The assimilation of my wife and me into American culture started in New Jersey in 1996. That is where we, both doctors, settled after moving from Pakistan.
As I started my medical residency at Monmouth Medical Center, she sacrificed her career for our newborn daughter and became a full-time homemaker. Our inability to afford a car left us stranded on weekends.
And even though a NJ Transit train station was right across from our home, round trips to Manhattan were expensive. This always left us one available and affordable excursion: a walk to the beach.
As practicing Muslims, you could recognize us from a mile away on the wooden boardwalk. My wife always chose to wear an outer garment with an Islamic head cover (burqa) and I kept a well-trimmed beard.
One thing we remember the most from those chilly evenings on the beach is the warmth of our interactions with the locals. Comments like "What a great day" and an occasional but curious "Where are you from?" were routine.
One decade and three children later, our nostalgia kicked in, and last week we planned a trip back to Long Branch. Same burqa. Same beard.
"See what a beautiful new middle school they built?" my wife said, trying (unsuccessfully) to distract our daughter from her Harry Potter book. And a few minutes later, when we reached the beach, it struck. While crossing the boardwalk, a woman on a bike, dressed in shorts and a tank top, scornfully yelled at my wife, "Assimilate!"
The rest of the day went by with us wondering, "Is it possible that we were more assimilated in American culture 15 years ago than now?"
So I went to my one-stop shop, Google, to understand the science of assimilation. Social scientists have primarily relied on four markers to measure cultural assimilation: socioeconomic status, spatial concentration, language attainment and intermarriages.
Data from Pew 2007 polls claims that Muslim-Americans share similar socioeconomic characteristics with the general U.S. population: one-fourth have a bachelor's degree or higher, one-fourth live in households with incomes of $75,000 per year or more and the majority are fluent in English.
With the exception of Dearborn, Mich., spatial concentration is not a prominent phenomenon among Muslim-Americans. And even though Islamic law prohibits Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims, 62 percent of Muslim-Americans say it's "OK" to marry non-Muslims.
President Barack Obama said in his 2009 Cairo speech, "American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building and lit the Olympic torch."
Trust me. Showing more skin (whether by removing burqas or shaving beards) would not have enriched our country. In reality, such an expectation to "assimilate" is antithetical to the freedoms that attract millions of talented immigrants to this great country of ours in the first place.
Just a day later, as we stopped at a rest area along the New Jersey Turnpike on our ride back home, a Caucasian woman approached my wife. With the same old New Jersey warmth, she said, "kaifa ha luk," an Arabic phrase meaning, "How are you?"
When my wife expressed in fluent English that she could not speak Arabic, her new acquaintance shared that she had lived in the United Arab Emirates and had Muslim friends.
Remembering the new middle school building, we are convinced the state of New Jersey is spending its taxpayer dollars in the right place: education.
For education may reveal that assimilation of most "Muslimericans" has already occurred.
A version of this article previously appeared in Asbury Park Press.
Faheem Younus is an adjunct faculty member for religion/history at the Community Colleges of Baltimore County and a clinical associate professor at the University of Maryland. He can be reached here.
Wajahat Ali: The Post-Osama Muslim American
Pew Study Sees Muslim Americans Assimilating : NPR
America's Muslims Aren't as Assimilated as You Think ...
Survey: U.S. Muslims Assimilated, Opposed to Extremism ...
How well are American Muslims fitting in? / The Christian Science ...
So the question is not whether they want to assimilate or not.
The question is about educating the American public that American Muslims, according to accepted criteria, have already assimilated.
The ball is in our court.
You don't understand how I can say that? Figures.
In Europe, the "non-assimilation" argument can be made a little more strongly, because there are literal Muslim ghettos.
In the U.S., Muslims are friends, neighbors and colleagues who are parts of the communities they live in. Except for some Muslim women who are distinguished by their wearing of a headscarf or veil, many American Muslims are not obviously Muslim, based on their appearance, alone. And even when they are -- they have counterparts from other religions and cultures who have visibly unique appearances, too.
To me, the entire "assimilation" argument is weak, and un-American. Until there's an actual and obvious problem with non-assimilation, any talk about Muslims' "need to assimilate" just sounds like essentially non-veiled prejudice.
As Americans, we're about freedom -- the freedom for all of us to live as we choose, as long as we're not breaking any laws, or directly attempting to restrict someone else's freedom to live as they choose.
It's those who think this basic right to freedom for all of us has exceptions to it who need to assimilate to American standards and values -- not American Muslims who are simply living as Americans who worship as Muslims.
Thanks for confessing that islam is dysfunctional in Europe.
Just want to tell you (not that you don’t know) that the problem is deep embedded in the Islamic frame of mind and teachings. Never was financial.
