A Quiet Revolution (26 page)

The play, performed by male engineers, consisted of three religious stories illustrating the oppression of believers and their courage and res- oluteness—though not always their triumph—in the face of tyrannical rulers. The most striking moment, notes Wickham, came at the end of the performance when one of the actors placed a small child on his shoul- ders. “A Quran was placed in one of the child’s hands and a sword in the other” as the actors invited the audience to join them in a song whose re- frain was, “The Islamic Awakening it is coming, it is coming.”

“Outside the walls of the club,” Wickham writes, “on the wide boulevards that curve along the Nile, affluent Egyptians in Western clothes strolled in the twilight, oblivious of what was going on inside.”

Today as the first decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close, the Islamist form of religious belief and practice—along with its vi- sual accompaniment, the hijab and Islamic dress for women—has in fact become the form of belief and practice of mainstream Muslims in Egypt. Islamists seem indeed to have accomplished or to be very close to ac- complishing their dream, at least in Egypt.
39

Islamist forces, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim World League, and the Jamaat-i Islami, have played key roles in estab- lishing mosques in Europe and America, as well as in establishing major and enormously influential Muslim organizations such as the American

Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), organizations that today are the most important and influential organizations in America.

In Chapters
7
and
8
, I follow out the story of the migration of Is-

lamism—of peoples and ideas—to North America and the story of the establishment and rise to dominance on the American Muslim landscape of the Islamist perspective embodied in such organizations as ISNA and MSA. In the
1990
s, the period I focus on in Chapter
8
, Islamist violence erupted in America—just as it did in Egypt in those years, and for the same reasons: the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the return of jihadis to civil society. Indeed, even the very same men who were behind the violence in Egypt—among them Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and Ayman al-Zawahiri—would appear in America in the
1990
s instigating and participating in acts of murderous violence. The response, particu- larly in the media, to the eruption of Islamic violence in the United States would not be dissimilar to the response that emerged in Egypt.

•
7
•
‌
‌

Migrations

I

n this and the next chapter I follow out the story of the migration of Islamism to North America, and of the establishment and rise to dominance on the American Muslim landscape of organizations embodying the Islamist perspective. The growing influence of Is- lamism in America came about as the result of the migrations of both people and ideas: the sixties was an era of rapidly expanding Muslim im- migration to America at a time when international connections were leading to the growing influence of Islamism among African American Muslims, as well as among immigrants. Understanding this background is essential to understanding the forms that Islamism and the veil would

take as they evolved in America.

Here in Chapter
7
, I focus on Islamist activism and networking in America from the
1960
s through the
1980
s, the period during which Islamists established and consolidated the bases of a number of their organizations, among them today’s most prominent and influential American Muslim organizations, such as ISNA and the MSA.

The teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood and of the Jamaat-i Islami of Pakistan were already beginning to be disseminated in America in the
1950
s and
1960
s, when Muslim Brothers and members of the Jamaat-i, undergoing repressions in their home countries, fled abroad. As described

earlier, many among the Muslim Brotherhood went to Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf countries. Some, including many students, came to America.

After World War II the United States pursued a policy of encour- aging foreign students to come to the U.S., including establishment of the Fulbright Program in
1946
, partly to encourage mutual understanding between the United States and other countries in the hope of forestalling

future wars. Students were exempt from the immigration quotas in force at the time, and pursuing higher education and graduate studies in the United States became a route by which Muslims hoping to immigrate could come to this country.
1

In the wake of World War II and the demise of the European em- pires, people of these former colonies, as well as of regions dominated al- beit not formally colonized by Europe, who had previously looked to

Europe as the place to go to pursue higher education, began to look in- stead to America, now the dominant Western power. Between
1948
and
1965
the number of students coming to the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries increased almost fivefold, from nearly three thousand to nearly fourteen thousand.

Among the wave of Muslims arriving in the United States in this period to pursue their studies was, famously, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.—father, obviously, of the U.S. president.

Furthermore, as the United States entered the civil rights era, pol- icy changes would be enacted to redress the racial attitudes of the past, which would tremendously affect the rate of immigration from coun- tries outside Europe, including from Muslim-majority countries and

countries with significant Muslim populations. In
1965
, President John-

son signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act, abolishing the national origins quotas that had virtually excluded immigration from Asia and Africa and other places outside Europe. Indeed, previous reg- ulations had favored northern and western Europeans, and even set strict limits on the number of immigrants to be allowed in from countries of southern and eastern Europe—such as Italy, Greece, Poland, and Por- tugal.
2

The new law would set in motion by far the largest wave of Mus- lim immigration to America (as well as of people of other religions of

Asia and Africa) that had ever occurred in U.S. history. A much smaller wave of Muslim migration had occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries of people, Muslim and Christian, from territories such as Greater Syria and the Balkans, which were part of the then dis- integrating Ottoman Empire.

