Muslim Families in North America

Abstract

The writers contributing their researaches to this book deal with an are8 that has not yet been adequately studied. Most of the litemhue on Muslims is historically or politically oriented and views immigrant Muslims in North America as extensions of their homelands, in particular the Middle East. This book discusses Muslim families as part of the pluralstic and ever-changjng social fabric of the United States and Canada. The families of African-American Muslims and Muslim converts are not studied. We are going to present our critique chapter by chapter. Muslim Normative 'I).aditions and the North American Environment (Sharon Mclrvin Abu-Laban). The clear and workable typology of Muslim immigrant families presented here points out major social patterns and links to Islam. They are divided into three cohorts based on "the dynamic interaction between social conditions and group characteristics" @. 7): pioneer (nineteenth century to WWII); transitional (post-WWII to 1967); and differential (1968 to ptesent). Different generations within each cohort are exarnined. African-American Muslims are excluded, as their case is unique. The fitst cohort lived in an era of total conformity to a sociocultural milieu dominated by the English language and Christianity. This cohort's second generation assumed a more conformist role due to its disadvantaged social status, distance from its original home and culture, and lack of financial resou~easn d ethnic institutions. Intermarriagew ith the wider society was high. Ironically, all of this "generated the particular disdain of the newest Muslim immigrants," who arrived after 1976 @. 18). The transitional cohort consists mainly of foreign students from wellestablished indigenous elite families who had been Europeanized before their arrival. As a postcolonial generation, they saw nationalism, not religion, as a valuable means for development and social change. They intermarried with North Americans at a higher rate than their predecessors. The second generation of this cohort, along with the third generation of the pioneers, experienced the most discrimination and media stereotyping ...