Islam, Race, and Pluralism in the

Pakistani Diaspora

This book explores the Pakistani diaspora in a transatlantic context, enquiring

into the ways in which young first- and second-generation Pakistani Muslim
and non-Muslim men resist hegemonic identity narratives and respond to their
marginalised conditions.
Drawing on rich documentary, ethnographic and interview material gathered
in Boston and Dublin, Islam, Race, and Pluralism in the Pakistani Diaspora
introduces the term ‘Pakphobia’, a dividing line that is set up to define the
places that are safe and to distinguish ‘us’ and ‘them’ in a Pakistani diasporic
context. With a multiple case study design, which accounts for the hetero-
geneity of Pakistani populations, the author explores the language of fear and
how this fear has given rise to a ‘politics of fear’ whose aim is to distract and
divide communities.
A rich, cross-national study of one of the largest minority groups in the US
and Western Europe, this book will appeal to sociologists, anthropologists,
political scientists, and geographers with interests in race and ethnicity,
migration and diasporic communities.

Craig Considine is a Catholic American of Irish and Italian descent. As a

sociologist he focuses on Islam, religious pluralism, Muslim Americans, Isla-
mophobia, Christian–Muslim relations, the life of the Prophet Muhammad,
race and ethnic relations, and the intersection of religion and nationalism.
Craig is currently a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at Rice
University in Houston, Texas. He holds a Ph.D. from Trinity College Dublin,
Ireland. Craig was born and bred in Needham, Massachusetts, and has lived
in Washington, DC and London, England.
Studies in Migration and Diaspora

Series Editor:
Anne J. Kershen, Queen Mary University of London, UK

Studies in Migration and Diaspora is a series designed to showcase the inter-

disciplinary and multidisciplinary nature of research in this important field.
Volumes in the series cover local, national and global issues and engage with
both historical and contemporary events. The books will appeal to scholars,
students and all those engaged in the study of migration and diaspora. Amongst
the topics covered are minority ethnic relations, transnational movements and
the cultural, social and political implications of moving from ‘over there’, to
‘over here’.

Polish Migration to the UK in the ‘New’ European Union

After 2004
Edited by Kathy Burrell

Gendering Migration
Masculinity, Femininity and Ethnicity in Post-War Britain
Edited by Louise Ryan and Wendy Webster

Contemporary British Identity

English Language, Migrants and Public Discourse
Christina Julios

Migration and Domestic Work

A European Perspective on a Global Theme
Edited by Helma Lutz

Negotiating Boundaries in the City

Migration, Ethnicity, and Gender in Britain
Joanna Herbert

The Cultures of Economic Migration

International Perspectives
Edited by Suman Gupta and Tope Omoniyi
Islam, Race, and Pluralism in
the Pakistani Diaspora

Craig Considine
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Craig Considine
The right of Craig Considine to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Considine, Craig, author.
Title: Islam, race, and pluralism in the Pakistani diaspora / Craig Considine.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016057299 | ISBN 9781138207226 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315462776 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Pakistani diaspora. | Pakistanis. | Muslims--Non-Islamic
countries. | Islamophobia.
Classification: LCC DS380.5 .C66 2017 | DDC 909/.04914122--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016057299

ISBN: 978-1-138-20722-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-46277-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Taylor & Francis Books
‘Considine unpicks the complex journey of identity through the lens of the
Pakistani experience both in the US and Europe. Placing both belief and
bigotry in context, challenging both inter and intra community tensions and
using the personal accounts of individuals, he humanizes the monolithic myth
of “the Pakistani.” An important and timely contribution by a committed
bridge builder.’
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, British lawyer, politician and member
of the House of Lords

‘Pakistani Muslims are often seen as one of the most controversial ethnic and
religious groups on issues of identity and integration. In this well researched
and empathetic study of Pakistani diasporas in Ireland and the US, Craig
Considine has made a valuable contribution to the literature on Muslims in
the West and the language of “us” and “them” which continues to inform the
political and social narrative of citizenship.’
Dr. Mona Siddiqui, Professor in Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim
Relations, Edinburgh University

‘Dr. Considine adds another brick to the foundations of inter-racial peace in

American and Irish societies. As an immigrant myself who migrated to
America from Pakistan as a young child, I have never seen anyone capture
the struggles and challenges of Pakistanis trying to find their place in the
West more accurately and intimately than Dr. Considine. As a devout
Catholic, he delivers upon the teaching of Jesus Christ – “Blessed are the
Peacemakers” – by writing this book.’
Tayyib Rashid, US Marine Corps Veteran, ‘The Muslim Marine’
To the bridge builders
Contents

