Search results for "tag:"Author Rosemary R. Corbett""

Book SynopsisIn recent years, Sufism has been held up as a supposedly peaceful alternative to forms of Islam associated with violence, an embodiment of tolerance and pluralism. Modern Sufism and the State brings together a range of scholars, including anthropologists, historians, and religious-studies specialists, to challenge common assumptions.Trade ReviewDiscussions of Islam and politics typically focus on Islamic states and Islamists, leaving Sufis to appear transcendently above the political realm. These twelve compelling case studies show how Sufi leaders and organizations are entangled in local, national, and transnational politics among the world's largest Muslim communities in India and Pakistan. -- Nile Green, author of Sufism: A Global HistoryA crucial resource for understanding the limits and legacies of 'Sufism'—a category invented by nineteenth-century Orientalism—in shaping patterns of religious and political conflict, affinity, and indifference across South Asian societies. This superb collection offers a powerful rebuttal to the reigning orthodoxy of Sufi contra Salafi within studies of contemporary Islam. -- Charles Hirschkind, author of The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic CounterpublicsModern Sufis and the State shows the diversity, multivalence, and local embeddedness of Sufi political engagements. Its emphasis on complexity and local rootedness is a welcome contribution. The editors and the contributors bridge several different fields and combine expertise to offer new and important perspectives on the Barelwi and Deobandi movements. -- Scott Kugle, author of Sufis and Saints’ Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality, and Sacred Power in IslamThis welcome book explores the roles of those widely influential figures identified as Sufis. This is an important subject given the ignorance about Sufis and much else that often fuels the anti-Muslim violence and Islamophobia all too evident in today's world. The work should be of interest to policy makers involved with Muslim populations as well as to academics and others interested in Islam in the contemporary world. -- Barbara Metcalf, author of Islamic Contestations: Essays on Muslims in India and PakistanTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on TransliterationIntroduction: Sufis and the State: The Politics of Islam in South Asia and Beyond, by Katherine Pratt EwingPart I: Sufism and Its Modern Engagements with a Global Order1. Anti-Colonial Militants or Liberal Peace Activists? The Role of Private Foundations in Producing Pacifist Sufis During the Cold War, by Rosemary R. Corbett2. From Taṣawwuf Modern to Neo-Sufism: Nurcholish Madjid, Fazlur Rahman, and the Development of an Idea, by Verena Meyer3. Beyond Barelwiism: Tahir-ul-Qadri as an Example of Trends in Global Sufism, by Marcia HermansenCommentary on Part I: Ambiguities and Ironic Reversals in the Categorization of Sufism, by Carl W. ErnstPart II: Sufis, Sharia, and Reform4. Is the Taliban Anti-Sufi? Deobandi Discourses on Sufism in Contemporary Pakistan, by Brannon D. Ingram5. Sufism Through the Prism of Sharia: A Reformist Barelwi Girls’ Madrasa in Uttar Pradesh, India, by Usha Sanyal6. Lives of a Fatwa: Sufism, Music, and Islamic Reform in Kachchh, Gujarat, by Brian E. BondCommentary on Part II:Sufis, Sharia, and Reform, by Muhammad Qasim ZamanPart III: Sufis and Politics in Pakistan7. “A Way of Life Rather Than an Ideology?”: Sufism, Pīrs, and the Politics of Identity in Sindh, by Sarah Ansari8. Sufi Politics and the War on Terror in Pakistan: Looking for an Alternative to Radical Islamism?, by Alix Philippon9. “Our Vanished Lady”: Memory, Ritual, and Shiʿi-Sunni Relations at Bībī Pāk Dāman, by Noor ZaidiCommentary on Part III: The Problems and Perils of Translating Sufism as “Moderate Islam,” by SherAli TareenPart IV: Sufism in Indian National Spaces10. Is All Politics Local? Neighborhood Shrines and Religious Healing in Contemporary India, by Carla Bellamy11. Sufi Healing and Secular Psychiatry in India, by Helene Basu12. Sufi Sound, Sufi Space: Indian Cinema and the Mise-en-Scène of Pluralism, by Rachana Rao UmashankarCommentary on Part IV: Sufism in Indian National Spaces, by Bruce B. LawrenceConclusion: Thinking Otherwise, by Rosemary R. CorbettNotesGlossaryBibliographyList of ContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisIn recent years, Sufism has been held up as a supposedly peaceful alternative to forms of Islam associated with violence, an embodiment of tolerance and pluralism. Modern Sufism and the State brings together a range of scholars, including anthropologists, historians, and religious-studies