Customer Reviews

American Jihad: Islam After Malcolm X

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Well with a title like American Jihad i thought i was getting something different, but I guess it was a better buy than i thought because it really changed what i thought about islam and muslims in general. I really don't know what to say about it other than it is worth getting if your open minded enough to gain something out of it. I very much suggest getting it.

A great book about Islam & Muslims especially African-American muslims. I really enjoyed the interview format as well as the listing of 99 names & attributes of Allah in the back of the book.This book has great interviews from a diverse range of American muslims. From African -Americans to Native-americans and everything in between.Sunni,Shiah,Sufi and also a Ismali all are presented in this book.For those who know a little about the American Muslim community there is special treat!!! A interview with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson.

I know of no book that presents such a spectrum of people who call themselves Muslims. Very, very educational, at times gripping, and overall, seemingly very honest.

Steven Barboza is a journalist and a practicing Muslim (a convert). He writes in the Introduction to this 1993 book, "My intention was not to write a theological treatise nor to write a book about highly politicized secret societies that operate surreptitiously on the fringes of Islam. This is not a book about 'Muslim radicals' or 'Islamic extremists,' although the views of subjects I've included sometimes widely diverge from the mainstream. Rather, this work was undertaken principally to feel the pulse of Islamic society in America, to tell what is happening in a community of millions of converts to a religion that is so steeped in myth it remains as mysterious to most Americans as a woman behind a veil."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"The Qur'an says there is no compulsion in religion. How does a state that is using Islam as a political ideology get by forcing people to pray five times a day? In Saudi Arabia, you have a religious police. You have to close your shop and go to prayer. That is not Qur'anic Islam. That's Islam being used as a political ideology." (Pg. 39)
"The whole office of the imam in the United States is itself being redefined in American terms, very much along the lines of ministers and pastors." (Pg. 41)
"The Nation's (of Islam's) fate was sealed with the rap of a gavel in a Chicago probate court, where the Nation's bank account, properties, and businesses were disentangled from Elijah's estate and a $13 million judgment was handed down. The Nation claimed bankruptcy and sold its Chicago mosque to Farrakhan's organization to pay off debts to Progressive Land Developers, its principal creditors." (Pg. 96)

This is a fine book, with short biographical chapters of American Muslims from many different "tastes" of Islam. It would be nice if Baraboza did a follow-up on the people still with us or another book with the under 40 crowd. I have used this book in many contexts with success.

Concerning the reviewer who does not like the emphasis on Nation of Islam and its subsequent transformation, somewhere around 40% of American Muslims are African American. Many families went from one generation in the Nation to the next in "orthodox" sunni Islam. It is an important part of 20th c. American history. I am glad it has been reprinted.

Now, who is going to sue Steve Emerson for stealing the title?

"American Jihad: Islam After Malcolm X" is a thrilling example of the human experience in religious awakenings. The author who went through his own religious conversion to Islam explains the conversions of over fifty other fellow Muslims including that of Malcolm X and the honorable Elijah Muhammad whom both belonged to the "Nation of Islam" which was created in the 1930's as an offshoot of Orthodox-Islam. The majority of the book's interviews come from African American converts and many of them come from the "Nation of Islam" which is detailed extensively throughout the book. Sunni Islam and Sufism are the sects that are detailed most prominently by the interviewee's as being the reason they converted, while Shia Islam is mentioned once or twice.

The reader should understand that this book was written around the middle 1990's and does not feature interviews of Muslims in the post-9/11 atmosphere. While others may be looking for testaments of the Islamic resurgence in America during the post-9/11 atmosphere when bigotry and stereotypes of Islam abound I did not find that this ruins the quality of the book. There are multiple stories detailed of new Muslims fighting hate, bigotry, and their own doubts in their quest for the true Islam in the wake of the Lockerbie Bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. A diverse set of questions are presented as having been asked during the interview and the responses to many are quite extensive which I believe warrant the high price I paid for my Kindle edition of the book. The end of the book presents a brief history Islam, a glossary of terms, and a list of the "99 names of Allah" which adds to the value of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed this read and believe anyone who has even a passing interest in Islam will find it quite readable.

While I found this book to be an informative "survey" of Muslims in America, I felt that it was quite shallow in its focus. For instance, the book relied very heavily, it seemed, on the Nation of Islam, when, as Barboza knows, most Muslims consider them outside of the pale of Islam AND most Muslims are not a part of that organization. Also, the two people he chose as representative of the Sufi path are considered by many Muslims (and Sufis) to be on the fringe. I felt he could have spoken to more women, and more "regular" Muslims. It also seemed like the book was "star struck" in that there was so many celebrities or members of Elijah Poole's family. It would be interesting to see a follow up or another set of interviews.