eljido (in Andalusia)
in 2000, during which Moroccan undocumented migrants were brutal-
ized, and their shops, mosques, and houses looted by the Spanish inhabit-
ants, were suggestive of the xenophobic ideas toward Muslims in Spain
(cf. Khachani 2006; Ennaji 2014: Chapter 1).8

Moroccan Muslims in Germany

The first Moroccan migrants left for Germany in the 1950s and the sec-
ond wave in the 1960s after Morocco signed an agreement with Germany
about guest workers. The majority of them joined coal mines; others found
work through friends and family members who were already working in
Germany. In several instances, they did manual work that the German
nationals were reluctant to do.
When recruitment stopped in 1973, many Moroccans remained in
Germany and asked their wives and children to join them. This gave rise
to a new diaspora and to the growth of the Muslim population in Germany.
Family reunification became significant because of new child benefits and
tax laws, which allowed parents with children living in Germany to ben-
efit from these social gains (Hansen 2003).
Family reunification was followed by a new form of migration provoked
by Moroccans in Germany marrying their partners who lived in Morocco
(Berriane and Mohamed 2008).
The Muslim Moroccan community in Germany rose up to 102,000 in
2012, according to the Moroccan foreign affairs (Ennaji 2014: Chapter 1).
Estimates by the German Federal Statistical Office, in 2012, claimed
that 19 percent of Moroccans living in Germany were actually born in
Germany, and Moroccans were one of the main diasporic communities
that applied most for German citizenship, which shows that the major-
ity of them are fairly integrated and have settled down for good in the
adopted country.

Moroccan diaspora in Italy

The majority of Moroccans in Italy have a low standard of living, with
hard jobs that negatively impact their health and safety. They face high
risks every day at the workplace because they are mainly employed in the
so-called secondary occupations. Their health and safety have received lit-
tle attention from Italian health and safety professionals, and many work-
ers tend to suffer from injuries because of the nature of their work.
In order to tackle the health and safety problems of migrants and ethnic
minority workers, health and safety authorities, professionals, and trade
union organizations need to take into consideration the consequences of
78 Moha Ennaji

social exclusion and the special needs of migrants and ethnic minority
workers: language difficulties, training, and education.
Daly (2004) describes the difficult conditions of Moroccan and
Tunisian construction workers who live in Italian the city of Modena. He
argues that North African workers suffer not only from health and safety
problems, but also from racism and discrimination. These workers have
a fatalistic attitude to safety, and they accept work injuries and accidents
either as part of ones destiny or as part of the job.
Because they are petrified by the idea of losing their posts, they do
not complain. Andall (1990) observed that some Italian employers used
unscrupulous methods such as low pay, tax and insurance avoidance, and
violation of the health and safety laws in order to achieve high profits and
perpetuate the exploitation of Muslim workers.
Trade unions, which play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy work-
place, have failed to protect the different needs and specific health and
safety problems of migrants and ethnic minority workers.
The latter have, paradoxically, contributed to the construction sector
through building ports, bridges, roads, and tunnels. The building indus-
try, in particular, which is characterized by job instability and uncertainty
of future income, remains a labor-intensive sector (Orisini-Jones and
Gattullo 2000). The construction industry relies heavily on the availabil-
ity of a cheap, extremely flexible, and healthy young labor force for its sur-
vival (Reid 1993).

Muslim Moroccans in Great Britain

The first important wave of Moroccan Muslim immigrants arrived in
Great Britain in the 1960s, largely from the northern areas of Morocco. In
the 1970s, through support groups and family reunification, another wave
of Moroccans (some from Gibraltar) moved to Great Britain, with job con-
tracts in services and industries (see Cherti 2008; Jamai 2012). A new group
of migrants, in particular young highly skilled professionals arrived in the
1990s and 2000s (Cherti 2009). A recent report by the Change Institute
indicated that between 65,000 and 70,000 people of Moroccan origin
reside in Great Britain (see Communities 2009).
Moroccan women and men adapt and integrate into British society rela-
tively easily because they think that Great Britain is more open and more
cosmopolitan than France and has no colonial overtones for Moroccans.
They have improved their status over the years, from mere clerks to teach-
ers, engineers, financial analysts, lawyers, doctors, investors, and so on.
They are vastly motivated about their childrens education and qualifica-
tions, and they are enthusiastic about inculcating the cultural values of
their home country.
However, British-Moroccans of the third generation do not usually
intend to return permanently to Morocco, because of lack of job oppor-
tunities in the homeland, dearth of social benefits, dilemma of readjust-
ment, and lack of freedom expression (Ennaji 2014: Chapter 8).
 Muslim Diaspora in Europe 79

Although the Moroccan community in Great Britain has a relatively

long history with its diverse narratives and experiences, it remains one
of the most invisible and least researched in Western Europe (Cherti
2009).

Plural Identities
Moroccan Muslim diaspora in Europe has home or host country citizen-
ship, or both, and multiple identities that vary according to age, gender,
class, language, education, and religion. They negotiate cultural identity
according to context and host society and fight against discrimination and
marginalization (Ennaji 2014: Chapter 9).
Whether they were born in Europe or grew up in Europe, most young
Moroccans face identity problems. They claim Moroccan and Islamic
identity, which is for them a source of power and a strategy to reach a com-
promise between the European and host country cultures. They generally
feel affected by the confrontation between Islam and Western modernity,
but they to seek to reconcile religion and citizenship in a soft manner. The
major hitch for them is how to be accepted as European Muslims. Unlike
their parents, they practice a form of Islam that is more elaborate and less
traditional.
Another less abundant category of Muslim Moroccans in Europe prefer
to adopt European values and lifestyles. They usually identify themselves
as European citizens and often know little or no Arabic at all and are not
practicing Muslims. In their eyes, the culture of the adoptive country is
more tolerant and liberal than Islam, and they are keen to minimize the
antagonisms with this culture. Some adopt this strategy out of fear of
rejection while others do it willingly.
As a result, Muslim communities in Europe have immediate and impor-
tant consequences on individuals and society. Their impact on space
is immense, as they have transformed cities and cultures in the sending
and receiving countries. The transformation of Europes major cities by
dynamic immigrant groups is a significant indication of the strong influ-
ence of migrants and their descendants on the host European countries
(see Phaneuf 2012). This raises the issue of cultural diversity and the social
reality of these communities.
On the other hand, the attachment of the Muslim communities to their
roots is evidenced by the fact that most of them marry Muslims. According
to Saaf et al. (2009: 121), approximately 86 percent of Belgian Moroccans
have spouses of their ethnic group, while only 8.5 percent are married to
Europeans.
They are equally attached to the host European country because they
think that the latter has advantages and opportunities that are inexistent
in their home country, specifically job offers, respect of human rights and
democracy, social and health benefits, freedom of expression, and an inde-
pendent justice system (see Guarnizo et al. 2003).
80 Moha Ennaji

One out of three respondents identify first and foremost as Muslims,

which shows that religiosity is high among Muslims in Europe (Saaf et al.
2009: 109). For instance, many individuals may have been naturalized
as French, Belgian, Spanish, or Dutch, but they have remained Muslim
Moroccans (Ennaji 2010).
For the most part, they have adopted a democratic code of conduct based
on the values of freedom of expression, social justice, gender equality, and
tolerance. The espousal of these values by Muslims in Europe reflects the
birth of a European Islam, which promotes individual liberty and freedom
of choice (Ramadan 2013; Modood et al. 2006; Phillip 2009).
In the following section, we discuss Muslim cultural patterns and the
role of Muslim NGOs and associations.

Muslim Cultural Patterns and NGOs

In Europe, Islam is perceived as an obstacle to the integration of Muslim
immigrants. This observation stems from the ignorance of Islam by
Western media, which propagate anti-Islamic propaganda, and the domi-
nation of the principles of secularism and rationality that see religion as
something outdated (see Ennaji 2014: Chapter 2).
Given that the immigrants are attached to their religious affiliation,
they appreciate when their religion is respected and are prepared to accom-
modate their practice of Islam in the European environment.
In the case of young Muslims of the second generation, there is inter-
ethnic development, but to maintain the culture and religion of the coun-
try of origin, they are obliged by their parents to take courses in Arabic and
Islam. However, their link with the culture of parents is reduced because
young people have multicultural perspectives that refer to other cultures
and forms of religion, using different languages.
For instance, young Moroccans in Europe use the language of the host
country (French, Italian, Spanish, etc.) in Islamic centers and mosques,
which helps them to develop a plural and interethnic identity. The study
of these linguistic and cultural aspects is crucial in reflecting the degree of
integration of Muslims into society (Tromebetta 2004).
Mosques and Islamic associations and centers play a significant role in
the education and training of young people. They struggle against juvenile
delinquency and deviant behavior, namely, alcoholism, prostitution, vio-
lence, and drugs. These efforts are appreciated by both the Muslim popu-
lation and local authorities alike. The motivation for this work of civic
education is primarily the religious healing of individuals who may have
gone astray. It equally aims to improve the image of the Islamic commu-
nity in Europe. For the Moroccan Muslim diaspora, religion gives mean-
ing to their lives and marks its difference from the Westerner and from
other non-Muslim communities.
International Islamic associations and organizations in Europe
endeavor to influence the diasporic Muslim communities so that Islam
 Muslim Diaspora in Europe 81

can stand out as one religion for all Muslims despite their different cul-
tural and social backgrounds in order to establish one religious identity
and solidarity based on Islam.
Islam has become part and parcel of the cultural, social, and political
landscape of many European countries, particularly France and Germany.
The rise of Islam in Europe is partly associated with the proliferation of
immigrants associations since the 1980s. These associations reflect the
wide variety of Muslim communities in Europe.

Associations in France and Germany

In France, North African communautarism has been considered a nega-
tive response to the state and society (Hamidi 2003). However, the aims of
social solidarity among minority groups and integration in the host soci-
ety are not mutually exclusive (Phaneuf 2012; Kastoryano 2002). Since
the 1980s, associations have taken action about social issues like racism,
immigrants integration, their economic and political roles, identity crisis,
and minority rights.
They have been created partly to support public authorities and partly
to defend the sociocultural interests of migrants at the local and national
levels. These associations aim to satisfy the needs of Muslims who seek
identification and to meet the expectations of governments in order to
gain their recognition. They negotiate ways to integrate into national
institutions, which entails negotiating the inclusion of difference into
European societies and their political systems. The French 1981 law
encouraging the creation of associations by foreigners was the turning
point in the politicization of identities.
In Germany, after the 1980s, activists of Turkish origin made explicit
their demands for the recognition of their identity. For these activists,
identities represent the nucleus around which a community is formed in
order to have access to the states resources. Thus, Muslim associations
have two main goals: to raise a collective awareness about identity and to
ensure their integration into the society and public institutions.
France and Germany have had slightly different policies. France encour-
ages full integration of migrants and diaspora; it has hesitated between
the wish to continue with the political traditions of the Republic and the
pragmatism to protect the rights of minorities organized around identi-
ties (Ben Jelloun 2009: 136). By contrast, Germany has swung between a
determination to preserve cultural unity and the concern to respect the
democratic values of a country that has become multicultural, or a country
of immigration. However, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced in 2011
in a televised interview (reported by Euronews) that multiculturalism had
failed in Germany, and that, as a Christian country, it should preserve its
cultural identity.
The French state encourages the creation of associations; more than
500 were created between 1980 and 1990 according to Hamidi (2003), the
reason being that the state needs interlocutors or intermediaries between
82 Moha Ennaji

communities and the local authorities. The strategy of the state is to estab-
lish an elite that has emerged from immigration that is able to serve as
interlocutors between the population and the government at the local and
national levels.
As concerns religious associations, they present themselves as an alter-
native to cultural associations. Generally, they collaborate hand in hand
with cultural associations for the common public good, and their leaders
compete for material and financial support from the public authorities.
Cultural associations select cuisine, music, dance, and poetry, among
others, as aspects of their culture to present to Europeans and foreign-
ers. They use these facets of their culture to draw audiences and to gener-
ate dialogue and dismiss prejudices surrounding the Muslim community.
These outreach activities aim to strengthen and sustain the unity neces-
sary for unrelenting cohesion. As individuals, the members of associa-
tions, despite the fact that they may be militant, are also motivated by
social factors, the sense of belonging to a community, and the need to live
and celebrate their own culture.
Cultural associations such as Association des Amis du Maghreb,
Association Action Espoir, and Union de la Communaut Algrienne de
Paris, which are usually secular in perspective, are focused on social action
and outreach, whereas religious associations are rather concerned with
questions of identity and ethnicity.
When the French went through the headscarf crisis, the Germans
thought it was an exaggeration and thus they had two interpretations: first,
the French had a different notion of the separation of state and church;
and second, immigrants are regarded as foreigners or guests, not as part
of the nation so their dress and way of life did not matter much, and there
was little interest in their religion and tradition, as long as they did not
disturb public order or national security.
While in France the issue of recognition relates to the integration of
Islam in the state, in Germany it relates to the status of the ethnic minor-
ity, which is based on the Turkish community and a Muslim identity. This
implies that in France the recognition of Islam requires the creation of
a representative institution to be the interlocutor of the state, whereas
in Germany the recognition takes the form of introducing Islam in state
schools. However, in both countries the common question is selecting the
representative of the Muslim community.
The problem of the place to be given to Islam in France has resuscitated
the debate about religion and the state. For the political elite, the head-
scarf affair revealed that Islam as a religion has become part of the society
and its institutions, and for the Islamic associations, it meant the affirma-
tion of the Muslim identity of a large part of Muslim diaspora, whose pres-
ence and cultural expression are necessary to negotiate with the public
authorities (see Bowen 2008 and Kastoryano 2002: 190).
Charles Pasqua, ex-minister of interior set up a Representative Council
of Muslims on January 11, 1995 and stated that the issue of Islam must be
 Muslim Diaspora in Europe 83

treated as a French issue (see Le Monde of January 11, 1995). In April 2003,
a French Council of Muslim Faith was finally officially recognized to rep-
resent French Muslims in the same way as other religions.
In Germany, since 1990, measures have been taken to integrate Islam
in schools. In Berlin, Islamic education has been integrated within the
framework of the churches under the supervision of the Turkish State,
which appointed qualified imams for the task, although associations of
Turkish diaspora expressed their reservations about the control of the
Turkish State and the impact of the religious political party in Turkey.
Today, in Germany, the Turkish diaspora is no more treated as for-
eigners, but considered as citizens who are active in civil society, or even
referred to as foreign co-citizen who contribute to development (see
Kastoryano 2002: 194). The Muslim community is accepted as a political
actor in associations and political parties.
Thus, in Germany and in France, the Muslim diaspora is mobilized in
associations, participating in social welfare and cultural activities, which
underscores their full participation in sustainable development and in
their integration into the national community.
In both countries, the contribution of the Muslim diaspora to civil
society and national institutions marks their political involvement, which
practically leads to their participation in the national political life. This
indicates the emergence of a new type of citizen identity that is based
on the involvement of individuals and their integration into national
institutions.
The representatives of Muslim associations often work in collaboration
and in coordination with their countries of origin, which insist on impact-
ing on their communities in order to gain advantages for their countries
from the European Union. This way, they maintain their loyalty to the
state of the homeland and take part in establishing a transnational commu-
nity, the imagined Islamic nation or umma. On another level, international
Islamic organizations in Europe endeavor to influence Muslim diasporic
communities so that Islam can stand out as one religion for all Muslims,
despite their different cultural and social backgrounds, in order to estab-
lish one religious identity and solidarity based on Islam. It is through these
mechanisms that religious associations have become integrated into the
European society, where competition is high, with cultural associations at
the local and national levels.
Until recently, Islamic associations have been held in distrust; attitudes
have become favorable to them nowadays because they are usually consid-
ered to develop civic virtues among their members, to teach them demo-
cratic principles and values, to socialize them to politics and to be stepping
stones towards political involvement (Hamidi 2003: 219). At times, these
associations are thought to be a means of integration for immigrants, and
they are a way of knowing and understanding the problems of Muslims.
Most of these associations are apolitical, for they are not affiliated to any
political party and they present themselves as such, for people prefer to
84 Moha Ennaji

stay away from politics, enjoy the feeling of belonging to a community,

participate actively in community activities, and thus give meaning to
their own lives.9
Thus, the quest for identity and integration presents itself in religious
terms, challenging secularism and its judicial organization (Kastoryano
2002: 183). For the Muslim diaspora, it is a matter of being organized
around their religion, which is viewed as a symbol of their cultural iden-
tity (Ennaji and Sadiqi 2008: Chapter 2). This constitutes a challenge to
the democratic European States that advocate equality and justice to all,
including migrants and Muslim minorities (Mano and Gatugu 2005).

Conclusion
The majority of Muslims in Europe express a moderate religiosity that is
open to other cultures and principles such as secularism. I, for one, think
that European governments must take action and implement policies and
measures to establish contracts with the moderate Islamic organizations
by inciting them to foster a European Islam. This could be a tool in the
integration of Muslim communities and a tool in the fight against extrem-
ism and fanaticism.
A moderate Islam of this type could also contribute to the general
advancement of progressive currents in Muslim countries that seek rec-
onciliation between Islam, modernity, religion, and secularism. I advo-
cate a comprehensive and integrated approach to the Muslim diaspora
issue, an approach that emphasizes respect for cultural diversity and the
human and socioeconomic dimension, and that operates a close correla-
tion between the fight against illegal migration and the preservation of
the rights and achievements of the immigrant communities, for at the
heart of the issue of migration is emotional, cultural, and socioeconomic
development.
Cultural diversity in host countries is the result of diaspora and migra-
tion flows to Europe. It is a source of wealth and progress that should not
be perceived as a threat provided it is well managed by governments and
communities. There is a close relationship between diaspora and cultural
diversity. Respect for cultural diversity protects minorities in democratic
countries and contributes to the integration of ethnic groups. Emphasis
should be placed on the importance of education and media in sensitizing
Muslim diasporas in the home and host countries.
With the help of associations and civil society organizations, Muslim
communities gradually integrate into the European society, especially the
second and third generations. They endeavor to thwart the economic and
social exclusion suffered by the group as a whole.
Nevertheless, Moroccans living in Europe are torn between the need to
keep cultural links with their country of origin and the systematic attack
against them due to the maintenance of that hybrid identity. The social
and intellectual debate about the clash of cultures is a false one, and will
 Muslim Diaspora in Europe 85

not bear fruit unless the immigrants religion, culture, language, and roots
are recognized by the state and accepted by the host society.
European societies will face profound changes when they dare to move
from state neutrality, the public interest of religious associations, to the
institutionalization of Islam. To do this, it would be appropriate to ignore
the emotional approach to religious disputes, and to institutionalize the
Muslim identity, or hybrid identity, officially and legally. Multiculturalism
in Europe is, therefore, not dead but nascent and thriving.

Notes
1. When we speak of globalization, we must not keep in mind only the eco-
nomic factor. In addition to economic, financial, and cultural exchanges,
free circulation of people, and flow of ideas must also be fostered.
2. Van Kessel (2004), http://www.eclac.org/celade/proyectos/migracion
/VanKessel.doc (accessed October 23, 2014).
3. See the website of the Ministry in Charge of Moroccans Abroad: http://
www.marocainsdumonde.gov.ma/le-minist%C3%A8re/mre-en-chiffres
.aspx (accessed May 2, 2014).
4. For more details, see the French newspaper Le Figaro of October 10, 2012.
5. Read the analysis by the Jewish philosopher, Alain Finkielkraut, stated in
the Israeli daily Haaretz, on November 19, 2006.
6. Bashir Ebrahim-Khan (2006), Is Islamophobia in Europe Leading to
Another Holocaust?, The Muslim News January 27, 2006, http://www
.muslimnews.co.uk/paper/index.php?article=2274 (accessed January 21,
2014).
7. See http://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive
.html (accessed October 22, 2013).
8. For more details about this sad story, see http://www.eurofound.europa.eu
/eiro/2000/04/feature/es0004184f.htm (accessed May 2, 2014).
9. Here are a few examples of Muslim associations: Union des Organisations
Islamiques en France, Fdration des Organisations Islamiques en Europe,
Association Culturelle Islamique Al-Ghadir, etc. For more, see http://www
.annuaire-musulman.com/index.php?cat=72&lpage=3&page=1&PHPSESSI
D=acdd999ad27335a59ca645ae99c0b8 (accessed May 2, 2014).

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PART II

MUSLIM DIASPORA,
MULTICULTURALISM,
AND IDENTITY ISSUES
 CHAPTER 5

MULTICULTURALISM AND
BELONGING: MUSLIMS IN CANADA
Haideh Moghissi *

Introduction
Population movements and migration are major features of our time.
The number of migrants and displaced peoples in the world is estimated
to have more than doubled since 1975, and around 175 million people cur-
rently live in a country in which they were not born (Rygiel 2010). This
does not include the displaced populations within national borders in
Africa, Asia, and the Middle East; about 20 millions of them live under
the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
If globalization has brought together people through the free flow of capi-
tal, offshore production, marketing, and cultural goods and products, it
has, at the same time, produced large-scale displacement and dispersion of
peoples. All this raises pressing questions about integration, citizenship,
equity, human rights, diversity, accommodation, and security.

Muslims in Canada
Muslims now form a growing segment of the diasporic population in
Western countries, including Canada. Until the 1980s the rate of immigra-
tion from Muslim-majority countries to Canada was negligible. The pic-
ture changed by 1980 and particularly in the 1990s. In fact, over 66 percent
of the population of Muslim cultural background immigrated to Canada
between 1991 and 2001. The growing political turmoil and economic
chaos, along with more cultural and religious intolerance and uncertainty
of life in Muslim-majority countries, continue to increase the migration of
peoples from these countries. According to the 2011 Canadian National
Household Survey, Islam constitutes the second largest religion in the
country (1,053,700), after Christianity (22,102,700). But if we include the
number of nonreligious Canadians (7,850,600), then Muslims would be in
the third place.
The Canadian Muslim population is the fastest-growing religious
and ethnic group in the country. In 1991, there were 253,300 Muslims in
92 Haideh Moghissi

Canada. The number increased to 579,640 Muslims in 2001 (about 2 per-

cent of the total population). Within only a decade, the total number of
people who identified themselves and their children as Muslims had grown
by 128.9 percent. In 2011, the Muslim population of Canada was reported
to constitute about 3.2 percent of the total population. It should be noted
that the 2011 census was based on the Conservative governments contro-
versial policy of replacing the compulsory long-form questionnaire to a
voluntary survey, and the figure may not be as accurate as the previous
census data.1 But in any case, the projection is that by 2017 the Canadian
Muslim population would grow by 145 percent, the highest among the
non-Christian religious affiliation (Dib 2006).
The remarkably diverse Canadian Muslim population originates from
many parts of the world, including Southeast Asia, China, Korea, the
Philippines, and Africa, with a small number from the United States. By
one account, Canadian Muslims originate from more than 85 nations.
Within each national category there are also different ethnic, cultural, and
sectarian groups with very distinctive degrees of religious commitments.
Adding class, gender, and racialized divisions means that Canadians of
Muslim heritage can hardly constitute a communitya term widely used
to refer to this heterogeneous population. Social, economic, and political
conditions of life in the originating country, levels of education, and their
rural and urban origin by and large define how they live in the new coun-
try. These factors, to a large extent, also define their levels of flexibility
and openness to change and how strongly they hold on to premigration
values, practices, and their Islamic identity.

Diversity, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship

Canada, compared with almost all other Western democracies, surely has
a rather liberal policy for accommodating diversity, and granting migrants
cultural and religious-based demands, such as public funding for a wide
range of community activities and infrastructure. Through the adoption
of the policy of multiculturalism Canada has acknowledged that practic-
ing ones own language and religion and preserving ones cultural heri-
tage are issues of human rights and crucial for maintaining ones identity
and sense of self-respect. Since 1982, multiculturalism became enshrined
in Canadas Charter of Rights and Freedom, confirming the cultural free-
dom and equality of all Canadians and the protection and equal ben-
efit of law . . . (without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic
origin, color, religion, sex, age and mental or physical disability). The
Multiculturalism Act entered the domain of human rights, making the
federal government responsible for implementing the principle of nondis-
crimination in important areas of life.
The good intentions of the Canadian public and the government of
the time granted, with the remarkable diversity of Canadas population,
at least since the late 1960s and the 1970s, the formal recognition of the
 Multiculturalism and Belonging 93

country as an ethnically and culturally pluralist society, has been the only
fair and rational thing to do. Therefore, liberalization of Canadas immi-
gration policy and elimination of race and ethnicity as an explicit criterion
for admitting immigrants, as well as the introduction of the point (merit)
system in 1967, started to change the composition of Canadas immigrants
and, in effect, its population. Until 1955, due to the preference this country
had for European immigrants and its blatant racism against others, over
80 percent of immigrants who came to Canada were from Europe; by
early 1990s, 81 percent of new immigrants were persons of colour (Agnew
2009). In other words, it was no longer practically and economically viable
for the country to consider such large sections of the population as out-
siders with peculiar, unwanted cultural and religious practices. Through
the Multiculturalism Act, and its later amendments, the country has tried
to make room for its minority groups, by assisting them to preserve their
specific identity through such policies as publically funded heritage lan-
guage schools, building places of worship, organizing public festivities,
and introducing culturally sensitive services.
However, a number of questions can be raised: Does multicultural pol-
icy in Canada also assist the integration of minority communities, par-
ticularly Muslims? Does it provide the conditions for them to enjoy full
citizenship status and participate in economic, political, and cultural lives
of the country as valued citizens, free from discrimination? Is the claim
valid that the multiculturalism policy has evolved from ethnicity multi-
culturalism that focused on celebration of differences in the 1970s to
equity multiculturalism of the 1980s and the present inclusive citizen-
ship and integrative multiculturalism (Fleras and Kunz, 2001)?
Detouring the debates over diverse forms and models of citizenship
(cultural, transnational, Aboriginal, post-national, and globalizing citi-
zenship), as well as the suggestion that the concept of modern citizenship
should be transformed in order for the distinction between noncitizens
and citizens to be erased and in order for certain rights not be linked to
membership in the territorial state (Isin and Wood 1999; Faist 2000;
Rygiel 2010, among others), and being aware that I may be oversimplify-
ing the complex concept of citizenship, here I focus on two major compo-
nents and logic of formal citizenship. These are the rights and duties, or
the entitlements and obligations, of citizens toward the society, and the
society and its government towards citizen and/or residents of the coun-
try. This essentially means a give-and-take relationship, even though by
virtue of having all sorts of power the responsibilities of the state are more
numerous than those of the citizens.
In a real democracy, the focus of the state is or should be less on its regu-
latory and disciplinary functions, which often serve the interests of the
minority elite, and more on its ability and responsibility to provide equal
social and economic opportunities and guarantees to all people residing
in the country, and their protection against discrimination and violation
of rights in various areas of life. Some scholars argue that only under such
94 Haideh Moghissi

conditions can the governments demand loyalty from citizens, or integrate

newcomers and reproduce the bonds of national solidarity, the foundation
upon which citizenship is said to depend (Miller 2000, cited in Rygiel
2010: 26). The absence or the weakness of this reciprocal relationship pro-
duces tensions between conflicting aims on both sides. The documented
experiences of the majority of new immigrants from the south in Europe,
Canada, and elsewhere amply reflect this tension.

Everyday Concerns and Identity Politics

To go back to the idea of give-and-take, or mutual responsibility of both
sides in the materialization of the meaningful, inclusive citizenship and in
the integration process, we can state that in an ideal situation, the govern-
ment would take responsibility for removing barriers and creating the nec-
essary institutional mechanisms for members of various ethno-cultural
minorities to enjoy equal opportunities to make a decent life as precondi-
tions for their contentment and sense of self-respect, under the protec-
tion of universally applied laws. Members of a cultural, ethnic, or religious
minority can preserve and observe their own rituals and cultural practices
without the fear of being ostracized, excluded, and discriminated against.
Having this framework in mind, it seems that this scenario is still only
an ideal. In other words, the claim that the Canadian multicultural pol-
icy has evolved to the higher phase of integrative multiculturalism and
inclusive citizenship is questionable or, at the very least, premature. For
full citizenship includes not only political rights but also economic rights,
equity, and social justice. Assuming that the overwhelming challenge for
a majority of migrants, particularly when the race factor is at play, is the
inclusion in the job market, and creating a niche in the new country that
rewards them with economic achievements and personal satisfaction,
Francis Henrys suggestion (2009) that multiculturalism seems to be more
about lifestyles rather than life chances, makes much sense. Available
data on immigrants access to the job market and their level of income
clearly speak to the fact that a major promise of multicultural policy, that
is, the entitlement of ethnic and cultural groups to equal opportunity and
equal treatment, is yet to become a reality.
On the positive side, across Canada, about 235 immigrant-serving agen-
cies and community organizations work in the area of settlement and labor
market integration, along with offering employment preparation courses
and advice to immigrants. However, data below also show that immi-
grants generally continue to face serious challenges in the job market, due,
in part, to the lack of foreign credentials recognition for professionals, lan-
guage barriers, and the stigmatization of so-called visible minorities and
discrimination. Some people also mention the increasing reliance of busi-
nesses on temporary foreign workers who enter Canada through short-
term visas issued by the government. Many believe that this policy leads
to the disadvantage of Canadian workers (Clark Globe and Mail 2009).
 Multiculturalism and Belonging 95

For example, the immigrants who landed in Canada between 2001

and 2006 had the most difficulty integrating into the labor market,
although the number of those with university education was higher than
the Canadian-born population (Stat Canada 2006). In 2006, the national
unemployment rate for this group was 11.5 percent, that is, more than dou-
ble the rate of 4.9 percent for the Canadian-born population, and 4.2 per-
cent more than those immigrants who had been in Canada from 1996 to
2001. In addition, the high levels of stress and anxiety, due to financial
insecurity, family separation, and discrimination, cause a large number of
newcomers mental distress and frustration. The immigrants differential
levels of income compared with Canadian-born populations with univer-
sity degrees are also substantial, as immigrants with a university degree,
on average, earn 75.5 percent of the Canadian-born income ($48,488 versus
$64,239, respectively).
Given the reality that the majority of newcomers to Canada in the last
decade have been the so-called visible minorities, it is hard not to think
that race, in its broadest meaning, continues to produce inequalities in the
job market, disconnection between education and work, and subtle or not-
so-subtle discrimination and unfair treatment on the job. The assumption
here is that the economic integration of migrants is a very important fac-
tor in their overall satisfaction in the new country. The level of education
and technical skills presumably define the sorts of job and the levels of
income and inevitably influence the sense of confidence and contentment
for individuals moving to a new country. The experiences of Canadian
Muslims, however, show that despite a high level of postsecondary educa-
tion (almost double the national average), Canadian Muslims have a very
high level of unemployment, which in 2006 was reported to be almost
twice the national average of 7.4 percent. Of the over 411,000 Muslims of
15 years and over, about 252,000, or 61.3 percent, were in the labor force,
over 215,000 were employed, and the rest, or over 36,000 (14.3 percent)
were unemployed. The 14.3 percent Muslim unemployment level was
much higher than the unemployment percentages of all other major reli-
gions, for example: Roman Catholics, 7.4 percent; Baptists, 7.1 percent;
Buddhists, 8.9; Jews, 5.3; and Hindus and Sikhs, about 9.5 percent each.
The unemployment rate of Muslim women, despite their relatively high
level of education was 16.5 percent. The workforce participation rate of
61.3 percent of Muslims was also below the national participation rate of
66.4 percent, in part because of Muslims higher level of full-time educa-
tional enrollment (Moghissi et al. 2009).2
The low income of Canadian Muslims compared with the rest of the
population is not compatible with their high levels of education. While
about 25 percent of Muslims 15 years of age and over had less than high-
school education, over 28 percent had a university degree. This figure is
higher for men, with 33 percent, compared to women, with about 23 per-
cent. About 6.4 percent had a masters degree. It is interesting to note that
Muslim womens level of schooling, while lower than Muslim men, was
96 Haideh Moghissi

reportedly quite high. About 23 percent of women respondents reported

having a university degree in 2001. This percentage was much higher than
the national level of university-educated women in Canada, which was
14.8 percent in that year. It was also higher than the related percentages
for women of a few other religions, including Roman Catholic (13.4 per-
cent), United Church (14.2 percent), and Sikh (16 percent). However, this
percentage was comparable to some, including Hindus (23.8 percent), and
much lower than Jews (36.3 percent). About 11 percent of Muslim women
had a college certificate or diploma, and about 5.2 percent a trade certifi-
cate or diploma. Overall, the level of postsecondary education of Canadian
Muslims, both male and female, is way above the national level.
To be precise, Canadian Muslims, with a postsecondary education level
twice that of the Canadian average, and an unemployment rate twice the
Canadian average, and median income 37 percent lower than the Canadian
median, are in a disadvantageous position. The Muslim median income
(a better indicator) was reported at $13,963, about 37 percent lower than
the Canadian median income of $22,120 ( Janhevich and Ibrahim 2004).
It would be reasonable to assume that with this income level, and given
the fact that over 70 percent of Muslims live in the large cities of Toronto,
Montreal, Vancouver, and Ottawa, many of them fall below the low-in-
come cut-offs.
How much of this manifestly unjust condition is attributable to poli-
cies of different levels of government toward Muslims and the disconnec-
tion between the multicultural policy and social and economic conditions
in the treatment of this population? In other words, does the Canadian
multicultural policy, instead of addressing race and ethnicity-based sys-
temic discrimination and racism, focus on religious demands of a minority
as the main concerns of whoever comes from the region, neglecting the
remarkable diversity of the population and the differing practical con-
cerns and interests? Is this failure not the direct result of taking ethnic-
ity and religion to be one and the same thing and perceiving Canadians
of Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian origin to be solidly
bound together through faith, and hence forming an undifferentiated reli-
gious community?

Belonging and Not Belonging

Emphasizing the practical concerns of Muslims is not meant to take
lightly their anxiety about loss of identity, the sense of insecurity, and
the collapse of self-confidence, or the feelings of outsiderness and emo-
tional vulnerability that are almost always associated with separation
from cultural and ethnic origin. Narratives of exile, self-exile, and migra-
tion testify to this reality, regardless of the reasons for departure from a
homeland, imaginary or real. Stuart Hall (2003) appropriately writes that
separation from a homeland connotes not only Otherness, but also the
condition of instability, permanent unsettlement, and the lack of any
 Multiculturalism and Belonging 97

final resolution (238244). For him, the concept of difference was a key
element in this regard. But diaspora literature abundantly alludes to the
distress and longing of individuals to whom the element of difference, in
terms of appearance, status, and finance hardly applied. After escaping
from Nazi-occupied Vienna to London, Freud, for example, is reported to
have said that the triumphant feeling of liberation is mingled too strongly
with mourning, for one had still very much loved the prison from which
one has been released( Jeurs 2008: 227). The tendency to complain about
everything and a feeling that nothing can be taken for granted and every-
thing can easily be taken away, are prevalent feelings among the displaced
and migrants.
The availability of social and economic services and supports in the
receiving society, the existence or nonexistence of possibilities for build-
ing a new home, passage of time, and proximity and remoteness from the
points of power undoubtedly would make a difference how sharply and
for how long the sense of not-belonging is felt. However, the state of siege
in which many Muslims feel they live in the West, after 9/11, is a strong
stimulus for a feeling of not fittingness and rejection. In some cases, these
feelings may lead to an exaggerated sense of affinity with the birthplace
from which they may have been forced to leave.
Muslims anxiety over identity is surely a reality that was not gener-
ated by the 9/11 tragedy. It has been there at least since the nineteenth
century, with the colonization of Muslim lands and the encounter with
modernity through colonial powers. But the psychological insecurity
of Muslims and their sense of indignation and suspicion were no doubt
heightened and hardened following the formation of the State of Israel
and the inconsistencies and double standards with which Muslim-majority
societies have been treated by Western powers. The striking changes in
global politics in the last two decades; foreign powers continued adven-
tures in the region; the unfair treatment of the two sides of the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict; the siege of Gaza; and the invasions of Afghanistan,
Iraq, and other sinister forms of intervention in Libya and now Syria have
compounded the frustration and the feeling of discontent. Seen in this
context, the exploitation of these frustrations by militant Islamists pro-
paganda and jihadi imams, aided by Saudi and Qatari funds, have perhaps
had an even more detrimental impact on Muslims feelings toward their
new countries than the practical conditions of life. This is particularly
true of the younger generation, who, not having experienced, firsthand,
the corruption, hypocrisy, and abuse of power by religious leaders in their
ancestral homelands, harbor utopian hopes for the possibility of justice
under an Islamic order.
The point here is that the post-9/11 policy security measures and the so-
called war on terror have sowed the seeds of further discontent and anger.
It is within this context that we can understand the reasons for the mush-
rooming of the indoctrinating websites, self-contained religious spaces
and networks, and exclusive Muslim associations, mosques, and religious
98 Haideh Moghissi

schools in Canada, as elsewhere. The changing demography of the country

and the growth of Muslim populations are of paramount importance. But
it is a reality that the need for support and connection, freedom from judg-
ment, and disrespect is met in these ethnic or religious groups. Muslim
youth receive self-sufficient and self-sustained support services and ben-
efit from Islamist networks that are often the depositories and promoters
of gender and age hierarchies, inflexibility, and intolerance. These institu-
tions, which now attract a large population of frustrated youth and the
reborn Muslims, function in virtual isolation from the larger society and
make the goal of integrative multiculturalism more unachievable. All this
has the blessing of the federal and provincial governments, which have
developed a comfortable relationship with the vocal self-appointed com-
munity leaders and imams who sell their own desires and their own agenda
as those of the community. It is needless to add that the dissenting voices
within the so-called Muslim community are not given the same chances
to rectify the misinformation and misrepresentation.
In fact, emboldened by these compromises, some of the conservative
men within the Muslim population refuse to even accept Canadas crimi-
nal and civil laws, demanding religious-based legal practices. The case in
point was the extensive campaign for the implementation of Sharia in
arbitration in Ontario. In parenthesis, this is not only a uniquely Canadian
problem as a similar campaign is under way in the United Kingdom, where
a group of Muslim fundamentalists have even announced part of East
London as a Sharia controlled zone, where women are already harassed
for not covering themselves. It is not unreasonable to assume that it is
more convenient for the government to turn to self-appointed community
leaders whenever a decision has to be made in relation to a nondominant
group rather than listening to many different voices from within these
populations. Or worse, our politicians decisions and practices reflect an
opportunistic move in the hope of being rewarded at the voting booths.
The point is that a nave, narrow focus on culture and cultural differ-
ences, combined with lack of attention or the will needed for developing
a well-defined and consistently and forcefully implemented anti-discrim-
ination policy to address social and economic inequities and injustices,
far from advancing inclusive citizenship, encourage social exclusion and
differentiated citizenship, and hence the formation of self-contained,
isolated, and exclusivist enclaves or what the French call development of
nations within nations. The encounter with the dominant culture and its
institutions is then played down to the bare minimum, and citizenship
rights are reduced to getting a legal document that entitles the person to
some social services and a passport. Notwithstanding the fact that with
securitization of citizenship post 9/11 and the invention of multiple mech-
anisms of border control, having a legal attachment to a Western terri-
tory no longer provides certain racialized groups psychological comfort
and practical protection. Far from making immigrants feel welcomed and
appreciated, difference is made the object of an inquisitors concern, the
 Multiculturalism and Belonging 99

basis for suspicion and a police file, or justification for an unlimited inter-
vention in everyday life. That is to say, difference does not invite an even-
handed integration, but instead a punitive and regulatory disciplining of
ethnicities (Moghissi et al. 2009).

Paradoxes of Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism presumably seeks to protect the autonomy and the right
to choice equally for all individuals. But in the implementation process,
the fixity with cultural and religious identities makes decision-makers
oblivious to the internal conflicts within the diverse and differentiated
minority populations across class, gender, ethnicity, national origin, and
worldviews. In a way, the genuine grievances of the majority in everyday
life are sacrificed in the interests of addressing religious demands of a
minority. Worse, considering that in societies in which religion has too
much influence, women have to turn to the government against the impo-
sition of sexist moral and ethical codes by religious community leaders, it
seems that multicultural policy, or the way it is implemented, fails to pro-
tect womens rights and gender equality, in the name of respecting religion
and cultural difference and autonomy. It is true that Multiculturalism was
not designed, in the first instance, to improve the well-being of women
and, in fact, in the last 20 years the unintended effect of the policy has
increased the vulnerability of women within minority communities
(Eisenberg 2010: 138139). This fact has prompted some feminists to call
for prohibiting some minority practices to make it possible for moral
values like individual autonomy and sexual equality to be enjoyed by all
citizens (ibid). After all, these liberal rights have been secured after much
struggle and campaign by citizens, particularly advocates of womens
rights. Others, aware of the paradoxes of the policy and the possibility
that the rights of individuals to autonomy and choice be compromised
for the rights of groups, have suggested that the groups that violate their
members basic liberties, or prevent them from exercising their autonomy
are not entitled to multicultural accommodation or protection (Ivison
2010: 11, cited in Kymlicka 2009). Needless to say that they still have to
tell us how these ideas can be implemented in practice.

Conclusion
No doubt in this increasingly globalizing world we have no other choice
but to accept change in the way we live and work, and think about people
of very different cultural traditions who voluntarily or involuntarily are
brought together by the force of migration. For multicultural policy to
work in the interest of all, we need to develop the psychological capac-
ity to overcome our fear of difference and to accept pluralism in beliefs,
in morality, and in ways of life. However, accommodation of diversity
requires formidable efforts on both sides. Surely, in the first instance, it is
100 Haideh Moghissi

the responsibility of the larger society to create the institutional mecha-

nisms for the dignified and equitable integration of new immigrants. This
requires moving away from a focus on token and superficial reforms, or
self-congratulatory celebration of ethnic and religious festivities, hoping
that this would counter potent forces of racism in more crucial areas of
life. What is more important is to concentrate on coordinated activities
for achieving egalitarian goals of multiculturalism and inclusive citizen-
ship. Multiculturalism need not compromise and impede social cohesion.
This would mean accommodating the rights and claims to cultural dif-
ference, but always making this conditional to respect the rights of oth-
ers within or without the group. Members of the marginalized national
and ethnic minorities should be expected to respect Canadas liberal and
constitutional values and the social contract, and realize that they cannot
expect one-way toleration, as Bassam Tibi (2001) would put it. They need
to welcome the opportunities offered by the countrys democratic insti-
tutions to appreciate, seek, explore, and experience the enormous varia-
tion in human life, sources of knowledge, moral values, and everyday-life
practices.
It is true that the development of the ethnic or religious identities is
related to relations with the dominant groups and to a concern over exclu-
sion. With the growth of the sense of belonging and self-confidence, the
anxiety over distinct identities will recede. Identities are then merged
and/or reconstructed in the new country in an interactive process. Such a
development would reduce cultural solitudes, creating space for cultural
infiltration and interaction, and for inter-learning in the interest of social
cohesion and bridging the center and peripheral cultures. Only through
this two-way exchange will Canadian multiculturalism enter its integra-
tive phase, and members of different cultural traditions in the country
become part of the social fabric and achieve inclusive citizenship.

Notes
* Large parts of this chapter are taken from the authors keynote address at the
Trudeau Foundations eighth conference on public policy, Halifax, November
1719, 2011.
1. Canada Statistics 2011 National Household Survey.
2. All data taken from H. Moghissi, S. Rahnema, and M. J. Goodman, Diaspora
by Design: Muslim Immigrants in Canada and Beyond (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2009).

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Toronto Press.
Anthias, Floya (2006). Belongings in a Globalising and Unequal World:
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Yuval-Davis et al. London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Dib, Kamal (2006). Now That Religious Diversity Is upon Us. Canadian Diversity
5, no. 2: 3944.
Eisenberg, Avigail (2010). Multiculturalism, Gender and Justice. In The Ashgate
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Fleras, A., and J. L. Kunz (2001). Media and Minorities: Representing Diversity in a
Multicultural Canada. Toronto: Thompson Education.
Hoffman, Eva (1990). Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language. New York:
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Hall, Stuart (2003). Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In Theorizing Diaspora,
edited by Jana Evans Braziel and Anita Mannur. Oxford: Balckwell.
Isin, Engin F., and Patricia Wood (1999). Citizenship and Democracy. London:
Sage.
Ivison, Duncan, ed. (2010). Introduction. The Ashgate Ressearch Companion to
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Janhevich, J., and H. Ibrahim (2004). Muslims in Canada: An Illustrative and
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Kroeger. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Kymlicka, W. (2009). Multicultural Odysseeys: Navigating the New International
Politics of Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Moghissi, Haideh, S. Rahnema, and M. J. Goodman (2009). Diaspora by Design:
Muslim Immigrants in Canada and Beyond. Toronto: University of Toronto
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Rygiel, Kim (2010). Globalizing Citizenship. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Tibi, Bassam (2001). Islam between Culture and Politics. London: Palgrave.
 CHAPTER 6

IM NOT DIFFERENTBECAUSE
EVERYBODY IS DIFFERENT:
NOTIONS OF BELONGING AMONG
MUSLIMS IN THE NETHERLANDS
Lenie Brouwer

Introduction
According to public media and policy debates, the multicultural society
has failed. In these debates, people who hold dual citizenship are criticized
for their lack of loyalty to their new country, because it is assumed that a
person can feel at home only in one country and in one place. Although the
focus on the group and the country can vary, the content of the discourse
in Western countries is almost always the same (Andersen and Biseth 2013:
10). Migrants are seen as a threat to national security and social cohesion if
they are not willing to respect Western values such as freedom of speech
and human rights (Bouras 2013: 1228; Glick Schiller 2013: 32).
Dual citizenship is also considered an obstacle to social integration and
belonging to the host country as it is supposed that one has not adapted
to the national culture (Hamaz and Vasta 2009: 4). Some 1.2 million peo-
ple in the Netherlands hold dual citizenship, some of them through no
choice of their own (Statistics Netherlands 2012a). Dutch-Moroccans, for
instance, are not allowed to renounce their Moroccan citizenship, as they
are still considered members of the Moroccan state.
The above views are in sharp contrast with the recent findings of
transnational studies, which have concluded that members of households
can be connected to both their country of origin and their country of
residence (Glick Schiller et al. 1995; Vertovec 1999; Levitt 2009; Zeitlyn
2012; Engbersen et al. 2014). Incorporation in the country of settle-
ment and transnational practices are viewed as simultaneous processes.
Transnational households form close links with their homeland through
family connections, economic transactions, and the houses or land they
own. The new technologies of communication and transport make these
social contacts even easier to maintain (Nedelcu 2012).
104 Lenie Brouwer

Duyvendak (2011: 23) states that the Dutch integration debate is framed
in terms of belonging, polarizing natives and migrants. This highly con-
tested concept of belonging has a great variety of meanings; it is a multi-
layered concept that involves emotional attachment to particular places
as well as issues of acceptance and self-expression. Duyvendak introduces
the terms havenwhich is associated with feeling safe and secure in the
physical surroundingsand heavenwhich is related to the networks
of people with whom one can feel connected and develop oneself (ibid:
3940). This polarizing model is very useful for our current research on
Dutch-Moroccans in the Netherlands.
One group that is often the subject of public debate are male Dutch-
Moroccan adolescents, who are criticized for their criminal behaviour:
21 percent of second-generation male Moroccans aged between 18 and 25
have been convicted of committing a crime (Dagevos 2011). In the pub-
lic debate, however, this specific problem is generalized to all Moroccan
youths. The prejudice that Dutch-Moroccan girls face, on the other hand,
concerns Islam, as they are generally presented as being oppressed by their
religion and forced by their fathers to cover themselves up (De Koning
2008). In this chapter, we show what meaning our respondents attach to
their religion and how this is related to their notion of belonging.
In the context of this politicized public debate, we decided to investi-
gate how Dutch-Moroccans express and construct their notions of home
and belonging in the Netherlands, in particular spaces in and around
Amsterdam, the capital of the country. This chapter is based on a qualita-
tive study I conducted, with the assistance of anthropology bachelor stu-
dents, among 50 first- and second-generation Muslim Moroccans (22 men
and 28 women) (see Anemaet et al. 2001; Muinck et al. 2001; De Cock et al.
2011; Louwe et al. 2011; Ras et al. 2011). One of the main findings of this
research is that, in sharp contrast to the criticism of Dutch-Moroccans
as supposedly lacking a sense of belonging to the Dutch nation-state,
our informants emphasized that they actually felt at home in their local
neighborhood.
The following section briefly discusses the debate on the notions of
belonging and transnationalism, in order to explain the studys theoretical
frame of reference. It then presents the research populations social back-
ground and describes how their lives in the neighborhood, their attach-
ment to Islam, and their transnational ties contribute to their notions of
home and belonging.

