An Unexceptional Exception: A Case Study of Negotiating Mosque’s Identity Dynamics in Oklahoma

• In Event: 1580 - Section on Sociology of Religion Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Intersectional Identities and Islam: Race, Gender, and Nationality

Abstract

American Muslims, often known as “powerless minorities,” mostly comprised of immigrants and African Americans. Their attachments to distant homelands, whether deliberate or inherited, mutely manipulate the boundaries of host country’s privilege to accommodate Muslim identity. Such manipulation is constantly affected by the class, culture, and national background of minorities, often under the authority of state despite its strict separation from the church. It creates a tension, if not in outright contradiction, between the constitutional ideal and the actual situations, and convolutes the meaning of belongingness in America. This paper examines how the conceptualization of citizenship is implicated by these parameters among Muslim communities through the lens of the Islamic Center of Greater Oklahoma City (ISGOC). The conflation of the state apparatus with the political and social mobility that undergird the ISGOC’s operations seemed to calculatedly compromise the idealism of modern America. It confused and challenged the Muslims and traditional mosque development cycle. Consequently, navigating those challenges and adjusting mosque focus altered their understanding of American citizenship. This case study elaborates the personal experience of the Imam of the ISGOC, Dr. Imad Enchassi to exemplify the evolution of citizenship perceived by many mosque members or leaders of his time. Bulk of this paper traces the motive and direction of negotiating different dynamics of national identity by Imad, and how technological advancement animated them in post-modern America.

Author

• Rasheed Al Rabbi