Muslim Families in North America By Earle H. Waugh, Sharon Mclrvin Abu-Luban, and Regula Burckhardt Qureshi (eds.). Calgary: The University of Alberta Press, 1991, 369 pp.

Abstract

The writers contributing their researaches to this book deal with an
are8 that has not yet been adequately studied. Most of the litemhue on
Muslims is historically or politically oriented and views immigrant Muslims
in North America as extensions of their homelands, in particular the
Middle East. This book discusses Muslim families as part of the pluralstic
and ever-changjng social fabric of the United States and Canada. The
families of African-American Muslims and Muslim converts are not
studied. We are going to present our critique chapter by chapter.
Muslim Normative 'I).aditions and the North American Environment
(Sharon Mclrvin Abu-Laban).
The clear and workable typology of Muslim immigrant families presented
here points out major social patterns and links to Islam. They are
divided into three cohorts based on "the dynamic interaction between social
conditions and group characteristics" @. 7): pioneer (nineteenth century
to WWII); transitional (post-WWII to 1967); and differential (1968
to ptesent). Different generations within each cohort are exarnined.
African-American Muslims are excluded, as their case is unique.
The fitst cohort lived in an era of total conformity to a sociocultural
milieu dominated by the English language and Christianity. This cohort's
second generation assumed a more conformist role due to its disadvantaged
social status, distance from its original home and culture, and lack
of financial resou~easn d ethnic institutions. Intermarriagew ith the wider
society was high. Ironically, all of this "generated the particular disdain
of the newest Muslim immigrants," who arrived after 1976 @. 18).
The transitional cohort consists mainly of foreign students from wellestablished
indigenous elite families who had been Europeanized before
their arrival. As a postcolonial generation, they saw nationalism, not religion,
as a valuable means for development and social change. They intermarried
with North Americans at a higher rate than their predecessors.
The second generation of this cohort, along with the third generation of
the pioneers, experienced the most discrimination and media stereotyping ...