Why I Am A Muslim: An American Odyssey - Softcover

Hasan, Asma Gull

3.08

98 ratings by Goodreads

9780007175345: Why I Am A Muslim: An American Odyssey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007175345 ISBN 13: 9780007175345

Publisher: Thorsons Pub, 2005

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Part memoir and part guide to the Islam left out of the daily newspapers, a Muslim author represents seven reasons in as many chapters as to why she is committed to Islam, and why it can be a spiritual option for anyone. Reprint.

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About the Author:

Asma Gull Hasan who calls herself a 'Muslim Feminist Cowgirl', was born in Chicago, the daughter of Pakistani parents, and grew up in Colorado. After graduating from Groton and Wellesley, she went on to the New York University School of Law, where, in addition to winning several speaking awards and working as a staff editor on the NYU law review, she found to time to write American Muslims: The New Generation (Continuum, 2000). Now a practicing attorney in San Francisco, Hasan has been a columnist for the US based Pakistan Link newspaper, and her articles have been published in The New York Times, The Denver Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, and other papers. During the course of promoting her book and speaking about the new generation of American Muslims, she has appeared on CNN, Politically Incorrect, Fresh Air, Morning Edition, Fox News, and many other television and radio programs.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Out of all the cultures in the world... true Islamic values, as embodied in the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad, most closely resemble American values." So asserts Hasan, who has devoted much of her adult life—she is not yet 30—to combating anti-Muslim prejudice. As in her first book, American Muslims, she passionately argues against stereotypes and in favor of an Islam that sounds a lot like Reform Judaism or liberal Christianity. This is the Islam she knew growing up in Pueblo, Colo.—an American girl who looked Chicana and attended a Catholic school. Hasan's version of Islam would have appealed to America's founders with its advocacy of human equality, religious tolerance, property rights and self-improvement. It harmonizes just as well with 21st-century America's spiritual inclinations: it is nonjudgmental, inclusive, open-minded, diverse, experiential, emotional and even feminist. "The Prophet Muhammad is personally responsible for the greatest advancement of women's rights in a single time period," she writes, noting that no Islamic justification exists for abuses such as female genital mutilation or stoning adulteresses; these stem from ancient patriarchal traditions that pre-date Islam. Not all American Muslims welcome Hasan's interpretation of their faith or appreciate her enthusiasm for America (she recounts several experiences with such antagonists and suggests that they move to an Islamic country). Unfazed, she counters: "I'll make my own tradition—one that embodies my own American Muslim ethnic culture.[Hasan's italics]"
-" This is do-it-yourself American religion at its most appealing.
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