Islam is America's fastest growing religion, with more than six million Muslims in the United States, all living in the shadow of 9/11. Who are our Muslim neighbors? What are their beliefs and desires? How are they coping with life under the War on Terror?

In Mecca and Main Street, noted author and journalist Geneive Abdo offers illuminating answers to these questions. Gaining unprecedented access to Muslim communities in America, she traveled across the country, visiting schools, mosques, Islamic centers, radio stations, and homes. She reveals a

community tired of being judged by Americans' perceptions of Muslims overseas and eager to tell their own stories. Abdo brings these stories vividly to life, allowing us to hear their own voices and inviting us to understand their hopes and their fears.

The younger generation of Muslims in particular is charting a different way of life. They are following new imams and placing their Muslim identity before their American one. And unlike their parents, they do not define themselves by their ethnic background, as Pakistani, Palestinian, or

Yemeni. Instead they see themselves as belonging to a universal faith. Through their new organizations and websites, they exchange ideas about how to create a more Islamic lifestyle.

Inspiring, insightful, tough-minded, and even-handed, this book will appeal to those curious (or fearful) about the Muslim presence in America. It will also be warmly welcomed by the Muslim community that it depicts.

"Homegrown, radicalized Islamists have set off bombs in Madrid and London; could it happen here? Given rising anxiety about the possible alienation of American Muslims, a readable book offering a responsible yet sympathetic profile of that community should be welcomed. Five years after 9/11, Geneive Abdo, who has reported skillfully on Islamism in Egypt and Iran, has produced just such a book.

... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Her reporting shows that Muslim immigrants have much in common with Americans from other lands and cultures. Traditional Muslims arriving from the Middle East and South Asia fear that their children will succumb to the allure of big-city life and abandon the faith. Such newcomers are embracing the same strategies adopted by Jewish immigrants a century ago: setting up religious schools, charities and houses of worship that double as community centers.

Yet Muslim settlement in America has had its own patterns, of which Abdo offers a brief but lucid history. The first to arrive were slaves from West Africa who were converted to Christianity. The subsequent 'prairie' generation, which arrived in the mid-19th century, homesteaded in the Midwest but proved too isolated to flourish. A new wave of Muslim immigrants followed the liberalization of U.S. immigration laws in 1965 — and set out not merely to survive but to thrive. Muslim Americans, Abdo writes, are now amply represented in white-collar professions and enjoy a median income slightly above that of the overall population.

Abdo's description of the neo-traditionalism of this community is fascinating. She depicts a typical 'enclave culture,' a religious community that sees itself as beleaguered and is therefore preoccupied by boundaries — between us and them, male and female, real Muslim and impostor. Defections as well as intrusions fuel the community's sense of danger, as do the glittering vulgarity and the 'anything goes' gusto of American society. Jarringly, Abdo at times seems less a reporter than an advocate of a cloistered worldview, as when she puts down Irshad Manji, a Muslim dissenter, as a self-promoting phony. Nonetheless, Abdo's account of the struggles within Muslim organizations on college campuses suggests how the community as a whole may resolve its intramural conflict: by finding a middle way between traditionalist hard-liners and those who want to preserve their Muslim identity without isolating themselves, much as modern Orthodox Jews and evangelical Protestants have done in secular universities.

Abdo shows how 9/11 shook the world of American Muslims. Suddenly, they were seen by their neighbors — and their government — in the global context of Islamist terror. A combination of aggressive law enforcement, indiscriminate use of immigration laws and hyped-up prosecutions left Muslims in doubt about their place in society. Those who reacted by keeping their heads down (or veiled) to avoid attracting attention only exposed themselves to accusations of indifference to the tragedy — or worse.

The net result, Abdo concludes, is a community increasingly inclined to separatism. Elsewhere, this has provided fertile ground for radicals such as Osama bin Laden. The United States is scarcely on a slippery slope to Europe's fate, but the security of our society, Abdo shows, now depends on a spirit of inclusiveness and generosity. In Washington, that means appointing more Muslims to government jobs, preserving civil liberties, being more attentive to their foreign policy concerns and making adjustments consistent with U.S. strategic interests. In our neighborhoods, that means an awareness that when we talk about Muslims, we are talking not about the enemy but about the person next door — someone whose family, like those of other immigrants, came here to escape harsh and uncertain lives.

Steven Simon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is co-author of 'The Age of Sacred Terror' and 'The Next Attack.'" Reviewed by Steven Simon, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
(hide most of this review)

"There is no better time and no better book to understand the American Muslim experience today than Mecca and Main Street."