Debates on Notions of Belonging and Transnationalism

A lot has been written on the concepts of home, belonging, and transna-
tionalism, and there have been numerous heated debates about the defini-
tion of these concepts (see, e.g., Vertovec 1999; Yuval-Davis et al. 2005;
Yuval-Davis 2006; Levitt 2009; Duyvendak 2011; Zeitlyn 2012; Glick
 Im Not Different . . . 105

Schiller 2013). Scholars, however, attach different meanings to the notions

of home and belonging; more clarification of the concepts is, therefore,
required. In addition, it is also important to note that we are dealing with
a dynamic process, one in which notions of belonging are constructed at
various analytical levels (Yuval-Davis 2010: 199). The concept of home, for
example, has numerous symbolic meanings, as Mallet (2004) has discussed
in great detail, but only a few findings can be mentioned here. Depending
on the perspective of the individual, home can be not only a space of
belonging with clear boundaries, a dwelling, or a homeland, but also a site
of oppression. A distinction is also often made between the inside and the
outside of the home, including gendered perceptions. The private site can
be experienced by women as a haven, a secure place from the outside world
(ibid: 72). But the very opposite view can equally be expressed where home
is seen as a place of insecurity; this is clearly the case when, for example,
women are violated or abused. Consequently, the home can mean author-
ity or status for men. Being at home as a particular feeling, or as a lived
experience of locality, can also be a significant way for people to express
themselves (ibid: 79).
The Dutch sociologist Duyvendak (2011) elaborates further on the con-
cept of home by differentiating between haven and heaven and between
spaces and people. He connects the concept of haven, on a microlevel, to
feelings of security, nostalgia, or idealizing home. The physical character-
istics of a particular place, such as a neighborhood or city, also contribute
to these feelings of home. Heaven stands more for an outward situation
in which people express themselves, connect collectively with others, and
develop their favourite activities, for instance, people who share the same
lifestyle. By using this categorization Duyvendak (2011: 38) attempts to
summarize some relevant elements of the multilayered concept of home.
Hamaz and Vasta (2009: 7) relate the feeling of being safe at home to the
notion of belonging, being accepted by, and affiliated to, different places.
The immigrants Hamaz and Vasta (2009: 11) interviewed in London felt
that they belonged to the city, without necessarily maintaining a personal
relationship with the dominant group of inhabitants. In their view, it is
important to make a distinction between the relationship with spaces and
that with people. Belonging is not automatically linked to mixing with
the native population or the dominant group of a particular place. They
criticize the narrow and dichotomous assumption in public debates in the
United Kingdom that one can belong to only one country and demonstrate
that migrants can belong to more than one country.
The notion that one can feel connected to more places is supported by
a body of empirical studies on transnationalism. Scholars have demon-
strated that migrant households must be seen in a broader transnational
perspective as members of these households maintain diverse and ambiv-
alent relationships with their homeland and country of settlement (for
instance, Glick Schiller et al. 1995; Vertovec 1999; Levitt 2009; Zeitlyn
106 Lenie Brouwer

2012; Engbersen et al. 2014). Migrants can also develop multiple senses
of belonging to the homeland and their country of residence that exist in
the emotional dimension (Erdal 2014: 367). New information technologies
and cheaper transport have made it even easier to maintain social con-
tacts with their families abroad (Vertovec 2001; Levitt 2009). As a conse-
quence, this chapter focuses on how Dutch-Moroccan migrants express
their notions of home and belonging in a transnational context.

Research Population
A range of methods were applied in this study, such as individual and infor-
mal interviews, a focus group discussion with young women on marriage
and partner choice, and observation of several places, for instance, a mar-
ket, a university, a mosque, and some professional meetings of Muslims of
Moroccan origin. The respondents were selected mainly from the personal
networks of the researchers, namely, 20 students and their instructor. Our
research group was quite young: half aged between 18 and 25, and half
aged 26 or older. However, even in this small sample the internal diversity
among the research group was large.
The youngest respondent, for instance, was a second-generation youth
aged 14 who was born in Amsterdam, attended an Islamic primary school,
and is now a student in secondary education who wants to become a doc-
tor. The oldest respondent was a first-generation man of 72 years who came
to the Netherlands in 1976 to visit his brother, and never left. He married
a Dutch woman and had two children with her, but then divorced. His
second spouse is a young woman from Morocco, and he is now the father
of an eight-month-old baby.
Approximately 340,000 Moroccans, half of whom were born in the
Netherlands, currently live there; this is 2 percent of the total Dutch
population (Statistics Netherlands 2012b). The majority of our research
group, however, was born in the Netherlands; only 11 respondents, mainly
men, were born in Morocco. The fathers of some of the female students
we interviewed arrived in the Netherlands as young boys and attended
secondary school; these young women speak Moroccan Arabic as well
as Dutch at home with their parents, while most of them use Dutch as a
communication language with their siblings and Amazigh or Arabic with
their parents. Almost 10 percent of the total Moroccan population lives in
Amsterdam, 20 percent in the western part of the city, which has a diverse
population.
The respondents were mostly students at universities or higher
vocational establishments. This concurs with the increasing trend for
Dutch-Moroccan students to attend higher education; in 15 years, their
participation in higher education has doubled (Dagevos 2011). The respon-
dents who had finished their studies were active in a great variety of jobs,
for instance, working in a supermarket, a shop, at an office, in a market, at
a high school, or at the university. This anthropological research cannot be
 Im Not Different . . . 107

generalized to the whole group of Dutch-Moroccans in the Netherlands,

as the sample is too small and not representative. However, the collected
data are trustworthy and reveal interesting findings.

Empirical Findings
Feeling at Home in Their Neighborhood
Locality matters for our respondents; they all felt at home in a specific
urban space, a haven in terms of Duyvendak (2011). Those who were
born and raised in Amsterdam were living in a multicultural neighbor-
hood where they attended mixed primary and secondary schools. They
stated in the interviews that they were very positive about their neigh-
borhood and felt safe and secure there. One 31-year-old married woman
noted: Especially when it is nice weather, you see everybody on the street.
Theres always something to do. Its not a boring dull neighborhood. I like
that. A lot of my friends and family live in this neighborhood. A 24-year-
old woman said about her area: I was born here. I dont know anywhere
else, do you understand what I mean? My friends live here, my school is
nearby. Its quite normal to me.
The 72-year-old respondent, who had lived in this neighborhood for
almost 30 years, stressed its multicultural nature: All the people have dif-
ferent backgrounds, but they know how to live together. Everybody is seen
as a human being, not as a Moroccan or a Turk. He said that he felt very
attached to the area, and that the busy local market is also a place where
he liked to socialize with his friends. It is this local feeling, related to the
neighborhood, that he emphasized (Muick et al. 2012: 118). A 23-year-old
male respondent added I just go to school. I continue my studies. I dont
smoke, I dont take drugs, I have my drivers licence, I speak Dutch, you
know. No trouble with the police or anything. In his view he acted like a
good citizen who was well integrated. A 25-year-old man emphasized his
connection to the Dutch by saying that when Ajax (Amsterdams football
club) won the championship, he celebrated with all the Amsterdam peo-
ple; the same when the national football team played in the World Cup
final. Who wouldnt do that? I mean, this team belongs to my home, the
Netherlands (Anemaet et al. 2011: 66).
The respondents had varied networks of friends, some of whom with
roots in Morocco, while others originated from Turkey, Suriname, Antilles,
Afghanistan, or the Netherlands. They called themselves multiculti and
saw this mixture of friends as an enrichment; these connections with
others can also be described by Duyvendaks concept of heaven. A 23-year-
old student explained why she felt so comfortable at the university: Im
not differentbecause everybody is different. I dont have the feeling that
I have to prove that I belong to them. Another young man reported that
nobody in his district thought it was strange to have an Islamic beard.
A girl who wore the headscarf stated that she felt accepted in her mixed
108 Lenie Brouwer

neighborhood, which contributed to her sense of belonging to the place

(Cock et al. 2011: 51). Some scholars criticize the strong focus on differ-
ences in migration research, but in our study it is remarkable how the
respondents framed their social interactions in these terms, embedding in
them their notions of home and belonging (e.g., Glick Schiller and Caglar
2015: 2).
These daily multiethnic contacts, however, have their limitations in
the relationship with native Dutch people, as Hamaz and Vasta (2009)
mentioned earlier. In particular, the female informants mentioned some
relevant differences in perspectives regarding certain moral issues. For
instance, a 23-year-old student said: It has to do with our Muslim life-
style: no dating, no friends and no alcohol. If you go out, its odd that you
dont drink alcohol. If we watch a movie, we look away during sex scenes.
As a 28-year-old married woman clarified: I dont have to explain this to
my Moroccan friends. They therefore feel more at home, more at ease,
with other Muslim young women.
Some informants were raised in suburbs outside Amsterdam, mostly in
a white neighborhood, where they attended a Christian primary school.
They had mainly Dutch friends during their childhood, which was fine
as they felt accepted. When they moved to Amsterdam to study at a uni-
versity with a big population of Muslim students, they met and made
friends with more Moroccan and Muslim students. A 31-year-old student
underlined the similarities between herself and her Dutch-Moroccan and
Muslim friends (Cock et al. 2011: 76):

I dont feel Dutch or Moroccan; I feel more a Moroccan who has been
raised in the Netherlands. You are actually different from both categories.
It seems that we have developed into a sort of specific group with its own
social context and history, of which I am a part. I feel the best when Im
with them. I dont have to explain my behaviour; we think the same way.
But it does not mean that I do not meet other people.

The observation of feeling part of a specific group is also echoed in Levitts

finding (2009: 1239) that the second generation was not caught between
the demands of two different cultures; rather, its members created a
complex set of practices of their own. Zeitlyn (2012: 967), in his study
on second-generation Bangladeshi youths in London, concludes that they
constructed a unique Bangladeshi British identity, due to their ambiva-
lent feelings regarding their country of origin. Although they felt different
from both their families in Bangladesh and their British peers in London,
they realized that they belonged more to London than to Bangladesh.
Because difference is taken for granted in the multicultural context of
a Dutch neighborhood, our respondents valued these places as home or
haven in Duyvendaks terms (2009). In addition, they felt most connected
to the people who had a similar lifestyle, which according to Duyvendak
(2009) represents heaven.
 Im Not Different . . . 109

Islam
Around 850,000 Muslimsthe majority of Moroccan and Turkish
originscurrently live in the Netherlands; this is 5 percent of the total
population and 11.3 percent of the Amsterdam population. In public and
policy debates Islam is considered a threat to liberal Dutch values and
gender equality (Bouras 2013: 1230). All the respondents of our research
emphasized having an emotional attachment to their religion, which con-
curs with the findings of a large survey carried out among Muslims in the
Netherlands (Maliepaard and Gijsberts 2012). Moroccan Muslims identi-
fied strongly with their religion, and it played a central role in their life,
but were more often confronted in public with negative attitudes to Islam.
According to the survey, 80 percent of the Moroccan Muslims shared this
view (ibid: 182). So, how do these experiences influence their notions of
home and belonging?
Policymakers and the media regularly associate Islam with extrem-
ism and terrorism (Brouwer 2012: 175), a form of stigmatization that was
experienced by our respondents in daily life. One young informant, who
wore a typical Islamic beard, complained that Dutch people on the street
often looked at him oddly. They immediately think youre an extremist,
but they dont even know you. In addition, our respondents emphasized
the peaceful character of their religion, as have other respondents in other
research (De Koning 2008). One young woman said that she was tired of
always having to explain that her religion was not violent. Another 23-year-
old male student stated: You have so often done something wrong, just
because youre a Muslim. I think, you know, that if people were more
familiar with our religion, they would understand us better.
The respondents were raised amidst Islamic practices and traditions,
and thus took their faith for granted. It had become part of their daily life-
style, in which, for instance, pork was prohibited. The meat must be halal,
slaughtered according to strict Islamic rules. This Islamic practice was the
subject of a heated political debate during the time of the research (BBC
News 2011). One female respondent said that she experienced this debate
as yet another attempt at Muslim-bashing. A young woman who habitu-
ally wore the veil mentioned that she was often confronted with prejudices
in her daily contacts on the street or public transport. These forms of
exclusion are reasons for women to feel less at home in the Netherlands.
In the large survey referred to previously, which was conducted among
Muslims in the Netherlands, 76 percent of the Moroccans prayed 5 times
a day, 63 percent of the second generation (Maliepaard and Gijsberts 2012:
182). Most respondents in our study prayed regularly at home. For women,
who do not attend a mosque often as it is not mandatory, faith had increas-
ingly become an individual matter. In the survey, a third of the Moroccans
visited the mosque at least once a week and hardly any difference was
found between the first and second generations (ibid). Of the 475 mosques
in the Netherlands, 179 are Moroccan, 20 of which are in Amsterdam
110 Lenie Brouwer

(Ras et al. 2011: 9; Maliepaard and Gijsberts 2012: 179). A 24-year-old respon-
dent, who worked as a religious servant in a public organization, reported
that the mosque, as a place of worship, was very important to him:

The mosque is the house of Allah. Praying is the most important pillar of
Islam. If you dont pray, you are not a Muslim. If you dont pray, God does
not know you. He cannot forgive all your sins if you dont ask him while you
pray. ( . . . ) The mosque unites me with God. Through praying it enables me
to communicate with God. This gives me a good feeling.

This respondent said that he preferred to live somewhere that was close
to a mosque (Muinck et al. 2011: 108). The mosque is also an important
meeting place for one of the retired respondents who often spent his lei-
sure time there. He liked to meet other Muslims who shared his vision on
Islam. Now he was older, the contact with Allah is stronger, he said; he
was now closer to his religion. As his pension was too small for him to
be able to visit Morocco regularly, he was very dependent on the neighbor-
hood where he was acquainted with a great number of people and where
his family lived.
The university that our respondents attended had special prayer rooms
in the cellar, one for men and one for women. At prayer times, the rooms
are often full of Muslim students and staff members. The visitors told us
that they appreciated this prayer facility; they liked having a quiet place
where they could meet other Muslims informally. In their view, only seri-
ous or pious people visited these special prayer rooms.
The importance of religion also became very clear in the interviews
when the issue of the choice of a marriage partner was raised. Among poli-
cymakers, forced Muslim marriage is a hotly debated topic, and several
attempts have been made to introduce laws to restrict them (Storm and
Bartels 2008). In a focus group discussion with some female students, the
topic caused a lot of laughter; it is a gendered theme related to the con-
cept of home, which hinges on the relationships between men and women,
and between the first and second generations (Cock et al. 2011: 187). The
young women drew a strict distinction between the era of their parents,
when marriages were mostly arranged by their families, and those taking
place these days, which are characterized by more freedom of choice for
women.
A 22-year-old woman in the focus group said that her parents had
wanted to marry each other, and that arranged marriages with consent
also existed. Her friend commented: That sounds like an arranged mar-
riage. The first student continued the story about her parents: This is
what happens. A woman says, for instance, to another woman, I know a
nice girl and perhaps she is good for your son, she comes from a respected
family, then it is an option. ( . . . ) Their fathers were friends, so it was easy.
Another young woman, on the contrary, stressed that her mother had been
forced to marry: She didnt really want it, but she obeyed her parents, as
 Im Not Different . . . 111

she didnt want to disappoint them. They all emphasized that arranged
marriages were not part of the Islam, but part of the cultural tradition of
their country. One of the students added: Its purely cultural. Then they
all shouted: Tradition! One of them explained: Its the pressure from
parents, from the environment. You dont want to dishonour your family.
To be more specific, what they meant was the authority of the male mem-
bers of the family, the gendered perception of home, which can be a site of
oppression (Mallet 2004: 72).
All the young women in our research were convinced that they would
be able to choose their spouses. Of course they wanted their parents con-
sent, but it must be their choice, as they emphasized self-confidently. On
the other hand, they strongly opposed the behaviour of Dutch youths
who, in their view, could have sexual relationships with whomever they
wanted, without being married to them. They certainly did not wish to
adopt that part of Dutch culture: We want to maintain a certain piety, a
certain respect or ethic. Nevertheless, finding a suitable Muslim husband
appeared to be difficult in the Netherlands these days, and a partner from
Morocco was not a solution (cf. Dennert 2012).
A 31-year-old student who met her Dutch-Moroccan fianc at the
university, stated: I always said that I didnt want a husband from
Morocco. I think that the cultural difference is too big if youve been
raised in the Netherlands and hes been living in Morocco. Recent
figures show that only 8 percent of Dutch-Moroccan youths marry a
partner from the country of origin; the majority (75 percent) find a part-
ner from the same ethnic background in the Netherlands (Statistics
Netherlands 2012b). All the female informants agreed upon the impor-
tance of having the same religion as their potential spouse. If they did
not meet a suitable Dutch-Moroccan man, they said, their future hus-
band must be a Muslim; a Dutch Christian would not be acceptable as it
would create problems with the socialization and education of the chil-
dren. They also acknowledged that Muslim women were not allowed to
marry a non-Muslim husband according to Islamic tradition; in addi-
tion, their parents would disapprove of it very strongly. This attitude
also echoed the findings of the large survey conducted among Muslims
in the Netherlands; 76 percent of the Moroccans disapproved of the
marriage of their daughter with a partner who was from another reli-
gion (Maliepaard and Gijsberts 2012: 180).
In relation to the notions of belonging, we found that most of the infor-
mants were very emotionally attached to their Islamic faith. Their affec-
tive feelings were strengthened even more by the negative experiences of
Islam in their daily contacts with Dutch people. Although sensitive issues
such as partner choice and marriage can raise problems inside the home,
according to the female respondents this occurred in the first generation
but would not be an issue for them, the second generation. They perceived
their home as a safe place, or in the term coined by Duyvendak (2011), a
heaven.
112 Lenie Brouwer

Transnational Relations
All the informants lived in households that maintained transnational rela-
tions with family members abroad, both in Morocco and in other parts
of Europe, such as Belgium, Spain, or France. Ten percent of Moroccos
population (about 3.2 million people) live abroad. RemittancesUSD 6.8
billion (58.3 billion dirhams) a yearmake a vital contribution to both indi-
vidual families and to Morocco as a whole (Nuqydy 2012). Most Moroccan
migrants visited their family in Morocco during the holidays, facilitated
by cheap transport facilities. As Glick Schiller, Basch, and Santon Blanc
(1995) and Levitt (2009: 1226) wrote, every migrant must be seen in the
context of transnational relations, which they perceived as a constant
stream of the exchange of goods, services, funds, and people, such as mar-
riage partners. It is in this transnational household that the second genera-
tion was raised.
The country of originMoroccowas very evident in the daily prac-
tices of families, for instance, through the Amazigh or Arabic language
that the children spoke with their parents, the socialization, the satellite
television that was switched on almost the whole day, or the Moroccan
food they ate. In that sense, these families had a transnational perspec-
tive. The first-generation migrants felt responsible for their poor families
in Morocco, and often considered themselves obliged to support them
financially. The respondents told old stories about how their fathers used
to visit their home country with a bus loaded with goods. However, this
picture is changing. The first generation is getting older, and they now
prefer to fly to Morocco.
Dutch-Moroccans have access to various social media for contacting
their kin abroad, although the telephone was still popular among the old
generation. Young people sent text messages or used the WhatsApp func-
tion on their smartphones, mainly to keep up with their local friends. Its
easy and free, a 21-year-old student explained. Skype, which is also free,
was often used to communicate with family abroad. In addition, young
people used Facebook for their international contacts and exchanged pic-
tures or notes with their friends and cousins. Some young male informants
said that they were on line non-stop. A 25-year-old man was very proud
of his new i Phone; he was also an active user of Facebook, MSN, Skype,
and Twitter:

Day and night! It is nice, but also terrible that you are on line almost the
whole day. Every time there is an update or email, I receive a message on my
screen. I have to follow what people say to each other, Im on line twenty-
four seven. If a group in one time zone goes to sleep, the other group is
awake and gets in touch.

He maintained almost daily contact with his cousins on Facebook, by chat

or by putting a message on his Facebook wall. When he visited Morocco,
 Im Not Different . . . 113

he met them face to face. It is always nice to see them or to speak with
them. We have a good time over there, everybody has the same sense of
humour. Despite the fact that I live in the Netherlands, I feel at home
there (Anemaet et al. 2011: 62), he said, confirming the findings of schol-
ars such as Glick Schiller (2013) and Levitt (2009).
However, not all the respondents shared this positive attitude toward
their parents country. A 21-year-old male student who was born in
Casablanca but raised in Amsterdam, referred to having a double feeling
about Morocco:

I feel at home here and there. Here, they consider me a Moroccan, because
I look different and have Moroccan nationality. But in Morocco Im also a
foreigner, because I dont live in Morocco. People think that you have a bet-
ter life there and that you dont belong to them anymore.

After the interview, he concluded that he felt most at home in the

Netherlands, in Amsterdam; thanks to the social contacts he had and the
activities he shared with other Dutch-Moroccans, he felt connected to
them. In this case the local space was more important for the notions of
belonging than the Moroccan situation. One girl noted critically: Every
time you visit your family in Morocco, they expect you to bring presents
or to pay the doctors bill. More ambivalent feelings were mentioned by
other young female respondents. For example, this is what a 22-year-old
female student said about Morocco:

These are of course your roots, but after one or two weeks in Morocco, I
want to go home, because, yes, how shall I put it, I recognize differences . . . I
have a mentality thats different from that of the mainstream Moroccan.
And . . . yes, my family in Morocco is more a holiday family; Im not really
connected. I have the feeling that they no longer know me. (Anemaet et al.
2011: 82)

Some of the young respondents also criticized their relationship with their
country of origin. A 20-year-old woman claimed that she despised the way
young women were treated in Morocco, which she blamed on the culture:
In that culture, youre not supposed to walk on the street late in the eve-
ning. Youre called a whore, and it doesnt matter whether you are with
your husband or friends.
The young respondents stressed that they wanted to visit their family
in the village just for a short time. They wanted to see more of Morocco
and of other places of interest. Some did not want to visit Morocco every
year, as they knew the country quite well, and would prefer to visit other
countries. For instance, a 24-year-old young woman said: I love Southern
Spain. ( . . . ) It is better for your development, to see another culture. She
also felt different in Morocco. They look differently at you, ( . . . ) on the
one hand youre welcome, but on the other hand youre not. Regarding the
114 Lenie Brouwer

Netherlands, she continued: I was born here, but a lot of Dutch people
say, but you still hold dual nationality. The native Dutch assume that
she is not sufficiently integrated, but she stated that this attitude did not
bother her much, as she had adapted to Dutch culture and felt at home
here.
Although free communication facilities such as Skype or Facebook
have slashed the cost of maintaining contact with family abroad, the
young generation were more critical of Morocco. Transnational families
are connected to their homeland and other family members abroad by a
great range of activities, visits, financial streams, and people. In terms of
notions of home and belonging, however, the relationship with their coun-
try of origin was not that simple for our Dutch-Moroccan informants.
They all referred to their Moroccan roots, which reflected their emotional
affection for their country of origin, but for those who were born in the
Netherlands this affection could be ambivalent (cf. Levitt 2009; Zeitlyn
2012). During their visits to Morocco, they increasingly realized that they
belonged to the Netherlands, to the place where they were born, raised,
and currently live with their families.

Conclusion
The transnational relations and dual citizenship of migrants and their
offspring are frequently questioned in both public and policy debates,
as it is assumed that one can be loyal to only one country. Images of
criminal Dutch-Moroccan boys and oppressed Muslim girls dominate
these debates, stimulating feelings of social exclusion among Muslim
Moroccans. Research on the notions of home and belonging, however,
has demonstrated how multilayered the meanings of these notions are
for migrants (Hamaz and Vasta 2009; Levitt 2009; Zeitlyn 2012; Glick
Schiller 2013). Duyvendaks distinction between haven and heaven was
highlighted in our study to reveal the complex and ambivalent relation-
ships that young Dutch-Moroccans have with their place of residence and
country of origin.
The findings of our study lead to the conclusion that the Dutch-
Moroccan respondents feel at home in the Netherlands, particularly in
their multicultural neighborhoods, schools, and organizations. In these
settings, they can be different because everybody is different, as one
of the female respondents explained very clearly to us. Their common
Islamic faith helps them to understand each other better, and their faith is
strengthened by the negative public debate and opinion in Dutch society.
Although it is often stated that the multicultural society has failed, in these
particular multicultural settings Dutch-Moroccans feel at home. Their
sense of belonging, however, is more emotionally expressed in their local
neighborhood and less in the national Dutch context, which is more asso-
ciated with the latters negative attitudes toward Islam. In Duyvendaks
words, their local neighborhood and the multicultural city of Amsterdam
 Im Not Different . . . 115

can be seen as their havena nice place to beand the fact that they can
express themselves there means it is also their heaven.
Our respondents were raised in transnational households and are there-
fore strongly connected to their parents homeland. As Levitt (2009:
1239) and Zeitlyn (2012: 966) have demonstrated, this transnational con-
text formed an integral part of their childhood. It is important to note
that their relationship to Morocco is different from their sense of belong-
ing to the Netherlands. They stress their Moroccan roots and the links
with their kin, and they celebrate Morocco as a beautiful place for a holi-
day, but in daily practice, they feel less at home in Morocco than in the
Netherlands.
There has been a shift in orientation, as the younger generation say
that they do not feel totally accepted by their compatriots in their country
of origin, because of the different mentality and culture. This feeling of
belonging to Morocco is covered more by Duyvendaks notion of haven
than by his concept of heaven: they do not think that they can freely
express themselves in their parents country. Yet, this does not mean that
one can feel at home only in one country. On the contrary, this view is
too simplistic, as social reality is much more complex. The multilayered
meanings of notions of belonging give young Muslim people more flex-
ibility to express their belonging to specific places in the Netherlands and
in Morocco.

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 CHAPTER 7

AMERICAN JIHAD: THE ROLE

OF SHIA NARRATIVES ON SHIA
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
IN THE UNITED STATES

Cyrus Ali Contractor

Introduction
The interest in the politics of Shias is ever-increasing, especially as events
are changing in the face of the so-called Arab Uprisings, the events that
surround the Syrian Civil War, and the emergence of Islamic State of Iraq
and Syria as a major player in both Syria and Iraq.1 Moreover, increasing
tensions in the Persian Gulf states of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain between
the Sunni governing elites and Shia discontents, sectarian differences in
Iraq and Pakistan, and the ever-contentious status of Irans nuclear pro-
gram have only intensified the focus on this particular religious group.
Academia has been keen to explain the motives behind Shia political
action, and this has increased greatly since the fall of Saddam Hussein in
2003.2
The study of Muslim-Americans and Muslims in America is a burgeon-
ing field, and that includes increased interest in Shias living in the so-called
West (Contractor 2011). Apart from Walbridge and Takims contribu-
tions, little work has been done on the Shias qua Shias in North America.3
Though both these scholars have looked at political issues and ideologies
associated with Shias in North America, minimal political science scholar-
ship has been conducted on the topic.
This is an explanation of how the narratives and symbols of Shiism
influence political and social participation of political activists within
the American Shia community, and is a summary of a larger project that
was the first political science scholarship on Shias in the United States.
This chapter focuses exclusively on the responses of one individual, Jihad
Saleh, who served as an example of how Shias living in the United States,
particularly those who are active politically and socially, interact with the
120 Cyrus Ali Contractor

narratives of their faith, and how that results in particular forms of political
and social action. The research questions ask: How do Shia narratives and
symbols affect political and social participation among Shia community
members living in the United States? Additionally, how do different tropes
of Shia narratives and symbols affect the manner in which Shias in the
United States participate politically and socially?

Data and Methods

Beginning in July 2008, data collection has been ongoing in various
mosques and/or Islamic centers in the cities of Dallas and Houston,
Texas; Dearborn, Michigan; Portland, Oregon; Washington, DC; Los
Angeles, California; and Chicago, Illinois. Interviews and ethnographic
approaches ascertain the manner in which narratives were used and
absorbed.
This methodological approach allowed for a rich understanding of
how religious narratives affected the lives of these Shia activists, and was
a necessity given the unusual situation of this particular demographic,
namely, the rather small population (between 900,000 and 1.4 million) of
Shias in the United States, what Sachedina refers to as a minority within
a minority (1994). Therefore, in order to study such a small group, one
must go where they arein this case it involved visiting Shia mosques and
religious centers.

Semi-Structured Interviews
Among the various religious scholars and leaders interviewed in the
larger research project, four political and social activists were included
due to their roles as leaders or important members of the Shia commu-
nity. Their insights helped in establishing a robust understanding of the
overall American Shia community and the issues that it faces. In addi-
tion to these official interviews, I also engaged in various impromptu
discussions that helped inform my understanding of Shia political and
social participation as well as their perceptions of the American political
system.

Ethnography as Participant Observation and as a Sensibility

Participant observation involved sitting in religious centers and listen-
ing to lectures and observing interactions between the religious leaders
and the congregation, as well as among the members of the congregation.
Depending on the occasion, a few people to a few hundred people may have
attended the gathering. Muarram and Raman gatherings are heavily
attended. The congregation of a simple Friday night could vary depending
 American Jihad 121

on the location, the weather, or other circumstances. Additionally, further

insight was gained while hanging out with members of the communi-
ties. This was particularly true in regard to my interaction with Jihad Saleh
in Washington, DC and Los Angeles where I spent a significant amount
of time discussing the role of the faith in the public lives of a handful of
younger, more politically active individuals.
Just as important, if not more, was gaining familiarity with the texts, cul-
tural products, and narratives of Shiism, as well as the methods by which
they are diffused, and the ways in which narrators use them to affect the
emotions and actions of the congregation. This is what Edward Schatz
terms ethnography as a sensibility; an approach that careswith the pos-
sible emotional engagement that impliesto glean the meanings that the
people under study attribute to their social and political reality (2009).
This aided in the understanding of how the audience members absorb
the narratives of Shiism and use them to support their political and social
proclivities. In order to accomplish this I listened to more than 200 lec-
tures and sermons equaling more than 200 hours of the telling of these
narratives, and by doing so familiarized myself with many of the jurispru-
dential issues within the Shia school of Islamic thought. Additionally, I
acquainted myself with various Shia texts that discuss the narratives of the
religion, as well as the differences between modern Shia scholars on reli-
gious and political matters.

Hypothesis 1The Essentialist Argument

Causal Mechanisms and Observable Implications
of the Essentialist Hypothesis
Figure 7.1 illustrates the essentialist argument that Shia narratives and sym-
bols, as the major independent variables, inform and create identities that
are predisposed toward particular forms of political and social participa-
tion. Therefore, though other variables such as ethnicity, race, gender,
education, location, personal experiences, and socioeconomic status serve
as secondary independent variables in identity formation and consequently
political and social action, ultimately there was an expectation that activ-
ists would argue that Shia narratives are the tools used to form identities.
Similarly, these activists use the narratives and the characters within those
narratives as the main motivations to act in particular ways.

Shia Identity Formation Political &

Narratives & (including Political & Social
Symbols Social proclivities) Participation

Figure 7.1 Causal mechanism for the essentialist hypothesis

122 Cyrus Ali Contractor

Gender, Age,
Soc-Eco,
Race, Ethnicity,
Education

Personal Proclivities Shia Political &

(including Political & Social Narratives & Social
proclivities) Symbols Participation

Figure 7.2 Causal mechanism for the instrumentalist hypothesis

Hypothesis 2Instrumentalist Argument

Causal Mechanisms and Observable Implications
of the Instrumentalist Hypothesis
As seen in Figure 7.2, political and social proclivities are a result of factors
such as ethnicity, race, gender, education, location, personal experiences,
and socioeconomic status. Ones proclivities lead to the choice of narrative
and trope of narrative that best supports already held attitudes and beliefs.
Therefore, Shia narratives in Figure 7.2 are relegated to a secondary causal
effect.
Additionally, Shias play a more active, or instrumentalist, role in deciding
which Shia narratives and tropes of those narratives they utilize. Therefore,
through this theoretical lens, individual Shias become savvier consumers
of religious narratives. They do not simply absorb narratives uncondition-
ally from the mouths of political prophets (Gutterman 2005), but rather
they narrative and symbol shop or cherrypick the narratives and their
tropes that accessorize and legitimize their already held beliefs about
political and social participation.

Hypothesis 3Effect of Different Narrative Tropes

on Participation
Causal Mechanisms and Observable Implications
of the Trope Hypothesis
The formulation of the third hypothesis is contingent on whether the
essentialist or instrumentalist hypothesis is found to be valid. If the for-
mer is found to be valid then the third hypothesis (Figure 7.3a) is as follows:
Different tropes of Shia narratives result in different forms of political and social
participation. Conversely, if the instrumentalist hypothesis is found to be
valid then the third hypothesis (Figure 7.3b) is as follows: Different tropes
 American Jihad 123

Shia Identity Formation Political &

Narrative (including Political & Social
Tropes Social proclivities) Participation

Figure 7.3a Causal mechanism for the trope hypothesis if the essentialist
hypothesis is valid

Gender, Age,
Soc-Eco,
Race, Ethnicity,
Education

Personal Proclivities Shia Political &

(including Political & Narratives & Social
Social proclivities) Symbols Participation

Figure 7.3b Causal mechanism for the trope hypothesis if the instrumentalist
hypothesis is valid

of Shia narratives are chosen based on ones proclivities, and these are the religious
rationales that lead to action.
The observable implications of the trope hypothesis involve witnessing
different forms of political and social participation arising from the three
tropes of Shia narratives introduced below: quietist, accommodationist, and
velyat. If the essentialist hypothesis was found to be valid, subsequently we
might notice a specific Shia trope being the main cause of specific types of
political and social behavior. When interviewed, it is expected that activists
would argue that a particular Shia narrative trope(s) is the tool that they use
to form their identities. Similarly, these activists use those particular narra-
tive tropes and the characters within those tropes as the main motivations
to act in particular ways. On the other hand, if the instrumentalist hypoth-
esis was found to be valid, then the observable implications for the trope
hypothesis would be Shias forming their own political proclivities separate
from their leaders suggestions and influence, and the utilization of specific
Shia narrative tropes as backing those proclivities.

The Narratives of Shiism: Narrative as

Explanatory Variables
The use of the narratives that describe the lives of Ahl al-Bayt (the
Household of the Prophet), particularly the calamities that they suffered,
124 Cyrus Ali Contractor

has long been one of the defining features that distinguishes Shia Islam
from Sunni Islam. These narratives become support mechanisms by which
Shias inform their identities, and they give meaning to the mundane, and
as such, Shias often draw from these stories for comfort and guidance.
This reliance on narratives has resulted in the telling, retelling, and refor-
mulation of these stories in order to fit specific political and social issues
of the time.

The shur Narrative

The narrative of shur has been the quintessential vehicle for remember-
ing the suffering of the Ahl al-Bayt. However, it has also been used many
times as a tool of resistance and mobilization. Countless tellings and retell-
ings of this particular narrative have existed for centuries. Each slightly
differs on the specific details, but all focus on the oppression and eventual
martyrdom of usayn ibn Al, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in
Karbal in the year 61 AH/680 CE. When listening to the narrative of the
death of usayn, if the speaker is a master of his or her craft, those assem-
bled can be left crying uncontrollably over events that transpired almost
1,400 years ago. In those few minutes, the speaker is able to transport the
crowd to the desert of Karbal, and they witness the massacre of Imam
usayn, his family, and his companions. They witness the whipping of the
surviving women and children. They become the front-row audience to the
beheading of the imam, forced to watch the heads of the deceased placed
on spears and paraded from Karbal to Kufa to Damascus. As the speaker
mixes the narrative with poetry and prose, the inflection of voice changes
to draw tears from the eyes of the gathered mourners. Much of this is due
to the simple facts of the tragedy, but the emotive effect of the speakers
delivery also plays a large role in the response of the crowd.
Through sub-narratives involving family members, companions, and
enemies of usayn, the audience is educated on the merits of following
those on the side of righteousness. Several of the narratives have an under-
lying message of service to the imam regardless of the risks to ones life.
Others illuminate how the message of the imam could turn one of his
opponents into one of his staunchest supporters with only the exchange of
a few words. Still others depict the importance of women to the message
of Islam and for the propagation of the events of shur. Within some
of these narratives is also the message that the truth is not restricted to
Muslims, that some of the companions of Imam usayn were Christians
and Hindus.

Differing Tropes of Shia Narratives

Three different approaches to political action in Shia discourse are offered
in order to better understand how the tropes of Shia narratives are mani-
fested: quietist, accommodationist, and velyat approaches.
 American Jihad 125

Quietist and Mobilization Approaches to Political and Social Action

The quietists view political participation as being religiously forbidden,
and this is especially true in the time of the occultation of the Twelfth
Imam since the year 941 CE. Many leaders of the American Shia com-
munity are concerned about a lack of political participation. Those who
they charge with complacency abstain from political activity because
(1) of the aforementioned belief that in the absence of the Twelfth Imam,
Shias are to not involve themselves in politics; (2) they believe it is arm
(religiously forbidden) to participate in an unIslamic system; (3) there
is a minority complex that hinders their mobilization; and/or (4) they are
nave about the American political system. Though the quietist approach
is important to understand in a broader discussion of Shia politics and
religion, it has little consequence for the political and social activists
included in this study.
The mobilization approach to political and social life permits and
encourages participation as a means to strive for social justice and for the
betterment of society. However, two dominant competing interpretations
of political activism exist among adherents of the mobilization approach:
the accommodation and velyat approaches. Accommodationists hold
a pragmatic outlook of political and social participation, viewing the
American political system through a pluralist lens, and therefore they see
an opportunity for their communities to carve a niche for themselves and
to make demands upon the system just as other demographic groups have
done before them. As such, they view all forms of political behavior to be
acceptable as long as it brings benefit to the community and society as a
whole and does not require actions that are religiously forbidden. They
are proponents of increased voting, running for office, contributing both
financially and with time, knocking on doors, and even participating in ral-
lies and protests.
The focus of the propagators of the velyat trope is much the same as
that of the tellers of the accommodationist trope, but the velyat storytell-
ers tend to place more emphasis on the importance of following leaders.
For example, though both groups argue that following the example of the
Prophet and his Household is of the utmost importance, the velyat sto-
rytellers place higher emphasis on leadership and the merits of being good
devotees, and this stems from the nature of the concept of velyat-e faqh
(Guardianship of the Jurist) as a form of governance. Velyat adherents
tend to view direct political participation in the American system nega-
tively, based on their belief that it gives tacit approval to policies that con-
flict with Muslim policy preferences. To go further, they would also argue
that these policies run contrary to what is just for all members of society,
Muslim or otherwise. They do not necessarily view the system as being
intrinsically corrupt, but rather they view it as being corrupted by indi-
viduals who have political agendas that velyat adherents consider to be
unjust, un-Islamic, and even anti-Islamic in some cases. As such the velyat
approach usually promotes political activity such as protests and rallies, as
126 Cyrus Ali Contractor

these forms of expression allow for a criticism and denial of legitimacy of

the American political system without directly engaging in it.

Dependent VariablePolitical and Social Participation

Verba and Nies very basic definition is utilized to define what is meant
by political participation: the many activities in which citizens engage to
influence the selection of political leaders or the policies they pursue (1972).
In my conversation about Shia political participation in the American
context, I do not suggest that Shias engage in unfamiliar modes of partic-
ipation. Like other groups primarily consisting of first- and second-genera-
tion immigrants, the Shias are slowly beginning to incorporate themselves
into the broader political and social fabric of the United States. As such,
they engage in both conventional and unconventional modes of political
participation. In other words, they vote, they contribute money and vol-
unteer for campaigns, write letters to elected officials, run for office, ring
doorbells, and try to persuade others to follow suit. They also hold rallies
and protests; some that have religiopolitical connotations such as Yaum
al-Quds, and others that are void of any religious message.

AnalysisAmerican Jihad
When I was first introduced to Jihad Saleh, he was a staffer for a congress-
man from New York, and he also served as the head of the Congressional
Muslim Staffers Association (CMSA). His case serves as a great illustration
of the roles Shia narratives have on political and social action. As such, I
focus on his personal narrative exclusively in order to allow for a thorough
understanding of the influence of Shia narratives.

Reversion to Shia Islam

Jihad Salehs entire life can be described as a sacrifice for the greater good,
more often than not to the detriment of his own personal aspirations. Jihad
is of Mexican and African American descent. He was raised in a working-
class family in South-Central Los Angeles. Later in his childhood his mother
married a lawyer, who moved the family to the more affluent Westside of
Los Angeles. Though baptized as a Roman Catholic, Jihad and his mother
attended Black Baptist churches on most Sundays. His conversion to Islam
occurred during his junior year of high school, though he stated that he had
been on this path as early as his freshman year. In discussing his conversion
he provided a detailed and informative history of the thought process that
led to his decision. His account is also instructive for understanding how he
has made decisions based on a researched and educated approach through-
out his life. This lengthy quote describes that process:

Like a lot of African-Americans, the Nation of Islam was kind of my first

interest into Islam . . . I read the books by Elijah Muhammad . . . I was on
 American Jihad 127

that path towards becoming a Nation of Islam member . . . I didnt always

know the difference between Orthodox Islam and what was Nation of
Islam, because the Nation is so much more public in the black community.
But I would always, here and there, have contact with people who were
orthodox . . . largely Sunni African-American brothers . . . But also some
older brothers who, as I see now, were out of the Warith Deen Muhammad
community, that version of Nation of Islam . . . So I always had contact with
them, dialogue with them about the Islamic principles. But at some point
in time, Id [realize] some contradictions with what I was told, what was
Islam . . . compared to an orthodox, compared to a Nation of Islam [sic] . . . It
eventually led me to do more studies, as much as I could in a Catholic high
school . . . Using my encyclopedia at home. Going to libraries trying to find
what I could. Remember, this wasnt during the age of Borders and Barnes
and Noble . . . It wasnt like I could jump down the street. Plus I was in high
school, this was the early 1990s, and I was at a Catholic high school. There
were basically no Muslims there. So my approach to Islam was all textual. So
basically I became orthodox, and when I made the shahadah (the profession
of faith) . . . I was also uniquely what I would call proto-Shia. The books
that I would find at the library were from Saudi, those types of books, good
books . . . foundational books, but books that gave from the Sunni perspec-
tive . . . But I remember I had always said I was Shia from a basic passage I
read in my junior years comparative religion classes . . . a section called the
Sects of Islam, and there was a paragraph on who Shias were and a para-
graph on who the Sunnis were . . . I remember it saying Shias believe in a con-
tinual connection of divine leadership through the Prophets family, where
the other one said it was somewhat of a democratic practice or a selecting
by the community. For that reason I felt more natural with the Shia, and I
always said I was a Shia. (Saleh 2008)

The Education of an Activist

Salehs initial political activism was as an African American. He became a
member of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) when he entered the
University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) as a political science and
sociology double major, and it was here that he interacted with more Shias
and learned the intricacies of the faith. However, he contributes his accep-
tance of all sects of Islam to his early forays into the religion and the inter-
action with the largely Sunni Warith Deen Muhammad community that
always accepted him unconditionally. I helped transplant that to my rela-
tionships typically when I started going to more South Asian, Arab com-
munities which could have had [these] historical tendencies of [sectarian]
conflict (Saleh 2008).
Being extremely involved in the African Student Union, but also a part
of the Muslim community at UCLA, allowed him to interact with different
politically minded individuals, which influenced his own political develop-
ment. He stated:

I would say at that time I was more of an African-American activist who hap-
pened to be Muslim and who could sprinkle his activism with terminology
128 Cyrus Ali Contractor

with issues of social justice [sic]. But it wasnt until post-911, jumping a cou-
ple of years later . . . I started to flip because of necessity and choice and the
demands of the situation where Ive become now more Muslim who hap-
pens to be African-American . . . I was the campus Muslim, because of my
constant hanging out with the African-American, Latino, Asian [sic]. So I
always felt, to some degree, my character, what I did, even though I may have
not been the most core member of MSA, I, to most people, represented
what the Muslim community was about. So Ive always felt that burden that
what I do will greatly determine how people perceive who or what Muslims
are about. (Saleh 2008)

After graduating from UCLA, Jihad taught civics and history at the City
of Knowledge Islamic School, which was under the guidance of Imam
Murtadha al-Qazwini, the patriarch of the Qazwini clan here in the
United States, according to Jihad. Two of Murtadha al-Qazwinis sons,
Moustafa and Hassan, would eventually become well-known leaders of the
Shia Muslim community in the United States. Jihads time with this fam-
ily afforded him the opportunity to further his knowledge of the principles
and beliefs associated with Shia Islam:

Because I was around this family of learned Shia scholars . . . it was a learning
experience. Even after school, going to their house, dialoguing with them
greatly increased my level of Islamic knowledge. It was also at this time where
I found out about Imm al-Khoei Foundation in New York, where basically
I started ordering all the books from Ansariyan Publications, reading those
books. So basically my last year at UCLA and my first two years out of school,
was just a lot of knowledge [sic] whether it was book reading or having that
access. But even when I was at UCLA, my senior year and the next couple of
years, I would quite often go to the Muslim Youth Group at Imm Moustafa
al-Qazwinis center out in Orange County. Wed bring other UCLA people
and go listen to him and talk about issues to the youth. Hes very accessible,
and I think its because hes had two children raised here, three children in
the United States, and hes spent a good amount of time here . . . to really be
a source to Muslim Americans. He, just like his other brothers here, is trying
the best they [sic] can to be appreciative of the context of what Muslims are.
And honestly, unlike other masjeds (mosques), Sunni or Shia, that are run
by imms from other lands, they (meaning the other imms) try to recreate
the homeland . . . Imm Qazwini did not try to recreate a little Karbal or
a little Qom where these rules and norms that werent truly Islamic [but
rather cultural practices] were to dominate. They had freedom, at least par-
ticularly for the youth. We felt empowered that way. He wanted us to have
our faith applicable to our situation. (Saleh 2008)

Public Servant
In discussing how he attained the staffer position he held at the time of our
meeting in November 2008, he mentioned that he neither intended to do
such work, nor was it his choice, despite holding that position for as long
 American Jihad 129

as he did. In the post-911 world, he believed that it was his burden to carry,
one in which he would forgo his own aspirations and goals for the greater
good:

I guess my mom raised me to be selfless. But there are benefits for me. I
enjoy my work here, but there are those unique opportunities in history
where people are compelled to do something based more than on their own
personal desire. Thats not just myself. Ive met other Muslims that have felt
that way. So I decided to pursue a career in public life, potentially in city gov-
ernment or [a] more traditional track. I think you can pick up, I was more
into radical politics, counter-culture . . . and I still am in many ways. I didnt
think itd be Congress . . . I thought after graduating from Stanford, maybe
going into [a] public affairs type of career . . . I ended up doing a fellowship
working for a city councilman in LA to see if I liked working in public affairs.
It was a good experience! At the same time I applied for my public policy
degree at the Woodrow Wilson School and I was accepted. And I went and
studied domestic politics and public policy, and Ive used that, both of my
experiences at Stanford and Princeton, being great schools, great networks.
Eventually that led me, in a roundabout way, to work on Capitol Hill, for-
tunately in an office of a Congressional Black Caucus member in a major
city, New York . . . I still get to do what Im interested in personally, educa-
tion . . . because of my teaching history, my degree in education, but I was
also hired by the Chief of Staff of a congressman from New York who was
the Muslim on Capitol Hill. He wanted me to basically help him run this
newly formed Congressional Muslim Staffers Association. (Saleh 2008)

My first interaction with Jihad was at the weekly Friday Muslim con-
gregational prayer in the Capitol building. He was acting in his capacity
as leader of the CMSA, and it was through him that I was introduced to
many members of the Washington, DC, Shia community. He is not your
average Shia, or your average Congressional staffer. He has stayed
close to his self-described counter-culture identity by sporting long,
shoulder-length hair and diamond earrings. He also stood out in the halls
of Congress because of his reluctance to wear neckties, instead opting for
the bowtie. His work on Capitol Hill, especially as the successor to Jameel
Johnson as the head of the CMSA, entailed getting more Muslims involved
in the day-to-day operations of the national government. He continuously
pushed for increased participation from women, African Americans, and
Shias within the Muslim American community.
In Jihads opinion, the stereotypical Muslims in media and public rela-
tions portrayals have been bearded Sunni, Arab, and/or South Asian males
who spoke with foreign accents. He found this to be true not only of non-
Muslims perceptions of what a Muslim should look like, but also of what
many Muslims believed to be the stereotypical Muslim. He is a proponent
of including Muslims who do not fit the mold. Consequently, as head
of CMSA he pushed for the inclusion of Muslims from various schools of
thought and ethnic backgrounds in the membership of different Muslim
130 Cyrus Ali Contractor

organizations as well as in positions of importance in governmental and

policymaking arenas. He explained that he often pressed the leaders of
Muslim organizations on whether they attempted to include Shias and
African Americans in their mailing lists in order to inform them of the
myriad opportunities available to the Muslim community. He framed his
opinions in a discussion about his role as a public Shia, and how he does
not necessarily relish that role, but how it was necessary to keep Muslim
American organizations accountable to the greater Muslim community,
which includes not only Shias, but also African Americans and women:

So, I take great pride in being a Shia, but at the same time I dont have the
mentality of Im the only one up here! Im mister Shia! I do not like play-
ing the role of the Shia voice consistently at certain meetings where I am the
only one or one of the few in a larger group . . . and the same way being the
only black person at these meetings. I shouldnt have to be there to speak on
the behalf of the community. Now the thing is, its a two way street . . . Yes,
we must call our organizations that claim to represent the Muslim American
community, and make them really mean that by engaging Muslims. Theres
no need for you to claim to represent me if you wont engage me or contact
me in some form or fashion. So these organizations need to do that. They
need to take a step toward the Shia community. (Saleh 2008)

Through CMSA Jihad hoped to combat the negative perceptions of Islam

in the United States, and the goal of the organization is to supply members
of Congress with access to Muslim individuals who could help shape a more
positive impression of Muslims. Additionally, it increases Muslim political
involvement, and allows Muslims the access to centers of policymaking.
There is a general lack of knowledge by congressional members and their
staffers about what Muslims are and their concerns. This organization was
needed, this CMSA, to put on briefings, cultural programs, and religious
events to increase the knowledge of congressional members, staffers, and
other government officials, and also to the benefit of the larger community
with public events (Saleh 2008).
However, Jihad explained that staffers are not hired to be Muslim
staffers; rather they are staffers who happen to be Muslim, and as such
they become assets for the offices in which they work. In essence, they
often become a bargain hire: being specialists in their area of expertise as
well as offering insight into the policy preferences of the ever-increasing
Muslim community. Jihad himself served officially as an educational leg-
islative assistant, and focused on education policy as well as Homeland
Security issues. In performing his duties, he lamented the fact that, unfor-
tunately, some of the only occasions in which he dealt with Muslim issues
involved discussions of Homeland Security and foreign policy, but that
he also, through his capacity as a Congressional staffer as well as his posi-
tion through CMSA, was able to deal more directly with Muslims and
issues relevant to this community. Additionally, given the relatively large
 American Jihad 131

number of Muslim constituents, Jihad became an invaluable asset to the

office as an advisor on Muslim-American issues. He argues: I can say my
Congressman is very sympathetic to the Muslim community, and his office
is engaged with helping the Muslim community, because these are his vot-
ers, his constituents (Saleh 2008). Additionally, the track record of hiring
Muslim Americans in this congressional office shows the congressmans
willingness to bring members of this community into important positions
in the centers of policymaking.
Jihad also commented on the work of CMSA in organizing the Friday
prayer service in the Capitol building, which has become a symbolic place
of pilgrimage for Muslims visiting Washington, DC: Young Muslim
families are starting to take, like other American families, that traditional
trip to the nations capital . . . Not only do they get to go see the monu-
ments . . . now theyre saying Were going to the Capitol because we heard
there is a jumuah (Friday prayer service), and they get that experience
(Saleh 2008). Jihad believes that the symbolic power of holding a Friday
prayer service in the iconic Capitol building does much for solidifying
the place of Muslims position in the American religious, political, and
social fabric. For someone such as himself, the congruency of Islamic and
American values comes from his experiences as a convert to Islam. As
such, his personal history has led him to appreciate both his Shia Islamic
identity and his American identity. But to go further, the plurality of
American society has allowed him, someone of mixed ethnicity and of a
minority faith, to affect political policy. Jihads own personal passion for
the fight for social justice does not necessarily come from his Islam or his
belief in the Shia school of thought. However, his choice of Shia Islam as
his religion has aided this search for social justice. The symbols and narra-
tives that I describe as accommodationist are merely tools for individuals
such as Jihad Saleh. He was an accommodationist before he became a
Shia, and therefore he chose this particular understanding of faith and
its subsequent symbols and narratives because they fit his already forming
worldview.
Individuals such as Jihad draw inspiration from the symbols and narra-
tives of Shiism, and the manner in which he absorbs them is based on his
previous experiences. However, that being said, his interaction with the
Qazwini family also had an effect on his view of Shiism and the symbols
and narratives associated with it. Therefore, though he described himself
as a proto-Shia in his early years as a Muslim, his subsequent interaction
with a family that espoused an accommodationist viewpoint to political
and social participation undoubtedly had an effect on how he perceived
the faith, and it helped to bolster his already forming political activism.
This supports the instrumentalist hypothesis that Shia symbols and nar-
ratives do not necessarily cause political behavior, but act more as second-
ary independent or intervening variables that supplement and strengthen
already held beliefs about political and social action.
132 Cyrus Ali Contractor

Jihads example shows that he had drawn from a wide variety of exam-
ples and traditions to formulate a personal approach to participation. He
is African American, and as such is very much involved in that community,
especially prior to and during his early years at UCLA. Post 9/11, he made
the deliberate choice to work harder for the Muslim community because
he felt an obligation to that identity given the public relations nightmare
in which the Muslim community had found itself. And most recently he
found it necessary to position himself in the center of policymaking in the
United States, not necessarily as a Muslim activist, but as a Congressional
staffer and political activist who happens to be Muslim, and a Shia Muslim
to be precise. His cause is not simply a Muslim cause, but rather a struggle
and search for social justice, terminology that he brought up continuously
during our interactions both in Washington, DC, during November 2008,
and in Los Angeles in December that same year. Jihads passion for social
justice was not just reserved for Muslims, African Americans, or any other
particular demographic group. Rather, he saw social justice as something
that should be spread throughout society. It is no coincidence that his
choice of the Shia school of thought puts a premium on the concept of
adlh (justice) as one of the roots of the religion. Adlh not only refers
to Gods Divine Justice and Justness, but also, by extension, requires that
mankind behaves with justice and justness with one another. Jihads quest
for social justice for all segments of society is supported by his religious
convictions.
In a continuation of the discussion of Shia inclusion and participation
within the greater Muslim American community, he offered some inter-
esting insight into his opinions involving how Shias have allowed them-
selves to play the role of a minority within a minority.