Today, as a result of this post-
1965
immigration wave and also as a

result of a growing trend of African American conversion to Islam al- ready under way in the sixties, the United States now has a significant Muslim population, variously estimated as between
3
million and
8
mil- lion. The largest proportion, estimated at
40
to
42
percent, is African American. Indo-Pakistanis make up the next largest group, constituting about
29
percent. Arabs make up about
12
or
15
percent.
3
The remaining roughly
17
percent are drawn from almost every ethnicity in the world— Iran, Russia, Europe, China, Indonesia and Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan and southern Africa, and South America. Students of Islam in America commonly pointed out that only Mecca during the hajj brings together such a range and variety of Muslims as now reside in the United States.
4
The new immigration laws favored skilled professionals, and while Muslim immigrants of the earlier wave had typically been younger male laborers, Muslim immigrants of the post-
1965
era were generally “older professionals who came either with their families or to join family mem- bers already here.”
5
This bias in favor of professionals established the basis for the relatively high levels of education and income that many

Muslim Americans enjoy today.

The consensus is that the vast majority of Muslim immigrants of the post-
1965
era were not Islamists. Rather, they had been part of the mainstream Muslim populations in their countries, which—as we saw was the case with the mainstream in Egypt through the sixties and sev- enties—typically practiced and understood Islam as a matter of personal practice and of ethical and spiritual sustenance. They did not see it as in any way involving the political or social activism that was part of the Is-

lamist package of practices and prescriptions, among them the veil.
6
As had been the case in Egypt, the practice of veiling had ceased to be a norm in the majority of urban centers from which these immigrants came.

A few of these immigrants, however, as well as some who were here as students, were indeed Islamists. As we saw in the preceding chapters,

activist Islamists were extraordinarily energetic and skilled at network- ing, organizing, building institutions, and pursuing da‘wa to promote their vision and understanding of Islam among “ordinary” Muslims. Typically they brought to this country the same zest and commitment they displayed in Egypt, and they were evidently as unstintingly gener- ous here as they had been at home, in donating their time and skills in the service of the goals and ideals of Islamism.

A handbook published in the
1980
s, entitled “How to Establish an

Islamic Center: A Step-by-Step Approach,” noted that Muslim immi- grants had begun arriving in the
1950
s and
1960
s. They had included “Islamically-trained individuals from Egypt who were fleeing the op- pression of the Nasser regime.” The text adds: “Most of them were mem- bers of the al-ikhwan al-muslimun [Muslim Brotherhood].”
7

Even as early as
1963
a group of Islamist activist students gathered in Urbana, Illinois, for a meeting whose outcome would prove momen- tous in the history of Islam in America. The group consisted of students who had already been active, on their different campuses, in founding Muslim associations and in organizing activities for the growing num- bers of Muslim students arriving to pursue higher studies. Aware of each other’s work and realizing that instituting a national organization to co- ordinate their activities would greatly increase their effectiveness, they decided to meet in Urbana with a view to establishing such an organiza- tion.
8
The organization they established was the Muslim Students’ As-

sociation. Today the MSA and the Islamic Society of North America, established by the MSA in
1981
, are the largest and most important and influential Muslim organizations in North America.

Among those present at that initial meeting were Islamists from around the Muslim world, including at least three Muslim Brothers from Egypt.
9
The
1950
s and
1960
s, as Gutbi Ahmed pointed out in his brief history of Muslim American organizations, were decades when Islamists

across the Muslim world were undergoing persecution and fleeing their homelands or being driven into exile.
10
In Egypt, of course, the Broth- erhood was experiencing, under Nasser, the worst era in its history. Is- lamists were banned also in these years in Pakistan, Indonesia, and elsewhere, including Iran, from whence the Ayatollah Khomeini, among others, had been exiled.

Many (among the Sunnis) had fled to Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf, where, under the auspices of Saudi Arabian Islamic organizations in particular, international Islamist links were forged and networks in- tensively developed. The Muslim World League had just been established in Mecca in
1962
. Bringing together at its founding meeting Said Ra- madan, the heir to the mantle of al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Broth- erhood of Egypt, as well as the founder of Jamaat-i Islami of Pakistan, Abu’l ‘Ala Mawdudi, and representatives of other Islamist groups as well as Saudi authorities, the objective of this organization was unambigu- ously that of promoting and supporting Islamism worldwide.

The men assembled at that founding meeting of the MSA in Ur- bana, wrote Ahmed, all came from “these places” where Islamists were suffering persecution. The organization they now set up in America, Ahmed continued, “clearly reflected the experience of the Islamic move- ment in their respective countries.”
11
Thus the founding membership, drawn from the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-i Islami and other international Islamist organizations, bonded in their shared commit- ment to the common vision and goals of Islamism.
12
For those gathered there, wrote Ahmed, “Islam was seen as an ideology, a way of life, and a mission, and the organization was not considered simply as a way to serve the community but as means to create the ideal community and serve Islam.”
13
Unsurprisingly then, given the provenance and make-up of the founding members, MSA’s goals and purpose were entirely reso- nant and on a direct continuum with those pursued by Islamists in Egypt.

Once established, the MSA grew quickly. Consisting of
10
affiliated

associations in
1963
, by
1964
it had
30
affiliated associations. By
1968
the number of affiliated associations based on campuses across the U.S. and Canada had risen to
105
.

In those early years, the majority of the MSA’s membership was male. Most members were students in the hard sciences and medicine and engineering. A women’s committee was formed in
1966
consisting

mainly of the wives, mothers, and daughters of students, as well as some “single girls,” most of whom were also students.