List of tables viii

Foreword ix
Series editor’s preface xi
Acknowledgements xiii

1 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’ 1

2 Theorising Pakphobia 24
3 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 54
4 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 75
5 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 100
6 New Pakistani ethnicities 129
7 Why civic values and pluralism matter 150
8 Dousing Pakphobia 172

Glossary 184
Appendix 1: Interviewees 188
Appendix 2: Semi-structured interview guide 190
Appendix 3: Streams of Islam 191
Index 195
Tables

A1.1 Profiles of first-generation semi-structured interview

participants 188
A1.2 Profiles of second-generation semi-structured interview
participants 189
A3.1 Streams of Islam 192
Foreword

Islam, Race, and Pluralism in the Pakistani Diaspora is an eloquently written

narrative.
Dr Considine is quickly establishing himself as a leading sociological and
Islamic scholar, and this is manifest from the opening pages of his excellent
book. He courageously confronts some of the most critical issues of our time –
such as racism, ethnocentrism, and Islamophobia – and provides thoughtful,
narrative-driven solutions. Focused primarily in Dublin and Boston, Islam,
Race, and Pluralism in the Pakistan Diaspora conveys the struggles many
young Pakistani men experience on a daily basis. His book walks the reader
through the science behind intolerance, the obstacles to overcoming that
intolerance, and the tools to dismantle those obstacles. Dr Considine eloquently
conveys the diversity within the Pakistani-Irish and Pakistani-American diaspora
while maintaining an authenticity in voice and tone. At a time of immense
fear and confusion about this demographic, Dr Considine’s book provides the
necessary nuance, scholarship, and compassion to rectify that confusion.
Islam, Race, and Pluralism in the Pakistani Diaspora is an excellent read for
lay readers and policy makers alike.
But let me step back for a moment.
In November 2011 I received an email from a young Ph.D. student named
Craig Considine. Craig was working on a project about 9/11 that sought to
build tolerance and interfaith understanding. He concluded his note, ‘I hope
you will help me in building these interfaith bridges which we so desperately
need.’
I didn’t know who Craig was then, but an ancillary review of his work told
me I was dealing with someone special. His tenacity for tolerance, his passion
for pluralism, and his commitment to compassion resonated through his
words and his works. I responded, and a relationship developed based on the
common ambition of mutual respect, education, and humanitarian service.
Since then I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of getting to know Craig as a
colleague, then as a friend, and now as someone I consider a dear brother.
Over the years I have seen Craig elevate his voice for the downtrodden and
disenfranchised in an honest and sincere manner. He challenges bigotry
wherever he sees it and does so with education and empathy. He loathes
x Foreword
empty rhetoric and instead provides the scholarship to overcome the ignorance
that caused that bigotry in the first place.
Islam, Race, and Pluralism in the Pakistani Diaspora is Craig’s first solo
book, but I assure you it will not be his last. His voice is one that pierces
through the winds of intolerance and resonates with those dedicated to the true
meaning of Jihad: the struggle for self-improvement. This book is an important
step towards pluralism because it is founded in scholarship and dialogue.
As you pick up a copy, I hope you continue to follow Craig’s work online
and through his lectures. If you do, you’ll soon see what I’ve been pleased to
see for many years now. Craig’s voice advances the critical dialogue to build
the bridges that this world so desperately needs.
I hope you accept the invitation to work with him and move forward together.

Qasim Rashid, Esq.

Visiting Fellow, Harvard University’s Prince Al Waleed bin Talal
School of Islamic Studies
Series editor’s preface