specialists, to challenge common assumptions.Trade ReviewDiscussions of Islam and politics typically focus on Islamic states and Islamists, leaving Sufis to appear transcendently above the political realm. These twelve compelling case studies show how Sufi leaders and organizations are entangled in local, national, and transnational politics among the world's largest Muslim communities in India and Pakistan. -- Nile Green, author of Sufism: A Global HistoryA crucial resource for understanding the limits and legacies of 'Sufism'—a category invented by nineteenth-century Orientalism—in shaping patterns of religious and political conflict, affinity, and indifference across South Asian societies. This superb collection offers a powerful rebuttal to the reigning orthodoxy of Sufi contra Salafi within studies of contemporary Islam. -- Charles Hirschkind, author of The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic CounterpublicsModern Sufis and the State shows the diversity, multivalence, and local embeddedness of Sufi political engagements. Its emphasis on complexity and local rootedness is a welcome contribution. The editors and the contributors bridge several different fields and combine expertise to offer new and important perspectives on the Barelwi and Deobandi movements. -- Scott Kugle, author of Sufis and Saints’ Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality, and Sacred Power in IslamThis welcome book explores the roles of those widely influential figures identified as Sufis. This is an important subject given the ignorance about Sufis and much else that often fuels the anti-Muslim violence and Islamophobia all too evident in today's world. The work should be of interest to policy makers involved with Muslim populations as well as to academics and others interested in Islam in the contemporary world. -- Barbara Metcalf, author of Islamic Contestations: Essays on Muslims in India and PakistanTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsNote on TransliterationIntroduction: Sufis and the State: The Politics of Islam in South Asia and Beyond, by Katherine Pratt EwingPart I: Sufism and Its Modern Engagements with a Global Order1. Anti-Colonial Militants or Liberal Peace Activists? The Role of Private Foundations in Producing Pacifist Sufis During the Cold War, by Rosemary R. Corbett2. From Taṣawwuf Modern to Neo-Sufism: Nurcholish Madjid, Fazlur Rahman, and the Development of an Idea, by Verena Meyer3. Beyond Barelwiism: Tahir-ul-Qadri as an Example of Trends in Global Sufism, by Marcia HermansenCommentary on Part I: Ambiguities and Ironic Reversals in the Categorization of Sufism, by Carl W. ErnstPart II: Sufis, Sharia, and Reform4. Is the Taliban Anti-Sufi? Deobandi Discourses on Sufism in Contemporary Pakistan, by Brannon D. Ingram5. Sufism Through the Prism of Sharia: A Reformist Barelwi Girls’ Madrasa in Uttar Pradesh, India, by Usha Sanyal6. Lives of a Fatwa: Sufism, Music, and Islamic Reform in Kachchh, Gujarat, by Brian E. BondCommentary on Part II:Sufis, Sharia, and Reform, by Muhammad Qasim ZamanPart III: Sufis and Politics in Pakistan7. “A Way of Life Rather Than an Ideology?”: Sufism, Pīrs, and the Politics of Identity in Sindh, by Sarah Ansari8. Sufi Politics and the War on Terror in Pakistan: Looking for an Alternative to Radical Islamism?, by Alix Philippon9. “Our Vanished Lady”: Memory, Ritual, and Shiʿi-Sunni Relations at Bībī Pāk Dāman, by Noor ZaidiCommentary on Part III: The Problems and Perils of Translating Sufism as “Moderate Islam,” by SherAli TareenPart IV: Sufism in Indian National Spaces10. Is All Politics Local? Neighborhood Shrines and Religious Healing in Contemporary India, by Carla Bellamy11. Sufi Healing and Secular Psychiatry in India, by Helene Basu12. Sufi Sound, Sufi Space: Indian Cinema and the Mise-en-Scène of Pluralism, by Rachana Rao UmashankarCommentary on Part IV: Sufism in Indian National Spaces, by Bruce B. LawrenceConclusion: Thinking Otherwise, by Rosemary R. CorbettNotesGlossaryBibliographyList of ContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisMaking Moderate Islam reveals the assumptions about race and gender, as well as the political and economic pressures that, beginning in the mid-twentieth century, have structured demands for religious minorities' "moderation" in the United States.Trade Review"Making Moderate Islam is an important contribution to the urgent questions around Muslims and citizenship. The central characters and debates here are striking, and even dramatic—including a post-9/11 climate, election-year grandstanding, right-wing punditry, think-tank support, and imperial logics of containment—and Corbett does a splendid job of identifying and invoking many of the