Muslims in America

The Washington Post has an ominous headline, "America's Muslims Aren't as Assimilated as You Think." The article begins:

If only the Muslims in Europe -- with their hearts focused on the Islamic world and their carry-on liquids poised for destruction in the West -- could behave like the well-educated, secular and Americanizing Muslims in the United States, no one would have to worry. So runs the comforting media narrative ... But
over the past two years, I have traveled the country, visiting mosques, interviewing Muslim leaders and speaking to Muslim youths ... and I have encountered a different truth.

Oh no! Are American Muslim communities running rampant with alienated native-born would-be suicide bombers? Are mullahs leading crowds in chants of "Death to America?" Here's what the reporter found:

I found few signs of London-style radicalism among Muslims in the United States.

Whew, OK. Let's read on:

A new generation of American Muslims ... [is] more likely to take comfort in their own communities, and less likely to embrace the nation's fabled melting pot of shared values and common culture. ... [T]he Sept. 11 attacks also had the dual effect of making American Muslims feel isolated in their adopted country, while pushing them to rediscover their faith.

So, the big news is that Muslims feel isolated, and they're becoming more religious. Then the writer gets down to specifics:

Young, first-generation American Muslim women ... are wearing head scarves ... increasing numbers of young Muslims are attending Islamic schools and lectures; Muslim student associations in high schools and at colleges are proliferating; and the role of the mosque has evolved from strictly a place of worship to a center for socializing and for learning Arabic and Urdu as well as the Koran.

Student associations? Studying your parents' native language? What's this world coming to? Surely American Muslims must be seething with anger and resentment! OK, maybe not:

"After I covered, I changed," Rehan told me. "I felt I wanted to give people a good impression of Islam. I wanted people to know how happy I am to be Muslim."

Hm. What about those Islamic lectures?

"So we have to be strategic in our thinking, because people who are our enemies are strategic in their thinking." The "enemies" Yusuf referred to that day were not non-Muslims, but rather those who use Islam as a rationale for violence.

Um, so, how exactly were these Islamic lectures a bad sign, again? And what about that alienation?

I spoke with them ... after they had been to the mosque one Sunday for a halaqa (a study circle) focused on integrating faith and daily life. They were in their twenties: Hayat, a psychologist; Ismahan, a computer scientist; and Fatma, a third-grade teacher. ... "Some Muslims do anything to fit in. They drink. They date. My biggest fear is that I might assimilate to the American lifestyle so much that my modesty goes out the window."

And overall:

Imam Zaid Shakir ... refers to such young Muslims as the "rejectionist generation." They are rejectionist, he says, because they turn their backs not only on absolutist religious interpretations, but also on America's secular ways. ...
In my years of interviews, I found few indications of homegrown militancy among American Muslims. Indeed, thus far, they have proved they can compete economically with other Americans... the average annual income of a Muslim household surpasses that of average American households.

So, let me get this straight. A group of immigrants and their children are getting in touch with their roots and becoming more pious. They're socializing largely within their own group while succeeding in the business world. They wear head scarves out of pride, not of oppression. They're intellectual and struggle against the temptations of modern life. They reject extremism as well as materialism. Heavens to Betsy!

So, what was up with that alarmist headline and introduction? It sounds to me like Muslims may be encountering some expected difficulties in America but overall are doing just fine. If Muslim communities in the rest of the world did as good a job integrating modern and traditional values as the Muslims in America do, we'd all be a lot safer and happier.

Update: A Muslim blogger repudiates the article. Essentially, the Washington Post article confused secularization with assimilation.