|
This lecture presents an argument for locating the phenomena of increased religiosity and Islamic Revival among second generation Arab
Muslims in Chicago at the intersection of the Arab American experience and
globalization. It situates the resurgence of religiosity among second generation Arab Muslims, a population often described as “immigrants”
although they are not, as an outcome of their indigenous experience growing
up in America.
The literature on Islamic revival describes Islamicization as global force
acting in largely uniform ways upon Muslims wherever they are, be it the United States, France, Egypt, Malaysia, or Nigeria. In discussions of the
unfolding of this process in the West, the message and the messengers of Islam are assumed to be foreign, finding responsive audiences among
immigrant Muslim communities because they too are foreign. Distinctions between immigrants and second-generation children (born in the West) are
not made. The latter are assumed to be cultural aliens of the countries in
which they are born, or strained in their bi-cultural and transnational authenticity, thus explaining the appeal of Islam. This argument is
tautological. Islam finds meaning among the children of immigrants because
they are essentially foreign; they are essentially foreign because they have
found meaning in Islam. A refined version of this argument may be plausible
in countries where second-generation Muslims cannot gain citizenship rights
(e.g., Germany), but its applicability in countries that accord citizenship
through the principle of juris soli (e.g., US, Canada, France) should be
subject to serious scholarly scrutiny.
Additionally, discussions of Islam in the West often bypass the concept of religiosity as a spiritual and moral force altogether, moving quickly to
issues of organization, fundamentalism, and politics, without asking the question: why is religion increasingly important among Muslims globally,
and how do we explain this phenomenon locally?
I argue that Global Islamic Revival, described by a number of names (resurgence, revival, fundamentalism, Islamism), must be understood for
both its universal appeal and particular causality. While the revival of religion among Muslim populations is often explained in reference to
universal themes — such as the search for meaning or justice, a response to
inequity or poverty, the failure of democracy and political movements, Western political and cultural domination — and its Western form is often
attributed simplistically to migratory movements, more research must be done to identify its local roots and appeal. That is, in each society in which
increased religiosity among Muslims has occurred, local explanations for this process should be explored, in addition to the relative contributions of
global networks and structures (including migration, transnational relationships, and communications technology.) This framework for study
provides a paradigm for empirically-grounded comparative research that takes into account local conditions and structures as well as transnational
and global phenomena.
In the case of the United States, I propose that the revival of Islam among
second generation Arab American Muslims has more in common with African American conversions to Islam than with processes occurring in
their parents' homelands. The appeal of Islam to Muslim American teenagers
and adults evolved from discrimination and alienation they experienced in the United States. As such, it is an American experience. Like African
Americans, they grew up experiencing negative and stereotypic portrayals of
their culture, dehumanization, political exclusion, and voicelessness. They
experienced alienation in the schools and had to combat self-hatred imbued
by textbooks, video games, talk shows, and movies that portrayed their culture as barbaric. At the same time as the messengers of Islam may global
in origin —immigrants, transnational relationships, and the internet — these
vessels should not be viewed as causal. The potential trajectories of this
process for Islam and Muslims in the United States are many. Because their
Islamicization is an American experience, second generation religious Muslims may be more able than their immigrant parents to cross the lines of
culture, race and ethnicity that characterize American Islam and forge pan-Islamic relationships, developing a globally unique space for Islamic
renewal (tajdid).
|