One afternoon in the autumn of 2006 one of my old students came to see me
in my office at Queen Mary University of London. He was unshaven, wearing
a shabby black wool coat and a white topi.1 This was in startling contrast to
the young Bangladeshi who used to attend my seminars and lectures in a
spotless grey suit, with white shirt and tie, wearing or carrying a beige trench
raincoat, with his papers in a leather document case. I asked him how things
were and he told me that he had recently lost his job and couldn’t find
another. As he explained: ‘9/11 changed everything’. The events and aftermath
of 11 September 2001 rippled throughout the Western world, condemning the
innocent followers of Islam as well as their evil co-religionists. With each
subsequent terrorist attack the reactive waves have become more unsettling to
the lives of Pakistanis settled in the West. Reading this book immediately
returned me to that meeting with my student. For though Craig Considine’s
subjects were living in Boston and Dublin – far removed from the Mile End
Road in London – all were of Pakistani origin2 and all affected by Western
society’s ongoing fear of terrorism.
When created in 1947, Pakistan was perceived optimistically as a young
emerging democracy. As the author of this book points out, recent events
have turned this positive view on its head. Today the country is seen as a
home for terrorists and religious fanatics, a place where non-Muslims or ‘the
wrong kind of Muslims’ are targeted by radicals who call for their execution.
As attacks and atrocities continue, many in the West have come to regard
diasporic Pakistanis as disciples of the extremists. It is within this context that
Considine carried out his research into young male Muslims of Pakistani
origin living in Boston and Dublin and the way in which they construct and
reconstruct their identity in response to what he has called ‘Pakphobia’.
Many of the young men interviewed by the author would now seem to exist
in a kind of no-man’s land; Pakistan, their country of origin is alien to them,
while at the same time they are increasingly alienated in countries they
consider as home; places where they believed their identity would not be
questioned – though now, by some, it is.
The depth and compassion of this book are impressive, particularly as the
author, an American Catholic, is an outsider to Islam, but notably one
xii Series editor’s preface
warmly welcomed into the Muslim communities of both Boston and Dublin.
In some ways outsider status has been of benefit, as Considine has been able
to clearly and objectively identify the negatives and positives of the young
Muslims’ experiences in the land of his birth (America) and the country in
which he carried out his Ph.D (Ireland). He recognises the conflict in the
young men’s lives and their having to deal with the constantly changing
stances of politicians and society in both Ireland and America. In the latter
this process recently was made more stressful by the apparent anti-Muslim
stance taken by Donald Trump in his presidential election campaign.
It is clear from reading this volume that in order for first-and second-
generation Pakistani diasporics in America and Ireland to (re)gain a sense of
belonging there is a need on all sides for tolerance and, in the case of the
governing nations, for acceptance of religious and ethnic pluralism – the latter
applying to Pakistan as much as the Western countries. It is to be hoped that
Pakistani diasporics in the two nations under examination in this book, and
indeed globally, are able to arrive at a point at which they are able to feel at
ease in their chosen home and with their chosen national identity.
In addition to providing readers with an original and enlightening insight
into the complex lives of Pakistani diasporics in contemporary Western
society, this book has two excellent bonuses: an extensive glossary of Arabic,
Islamic, Hindu and Urdu terms, and an invaluable guide to the different
streams of Islam. Both of these enhance a volume which deserves a prominent
place in the library of diaspora studies.

Anne J. Kershen
Queen Mary University of London

Notes
1 The Bengali name for a Muslim male cap/head covering.
2 East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971 after a bitter civil war, and thus all
Bangladeshis can be said to be of Pakistani origin.
Acknowledgements

This book has its origins on 11 September 2001 (henceforth 9/11), when I was
a fifteen-year-old student at Needham High School in Massachusetts. On that
day, I, like many other people around the world, came to associate Islam with
‘terrorism’. While deciding what I wanted to study in college, I became
interested in learning Arabic in the hope of becoming an intelligence agent
that could spy on ‘bad Muslims’ and protect my fellow Americans from the
‘threat’ of Islam. As a sophomore at American University in Washington,
DC, I enrolled in a class called ‘The World of Islam’. I had little, if any,
knowledge about the Quran, Prophet Muhammad, or the lives of Muslims
worldwide. Little did I know that my mind was about to be rocked by a
Pakistani Muslim with much more knowledge than I had.
On the first day of class, Professor Akbar Ahmed said in front of the
class, ‘The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr’.
This Hadith, or saying of Prophet Muhammad, shook my world view and
my soul. Since that day on the campus of American University, I have
dedicated my life to building bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims in
the United States and Western Europe. Spending time amongst so many
different groups of Muslims has added to my love of Islam and strengthened
my own Catholic identity. I have learned so much about our common
humanity, and I am eternally grateful to all those who have opened their
hearts and minds to me.
I am forever grateful to a large number of people. First and foremost, I
would like to send thanks to my family for their love and support throughout
the years. They have taught me the importance of dedication, but also the
importance of love. I am deeply indebted to a large number of colleagues and
friends. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr Daniel Faas at Trinity
College Dublin for his guidance throughout my doctoral years. While at Trinity,
I also benefited from the friendship of Maja Halilovic and interactions with
countless students while serving as a teaching assistant. During those doctoral
years, my research experience also benefited from a friendship with Imam
Umar al Qadri and the assistance of Dr Ronit Lentin. Of course, I would also
like to thank all the participants who participated in the research, for without
them this book would have been impossible.
xiv Acknowledgements
I would further like to thank the Department of Sociology at Trinity College
Dublin for giving me a teaching assistantship which sustained me when I
lived in Ireland. I also gratefully acknowledge the Department of Sociology at
Rice University in Houston, Texas, for hiring me after I completed my doctoral
dissertation. It was while working at Rice that the writing of this book took
place. I would also like to thank Routledge for all their efforts in bringing this
book to life.
Finally, I would like to thank all my kindred spirits around the world, some
of whom have become friends and some of whom I have yet to meet. Your
vision and commitment to interreligious and intercultural dialogue is inspiring
and keeps me moving forward. I dedicate this book to you and all those
people who are trying to strengthen our common humanity by building
bridges across unnecessary divides.
1 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’

