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Cultures clash in US mosques
Young Muslims steeped in American life are tuning out imams brought in from foreign countries to teach Islam.
By Tom A. Peter | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitorfrom the May 17, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 4
New york - Like any good Muslim, Ali Karjoo-Ravary went to mosque on Friday seeking spiritual inspiration. What the 19-year-old Iranian-American found, however, was something completely different.
At the head of a mosque in upstate New York, a foreign imam was leading the Friday service. Sitting on the floor with the other congregants, Mr. Karjoo-Ravary strained to understand the religious leader's thick accent. Even as he made out the imam's words, the message made little sense. "The entire sermon was about 'Don't let a girl pat your back. It can lead to things,' " Karjoo-Ravary recounts.
The imam's disconnect with American culture shocked Karjoo-Ravary. Trying to gauge the reaction of other young congregants, he spotted a cluster of teenagers and 20-somethings toward the back of the mosque. They were hunched over and appeared to be earnestly listening to the imam's every word. But looking closer, he realized their attentive postures were meant to conceal cellphones. The entire group had tuned out the sermon and was texting busily.
For many American-born Muslims, experiences like Karjoo-Ravary's are not uncommon. Over the past 40 years, hundreds of thousands of Muslims from around the world have emigrated to the United States, bringing their own cultural interpretations of Islam and electing imams who support their views. This practice worked well until recently, when large numbers of these immigrants' Westernized children reached adulthood, creating a disconnect between faith and culture. Foreign imams are at the center of this fast-growing divide between immigrant Muslims and their American-born children.
When Muslim immigrants flooded into the US from the Middle East and South Asia in the 1960s and '70s, their "first priority was to preserve their cultural integrity," says Johari Abdul-Malik, an American-born imam in Sterling, Va., and president of the Muslim Society of Washington, Inc. "The need for an imam from their background is … to preserve the cultural authenticity of that community."
Immigrant imams have served this purpose well, but the children of this immigrant wave – now adults – identify more with US culture than the one found in their parents' homeland. As a result, they find themselves increasingly at odds with foreign imams, who lead 85 percent of non-African-American mosques in the US, estimates the Islamic Society of North America. A mosque's imam is selected by its congregants, who often want someone fluent in Arabic, which is the language of the Koran.
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