Afterthought Immigrants and Introducing Self-Hating South Asians
This American Islamic culture is one that Imam Zaid Shakir is asked about on his recent PBS interview:
IMAM ZAID SHAKIR: I think as the American Muslim community itself become more integrated and more mature, faith will probably trump culture. And, you have a new culture emerging. You have an American Muslim culture emerging, which is very important, because then you can get a unique understanding of the religion that would allow the American Muslim to take his or her rightful place amongst the various Muslim communities of the world.
BILL MOYERS: How do you define that American Muslim community? What’s it’s profile?
IMAM ZAID SHAKIR: It’s profile is African Americans, increasingly large numbers of Latino Americans and European, Caucasian Americans, and immigrants – South Asians, Pakistanis, Arabs and others. And, collectively I think you’ll see a common American Islamic culture emerge. It’s already happening.
“And immigrants”.
I don’t want to single out Imam Zaid here because of the way he may have phrased this answer, as it may have been less than his ideal intention. However, for discussion purposes, it is interesting to note the order that he lists the American Muslim makeup. Immigrants are placed dead last, and second generation Muslims aren’t even mentioned at all.
While this may be a simple aspect of unorganized speech during a dynamic interview, it’s also indicative of the way popular American Muslim leaders have subconsciously dealt with immigrants and their children: as afterthoughts in the larger scheme of American Muslim culture.
CAIR, on the other hand, notes that the largest community of American Muslims are in fact: South Asian. As of their 2001 report, South Asians are the largest Mosque attending population at 33% of all Muslims, with African-Americans coming in a close second at 30%. Another report which simply examines faith and not mosque attendance is also cited by CAIR. This report lists South Asians as 25% of the overall Muslim Population in North America, with Arabs coming in at 23% and African-Americans at 14%.
So looking at the above numbers, isn’t it difficult to understand why Qawalli hasn’t penetrated into American Islamic culture. Why hasn’t South Asian poetry, art and dress impacted any of the large American Islamic organizations of today? Why are nearly all Muslim converts distinctly Arabic in appearance, style, and culture? Why are there no ‘rock star’ South Asian Imams and Sheykhs who have retained their South-Asianness? Why are so many South Asians apparantly not attending the mosque, but identifying themselves as Muslim?
Imam Zaid in his book “Scattered Pictures”, reflects on the impact of not knowing his paternal grandfather due to the context of his society, the impact of slavery and segregation. The odd thing is, most South Asians who have had no such harrowing experience also cannot name their grandfathers, much less identify and understand how they practiced their faith.
A large part of this is a result of the first real case of Muslim immigrants who have brought along their own inferiority complex. Truly practicing first generation or second generation immigrant South Asian Muslims are afraid of their heritage, they look down upon the very faith that is practiced ‘back home’. Second Generation South Asians are particularly excellent at mocking their parents accents and habits. They do all this while they struggle to figure out if they are white or black, and how that impacts their jean’s bagginess. Most second generation children have no idea how to read in Urdu or Punjabi, and have little appreciation for the wealth of art and poetry that their parents culture produced.
This viewpoint though is not unique to immigrants, as native South Asians themselves have had an inferiority complex going back to times of colonization.
(continued with “More Manifestations of the Marginalization“)
the truth on 
m.a.kidwai,CME/IND.RLY.(retd.) on 
Would it be indicative of the marginalization of indigenous Muslims if he had listed the various components of the American Muslim community in a different order? Honestly, somebody had to be listed first, since most people don’t speak all items in any given list all at the same time.
If the intent is not to single him out for this, why list it? Because you are still using something said in the context of a ‘dynamic interview’ to make the point that somehow South Asian Muslims are second class citizens in the American Muslim community.
I don’t know–I see media articles all of the time thrusting microphones in the face of immigrant Muslims looking for the voice and face of American Islam–conveniently ignoring the fact that there are large numbers of Muslims whose families have been here for six, seven generations or more-and that there are established communities of said Muslims that have been around since the beginning of the last century.
I saw large numbers of immigrant Muslims saying that “the American Muslim community” endorsed Bush for President when he ran for office the first time, in spite of the fact that you would have been hard pressed to find African Americans, whom you list as being 30% of the pie, nearly a third, were NEVER asked their opinion, yet this was being passed off as the singular, united American Muslim voice.
There are so many other examples, there is no room to list them all.
as-salamu’alaikum umm pookie,
I think you are misunderstanding me. I don’t believe South Asians are second class citizens, I believe South Asian culture is marginalized in American Islam, which is supposedly a melting pot. Of course, if you read further in my series you will see that this is largely due to the fault of South Asians themselves who have an inferiority complex towards their own faith and culture, and hence, have co-opted another more Arab version.
Putting microphones in the face of immigrants, in those cases, does little as they have nothing really, truly, South Asian to say.
