muslims, islam, and the middle east. For example, Ameena noted that
one of her middle school textbooks incorrectly referred to muslims as
“muhammadans.” Another respondent, mina, was put in the uncomfortable
position of correcting her teacher and classmates when one of the books they
were reading represented muslim women in an overtly stereotypical way and
implied that they have basically no rights when compared to muslim men:
“in class, issues came up about women and their place in islam. They said
wrong things in the textbook. i used to speak out; i was the only muslim
girl in the class. it was hard, but i had to speak out, just try to correct the
stuff that was clearly not true.” mina and many other interviewees were
quick to point out that in the Qur’an, women and men are viewed as equal
before God.
Oversimplified and even distorted representations of muslims and Arabs
in American textbooks have been a source of concern for members of these
communities for many years. in the 1970s and again in the 1990s, a team
of middle eastern studies scholars reviewed dozens of secondary school
geography and world history textbooks.14 in a few cases, they found well-
written, thoroughly researched textbooks with few discernible faults. some
books actually went out of their way to refute popular myths. yet the majority
of the books that were reviewed contained an abundance of errors in fact,
emphasis, and interpretation. rather than correcting Western stereotypes
and prejudices, these books perpetuated negative images of muslims and the
46 / Chapter 3
islamic faith. some of the most blatant examples of stereotyping included
vivid descriptions of the “wild warriors of islam” and claims that islam “is
not a gentle faith.” Another book asserted, “The moslem [ sic] heaven is a
man’s heaven, where women are mainly servants.” more subtle statements
that were included in the texts, such as “muslims worship a god named
Allah,” also encouraged the belief that muslims worship a diety wholly dif-
ferent from the deity worshipped by Christians or Jews. yet Allah is simply
the Arabic word meaning “God.” in fact, people who speak Arabic, be they
Christians, Jews, or muslims, often say “Allah” to describe God, just as God
is called “Gott” in German and “Dieu” in French.15
Christian missionaries have invoked the notion that Allah is a different or
pagan god for many years. For example, robert morey, Christian polemicist
and author of the alarmingly titled The Islamic Invasion: Confronting the
World’s Fastest Growing Religion, draws on dubious evidence to assert his
claim that “Allah” was an Arab “moon god.” morey’s writings lie at the heart
of much of the propaganda used against islam today, including the work of
Jack Chick. Over the past four decades, Chick has written and published
hundreds of cartoon booklets for use by Christian missionaries attempting
to spread the gospel in the United states and overseas. One of these “Chick
tracts,” as they are informally referred to by pastors, is titled “Allah Had no
son.” The pamphlet depicts a muslim man who threatens to kill an “infidel”
Christian man for the offense of calling Allah a moon god. The Christian
man pleads with the muslim to recognize that “satan has deceived you.”
The muslim man eventually responds by acknowledging that “Allah is a
false god, muhammad is not your prophet, and the Qur’an is not your Holy
Word.” in the end, the muslim converts to Christianity and concludes that he
must go forth and tell his people about the moon god, even if it costs him his
life. The wide reach of the publications that morey and Chick produce may
explain, in part, why 10 percent of Americans believe that muslims worship
a moon god.16
sabah, a native of new york City, had a first-hand encounter with the
type of religious (mis)information described above. Her neighbor received a
pamphlet that subtly, but convincingly, depicted muslims as violent people
who worship a false god. sabah attempted to show her neighbor that the
information she was reading was derogatory and blatantly incorrect in
certain sections:
so we were talking, and she asked me, “Who is Allah?” i said, “Allah
she had a booklet, a comic book that somebody had given her. she
gave it to me. i was like, “That is propaganda against us.” This book is
something that is directly done against muslims. i said to her, “look
Encountering Intolerance / 47
at the pictures.” They have this guy with a scruffy beard, dark eyes,
big shaggy eyebrows, a very scary-looking guy. if you saw him walk-
ing down the street, you’d walk . . . i would walk the other way. Then
they bring the Christian peaceful guy with his son trying to teach
him a calm way. They have this guy, the muslim, saying, “i could kill
you for something like that.” it was frustrating, because it also said
muslims don’t believe in Jesus, but we do.
sabah’s friend natasha chimed in:
But part of the problem is that muslims use the word “Allah.” even
when we translate things, we still say, “Allah.” i think it’s because
it’s such a beautiful name. even in your daily language, when you
say, “Thank God,” you say, “Alhamdulillah.” you say, “i will come,
insha’Allah” [meaning, “i will come, God willing”], because it’s
so ingrained in the language, you even say it when you’re talking
english. But the problem is that then people think, “Okay, muslims,
their god is Allah.” On Tv even, they’ll always say, “They pray to
their god, Allah.”