players, tropes, and consequences of the story of the 'Ground Zero Mosque.'" -- Sohail Daulatzai * author of Black Star, Crescent Moon *"Scholarship on Islam in America has generally overlooked the practices of middle-class Muslims and social elites, who, in the wake of the 2010 'Ground Zero Mosque' controversy, suddenly found themselves under attack despite having played by the rules. By uncovering the historical context of this national anti-Muslim campaign, Corbett demonstrates, in lively prose, how conceptualizations of 'moderate Islam' are the product of an interplay between race, class, and religion in America." -- Kambiz GhaneaBassiri * author of A History of Islam in America *"[T]his is not merely a well-done micro-history with impressive, long-term ethnographic sources. It is, at its core, a book tackling broader and theoretical notions of 'moderate' Islam, American belonging, and the limited acceptance of marginalized bodies within the American body politic...Because Corbett grounds her analysis in the local but focuses throughout on larger issues like race, gender, ethnicity, and religion in America, Making Moderate Islam is a valuable—and eminently teachable—monograph for scholars and students of Islam, America, and religious studies writ large." -- Ilyse R Morgenstein Fuerst * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *"Corbett's conclusion, that limits to inclusion require communities to work with others to achieve their goals rather than separately or some will advance while others remain behind, extrapolates from the case study central to this book to the wider issue of social inclusion and advancement. This book is highly recommended as a thoroughly researched and riveting discussion of how American Muslims negotiate identity, belonging, and acceptance in the United States." -- Clinton Bennett * Religious Studies Review *"Making Moderate Islam is a highly readable, engaging, and important contribution to the ongoing scholarship of Islam in America. Corbett is to be commended in using the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy as an example of the limits to calls for religious toleration and moderation. The book is also a fascinating introduction to modern American Sufi practice in its various forms."––Salma Ahmad, Reading ReligionTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Debating Moderate Islam chapter abstractIn December 2009, Feisal Abdul Rauf announced plans to open a thirteen-story Islamic community center in Manhattan. A prominent imam, Sufi shaykh, and the internationally recognized leader of the Cordoba Initiative (founded in 2004 to "heal" the divide between "Islam and the West"), Rauf designed Cordoba House to educate Americans about the truths Islam shares with other faiths and to exemplify the "moderate Islam" he had spent nearly a decade promoting—most notably in his 2004 book. This chapter briefly introduces Rauf's organizations and his primary message of moderation, outlining the political, economic, racial, and gendered components of his philosophy that will be further explored in the rest of the book. Additionally, it discusses how Rauf's narrative of immigrant assimilation both replicates and obscures the racialized tactics previous religious minorities and immigrants used to claim belonging in the U.S. 1Islamic Traditions and Conservative Liberalisms chapter abstractThis chapter parses the central components of Rauf's narrative of moderate Islam in order to reveal the political, economic, and philosophical similarities between Rauf's thought and that of some of his detractors—in particular, Newt Gingrich. These similarities, derived from Rauf's father's work with Gingrich's mentor (American Enterprise Institute neoliberal pundit, Michael Novak) during an era in which white ethnic religious minorities tried to prove their commitments to capitalism, illuminate the racialized tropes of assimilation and inevitable upward mobility many marginalized religious groups have echoed and adapted while explaining their own traditions in ways that demonstrate compatibility with American free-market capitalism and Protestant-derived secularism. 2Service, Anti-socialism, and Contests to Represent American Muslims chapter abstractChapter Two reveals how Feisal Abdul Rauf's father, a high-profile immigrant imam from whom Rauf derived much of his material, worked with Catholic and Jewish neoliberals in the 1970s while competing with other Muslim leaders—particularly, black Americans—to serve as a spokesperson for Muslims in the U.S. The chapter covers the political and economic developments that have given rise to tensions between many black American Muslims and American Muslims of Arab and South Asian ancestry. These tensions, which involve contests since the 1960s over political representation, religious authority, and economic resources, have inspired both black American and immigrant Muslims to emphasize their embrace of free-market capitalism and their participation in community service as they jockey for influence with American elites. 