What Is the American Muslim Perspective?

By M.A. Muqtedar Khan

Increasingly, Muslims in America are talking about the “American Muslim Perspective” (AMP). The term is gaining currency and has even developed its own political implications, but surprisingly very little context is associated with the term. Every time I say it in meetings or seminars, there are some who look at me suspiciously. And then there are others, like Dr. Aly Ramadan Abuzaakouk of the American Muslim Council or Dr. Seyyed Saeed of the Islamic Society of North America, who distinctly nod their heads in agreement. Amazing indeed. While no one has articulated what the American Muslim perspective is, it has already developed its supporters and its critics.

It is easy to identify what the critics of AMP think of it. They think that Islam is developing a new character through a dialectic interaction with American liberalism.

In the words of a young man from Chicago, “American Islam is the weak and smiley face of Islam advanced by scholars like John Esposito and Yvonne Haddad and practiced by movements like ISNA.” This bright young man, an American convert to Islam who has a law degree, helpfully elaborates further. “American Islam is controlled by Americans who are using some Muslims to redefine Islamic principles to ‘fit into’ American society.”

Needless to say, the rethinking of Muslim relations with America, prompted by the profound realization that Islam and Muslims are here to stay, is sitting uneasily with those who live in Los Angeles but pretend they are in Lahore, or with those who live in Pittsburgh but make believe they are in Palestine. Their deep suspicions of the West extend to fellow Muslims and ideas like the AMP, which they see as “getting cozy with the Kuffar [infidels]!”

Before we even begin to talk about an AMP we need to inquire whether there is such an entity as an “American Muslim” with a distinct perspective. Hyphenated Americans are as commonplace as burgers and Coke. When one talks about African Americans, or Cuban Americans or even Asian Americans, nationality is central and ethnicity is the difference.

In the case of American Muslims, religious identity takes precedence over national identity.

But in the case of American Muslims, as with American Jews, the religious identity takes precedence over the national identity and the term American Muslim signifies a special kind of a Muslim, while a Cuban American is a special type of American. Having said that, we must remember that this identity, American Muslim, is still a hypothesis until we can demonstrate that it brings some “difference” to Muslim identity.

At a vulgar level we can argue that if Muslims can be proud of associating with their “nation-states,” Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, then why can’t American Muslims also be proud of Uncle Sam? Our lawyer friend may be tempted to respond, in a shocked tone, that Uncle Sam habitually bombs and kills Muslims all over the place. Also that many Americans and their institutions demonize Islam and suppress Islamic initiatives. So how can we identify with this out-of-control, arrogant and immoral power?

To him I can only point out the tragedies of the Muslim world. In Turkey it is forbidden for a civil servant or student or teacher to wear the hijab in a public building. But not in the U.S. Iraqi and Turkish armies have killed thousands of Muslims (Kurds) in the past few decades. The Pakistani army has killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Bangladesh. Afghan Muslims have killed many thousands of their fellow Muslims. The Iran-Iraq war killed 10 times more Muslims in a decade than America has in its entire history! The Algerian civil war has killed more Muslims in the 1990s alone. Egyptian and Syrian forces have killed more Islamic activists than America. The list could go on, but I think the point is made and I do not wish to further embarrass my fellow Muslims.

Nor should we forget that within U.S. borders there are some six million Muslims who have no plans to live anywhere else. Or if they choose otherwise they are as free to go as to stay. So if, in spite of all the carnage and massacres, it is OK to be proud Afghan, Egyptian, Syrian, Pakistani, Iranian, Iraqi, Turkish Muslims, then there is nothing wrong in being proud American Muslims. And this pride may well be an important ingredient of the American Muslim perspective. But as I said earlier, that would be at a vulgar level. Nationalism is nothing but a modernized version of tribalism, which has remained the bane of Islam for centuries.

More Profound Differences

At a more profound level, the differences between an American Muslim and a Pakistani or Egyptian Muslim are in the “perspectives” they hold, not in their nationality. Because American Muslims enjoy high levels of educational achievement and financial stability they can and should act at least as wisely as their counterparts in the Third World.

Moreover, the relative freedom available to think and work for Islam in America can enable American Muslims to become a global force. The presence of so many Muslim intellectuals and scholars in the West is another advantage that American Muslims enjoy. Indeed the opportunity for so many Muslim ethnicities to come together, undivided by silly nationalist agendas, has after a long time reproduced in microcosm a truly global Ummah.

Now if this truly global Ummah can articulate a vision of Islam free from cultural artifacts, then we can begin to see a true turn toward an Islamic identity. The interests of this community, free from parochial particularism, can identify the foundations upon which it will be realistic to even think about a global Muslim unity.

Assuming that such an American Muslim identity is emerging, the standpoint of this community will be the American Muslim perspective. So perhaps now we can begin to get some idea about AMP. It is a global vision of Islam leading to global politics, both of which are free from the localizing influences of nationalism and ethnicity.

Dr. M.A. Muqtedar Khan teaches at Georgetown University, is editor-in-chief of American Muslim Quarterly and was named as one of the 40 influential Muslims in America by Majalla, an Arab weekly newsmagazine in London. He is locally known as “The Mufti in the Chat Room.”