Speaking in March 2009 in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office

Building in Washington, DC, President Barack Obama announced a com-
prehensive, new strategy for the infamous ‘War on Terror’. He described the
situation in Pakistan as ‘increasingly perilous’ and added that the country had
become a safe haven for hiding and training ‘terrorists’. At the time of the
president’s address, Pakistan was – according to the White House – ‘the most
dangerous place in the world’ (The White House, 2009). In other words,
Pakistan was a threatening Islamic state that had increasingly turned ‘funda-
mentalist’ and ‘anti-Western’.
The ‘Pakistani issue’ that President Obama raised, though, was not simply
a problem faced by Americans – far from it. Pakistan was, instead, ‘an inter-
national security challenge of the highest order’ (ibid.). According to the
president, Pakistan was the frontline state and the main breeding ground in
the international war on ‘Islamic extremism’. The troubled image of Pakistan
conjured up by President Obama suggests that Pakistanis are ‘violent Muslims’.
It also insinuates that Pakistan is a chaotic, frenetic, and disorganised country
hell-bent on destroying ‘the West’.
In light of these words, it is hard to imagine people in the United States
and Europe not being suspicious of people believed to be of Pakistani descent.
The fears of Americans and Europeans are often reaffirmed in the media, an
undoubtedly crucial player in exacerbating stereotypes of groups and global
conflicts. A study carried out by Moeller (2007, p. 5) revealed that news coverage
of Pakistan emphasised the role Pakistanis play in ‘global terrorism’ through
stories about madrassas (Islamic schools), which were represented as indoc-
trination centres for young jihadists (an Islamic term meaning ‘to struggle’, but
often wrongly associated with ‘holy war’). On television, in newspapers, and
across websites on the internet, Pakistanis ‘there’ – in Pakistan – have been
often equated with the idea of Pakistanis ‘here’ – in the case of this book, the
United States and Ireland. The ‘there’ and ‘here’ dichotomy identifies all
Pakistanis as reactionary ‘radical Muslims’ who oppose ‘Western values’ such
as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and free and democratic governance
(Stover, 2011, p. 1). Politicians, too, discuss Pakistan as a rogue, nuclear-
armed, Islamic country that will ultimately undermine ‘Western’ interests
2 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’
around the world. These images, coupled with revelations of the country’s role in
protecting Osama bin Laden (Gall, 2014), the alleged mastermind behind the
attacks of 9/11, has pushed Pakistan towards a high rank amongst the league of
‘failed states’, as leading think tanks have observed (Rahman, 2009, p. 39).
Irrespective of the existing ground realities in Pakistan and their possible
variation from this projected image of an unstable nation, the not-so-positive
image of Pakistan seems to be gaining worldwide currency (Pakistan Institute of
Legislative Development and Transparency, 2008, p. 1). One can surmise that
this is largely due to the events of 9/11 and the subsequent connection made in
media and political circles between the country of Pakistan and ‘radical Islam’.
A tendency was employed after 9/11 to point to ‘the West’ and ‘the Muslim
world’ as diametrically opposed entities forever locked in a battle to the death.
Pundits, news analysts, and heads of state believed that what we witnessed on
that day – and its aftermath – was a ‘clash of civilisations’, or a battle between
so-called Western and Islamic values. This controversial thesis states that the
most pervasive, important, and dangerous conflicts will not be between social
classes, but between people belonging to different cultural and religious entities.
Yet, Americans and Europeans – broadly speaking – have not always had
these negative perceptions of Pakistan and Pakistanis. In the years after the
emergence of Pakistan, the country was heralded by Western countries ‘as a
symbol of democratic progression in a largely autocratic Muslim world’
(Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, 2008, p. 1).
When Pakistan was founded in 1947, its secular founder, Mohammad Ali
Jinnah, intended to create a ‘homeland’ for South Asian Muslims, not an
Islamic state (Ispahani, 2013). Recognised as Pakistan’s Quaid-e-Azam (‘Great
Leader’ in Urdu, a South Asian language), Jinnah declared that non-Muslims
would be equal citizens in the newly independent country. In the 1950s and
1960s, Pakistan even boasted a ‘moderate’ outlook and a seemingly successful
union between religion and state. Sunnis and Shias, the two largest sects of
the Pakistani nation, lived in an environment of relative coexistence. Pakistan
also had a high potential for economic growth on a par with Southeast Asian
countries. Pakistan’s trajectory in the decades following independence, however,
has been very different. All sorts of reasons are offered to explain what happened
to Pakistan after the founding of the state. Some critics and historians point