You also know that Shia, wahabists, talibans and islamists and their supporters wont assimilate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya
"Taqiyya is a practice emphasized in Shi'a Islam whereby adherents may conceal their beliefs when they are under threat, persecution, or compulsion."
So to me, most of these practices are not coming from pure qur'anic teachings but they are influenced by culture and traditions that the qur'an would condemn.
Stoning someone is barbaric. The Prophet himself taught that Allah prescribed excellence for everything. He said even when we slaughter an animal, he said make sure we sharpen the blade so it will spare suffering to the animal. Now what kind of suffering will take place stoning a human being. That's a contradiction to what the prophet taught.
24:35 Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The Parable of His Light is as if there were a Niche and within it a Lamp: the Lamp enclosed in Glass: the glass as it were a brilliant star: Lit from a blessed Tree, an Olive, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it: Light upon Light! Allah doth guide whom He will to His Light: Allah doth set forth Parables for men: and Allah doth know all things.
Neither is what American Muslims do and believe as American Muslims are a drop in the bucket (since there are 5MM muslims max in the USA) out of 1.5B muslims. Ditto for the Ahamdiya (who are not accepted as muslims by the Sunni or Shia and are on the verge of being banned in Indonesia and officially classified as non-Muslim in pakistan)
That said, the problem is more with the Sunni and unlike what many of the commentators on this site assert, they are not divided into "extermists" and "mainstream" muslims. Muslims are not black and white. Many so-called "mainstream muslims" - if not most - follow the Quran and the authentic (sahih) hadith of Bukhari and Muslim, and highly respect the explanation (tafsir) of ancient scholars like Ibn Kathir as well as modern scholars such as Qardawiwho is extremely popular and well-known in the Arab Mideast and is not insignificant (his tv show has a viewership of 40 million).
My time will be better spent going into the qur’an looking for guidance for my everyday practical life. To me the qur’an is a living book, not a book just to be memorized and recited for show. I am not into quoting a bunch scholars of the pass that don’t address my realities living in my time in America. I am not trying to take away from their scholary works but most of their works are outdated and their understanding of Qur’an needs to be upgraded.
I grew up listening to music on lps and 8 tracks and someone can have mastered the knowledge of lps and 8 tracks but their mastery skills are no good if they don’t know anything about cd’s, dvd’s and mp3’s. We have to live in the times, and the qur’an is a book for the times and is ahead of the times, always. But most of those scholars of the pass are not of the times. Especially, for America. The American language and cultural environment is what I was raised in, not the Middle East, Arabia or Africa.
Look what Allah says of Muhammed in a chapter of the qur'an named the "Heights". That means those who are high in the knowledge and wisdom but had to be taught their own wisdom by an unlettered Prophet because they did not share the knowledge with the poor and uneducated citizenry, and it became dull. In order to keep your pure it must be given out freely. Allah says we must believe in the unlettered prophet if we want to be guided.
7:158 Say: "O men! I am sent unto you all, as the Messenger of Allah, to Whom belongeth the dominion of the heavens and the earth: there is no god but He: it is He That giveth both life and death. So believe in Allah and His Messenger, the Unlettered Prophet, who believeth in Allah and His words: follow him that (so) ye may be guided."
In this case, Shia Muslims in the United States.
Shia Muslims who appear to be at least as assimilated as their non-Muslim counterparts.
http://dearborn.patch.com/articles/hundreds-stand-together-for-peace-at-dearborns-islamic-center#photo-5744864
To give a lot of attention to say I am Shia can lead to the worship of Ali and to give a lot of attention to saying I am Sunni can lead to the worship of Muhammed the Prophet. Even the term Shia as mentioned in the qur'an, as an arabic term, means to seperate yourself, to cut off, to become a sect and Allah condemns the Believers from cutting themselves off from each other. We are suppose to be one community (ummah). So if I were to identify myself with one of these traditions I would call myself a Sunni Muslim. Like I said I don't put a lot of emphasis on saying that I am.
My point is out of the many Shia Muslims I've met in America, who are immigrants, and the many Sunni immigrant Muslims I've met in America; mostly they are from Pakistan, Saudia Arabia, Malaysia, Egypt (North Africa) and Africa I find the Shia Muslims from Iran have been the most genuine towards me as an African America Muslim. They were less greedy for money when going to their business for services. They were very social and down to earth.
I presume the man in the video is Muslim. Odds are fairly high, too, that in the U.S., a corrections officer implementing capital punishment via lethal injection is technically Christian.
And, as you may know -- a given nation's policies are often not enthusiastically supported by the citizens of that nation, and so, this piece of information tells us, essentially .... nothing.
PS- Your mention of the Quran verse makes no sense, in connection with the information on capital punishment in Saudi Arabia. Beheading is the punishment for murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and armed robbers. Those verses in the Quran refer to fighting the "infidels" who were attempting to exterminate Muhammad and his followers.
