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America in Islam

Public Interest - March 22, 2004

FOR all practical purposes, the question of Islam in America is little more than a generation old. Yet it is already extraordinarily complicated and burdensome, both for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, with no signs of becoming any less so. This is true for a number of reasons, the most important of which is that there are not one but two questions: that of Islam in America and America in Islam. The latter question had been growing in importance within the general Muslim world over the last two to three decades. It became the defining issue, however, with the September 11 terrorist attacks, undertaken as they were as an act of war against America in the name of Islam. American Muslims, then, are forced to answer this question not only as U.S. citizens seeking to define their place in that society, but also as members of a worldwide Muslim community for whom this debate is charged and divisive.

The fact that most American Muslims are recent immigrants means they bring this contentious debate with them from their countries of origin. My Muslim friends and acquaintances often say this is a burden they would prefer to be without, seeking in America, as they do, like many immigrants before them, a more secure and comfortable life rather than a religious mission or conflict. Instead, their religious concerns--if they have any, for many American Muslims have weak ties to their religious rituals and institutions--are more immediate: Is there a mosque in the vicinity, and is it one to which they should attach themselves? Where can one buy halal meat, meat that fulfills the requirements of the Muslim dietary code? Above all, most American Muslims do not share the terrorists' view of the United States and do not wish to be implicated in their violence.

At the same time, international developments--the Afghan jihad of the 1980s, Islamic terrorism of the 1990s, the end of the Cold War, and the enormous growth of American power--have sharpened the question of America within Islam. The September 11 attacks, as well as the Bush administration's political and military response to them, merely catalyzed this debate. The growing influence of the United States within the wider Muslim world has become increasingly impossible to ignore, not least because the political, ideological, and violent activity of Islamic radicals have succeeded in making it the thematic issue. Radical or Jihadi Islam has enjoyed remarkable success over the past 30 years because it responds to the malaise of the Muslim world and the question of the day with a clear, appealing answer: America, with its overwhelming power and modern, liberal democratic ideals, is the scourge of Islam and the antithesis of a true Muslim life.

These groups, of course, have not flourished unopposed in recent decades--autocratic or tyrannical rulers in Muslim countries have often suppressed them in order to preserve their rule. As an ideological movement, however, radical Islam has been nearly unrivaled. It has therefore become increasingly better organized and funded throughout the Muslim world, allowing it to define the framework for intra-Muslim discussion, including among the vast majority of Muslims who reject its views. These dissenters have found themselves compelled to respond to the radicals' analysis and critique of the state of contemporary Islam, as well as its prescriptions for the future of the faith. By and large, the response has mostly been defensive, passive, and unorganized.

This is also the general state of ideological affairs for minority Muslim communities around the world, including in the United States. In fact, the American Muslim community, like other minority Muslim communities, is at greater risk of having the radicals define the framework of their discussion and reflection. This is because hundreds of millions of Muslims the world over still live the traditional Islamic way of life that the radicals oppose as corrupt and not sufficiently unified. Their faith stems from centuries-old traditions and institutions that are rooted in their particular, remarkably diverse communities. In minority communities, however, the radicals find Muslims who have been uprooted from their natural, traditional way of life. As is the case in America, these Muslims are required to establish a "new tradition" in a more or less self-conscious way if they wish to remain Muslims. Their minority status within their adopted countries often leads the majority society to look upon them as a unitary community, no matter how different some segments may be from others. For these and other reasons, these Muslims are tempted by a single definition of Islam, and the radicals are more than happy to offer their vision of a unified global ummah struggling to reassert itself.

Advancing this agenda is made easier by the relative freedom these radicals have to dispense their illiberal, antidemocratic message within Western liberal democracies--freedom that the repressive governments of most Muslim countries often deny them. These efforts have been augmented by substantial funding from countries like Saudi Arabia to publish radical texts and support teachers, imams, and institutions espousing radical ideas. This funding is not the same as what was allegedly raised for terrorist activities. Rather, it is funds, publicly acknowledged by the Saudi and other governments and semi-public charities they underwrite, for the direct support of ostensibly educational and religious institutions, sometimes described as "development assistance."

The American Muslim community is subject to all of these developments and forces. Of course, it bears the distinction of being the only Muslim community actually dwelling in the belly of "the Great Satan," making the question of Islam in America truly existential in nature. At the same time, the immediate question of America in Islam is equally existential for a U.S. government embarked on nation-building and democracy promotion in Iraq and Afghanistan as a means of suppressing Islamic radicalism. If either hope to develop thoughtful and potent responses to the questions facing them--questions for which the radicals have already established the grounds for debate--the necessary point of departure is an understanding of Islam's historical experience of modernity.

Islam and the modern world

The struggle between radical Islam and its actual or potential moderate alternatives is most often cast as a struggle over two ideas: The first is jihad; the second is modernity, especially liberal democracy and capitalism. The idea of modernity poses one fundamental question: Does Islam require, permit, or forbid the organization of political life on democratic principles? If the answer is yes, then the debate will resemble those of other cultures that sought to reconcile their particular ways of life with liberal democratic principles. But if the answer is no, then the idea of jihad poses even more urgent questions about the possibility of a broader conflict among civilizations.

Seeking to offer the Muslim world answers to these fundamental questions, many non-Muslims have suggested Islam needs to experience a "Reformation" akin to that which Europe underwent in its early modern period. Modern Western individualism and democratic culture, some argue, was the outcome of the Protestant Reformation, and the Muslim world must travel along a similar trajectory. Whether or not this is a correct reading of Western history, it is a profound misunderstanding of the current Islamic situation. Moreover, it completely neglects the actual events of the early Reformation: a struggle that was, by the carnage it wrought in Europe, a disaster unequaled until the twentieth century.

The fact of the matter is that Islam is already experiencing a reformation--a reformation involving a deep and bitter struggle over the character of religious doctrine and practice, as well as its relationship to political authority. There are, however, considerable differences between the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant Reformation and the current struggle within Islam. These derive partly from the differences between the religions and from differences in historical circumstances. The latter are presently more important for understanding the animus of the radicals.

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