Being Muslim in America can give you moral and spiritual direction in fulfilling your lifes purpose-- and can give you common ground with others working toward specific goals of service. But I dont think its very useful when it comes to forming an identity. There is no Muslim identity or Muslim American identity, though some seem eager to create one. Bear with me. Its great for kids--children especially should be proud to be Muslim. And theres nothing wrong with identifying boldly as Muslim. But the path of Islam is something different from identity. Identity is a thing of blood and family and culture and history and experiences, common interests and goals and life choices and circumstances. As Muslims in America-- we dont share any of these things as a group. We are too diverse to even come close. No, being Muslim is about living the way of love and integrity, its akhlaq-- virtues and manners and states of beautiful being that are both transcendent and specific. Its ikhlas and tawhid-- sincerity and purity of devotion. Naturally, people with similar virtues and understandings of these moral imperitives will gravitate together and work in projects of service and mutual support. But thats not identity-- in any kind of cultural, or sociological or political sense. Today, I see Muslim Americans talking about the Muslim way of doing this or that and they honestly are not talking about a spritual thing but a cultural thing. America, the land of racial and economic castes, has to give everyone a socio-economic-political box to fit in. And some are creating Muslims as the newest racial category to lump people into. Many Muslims-- perhaps earger to belong somewhere-- are going along for the ride. But the problem with packaging is that people are too are messy to fit into it. Whose experiences get cherry picked to fit into the Muslim American value pack Happy Meal and whose dont? And what if you dont want to be a commodity in the globalized Walmart/Macys of culture. I love my fellow Muslim Americans, but lets be honest. As a group-- most of us dont have anything in common. Subsets and subgroups and specific communities of friends and relatives might-- but Muslims as a whole? What we do share-- the aspiration toward and realization of values and the devotion toward practices and the emulation and love of divinely inspired personages-- all of this is too real, too deep, too transcendent, too personal-- to be packaged into something like an identity. Just rambling. I might be all wrong. Just some head scratching.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 22:47:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015