Next.
"Note the word here: “Islamists.†Not “Muslims.†Islamism is a radical strain of Islam, based on politicized, theocratic, and extremist views associated with Salafist and Takfiri teachings. Al Qaeda is an organization of Islamists, as are other militant, jihadist groups. They are a danger as much to Muslims as they are to non-Muslims, responsible for countless terrorist attacks in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere across the Middle East and Eastern Asia, as much as they are for the slaughter of non-Muslims in the West. As I’ve written here before, being anti-Islamist is no more anti-Muslim than being anti-KKK is the same as being anti-Christian or anti-white. Unless, of course, you believe that all Muslims are militants, and all of Islam radical."
http://blogs.forbes.com/abigailesman/2011/05/31/truth-islamophobia-and-the-american-way-again/
If anti-Islamist commenters could be a bit more precise with their wording ("see above"), this could help to end a lot of the unproductive back-and-forth that occurs in every Muslim-related comment thread, I feel. It could also serve to clear up misconceptions about Muslims in general, in comparison to the small percentage of Muslims who are Islamists.
Mainstream American Muslims are assimilated.
Islamists (notably absent in the U.S.) will not assimilate.
Confusing the two groups causes a lot of needless debate and discussion.
Even anti-Islamists like the author of the article I quoted above know the difference.
If you were right, wouldn't there be some sort of general evidence, from the millions of Americans who worship as Muslims, that this is the case?
Do you really imagine that millions of American Muslims live like regular Americans, but are "closet radical Islamists"?
I've seen this approach taken with several groups, before -- "Christians believe", etc.
This kind of approach is *always* wrong, because beliefs are determined by individuals. What do Americans, believe, for instance?
People know enough Christians, or Americans, to know that just because someone is Christian, it doesn't imply anything, really about what they believe; ditto Americans (or any other religion, or nationality, or group).
People don't know enough Muslims, yet; hence all the misunderstanding.
Mark, do you claim to know more Islam than a Muslim?
I'm pretty sure you know this.
That's one example.
You'd have to come up with 3 Million more examples, or so, to say that the majority of American Muslims are extremist (and, point to note: your example is about a now-retired) Imam in Australia, not the U.S.).
Until you can show that the majority of American Muslims are extremist, why would you cite examples of extremist Muslims at all?
Isn't that exactly like citing multiple stories about Christians who kill abortion-performing doctors, in a general discussion about Christianity, thereby implying that all Christians are potential doctor-killers?
As In: isn't your approach an attempt to create a reality-obscuring smokescreen?
Sure seems that way.
If not, I'm guessing because they're not as well known, yet, is all.
http://www.secularvoiceofbangladesh.org/Ahmadia_muslim_victims_by_shahriar_kabir.htm
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/52/009.html
How to define a Muslim? During the course of the inquiry, Justice Munir pointedly asked every muslim scholar who appeared before him if he knew of a definition of Islam which could be acceptable by the other sects as well; which could equally apply to everyone and by the help of which we could define, 'Yes, this is Muslim', and 'That is not Muslim'. In the report Justice Munir submits that no two scholars of all the Muslim scholars interrogated, agreed on a single definition of what Islam was.
In the case of one particular scholar, he wanted some more time to think over it, and Justice Kayani, who was a partner with Justice Munir, had a very peculiar sense of humour. His answer was: 'I cannot give you more time, because you have already taken more than thirteen hundred years to ponder over this question. Is that not enough ?
If thirteen centuries, plus some years are not enough for you to be able to define the very fundamentals of Islam - what is a definition? - how much more time would you require?'
I don't want to be insulting but based on what I've read it seems like the Ahmadiyya took basic Muslim beliefs and "sanitized" them for Western consumption. Supernatural elements are interpreted materialistically (e.g. "jinn" are human beings, Jesus swooned on the cross, etc.) Jihad is dropped. From a certain perspective the Ahmadiyya doesn't really offer anything special (over basic consensus Islamic teachings). It isn't shocking that there are conspiracy theories which suggest Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a "creation" of the British Empire.
On the other hand, Sufism is where the spiritual and philosophical depth of Islam through the centuries is found, Rumi , Hafeez, Ibn al-Arabi, al-Ghazali, Muhasibi, Rabia, al-Hallaj, etc. the poetry, the mysticism, the charismatic figures, exotic practices, Qawali, whirling dervishes, etc.
Also, the Ahmadiyya are a small recent movement while Sufism has been a part of Islamic history from the very beginning, and it has spread and diversified everywhere Islam went So it's kind of like comparing a bunch of apples to an orange grove.
