This introductory chapter presents three vignettes that illustrate the four narratives that frame this book: the notion of an identity crisis among young Muslims, the purported conflict between a “pure or true” Islam and a “cultural” Islam, an alleged “Islamization of America,” and the imperative for creating an American Muslim community and culture. It also sketches the methodology employed in the book, detailing the centrality of a narrative framework from the inception of this project to its methods, the challenges encountered, the analysis, and ultimately to the production of this ethnographic narrative. This beginning chapter argues that narrative is a particularly useful way to examine identity.
Tackling Politics as an American Muslim Physician
