The new documentary The Mosque in Morgantown, premiering on PBS tonight, features the internal battled in the Muslim community revolving around the opening of the mosque in Morgantown in 2003 and what happens when one woman stands up for what she believes is right.

Morgantown resident and journalist Asra Nomani, upon the opening of the new mosque, found that the women had a separate entrance in the back. The day she went in through the front door to pray right behind the men in the men’s section was the day she began her ordeal with the mosque, directly going against the conservatives of the mosque while using this issue as a platform for women’s rights in Islam.

Nomani’s methods to bring awareness of how she felt about the mosque included trying to pray behind the men in the men’s section, airing her grievances in front of the mosque, organizing a protest march with a group of activists, and even posting her very own 99 precepts on the front door of the mosque, all in front of the media.

While the creators of the documentary could have just shown Nomani’s side, they also talked to those who did not share in Nomani’s view, creating a balanced documentary. Various people who were part of the mosque were interviewed, such as Hazem Bata, a moderate Muslim. He wondered why Asra Nomani went to such extremes to air her issues. Why not talk to the Muslims who belong to the mosque before going right to the press? Bata wondered. I have to say, I agree with Bata’s point of view. It’s too late to say how things would have turned out had Nomani picked another way to fight her battle but one would think that sitting down and having a proper discussion with the community before going straight to the media may have fared a better outcome.

The Mosque in Morgantown isn’t necessarily about who’s right and who’s wrong but instead offers an interesting look into the events that highlight an issue that is still being debated today in the United States. However, this documentary isn’t just about the issue of barriers in the mosque and women’s rights. It also documents the struggle that a Muslim community faces and how they all go about trying to solve it. The Muslim community is far from perfect and it’s definitely intriguing to see how one such group deals with dissent. At one point, the Muslims of the Morgantown mosque even discuss banning Nomani from the mosque, which seems to be a bit extreme.

The Mosque in Morgantown premiers tonight on PBS at 10 pm. Check your local listings since timings may differ in your area.

I also recommend Zarqa Nawaz’s Me and the Mosque for a documentary that really explores the theme of women’s place in the mosque (Asra Nomani appeared in this documentary as well). It doesn’t appear to be readily available, but if you have a chance, watch it.

In Al’ America: Travels Through America’s Arab and Islamic Roots, journalist Jonathan Curiel explores the influence Arab and Islamic culture has had on the United States of America. Curiel provides Americans with an accessible book that forces one to look at America since its inception and recognize that we should not all fear Arabs and Muslims because in fact, many things can be traced back to these origins.

With this book, Curiel delves into many aspects of the American culture to discover Arabic or Muslim beginnings. He writes about Islamic roots since the time Columbus set foot on America, slaves that were Muslim, origins of words that take root from Arabic words, buildings that were created with Arab architecture in mind, and amazingly enough, the origin of one of the most popular surfer songs, Miserlou, has an Arab point of reference as well.

One interesting story is about one of the most American things, the ice cream cone, which was created through happenstance in 1904. When an ice cream vendor at the World’s Fair in St. Louis ran out of plates to serve ice cream, a zalabia, a flat pastry with a grid-like pattern that a Syrian was selling, was shaped like a cone and used to serve the ice cream instead. Even something like coffee can be traced to Muslim countries where it was initially used by Sufis to help them stay up late and pray. In fact, the first coffeehouse was in Mecca around the 1500s.

The biggest shock to many could be that Minoru Yamasaki, the American architect, was inspired by Arab architecture when he designed the World Trade Center. In fact, the original plan had a lot more archways that are present in mosque designs before he had to change the design.

While I can go on and on about what Curiel tied to Arabic and Muslim culture while he researched this book, it’s worth talking about the ramifications of such a book. Americans have lived in fear of Muslims and Arabs for quite a while now and Curiel will force one to reexamine this misunderstanding and for that, Al’ America is an important book and worth adding to one’s bookshelf. Well written and well researched, this book benefits many people, whether it is someone that thinks of Arabs and Muslims living in the United States as ‘the other’ or even Arabs and Muslims who live in the United States. The former will understand that a lot of what they thought to be “American” can be traced to Arabs and Muslims while the latter may acquire a closer association to this country as they learn about roots planted a long time ago.

In his preface, Curiel writes “..the history of these pages will require a popular reassessment of America and its relation to Arab and Muslim culture. It’s not “their” culture, but “ours.” American culture. The culture of America.” Hopefully, Jonathan Curiel will accomplish this with Al’ America.

Be sure to check out Jonathan Curiel’s website as he has pictures of some of the buildings he writes about in his book.

After I heard Eboo Patel speak at the Civic Engagements lecture at ISNA (ok, ok, I was only in there for the last 10 minutes but he closed the lecture with style with his final comments), I wanted to check out his book Acts of Faith in which he describes his trying to find his identity as American Muslim.

Patel’s search for an identity eventually leads to the creation of the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), which “Builds mutual respect and pluralism among young people from different religious traditions by empowering them to work together to serve others.”

Patel writes about how childhood and authority figures in one’s life affects the idealogical framework of a person. He cites examples of cases of Christian, Jewish, and Islamic extremism that dealt with people who’s minds were shaped into hate by their mentors. The problem for Muslims, Patel states, is that in the Muslim community, most Muslim leaders are not involved with the Muslim youth. The author goes into his own experiences as a youth and how the right influences, beginning with the YMCA, deterred him from a potentially unsavory path.

