What is Muslim identity in America?
We often use the term “Muslim World” as a stand-in for the Middle East, but there are Muslims from Madagascar, to the Philippines, and Bosnia. I’m interested in where there is overlap. The similarities have implications for what it means to be Muslim in the West. In the Western world you can be an American and a Muslim; it’s very self-evident. But sometimes the way Muslim identity gets framed by the media tends to be oversimplified, and it becomes a chance for a cheap shot.

Within the Western context, what distinguishes the Muslim experience in North America from that of Western Europe?
In some sense Europeans are used to difference. They can be in a different country in an hour. But a lot of European Muslims don’t feel at home where they live and tend to identify with their homeland. In Anglophone countries of North America, Muslims tend to identify more with their communities. There is a civic nationalism here, almost a constitutional identity, that’s not necessarily nationalism.

So is it easier for Muslims in the states than in Europe?
There’s more political imagination here. Europe has become a claustrophobic and backwards place. In the United States there are a few cultural advantages too. Just look how many South Asians are in comedy. Diversity is sexy here. It’s cool. Then there’s validation with a president who has Muslim ancestry.

How are the Internet and Muslim youth culture breaking down borders?
Six years ago when students at NYU began putting the Imam’s sermons online as a way of connecting to the community when they were away from school, it went way beyond what anyone expected. It allowed young Muslims to sidestep their physical community, to hear something else. It helped good ideas to compete with more extremist voices.

Where does Fordham fit into the picture?
Fordham is in a very interesting place, first by virtue of being in New York City. With about 700,000 Muslims, New York is unlike anywhere in the states. College is a lab for Muslim identity. The Jesuit tradition is interesting because it raises the question of being part of a conservative tradition in a very liberal setting, and that resonates with Muslims. The challenge that Europeans have with Muslims is not necessarily that they’re ethnically different, but that they’re religious. It’s considered weird. But in America being religious is not uncommon. So being a practicing Muslim in a university where there are practicing Catholics, it’s not a big deal. If anything, the tradition here points to the future for Muslim Americans. It’s a model.

He explained these developments by chronicling the history of Islam, from its founder, Muhammad, born around 570 A.D., to the Muslim Arab armies that conquered parts of Africa, Europe and the Middle East, to the demise of Muslim rule in Turkey after World War I and beyond. Muhammad’s life was punctuated by religious and political conquests that established success as an Islamic ideal. Unfortunately, his successors’ attempts to replicate and sustain Muhammad’s political achievements failed, frustrating Muslims.

“Many modern Muslims are reacting in anger against the historical failures of Islam in this world,” Ryan said. “It all adds up to a tragic history of calamities for Sunni Islam as a religio-political venture.” Islam’s contemporary history has been marred by continuing injustices committed against Muslim populations, such as the treatment of Palestinians since the late 1940s and the suppression of Muslim minorities in parts of the Russian Federation and the former Yugoslavia, Ryan said. At the same time, Muslims have found it difficult to reconcile their religious life with democratic cultures. Islam is more than a religion; it’s a way of life that is governed by rules about hygiene, economics, education, politics and clothing, Ryan said.

“For many devout Muslims, the divorce between religion and the state…suggests that Western democracies are atheistic or even anti-theistic states,” Ryan said. “Muslims characterize such nations as living in what is called in Arabic jahiliyyah – the state of ignorance.” These bad feelings are compounded by the evolving international allegiances of the United States. For instance, America helped arm Afghan leaders during Afghanistan’s war against the Soviet Union and now it is fighting to overthrow some of those same leaders. “A lot of people feel used by the United States,” Ryan said. He then quoted the W.H. Auden poem titled “September 1, 1939,” the date that Nazi Germany invaded Poland, saying ” ‘Those to whom evil is done do evil in return.’ ” Ryan’s lecture was part of “Transcending Tragedy: The Fordham University Lecture Series on Sept. 11 and its Aftermath.”