Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Muslims have been immigrating to the United States from nations such as Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Previously underrepresented in ethnic studies literature, these nearly four million descendants of previous immigrants and the new arrivals have settled in large numbers in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Detroit, and other North American cities.From the social and historical conditions of the Muslim migration to a range of issues affecting Muslim American life, the contributors provide new and valuable information on topics like intergenerational conflict about identity and values, intermarriage, religious and community involvement, gender and family structure, education, the needs of the elderly, and physical and mental health problems, including AIDS. In the final section, some of these issues are given a personal dimension through the life stories of several immigrants who relate their own experiences of adjusting to life in America. Author note: Barbara C. Aswad is Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University and the author of Arabic Speaking Communities in American Cities. >P>Barbara Bilge is Lecturer in Anthropology and Sociology at Eastern Michigan University and author of several articles on Turks and other Muslims in the Americas.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Muslims have been immigrating to the United States from nations such as Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Previously underrepresented in ethnic studies literature, these nearly four million descendants of previous immigrants and the new arrivals have settled in large numbers in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Detroit, and other North American cities.From the social and historical conditions of the Muslim migration to a range of issues affecting Muslim American life, the contributors provide new and valuable information on topics like intergenerational conflict about identity and values, intermarriage, religious and community involvement, gender and family structure, education, the needs of the elderly, and physical and mental health problems, including AIDS. In the final section, some of these issues are given a personal dimension through the life stories of several immigrants who relate their own experiences of adjusting to life in America. Author note: Barbara C. Aswad is Professor of Anthropology at Wayne State University and the author of Arabic Speaking Communities in American Cities. >P>Barbara Bilge is Lecturer in Anthropology and Sociology at Eastern Michigan University and author of several articles on Turks and other Muslims in the Americas.

In Peaceful Families, Hammer chronicles and examines the efforts, stories, arguments, and strategies of individuals and organizations doing Muslim anti-domestic violence work in the U.S.

Explores how Muslim Americans test the boundaries of American pluralism In 2004, the al-Islah Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, set off a contentious controversy when it requested permission to use loudspeakers to broadcast the adhān, or Islamic call to prayer. The issue gained international notoriety when media outlets from around the world flocked to the city to report on what had become a civil battle between religious tolerance and Islamophobic sentiment. The Hamtramck council voted unanimously to allow mosques to broadcast the adhān, making it one of the few US cities to officially permit it through specific legislation. Muslim American City explores how debates over Muslim Americans’ use of both public and political space have challenged and ultimately reshaped the boundaries of urban belonging. Drawing on more than ten years of ethnographic research in Hamtramck, which boasts one of the largest concentrations of Muslim residents of any American city, Alisa Perkins shows how the Muslim American population has grown and asserted itself in public life. She explores, for example, the efforts of Muslim American women to maintain gender norms in neighborhoods, mosques, and schools, as well as Muslim Americans’ efforts to organize public responses to municipal initiatives. Her in-depth fieldwork incorporates the perspectives of both Muslims and non-Muslims, including Polish Catholics, African American Protestants, and other city residents. Drawing particular attention to Muslim American expressions of religious and cultural identity in civil life—particularly in response to discrimination and stereotyping—Perkins questions the popular assumption that the religiosity of Muslim minorities hinders their capacity for full citizenship in secular societies. She shows how Muslims and non-Muslims have, through their negotiations over the issues over the use of space, together invested Muslim practice with new forms of social capital and challenged nationalist and secularist notions of belonging.

The author offers a personal account of her experiences as a Muslim in the United States, dispelling many of the myths and misunderstandings about Muslims and comparing Islamic values to American ethical values.

"Four american moslem ladies": early U.S. Muslim women in the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, 1920-1923 -- Insurgent domesticity: race and gender in representations of NOI Muslim women during the Cold War era -- Garments for one another: Islam and marriage in the lives of Betty Shabazz and Dakota Staton -- Chadors, feminists, terror: constructing a U.S. American discourse of the veil -- A third language: Muslim feminism in Smerica -- Conclusion: Soul Flower Farm

"Captivating, provocative, and groundbreaking. Taking up the mandate that women's realities matter, Majeed writes with depth and analytical rigor about a topic we have scarcely begun to understand."--Amina Wadud, author of Inside The Gender Jihad "Tackles the contours and intimacies of a much practiced but seldom spoken about quasi-marriage that leaves women without legal support. A much-needed text on an extremely sensitive topic. Majeed excavates this terrain with finesse and a deft scholarly hand."--Aminah Beverly McCloud, coeditor of An Introduction to Islam in the 21st Century "Utilizes ethnographic research methods to imaginatively and constructively complexify the reality of polygyny in the lives of African American Muslim women."--Linda Elaine Thomas, author of Under the Canopy "Majeed's womanist approach is critical, yet balanced enough to include the concerns of women, men, and children, affording readers a broad and vital gaze into the lives of these unconventional households."--Zain Abdullah, author of Black Mecca "A powerful and long overdue study of polygyny in African American Muslim communities."--Shabana Mir, author of Muslim American Women on Campus Debra Majeed sheds light on families whose form and function conflict with U.S. civil law. Polygyny--multiple-wife marriage--has steadily emerged as an alternative to the low numbers of marriageable African American men and the high number of female-led households in black America. This book features the voices of women who welcome polygyny, oppose it, acquiesce to it, or even negotiate power in its practices. Majeed examines the choices available to African American Muslim women who are considering polygyny or who are living it. She calls attention to the ways in which interpretations of Islam's primary sources are authorized or legitimated to regulate the rights of Muslim women. Highlighting the legal, emotional, and communal implications of polygyny, Majeed encourages Muslim communities to develop formal measures that ensure the welfare of women and children who are otherwise not recognized by the state.