From Imam to Cyber-Mufti: Consuming Identity in Muslim America

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 provided an external stimulus to the growth of Muslim American hermeneutics and resulted in reactive identify formation in the face of discrimination and an essentializing public discourse.1 The combination of internal and external factors has led to what Jocelyne Cesari terms a visible process of Islamization and Dale Eickelman and Jon Anderson refer to as reintellectualism2 in America. In 2001, the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) conducted a survey of mosques in America that found that mosque building and mosque attendance had increased over the years and had peaked after September ll.-1 Research on Islam in America still typically uses the mosque as a gateway to the Muslim community, despite the fact that the vast majority of Muslims (over 80 percent based on conservative estimates) do not regularly attend mosque.6 Moreover, scholars invariably adopt an ethnographic approach by focusing on a particular community - the Arab Americans of Detroit, for instance rather than looking at discursive religious practices or the emergence of a distinctly Muslim public sphere.