Forum/Discussions

Marvin X is too extreme for many, but I like strong voices even if I don’t agree with everything they say.--Mohja Kahf

by Mohja Kahf

Is there such a thing as Muslim American literature (MAL)? I argue that there is: It begins with
the Muslims of theBlack Arts Movement (1965–75). The Autobiography of Malcolm X is one of
itsiconic texts; it includes American Sufi writing, secular ethnic novels,writing by immigrant and
second-generation Muslims, and religiousAmerican Muslim literature.

Many of the works I would put into this category can and do also get read in other categories, suchas African American, Arab American, and South Asian literature, “ThirdWorld” women’s writing, diasporicMuslim literature in English, and soforth.

While the place of these works in other categories cannot be denied, something is gained in reading them together as partof an American Muslim cultural landscape. Like Jewish Americanliterature by the 1930s, Muslim American literature is in a formativestage. It will be interesting to see how it develops (and who will beits Philip Roth!)

I suggest the following typology of MAL only as a foothold, a means of bringing a tentativeorder
to the many texts, one that should be challenged, and maybeultimately dropped altogether.

My first grouping, the “Prophets of Dissent,” suggests that Muslim works in the Black Arts
Movement (BAM) are the first setof writings in American literature to voice a cultural position
identifiableas Muslim. Contemporary Muslim writing that takes the achievements ofthe BAM as an important literary influence also belongs here, and ischaracterized similarly by its “outsider”status, moral critique ofmainstream American values, and often prophetic, visionary tone.

In contrast, the writers of what I call “the Multi-Ethnic Multitudes” tendto enjoy “insider” status in American letters, often entering throughMFA programs and the literary establishment, getting published throughtrade and university book industries, garnering reviews in themainstream press. They do not share an overall aesthetic but areindividual writers of various ethnicities and a wide range ofsecularisms and spiritualities, and indeed I question my placing themall in one group, and do so temporarily only for the sake ofconvenience.

On the other hand, my third group, the “New American Transcendentalists,”appears to cohere,
in aesthetic terms, as writers who share a broadSufi cultural foundation undergirding their
literary work. Theirwritings often show familiarity with the Sufi poets of several classicalMuslim literatures (e.g., in Turkish, Farsi, Arabic, Urdu), as well aswith American Transcendentalists of the nineteenth century, and thatwhich tends toward the spiritual and the ecstatic in modern Americanpoetry.

Finally, the “New Pilgrims” is my term for a loose grouping of writers for whom Islam is not merely a mode of dissent,cultural background, or spiritual foundation for their writing, but itsaim and explicit topic. Of the four groups, the New Pilgrims are theones who write in an overtly religious mode and motivation, like AnnBradstreet, Cotton Mather, and the Puritans of early American history.This does not prevent them from being capable of producing greatliterature, any more than it prevented the great Puritan writers.

Here is an example of just a few writers in each category, by no means a comprehensive list:

Prophets of Dissent

From the Black Arts Movement:

• Marvin X, whose Fly to Allah (1969) is possibly the first book of poems published in English
by a Muslim Americanauthor.

• Sonia Sanchez, whose A Blues Book for Blue Black Magical Women (1974) is the work of
her Muslimperiod.

• Amiri Baraka, whose A Black Mass (2002) renders the Nation of Islam’s Yacoub genesis
theology intodrama. As with Sanchez, the author was Muslim only briefly but theinfluence
of the Islamic period stretches over a significant part ofhis overall production.

Later Prophets of Dissent include:

• Calligraphy of Thought, the Bay area poetry venue for young “Generation M” Muslim
Americanspoken word artists who today continue in the visionary and dissentingmode of
the BAM.

• Suheir Hammad, Palestinian New Yorker, diva of Def Poetry Jam (on Broadway and HBO),
whosetribute to June Jordan in her first book of poetry, Born Palestinian,Born Black
(1996), establishes her line of descent from the BAM, atleast as one (major) influence on
her work.

• El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) is an iconic figure for this modeof Muslim American
writing and, indeed, for many writers in all fourcategories.

Multi-Ethnic Multitudes

• Kashmiri American poet Agha Shahid Ali, an influential figure in the mainstream American
poetry scene, with aliterary prize named after him at the University of Utah, brought the
ghazalinto fashion in English so that it is now taught among other forms inMFA programs.

• Naomi Shihab Nye, Palestinian American, likewise a “crossover” poet whose work enjoys
prominencein American letters, takes on Muslim content in a significant amount ofher
work.

• Sam Hamod, an Arab midwesterner who was publishing poetry in journals at the same time
asMarvin X.

