The Conference on Islam in America by Emily Wagner

Inaugural Conference on Islam in America September 23-24, 2011 DePaul University 1 Jackson St. Chicago 60601

“Representation”

Table of Contents

Welcome Page

Program Schedule

The Community

5-10

Community Bios

10-18

Presenter Abstracts

Welcome

he Academic Conference on Islam in America is a small, multidisciplinary community of professors, professionals and subject experts who have come together to create the first-ever sustained academic conference focusing exclusively on Islam in America. The inaugural Conference on Islam in America envisions the development of a sustained platform which will promote an internal and inclusive exchange of ideas and showcase academic achievement in a format that permits meaningful dialogue and enriches and nurtures comprehensive and holistic understanding along with an agenda for action. This year’s inaugural conference will thematically address one of the most fundamental issues facing the community today, REPRESENTATION.

A Call to Action

he conference agenda is being developed and will be designed to stimulate this exchange. Participants and speakers will be challenged to add value to the discussions through the creation of measurable and actionable next-steps on key issues. A core group of organizers and speakers will also set the agenda for next year’s conference whose floating venue will bring this discourse to different universities across the country. This conference is not an attempt to gather ideas for the sake of gathering ideas and instead will serve the needs of scholars, professionals and activists, who research, write and speak about Islam in America by combining scholarly contemplation with direction.

Some guiding questions to be addressed this year:

• How can Muslims and and other Americans create good news about each other? • How do Muslim-Americans identify diverse voices of authority within their own community and how do these perceptions compare to other major communities in the United States? • How do we secure and vocalize a safe place for Muslim-American civil rights that capitalizes on American pluralism while remaining sensitive to the rights of others? • How do we build capacity for responsible research and knowledge sharing between Muslim and non-Muslim professionals and academics? • How do we pursue cooperation in areas of mutual interest and which industries have a major role to play?

Friday 9/23

Program Schedule

9:00-9:30- Opening - Dr. Aminah McCloud and Mazen Asbahi 9:45-11:00- Media: The Face of Islam in America: Racialization and Space in the Media Panel - Moderated by Dawud Walid. Presenters: Atiya Husain, Dr. Za reena Grewal, Mike Ghouse, Angela Maly 11:10-12:30- Speakers and Leaders: The Question of Authority Panel – Moderated by Sayyed Sulayman Hassan. Presenters: Rasul Miller, Dr. Zaher Sahloul, Harvey Stark, Ali Albarghouthi 12:30-1:45- Lunch; and Jumu’ah (DIC – 231 South State Street) 2:00-3:30- Media: Who, When, Where and What to Report Panel - Moderated by Stephen Franklin. A conversation with: Noreen Ahmed-Ullah, Manya Brache ar, Muna Shikaki 3:45-5:00- Speakers and Leaders: Shaping and Contesting Authority - Moderated by Imam Makram El-Amin. Presenters: Abbas Adekola, Jaclyn Michael, Taneem Husain, Dr. Amina Wadud -Break for Dinner 6:30-7:30- Mosques on Chicago’s Religious Landscape- Dr. Paul D. Numrich 7:45-9:00- Break-Out Sessions and Off-the-Record Workshops

Saturday 9/24

9:00-10:30- The Place of Islam in the American Religious Landscape Panel Moderated by Dr. Rami Nashashibi. Presenters: Dr. Hamid Mavani, Sharif Islam, Lee Ann Bambach, Dr. Hishaam Aidi 10:45-11:45- Plenary Session- Dr. Rami Nashashibi 12:30-1:30- Luncheon: “The Historiography of Islam in America” with Dr. Edward E. Curtis IV; Introduced by Dr. Louise Cainkar. On-Site Reservation Required. 1:45-3:15- Representation and Engagement for the Past, Present and Future A conversation with: Besheer Mohamed, John W. Kluge, Linda Sarsour, Dr. Louise Cainkar 3:30-4:30- Plenary Session- Summary and Our Next Steps- Dr. Sherman Jackson 5:00-6:00- Board Election and Planning Committee Meeting 3

We are a small, evolving community of professors and professionals. We feel that the need for an annual conference focusing on topics relating to Islam in America is necessary. The conference provides a sustained platform for us to exchange ideas and commit to an action agenda in a format that permits meaningful dialogue between academic, religious, policy and business communities.

The Community

Zain Abdullah, Temple University Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, American University Hishaam Aidi, Columbia University Cheryl Ajirotutu, University of Wisconsin Aisha El-Amin, University of Illinois at Chicago Allan Austin, Emeritis Ihsan Bagby, University of Kentucky Waheedah Bilal, Activist & Researcher, Indiana University- Purdue University Michelle Byng, Temple University Louise Cainkar, Marquette University Edward E. Curtis IV, Indiana University- Purdue Univerity Frederick Denny, University of Colorado Sylviane Diouf, Schomberg Library Ibrahim Farajaje, Starr King School for Ministry - GTU Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, Reed College Juliane Hammer, George Mason University Marcia Hermansen, Loyola University Scott Hibbard, DePaul University Sherman Jackson, University of Southern California Bruce Lawrence, Duke University Beverly Mack, Univerity of Kansas Lydia Magras, Purdue University Debra Majeed, Beloit College Aminah McCloud, DePaul University James Morris, Boston College Farid Muhammad, East-West University Laith al-Saud, DePaul University Michael Sells, University of Chicago Richard Brent Turner, University of Iowa Amina Wadud, Researcher

Community Bios

ABBAS ADEKOLA is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Religion at Temple University and presently serves as a teaching assistant in Religion in the World course at Temple. His completed education includes a DPS from the Metropolitan Career Center in Philadelphia, an MA in English-Arabic Translation from the University of Leeds, a graduate diploma in teaching Arabic as a second language from King Saud University in Riyadh, a Masters in Arabic and Islamic Studies, and a Bachelor’s in Arabic language and literature from University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He has also served as a teacher in Philadelphia, and universities in Nigeria. His extensive community outreach, academic work, and translation experience has contributed to his studies as well as his involvement in the Islamic community.

