American Muslim

Religion Before Republic? - Revised and Updated

Religion Before Republic?

When I was at Purdue, I remember seeing a t-shirt once at the University Spirit store in Chauncey - "American by Birth, Boilermaker by the Grace of God." I never bought it, but that saying has stuck in my mind and over the years I've made my own adjustments to it - "American By Birth, Indian by the Grace of God," "American By Birth, Muslim by the Grace of God/Allah," etc. I guess this saying has always struck me as unique and also controversial because it implies, whatever way you change the second phrase, that to be American, means to be American before being anything else.

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So, what comes first when we talk about religion and national identity? There's no going back now on the widespread and popular usage of phrases like "Jewish-American" or "Muslim-American," but to these terms induce a fundamental semantic oxymoron, namely do these phrases themselves imply that one is Jewish or Muslim before becoming American? Or is it that one's Jewish-ness or Muslim-ness in the United States is predicated on how one views herself as an American or whether they view themselves as an American at all?

Is it problematic to be Muslim before being American? Can I put my religion before the republic? Is it only problematic for Muslims and okay for other religions? If I say that I am Muslim before being American, does it take away from my patriotism or even jingoism? Why should it?


I started thinking about all these questions in the last couple of months after a couple of things happened. The minor incident was me watching, for the thousandth time, "Chariots of Fire." One of my favorite scenes is the debate between Eric Liddell and the British Olympic committee over Liddell's refusal to run in the heats for some race because it was on a Sunday (true story). As a devout Christian, he could not reconcile the notion of running in the Olympics on a Sunday, his day of rest. One of the old men on the Council, a stodgy curmudgeon, says that in his day, "it was country first, then God." That really struck me and got me thinking. Why is it such a bad thing to be a Christian first and then an Englishman? Or a Buddhist first and then an Englishman? Or a Muslim first and then an American?

We keep hearing the rhetoric that this is a Christian nation founded on Christian values. But, if it's so okay to proudly proclaim one's Christianity, then why can't I do the same with my Islam? Why is my patriotism questioned if I say I am Muslim first then American?

The big reason I have been thinking so much in the last few months on this issue of religion vs. republic was a buzz generated among the Muslim community about the results of a new Pew Foundation poll.

The study, titled, "Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream," examined a number of variables and asked a number of questions of Muslims in America. The foundation's final sample was 1, 050 Muslims and interviews were conducted in English, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu. Some of the results were merely descriptive (65% of respondents were foreign-born and of these, 21% immigrated between 1990 and 1999, etc.); some were interesting (of the 35% native born Muslims, the majority were converts); and some were majorly thought-provoking. Of the latter, the finding that was of most interest to me - and that framed this whole discussion - was the survey question, "Do you think of yourself first as a Muslim or first as an American?" Among all U.S. Muslims in the survey, 28% said American first; 47% said Muslim first; 18% said both; and 7% did not know. A further finding was that of the 47% who said Muslim first, 60% were between the ages of 20 and 29, basically a huge chunk of the youth/Gen-Xers.

So, why are so many people finding this so troubling? If one should identity first with religion and then with country then what's the big deal? Well, the researchers went one step further and found a high correlation between some of the variables, namely one's identification as Muslim first with views on other matters. What is really crazy is that according to the findings, 13% of those who identified as Muslim first versus American first, believed that suicide bombing to defend Islam was justifiable. This is a shocking result! Another result was that "Muslim-first" respondents were also twice as likely as "American-first" respondents to say that groups of Arabs did NOT carry out the 9/11 attacks. So, based on findings like these, I can see why many have gone crazy with jingoistic fervor and questioned the patriotism of American Muslims. One big critic has been Kathleen Parker in her essay, “Peering Through a Glass Half-Full, Darkly.”

Yes, I am picking and choosing what aspects of this study I have focused on, but the study is so comprehensive that I could spend the rest of my life discussing its findings. Some people seem to think that the study is extremely negative, but I disagree. First off, why aren't Muslim statisticians, social scientists and interest groups doing studies of this size and exacting methodology? Perhaps if we took responsibility more for portraying our community, then we wouldn't have to rely on orgs like the Pew Foundation to conduct polls. Yes, it's not the most positive study, but I think it has tons of great information.