There is historical marginalization, which is why Shias are very hesitant. But
we should not run away from that. Historically they have been persecuted
in other countries. But that does not have to happen here. Now the flip side
is the Shia community has to also open up and say: Yes, we want to be
engaged and connected. I think lots of Shias constantly crave that situa-
tion . . . it gives them a certain level of the moral high horse where they can
always point at being oppressed. Thats stupid to me! From my perspective
obviously from the African-American tradition we say: Were going to get
our rights! We are going to get ours! From the Shia community its like our
historical role to be oppressed. Well, I didnt become Muslim for that. I
didnt become Shia for that. That is not part of my mentality. My intention
is to fight. (Saleh 2008)

usayns Jihad/Jihads usayn

When questioned on whether Imam usayns struggle is an example from
which he takes a cue in his struggle for social justice, Jihad answered in
the affirmative: Am I trying to continue on his (Imm usayn) struggle?
Yes. I always walk in the light of Imm usayn. And I try to help others
 American Jihad 133

to perceive that there is another way to see Imm usayn. You dont have
to be slaughtered on the battlefield to be like Imm usayn (Saleh 2008).
Jihad approaches his own political activity as the continuation of his per-
ception of the work of the prophets, imams, and ulam, as well as Muslim
and non-Muslim role models. Through these examples, he has constructed
a sense of responsibility; he feels that it is incumbent upon people such as
himself to follow the lead of those who came before, and to make them-
selves examples for future generations. He believes that Shias can look at
all the imams of the Household of the Prophet as examples, as each one
offers particular ways to act in different contexts. He discussed this and
returned to Imam usayns willingness to sacrifice his life, and tied it to
his own sacrifices in life:

And even though each [imam] did it in a particular style throughout their
life, I have to see how I may have to switch up my gears at different stages
of my life to reflect the different Imms or Prophets. Imm usayn . . . hes
an example for somebody of the ways [sic] that his determination, his love
of humanity, his commitment, his willing [sic] to make that sacrifice . . . No
one just wants to go and die. No one wants to leave their children. No one
wants to leave their weeping wives and sisters. So I understand the sacrifice
of Imm usayn . . . Im Muslim enough to say, Is there something else Id
rather have been doing? But the context necessitated my position. If Ive
been blessed by Allah to be very public, to build rapport with people and
to influence other people . . . Well what do I need to do in this post-9/11 era
where the Muslim community needs to develop this public affairs, govern-
ment, social engagement capacity by inspiring young Muslims? . . . Then if
Im good at that, so be it, then Im going to commit my life to it to some
degree. That is my sacrifice. (Saleh 2008)

He focused on Imam usayn and Imam Als resoluteness in the face of

struggles and their respective sacrifices. The narratives of these two imams
martyrdoms depict them as not fearing death. They are portrayed as being
fearless, not loving the temporal world, and willing to make the ultimate
sacrifices in order to establish justice, fight oppression, and uphold the val-
ues of Islam. Shias are told that they eagerly approached martyrdom and
the next life, and as such Shias should be guided by the same characteris-
tic of selflessness. Jihad, in describing the ways in which he has sacrificed
large portions of his life for the political and social position of Muslims in
the United States, mentions how the martyrdoms of Imam Al and Imam
usayn were victories for these two men. They gained victory through the
selfless act of giving their lives for justice. From his description we see how
he has developed a bond with the imams struggles and sacrifices, but also
has placed other Muslim and non-Muslim activists in the same genre of
individuals who have given so much for the quest for social justice:

Imm usayn died to some degree with a sense of pleasure . . . Imm usayn
knows he is always successful. In the same way when Imm Al was struck in
134 Cyrus Ali Contractor

the neck and he said, if Im correct to paraphrase . . . Today I am successful.

Why did he say that? Its kind of like what Malcolm [X] talked about. When
you know youre being attacked by the system, thats when you know youre
doing something right. When someones to the point [of] attacking him, hes
reached a point where he knows he is doing something right that the forces
of Shaytan have to take him out because hes doing so much good . . . The
same with Imm usayn. He died f sablillah (in the way/path of Allah). Hes
an example . . . of the ultimate sacrifice, and my struggle is nothing close to
any of these people, whether it be the Imms, down to Malcolm, or other of
the great figures in Muslim history and non-Muslim history; Dr. King, Csar
Chvez, all these people. My struggles nothing compared to them. Whether
if its as a Muslim or African-American or as a person . . . Im always apprecia-
tive that I stand on the shoulders of giants. (Saleh 2008)

Never intending to be a career staffer, Jihad left Congress in the year

2010. He sacrificed a part of his life for the betterment of society, and par-
ticularly the Muslim community. In my discussions with him it became
evident that he has placed a tremendous burden on his shoulders because
of the relative lack of Muslims in public politics. Therefore, he has tried
to serve as that example in order to fill the void, and he hopes that others
follow his lead, just as he followed the lead of individuals who came before
him. His political proclivities have been bolstered and strengthened by his
faith, one in which he was chosen not inherited:

Look, I have the privilege, all praise due to Allah, for being a revert. I chose
this dn (religion). I chose this faith freely. Im a born again Muslim, if you
want to put it in those terms. In that understanding of my Islam, Shiism
has always been at the core of it. You hear the stories of Imm usayn. And
how can I as an African-American . . . if I love Malcolm X, how can I not
love Imm usayn equally or more? Because of his special position to the
Prophet as an example, and his station with Allah. So, I chose this faith, and
I carefully chose it and developed and studied it, and Ive been inspired by
it to be that consequent folding of what it is to be human as a Muslim. To
become closer to the essence . . . to our Creator. And thats through the dif-
ferent facets of Islam, through our political, social, economic and our spiri-
tual. (Saleh 2008)

Given the negative connotations that are often associated with the word
jihd, I wondered why he willingly chose a name that could possibly bring
him much grief. My initial experience with him, his long hair, black dia-
mond earrings, and bow tie, coupled with the fact that he still saw him-
self as a part of the counterculture movement, led me to believe that his
choice of name was done to be provocative. However, as I spent more
time with him, and learned more about his African American and Latino
background, his upbringing, his personality, his political inclinations, his
sense of duty to a greater cause, and his placing such a heavy burden on
his own shoulders, it became evident that he chose the name to represent
his strugglehis jihd. He sees his jihd as a continuation of the struggle
 American Jihad 135

of those who came before him, whether it be the prophets, the imams, or
other Muslims and/or non-Muslims. It is important to reiterate that he
does not see himself as being cut from the same cloth of these historical
figures. Rather, he uses them as inspirational models to bolster his own
political and social proclivities. But to go further, he qualified his jihad
by making it lean Arabic word that can be translated into English as
righteous. He viewed his life as a righteous struggle for social justice.
Toward the end of our discussion in Washington, DC, I inquired if his
sense of duty was the reason he picked this name when he became Muslim.
He answered in the following manner:

Yeah. Because I understood their struggle. If Im able to see farther, its not
because I did it on my own. Its because other people struggled so I could
be here to do this. So with opportunity and success comes great responsibil-
ity. I hope and pray I always do it for the right reasons . . . for the pleasure of
Allah, for the benefit of His creation. I have to give back the little bit Ive
benefited from. Ill say I try to be a leader in my own capacity, we all should
be, but Imm Warith Deen Muhammad said, What is leadership? Its the
ability to reproduce yourself. If I die tomorrow, but it doesnt move on,
what good was I? Ive already stated to some degree this is not my preference
of what I want to do, but I know the importance of it. So if Im not out there
helping other people develop the skills to take my place or to be better than
me, I know they can be way better than me . . . than what I do, then its all for
not. Ive just been wasting my time for the last four or five years. So Im very
conscious of what I need to do in the same way that Imm usayn stood his
ground, stood for his principles, was an example, but also . . . to reproduce
himself. Some people say Imm usayn saved Islam, the true character of
what a Muslim is . . . What is my sacrifice? To insure there is a continuation
of real Muslims, or a more complete way to practice our faith, or to be pub-
licly a Muslim. Im always inspired by Imm usayn, hes always with me,
very close. (Saleh 2008)

Conclusion: Findings and Implications

Using the case study of Jihad Saleh, strong evidence exists in support of the
instrumentalist hypothesis; Shias in the United States use religious narratives
in support of their already formed political and social proclivities to affect
their political and social participation. Simply stated, these narratives and
symbols do not cause individual Shias to participate politically or socially.
Rather they are more appropriately labeled as secondary independent vari-
ables or intervening variables that serve as religious rationales for already
formed political and social proclivities.
It is faulty and nave to suggest that these narratives are the sole driving
force behind Shia political and social actions, and is an example of reifi-
cation and essentializing of culture. The implications of an essentialist
hypothesis would be that all Shias who attend shur gatherings or lis-
ten to recorded lectures would be politically and socially active, and there
would be very few who would hold on to the quietist approach. As such,
136 Cyrus Ali Contractor

the existence of a significant group of Shias, who listen to the same narra-
tives, and yet do not participate, negates any claim that narratives by them-
selves make people politically and socially active. If Shia narratives caused
political activism, then Shias in Saudi Arabia, Saddam-era Iraq, Bahrain,
Pakistan, and elsewhere would not have garnered a reputation of being
apolitical. If Shias acted solely on the basis of narratives, then there would
be a lack of Shia criminals, murderers, or dictators. Shias would never
engage in forbidden or unlawful acts. They would sleep little and suppli-
cate to the Divine through most of the night, constantly giving to charity
and helping orphans during the day. In other words, the narratives would
transform individuals into extremely pious, socially conscious, and active
beings. To simplify all political and social action as being an outcome of
listening to the narrative of shur ignores other factors, such as personal
desires, ethnicity, location, race, education, income, class, and so on. As
Elkins and Simeon (1979: 40) argue:

The cultural assumptions provide the lens through which these more proxi-
mate political forces are assessed; they influence what kind of interpreta-
tion will be placed on political forces, but alone they cannot account for the
result . . . Political culture should seldom be seen as competing with other
variables, but as a complement to them. Which other variables it most pow-
erfully interacts with depends largely on what sorts of things we want to
explain. If we are interested in individual attitudes, the focus will be on the
interrelationships of culture, personality, and social position.

Jihad Salehs propensity to work as a congressional staffer was not deter-

mined by him listening to the narratives of shur, but those narratives, in
conjunction with his already formed sense of responsibility and sacrifice,
his desire to struggle for social justice, his ethnic background, and his life
growing up in South-Central Los Angeles, informed his particular brand
of politics. Jihad had a struggle, and he picked pieces and versions of Shia
narratives that correspond with his own life. The narrative gives meaning
and backing to his already formed proclivities.
The point here is to clarify that Jihad, just as the other activists included
in the larger research project, identifies aspects of the narratives that speak
to them personally. Jihad speaks of Imam usayn because he, at some level,
sees his own sacrifice of entering a profession he did not want as similar to
the selfless sacrifice usayn made by giving up his life in order to reawaken
the ummh of his grandfather, the Prophet. Other activists were attached
to aspects of the lives of the major characters of Shiism that supported
their already formed dispositions. Therefore, these narratives do not make
these individuals; rather the narratives, and the specific tropes, are picked
to reinforce already held beliefs and proclivities. Additionally, the differ-
ent tropes, accommodationist and velyat, do result in different forms
of political and social participation. Further research is required to fully
understand the implication of these approaches, and how transnational
 American Jihad 137

effects of political and religious events in the so-called Shia world have
and continue to affect these approaches.

Notes
1. Throughout this chapter, the term Shia is used to refer to those individuals
who attend mosques and religious centers that practice the Shia school of
Islamic jurisprudence belonging to the largest denomination within Shiism,
the Ithnasharyh (Twelvers), and does not include other sects such as the
Ismails, Alaws, or Zayds.
2. See Ibrahim Fuad, The Shii of Saudi Arabia (Berkeley, CA: Saqi Books,
2006); Falih Abd al-Jabbar, The Shiite Movement in Iraq (London: Saqi, 2003);
Laurence Lour, Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in
the Gulf (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008) Laurence Lour,
Shiism and Politics in the Middle East, trans. John King (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2012); Graham E. Fuller and Rend Rahim Francke, The
Arab Shia: The Forgotten Muslims (New York: St. Martins Press, 2000);
Yitzhak Nakash, Reaching for Power: The Shia in the Modern Arab World
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006); Vali Nasr, The Shia
Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future (New York: W. W.
Norton, 2006a); and Vali Nasr, When the Shiites Rise, Foreign Affairs 85,
no. 4 (2006b): 5874.
3. Cf. Linda S. Walbridge, Confirmation of Shiism in America: An Analysis
of Sermons in the Dearborn Mosques, The Muslim World 83, nos. 34 (1993):
248262; Linda S. Walbridge, The Shia Mosques and the Congregations
in Dearborn, in Muslim Communities in North America, ed. Yvonne Yazbeck
Haddad and Jane Idleman Smith (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1994, pp. 337358); Linda S. Walbridge, Without Forgetting the Imam:
Lebanese Shiism in an American Community (Detroit, MI: Wayne State
University Press, 1997); and Liyakatali Takim, Shiism in America (New York:
New York University Press, 2009).

References
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Contractor, Cyrus Ali (2011). The Dearborn Effect: A Comparison of the Political
Dispositions of Shia and Sunni Muslims in the United States. Politics and
Religion 4, no. 1: 114.
Elkins, David J., and Richard E. B. Simeon (1979). A Cause in Search of Its Effect,
or What Does Political Culture Explain? Comparative Politics 11, no. 2: 127145.
Fuad, Ibrahim (2006). The Shii of Saudi Arabia. Berkeley, CA: Saqi Books.
Fuller, Graham E., and Rend Rahim Francke (2000). The Arab Shia: The Forgotten
Muslims. New York: St. Martins Press.
Gutterman, David S. (2005). Prophetic Politics: Christian Social Movements and
American Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Lour, Laurence (2012). Shiism and Politics in the Middle East. Translated by John
King. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lour, Laurence (2008). Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in
the Gulf. New York: Columbia University Press.
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Nakash, Yitzhak (2006). Reaching for Power: The Shia in the Modern Arab World.
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Nasr, Vali (2006a). The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future.
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Walbridge, Linda S. (1997). Without Forgetting the Imam: Lebanese Shiism in an
American Community. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.
 CHAPTER 8

IMMIGRANT FOOD AND

TRANS-MEMORY OF HOME IN
DIANA ABU-JABERS THE LANGUAGE
OF BAKLAVA AND ELIF SHAFAKS
HONOR
Eda Dedebas Dundar

Introduction
Portrayal of food production in culinary memoirs and fictional works
from the Global South has recently been popular in literary circles. As dif-
ferent forms of food production and food consumption are portrayed, new
immigrant experience abounds. Writers of food memoirs and culinary
novels associate the migrant experience with the fusion of cultures and
cuisines in their works. Constructing a new identity and bearing a nostal-
gic look into the past and home stand out as recognizable metaphors to
parallel food production and the hybridized experience in culinary mem-
oirs and fictional works relating to food. Among these popular examples
of juxtaposition of ethnic food and migrant identity are Diana Abu-Jabers
Crescent (2003), Madhur Jaffreys Climbing the Mango Trees (2007), Cheryl
Lu-Lien Tans A Tiger in the Kitchen (2011), Ann Mahs Kitchen Chinese
(2010), and Kim Sunees Trail of Crumbs (2009). As Abu-Jabers Crescent fic-
tionalizes a tale of culinary journey and identity formation, it paves the
way for the proliferation of other similar works in which the journey of
self-discovery and the voyage to the past are depicted through the lens
of ethnic food as in Jaffreys Climbing the Mango Tree and Lu-Lien Tans
A Tiger in the Kitchen. In line with the popularity of like-minded culi-
nary innovations and explorations in literature, women writers from the
Middle East participate in this new canon by composing hybrid works
of food production and self-discovery in a foreign land. In this chapter, I
argue that the kitchen becomes a political space in immigrant experience
not only by enabling contact zones between the old and the new, and home
and exile, but also by debunking the gender paradigm of food production
in the works of two Middle Eastern women writers, namely, Diana Abu-
Jaber and Elif Shafak. Moreover, I state that thanks to this exilic experi-
ence, the traditional ways of cooking and food are transformed and serve
140 Eda Dedebas Dundar

two major purposes. First, food and foodways precipitate the emergence
of hybrid identities in the immigrant space and reveal a nostalgic look into
the homeland, as expressed in Diana Abu-Jabers memoir The Language of
Baklava (2005). In her book, Diana Abu-Jaber attempts to recreate and
affirm her Jordanian-American identity through her fathers recipes. By
creating her own trans-memory, she writes her coming-of-age story and
her acceptance of Arab-ness through the universal language of baklava.
Thus, baklava becomes a loaded term, which creates a permeable space
for all immigrants and a level at which all can embrace their hybrid iden-
tities. Second, by debunking the essentialized notions of femininity and
masculinity, food production and food consumption enable immigrant
women to create a synthesis of native and immigrant spaces, as seen in Elif
Shafaks novel Honor (2013). In Honor, Shafak utilizes food as a means to
accentuate how the immigrant experience transforms migrants, empow-
ering them to fuse both cultural experiences. In this chapter, I unpack
Homi Bhabhas (1994) concept of Third Space and open up Agniezska
Bedingfields definition of trans-memory and the ways in which they are
portrayed in the texts mentioned above. My theoretical section is followed
by my close reading of Abu-Jabers The Language of Baklava and Shafaks
Honor to analyze how their display of food and foodways contribute to the
immigrant experience, respectively.
In The Location of Culture, Homi Bhabha (ibid) defines the concepts of
liminality and hybridity and argues how the Third Space destabilizes cul-
tural and national paradigms. Labeling the process ambivalent, he states
that the emerging contact zone enables the birth of a unique and hybrid
immigrant experience. It is the Third Space that makes the hybrid expe-
rience plentiful and prosperous, empowering the ambivalence:

The intervention of the Third Space of enunciation, which makes the struc-
ture and the meaning of reference an ambivalent process, destroys this mir-
ror of representation in which cultural knowledge is customarily revealed
as an integrated, open, expanding code. Such an intervention quite properly
challenges our sense of the historical identity of culture as a homogeniz-
ing, unifying force, authenticated by the originary Past, kept alive in the
national tradition of the People . . . It is that Third Space, though unrepre-
sentable in itself, which constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation
that ensure that the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial
unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated,
rehistoricized and read anew. (Bhabha 1994: 5455)

Along with this encounter with the other and the enunciation of the Third
Space, cultural markers are re-appropriated and reviewed from a fresh per-
spective. In a similar vein, in this new experience of the Third Space, the
kitchen usually becomes a political space in which a composite identity is
shaped through new means of producing and consuming food. The way
food is produced and consumed, aided by the experience of immigration
 Immigrant Food and Trans-memory of Home 141

and exile, eliminates the boundaries between home and away and under-
lines this hybrid and unique immigrant identity. Food and foodways, as
dominant cultural markers and ethnic identity symbols, function to dislo-
cate the essentializing definition of culture as a monolithic entity.
Building on Marianne Hirschs (2008) concept of postmemory, Agniezska
Bedingfield (2004: 334) proposes the term trans-memory to underline trans-
feral, transitional and translational aspects of the immigrant experience,
as well as to point out the cultural and the linguistic attributes of the term.
According to Bedingfield (ibid), trans-memory functions in three ways:
First, it encounters linguistic challenges and strives to overcome them via
translation and appropriation. In an alternative way, the language barrier
is occasionally surpassed with a deliberate choice of the writer to utilize
foreign words so as to defamiliarize the popular reading public, as in Abu-
Jabers Crescent and The Language of Baklava. A similar deliberate choice
of using Turkish words is prevalent in Honor as well. However, unlike
Abu-Jaber, Shafak reserves the use of local words in relation to food and
food production only, which further underlines the writers intention to
achieve the alienation effect in the immigrant kitchen. Second, similar to
Hirschs postmemory, trans-memory, according to Bedingfield (ibid), lays
out the transgenerational transfer of trauma and memory conquering the
linguistic contestations. In The Language of Baklava, this transgenerational
transfer of memory is sanctioned through the protagonists recapture of
her fathers recipes and her attempt to revive them so as to mitigate this
nostalgic pain. On the other hand, in Honor, the shift of memory through
the generations works in exactly the opposite way: The transgenerational
transfer of memory emerges at the end of the novel when Pembe endeav-
ors to balance her new hybrid identity and assuage her nostalgia for home.
Last but not least, trans-memory adheres to the romanticized and mythi-
cal view of the return home, a nostalgic outlook to the past and home-
land. The pain of nostalgia is suppressed in distinctive ways in both texts:
Abu-Jaber encounters a more realistic version of her longing for Jordan
during her fellowship year as an adult and juxtaposes the two versions of
home, mythologized and real, whereas Pembe actually fulfills her yearn-
ing by passing as her twin sister and reliving Jamilas life through the eyes
of Pembe in Honor.

Diana Abu-Jabers The Language of Baklava and the

Transmemory of Home
In her memoir The Language of Baklava, Abu-Jaber recounts a story of
coming-of-age, which begins with childhood memories of the writer,
and progresses as she travels back to Jordan under a Fulbright fellowship.
The book is centered upon an adolescent girls tempestuous relationship
with her father recounted through his recipes from home. Building on
her interest in food literature and foodways in her previous novel Crescent,
142 Eda Dedebas Dundar

Abu-Jaber incorporates similar food-related events and characters in

her memoir as well. In an interview with Robin Field, Abu-Jaber (2005:
225) describes the display of food in the memoir as a way of instructing us
and containing our cultural legacy. Similarly, in her novel Crescent, recipes
and food stand out as cultural and personal signifiers in the life of an Arab
American cook, Sirine. As she falls in love with an Iraqi exile Han, she
rediscovers, or rather Han helps her uncover, her Arab American identity
thanks to her recipes from home. In that sense, Sirine is somewhat similar
to Pembe in Shafaks Honor in that through food, she ventures into a new
realm in which women have been conventionally left out and experiment
with cross-cultural recipes. In Cultural Contact and the Contemporary
Culinary Memoir, Jopi Nyman (2009: 282) defines food and taste as
tropes with potential to bridge cultural difference and create new tran-
scultural identities. Building his argument on Bedingfields theory of
trans-memory, he argues that Abu-Jabers memoir fits into his definition
of trans-memory in that it not only foregrounds linguistic and transgen-
erational ties with the home country but also longs for a nostalgic return
home through the description of ethnic recipes. Through the exploration
of new recipes such as peaceful vegetarian lentil soup, baklava, and ful (19,
191, 323), Abu-Jaber reconciles with her ambiguous identity and, through
those recipes, it becomes apparent that the meaning and symbols of cul-
ture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be
appropriated [and] translated (Bhabha 1994: 55).
Abu-Jabers memoir opens with a striking chapter titled Raising an
Arab Father in America, which delineates the protagonists fondness to
Lambie, a lamb later to be slaughtered and devoured by her uncles. After
the vivid description of how Lambie is butchered by her uncles, the protag-
onist switches gears and closes the chapter with the recipe of a peaceful
vegetarian lentil soup (19). The major divergence between the two cultures
emerges right from the beginning of the memoir when each of her uncles
describes various kinds of meat products in detail, causing Abu-Jaber to
adopt more peaceful memories in her later years. The chasm between
home and the new immigrant experience further widens when Abu-Jaber
describes the lunch bags of her immigrant-kids friends at school. When
each immigrant kid brings an ethnic food item from their homeland, their
classroom resembles a large buffet of ethnic foods during lunchtime:

Our lunch bags open and the scent of garlic, fried onions, and tomato sauce
rolls outpierogi, pelmeni, doro wat, teriyaki, kielbasas, stir-fries, borscht . . . I
become famous for my lunch bags full of garlic-roasted lamb and stuffed
grape leaves. The American girls in my classes are on diets . . . My immi-
grant-kid friends are not on diets. Most of us have parents from countries
where a certain lushness is considered alluring in a woman. Weve grown up
in houses redolent with the foods of other places. We cook experimentally
at one anothers houses, though its hard to get the others to come out to my
remote address since none of us can drive yet. (Abu-Jaber 2005: 160161)
 Immigrant Food and Trans-memory of Home 143

In this particular scene, the display of different types of ethnic food serves
as a means to underscore non-unifying identities and differentiates the
new location from home. In Living in the Taste of Things: Food, Self
and Family in Diana Abu-Jabers The Language of Baklava and Leslie Lis
Daughter of Heaven, Paula Torreiro Pazo (2011: 224) prioritizes this pre-
cise episode since the lunchboxes become visible and recognizable ethnic
marker[s] that trespass the boundaries between the private spherethe
homeand the public spherethe school. Therefore, both peaceful veg-
etarian lentil soup and the lunchboxes at school serve as rigorous analogies
to display how the migrant background might shape the cultural experi-
ence. The recipes provided at the end of each chapter in The Language of
Baklava pave the way for an intermingling of the two cultures and pro-
vides a soothing conclusion to the chapters, each of which incorporates a
cultural conflict or a generational dilemma.
Amid all these recipes presented at the end of the chapters, baklava,
whose recipe is provided by Aunt Aya in Chapter Thirteen, is, undoubt-
edly, the most loaded one and a very symbolic dessert that eases the pain
of nostalgia and bridges the cultural gap for Abu-Jaber. As the title of the
book affirms, it generates its own language so as to symbolically vanquish
the linguistic challenges of trans-memory. Aunt Aya, who happens to
have arrived at the time of the Long War between [Abu-Jaber] and [her
father], proposes baking baklava to her Arab-food-hating niece since this
dessert has been owned by Greeks and Turks; thus, it is not a solely Arab
food (Abu-Jaber 2005: 181, 185). Similar to the peaceful vegetarian lentil
soup, it proves to be nonviolent, embracing many cultures and cuisines,
and a peacemaker since it triggers a truce between the protagonist and
her father and enables Abu-Jaber to reacquire her Middle Eastern palate.
Analogously, Shafak devotes an entire chapter for a box of baklava, which
is literally unable to find its home. Unable to see his relative at the military
base, Adem is left alone in a far village with a box of baklava and decides to
use it as a gift when he visits Jamilas family to ask for the familys permis-
sion to marry her. Every time he cannot offer it to a person so as to thank
him for his hospitality, his box of baklava remains dispossessed until it
becomes the mediator in Adems love affair. Similar to The Language of
Baklava, in Honor, baklava also takes the role of a go-between, a negotiator
between two cultures that live in the same country but whose languages
are barely recognizable to one another.
In addition to the attention drawn to different recipes and food items,
Abu-Jaber highlights another significant discrepancy in the way her fam-
ily utilizes different cooking methods and cultural experiences. She writes
how her family fuses both cultural experiences and uses their front yard
for grilling as opposed to the backyard used in the conventional American
experience as such:

The neighbors dont barbecue in their front yards. That is apparently what
the backyard is for. The backyards here are fenced off and guardedspaces
144 Eda Dedebas Dundar

as private as other peoples dreams. But our front yard has the better view
and has easier access to the front door, which is closer to the kitchen and
hence a very practical place for grilling. Also, the front yard will allow us
to share food, cross our legs on the plastic lawn chairs, and gossip with the
neighbors, as we did in Jordan. (78)

In The Language of Baklava, food is notable as a cultural trope, a metaphor

for the yearning of a nostalgic return, and helps to create a mythic view of
the previous experience and the homeland. Likewise, Aunt Aya validates
this statement by arguing that people say food is a way to remember the
past. Never mind about that. Food is a way to forget (189). The plethora of
diverse food and recipes signals a variety of homes and immigrant hybrid
experiences and adds richness to the heterogeneous existence of cultures,
defying a monolithic and unified definition of culture and ethnicity.
Moreover, due to the prosperity of experiences and cultural encounters,
fixed cultural markers can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and
read anew (Bhabha 1994: 55). In the closing section, Abu-Jaber laments
the consolidating power of a single home and calls for heterogeneity of
foods and experiences: I am as surely a Bedouin as anyone who has trav-
eled in a desert caravan. A reluctant BedouinI miss and I long for every
place, every country, I have ever livedand frequently even the places my
friends and my family have lived and talked about as welland I never
want to leave any of these places. I want to cry out, to protest: Why must
there be only one home! (327328). Celebrating multiplicity of homes and
identities, Abu-Jaber composes a memoir that becomes the manifestation
of instigating nonessentialized entities.
In her critique of the novel, Carol Bardenstein (2010) argues that Abu-
Jabers cookbook memoir does not offer any happy hybrid endings to
the evolving condition of multi-generational transnational experience
(161). Moreover, it . . . , working in part against the grain of the cookbook
memoir genre, articulates the point of view of a transnational subject that
evokes but stands apart from different identifications and affiliations,
from multiple homes and homelands, partly at home in all, fully at home
in none, and revisiting the usual sites of nostalgic recollection with irony,
humor and a critical sensibility (Bardenstein ibid: 162163). The Language
of Baklava lays out various ethnicities and identities that have been shaped
by different cultures. Its emphasis on food works together with the depic-
tion of nonessentialized and multiple identities and highlights the possi-
bility of hybriditynot happy, as Bardenstein (ibid) would call itpaving
the way for a heterogeneity of ethnic and cultural markers.

Elif Shafaks Honor and the Reversal of

Conventional Gender Roles
Turkish writer Elif Shafaks Honor (2013) is a fictional tale of a Kurdish
family residing in London in the 1970s. Relating the story of twin sisters,
 Immigrant Food and Trans-memory of Home 145

Jamila and Pembe, one of whom stays in the Kurdish village while the other
migrates to London with her husband, Shafaks novel draws attention to
honor killings and the construction of masculinity and femininity in a tra-
ditional setting, as well as the plight of immigrants in London in the 1970s.
Upon the discovery of her mothers nonsexual affair with the Greek chef
Elias, Iskender, Pembes son, mistakenly murders his aunt Jamila, who was
visiting the family in London at the time. The novels major point in incor-
porating an immigrant Kurdish, who is abandoned by her husband and at
the mercy of his son, is to underscore the constructed notions of feminin-
ity and masculinity in a traditional society. In her article, Motherhood
Creating Its Killer: Based on Elif Shafaks Novel Honor Questioning the
Femininity and Masculinity Roles in Turkey, Ilknur Mese (2013) debates
that in Honor the notions of femininity and masculinity are initiated from
childhood onward so that the masculine man is designed to kill his mother
in case of any shameful behavior that a woman or a mother might inflict
upon a family. Honor, Mese (ibid 403) describes, turns into a laden term
that could only be attributed to men in the novel, whereas shame des-
ignates woman. In addition, Shafak plays with the conventional gender
paradigms so as to debunk the mythical construction of masculinity and
femininity. Her inclusion of a male cook, Elias, plays a vivid metaphor in
a novel where strict codes of gender are displayed. Therefore, debunking
the strict gender codes, as Mese argues, Shafaks novel takes on the shift-
ing gender paradigms to a further level and destabilizes incorrigible cul-
tural and ethnic symbols through its inclusion of a male chef.
Similar to Abu-Jaber, Elif Shafaks previous writing has been closely
associated with food and foodways. In her novels and nonfiction works, she
has portrayed a variety of characters, who happen to have eerie relation-
ships with food. From the bulimic Alegre in The Saint of Incipient Insanities
to the protagonist of her memoir Black Milk, from the detailed delinea-
tions of food and the portrayal of a food-centered household in The Bastard
of Istanbul to her own personal issues with vegetarianism and her recent
conversion to a carnivore diet, Shafaks writing has always been marked
by food.1 Especially in The Bastard of Istanbul, which narrates the stories
of two families, one Turkish and one Armenian-American, she endeavors
to enunciate the similarities between the two cuisines. As each chapter is
titled with an edible item, each of which turns out to be an ingredient of a
famous Turkish dessert, ashure, in the end, the readers are made aware that
this famous dessert has its origins in an Armenian folktale due to the links
with Noah and Mount Ararat. Hence, at the end of the novel, ashure sym-
bolizes the heterogeneity of identities, and the emerging contact zones
between two conflicting cultures or the Third Space, in Bhabhas words.
Furthermore, in this female-oriented Turkish household, the only male
member of the family is poisoned by the very same ashure by his elder sis-
ter, the matriarch (336337). In The Bastard of Istanbul, Shafak exploits the
juxtaposition of food and food production and mercurial gender roles and
the shift of power and relations within a household.
146 Eda Dedebas Dundar

Similarly, in Honor, food and foodways become powerful metaphors for

hybrid identities and protean portrayal of gender roles as well. However,
different from the protagonists of Crescent and The Language of Baklava,
Shafaks protagonist Pembe utilizes food and explores new recipes in order
to loosen her connection to her traditional past and emancipate from the
constructed definitions of gender. In Shafaks Honor, food works in two
contradictory ways: launching close ties with the familiar and breaking
away from home and tradition at the same time. On the one hand, it helps
to establish connections with the past and family. Similar to the way it is
displayed in The Language of Baklava, food and recipes from home serve
the purpose of founding attachments with tradition and the past. Honor
opens with Pembes daughter, Esma, who cooks sesame halva for her
brother Iskender (2). Since sesame halva symbolizes Iskenders affection
for his mom, she decides to prepare it on the day when her brother is being
released from prison after 20 years. Unable to forgive her brother, Esma
recounts the day as such: In a few hours, Ill take the sesame halva off the
hob, let it cool by the sink and kiss my husband, pretending not to notice
the worried look in his eyes (1). In an attempt to underline her conven-
tional ties with her home and Turkish cuisine, she not only revitalizes a
traditional recipe but also prepares it in the way her brother enjoys.
In addition to Esmas retrieval of home and conventional recipes,
Pembes sister-in-law, Meral, cooks traditional Turkish meals such as
manti (meat dumplings), stuffed green peppers, and tulumba (fried dough
in syrup) for her family, who lives in a neighborhood where Pembe and her
family lives. As a traditional woman, she brings homemade Turkish lunch
to her husbands shop on a daily basis, and during one of her visits she con-
templates why modern wives, as her husband Tariq calls them, could not
bother to cook meals for their husbands:

She [Meral] inspected the tins of meat and baked beans, the bottles of
brown sauce, the tubs of coleslaw and potato salad, the jars of pickled
onionsfood she had never tasted.
Who buys such things? she had once asked her husband.
Modern wives, Tariq had replied. They dont have time to cook. All day
long they work. In the evening they pop in, buy some tinned tuna, mix it
with salad cream and call it supper.
Meral wondered what kind of women they were. What kind of families did
they come from? . . . They earned money, drove cars, dressed smartly, and
some even had children; yet they would not even stuff green peppers for
their husbands. (230231)

Meral regards food as a means to conserve traditional and familial ties

and to present her as a decent and an honorable wife and a mother to her
husbands family. Throughout the novel, Meral is set as a backdrop against
Pembe. Meral represents the traditional values and an epitome of a good,
honorable woman, whereas Pembe stands out as the fallen woman who
 Immigrant Food and Trans-memory of Home 147

experiments with nontraditional recipes and has a romantic affair with

an unconventional cook. A similar sense of belongingness and nostalgia
for home abounds when Iskender, together with his group of immigrant
friends, orders all sorts of Middle Eastern foods (hummus, babaganoush,
kebabs, and falafel) at their regular meeting place to talk about current
affairs (215).
On the other hand, food and kitchen serve as secondary, but more recal-
citrant and emancipatory, roles in Shafaks novel. With her eagerness to
try new recipes and her openness to novelty in the kitchen, Pembe exem-
plifies a nontraditional woman. For instance, the moment Pembe meets
Elias for the first time in a bakery shop, she journeys through a world of
freedom and uncanniness. Having encountered an unconventional form
of racism thanks to the shop attendant who refused to serve her, Pembe
plunges into a new world that she had no idea existed:

You work? she asked.

Yup, Im a chef.
At this, her face lit up. Really?
Yes, he said. I bet I can make rice pudding just as good as you do.
Pembe imagined him dicing onions or poking at some courgettes in a frying
pan. The idea was so odd that she let out a giggle, and almost at once she
grew quiet, worried about hurting his feelings. The men she knew would
barely enter the kitchen to get a glass of water for themselves, which, now
that she thought about it, was also how she had been raising her two sons,
especially Iskender. (116117)

Through the help of Elias, she gets accustomed to a new world, in which
men cook their own meals and even serve food to their wives. She is
astounded by the eccentric names given to food, such as tangy chicken
with zesty, fluffy couscous, and taken aback to see that people could actu-
ally serve couscous, a peasant dish in her hometown, to their guests: In
England things were topsy-turvy. The word couscous, though ordinary, was
treated with reverence. Yet the word shame, though substantial, was taken
quite lightly. When the English were disappointed about something, no
matter how ephemeral or inconsequential, they exclaimed, Oh, what a
shame! (283). Shortly after their first encounter, Pembe and Elias con-
verse on an imaginary meal that Pembe would have cooked for Elias, a
meal that includes food that is more honorable than couscous:

She described the dishes she would set before him. First, there would be
soup, because all food tasted better on a warm stomach. Yogurt soup with
tarragon, mint and bulgur wheat, salad with pomegranate molasses, spicy
roasted red-pepper hummus, lentil patties, Sultans Delight and, for a final
touch, home-made baklava.
Id love to cook with you in the same kitchen, in our kitchen, he had said.
It was one of those rare moments when they talked about their future
together, allowing themselves to believe they had one. (283284)
148 Eda Dedebas Dundar

Foodways in Shafaks Honor serves the main purpose of emancipat-

ing women and debunking the gender paradigm on food production and
kitchen. Similar to Sirines Arab Thanksgiving dinner, which includes
a fusion of Middle Eastern and American cuisines in Crescent (191196),
Pembe and Elias create their own hybrid and unique recipe of rice pudding
with orange zest, encircling various cultures and culinary experiences.

Conclusion
Representation of food culture and food production within a hybrid expe-
rience has symbolic and political repercussions. It not only helps revive
memory and the longing for home but also provides a distance, a neutral
zone in which an immigrant identity can access her relation to home and
exile. The Language of Baklava and Honor are two recent works that reveal
both functions of food production in a similar context. Abu-Jabers mem-
oir signifies the recreation of recipes from home as the reconstruction of
a cultivating relationship with family and home. Moreover, it initiates the
proliferation and reaffirmation of heterogeneous identities through the
amalgamation of ethnic foods and immigrant recipes and resists settling
into binary oppositions, enabling porous boundaries between home and
exile. This politicization of kitchen and food production in The Language of
Baklava is paralleled in Shafaks Honor, though in a distinct fashion. Honor,
first and foremost, starts by addressing essentialized gender and racial
codes and debunking the established paradigm of gender roles. Through
its juxtaposition of multifaceted ethnic and gender roles, Honor not only
facilitates the protagonist to come to terms with her past and reclaim her
identity as a woman but also destabilizes the gender divide of food produc-
tion and foodways.

Note
1. Shafaks recent abandonment of vegetarianism and conversion to a car-
nivore diet, which was recently announced in a national newspaper inter-
view along with numerous vivid photos of raw meat ready to be served, and
Shafak posing with plates of raw meat received lots of criticism from the
public in Turkey.

References
Abu-Jaber, Diana (2003). Crescent. New York: Norton.
Abu-Jaber, Diana (2005). The Language of Baklava. New York: Pantheon Books.
Bardenstein, Carol (2010). Beyond Univocal Baklava: Deconstructing Food-as-
Ethnicity and the Ideology of Homeland in Diana Abu-Jabers The Language of
Baklava. Journal of Arabic Literature 41: 160179.
Bedingfield, Agniezska (2004). Trans-memory and Diaspora: Memories of
Europe and Asia in American Immigrant Narratives. In Sites of Ethnicity:
Europe and the Americas, edited by William Boelhower, Rocio Davis, and
Carmen Birkle. Heidelberg: Universittsverlag Winter, 333346.
 Immigrant Food and Trans-memory of Home 149

Bhabha, Homi (1994). The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.

Field, Robin (2006). A Prophet in Her Own Town: An Interview with Diana
Abu-Jaber. MELUS 31, no. 4: 207225.
Hirsch, Marianne (2008). The Generation of Postmemory. Poetics Today 29,
no. 1: 103128.
Jaffrey, Mahdur (2007). Climbing the Mango Trees. London: Vintage.
Lu-Lien Tan, Cheryl (2011). A Tiger in the Kitchen. London: Hachette.
Mah, Ann (2010). Kitchen Chinese. New York: Avon.
Mese, Ilknur (2013). Motherhood Creating Its Killer: Based on Elif Shafaks
Novel Honor Questioning the Femininity and Masculinity Roles in Turkey.
Turkish Studies 8, no. 3: 399411.
Nyman, Jopi (2009). Cultural Contact and the Contemporary Culinary Memoir:
Home, Memory and Identity in Madhur Jaffrey and Diana Abu-Jaber. Auto/
Biography Studies 24, no. 2: 282298.
Shafak, Elif (2011). Black Milk: On the Conflicts of Writing, Creativity, and Motherhood.
New York: Penguin.
Shafak, Elif (2013). Honor. New York: Viking.
Shafak, Elif (2007). The Bastard of Istanbul. New York: Viking.
Shafak, Elif (2004). The Saint of Incipient Insanities. New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux.
Sunee, Kim (2009). Trail of Crumbs. New York: Popular Library.
Torreiro Pazo, Paula (2011). Living in the Taste of Things: Food, Self and Family
in Diana Abu-Jabers The Language of Baklava and Leslie Lis Daughter of
Heaven. In Selves in Dialogue: A Transethnic Approach to American Life Writing,
edited by Begona Simal. New York: Rodopi, 207231.
PART III

REFLECTIONS ON MUSLIM
DIASPORIC WOMEN
 CHAPTER 9

WOMEN AND ISLAM IN THE

WESTERN MEDIA
Karen Vintges

Introduction
This chapter focuses on recent debates on women and Islam as framed
in the Western media.1 The first section discusses the way these debates
are organized through the presentations and self-presentations of Muslim
women in the Western media. The second section (titled The Restyling of
Western Dmocracies through the Media) considers these presentations
against the backdrop of the mediatization of politics in the Western
world. The third section (titled Media Strategies for Cross-Cultural
Feminism and Their Importance for Democracy) evaluates how a cross-
cultural feminist politics could benefit from this development.

