American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion » (Reprint)

Paul M. Barrett, for eighteen years a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, where this book originated, currently directs the investigative reporting team at BusinessWeek. He is the author of The Good Black: A True Story of Race in America.

There are as many as six million Muslims living in the United States, and in American Islam, Paul M. Barrett takes us into their homes, mosques, and private gatherings, from West Virginia to Los Angeles, depicting a population of striking variety. In vivid, subtle, artful prose, Barrett tells seven stories of American Muslims in all their stereotype-defying complexity. Theirs is a dramatic new chapter in the American story, and American Islam is an intimate and vibrant group portrait of American Muslims today.

The Washington Post - Reza Aslan

Paul M. Barrett's well wrought and engaging new book, American Islam, seeks to change perceptions by providing an intimate group portrait of Muslim Americans as they struggle to combat the threats, prejudices and stereotypes that have dogged them since 9/11. Barrett, a longtime Wall Street Journal reporter who's now at BusinessWeek, uses his journalistic skills to insinuate himself into the lives of his subjects -- no easy task in a time of heightened suspicions. The book traces the lives of seven American Muslims, from the wily Dearborn, Mich., publisher and political activist Osama Siblani to the energetic journalist and Islamic feminist Asra Nomani, whose crusade to tear down the wall of separation between men and women in her Morgantown, W.Va., mosque made her a media superstar in the United States and, to her surprise, a scourge in her own community.