Commentary

Pew Research Center

Effects of Migration on Muslim Families in USA
By Dr Shahid Athar
Indiana, US

The USA is a nation of immigrants. The difference between them is that some came here 200 years ago or before and now cease to be called immigrants and others came here in the last 50 years or so and continue to be called immigrants. Muslims came here in waves for centuries, but the most significant wave of immigrant Muslims has come in the last 40 years.

They now constitute 58% of the 6-8 million American Muslims. They have come from all parts of the world. They have established themselves in academic, science, business, medicine and practically every walk of life. There are nearly 50,000 Muslim physicians in the country who play a crucial role in the delivery of healthcare in the under-privileged areas of the USA. They have over 1,000 mosques and 500 full-time Islamic schools. It is estimated that there are 1 million registered Muslim voters. However, with the growth of Islam and Muslims in the USA, there are accompanying “growing pains”.

The growing pains of migration: When a person or a family migrates from one country to another or from one civilization to another, he not only takes all of his belongings as much as he can but also takes his ethical and moral values with which he has been raised. Unfortunately, just like all belongings, especially furniture, we cannot take everything to the new land. We cannot take the cultural baggage in its entirety to the new home. There are universal moral codes of human life, common to all religions, such as honesty, speaking the truth, etc. These will remain with the person to the extent that he has been practicing in his country back home. They will migrate with him because they become a part of his character. However, there are some values which are peculiar to his ethnic culture or religious upbringing which he is inclined to take along with him. They include the family values to keep the family intact and close together, practicing faith as a family unit, education of children according to religious guidelines, separation of sexes for youth and adults, finding the right spouse, marriage for self or for future children and financial or moral support for each other.

So, what are the challenges to the migration of these values from one place to another? Initially, the migration is in physical form only. Our bodies migrate while our hearts remain glued to the place from where we migrate. Once we get settled, then our hearts and bodies do or should belong to the same place.

The story of an immigrant Muslim family: Let us discuss the story of a couple named Abdullah and his wife Ayesha, who are immigrants from Pakistan, and are now in their late-50s. They came here about 35 years ago. They left their country in the pursuit of the American dream, to establish themselves financially in a new frontier. Maybe they were also trying to escape from oppression and ignorance.

When Abdullah came to the States at age 25, his immediate concern was the completion of his studies, finding a job, starting a new career and life, finding a nice place to live, etc. A few years down the road, when he was somewhat settled, he decided to go back and marry Ayesha from his hometown and brought her here. Once both were settled in their new home, other priorities started to take place like finding a place to pray for congregational prayer, finding more Muslims and Pakistanis in the community so that they could socialize, and finding halal meat. Some of these concerns can be seen in reference #2. (Agonies of a Muslim in a non-Muslim Society)

By the grace of God, they were blessed with two children. Initially, the children were nothing but a source of joy and continued to be so even later, but as the children grew up religion became a part of their family life. At this point, they were concerned more about conserving their faith and retaining the identity of their children than they were for themselves when they initially came. At that time, their values and religious practices were built in, and they brought them in from back home. But now, the children are like new flowers, new plants, new seeds in a new soil and environment. They must protect them to grow according to how they want them to grow. So, their subsequent priorities were preserving religion and ethnic identity, merging their identities not only with other Muslim immigrants in the country, but also with indigenous Muslim population and to some degree socializing with non-Muslim Americans. All this intermixing and socializing is a give-and-take situation. To adopt certain values, sometimes you have to give certain values. There may be a common ground. They were worried about their children, one of them a daughter. We are always more concerned about our daughters than our sons mixing with American teenagers and adopting the values of other cultures. So, at this critical point they were not only concerned with the halal meat but were also concerned about halal entertainment.

It should be noted that migration from Pakistan to a civilization like Timbuktu with undeveloped or naive culture is easier than migrating to a country with advanced culture and civilization. Immigrants living under awe of a superior industrialized nation may melt under dominant civilization culture. They may feel inferiority complex and do their best not to melt down. Initially, Islam was not their priority when they came in, but as attacks on Islam and their values increased in the media, thanks to the hostage crisis in 1979, subsequent political problems overseas and the situation post-9/11, they had no choice but to defend their faith. So, instantly they were pushed into becoming defenders and ambassadors of their faith. At this point, they had to learn their faith to be able to practice and explain it to non-Muslims. Another challenge that arose was the marriage of their children. For Abdullah and Ayesha, it was an easy proposition because at that time it was an arranged marriage, and they had no choice. But for their children, Kareem and Amina, arranged marriage was not an easy decision either in this country or back home. Although they were Muslim children, they had developed a distant American identity by now. What was not acceptable for the immigrants became acceptable for the children of the immigrants. They raised both children differently. While son Kareem attended public school, daughter Amina went to an Islamic school. Similarly, while Kareem married an American-convert Muslim girl, Amina was married to a Muslim boy of Pakistani origin, of course, with her approval.