--John L. Esposito, author of What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam

"Geneive Abdo's work captures in great detail the immense hardships Muslim face in the post-September-11th world and offers hope for their success and co-existence in America. Her book shatters stereotypes about Muslims and teaches us that more understanding of Islam is needed for global peace."

--Archbishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

"Given rising anxiety about the possible alienation of American Muslims, a readablebook offering a responsible yet sympathetic profile of that community should be welcomed. Five years after 9/11, Geneive Abdo, who has reported skillfully on Islamism in Egypt and Iran, has produced just such a book.

Abdo's description of the neo-traditionalism of this community is fascinating. She depicts a typical 'enclave culture,' a religious community that sees itself as beleaguered and is therefore preoccupied by boundaries--between us and them, male and female, real Muslim and impostor."--The Washington

Post

"Honest, perceptive, and nuanced.... Introduces a Muslim community that is both an American immigration success story and a population struggling to define itself under unprecedented circumstances." --Christian Science Monitor

"There is no better time and no better book to understand the American Muslim experience today than Mecca and Main Street. Abdo has written an important, insightful and provocative book. 'Must reading' for anyone who wishes to engage American Muslims in their faith and rich diversity." --John L.

Esposito, University Professor and Founding Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, and author of What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam

"Abdo has written a book that succeeds in striking a very difficult balance; it is simultaneously honest, highly informative, critical, thought provoking, entertaining, and very readable--in fact once picked up, the reader will have a hard time putting the book down. This is one of the few studies

on the subject that is firmly grounded in the realities and dreams of American Muslims. The author insightfully elucidates both the internal and external strife and challenges that plague Muslims living in the United States in particular, but also more generally, those living in the West. Muslims

and non-Muslims alike will benefit greatly from reading Mecca and Main Street." --Khaled Abou El Fadl, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law, and author of The Search for Beauty in Islam and The Great Theft

"Going beyond abstract debates about what Islam does or doesn't say, Geneive Abdo vividly describes the many concrete ways in which American Muslims practice their religion. Shunning the cliched opposition of 'good' liberal Muslims to 'bad' fundamentalist or conservative Muslims, Abdo shows how the

new generation is shaping a truly Western, yet still orthodox, Islam. Contradictions, compromises, and tensions between U.S-born and immigrant Muslims accompany an ongoing shift from diverse ethnic communities to a common faith community--a faith community that is definitively Western. Mecca and

Main Street fills a vacuum in the study of American Muslims." --Olivier Roy, author of Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah

"Islam is the fastest growing religion in America, yet for most Americans the lives of their Muslim neighbors remain shrouded in mystery. In this rich and probing book Geneive Abdo provides an intimate account of American Islam; its roots, beliefs and the challenges that confront it today. With an

eye for detail and nuance, sharpened during years of reporting from Egypt and Iran, Abdo lays bare the diversity of this community of migrants and converts as it balances faith with modernity in post-9/11 America. Well-written, engaging and sophisticated, this is a must read for all Americans and

Muslims." --Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future

Gaining unprecedented access to Muslim communities in America, the author traveled across the country, visiting schools, mosques, Islamic centers, radio stations, and homes, and reveals a community tired of being judged by Americans' perceptions of Muslims overseas and eager to tell their own stories.

Islam is America's fastest growing religion, with more than six million Muslims in the United States, all living in the shadow of 9/11. Who are our Muslim neighbors? What are their beliefs and desires? How are they coping with life under the War onTerror?

In Mecca and Main Street, noted author and journalist Geneive Abdo offers illuminating answers to these questions. Gaining unprecedented access to Muslim communities in America, she traveled across the country, visiting schools, mosques, Islamic centers, radio stations, and homes. She reveals a

community tired of being judged by Americans' perceptions of Muslims overseas and eager to tell their own stories. Abdo brings these stories vividly to life, allowing us to hear their own voices and inviting us to understand their hopes and their fears.

The younger generation of Muslims in particular is charting a different way of life. They are following new imams and placing their Muslim identity before their American one. And unlike their parents, they do not define themselves by their ethnic background, as Pakistani, Palestinian, or

Yemeni. Instead they see themselves as belonging to a universal faith. Through their new organizations and websites, they exchange ideas about how to create a more Islamic lifestyle.

Inspiring, insightful, tough-minded, and even-handed, this book will appeal to those curious (or fearful) about the Muslim presence in America. It will also be warmly welcomed by the Muslim community that it depicts.

Introduction

1. History of Muslims in America

2. Muslim Life Today

3. The Traditionalists

4. Spreading the Faith

5. Women

6. The Converts

7. Muslim Voices

8. European Muslims

9. Conclusion