The possibilities of American Islam
In the past two days, sentences have been handed down in two homegrown terror cases – the five men from Alexandria, Va. who traveled to Pakistan with the presumed intent of carrying out attacks and Faisal Shahzad, the failed Pakistani-American Times Square bomber.
After a year-long inquiry into American Islam, spanning 75 cities and more than a 100 mosques across the United States, Professor Akbar Ahmed is curious about the point of failure in these mens’ lives.
At a Brookings Institution event launching his new book “Journey into America; The Challenge of Islam,” Ahmed wondered what would make these homegrown terrorists want to blow people up instead of helping them.
“We need to know these answers. I’m not prepared to accept the answer that Islam is provoking this….[the answer is, the young man] is failing, his Imam is failing, his community is failing, his parents are failing. It’s not easy to grow up as a Muslim in post-9/11 America.”
Ahmed criticized American Muslim leadership, characterizing the wealthy Muslim elite as “a massive failure” in the decade after 9/11.
“Go to their marble homes on the Potomac, with the 10 Mercedes in the driveway, go to their libraries, if they’re even filled with books and ask them about ideas, about Jefferson and de Tocqueville and they’ll look at you blankly and ask ‘What is that – a kind of plate?’”
There is “a failure in terms of intellectual activity.” Ahmed maintained that it would be difficult “to come up with a list of 5-6 books by Muslims that have made an impact on American society and don’t forget – Islam venerates learning and knowledge above all else,” said Ahmed.
The American mentality - fed by mainstream media – is also part of the problem, according to Ahmed. He notes that the journey across America exposed him to concepts in American culture and sociology that he had never studied before. He said he realized that every other racial, ethnic and religious group was protected from slights by a kind of unspoken political correctness but that Islam was left out of this equation.
Ahmed suggested that the basic respect accorded to everyone else in the United States’ pluralistic society would go a long way towards integrating American Muslims and once again making them feel welcome.
“This [Muslim] community becomes the strongest asset the U.S. has, this community becomes your ambassadors.”