3Sufism and the Moderate Islam of the New Millennium chapter abstractLocating Rauf's Sufi order within the history of Sufism in the U.S., this chapter tracks Rauf's change from a real estate agent and part-time imam into the leader of the ASMA Society, an organization devoted to promoting Sufism in America. It examines the thinkers and leaders who most influenced Rauf, charts Rauf's journey in co-founding the ASMA Society with Daisy Khan (his wife) and Faiz Khan (no relation), then illuminates how and why Rauf and Khan, like Rauf's Jerrahi shaykh decades earlier, shifted from describing their organization as Sufi in orientation to one devoted to cultural appreciation. This is a strategy (entirely sincere) that Rauf's shaykh had followed when Sufi orders where banned in Turkey, and one Rauf and Khan pursued after 9/11, once Americans began to broadly fear "political Islam." 4From Sufism Without Politics to Politics without Sufism chapter abstractThis chapter maps the creation and evolution of Rauf's and Khan's organizations, the ASMA Society and Cordoba Initiative, discussing Rauf's and Khan's shift from describing their work as Sufi, American, and cultural in orientation to interreligious, international, and policy-oriented. In the process, it shows how Rauf's and Khan's goals and self-presentations changed as they attempted to accomplish their objectives while simultaneously meeting different non-Muslim elites' shifting demands for particular kinds of moderate spokespersons. Initially promoting cultural programs and the aesthetic beauty of Islam as a means of building bridges with other Americans, Rauf and Khan increasingly emphasized political goals as they established relationships with national and international leaders and government officials. In the meantime, they also de-emphasized Sufism, which could pose problems for Rauf's status as a Muslim legal authority in some of the countries where he spoke on behalf of the U.S. State Department. 5The Micro-politics of Moderation chapter abstractChapter Five describes some of the racial and ethnic assumptions underlying Rauf's cultural, sociological, and historical writings and explores how Muslims at Rauf's mosque responded to his teachings. It shows how Rauf positioned Sufism as the bridge between a multitude of differences, including those separating immigrant Muslims from black American Muslims, rich Muslims from poor, Sunni from Shi'a, and (in his words) Islam from the West. It focuses, though, on how Rauf's dervishes struggled with aspects of his definition of moderation—particularly Rauf's insistence that Muslims overcome their own limited cultural traditions so as to align their practice of Islam with American democracy and capitalism. Examining some of the issues New York Sufis faced in trying to live this moderate Islam after 2001, I focus on the ways they adopted and altered such arguments so as to deal with the racial, economic, and political disparities they confronted. 6"The Prophet's Feminism": Women's Labor and Women's Leadership chapter abstractChapter Six examines how Muslims dealt with the gaps between Rauf's and Khan's idea of America and the gendered realities of their daily lives. Promoting women's rights was a central component of Rauf's and Khan's work during the decade after 9/11, and they made the same assertions about women's equality as they did about religious and racial equality, presenting it as a fait accompli. For many women who attended Masjid al-Farah, though, gender equality was more elusive—not because they were Muslim, but because social gains for women in the U.S. failed to meet the hopes and promises of liberal feminists. Chapter Six also looks at how attitudes at the mosque toward women's rights activists and toward female religious leaders who were part of the community varied not just in relation to religious doctrine, but in relation to how much these women engaged in various kinds of community service. 