Muslim Womens (Self-)Presentations in the Western Media

The Western world has, in recent years, seen a good deal of heavily polar-
ized debates on the nature of Islam.2 Since September 11, 2001, the
Islamic world has been depicted as inherently violent and backward. The
issue of womens oppression in Islam in particular has been the source of
a number of critical discussions in countries like the Netherlands, Belgium,
and France, countries where large portions of the population hold Islamic
culture and religion as being very hostile to women. In France, many femi-
nists are among those who believe the law should rescue Muslim women
from wearing the headscarf, which the French see as a symbol of oppres-
sion. The issue of Islams oppressed women has gained much attention
through the interventions of some ex-Muslim women who argue from
their own experiences that Western culture saved them.
In the Netherlands, writer and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been
hyped as a real celebrity by the media.3 Hirsi Ali is originally from Somalia,
where women are heavily oppressed in the name of Islam, as in other sub-
Saharan African countries. However, Hirsi Ali claims that Islam itself is
inherently violent and oppressive toward women. She was supported by
conservative and Right-wing politicians in the Netherlands, such as Geert
154 Karen Vintges

Wilders, screenwriter of the film Fitna, and for several years she played a
prominent role in Dutch public forums.4
In France, the French-Iranian writer Chadort Djavann, author of Bas
les voiles! [Down with the veils!] (2003), has been voicing a similar view.
Djavann was forced to wear the veil in Iran after the Iranian Revolution
until she fled the country. She expresses her anger about this, comparing
the veil with the yellow star the Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis. In
Que pense Allah de lEurope (2004), Djavann warns against an Islamist take
over of Europe.
Like Hirsi Ali in the Netherlands, Djavann was supported by influen-
tial Western feminists like the French philosopher Elisabeth Badinter, a
great admirer of Simone de Beauvoir. Badinter devoted a chapter of her
Fausse route (2005) to the issue of the veil, considering it, like Djavann, a
symbol of womens oppression per se. At the initiative of Badinter, a prix
de Simone de Beauvoir pour la libert des femmes, was given to Hirsi Ali
in 2009. Other women, like Azar Nafisi, the author of Reading Lolita in
Tehran (2003), and the Canadian writer Irshad Manji, are also hyped as
celebrities by the media.
The (self-)presentations of these women in the media play a dominant
role in current controversies about Islam in Europe and the United States
(cf. Vintges 2005; Mahmood 2008), time and again contrasting Islam with
gender equality and democracy.5

The Restyling of Western Democracies through the Media

To more fully understand the impact of these hyped (self-)presentations
we have to take into account that the media play a very important, if not
decisive, role in the Western world by a restyling of politics (Corner
and Pels 2003). In our television age, politics and show business are inter-
mingled in the West to the extent that politicians become pop stars and
pop stars become politicians. Examples include Bono, lead singer of the
rock group U2 and campaigner against world poverty, who was invited
to the White House and for an audience with the Pope (Street 2003: 85);
film star Angelina Jolie, who as special envoy of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees travels around the world promoting humani-
tarian causes, and meeting with refugees as well as with politicians; and
Oprah Winfrey, whose campaigning in her talk show for the presidency of
Barack Obama is said to have resulted in an extra million votes.
The media, especially television, play a prominent role in the construc-
tion of political celebrities, or political personae, as John Corner con-
tends (2003: 77). Corner distinguishes three types of media attention that
transform politicians into celebrities. First, there is political publicity, the
giving of media attention to the political work and opinions of the politi-
cian. Second, there is interactive news-making, where politicians cooper-
ate with the media to generate news facts. Third, there are journalistic
revelations, which deal with the private lives of politicians.
 Women and Islam in the Western Media 155

A brief review of what happened in the case of Hirsi Ali illustrates

these three types of media attention. First, she benefited from the media
attention for her ideas and opinions. Second, she succeeded in generating
much media attention herself, for instance, by writing letters to the press,
appearing in television programs, and airing a provocative short film,
Submission I, on Dutch television in the summer of 2004. Third, Hirsi Ali
was often discussed in the press for her love life and sometimes provoca-
tive behavior, and she was outed as not being a legitimate refugee at all,
having lied about a forced marriage. Exposing oneself to media hyping
can thus carry a heavy price.
Sociologist Dick Pels argues that this mediatization of politicians as
stars is a positive development. Citizens no longer need to be educated at
the level of ideological competence but instead can respond to the politi-
cal style of politicians, allowing for emotional, bodily, and subjective reac-
tions in and to politics (2003: 50). Pels contends that political style refers
to the combination of distinctive features of expression and performance
that characterize a particular politician. Interestingly, he argues that the
notion of style usefully bridges the divide between form and content,
detail and essence, presentation and principle, sentiment and reason, and
hence relativizes a one-sided cerebral or rationalist approach to political
behavior (48). Andrew Samuels similarly argues that the prominence of
political style in current politics is a good thing: people possess a hid-
den political wisdom that lies concealed in personal, deep, somatic reac-
tions to what happens in the political world (1993 and 2001, quoted in Pels
2003: 50).
These authors, however, seem to forget what Hannah Arendt expressed
in her book on totalitarianism (1976); many people in the modern world
want to relieve themselves of the burden of independent judgment and
action, and are all too willing to blindly follow their leaders. So while I
agree with Pels that emotion plays an important role in Western politics,
even more so in our television age, with Arendt I would remain critical
toward the prominence of political style in todays politics. On a descrip-
tive level, political style may be an important tool of analysis, but on the
prescriptive, normative level, I would endorse something else.
What I would endorse is a concept of an ethico-political style, or Ethos,
as outlined by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in his later work,
that is, his interviews, books, and lectures between 1980 and 1984. Ethos
is a lived ethics, a practical, ethical way of life, visible in ones attitude,
acts, and behavior. It is developed on a personal level, through constant
exercising, in the context of collective settings such as social movements,
philosophical schools, or religious groups. At stake is an ethical-political
attitude: one exercises to be able to act as a good citizen, a good friend,
and a good leader of the household. Foucault adds that practicing an Ethos
involves taking up ones role in power networks with as little domination as
possible, even calling into question domination at every level and every
form in which it exists (cf. Foucault 1997b: 300; Vintges 2004).
156 Karen Vintges

Like political style, Ethos involves ones whole way of life: not only the
mind, but also body, heart, and soul. It thus acknowledges other aspects of
politics than the merely cerebral, something Pels (ibid) rightly asked for.
However, in affirming the importance of political style Pels cannot but
admire the Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn for his almost presi-
dential personality campaign and for his playing the infotainment game
with freshness, gusto and brilliance (Pels 2003: 43). Yet, Fortuyn repeat-
edly expressed his aversion to Islamic culture and religion, as oppressive
of homosexuals and women, and appealed to the Dutch public to close its
borders to immigrants of Muslim countries.6
I would rather remain critical of Fortuyn and Hirsi Ali as rock star
politicians. Because their political style is overdetermined by antagonistic
aspirations, it does not amount to an Ethos. Both Fortuyn and Hirsi Ali
were engaging in a politics of Othering, that is, of stigmatizing Muslim
immigrants. Contrast this with US President Obama. He clearly devel-
oped an Ethos, that is, an ethical political style. The affectional dimension
certainly played a large role in his campaign, emotionally involving people
with heart and soul. However, it was a campaign outspoken in its inclusive
aspirations and perspectives, one opposed to the exclusion and domina-
tion of others.

Media Strategies for Cross-Cultural Feminism and

Their Importance for Democracy
How then would an inclusive feminist Ethos look like? And, consider-
ing the interwovenness of politics and mass media today, how could it
benefit from the mediatization of current politics and have an impact
in this respect?7 Before discussing some media strategies, I first briefly
sketch the contours of a current debate about Western feminism as well
as a way out of it that is inspired by the emerging discourses of Muslim
feminism.
The dominant type of Western feminism today is the antagonistic type
of liberal feminism advocated by philosophers like Badinter (cf. previous
section) and her US counterpart Susan Moller Okin. Both argue that
feminism can only be based on Western secular liberalism. Okins proj-
ect is concisely formulated by the rhetorical title of her famous essay: Is
Multiculturalism bad for women? (1999), to which her answer is a resound-
ing yes. This position has been very influential in theoretical and politi-
cal debates on the issue of women and Islam (Hirsi Ali was among those
inspired by it). According to Okin, all cultures are organized around the
oppression of women, but she emphasizes that Western liberal states at
least give formal endorsement to the norm of gender equality (1999: 2223).
She famously concluded that feminism should be based on Western liber-
alisms fundamentals.
Many postcolonial authors have expressed their discontent with the
antagonistic type of Western feminism. To name two texts, both Chandra
 Women and Islam in the Western Media 157

Talpade Mohantys classic article Under Western Eyes (1991) and

Mahmoods book The Politics of Piety (2005) criticize Western feminists
for victimizing all other women: Western feminists start from presup-
positions about how non-Western women are still victims of oppressive
religious and cultural practices, instead of approaching them as agents and
actors in their own rights. These scholars criticize Western feminists for
imposing colonialist views on women in the non-Western world.
However, a third way has developed over the last decades: new scholarly
and practical discourses of Muslim and Islamic feminisms have emerged,
arguing that Islam involves gender egalitarianism and gender justice.
Moroccan scholar Fatema Mernissi, in The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist
Interpretation of Womens Rights in Islam (1991/original 1987), contended that
Islams source and most sacred scripture, the Quran, should be reinter-
preted from the point of view of womens rights. Other important works
in this respect are Leila Ahmeds Women and Gender in Islam (1992), Amina
Waduds Quran and Woman (1999), and Asma Barlass Believing Women
in Islam (2002). These works explore the egalitarian spirit of the Quran
and play an important role in the emerging discourse of what is nowadays
called Islamic feminism or Muslim feminism (see Dubel and Vintges
2007).
Ahmed (1992), moreover, discusses the dynamic and diverse history of
Islam, emphasizing its ambiguity with respect to the role of women. She
demonstrates that Islamic history involves emancipatory female voices.
Examples include one of the most important Sufi saints, the eighth-
century poetess Rabiah al-Adawiyya. She forged her path through Sufism
and created a free life as a woman, under no male authoritys control. Ahmed
argues that there is a spiritual egalitarian side of the Quran that can and
should be elaborated into a realization of societies that enable women to
pursue without impediment the full development of their capacities and to
contribute to their societies in all domains (ibid: 248). In her article titled
Feminism and Cross-Cultural Inquiry (1989), Ahmed concludes that the
beliefs on which feminism rests are an endemic part of Islamic civilization
(just as they are an endemic part of Western civilization before the devel-
opment of the political idiom of democracy) (1989: 144).
Muslim feminists today have their own academic, political, socio-
cultural, and womens rights organizations in countries like Morocco,
Iran, Egypt, Malaysia, and Indonesia, as well as in Western countries.
Organizing so as to contest structures of male domination, they argue
for womens rights, gender equality, and gender justice through new inter-
pretations of the Quran and of the history of the Islamic world. These
Muslim feminist movements involve a critique of, and an alternative to,
the dominant type of antagonistic Western feminism insofar as they chal-
lenge it to reconsider its basic assumptions and concepts along with its
politics of Othering. The alternative offered, then, is an inclusive femi-
nist Ethos that entails a recognition of feminisms many faces and voices, a
strategy of mutual, cross-cultural support.
158 Karen Vintges

How would such an inclusive feminism regard the issue of Muslim

women in the Western media? And how could it benefit from the media-
tization of politics? In what follows I briefly discuss examples of each of
the two aspects of mediatization: on one hand, the hyping of politicians
as stars, and on the other, the portrayal and behavior of film and televsion
pop stars as politicians or political role models.
A rather complicated example of the first type of mediatizing is a
series of documentaries on Muslim women that was broadcast on Dutch
television in 2014. The series was scripted by Femke Halsema, a former
Left-wing politician who has celebrity status in the Netherlands. She is
also very much present in the six documentaries, a move she puts down
to the broadcasters concern for ratings. The title of the series, Sex and
Sin, indicates how the documentaries are framed: Muslim women are
victims of an oppressive culture and religion (their sexuality is seen as sin-
ful) and stand in contrast to liberated Western women like Halsema. The
series thus clearly starts from the antagonistic type of Western feminism.
However, as the series develops, the powerful voices of the Muslim women
Halsema interviews turn out to exceed the series original framing.
In the final installment, a famous Moroccan activist and feminist poli-
tician, Latifa Jbabdi, looks back at her life of struggle, imprisonment and
torture, and idealism. She talks about how the feminist movement in her
country incorporated the reinterpreting of the Quran in an egalitarian
way. When Halsema responds to this, challenging her on whether this
is merely a strategy to appease the Islamists, Jbabdi retorts that she her-
self thinks this is the right way to proceed. Looking back on the series,
Halsema concludes that Muslim women are not the backward victims who
Western feminists hold them to be, but that they are believing women
who demand the right to lead their own lives and who are entitled to their
own voices and strategies. Halsemas series thus conveys an inclusive femi-
nism after all.
An example of the second aspect of the mediatization of current poli-
tics, the turning of television stars into political role models, is Dutch film-
maker Bregtje van der Haaks documentary Satellite Queens.8 Broadcast on
Dutch television in 2008, the documentary is about the Saudi satellite
MBCs talk show Kalaam Nawaem (Sweet or Soft Talk), featuring four
hostesses from different Middle Eastern countries.9 In their talk show
the women discuss daily life and its problems, not eschewing subjects like
teen sexuality, homosexuality, and so on. Reinterpreting their Islamic
heritage, they convey their personal Ethos of modern believing women to
the audience. Satellite Queens shows how the four talk show hostesses have
all become celebrities and how they adopt this status so as to function as
ethical-political role models for womenand men. They also expose their
personal lives in the documentary, allowing us as viewers to meet their
families and visit their homes. Filmmaker Van der Haak, by way of a cross-
cultural feminist media strategy, presents these self-conscious Muslim
women to the Western world as an antidote to the dominant image of
 Women and Islam in the Western Media 159

Muslim women as victims. Her documentary was a success. As a result of

the talk show Kalaam Nawaem aired weekly on one of Amsterdams televi-
sion channels, and of the interviews in the Dutch press that followed, the
hostesses were acquiring more and more celebrity status in the Netherlands
as well. In return, Van der Haak was invited and interviewed in Kalaam
Nawaem, explaining why she decided to make the documentary. All in all,
we can rightfully speak of a cross-cultural feminist media project.

Conclusion
Muslim women and girls who argue for womens rights on the basis of
their Islamic heritage are starting to get their voices through to the media
both in the Western and in the Middle Eastern world. They show that
Western feminists have to rid themselves of the idea that only Western
secular liberalism is the road to freedom; there are other roads (cf. Vintges
2004, 2007). Cross-cultural feminist media strategies can benefit from
the mediatization of politics, using either the stardom of politicians or the
political impact of stars so as to counter the dominant (self-)presentations
of Muslim women that are framed exclusively from the antagonistic femi-
nist approach.
From the point of view of democracy, it is essential for cross-cultural
feminists to see that the self-conscious images of Muslim women get
through to the Western media. First of all, as already indicated, it is to
refute one-dimensional presentations and self-presentations of Islam as
antiegalitarian and inherently undemocratic. Second, if it is true that the
role of the media is crucial for the way Western democracies develop, it
is also important to democratize the media, and to allow cultural plural-
ism in the media. Third, on a more general level, the images and voices
of modern believing Muslim women can support the claim of congruity
of cultural pluralism and democracy as such. Finally, the voices of these
modern, believing Muslim women can invite secular feminists to engage
in a process of mutual support, dialogue, and inspiration.

Notes
1. I would like to thank the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research
for sponsoring the research program Women and Islam: New Perspectives
(20082013). Thanks also to Ton Dekker and Federico Lafaire for their edi-
torial help.
2. For a more extended version of this section, see Karen Vintges, Some Hypes
and Some Hope: Women and Islam in the Western Media, Concilium,
Islam and Enlightenment 5 (2005): 4148.
3. Among Hirsi Alis recent publications are Nomad: From Islam to America: A
Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (2011) (New York: Atria
Books) and Infidel (2008) (New York: Atria Books).
4. Hirsi Ali is now living in the United States, where she works for the conser-
vative American Enterprise Institute.
160 Karen Vintges

5. These women are not only hyped in the regular media, but also
embraced online, through websites of Right-wing extremists like those of
the Belgian Vlaams blok and the Dutch website called Dutchdisease,
which hold them as symbols of a necessary overall struggle against
Islam.
6 . The immensely popular Fortuyn was murdered in May 2002 by an
animal rights activist who declared that he wanted to protect the
Muslims in Dutch society. An outburst of violence followed, cul-
minating in a climate of fear and death threats. There were a series
of confrontations, clashes, and violent incidents between so-called
autochthonous and allochthonous parts of the population (this
latter part comprising people of Moroccan and Turkish descent),
including the burning of mosques and Islamic schools. It was in
this climate that Hirsi Ali scripted and aired her film Submission I.
In November 2004 there was another political assassination. This
time the victim was the producer of Hirsi Alis film, Dutch film-
maker Theo van Gogh. Hirsi Ali was then provided with round-the-
clock security.
7. Again I focus on the regular media, and not on the Internet, because of
their prominent role in current politics.
8. For a trailer of the documentary, see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1553284
/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_4
9. It is said that Kalam Nawaem reaches 45 million viewers in 22 countries,
women as well as men.

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 CHAPTER 10

MUSLIM NORTH AFRICAN WOMEN

AND MIGRATION IN THE CONTEXT
OF GLOBALIZATION

Fatima Sadiqi

Introduction
In Morocco (and North Africa), migration is part and parcel of politics,
economy, and everyday life. Morocco has a unique geographical position:
situated at the westernmost edge of the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA) region, it is at the crossroads between the Maghreb, Africa, and
Europe, and it is only seven miles away from Europe.
The story of Moroccan women migrants is an interesting one. In the
1960s, Moroccan women hardly participated in migration; today, they con-
stitute a large component of the Moroccans living in Europe and the Gulf,
without counting illegal migration, which is becoming increasingly femi-
nine. In statistical terms, of over 3 million Moroccan migrants in Europe,
900,000, that is, 37 percent, are women. Migration is not only feminized
but also young and complex, and although research on the feminization of
migration is recent, it is drawing more attention.

Three waves of Moroccan migration

The first migration wave started in the 1960s and the beginning of the
1970s. This migration was temporary, sporadic, economic, and predomi-
nantly male. The main reason was that northern countries of Europe
needed manpower to reconstruct Europe and boost economic growth.
Bilateral conventions between European countries, especially France,
Belgium, and Holland, on one hand, and Morocco on the other consti-
tuted the framework within which thousands of Moroccan men migrated
to Europe. This was a male migration.
The second wave was a migration of family reunion (regroupement
familial). It took place in the 1970s. This migration followed the economic
crisis of the 1970s when the Moroccan state started to disengage from
employment, especially in agriculture, lower industry, and textile where
the bulk of poorer women are found. Families started to be established in
164 Fatima Sadiqi

France, Belgium, and Holland. This type of migration was less consider-
able in Spain and Italy. Migration and a migrant workforce started to be
progressively feminized during this phase.
In the second wave, we find two categories of women: (1) women of rural
origin, who continued to live in Europe in conformity with the Moroccan
(and Arab-Islamic) traditions and gender role assignments, namely, tak-
ing care of the home and children; and (2) women who, even with no work
experience, sought to work outside home.
The image of social success that returning migrants displayed (cars,
gifts, and so on) made women and men more attracted by the European
Eldorado. The spectacular revolution of technology and the media broke
the frontiers of gender, communication, geography, etc. plus the availabil-
ity of jobs that Europeans were not interested in. These women belonged
to modest classes and had no or little education.
The third wave began in the 1990s onward: This is a complex period
with globalization, global ideology, global feminism, more education,
employment, and womens rights. The traditional pattern of migration
from Morocco to Europe, male dominated, short term, and short dis-
tance, is increasingly becoming feminized, younger, long term, and long
distance. In parallel to the fact that women increasingly participate in
migration as a family survival strategy, more professional women move
around independently in search of paid work to fulfill their own eco-
nomic needs, and not to simply join a husband or other family members.
Many women are taking advantage of the better pay packages in Europe
to accumulate enough savings to survive harsh economic conditions at
home.
Morocco is indeed experiencing a substantial gendered brain drain,
underestimated in official migration statistics. Yet there is uncertainty
over issues such as why some leave and others stay, whether people who
leave do so for good, and whether the brain drain will accelerate in the
future. The preliminary survey upon which this chapter is based (this is
work in progress) aimed to add some substance to the debate on the loss of
core skills to the Moroccan economy. The survey presents a profile of the
skilled population in question and provides some insight into the factors
determining migration potential. In this chapter, the focus is on gender as
a key variable influencing potential migration.

The Global Rhetoric

The concepts of justice, equity, democracy, and identity are more
recurrent in the Euro-Mediterranean and global rhetoric on migration;
yet, these are very seldom applied with a gender dimension in mind. This is
a serious deficiency in a region where power is unbalanced not only among
countries but also among sexes. Identity is a matter of choicea choice that
is linked to the freedom to choose. In general, women have less freedom to
 Muslim North African Women 165

choose because more women than men are poor, illiterate, and culturally
marginalized. In a world where political and economic events are moving
faster everyday with the advent of globalization, it is urgently necessary
to take gender issues into consideration when dealing with migration. A
gender approach to migration can help to foster a win-win approach to
North/South migration. In this chapter I focus on Morocco and deal with
two relevant aspects: (1) the overall situation of women in Morocco and
(2) the ways to achieve a win-win approach to migration.

The Overall Situation of Women in Morocco

Moroccan culture is characterized by a gendered superstructure. The
larger factors that influence gender perception and gender role assignment
are linked to the social organization where women are largely disadvan-
taged. But these women do not constitute a socially homogeneous group.
The social variables that explain Moroccan womens heterogeneity are
(1) geographical origin, (2) class, (3) educational level, (4) job opportuni-
ties, (5) language skills, and (6) marital status (Sadiqi 2003). These variables
are obtained on the basis of social oppositions and have a direct influence
on gender perception, political awareness, self-awareness, independence,
critical assessment, and fashioning modes of resistance. Social variables
carry significant social meanings and attest to the fact that in Moroccan
society, women are not given the same social choices. The choices given
to women depend on their positioning within each social variable: urban,
rich, educated, working, married women have more social choices in
Moroccan society than rural, poor, nonworking, illiterate, and unmarried
women.
The biggest problem facing Moroccan women is illiteracy, a fact attested
statistically and sociologically. Statistically, women constitute the largest
illiterate portion of the Moroccan population (Sadiqi 2003). Moroccan
womens illiteracy is also a result of a transcultural inequality whereby
mens educational achievement is privileged over womens. Moroccos illit-
erate women are aware of this condition of subordination and resent it, but
the patriarchy has offered them few alternatives.
Illiteracy is prevalent in both urban and rural areas, but it is most bla-
tant in the latter. In the Moroccan countryside, access to education is
not always easy for girls, as they are less likely to be permitted to travel to
school (even on foot or by public transport) or to attend public boarding
schools, especially in rural, mountainous, and semidesert areas. Illiteracy
excludes a large portion of Moroccan women, especially in rural areas,
from positions of decision-making, the written media, and similarly pow-
erful domains.
Given these facts, men benefit more than women from the positive
aspects of migration, such as resources, enterprise, housing, investments,
and education. Women, on the other hand, are hit harder by negative
166 Fatima Sadiqi

aspects of migration, such as the disintegration of the family nucleus

and traditions, poverty, and illiteracy. Regarding young couples, women
often push their husbands to emigrate in the hope of joining them later.
Such young wives are frequently left behind with the husbands family,
which is assumed to keep an eye on them. In many cases, the parents-
in-law assume full control of the remittances sent by the emigrant hus-
band. The first phases of marriage are often phases where the struggle
between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law over control of the hus-
band is at its highest. In the case of older wives with children, the wife
usually benefits from the remittances if she lives in an urban area, a fact
that gives her a new function in the family: the management of financial
resources. Thus, the migrants remittances increase the direct resources
available in different ways and, in turn, the status of the woman in the
family.
Another type of migration that has an effect on women is circulatory
migration. This migration includes the return of migrants or their descen-
dants during holidays. These circulatory migrants have had a complex
effect on young women in Morocco since the 1980s. In fact, while their
motivating effect is very apparent (young and less young Moroccans are
impressed by the cars and other commodities they bring), the Islamophobia
that characterizes the milieus in which they live in Europe has the effect
of importing increasingly conservative views of Islam. In other words, the
fact that these migrants approve of the veil and Islamic practices contrib-
utes to making religion more conservative in the country. As a result, the
apparent emancipator aspect of the female migrants does not always
coincide with feminist ideals in Morocco.
Moroccan women also experience the negative impact of migration.
In addition to those who migrate to join their husbands or other fam-
ily members, more single women are migrating. Female migration must
always have existed alongside male migration, although no official figures
relating to it are available. It is important to note in this respect that the
Moroccan national media (TV, newspapers, and so on) occasionally report
that one or more young Moroccan women are among the dead when small
boats carrying clandestine migrants from Morocco to Spain sink. These
women are, in general, very young, unemployed, and single. Further, the
media also report on the abominable conditions of clandestine migrants
and show pictures of young men and women living in shantytowns around
agricultural areas in Spain. The women who spoke to the reporters often
said that they migrated because they wanted to support their aging parents
and younger siblings. Research in this particular area is sorely needed.

Ways of Achieving a Win-Win Approach

to Womens Migration
Win-win strategies are of two types: those that relate to migration and
those that deal more with the superstructure of gender relations.
 Muslim North African Women 167

Win-Win Strategies Related to Migration

The win-win strategies that relate to migration mainly include calling upon
the media to provide documentation. There is a real deadlock at the level
of mentalities on both sides of the Mediterranean and the media is still
party-affiliated and largely perceived as male public space in this region
of the world. As a result, women are not, generally speaking, depicted as
agents. They neither own the media nor are they decision-makers in it. All
this translates into the fact that women migrants are still neglected.
Offering more documentation on the interface between women and
migration in Morocco is important. It promotes communication between
the two shores of the Mediterranean Sea and informs researchers and
policymakers of the places where the problems exist and suggests ways
to address these problems. There is indeed a terrible lack of information
on this topic in the sending and receiving countries. This renders the
problems associated with migration more complex and the remedies more
complicated. These data may be obtained through the creation of mobile
units and agents of development to implement fieldwork.
Another issue that the media needs to address is religion in its relation
to migration. More work is needed on images of Islam, women and Islam,
Islam and human rights, and gender and human rights.

Win-Win Strategies Related to the Superstructure

of Gender Relations
Giving voice to all women broadens their choices and democratizes
approaches to alleviate the problems of migration. The illiteracy problem
needs to be considered. For example, we need to use more TV as a means
to reach all women, especially the illiterate. All women, especially those
who are illiterate (who happen to be the poorest), need to have access to
useful information. Radio and TV commentaries, sketches, and comedies
can be helpful. Also badly needed is documentation in the field of women,
migration, and the media.
All in all, the gender dimension cannot and should not be omitted from
any serious analysis of migration in the Mediterranean region. Integrating
gender issues into such analysis can help pave the way for ameliorat-
ing some of the migration-related and deeper structural problems in the
Mediterranean region.
On the basis of the facts in the above sections, I conducted a survey to find
out the main interactions between women, migration, and global issues.

The Survey Results

The survey results suggest that womens potential for migration is increas-
ing despite a remarkable concurrence between male and female Moroccan
citizens in their general attitudes and specific concerns about life in
168 Fatima Sadiqi

Morocco and abroad. The following are the main findings demonstrating
womens increasing migration potential:

Almost three-quarters of the 100 women surveyed had given a great

deal of thought to migrating, whereas the equivalent figure for men
was slightly more than half.
Women were more likely to express a desire to live outside
Morocco temporarily, whereas more men expressed a desire to leave
permanently.
As prospective migrants, women were more likely than men to make
frequent return visits to Morocco, less likely to dispose of assets in
Morocco, and less likely to wish to retire or be buried in a foreign
country.
Women had more limited foreign travel experience than men, and
lower levels of contact with foreign professional associations or
employment agencies.
Women were more likely than men to say that it would be difficult
or very difficult for them to leave Morocco. In addition, close to half
the men and two-thirds of the women said they could not afford to
stay in Morocco.

If the survey results were an accurate predictor of future migration,

then the brain drain would be predominantly male. However, the fact that
most people migrate not as individuals but in couples or families makes
such a conclusion oversimplistic.

Survey Analysis: The Relationship between

Gender and Migration
The relationship between gender and migration has to be considered in
terms of gender relations and of migration as a household strategy. Much
of the survey questionnaire was concerned with identifying motives for
migration. The main findings of a gender-based analysis of the results are
the following:

There was remarkable gender agreement in peoples level of satis-

faction or dissatisfaction with a range of quality-of-life indicators.
Economic factors, such as the cost of living, and social concerns, such
as family stability, are the main sources of dissatisfaction for both
men and women.
Within this broad overall concurrence, the categories for which
skilled women expressed higher levels of dissatisfaction relative to
men were employment-related factors such as their job, income, job
security, and prospects for professional advancement; and aspects of
 Muslim North African Women 169

everyday family life such as access to acceptable housing, schooling,

and medical services.
Overall women seemed to be slightly more satisfied with their present
quality of life than men, reinforcing the finding of womens increas-
ing migration potential.
High levels of dissatisfaction on the part of both genders across a
number of quality-of-life indicators confirm that several push factors
might encourage skilled migration. Most respondents also anticipate
a decline in social and economic conditions over the next five years,
especially in education and health care. Such pessimism was higher
among men than among women.
The biggest push factors for both men and women were poverty and
lack of jobs. There was a small gender difference in the relative signif-
icance of factors that would encourage people to stay in Europe: men
ranked improved income, followed by family, whereas more women
ranked family as the primary consideration that would encourage
them to stay in Europe.

It must be noted that the male and female samples of Moroccan citi-
zens were distinctive on a number of counts. Women were concentrated
in occupations such as nursing and teaching, whereas men dominated pro-
fessions such as civil servants and accountancy. The female sample was
also younger and poorer, and fewer were married compared to the male
sample. A straightforward gender comparison may therefore reveal less
about gender alone than it does about the interaction between gender and
these other variables.
The breakdown of the data by gender combinations suggests that
Moroccan men have a higher migration potential than women. Gender
thus seems to be a more significant determinant of migration potential
than any other category. In terms of factors discouraging migration, there
seems to be a significant gender variation. Women were more likely than
men to identify family as a reason to stay in Morocco; men were more
likely to cite patriotism.
Demographic differences in the skilled migrants sample likewise limit
the utility of a straightforward gender comparison in understanding the
brain gain. Men in the sample came from a wider range of rural areas
than the women surveyed. They were less likely than women to have per-
manent resident status in Europe, and less likely to be recent immigrants.
This suggests that in addition to a Europenization of skilled migration
since the end of 1980s, there has also been a masculinization until very
recently. The notion of direct skills replacement is oversimplistic, but
if unskilled migration means the loss of families to Morocco and skilled
migration means a gain of single men, then this brings with it a host of
potential social consequences.
170 Fatima Sadiqi

Social Consequences
The decision to migrate from Morocco clearly depends on the interac-
tion of a host of forces, some which are experienced or perceived differ-
ently according to gender. Any attempt to influence those forces and their
impact must therefore be based on a sound understanding of gender dif-
ferences and similarities, as well as of gender relations.

One key implication of the finding that women have an increasing

migration potential is that this is likely to act as a significant push
factor on skilled migration of both genders. In practical terms, most
migration is undertaken collectively rather than individually. For
men with permanent partners and family dependents, the opinions of
those people will be perhaps the single most important factor deter-
mining whether their own migration potential is turned into reality.
Womens reluctance to go back to Morocco therefore serves to keep
women and men in Europe.
Intuitively, one of the policy implications of this study might be that
affirmative action on gender grounds could be an effective strategy
for reducing Moroccos brain drain. However, if such affirmative
action were to lead to real or perceived disadvantaging of men, the
strategy might prove counterproductive, encouraging skilled males
to migrate, taking their female partners with them.
Another flaw in any simplistic gender-based strategy to reduce the
brain drain is that the gender differences identified in the survey may
have been caused by factors other than gender alone. Further anal-
ysis of the survey data, and indeed further surveys that allow more
thorough demographic analysis, are required in order to investigate
the cross-cutting of variables such as age, marital status, level of edu-
cation, occupation, etc. with gender, in determining migration atti-
tudes and behavior.

In understanding migration, it is clear that gender matters. Women

make enthusiastic migrants, not because they are easily alienated, but
because they are more concerned than men about their families welfare
and job security. Reducing the threat of poverty and seeking better life
conditions are the most important factors that would make women seek
migration. The lesson from a gender analysis of the brain drain is that it
is in the social sphere of job security, education, and health care that the
solution to the loss of core skills to the economy must be sought.
The relatively new phenomenon of female migration and female impact
on the nature and duration of male migration constitutes an important
change in gender roles for Morocco, creating new challenges for public
policy. This emergence of migrant females as breadwinners puts pressure
on traditional gender roles within the Moroccan family.
 Muslim North African Women 171

This has repercussions on the other category of women: those left

behind. Indeed, an increasing scarcity of traditional male labor has also
promoted new roles for the women they leave behind. As the job market
in destination countries became tighter during the 1980s and 1990s, and
remittances thinned out, many families came to rely on women and their
farming activities for day-to-day support. These women became the de
facto resource managers and decision-makers, particularly within the
agricultural sector. The gendered division of family labor has also been
upset by the loss of male employment through urban job retrenchment
and structural adjustment, forcing women to seek additional income-
generating activities to support the family.
Moroccan migrants are becoming increasingly part of a gendered
African diaspora that is attracting international attention. Indeed these
diasporas represent a patrimony of intelligence, made up of intellectuals,
professional men and women, and university students who could be put
to the service of the development of Morocco and African nations. This
new vision is shared by all: by the African states, representatives of the
diaspora, and the international community. With respect to the states,
in the past, they at times took a hostile attitude toward their expatriate
nationals. Nevertheless, today it appears that these same states are begin-
ning to realize the important potential represented by the diaspora in the
economic development of their countries.

Women Migrants Remittances as a Development Tool

The roots of contemporary migration from Morocco to Western Europe
can be traced back to the colonial period. The volume of migration
increased substantially during the reconstruction of Europe in the after-
math of World War II. This increase was further accelerated by the subse-
quent economic boom across Western Europe. Although Moroccan flows
dropped significantly in volume during the recession at the end of the
1970s, they picked up momentum in the 1980s and further increased dur-
ing the 1990s, propelled mainly by irregular flows. Between 1975 and 1998,
remittances accounted for 6.5 per cent of gross domestic product (Ennaji
and Sadiqi 2008: Chapter 3).
Morocco has depended on migration for much of its social and eco-
nomic development. Twelve years after independence, the kingdoms bud-
getary plans (19681972) proposed emigration as a means of solving the
under- and unemployment problem, a policy that would simultaneously
provide an increase in foreign currency through remittances. Migrant
transfers would help finance internal investments, local employment, and
the creation of a group of nationals with professional skills and attitudes
acquired in Europe and favorable to economic development. Building on
foundations already in place, the 19731977 five-year plan further proposed
172 Fatima Sadiqi

methods of stimulating emigration services in Morocco and setting up a

network of social bureaux abroad. Activities in favor of emigration and the
conclusion of labor agreements with different receiving countries would
further enhance development, as would the creation of emigration funds
designated to aid potential migrants with the costs of establishing them-
selves abroad (Leichtman 2002).
In 2003, the Global Development Finance Annual Report took formal
notice of remittances as an important source of external development
finance for the first time, listing Morocco as the fourth largest remit-
tance recipient among developing countries. Remittances to Morocco
totalled USD 3.3 billion in 2001 and currently stand at around USD 6.9 bil-
lion (2012 figure), of which approximately half is transferred from France
(Ennaji 2014: 151; Ratha 2003). Nonetheless, and despite the high level of
remittances, Morocco remains characterized by considerable regional and
other inequalities. Emigration potentials are very high in the north, clos-
est to Spain, one of the European Unions chief frontline states.
International research shows that, if properly facilitated, migration can
have a threefold beneficial effect on the host countries by supplying the
labor in demand, on the migrants and their families through the potential
improvement of income and livelihood possibilities through migration,
and on the country of origin through the inflow of financial and human
capital (monetary and social remittances). However, research also shows
that it is often difficult to mobilize different forms of repatriated capital,
remittances, skills, and new sociocultural and political values for home
country development because of enduring economic and infrastructure
barriers.
While the Moroccan government has no official policy on emigration,
it has had high hopes of being able to capitalize on remittances. There
are the positive and negative results of Moroccan migration on economic
development, as well as of other migration-driven social changes, that is,
the impact of social remittances (see Ennaji 2014).

Impact of the Financial Crisis

The recession has dampened the movement of economic migrants.
Contrary to the widely held public perception, immigrants overwhelm-
ingly are choosing to stay put in their adopted countries rather than return
home despite very high unemployment and lack of jobs.
The overall picture is one of sharp remittance decline. Although remit-
tances officially diminished by 15 percent in 2010, they remain an impor-
tant stable source of income for North African countries as other financial
streams, including lending and other forms of foreign private investment,
have proven much more volatile (Ennaji 2014: Chapter 1).
The recession has hit migrants and their financial well-being particularly
hard, with repercussions not only for the migrants themselves and their
households, but also for immigrant-sending and receiving countries alike.
 Muslim North African Women 173

With some evidence that an economic recovery, however anemic, may

be underway, immigrants may seek to move in anticipation of growth.
Confronted with the most severe economic crisis in decades and ris-
ing unemployment, receiving governments in locations across the globe
embraced a range of policies to suppress the inflow of migrants, encourage
their departure, and protect labor markets for native-born workers.

Spain-Romania and Spain-Morocco

After a sevenfold increase in the share of immigrants over the past decade,
Spains immigrant population has suffered massive labor force dislocations
in the current recession. Immigrants were attracted to Spain and encour-
aged by the government to come and work in the booming construction,
tourism, hospitality, and domestic-service industries. But Spains growth
has come to a painful stop and the country is being forced to rethink its
economic development model. The result has been sharply declining
immigrant inflows. As in the United Kingdom, Eastern Europeans with
the right of return (and some Moroccans who have legal permanent resi-
dence) appear to be leaving Spain and returning to their home countries;
but the bulk of sub-Saharan African and Latin American migrants seem
to be staying put, in large measure because of poor home economies.
Spain was Europes leading country of immigration between 2000 and
2007, adding more than 4.8 million immigrants in seven short years, bring-
ing the total foreign population in 2008 to 5.3 million out of a total popu-
lation of 46 million. In 2008, Spains foreign population was higher than
that of the United Kingdom (4.2 million). Foreigners share of the total
Spanish population rose sevenfold from 1.6 percent in 1998 to 11.4 percent
in 2008 (Ennaji and Sadiqi 2008: Chapter 3).
Moroccans accounted for the largest share of immigrants in Spain from
1998 to 2007, but were surpassed by Romanians in 2008. Thus, since the
late 1990s, Spain has absorbed a large, extraordinarily diverse immigrant
flow from three continents: Europe, Africa, and South America.

Impact on Economy
An increasing number of women are becoming binationals, that is, hold-
ing a Moroccan and a French, Dutch, Belgian, or other nationalities. As
such, they are becoming human capital that can only enhance the develop-
ment of Morocco.
Migrant women are actors in the Moroccan economy. They are encour-
aged to invest in the country of origin. This tendency has been consoli-
dated after the recent uprisings in the region (Lahnait 2014). An increasing
number of women are starting new projects without the help of the gov-
ernment, often attracted by low cost labor. As such these migrant women
participate in the globalized economy. Such initiatives are promising as
binationals often come to Morocco with knowledge and know-how from
174 Fatima Sadiqi

Europe (they often come to Morocco after they have finished their stud-
ies in Europe). These women also contribute to providing Morocco with
much needed foreign currency. Migrant women are also actors in the cul-
tural cooperation between Morocco and the countries of Europe (Ennaji
2014: Chapter 4).

Conclusion
Despite all significant disempowering factors, Muslim Moroccan migrant
women in Europe are not passive; they fight exclusion by forcing their way
into the male-dominated public spaces and assert themselves as bread-
winners by supporting their households, sometimes single-handedly. The
overall status of Moroccan migrant women as a group makes them negoti-
ate gender and power relations in a way that is congruent with their socio-
cultural environment. Their endeavors are indeed very courageous in a
context that is characterized by widespread illiteracy, strong patriarchal
dogmas, and a strict gender dichotomy.
In the present state of affairs, migration has indeed become a priority
on the Moroccan governments political agenda. A new Ministry for the
Moroccan Residents Abroad has been recently created. Despite the fact
that migration has always attracted the attention of decision-makers and
that it constitutes a major source of revenue, almost no attention is being
paid to this category of Moroccan women by researchers. Given the gen-
eral social, economic, and political situation in Morocco and Europe and
given the big tensions that we have to live with and monitor, it is impera-
tive that Muslim women migrants are allocated due attention. They not
only guarantee family stability in the diaspora and back home, but also
have a direct and everlasting impact on children. Both the positive and
negative impacts of migration on these women need to be seriously taken
into account. Moroccan womens agency has been attested over the years
by the feminist movement, but insufficient resources and lack of access to
the sphere of power still constitute hurdles for these women. State assis-
tance for both women and their children will certainly help them carry on
their mission more appropriately.

References
Ennaji, Moha (2014). Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Ennaji, Moha and Fatima Sadiqi (2008). Gender and Migration in Morocco. Trenton:
Red Sea Press.
Lahnait, Fatima (2014). Binationals: Human Capital at the Service of the
Economic Development of the Maghreb. IEMed (European Institute of the
Mediterranean) Mediterranean Yearbook. Barcelona: IEMed, 308311.
Leichtman, Mara (2002). Transforming Brain into Capital Gain: Moroccos
Changing Relationship with Migration and Remittances. The Journal of North
African Studies 7, no. 1: 109137.
 Muslim North African Women 175

Ratha, Dilip (2003). Workers Remittances: An Important and Stable Source

of External Development Finance. Global Development Finance: Striving for
Stability in Development Finance. Washington, DC: World Bank, 157175.
Sadiqi, Fatima and Moha Ennaji (2004). Women Left Behind. Migrations in
the Mediterranean Basin: Bridges and Margins. Finisterra Revista Portuguesa de
Gerografia. Lisbon: Lisbon University.
Bureau des Statistiques, Rabat, 2004, 2009.
UNESCO Report 1998.
 CHAPTER 11

MULTICULTURALISM IN MUSLIM
A MERICA? THE CASE OF HEALTH
DISPARITIES AND DISCRIMINATION
IN A RAB DETROIT, MICHIGAN

Marcia C. Inhorn

Introduction
The United States is considered to be both multicultural and
democraticfeatures of the nation-state that are extolled as political
virtues. Yet, not all American citizens enjoy the full benefits of a multi-
cultural democracy. This chapter examines the experiences of recent
Arab Muslim migrants to the United States, and the intersecting forms
of oppression facing this particular Muslim community. The focus of this
chapter, furthermore, is on health disparities, defined as differences
in health status, health environment, and access to quality health care,
which lead certain populations to have poorer health outcomes than oth-
ers (Braveman 2006). In the United States, research on health disparities
has focused heavily on African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latinos.
However, health disparities are a problem for other ethnic minority popu-
lations in the United States, including new immigrant and refugee popula-
tions from the Muslim world.
This chapter provides an ethnographic foray into the health disparities
faced by one of Americas most rapidly growing immigrant populations
namely, Arab Muslims, many of whom are resettled refugees from Middle
Eastern war zones. Four major areas of health disparity face this growing
Muslim immigrant population: namely, the lingering health effects of war
and torture; postwar reproductive health impairments, including both
male and female infertility; lives of poverty in resettlement communities;
and the lack of access to basic health care services in the United States
(Inhorn and Fakih 2005; Inhorn and Serour 2011). To date, relatively few
studies have examined the health status or reproductive difficulties faced
by new Muslim immigrant populations in the United States (El-Sayed and
Galea 2009; Read et al. 2005). However, the few available studies suggest
that Arab Muslim immigrants to the United States tend to be of lower
178 Marcia C. Inhorn

socioeconomic status, uneducated, monolingual in Arabic, and, depending

upon the home country, to suffer from psychological and physical trauma
inflicted in situations of political violence (Hedges and Al-Arian 2008).

Arab Muslim Refugees and Discrimination

in the United States
Nearly 80,000 Iraqis, mostly Shia Muslims, were resettled in the United
States following the First Gulf War (19911992) (Walbridge and Aziz
2000). Since the 2003 US-led war in Iraq, the US Refugee Admissions
Program (USRAP) has been on a humanitarian mission to resettle vulner-
able Iraqi nationals, including those who have served with US forces in
Iraq. Since the inception of the USRAP in 2007, more than 200,000 Iraqi
nationals have been referred for resettlement. More than 140,000 of them
have been interviewed, and more than 120,000 have been approved for
resettlement. Yet, only about 85,000 of these Iraqi refugees had actually
arrived in the United States as of April 2013 (US Department of Homeland
Security 2013).
A disproportionate number of these Iraqi and other Arab Muslim refu-
gees have been resettled in so-called Arab Detroit (Abraham and Shryock
2000; Hassoun 2005; Detroit Arab American Study Team 2009; Abraham
et al. 2011). Since the First Gulf War, metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, has
been the major receiving site for resettled Iraqis, as well as for Lebanese
war refugees. According to 2010 estimates, more than 220,000 Arabs now
live in the metropolitan Detroit area, which represents nearly 16 percent
of the entire US Arab population of 1.46 million (Schopmeyer 2011). Most
of these Arab immigrants live in Dearborn, Michigan, a southwestern sub-
urb of Detroit, which has been dubbed the capital of Arab America and
which is home to a major Ford automobile manufacturing plant. However,
with Michigans failing automobile-based economy, Iraqi resettlement to
Michigan has been officially stopped by the USRAP. As of March 2011,
unemployment rates for Iraqis in Michigan were nearly three times the
national average of 9 percent, and it is estimated that nearly 2,000 Iraqi
refugees have left the United States for other countries (Sheppard 2011).
Indeed, the events of the past decade have generally reversed the assim-
ilating efforts of Arab Muslims to move from margin to mainstream
(Abraham and Shryock 2000; Abraham et al. 2011), or to blend in to
white US society as an invisible ethnic minority population (Naber
2000; Ajrouch and Jamal 2007; Jamal and Naber 2008). September
11, 2001, set in motion a series of untoward events, including the Bush
Administrations declaration of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the
implementation of both Homeland Security and the Patriot Act in
Bushs War on Terror, and the eventual withdrawal of US troops from
Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving a trail of violent conflict in its wake.
Given this chain of events, Arabs and Muslims already living in the
United States or arriving there as new refugees have faced a great deal
 Multiculturalism in Muslim America? 179

of suspicion and resentmentwhat several scholars have described as

a backlash against Arabs and Muslims more generally (Bakalian and
Bozorgmehr 2009; Cainkar 2009; Peek 2011). Indeed, incidents of racial
discrimination, negative stereotyping, and hate crimes have all been doc-
umented in the United States over the past decade (Howell and Shryock
2003; Marvasti and McKinney 2004; Abraham et al. 2011).
Given such discrimination, resettlement in America has been both
paradoxical and problematic for many new Arab Muslim refugees. On one
hand, Americas instigation of, and ongoing involvement in, wars in their
Middle Eastern home countries, especially Iraq, means that they have
been forced to flee to the United States. On the other hand, once they
arrive, these refugees are unwelcome, facing sometimes bitter discrimi-
nation and hostility in a post-9/11, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim environment
(Ewing 2008; Bakalian and Bozorgmehr 2009; Cainkar 2009; Abraham
et al. 2011; Hanoosh 2011; Howell and Shryock 2011).

Intersecting Oppressions: African Americans and

Arab Muslims in the United States
To understand the forms of discrimination facing Arab Muslims in the
United States, it is useful to turn to intersectionality theory, which was
first proposed by black feminist scholars to understand the intersecting
forms of oppression being faced by Black women in America (Crenshaw
et al. 1996; Collins 2008). Intersectionality theory captures the simulta-
neous and interlocking forms of oppression based on categories such as
gender, race, class, age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sexual orien-
tation, disability, or appearance. Instead of acting independently, these
systematic forms of oppression may intersect in individuals lives, leading
to multiplicative, instead of merely additive, effects. For example, being
black and being poor may represent powerful and intersecting forms of
oppression, which exacerbate preexisting gender discrimination facing
black women in a male-dominated society (Mullings 1996; Collins 2008).
Although African American and Arab Muslim populations in the
United States are rarely compared or studied together, they share many
underappreciated commonalities, which intersectionality theory can illu-
minate. In the case of Arab Muslims, intersecting forms of oppression
include discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, social class, race, gen-
der, and appearance (e.g., veiling). Indeed, multiple intersecting forms of
oppression are operative in the lives of both African American and Arab
Muslim communities in the United States, when they are compared side
by side.
Unhealthy communities: First, both African Americans and Arab
Muslims are at increased risk for health problems because of environmen-
tal risk factors. Both groups tend to be concentrated in urban industrial
centers, where they are exposed to environmental toxins through occupa-
tional exposures, ambient air pollution, and toxic waste disposal in their
180 Marcia C. Inhorn

neighborhoods. In addition, they share nutritional constraints attributable

to the lack of healthy, affordable foods in urban landscapes devoid of major
grocery stores (Mullings and Wali 2001; Schulz and Mullings 2005).
Medical discrimination: Second, both communities may regard the US
health care system with some suspicion and distrust, for reasons that are
cultural in nature or based on experiences of racism (Caesar and Williams
2002; Skloot 2010). For Arab Muslims, including recently arrived immi-
grants, language barriers, illiteracy (in both English and Arabic), and lack
of Western understandings of the body and its physiology may represent
major barriers to negotiating care, especially for women and immigrants
coming from rural areas of the Middle East (Kulwicki 1996; Inhorn
and Serour 2011). For African Americans, problems with health care are
related to a long history of racism documented for US health care, includ-
ing infamous medical experiments that were once performed on African
American men and women (Skloot 2010).
Racial discrimination: Such distrust is clearly linked to general histories
of racism and discrimination against both Arab Muslims and African
Americans within US society. Although a long history of racial discrimina-
tion, negative stereotyping, and hate crimes can be documented for both
groups in the United States, today, Arabs, Muslims, and blacks are
vilified by many white Americans, who regard Arab, Muslim, and black
men in particular as dangerous, untrustworthy, and inherently violent (as
well as fanatical, if they are Arab Muslims) (Bayoumi 2008; Howell 2011;
Inhorn 2012). The very possibility that Arab Muslims might be trustwor-
thy, law-abiding citizenswho may want to conceive and nurture children
as responsible father figuresseems to have eluded both the media and
popular imagination, leaving deeply entrenched caricatures that are dif-
ficult to overcome (Shaheen 2008).
Gender discrimination: These caricatures of Arab Muslim and African
American men include images of male hypersexuality and hyperfertil-
ity (Inhorn and Fakih 2005; Inhorn 2012). Arab men, and Muslim men in
general, are seen as polygamous fathers of children from multiple wives,
harkening back to Western Orientalist fantasies of the harem. Similarly,
African American men are often portrayed as informal polygamists,
spawning offspring with multiple, unmarried sexual partners (as well as
spreading HIV/AIDS to them) (Edin and Nelson 2013). If Arab Muslim
and African American men are portrayed as hypersexual, hyperfertile
polygamists in the Western popular imagination, then their women are
concomitantly described as oppressed, brutalized, veiled victims, who
require liberation from both patriarchal and religiously based oppression
(Abu-Lughod 2013).
Religious discrimination: Gender relations between Arab Muslim men
and women are presumed to be based on religion (Abu-Lughod 2013),
namely, Islam, which is generally viewed as an extremist, oppressive, fanat-
ical, gender-discriminating, and hate-mongering religion by the majority
of Americans (Cainkar 2009; Grewal 2013). Islam tends to be viewed in
 Multiculturalism in Muslim America? 181

the United States as a religion of intolerance rather than tolerance. Thus,

those who practice the religion are viewed with suspicion and fear. This
would include both Arab Muslim and African Americans who belong to
the Nation of Islam (Grewal 2013).
Economic discrimination: The racism and stereotyping directed at both
Arab Muslims and African Americans lead to much blaming and scape-
goating, including for conditions of poverty. Although a significant per-
centage of both Arab Muslims and African Americans have achieved
middle-class status or higher (Read et al. 2005; Robinson 2011), a signifi-
cant proportion of both are lower-income groups, with many families
existing below the US poverty line (Edin and Kefalas 2007; Schopmeyer
2011). Both groups have been affected by changes in the urban industrial
workforce and the outsourcing of US factory jobs to foreign countries.
Both groups have been forced to rely on the US welfare system in order
to supplement meager family wages, with negative implications for fam-
ily structure and health status. Indeed, economic impoverishment and
accompanying low social class status are major problems for both these
ethnic minority populations in the landscape of America. Poverty affects
the ability of Arab Muslims and African Americans to seek higher educa-
tion, improve their standard of living, and access affordable health care for
themselves and their children.