The other problem which surfaced and is still not resolved is how to achieve financial independence without getting into the traditional interest-free society or economics with full interest. This includes not only investing money and buying properties like a house or a car but finding a job which does not derive income from interest-based sources, such as working for a loan company. As far as the food and cultural aspects of Islamic life are concerned, with the passage of time and the growth of the community and mosque, they became easier. Instead of driving 200 miles to another town to buy halal food, there were now many stores in their town. Similarly, instead of praying at home, for congregational prayer, they could pray in the Mosque in their town.

The challenges were there, and challenges will be there, but with effort and thanks to the different support that they had received, they were able to meet those challenges. However, the fact remains that many immigrant families failed to achieve their American dream after 9/11. Many such dreams were shattered by unwarranted discrimination, stereotyping and profiling following the backlash of 9/11. Many Muslim immigrants returned to their country of origin. This reverse brain drain benefited many Muslim countries, especially Pakistan.

How do the Muslim immigrants in the US network with agencies that provide education assistance and advocacy? Both Abdullah and his wife Ayesha received support from different sources at different levels. At the community level, they got support from their mosque and from their neighborhood association. At the ethnic level, they belong to several Pakistani organizations which have support programs, and on a religious level they have support from religious organizations like ISNA. Their children get support from Muslim youth organizations like MSA and MYNA. They also found a Muslim physician to take care of their health, not because non-Muslim physicians cannot take care of them but because they thought that a Muslim physician would understand their privacy needs as well as fasting guidelines better than a non-Muslim physician. So, they feel very comfortable going to a Muslim physician. In fact, Ayesha’s physician is a Muslim female doctor. She feels more comfortable with her annual examination by her. Part of living in a society that prides itself on freedom and human rights is being able to go to social agencies for any possible problems related to their children or their family life. It would be nice if they would have a full social service support in their mosque, but unfortunately their mosque is not staffed to this level.

Over the years, with their neighbors and co-workers, they have developed quite a few friends of every religion who understand Abdullah and Ayesha’s ethnic background, cultural values, and religious thought. This has helped them meet the challenge of surviving as new immigrants in this country. In this regard, the majority, i.e., the Christian Americans, have a greater role to play in supporting and teaching their fellow American Muslims from the vast experience that they have gained over the last 200 years. It is also the duty of the American government to protect and uphold the rights of the minority as “the majority can protect itself.”

To summarize, American Muslim immigrants, while preserving their faith, have gone through following adaptation to deal with the new challenges:

To deal with secularization of education in public school and to protect Muslim children, they have developed Sunday schools and full-time Islamic schools which thousands of Muslim children attend.

To deal with isolation and for social networking they have formed hundreds of organizations of religious and ethnic lines (ISNA, ICNA, MAS, APPNA, etc.)

To cooperate with non-Muslim Americans, they have joined with other interfaith groups and dialogue such as this one.

To propagate message of “American Islam” they are publishing many well circulated newspapers and magazines (such as Horizon, Message, and others) and developed well-visited websites (such as ISNA.net, islamicity.org, islam-usa.com etc.) and in the last 10 years more Islamic books have been written by American Muslims than by any other faith group except Christianity.

To deal with discrimination and their civil rights issues, they have formed advocacy groups such as CAIR and MPAC.

Although they have discouraged intercultural marriages many immigrant Muslim boys have married American girls and vice versa creating a new ethic culture in this country.

This wave of Muslim immigrants is here to stay and make their mark in this beautiful landscape called the United States of America.

Selected References:

Shahid Athar, “The Future of Islam in North America” in book “Reflections of An American Muslim” (Kazi Publications 1994)

Shahid Athar, “The Agonies of a Muslim living in a Non-Muslim Society” in above mentioned book.

Shahid Athar, “Influencing the Behavior of Muslim Youth and Their Parents” in above mentioned book

Shahid Athar, “Sex Education for Muslim Youth and their Parents” (Kazi Publications 1995).

Shahid Athar, “Raising the Children with Strong Faith” in book “Keeping the Faith- Best Indiana Sermons” – The Guild Press-2003

Shahid Athar, “My Interfaith Life in Indianapolis” in book “Healing the Wounds of Sept. 11, 2001” (Ist. books library)- 2004, also included in “Urban Tapestry” edited by Rabbi Sandy Sasso (Indiana University Press 2002)

M.A. Muqtedar Khan, “American Muslims- Bridging the Faith and Freedom”, Amana Publications 2003

Asma Gull Hassan, “American Muslims- The New Generation”- Continuum 2001

Sulayman S. Nyang, “Islam in the USA,” Kazi Publications 1999

Yvonne Y. Haddad, “The Muslims of America”- The Oxford University Press 1991

Phyllis Lan Lin, “Islam in America- Images and Challenges” – University of Indianapolis Press 1998

Amber Haque “Muslims and Islamization in North America,” Amana Publication 1999

Raymond Brady Williams, “Religions of Immigrants from India and Pakistan”, Cambridge University Press, 1988.