Wa alaykum salaam
Honestly, I don’t agree with that stipulation either.
I am a convert–and I spent many years in the Muslim community positively awash in immigrant culture—be it South Asian or Arab–and if you ask most converts what their experiences are in terms of “culture” in Islam see what they tell you. What foods we are expected to eat, what clothes we are expected to wear, and for a long time, until relatively recently, even the English language books on Islam that we read were imported (mainly from Pakistan/India). Ask converts about trying to get married in the “melting pot” that is supposed to be the American Muslim community, and most will tell you that unless they are looking to marry other converts, they are brutally beat over the head with immigrant culture in this area of life. If they are male, it is likely that they will never be seriously considered as marriageable material (for caste reasons, for racial reasons, and other reasons that are someone else’s cultural reality)–and if they are female there is a whole other dynamic–if they are too dark they are in the same category as the men, and if they are “fortunate” enough to be considered, they are expected to magically transform into perfect wife from back home–with back home cuisine, back home family dynamics, and all that. Be it Arab lands or Desi lands. There are other examples.
I don’t know what one expects. The South Asian immigrants I know as a rule tend to be pretty distinct as a community–they maintain their own language, their own way of practicing Islam, their own way of getting married, their own foods, etc. The ones who wear traditional dress at all usually make it Desi, not Arab. Certainly there are some changes that are made in the emigrants themselves, and definitely in their children–but that is natural. This is not India or Pakistan, and while I do not believe that immigrants as a general rule should assimilate to the point of no recognition–the fact of the matter is that there is some level of adjustment that must be made in a new land if one is to function on any level, simply because the milieu in which one operates is not the same as the one you left–and the things that work over there don’t always fly in the new environment.
I have been to many masajid (predominantly S. Asian or other ethnic based) where the level of “culture” was so strong that outsiders are effectively barred. I have been to masajid where women are absolutely forbidden from coming inside because back in their corner of South Asia that is the norm. And don’t mistake me, I am certainly not implying that all, or even most, Desi culture is negative, but, I absolutely do not see it as marginalized. Maybe it depends on your perspective and expectations. If you are South Asian, maybe it is natural to expect that your voice or slant will be the most dominant–and maybe it is uncomfortable to see or hear other voices that are just as vociferous about their right to be heard.
For indigenous Muslims, it just seems that no one complained so long as we, as a rule, were not assertive about our right to an active voice and hand in the process of shaping the American Islamic experience. So long as we were content to remain on the sidelines and function as passengers on the journey we were tolerated—now that many of us have begun to assert that we have the earned legitimacy to speak with confidence on our own soil, there is backlash from those who have insisted that we remain silent mascots all of these years.
as-salamu’alaikum umm pookie,
Yet, in an Islam in the West conference recently held in NJ there was not one hint of any of the above heavy “South Asian” influences?
The truth is I’m talking about something a bit more subtle than the convert experience in a largely immigrant musjid. As far as what is expected from an immigrant community in terms of working with converts, I think expecting you to eat with what they know how to cook well and dress Islamically (something that was very difficult to do without importing some countries Islamic clothing), is not out of the question. I don’t think many of them cared how you eat at home.
As far whether that ecapsulates South Asian influence on American Islam as a whole, I don’t think so.
Of course, and this has to do with prejiduces amoungst immigrants, but I’m not sure in what way this violates the understanding that South Asians are self-hating.
I think one expects that South Asians will be able to retain their identity rather than be transformed into Arabs when arriving onto America and even ‘back home’.
You are not aware of what it is you are missing of South Asian influence on Islam itself. The poetry, the music, the spiritual and scholarly works, the stories of many saints buried in South Asia. The most famous South Asian name that converts know is Maududi. And that is really the point, it is quite sad.
I’m sorry, when you don’t know what it is you are missing (because South Asians didn’t bring it over) then you need to reevaluate the argument you are making. Because you were forced to eat some food and expected to dress in a certain way in an immigrant community should be no shock to you. I would think there would be dozens of non-Muslim communities would not even be this welcoming of people outside of their race. What you are treating as culture was simply a group and isolationist mentality based off of race. This is not true South Asian culture, which was historically very tolerant.
But, instead of speaking of the past, lets discuss in terms of what is going on now. Lets speak in terms of the works being translated and the personalities being emphasized when teaching history, in modern day Muslim organizations and supposedly “American” Muslim art.
Maybe. I don’t think this is about being dominant, but about having a voice at all. I think utter silence of traditional South Asian Islam is undeniable, and the lack of influence on “American Islam” is a bit inexcusable on the part of the South Asians that are supposedly contributing to the project.
Frankly, again I think you need to reread my series so far again, you are not getting the point and rather speaking about your negative experience with a closed community. That could just be my obtuse style of writing though!