Also, doesn't the Ahmadiyya sort piggy-back (so to speak) on previous Islamic tradition, including Sufis from the past? (i.e. they follow Abu Hanifa after a fashion, they name various mujaddids in past centuries, etc.)
are you suggesting that mainstream Islam never ``sanitized'' or changed in response to sociopolitical situations? Why then the talk about the fruitful interactions between Islam, Hinduism in the subcontinent. Or between Buddhism In Indonesia or with the so called pagan religions of African continent, A message delivered without taking into account the intended receipent will fail. It has to be ``adjusted'' to appeal to the intended audience. And the orthodoxy will always frown upon this ``marketing tools;;
Also sufism is more ancient as you correctly pointed out, it too has been frowned upon, particularly by rigid orthodoxy,for its approach involving song and dance , their intense love for Allah their emphasis on developing a personal relation with Allah
Ahmadiyya are comparitively new.
About being an agent, I have come across far fetched theories about Islam being a invention of jews to usurp growing christian influence, or that christianity was an invention of Romans to split the jews or invention of jews to channelize dissent against the Romans....So how much credence to give to conspiracy theories.
In MGA's defense, from the little I've read from him- I think he definitely engaged that tradition and might well have had a degree of enlightenment. His reformulation of Islam is far more positive than some of the more puritanical reformulations that seek to "unite all Muslims" for modernity's sake. So, I think Ahmadiyya might gain some traction as a popular movement. As an intellectual/philosophical/enlightenment movement- I'm not as confident.
(Click Photo)
Co-Founder and CAIR Executive Director
Former Public Relations Director for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP)
A Palestinian born in Jordan and now a U.S. citizen.
Identified participating at a 1993 Hamas meeting in the United States
"I am in support of the Hamas movement."
"We do not and will not condemn any liberation movement
inside Palestine or Lebanon"
"We Should Not Blame The United States Alone For The 11 September 2001 Attacks"
"Our administration has the burden of proving otherwise.â€
(Awad's response to muslim accusations that federal raids
were a War against Islam and Muslims)
"Address people according to their minds. When I speak with the American,
I speak with someone who doesn't know anything."
"If you love Israel, you're OK ... If that is the litmus test, no American Muslim
and no freedom-loving person is going to pass that test."
Did I miss something, or is this just another random "let's try to make Muslims look bad" comment?
In 1993, I don't think the U.S. government was even concerned about Hamas, yet.
did this NOT happen in the u.s. where freedom of religion and thought is encouraged and legislation SUPPORTS this?
"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future...But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."
- Ibrahim Hooper CAIR Spokesman.
"Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting, keeping Mosques open so anyone can come and learn about Islam. If you choose to live here, you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam ... Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faiths, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."
- Omar Ahmad Co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations
Fundamentalist Christians believe the same exact thing. Do you have a bunch of quotes for them too?
THINGS THAT ARE NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THE ACCEPTANCE OF FATE
w59.2 […]
…And this clarifies the Koranic verses and hadiths about hatred for the sake of Allah and love for the sake of Allah, being unyielding towards the unbelievers, hard against them, and detesting them, while accepting the destiny of Allah Most High […]
Umdat al Salik
Turkey's Erdoğan agrees with that. That’s why he explains to German Muslims of Turkish descent--citizens of Germany--that assimilating into German culture as a crime against humanity.
In this fight between Islamic and Western human rights standards (exemplified by the difference between the UN's UDHR and the OIC's CDHRI), sides have to be chosen.
Among other things, assimilation into American culture means accepting the standards of the UDHR and rejecting the standards of the CDHRI.
"can anyone, no matter what they believe, sincerely take the oath of citizenshiÂÂp?"
You replied:
"this is the very definition of America."
===========
You are implying that America has only one defining quality--openness to all immigration--no exclusions whatever.
I disagree and here's why.
In 1776, British colonists in America couldn't have sworn loyalty to America because they held a loyalty to the monarchy.
Most Native Americans of that period could not do it because their allegiance was to a tribe.
When it became clear that the North was going to outlaw slavery, the South could not swear loyalty because they believed in slavery.
Committed Nazis and Communists could not swear loyalty to America--a country dedicated to opposing their ideologies.
Now I suggest we are engaged in a war between two political ideologies--the Islamist ideology found in traditional fiqh and the ideology of liberal democracy.
A Saudi immigrant is faced with a choice between Sharia and American values--you are faced with the opposite choice--to adopt the Sharia values of traditional fiqh or to retain the opposing American values of your pre-Islamic years.
One person cannot honestly support both--there are too many contradictions.
"But I think that has more to do with their TurkishnesÂs than their Islam. "
- That might have been the assumption was it not for the current fatwas and teachings at mosques that are on record. Islam is considered the final religion and superior to all others. Since the start of the Islamic state they feverishly fought in holy war jihad to spread Islam to the their surroundings. They managed to take over many countries convert them and even change their languages and cultures.