Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy

Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy PDF Author: Edward E. Curtis IV
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479811440
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Reveals the important role of Muslim Americans in American politics Since the 1950s, and especially in the post-9/11 era, Muslim Americans have played outsized roles in US politics, sometimes as political dissidents and sometimes as political insiders. However, more than at any other moment in history, Muslim Americans now stand at the symbolic center of US politics and public life. This volume argues that the future of American democracy depends on whether Muslim Americans are able to exercise their political rights as citizens and whether they can find acceptance as social equals. Many believe that, over time, Muslim Americans will be accepted just as other religious minorities have been. Yet Curtis contends that this belief overlooks the real barrier to their full citizenship, which is political rather than cultural. The dominant form of American liberalism has prevented the political assimilation of American Muslims, even while leaders from Eisenhower to Obama have offered rhetorical support for their acceptance. Drawing on examples ranging from the political rhetoric of the Nation of Islam in the 1950s and 1960s to the symbolic use of fallen Muslim American service members in the 2016 election cycle, Curtis shows that the efforts of Muslim Americans to be regarded as full Americans have been going on for decades, yet never with full success. Curtis argues that policies, laws, and political rhetoric concerning Muslim Americans are quintessential American political questions. Debates about freedom of speech and religion, equal justice under law, and the war on terrorism have placed Muslim Americans at the center of public discourse. How Americans decide to view and make policy regarding Muslim Americans will play a large role in what kind of country the United States will become, and whether it will be a country that chooses freedom over fear and justice over prejudice.

Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy

Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy PDF Author: Edward E. Curtis IV
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479811440
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reveals the important role of Muslim Americans in American politics Since the 1950s, and especially in the post-9/11 era, Muslim Americans have played outsized roles in US politics, sometimes as political dissidents and sometimes as political insiders. However, more than at any other moment in history, Muslim Americans now stand at the symbolic center of US politics and public life. This volume argues that the future of American democracy depends on whether Muslim Americans are able to exercise their political rights as citizens and whether they can find acceptance as social equals. Many believe that, over time, Muslim Americans will be accepted just as other religious minorities have been. Yet Curtis contends that this belief overlooks the real barrier to their full citizenship, which is political rather than cultural. The dominant form of American liberalism has prevented the political assimilation of American Muslims, even while leaders from Eisenhower to Obama have offered rhetorical support for their acceptance. Drawing on examples ranging from the political rhetoric of the Nation of Islam in the 1950s and 1960s to the symbolic use of fallen Muslim American service members in the 2016 election cycle, Curtis shows that the efforts of Muslim Americans to be regarded as full Americans have been going on for decades, yet never with full success. Curtis argues that policies, laws, and political rhetoric concerning Muslim Americans are quintessential American political questions. Debates about freedom of speech and religion, equal justice under law, and the war on terrorism have placed Muslim Americans at the center of public discourse. How Americans decide to view and make policy regarding Muslim Americans will play a large role in what kind of country the United States will become, and whether it will be a country that chooses freedom over fear and justice over prejudice.

Muslims, Identity, and American Politics

Muslims, Identity, and American Politics PDF Author: Brian Calfano
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317091051
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Calfano provides an examination of the pressures faced by Muslims, often considered political and social outsiders in western nations, especially in the United States. Identity is a complex concept, especially when considering the role that group attachments play in affecting how one sees her/his role in the political environment of their country of residence. Perhaps the greatest tension in this regard is felt by those who are often considered outsiders in their home country, despite significant ties to their nation. Though citizens and second generation residents in many cases, American Muslims face a combination of suspicion, government scrutiny, and social segregation in the United States, despite significant education and economic assimilation in America. The crux of the investigation advanced here centres on how group influence, emotions, and religious interpretation contribute to the political orientation and behaviour of a national sample of Muslims living in the American context. A compelling explanation as to how members of an ostracized political group marshal the motivation to push through suspicion to become fully engaged political actors, this book has wide relevance and will be of interest to scholars researching Muslims and political participation across the fields of political science, history, sociology, and religion.

Political Islam in the Age of Democratization

Political Islam in the Age of Democratization PDF Author: K. Bokhari
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137313498
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 533

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Book Description
The continued prominence of Islam in the struggle for democracy in the Muslim world has confounded Western democracy theorists who largely consider secularism a prerequisite for democratic transitions. Kamran Bokhari and Farid Senzai offer a comprehensive view of the complex nature of contemporary political Islam and its relationship to democracy.

The Challenge of Political Islam

The Challenge of Political Islam PDF Author: Rachel Scott
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804769052
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Based on Islamist writings, political tracts, and interviews with Islamists, this book examines Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt from the perspective of Islamic conceptions of citizenship, and provides non-Muslim responses to those views.