Patel realized the need of the something like IFYC. This organization creates an environment in which youth from different religions can come together and gain acceptance of others while being proud of one’s own religion. As Patel explains it to a member of the Archdiocese of Chicago to convince him of IFYC’s mission: “The middle path, the only route to collective survival really, is to identify what is common between religions but to create the space where each can articulate its distinctive path to that place. I think of it as affirming particularity and achieving pluralism.”

Patel’s journey towards IFYC, which includes giving lectures on the subject while in college, meeting the Dalai Lama, and shaping his doctorate at Oxford to study religion and interfaith cooperation, is worth reading. “Important” is a word that many use when describing Patel’s book, and it is. He shows that Muslims in America cannot just think of themselves and the need to be involved with those of other faiths. I recommend it.

By the way, a definition of “pluralism,” a word Eboo Patel uses quite a bit to discuss the goals of interfaith movements: What is Pluralism?

The last two blog posts were about specific sessions that I went to but instead of giving reviews of all the individual sessions I attended, I’d like to give my thoughts about ISNA 2007 in general.

Alhamdullilah, I thought it went pretty well.

A theme that I found while spending most of my time in Meet the Author sessions is that Muslims need to step up and be part of the intellectual spectrum present in the U.S. and in the world. It’s evident that Muslims have lost their place among the intellectual elite, not to say that there isn’t work being done. For instance, Zaytuna has done quite a bit in this realm.

In his Meet the Author session for his book, A Muslim in Victorian America: The Story of Alexander Russell Webb, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah said that he wrote the book for us and that his book is merely the ‘tip of the iceberg,’ indicating that further research can be conducted on Alexander Russell Webb, someone who seemed to be around many major historical events in the U.S. in his time period.

Ebrahim Moosa discussed his book Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination in which he argues that Ghazali “provides a sorely needed model for a cosmopolitan intellectural renewal among Muslims.”

Even in the session for Lost History, author Michael Morgan admitted that his sources were limited because he doesn’t know Arabic, Urdu, and other languages needed to gather material from primary sources firsthand.

I came away from ISNA really feeling the need to do improve myself and just try to learn because there is so much out there that Muslims need to educate themselves about in order to begin the process of contributing to the “intellectual renewal” as Moosa calls it.

In the end, I learned a lot, had a really good time, and met some interesting people. Perhaps I will attend next year as well.

Check out The New York Times about ISNA: Abandon Stereotypes, Muslims in America Say

One session at ISNA that was worthy of the main hall but was instead relegated to one of the smaller rooms was the session entitled The Root Causes of Terrorism with speakers Dr. Parvez Ahmed of CAIR, Dr. Robert Pape, and Dr. Hatem Bazian. The three of them discussed terrorism and whether or not Islam is actually the root cause of terrorism and suicide bombings.

After studying facts and figures, the consensus achieved by the three panel members? No.

While people continued to file into the already full room, Ahmed, Pape, and Bazian went over their findings. Using data from a database that he compiled with statistics from suicide terrorism acts, Pape was able to show the reasoning behind why such violent acts occurred. The conclusion was that, when it does come to terrorism by Islamic fundamentalists, it’s not due to religion, but to foreign policy and occupation of foreign lands by the United States.

The session was an important one and Pape mentioned that he had reported his findings to many government institutions such as Homeland Security. Yet, this hasn’t helped the situation since U.S. forces are still occupying such places as Iraq which, according to Pape’s data, only fuels attacks.

Pape mostly summarized findings from his book, Dying to Win. Ahmed summarized a paper he wrote entitled Terror in the Name of Islam-Unholy War Not Jihad that presented similar findings and spoke of the “bash and cash” mentality in which people get profits from speaking ill of Islam.

In the end, the panelists were not too optimistic. Pape said: “I want to tell you that it will all get better, but I can’t.” He believes that if U.S. foreign policy is not revised and this country continues to occupy foreign lands, then an attack against Americans on U.S. soil is inevitable. Not a cheery thought. Even if the conclusion is grim, we still need to educate ourselves about this topic to be informed and also to have an answer to those who believe that Islam itself is the reason for such acts.

One of the sessions I previously called out was one of the Meet the Author sessions at ISNA regarding the book Lost History; The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists, which I was able to attend this past weekend. In the session, author Michael Hamilton Morgan discussed the book at great length with the attentive audience.

The book itself is one that is much needed. Having just finished it today, I can attest that one may learn more about Muslim contributions in many fields, from science and astronomy to music.

One of the criticisms that Morgan has faced with this book is that the book is written in a narrative style without so much as footnotes after facts and quotes are provided to the reader. Morgan acknowledged this criticism to the audience without being asked by the moderator or audience (I admit, I wanted to ask him about that), saying that his goal was to write a book that was accessible to a mainstream audience, hence the narrative style. He didn’t set out to write an academic book. In fact, he initially wrote the book with a mainstream non-Muslim audience in mind. However, he has found that Muslims have been much more interested in this book than he anticipated but, unfortunately, hasn’t garnered too much interest with Non-Muslims as he would have thought.

This fact was one that intrigued the audience, which prompted one to ask why this book isn’t readily available at Borders and other bookstores. Morgan isn’t too sure why. He does not that many have been skeptic towards Muslim accomplishments and, although he would have assumed the public would want to know more about Muslims and their contributions, he has found that some would like to write off these contributions all together.

In the end, the ISNA audience members were sold on Morgan’s book. In it, the reader can learn about astronomer/poet Omar Khayyam, mathematician Al Khwarizmi, ibn Sinna, an innovator in medicine, and many more. Lost History is an important book and only scratches the surface, as Morgan himself admits. Insh’Allah, this book can be used as a starting point to delve further in the history of Muslim thinkers and innovators.