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The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
January 2007
On Sale: December 26, 2006
320 pages ISBN: 0374104239 EAN: 9780374104238 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Religion
Vivid, dramatic portraits of Muslims in America in the years
after 9/11, as they define themselves in a religious
subculture torn between moderation and extremism There are as many as six million Muslims in the United
States today. Islam (together with Christianity and Judaism)
is now an American faith, and the challenges Muslims face as
they reconcile their intense and demanding faith with our
chaotic and permissive society are recognizable to all of us. From West Virginia to northern Idaho, American Islam takes
readers into Muslim homes, mosques, and private gatherings
to introduce a population of striking variety. The central
characters range from a charismatic black imam schooled in
the militancy of the Nation of Islam to the daughter of an
Indian immigrant family whose feminist views divided her
father’s mosque in West Virginia. Here are lives in
conflict, reflecting in different ways the turmoil affecting
the religion worldwide. An intricate mixture of ideologies
and cultures, American Muslims include immigrants and native
born, black and white converts, those who are well
integrated into the larger society and those who are
alienated and extreme in their political views. Even as many
American Muslims succeed in material terms and enrich our
society, Islam is enmeshed in controversy in the United
States, as thousands of American Muslims have been
investigated and interrogated in the wake of 9/11.
American Islam is an intimate and vivid group portrait of
American Muslims in a time of turmoil and promise.
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