America & Islam

America & Islam PDF Author: Lawrence Pintak
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1788315596
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
Donald Trump's first term as the 45th President of the United States of America has shocked the world. His attitudes towards Islam became a key point of contention on the campaign trail, and in power Trump has continued his war of divisive words and deeds. Here, acclaimed journalist Lawrence Pintak scrutinizes America's relationship with Islam since its foundation. Casting Donald Trump as a symptom of decades of misunderstanding and demonization of the Islamic world, as well as a cause of future tensions, Pintak shows how and why America's relationship with the world's largest religion has been so fractious, damaging and self-defeating. Featuring unique interviews with victims and perpetrators of Trump's policies, as well as analysis of the media's role in inflaming debate, America & Islam seeks to provide a complete guide to the twin challenges of terrorism and the polarizing rhetoric that fuels it, and sketches out a future based on co-operation and the reassertion of democratic values.

Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire

Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire PDF Author: Deepa Kumar
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608462129
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
In response to the events of 9/11, the Bush administration launched a "war on terror" ushering in an era of anti-Muslim racism, or Islamophobia. However, 9/11 alone did not create Islamophobia. This book examines the current backlash within the context of Islamophobia's origins, in the historic relationship between East and West. Deepa Kumar is an associate professor of media studies and Middle East studies at Rutgers University and the author of Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization and the UPS Strike. Kumar has contributed to numerous outlets including the BBC, USA Today, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Muslims Talking Politics

Muslims Talking Politics PDF Author: Brandon Kendhammer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022636917X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
For generations Islamic and Western intellectuals and policymakers have debated Islam’s compatibility with democratic government, usually with few solid conclusions. But where—Brandon Kendhammer asks in this book—have the voices of ordinary, working-class Muslims been in this conversation? Doesn’t the fate of democracy rest in their hands? Visiting with community members in northern Nigeria, he tells the complex story of the stunning return of democracy to a country that has also embraced Shariah law and endured the radical religious terrorism of Boko Haram. Kendhammer argues that despite Nigeria’s struggles with jihadist insurgency, its recent history is really one of tenuous and fragile reconciliation between mass democratic aspirations and concerted popular efforts to preserve Islamic values in government and law. Combining an innovative analysis of Nigeria’s Islamic and political history with visits to the living rooms of working families, he sketches how this reconciliation has been constructed in the conversations, debates, and everyday experiences of Nigerian Muslims. In doing so, he uncovers valuable new lessons—ones rooted in the real politics of ordinary life—for how democracy might work alongside the legal recognition of Islamic values, a question that extends far beyond Nigeria and into the Muslim world at large.

Global Political Islam

Global Political Islam PDF Author: Peter Mandaville
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134341350
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 563

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Book Description
An accessible and comprehensive account of the global dimensions of political Islam in the twenty-first century, explaining political Islam, nationalism and globalization and providing a detailed account of Al Qaeda.

Muslims in Western Politics

Muslims in Western Politics PDF Author: Abdulkader H. Sinno
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253220246
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Looking closely at relations between Muslims and their host countries, Abdulkader H. Sinno and an international group of scholars examine questions of political representation, identity politics, civil liberties, immigration, and security issues. While many have problematized Muslims in the West, this volume takes a unique stance by viewing Muslims as a normative, and even positive, influence in Western politics. Squarely political and transatlantic in scope, the essays in this collected work focus on Islam and Muslim citizens in Europe and the Americas since 9/11, the European bombings, and the recent riots in France. Main topics include Muslim political participation and activism, perceptions about Islam and politics, Western attitudes about Muslim visibility in the political arena, radicalization of Muslims in an age of apparent shrinking of civil liberties, and personal security in politically uneasy times.

Muslim Politics

Muslim Politics PDF Author: Dale F. Eickelman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691120539
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
In this updated paperback edition, Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori explore how the politics of Islam play out in the lives of Muslims throughout the world. They discuss how recent events such as September 11 and the 2003 war in Iraq have contributed to reshaping the political and religious landscape of Muslim-majority countries and Muslim communities elsewhere. As they examine the role of women in public life and Islamic perspectives on modernization and free speech, the authors probe the diversity of the contemporary Islamic experience, suggesting general trends and challenging popular Western notions of Islam as a monolithic movement. In so doing, they clarify concepts such as tradition, authority, ethnicity, pro-test, and symbolic space, notions that are crucial to an in-depth understanding of ongoing political events. This book poses questions about ideological politics in a variety of transnational and regional settings throughout the Muslim world. Europe and North America, for example, have become active Muslim centers, profoundly influencing trends in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, and South and Southeast Asia. The authors examine the long-term cultural and political implications of this transnational shift as an emerging generation of Muslims, often the products of secular schooling, begin to reshape politics and society--sometimes in defiance of state authorities. Scholars, mothers, government leaders, and musicians are a few of the protagonists who, invoking shared Islamic symbols, try to reconfigure the boundaries of civic debate and public life. These symbolic politics explain why political actions are recognizably Muslim, and why "Islam" makes a difference in determining the politics of a broad swath of the world.