Arab Detroit, Michigan

Let us turn now to metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, a northern indus-
trial city with one of the largest populations of both Arab Muslims and
African Americans in the country. According to the findings from the
Detroit Arab American Study (DAAS) Team (2009), a major University
of Michigan-based survey funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, metro
Detroit has one of the oldest, largest, and most visible Arab populations in
North America. Arab Americans trace their ancestry to four major send-
ing areas: Lebanon/Syria (37 percent), Iraq (32 percent), Palestine/Jordan
(12 percent), and Yemen (8 percent). Seventy-five percent were born out-
side the United States, with most continuing to speak Arabic, even if they
have acquired English-language skills. The population reports them being
deeply religious, with 58 percent Christian and 42 percent Muslim. Most
Christians have achieved middle-class status and are dispersed through-
out Detroits suburbs, while two-thirds of all Muslims live in the ethnic
enclave community of Dearborn, Michigan, sometimes dubbed Arab
Detroit.
Compared to Arab Americans nationwide, the Arab Americans of
metro Detroit are more likely to be Muslim immigrants, refugees from
war-torn Lebanon and Iraq, or from poor rural communities of Yemen.
They have larger families and lower family incomes, with a quarter of
the population struggling on family incomes of less than $20,000/year.
Fifteen percent of those surveyed also said they personally have had a bad
182 Marcia C. Inhorn

experience after September 11 because of their ethnicity. These experi-

ences included verbal insults, workplace discrimination, special target-
ing by law enforcement or airport security, vandalism, and in rare cases,
vehicular and physical assault (DAAS Team 2009).
Arab Muslims in metro Detroit live in close proximity to African
American communities, including the predominantly black city of Detroit,
which is adjacent to Dearborn and surrounds another Arab enclave called
Hamtramack (Schopmeyer 2011). The metropolitan Detroit area is among
the most racially segregated cities in the country. As whites have moved to
the suburbs, the city of Detroit has become increasingly black, with more
than 80 percent of all Detroit residents now African American, according
to the US census (US Census Bureau 2015).
Furthermore, the racial segregation of Detroit is mirrored in the citys
economic inequalities (Schulz and Lempert 2004). Among the 77 cities in
the United States with populations above 200,000, Detroit ranked first
in the percent of population below the poverty line. In Detroit, 38 percent
of all persons live below the poverty line, and 39.5 percent of all female-
headed households live below the poverty line. For Arab Americans liv-
ing in Detroit, the poverty rates were even higher, with 37.5 percent of all
families living in poverty and 44.1 percent of female-headed households
in poverty, according to US census data. This stands in stark contrast to
the predominantly white suburbs of Detroit, where just 5 percent of white
residents, 710 percent of Arab Americans, and 13 percent of African
Americans live in poverty.
To summarize, a current portrait of Detroit would show three major
sectors: (1) a poor, virtually black inner city; (2) a predominantly poor
Muslim Arab suburb (Dearborn) attached to Detroits southwestern bor-
der, the home of a growing population of mostly Shia Muslim refugees
from Lebanon and Iraq; and (3) a ring of suburban white affluence, includ-
ing many Christian Arabs (primarily Iraqi Chaldeans), who have achieved
wealth and consider themselves to be white, according to the DAAS sur-
vey data (DAAS Team 2009; Schopmeyer 2011).

The Study of Health Disparities in Arab Detroit

In the midst of this segregated city, a five-year (20032008) medical
anthropological study was conducted by the author in an Arab-serving
reproductive health clinic in the heart of Arab Detroit. The study was
based on extensive ethnographic interviews conducted with 95 Arab
immigrants55 men and 40 womenmost of whom were Iraqi, Lebanese,
and Palestinian war refugees, as well as some Yemeni economic migrants
fleeing their impoverished home country. Interviews were conducted in
English, Arabic, or a mixture of English and Arabic, depending upon the
primary language and preference of the interviewee.
Few of these individuals were born in the United States. Most had
emigrated alone or with their families under conditions of economic or
 Multiculturalism in Muslim America? 183

political duress in their home countries, including all the Iraqis, who came
as political refugees. Thus, their lives had been disrupted in significant
ways. For example, most were poorly educated, with few having completed
high school. Most were either struggling with the English language or
could not speak English at all, thus restricting their ability to communi-
cate in US health care, social service, and employment sectors.
Without English or high-school educations, few of the Arab Muslim
women in the study had ever worked, relying instead on their husbands
for economic support. Most of the men in the study were employed in
low-wage, blue-collar, or service-sector occupations, mainly as gas sta-
tion attendants, dishwashers, and busboys in Middle Eastern restaurants,
truck drivers, construction workers, auto mechanics, used-car salesmen,
or store clerks. Salaries were generally low, with many men and their wives
living in small apartments in Dearborn and generally ekeing out subsis-
tence lives below the poverty line. In 2006, with accelerating problems
in the Detroit-based auto industry, unemployment rates in this commu-
nity began to skyrocket. Several of the study participants were living off a
combination of unemployment benefits, Social Security, welfare, and food
stamps.
Without regular employment, most of the men and women in the study
did not have private health insurance to cover the costs of their medical
care. Most did not own credit cards. As a result, virtually all their financial
transactions, including visits to medical clinics, were handled in cash.
In general, the Arab Muslim men and women in the study describe their
lives as hard and stressful, given the traumatic conditions that had led
them to flee their home countries and the problems of economic hardship,
exclusion, and discrimination that faced them in America. The intersec-
tion of these various forms of oppression can be briefly illustrated through
the story of Fatima and Shahira (two pseudonyms), Iraqi refugee sisters-
in-law, who shared their reproductive trials and tribulations as follows.

Health Disparities: The Story of Fatima and Shahira

Fatima and Shahira were sisters-in-law, both Iraqi Shia refugees who
ended up being resettled in Dearborn, Michigan. Fatima, the younger of
the two, was a child refugee from the First Gulf War, who had lived for
four years, from 1991 to 1995, in the horrible squalor of the Saudi Arabian
refugee camps where the Shia Iraqis fled after their failed, US-backed
uprising against the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. After four years,
Fatimas family finally received political asylum in the United States, arriv-
ing first in Arizona, then resettling in southeastern Michigan with 80,000
other Iraqi refugees. Fatima grew up and married another Iraqi refugee,
an uneducated taxi driver whose family was still living in war-torn Iraq
at the time. Fatimas husband made so little money that he was unable to
afford health insurance, or to pay for the hormonal medications necessary
to overcome Fatimas ovarian problems, which had rendered her infertile
184 Marcia C. Inhorn

throughout their five years of marriage. As the Michigan economy deterio-

rated further with the decimation of the Detroit auto industry, Fatima had
sought help for herself and her husband at the local social service agency in
Dearborn. As she explained: The last time I went in, I told them I dont
have Medicaid [i.e., medical welfare], my husband is not working, and he
really wants to. I told them, give me any paper to fill out [for Medicaid
and for work], and they just said, Go online and see for yourself.
Meanwhile, Fatima had brought her husbands older sister, Shahira, to
the Arab-serving infertility clinic. Shahira had recently fled from Iraq,
as well as from a seven-year marriage in which she was blamed for the
infertility. A 36-year-old divorcee, who looked weathered beyond her
years, Shahira wanted to give children to her new husband of one year,
who had lost his only daughter in the First Gulf War. But Shahira had
serious infertility problemsfibroid tumors in her uteruswhich ulti-
mately required costly surgery. However, because fibroid surgery was
not covered by Shahiras Medicaid insurance plan in the United States,
Shahira flew by herself in October 2007 from Detroit to Damascus,
Syria, in order to access the surgical procedure at a cost that she could
afford. Although the surgery relieved the pain from Shahiras fibroid
tumors, her savings were depleted by the cost of surgery and travel to the
Middle East. At the time of the interview, Shahira was not yet pregnant
in the second year of her second infertile marriage. At the age of 36, time
was no longer on her side.

Conclusion
Stories like these speak to the suffering of recently arrived Arab Muslim
immigrants and war refugees, who face significant health disparities and
overlapping forms of discrimination in American society. For the Arab
Muslims in this study, most were not living the American dream of
assimilation into a multicultural democracy. Rather, as this chapter
makes clear, many Arab Muslims, like African Americans, now experi-
ence the intersectional effects of oppression, including poverty and post-
September 11 anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiments in US society as a whole.
Sadly, Arab Muslims in America now share with African Americans their
poor health status and the combination of fear and prejudice displayed by
many white Americans. Both these populations face significant barriers to
integration in US society, where race and class divisionsas well as many
other forms of discriminationcontinue to oppress poor minorities.

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321342.
 CHAPTER 12

VOICING RESISTANCE, SHARING

STRUGGLE: MUSLIM WOMEN
FACING CANADIAN GENDER,
R ACE, AND ETHNIC OPPRESSION
Naima Bendriss

Introduction
This chapter proposes to identify the difficulties faced by Canadian
women of Muslim culture in the job market and the effects of ethnic
speech that they are subject to upon their inclusion in this environ-
ment.1 Whether they were born in Canada or have come to it while
they were young or during adulthood, Canadian women of Muslim
culture are confronted more often with speeches that lock them into
a single identity space to which they are supposed to belong without
distinction. Beyond ethnic categories by which they are designated,
as well as from other women (they or their families) of southern soci-
eties, Canadian Muslims are aware of being placed in a separate cat-
egory; they are marked as being of a specific difference in the overall
difference. This category takes shape in the social representation that
is particularly given to them and that characterizes them collectively.
They are also aware of the growing marginality to which these catego-
rizations push them and of the symbolic boundary that separates them
not only from the majority group but also from other minority groups
ethnicized/racialized or not. The social representations and catego-
rizations they are designated by constitute an additional obstacle for
them and make them a target group that is particularly vulnerable to
racism.
In what follows, I examine the stereotypical representations that are
designated to Muslim women and their interference in social relations,
the awareness by these women of their ethnicization, the action strate-
gies they deploy to challenge an assigned identity and present themselves
in terms of identities in which they are recognized, that is, assumed
identities.
190 Naima Bendriss

Social Representations and Ethnicization/Racialization

Since the early 1980s, Muslims and especially Muslim women in Canada
have been a privileged object of study in order to consider the type of
social relations that develop between a minority group, called ethnic, and
a majority group, called national, especially through the identity of the
Muslim woman that is built in dynamic interactions, often oppositional,
between these two groups. Two processes are at work in this dynamic con-
struction/deconstruction: the first one derives from the power of a group
to appoint, identify, and categorize; the second one results from the will of
others to challenge, deconstruct, and transform (Delphy 2008).
Indeed, since that time there has been a significant discursive produc-
tion of Muslim women, which refers to different levels of social represen-
tations. The prevalence and recurrence of these representations have led
to a release of these women in the social space where they are eventually
integrated and adopted by different systems and social actors/actresses.
The social representations that we commonly have about Muslim women
contribute to the process of their differentiation and ethnicization and
put them, from an ethnic point of view, in a position of minority because
of their supposed common origin (Karim 2001; Khan 2003).
But what are the social representations that we usually form about
Muslim women? The typical Muslim woman is most often defined as
isolated, trapped in the domestic sphere, and focused on the family. Her
movements and abilities are seen as limited. But the passive attribute that
she is most commonly associated with is undoubtedly being submissive:
subject to alienation, to the obliteration of her being. She is seen as bow-
ing without resistance to male authority with no intervening obstacles.
She is not granted, in numerous speeches, any expression of individual-
ity. It is natural to spontaneously think of Muslim women when we talk
about the term submission. In the Canadian context and the West
in general, the term Muslim women automatically suggests the term
submissive. These two terms collapse into one. With this automation,
we take a shortcut; we go largely to the essential and avoid complexity
(Bendriss 2009).
The Muslim woman, especially if she is veiled, refers to the idea of an
anachronism in the social space. The veiled woman is seen as the bearer
of a difference that is too far, and an irreducible difference in total oppo-
sition to the values of the host society. She does not seem to fit within
a modern vision of the world and goes beyond the understanding and
logic of several of her citizen women, regardless of whether they origi-
nate from the majority or other minorities. She is the opposed duplicate
of the modern woman; she is the antihero. The veil is generally perceived
as a symbol of submission and inferiority of women and makes difficult
the principle of gender equality promoted by the Canadian Charter of
Rights and Freedoms and by the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedom
of the individual. In several discussions that took place in Canada and
 Voicing Resistance, Sharing Struggle 191

especially in Quebec, it was interpreted as an attack against the principles

of democracy and aggression against womens rights. It is considered an
obstacle or a resistance to social, cultural, and economic integration in a
society characterized by the emancipation of its women. Indeed, the veil
has introduced an unusual event in the Canadian social space, and veiled
women disturb a daily aspect aiming at a mixed society and gender equal-
ity. Erected in irreconcilable otherness, the Muslim woman has given rise
to public, media, political, and legal debates, making her a familiar figure,
but in a distorted appearance. The excessive media coverage of the veil
has indeed brought the Muslims into the intimate space of every citizen
(Hoodfar 2001; Bendriss 2009a).
Social representations as variables not only define the identity of
Muslim women but also situate them in relation to specific social groups.
Thus, by placing women in a Muslim minority group based on gender and
ethnicity, social representations erect a double border between Muslim
men and women from Canada, reinforcing a dichotomy between the
different units of identity. These opposites are based on a dualism that
builds a hierarchy between these entities: first, the dichotomy Muslim
women victims/Muslim violent and brutal men in essence; and second,
the antidotes Muslim submissive alienated backward women/Canadian
liberated, emancipated, modern women, because of their culture. The
distinction Muslim women/Canadian women is embedded in a larger con-
text, which opposes Arab-Muslim societies and Western ones, which goes
back to the historical East-West relation.
The above categorization of Muslim women as victims in relation to
Muslim men and anti-patterns compared to Canadian women highlights
a gender-based violence to which all other cultures are subject. However,
the Muslim women are focused on to attenuate the discrimination suf-
fered by women of the majority and other minorities. These ideological
discourses are built on the plight of Muslim women whose lives are the cen-
ter of attention by Canadian women and more generally by the West. The
mediatization and politicization of the sexism faced by Muslim women (or
Islamization of sexism) suggest that they cannot move out of their miser-
able conditions and that their emancipation cannot come except from the
West. These discourses contribute to legitimizing wars for the salvation
of these women. Rushing to the rescue of the Arab and Muslim women,
who are presented as victims of the last bastion of patriarchy, is a strategy
in the imperialist rhetoric, which aims to give to projects of invasion and
occupation of Arab and Muslim territories a moral justification (Khan
2002; Razack 2008; Bendriss 2009b).
In addition, Muslim women are not unique in their individuality but are
understood as a homogeneous group that is undifferentiated and clearly
identified. Their personalities are indeed reduced to a collective identity
and the differences between them are erased to make room for authen-
tic copies. They are characterized as aggregate people, as an entity about
which it is possible to make an overall judgment, a judgment justifying
192 Naima Bendriss

the disadvantage that is reserved to maintain consistency of the subjective

world of those who judge them.
Unlike the members of the majority group, who are defined by values
(democracy, rationality, modernity, freedom, individuality, and so on), the
dominant group has no ethnic identity because the process of ethniciza-
tion does not apply to those who are in powerMuslim women are iden-
tified by ethnic markers or cultural traits. Marking their identity leads
to their social and cultural categorization in the social space, and gives
their precise and accurate identification; this in turn indicates their dif-
ference and leads them to diverge from the social expectations and assigns
them a border on the fringes of society. The instrumentalization of iden-
tity markers differentiates Muslim women by naturalizing the differences
they display, such as their physical appearances, fashions, accents, names,
religious practices, and so on.
Ethnic categorization in the narrative discourse on Muslim women is
common in Canadian social space. It is neither marginal nor recognized
for what it is. Rather, it is considered a presentation of the reality of this
group of women who are perceived as submissive, hermetic to change,
restricted in their freedom, religious, and non-combative. These neg-
ative attributes, which are not without consequences for them, constitute
barriers to their social and professional integration into a society marked
by competition, rivalry, aggression, and nepotism.
Whereas the ascription of Canadian women belonging to the Muslim
minority is a differentiation made by ethnic markers, we now see how the
social representations by which they are commonly referred to interfere in
the social relations that they establish with individuals, groups, and insti-
tutions in the host society and how they affect their social and occupa-
tional integration and work experiences.

Impact on Social and Professional Integration

The use of specific semic attributes with reference to a given group pro-
vides information about the interaction between the object of the dis-
course and the speaker, and allows us to measure the boundary erected
between the object and the subject. In a situation of power relations, the
social representation developed by a dominant group vis--vis a domi-
nated one is based on negative identity attributes to justify a behavior of
superiority, domination, or discrimination. When produced in a relation
of domination, the social representation contributes to the strengthening
of the social position of the dominant group and the maintenance of dif-
ferentiation and social distance between the groups (Abric 1994).
The homogenization of Muslim women makes easy judgments against
them and plays an important role in terms of the relationships that they
develop with members of the majority group or of other minority groups.
As members of a group with an ethnic entity, Canadian Muslim women are
indeed often perceived as having similar attitudes, behaviors, and actions,
 Voicing Resistance, Sharing Struggle 193

and as undertaking the same and consistent actions that are expected from
them. Movement, evolution, and change are removed from this context
where roles are fixed once and for all. When facing a Muslim woman, one
seems to understand how she will behave and how one should act toward
her. The model is there and it serves as a guide to action. It influences the
judgment that an observer can transmit about a person. In other words,
the social representations that we have about Canadian women of Muslim
culture induce behaviors and practices that freeze relations in a predeter-
mined pattern.
As they share the social space and attend various public spheres,
Canadian women of Muslim culture have to manage the perceptions held
by individuals whom they happen to encounter spontaneously and unex-
pectedly, or who live and are active in the same environment. According
to the social space in which they find themselves, the symbolic and mate-
rialistic resources at play, their attitudes, and the international political
context, they have to manage their ethnicization sometimes minimally
and at other times seriously. Among the many border areas of rapport and
the momentum generated in situations of interethnic relations between
majority and minority, we can cite among other things, transportation,
schools and universities, health and social services, the judicial system,
and the workplace.
Indeed, in the different social spaces they frequent, Canadian women
of Muslim culture can live in tension or conflict, which they attribute to
their ethnic or religious affiliation and to how they are perceived. Various
discriminatory practices occur in different societal sectors; however, it
is at the level of employment that discrimination is prominent and most
detrimental to a real integration of this group of women. They are likely
to report experiences of discrimination and exclusion, phenomena inher-
ent in the organization of society, which do not emerge from a vacuum
but from the need to legitimize unequal relationships between groups of
people who are supposed to share the same resources.
The hurdles facing the integration of Muslim immigrants into active
life, and more specifically those who arrived in the 1980s, are tough.
They have to cross over, on equal terms, with women from other minority
groups, systematic barriers, namely:

The nonrecognition or a devalued acknowledgment of the experience of

work they acquired in their country of origin or a third country;
An unfair evaluation of qualifications acquired in their country of origin
or a third country;
A requirement of a Canadian work experience;
Difficulty of access to professional positions;
Insufficient knowledge of the labor market;
Lack of an influential social network (women weave many relationships,
but more often with members of their group or those of other minority
groups). If these relationships are beneficial because they allow them to
194 Naima Bendriss

break isolation, to help each other, and share information, they do not
help them to access good jobs in the labor market; and
The high cost related to the integration processes in employment.

But in addition to the systemic barriers that are common to immigrants

emanating from the so-called visible groups, the stereotypes attached to
Muslim Canadian women are, for them, an additional obstacle, the impact
of which is measured over the experiences they undergo at this level. Lack
of knowledge or lack of proficiency in English or French can certainly
hamper their employability, but language mastery is not a definite advan-
tage for those who want to integrate into the labor market. Even those
who have undertaken graduate studies in Canadian universities, and from
which one would think they would have a real advantage over their coun-
terparts who were trained in the country of origin, often have difficulty
gaining access to stable employment. The Canadians of Muslim origin
experience a pronounced disqualification and the highest unemployment
rate among the immigrant population, which affects, in a special way,
Canadian women of Maghrebi origin. (In 2009, the unemployment rate
among Maghrebis in Quebec reached 30 percent.)
Employed Muslim women are not always safe from allusions, jokes,
criticism, attacks, and harassment that are related to their Arab origin,
attitudes that amplify in a period of international political crisis, which
alters their relationship with colleagues and causes a heavy climate at
work. They face, in fact, symbolic violence within the workspace and
where the mechanisms of domination shape social relations. They experi-
ence a domination based on the inferiority of their identity, their status as
women, and their ethnic origin, a domination that is structured around
the East-West model.
Moreover, many women who are employed are essentially on fixed-
term contracts, often outside their field of competence and training; they
retrain in other sectors in the absence of a consistent insertion into the
labor market. These integration strategies bring hope and energy stimu-
lus for women for a short or a long time. Yet, the women feel that they
are societys stakeholders, and their precarious situation hides the real-
ity of their insertion in the margin. One day, this reality catches up with
them: they then realize that years have gone by and that their status has
not changed. Worse, it often deteriorates.
These women face difficulties to integrate employment, or to keep an
occupation for a long time. Their precarious jobs, the need to combine
several odd jobs, strained (sometimes conflicting) relations with employ-
ers or colleagues, and lack of networking result in the fact that stagna-
tion, which at first seems temporary turns out, by dint of vain efforts, to
become permanent. Many of them experience a deteriorated life situa-
tion, which strongly impacts their psychological balance. However, what
is helpful for them is the fact that they do not perceive this situation as a
personal failure. While they know they have the skills and abilities for a
 Voicing Resistance, Sharing Struggle 195

job, they realize that their access to the labor market is limited: they find
justifications for themselves and explain to others their marginalization
from the labor market in ethnic terms.
The experiences lived by Muslim women allow them to come to grips
with the existing power relations established between the majority
group and an ethnic minority. After a post-migration period where hope,
strength, and fortitude, elements they were full of on their arrival, have
gradually faded, they reposition themselves in a way that is less utopian
and more in tune with social reality.

Awareness toward Their Racialization/Ethnicization

While new immigrants of Muslim culture in Canada face the phenom-
enon of ethnicization and stigmatized identity, which they gradually dis-
cover on their arrival and with which they eventually become familiar,
those who have been living there for a long time have been following, in a
mesmerized way, its growth and development over the past 30 years. In so
doing, they are quick to realize the destabilizing effects of these designa-
tions and the dividing line between a legitimate self and a Self-Other that
is kept in the margin.
Indeed, Canadian women of Muslim culture are conscious or are
becoming aware of the social representations associated with them and
the identity difference that hence marks them vis--vis other women,
especially those belonging to the majority group. The awareness of the
existence of derogatory representations and globalizing categorizations,
in contact with individuals and systems, acts on them with shock because
they realize their weight and impact on their lives and on that of their
families. Then doubts, worries, and fears occur, which are followed by
frustration and anger.
They are also aware of the disadvantageous position in which Arab and
Muslim societies are placed on the world stage and the balance of power
that threatens to topple them at any moment in the chaos and from their
unfavorable position. They also know that the role of the public gaze on
them consists in the objectification and dispossession of their identity.
They measure the weight and strength of the power conferred on the
other, the knowledge or assumed knowledge the other has on them
and the position of disempowerment in which this rapport places them
(Bendriss and Milot 2012).
Knowing that their collective image is devalued because of the social
stigma usually associated with the Muslim woman, the latter become sen-
sitive to and critical of the slightest sign of racial differentiation. However,
although they feel hurt in their self-esteem, a negative personal identity
does not occur, even among the youngest of them. Although they are a
source of anxiety and anger for them, the experiences of racism and dis-
crimination they go through do not lead to the internalization of a nega-
tive image or disadvantage for themselves or their group membership.
196 Naima Bendriss

Similarly, if these experiences have begun to hurt their dignity, they do

not diminish the esteem they have of themselves. Instead, the process of
ethnicization and stigma that target them seems to further strengthen
their personal and collective identities.
Struggling with identity marking, the Muslim women of Canada know
the difference and are aware of current issues in the underlying speech they
are subject to; it is precisely from this consciousness that they are actively
engaged in a process of deconstruction of the ethnic identity assigned to
them. In so doing, they first implement individual and collective strate-
gies to self-identify themselves, and, second, to negotiate the status and
the role they believe they are entitled to occupy in the social space.

Duty to Act and Identity Struggle

If there is one thing that is understood by the Muslim women of Canada,
of all social and national origins, it is the evil of social representations by
which they are characterized; however, they are usually aware of the real
international issues involved.
While being aware of their Islamic identity and seeking to preserve it
and to have it recognized, these women assert themselves as citizens by
law because they share the same values as their citizen counterparts: the
values of autonomy, freedom, equality, social justice, and human dignity.
While they know that they are socially and politically kept in an inferior
status and are economically marginalized by virtue of the stigma attached
to their origin, Canadian Muslim women state that they are like their fel-
low citizens by their skills, abilities, knowledge, know-how, aspirations,
and dreams. Because they claim to be similar at this level, they engage in
a process of deconstruction of the negative social representation imposed
from the outside and in the construction of a fair and rewarding represen-
tation for themselves to restore recognition and equality in all practices.
Given the devaluation of their group membership, their cultures of
origin, and Islam, and given the awareness of the risk of a disadvantaged
position in an asymmetrical relationship and because they feel their vital
space is invaded by the caricature in which they are depicted by different
channels of expression, Canadian Muslim women seek to wring the neck
of these ideas and undertake a variety of actions. This commitment can
manifest identity strategies that may be individual, collective, spontane-
ous, or planned.
The defense of their identity is a living practice among those women
who are often called upon, individually and spontaneously, to do informal
work in education, demystification, and awareness-raising as opportuni-
ties arise, according to real situations and identity resources, both cultural
and relational, on which they can rely. They most often use a strategy of
identity assertion that is not to lose face, to challenge the legitimacy of
the negative representation of the self that is made by the others, and to
act on the misinformation they discover in the people they meet in their
 Voicing Resistance, Sharing Struggle 197

daily lives. In fact, they try to retain their self-esteem by blocking stigma,
correcting the wrong perceptions about them and their group, and giving
information that is more consistent with their reality. They also develop
individually planned strategies in order to influence the process of racial-
ization/ethnicization that targets them. The means they use are mainly
sensitizing, awareness-raising, education, intercultural dialogue, research,
involvement in civil society and government institutions, the arts, media,
and so on (Bendriss 2009a).
In the case of collective strategies, these women locate the symbolic
boundaries not only in their immediate manifestations but also in ideo-
logical and organizational terms. By these elaborate and long-term collec-
tive strategies, they act on the social representations that occur in social
discourses and structures. To do this, they identify the situation and rele-
vant issues, set goals, mobilize the means and the necessary resources, and
call upon the support and involvement of other members of society. They
implement coordinated strategies to build a collective identity that emerges
as a challenge and as a transformation of the identity they are assigned,
as well as an affirmation and a claim on the assumed identity. Through
negotiations that accompany the struggle between the deconstruction of
the imposed negative identity and the construction of the valued identity,
Canadian Muslim women try to build bridges between their membership
groups and other social groups. They also try to create spaces for encoun-
ters and dialogue between cultures, knowledge and know-how, stories,
and civilizational inheritance. But their words are clear on one point: if
the goal is to integrate into and take their place in their host society, they
make no attempt to melt in it or to assimilate to the majority group. They
accept their difference and fight to see it evaluated by Canadian citizens,
and to be considered neither as a dysfunctional element nor as a noninte-
grated part of society, but as a positive contribution.
By intervening on the social representations that the company has made
of them, Canadian Muslim women try to make a reversal of the stigma.
To do this, they occupy public space and use us to erase the differences
related to regional, national, or religious affiliation, age, length of estab-
lishment, socioeconomic level, and so on. Being stigmatized as Muslims,
they act on behalf of Muslim women and men here and elsewhere.

Conclusion
Ethnicity refers to cultural and social categories by which individuals
are identified, designated, and differentiated in the social environment.
These types of designation are themselves structured by social represen-
tations, that is, by organized sets of cognitions in line with traits shared
or claimed by the members of a given group or by which they are charac-
terized. In practice, social representations are there to set categories and
organize social relations between majority and minority groups, between
the national us and the ethnic them. According to the groups to which
198 Naima Bendriss

they relate, social representations may reflect differences or compari-

sons that are more or less larger between these and the majority society.
Regarding Arab women and the groups that they claim, this distance is
rather large.
The hardship faced by Canadian citizens of Muslim culture at the level
of unemployment shows that the principle of integration to which Canada
adheres is still lacking. This fact forces us to see these challenges not only
through the prism of integration but also through that of racism and dis-
crimination. Responses to the phenomenon of ethnicization and stigma
against Muslims and by the same token against other racialized groups,
cannot be considered individual, but must be envisaged in a collective,
concerted, organized manner and not only by the targeted groups.
Economic factors play a very important role in the integration of new-
comers. The socio-professional integration of immigrants, the hierarchi-
cal level that it can access, opportunities for social mobility, and financial
success are all factors that can influence the degree of integration. It is
through a real participation in the labor market, in the cultural field, in
the political domain, and in academia that Canadians of Muslim culture
can act effectively on the social representations that they are character-
ized by and renew them. It is also through a better visibility in the media
space, and not just in terms of problem-solving or a negative problematiza-
tion of Islam, that they can get recognition for what they really are.
Finally, it is essential that the position of these social actresses be
recognized as having a part in all social, cultural, economic, and politi-
cal issues, just as it is essential that the Canadian society becomes aware
that it a nation of diversity and that citizens of Muslim culture are
stakeholders in it.

Note
1. Just like the terms of culture, race, ethnicity, nation, majority, and minor-
ity, the notion of identity is not a heuristic interpretive concept, but a
category that becomes a system of ideological reference that social actors
orchestrate positively or negatively. It must be understood as a category of
social action that legitimates unequal competition. In my research, I prefer
the term Canadians of Muslim culture to Canadian Muslims since even
nonpracticing Muslims claim this identity for various reasons. The word
Islam covers various realities and, thus, it pertains to Muslim identity.
For example, since the Gulf War and the events of September 11, Canadians
from predominantly Muslim societies who had not identified thus far as
Muslims, began to do so by implementing the identity reconstruction strat-
egy based on the construction of a new collective identity of a group of
actors or a minority facing the same situation in a majority society. In tak-
ing globalizing categorizations in which they are enfolded, these women are
in protest groups and engage in identity struggles. We also observed this
attitude on an individual basis where women (and men too) began to appear
as Muslims, or even appear as such by identity markers such as the hijab
 Voicing Resistance, Sharing Struggle 199

(veil). This reverse stigma is a struggle for self-definition that contributes

to the affirmation of a new Muslim identity.

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PART IV

ASPECTS OF INTEGRATION,
DISCRIMINATION, AND
ISLAMOPHOBIA
 CHAPTER 13

DEBATING SALAFISM,
TRADITIONALISM, AND
LIBERALISM: MUSLIMS AND
THE STATE IN GERMANY

Susanne Schrter

Introduction
As in many other European countries, there is a debate in Germany about
the compatibility of Islam with European values. This debate is inextrica-
bly linked to the issue of whether pluralism and multiculturalism emerge
successful. Currently about four million Muslims live in Germany,1 a
minority, but in the cities a rapidly growing population that is demand-
ing political inclusion. What inclusion means is a matter being debated
among both Muslims and non-Muslims. Fundamental in this regard is the
question as to how the constitutional right to freedom of religion can and
ought to be interpreted and implemented. Among the specific issues up for
debate are questions such as whether women teachers may wear the veil,
whether the circumcision of boys constitutes an infliction of bodily harm
( Krperverletzung) or is to be recognized as a religious right, and whether
insulting portrayals of the Prophet are covered by the constitutional right
to free speech. Muslims are increasingly present in the public sphere, and
the fact that they are present as explicitly religious actors stirs disquiet in
those Germans who are not religious. As Jrgen Habermas has noted, the
secularization of society in Western Europe has taken on a rather unique
trajectory, one that is profoundly influenced by conceptions of personal
and collective identity.2 In general, many Germans are rather suspicious
of religion, and particularly so of Islam, since prominent representatives
of the Muslim community (most notably the official representatives of
Muslim civic associations whom the government consults regularly in
matters of policies affecting Muslims) subscribe to rather conservative,
even scripturalist, interpretations of the faith. Many Germans, among
them liberal Muslims or former Muslims,3 either do not consider Islam
per se, or at least not as it is interpreted by the representatives of Muslim
civic associations, to be compatible with German secular democracy.
204 Susanne Schrter

Others, however, insist that Islam has by now become an integral part
of contemporary German life and accuse skeptics of being prejudiced or
of being anti-Muslim racists. Arguments for the existence of such racism
always receive much attention when anti-Muslim violence makes media
headlines, as in the murder of Marwal al-Sharbini, an Egyptian phar-
macist, who was stabbed to death on July 1, 2009 in Dresden, or in the
serial killings perpetrated by the Right-wing National-Socialist terror-
ist group Vereinigung Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (National-Socialist
Underground Union), which between 2000 and 2006 killed eight people
of Turkish background, one person of Greek origin, and a German female
police officer. At the same time, whenever violent actions were the focus
of media attention, or when jihadists publically threatened the non-Mus-
lim population, public opinion swayed against Islam. The recent turn in
the last few years of many young Muslims, particularly young converts,
toward Salafism has fueled debates on Islams compatibility with Western
democracy. As I show in this chapter, these debates have, on one hand,
resulted in new political polarizations; on the other hand, however, they
also brought new opportunities for liberal Muslims to assert themselves
against the discursive dominance of traditional Muslim associations.

The German Orientmania

In October 2010, in a speech delivered on the occasion of the twentieth anni-
versary of German unification, German federal president (Bundesprsident)
Christian Wulff stated that, like Christianity or Judaism, Islam had
become an integral part of Germany. A few months later, in early March
2011, the newly appointed German minister of the interior, Hans-Peter
Friedrich, proclaimed the opposite: he insisted that there is, in fact, no
historical evidence supporting the claim that Islam is a part of Germany.
Instead, Friedrich emphasized Germanys Christian-occidental roots
(in the German discourse, christlich-abendlndische Wurzeln). Wulffs suc-
cessor to the office of federal president, Joachim Gauck, a former prot-
estant pastor who played an important role in the German Democratic
Republics (GDRs) grassroots pro-democracy movement, relativized the
position taken by his predecessor by stating that not Islam per se, but
rather Muslims living in Germany, belong to Germany.
These statements by three high-ranking representatives of the German
state make clear that Germany, like other European countries, is grappling
with how to deal with its Muslim population. Muslims are the Others to
the European present; among other immigrant groups they take on a spe-
cial status, which is justified solely on the basis of their religion.4 And yet,
in the German historical context Islam has by no means been associated
only with negative connotations, even though seductive fantasies of the
Orient did, to an extent, coexist with threatening ones.5 This relatively
positive view of Islam was due in large part to prominent intellectuals such
as Johann Wolfgang Goethe, one of Germanys most renowned poets,
 Salafism and Democracy 205

who in his later years took great interest in Oriental poetry, particularly in
the works of the Persian poet Hafez, whom he referred to as his spiritual
brother. This inspired him to write his West- stlicher Diwan (West-Eastern
Diwan), a collection of lyrical verse and scholarly reflections, which was
published in 1819 and to this day fuels speculations that near the end of
his life the German poet converted to Islam.6 A similar fascination with
the Orient led to the collection housed in the trckische Cammer (Turkish
Chamber) at the Dresden Castle, where gifts and war booty from the
Ottoman Empire are on display. August II the Strong, Elector of Saxony,
and later also King of Poland (16701733), was so struck by Orientmania
that at festive events he dressed as a sultan and hosted oriental mounted
tournaments, for which he even imported camels and Arabian horses. The
German fascination with the Orient and with Islam also shaped scientific
history. As early as 1728, Johann Christian Clodius was appointed in Leipzig
to be the first professor of Arabic at a German University. This established
German Oriental Studies with its focus on the study of Islam, Arabic phi-
lology, and Islamic history. Scholars such as Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer
(18011888), who turned Leipzig into an internationally important center
of research on the Orient, and Theodor Nldeke (18361930), who in 1860
published a history of the Quran and in 1863 a seminal biography of the
Prophet Muhammad, were all important pioneers in the establishment of
the field. In 1845 German Orientalists founded the Deutsche Morgenlndische
Gesellschaft (German Oriental Society) with the aim of promoting the aca-
demic study of Oriental languages and cultures, a scholarly society that
exists to this day.7 While German political expansion into the Orient was
negligible compared to that of England or France, Germany did try to yield
influence. Thus, the archaeologist Max von Oppenheim (18601946), who
had previously led excavations at Tell Halaf in Syria, worked for German
intelligence in Constantinople during World War II, from where he tried
to stage an uprising against the British. At this time, the German Foreign
Ministry, as part of this mission, issued a magazine with the title el-Jihad,
in which this uprising was propagated as a holy war.
In 1914 a prison camp for Muslim prisoners of the British and French
armies was erected, together with a mosque, in Wnstorf near Berlin. Since
then, Muslim civic associations have existed in Germany, such as Islamische
Gemeinde Berlin e.V. (Islamic Community of Berlin), on whose initiative the
first permanent mosque was established in 1924 in the Berlin district of
Wilmersdorf. During World War II the National-Socialist Party entered
into a rather unholy alliance with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, which
was based largely on their shared anti-Semitism, and the Wilmersdorf
mosque was instrumentalized for wartime propaganda events.
Despite Germanys fascination with the Orient and its various instru-
mental relations to Muslim actors, Islam never took root, and Muslims
living in Germany continued to represent a tiny, exotic minority. But since
then this has changed dramatically. In the cities Muslims are a rapidly
growing group, and in some schools they even constitute the majority of
206 Susanne Schrter

the student body. Muslims are active in public debates, and they demand
democratic rights of political participation and social inclusion. The state,
political parties, and civil society have responded with a series of measures.
One of the most important of these is the Deutsche Islamkonferenz (German
Islam Conference), which was initiated in 2006 by Wolfang Schuble, who
was minister of the interior at the time, and which represents the most
influential forum of political dialogue with Muslim communities at the
national level. Issues discussed there have generally been taken up by state
institutions and incorporated into public policy. Since the first German
Islam Conference, much has been undertaken. Thus, the German
Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) recommended the
establishment of Islamic Studies Centers at German universities8 and of
chairs in Islamic Theology. The Islamic Studies Centers are conceived
as institutions of higher learning that train not only future scholars of
Islam, but also imams and schoolteachers of Islamic religion. In 2003, the
states ( Lnder) of Lower Saxony, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, and
Rhineland-Palatinate initiated pilot projects that introduced faith-based
courses on Islam in schools, and the state of Baden-Wurttemberg followed
suit in 2006. In 2012 such faith-based courses on Islam were offered as
part of the regular curriculum for Muslim students at select schools.

Debates on Islam and Islamophobia

The developments discussed above indicate that the multiculturalism
of German everyday life is starting to become normalized. Yet, demo-
graphic surveys show that conflicts remain and that the majority of
German non-Muslims continue to have reservations vis--vis Islam. The
Deutsche Kulturrat (German Cultural Council), the umbrella organization
representing German cultural associations vis--vis the federal states, the
national government, and the European Union, expressed concern in 2010
over the German publics intolerance toward Islam, which was asserted to
be the cause of the lack of social interaction between Muslims and non-
Muslims. Horror scenarios centering on the failed integration of Muslims
abound in public discourse and receive much attention. This is evident in
the resounding success of books such as Deutschland schafft sich ab (liter-
ally, Germany abolishes itself), in which the social democrat and for-
mer senator of finance for the city of Berlin, Thilo Sarrazinwho was
an active member of the board of the Deutsche Bundesbank at the time
the book was publishedaccused Muslims of refusing to become part of
German society, referring to them as Integrationsverweigerer (integration
refusers). In response, there was widespread political and social protest
against him and his assertions. Sarrazin lost his seat on the board of the
Bundesbank, and the Social Democratic Party of Germany considered a
formal motion to have him officially expelled from the party.
Two years later, another well-known Berliner published a similar book:
Heinz Buschkowsky, mayor of the Berlin district ( Bezirk) of Neuklln, a
 Salafism and Democracy 207

part of the capital that has for many years stood as a prime example of failed
immigration policy. In Buschkowskys book, too, Muslims are identified
as a problem group.9 In his view, religious self-exaltation, machismo, lack
of education, notorious poverty, and dependency on the state welfare sys-
tem together constituted a fatal combination that ended in self-islolation
and social exclusion of Muslims by German majority society. Unlike the
analysis in the Sarrazin book, however, the credibility of Buschkowskys
analysis draws on his personal familiarity with the socioeconomic condi-
tions in Neuklln, on his long-standing efforts to facilitate the integra-
tion of Muslims, and on the positive reputation he has among immigrant
youths in his district. Another influential and highly respected author
among German immigrants is the deceased Berlin juvenile court judge
Katrin Heisig, who criticized the criminal justice systems lax treatment
of offenders and who argued for the reestablishment of law and order by
taking a tougher stance toward criminal offenders. The stances embodied
by those such as Buschkowsky and Heisig are supported by many promi-
nent Muslims. One of these is the lawyer Seyran Ate , who has for many
years provided assistance to Muslim women who have been victims of
domestic violence, and whose efforts provoked death threats and repeated
violent attacks against her. Ate especially criticizes the patriarchal bias
of sexual morality among German Muslims and argues for a sexual revo-
lution within Islam.10 The sociologist Necla Kelek, whose works speak
out against forced marriages and a violent macho culture, holds a similar
position.11 Another sociologist, Ahmet Toprak, whose work focuses on
immigrant youths of Turkish background, confirms the diagnoses of the
previous writers and argues that cultural traditions, religious ideas, lack
of education, and economic marginalization all contribute to the failure
of Muslims to integrate into German society.12
German university scholars who work from postcolonial perspectives
distance themselves from such analyses. Cengiz Barskanmaz, Maria
dos Castro Varela, Nikita Dhawan, Birgit Rommelspacher, and Iman
Attia condemn the positions taken by the critics of Islam and accuse
those who espouse these critical positions of anti-Islamic racism13 and
Islamophobia.14 In response to the publication of Keleks book Die fremde
Braut (The Foreign Bride), the education specialists Yasemin Karakaolu
and Mark Terkessidis mobilized 60 migration researchers to sign a peti-
tion titled Justice for Muslims, which was published in the well-respected
weekly Die Zeit in February 2006. Forced marriages, the signatories
declared, are the result of Europes policy of turning immigrants away
rather than allowing for controlled immigration. Without recourse to
legal forms of immigration, those wishing to emigrate would take advan-
tage of such loopholes.
In this context, the tenor of criticism is directed at German majority
society, which is said to be characterized by multiple forms of racism and
a stigmatization of Muslims. Islamophobia, an irrational fear of Islam,
is also believed by Cengiz Barskanmaz, Maria dos Castro Varela, Nikita
208 Susanne Schrter

Dhawan, Birgit Rommelspacher, Naime Cakir, Kai Hafez, Errol Yildiz,

and Iman Attia to be at work behind the critiques of Islam,15 coupled
with anti-Islamic racism.16 According to the Berlin-based social scientist
Iman Attia, there is a fatal combination of xenophobia and Islamophobia.
Attia notes that Islam makes for a particularly suitable enemy, since even
before the political functionalization of Islam, images of the Orient
and of Islam were a self-evident part of popular discourse that served to
mark the hierarchical boundaries between us and them (Attia 2010: 13).
Rommelspacher, Braun, and Mathes point out that women in particu-
lar have been instrumentalized for such discursive constructions.17 The
Oriental woman is thought to be helpless and exploited, which legitimizes
imagined or existing plans to save her. Other researchers have attempted
to draw parallels, and to establish historical continuities, between the
anti-Semitism of national socialism and current anti-Muslim attitudes.
In December 2008, the historian Wolfgang Benz of the Zentrum fr
Antisemitismusforschung (Center for Research on Anti-Semitism) organized
a conference on Feindbild MuslimFeindbild Jude (Enemy Stereotype
MuslimEnemy Stereotype Jew), which created quite a stir. In the run-up
to the conference, harsh criticism was already voiced with regard to the
comparability of the two phenomena.
The ensuing debate between cultural scientists and researchers of anti-
Semitism became heated and very personal. While Benzsupported
by Micha Brumlik, the former director of the Frankfurter Fritz-Bauer-
Institut18defended his allegation that there are parallels between contem-
porary Islamophobia and the Judeophobia at the turn of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, the Israeli author Henrik M. Broder emphatically
denied any analogy between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. He argued:
While anti-Semitism is based on hysterical fears, fabrications, projec-
tions, and feelings of envy, Islamophobia is based on facts. It is the terror
acts of Islamic terrorists who use their faith to justify their deeds, it is the
honor killings rooted in tradition, which are in no way comparable to ordi-
nary family dramas, it is the havoc created by the Taliban in Afghanistan,
it is the attacks in Pakistan and Iraq, which are committed by Muslims
and mostly claim the lives of Muslims, it is the child marriages in Saudi
Arabia and the temporary marriages that substitute for prostitution in
Iran; it is the stoning of adultresses, and it is the hangings of homosexu-
als; it is the insistence that Islam means peace, despite all evidence to the
contrary; it is the mixture of barbarism and hightech used by kidnappers
when putting the execution of their hostages on the Web (Broder 2010).
The opinion that Islam is feared for good reasonswhich do not, however,
justify generalizing stereotypesis shared by more sober-minded authors
such as Armin Pfahl-Traughber, Luzie Kahlwei, and Samuel Salzborn,
who think that equating anti-Semitism and Islamophobia is inappropri-
ate and unfounded.19
The German debate can perhaps most pointedly be circumscribed
by two antagonistic positions. On one side, at the heart of most of the
 Salafism and Democracy 209

problems stemming from the migrant community, is anti-Islamic racism

that is the legacy of the colonial past,20 or the legacy of National-Socialist
anti-Semitism. The other position holds Muslims responsible for their
own plight and insists it is they who isolate themselves and actively resist
integration into the majority society. The role accorded to Islam in con-
tributing to the problems of integration also follows the polarities set out
by these two positions. While Kelec and Ate argue that Islam promotes
a culture of machismo and violence, the other side outright rejects that
Islam is necessarily a hindrance to integration or is the cause of social
problems within the Muslim community in Germany. Rather, the cul-
tural Other is constructed discursively through racism and orientalism, so
that majority society can construct itself as a cultural community, writes
Barskanmaz.21
Two additional perspectives have emerged from the beginning of the
the second decade of the twenty-first century onward. To some extent,
they draw on, and elaborate, the abovementioned polarized opposites; in
some respects, however, they go way beyond the latter. One of these posi-
tions is denoted as Salafist in this context. While it adopts the discourse of
discrimination and Islamophobia, its goal is not a pluralist but an Islamist
society ruled by Islamic law. The other position is referred to as liberal
Muslim or progressive Islamic. Its proponents criticize not only the ideas
of Salafis but also those of conservative Muslims; they use the historical
window of opportunity opened by the debate, both to articulate ideas for
reforms and to ostentatiously distance themselves from the Muslim asso-
ciations that have so far monopolized the discourse.

Who Are the Salafists?

In 2012 Guido Steinberg, an expert on terrorism who works in Berlin
for the highly regarded and politically extremely influential think tank,
Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (the German Institute for International
and Security Affairs), published a scholarly essay in the think tanks jour-
nal titled Wer sind die Salafisten? (Who are the Salafists?), in which
he defined Salafism as follows: Salafis aim to revive ideal society as they
imagine it to have existed during what they consider to be Islams golden
age, 7th- and 8th- century Mecca and Medina. They seek guidance from
the pious early followers of Muhammad (the as-salaf as-salih, hence the
designation Salafism), the Prophet Muhammads companions and their
descendants, who are considered to have led lives especially pleasing to
God, thanks to their geographic and temporal proximity to the Prophet.
Their view of early Islam is shaped by a well delimited canon of texts:
the Quran and the Sunna (Steinberg 2012: 1). Steinberg and the scholars
Wagemakers (2014) and Farshid (2014) classify Salafis into three goups:
the purists who are mostly concerned with living a life that is pleas-
ing to God, the political Salafis, and the Jihadis. The scholar of Islam
Muhammad Sammer Murtaza (2012) proposed a different typology that
210 Susanne Schrter

put Salafis and Jihadis in the same category. He defines the ideological
Salafiyya of the Muslim Brotherhood as the second category, followed by
the literalist Salafiyya, to which the Wahhabis belong, and the reform-
ist Salafiyya.
All scholars point out that Salafism has a historical context and cannot
be properly understood without that context, and that Salafism is inter-
nally extremely heterogeneous.22 Moreover, its various forms have very
different aims, and not all of them are a threat to Western democracies.
Emerging from nineteenth-century critiques of European colonialism
and the expansion of European military and politician influence into the
heartland of Islam, it took on a potentially emancipatory thrust. As cases
in point Murtaza refers to Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (18381897) and his stu-
dent Muhammad Abduh (18491905), two scholars who developed their
own modernization program by reinterpreting religious texts and who
rejected the existing interpretations of the established religious authori-
ties. Rejecting blind imitation (taqlid ) as a guide to living a truly religious
life, they emphasized the importance of judgment (itjtihad ). Although
Abduh rejected the Western lifestyle, he did engage with European think-
ers and tried to reconcile Western and Islamic philosophies.
Today, Salafi ideology is characterized by crude pairs of opposites
(Muslims versus non-Muslims, halal versus haram) and simple directions
for action. Salafis are convinced of the superiority of Islam over other
worldviews, and believe that Allah will sentence all non-Muslimscalled
infidels (kuffar)to suffer in eternal hellfire after death.23 Infidels
include Muslims who do not share the Salafis definition of Islam, most
notably Shiites, Sufis, members of the Ahmadiyya, and progressive
Muslims. Salafis hold that God has entrusted them with the task of pros-
elytizing the kuffar. This is the reason for their untiring missionary work
(dawah), for example, the Read campaign in which Salafi men distribute
free copies of the Quran in pedestrian zones, trying to attract new mem-
bers. While boys of any age are recruited for the dawah, and in war zones
also for the jihad, women are rarely visible in public, as Salafi ideology for-
bids them to leave the house except for very sound reasons.
Salafis purport to emulate the first Muslims in every respect; hence,
particular importance is attached to outward appearance: the ankle-
length robes ( jellabah) and beards of the men, and the strict concealment of
womens bodies (hijab) including the face veil (niqab). The German scholar
of Arabic and journalist Yassin Musharbash, too, derides what he calls the
miswak faction (2007)a term he derives from the practice of very pious
Muslims to reject using a modern toothbrush in favor of using the same
instrument as the Prophet Muhammad, the miswak, a teeth-cleaning twig
made from the Salvadora persica tree. The conspicuous garments, as well as
the campaigns including prayers at busy downtown places, are good public-
ity and attract the attention coveted by the Salafis. Symbols of their own,
a subcultural language of their own using Arab metaphors and phrases,
as well as a specific music (nashid ) and aesthetics help to make Salafism a
 Salafism and Democracy 211

global culture with distinctive recognition value. Some researchers refer

to this phenomenon as Pop Jihad.
It is likely that Salafi groups would have been viewed as just another
folkloric sect, similar to Jehovahs Witnesses or the orange-clad followers
of Krishna, if it had not been for their direct link to Jihadism.24 From a his-
torical perspective, the target of jihadist warfare was the nearby enemy,
that is, either the European colonial powers that were to be expelled from
Muslim territory or postcolonial governments denounced as being infidel.
Since the end of the twentieth century, however, there has been an increas-
ing expansion of these activities, and attacks are now being targeted at the
faraway enemy, the Western nations.25 Many jihadist groups believe that
a prophesied end of days is soon to come, which will result in a global rule
of Islam; in that context, they view Europe as part of the battlefield.

