Dr. Umar on Career Choices

"A blog should probably be more than just quotes," you may say. Yes, I agree (I'm try to work on that...) But I also feel that there's just these brilliant pieces of work out there that I know have been so insightful for me and I would like to share because a lot of times they may not be that well-known, so I feel that if I can connect those thoughts and writings with more people, that itself would be a service, no?

That being said, this is one of my favorite quotes. I think it sort of defines or is an inspiration for what I hope to do now - study the social sciences and humanities and tie that with a foundation in the Islamic sciences..

This is from Dr. Umar F. Abd-Allah in his most recent Nawawi paper called "Living Islam with Purpose:"

(and yes, I'm crazy and I actually typed this up from the pdf file :)

All professions and fields of learning that serve the community's material and cultural needs fall under societal obligations. There can be no place in the community for elitism; any honest profession is a good profession. Whether a person is driving a taxi or working in a hospital emergency room, each livelihood helps serve a vital societal function. Too often, however, our community's attitudes toward career choices and professions have everything to do with money and social status and little to do with our overall societal needs as a developing Muslim community in America.

Medicine, engineering, and a number of other well-paying fields are well represented, if not over represented in the American Muslim community. They have indisputable value, but the community's tendency to socially compartmentalize desirable careers within this limited range stultifies our future. Social sciences like psychology, sociology, and anthropology are often mistakenly regarded as less worthy because they are not as lucrative and do not afford elite status in our community. In reality, the social sciences play a critical role in modern society and constitute key priorities for American Muslims. They serve the community's essential interests in areas such as mental health, social welfare, and cultural development. Our ability to function effectively as Muslims in modern society requires a nuanced understanding of modernity. Such an understanding falls squarely within the competence of the social sciences. It is a primary societal obligation for American Muslims to develop sufficient cadres of well-trained social scientists whose research is not only of use to the Muslim community but is valuable to the greater society at large.

Specializations in the humanities like history, modern thought, philosophy, and literature are widely considered in our community as marginal, but they too are necessary and meet essential societal obligations similar to those of the social sciences. They impart a wider view of the world; how its past relates to its present and future; and the seminal ideas of our times. They give direct access to effective cross-cultural understanding and intellectual development and enable the community to take interpretive control of itself and its religion in a contemporary context."

[Originally posted on April 28, 2009]

Two Muslim American Cultural Productions

Wajahat Ali's play 'Domestic Crusaders' and its recent audition/staged reading at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in the Lower East Side is featured in a video for TIME while 'New Muslim Cool' (just featured on PBS) has a review in the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune

E-baad-e News

Washington Post: A Place to Explore Muslim American Life: Altmuslim.com

Saturday, May 23, 2009

From his home in Austin, Shahed Amanullah, 41, runs six popular Web sites that explore topics of interest to Muslims -- with two more to go online shortly. A senior project manager at an engineering firm by day, the American-born Amanullah has built a mini-Internet empire. His sites include one that reviews restaurants that meet Islamic dietary restrictions and another that reviews mosques. On a more esoteric note, he has a Web site for the best Muslim writing on the Web and a site that explores gender issues in Islam. But his highest-profile Web site is

Alt.muslim.com, a forum for Muslims and non-Muslims to explore contemporary, often controversial, topics as they intersect with Islam: terrorism, politics, culture and comedy. Washington Post staff writer Jacqueline L. Salmon interviewed Amanullah about his work. Here is an edited transcript:

Backlash 9/11: Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans Respond

Check out this new book Backlash 9/11: Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans Respond by Anny Bakalian and Mehdi Bozorgmehr (University of California Press, 2009)

I'm actually taking a class at the City College with Professor Bozorgmehr and he actually did a presentation in class about the book. One of the novel aspects of the book he said is that it deals with a positive development amidst the backlash on Muslim and Middle Eastern Americans - mobilization.

This is a passage from the book:

"Given the enormity of the 9/11 backlash, one would assume that the targeted populations would go into hiding. Instead, Middle Eastern and Muslim American advocacy organizations representing these populations urged their constituents to claim their rights as Americans, to raise their voices, and to fight back against hate crimes, bias incidents, prejudice and discrimination, and governmental abuses of power. They responded in typical American fashion-through political activism, and legal challenges. Their ultimate goal was civic engagement and political integration into the mainstream of American society. However, the relatively rapid mobilization of the affected groups was unusual from a historical perspective..." (p. 2)