Muslims on the Americanization Path?

by Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad (Editor), John L. Esposito (Editor)

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States. There are more Muslims in America than in Kuwait, Qatar, and Libya together. Leaving aside immigration and conversion, birthrate alone ensures that in the first part of the twenty-first century Islam will replace Judaism as the nation's second largest religion.
Like all religious minorities in America, Muslims must confront a host of difficult questions concerning faith and national identity. Can they become part of a pluralistic American society without sacrificing their identity? Can Muslims be Muslims in a state that is not governed by Islamic law? Will the American legal system protect Muslim religious and cultural differences? Is there a contradiction between demanding equal rights and insisting on maintaining a distinctively separate identity? Will the secular and/or Judeo-Christian values of American society inhibit the Muslim practice of religious faith? While the Muslims of America are indeed on the path to Americanization, what that means and what that will yield remains uncertain. In this thoughtful and wide-ranging volume, fourteen distinguished scholars take an in-depth look at these issues and examine the varied responses and opinions of the Muslim community.

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad (born in Syria in 1935) is Professor of the History of Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations at the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. Her interests and focus include contemporary Islam; intellectual, social and political history in the Arab world; Islam in the West; Quranic Exegesis; and gender and Islam. Haddad's current research focuses on Muslims in the West and on Islamic Revolutionary Movements. She has published extensively in the field of Islamic studies.

Haddad has been described as "at the top of her field in the study of Muslims in America" and "the foremost interpreter of the Islamic experience in the United States." She is the leading figure in a school of thought that sees the key issue for Muslims in the USA as being the conflict between traditional Islamic values and integration into mainstream US society.

Haddad received her Ph.D. in the Economic, Political Development, and Islamic Heritage in 1979 from Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut, and her Master's degree in Comparative History 1971 from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Additionally, she attended Boston University, where she received an M.R.E. in Religious Education and Leadership Development in 1966, and the Beirut College for Women in Lebanon. She was also Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Yvonne Haddad describes herself as a Presbyterian. She emigrated to the United States in 1963.