American Muslim Women: Negotiating Race, Class, and Gender within the Ummah by Jamillah Karim

American Muslim Women: Negotiating Race, Class, and Gender within the Ummah by Jamillah Karim is an ethnographic study of African American and South Asian immigrant Muslims in Chicago and Atlanta, two of the largest ethnic Muslim groups in the United States. It explores a community where these groups come together, and where Islamic ideals of racial harmony and equality create hopeful possibilities in a society still challenged by race and class inequalities.

The book focuses on women who, because of gender inequalities, are sometimes more likely to move outside their ethnic Muslim spaces and interact with other Muslim ethnic groups in search of gender justice. Drawing on interviews with a diverse group of women, it investigates what it means to negotiate religious sisterhood against America’s race and class hierarchies, and how members of the American Muslim community both construct and cross ethnic boundaries.

Readers will explore:

• African American and South Asian Muslim life in America
• How race, class and gender shape the American Muslim experience
• Religious sisterhood across ethnic boundaries
• Islamic ideals of equality in a diverse community

This book is well suited to readers interested in Islam in America, in women’s studies and race relations, and to anyone who wants a sensitive, interview-based portrait of contemporary American Muslim women. Order online from Books Garden with cash on delivery in Dhaka and delivery across Bangladesh.