American Identity Matrix

The Matrix of the American Identity and Islam
Ideas of race and citizenship have colored the American discourse during the postbellum era. This reading shows how these ideas cast its shadow on the anti-Muslim sentiment rhetoric in America today. They are seen as the new problematic minority in today’s America but, of course, they were and are not the only problematic minority. They belong to a culture which somehow contradicts the basic premise of the myth of what it means to be an American. And who knows what America means. Even Akram couldn’t figure it out for himself (Bayumi, 125). The policies regarding who belongs and who doesn’t were always tailored to single Muslims as well as other ethnicities and races out of the American cultural and social landscape. During the early twentieth century, the paradigm in America national identity, led Muslims immigrant to primarily seek inclusion through ethnic rather than a “religious mode of self-identification” (GhaneanBassiri, 137) Being religious seems somehow to be one of the main issues that face the Muslim Americans now.
The event of 9/11 helped to uncover all the hidden fears in the American sensibilities with regard to its own identity, self-image and the way in which American people perceive its multi-ethnic and religious
diversity. America is fairly a new born nation in some an unusual settings and formation. As Oscar Handlin wrote, “Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America, then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.” (GhaneanBassiri, 136). This explains the multiple types of policies towards various entities that constitute the American fabric, which at the same time points out clearly to the prejudices and exclusions of some minorities during and after the postbellum America. Muslim Americans were and still are subject to these binaries, which harmed their sense of belonging greatly. They were singled out because who they are was and is still defined by who they are not. They are “Muslims or “oriental” immigrants”, “non-Northwestern Europeans” (GhaneaBassiri, 152 and 148) and therefore they present a challenge to the “the nation Christian sensibility” (GhaneaBassiri, 153). Russell Webb felt this “stubborn, unreasoning prejudice in Europeans and Americans, who visit the East” and how this prevented them “from acquiring any accurate knowledge of Mohammedan social and religious life, or of the true doctrines of Islam” (Curtis, 13).
Religions of the non-Protestant Americans were always represented as irrational.
Webb, Khan, and Ali were not able to challenge the “identity matrix” of the American reality, but rather they strived to form a religious discourse that may appeal to the American common sense. They had to substitute their Islamic roots with a shady metaphysical teachings that might elevate the “partial” nature of their religion in the “the evolutionary ordering of space and time.” Islam according to “the spiral of evolution” is a “partial religion” and not a “universal” one (GhaneaBassiri, 108). Consequently, they had to prove once and again that they are not Muslims because they don’t want to be singled
out.
That is why Khan has “no longer regarded “Islam” as his religion but the accidental religion of his birth” (GhaneaBassiri, 130). As for Ali, “Islam” wasn’t used to mean “Scriptural Islam, or the beliefs and practices of Muslims in the United States or elsewhere.” To the contrary, the Shriners “obscured” their knowledge from outsiders” (Nance, 146). Ali has “explained that his purpose was “to Americanize the Oriental idea of Islam (which) involves many changes that are more or less negative to the main purpose of the Islamic religion.” (Nance, 142) Ali and Webb’s adoption of “Islam” reflects their frustration with a “Christianity” that “failed to elevate African Americans politically and socially because of the belief that God had designed it for the salvation of whites only” (Nance, 137), and in “the so-called Christians” who “grossly misrepresented and thoroughly misunderstood” the religion of Islam (Curtis, 13). Bishop Arnett alluded to this blatant infringement when he reminded the world that “when the slave trade was abolished by the strong hand of true Christianity, then false Christianity had no interest in our “souls” at all.” (GhaneaBassiri, 112). Question:
“The Moors created their religion using the ancient tools of Eastern wisdom then connected it with Western esoteric religion and yet choosing the term “science” for this odd amalgamation to reflect the rationality of their wisdom, (Nance, 146).”
Is this approach a desperate attempt to reclaim their place as “Muslim” African Americans and seek an inclusion that has never been attained?