Luncheon Forum with Dr Amir Hussain on the Discussions of Muslims in America
Dr. Amir Hussain is Associate Professor in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he teaches courses on world religions. His own particular specialty is the study of contemporary Muslim societies in North America. He is active in academic groups such as the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion and the American Academy of Religion (where he is co-chair of the Contemporary Islam consultation, and serves on the steering committee of the Religion in South Asia section). He is on the editorial boards of two scholarly journals, Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life and Comparative Islamic Studies. In 2008, he was appointed as a fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities.
Prior to his appointment at Loyola Marymount University, Amir taught at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) from 1997 to 2005. Amir won a number of awards at CSUN, both for his teaching and research. In 2008, Amir was chosen by vote of LMU students as the Professor of the Year. Amir’s new book is an introduction to Islam for North Americans entitled Oil and Water: Two Faiths, One God (Kelowna: Copper House, 2006). He is currently working on a scholarly book on Islam in Canada entitled Canadian Faces of Islam; and a textbook entitled Muslims: Islam in the West in the 21st Century. He is a host of the television show Perspectives on Faith on Ebru TV. Last month he organized the Bellarmine Forum, Sharing Life Conference 2008. (http://www.lmu.edu/Page45586.aspx)
Dr Hussain started his speech by quoting Former Secretary of State Colin Powell ” I feel strongly about a particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards – Purple Heart and Bronze Star- showed that he died in Iraq gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the headstone there was a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan and he was American.
He talked of Ahmet Ertegun, the Turkish American who founded the Atlantic Records and discovered the great talents. musicians and singers of Blues. Dr Hussein also talked about Keith Allison the first Muslim congressman to be sworn in several years ago. He was sworn in by putting his hand on the Qur’an which was signed by Thomas Jefferson to study Arabic and Islamic Jurispredence.
Amir estimated the number of Muslims living in America to be 7 million, a figure he deduced from the immigration data. This figure contradicted with the with the 15 million deduced by the by the PEW Survey. The ethnic make up is African American with the largest group, Middle Eastern and South Asian. There is also the documented presence since the slave trade, first mosques in 1915 Maine, 1919 Connecticut, 1928 Brooklyn, 1934 Iowa and so on. He also mentioned that the largest group of Muslims arrived United States after 1965.