Synopses & Reviews
A young Muslim leader’s memoir of his struggles to forge an American Muslim identity.
Haroon Moghul was thrust into the spotlight after 9/11, becoming an undergraduate leader at New York University’s Islamic Center forced into appearances everywhere: on TV, before interfaith audiences, in print. Moghul was becoming a prominent voice for American Muslims even as he struggled with his relationship to Islam. In high school he was barely a believer and entirely convinced he was going to hell. He sometimes drank. He didn’t pray regularly. All he wanted was a girlfriend.
But as he discovered, it wasn’t so easy to leave religion behind. To be true to himself, he needed to forge a unique American Muslim identity that reflected his beliefs and personality. How to Be a Muslim reveals a young man coping with the crushing pressure of a world that fears Muslims, struggling with his faith and searching for intellectual forebears, and suffering the onset of bipolar disorder. This is the story of the second-generation immigrant, of what it’s like to lose yourself between cultures and how to pick up the pieces.
Review
"How to Be a Muslim is at once a poignant spiritual memoir, a gripping tale of love and survival, and a pop-culture-infused retelling of an ancient tradition. Packed with wit, wisdom, and wry intelligence, Haroon Moghul’s story should be read by anyone who wants to understand the complexity and reality of religion in America today." Peter Manseau, author of One Nation, Under Gods
Review
"Between Homer Simpson and Muhammad Iqbal, Rumi and Kobe Bryant, Haroon Moghul’s profound, honest, entertaining, and hilarious memoir emerges as an important voice for our times. The title, How to Be a Muslim, doesn’t do this revealing and impressive memoir justice. It should simply be called 'How to Be a Human.' By showing us his warts, pain, flaws, insecurities, demons, and hypocrisies, Moghul ultimately reveals the joy, wonder, and purpose of living and being in the messy, conflicted playground that is modern life." Wajahat Ali, author of The Domestic Crusaders
Review
"In sometimes heartbreaking and staggering prose laced with subtle and sardonic humor, Moghul (The Order of Light) shares what it looks like to hammer out an American Muslim identity. As Moghul loses himself and seeks himself, readers will appreciate his story as a second-generation Muslim immigrant, but also as a representative of the modern man: searching, groping, discovering, losing, loving, hoping, dreaming, and suffering. Highly recommended for its candor and relatability, this book will invite readers to fathom what it means to grasp Islam — and religion and spirituality in general." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Synopsis
A searing portrait of Muslim life in the West, this "profound and intimate" memoir captures one man's struggle to forge an American Muslim identity (Washington Post) Haroon Moghul was thrust into the spotlight after 9/11, becoming an undergraduate leader at New York University's Islamic Center forced into appearances everywhere: on TV, before interfaith audiences, in print. Moghul was becoming a prominent voice for American Muslims even as he struggled with his relationship to Islam. In high school he was barely a believer and entirely convinced he was going to hell. He sometimes drank. He didn't pray regularly. All he wanted was a girlfriend.
But as he discovered, it wasn't so easy to leave religion behind. To be true to himself, he needed to forge a unique American Muslim identity that reflected his beliefs and personality. How to Be a Muslim reveals a young man coping with the crushing pressure of a world that fears Muslims, struggling with his faith and searching for intellectual forebears, and suffering the onset of bipolar disorder. This is the story of the second-generation immigrant, of what it's like to lose yourself between cultures and how to pick up the pieces.
About the Author
Haroon Moghul builds Muslim-Jewish engagement at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He’s written for the Washington Post, the Guardian, Time, Foreign Policy, Haaretz, and CNN. He and his wife want to move back to New York.
Haroon Moghul on PowellsBooks.Blog
When I was 23 years old, I dropped out of law school. With no sense of what to do and nowhere else to go, I returned home. Like many suburban South Asians, my professional imagination was not particularly vast; I knew I didn’t want to do medicine or engineering, but the only other career that seemed possible, acceptable, and sufficiently lucrative had been law...
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