The North
American Muslim Resource Guide
By Mohamed Nimer*
Via Email
Shahid
Sheik’s review of The North American Muslim
Resource Guide: Muslim Community Life in the United
States and Canada is long overdue (PakistinLink,
November 26, 2004, PL27). Mr. Sheik highlights
the value of the Muslim population chapter of
the book, but he misses the purpose of the whole
work.
Any serious book review should at the very least
begin by capturing the essence of the publication.
A careful reader of the book would have seen it
as a discussion of the contemporary institutional
structure of the Muslim community in the United
States. The book answers the public’s hunger
for information on American Muslims identify themselves
through collective action and how they relate
to America and the Muslim world in this global
era.
One of the academics familiar with the subject
has the following summary of the book’s
contribution: “[T]he ambitious new North
American Muslim Resource Guide (Nimer 220b) proposes
that American Muslims satisfy the demands of citizenship
but maintain their ethnic and religious identities.
Much of the research discussed here relates directly
to these major issues in national public discourse
of how religious, ethno-racial, and national identities
and affiliations relate to each other in the United
States.” (Karen Leonard, Muslims in the
United States: The State of Research. New York:
Russell Sage Foundation, 2003. p.141).
*Author, The North American Muslim Resource Guide:
Muslim Community Life in the United States and
Canada.
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