Drawing on a decade of research into the community that proposed the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," this book refutes the idea that current demands for Muslim moderation have primarily arisen in response to the events of 9/11, or to the violence often depicted in the media as unique to Muslims. Instead, it looks at a century of pressures on religious minorities to conform to dominant American frameworks for race, gender, and political economy. These include the encouraging of community groups to provide social services to the dispossessed in compensation for the government's lack of welfare provisions in an aggressively capitalist environment. Calls for Muslim moderation in particular are also colored by racist and orientalist stereotypes about the inherent pacifism of Sufis with respect to other groups. The first investigation of the assumptions behind moderate Islam in our country, Making Moderate Islam is also the first to look closely at the history, lives, and ambitions of the those involved in Manhattan's contested project for an Islamic community center.
"Scholarship on Islam in America has generally overlooked the practices of middle-class Muslims and social elites, who, in the wake of the 2010 'Ground Zero Mosque' controversy, suddenly found themselves under attack despite having played by the rules. By uncovering the historical context of this national anti-Muslim campaign, Corbett demonstrates, in lively prose, how conceptualizations of 'moder
Author of A History of Islam in America
"Making Moderate Islam is an important contribution to the urgent questions around Muslims and citizenship. The central characters and debates here are striking, and even dramatic-including a post-9/11 climate, election-year grandstanding, right-wing punditry, think-tank support, and imperial logics of containment-and Corbett does a splendid job of identifying and invoking many of the players, tr
