Description
Book SynopsisWhile 9/11 and its aftermath created a traumatic turning point for most of the writers in this book, it is telling that none of their essays begin with that moment. These young people were living, probing, and shifting their Muslim identities long before 9/11.... I''ve heard it said that the second generation never asks the first about its story, but nearly all the essays in this book include long, intimate portrayals of Muslim family life, often going back generations. These young Muslims are constantly negotiating the differences between families for whom faith and culture were matters of honor and North America''s youth culture, with its emphasis on questioning, exploring, and inventing one's own destiny.from the Introduction by Eboo PatelIn Growing Up Muslim, Andrew Garrod and Robert Kilkenny present fourteen personal essays by college students of the Muslim faith who are themselves immigrants or are the children of immigrants to the United States. In their essays, the st
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"Growing Up Muslim is a candid portrayal that goes beyond abstract cliches of the 'good' educated and secular Muslims versus the undereducated, `bad’ religious believers. The stories offer insight into the challenges Muslims face as well as the comfort they derive from their religion. Muslims and non-Muslims alike will benefit greatly from this work." -- Geneive Abdo, author of Mecca and Main Street
"I thoroughly enjoyed reading Growing Up Muslim. The essays are well written, deeply reflective, and complementary to each other. Their consistency of quality, subject matter, and flow allows the reader to easily observe the salient variations across each person, resulting in a highly humanistic collection of portraits of young adult Muslims living, some only for a time, in North America." -- Louise Cainkar, Marquette University, author of Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience after 9/11
"In this beautifully edited collection, veteran scholars of youth autobiography Andrew Garrod and Robert Kilkenny empower young American Muslims to narrate their own lives in the midst of the cacophonous discourse surrounding Islam in America today. They introduce readers to the diverse experiences and religious understandings of immigrant Muslims and invite us to look at American multiculturalism anew through their struggles, hopes, and accomplishments." -- Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, Reed College, author of A History of Islam in America
Table of Contents
Introduction
Eboo Patel
PART I. STRUGGLES WITH DIVERSITY
1. Far from Getting Lost
Zahra Ahmed
2. A World More Complex Than I Thought
Ala' Alrababa’h
3. My Expanding World
Asyah Saif
4. The Novice’s Story
Abdul Moustafa
PART II. STRUGGLES WITH ISLAMOPHOBIA
5. A Muslim Citizen of the Democratic West
Aly Rahim
6. Living Like a Kite
Shakir Quraishi
PART III. STRUGGLES WITH SEXUALITY AND RELATIONSHIPS
7. The Burden
Abdel Jamali
8. My Permanent Home
Sabeen Hassanali
PART IV. STRUGGLES WITH PIETY
9. On the Outside
Arif Khan
10. Being Muslim at Dartmouth
Adam W.
11. Shadowlands
Sarah Chaudhry
12. The Headscarf
Sara L.
PART V. STRUGGLES WITH FAMILY
13. A Child of Experience
Tafaoul Abdelmagid
14. A Debt to Those Who Know Us
Nasir Nasser
About the Editors and Author of the Introduction