[tried to post this before, Yursil, haven't edited it to reflect your latest response]
Well, these are troubled waters here. Um Pookie, I’m a convert too and understand that beef. But I don’t think what you and yursil are saying are mutually exclusive. Perhaps Yursil obscured his own point with the poor choice of Imam Zaid as an example in this installment of the series.
I think Yursil’s point is most valid with regard to the winning out of an Arab-inspired salafi influence over a traditional Hanafi style in the area of religious practice or theology. In this, I certainly agree. Have you ever attended a mosque, where, after salat, the imam raises his voice in zikr for a few minutes and then recites an audible dua while the congregation says amin amin amin? Or stepped into a mosque where the walls were covered over with beautiful calligraphy? These are few and far between in the US. And yet “back home” this is nearly universal. The question I see Yursil posing is why haven’t south asians managed to preserve or pass on their *religious* cultural heritage effectively in the face of salafi dawah.
as-salamu’alaikum bin gregory,
I think you are very accurate in understanding what I am trying to get across.
But also there was specific reasons for the Imam Zaid quote. One is that he recently spoke about Islam in the West and I was at that conference. The quote reflected the basic low or no priority towards South Asians which was presented at this conference.
In fact, his recent speech he asked people to read Umar Lee’s Rise and Fall of the Salafi movement which he used to defend the Salafi contribution to American Islamic culture. All this in light of the general theme of the conference and some self examinations made Imam Zaid’s quote very appropriate. Besides, now that we know he reads blogs he might actually be the best one to point out so that changes occur.
The idea that Western traditional Muslims can do away with traditional South Asian and non-Arab culture and contribution to Islam will continue on without such reminders.
As salaamu ‘alaykum to both of you.
Yursil, don’t misunderstand me, I understand very clearly what you were trying to say with regard to internal self esteem issues as they relate to the South Asian community—but it seems that also American Muslims from other backgrounds are to blame for this as well? At least this is how it comes across. We disagree on the picture you’ve painted to some extent, that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand what you are trying to say. I think some of your points are accurate. But I also think you are off base in some places.
If we are speaking about “traditional” American Muslims, or at least the scholars/speakers that are named such, and their perceived propensity towards Arab rather than South Asian models—then consider a simpler explanation (rather than painting it as some hostile conspiracy against the South Asian Islamic legacy)–they all studied in the Arab world. The reasons for that most likely have to do with opportunity rather than some conscious decision to dis India and Pakistan. With that being the case, I honestly don’t see what you expect—people tend to be a product of their experiences. Muslims in/from America who have had formal teaching in the deen elsewhere tend to go to the Arab world, whether they are “traditional” or Salafi, so naturally you are going to find that influence heavy here. And there is also this: you spoke of the adoption of the Andalusian model as one more example of “Arabization”–did it occur to you that the reason certain American Muslims may have latched onto this model is because it is also European to some degree?–and it’s not very hard to see why that cultural model would be appealing to indigenous Americans. For Latino Muslims, in fact, this is a direct part of their heritage.
And with all due respect, you don’t know me…so you are really not in a position to say how extensive or shallow my knowledge of any culture is. I certainly have a great deal to learn in the world, but I have made it my business to study Islamic civilizations and cultures from every part of the world, including South Asia, Africa, Europe and wherever else we happen to have been. I have lots more to learn, surely, but I am not completely green and ignorant either.
And, I’m sorry, but saying ‘the non-Muslims are not welcoming either’ is no excuse–we are supposed to be better than that. Nevermind that there are also dozens of non-Muslims who are *more* welcoming to outsiders. And I’m not talking about being expected to dress modestly versus immodestly, I’m talking about the expectation that converts will don shalwar kamees (or to be fair, a jilbab or thobe) rather than a floor length jean skirt and tunic. Again, if you expect South Asians to retain their identity, to define themselves and not be absorbed into oblivion, why are indigenous Muslims expected to do so?
bin gregory: Agreed for the most part–certainly the “Arab-inspired salafi” influence is strong, but I think that this has more to do with funding from certain quarters and aggressive da’wa and a certain amount of arm-twisting and strong-arming in many communities than any specific cultural causes. That strong salafi voice has endeavored to stamp out all other voices, be they from the sub-Continent, or Africa, or even other non-Salafi Arab voices. It’s not discriminatory.
As-salamu’alaikum,
Only in as much as they have bought into the inherent superiority of contemporary and traditional Arab Islam.
u
Right, and why is that?
I didn’t say that the decision to Arabize was conscious, in fact, I believe I said it was motivated by hidden or subconscious ideas a few times. South Asians themselves don’t really study through learning their own culture and properly knowing Farsi or Urdu within South Asia anymore.
What I expect is what I’ve stated, for South Asians to investigate their own culture, respect it, and learn it. In terms of the American Islam program, and the push for traditional Islam, South Asians should also be reviving their traditional culture, poets, music, arts, and influencing American Islam to reflect its contribution.
