Call for Submissions: “I Speak For Myself: American Men on Being Muslim” Essays

I Speak for Myself: American Women on Being Muslim (White Cloud Press, May 2011) is being received very positively in the media and is spurring dialogue that we feel is necessary and timely.  In this vein, we want to continue the conversation with a sequel called I Speak for Myself: American Men on Being Muslim.  The book will be published by White Cloud in 2012.

Each essay must be written by a practicing Muslim American man, born and/or predominantly raised in the U.S. We are looking for contributors between the ages of 22 and 45 who claim Islam as their faith.

Please write articulately about a personal aspect of your life with regards to being a Muslim American man.  The essay should express in some way how your Muslim-ness and American-ness affect your life.  This need not be overt but the essay should come from that perspective.

Essays should be no longer than 1500 words and will be edited for clarity.  All submissions may not be accepted, but every submission will be considered.  Please include name, age, DOB, full contact info, birthplace, ethnicity, sect of Islam, profession/field, and anything else about yourself that might be useful for us to know (short bios are fine).

This is a project that, Inshallah, will appear across a variety of platforms, both national and international.

Please send all queries about this project and/or entries via email to:  isfm786@gmail.com.

I love the ‘80s: Syrian Edition

I love the ‘80s: Syrian Edition

by Zakira Suriya

For Americans, the ‘80s represented everything cool and decadent. From synthesized music, flowing money, and oversized shoulder pads, what was not to love? But across the world in Syria, it is a decade most people would much rather forget: witnessing mass murder in Hama, living in terror from the secret police, watching the single, state-owned, television channel spewing its nightly propaganda, walking down ancestral streets rendered unrecognizable by monumental statues and large-scale posters hailing the glories of the eternal Father, Hafiz Assad. It is a decade Syrians would have liked to keep repressed in the darkest holes of memory, but instead they find themselves thirty years later, reliving it once again.