7Islam in the Age of Obama: "What's More American than Service?" chapter abstractAs Rauf and Khan spent increasing amounts of time away over the years in order to pursue their ASMA and Cordoba projects, Rauf enjoined his dervishes to take up greater responsibilities of service to their Sufi order and community. As I discuss in this chapter—which includes a larger examination of the politics, hopes, and fears animating the emphasis on community service among American Muslims since the Islamic center controversy—some of Rauf's dervishes interpreted his instructions to serve and to model moderation in ways other than he intended, leading to disagreements over the nature of the Islamic center project, a split within Rauf's group, and to the ultimate demise of Cordoba House as Rauf envisioned it. Charting the controversy over the "Ground Zero Mosque," this chapter concludes with the state of Rauf's organizations five years later. Conclusion: Community Service and the Limits of Inclusion chapter abstractExamining larger Muslim American efforts to prove their patriotism through community service since 2009, the final segment of the book reminds readers of the racism built into dominant U.S. understandings of Muslim moderation and immigrant assimilation. Not only does this account reveal the painful choices that many spokespersons for Muslim Americans face and the gaps between high-minded ideals and the lived experiences of Muslims in the U.S., it also reemphasizes that marginalized groups in America have often gained provisional acceptance (though not always equality) at the expense of others. In so doing, the conclusion to Making Moderate Islam both exposes the power dynamics Muslim Americans are caught in at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as well as calls into question the larger limits of liberal inclusion for religious and racial minorities in the United States and the longer histories of provisional tolerance that have masqueraded as "acceptance."

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Book SynopsisDrawing on a decade of research into the community that proposed the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," this book refutes the idea that current demands for Muslim moderation have primarily arisen in response to the events of 9/11, or to the violence often depicted in the media as unique to Muslims. Instead, it looks at a century of pressures on religious minorities to conform to dominant American frameworks for race, gender, and political economy. These include the encouraging of community groups to provide social services to the dispossessed in compensation for the government's lack of welfare provisions in an aggressively capitalist environment. Calls for Muslim moderation in particular are also colored by racist and orientalist stereotypes about the inherent pacifism of Sufis with respect to other groups. The first investigation of the assumptions behind moderate Islam in our country, Making Moderate Islam is also the first to look closely at the history, lives, and ambitions of the those involved in Manhattan's contested project for an Islamic community center.Trade Review"Making Moderate Islam is an important contribution to the urgent questions around Muslims and citizenship. The central characters and debates here are striking, and even dramatic—including a post-9/11 climate, election-year grandstanding, right-wing punditry, think-tank support, and imperial logics of containment—and Corbett does a splendid job of identifying and invoking many of the players, tropes, and consequences of the story of the 'Ground Zero Mosque.'" -- Sohail Daulatzai * author of Black Star, Crescent Moon *"Scholarship on Islam in America has generally overlooked the practices of middle-class Muslims and social elites, who, in the wake of the 2010 'Ground Zero Mosque' controversy, suddenly found themselves under attack despite having played by the rules. By uncovering the historical context of this national anti-Muslim campaign, Corbett demonstrates, in lively prose, how conceptualizations of 'moderate Islam' are the product of an interplay between race, class, and religion in America." -- Kambiz GhaneaBassiri * author of A History of Islam in America *"[T]his is not merely a well-done micro-history with impressive, long-term ethnographic sources. It is, at its core, a book tackling broader and theoretical notions of 'moderate' Islam, American belonging, and the limited acceptance of marginalized bodies within the American body politic...Because Corbett grounds her analysis in the local but focuses throughout on larger issues like race, gender, ethnicity, and religion in America, Making Moderate Islam is a valuable—and eminently teachable—monograph for scholars and students of Islam, America, and religious studies writ large." -- Ilyse R Morgenstein Fuerst * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *"Corbett's conclusion, that limits to inclusion require communities to work with others to achieve their goals rather than separately or some will advance while others remain behind, extrapolates from the case study central to this book to the wider issue of social inclusion and advancement. This book is highly recommended as a thoroughly researched and riveting discussion of how American Muslims negotiate identity, belonging, and acceptance in the United States." -- Clinton Bennett * Religious Studies Review *"Making Moderate Islam is a highly readable, engaging, and important contribution to the ongoing scholarship of Islam in America. Corbett is to be commended in using the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy as an example of the limits to calls for religious toleration and moderation. The book is also a fascinating introduction to modern American Sufi practice in its various forms."