Community Bios

ALI ALBARGHOUTHI is a PhD candidate at Wilfrid Laurier-University of Waterloo joint program in religious studies in Waterloo, Ontario. His dissertation focuses on the multiplicity of definitions and practices of ijtihad among Muslim intellectuals and community leaders in the US and Canada, and the impact of these discourses on Muslim communities. His other research interests include classical Islamic jurisprudence, Islam and modernity, secularism, and the orthodoxy-heterodoxy debates in Islamic theology. NOREEN AHMED-ULLAH has been a reporter at the Chicago Tribune for the last 12 years. She has covered the Chicago Park District, written about education in the suburbs, reported on the war in Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan, and now is covering another sort of battle zone@mdash;the Chicago public schools. She started the new beat last fall just in time for the departure of Ron Huberman, the election of a new mayor, and new CPS leadership. DR. HISHAAM AIDI‘s research interests include the politics of globalization, North-South relations, and social movements. He is currently researching immigration and youth movements in Europe. He received his PhD in political science from Columbia University, and has taught at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), and the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland. He has also worked as a consultant on UNDP’s Human Development Report. At SIPA, he teaches in the MIA Core course, “Conceptual Foundations of International Politics.” He has published the book Redeploying the State: Corporatism, Neoliberalism and Coalition Politics, and co-published Black Routes to Islam. Hishaam is a contributing editor for Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society for the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Coumbia University, and has written over the past years on African and Afro-diasporan affairs for various magazines including Africana, The New African, ColorLines, Souls, Socialism and Democracy and MERIP. MAZEN ASBAHI is the principal of Asbahi Law Group, Ltd. and brings considerable experience and focus in providing quality and affordable legal services to businesses,physicians and other healthcare providers and nonprofits. Mr. Asbahi received his primary legal training at Kirkland & Ellis, LLP, one of the nation’s premiere law firms. He received his bachelors degree with highest honors from the University of Michigan, and his Juris Doctorate with cum laude honors from the Northwestern University School of Law. Mr. Asbahi writes and speaks on a variety of legal issues. He is a member of the American Bar Association’s Business Law, Health Law and Nonprofit Law committees. He is a 2007 felow of Leadership Greater Chicago, and currently serves as a director of its Fellow Association. He has served as a president of the Muslim Bar Association of Chicago and on the auxiliary board of the Chicago Legal Clinic. Mr. Asbahi also serves as general counsel and a board member of the Institute for Social Policy & Understanding. More recently, Mr. Asbahi served as the National Coordinator of Muslim American and Arab American Outreach for the Obama presidential campaign. In addition to his work with ALG, Mr. Asbahi currently publishes and edits the Nonprofit Legal Blog and the Healthcare Legal Blog. LEE ANN BAMBACH is a PhD candidate at Emory University, where she is working on a dissertation on faith-based dispute resolution among Muslims in the United States. Her undergraduate degree from Brown University was in Medieval Studies, and she has an MTS from Harvard Divinity School. She is also an attorney, having received her J.D. from the University of Georgia, where she was first in her class and the editor of the Law Review. She clerked for the late Honorable Sam J. Ervin III on the U.S Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and worked as an associate in the Washington, DC office of Latham & Watkins. Most recently she helped draft a Report and Resolution against anti-sharia legislation that was formally adopted by the American Bar Association in August 2011.

MANYA BRACHEAR joined the Chicago Tribune in June 2003. As the paper’s religion reporter, she has helped chronicle the papal transition from Rome, the Dalai Lama’s visits to Chicago, progress and pitfalls of interfaith dialogue, the struggles and triumphs of the American Muslim community and the emerging role of religion in American politics. Brachear earned a bachelor’s degree from Appalachian State University and masters’ degrees in journalism and religious studies from Columbia University. She has taught religion reporting at Northwestern University’s Medill School and serves on the board of the Religion Newswriters Association. She also has written for Time magazine, The Dallas Morning News, Beliefnet.com and the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.

Community Bios

DR. LOUISE CAINKAR is a sociologist in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University. Her areas of expertise include Arab American studies, Muslim American studies, and immigrant communities, fields in which she has published extensively. Her recent award-winning book, Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience after 9/11 (2009, Russell Sage Foundation) draws upon analyses of national security policies and historic patterns of stereotyping to contextualize her field research and ethnographic interviews with Arab and Muslim Americans after 9/11. Dr. Cainkar won the prestigious Carnegie Scholar Award for her research on the reinvigoration of Islamic practices among second generation Muslim Americans in 2004. She has also been honored by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, the Arab American National Museum, The Council on American Islamic Relations- Chicago, and Chicago’s Mayor Daley, on behalf of the Chicago Council on Human Relations. Cainkar has also conducted migration and human rights research in Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Palestine, and Yemen. She recently completed 6 months of data collection in Jordan, Yemen, and Palestine for a comparative study of second generation Arab Muslim Americans who are raised trans-nationally. Professor Cainkar is on the executive board of the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies and the editorial board of Middle East Report. She firmly supports engaged public sociology and has conducted community studies for small, non-profit organizations, and also believes in socially engaged leadership. She currently sits on the Board of Directors of Chicago’s Arab American Action Network and Project M, a new non-profit that seeks to promote Muslim American political participation, leadership development, and electoral candidacies. DR. EDWARD CURTIS is Millennium Chair of the Liberal Arts and Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). He is the author or editor of several books on Muslim-American and African-American history, including Muslims in America: A Short History, which was named one of the best 100 books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly. A former NEH Fellow at the National Humanities Center, he has also been awarded Carnegie, Fulbright, and Mellon fellowships. Most recently, Professor Curtis has completed work as general editor of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Muslim-American History. IMAM MAKRAM EL-AMIN’s commitment to service and civic leadership has made him a pillar in the Minneapolis community. As imam of the historical Masjid An-Nur, he’s led a growing culturally diverse congregation in his hometown to the forefront of interfaith dialogue and neighborhood outreach. For the past 15 years, Imam El-Amin’s work has been firmly rooted in the principle of our inherent human dignity. In addition to weekly teaching duties, he has led the masjid’s numerous community service initiatives, including Al Maa’uun Neighborly Needs Community Outreach program, feeding more than 300 families monthly since 1997. Along with his congregation, he helped raise more than $1 million for the initial phase of the masjid’s expansion, with future plans to house classrooms, a library and social services center. He’s done so by garnering support for the masjid’s efforts not only from the local Muslim community, but from some of Minnesota’s most prominent religious, social and corporate institutions. A student of the late religious leader and scholar Imam W. Deen Mohammed, his thoughtful and moderate approach to Islam has afford Imam El-Amin opportunities to share the stage with Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. He was a delegate to an historic interfaith event in Rome with Pope John Paul II and member of an interfaith clergy delegation to the Holy Land. As advisor to Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, Imam El-Amin has counseled Ellison on religious issues and accompanied him on international trade trips. The relationship has led to The New York Times writing an article on Imam El-Amin, tagging him the ‘congressman’s imam’ and emerging voice for religious tolerance and Muslim participation in the public square. A frequent lecturer on Islam, he has represented Muslim

