Muslims & the American Political Arrangement

Yesterday's LA Times article "Muslim woman's appointment as Obama advisor draws cautious optimism" ended with:

"Yet, Mogahed's declaration that her loyalty goes first to the United States, published Monday in an interview with Al Masry al Youm, disappointed some people.

"I wish your loyalty was to your Islam first, Egypt second and your Arabism third and then to anything else," wrote a reader identifying himself as the Tiger of Arabs. "I am afraid that they might make a fool out of you and use you as a cover for policies that don't serve Egypt and the Arab and Muslim world."

On the topic of Islam and Muslims and the American political arrangement, I don't think I've seen anyone discuss in such a nuanced and brilliant manner as Dr. Sherman Abdal-Hakim Jackson did in his Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking toward the Third Resurrection where he wrote under the the following selected sub-titles:

- American Precedents and Parallels (pg. 134)
- America: A Culture or a Political Arrangement? (pg. 137)
-Liberal Versus Conservative America (pg. 138)

-Can Muslims Embrace America Even as a Political Arrangement (pg. 140)
-The Modern Muslim Political Mindset (pg. 140)
-The Prophetic Example (pg. 142)
-Muslim Tradition (pg. 143)

-Islam and the U.S. Constitution (pg. 145)
-The Authority of the Constitution (pg. 146)
-The First Amendment and the Separation Between Church and State (pg. 149)

-Embracing America in Protest (pg. 156)

-Islam Over Islamic (pg. 159)

-Embracing America Without Embracing the American False Universal (pg. 164)

Also, you can read this article by Dr. Jackson online: Muslims, Islamic Law and Public Policy in the United States

4/25 UPDATE: Also see this article by Hadia Mubarak in Newsweek today: (thanks to Shaykh Faraz for that)

"I can only hope my fellow citizens [and fellow believers I would add as we saw in the LA article] get the message. When many Americans see Muslims like me, they tend to define us as something non-American, which forces us to choose between our religion and nationality. As long as Islam is equated with a foreign culture, as opposed to a faith like any other practiced here, then our mosques and our schools and our headscarves will continue to be perceived as a rejection of "American culture." This idea of Muslims as "other" surfaces every time someone like my friend Kathy, a veil-wearing Muslim American, is told to "go back home" when she and her daughter eat at Subway, or when a man plows his truck into a Tallahassee, Fla., mosque to remind Muslims they're not safe in this country."