––Salma Ahmad, Reading ReligionTable of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction: Debating Moderate Islam chapter abstractIn December 2009, Feisal Abdul Rauf announced plans to open a thirteen-story Islamic community center in Manhattan. A prominent imam, Sufi shaykh, and the internationally recognized leader of the Cordoba Initiative (founded in 2004 to "heal" the divide between "Islam and the West"), Rauf designed Cordoba House to educate Americans about the truths Islam shares with other faiths and to exemplify the "moderate Islam" he had spent nearly a decade promoting—most notably in his 2004 book. This chapter briefly introduces Rauf's organizations and his primary message of moderation, outlining the political, economic, racial, and gendered components of his philosophy that will be further explored in the rest of the book. Additionally, it discusses how Rauf's narrative of immigrant assimilation both replicates and obscures the racialized tactics previous religious minorities and immigrants used to claim belonging in the U.S. 1Islamic Traditions and Conservative Liberalisms chapter abstractThis chapter parses the central components of Rauf's narrative of moderate Islam in order to reveal the political, economic, and philosophical similarities between Rauf's thought and that of some of his detractors—in particular, Newt Gingrich. These similarities, derived from Rauf's father's work with Gingrich's mentor (American Enterprise Institute neoliberal pundit, Michael Novak) during an era in which white ethnic religious minorities tried to prove their commitments to capitalism, illuminate the racialized tropes of assimilation and inevitable upward mobility many marginalized religious groups have echoed and adapted while explaining their own traditions in ways that demonstrate compatibility with American free-market capitalism and Protestant-derived secularism. 2Service, Anti-socialism, and Contests to Represent American Muslims chapter abstractChapter Two reveals how Feisal Abdul Rauf's father, a high-profile immigrant imam from whom Rauf derived much of his material, worked with Catholic and Jewish neoliberals in the 1970s while competing with other Muslim leaders—particularly, black Americans—to serve as a spokesperson for Muslims in the U.S. The chapter covers the political and economic developments that have given rise to tensions between many black American Muslims and American Muslims of Arab and South Asian ancestry. These tensions, which involve contests since the 1960s over political representation, religious authority, and economic resources, have inspired both black American and immigrant Muslims to emphasize their embrace of free-market capitalism and their participation in community service as they jockey for influence with American elites. 3Sufism and the Moderate Islam of the New Millennium chapter abstractLocating Rauf's Sufi order within the history of Sufism in the U.S., this chapter tracks Rauf's change from a real estate agent and part-time imam into the leader of the ASMA Society, an organization devoted to promoting Sufism in America. It examines the thinkers and leaders who most influenced Rauf, charts Rauf's journey in co-founding the ASMA Society with Daisy Khan (his wife) and Faiz Khan (no relation), then illuminates how and why Rauf and Khan, like Rauf's Jerrahi shaykh decades earlier, shifted from describing their organization as Sufi in orientation to one devoted to cultural appreciation. This is a strategy (entirely sincere) that Rauf's shaykh had followed when Sufi orders where banned in Turkey, and one Rauf and Khan pursued after 9/11, once Americans began to broadly fear "political Islam." 