Almost all the individuals who participated in this study were raised
in the United states, and therefore they clearly understood and identified
with American culture. nevertheless, they were frequently treated as if
they were strangers in their own country. several intersecting forces have
undoubtedly shaped this image of muslims as perpetual foreigners. First,
islam has long been depicted and perceived as a “foreign religion” in the
predominantly Judeo-Christian United states. second, a large number of
muslims immigrated to the United states during the last three decades
of the twentieth century. These new waves of immigrants brought with
them religious, cultural, and linguistic traits that distinguished them
from the rest of the majority population. Third, the ethnic origins of
muslims in the United states, whether immigrant or native-born, show an
overwhelming preponderance of persons of color. Thus, racial phenotype,
culture, citizenship status, and faith interact in complex ways that mark
muslims as “multiply foreign.”17
rashida, whose parents were from pakistan, was born and raised in
rural illinois. she self-identified as a midwesterner and was proud of her
small-town upbringing. she spoke unaccented english and wore no visible
signifiers of her religious faith. However, her “foreign-sounding” name,
dark skin, brown eyes, and jet black hai
r led people to incorrectly assume
that she was a visitor to the United states, destined one day to return to her
“homeland.” rashida noted that it was mostly older persons who thought that
48 / Chapter 3
she was a foreigner, rather than those of her own age who were presumably
more accustomed to diversity:
With the younger generation, i haven’t felt like people have looked at
me differently. it’s been, “yeah, it’s cool because she has spirituality
and culture.” But with older people, sometimes they’ll be like, “Do
you speak your native tongue?” meaning, Urdu. “Do you want to go
back to your homeland?” Would you ask a white person whose par-
ents were from england or switzerland, “Do you want to go back
to your homeland?” no. you see them as American. The older gener-
ation will never see me as being just as American as a white Amer-
ican.
rashida was essentially making the argument that light-skinned european
immigrants and their children are “meltable” and thus have the opportunity
to become accepted as “fully American.” in contrast, south Asian Americans
and other immigrants who are racially “of color” can assimilate culturally
but cannot melt—that is, disappear—in the American milieu.18
The clothing that some of the young men and women wore also
affected how they were perceived in terms of nationality and citizenship.
The participants recalled that when they donned traditional or ethnic
attire, such as baggy pants and long tunics (salwar kameez), people would
assume they were newly arrived immigrants who did not understand the
dominant culture or language. The women who wore the hijab were the most
likely to be stereotyped as foreign. indeed, as soon as they began wearing
the headscarf (which most took up in high school or college, although a
few started covering as early as middle school), the women noticed how
differently they were treated. After Famina began wearing the headscarf,
she had an embarrassing encounter with a well-intentioned student in her
high school: “i was standing in the hallway, and this girl came up to me and
said, ‘Do—you—speak—english? Do—you—need—a—tutor?’ [ Laughs and
speaks in an exaggerated, drawn-out tone. ] The sad thing was she had met me
before; she just didn’t recognize me with the headscarf on. i had to say, ‘Hey,
it’s me, Famina.’” Famina’s friend added, “This is not uncommon. you’ve got
to understand, a lot of people assume we can’t speak english, or they speak
to us more loudly.”
some strangers who would overhear the headscarf-wearing women
converse seemed amazed at how fluent they were in english. These surprised
persons tended to respond to the women with some variant of “you speak
the language so well!” Although normally meant as a compliment, such
comments highlighted an underlying belief that all muslim women who cover
Encountering Intolerance / 49
are foreigners or foreign-born. leena, who was born in the United states to
parents from india, discussed this issue during one of our interviews:
They really think we can’t speak english. i was born and raised here,
so it’s not surprising that i speak english like the way people speak
it here. This lady said, “Oh, wow, you can speak english pretty well.”