Salafist Confrontation with the State in Germany

While Salafi ideology has been absorbed in Muslim circles in Germany
since the mid-1990s, the German Salafism debate did not set in until the
middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, that is, several years
after the attacks of 9/11 whose perpetrators included Mohammad Atta,
an Egyptian student living in Hamburg. The first major incident involv-
ing Islamists occurred in early May 2012, sparked by violent confronta-
tions between radical Muslim men and the police. Riots broke out first in
Solingen and then in Bad Godesberg (near the city of Bonn), in the course
of which dozens of policemen were injured. In Solingen 30 violent sus-
pects were arrested, in Bad Godesberg 109.
The violence had been provoked by the Right-wing radical group Pro
Kln (pro Cologne) when they marched past mosques displaying the
Muhammad cartoons drawn by the Danish artist Kurt Westergaard in
order to publically underscore their demand for Freedom, not Islam. As
expected, this provoked young radical Muslims to take to the streets. In
Bad Godesberg they gathered near the Saudi Arabian King Fahd Academy.
The police, which was trying to prevent further escalation and keep the
two groups from clashing, was then attacked by the Salafis. The German
weekly Der Spiegel reported that hundreds of bearded men attacked the
police with knives and sticks, and photographs of the event show black
flags emblazoned with the shahada, the Islamic profession of faith. The
scene described here, relating the events on Saturday, Der Spiegel wrote,
didnt take place in Cairo, Tunis or Sanaa, but rather in front of the King
Fahd Academy, right in the middle of placid Bonn-Bad Godesberg.26 This
quotation expressed shock and disbelief not only of the author, but also
that of most of the German population. If the activities of such violent
fanatics are not stopped, then many citizens would be left to conclude that
the assertion so popular among politicians that Germany cannot tolerate
the existence of parallel societies was nothing but mere rhetoric, the
Bonn daily Generalanzeiger wrote on May 7, 2012.
212 Susanne Schrter

Six months later much of the dust had settled. The criminal justice sys-
tem dealt with the matter, and one of the Salafi perpetrators, Murat K., a
German national of Turkish origin, was sentenced to six years in prison.
His biography, which received much media attention, is a stereotypical
tale of failure: Murat K. had performed poorly in school, quit his voca-
tional training as an industrial mechanic, spent some time taking on odd
jobs to make ends meet, and then finally landed in the state public welfare
system. He got into fights at nightclubs, was arrested several times, and
even sentenced by a juvenile court. However, according to the German
weekly Die Welt, he never accepted his conviction: Only God can decide
what is right and what is wrong. But the duty of every Muslim is to defend
Islam. Since the German state permitted the display of cartoons featuring
the Prophet Muhammad, every Muslim must rise against the state and
declare war upon it.27
Such declarations stir fears, not wholly unjustified, over the increas-
ingly murky distinction between Salafism and Jihadism.28 The declaration
of war echoed by Murat K. is symptomatic of the sort of language typi-
cal of a group of young Islamists who use the term jihad thus legitimizing
an actual war to defend Islam against attacks. What precisely constitutes
an attack is, in turn, disconcertingly broadly defined. Sometimes insults
against the Prophet Muhammad are asserted to be attacks against Islam.
Sometimes it is German foreign policy, or the prohibition of the head scarf
that are targeted as an offense against the faith. Young Muslims routinely
broadcast Internet addresses directed at the German public to make pub-
lic threats and to voice their demands that their interpretation of Muslim
rights be implemented. One of these young Muslims was Bekkay Harrach,
alias Abu Talha, also known as The German. He began making his
obscure addresses to the German public in 2009, demanding the imme-
diate withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan. A failure to do
so, Harrach threatened, would warrant attacks on public buildings. And
since Germany was a democracy, in which the government simply carried
out the will of the people, there would be no innocent victims in such
attacks; everyone ought to expect that they would be killed.
Bekkay Harrach, much like Mohammed Atta, was no social loser.
He came to Germany in 1981, passed his higher vocational school exams
( Fachabitur), and was enrolled at university. But at some point, according to
security authorities, he established contacts with the al-Muhsinin Mosque
in Bonn, which is regarded as an important center of Salafi activities. The
imam at this mosque preached a very simple worldview in which there is a
clear distinction between his followers, who are the righteous, and every-
one else. According to his logic, apostates deserve to die: unbelievers must
be liquidated if they stand in the way of the groups goals. The radicals
from the al-Muhsinin Mosque were not alone, but are part of a national,
even international, network. They invited guest speakers who hold the
same views to come and preach, and they encouraged followers to travel to
al-Qaida training camps located along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
 Salafism and Democracy 213

The popularity of these camps has even led experts to refer to them as
Muslim youth fitness centers (Meghennet et al. 2006: 121).
The al-Muhsinin Mosque counts several of its members among the
ranks of al-Qaida. Bekkay Harrach, too, traveled to Waziristan, from
where he made appearances via the Internet, heavily armed and putting up
his best battle demeanor, to present himself as a fighter for the holy war.29
At some point, he reportedly got caught in an attack by US drones and was
killed. Until recently, the number of Germans who went to Waziristan
and, in individual cases, to other placesto join jihadist organizations was
small. The journey to these parts of the world was arduous, and there was
often no infrastructure that would have allowed the men to let their fami-
lies join them. Many who had set out to fight were unable to cope with the
situation; they fell ill and were unfit for action most of the time. This has
changed in the wake of the military successes of the al-Qaida breakaway
group Islamic State of Irak and Shams (ISIS), whose leader Abu Bakr al-
Baghdadi proclaimed the so-called Islamic state in summer 2014. Thanks
to well-organized transport routes via Turkey, even underage girls can now
get to Mossul or Raqqa quite comfortably. Against this backdrop, it comes
as no surprise that a phenomenon dubbed jihad tourism has emerged,
which causes some concern among the public. On the Internet, German
jihadists mobilized their prospective followers by means of battle songs,
political speeches, and videos showing mass shootings and the decapita-
tion of hostages; all this was supposed to convey an image of success and
power.
The recruitment of young German Muslims for an international jihad
was initially investigated almost exclusively by journalists, but has gradu-
ally led to the publication of several semi-academic monographs written
for a popular readership.30 Titles such as Die Kinder des Dschihad ( Jihads
Children), by the journalists Souad Mekhennet, Claudia Sautter, und
Michael Hanfeld (2006), or Islamische Terroristen aus Deutschland (Islamic
Terrorists from Germany), written by the editors Rolf Clement, an expert
on strategic and security issues, and Paul Elmar Jris, who covers domes-
tic politics and legal affairs (2011), Jung, deutsch, Taliban (Young, German,
Taliban), written by the journalist Wolf Schmidt (2012), or Zum Tten bereit.
Warum junge Deutsche in den Jihad ziehen ( Ready to kill. Why young Germans
join the Jihad ) by the schoolteacher Lamya Kaddor (2015) take a biographi-
cal approach and try to understand how normal young men, of immigrant
background or German nationals, suddenly turned into religious fanat-
ics. Clement and Jris provide detailed reconstructions of the biographies
of jihadis, particularly of the members of the so-called Sauerlandgruppe
(Sauerland Group), who planned several bomb attacks on nightclubs, air-
ports, and military installations, and who were arrested in 2007, before
their plans could be carried out. The list of factors contributing to the
transformation of ordinary youths into terrorists is long and rather mun-
danehaving experienced discrimination, identity conflicts, various cri-
ses at home and at school, awareness of injustices, or a search for personal
214 Susanne Schrter

meaning were all central31none of these experiences really being terribly

unusual, but rather life experiences and psychological processes common
to many young people as they grow up.

The State Responds

Since Germany has never suffered a major attack by Islamic terrorists,32
people are generally content to let the state and its institutions deal with
Salafis and Jihadis. The institutions primarily charged with this task are
the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (Bundeskriminalamt),
the State Offices of Criminal Investigation ( Landeskriminalmter), the
Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz),
and its corresponding state offices.33
The stated goal of these government agencies is the gathering of infor-
mation, which is in turn used by state-sponsored prevention programs
or to initiate repressive measures. The most important of these repres-
sive measures are the shutting down of Salafi community centers, club
houses, and mosques, or the ban of organizations and networks. One of
the most well-known centers was the Multikulturaus in Neu-Ulm, which
was established in 1996 and then closed down in 2005 on the order of the
Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, which also dissolved the association
that sponsored the Multikulturhaus.34 A search of the premises had turned
up propaganda material that called believers to arms against unbeliev-
ers, material that was confiscated by the authorities. Moreover, the cen-
ter was frequented by radical Islamists and terrorists such as Muhammad
Atta35 and the members of the Sauerland Group. The city of Bonn has
become yet another center of Islamic extremism. This development
is often associated with the presence of the Saudi Arabian King Fahd
Academy, which was originally founded as a school for the children of
diplomats, but which ended up drawing the attention of the Office for the
Protection of the Constitution when a number of the academys teachers
called upon Muslims to fight for the implementation of Islamic rule by
any means.
In response, the North Rhine-Westphalia State Office of Criminal
Investigation ( Landeskriminalamt) conducted its own study on Islamism
in the city of Bonn, presenting the results in an internal report titled
Auswertungsprojekt islamistische Szene Bonn (Analysis of the Islamist
Scene in Bonn). The report lists 175 persons as having terrorist potential.
Bonn lies 60 kilometers from Solingen, and the latter city is just as far
from Mnchengladbach, which is 85 kilometers from Bonn. This geo-
graphic triangle is home to numerous Salafi organizations, and it is from
this area that quite a few Salafi preachers come. Among these are the
Muslim convert Pierre Vogel, also known as Abu Hamza, whose folksy
public persona often moves people to convert at his events, providing
highly effective advertising for his movement; and Sven Lau, also known
as Abu Adam, also a convert, who caused quite a stir when he announced
 Salafism and Democracy 215

plans to establish a sharia police in the city of Wuppertal and beganjoined

by kindred spiritsto conduct roadside checks, all men wearing fantasy
uniforms.
Following the violence in Solingen and Bad Godesberg, the authori-
ties searched over 70 Islamist organizations that had already been under
surveillance by the police and domestic intelligence services, a measure
that led to the banning of the Solingen-based group Millatu Ibrahim
as well as to the investigation of the Frankfurt group Dawa FFM and
Die wahre Religion (The True Religion). Millatu Ibrahim was run by the
Austrian Salafi Mohamed Mahmoud, who in Vienna had previously been
sentenced to serve four years in prison for establishing a terrorist orga-
nization. After his release from prison he took on the name Abu Usama
Al-Gharib, became active as a jihadist agitator and moved first to Berlin
and then in late 2011/early 2012 moved to Solingen, together with the
infamous Islamist radical Denis Cuspert, alias Deso Dogg, also known
as Abou Maleeq. There, the former preached at the Millatu Ibrahim
Mosque. Following the mosques closure, Mahmoud was expelled from
Germany. Both men have meanwhile joined the Islamic State, from
where they agitate for the global jihad. The minister of the interior of
North Rhine-Westphalia, Ralf Jger, commented on the raids and the
ban as follows: It is important that we send a clear message to the ene-
mies of the constitution that this is the red line, and were not letting
them cross it.36 The second Salafi network in the region to be banned was
Die wahre Religion (The True Religion), headed by Ibrahim Abou Nagie,
who lived in Cologne but preached in Solingen and Bad Godesberg, and
who ranted on the Internet against Christians and other unbelievers.
In spring 2012 Abou Nagie drew attention for his Salafi missionary cam-
paign in which supporters flocked to the pedestrian zones of major cities
across the country to hand out to the public free copies of the Quran.
Other Salafi groups that have by now been banned include the Frankfurt-
based DawaFFM headed by the self-appointed Sheikh Rouali and Tauhid
Germany, a successor organization of Milatu Ibrahim.
The measures taken by the police are viewed as successful by the
German population, not least because three planned attacks were prevent-
ed.37 However, the security experts in charge admit that they are no longer
able to cope with the situation, for the simple reason that it has become
impossible to keep the ever growing number of endangerers under sur-
veillance due to lack of staff. There is an increasing awarness that jihadism
may be a basic social problem, whose solution requires more than just a
functioning security system. Besides a number of hastily launched preven-
tion and counseling programs, a public debate was sparked not only by
the events in Syria and Iraq, but alsoand particularlyby the attacks in
Paris and Copenhagen in April 2015. That debate recurred to Christian
Wulffs statement made in 2010. Several mutually interlocked discourses
can be identified: (a) the hypothesis that Islam as a religion is the cause of
Islamist violence, (b) the counterthesis that Islamist violence has nothing
216 Susanne Schrter

to do with Islam, and (c) voices that called for differentiation, referring to
a new concept of democratic, or liberal, Islam.

Anti-Islamic Rhetorics
On October 20, 2014, there was a demonstration in Dresden, with 350
people rallying against German immigration and asylum policy, as well
as against the Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Islamization of the
Occident). The initiators were members of a Facebook group and invoked
the historical Montagsspazierg nge (Monday walks) that had heralded
the peaceful revolution in the GDR. Like the activists of the historical
civil rights movement, they shouted the slogan We are the people!, thus
voicing their opinion that the current policy, like that of the authoritar-
ian GDR state in the past, runs counter to the concerns of the population.
The activists staunchly refused to talk to media representatives whom they
called by the derogatory term Lgenpresse (liar press)a word used in
the early twentieth century by nationalist, ethno-nationalist, and National
Socialist politicians to vilify the liberal and Leftist press. Although their
agenda remained vague, consisting largely of slogans, the movement grew
rapidly and had increased to 25,000 participants at a demonstration in
Dresden on January 12, 2015. Following the movements lead, Right-wing
representatives of civil society formed organizations with similar names in
other cities, too, but were unable to attract many followers. The Dresden
group had itself registered as an association named Patriotische Europer
gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes ( Pegida, Patriotic Europeans against the
Islamization of the Occident) on December 19, 2014.
From the very beginning, the existence of that anti-Islam group,
which is basically locally specific, was fiercely opposed not only by the
media and politics but also by civil society, which is largely Left-liberal.
It was argued that Pegida constitutes an assault on the foundations of
state and society. Large demonstrations were organized in almost all cit-
ies, speaking out against Pegida and advocating Toleranz, Demokratie
und Geschwisterlichkeit (tolerance, democracy, and brotherhood/
sisterhood), such as in Frankfurt in February 2015. Federal Chancellor
Angela Merkel took a clear position, telling the press: The former Federal
President Christian Wulff said, Islam is part of Germany. And thats
true. I share his opinion. In a way, Pegida also acted as a catalyst for the
formation of an organized center of society, which defined pluralism and
open-mindedness as basic values of German society. However, this cir-
cumstance cannot obscure the fact that anti-Islam resentment among the
population is still strong. According to a study by the Bertelsmann-Stiftung,
57 percent of non-Muslims in the survey believed in November 2015 that
Islam was a threat; 61 percent thought that Islam is out of place in the
Western world. In 2012, only 52 percent held that opinion, and 53 percent
believed that Islam posed a threat to security. The existing resentment had
grown considerably due to media reports on the Islamic State, groups
 Salafism and Democracy 217

like Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the kidnapping of German yachtspeople

by the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines. These fears were not pub-
licly voiced, though, as pluralism and tolerance were considered the only
legitimate attitudes in public discourse, and the silent majority did not
wish to expose itself to accusations of being racist or Islamophobic.

The Rhetorics of Representatives of Muslim Associations

On June 17, 2012, Tariq Ramadan, grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder
of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, university professor, and something
of an idol for Europes Islamic youth, attended the annual confernce of the
Islamische Gemeinschaft Deutschland (Islamic Society of Germany) in Bad
Godesberg, and in his address called upon the 800 Muslims in attendance
to take a stand against Salafism in Europe. One could not stand by and
allow the followers of this movement to monopolize Islam, he enjoined.
He also rejected the denunciation of people of other faiths, pointing to the
example of the first three generations of Muslims, who are also the defini-
tive role models for the Salafis. Not even these most pious of Muslims,
who had been companions of the Prophet, or their immediate descen-
dants had taken every word the Prophet ever uttered literally, and they
had respected others. Ramadan thus concluded that the so-called Salafis,
in fact, were not true Salafis. True Salafis were those who truly followed
the example of the Prophet and the Companions: they were tolerant and
open-minded.38 In an article posted on his website he accuses Salafi youth
of a lack of religious education and expresses fears that jihadist activities
are paving the way for the Islamization of all sorts of political problems, a
development that would only make solving such problems more difficult,
and, in fact, even hinder the task of identifying the underlying causes of
such problems.39
Being one of those Muslims who are keenly aware of the fact that Salafi
and Jihadi zealots do great harm to Islam, Ramadan attempts to distin-
guish between a true and false Islam. In doing so, he joins ranks with
Muslims all over the world, as well as with representatives of Muslim asso-
ciations in Germany, who condemn Salafism and Islamist violence for
being un-Islamic or at least a religious aberration. In September 2014, for
example, 126 Islamic scholars from several countries signed an open letter
addressed to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in which they gave detailed reasons
why the normative order of the Islamic State runs counter to Islamic law,
Islamic ethics, and Islamic theology. In Great Britain, British Muslims
launched the Internet campaign Not in my name. ISIS do not represent
British Muslims, arguing that its totally un-Islamic. In Germany, Ali
Kizilkaya of the Koordinierungsrat der Muslime40 (Muslim Coordination
Council) declared on the occasion of a nationwide day of action against
hatred and violence: We witness people committing atrocities in the
name of Allah, tormenting other people, expelling them from their
houses, and murdering them. They act under the banner of the Prophet,
218 Susanne Schrter

but their crimes show that they havent understood a word of what Allah
has revealed to us, nor of how the Prophet lived in abidance with these
commandments. This attitude was shared by the German minister of the
interior, Thomas de Maizire, after the attack on Charlie Hebdo. He said:
Terrorist attacks have nothing to do with Islam.

The Call for an Islamic Enlightenment

Many representatives of both politics and the Muslim associations felt
quite comfortable with the attitude outlined above. After all, they had
reassured each other that they were willing to join forces in protecting
peace in the country. However, objections were now raised by liberal
Muslim circles and proponents of a secular form of Islam. One of these
voices was that of Sineb El-Masrar, who is the daughter of Moroccan immi-
grants, editor of a womens magazine, former participant in the Deutsche
Islamkonferenz (German Islam Conference), and a successful author. In
an article published on September 23, 2014 in the conservative daily Die
Welt, she criticized the German Muslim associations for their hesitance
to distance themselves from radical currents, as well as for their lacking
sense of responsibility for the extremism of Muslim youths. She argued
that rather than taking a clear and well-founded stance against extrem-
ism and Islamist violence, traditional Muslims primarily view themselves
as victims of German society. The Berlin psychologist Ahmad Mansour,
who propagates a liberal Islam that values human rights, is even more
explicit. Mansour feels that critical voices against Salafism are lacking
and problematizes the commonalities the latter have even with run-of-
the-mill Muslims. He thus points out a whole series of shared attitudes
and understandings, including that both Salafis and many mainstream
Muslims insist that they have some privileged access to absolute truth;
that they prohibit the questioning of established tenets; that they reject
more timely or scholarly interpretations of Islamic texts; that sexuality is
taboo; that Islamic religious pedagogy is premised on intimidation, rest-
ing almost entirely on the fear of going to hell; and the insistence that they
have an answer for everything and that they must literally imitate the life
of the Prophet. Mansour, who was born and raised as a Muslim Palestinian
in Israel, reveals that he used to be an Islamist himself, and thus knows
about the effects of pedagogy of fear. Today he is active in the deradical-
ization program Hayat in Berlin, and involved in the Heros project against
the oppression of girls in the name of honor. Like Mansour, the lawyer
Seyran Ate, who is a professed devout Muslim of Turkish descent, calls
for a critique of Islamic justifications of repressive morals. In a monograph
published in 2009, she concludes that Islam needs a sexual revolution.
Bassam Tibi und Hamed Abdel-Samad take a more political stance. Tibi,
who was born in Damascus in 1944, came to Germany in 1962 and studied
political sciences. In 1972, he became professor of International Relations
at the University of Gttingen. Tibi has written 24 monographs on Islam,
 Salafism and Democracy 219

the Arab world, and the Middle East in German, as well as 11 monographs
in English. In his writings, he unconditionally stands up for the values of
modernity, which he defines as human rights as individual entitlements
(Tibi 2009: 113). According to him, the problem is that the concept does
not exist in Islam; moreover, it is rejceted by the representatives of politi-
cal Islam. The latter, he argues, aspire to a semi-modernity that covets
technological accomplishments while, at the same time, holding on to
the sharia. For Tibi, that attitude represents a new totalitarianism (ibid:
306), which also poses a threat to Europe.41 While his prognosis for the
future is quite pessimistic, he nevertheless believes that the emergence of
a European Islam may be a way out of the dilemma. To achieve that end,
however, non-Muslim Europe needs to become more open-minded: The
best strategy for countering Islamist internationalism in the European
diaspora of Islam is the integration of Muslim immigrants as true citizens
of the heart (Tibi 2008: 127).
Abdel-Samads biography, as well as his analytical conclusions, are simi-
lar to those of Tibi. He left his native country of Egypt when he was 23,
studied in Germany, and acquired German citizenship. His critiques of
Islamic history and contemporary Islam have earned him popular success,
but they have also provoked death threatsthe latter apparently confirm-
ing his pessimistic analyses. According to him, Islamic extremism is an
inherent feature of Islam, going back to the time of Muhammad. Abdel-
Samad argues that the Prophet himself, upon becoming founder of the
state and warlord in Medina, ruled in a dictatorial manner, taking vio-
lent measures against Jews and all others who refused to join him. When
returning to the multicultural center of Mecca, he destroyed the other
religions places of worship, and turned the city into a monocultural place.
According to Abdel-Samad, the God of Muhammad is a god who always
dictates and never negotiates (2010: 124), a jealous god obsessed with
power, who tolerates no gods besides him and stops at nothing to secure
his power (ibid: 125). After the revolution in Egypt, Abdel-Samad went
to his native country but soon returned to Germany, deeply disappointed
by the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in the first free elections fol-
lowing the fall of Mubarak. He thinks that a type of fascism similar to
National Socialism is manifest in their version of a political Islam. This
impression led him to write the monograph titled Der islamische Faschismus
(Islamic Fascism), which is, at the same time, a logical sequel of his previous
book (Abdel-Samaad 2010).
Similar criticism was passed on Muhammad by Somalia-born Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, who in 2004 had coproduced the controversial film Submission
with the Durch director Theo van Gogh. The film accuses Islam of tram-
pling on womens rights. Van Gogh was assassinated by Islamists in broad
daylight on November 2, 2004. Ayaan Hirsi Ali has by now become an icon
of conservative US criticism of Islam. Her most recent book, Reformiert
euch! Warum der Islam sich ndern muss, is a translation of the original English
edition Herectic! Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now, which was published
220 Susanne Schrter

by HarperCollins in New York. Like Abdel-Samad, Hirsi Ali distinguishes

between a Meccan phase of Islam, whose spirituality is appreciated and
acknowledged by both authors, and a Medinan phase characterized by
violence and intolerance toward people of other religions. She calls for a
reformation of Islam, similar to the reformation of Christianity by Luther.
While the publication of the translated version of her book created some
stir in the German media, that hype was only short-livedmaybe either
because she was caught up in a number of scandals or because she was not
considered an acknowledged expert in matters of theology.

The Emergence of Liberal and Progressive Forms

of Islam in Germany
The twentieth century has produced quite a number of Muslim thinkers
who have proposed new approaches to the interpretation of the Quran
and Sunna. These include Fazlur Rahman (University of Chicago),
Khaled Abou El Fadl (University of California), Farid Esack (University
of Johannesburg), and Muhammad Talbi (Tunis University), to name just
a few. Feminist approaches have been developed by Asghar Ali Engineer
from India, Amina Wadud from the United States, and Siti Musdah Mulia
from Indonesia. However, such approaches were not absorbed and dis-
cussed until the second decade of the twenty-first century. The Muslim
communities practiced a conservative type of Islam and were eager to hold
on to supposed traditions of their home countries in the diaspora. The
mosques were places of retreat from German society, whose values and
normsmost notably those pertaining to concepts of family and gender
were often perceived as threatening. From the early twenty-first century
onward, the communities experienced increasing pressure due to the
debates about forced marriages and honor killings. Particularly after the
spectacular murder of the young Kurdish woman Hatun Sr c in 2005,
they were generally suspected of condoning and tolerating violence against
women and girls. When called upon by the state to reconsider their norms
and to act in accordance with the equal rights paragraph of German Basic
Law, they basically responded by isolating themselves. When I conducted
a research project on mosque communities in the city of Wiesbaden (2011
2014), each conversation with women opened with their statement: There
is neither violence against women in our communities, nor are we being
oppressed. Similar patterns could be observed whenever Muslim extrem-
ists had committed terrorist attacks. In a much more succinct manner
than quoted above, people would usually respond that Islamism has noth-
ing to do with Islam, which is why they do not need to comment on it.
As has been mentioned above, German Muslims began to turn their
backs to the closed communities some years ago, as well as to the lat-
ters passed-down norms and values; they developed ideas of their own
and made them public. Basam Tibi has been a lone fighter most of his
 Salafism and Democracy 221

life. Now, however, young Muslim intellectuals such as Ahmad Mansour,

Sineb Al-Masrar, and Hamed Abdel-Samad speak out in public. They are
self-confident in asserting that the new generation of Muslims aspires
to something other than being part of a close-knit, traditionally minded
community. In that context, the debate on Salafism and Jihadism works
as a catalyst of sorts. Both the non-Muslim public and representatives of
the state, who need to defend their thesis that Islam is part of Germany,
are inclined to make liberal voices heard in the media. While it is still the
representatives of the large Muslim associations who are the main contact
persons for state institutions, the media pay increasing attention to the
young dissidents.
This development is supported by the establishment of chairs of Islamic
theology at German universities. Since 2011, four centers (Mnster/
Osnabr ck, Frankfurt/Gieen, Erlangen/Nuremberg, and Tbingen)
have been funded by the federal government. These centers offer lee-
way for the development of new ideas, and the professors employed there
make use of that opportunity. This results in considerable conflict with
the Muslim associations, as I illustrate by the example of the Mnsteran
professor Mouhanad Khorchide. In 2012, Khorchide had published a
monograph titled Islam ist Barmherzigkeit (Islam is Mercy), which provoked
fierce opposition by the Koordinierungsrat der Muslime, a union of the large
Turkish associations. The idea of a God who is primarily loving, the repu-
diation of certain concepts such as hell, as well as the historicizationand
thus relativizationof both the Quran and the Islamic traditions were
condemned by the representatives of the associations as being heretical
aberrations. The Koordinierungsrat commissioned an expert opinion in
that matter. In the absence of expert theologians, however, only prospec-
tive Islamic scholars and other laypersons felt called upon to condemn
Khorchide for straying from the alleged right path. The Koordinierungsrat
nevertheless used that expert opinion to mobilize against the unwel-
come reformer, and on December 17, 2013 even demanded the dismissal of
the professor on the grounds that he is, in their opinion, no longer a true
Muslim. However, the Federal Government demonstratively supported
Khorchide, and honored him with a visit by the Federal President when
the debate had reached its peak.
A comparable development outside the universities was the formation
of the Liberal-Islamischer Bund (Liberal Islamic Association) in 2010,
whose members include the Islamic studies scholar Lamya Kaddor and the
politician Lale Akg n from Cologne. The association breaks with many
rules of the conservative communities. Women are permitted to celebrate
the Friday prayer, the sharia is dismissed as being anachronistic, and the
interpretations of the Quran are largely guided by those of Islamic femi-
nism. Although this is only a small group, it gets much public attention.
The emergence of a progressive, or liberal, Islam in Germany is not
causally linked to the current phenomena of Salafism and Jihadism; the
222 Susanne Schrter

establishment of chairs of Islamic theology, for example, was a result

of discussions about acknowledgment and participation of Muslims in
Germany. However, liberal Islam is heavily preoccupied with these phe-
nomena at present. Islamists justify the persecution and murder of people
by referring to the holy scripture, wrote the author and director Gner
Yasemin Balci in 2015 in the Cicero magazine. Like El-Masrar, Mansour,
Ate, Abdel-Samad, Tibi, Khorchide, and others, she called on Muslims
to critically reflect on their religion. There is room for such critical reflec-
tion, not least because representatives of state and civil society feel the
need to make such voices heard in support of their own vision of a demo-
cratic, open, multicultural society. German Islam needs to be associated
with names such as Khorchide and El-Masrar. Otherwise, politicians risk
to lose many votes due to their declared belief that Islam, like Christianity
and Judaism, is part of Germany. However, the representatives of liberal
Islam face opposition by Muslim traditionalists who defend their monop-
oly in interpreting Islam, Rightist organizations such as Pegida, and
the new Salafi youth movement. A polarization of society seems almost
unavoidable.

Notes
1. In 1961 the German and Turkish governments concluded a bilateral labor
recruitment agreement. Subsequently, Germany entered into similar agree-
ments with Morocco (1963) and Tunisia (1965). Today, some 50 years after
the signing of the bilateral agreement with Turkey, many Muslim post-
immigrants have become German citizens, and their children and grand-
children are German-born citizens.
2. Cf. Jrgen Habermas, Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion. Philosophische
Aufstze (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2005), p. 121.
3. In 2007 the national Zentralrat der Ex-Muslime (Central Council of Former
Muslims) was founded in Cologne in order to protest the privileged status
that the conservative functionaries of Muslim civic associations have been
accorded in representing the interests of all German Muslims.
4. During the first decade of the twenty-first century the conflict came to
focus on the role of women in Islam in particular.
5. Cf. Ian Almond who intended to write a book on the history of the demon-
izing of Islam in mainstream German thought (I. Almond, History of Islam
in German Thought: From Leibnitz to Nietzsche [London: Routledge, 2010],
1) and then discovered ambivalence and ambiguity rather than definitude.
6. Cf., for example, the Internet portal Way to Allah: www.way-to-allah
.com/bekannte/goethe.html
7. On the history of the Deutsche Morgenlndische Gesellschaft (DMG),
see Holger Preissler, Die Anf nge der Deutschen Morgenl ndischen
Gesellschaft, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlndischen Gesellschaft 145,
no. 2 (1995): 241327.
8. These centers were established at the universities of Mnster/Osnabr ck,
Erlangen/Nuremberg, Tbingen, and Frankfurt/Giessen.
9. Cf. Heinz Buschkowsky, Neuklln ist berall (Berlin: Ullstein, 2012).
 Salafism and Democracy 223

10. Cf. Seyran Ate, Der Multikulti-Irrtum. Wie wir in Deutschland besser zusam-
menleben knnen (Berlin: Ullstein, 2007); Seyran Ate, Der Islam braucht eine
sexuelle Revolution, Eine Streitschrift (Berlin: Ullstein, 2009).
11. Cf. Necla Kelek, Die fremde Braut. Ein Bericht aus dem Inneren des trkischen
Lebens in Deutschland (Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 2005); Necla
Kelek, Die verlorenen Shne. Pldoyer fr die Befreiung des trkisch-muslimis-
chen Mannes (Cologne: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 2006).
12. Cf. Aladin El-Mafaalani and Ahmet Toprak, Muslimische Kinder und
Jugendliche in Deutschland. Lebenswelten, Denkmuster, Herausforderungen
(Berlin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V., 2011); Ahmet Toprak, Das schwache
Geschlechtdie trkischen Mnner. Zwangsheirat, husliche Gewalt, Doppelmoral
der Ehre (Freiburg: Lambertus, 2007), Ahmet Toprak, Integrationsunwillige
Muslime? Ein Milieubericht (Freiburg: Lambertus, 2010).
13. Cf. Iman Attia, Orient- und IslamBilder. Interdisziplinre Beitrge zu
Orientalismus und antimuslimischem Rassismus (Mnster: Unrast, 2007);
Cengiz Barskanmaz, Das Kopftuch als das Andere. Eine notwendige
postkoloniale Kritik des deutschen Rechtsdiskurses, in Der Stoff, aus dem
Konflikte sind. Debatten um das Kopftuch in Deutschland, sterreich und der
Schweiz, ed. Sabine Berghahn and Petra Rostock (Bielefeld: Transcript,
2009: 36); Maria do Mar Castro Varela and Nikita Dhawan, Das Dilemma
der Gerechtigkeit. Migration, Religion und Gender Das Argument 266
(2006): 427440; Birgit Rommelspacher, Der Islameine Provokation
f r das westliche Selbstbild, in Muslime im skularen Rechtsstaat, ed.
Thomas Hartmann and Margret Krannich (Berlin: Verlag Das Arabische
Buch, 2001).
14. Cf., for example, Attia, Orient- und IslamBilder ; Jrgen Miksch, ed.,
Antimuslimischer Rassismus. Konflikte als Chance (Frankfurt: Otto Lembeck,
2009); Thorsten G. Schneiders, Islamfeindlichkeit. Wenn die Grenzen der
Kritik verschwimmen (Wiesbaden: Verlag f r Sozialwissenschaften, 2009).
15. Cf. Attia, Orient- und IslamBilder ; Barskanmaz, Das Kopftuch als das
Andere, 36; Naime Cakir, Islamfeindlichkeit. Anatomie eines Feindbildes in
Deutschland (Bielfeld: Transcript, 2014); Castro Varela and Dhawan, Das
Dilemma der Gerechtigkeit; Kai Hafez, Freiheit, Gleichheit und Intoleranz.
Der Islam in der liberalen Gesellschaft Deutschlands und Europas (Bielefeld:
Transcript, 2013); Rommelspacher, Der Islam; Erol Yildiz, Migration in
der metropolitanen Gesellschaft (Mnster: Lit, 2004); Erol Yildiz, Was heit
hier Parallelgesellschaft? (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag f r Sozialwissenschaften,
2007).
16. Cf. Attia 2009; Miksch, Antimuslimischer Rassismus; Schneiders,
Islamfeindlichkeit, among others.
17. Cf. Christina von Braun and Bettina Mathes, Verschleierte Wirklichkeit.
Die Frau, der Islam und der Westen (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2007: 11);
Rommelspacher, Der Islam, 21.
18. The Fritz Bauer Institut is an institution for research and documentation at
the University of Frankfurt, focusing on the history of the Holocaust.
19. Vgl. Luzie H. Kahlwei and Samuel Salzborn, Salzborn Islamophobie als
politischer Kampfbegriff. Zur konzeptionellen und empirischen Kritik des
Islamophobiebegriffs, in Jahrbuch fr Extremismus und Terrorismusforschung
2011/2012, ed. Armin Pfahl-Traughber (Br hl: Fachhochschule des Bundes
f r ffentliche Verwaltung, 2012).
224 Susanne Schrter

20. Cf. Braun and Mathes, Verschleierte Wirklichkeit; Imrgard Pinn and Marlies
Wehner, EuroPhantasien. Die islamische Frau aus westlicher Sicht (Duisburg:
Diss, 1995); Birgit Rommelspacher, Das Fremde in uns? Psychologische
Erkl rungsmuster zum Rassismus, in Dominanzkultur. Texte zu Fremdheit
und Macht, ed. Birgit Rommelspacher (Berlin: Orlanda, 1995); Birgit
Rommelspacher, Feminismus und kulturelle Dominanz. Kontroversen
um die Emanzipation der muslimischen Frau, in Der Stoff, aus dem
Konflikte sind. Debatten um das Kopftuch in Deutschland, sterreich und der
Schweiz, ed. Sabine Berghahn und Petra Rostock (Bielefeld: Transcript,
2009).
21. Cf. Barskanmaz, Das Kopftuch als das Andere, 383.
22. Cf. Roel Meijer, ed., Global Salafism: Islams New Religious Movement (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2009). For Germany, see also Dirk
Baehr, Salafistische Propaganda im Internet. Von der reinen Mission
bis zum globalen Jihad. Dieneuen ideentheoretischen Unterschiede unter
den salafistischen strmungen in Deutschland, Magdeburger Journal zur
Sicherheitsforschung (2011): http://www.sicherheitsforschung-magdeburg.
de/uploads/journal/MJS-016.pdf (accessed May 25, 2015).
23. Cf. Marwan Abou-Taam, Die Salafiyya-Bewegung in Deutschland.
Bundeszentrale f r politische Bildung: Dossier Islamismus (2012), www
.bpb.de/politik/extremismus/islamismus/136705/die-salafiyya-bewegung
-in-deutschland?p=all (accessed October 30, 2012).
24. Cf. Michail Logvinow and Klaus Hummel, Gefhrliche Nhe. Salafismus und
Jihadismus in Deutschland (Stuttgart: Ibidem, 2014).
25. Cf. Gilles Kepel, Die neuen Kreuzzge. Die arabische Welt und die Zukunft des
Westens (Mnchen: Piper, 2005), 101; Guido Steinberg, Al-Qaidas deutsche
Kmpfer. Die Globalisierung des islamischen Terrorismus (Hamburg: Krber,
2014), 29.
26. See www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/pro-nrw-und-salafisten-liefern
-sich-privatkrieg-vor-der-landtagswahl-a-831824.html, accessed October
30, 2012.
27. See www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article110037998/Allah-entscheidet
-was-gut-und-boese-ist.html, accessed October 30, 2012.
28. Although in a brochure published in 2012 the Office for the Protection of
the Constitution distinguishes between political and jihadist Salafism, it
insists that the former category, too, evinces an ambivalent stance with
regard to the use of violence as a means of achieving its ends (Bundesamt
f r Verfassungsschutz, Salafistische Bestrebungen in Deutschland
[2012], www.verfassungsschutz.de/download/SHOW/broschuere_1204
_salafistische_bestrebungen.pdf [accessed November 4, 2012], 8).
29. However, in his video addresses he wore a suit, a white shirt, and a tie.
30. Cf. Rolf Clement and Paul E. Jris, Islamische Terroristen aus Deutschland
(Bonn: Bundeszentrale f r politische Bildung, 2010); Julia Gerlach,
Zwischen Pop und Dschihad. Muslimische Jugendliche in Deutschland (Berlin:
Ch. Links Verlag, 2006); Souad Mekhennet, Claudia Sautter, and Michael
Hanfeld, Die Kinder des Dschihad. Die neue Generation des islamistischen Terrors
in Europa (Munich: Piper, 2006); Wolf Schmidt, Jung, deutsch, Taliban
(Bonn: Bundeszentrale f r politische Bildung, 2012).
31. Cf., for example, Schmidt, Jung, deutsch, Taliban, 44.
 Salafism and Democracy 225

32. The only successful Islamist attack on German soil was committed by Arid
Uka at Frankfurt Airport in 2011.
33. However, the reputation of the federal and state Offices for the Protection
of the Constitution has suffered immensely following the scandal sur-
rounding their failure to follow key leads in a series of killings (in which
the victims were mostly Turkish immigrants).
34. Following its closure by the German authorities, another Salafi center in
Ulm took over the activities formerly organized by the Multikulturhaus, the
Islamische Informationszentrum Ulm (Islamic Information Center of Ulm).
35. Muhammad Atta was a student at the Technical University of Hamburg
and the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 that crashed into the
North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11.
36. See www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/razzia-bei-salafisten-friedrich
-verbietet-netzwerk-radikaler-islamisten-a-838761.html (accessed November
12, 2012).
37. Besides the already mentioned attack planned by the Sauerlandgruppe
(2007), these were attacks on German trains (2006) and on a bicycle race in
Frankfurt (2015).
38. Cf. Till Stoldt, Gegen Salafismus hilft nur der Islam, 2012, www.welt.de
/regionales/koeln/article106646864/Gegen-Salafisten-hilft-nur-der
-Islam.html (accessed November 8, 2012).
39. Cf. Tariq Ramadan, Terrorism, Salafi Jihadism and the West, 2012, www
.tariqramadan.com/spip.php?article12575 (accessed November 19, 2012).
40. The Koordinierungsrat is a coalition of four major Muslim organizations.
41. Cf. Bassam Tibi, Islamische Zuwanderung. Die gescheiterte Integration
(Stuttgart: DVA, 2002); Bassam Tibi, Political Islam, World Politics and
Europe: Democratic Peace and Euro-Islam versus Global Jihad (New York:
Routledge, 2008).

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 CHAPTER 14

MUSLIMS IN THE NETHERLANDS: A

THREATENING COMMUNITY OR A
COMMUNITY UNDER THREAT?
Jan Jaap de Ruiter

Introduction
This chapter treats the Dutch Muslim community focusing on the ques-
tion of whether it is a community that forms a threat to Dutch society
or if it is threatened itself. As awkward as it sounds, it is, though, a seri-
ous debate in the Low Countries. The community, forming around 5 per-
cent of the population is under constant political fire of the ideology of
Islamization, that is, the claim that Islam is an aggressive ideology that
seeks to conquer the Western world and apply sharia there. This chapter
analyzes the Islamization claim, in particular as expressed by the Dutch
Party for Freedom (PVV) of politician Geert Wilders, and applies it to
the Muslim community in the Netherlands. Are Muslims a threat to
Dutch society as the supporters of the Islamization claim maintain or are
they themselves threatened? The chapter begins by presenting some back-
ground information on Muslims in the country, followed by a section on
what Islamization stands for. The next section presents key figures that
propagate the ideology of Islamization in the Netherlands and treats its
contents. After that the chapter goes into the ideology of Jihadi-Salafi
Islam currents and the Islamization claim, and ends with some reflections
on the key question of this chapter and a conclusion.
According to the 2010 estimations of the Dutch Central Office of
Statistics, 825,000 people in the Netherlands are Muslims. Of them,
296,000 are from Moroccan background, and 285,000 from Turkish
background, 67 percent of the total number of Muslims (Berger 2012
2013; Maliepaard and Gijsberts 2012). Other major groups of Muslims in
the country are from Surinamese background, 34,000 people; Afghan,
31,000; Iraqi, 27,000; and Somalian, 20,000. Around 13,000 are indige-
nous Muslims, that is, Dutch converts. Around 95 percent of the Muslims
in the Netherlands have a non-Western background (Berger 20122013;
FORUM 2012).
230 Jan Jaap de Ruiter

The larger presence of Muslims in the Netherlands is recent. It was in

the 1960s and 1970s that government and companies recruited laborers
from Turkey and Morocco, who were later followed by their spouses and
children. Although the mind-set of the Dutch government at the time
was that these people would return to their home countries, the oppo-
site took place. Today their second and third generations are part of the
population.
The presence of Muslims in the Netherlands cannot be seen sepa-
rately from their presence in other European countries. The total num-
ber of Muslims in Europe in 2012 is estimated at 44 million people
(Pewforum 2011). They form 5.8 percent of Frances population (IFOP
2011), 4.6 percent of the United Kingdoms, and 5 percent of Germanys
(Pewforum 2011). It is hard to speak of homogeneous Muslim communi-
ties in European countries. For example, in hardly any European coun-
try did Muslims succeed in organizing and expressing themselves in one
national representative body. The Belgian government implemented
legislation that Muslims organize themselves in such a body (Zemni
2005; Oulad Si MHamed 2007). The elections for this body did not go
without distrust from parts of the Muslim community, and the body as
such was, and still is, hardly recognized by the various national and local
Muslim associations and organizations. In France similar developments
took place in the election of a national representative body of Muslims
(Taras 2012). German authorities deem the integration of the Muslim
community, mainly consisting of people with a Turkish background, as
stumbling because of the perceived unwillingness of Muslims to organize
themselves in one body with one voice. The authorities complain that
they know to find their way to the Catholic and the diverse Protestant
churches in the country, but get lost when it comes to the Muslims
(Monsma and Soper 2009). The Netherlands did not impose legislation
on Muslims to organize themselves in one body but that does not mean
that they are united. Today the country counts several representative
bodies of Muslims that compete with each other for the governments
attention.
Assuming furthermore that all Muslims in one specific European
country would maintain an identical level of religiosity is highly hypo-
thetical: the latest report on Muslims in the Netherlands shows that, in
general, Muslims in the country may be more religious than their Dutch
neighbors; they differ substantially among each other in this respect
(Maliepaard and Gijsberts 2012). Seventy-six percent of Moroccan
Muslims claim to pray five times a day against 27 percent of the Turkish
Muslims (ibid: 75). In France 65 percent of male Muslims and 85 percent
of female Muslims claim to never visit a mosque at all (IFOP 2011). This
very brief tour dhorizon shows that it is, in principle, wrong to speak of the
Muslim community of a given country assuming it is well organized and
religiously homogeneous.
 Muslims in the Netherlands 231

Islamophobia and Islamization

The supporters of the claim that Islam is organizing itself in the Western
world, that is, Europe and the United States and Canada, in order to Islamize
it, that is, force the introduction and application of Islamic law, Sharia, con-
sciously deny Islams internal variety as described in the previous section and
they, furthermore, consider it as an ideology that is aggressive by nature (cf.
Bat Yeor 2001; Geller 2011; Solomon and Al Maqdisi 2012). They speak of the
alleged Islamization of the world: Islam seeking to take over the whole world
and apply Sharia everywhere. The supporters of the concept of Islamization
do not miss an opportunity, pointing at the violence Muslims use every-
where in the world, to substantiate their claims. The block of Islamization
is becoming stronger and its ideas are increasingly filtering into media, poli-
tics, and public, though in different measures (Roggebrand and Vliegenthart
2007; Sheehi 2011; Taras 2012; Van der Valk 2012).
It is useful to devote some space to the term Islamization as opposed
to the term Islamophobia. Islamophobia basically means the unjustified
fear of Islam and is used by opponents of the Islamization claim, reproach-
ing the supporters of this last claim that they deliberately und unjustifi-
ably frame Islam as a threat, in particular to the Western world (cf. Geller
2011; Taras 2012). In this context it makes sense to rank Islamization as an
expression of Islamophobia, although it goes without saying that support-
ers of the Islamization claim would not agree with that. The supporters
of the anti-Islamization discourse display, nevertheless, many characteris-
tics of Islamophobia, but they choose to reject the term or at least ignore
it. They resent the word being used in connection with their views and
justify their words and actions by referring to what I call here the anti-
Islamization discourse, which can subsequently be described as follows
(cf. De Ruiter 20122013).
The anti-Islamization discourse establishes the persistent efforts of
Muslims in making a person, a group of people, or a whole people or nation,
irrespective of whether she/he or it originally be Muslim or not, embrace and
practice the ideology (note: not religion) of Islam and apply Sharia, which in
all cases results in the loss of freedom, the loss of possible democratic sys-
tems, and the consequent repression of minority groups like women, homo-
sexuals, and adherents of other religions, like Christianity and Judaism. It
therefore strives to combat Islam and seeks to make it disappear in the first
place from the Western world, and in the end from the whole world.
No definition is exhaustive, but the one given here contains all the basic
tenets of the anti-Islamization discourse as will be shown in more detail below.

