American Crescent

Living Around Muslims

I've read a few other books about Islam in an attempt to understand it, but this book was the most helpful. I was attracted to it because I live in the Detroit area and know the beautiful mosque where the author, Imam Qazwini, serves the Muslim population. His mosque -- also known as the Islamic Center of America (ICOFA) -- is one of many that serve Muslims living in the Detroit area. Not only does Dearborn (western suburb and home to Ford Motor Company) hold the largest Arab-American population in North America, but another small suburb, Hamtramck (which is totally surrounded by Detroit), has in recent years become the first American city to have a Muslim-majority city council. I am used to seeing women in headscarfs and I once lived in a house on the Detroit-Dearborn border where I could daily hear the "call to prayer" of a nearby mosque.

A Peaceful Religion?

But my interest in understanding Islam really stems from 9/11. I remember George W. Bush going on TV and telling Muslims "we respect your faith" and thinking "well, I don't respect your faith if it tells you to fly airplanes into skyscrapers and kill 3000 people." The terror attacks that have followed, carried out by Muslims attributing their action to Allah, made me wonder how other Muslims can say "Islam is a peaceful religion." Is it really?

This book by Imam Qazwini has finally convinced me that there is nothing in the essence of Islam that tells anyone to kill another person, let alone lead terrorist attacks on innocent people. But Islam, like other religions, has a number of sects and factions and different interpretations of their holy book (the Quran) and the teachings of Islamic scholars through the ages.

I learned a great deal through Imam Qazwini's personal story of growing up in Iraq in a family immersed in Islam. His father was a famous imam and the author always wanted to follow in his footsteps. He finished secondary school and went on to a religious college that he describes as "bigger than the University of Michigan" with beautiful buildings and eminent professors. His father had been a frequent speaker on Islam and this son began speaking as well. He married at age eighteen in an arranged marriage. I wish he had told us more about what he thought when he first saw the woman chosen for him and how they built a relationship. On the subject of women, he is pretty shy. He also talks much more about his father than about his mother. That bothered me a bit, but later he redeems himself by expressing support for women's rights and rejecting extreme views about gender roles. He relates a story of participating in a class for newly arrived immigrants that required him to be in a group that included females. The exercises including touching (as in hand-shaking) and he had always been taught not to touch any woman but his wife. This sounds a bit trivial to anyone growing up in the US, but it bothered Qazwini and he substituted a small bow. To his credit, he realized this is a cultural difference and does not have anything to do with the value of women.

Coming to America

He came to the US because his father had come here and urged him to come too. He came first to California, then did some speaking visits to Dearborn before being offered the job of Imam at the big mosque, the Islamic Center of America. He also became an American citizen and sees no contradiction between democracy and Islam. But he does object to the stereotyping of Muslims in the US and will speak to any group on the subject to help them understand his religion. He says it is not his goal to convert Christians or Jews to Islam, but to help them understand Islam. People are used to the stereotype of Arabs as terrorists as seen in a number of popular movies and tend to accept them. He says Islam's role in history is also misunderstood: the prophet Muhammad had multiple wives mainly because some were widows who would have no means of support without a husband; most Muslims have only one wife. He says large populations were NOT converted "by the sword" but voluntarily and were better treated under Muslim rulers who tend to be tolerant of other faiths. And the word "jihad" is not just about wars (that is a minor meaning), but has a meaning in personal self-development. The Prophet Muhammad believed in only "just war" and there are rules for what is a just war.

Islamic beliefs are not just based on the Quran but also on a set of principles passed down from generations of teachers; these are called the hadith. Shia Muslims stem from a group that accepted the Prophet Muhammad's choice of a successor, his son-in-law, Ali, while Sunnis chose leaders from a more powerful clan. Shia also respect the Twelve Imams (successors to Muhammad) whose sayings are part of their teachings.

I also learned that Islam is not just one set of practices, but varies depending on the sect. Imam Qazwini is a Shia, which is a minority sect. Most Muslims are Sunnis, although there are other sects like the Sufis and Alowites. But in Saudi Arabia, home to the Prophet Muhammad and holy city of Mecca, the ruling family are Wahhabis, a strict sect based on the teachings of an imam from the 14th century. We know Saudi Arabia as the country where they have a lot of oil money, but women have no rights at all and can pretty much do nothing without permission of a man. The country is not democratic and their treatment of women is, in my American point of view, abusive and violates the civil rights of half the population. Imam Qazwini also does not think highly of Wahhabis. When the US State Department sent a group of "Muslim students" to visit Dearborn and stop at his mosque to pray, the students rejected the mosque and did their prayers out on the lawn instead. The imam realized they were Wahhabis who objected to something about his mosque. He sent the State Department a note telling them that these people had insulted him as well as his mosque employees and his religion. He told them not to send any students to pray at his center unless they are "civilized students."

Iran is a Shia-majority country while Iraq is Sunni. Sadam Husein was not a religious man, but he favored Sunni over Shia and had persecuted Shia clergy including Imam Hassan's father. When his father got word that Sadam's guards were looking for him, he and his family fled in the night to Kuwait, an important boyhood memory for Imam Qazwini. He has much to say about the interaction of American politics with affairs in the Middle East. He considered Sadam a tyrant ruler but also grew disaffected with George W. Bush's handling of foreign policy.

Sunni or Shia?

He tells us of small differences between Shia and Sunni like Sunnis pray on rugs and Shia don't and Sunnis pray five times a day and Shia three times, but they all use the same prayers. Some mosques separate men and women by a wall and others do not. He feels the difference between Shia and Sunni are less than the differences between Catholic and Protestant and that Muslims of both sects are known to pray in each others' mosques.

The last chapter is a series of 20 questions that Americans frequently ask about Muslims. It is one of many helpful parts of this book that will provide the reader with information about this religion that has taken on such a negative meaning in the United States. I think I was really sold on the author's take on Islam as compatible with American principles when he used the pronoun "we" in a sentence that I realized was referring, not to himself as a Muslim, but to himself as an American. Although I live in a metro area that has a fairly large Muslim population, I did not understand much about their beliefs and practices. This is a good book for learning more.

BUY American Crescent at amazon.com.