• Nahid Rachlin’s fiction has been published since well before the recent wave of literature by
otherswho, like her, are Iranian immigrants.

• Mustafa Mutabaruka, an African American Muslim, debut novel Seed (2002).

• Samina Ali, midwesterner of Indian parentage, debut novel Madras on Rainy Days (2004),
was featured on the June2004 cover of Poets & Writers.

• Khaled Hosseini, debut novel The Kite Runner (2003).

• Michael Muhammad Knight, a Muslim of New York Irish Catholic background, whose punk
rock novel The Taqwacores(2004) delves deeply into Muslim identity issues.

• There are a number of journals where Muslim American literature of various ethnicities can
be found today, amongthem Chowrangi, a Pakistani American magazine out of New
Jersey, andMizna, an Arab American poetry magazine out of Minneapolis.
NewAmerican Transcendentalists

• Daniel (Abd al-Hayy) Moore is anexcellent example of this mode of Muslim American
writing.California-born, he published as a Beat poet in the early sixties,became a Sufi
Muslim, renounced poetry for a decade, then renouncedhis renouncement and began
publishing again, prolifically and with arare talent. His Ramadan Sonnets (City Lights,
1986) is a marriage ofcontent and form that exemplifies the “Muslim/American” simultaneity
ofMuslim American art.

• The Rumi phenomenon: apparently the most read poet in America is a Muslim. Hemerits
mention for that, although technically I am not includingliterature in translation. Then again,
why not? As with so many otherof my limits, this is arbitrary and only awaits someone to
make acase against it.
• Journals publishing poetry in this mode includeThe American Muslim, Sufi, Qalbi, and
others.

New American Pilgrims

• Pamela Taylor writes Muslim American science fiction. Iman Yusuf writes“Islamic
romance.” This group of writers is not limited to genrewriters, however. Dasham Brookins
writes and performs poetry andmaintains a website, MuslimPoet.com, where poets such as
SamanthaSanchez post. Umm Zakiyya (pseud.) has written a novel, If I ShouldSpeak
(2001), about a young Muslim American and her roommates incollege.

Writers in this group also come from many ethnicities but, unlike those in mysecond category, come together around a more or less coherent, more orless conservative Muslim identity.
Websites tend to ban erotica andblasphemy, for example. The Islamic Writers Alliance, a
group formedby Muslim American women, has just put out its first anthology. Major
publishedauthors have yet to emerge in this grouping, but there is no reason tothink they
will not eventually do so.

My criteria for Muslim American literature are a flexible combination ofthree factors:
Muslim authorship. Including this factor, howevervague or tenuous, prevents widening the
scope to the point ofmeaninglessness, rather than simply including any work about Muslims by
anauthor with no biographical connection to the slightest sliver ofMuslim identity (such as
Robert Ferrigno with his recent dystopiannovel about a fanatical Muslim takeover of America).
It is acultural, not religious, notion of Muslim that is relevant. A “lapsedMuslim” author, as one
poet on my roster called himself, is still aMuslim author for my purposes. I am not interested in
levels ofcommitment or practice, but in literary Muslimness.

Language and aesthetic of the writing.

In a few cases, there is a deliberate espousal of an aesthetic that has Islamic roots, such as theAfrocentric Islamic aesthetic of the Muslim authors in the Black ArtsMovement.

Relevance of themes or content.

If the Muslim identity of the author is vague or not explicitly professed, which is often the casewith authors in the “Multi-Ethnic Multitudes,” but the content itselfis relevant to Muslim American experience, I take that as a signal thatthe text is choosing to enter the conversation of Muslim Americanliterature and ought to be included.

In defining boundaries for research that could become impossibly diffuse, Ichoose to look
mainly at fiction and poetry, with autobiography andmemoir writings selectively included. I have not included writings inlanguages other than English, although there are Muslims in America whowrite in Arabic, Urdu, and other languages. I have looked at thetwentieth century onward, and there is archival digging to be done inearlier periods: the Spanish colonial era may yield Muslim writing, andwe already know that some enslaved Muslims in the nineteenth centuryhave left narratives. More research is needed. If one expands the fieldfrom “literature” to“Muslim American culture,” one can also includeMotown, rap, and hip-hop lyrics by Muslim
artists, screenplays suchas the Muslim American classic The Message by the late Syrian
Americanproducer Mustapha Aqqad, books written for children, sermons, essays,and other
genres.

There are pleasures and patterns that emerge from reading this profusion of disparate texts
underthe rubric of Muslim American cultural narrative. It is time! I hope,as this field emerges,
that others will do work in areas I have leftaside in this brief initial exploration.