The Ideology of Islamization

The Dutch champion par excellence of the Islamization discourse are pol-
itician and PVV leader Geert Wilders and party ideologue Martin Bosma,
232 Jan Jaap de Ruiter

both members of the Dutch Parliament. Both published a book in which

they explain their views on contemporary societal issues such as the status
of Islam and Muslims. Geert Wilderss book, Marked for Death: Islams War
against the West and Me, appeared in spring 2012. Given its title, it centers on
an important PVV theme, that is, Islam. Two years earlier, in 2010, PVV
member of Parliament (MP) Martin Bosma published a book in Dutch
called (in translation) The Fake Elite of the Counterfeiters: Drees, the Extreme
Right, the Sixties, Useful Idiots, the Wilders Group and Me. Both books stand
for what I call the ideology of the PVV, which I analyzed accordingly (De
Ruiter 2012a, 2012b; 20122013). The PVV ideology is based on a strictly
applied good-evil scheme, adapted from the biblical verse 20 of Isaiah 5,
quoted by Bosma on the first pages of his book and runs as follows:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light
and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

With this verse in mind, the ideology of the PVV regards Christianity,
Jews and Israel, monoculturalism, and ordinary people as good, whereas
Islam, Leftist political parties, multiculturalism, and the elites are con-
sidered evil. There are hardly any exceptions to the rule. The same black-
and-white thinking can be found in Marked for Death: Islams War against
the West and Me as well. The book is a big plea to confront Islam, consid-
ered not a religion but in all aspects an aggressive ideology, with its alleged
secret agenda, and to combat it whenever and wherever possible. The fol-
lowing pages treat the path that the PVV suggests in order to stop Islam
and free the Netherlandsand for that matter the Western worldof it.
The title of Wilderss last chapter speaks for itself: How to turn the tide.
Having established in the 12 preceding chapters the evil character of the
would-be religion of Islam, its devastating effects on the history of the
world, and the threat it poses to world peace today, it is time to come up
with a solution. The 17 pages of this final chapter gives us Wilderss view
on how to turn this tide and of the different parts of the solution; I find
the following the most telling: Muslims must defeat Islam (p. 212). This
sounds a bit strange and not really feasible, but from Wilderss perspective
it is quite logical. Islam is not a religion; it is, under all circumstances, an
aggressive ideology that seeks to conquer the world. People who follow
this ideology are Muslims. But a real Muslim, in Wilderss eyes, is one who
follows the tenets of Islam and complies with what they require him to do
in the full devastating sense of the word. Those who do not strictly and
fully follow them are, in fact, no longer Muslims in the true sense of the
word. This, then, is the answer to the question why Wilders did not assign
a new term to Muslims who are not fully observant. He makes a distinc-
tion between Islam and Muslims and this is what he actually wants to say.
A real Muslim is the one who acts in full compliance with the aggressive
ideology of Islam. Those who do not do so are in fact not Muslims or are
so no longer. In Wilderss own words: People who reject Islams violent,
 Muslims in the Netherlands 233

intolerant, and misogynistic commandments may be moderates, but they

are not practicing moderate Islamthey are not practicing Islam at all
(p. 212). Having read this quote, my question is why Wilders has a prob-
lem with what he calls moderate Muslims, if they are, in fact, as he says
himself, no longer Muslims. If they are not Muslims, they fall outside
the scope of Islam, and as such no longer constitute a danger. Naturally,
Wilders does not go into this implication of his logic. We will see below
that Wilders wants all Muslims, moderate or not, to defeat Islam.
We might ask ourselves what would be the impact if Muslims were
to actually defeat Islam? Wilders has the answer: If they (Muslims)
could liberate themselves from the yoke of Islam, if they would stop taking
Muhammad as a role model, and if they got rid of the hateful Koran, they
would be able to achieve amazing things (p. 212). Earlier in the book he
states: If only they could liberate themselves from Islam, they, too, could
become prosperous and free nations (p. 65). This is what Wilders is asking
Muslims to do: renounce the Quran and renounce following the example
of the Prophet Muhammad, two key elements in Islam. But if you take
away the Quran, and do away with the Prophet, what would Muslims be
left with? To what can they cling in order to live their lives, as they believe
they should if there is no longer a Holy Book and no Holy Prophet? Would
they really be inclined to do so just because Wilders says that in liberating
themselves from Islam, they will ensure a happier life for themselves and
their children, and a safer, more peaceful world for the rest of us (p. 212)?
Now we can also understand the impossibility of answering the question
formulated above why moderate Muslims, who are in fact not Muslims at
all, should defeat Islam. Wilderss solution of renouncing the Quran
and the Prophet cannot but apply to all Muslims as for all Muslims both
the Quran and the Prophet are essential. Here Wilders takes off his veil.
His distinction between moderate and extreme Muslims is made only to
ultimately lure all Muslims into accepting his solution.
I do not think I am exaggerating if I claim that the solution Wilders
offers is ridiculous and belongs to the world of fairies. It is dangerous even.
What Wilders is doing here is to strip the Muslims of their very identity.
He robs them of their essential self and offers nothing in return except the
vague promise of a happier life for themselves and their children. How are
they supposed to realize this? On what are they to subsequently base their
values? Is the hidden message that they should convert to Christianity?
Wilders does not make this suggestion. If we gave Wilderss solution a
shot, how should it be implemented? How are we going to convince the
Muslims to denounce the kernels of their faith? Wilders offers us a num-
ber of suggestions in his thirteenth chapter and in other parts of the book.
His solution is centered on four points (p. 213215). First, we must defend
freedom of speech. Second, we must reject all forms of cultural relativ-
ism. Third, we must stop the Islamization of the West. Fourth, we
must cherish our national identity. If these four criteria were to be real-
ized, the consequences are evident. Wilders describes them in clear terms.
234 Jan Jaap de Ruiter

Immigrants in the West must assimilate into Western societies, adapt to

their values, and abide by their laws. Or in Wilders words: If you subscribe
to our laws and values, you are welcome to stay and enjoy all the rights our
society guarantees (p. 214). But he also presents the consequences if you
do not adapt and abide by these laws: If you commit crimes, act against
our laws, or wage jihad, you will be expelled (p. 214). Note that Wilders
does not say that such people are to be jailed and/or fined. No, they are
to be expelled, whereas normally in a democratic state no one is expelled
for breaking the national law. Apparently there are two different judicial
systems operating here, one for us and one for them.
Let us take a look at some more consequences. Islamic schools must be
closed down, for they are totalitarian institutions where young children
are indoctrinated into an ideology of violence and hatred (p. 214). At pres-
ent, there are around 37 Islamic elementary schools in the Netherlands
(www.deisbo.nl). They all fall under the control of the Ministry of
Education and whereas they were doing badly some years ago, teaching
and output numbers have improved over the last few years. Furthermore,
the construction of new mosques, which Islam regards as symbols of its
triumphs must be forbidden (p. 214). A free society should not grant free-
dom to those who want to destroy it, and consequently every halal shop,
every mosque, every Islamic school and every burka constitutes a threat
(p. 214). At the international level, Wilders suggests that Western nations
should refuse to make any financial contributions to the UN (p. 215). The
point here is that Islamic nations have their own version of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the so-called Cairo Declaration, which
formulates human rights in accordance with the Sharia, Islamic law. The
Islamic states that support this Cairo Declaration must be expelled from
the United Nations and until the time this is effectuated Western nations
should stop their financial contributions to this organization. This chap-
ter describes in abundant detail the solution Wilders has to offer for the
Islam problem in the Netherlands and the world.
If I were a Muslim seeking full integration in the West, in Europe, in
the Netherlands, I would be utterly discouraged. I am asked to renounce
my Islamic identity, however meager that eventually may be, and I have to
face the disappearance of Islam from the public and private space. I could
only live a life here if I accommodated fully to the West. Wilders blames
Muslims for wanting to Islamize the world; he himself is doing the same
thing by obliging Muslims to westernize fully. Muhammad and Fatima
have to change into John and Mary, not only in name, but also inside.
Let us now take a look at how Wilderss political party has been trying
to implement its program in the Netherlands. In the 2010 parliamentary
elections in the Netherlands, Wilderss PVV, established only in 2005,
obtained 24 of the 150 seats. The Liberal Conservatives and Christian
Democrats, together occupying 52 seats, invited the PVV to officially
lend their support to a minority government of these two parties, led by
Liberal Conservative prime minister Mark Rutte, in exchange for certain
 Muslims in the Netherlands 235

concessions, thus securing a minimal majority of 76 seats in Parliament.

This construction held from October 2010 until the fall of the cabinet in
April 2012, when the PVV pulled out the plug, refusing to put its signature
under new government cuts that had to be implemented due to the ongo-
ing global financial and economic crises. The parliamentary elections of
September 12, 2012 resulted in a major blow to the PVV, which lost 9 of its
24 seats. It was the second blow to the party, the first one being the down-
fall of the Rutte government, which was primarily caused by party leader
Wilders. All of this, however, did not result in the use of a milder discourse
when it came to the partys policies and focus on Islam and Muslimsthe
opposite happened. The appearance of the movie The Innocence of Muslims
in September 2012, followed by the French Charlie Hebdo cartoon affair,
and the killing of American ambassador Stevens in Benghazi in Libya
caused a worldwide wave of protests, indignation, and violence, on both
sides, that is, the anti-Islam block and Muslims themselves, but party
leader Wilderss comments on what was happening were in no way less
harsh in tone than before. A temporary climax was the appeal expressed
by Wilders to his voters for less Moroccans on the occasion of the Dutch
municipal elections on March 19, 2014, after which the mass chanted
Less, less. We want less Moroccans. This led to a huge national uproar.
At the same time Wilders dropped, so to say, his veil. He is not aiming for
a Netherlands with less Islam, but for a Netherlands with fewer Muslims
or, for that matter, without Muslims at all.
When the 2010 minority government was installed with the support
of Wilderss party, it issued a statement in which Islam was mentioned in
the very first sentence. It said that Liberal Conservatives and Christian
Democrats regarded Islam as a religion while the PVV considered it an ide-
ology (de Ruiter 20122013). The parties involved had agreed to disagree.
In any decision it took, the government was dependent on the support of
Wilderss party, so as not to lose its majority in Parliament. On issues of
migration, carefully avoiding mentioning the terms Islam or Muslims,
the PVV asserted itself, claiming and obtaining as a concession for its
support that the Central-Right government would pursue a much stricter
migration and integration policy. In doing so, however, it collided with
European laws to which the Netherlands had committed itself. Carrying
out the intended policies would mean breaking up treaties, which would
require the consent of all (at that time) 27 members of the union. Given
these circumstances, the endeavors of the government did not have the
intended results. Still, government services silently acted in accordance
with the strict suggestions and proposals of the PVV. The policies imple-
mented with regard to refugees and asylum seekers resulted in their being
detained, even children, and by massive violation of international law. A
study carried out by Hans Siebers (2010) indicates a large degree of con-
vergence between migrant-hostile voices like Geert Wilderss and every-
day practice in carrying out Dutch government policies toward migrants.
These voices and policies increasingly fit the concept of ethnic cleansing.
236 Jan Jaap de Ruiter

The authors of the study proposed using the concept of low-intensity

ethnic cleansing to capture the increasingly militaristic way in which
these policies and voices are framed. PVV MPs are known for expressing
their opinions clearly, in many cases, in abusive and insulting language.
A strong example is the so-called kopvoddentax (literally head rags tax).
In September 2009, Wilders presented the proposal in Parliament to tax
Muslimas wearing headscarves in public. He did not use the normal term
to refer to this item of clothing, but instead used the deliberately abusive
and contrived term head rag for it. He never seriously meant to impose
such a tax, for which there would never be a parliamentary majority any-
way. He just meant to insult wearers of the scarf and to intimidate them.
The term is, in fact, more offensive than can be brought out in an English
translation, since the use of the Dutch word kop (rather than hoofd) is
offensive as well, as it is normally reserved to refer to the heads of animals.
Wilderss proposal in 2007 to shoot young Moroccan gang members in
the city of Gouda in the kneecaps should be interpreted in the same way.
Gouda, an old Dutch city (in the deep polders of the country) famous for
its cheese, has a sizable Moroccan community whose younger members
were causing trouble and harassing people. In 2008, the PVV suggested
sending in the army to tackle the problem. This contradicts what Wilders
states in his book: Armed only with our pens, we must defy Islams axes
and knives (p. 5). In this case it is apparently not the pen or the word to
solve the problem, but the use of the weapon instead. There are far more
instances of aggressive discourse than these, but mentioning all of them
would take up too much space here.
What is more important is the question to what extent Wilders and
his party influence Dutch politics, and Dutch society. When I presented
my first book on the party (De Ruiter 2012a), I stressed in the Dutch
media that maybe we were facing not only this perceived Islamization of
the country, but also a Party for Freedom-ization (my apology for the
unhappy term). In the numerous meetings and debates I have taken part
in, I could sense the influence of the PVVs racist ideology. Muslims no
longer feel welcome in the Netherlands. They hide. They keep their heads
down. Some assimilate so completely that they have become more Dutch
than me, at the same time realizing, now more than ever, that they are
ultimately not accepted in the society.
Numerous other books and publications on the rise of the PVV have
seen the light. NEXUS (Institute for European Culture and Debate)
director and public intellectual Rob Riemen does not mince words. In
a recent publication (2010), he made it quite clear that he considers the
PVV a contemporary form of fascism. This provoked an enormous row,
and Mr. Riemen was criticized heavily for saying it but he maintained
his point of view, and his pamphlet (in translation) The Eternal Comeback
of Fascism (2010) sold very well. My student of Liberal Arts and Sciences,
Henk Bovekerk, wrote his bachelor of arts thesis (2012) on the question of
whether the PVV should be considered as fascist in the terms of Robert
 Muslims in the Netherlands 237

Paxtons book on fascism (2004). In his words: The PVV does not use
physical violence, but its rhetoric is at times highly combative. It carries
the same message as early twentieth-century fascist violence: that only the
Party for Freedom is tough enough to save the nation from hostile threats.
Such militant rhetoric can give its supporters the idea that violence is justi-
fied, and regrettably it has done so in the recent past. Bovekerk concluded
that the PVV can be placed in what Paxton refers to as the third stage of
fascism. His thesis was never meant for publication, but in January 2012
the media got wind of it and Mr. Bovekerk and myself and my colleague,
professor Jan Blommaert, as his supervisors were met with sneers and
threats.
The question to what extent the PVVs discourse influences people, peo-
ples choices, and in particular the Muslims position in the Netherlands is
not an easy one to answer. How can it be proven empirically that Muslims
not only feel intimidated but also are actually experiencing the negative
consequences of this discourse on a personal level as well? Siebers and
Dennissen (2012) proved convincingly that Muslim people in the context
of their work are face the dark consequences of the prevailing anti-Mus-
lim attitudes in the Netherlands, an immediate consequence of Wilderss
utterances and politics. In their study, they show that statements made in
Dutch politics and the Dutch media by people like Geert Wilders trigger
discussions among colleagues at work, with a majority of colleagues repro-
ducing these statements and employees with a Muslim and Moroccan
background having to or feeling the need to defend themselves. Wilderss
stigmatizing discourse is reflected in these discussions, which eventually
fuel acts of discrimination and result in the exclusion of colleagues with a
Moroccan and Islamic background.
Rejecting any form of violence, Wilders tells us, and I refer to his quote
(p. 5) on this earlier in this chapter, that the weapons with which Islam
ideology should be combated are the word and the pen. Fighting what you
believe to be wrong using the word and the pen is a noble goal and nobody
will contend it. Nevertheless, words can cause severe psychological dam-
age. Will Muslimas not feel insulted to the bone when their scarves are
referred to as kopvodden, head rags (see earlier in this chapter)? Another
instance of offensive use of language, and like the previous one uttered
by Wilders himself in the Dutch Parliament, is his reference to Muslim
Labor Party voters as Islamic voting cattle. One could argue that Parliament
is the place par excellence of free speech and that every MP has the right
to state anything he/she wants. But here is a party whose leader claims
in his Marked for Death that the pen and the word, and Christian values
in general, should be the guidelines for our thoughts and actions, and
whose party ideologue Bosma writes in his book that values such as mod-
esty, respect, and discipline are highly valued by the party and should be
the criteria to act upon (p. 187). The sad truth is that there is no party in
Parliament as rude and insulting as Wilderss party, blatantly contradict-
ing the principles expressed in their own books. In this context, it should
238 Jan Jaap de Ruiter

not come as a surprise that Wilders and the other MPs of his party hardly
ever participate in discussions. They have been and still are invited by
virtually all societal organizations, nongovernmental organizations, uni-
versities, and TV talk shows, but the number of times they have actually
participated in an open debate with the public, with intellectuals, can be
counted on the fingers of one hand. The party clearly is not interested in
taking part in public debates and the reason for this is plain. They sim-
ply cannot afford to, for fear of losing voters. Their claims are too easily
refuted. They would lose such debates. The partys policy is thus to remain
in its own secure world, spread its facts-free message to the public from
there in a most insulting way, and try to achieve the solution formulated
by Wilders in his book.

Islam, a Missionary Religion?

There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and it would be ridiculous to
claim that all Muslims have been coerced to become Muslims. Most of
them are Muslim by birth but in areas, particularly in countries border-
ing the southern Sahel zone, as well as in Western countries, proselytism
takes place. Islam is still a growing religion. The Prophet Muhammad
never hid the fact that his message was not only for the Arabs, his prime
public, but also for all mankind. Did he not claim to be the seal of proph-
ets, the last link in the chain of prophets and, as such, revealing the last
and final message of God to mankind? In that sense Islam has always been
and still is a religion open to all people. A birds-eye view over the city of
Mecca during the annual hajj with millions of believers streaming in from
around the world confirms all this. However, the key question is whether
this missionary activity conforms to what supporters of the Islamization
claim say. Is Islam really out to Islamize the world and apply sharia every-
where? In order to answer this question we should take other aspects into
consideration as well. The supporters of the Islamization claim state that
this, what we might call, missionary agenda is to be accomplished in all
possible ways, including intimidation and violence (Bat Yeor 2001; Geller
2011; Solomon and Al Maqdisi 2012). If one mentions violence in combi-
nation with Islam, one cannot but think of Jihadi-Salafi Islamic currents
that do not exclude violence to accomplish their goals (Roy 2005; Meijer
2009; Wagemakers 2012). These groups are dangerous, destabilize societ-
ies, and do not believe in democracy at all. But are these groups also out to
Islamize the world, the Western world in particular?
If one takes a look at studies on contemporary Jihadi-Salafi movements,
one is struck by the fact that their teachings are first much more directed
at Muslims and Muslims rulers and second at territorial enemies of
Muslims, such as Israel and the United States (Wagemakers 2012). Jihadi-
Salafi teachings strive for an ideal Islamic state, ruled by the God-given
law of Sharia. Today, many, if not all, contemporary Muslim rulers do not
match these rules according to these thinkers and that is why Jihadi-Salafi
 Muslims in the Netherlands 239

inspired violence is first aimed at these deviant Muslim rulers. It must

be said, though, that within the Jihadi-Salafi movements there are dif-
ferent interpretations of the issue as to what extent violence is permitted
against Muslim rulers, but the bottom line is that Jihadi-Salafists teach
that most, if not all, Muslim rulers do not govern their countries accord-
ing to the Sharia. Not living by the strict rules of Sharia applies in any
case, in Jihadi-Salafi eyes, to many ordinary Muslims as well, and in that
sense Jihadi-Salafists still have a long way to go to accomplish that perfect
Islamic Oumma, world community. Additionally, the writings of Jihadi-
Salafist are also directed at Western powers such as the United States and
its ally Israel. These are considered enemies as these two particular states
have invaded or are influencing Islamic territory. Jihadi-Salafi violence
and, for that matter, more general Islamic inspired actions against the
United States and Israel take place regularly. But do the Jihadi-Salafis have
an agenda to Islamize the whole world? One can conclude from their writ-
ings that, yes, that would be the ultimate goal. But Jihadi-Salafi movements
are still so busy with purifying Islam itself and kicking Islams enemies out
of their territories that claiming they are busy conquering the world is a
frame and, as such, not supported by empirical evidence. In this context,
one could better focus on the missionary activities of a country like Saudi
Arabia that spends millions of dollars to spread the Wahhabi version of
Islam, unsuccessfully, though, in the Western world. Other points to be
taken into consideration are of a demographic and sociological nature.
Muslims in Europe, to stick to the old world, form on average no more
than 5 percent of its population and in the United States the percentage is
even lower. Furthermore, as indicated earlier, the Muslim communities
in the diverse Western countries are far from homogeneous. Is it conceiv-
able that these minority groups would be able to Islamize the whole of the
Western world so that, as supporters of the Islamization ideology claim,
our daughters will have to wear veils in the future and in supermarkets
one cannot buy but Halal food? True, one has to be on ones guard for
fanatic Islamic groups that do not shun violence to reach their goals, but
reality tells us that the larger part of Islamic communities in the Western
world do not wish for anything else but a good life for themselves and their
children. I am very much aware of the fact that these considerations are in
no way exhaustive, but I want to make the point that the claim that Islam
is busy taking over the world is one of the most successful frames in the
recent history of the Western world and as it is a frame, it lacks proof and
evidence.

Reflections and Conclusion

Considering the Islamization claim and applying it to the Muslim commu-
nity in the Netherlands, we find little evidence of it. The Dutch Muslim
community is demographically too small and internally too divided to
formeveran actual threat to Dutch majority society. This does not
240 Jan Jaap de Ruiter

mean that society should not be on its guard to small extremist Islamic
groups that may use violence to attract attention in trying to accomplish
their goals.
However, the claim that Islam is trying to take over the world turns
out to be particularly strong. Now, the Netherlands is a country where free
speech is the rule, and everybody is entitled to say what he/she wants and
as such framing of all kinds of societal themes takes place, and this goes for
the leaders of the PVV as well. But one might wonder what would happen
if a governmental policy would be developed, based on the Islamization
claim, more specifically the suggestion that party leader Wilders pro-
poses in the last chapter of his book, that Muslims should renounce their
religion by saying goodbye to the Quran and Prophet Muhammad. Would
a policy based on these recommendations not result in putting pressure on
Muslims to either renounce their religion or leave the country? A mod-
ern democratic government would never want to push people to renounce
what is part of their very essence: their religion.
Considering this, it can be postulated that the suggestion for Muslims
to renounce their religion is against the first article of the Dutch
Constitution, which reads as follows: Discrimination on the grounds of
religion, belief, political opinion, race or sex or on any other grounds what-
soever shall not be permitted, and article 6: Everyone has the right to his
religion or belief, either individually or in community with others, to pro-
fess it freely, without prejudice to his responsibility under the law. Even
if one would consider Islam an ideology, its followers would still have the
right to believe in it and practice it.
Another argument against such a policy is derived from article 18 of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads as follows:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom,
either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to mani-
fest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Muslims are thus entitled to exercise their religion or, for that mat-
ter, their ideology. The Netherlands endorses the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, and as such suggesting or even forcing people to give
up their religion goes against this basic human right. If the Islamization
program becomes a political reality this would mean that the Netherlands
would have to abolish key articles of its constitution and terminate its
commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It is obvious that all this is highly undesirable and it definitely shows
that the character of the Islamization discourse is far from innocent.
Modern democratic societies, like the Dutch one, are blessed with free
speech and as such the Islamization discourse can freely be expressed. But
history teaches us regrettably that words spoken freely can, in the end, lead
to deeds of exclusion and repression. Therefore, that same society has to
remain vigilant and protect all its citizens. The Muslim community in the
 Muslims in the Netherlands 241

Netherlands is therefore much more, if not only, a threatened community

than a threatening one.

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 CHAPTER 15

POLYGYNY AND THE PERFORMANCE

OF GENDERED POWER AMONG
AFRICAN A MERICAN MUSLIMS
Debra Majeed

A
s her husband makes the call for the predawn prayer in the
adjoining room, Jamillah rises from bed and readies herself for
a ritual that is written into the rules of the Islamic way to begin
each day. A tall, slender woman whose high cheekbones and complexion
rival many an Ebony magazine covergirl, Jamillah has come to especially
enjoy this part of the day, this aspect of her marriage. She and her second
husband, Naim, both in their fifties and parents of adult children, decided
to follow salat with meditation and Quranic reading as a way to draw closer
to Allah and to each other.1 When Jamillah met Naim, a year before their
nikah, she was impressed by his work among new, younger Muslims. Like
her, Naim was a teacher of Islamic practices and beliefs, and Jamillah
looked forward to the intimate time they would share as husband and wife,
together focused on the Quran, their guidebook for living. Once married,
and as their familiarity with each other grew, Jamillah felt more comfort-
able expanding their predawn ritual to include conversations about their
marriage. To her, such an environment, already filled with prayer, medita-
tion, and recitation, is as healthy a place as any to relieve anxiety and reclaim
internal peace. On this morning in particular, Jamillah is after answers, or
better yet, a confirmation. And, if a showdown is the only means to her
goal, she is fine with that, too.
For days now, Jamillah has observed the comings and goings of a dif-
ferent man than the one she married five years earlier. She felt like she
and Naim now existed in parallel spheres, each separated by the thinnest
of veils. After all, Naims communication with her had not been as open
and forthcoming, his schedule had become more erratic, his manner more
aloof. The more often Jamillah prayed and slept alongside Naim and the
more meals they shared, the more convinced she was that he had some-
thing to tell her, but was having difficulty piecing together the words.
Armed with the weirdest feeling, Jamillah decided on this morning to
toss her husband a declaration: Look, you just need to talk to me about
244 Debra Majeed

something! That is when Jamillah learned that her husband would take
another wife within the month.
This chapter examines the role of masculinity and femininity in the
household decisions of African American Muslims. It acknowledges that
Muslim women, more often than Muslim men, are portrayed as gendered
subjects in public and private spheres as it draws attention to multiple-wife
marriage. In the process, I question whether the lived realities of some
women in the North American diaspora dismantle the stereotype of pow-
erless Muslim women and over-sexed Muslim men and/or problematize
perceptions of polygyny in Islam. A primary consideration of this chapter
is the use of the Quran and other teachings of Islam as a prescription for
polygyny among African American Muslims. It explores the interpreta-
tive frameworks with which African American Muslim men and women
promote the legality of multiple-wife marriage, tolerate or dismiss a
controversial form of Muslim marriage that conflicts with US civil law,
and view the performance of gendered power by women who share their
husbands.2
With it, I propose an alternative Quranic hermeneutic, one that depicts
Muslim women as autonomous agents whose surrender to their faith need
not be viewed as synonymous with submission to spousal desire or com-
munal survival. This examination of Muslim marriage affirms the merits
of experience as textual exegesis, whether the text is the divine word as
revelation or the divine word as embodied female reality. It situates the
gendered experience of women as another doorway to reenvisioning the
position of the Quran on polygyny. I consider some of the faith commit-
ments African American Muslim women embrace and the value they attri-
bute to polygyny as the fulfillment of both spiritual and earthly goals.
We know a great deal about Western stereotypes of Muslim masculin-
ity in terms of its adherence to a patriarchal mentality that renders men
as the deciders of the marital options of women. Two of the basic assump-
tions many Americans appear to hold of women living in polygyny are
that they have no authority over their lives and have no agency in their
homes. To these observers, the performance of gendered power looks like
Muslim women are able to exercise little, if any, agency in their marital
choices. Here I begin to address such assertions with a more nuanced
look at polygyny from the perspective of women who live it and the theo-
logical and religious sources on which they form their decisions regard-
ing marriage. Debates about polygyny have been too narrowly conceived
as an issue of male sexual lust and patriarchal power that is contained
within the private sphere. Recognizing that some women experience one
or both scenarios, my hope is to problematize what Muslims and others
privilege as household arrangements within patriarchal structures that
reach beyond the family into the public sphere, where the mosque and
the larger African American Muslim community are sometimes situated.
With regard to Muslim women, I position the local mosque and the larger
 Polygyny and Gendered Power 245

African American Muslim community as sites that represent an extension

of the private sphere.
Universalizing Quranic interpretations that support a patriarchal men-
tality and eliding multiple settings as a single space in which patriarchal
relations occur, in my mind, are significant obstacles to healthy Muslim
family life. More formal collaborations of Muslim women, Muslim female
scholars, and others who raise awareness of womens rights in Islam and
communicate these rights throughout local mosques is much needed,
especially in secular regions like Europe and the United States, where reli-
gious law supersedes civil law for many Muslims and marriage rights inter-
sect at the nexus of state law and unofficial law.3 As with all phenomena,
polygyny is contextual, often involving multiple and intersecting spheres
of influence and preserving various concepts of masculinity and feminin-
ity. For African American Muslims, the contextualization of polygyny
involves a binary of sociocultural history and religious norms, both often
nurtured by the performance of gendered power that can limit the options
some women believe are available to them.

Patriarchy and Polygyny

The term patriarchy has become the vernacular for the coupling of male
privilege and power with female subordination that defines women pri-
marily by their relation to men. It does not represent the archetypical fea-
ture of creation created by Allah and by which everything that exists in the
world of creatures is a manifestation of the male-female duality. Its power
is derived from conscious authority, more than physical force, and is often
most visible in gender dynamics that occur within society and the home.
The home and society coalesce in Islam in the family, the basic building
block of Muslim life. While Islam instructs males and females alike to
be modest in dress, action, and thought, patriarchy routinely places more
responsibility on women. Indeed, as Prado has observed, patriarchy sig-
nifies, on theological and symbolic levels, the predominance of the mascu-
line attributes of Allah over the feminine attributes. That is, patriarchy
emphasizes the attributes of dominion and power over the feminine attri-
butes of compassion. Syed has observed that the mingling of male suprem-
acy and female modesty has led to the belief in many parts of the Muslim
world that to be a good Muslim woman is to be obedient and modest and a
modest woman is duty-bound to submit to her father or husband.4 Outside
views tend to conflate modest dress in public with a persona of submis-
sion. For many married Muslimahs, the idea of submission extends to
household formations and the unilateral decisions husbands make to live
in polygyny.
For Americans, patriarchy has become a way of viewing the world and
envisaging Islam as a religion of male domination. Muslim feminists,
believers, and others challenge patriarchy (and gendered portrayals of
246 Debra Majeed

Islam) by proposing instead a methodology for rereading Islamic sources

or unreading patriarchy to recover female-centered readings and gender
justice.5 In doing so, they offer evidence in support of the Quran as an
antipatriarchal text and Islam as a religion with multiple and contested
meanings and experiences. By antipatriarchal, I defer to Asma Barlas
in her Believing Women in Islam. There she presents the Quran as a his-
torically contextualized sacred text and Allah as the Creator who does
not violate womens rights by denying them agency and dignity.6 I will
return to these issues momentarily. For now, it is important to articulate
the point of view of antipatriarchal-Islam scholars, which, in turn, chal-
lenges the productivity of a bipolar method.
Asma Barlas, Amina Wadud, and others who promote an antipatri-
archal view of Islam recognize that the realities of Muslim women who
share their husbands and the teachings these women receive through rela-
tives (male and female) and Muslim leaders (predominately male) routinely
reduce polygyny to a source of injustice.7 Such observers question whether
a practice like polygyny can be labeled Islamic when its existence points
to greater communal concern for male interests and rights than to female
experience and rights. For them, patriarchy uses the weapon of domina-
tion to unleash what Foucault calls a mechanics of power that deter-
mines how men may have control over women, not only so that women
may do what men desire but also so that women may act as men wish them
to act. Patriarchal power exists within Muslim communities, as a two-
pronged enterprise, maintaining both the idea and the practice of gross
hegemony in the private and public spheres. These spheres intersect in
the family, where patriarchal power is most evident in decisions surround-
ing the structure of the family unitthe single most important space
through which honor and value are attributed to women primarily due to
their relations toand authority exercised over them bytheir male rela-
tives. For antipatriarchal proponents, the Quran makes no distinctions
between them.
Given that monogamy is the only form of Muslim marriage avail-
able to women, polygyny is Islams singular representation of domestic
power that clearlyand some would assert, divinelydemonstrates a
gendered imbalance in the human dynamics governing family rela-
tions. More often than not, women living in polygyny are balancing their
self-accepted, other imposed, or husband-directed existences with their
desire to live lives pleasing to Allah. In so doing, Walby, among oth-
ers, might argue that such women reside in multiple sites of oppression.
These interconnected, dynamic, and complex spaces span the private-
public spheres and hold particular relevance for Americans of African
ancestry, as this exploration of polygyny will demonstrate. Though few
in number compared to the overwhelming presence of single-spouse
couple unions, polygynous marriages are becoming more visible among
African American Muslims. So, too, are the varied ways in which plural
marriage challenges the women involved, their performance of gendered
 Polygyny and Gendered Power 247

power, and the sites of patriarchal authority and power they traverse.
For example, wives who share their husband may struggle with identity
issues, particularly in regard to personal freedom for self-determination
in the domain of family life. In some cultures, language clarifies the
way women sharing their husband perceive each other. In Arabic, for
example, the word for co-wife is darah, or one who makes trouble. The
same term in the language of the Luo of Kenya is nyieka, my partner in
jealousy. Hausa women in Nigeria refer to their co-wives as kishiya, the
same term for jealousy. Unlike self-identified fundamentalist Mormons
and most women involved in other forms of plural marriage, my female
Muslim subjects routinely reject the label of polygynists. Each says she
is monogamously married to one man; thus, only husbands are and have
plural spouses.
This campaign for self-definition, or expressions of gendered power,
gives women access to a sense of legal independence, and sometimes more
control over their material possibilities. Women boast about their ability
to maintain control over spousal and familial relationships in their indi-
vidual living quarters, though some complain about the lack of courtesy
and/or respect shown by co-wives who find reason to contact a husband
when he is scheduled to spend time in the residence of another wife. While
co-wives in each family usually collaborate on their husbands schedule
with each wife and her children, and the personal time she shares with
her husband in common spaces (e.g., as a couple in the mosque, among
other Muslims, or within the larger society), they exert little power over
where they live unless they are financially able to make such arrangements
independently.
That is, although women are involved in some decisions regarding the
family, men continue to maintain their power and dominance over eco-
nomic structures and hold a position of power over their wives.8 In other
words, polygynous households are rarely, if ever, egalitarian. That said, one
way in which the borders of the public and private spheres appear more
fluid involves attempts by women to uphold their own, their husbands, and
communal expectations of the role of women in polygyny. Such endeavors
include public displays of agreement with and/or encouragement of plu-
ral marriage for their husbands and acknowledgment of polygyny as an
Islamic remedy to the social context of African Americans. By offering
up an issue of the private sphere to public scrutiny (at least among fellow
Muslims), women married to polygynous men confirm the fluidity of the
domains and their devotion to family life and the upbringing of children.
Indeed, a common rationale for female support of polygyny concurs with
the statement of a 59-year-old widow from North Carolina: I would con-
sider being in a polygynous marriage if the wife was unable to take care of
herself and family due to illness.
While the primary loyalty of African American Muslim women in
polygyny is reserved for their husbands and children, the somewhat insu-
lar nature of Muslim communities and the centrality of family life in Islam
248 Debra Majeed

often compels women to maintain ties with (and seek the approval/valida-
tion of ) other Muslims in their local mosque. Indeed, in most instances a
wife is expected to show her support/agreement with her husbands deci-
sion by proclaiming Quranic validation for polygyny, to acquiesce so that
her husband might shoulder responsibility for an imagined community
of orphans. While some Muslims and others question any relationship
between such expectations and female agency, the lived realities of women
married to polygynous men suggest the need for more nuanced character-
izations of terms such as autonomy and agency.
African American Muslim women married to polygynist husbands rou-
tinely serve as the standard bearers for the right of Muslim men to take up
to four wives. In doing so, they mirror the practice of medieval Muslims
who, according to Fazlur Rahman, took the permission clause of the
fourth chapter of the Quran to be absolute. I introduce the passage
below and conclude this chapter by taking up its central role in consider-
ation of the legality of American polygyny. For now, it is noteworthy that
even co-wives who struggle with jealousy, lack of resources, or are married
to men who are incapable of treating each of their wives with justiceand
therefore fail to live up to Islamic standards for marriageare often among
the first to reinforce a divine basis for husband-sharing.9 By declaring
faith in what they believe Allah has ordained for their husbands, these
women contextualize a form of household patriarchyone that affects
their communal status, but through which they may speak for themselves
to the world outside their home. Perhaps surprisingly, their speaking
involves a range of communication from support of communal interpreta-
tions of Islams sacred sources and acknowledging the legitimacy of other
children born to their husbands to identifying and interviewing prospec-
tive co-wives.
The experiences of African American Muslim women living in polyg-
yny provide evidence of the existence of different combinations of private-
public patriarchy, through which women negotiate and face exploitation
in the public-private spheres. As Elizabeth, a 54-year-old divorcee from
Wisconsin, explained:

I would consider being in a polygynous marriage where the sister chose

me as a co-wife along with her husband. If I were already married, I would
choose someone [as a co-wife] who complemented me (had characteristics I
lacked) and who was a good friend and believer.

According to Elizabeth, everyone benefitsat least theoretically

when Muslim women share their husbands in polygyny. Her preference
for a good friend and believer, indicates the value female respondents
place on amicable relationships with co-wives and the importance of a
shared understanding of Islamic guidelines for plural marriage. It speaks
as well to the emotional strain that some women experience and the ways
 Polygyny and Gendered Power 249

they attempt to get back at their husbands to resurrect for themselves a

degree of personal dignity. As one Midwestern explains:

I began to renege on my charity. You know, I wasnt paying the light bill.
When we had bills, whatever money was in the house that went towards
whatever the bills were. But I started using my money to do whatever I
wanted to do. Me and my daughter would go shopping, I would take her up
to the show. I was doing things that I normally would not have been doing.
And I guess it was me trying to deal with all of this traumatic situation that
I had going on. I was like, okay well if youre still telling people Im your
wife, then you have to take the full responsibility. And my charity is not
going to be part of it. So things were in disarray. Utilities shut off. And I
would say, hey, well its gonna have to go off so I would show him that this is
not acceptable. This does not meet the criteria that I think Allah gave the
guidelines for.

The above description of marital distress did not alter the behavior of
this sisters husband. As we have already seen, some women married to
polygynous men fight their battles in secret or take out their frustrations
against their husbands other wife in public. Unfortunately, few make
demands of their husbands that can be enforced. As the next section
makes clear, African American women recognize that their mosques, or
local religious communities, represent semi-autonomous fields that gen-
erate their own rules and have been known to coerce compliance.

The Path to What Islam Says about Polygyny

Returning to the couple on the verge of an early morning confrontation
whom we met at the opening of this chapter, Jamillah has braced herself
for the news that Naim has decided to expand his marital covering,
much like one replaces a picnic blanket designed for two with a larger one
to shield additional bodies from the elements. You see, in Islam, spouses
are a covering for each other, an adornment that protects husbands and
wives from the danger of moral transgressions.10 While Jamilah acknowl-
edged the possibility of polygyny when she married Naim, she failed to
prepare herself for the reality of sharing her husband with his other wife.
When Naim confirmed Jamillahs suspicions, one could argue that she
was about to do what nineteenth-century Mormon converts did: Step
out of the profane world and into a new spiritual space. Like most other
Muslims, Jamillah trusted the teachings she heard and read that situated
polygyny in the Quran as a male right, or at least a permissible practice for
contemporary Muslims. While she was aware that some Muslims disliked
the practice or challenged communal interpretations of its legitimacy in
the presence of civil laws that criminalize plural marriage, she also knew
of local leaders whose marriages were portrayed as model Muslim, whose
multiple wives where described as happy and pious believers, and whose
250 Debra Majeed

journeys to polygyny were told and retold as responses to a divine direc-

tive. (As was confirmed during a 2008 hearing of the Senate Committee on
the Judiciary, laws concerning marriage are usually reserved for the state
level. Multiple-spouse marriage is illegal in each of the 50 states, though
legislation involving sex-same marriage may place in question the finality
of legal prohibitions against polygyny.)
Logically, Jamillah knew she was free to leave her marriage at any time,
thanks to the Muslim marriage directive to live in peace or separate in
peace. In the absence of a civil registration of her marriage, Jamillah was
not bound by any state-imposed restrictions. Spiritually, however, she felt
trapped, caught between the additional belief that Allah hates divorce,
and appearing to be un-Islamic by using the imposition of polygyny as
her grounds for irreconcilable differences. She read her options through
consideration of two passages from the fourth chapter of the Quran, Al
Nisa (The Women), whose interpretation routinely reflects the interpret-
ers position on polygyny.
Though incidental to the Qurans more than 6,000 ayat, these passages
routinely serve as the guiding principle on polygyny in Islam. Ultimately,
Jamillah chose Islamor what she still insists is the Islamic rule of law on
plural marriage. As with other women who support or reject sharing a hus-
band, the process by which Jamillah arrived at her decision was a three-
tiered one. This process involves gaining knowledge and understanding of
Islamic rulings of polygyny from the three primary sources of authority:
the Quran, as the divine revelation to the Prophet Muhammad; sunna,
the path or lifestyle of the Prophet transmitted through the Quran,
his contemporaries, and early leaders; and hadith, or the reports of say-
ings and actions of the Prophet. Given its importance in rituals, such as
daily prayers, meditation, weddings, and funerals, and its revelatory sig-
nificance, the Quran is the single most consulted, read, memorized, and
recited source. Each Muslim home features at least one copy, depending
upon the size of the family; mosques retain several editions for the use of
believers and visitors. Some Muslims believe that sunna represent a second
form of revelation and are referenced in the Quran. They tend to associ-
ate with the traditionalist school of thought, which limits authoritative
consideration to the Quran and sunna, as the latter reflected the traditions
of the Prophet and the seventh-century community in Medina, where the
Prophet lived for the last ten years of his life. Even as informants reminded
me of the supremacy of the Quran, the manner in which some of them
lived the Quran, particularly regarding the rights they believed they pos-
sessed, often contradicted the sense of justice inherent in the Quran.
Generally, Muslims engage hadith less frequentlyduring lectures at
Friday congregational prayer services, classes on Islamic belief and tra-
dition, and conferences. Books of hadith address specific issues, such as
divorce, temporary marriage, the importance of accepting wedding invi-
tations, the obligatory mahr/dower (gift from the groom to the bride), the
types of women available for marriage, and the experiences of the Prophet
 Polygyny and Gendered Power 251

and his multiple wives. Those that convey information on polygyny provide
guidelines on a husbands time spent with responsibility for, and treatment
of, wives. Some hadith clearly indicate that jealousy is an expected emo-
tion experienced by women who share their husbands. A few confirm that
the Prophet refused to permit his daughter to share a husband against her
will. Others are more specific in terms of consequences and ambiguous in
respect to context, as illustrated in the following report from a collection
of 58 hadith on marriage:

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: When a man has two wives and he
is inclined to one of them, he will come on the Day of Resurrection with a
side hanging down.11

This recollection of Abu Dawood declares the consequences of prefer-

ring some wives over others as partial paralysis of the husband on the Day of
Judgment, without clarifying what forms preferential treatment might take.
Although the process of gaining knowledge about something and
understanding it is called fiqh, or jurisprudence, and the above sources
along with directives from Islamic schools of law represent Islamic juris-
prudence, few Muslims outside academic environments use such legalese
to describe how they go about deciding what is an Islamic action or
practice and how they apply it to their daily lives. More often, their actual
practice reflects Quranic exegesis, or interpretation; communal tradition
and responsibility; and personal consideration of theological and practical
options. While the weight devoted to each stage varies, the importance of
asbab al-nuzul, or the occasion of revelation as part of Quranic exegesis, is
a common starting point. For, as Rofah Mudzakir and others have argued,
the interpretation of the Quran cannot be separated from its context, in
which political, social and economic factors play a role. In other words,
with regard to African American Muslim women living in polygyny, dis-
cerning how they think through the Quran and construct rationale for
their decisions is a significant indicator of why they remain living in or
oppose polygyny. In this regard, my research expands the evidentiary
base.

Interpreting the Quran

Regardless of social context, most Muslims regard the Quran to be
the direct word of God to humanity through the Prophet Muhammad.
Although portions of the Quran have been translated into at least 114
languages, Muslims tend to ascribe more authenticity to the Quran as
written in Arabic, the language of revelation. In fact, most Muslims first
encounter the Quran as an oral experience whose ayat, or verses, are
recited, memorized, and prayed in Arabic, even though less than 20 per-
cent of the estimated 1.3 billion Muslims converse in Arabic. Thus, for some
Muslims, the multiple non-Arabic translations are at best approaches
252 Debra Majeed

that never completely recapture the original meaning. Still, translations

can be beneficial because a translation is a kind of explanation that can
throw light on the original through offering possible interpretations. Of
the multiple English-language approaches, The Quran: Text, Translation
and Commentary by Abdullah Yusuf Ali has sustained popularity among
American Muslims since its first publication in 1934, due in part to back-
ing from the Saudi government that enabled wide distribution. Copies of
Yusuf Alis translation are routinely presented as a gift to new Muslims,
and promoted as a translation of the Quran that is accessible to non-
Muslims, non-Arabic speakers/readers, and individuals who are fluid in
Arabic and whose native language is English. In fact, among the largest
contingent of African American Muslims, Yusuf Alis Quran replaced
the Muhammad Ali translation after W. D. Mohammed succeeded his
father as leader of the original Nation of Islam (NOI) in 1975. At the time,
Mohammed characterized the change as a move from the edition preferred
by W. D. Fard, NOI founder and former member (along with translator
Muhammad Ali) of the Lahore-based Ahmadiyya Muslim community, to
the highly readable, best Arabic to English translation available. While
they are aware of the aforementioned language issues that surround the
Quran as text, most African American Muslims refer to whatever ver-
sion they use as the Quran, leaving others to make distinctions between
Arabic and English editions. The sentiments of Barlas, a Muslim feminist,
resonate with the perspectives of African American Muslims: There is
no substitute for reading the Quran in Arabic, but, to me the word of God
is equally real in all languages. Whats more, as with supporters of the
leadership of Mohammed, African American Muslims tend to privilege
the version of the Quran used by their imams and other teachers. Thus,
African American Muslim women across the United States, like those
who regularly gather for weekend sisters classes at Masjid Ash Shaheed in
Charlotte, NC, Masjid Al Taqwa in Chicago, IL, and Sultan Muhammad
Masjid in Milwaukee, WI, depend on Yusuf Alis Quran as their primary
English translation to discern the will of Gd for their daily lives and
circumstances.
While the Quran addresses general issues relevant to marriage, it
appears almost silent on the question of multiple wivesa practice that
is as controversial today in the United States as it was in seventh-century
Arabia. Until the advent of Islam, tribal customs dictated that a man could
marry as many wives as he chose. While evidence of polyandry, or women
with multiple husbands, remains questionable, concerns about paternity
would ultimately limit wives to only one husband. As with other revela-
tions given to the Prophet, directives about polygyny were deeply con-
sonant with the sociocultural systems already in place throughout the
Middle East in Ahmeds assessment. Moreover, as Wadud explains: It
was impossible to mutually recognize and thus protect the fathers pater-
nal rights when a woman had more than one conjugal partner. Though
 Polygyny and Gendered Power 253

brief, these verses are part of a larger discussion of moral and social rules
for the developing community that had migrated to Medina from Mecca.
They are compiled as part of the third longest chapter in the Quran:
If ye fear that ye shall not be able to deal justly with the orphans, Marry
women of your choice, Two or three or four; but if ye fear that ye shall not
be able to deal justly (with them), then only one, or (a captive) that your
right hands possess, that will be more suitable, to prevent you from doing
injustice. (Q. 4: 3)
Ye are never able to be fair and just as between women, even if it is your
ardent desire: But turn not away (from a woman) altogether, so as to leave
her (as it were) hanging (in the air). If ye come to a friendly understand-
ing, and practise self-restraint, Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
(Q. 4: 129)

Unlike other suras or chapters in the Quran whose title may not fully
describe their contents, Al Nisa focuses on the rights and status of women.
When revealed, ayat 3 and 129 attempted to address an inequity concerning
the rights and maintenance of women and children, and the existing cus-
tomary practice that both became the property of men when they married
in pre-Islamic Arabia. The transmission of these passages to the Prophet
Muhammad followed the deaths of dozens of men from the nascent
Muslim community in 625 during the Battle of Uhud, the second of three
major and early conflicts. While examinations of Islamic legal materials
routinely promote these ayat together as a divinely inspired reform in Arab
history that served to repudiate one expression of patriarchy and protect
women and children from abuse and destitution, no consensus exists about
how, where, or when Al Nisa should be invoked in contemporary societies.
Today, these passages are regularly treated as isolated prescriptions for the
practice of polygyny that limit egalitarian constructions of relationships
between husbands and wives and among co-wives. Quranic interpreta-
tion can be a complicated issue, especially when one seeks confirmation
for an established or preferred position. To African American women, the
process of discerning what the Quran says and means and applying that
knowledge for twenty-first century Muslims can be a deeply personal one
that varies depending on the individual and her religious, emotional, and
practical resources. As with other Muslims, how they interpret the sources
of Islam heavily influences their performance of gendered power.
Since 2003, when my inquiry began in 13 predominately African
American mosques, research indicates that many men and women
involved in polygyny in the United States are victims of erroneous com-
munal teachings and explanations of the Quran based on faulty and/or
culturally specific interpretations. Indeed, theirs is a romantic attach-
ment to polygyny, one that affords an opportunity to demonstrate their
autonomy from Americas racist and dominant culture, emboldened by
the full weight of the fastest growing religion in the world.
254 Debra Majeed

On the Search for a Co-Wife

For some women, polygyny enables entry into marriage as the only legiti-
mate arena for sexual intercourse and procreation. They are willing to use
their marriages as their personal jihad because polygyny provides a tool
for cultural survival in which the otherwise marginalized are able to seize
power from those who have dominated them.
A few women, who prefer to share a husband, choose polygyny because
they believe it to be the only way they authentically can practice in words
attributed to the Prophet, half of their religion. They also perceive polyg-
yny as a way to live a morally good life, assume the higher status enjoyed
by married female Muslims, and maintain their independence. Still other
women and men perceive this form of Muslim marriage to be a suitable
response to continued black suffering and as a method of survival that
links African American Muslims to their first generational Muslim ances-
tors. An African American religious leader in New York, among others,
characterizes black people as orphans in a foreign land and polygyny
as a response the domestic war waged against his community. His were
at war perspectives further illustrate the complexities of the practice of
polygyny. They also draw to mind the absence of viable support systems
in our communities to empower and sustain healthy marriages regardless
of form. The experiences of most African American Muslims who live in
polygynous households across the nation compel me to question, in the
words of Amina Wadud: How can there be justice if women do not expe-
rience it? Clearly some women do experience what they would consider to
be justice. And, while their journey of polygyny has not been without its
own challenges, they exhibit gendered power by advertising for wives for
their husbands and conducting initial interviews because, according to one:
I had to make sure that shed be the right fitnot just for my husband, but
for our whole family. When African American Muslim women recruit
potential co-wives through print advertising, Twitter accounts, Facebook
notices, and listserv announcements, they mirror the endeavors of Muslim
women in the United Kingdom, counterparts who seek to become the
second wife of a married man. By retaining control of additional wives,
these women also ensure their compatibility. Some women, like Qaedah,
a 38-year-old Texan, have entered polygynous households multiple times.
Qaedah declares: I absolutely love polygyny. For the sisters involved it
is in my opinion that they have all the benefits minus any of the stress
and pressure. I dont lose anything through polygyny. I gain in every way.
Qaedah had begun to network among friends and otherselectronically
and by word of mouthto secure another wife for her husband because
Inshallah she will be a part of the family. Qaedah, and other proponents,
contends that through polygyny, all Muslim American women have access
to marriage.
Interestingly, the US Supreme Court has heard and ruled on arguments
regarding polygamy several times. Attempts to validate the experience of
 Polygyny and Gendered Power 255

women as a strategy to ensure justice are common among scholars and other
activists who seek for Muslim women the full application of their rights.
Those who believe that Islam permits or gives the right to men to adopt
polygyny may differ regarding whether a potential wife must be a widow
or an orphan, and whether a husband should inform or gain approval of his
first wife before taking a second, third, or fourth. There is also the ques-
tion of the extent to which Islamic law permits a wife to obtain a divorce
and maintain her financial rights if polygyny is the issue of discord and
her husband does not want to end the marriage. Yet all lift up Al Nisa as a
timeless and culture-free authority, in effect the will of Allah for twenty-
first century Muslim families. In doing so, they raise family law issues that
retain the visibility of maleness in African American family life, but can
render justice elusive to too many Muslim women.