to the rule of General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan’s sixth president,
who tried to unify his nation under the banner of ‘Islamisation’, a style of
governance dictated not by secular laws, but by the Quran and Hadiths (the
two main sources of Islamic doctrine). Laws left behind by ul-Haq have
ensured that the constitutional right to religious freedom has become useless
(Hamdani, 2016). In 1982 he adapted the Pakistani Penal Code to prohibit
certain Muslims from saying or implying that they even were Muslims.
Human rights advocates found that these laws violated the equality of all
citizens as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan, as well as the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Today, Pakistan has campaigners from religious
communities asking for the execution of ‘blasphemers’, from Muslims to
 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’ 3
Christians. These levels of religious persecution have led to an exodus of
minority communities. At the time of its independence in 1947, almost 23 per
cent of Pakistan’s population was composed of non-Muslim citizens (Ispahani,
2013). Now, the proportion of non-Muslims has declined to approximately
3 per cent (ibid.).
These narratives of Pakistan and the Pakistani people as potentially violent
and intolerant have considerable staying power, drawing strength from a per-
vasive Western media that frequently reinforces them. With selective reporting
on Pakistanis, the journalistic bar for news reporting is typically very low;
sensationalism is an essential criterion (Afsaruddin, 2015). What goes on in
the daily lives of Pakistanis is almost completely occluded. The diversity of
voices and opinions that continue to characterise Pakistanis, as well as the
rich spiritual and intellectual resources of the country, receive little, if any,
attention.
This is a book about the lives of young Pakistani men living in Boston,
Massachusetts (United States), and Dublin, Republic of Ireland (henceforth
Ireland). I interpret the mainstream discourses around Pakistan, Pakistanis,
and Islam, along with the protectors of these discourses, as further examples
of the cause and effect of centuries-old biases toward Others and their cultures.
As many scholars have noted, Pakistanis are caricatured as backward, anti-
freedom, religious extremists and are discursively reduced to unassimilable
migrants standing in the way of ‘Western values’. The views of the young
Pakistani men in this book represent a refusal of these discourses, a refusal to
be silenced, and a demand to be heard in an age when their voices and names
can no longer be hidden or ignored. Their resistance to hegemonic identity
narratives is more broadly visible in the diaspora, thanks to cultural contexts
and political environments different from those of Pakistan. In writing about
the resistance of young Pakistani men to certain power structures in the
United States and Ireland, I certainly do not claim to speak for them, though
I do give them a forum to speak about forces that have rendered them invisible
or threatening.
This book looks at the dialectics of religion (in particular Islam), race, and
pluralism in the structure of Pakistani experiences and in the making of the
Pakistani diaspora. It argues that the Pakistani diaspora should be under-
stood not only from the perspective of cultural reproduction, but also through
the spatial positioning that young Pakistani men engage in as a way to
reconstitute their sense of self and forge identities for themselves and their
communities.
While this book is about Pakistanis, you do not have to be Pakistani to
benefit from reading it. Nor do you have to know much of anything about
Pakistan to understand the importance of the research revealed in the coming
pages. For decades, Pakistanis have been leaving Pakistan in droves. Today
you can find Pakistanis in almost every country in the world. Not too long ago,
citizens of ‘Western countries’ would have been hard-pressed to find Pakistanis
living amongst them. Pakistanis were rarely discussed by politicians and the
4 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’
media and were largely absent from discussions of national identities. However,
about fifteen years ago, Pakistanis came under national and international spot-
lights. In response to 9/11, the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan,
a country bordering Pakistan that has close religious, ethnic, cultural, and
political links to Pakistanis. The lives of Pakistanis of all backgrounds were
dramatically changed by the ‘War on Terror’ narrative which associated
Pakistanis with Islam, and in turn, Islam with violence. Suddenly, Pakistanis
were lumped into the same category as ‘Muslim terrorists’ – brown, bearded,
Islamic, backward, violent, anti-Western, and so on. Ultimately, this book
makes the case that while Pakistani diaspora studies emphasise domination
and dimensionality in cultural flows, young Pakistani men in Boston and Dublin
are not merely powerless subjects of institutions and hegemonic narratives of
identity. They are, rather, active producers of new forms of ethnicity.

