Living Islam Out Loud is one of the best non–fiction works I have read in a long time.  It is a collection of pieces by Islamic women living in the United States.  Their stories reflect a diversity of experience — from growing up within the tradition–laden strictures of immigrant families, to Afro–American women who are children and grandchildren of Nation of Islam founders.  A common theme beneath these accounts is the hyphenated nature of existence for Islamic women living in a predominantly secular/Christian culture.

When I was a child growing up within Ontario's public education system, I was exposed — like thousands of others my age — to a social studies curriculum that betrayed more than a small hint of anxiety about the Canadian identity question.  How were we to resist the looming presence of American culture creeping up from the south?  One answer, as a matter of educational policy, was to teach us that there were differences, however subtle.  One difference was the American melting–pot/Canadian mosaic distinction.  Both countries are peopled predominantly by immigrants imposed on dwindling native populations. When immigrants come to America, there is a tacit expectation that they will blend in, dress in jeans, eat at McDonald's, watch Hollywood movies, and (of course) learn to speak English.  But in Canada, perhaps because of Québec's presence as a constitutionally protected "distinct society," there is less pressure — at least officially — for newcomers to blend in.  We belong to a mosaic.  The hyphen is essential to our identity.  And so we are Indian–Canadian, Euro–Canadian, Chinese–Canadian, and so on.

Sometimes I'm skeptical whether there is any truth to the official indoctrination we received as children.  However, at least conceptually, we understand what it means to have a hyphenated identity, and, at least conceptually, we have little problem with the idea that a person might want to assert the part they have brought with them from their homeland.  And so the voices I encounter within Living Islam Out Loud strike me as more assertive than necessary.  Then I remember: I am not an American reader.

One of the boldest pieces within the collection is "The Muslim in the Mirror," by Mohja Kahf, and it perfectly illustrates the demand to be acknowledged as distinctive, She writes: "If there's anyone I was more sick and tired of than Muslims, it's Muslim–bashers. No one is allowed to criticize Islam and Muslims but those who do it from love.  Those who do it from hate, step aside.  And step aside, those who do it as a way to fame and fortune funded by neo–conservatives who think they can kaCHING up genuine "reform" in Islam and manufacture docile little McMuslims for the maintenance of U.S. McHegemony in the world.  Neocons can kiss my Islamic ass."