Conclusion
I approached this chapter with the goal to problematize the practice of
polygyny and considerations of gendered power. I set out to draw attention
to what Muslims and others privilege as household arrangements within
patriarchal structures that reach beyond the family into the public sphere,
where the mosque and the larger African American Muslim community
are sometimes situated. My position in a Midwestern, liberal arts environ-
ment affords me opportunities to link my scholarship and teaching. In
fact, my undergraduate students have learned about the possibilities inher-
ent in the Muslim female. As one writes: Muslim women are responsible
for their own empowerment as members of not only a widely-practiced
religious tradition and as contributing members of American society, but
also as scholars, mothers, wives, writers, gamers, poets, dancers, musi-
cians, activists, and any other roles which they fill as people, not solely
as Muslimahs or Americans. If, as Kecia Ali suggests, there are times in
which the Quran requires Muslims to depart from its literal provisions
in order to establish justice, helping show American Muslim women what
they can do about polygyny and exert the gendered power given to them
by their Creator is one of those times.

Notes
1. Salat is synonmous with required prayer; the predawn prayer is one of five
devoted Muslims make every day.
2. Like polygyny, muta marriage also is controversial. In contrast, muta mar-
riage is considered a pleasure or temporary union between a man (married
or unmarried) and an unmarried woman for a specified period of time and
an exact sum of money. Muta marriage is not recognized by US law.
3. Unlike English law practiced in the United Kingdom, civil law in the United
States does not recognize plural marriages contracted anywhere, even if
valid in their countries of origin. Anika Liversage, email conversation with
256 Debra Majeed

author, December 2022, 2011. Katharine Charsley and Anika Liversage

are coauthors of Transforming Polygamy, Global Networks 13, no. 1 (2013):
6078.
4. For an interesting, though somewhat dated, discussion of the gendered
application of moral imperatives, see Erica Friedl, Islam and Tribal
Women in a Village in Iran, in Unspoken Worlds: Womens Religious Lives in
Non-Western Cultures, ed. N. A. Falk and R. M. Gross (San Francisco, CA:
Harper & Row, 1980).
5. Though indebted to feminist thinking, Asma Barlas is one Muslim scholar
who does not identify herself as a feminist, prefering instead to say I am
a believer until there is greater clarity within the Muslim community
about what feminism is; Asma Barlas, Interview with Asma Barlas: It
is the Right for Every Muslim to Interpret the Quran for Themselves,
Liberal Islam Network, January 11, 2007, http://www.mpvusa.org/uploads
/Interviewwith_Asma_Barlas.pdf. See also Asma Barlass Un-reading
Patriarchal Interpretations of the Quran. A notable dissenter, Fatima
Mernissi (1987), contends that Islam is inherently patriarchal.
6. It is noteworthy that these scholars object to the expectation that a single
authentic interpretation of the Quran exists or that exegetical uniformity
should be a goal of all Muslims. As Barlas has stated: I do not think we
should strive towards uniformity, because that is the mark of fundamen-
talism (Interview with Asma Barlas).
7. One of the most recent works to focus on the commual nature of polygyny
is Nina Nurmilas Women, Islam and Everyday Life: Renegotiating Polygamy in
Indonesia (London and New York: Routledge, 2009).
8. Most polygynists establish separate households for each wife. Only rarely
do African American Muslim women who share their husbands view them-
selves and their co-wives as part a combined family unit.
9. Audrey Chapman coined the term man-sharing as the most accurate
characterization of what she observed in African American male-female
relationships.
10. Quran 2: 187.
11. Hadith in Sunan of Abu Dawood #2128, narrated by Abu Hurairah,
http://muttaqun.com/polygany.html. The plural of hadith is ahadith, but I
have chosen to use a single spelling for all references for the purposes of
clarity.

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 CHAPTER 16

MUSLIM-A MERICANS: BETWEEN

THE CHALLENGE OF POLICING AND
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Elizabeth Bishop

Introduction
This chapter investigates the experiences of a Muslim, and a person who
occupies an equivalent political space, self-identifying as Muslim. A mutual
relationship with the upstate-downstate dynamics of Illinois politics con-
nects the two. Positivistic methods are widely accepted among research-
ers of the historical present, who analyze documents in public archives, as
well as materials published via print and social media. Using this particular
approach, I consulted documents from the recent past, generated at mul-
tiple sites around the world and within different institutions. This chapter
traces the overlap of institutional and intellectual histories in the twenty-
first century United States, asking: In what ways are the experiences of
Muslims (as well as those who identify with the values of the Islamic com-
munity) distinct from those of the general population? Acknowledging a
debt to semiotic studies of culture, the first sections of this chapter explore
signifiers such as Bridgeview/Bridgeport, New York/Chicago, and Chicago/
downstate, in order to identify the distinctions between community-
oriented policing programs known as CAPS in different jurisdictions.

Kifah Mustapha
A Lebanese of Palestinian descent, Kifah Mustapha served as imam and
director at Bridgeviews Mosque Foundation since 2002. Thirty immi-
grant families from the Palestinian town of Beitunia founded the Mosque
Foundation during 1954, making Bridgeview one of the Chicago areas old-
est and most numerous Islamic communities. Located on the South Side
just off Interstate-294, its architectural size and the variety of services
offered (azza for the departed, a community center, a designated coun-
selor for female congregants, a food pantry, and a weekend school) index its
continuous growth sustained over the following decades. Kifah Mustapha
260 Elizabeth Bishop

exemplifies the characteristic of outreach spirit in Bridgeview, joining

the US Federal Emergency Management Agency as a designated chaplain,
helping to counsel the victims of Hurricane Katrina during 2006.
In the 2000 census, Arabs (along with Irish, Italians, Germans, and
Poles) comprised 3.97 percent of Bridgeviews residents other races; most
residents (87.42 percent) were white, 9.42 percent Hispanic, and 2 per-
cent African American. On the southwest side of Midway Airport on
the Des Plaines River, Bridgeview is an hours subway and bus ride away
from the Bridgeport neighborhood on the same Des Plaines River. While
Bridgeview was home to the Mosque Foundation, Bridgeport (an iconic
working class white neighborhood) was home to a list of Chicago may-
ors: Ed Kelly, Martin Kennely, Richard J. Daley, Michael Bilandic, and
Richard M. Daley (Sampson 2012: 429; Sullivan et al. 2014).
And just as Bridgeviews residents experiences contrast with those
of Bridgeport, Chicago (population 2,719 million) is frequently called a
second city in comparison with New York (population 8,406 million).
The experiences of Chicago Muslims contrast with those of the numeri-
cally larger community in New York. First, while the community has
fewer members, the percentage of Muslims is marginally higher in the
State of Illinois (2,800 per 100,000 population) than in New York State
(2,028). More significantly for this discussion, the two communities have
distinctly different relations with regard to law enforcement in their
respective jurisdictions; both must be analyzed in the context of recent
developments in policing. This is particularly evident since, nationwide,
more and more police departments adopted Chicago Alternative Policing
Strategy (CAPS) over the past 25 years.
CAPS empowers police to intervene in a wide range of activities,
retaining their crime-fighting responsibilities as well as intervening
in problems associated with disorder, and overall quality of life in the
communities they represent, encouraging law officers to actively engage
residents, justifying eliminating conditions that foster crime, a kind of
zero-tolerance policing that many say leads to police abuse (Balesta 2000).
Such interventions include (but are not limited to) disorderly conduct,
domestic violence, drug abuse, drunkenness, graffiti painters and vandals,
panhandlers, prostitution, public urination, and weapons possession.
Community policing is rooted in two theories of neighborhood crime:
broken windows and social disorganization (Tonny 2011). Introduced by
criminologists James Q Wilson and George L. Kelling, broken windows
policing envisions police officers interacting with local residents, identify-
ing with them and becoming accountable with them; the presence of the
community legitimizes the interventions of police. In New York, broken
windows policing characterized the leadership of Commissioner Bill
Bratton; there, a Police Foundation channels donations to fund research
supporting policing philosophies and tactics that guide the New York
Police Department (NYPD).
 Muslim-Americans 261

To be successful, CAPS requires communities trust and cooperation.

At a Police Foundation function, Bratton pointed to geographical drops
in crime alongside a map showcasing an accompanying rise in property
value in the same neighborhoods, marveling at the apparent correlation:
Its actually incredibly inspiring to see what the work of the NYPD has
achieved . . . Lets thank them for all theyve done. I will also note, as a hom-
eowner in Brooklyn, I was struck by the real-estate value map. Theres
good news all around tonight (Molina 2014). CAPS encounters its great-
est challenges among immigrants.
In New York, a Police Department surveillance unit cataloged infor-
mation on Muslim communities. The Central Intelligence Agency
helped the NYPD develop a Demographics Unitor Zone Assessment
Unitafter September 11, in order to monitor Muslim-owned busi-
nesses, mosques, and community centers. According to the Associated
Press, entire New York mosques were designated as terrorism enter-
prises to justify the use of invasive methods to spy on congregants
and imams. The American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil
Liberties Union, and the CLEAR Project at the City University of New
York Law School filed a lawsuit against the NYPD, claiming that the
program was both discriminatory and unconstitutional. In addition, a
senior official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that it harmed
national security by sowing mistrust for law enforcement among Muslim
communities.
Chicagos experience was different. Proponents of social disorganiza-
tion theory draw attention to communities unique socioeconomic char-
acteristics. Community heterogeneity (represented by the percentage of
minority residents and percentage of males in a community, according to
Osgood and Chambers 2000), socioeconomic status (measured by five
variables: the percentage of unemployment, percentage of single-parent
households, percentage of young people between the ages of 15 and 24,
percentage of home ownership, and per capita income), and community
mobility (inverse of percentage of people having lived at the same address
since 1985) correlate with local crime.
Wesley G. Skogan and Susan M. Hartnett (1997) argued that crime in
Illinois most populous city was as rigidly segregated as its population, so
the highest risks actually were faced by the poor and racial minorities.
Mapping 600,000 incident reports onto the citys census maps, the two
researchers found that property crimes were evenly distributed through-
out the city, while personal and drug crimes varied from one neighborhood
to another. They concluded that residents of black Chicago were robbed
and raped at a rate more than four times the white rate, and Hispanics at
about twice the white rate; crimes that involved guns were seven times
more common in African-American neighborhoods and three times as
frequent in Hispanic areas (ibid: 23). These areas required more policing
to ensure their residents security.
262 Elizabeth Bishop

Yet Chicagos mayor Richard M. Daley (son of Richard M. Daley, of

iconic working class white Bridgeview) proclaimed the local police
department a boys club, and a closed shop, according to Skogan and
Hartnett (ibid). He suggested that for many, a police job guaranteed a cozy
sinecure, officers putting in their years (jockeying for inside jobs to get
off the street, covering up for one another when they made mistakes) in
order to retire young. In the community, Daley reported that police offi-
cers provided indifferent service, cruising past trouble spots, driving past
citizens who tried to wave down their cars, and responding slowly (if at all)
to 911 calls. Chicagos mayor insisted on engaging the organizational drift,
insularity, and what he described as the police forces failure to respond to
local needs.
Of Chicago, Skogan and Hartnett (ibid) observe: Many of the citys
white residents were older, living on fixed incomes that did not keep up
with inflating property values. Even homeowners and small business own-
ers shared an interest in keeping property taxes low (ibid: 27). The cost of
hiring new officers set a clear limit on the mayors options for dealing with
crime during the year leading up to the March 1995 mayoral primary; in
Chicago, volunteer groups such as the Chicago Alliance for Neighborhood
Safety called for a shift to community policing, reflecting the preferences
of the citys 38 percent white, 38 percent black, and 20 percent Hispanic
residents. CAPS would not augment property values; rather, Chicago vol-
unteers enhanced tenants security, by bringing neglectful landlords to
justice. In Chicago, communities (such as Bridgeport) and their leaders
(such as Imam Kifah Mustapha) were valued partners in CAPS.
Acknowledging that the residents of New York and Chicago have dis-
tinct needs from policing, we can also recognize that political priorities
are different at the levels of the city and state. While Chicago has more
grocery stores than bars, the rest of Illinois evidences distinctly differ-
ent values (with more bars than grocery stores). As a result, while CAPS
offered Chicago residents and their mayor an opportunity to extend secu-
rity to renters, the alliance of communities and police fared differently at
the state level. Illinois State Police are under the jurisdiction of the gover-
nors office in Springfield, and the politics of downstate are in contradic-
tion with those of Chicago.
Downstate both fears and envies Chicago; downstate are convinced
that Chicago gets their highway money and their school funds, so that
Chicago equals big city, big city equals crime, noise, traffic, welfare, and
poverty. The largest city and its suburbs tend to support Democratic can-
didates (such as Daley), while the rest of the state votes Republican (with
Republicans Big Jim Thompson, Jim Edgar, and George Ryan occu-
pying the governors office from the Bicentennial until the invasion of
Iraq). During 2010, under a Democratic governor, the Illinois State Police
appointed its first Muslim chaplain. At the time, the department had 37
volunteer clergy who provided spiritual support for troopers, employees,
 Muslim-Americans 263

and their families. Initially, local groups praised the appointment of Kifah
Mustapha as a gesture toward diversity among the forces 3,000 persons.
Within days, Mustaphas appointment came under criticism. Most came
from the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a Washington-based
think tank that Steven Emerson founded the year after PBS televized his
documentary Jihad in America. Responses to this work were mixed, as
were responses to the IPT. While the documentary received the George
Palk award for best television documentary, Robert Friedman accused
Emerson of creating mass hysteria against American Arabs on the pages
of the Nation (1995); asked about how Emerson was perceived by fellow
journalists, Seymour Hersh replied: Hes poison. Nonetheless, Emerson
is frequently called to testify before Congress regarding the financing of
terrorism, and the structure of organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah,
and the Islamic Jihad. IPT researchers alleged that Mustapha was linked
to the Palestine Committee of Egypts outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
IPT researchers also alleged that Mustapha raised money for the Holy
Land Foundation (HLF). At the time, the HLF was the largest Islamic
charity organization in the United States, providing essential humani-
tarian aid to Palestinians who lived under Israels military occupation;
Charlotte Silver (2013) has pointed out that the US government had main-
tained diplomatic relations (albeit tepid) with Hamas, and that a Clinton-
era executive order designated those Palestinian groups that rejected the
Oslo accords to be terrorist organizations which threaten to disrupt the
Middle East peace process. The doctrine at the heart of the 1995 execu-
tive order was, in turn, evidenced in the governments case against the
HLF (Silver 2013).
Citing internal documents and unindicted coconspirators, Emerson
defended the IPT report, saying his group was prompted to investigate
after news of the appointment was published on the Bridgeview Mosque
Foundations website. While in an email, Emerson dismissed charges of
Islamophobia as empty diversions and without merit, Chicago-based
journalist Ali Abunimah cited Internal Revenue Service filings, to note
that the Russell Berrie Foundation was the source of the IPTs funds from
2010 until 2012. Abunimah quotes Fear, Inc. for the observation that
Emerson solicited money by telling donors theyre in imminent danger
from Muslims and boasts a history of fabricating evidence that perpetu-
ates conspiracies of radical Islam infiltrating America through Muslim
civil rights and advocacy organizations (Electronic Intifada, January 4,
2015). Nonetheless, on the basis of the IPT report, the Illinois State Police
revoked the appointment of the agencys first Muslim chaplain.
Citing only information revealed during a background check, deputy
chief public information officer for the Illinois State Police Master Sgt.
Isaiah Vega emailed reporters, simply stating that specific details of
background investigations are confidential and cannot be discussed.
Vega declined to comment on any connection between IPT allegations
264 Elizabeth Bishop

and Mustaphas dismissal. Mustapha was not charged with any crimes, and
denied that he had committed any wrongdoing.
The executive director Ahmed Rehab of the Council of American-
Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Chicago representing Mustapha, said: The
ISP is kowtowing to the run-of-the-mill fear-mongering that Islamophobes
have devoted their careers in order to avoid a public relations controversy.
According to the lawsuit filed on Mustaphas behalf, Illinois State Police
told Mustapha that he had passed only a preliminary background check
and another should have been conducted before the training; the lawsuit
also alleged that Mustapha was denied his First Amendment right to free-
dom of association (which prohibits the government from imposing guilt
by association). The CAIR lawsuit seeks damages, attorneys fees, and
Mustaphas reinstatement to the chaplain post.
Since these events, the Prayer Center of Orland Park has welcomed
Kifah Mustapha as its new imam and director. In his new leadership
role, he has taken the opportunity to emphasize the importance of fam-
ily, financial support, and unity, noting: It is the responsibility of the
mosques . . . to represent the unity of all Muslim ethnicities by opening its
doors welcoming worshipers of different backgrounds, as well as to pro-
vide opportunities for involvement in volunteering, and offering leading
positions in committees for the accountability that we all share to bring
wellness to the community we care about.
The same positivistic methods that track and analyze the case of Kafah
Mustapha can be used for a second case. Continuing to employ the same
methodology to trace the overlap of institutional and intellectual histories
in the twenty-first century United States, the second half of this chapter
incurs an additional debt to semiotic studies of culture. While the first
half of the chapter addressed a practicing Muslim and imam, the second
half addresses an individual who describes himself as having chosen to
occupy a political space that he defines as Muslim.

Steven Salaita
Many among the community of Muslims in the United States learned
about Steven Salaita during the first week of August 2014, when news
broke that this outspoken critic of Israels role in the latest conflict in
Gaza appears to have had his job offer at a major university retracted due
to his tweets and public comments on the matter (Erbentraut 2014).
Alluding to John Lennons 1969 song, Salaita stated in an interview that
he considered himself to occupy a political space as a Muslim, since he
said that describing me as an Arab Christian thus asks those who read
my work about anti-Arab racism, Israeli ethnic cleansing, and American
imperialism to give that work a chance, rather than dismissing it as typi-
cal Muslim disgruntlement (Mahjoub 2009). Salaita claimed affiliation
with Muslim brethren through a common emotional nexus, coded as
Arab, Christian, professor, and scholar. To identify politically with
 Muslim-Americans 265

his natal community, to be considered an Arab Christian is to perform

a specific rhetorical act, one that hopes to convince Americans to engage
Arabs as human, rather than barbarian; to identify him as a Christian
is to position him within an imagined affiliation with the millennial
community in the United States. Rather, he would appear to embrace the
affective politics of Muslim disgruntlement.
Born to a Jordanian Christian father, Salaita eventually started notic-
ing a lot of similarities in the types of colonial discourses that were being
used in the settlement of North America by Europeans, and then the set-
tlement of Palestine by Zionists, enrolling in a doctoral program in Native
American studies at the University of Oklahoma (Ramsey 2014). Stevens
dissertation, titled The Holy Land in Transit; Colonialism and the Quest
for Canaan, compared textual elements in two works of fiction, Gerald
Vizenors 1988 The Trickster of Liberty and Emile Shukri Habibys 1974
The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimit. Between these two novels, Salaita
found something inherent in setter colonialism that transforms discrete
colonized societies in fundamentally related ways; when reading across
cultures, it is not the Indigenous cultural traditions that demand compar-
ison, it is the governing factors of the colonial culture and how that cul-
ture affects the strategies of decolonial writers (2006). Furthermore, with
regard to the question of progressive Islam and progressive Muslims,
Salaita drew attention to the location of vocabularies and terminologies.
Concepts of what is politically progressive differ around the world. As
he pointed out, the categories of politics among Muslims; there are politi-
cal progressives all over the Muslim world, based on the way the term is
understood here, in the UK or in the United States. With that in mind,
members of the US Muslim community were swift to recognize the sig-
nificance of Salaitas case ( Jaschik 2014).
At Norman, Robert Warrior (citizen of the Osage Nation) was one of
four supervisors on Salaitas dissertation committee. Warrior subsequently
moved on to Stanford University (where, perhaps under the intellectual
influence of his former student, pursuing a project of mutual interest, he
noted that liberation theologies uses of biblical paradigms of liberation, are
based on direct readings of Exodus, overlooking the experience of indig-
enous Canaanites). After completing his degree program, Salaita held a
visiting position at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in American
and Ethnic American Literatures. One index suggests he enjoyed success
with students; those who took courses with him at Wisconsin deemed
him amazing, awesome, fantastic, funny and very passionate about
what he teaches, great, SO cool, totally upbeat, easygoing, and under-
standing, and wonderful; he was awarded a coveted pepper for personal
attractiveness (Steven Salaita).
From Whitewater, Salaita moved on to a tenure-track post in the
English Department in Blacksburg, Virginia. While teaching at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University, additional indices suggest
Salaita enjoyed professional prominence, as well as a strong rapport with
266 Elizabeth Bishop

students. Google Books lists eight sole-authored texts; JSTOR registers

a further 89 items under his name. Published overseas, his ideas found a
global audience. Teaching American literature, a terrorist attack inter-
rupted Salaitas daily experiences. On April 16, 2007, a senior at the uni-
versity shot and killed 32 people, wounding 17 others. Many of the victims
were students shot in a dorm and a classroom building, creating scenes of
mass chaos as some students were lined up against a wall and shot; others
jumped out of windows to escape. This was the deadliest incident by a
single gunman in US history (Tucker 2014).
Virginia Techs president Charles Steger considered the shooting to
have been a tragedy of monumental proportions (Vargas and du Lac
2012). Two years later, Salaita told Nadim Mahjoub in London: Im an
English teacher at Virginia Tech which was once a rather anonymous col-
lege in the southern part of the United States until a few years ago when a
massacre took place there; it is now the college version of Columbine High
[in Littleton CO], everyone knows it because of the massacre (Mahjoub
and Salaita 2005). Later, a student acknowledged that his American litera-
ture professor helped transform a traumatizing experience, into one that
could be faced (Des Garennes and Wurth 2014).
In London, reading from his most recent book of essays, The Uncultured
Wars: Arabs, Muslims and the Poverty of Liberal Thought, Salaita distin-
guished those who claim to work on (or above) morality, from egalitarian
politics: That moralists are hypocrites isnt breaking news. Rather the
news is that each speaker self-identifies as an advocate of justice with-
out having any real awareness of those most in need of justice; in fact, each
speaker manages to nullify those most in need of justice even as he or she
pretends to speak on their behalf. And thats the problem (Mahjoub and
Salaita 2005). Liberal salvos for justice are fundamentally unjust, because
they justify perpetual intervention. For him, a solution to this problem is
easy; morality need not be moralism; rather, morality requires engaging
all others as moral equals (ibid).
Virginia Tech tenured Salaita, guaranteeing him protection for chal-
lenging ideas such as this qualification of moralism. Salaita took a more
controversial position when his 16-month-old son was teething and hun-
gry during a cross-country drive, and a worker in a convenience store
asked the father to donate a few coins to the troops, that the troops
had become a sign that concealed capitalism. I returned to the car, won-
dering if it will ever be possible to escape the inveterate branding of war
as a civic asset in the United States. My son happily grabbed his snack and
giggled as I jingled the change before dropping it into the ashtray. On
the basis of this family incident, Salaita stated, in an essay for Salon.com:
Compulsory patriotism does nothing for soldiers who risk their lives
but props up those who profit from war (Salaita).
Salaita distinguished between the signifier and the signified, when he
observed: I do not begrudge the troops for availing themselves of any
benefits companies choose to offer, nor do I begrudge the companies for
 Muslim-Americans 267

offering those benefits; of greater interest is what the phenomenon of cor-

porate charity for the troops tells us about commercial conduct in an era
of compulsory patriotism. From that conversation in a convenience store,
he deduced: Corporations care far less about the individuals who hap-
pen to have served in the military than they do about the troops as an
exploitable consumer category (ibid). Observations to his semiotic analy-
sis included a variety of responses: Ive had a lot of currently-serving folks
and veterans tell me that they agreed with and appreciated the point of
view that I offer. Theres been a little bit of sort of anger, sort of a type of
vitriol about the point of view. Otherwise, its generated a lot of discus-
sion (Patterson 2013), which included death threats and racist, homopho-
bic, and sexist messages targeted him (Abeysekara et al. 2013).
While the general publics responses included support (as well as attacks),
the academic profession was more hostile: while Virginia Techs associate
vice president for University Relations Larry Hincker acknowledge[d]
the universitys commitment to academic freedom, . . . he also took the
opportunity to join Dr. Salaitas critics and to distance Dr. Salaita from
what Mr. Hincker claimed was the collective psyche and collective opin-
ion of the Virginia Tech community (ibid).
By 2014, Salaita was in transition. The American Indian Studies Program
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) announced
a nationwide, all-ranks search that previous summer. The committee
sought an interdisciplinary American Indian or Indigenous Studies candi-
date with an emphasis on Native peoples from regions of North America
where the campus is located, including the Lower Great Lakes, the Upper
Mississippi, and the Mississippi cultural regions; the committee opened
their search criteria wide, acknowledging their receptiveness to candi-
dates whose research focuses on design and fine arts, linguistics, language
revitalization, environmental studies, landscape architecture, critical
geographies, and disability studies. Salaita was the successful candidate;
he, his wife, and young son (to whom he referred in the article on patrio-
tism) were leaving Virginia.
Students at the UIUC were in solidarity with the politics of the region.
As the American Studies Associations members voted in support of aca-
demic boycott, the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)
wrote its unqualified endorsement of the resolution, further stating: In
struggling alongside the Palestinians in their effort to determine their
own destiny, we must acknowledge the myriad ways in which the coun-
try we stand upon has been built on denying the self-determination of so
many othersfrom the Native societies it destroyed in the processes of
state-formation and continental expansion, to the African societies the
enslavement and brutalization of which formed the backbone of our cur-
rent economic system. The UIUC SJP also erected a mock-up of the apart-
heid wall; a photograph of this illustrated Salaitas article How to Practice
BDS in Academe (May 2014), in which he noted: For many decades,
speaking in favor of marginalized groups has resulted in denunciation
268 Elizabeth Bishop

or termination, especially vis-a-vis African Americans and Indigenous

peoples . . . groups affected by this problem include women, queers, ethnic
minorities, Marxists, transgender people, Muslims and Jews, which makes
the situation at hand both ironic and depressing (2014).
During the last week of July 2014, his name joined this list. It was
Ramadan. Like many academics on summer break, like those of many
Muslims in the United States, a second terrorist attack interrupted
Salaitas daily experiences. On 10 Ramadan 1435 AH ( July 8, 2014 CE),
Israel launched air and naval strikes against the civilian population of
the Gaza Strip, which its military planners called Operation Protective
Edge. Around the world, the first of solidarity demonstrations took
place in Amman, Athens, Berlin, Birmingham, Blida, Bordeaux, Cardiff,
Chicago, Chittagong, Edinburgh, Geneva, Glasgow, Gteborg, Haifa,
Hebron, Helsinki, Jakarta, London, Lille, Los Angeles, Lyon, Marseille,
Melbourne, Montral, Mnchen, Philadelphia, Pretoria, Salford, Seattle,
Strasburg, Swansea, Tel Aviv, Tempe, Toulouse, Tunis, Washington,
DC, and Waterloo (Ontario). All took place on July 11 and 12, 2014. The
Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed 170 dead and 1,100 wounded
(Neuman 2014).
Children were prominent among Gazas victims. National Broadcasting
Company (NBC) veteran correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin reported
that he and other journalists had played soccer on the beach with four
Palestinian boys from one family. Moments later, Ahed Atef Bakr and
Zakaria Ahed Bakr (both 10 years old), Mohamed Ramez Bakr (aged 11),
and Ismael Mohamed Bakr (9) were dead, apparently hit in Israeli naval
shelling near the port area (Mohyeldin et al. 2014). After reporting the
attack, it was stated that NBC executives ordered Mohyeldin to leave
Gaza immediately (to be replaced by another correspondent who had
never been to Gaza and speaks no Arabic). Citizens in Athens, Austin,
Barcelona, Berlin, Chicago, Hartford, stanbul, Karawang, Kbenhavn,
Lahore, Marrakesh, Montral, Nablus, New York City, Orlans, Palo
Alto, Salinas, Tehran, Toulouse, and Tunis held demonstrations over July
1618. Additional protests were held in Auckland, Colombo, Columbus,
Grand Rapids, Haifa, Hamilton, Karachi, Mauritius, Mexico City, Salt
Lake City, Srinagar, Tampa, Victoria, and Winnipeg (as well as other cit-
ies) on July 19. While ultimately Cable News Networks (CNN) Brian
Stelter acknowledged that public backlash played a role in the networks
decision to reinstate Mohyeldin (CNN Money 2014), those under the age
of 12 remained particularly vulnerable to this kind of asymmetrical com-
bat. As a UNICEF spokesperson observed: Children make up for 30% of
the civilian casualties (Mohyeldin et al. 2014).
With morgues overflowing, medics were forced to pack babies bodies
in freezers conventionally used to chill ice cream (ibid). Deputy speaker
of the Knesset Moshe Feiglin called for concentration camps in Gaza
(ibid). The presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela
unanimously condemned Israels disproportionate use of force in Gaza
 Muslim-Americans 269

(ibid). The first Muslim to sit on Great Britains cabinet, Lady Sayeeda
Warsi, announced that she had tendered her resignation via Twitter.
Later, Salaita admitted: Nothing affected me more than the ice cream
freezers. He connected his nostalgia of ice cream freezers storing
sweets to make children happy, to ice cream freezers in Gaza storing
the deceased bodies of children. He concluded his speech with a grue-
some image painted in the audiences heads and where it all began: thus
I tweeted (Iannielo 2014).
The day after Lady Warsis resignation, US political theorist Corey
Robin blogged: Until two weeks ago, Steven Salaita was heading to a job
at the University of Illinois as a professor of American Indian Studies. He
had already resigned from his position at Virginia Tech; everything seemed
sewn up. Now the chancellor of the University of Illinois has overturned
Salaitas appointment and rescinded the offer. Because of Israel (Salaita
2014). Robins blog inspired the Muslim Media Review to call for gestures
in support of Salaita, urging followers to read and promote his books, sign
a petition. On his behalf, Corey Robin blogged: For three reasons; [he] is
a friend on Facebook; . . . I have no doubt that an easily rattled administra-
tor would find some of my public writings on Israel and Palestine to have
crossed a line; . . . [and] Cary Nelson, who was once the president of the
American Association of University Professors (AAUP), has weighed in
in defense of this decision by the University of Illinois Chancello (2014).
Robin, too, urged readers to email the University of Illinois chancellor and
members of its board of trustees; to date, more than 18,000 have signed a
petition requesting corrective action (Phyllis M. Wise).
The Arab Daily News considered Salaitas firing to be indicative of a rise
of McCarthyism against Arabs and Muslims in the United States (Hanania
2014). Peter Schmidt reported for the Chronicle of Higher Education that the
University of Illinois last-minute decision to rescind the offer to Salaita
divided proponents of academic freedom (2014). Regarding his expres-
sions on Twitter, Robert Warrior, director of the program at Illinois, told
Inside Higher Ed: I think that any public statement that someone makes is
fair game for consideration. However, I dont think that everything some-
body says is part of his or her scholarly record. I have plenty of colleagues
with whom I disagree politically ( Jaschik 2014). The group California
Scholars for Academic Freedom agreed, noting in an Open Letter to
[UIUC] Chancellor Wise, that many attacks have been aimed at schol-
ars of Arab, Muslim or Middle Eastern descent or at scholars research-
ing and teaching about the Middle East, Arab and Muslim communities
(2014).
As a formality, faculty job offers have to receive the approval of the
institutions board of trustees; Salaita, who was to have joined the UIUC,
was informed by Chancellor Phyllis Wise that his appointment would
not go to the universitys board ( Jaschik 2014). In response, the AAUPs
current leadership noted the tone of his comments on Twitter about the
Israeli military action in Gaza, adding that because both Professor Salaita
270 Elizabeth Bishop

and the university administration have so far declined public comment, a

number of facts concerning this case remain unclear.
Ali Abunimah, in an interview with former president of the AAUP,
Professor Cary Nelson, learned that Nelson was directly advising national
Zionist organizations anti-Salaita campaign (2014). In the opinion of
Maheen Ahmed, vice president of Muslim Student AssociationWest,
the anti-Salaita campaign was built on anti-Muslim organizations (among
them, the Israel on Campus Coalition, whose board member Adam
Milstein contributes to the budgets of organizations that are racist and
Islamophobic) (Kane 2014). In an interview, Cary Nelson acknowledged
that Legal Insurrection (William Jacobsons blog) provided him screen-
shots of Salaitas Twitter page; Jacobsons blog also accepts Egypts Abdel
Fattah al-Sisi as a defender of religion, whose pious tone sets him apart
from former president Hosni Mubarak (Perry 2014).
AAUP president Rudy Fichtenbaum and vice president Hank
Riechman added: In particular, it is not certain whether the job offer had
already been made in writing when Professor Salaita was informed that
he would not be hired and hence whether or not Salaita could be consid-
ered to have already acquired the rights accruing to a faculty member at
Illinois. Fichtenbaumand Reichman concluded: However, if the infor-
mation communicated in yesterdays report is accurate, there is good rea-
son to fear that Professor Salaitas academic freedom and possibly that of
the Illinois faculty members who recommended hiring him have been vio-
lated (Fichtenbaum and Reichman 2014).

Conclusion
At the end of Ramadan, 15,000 Muslims gathered in Chicagos Toyota Park
to break their last fast and celebrate the beginning of Eid al-Fitr. Public
officials sent messages of support and commemorations to the organizers,
including the Mosque Foundation, as well as the Muslim American Society,
the Aqsa School, the University School, and others. State Comptroller
Judy Baar Topinka attended, to tell the crowd: Illinois is a very diverse
state and we are proud of all of the religious groups here. State Senator
Steven Landek (who also served Bridgeview as its Mayor) offered that the
Muslim American community is like other American communities, in
which people work hard to raise their families and contribute positively.
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn informed the group at the last minute that
he would not be able to attend, due to a prior commitment to take part in
a conference analyzing Chicagos growing violence. Members of the group
American Muslims for Palestine collected 5,000 signatures on postcards
addressed to President Barak Obama regarding Gaza.
In the AAUPs official statement on Salaita, Riechman affirmed the
academics freedom to express his political views: there was one important
caveat, however. Affirming that the AAUP is united in its commitment
 Muslim-Americans 271

to defend academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas more broadly,
the two academic executives deny his (and other academics) right to free-
dom of association, on the basis of this commitment we have opposed
efforts by some pro-Palestinian groups to endorse an academic boycott
of Israel. Those who comment on Salaitas tragedy observe that the civil
liberties of some are based on the radical repression of others. University
of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) employee Joe Isobakers letter (which the UIC
News refused to publish) states: There are hundreds, if not thousands, of
Arab and Muslim students at UIC; how safe and nurtured can they be
when one of the nine people on the Board is a man who prosecuted prom-
inent Palestinian activists Muhammad Salah, who has U.S. citizenship,
and Abdelhaleem Ashqar? (Abeysekara et al. 2013).

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 CONTRIBUTORS

Younes Abouyoub is a visiting researcher at Columbia University, the

United States. He holds a PhD degree in political sociology (Denis-
Diderot Paris VII University and Columbia University). He also has
degrees in English literature, Law, and Geopolitics. He has been a research
scholar in the Middle Institute at Columbia University (New York), and is
a contributor to Oxford Encyclopedia, many academic journals, and edited
books, the most recent being Towards the Dignity of Difference? Neither End
of History nor Clash of Civilizations (edited by Mojtaba Mahdavi and W.
Andy Knight, Ashgate, 2012). He is currently working on a book on Arab
Americans political praxis.
Naima Bendriss is a consultant in international development, immi-
gration and intercultural relations, and communication. She is also a
research associate at the Centre for Research on Immigration, Ethnicity
and Citizenship at University of Quebec at Montreal and Jacques Berque
Centre in Rabat. Her research interests relate to immigration, ethnic
studies, postcolonial studies, theories of social representations, and gen-
der studies. She is particularly interested in majority/minority relations,
identity struggles and strategies, Arab and Muslim minorities in North
America, the dominant representations of the Arab in Western dis-
course, geopolitical conflicts in the Arab world, minority feminism,
feminist movements in the Arab world, sexual violence against women in
armed conflict, and nonconsensual marriages.
Elizabeth Bishop is historian of Arab west Asia and north Africa at
Texas State University (San Marcos, Texas), researching nineteenth- and
twentieth-century workers movements and law in five jurisdictions, with
particular focus on Hashemite Iraq. Currently, she is collaborating with
Rula Quawas (University of Jordan) and Nadia Yaqub (University of
North CarolinaChapel Hill) on an interdisciplinary volume titled Bad
Girls of the Arab World, which utilizes a transnational feminist perspective
to explore the bad girl as an analytical category.
Lenie Brouwer is assistant professor at the Department of Social and
Cultural Anthropology at VU University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
She conducted anthropological research among Turkish families, and
Turkish and Moroccan runaway girls in the Netherlands and participated
in several international projects on social media and migrants. She is cur-
rently studying the role of social media on identity formation of migrant
youth in the Netherlands and in Morocco.
276 Contributors

Cyrus Ali Contractor is assistant professor at the Department of Political

Science and a member of the Center for International and Comparative
Studies at the University of Houston. His research interests include the
politics of the Middle East, particularly the Islamic Republic of Iran, and
sectarian politics in the region, comparative politics, international rela-
tions, US foreign policy in the Middle East, religion and politics, and the
congruence of state and society. His current research project focuses on
the political dispositions of Shia Muslims in the United States, specifically
the effect of religious narrative on political and social life. Additionally,
this focus includes the importance of diaspora and transnational influ-
ences between Shias in the West and the Muslim world. He has featured
on various media outlets as a reliable source of analysis on matters dealing
with the Middle East and Muslim American political and social issues.
Eda Dedebas Dundar is a visiting scholar at University of Washington,
Seattle, and a lecturer (and a former postdoctoral fellow) at University of
Nevada, Reno. She received her PhD degree in Comparative Literature
from University of Connecticut in 2013. She is currently working on her
book manuscript, tentatively titled Adapting Shahrazads Odyssey: The
Female Traveler and Storyteller in Victorian and Contemporary Middle
Eastern Literature. Her research interests include women writers from the
Middle East, contemporary Anglophone literature, and travel writing.
Moha Ennaji is one of Moroccos leading academics with research interests
in culture, migration, gender issues, and language. He is the president of the
South North Center for Intercultural Dialogue and a founding president
of the International Institute for Languages and Cultures at Fs, Morocco.
His recent books are Muslim Moroccan Migrants in Europe (Palgrave, 2014),
Multiculturalism and Democracy in North Africa (editor, Routledge, 2014),
Gender and Violence in the Middle East (coeditor, Routledge, 2011), Women in
the Middle East and North Africa (coeditor, Routledge, 2010), and Migration
and Gender in Morocco (coauthor, Red Sea Press, 2008).
Marcia C. Inhorn is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of
Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University, where
she has served as chair of the Council on Middle East Studies in The
Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area
Studies. A specialist on Middle Eastern gender, religion, and health,
Inhorn has conducted research on the social impact of infertility and
assisted reproductive technologies in Egypt, Lebanon, the United Arab
Emirates, and Arab America over the past 30 years. She is the author of
four award-winning books on the subject, including her most recent, The
New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle
East (Princeton University Press, 2012). Her newest book, Cosmopolitan
Conceptions: IVF Sojourns in Global Dubai, will be published by Duke
University Press in fall 2015. Inhorn is also the editor or coeditor of
nine volumes, including Globalized Fatherhood (Berghahn, 2014), Medical
 Contributors 277

Anthropology at the Intersections: Histories, Activisms, and Futures (Duke

University Press, 2012), and Islam and Assisted Reproductive Technologies:
Sunni and Shia Perspectives (Berghahn, 2012).
Denise Laszewski Jenison is a researcher at Kent State University in
Kent, Ohio. Her research focuses on Arab American efforts to influ-
ence the debate over Palestine in the United States during the 1940s. She
currently teaches US, World, and Middle Eastern history at Kent State
University and the University of Akron.
Debra Majeed is professor of Religious Studies at Beloit College. She
is the first African American female and first Muslim to be tenured in
the 168-year history of Beloit College. Majeed received her PhD degree
in Religious and Theological Studies from Northwestern University in
2001. She has published in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, the
Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in America, the Encyclopedia of Women
in Islamic Cultures, and Delving Deeper Shades of Purple: Charting Twenty
Years of Womanist Approaches in Religion and Society, among others. An
international speaker, Majeed is actively engaged in interfaith dialogue.
She has also served as a resource for several media groups including
the Washington Post, and has appeared on NPRs News & Notes. Her
first book, POLYGYNY: What It Means When African American Muslims
Share Their Husbands will be published in spring 2015 by University of
Florida Press. She is married, the proud aunt of three, and lives in Beloit,
Wisconsin.
Haideh Moghissi is a professor of Sociology and Equity Studies. She was
a founder of the Iranian National Union of Women and was a member
of its first executive and editorial boards, before leaving Iran in 1984.
At York University, Professor Moghissi has served as associate dean of
External and International Relations for the Faculty of Liberal Arts and
Professional Studies, and as a member of the executive committee of
the Centre for Refugee Studies and Graduate Program in Women and
Gender Studies. Her second book, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism:
The Limits of Post-Modern Analysis, won the Choice Outstanding Academic
Books Award for Sociology and has been translated into multiple lan-
guages. Professor Moghissis body of research focusses on gender and
Islam, Muslim diasporas, and race relations. In recognition of her influen-
tial body of work Professor Moghissi was awarded a Trudeau Foundation
Fellowship in 2011.
Jan Jaap de Ruiter (www.janjaapderuiter.eu) studied Arabic language and
literature and is assistant professor in Tilburg University, the Netherlands.
His research focuses both on the sociolinguistic study of Standard and
dialectal Arabic and on Islam in Europe. He has published on both sub-
jects extensively. His most recent books are Les jeunes Marocains et leurs
langue (lHarmattan, 2006), The Speck in Your Brothers Eye: Islams Perceived
War against the West (Rozenberg, 2011, 2013), and Evolution des pratiques et
278 Contributors

reprsentations langagires dans le Maroc du vingt-et-unime sicle (lHarmattan,

2013), in collaboration with M. Bentez-Fernndez, C. Miller, and Y.
Tamer.
Fatima Sadiqi is professor of Linguistics and Gender Studies. She has
written extensively on Moroccan languages and Moroccan womens
issues. She is the author of Women, Gender, and Language in Morocco (Brill,
2003), acclaimed by many critics as the first book on feminist linguistics
in the Arab-Islamic world. Her Harvard Fellowship allowed her to start
her new book Berber Womens Religious Expressions. Fatima Sadiqi has also
coauthored, coedited, and cotranslated a number of books and articles.
She is editor-in-chief of Languages and Linguistics, an international jour-
nal, and serves on the editorial board of the Language and Gender, the first
international journal in the discipline. Her recent interest in gender and
migration is part of her concerns with how language, gender, and mobility
interact with culture in a fast-changing planet.
Susanne Schrter is professor of Anthropology of Colonial and
Postcolonial Orders, Goethe-University, Frankfurt; managing direc-
tor of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology; director of
the Frankfurt Research Center Global Islam; principle investigator of
the Cluster of Excellence Formation of Normative Orders at Frankfurt
University; and board member of the German Orient-Foundation. Her
major research interests cover Islamic feminism, anthropology of religions,
political Islam, peace and conflict studies, multicultural societies, multiple
modernities, normative orders, and social practices. Her recent publica-
tions include Gender and Islam in Southeast Asia: Womens Rights Movements,
Religious Resurgence and Local Traditions (Brill, 2013), Aceh: History, Politics
and Culture (together with Arndt Graf and Edwin Wieringa; ISEAS, 2010),
and Christianity in Indonesia: Perspectives of Power (Lit, 2010).
Karen Vintges is a senior lecturer in Social and Political Philosophy in
the Department of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. She has
published Philosophy as Passion: The Thinking of Simone de Beauvoir (Indiana
University Press, 1996 [originally in Dutch, 1992]), Feminism and the Final
Foucault (D. Taylor and K. Vintges, eds., Illinois University Press, 2004),
Women, Feminism and Fundamentalism (I. Dubel and K.Vintges, eds. SWP,
2007), and several other books in Dutch. She is currently composing a
book titled A New Dawn for The Second Sex. She coordinated a research
project funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
titled Women and Islam: New Perspectives (20082013).
Sherifa Zuhur is a visiting scholar at Center for Middle East Studies,
University of California, Berkeley. She is a research professor emerita
from the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College and
was a faculty member at the American University in Cairo; University
of California, Berkeley; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and
 Contributors 279

other universities. She was director of the Institute of Middle Eastern,

Islamic, and Strategic Studies, associate editor for the Review of Middle
East Studies, and president of the Association of Middle East Womens
Studies. Her research in Egypt has addressed contemporary Islamic
movements, gender politics, political formations and activism, minority
rights, and cultural expression, and includes the books Revealing Reveiling:
Islamist Ideology in Contemporary Egypt (State University of New York Press,
1992) and Egypt: Security, Political and Islamist Challenges (Strategic Studies
Institute, 2007). Her most recent book is Saudi Arabia (ABC-CLIO, 2012).
She has published 17 books and monographs and 150 articles and book
chapters.
 INDEX
activism, 12732
adaptation, 3
African American Muslim women,
24853
African Americans, 17981, 2437
American jihad, 1268, 1324
anti-Islamic rethorics, 21617
Arab Muslim Refugees, 17880
Arab-American community, 1926,
356, 425
Arab-American identity, 1819
Arab-Muslim Americans, 1920, 17789
belonging, 969, 1037
Canada, 34, 91119
citizenship, 925, 103
communication facilities, 114
cross-cultural feminism, 15661
cultural diversity, 717, 927, 1405
cultural patterns, 803
democracy, 15661
economic discrimination, 181
economy, 1734
ethnic oppression, 18991
Europe, 4
femininity, 24451
feminism, 1579
financial crisis, 1723
food, 13848
freedom of expression, 25965
gender and migration, 1689, 18991
gendered power, 2437
Germany, 21115
globalization, 1637
health disparities, 1823
identities, 7982, 947, 140
identity struggle, 1967
ideology of Islamization, 2318
immigrants, 957, 1401
integration, 3, 834, 1923
Islam, 4, 72, 91, 109, 23841, 24951
Islamic Enlightenment, 21618
Islamization, 2312
Islamophobia, 4, 2312
masculinity, 24451
media, 15361
memory, 13848
migration, 1637
migration waves, 1634
multiculturalism, 2, 723, 925, 99,
103, 1779
multiethnic contact, 108
Muslim Americans, 25965
Muslim associations, 21415
Muslim population, 35, 97, 106,
109, 2301
Muslim women, 1535, 1589, 18991
Muslims in America, 4, 1729, 11921,
1268, 17787, 260
Muslims in Canada, 34, 91119
Muslims in Europe, 45, 729,
10311, 20318
Muslims under threat, 22941
Mustapha, Kifah, 25964
neighborhood, 1079, 15361
Netherlands, 735, 103, 22941
nongovernment organizations,
803, 21415
paradoxes, 99
patriarchy, 2459
policing, 25965
political participation, 1268
polygyny, 2439
282 Index

Quran interpretation, 24853 state, 20311, 21416

struggle, 18991
race, 18991
racialization, 1956 traditionalism, 635, 20318
religion, 424, 538, 82, 956, 110, 23841 transnational relations, 11215
remittances, 171 transnationalism, 2, 73, 1037
resistence, 18991
respondents, 10911 United States, 34

Salafism, 20318 West, 45, 1718

Salafists, 20911
Salaita, Steven, 26470
Shiism, 1219
Shiism narratives, 1235
social consequences, 1701
social representation, 1901
Western democracies, 15461
Western media, 15361
Western values, 34, 967
women in Islam, 15361, 1637
women in Morocco, 1657
womens migration, 1667