Demand for US-Born Imams Up in American Mosques
This is a good sign, an indication that many (hopefully most) American Muslim communities now have a healthy willingness to deal with reality rather than just sticking their heads in the sand moping or feeling resentful. Emphasis added:
“It’s a realization that assimilation is happening and it’s going to happen.”ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Mustafa Umar, an imam in Southern California, is popular with the Muslim teenagers who attend his mosque. They pepper him with questions about sensitive topics like marijuana use, dating and pornography.
Umar, 31, is a serious Islamic scholar who has studied the Quran in the Middle East, Europe and India — but he’s also a native Californian, who is well-versed in social media and pop culture, and can connect with teens on their own terms. […]
“The demand for American-born imams is an articulation of something much deeper,” said Timur Yuskaev, director of the Islamic chaplaincy program at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut, which educates Islamic faith leaders.
“It’s a realization that assimilation is happening and it’s going to happen. Now, how do we control it, how do we channel it?” he said. “These congregations, if they do not provide the services that the congregants expect, then they will not survive.”
For Umar, part of the strategy means confronting things like pre-marital sex, drugs and porn head-on — taboos in Islam but temptations that abound in America. Umar, a huge soccer fan, also bonds with his young charges over sports before gently steering the conversation back to faith. […]
This informal approach is controversial with some Muslims, but those objections overlook the inevitable assimilation that’s rapidly taking place, said Philip Clayton, provost at Claremont Lincoln University, which recently started a program for American Islamic leaders.
Mosques that remain insular, focus on ethnic identity and don’t engage with the realities of being Muslim in America won’t survive, he said. And the more engaged imams and mosques become, the less likely confused youth are to turn to radicalized forms of Islam, the way the Boston marathon bombing suspects did.
“I would say either American imams will learn how to be spiritual leaders of these young people or Islam will not flourish in the United States,” Clayton said. […]