Burqas, baseball, and apple pie : being Muslim in America / Ranya Tabari Idliby.

Title :

Burqas, baseball, and apple pie : being Muslim in America

Author:

Idliby, Ranya, 1965-

Format:

Books

Summary:

"For many Americans, the words 'American' and 'Muslim' simply do not marry well; for many the combination is an anathema, a contradiction in values, loyalties, and identities. This is the story of one American Muslim family--the story of how, through their lives, their schools, their friends, and their neighbors, they end up living the challenges, myths, fears, hopes, and dreams of all Americans. They are challenged both by Muslims who speak for them and by Americans who reject them. In this moving memoir, Idliby discusses not only coming to terms with what it means to be Muslim today, but how to raise and teach her children about their heritage and religious legacy. She explores life as a Muslim in a world where hostility towards Muslims runs rampant, where there is an entire industry financed and supported by think tanks, authors, film makers, and individual vigilantes whose sole purpose is to vilify and spread fear about all things Muslim. Her story is quintessentially American, a story of the struggles of assimilation and acceptance in a climate of confusion and prejudice--a story for anyone who has experienced being an "outsider" inside your own home country"--

Language:

English

ISBN - ISSN:

9780230341845

0230341845

Physical Description:

viii, 239 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Contents:

Why would anyone choose to be a Muslim? -- Accidental Muslims -- The Faith Club, my Abrahamic family -- A crisis of faith : sticks and stones can hurt my bones but God should not hurt me -- Food for thought -- In God we trust : an American-Muslim knight -- How to beat a wife -- Who speaks for Islam? -- Foolish fatwas -- "Mommy, sometimes I don't want to support the U.S. team" -- Thumbs up! -- I heard it on Hannity -- "No Muslim parking" -- "Mom, are all terrorists Muslims?" -- The path to the watering hole -- "Mommy, can I marry a Jew?" -- Burqas and pornography : two sides of the same coin -- Apes and swines -- Islam, not "Hislam" : on Muslim feminists -- In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man -- Proud Muslims, not lesser Muslims : let there be joy -- Proud Americans, not lesser Americans : America, a love story.

Subject:

Muslim families -- United States.

Muslims -- United States -- Ethnic identity.

Islamophobia -- United States.

Muslims -- Cultural assimilation -- United States.

Muslims -- United States -- Social conditions.

United States -- Ethnic relations.

United States -- Social conditions -- 1980-

United States -- Religious life and customs.

Idliby, Ranya, 1965-

Idliby, Ranya, 1965- -- Family.

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Burqas, baseball, and apple pie : being Muslim in America / Ranya Tabari Idliby.

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Summary

For many Americans, the words 'American' and 'Muslim' simply do not marry well; for many the combination is an anathema, a contradiction in values, loyalties, and identities. This is the story of one American Muslim family--the story of how, through their lives, their schools, their friends, and their neighbors, they end up living the challenges, myths, fears, hopes, and dreams of all Americans. They are challenged by both Muslims who speak for them and by Americans who reject them. In this moving memoir, Idliby discusses not only coming to terms with what it means to be Muslim today, but how to raise and teach her children about their heritage and religious legacy. She explores life as a Muslim in a world where hostility towards Muslims runs rampant, where there is an entire industry financed and supported by think tanks, authors, film makers, and individual vigilantes whose sole purpose is to vilify and spread fear about all things Muslim. Her story is quintessentially American, a story of the struggles of assimilation and acceptance in a climate of confusion and prejudice--a story for anyone who has experienced being an "outsider" inside your own home country.

Author Notes

Ranya Tabari Idliby is a writer who lives in New York City. She co-authored The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew: Three Women Search for Understanding , an intimate dialog on faith and identity in America. She has spoken in churches, temples, and mosques, as well as at interfaith organizations, the United Nations, and the State Department. She was interviewed by Diane Sawyer for a special program on moderate Muslim voices, in addition to many other media engagements, including CNN, Oprah radio's Dr. Oz , The Diane Rehm Show, USA Today , and the Today Show .

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this memoir-cum-manifesto, Idliby, a Muslim American of Palestinian and Kuwaiti origin, writes about her experiences raising Muslim children in America and being a moderate Muslim, particularly in New York City, post-September 11. Idliby is an eloquent and informed spokeswoman for her faith, and voices like hers are needed in today's charged political climate. In this book she counters extremists on both sides, Muslim and non-Muslim, with calls for peace and rational dialogue. In particular she focuses on her children's experiences growing up Muslim and America, with mixed success; while some anecdotes of the conflicts they face with fitting in and standing out are powerful illustrations of fear and prejudice at work, others wander into simple parental indulgence, such as her recounting of her young toddler's sleep habits. Other aspects of the book also veer from the main focus, such as a chapter addressed to her young daughter. Readers well-versed in Islam should look elsewhere for depth and nuance, but for others it will be a light and likeable introduction to issues facing American Muslims today. (Jan. 7) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

One woman's personal examination of Muslim and American values. In this follow-up to her comparative study of Muslim, Christian and Jewish identity (The Faith Club, co-authored with Suzanne Oliver and Priscilla Warner, 2006), Idliby hones in on her family's experiences as American Muslims immediately following 9/11. The author and her husband, then longtime Manhattanites and self-described "secular Muslims," suddenly found themselves and their children challenged by "Muslims who speak for us and Americans who reject us." Thus confronted with repeated calls to account for the whole of Islam, and skewed views of a violent Islam at that, Idliby was forced to look within at what Muslim and American values she held dear. The author charts that reflection, as this daughter of a Palestinian father and Kuwaiti mother who had spent her youth shuttling between Virginia and Dubai painfully relates to her own children's post-9/11 sense of being the "other." Hoping for better for her American-born children, Idliby tailors her remarks for a largely Islam-illiterate American audience, debunking a number of widespread misconceptions about Islam. Refusing to have her children's worldviews constricted by "clerics who peddle seventh century absolute orthodoxy as the only true Islam," Idliby strongly advocates for reading the Quran in the cultural context of its time and not as literal doctrine for 21st-century society. For example, the author explains that female head-covering is a social convention and admonishes those donning the niqab (full face covering) for opting to be "buried alive under a black tent" and, thereby, "erased of their identities." In Mecca, Islam's holiest city, Idliby also points out, "face coverings are banned," underscoring one of the memoir's central points--that "Islam is not a nationality, but a faith, as diverse and varied as its many billion adherents." Such diversity of belief, Idliby compellingly argues, aligns well with American individualism and cherished beliefs in equality, diversity and justice. A bold, intimate, welcome examination of reconciling one's faith in America.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Some Americans see being Muslim and American as self-contradictory, and the 9/11 tragedy only served to reinforce stereotypes. However, Muslim contributions to the U.S. have existed since the first Muslims came--or were brought--here, much before the American Revolution. This book chronicles the issues and incidents that moderate American Muslims Idliby's family, in particular deal with on an everyday basis. Sometimes the issue is defending the compatibility of Islam and American culture, sometimes it's correcting flawed stereotypes, but the through-line is always being true American Muslims, proud of both identities. In some ways, this is reminiscent of El Fadl's The Search for Beauty in Islam (2005), though El Fadl approaches Muslim beliefs from an academic perspective, while Idliby, offering a shorter, more easily read book, approaches them from a practical, lived point of view. This is for readers looking for more insight into the lives of contemporary Muslim Americans and for moderate Muslims interested in exploring how one family deals with dual identity.--Hassanali, Muhammed Copyright 2010 Booklist