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Authors: Leila Ahmed
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activist citizens—from the founding fathers on through abolition, suffrage, workers’ rights, civil rights, women’s rights, rights
for gays and other minorities. There is nothing more American, Howard Dean had said at ISNA, than protest, and every generation, as Marcy Kaptur said at that same venue, must win liberty anew.
And so we have now the deeply ironic and paradoxical situation in which it is Islamists and those touched and influenced in some way by Is- lamism who, in their lives, writings, and activism, are joining and be- coming part of this signature American tradition of speaking out and taking stands in the cause of justice, joining their voices with those of other socially committed and activist non-Muslim Americans—writers, politicians, media figures, and others.
It is not, by and large, secular American Muslims nor American Muslims for whom religion is a private matter but rather the children of Islamists who are notably present in and at the forefront of the activist American and American Muslim struggles of our times: be it against torture, erosions of civil rights, racial profiling, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other foreign policy issues, and also in the cause of women’s rights and gay rights in relation to Islam. Voices in support of nearly all of these causes, non-Muslim as well as Muslim, were part of the tapestry of voices I heard at ISNA conventions. Ingrid Mattson, Bonita McGee, Khadijah Haffajee, Maha Elgenaidi, Howard Dean, Marcy Kap- tur, Eric Yoffie, Arnold Waskow, Keith Ellison, Amy Goodman—all seemed to be speaking from within a recognizably similar understanding of what the project of America was and should be, and a largely shared understanding of the meaning of justice. True, voices in support of gay rights and those fundamentally challenging Quranic readings on women were not among the spectrum of voices speaking out at ISNA. But it is the case too that such voices are no less contested, marginalized, and ex- cluded within other mainstream American religious traditions.
This then is the conclusion that I find myself arriving at in light of the evidence surveyed through the preceding pages—a conclusion that represents in fact a complete reversal of my initial expectations: that it is, after all, Islamists and the children of Islamists and not secular or pri- vately religious Muslims who are most fully and actively integrating into this core and definingly American tradition of social and political ac- tivism and protest in pursuit of justice. It is they, after all—they and not us, the secular or privately religious Muslims—who are now in the fore-
front of the struggle in relation to gender issues in Islam, as well as with respect to other human rights issues of importance to Muslims in Amer- ica today—and implicitly of importance in the long term to other Amer- icans too.
This fact is all the more remarkable in that, as scholars of Islam in America unanimously assert, Muslims who attend mosques or associate with American Muslim organizations—the venues typically influenced by Islamism—in fact still constitute only a minority of American Mus- lims. The estimated percentages of those attending such institutions in America is gradually rising, according to these experts, from an estimated
5 or 10 percent into the late 1990 s to perhaps 30 or 40 percent today: a ris-
ing percentage that nevertheless still leaves them as making up the mi- nority of American Muslims. Thus Islamists and their heirs and children are for the present no more than a minority of a minority. However, controlling most American Muslim institutions, they constitute the most influential and most publicly visible segment of this minority. And they are also quite visibly and publicly the most socially and politically com- mitted and activist segment of the Muslim community.
*
I’m not the woman president of Harvard, I’m the president of Harvard.
—Drew Faust, 2007 53
Shirin
for gays and other minorities. There is nothing more American, Howard Dean had said at ISNA, than protest, and every generation, as Marcy Kaptur said at that same venue, must win liberty anew.
And so we have now the deeply ironic and paradoxical situation in which it is Islamists and those touched and influenced in some way by Is- lamism who, in their lives, writings, and activism, are joining and be- coming part of this signature American tradition of speaking out and taking stands in the cause of justice, joining their voices with those of other socially committed and activist non-Muslim Americans—writers, politicians, media figures, and others.
It is not, by and large, secular American Muslims nor American Muslims for whom religion is a private matter but rather the children of Islamists who are notably present in and at the forefront of the activist American and American Muslim struggles of our times: be it against torture, erosions of civil rights, racial profiling, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other foreign policy issues, and also in the cause of women’s rights and gay rights in relation to Islam. Voices in support of nearly all of these causes, non-Muslim as well as Muslim, were part of the tapestry of voices I heard at ISNA conventions. Ingrid Mattson, Bonita McGee, Khadijah Haffajee, Maha Elgenaidi, Howard Dean, Marcy Kap- tur, Eric Yoffie, Arnold Waskow, Keith Ellison, Amy Goodman—all seemed to be speaking from within a recognizably similar understanding of what the project of America was and should be, and a largely shared understanding of the meaning of justice. True, voices in support of gay rights and those fundamentally challenging Quranic readings on women were not among the spectrum of voices speaking out at ISNA. But it is the case too that such voices are no less contested, marginalized, and ex- cluded within other mainstream American religious traditions.
This then is the conclusion that I find myself arriving at in light of the evidence surveyed through the preceding pages—a conclusion that represents in fact a complete reversal of my initial expectations: that it is, after all, Islamists and the children of Islamists and not secular or pri- vately religious Muslims who are most fully and actively integrating into this core and definingly American tradition of social and political ac- tivism and protest in pursuit of justice. It is they, after all—they and not us, the secular or privately religious Muslims—who are now in the fore-
front of the struggle in relation to gender issues in Islam, as well as with respect to other human rights issues of importance to Muslims in Amer- ica today—and implicitly of importance in the long term to other Amer- icans too.
This fact is all the more remarkable in that, as scholars of Islam in America unanimously assert, Muslims who attend mosques or associate with American Muslim organizations—the venues typically influenced by Islamism—in fact still constitute only a minority of American Mus- lims. The estimated percentages of those attending such institutions in America is gradually rising, according to these experts, from an estimated
5 or 10 percent into the late 1990 s to perhaps 30 or 40 percent today: a ris-
ing percentage that nevertheless still leaves them as making up the mi- nority of American Muslims. Thus Islamists and their heirs and children are for the present no more than a minority of a minority. However, controlling most American Muslim institutions, they constitute the most influential and most publicly visible segment of this minority. And they are also quite visibly and publicly the most socially and politically com- mitted and activist segment of the Muslim community.
*
I’m not the woman president of Harvard, I’m the president of Harvard.
—Drew Faust, 2007 53
Shirin
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