Islam and America: Building a Future without Prejudice - Hardcover

Majid, Anouar

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1442214120 ISBN 13: 9781442214125

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011

Synopsis

Islam and America argues that the current animosity between the U.S. and Muslim world should be understood through the often-overlooked history between the two. Tracing the genealogy of this conflicted relationship from the Pilgrims to the present, author Anouar Majid weaves personal stories with historical narratives to offer a critical view of both cultures and to suggest a path towards future peace.

The book shows how America’s current conflict with Islam is rooted in a long and complicated history of prejudice and missed opportunities, as well as a history of benevolence and fruitful exchange on both sides. While historically Americans have generally regarded Islam as a despotic religion that needed to be overcome, the military and educational establishments that Americans built through their attempts at converting Muslims became sources of national pride in the Middle East. And while Muslims have often distrusted Americans, they, too, have made significant contributions to American culture.

Majid contends that knowing this history of both conflict and collaboration can help promote the mutual goodwill and appreciation that will be necessary to tackle the challenges facing Islam and America. Majid makes a provocative argument against faith-inspired prejudices and offers suggestions for the future.

About this title

About the Author:

Anouar Majid is the author of several critically acclaimed books on Islam and the West, including A Call for Heresy and We Are All Moors. His work has been featured in the Bill Moyers Journal and on Al Jazeera television. Majid is founding director of the Center for Global Humanities and vice president for Global Affairs at the University of New England.

Review:

Majid, a scholar at the University of New England, pursues the noble goal of tearing down animosity between Islam and America in this . . . important work. Through a mix of history, personal reflections on being a Muslim in America, and musings about politics, Majid argues that a future of good will and understanding is possible and offers suggestions for achieving it. Though short, the book contains a wealth of fascinating historical information that bolsters his larger political aims, such as the phenomenon of American-funded colleges in the Middle East. . . . Majid’s message is critical in today’s political climate, and this work is a worthwhile contribution to an ongoing dialogue. (Publishers Weekly)

Majid, born in Morocco, raised a Muslim, educated in the U.S., and now an American, offers a personal view of the tensions between the U.S. and Islam and the foundation for moving forward. He begins, and ends, with the revolutionary idea that embodies the U.S.: the promise of liberty, free inquiry, new ideas, and a democratic spirit and the hope it engenders. In between, he argues that both sides have used sacred scriptures and unexamined religious beliefs to justify social injustice, misguided foreign-policy choices, and acts of aggression. Although both sides need to rethink their relationship to their respective traditions, reevaluate their own assumptions, and reexamine their place in the world today, the U.S. needs, in particular, to return to its revolutionary roots—roots planted in the soil of reason, not divine providence. The path forward will require speaking the truth. Forthright and fair, Majid’s analysis will not satisfy everyone. But that’s exactly the point. ‘Conversations humanize us; unyielding certitudes turn us into warring tribes and killing machines.’ (Booklist)

As the Moroccan American scholar Anouar Majid reminds us on the first page of his latest book, Islam and America: Building a Future without Prejudice, we are drowning in information about the relationships of Muslims and the West but are not yet being rescued by this expanding corpus. This and his earlier We Are All Moors come as close to any books I have read recently that hold out promise for such a rescue, at least in the forward-thinking rhetoric that outlasts the general effluvium of political punditry. . . . Islam and America is a narrative that harnesses anecdotes and historical trivia to produce a text that is accessible to a wide range of readers and at the same time entertains as it informs. The unique aspect of the book is the reflective experience of a Muslim-born American from Morocco. . . . The value of Majid’s writing is that it argues for a focus on the common humanity that can shine through ethnic and religious filters, but a focus that is not shy about exposing the ugly side or prejudice on all sides. . . . Majid provides a compelling portrait, much abridged from the available literature he had read, on how Muslims viewed Americans and were viewed by Americans long before the tragedy of 9/11 and initiation of two wars costly both in lives and American prestige. (Springer Science + Business Media)

Islam and America is a narrative that harnesses anecdotes and historical trivia to produce a text that is accessible to a wide range of readers and at the same time entertains as it informs. (Contemporary Islam)

Most books on Islam these days stress the negative, but Majid builds a highly personal and well documented blueprint for proudly being American and Muslim at the same time. Beneath the media-hyped 'clash of civilizations' there is far too much 'trash talking' and not near enough reasoned exploration of the principles that should unite the best values of both the United States and the Islamic World. As the current 'Arab Spring' demonstrates, the future belongs to those who challenge the status quo rather than pandering to past prejudice and perpetuating the injustice that tarnishes all sides. What makes this book stand out from the rest are both Majid's self reflection as a Muslim from Morocco and his passion for retelling the principles that at one time made the American experiment the envy of the world. As Majid persuasively argues, Americans and Muslims do not straddle a rigid cultural divide but can build on shared values if everyone recognizes that past prejudice is the enemy of future progress. (Daniel Martin Varisco, Hofstra University; author of Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation)

Anouar Majid's Islam and America is a bold and courageous book, putting a millennium of history, theology, and culture into context and challenging assumptions on all sides. Islam and America should be read by all who are perplexed at the catastrophic relations between the United States and the Muslim world, between Israel and her neighbors—who might come away with renewed faith that we still have it in our power to begin the world anew. (Robert J. Allison, Suffolk University; author of The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815)

Possessed of a profound knowledge of several societies, Anouar Majid is that very rare writer in our noisily polemical culture—someone who offers true wisdom and understanding. (Pankaj Mishra, author of Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet and beyond)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1442214120
• ISBN 13: 9781442214125
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200