Community Bios

Turkey, and the Middle East. He is a member of the Minneapolis Downtown Clergy and serves on the advisory board of the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Center at the University of St. Thomas. When not leading his congregation, Imam El-Amin continues to serve by helping mentor adult men transitioning from prison into the workforce. In his role at The Network for Better Futures, he plays life coach to hundreds of men improving their lives through education and employment. In addition, he helps operate his family’s restaurant, a popular fish house in the masjid’s bustling North Minneapolis neighborhood. Through the resources of Al-Maa’uun, he and his team recently organized area Muslims to help feed more than 1,000 local residents impacted by a tornado. Imam El-Amin’s effort to improve the lives of others- through religious discourse or social entrepreneurship- has earned him the reputation for reaching across his city’s racial and denominational divide. Imam El-Amin is the second of five children. He’s been married 18 years to his wife, Sharon, and they have three children, Raheema, Malik, and Nasir. STEPHEN FRANKLIN is a former Chicago Tribune reporter with extensive experience in the Middle East. He has trained journalists in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He is currently the editor and project manager for a Carnegie Corporation grant to create online courses and a book on Islam for U.S. journalists. He is the ethnic news media project director for the Community Media Workshop. He was a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey. To view the online courses go to ---- http://www.online.wsu.edu/islam or http://www. islamforjournalists.org MIKE GHOUSE is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions to media and to the public on important and complex issues of the day and is available to speak in a variety of settings such as schools, seminars, conferences, and places of worship, or the work place. Mike is a frequent guest on Fox News, (The Hannity Show), and has been interviewed on nationally syndicated Radio shows along with Dallas TV, Print and Radio networks and occasional interviews on NPR. He is a member of the Texas Faith panel of Dallas Morning News and writes on issues facing the nation every week. He has spoken at international forums including the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, in Melbourne, Australia, Middle East Peace Initiative, in Jerusalem, the International Leadership conference, in Hawaii, and in Washington. Through the Foundation for Pluralism he champions the idea of co-existence by respecting and accepting the otherness of those different from ourselves. The World Muslim Congress is committed to nurturing the pluralistic ideals embedded in Islam. Heavily involved in both, Mike Ghouse is committed to building cohesive societies and has produced outstanding public events to bring Americans together of different religions, ethnicities and races on common grounds of building a safe and secure America. He envisions a role for Muslim in the American Media and believes that our society is waiting for Muslims to be participants and contributors in the overall development of America. He has been in the media on most of the major conflicts in the last two years from Ground Zero to Peter King hearings on the Quraan Burning and now he is looking forward to taking on demystifying the Sharia myths. He is a speaker, thinker, collaborator and a writer on the subjects of Pluralism, the interfaith movement, cohesive societies, Islam, hope and world peace. Over 1000 articles of Mike’s have been published worldwide and two books are poised to be released this fall. His work is reflected in 4 websites and 27 Blogs indexed at http://www.mikeghouse. net/ DR. ZAREENA GREWAL is the Director of the Center for the Study of American Muslims at ISPU. She is also an Assistant Professor in the departments of American Studies and Religious Studies and the Program in Ethnicity, Race and Migration at Yale University. Before coming to Yale, she was a visiting lecturer at Vassar College in the department of anthropology. Dr. Grewal is the author of numerous articles and chapters on the intersections of race and religion in American Muslim communities and her book Destination Tradition: American Islam and the Crisis of Authority (forthcoming, New York University Press) explores the global religious networks that connect U.S. mosques to the intellectual centers of the Middle East. Dr.Grewal was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship in Egypt (2002-3) and received the Fulbright’s prestigious Islamic Civilization Grant. She is also a documentary filmmaker and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. Dr. Grewal received her doctorate from the interdisciplinary Program in Anthropology and History at the University of Michigan. SAYYED SULAYMAN HASSAN was born in western New York, where he attended high school. He received a BS in business administration from the State University at Buffalo in 1997. From 1997-2007, he studied in the Islamic Seminary of Qum in Iran, concentrating on Islamic Law. Since 2007, he has been with the Bait ul-Ilm Islamic Center in Streamwood, IL, as a teacher and religious director. He is also pursuing a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.

