ABSTRACT

American Muslim community remained largely out of the range of academic and policy radars until at least the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 and the subsequent American hostage crisis that continued for about two years and put an end to President Jimmy Carter's prospects for re-election. The African-American Muslim discursive tradition and socio-political struggle are now well-documented. With the influx of the immigrant Muslims in the wake of the immigration reforms of the 1960s, the discourse on politics of identity and substance came to be appropriated by Muslim organisations dominated by the Arab and South Asian Muslim immigrants. Most Muslim organisations remained ambivalent toward the Islamic revolution in Iran. Whether American Muslims should participate in the American political process was an issue of an intense debate before September 11, 2001 in the Muslim community and its various religious groups. The political expectations of American Muslims had increased tremendously after the victory of President Barack Hussein Obama in 2008.