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Ç. Tekeli, The meaning and limits of feminist ideology in
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J. B. White, Islamist mobilization in Turkey. A study in
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Katherine Pratt EwingThe United StatesIn the United States Muslims face a constant chal-
lenge to assert their identities as Muslim, but also
have a legitimate stake in being “American.” This is
due to the widespread racism, prejudice and nega-
tive stereotypes of Islam as a backward and violent
religion, oppressive of women. Mainstream society
suspects an American cannot also be a Muslim.
Research into Muslim women’s identity in the
United States is still in its infancy, with many
studies focusing only on the issue of ™ijàb, rather
than on broader questions of identity (Read and
Bartkowski 1999, Alvi, Hoodfar, and McDonough
2003). Shahnaz Khan’s Muslim Women: Crafting a
North American Identityis an exception. Though
her study focuses on women in Toronto, it can be
easily argued that her findings are equally appli-
cable to the United States (due to the similarity in
political, economical, and social/cultural mores and
contexts). Khan identified a “third space” for Mus-
lim women’s identity – an ambiguous, even hybrid
identity, where Muslim women carve out a space
between the mainstream racism and discrimination
they face as Muslims, and any patriarchal religious
dogmas that seek to control them (Khan 2000).
An identity not deeply explored by Khan in her
book, but highlighted by Aminah Beverly McCloud
in her work on African American Muslims (1995),
is one not of hybridity, but more of synthesis.
McCloud looks at the ways African Americans,
who already have an American identity, take on or
adapt Islamic practices, beliefs, and customs when
becoming Muslim, or establishing Muslim commu-
nities. Her observations on the fusion of these two
identities (American and Muslim) are also applica-
ble to immigrants, and especially the children of
immigrants. Racism, discrimination, and a sense of
being cut off from one’s home culture often galva-
nize Muslim women into feeling pride in their her-
itage, so that they seek to become observant and
pious Muslims while retaining a strong sense of
the right to be modern American women. This is
one of the most interesting aspects of Muslim
women’s identity in the United States in the twenty-
first century.
the united states 291Observant Muslims in the United States are usu-
ally associated in some way with one of the major
Muslim associations, whether as formal members,
as recipients of a magazine, or as regular attendees
at national or regional conferences. Major associa-
tions such as the Islamic Society of North America
(ISNA), the Islamic Circle of North America
(ICNA), the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR), the Muslim American Society (MAS) broadly
agree on issues related to Muslims as United States
citizens, namely that the United States Constitution
offers Muslims rights and guarantees to practice
their faith and to be full citizens in the United States
polity. These mainstream associations promote a
vision of Islam that stresses peaceful co-existence,
interfaith dialogue, and integration into main-
stream United States society, while at the same time
maintaining Islamic heritage. (See numerous arti-
cles in Islamic Horizons, the ISNA’s magazine, and
news releases by CAIR.) At the 2003 Annual ISNA
Convention, held in Chicago, the American
Muslim Political Coordinating Council (made up
of the American Muslim Alliance, the American
Muslim Council, CAIR, and the Muslim Political
Action Committee) distributed an open letter to the
ISNA attendees urging Muslims to vote in the next
federal election. Voting is presented as Muslims’
fulfilling their “duty to [their] religion in part by
fulfilling [their] duty to [their] nation” (CAIR
2003).
Muslim women are not well represented in the
executive bodies of these associations, though they
are involved as activists at all other levels (as well as
behind the scenes, as wives of executives, see Ali
2003, 16–24). Nevertheless, the associations them-
selves promote the concept that men and women
are equal in Islam. A new generation of Muslim
women, especially the youth born in the United
States to immigrant parents, along with those con-
verting to Islam from United States society, has
been influenced by this discourse. Hence, right
across the United States there are self-assured,
dynamic young women who also embrace their
Islamic faith with confidence (see the profile of
Asma Gul Hasan in Rhodes 2002). Some creative
synthesis of traditional Muslim practices and tradi-
tional United States customs are taking place.
For instance, many of the young women in this
category embrace the traditional Islamic dress of
™ijàb. But their rationale for doing so is tied to an
inverted Western feminist discourse. Mainstream
Western feminists view the ™ijàbas a symbol of
Muslim women’s oppression (Govier 1995). These
young women claim the ™ijàbas an empowerment
for women. Their argument is based on the Western