c. 2006 Religion News Service

SAN FRANCISCO _ Geneive Abdo traveled the United States interviewing American Muslims for her latest book “Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in American After 9/11.”

Abdo took time out from her book tour to talk about the growing religiosity among American Muslims and their increasing alienation from the mainstream.

A third-generation Lebanese American, Abdo is now a senior analyst at the Gallup Organization’s newly created Center for Muslim Studies.

Q: You are a Catholic who wrote three books about Islam and spent nearly a decade as a foreign correspondent covering the Middle East. What draws you to Islam?

A: What is fascinating to me about Islam is that it is also an ideology, one that has now become a very significant alternative to globalization. Not for the reason that the Bush administration might explain _ that Muslims are jealous of our values or they are jealous of our prosperity _ but people all over the world are beginning to realize that globalization, capitalism, consumerism, is very empty spiritually. It’s an empty existence.

Q: You say American Muslims have turned inward and become more religious since 9/11. How did you get them to trust you?

A: At the time, I was writing stories in The Chicago Tribune and as the stories were published, Muslims in this country realized that a) I know a lot about the subject and b) that I’m trying to bring understanding to non-Muslims about Islam and Muslims. So they felt that the stories accurately reflected their views and their ideas and their lives.

Q: Your book represents American Muslims as religiously, culturally, racially and ethnically diverse. Give us a sampling of some of the people you interviewed.

A: I illustrate this diversity by profiling two sheikhs at the Zaytuna Institute (in Hayward, Calif.). One is a white convert from California, Hamza Yusuf, and the other is an African-American convert, Imam Zaid Shakir. There’s also a young Palestinian activist, Rami Nashashibi, who is drawing other ethnic groups into the faith through his work in South Chicago. One of the activities of his organization, IMAN, is Islamic hip hop concerts, which draw Latinos, African-Americans, Arabs and South Asians.

The point is that the Muslim-American identity, once dominated by a majority of African-American converts, has now changed with the influx of immigrant Muslims. The young generation is dealing with this change by creating a more united, multicultural community.

Q: Why did you decide to leave journalism to be an analyst?

A: I decided to leave journalism because I feel it is a very limited way to convey complicated ideas.

Q: Do Muslims get a fair shake in the American press?

A: Absolutely not. I think the press is just so overwhelmingly biased, and when it’s not biased, ignorant, that it’s such a profound problem it’s hard to even really talk about it.

Keith Ellison, the Muslim who was elected to Congress, was interviewed on CNN. And the interviewer asked him, and I’m not quoting verbatim, basically please prove to us you are not a terrorist. He said I feel uncomfortable asking you this question but I need to ask it anyway. How do we know you’re not a terrorist?

But it’s not only these outrageous stories. It’s the way the press writes about Muslims _ that there are good Muslims or bad Muslims. The good Muslims are the secular ones, they don’t wear headscarves. The bad Muslims are the ones that go to the mosques. The narrative is these people are a threat and if they’re going to even be acceptable they have to accommodate, they have to compromise.

Q: You seem confident that violent, radical Islam is not going to take root in the U.S. Why not?

A: Muslims here came for a different purpose, and they live here because they want to be Americans. European Muslims came to Europe for economic reasons. … Just psychologically they still live in Pakistan, in Egypt. American Muslims, particularly the second generation, don’t live here with the psychology of always going home. So they have a great vested interest in making successful lives here.

Q: The role of women in Islam is a major issue. Is this a religious debate or a cultural debate?

A: In the United States and in Europe it is too much of a cultural debate. And this is what someone such as (Islamic Society of North America president) Ingrid Mattson is trying to confront. … She teaches imams around the country, she holds seminars to tell them this is what the Quran says in this verse about gender equality, why aren’t you practicing this in your mosque? What you are doing is bringing, exporting here the ideas that developed in Yemen and all these countries that are cultural, but that’s not what the doctrine says.

Q: What do you wish more people in mainstream society knew about American Muslims and Islam?

A: Ultimately, I wish people would become much more educated about this faith because as Islam grows around the world, it becomes more necessary for people to become educated about it. But in the short term, I would say that people have to understand that the militant fringe that they see on television and that they read about, those people are not practicing the true faith.

They should not confuse people who use violence for political purposes with the Muslim who is living next door or with the Muslims practicing in the mosque down the street. And that this distinction is very important; otherwise there will be a problem in this country.

KRE/JL END CRABTREE

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