In the Name of God, The Compassionate, The Merciful....

My First Year as a Muslim, Ten Years Later: The Failure of Muslim-American Leadership

by Jeremiah D. McAuliffe, Jr., Ph.D.

About ten years ago, a year after my conversion to Islam, I wrote an open letter to the Muslim community regarding my first year as a Muslim. It was not a positive letter-- addressing issues of sexism, gross expressions of hatred towards “the People of the Book”, and the general absence of responsibility and accountability in our community. The letter was published in the community newsletter I was attempting to establish, and it was ignored. A few years later, yet again attempting to establish a community newsletter, I wrote that we had a legacy of producing hurt, alienated people who leave the community and do not return to the mosques. This too was ignored.

Ten years ago was also the beginning of the internet. I opened the Islamic discussion forum on America Online (twice—there were so few people on AOL at that time the forum closed at first due to lack of traffic), and established my own web site where I placed “My First Year as a Muslim” for all to read. It never elicited very much response. But then, a couple of years ago, I began regularly receiving e-mails from Muslim-Americans, and others, who validated and affirmed my comments and observations as true to their experience. The letter made the rounds of web sites and mailing lists, even attracting the attention of some journalists. I could tell when the letter was on a new mailing list because at times my own mailbox would be flooded with responses affirming the presence of major problems within the Muslim-American community and leadership. Those who have responded don’t realize it was written so long ago. Many are no longer involved with their local communities—a legacy of hurt, frustration, alienation and resentment that is not uncommon, nor unusual, and has been going on for at least a decade, if not two.

So, my experiences and concerns do not appear to be uncommon, and they point to a dismal and seemingly across-the-board failure of Muslim-American leadership on both the local and national levels, and a failure of the general community to hold the leadership accountable. This failure is particularly detrimental to the Muslim-American community post 9-11, and thus detrimental to all Americans, as well as to all who are within the Qur’anic religious traditions.

I place the blame for this failure squarely upon the shoulders of the “Wahabi” version of Islam and its generalized negative effect upon the development of the greater Muslim-American community.

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