Right, and why is that? That is not what occurred in South Asia. In fact, this entire phenomenon of becoming Arabized did not occur there even though South Asia produced great scholars and saints, and were in contact with Arabs for centuries. The subtle aspects and reflections of this you are well aware of as you are studied on the matter.
In my opinion, it is because of the second-class religious value given to South Asian saints, scholars, and their traditional ways.
I’m not sure why you are out to paint (or belittle) my idea as being a ‘conspiracy theory’, its much more of a statement on reality, as I’m only examining the most obvious motives for what is fact, the lack of Traditional South Asian influence on American Islam.
I find your writing trying to belittle my point in various ways, including ignoring the aspect of traditional South Asian poets, arts, music and culture which is missing from immigrants. Responding to the lack of influence with the way one community treated you regarding food and clothes is a sign, for me, of not understanding that we are talking about. Since you are studied on this matter, I’m a bit confused why you would be focusing on the integration manners of in an immigrant community, when discussing the much larger and missing aspects of traditional South Asian Islam (art, poetry, music, scholarly works, saintly people) on Muslims of all types.
I had this discussion with another brother who is Latino and my main point is Andalus was not in any real way European. Latin was overridden by Arabic, Currency changed from being bilingual to being Arabic within 10 years of Arab rule. The people looked, dressed and ate like Arabs as I mention in my post. The architecture style was imported from Damascus. The very name of Andalus did not include its name given by the local population. This was not an example of integration with the existing culture, but of overriding it., even though it was very tolerant of other faiths and ideas. It was representative of the same subconscious Arabization which occurs today.
Yet in South Asia, we don’t have anything like this occurring throughout centuries of Arabic trade and conversion. That is, until today. As you are well aware, recently the prominent Dr. Israr Ahmed suggested Urdu be thrown out and Arabic be made the primary language of Pakistan. This and a continued Arabization of South Asia is a reflection of something real, like it or not, and it has far reaching effects even down to immigrants and their resulting impact on American Islam (even though you had to wear some Shalwar Kameez).
Certainly Muslims are supposed to be angels, but coming to expect that is only a really a road to let-down. What I’m speaking from is a reality, and that is that immigrant Muslims who are already dealing with being in a largely non-Muslim country would most likely stick to what it is they do nominally keep as ‘apparant’ reflections of their South Asianness in communities they pay for, build, and participate in. Obviously, they have to be open to other types of Muslims, and they could have improved on that area. At the same time, I don’t think its a surprise that they act insular at times. Regardless, none of the above has to do with traditional South Asian culture and Islam, and much more to do with manners and reflections of immigrant insecurities.
Indigenous Muslims should entertain the idea of going through the same slow process that South Asians did towards developing their own Islamic culture, not through forced Arabization, but being influenced by the arts, culture, poetry, religious knowledge of all Muslim cultures which make it up. The Shalwar started out Turkish, but the integration with the local culture turned it into the Shalwar Kameez identified with South Asians. This type of organic growth is much more powerful than the two choices given to American Muslims Today. A forced emphasis on an ‘indigenous’ Muslim culture, which outside of some high-status and ancient Native American converts and African slaves, does not really exist yet, and Arabization.
Salaam ‘Alaikum
I’ve basically held my hands on this one but…
//an ‘indigenous’ Muslim culture, which outside of some high-status and ancient Native American converts and African slaves, does not really exist yet//
there is a point here, a larger point I’m not sure was made… and that is that this whole thing is “forced” and so is any attendant hand wringing. We’re not ready for an “American Islamic culture.” We’re babies! People didn’t start converting in large numbers until the 60′s or so, and they didn’t enter Sunni Islam in large numbers until a decade later. Meanwhile, large scale immigration from Muslim-majority countries didn’t happen until the same time. So what? 40 years? And we expect to have a style of dress, food, music, and art developed? We go on CNN and talk about an “American Islamic culture,” and we’re starting to see peeps of it in the blogosphere (dissent or criticism or rejection or what have you). Yet it is all premature, IMO.
This community isn’t going to develop a culture influenced by anything until we work out our own ethnic and racial issues, including the latent (or not so latent) Arab hating present in many Muslims, and the severe racial issues that many, many Muslims have towards Blackamericans. We give it a few token words, and then we ignore it. I don’t know. This is the stuff that keeps me away from the masjid (well, some of the stuff) and that has pushed me away from blogs and other interactions lately.
Yursil, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Apparently I’m not the only one missing boats here.
As salaamu ‘alaykum.
as-salamu’alaikum,
I agree with UmmZaid, in fact this criticism of it is actually focusing on those elements which are forcing a culture to emerge rather than letting come on its own naturally.
Umm Pookie, maybe so
And here I was expecting to go on my cruise!