Dreams of D-Mecca: Racial Crossings and Islamic Renewal in the "Two Detroits"

My dissertation is an ethnographic study of multiethnic U.S. Muslim civic organizations in the city of Detroit and how such organizations encourage Muslims to cross endemic racial boundaries on the basis of Islamic ethics. Organizations like DREAM of Detroit (“Detroit Revival Engaging American Muslims”) stimulate faith-based commitment to civic action and expose participants to diverse ways of being Muslim, prioritizing just works over specific doctrinal or ritual adherences. Drawing on interviews with leaders and participants as well as participant-observation at organizational events, I show how Muslim civic organizations are not only expressions of Islamic values, but more profoundly, sites of religious cultivation in which what it means to be a U.S. Muslim is taught, negotiated, and debated. I encourage scholars of contemporary Islam to expand normative notions of “Islamic space” and ask how the proliferating Muslim non-profit sector is shaping constructions of Islamic authority in the contemporary United States.