Before and after 9/11

Pakistanis in Boston and throughout the United States have faced controversy
in recent years on account of their supposed links to ‘terrorist’ organisations.
After 9/11, Congress enacted ‘anti-terrorism’ laws that ultimately painted
Pakistanis as potential threats to ‘American values’ and national security. In
2002, for example, the Department of Homeland Security enforced the National
Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) in conjunction with the Providing
Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, better
known as the Patriot Act. The NSEERS stipulated that every male Pakistani
visa holder aged sixteen or older had to undergo a special registration with the
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Rights Working Group
and Center for Immigrants’ Rights, 2012). The outcome of this programme
was devastating for some Pakistani communities. In the months and years fol-
lowing 9/11, about 15,000 Pakistanis in ‘Little Pakistan’, New York City, fled
the country due to fear of persecution (Powell, 2003). People living in this
neighbourhood still complain of a sense of being watched, wiretapped, and
monitored by local and national authorities. These policies have an overriding
and yet subliminal message: that Pakistanis are suspicious and unwelcome
‘visitors’. Another congressional measure – the Enhanced Border Security and
Visa Entry Reform Act – reduced the number of visitor visas to the United
States from Pakistan (Moore, 2011, p. 1669). The United States government
effectively started shutting the door on Pakistani immigration. These policies
led not only to an exodus of thousands of Pakistani migrants (Dadi, 2006, p. 60),
but also to confusion and anxiety amongst second-generation Pakistani
Americans, who started to see themselves as ‘strangers’ in – and potential
enemies of – the only country that they had ever considered ‘home’.
Since 9/11, the United States and the European Union have adopted
security and surveillance apparatuses, including state-sponsored spying, phone-
tapping, and airport measures, that have become central to the experience of
racism (Lentin and McVeigh, 2006, p. 12). The Patriot Act, in particular,
 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’ 5
grants surveillance powers to federal law enforcement, removes barriers
between law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and gives greater author-
ity to the attorney general to detain and deport people suspected of having
‘terrorist’ ties (McCarthy, 2002, p. 435). Pakistanis have reason to be fearful
of anti-Muslim attackers and police forces (as well as other authorities) whose
surveillance of their communities creates mistrust. Pakistanis have stated that
community surveillance ‘chills free speech’, a constitutional right for every
American, as they feel insecure, suspected and, at times discriminated against
based on a perceived connection to the hijackers of 9/11 (Awan, 2016). Their
feelings of uncertainty and doubt are heightened by racial profiling, a pro-
gramme that has targeted Pakistanis for ‘flying while brown’, a discriminatory
practice that presumably focuses on perceived racial, ethnic, and religious
similarities to ‘radical Muslims’ (Chandrasekhar, 2003, p. 215). Logan Airport
in Boston has been reported to be a magnet for racial profiling of Pakistanis,
who are more likely to be stopped, searched, and questioned for ‘suspicious
behaviour’ there than at other airports in the United States (Schmidt and
Lichtblau, 2012). Indeed, if these examples highlight one thing, it is that
Pakistanis do have something to fear from racial profiling: second-class service
and violation of their constitutional and human rights.
Defenders of racial profiling nevertheless argue that it is a ‘rational’
response to patterns of criminal behaviour (Saint Aloysius, n.d.). In December
2015, two Pakistani Muslims killed fourteen people in San Bernardino, Cali-
fornia. Some Pakistanis reacted to this mass shooting by stating that they felt
a ‘double burden’ because the shooters were both Pakistani and Muslim (El
Nasser, 2015). In the aftermath of San Bernardino, Pakistanis feared that they
would be judged for the way they look or how they practise their religion (ibid.).
