Islam Is A Foreign Country Zareena Grewal Analysis

In Islam is a Foreign Country, anthropologist Zareena Grewal demonstrates that “the ‘Muslim World’ [consists of] a place and a people outside American geographic and cultural borders” (6). While the term Muslim World calls to mind images of the Middle East, Grewal shows that Muslim identity is based on ‘moral geographies’ that unite Muslims throughout North America, Africa, and Asia. By focusing on American student travelers to Muslim countries, Grewal shows how identity and authority in Muslim American communities has been challenged and transformed by race, tradition, and ideas of legitimacy. Islam is a Foreign Country successfully communicates personal stories and complex analyses that challenge commonly held narratives about the place of

Muslims in American society.
Grewal structures her book by rotating between character-based narrative and analysis of Muslim culture and history. While Grewal uses interviews and writing of figures such as Malcom X, Elijah Muhammed, and Hamza Yusuf in her analysis, the text is fueled by interviews with American students traveling in Africa and Asia. Anecdotes from her student-traveler subjects act as introductions to each section. These stories orient the reader by showing how tradition, identity and culture affect the lives of modern Muslim Americans. Anxieties in the Muslim American community are highlighted by Grewal’s candid presentation of the students’ uncertainty as well as the challenges they face as women, white, or residents of Western society.
The place of these students in American society leads Grewal’s examination of social citizenship.

Here she discusses current ideas of identity by tracing Muslim history from the early 1900s. She explores the origins of Islam and the denial of social citizenship in America from the Moorish Science Temple of American, to Nation of Islam and Malcom X, and finally to the rise of modern scholars and authorities in a post-9/11 world. Grewal’s student subjects face uncertainty as American citizens due to their minority status and the complex relationship between the Islamic culture in the Middle East and in America. It is here that an aspect of Grewal’s title is clear; Muslims have been outsiders in the United States, whether it was through self-preservation (MSTA) or suspicion (September 11th), but have found ways to be included in the border-less, time-less Islamic community or

umma.
Islam is a Foreign Country is also a critical analysis of the West and its relationship to Muslims and the Muslim world.

Grewal’s analysis of anthropology highlights the ‘us and them’ model of western cultural studies. She argues that “anthropology has been intimately linked to the history of colonization that…continues to aid the imperialist interests of the US government” (14). This history also promotes the East as an exotic, foreign land where Westerners can experience ‘authenticity.’ This promotion influences student-traveler’s approaches to learning abroad where they see tradition “as an object that can be found, excavated, and brought home” (36). Grewal’s analysis allows us to understand why and how Muslim Americans are still seen as ‘other,’ at the same time that American Muslims view the Middle East through a post-colonial

lens.
Grewal not only shows how Western views of Africa and Asia shape American experiences abroad, but also how they shape Islam within the US. In Islam is a Foreign Country, we see multiple instances of American appropriation of Islamic clothing and symbols. Grewal argues that while scholars often call the use of turbans and robes by the MSTA (and other Muslim groups) appropriation, the items and symbols were “treated as religious survivals of a distant, utopic past,” and were even “critiques of the state and American racism” (97, 123). This discussion, mixed with the presentation of student-travelers who wear traditional clothing in the Middle East, demonstrates that American Muslims view clothing as symbols of Islam and therefore a link to their religious identity.
Student travelers also approach their educations in Africa and Asia with Western methods. American Muslim students often go abroad with “romantic notions about their self-important social activism back in the US” that often clash with Islamic learning (32). Grewal’s analysis of Islamic pedagogy and the dilemma of formal, pragmatic, and reform education demonstrates the challenges faced by American students. The issue of authority in diverse US mosques takes more dedication and time to understand than American students are often willing to commit. For the reader not familiar with Islamic education theories, these analyses can be overwhelming and slightly out of grasp. However, Grewal’s method allows them to act as an introduction to Islamic culture and education in the Middle East.
Islam is a Foreign Country present complex issues of Islamic authority, identity, and citizenship in America that are vital to understanding an American religio-racial history that is too often ignored. Grewal’s writing style and simplification of histories and philosophies creates a text accessible to the dedicated reader. Published in 2014, this text leaves us with an analysis of Middle Eastern society, culture, and politics that moves away from the typical American narrative. Considering the refugee crisis of 2015, an updated analysis from Grewal would shed an interesting and much needed light on American Muslim’s place in the current Middle East.