4From Sufism Without Politics to Politics without Sufism chapter abstractThis chapter maps the creation and evolution of Rauf's and Khan's organizations, the ASMA Society and Cordoba Initiative, discussing Rauf's and Khan's shift from describing their work as Sufi, American, and cultural in orientation to interreligious, international, and policy-oriented. In the process, it shows how Rauf's and Khan's goals and self-presentations changed as they attempted to accomplish their objectives while simultaneously meeting different non-Muslim elites' shifting demands for particular kinds of moderate spokespersons. Initially promoting cultural programs and the aesthetic beauty of Islam as a means of building bridges with other Americans, Rauf and Khan increasingly emphasized political goals as they established relationships with national and international leaders and government officials. In the meantime, they also de-emphasized Sufism, which could pose problems for Rauf's status as a Muslim legal authority in some of the countries where he spoke on behalf of the U.S. State Department. 5The Micro-politics of Moderation chapter abstractChapter Five describes some of the racial and ethnic assumptions underlying Rauf's cultural, sociological, and historical writings and explores how Muslims at Rauf's mosque responded to his teachings. It shows how Rauf positioned Sufism as the bridge between a multitude of differences, including those separating immigrant Muslims from black American Muslims, rich Muslims from poor, Sunni from Shi'a, and (in his words) Islam from the West. It focuses, though, on how Rauf's dervishes struggled with aspects of his definition of moderation—particularly Rauf's insistence that Muslims overcome their own limited cultural traditions so as to align their practice of Islam with American democracy and capitalism. Examining some of the issues New York Sufis faced in trying to live this moderate Islam after 2001, I focus on the ways they adopted and altered such arguments so as to deal with the racial, economic, and political disparities they confronted. 6"The Prophet's Feminism": Women's Labor and Women's Leadership chapter abstractChapter Six examines how Muslims dealt with the gaps between Rauf's and Khan's idea of America and the gendered realities of their daily lives. Promoting women's rights was a central component of Rauf's and Khan's work during the decade after 9/11, and they made the same assertions about women's equality as they did about religious and racial equality, presenting it as a fait accompli. For many women who attended Masjid al-Farah, though, gender equality was more elusive—not because they were Muslim, but because social gains for women in the U.S. failed to meet the hopes and promises of liberal feminists. Chapter Six also looks at how attitudes at the mosque toward women's rights activists and toward female religious leaders who were part of the community varied not just in relation to religious doctrine, but in relation to how much these women engaged in various kinds of community service. 7Islam in the Age of Obama: "What's More American than Service?" chapter abstractAs Rauf and Khan spent increasing amounts of time away over the years in order to pursue their ASMA and Cordoba projects, Rauf enjoined his dervishes to take up greater responsibilities of service to their Sufi order and community. As I discuss in this chapter—which includes a larger examination of the politics, hopes, and fears animating the emphasis on community service among American Muslims since the Islamic center controversy—some of Rauf's dervishes interpreted his instructions to serve and to model moderation in ways other than he intended, leading to disagreements over the nature of the Islamic center project, a split within Rauf's group, and to the ultimate demise of Cordoba House as Rauf envisioned it. Charting the controversy over the "Ground Zero Mosque," this chapter concludes with the state of Rauf's organizations five years later. Conclusion: Community Service and the Limits of Inclusion chapter abstractExamining larger Muslim American efforts to prove their patriotism through community service since 2009, the final segment of the book reminds readers of the racism built into dominant U.S. understandings of Muslim moderation and immigrant assimilation. Not only does this account reveal the painful choices that many spokespersons for Muslim Americans face and the gaps between high-minded ideals and the lived experiences of Muslims in the U.S., it also reemphasizes that marginalized groups in America have often gained provisional acceptance (though not always equality) at the expense of others. In so doing, the conclusion to Making Moderate Islam both exposes the power dynamics Muslim Americans are caught in at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as well as calls into question the larger limits of liberal inclusion for religious and racial minorities in the United States and the longer histories of provisional tolerance that have masqueraded as "acceptance."

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