Customer Reviews

Red, White, and Muslim: My Story of Belief

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I like Asma Hasan, not in a sexual way, but as a decent respectable Muslim. I think she is a smart lawyer who knows how to put words together and knows how to wear makeup too. I am not a relative or friend reviewing this book but I hope that my words can reach Asma as honest criticism.

I read some of the stories in the book and I nodded with approval such as when she talked about verses in the Quran being read out of context. She mentioned the verse that says Muslims should not take Jews and Christians as friends. Asma says the word "friends" should have been protectors but since the Pakistani Quranic translator Yusuf Ali was not an Arab, he did not consider the difference and made the verse appear as if Muslims could never be friends with Christians or Jews.

She also said a few things that made my right eyebrow go up as I frowned such as on page 125 when she said that abortion might be allowed in Islam within the first trimester and this is according to some Islamic scholars. She also says Islam is "totally against the murdering of a child after she has been born." Islam is totally against the killing of babies before they are born and the scholars Imam Al-Gazali and Ibn Jawziyyah are in agreement on that. The only exception is in the case of a mother's life being in danger if she gives birth or in cases of a woman being raped. I could not even find a verse in the Quran that says a soul is breathed into the womb after 90 days, but even if it existed, I still don't think that would give a woman the right to abort her baby because her career has not taken off yet.

The thing that I think Asma fails to do and the reason why many Muslims may have animosity towards her is her failure to criticize American foreign policy. As I type this, I see the American flag moving in the wind behind me. I can understand how an American can have a bias towards his country and not want to consider the fact that his or her country has made policies that has and continues to inflict harm on other people. I cannot understand how a Muslim can do the same thing. I tried searching for something critical of the U.S. in Red, White and Muslim, but I could not find anything.

When I saw the chapter titled We Are All Imperfect, I thought this has to be the chapter where she criticizes policies of the U.S. such as the uneven-handed relationship to Israel or the Invasion of Iraq or the support of dictators in the Middle East and then says we are all not perfect. I didn't find that but I did find something interesting. She talks in the chapter about Shah Jehan and how he built the Taj Mahal and purposely left a black mark on one of the walls to show that he is a "faithful Muslim" who does not compete with God. Yet I have also read that Mr. Jehan cut the hands of the people who built the Taj Mahal to ensure no other building could resemble the Taj Mahal. I am not sure if that is true, but Asma should have been mentioned it but she did not. I suspect that she did not want to consider the negative aspects of Jehan in the same way she does not want to consider that her country has caused the death and destruction of people's lives and homes in the Muslim world.

I also noticed that when she mentions the Prophet Muhammad, she never says "The prophet" but merely says his name. I hate to say it, but this gave me the impression that she was addressing or even pandering to a Western audience.

The U.S. is not just a piece of apple pie and we need to know all the ingredients of whatever it is. Go watch The Fog of War by former Secretary of Defense McNamara or read a book by Noam Chomsky if you want to taste the side of America that Asma does not show. Let's be more honest and upfront about issues including terrorism and the 9-11 attacks in our next book. Maybe then you will be more respected Asma.

This book will enlighten and help dismiss the stereotypical understanding most Americans have of Islam and its holy book, the Qur'an. It is well written and an engaging composition which draws upon the author's personal life and her committment to Islam and its teachings - a much more progressive and free-thinking religion than one might have expected.

ACLU of Colorado presented Asma Hasan at the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver.
Asma excited the audience with her stories and her views on Muslim Women.The story about her grandmother and how it related to her present day life was touching and inspiring.
The book has been reviewed by Fareed Zakaria,Reza Aslan,Jack Miles,Rabbi Kula,Noah Feldman and John Esposito.All have written thoughtful comments and have highly reccomended the book.
I think people will enjoy this powerfull yet simply stated book about moderate muslims and american muslims.

Great job, sis!

The book does a marvelous job of intertwining facts about Islam with personal stories that are often hilarious - buy this book if you want to know more about Islam from a voice that is very down to earth and easy to read

Peace and love all!

I have decidedly mixed reactions to this book. On the one hand, Asma Gull Hasan is a real charmer, and easy to like. She does give one hope that Muslims can join into American society. Her book may help people understand that forms of Islam and Muslims vary and they are not all violent fanatics.

On the other hand, she doesn't deal with other varieties of Islam, and some Muslims have criticized her for being insufficiently devout. It is interesting to read this book along with Wafa Sultan's A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of Islam. So although we may like Hasan, she doesn't speak for all Muslims. I distinguish here between Islam and individual Muslims, just as my abandonment of Christianity has not made me hostile to all Christians. Some are very liberal, and came here because they like the social and political atmosphere. Others despise the United States and don't want to integrate into civil society. It is possible and acceptable within some limits, to live by one's own rules, as the Amish do, but they accept the consequences of living out of the mainstream, and dissenters have to be free to leave. But there is the case of the cab drivers in Minnesota who are fighting to be allowed to refuse taxi service to anyone with alcohol in their possession, or a dog (such as a blind person with a seeing-eye dog), or the parents who wanted their children released from school early on Fridays, or others who demand to be permitted to refuse to handle alcohol or pork products in a grocery store, instead of say, finding a job where those products aren't sold. Most disturbingly, there are "honor killings" of "excessively" Westernized daughters, as when Noor Almaleki was deliberately run down by her father. The Amish, at worst, shun the worldly.

I don't think that she adequately deals with Muslim religious violence. She says that most Muslims don't approve, but we certainly know that some Muslims do, and it seems very rare for any Muslims to speak out against it, which is what really disturbs me. Somehow, it seems wrong to blame non-Muslims for believing terrorists when they claim to be acting for Islam, and not blame the terrorists for making that claim. When I was in college, my professor used Islam as a model of tolerance and peaceful diversity to shame Christianity. I don't think he would do so now. Even if one considers Muslim grievances against the US and sets aside events like 9/11, there is an appalling amount of religious violence in the Muslim world, with probably most of the victims being fellow Muslims. In his excellent book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Second Edition (published before 9/11) Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid rebuked the Muslim world for not condemning the improper use of shari'a law as an excuse for violence and oppression.

Coming back to the United States, I quote from a Yahoo! article: 'Some U.S. Muslims say their national organizations share the blame, for answering intricate questions about Islam with platitudes ... Muslim leaders often respond when terrorists strike by saying Islam is a "religion of peace" that has no role in the violence instead of confronting the legitimate concerns of other Americans, these Muslim critics say.

"There's a quaintness and naivete or outright whitewashing of some very complex issues," said Saeed Khan, who teaches at Wayne State University in Detroit. " '

So while I realize that many, probably most Muslims are not violent, I am still skeptical of Islam, among many other institutions. I imagine that some reading this are about to point out that Christianity also has a bloody past. True, but that is one of the reasons that I am no longer a Christian. And the tolerance regarding religion in the west is the result of a great deal of effort and protest by many people.

I have one other small peeve: she complains at great length that people pronounce her first name like asthma, when it is to be pronounced AH-SEE-MA. Has she ever considered putting a vowel like "i" or "e" in the middle, to represent the presently unindicated vowel sound?

So I hope this will educate anyone who thinks that all Muslims are violent thugs. I'm sure it will be well received by the devoutly ecumenical. But I don't think it deals with all the issues that it needs to address to really convince worried Americans.