i was like, “Well, i was born and raised here.” And they don’t expect
it. sometimes when me and Farah, one of my other sisters here,
when we see each other, we’re like, “yo, wassup?” people are just so
shocked, like they can’t believe we know what that is. [ Laughs. ]
Ariana was born overseas but moved to the United states as a young
child. she self-identified as south Asian American and wore the headscarf as
a symbol of her religious devotion. soon after she began covering at the age
of sixteen, she took her driver’s license exam and found herself explaining to
the instructor that she was not a newly arrived immigrant:
even when i took my road test, at the end, the instructor was very
nice. He didn’t mean anything mean by it; he said, “Have you driven
in the country you’re from?” i said, “i was three years old. i think
i drove a bicycle.” [ Laughs. ] sometimes the way people talk to me,
they’ll think i’m from another country. They don’t mean to be rude.
some people just like to talk to you. i’ve been here twenty years. i
really do consider this home.
even more troubling for the women was their recognition of the many
negative stereotypes associated with the headscarf, which some opponents
of islam have constructed as the ultimate symbol of gender inequality and
oppression within a patriarchal religious culture.19 much has been written
from a scholarly and popular perspective about the various reasons why
some muslim women in the United states and elsewhere choose to adopt the
headscarf as a public representation of their religious identity and devotion
to islam.20 nevertheless, the most common misconception that the women
encountered was that some domineering male family member forced them to
cover. many women spoke passionately about this false impression:
When people saw me wearing the hijab, they thought, oh, she’s
oppressed. Her husband’s making her wear that, or her father. people
were surprised when they saw me at school. They were like, “Aren’t
you supposed to be home cooking, cleaning, picking up children?”
That was hard. Trying to overcome that, trying to tell people i’m not
50 / Chapter 3
oppressed. i accept it. i do everything because i want to. There’s no
pressure or compulsion.
The most interesting thing is everyone assumed that i was forced.
Americans think that either my husband oppresses me, or my
brother told me, or my father told me to do this. i had teachers come
up to me, “your husband did this; tell me if he did it!” i couldn’t
understand it. i keep telling everyone, “my mom doesn’t do it.” They
don’t even know what i went through to beg my mom to let me cover.
Because they can’t imagine that i took it on myself. “Are you getting
married?” “Did your husband force you? Or your father?” One person
thought that i had bruises on my face.
The stuff about women, i’m sure every single one of us has had to
explain that we’re educated. no, there is no man that beats us to make
us wear this. no, we do not have bruises under this. [ Points to hijab. ]
The above quotes illustrate that people who believe that muslim women
are forced to wear the headscarf also tend to assume that islam does not
value education, that the women are oppressed at home, and that they are
being beaten. These particular stereotypes had dire consequences for some
of the women. For instance, Dima, a second-generation syrian American,
recounted what happened to her after she began covering in high school. The
school principal thought that her parents were abusing her by withholding
food. He subsequently called social services to investigate her home. The
unfounded allegation was devastating to Dima and caused a great
deal of
conflict within her family:
The principal called me from the classroom and told my teachers,
“This is really getting serious. i don’t know you as the person that i
knew before. something is going on. i think you’re being unhealthy.”
He was trying to say that i’m covering because i don’t look like
before; maybe i got skinny because i don’t have food. i don’t know
what he thought. He said, “We have to send people to investigate your
house to see if there’s food.” i looked at him, “Are you serious?” He’s
like, “if we see you like this. . . .” my mom, who does not cover, she
was so upset. she did not want me to wear the headscarf in the first
place. After this, she was literally . . . [s]he yelled at me, wanted me to
stop doing this, but i want to do it.
The interviewees tended to view stereotypes about the headscarf and
rampant gender inequality as emerging from media coverage of muslim
Encountering Intolerance / 51
women in other countries. it is true that the American press has long
focused on muslims living nearly everywhere else but in the United states.
This attention not only has reinforced the view of islam as an imminently
foreign religion but also has led to the conflation of religious and cultural
practices. in his book Covering Islam, edward said argues that “islam”
defines a very small portion of what actually takes place in the vast muslim
world.21 nevertheless, the Western media use the label “islam” to explain
and to condemn all sorts of practices that are rooted in complex social
structures, economic conditions, histories, and cultural formations. To be
sure, some muslim women do suffer very real and tragic oppression. The
place of honor killing, genital mutilation, and forced childhood marriage
in many cultures—although not just muslim ones—demands attention
and concern.22 However, by focusing almost exclusively on the purported
miseries of muslim women, the diversity of their lives and experiences is
rendered invisible in popular discourse. natasha, who was born and raised
in southern California, discussed how she wanted to defend the egalitarian
ideals of her faith, but she felt inadequately equipped to do so given the broad
range of cultures in which islam is practiced: