Losing My Religion

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Siti Sarah binti Sukor G1622938

A book review: Losing My Religion: A call for help by Jeffrey Lang

http://www.islamicity.org/3659/losing-my-religion-a-call-for-help/

To the Homegrown American Sisters and Brothers At present, our community in America, whether or not we are aware of it or acknowledge it, is engulfed in a decisive conflict, and we are taking heavy losses. Mass numbers of descendents of Muslims, converts, and spiritual seekers are forsaking the American Islamic community and many of these will inevitably abandon the religion. The confrontation is of course not military but rather is occurring on the intellectual plane. On one front our religion is being both subtly and and overtly demeaned by the media. On another, anti-Islam websites are assaulting the faith with mostly discarded but now resurrected antiquated orientalist criticisms. On another, an extreme, virulent and irrational interpretation of the faith has assumed, with a good deal of outside support, center stage on the world scene. On another, most mosques in this country impose in the name of Islam, traditions and beliefs of questionable necessity that obfuscate the fundamental message of God's last revelation to humanity and that are driving individuals from the faith in droves, and that serve to confirm for too many youth of Muslim parentage and American converts the overriding negative impression of Islam that society seems to hold at large. Instead of seeing a path to spiritual growth, enlightenment and fulfillment many of these disengaged Muslims start to see a stagnant, retrogressive, patriarchal remnant of a lagging culture, mired in meaningless controversies and hollow, lifeless formalism. If this is going to be countered, it will require an immense and courageous intellectual effort, and those upon whose shoulders this challenge and duty primarily rests are the second generation and converts who have held fast to their faith despite the many challenges this has presented. It is you, the activist American Muslim youth and converts, though your numbers are small, who have been placed in a pivotal role. 1

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Through your American upbringing, you have come to fully know and understand the surrounding society, and through your love and commitment to God and your religion, in a milieu that constantly tests it, you have by nature and necessity become the crucial bridge between your faith and its future in this country. You are in the best position to rationally respond to Islam's detractors and to communicate and demonstrate to your fellow countrymen and women what it really means to be a Muslim. You think their think, talk their talk, and appreciate their confusions and concerns. You are also in the best position to reassess the vast tradition that has come down to us in the name of Islam. It is precisely because you have not been reared in a traditional Muslim culture and because you have been taught since your first day in school to search, question, critique, and analyze that you are the prime candidates to endeavor to separate religion from culture, to distinguish the essential to Islam from time and place bound interpretations. It is you who are best able to understand and communicate to the disaffected Muslim youth. This is your jihad (struggle), a jihad for minds and hearts, a jihad of intellect and reason. So I encourage you to arm yourselves, my younger brothers and sisters, with books, and pens and personal computers, and all the other instruments of learning. And arm yourselves with knowledge of your religious tradition and the works and thoughts of its great minds of the past. But also arm yourselves with modern techniques of critical, analytical, investigative research, so that you can better study and critique past contributions in the Islamic sciences. Learn all you can in your coursework, and especially in such fields as religious studies, history, anthropology, and linguistics. Arm yourselves also, if you have the inclination and apti tude, with advanced degrees in these areas of research so critical to the project of reappraising our community's traditions. And arm yourselves with humility, because it is vital to objectivity, and with courage and perseverance, brothers and sisters, because you will be opposed from without and within the Muslim community. And remember to always pursue the truth, for God is the Truth, and always pray for and trust in His guidance. And so arm yourselves also with steadfast devotion to your Lord, never forgetting that to Him, and Him only, you have surrendered-not to a tradition, or a school of thought, or a local community or culture, or scholarly legacy-and that your living, striving, sacrifice and dying, all is for Allah.

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The article was excerpted from Dr. Jeffrey Lang's book entitled Losing My Religion, an in depth analysis of the current acculturation of the Muslim American identity. Dr. Jeffrey Lang is Professor of Mathematics at The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. He is the author of two best selling works: Struggling to Surrender and Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America. Both Books have been translated into other languages.

Introduction

This book review will be discussed under sever al headings; the content of the book, the author’s experience, issue of islamophobia and finally the message to the readers.

The book

There are three parts in the inspiring book. In the introduction, he recaps some of his conversations he had with his daughter about her questioning what would he do if she is no longer a Muslim? He was stunned by this question as he mentioned that he travelled around the country on giving public lectures on Islam and he couldn’t imagine if it truly happens to himself. The issue of being a Muslim in America is worsening after the September 11th attack. More islamophobia issues were brought forward and that children were afraid to go to school. The peers and sometime the teachers too harassed the Muslim children making them think that being a Muslim is difficult. This is what the prejudiced Americans do to the other small ethnicity when they encounter them in the neighbourhood. This somehow have a greater impact on the children, where their friends made fun of them, throwing harsh words in front of oth ers and they have a loud laugh at them.

Another bigger problem are the culture and tradition that some of the Muslim community are practicing that seem not to fit the American born Muslims. He commented that the women are separated in the functions and feast held in the Mosque or Islamic centres. They even denied to hold any post in the committee even if they are a member of the community. 3

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Author’s experience

Islamophobia and our roles

What’s next?

The most important message after I have finished the book is that all Muslims should understand the importance of being knowledgeable according to Islam. As the world is getting more advanced in technology, more people can be reached easily via a smart phone. Only people with the true understanding of using the knowledge on technology can use them wisely. But the fact that the opponent of

To the Homegrown American Sisters and Brothers At present, our community in America, whether or not we are aware of it or acknowledge it, is engulfed in a decisive conflict, and we are taking heavy losses. Mass numbers of descendents of Muslims, converts, and spiritual seekers are forsaking the American Islamic community and many of these will inevitably abandon the religion. The confrontation is of course not military but rather is occurring on the intellectual plane. On one front our religion is being both subtly and overtly demeaned by the media. On another, anti-Islam websites are assaulting the faith with mostly discarded but now resurrected antiquated orientalist criticisms. On another, an extreme, virulent and irrational interpretation of the faith has assumed, with a good deal of outside support, center stage on the world scene. On another, most mosques in this country impose in the name of Islam, traditions and beliefs of questionable necessity that obfuscate the fundamental message of God's last revelation to humanity and that are driving individuals from the faith in droves, and that serve to confirm for too many youth of Muslim parentage and American converts the overriding negative impression of Islam that society seems to hold at large. Instead of seeing a path to spiritual growth, enlightenment and fulfillment many of these disengaged Muslims

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start to see a stagnant, retrogressive, patriarchal remnant of a lagging culture, mired in meaningless controversies and hollow, lifeless formalism. If this is going to be countered, it will require an immense and courageous intellectual effort, and those upon whose shoulders this challenge and duty primarily rests are the second generation and converts who have held fast to their faith despite the many challenges this has presented. It is you, the activist American Muslim youth and converts, though your numbers are small, who have been placed in a pivotal role. Through your American upbringing, you have come to fully know and understand the surrounding society, and through your love and commitment to God and your religion, in a milieu that constantly tests it, you have by nature and necessity become the crucial bridge between your faith and its future in this country. You are in the best position to rationally respond to Islam's detractors and to communicate and demonstrate to your fellow countrymen and women what it really means to be a Muslim. You think their think, talk their talk, and appreciate their confusions and concerns. You are also in the best position to reassess the vast tradition that has come down to us in the name of Islam. It is precisely because you have not been reared in a traditional Muslim culture and because you have been taught since your first day in school to search, question, critique, and analyze that you are the prime candidates to endeavor to separate religion from culture, to distinguish the essential to Islam from time and place bound interpretations. It is you who are best able to understand and communicate to the disaffected Muslim youth. This is your jihad (struggle), a jihad for minds and hearts, a jihad of intellect and reason. So I encourage you to arm yourselves, my younger brothers and sisters, with books, and pens and personal computers, and all the other instruments of learning. And arm yourselves with knowledge of your religious tradition and the works and thoughts of its great minds of the past. But also arm yourselves with modern techniques of critical, analytical, investigative research, so that you can better study and critique past contributions in the Islamic sciences. Learn all you can in your coursework, and especially in such fields as religious studies, history, anthropology, and linguistics. Arm yourselves also, if you have the inclination and apti tude, with advanced degrees in these areas of research so critical to the project of reappraising our community's traditions. And arm yourselves with humility, because it is vital to objectivity, and with courage

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and perseverance, brothers and sisters, because you will be opposed from without and within the Muslim community. And remember to always pursue the truth, for God is the Truth, and always pray for and trust in His guidance. And so arm yourselves also with steadfast devotion to your Lord, never forgetting that to Him, and Him only, you have surrendered-not to a tradition, or a school of thought, or a local community or culture, or scholarly legacy-and that your living, striving, sacrifice and dying, all is for Allah. The article was excerpted from Dr. Jeffrey Lang's book entitled Losing My Religion, an in depth analysis of the current acculturation of the Muslim American identity.

Crucial to the vitality of any religious community is its ability to attract and engage descendants and converts. By this measure, notwithstanding the proliferation of mosques and Islamic organizations, the Muslim community in America is not doing at all well." This rather sober assessment motivates Dr. Lang to address, in this book, the alienation from the Mosque of the great majority of America's homegrown Muslims. In Losing My Religion: A Call For Help, the author comes to terms with many of the queries put to him by Americans of Muslim parentage and converts to Islam since the publication of his book Even Angels Ask in 1997. Lang asserts that to effectively respond to the general malaise of American-born Muslims, the Islamic establishment in America needs to be willing to listen to the doubts and complaints of the disaffected. This entails engaging in open discussions on issues with which many in the Muslim community will be uncomfortable, but Lang avers that such open dialogue will be of more benefit to young American Muslims struggling with their faiths than the covert and uniformed discussions that often take place or no discussion at all. For this reason, Lang feels it is important and beneficial "to be candid and objective and not evade controversy, for to inadequately state the case for or against a specific position, especially when it challenges convention, only serves to fur! ther alienate the sceptical." In addition to examining questions of theodicy, hadith authenticity, and moot practices within the American Muslim community, the author includes many testimonials and inquiries that make this book informative.

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Losing My Religion

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