TANEEM HUSAIN is a PhD student in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio Sate University. Currently, her dissertation research focuses on the construction of a Muslim-American community or nation through the lens of Muslim-American youth marriage and sexuality. She is interested particularly in the boundaries inherent in the construction of this nation and the resultant excesses. She will ultimately consider the capacity for the compatibility of a queer, anti-normative vision of identity with the expressly identitarian framework of religion SHARIF ISLAM is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His main interests are religion, morality and space in everyday settings. He is currently conducting fieldwork in Chicago for his dissertation entitled “Sharia in the City: Construction and Negotiation of moral spaces”

JOHN KLUGE: As Co-creator and Managing Partner of Eirëne (www.eirene.com), John Kluge is building highly scalable purpose driven ventures by deploying visionary capital through a tribe of family stewards in order to create a more peaceful and prosperous world. He is also Resident Fellow at the EastWest Institute (www.ewi.info), an international, non-partisan, non-profit policy organization, who’s mission is to devise innovative solutions to pressing global security concerns. John is combining entrepreneurship and philanthropy to drive radical change in education, sanitation, aging, games for good and media. Prior to joining EWI, John was the Projects Coordinator and Legislative Liaison for Rock and Wrap It Up!, an anti-poverty think tank, where he piloted a federal food recovery program at the Library of Congress, and spearheaded the drafting and lobbying efforts of the Federal Food Donation Act of 2008, improving the food security of 36 million underserved people in the United States. John holds a B.A. from Columbia University. He serves on a number of non-profit and for profit boards, including UNICEF, the Stan Lee Foundation, Sheba International, and award-winning special effects and animation company Digital Domain. He is the author of the book John Kluge: Stories, published by Columbia University Press and is currently producing a documentary feature-length film, “The Power of Peace,” on disarmament and the futility of war in the 21st century, staring His Holiness the Dalai Lama & Columbia University professor Robert Thurman

Community Bios

SHERMAN JACKSON , formerly the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Visiting Professor of Law and Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan, is now the King Faisal Chair of Islamic Thought and Culture and Professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, Indiana University, and Wayne State University. From 1987-89, he served as Executive Director of the Center of Arabic Study Abroad in Cairo, Egypt. He is co-founder of the American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM), a former member of the Fiqh Council of North America, past president of the Sharî‘ah Scholars’ Association of North America (SSANA) and a past trustee of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). He is featured on the Washington Post-Newsweek blog, “On Faith,” and is listed by Religion Newswriters Foundation ReligionLink as among the top ten experts on Islam in America.

ANGELA MALY is a second year graduate student at the University of Boulder Department of Religious Studies. She graduated from Georgetown University with a BS in Physics and a double major in Theology. Angela is currently studying Islam in the United States, focusing on contemporary culture. This includes how Islam is treated in the media specifically, and the public sphere in general. Looking to the Park 51 mosque controversy in lower Manhattan, Angela plans to analyze how the discourse related to Islam in the US is being shaped through notions of physical space. DR. HAMID MAVANI is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Claremont Graduate University, School of Religion. His expertise in Islamic Studies stems not only from academic training but specialized, theological training at the traditional seminaries in the Muslim world. His primary fields of interest include Islamic legal reform, women and Shi’I law, Shi’I theology and political thought, intra-Muslim discourse, and Muslims in America. JACLYN MICHAEL is a PhD student in Religions of Asia in the Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research interests include popular devotional practices among Muslim communities in South Asia and North America, and the study of identity politics within American and South Asian pop culture. She completed her Masters degree in Islamic Studies at Boston University and her Bachelors degree in Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.

Community Bios

RASUL MILLER graduated from Duke University in 2005 with a B.A. in Economics and African and African American Studies. He has traveled to several sub-Saharan African nations to conduct business and research. He works with the Islamic Educational Support Foundation (IESF), and currently studies Islamic sacred law and jurisprudence with IESF founder and co- president, Sheikh Ameen Abdul Awal Al Akkir, a student of the late Dr. Suleiman Dunya. He also serves on the board of directors for Nasrul Ilm America, a non-profit organization closely affiliated with the African American Islamic Institute founded by the late Sheikh Hassan Cisse. Recently, Rasul has spearheaded an initiative to document the oral history of NYC’s African American Muslim community. He is currently engaged in foundational traditional Islamic studies and hopes to pursue a PhD. BESHEER MOHAMED is a research associate at the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. He specialized in issues related to religious identity, with a specific focus on Muslim Americans. Prior to joining the Pew Forum, Besheer worked at the University of Chicago’s Survey Lab. Besheer received his Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago. His dissertation examines the relationship between religious identity and social attitudes among American Muslims. He also earned a master’s degree in Middle East Studies from the University of Chicago. DR. RAMI NASHASHIBI has served as the Executive Director of the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN, a non-profit community organization that fights for social justice, delivers a range of direct services, and cultivates the arts in urban communities) since its incorporation as a nonprofit in January 1997. He has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago and has been an adjunct professor at various colleges and universities across the Chicagoland area, where he has taught a range of Sociology, Anthropology, and other Social Science courses. He has worked with several leading scholars in the area of globalization, African American studies and urban sociology and has contributed chapters to edited volumes by Manning Marabel and Saskia Sassen. Rami has lectured across the United States, Europe and Middle East on a range of topics related to American Muslim identity, community activism and social justice and is a recipient of several prestigious community service and organizing awards. Rami and his work with IMAN has been features in many national and international media outlets including the BBC, PBS, New York Times and Al Jazeera. In 2007 Islamica Magazine named Rami among the “10 Young Muslim Visionaries Shaping Islam in America” and in 2010 Chicago Public Radio selected him as one of the city’s Top Ten Chicago Global Visionaries. Rami was also named one of the “500 Most Influential Muslims in the World” by The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center in concert with Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and was recognized by the White House as a “Champion of Change” for his work with IMAN. PAUL D. NUMRICH, Ph.D., is a professor in the Theological Consortium of Greater Columbus, Ohio, and an affiliate researcher in the McNamara Center for the Social Study of Religion, Department of Sociology, Loyola University, Chicago. His research interests include the social, civic, and theological implications of America’s religious diversity. LINDA SARSOUR is a working woman, community activist, and mother of three. Ambitious, outspoken and independent, Linda shatters stereotypes of Muslim women while also treasuring her religious and ethnic heritage. She is a Palestinian Muslim American and a selfproclaimed “pure New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn!” Currently she is the Advocacy and Civic Engagement Coordinator for the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC) and ACCESS and locally serving as the Director of the Arab American Association of New York, a social service agency serving the Arab community in NYC. Linda was a 2005 COROS New American Leaders Fellow, named Extraordinary Woman by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes and received the 2010 Brooklyn Do-Gooder Award from the Brooklyn Community Foundation. Linda is also a board member of the New York Immigration Coalition, a coalition of over 250 nonprofit agencies serving the diverse immigrant communities of New York State. In the 2008 elections, Linda coordinated the largest and most successful get out the vote effort in the Arab American community in Brooklyn, with over 130 canvassers and 8000 doors knocked. She has been featured in local, national, and international media speaking on topics ranging from women’s issues, Islam, domestic policy

