The American Muslim community continues to grow and seek its
self-definition. Increasingly, American Muslims do not merely recreate
the experiences of older immigrant groups, but rather face unique
challenges that demand investigation. In this book, the author explores
the lives of the Muslims of the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), a
diverse community whose members strive to adapt to the American
environment through the embrace of a distinctively Islamic identity.
This work examines such subjects as modes of interpretation of Islamic
knowledge, attitudes toward religious education for children, marriage
within and between ethnic groups, attitudes toward sex and gender, the
use of the hijab, and race and ethnic relations, both within and outside
the mosque itself. The outcome of the author's two-year study helps shed
light on what it means to be both Muslim and American at the dawn of the
21st century. This book will interest those in the fields of
anthropology and Islamic studies as well as sociology and immigrant
studies, not to mention individuals who simply want to know more about
their Muslim neighbors.