I have noticed myself recently being critical of Progressive Muslims as much as Conservative Muslims.

For one, the dichotomy that exist between conservative and liberal in the American Muslim community needs to be explored even further.  Another thing, the assumption that Islamic orthodoxy only adheres to some notion of "deculturized" Sunni Islam must also be seriously taken to task.

I was reading Newsweek and they had a little blurb about Muslim intermarriage rates.  The Sunni conservative will state that only men are permitted to marry women of the Book, based on a literal reading of the Qur’an and that means women are forbidden from such an allowance since the Qur’an literally makes no mention of such an endorsement.

Good news is that more Muslim women in the West are choosing to marry non-Muslim men like the male Muslim counterparts.  God-fearing Muslim women are proclaiming limitations on their life partners in traditional Islam as outdated.  In France, 1/4 of North African Muslim women marry non-Muslim men, and people often talk about Muslims in Europe not assimilating.  Intermarriage is a common indicator of assimilation into the mainstream, and contrary to popular opinion, Muslims are assimilating and choosing life partners not on the basis of religious identity.  And this trend is not inclusive of men only, but many women are also making the decision to break tradition.

I mention and stress the word literally since we must reexamine how we practice and view Islam.  When I was growing up, I had no idea how "fundamentalist" Islam in the West can be, discussions of Ummah, Muslim solidarity, and culture versus true and pristine Islam were never mentioned in my childhood.  Being Muslim was a given, Muslims did not proselytize like Mormons or Jehovah’s Witness, they simply lived life in accordance to a doctrine that espoused a unitarian nature of the Divine and the belief in a long line of prophetic revelation.  The Qur’an was viewed as a book of guidance, not something to be taken literally.  Shia were no different from Sunni, there were minor cosmetic differences, but nothing worthy of the sectarian violence we witness in Occupied Iraq today.

I yearn for an American Islam, one that truly enshrines gender equity and acknowledges sexual plurality and alternative family structures from the ones literally mentioned in the Qur’an.

That means doing away with male and female sections, that means doing away with the double gender status, where women must be chaste and pure while men have the license to be sexual horn dogs.  Sorry for not using a better term, but my words are selected carefully to convey certain messages to the reader.

They say a picture can say a thousand words, what do you think of this picture with a Hollywood icon in a hijab?

Hollywood, the epicenter of America’s soft imperial influence on the Muslim world via cultural consumption.  Audrey Hepburn in a hijab, showing her hair of course, hijabis in Teheran don’t conceal their entire scalp from public view.  Since there is much debate about women in Islam from both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, and considering the political overtones the hijab now conveys and the debate/controversy it generates, I thought this image would be fitting for seeking an American islam.  Native/indigenous while being novel all at the same time.

Islam changes with the prevalent pre-existing cultural norms, this ensures diversity.

To me Islam is part of culture, sorry, I can’t adhere to the Islamist supremacist view that culture and Islam are two separate entities.  They are not, and the Oxford Dictionary would agree with my opinion.  And now I will be attacked for using "kafir" sources to validate my arguments.

Hmmm, as for zakat, it should be used for purposes of addressing issues of social justice in the United States.  We should address class issues in the Muslim community, not all Muslims are the product of elite college educations, not all Muslims are professionals, not all Muslims fall into the stereotype of the "model minority myth."  This myth has been applied to other minorities, it oversimplifies a complex community which is not even honest with itself.  It promotes the kind of propaganda CAIR is fond of, CAIR is not big on dealing with issues within the Muslim community, hence why I don’t particularly care for CAIR.

An American Islam is about being honest and addressing issues that plague our community.  Even Jesus, the Prophet of Peace mentioned, he did not come to this world to bring peace but to yield a sword, because revelation and truth is not always received peacefully.