Muslims, Islamic Law, and the Sociopolitical Reality in the United States

Abstract

Native born African-American Muslims and the Immigrant Muslim
community foxms two important groups within the American Muslim
community. Whereas the sociopolitical reality is objectively the same
for both groups, their subjective responses are quite different. Both are
vulnerable to a “double Consciousness,” i.e., an independently subjective
consciousness, as well as seeing oneself through the eyes of the
other, thus reducing one’s self-image to an object of other’s contempt.
Between the confines of culture, politics, and law on the one hand and
the “Islam as a way of life” on the other, Muslims must express their
cultural genius and consciously discover linkages within the diverse
Muslim community to avoid the threat of double consciousness.