The American experience forges as well as forces a new Muslim identity that is born both out of the quest to belong and the experience of being permanently depicted as “the other.”
…In order to combat the feeling of defeatism and weakness that may overwhelm the Muslim student and/or immigrant, [the late Islamic intellectual] Isma’il Al-Faruqi recommended the appropriation of an Islamic ideology. Muslims are not in the United States as beggars, he said, but as contributors towards the building of a just society. Faruqi stressed that the adoption of an Islamic ideology or vision frees one from the sense of guilt at having left his or her homeland and achieved some measure of success in a new place. It liberates one from the need to be exceedingly grateful to the adoptive country because success belongs to God. Meanwhile, the Muslim will participate in addressing the ills of American culture by posing the challenge of Islam. “The Islamic vision,” he said, “provides the immigrant with the deepest love, attachment and aspiration for a North America reformed and returned to God.” When this transformation has taken place, immigrants and converts alike will find their lives taking a new meaning and significance “whose dimensions are cosmic .... ”
From this perspective, Islam is a unique order of life established by God for humanity, where religion and politics must be intertwined to assure justice and freedom. It provides special cohesiveness and communal support to a community going through a troubled time in which it sees itself rejected, the object of hate and fear. For many Muslims, America seems to have been “high jacked” by special interest groups, as a result of which it has departed from the values and the vision that previously had merited God’s blessing. Thus it is in need not only of salvation but of racial transformation that can restore it to its mission as a country living in obedience to God.