and political discussions on the Middle East conflict. Linda’s strengths are in the areas of community development, youth empowerment, community organizing, civic engagement and immigrants’ rights advocacy. DR. ZAHER SAHLOUL served at different levels in governing many local nonprofit religious, civic, professional and medical organizations. Dr. Sahloul is active at the Interfaith level with Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian and Jewish faith groups. He serves at the National Advising Board of Bernadin Center of the Catholic Theological Union, and at the Board of advisers of the Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. At the professional level, Dr. Sahloul is a physician at Advocate Christ medical center. He is a founder of the Syrian American medical society, Midwest chapter and its Foundation. He wrote several articles about Muslims and Civic Life, Mosques, leadership, Environment, civic engagement and activism from an Islamic perspective. He is married with three children.

HARVEY STARK is a PhD candidate in the Religion Department at Princeton University. He is currently working on his dissertation entitled, “From ‘Alim to Imam: Religious leadership and the Muslim American chaplaincy.” His research interests include the Muslim Communities in the US and Europe. Specifically his focus is on formations of religious authority and identity for Muslims in non-Muslim majority countries. DR. AMINA WADUD is an internationally acclaimed scholar, human rights activist, and educator. Currently a visiting scholar at the Starr King School for the Ministry at the Graduate Theological Union, Amina has also held positions at Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia, and the Harvard Divinity School. She is Professor Emeritus of Islamic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her recent publications include “Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam” and articles such as “Islam and Patriarchy,” “Muslim Women: Between Citizenship and Faith,” and “Qur’an, Gender, and Interpretive Possibilities.” Amina is the recipient of numerous awards, honors, and grants, including the Valor Award, presented by al-Fatihah at the Fifth International Retreat for Queer Muslims and Their Allies; and the Democracy Prize, from Democratic Muslims of Denmark. She was selected for the 2009 Library of Congress “Women Who Dare” book series.

Community Bios

MUNA SHIKAKI is an on-air correspondent and video journalist for Al-Arabiya News Channel, a leading Arabic language news network. Based in Washington, D.C. since 2004, she covers a broad range of issues, from US elections and politics, to foreign policy and the Arab and Muslim American communities. Shikaki has reported from over 30 US states, Gunatanamo Bay Cub, Dubai, the Palestinian Territories and South America. She was a 2004 Fulbright scholar at Columbia University in New York, where she earned her MS in Journalism. She completed her BA at Birzeit University in Ramallah, Palestine.

DAWUD WALID is an educator, community activist and decorated veteran who has been active in the Detroit Metropolitan area for years. Currently, he also serves as the Assistant Imam of Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit, Michigan, a member of the North American Imams Federation (NAIF), executive director of CAIR Michigan, and an executive board member of the Metropolitan Interfaith Workers Rights Committee. He has lectured across the country at several mosques and universities including Harvard University, the University of the Virgin Islands and Youngstown State University. He also has had numerous articles on Islam and Interfaith dialogue published as well as appearing in major media outlets such as CNN, Al-Jazeera, the New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, and the BBC. Other past leadership positions, which he has held in the community include Chairperson of the Board of Trustees for Al-Ikhlas Training Academy, a pre-K – 12th grade private Islamic school in Detroit, Chairperson of Religious Studies for The American Society of Muslims’ National Young Adult Association, and Congregational Organizer for The Interfaith Partners wing of The National Conference for Community and Justice – Detroit now known as the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. He also served in the United States Navy for four years receiving two Navy & Marine Corp Achievement Medals for his work under the Administrative Officer and the Command Judge Advocate of his unit.

Presentation Abstracts

The Face of Islam in America: Racialization and Space in the Media Panel Atiya Husain (UNC Chapel Hill): “Deconstructing Liberalism using the Case of Muslim America” Are there limits to liberal support of Muslims in the US? What are the boundaries and undercurrents of this discourse? This paper maps liberal discourse on Muslims and Islam in the United States by deconstructing “positive,” “pro-Muslim,” and “balanced” views in liberal mainstream media outlets. Using visual and print media data from the six months prior to the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the analytical focus is on the racialization of Muslims in the United States within this discourse. It is important to note that representations need not be “negative” or discriminatory in order to be racial. With a special focus on racial formation, these representations will be analyzed through a thorough system of coding that considers gender, sexuality, class, culture, integration and assimilation, and religious practice or piety. I expect to find that this discourse contributes to the racialization of American Muslims by cultural othering, which ultimately has implications for what it means to be Muslim in the United States in a post-9/11 context. Zareena Grewal (Yale): “An Exceptional Ummah? The Mainstreaming and Re-territorializing of American Islam” The argument focuses on a new American exceptionalism that increasingly shapes American Muslim religious discourses, drawing on a particular, troubling (and territorialized) constructions of race and Americanness/indigeneity through the analysis of intra-Muslim debates as they are represented in the mainstream US media. What do we make of the fact that as the War on Terror systematically undermines transnational charitable, intellectual, and migrational networks that connect American Muslims to the Muslim World, American Muslims are increasingly calling for the breaking of those same ties? How are Muslim American religious leaders reproducing their own derivative discourses of Good and Bad Muslims in the course of promoting their own projects of Islamic reform? How do Muslim American religious leaders respond to charges of religious opportunism by critics who accuse them of “jockeying” for religious authority on the stage of the media? Case studies of mediatized religious figures will include Yasir Qadhi, Hamza Yusuf, and Amina Wadud among others. Mike Ghouse (Foundation for Pluralism, World Muslim Congress, America Together Foundation): “News and Media Representations of Islam and Muslims” Since Sept. 11, 2001, a negative image of Muslims was successfully portrayed in the media, tilting Americans toward buying stereotypical images of Muslims. However, the year 2010 witnessed a dramatic shift in auto-correcting that error. The Ground Zero Mosque, nay, the Muslim community center in New York was a major turning point in adding the average American Muslim to the media mix of public faces who were not only moderates but also contributors to the overall prosperity and security of America. This has gradually changed the perceptions about Muslims; the average American can relate with this segment of common Muslim voices sidelined 11

hertofore. A fuller picture of engaging Muslim diversity has thus emerged in civic society; from speakers with beards and head coverings to no head coverings and no beards, just as a majority of Muslims live their day to day life like all others.

Presentation Abstracts

Angela Maly (U of Colorado): “The Politics of Space: An Examination of the Polemics Surrounding the Park 51 Mosque in Manhattan” At stake in the Manhattan mosque issue is the anxiety around the definition of US citizenship and the identity of the US as a post-Christian/secular nation. The ordering of space and time, by the nation and the individual, structures the worldviews, society, and identity. I will examine how the definition of space itself is a foundational and prescriptive element to the ordering of society: that the history of the US, as written by US citizens, organizes the nation into a well-defined space. Though ‘freedom of religion’ and the notion of tolerance is much attested to in defense of Park 51, the limits of that freedom must be questioned. Notions of religion and its malleable definition affect the discourse in specific ways but how is religion functioning, for whom does it function and to what end? I will argue that these debates are linked to the physical space linking the two sites: ground zero and Park 51. I will argue that the placement of the mosque within Manhattan is affecting the discourse in complex ways: the claim to ‘ownership’ of ground zero and its surroundings by various groups applies not only to the physical space but the emotions surrounding the events of 9/11 and the physical space of ground zero. The tension created by Muslims establishing a physical space in Manhattan and US citizens invoking religious language illustrates some of the major rifts in the modern nation state of the United States. I will be drawing on contemporary theories of subjectivity and the politics of space in an effort to locate the discourse surrounding Park 51 within the larger discourse of Muslims within the US.

Speakers and Leaders: The Question of Authority Panel

Rasul Miller (Duke University): “Culture, Indignity, and Islamic Scholarly Authority” The issue of authority among Muslim communities living in the west has become increasingly relevant. As the fastest growing and, according to some estimates, second largest religious group in the US, the Muslim community’s perceived leaders enjoy significant influence over the American religious landscape. Current trends of Islamophobia and the delicate political relationship between the US and many predominantly Muslim countries have placed Muslim American leadership in a powerful, albeit precarious position. Further complicating the issue is the unique relationship between indigenous and immigrant Muslim Americans. As the only western nation with a sizable indigenous Muslim population, and against a backdrop in which ethnic identity is often linked to perceptions of religious authenticity, contentions and preconceptions around how ethnicity and cultural experience should factor in qualifying Muslim leadership permeate discussions on American Muslim authority. This paper will explore the role of culture and indignity in determining scholarly authority in the Islamic tradition. I will analyze primary sources (i.e. the Qur’an and the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions) and classical

Presentation Abstracts

Islamic scholarly texts in order to engage the tradition. My goal will be to examine how Muslim scholars have used Islamic legal discourse to address issues of leadership, authority, and cultural relevancy. I will demonstrate a trend among classical Muslim scholars to view the empowerment of indigenous Muslim leaders as a desired ideal. I will then highlight examples of how this trend has been followed in regard to the transmission of scholarly authority among Muslim communities in the US. Harvey Stark (Princeton University): “Who isn’t a ‘Muslim American’? Religious leadership and the Muslim American chaplaincy” Although the term “Muslim American” is bandied about, few if any Muslim religious leaders can accurately claim to represent all American Muslims. Yet the relatively fledgling institution of the Muslim American chaplaincy attempts to do just that. As such the institution of chaplaincy in the United States serves as one model for Muslim American religious leadership and is part of the development of a distinctly Muslim American clergy. This paper explores the ways in which the Muslim American chaplaincy deals with intra-religiou diversity in response to an American concept of a necessarily public mainstream Islam. In particular it investigates the current Islamic educational and theological expectations that endorsing agencies, such as the Muslim Endorsement Council of Connecticut, and educational institutions, like the Hartford Seminary, have for Muslims who want to serve as chaplains and represent an American Islam both publically and within the institutions they serve. Finally, in this context, it examines how chaplains see their role as religious leaders and what “Muslim American” means to them in undertaking their ministry. Ali Albarghouthi (Wilfrid Laurier University of Waterloo): “Ijtihad and the Construction of Authority in North America” Since the early nineteenth century, calls for reform among Muslims have looked to, and depended on, ijtihad as one of its main vehicles for change. Ijtihad, which was traditionally a specific juristic tool utilized in the absence of explicit scripture, was transformed at the hands of Muslim reformers into a revolt against the rigidity of the juristic schools of law (madhhabs) and the authorities/institutions that represent them. Many reformers believed that the stagnation of Muslims was a direct result of the absence of the “spirit” of ijtihad among Muslims (Al-Alwani 2005) and embarked on reform projects that challenged the inherited and exclusive authority of the traditional ulama to interpret scripture. This debate over who is a legitimate Muslim authority continues till today. This paper will argue that the ijtihadic discourse in North America inherits this debate over authority and imbues it with the particularities of the continent. Confronting the challenge of Muslim diversity on the continent, ijtihad in North America serves as a tool for ethnic and racial representation/empowerment. The egalitariandemocratic spirit pushes, as well, for an open-door ijtihad that eschews external hierarchy in favour of the subjective, sometimes antirational, authority of the individual. Ijtihad in North America ceases to be simply a debate about who is authorized to interpret Islam but is actively constructing this authority and its parameters. 13

Speakers and Leaders: Shaping and Contesting Authority

Presentation Abstracts

Abbas Adekola (Temple University): “The Role of the Congregation in Determining the Character of Religious Leaders within Micro Muslim Communities in the United States” The question about who speaks for Islam in America has acquired urgency with increasing numbers of American Muslims and continued growth of Islam. As Muslims make inroads into the mainstream of socio-economic institutions of American public life the question about Muslim religious leadership comes to the fore. Right now there is a vacuum that is being filled- or a space that is being contested- by various groups, individuals and organizations. The objective of my presentation is mainly not to evaluate the claims or the credentials of those groups but to assess their strategies in light of historical precedents and to see how theories of social conflicts and hegemony may apply in the specific American context. I propose that the same question lay behind the struggles of the early Muslim especially after the demise of the last of the four rightly guided caliphs. During the Umayyad period a group of scholars emerged as the legitimate and legitimizing authority for the Islamic discourse and tried to balance the relationship between the public and the government. This body- variously named- aligned themselves with the government if only nominally and the government also relied on them if only for symbolic legitimacy. Theological as well as sociological tools, strategies were deployed for hegemony and resisitance and for authorizing and de-authorizing certain forms religious authority. Often missing in scholars’ analysis is the socio-political implications of terms like, Ahl al Sunnah wa Jama’ah or Ahl al Hadith, al Shiah or Khawarjj, etc. Jaclyn Michael: “Identity Politics on the Comedy Stage: Muslim American Comedians Stand Up and Speak Out” Muslim reactions to new curiosity about Islam and Muslim America as a result of 9/11 are often defensive and/or conciliatory- they explain what is “wrong” with Islam. In contrast to this, Muslim American stand-up comedians offer a bold and unapologetic response to social discourse about being Muslim in America. Many of the new male and female comics engage in public humor as a forum to challenge misinformation about Islam and Muslim Americans, and are clear about the socially critical goals for their comedy. This paper will explore how Muslim Americans use stand-up comedy to engage with the stereotypes and realities of being both Muslim and American in a post-9/11 context. The analysis will draw on the content of stand-up performances drawn from material available through diverse media products such as websites, online performance clips and interviews, documentaries, and print materials. Theoretical works on the social functions of humor, studies of ethnic and marginal humor in American culture, and performativity theory will explain the historical relationship between social humor and American minority cultures, and show how stand-up comedy can be effective for these comedians’ golas for social change. Taneem Husain (Ohio State University): “Constructing the Good Muslim: Marriage, Happiness, and Muslim-American Common Sense” In this post-9/11 world, Muslim-Americans are constantly being defined by

Presentation Abstracts

various hegemonic forces, including the media, the state, and representations in popular culture. This paper asks, however, how Muslim-Americans are defining themsevles, particularly under these oppressive circumstances. Using Kara Keeling’s theorizing on black common sense and Sara Ahmed’s critique of happiness, this paper analyzes how Muslim-Americans construct their own vision of a hegemonic community- or a “Muslim-American common sense.” This vision of common sense constructs certain boundaries of what is and is not acceptable among the Muslim-American community and who is able to decide on, reside within, and enact these dictates. To explicate Muslim-American common sense, then, this paper analyzes Umm Juwayriyah’s “Urban Islamic Fiction” novel, The Size of a Mustard Seed. This novel presents a particular, utopian vision of a Muslim-American community, thus providing a framework for Muslim-American common sense. Through the novel, this paper argues that a Muslim-American common sense is fairly rigidly defined, and primarily done so through static visions of happiness predicated on a heteronormative, Islamically-formed, multicultural view of marriage.

Mosques on Chicago’s Religious Landcape

Dr. Paul D. Numrich (Theological Consortium of Greater Columbus and Loyola University) This presentation examines Islam’s public presence as expressed through the exterior architecture and iconography of mosques in metropolitan Chicago. Muslim selfrepresentation and implications for relations between American Muslims and the larger society will be considered.

The Place of Islam in the American Religious Landscape

Hamid Mavani (Claremont Graduate University): “The Case for Secularity in Islam” Islam is often presented as not just a “religion,” as understood in the “West,” but as a comprehensive and all-encompassing way of life that is static, unchanging, and monolithic; one that has fused the sacred with the profane, the religious with the secular, and the temporal with the spiritual. Any attempt to demarcate such boundaries, it is argued, would be tantamount to disfiguring Islam’s original and the pristine teachings. This monolithic worldview, which conflates “religion” with “state,” has led some pundits and Islamophobes to assert the existence of an inherent incompatibility between Islam and liberal democratic norms, values, and institutions; between Islam and human, gender, and minority rights. Similar prejudicial arguments were made in the past in the case of Jews and Christians when each group was presented and stereotyped as the “other.” In the case of Islam, this “otherness” has been extrapolated even further: an inevitable and perpetual “clash of civilizations” based on the legal terminology employed by medieval Muslim jurists to divide the world into the “abode of unbelief” (dar al-kufr) and the “abode of Islam” (dar al-Islam), This asserted complete conflation and convergence of political and religious authority can be challenged from three fronts: First, at least in theory, religion and state were indivisible during Prophet Muhammad’s time; in practice, however, there was an explicit separation between acts of worship (‘ibadat) and human inter-relations (mu’amalat). The former are static, essential, unchanging, and immutable, whereas 15

the latter consists of rules of conduct and behavior that are open to public negotiation. Second, a distinction is made between religion’s moral authority, which motivates a believer to submit to its dictates and the state’s coercive power. Given that religious faith and conviction is a matter of individual choice instead of state coercion, both domains need to be separated. Third, Islamic legal theory has incorporated the concept of the aims and objectives of Islamic law (maqasid al-Shari’ah). In other words, the divine prescriptions are necessarily and logically time- and contextbound, as such, all legal injunctions related to social interactions are subject to continual elaboration and evolution.

Presentation Abstracts

Sharif Islam (University of Illinois): “Law, Religion, and Space: Toward a Spatial Methodology of Shari’a and Muslim Practices” The primary concern for this paper is spatiality of law and religion where I am interested in theorizing the spaces of Shari’a and the related everyday practices. Although Shari’a is based on divine revelation and for Muslims in the scope of Shari’a is not limited to any particular place or region, it nonetheless controls all aspects of public and private behavior ranging from personal hygiene, diet, sexual conduct, financial transactions to marriage and divorce proceedings alongside providing prescriptions for prayer, fasting, and other religious duties. In particular when we are talking about Shari’a in multireligious, multicultural settings such as United States and England, we are referring to specific everyday practices such as consuming halal foods, negotiating Islamic banking contracts, creating Islamic curricula in private schools, and participating in a variety of legal proceedings concerning marriage and divorce, among others. These practices are happening in particular spaces where interpretations of Shari’a are enacted within a complex interaction between universalist understating of religion and law and particularistic cultural, social, political and linguistic interpretation of such law. Although, the role of the state and overseeing of religious courts and arbitration is an important and complicated issue, my main goal in this paper is to bring spaces and practices of Shari’a to the forefront of theory and method with the understanding that these spaces are not “passive container or backdrop in or against which religious activity takes place” (Knott 2009:156). Rather than exmaining the concrete space and the final spatial form and the institutions involved in these spaces, following the lead of Lefebvre (1991), I highlight the process of producing spaces through Shari’a (see Metcalf 1996 for similar points). Lee Ann Bambach (Emory University): “Save Us from “Save Our State”: An Examination of anti-Sharia Legislative Efforts in the United States” November 2, 2010, voters in Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly in favor a state constitutional amendment known as “Save Our State” that would prohibit state courts from considering “international law or Sharia Law.” Although a federal court judge quickly issued a preliminary injunction barring the certification and implementation of this amendment on First Amendement grounds, the initiative’s resounding success in the polls has encouraged state legislators across the United States to introduce similar legislation. To date, over 15 states have sought to ban Sharia in some way, and the number continues to climb steadily. This presentation examines the sources and impetuses behind such legislation,

Presentation Abstracts

focusing most specifically on teh Public Policy Alliance’s “American Law for American Courts” bill that has served as the model for legislation introduced in nearly a dozen states. It also analyzes the language of these bills and discuss what htey doand do not- attempt to ban. For example, many opponents (and supporters) of such legislative efforts think that they will ban all Sharia observance, but the strict wording of even the harshest of these bills has not tried to go that far. In addition, such legislative efforts often go beyond Sharia, seeking to ban the use of any religious or foreign law, such as a bill in Arizona that would bar its state courts from using not only Sharia law, but canon law, halacha or karma as well.

Dr. Hishaam Aidi (Columbia University): “Ahmadi Muslims, Jazz and Cultural Diplomacy” In the late 1950s, the State Department began using high profile jazz tours to alter people’s impressions of the US and to counter Soviet propaganda, which focused on racial practices and strife in the South. The tours were the brainchild of the Democratic Congressman from Harlem Adam Clayton Powell, who conceived of jazz as a Cold War weapon after attending the Afro-Asian Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. How did the internationalism of the Ahmadi Muslims influence their musical output? What role did they play in cultural diplomacy initiatives? How did their music influence cultural movements and musical traditions in Muslim-majority countries during the post-colonial and musical traditions in Muslim-majority countries during the post-colonial era? (eg. Gnawa music of Morocco). In 2005, the jazz diplomacy initiative was revived in a program called The Rhythm Road, a partnership between the State Department, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Kennedy Center. The program was introduced by Karen Hughes, who was appointed by Bush as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, to improve global perceptions of America in the wake of Abu Ghraib and the resurgence of the Taliban. Since its inception, the Rhythm Roads program has included jazz and “urban/hip hop” music, recognizing hip hop’s dominance and role as a “global musical language.” The program today also invites bands that play different genres to audition — bluegrass, country, gospel, Cajun, zydeco and folk – but the initiative still relies heavily on black music. In 2005, the State Department also began appointing “Hip Hop Ambassadors” and sending “Hip Hop Envoys” – rappers, dancers, deejays – to perform and speak in different parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The tours have pretty much covered the broad arc of the Muslim world, with performances taking place in Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire across North Africa – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt – the Levant and Arabia (Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain) extending to Mongolia, Pakistan and Indonesia. How is the hip hip diplomacy iniative being perceived in Africa and the Middle East?

Luncheon: Historiography of Islam in America

Representation and Engagement for the Past, Present and Future

Besheer Mohamed (Pew Research Center) In 2007 the Pew Research Center conducted the first-ever probability-based survey of the U.S. Muslim population. Though a well respected organization conducted the survey, the findings were interpreted, and misinterpreted, by a wide range of individuals and organizations. In 2011 the Pew Research Center is conducting a second survey of American Muslims. This presentation will speak to the strengths and weaknesses of probability-based surveys generally, and the Pew Research Center’s Muslim Americans surveys specifically, as sources of data on American Muslims. The presentation will then highlight some of the key findings of the 2011 Muslim Americans survey.

Presentation Abstracts

Dr. Edward E. Curtis, Millennium Chair of the Liberal Arts and Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University- Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Introduced by Dr. Louise Cainkar, Marquette University Though popular images and amateur ethnographies of Muslim slaves and visitors circulated in the nineteenth-century United States, the formal study of American Muslims did not begin until 1930s. This talk explores the history of the field, which began as the sociological study of “Black Muslims” and a few immigrants groups and by the 1980s became a religious studies subfield sometimes called “Islam in America” studies. I argue that the field’s focus in the 1980s on post-1965 first-generation Muslim immigrants obscured the presence of African American Muslims and mistakenly analyzed the Muslim American experience as a whole through the lens of a first-generation struggle between American modernity and Islamic tradition. As studies of African American and other Muslim groups multiplied in the 1990s and then increased exponentially after 9/11, however, the leading paradigm of the field was challenged. A new generation of scholars arose to analyze Islam as an American religious tradition and to narrate the lives of Muslims as mundane Americans.