Other Pakistanis in the United States observed that they were being ‘singled out’,
even though they do not support ‘Islamic extremism’ or ‘terrorism’ (Flowers,
2015). Years earlier, Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen of Pakistani origin,
confessed to having planted a bomb in Times Square, New York City.
Amongst Pakistanis there was a deep animosity toward Shahzad and a feeling
of being victimised as a result of his actions (Matthay, 2010). Americans
citizens heard in the media that Shahzad had reportedly enrolled in bomb-
training classes in northwest Pakistan, a stronghold of militants that the
United States was then bombing through drone warfare. The group Tehrik-e-
Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for Shahzad’s attack. Once again,
Pakistanis over ‘there’ were conflated with Pakistanis ‘here’ in the imagination
of the American public.
As an American researcher myself, I have learned that Americans have a
habit of perceiving Pakistanis as ‘newcomers’ to the United States. South
Asians, however, have lived in the United States since the nineteenth century.
In the 1890s, South Asian men from rural military and farming backgrounds
in India settled on farms to work in the agricultural sector of California
(Moore, 2011, p. 1655). The initial wave of South Asians migrated to seek
their fortunes and to escape the tyranny, repression, and unfair taxation of
6 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’
British colonial rule (Khorana, 1993, p. 394). A severe drought in Punjab, the
biggest province of modern-day Pakistan, lasted from 1898 to 1902, and this
may have contributed to the migration of South Asians (Bagai, 1972, p. 28).
A second wave of migration to the United States began after Congress passed
the Immigration Nationality Act (INA) of 1965, which granted residency to
people from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America,
and the Caribbean countries (Peek, 2005). Pakistanis who arrived to the
country after the INA were largely educated, professional, and skilled (Curtis
IV, 2009). Many had already obtained a postgraduate degree in Pakistan,
while others migrated for the sole purpose of obtaining a higher professional
degree (Moore, 2011, p. 1655). Many Pakistanis of the INA generation
became financially well-off, with household incomes well above the national
median income (ibid.). A third and final wave of Pakistani migration began in
the late 1980s and early 1990s after Congress introduced the Green Card System
(Dadi, 2006), an official card issued by the United States Immigration Service to
‘foreign nationals’ granting them permanent residency in the country (H1 Base,
2014). Many of these Pakistanis were relatives of earlier migrants who came to
the country because of the family reunification clause of the INA (Gupta,
1999). They tended to be employed in lower-paying jobs – for example, operating
small convenience stores, working in the service sector, and driving taxis
(Dadi, 2006). The differences between Pakistanis rest on their experiences of –
and reasons for – leaving the physical ‘homeland’ (Fortier, 1998; Panagakos,
1998). The forthcoming chapters will explore the differences in social, economic,
and political positions amongst young Pakistani men in diaspora and how
they are received in the hostlands of the United States and Ireland.
Over the years, I have also learned that Pakistanis enter the public spotlight
whenever a self-described Muslim carries out an act of violence. Consider the
Boston Marathon bombing, an attack near the marathon’s finish line on
Boylston Street in downtown Boston. After the attack, The Boston Globe
reported that Pakistanis in the city felt that they were being singled out as
‘enemies’ and labelled as ‘terrorists’ (Abel, 2010), even though the attackers
were American citizens of Chechen descent. Pakistanis in Boston did not feel
as though the ‘terrorists’ were speaking or acting on behalf of Muslims.
Pakistanis in Boston, in fact, have regularly condemned ‘terrorism’ in the
name of Islam or other religions. In January 2015, dozens of Pakistanis
gathered in sub-freezing temperatures in Copley Square to stand against
extremism in all religions, including Islam (Murphy, 2015). Those in the
crowd carried placards reading, ‘Stop killing in the name of my Allah’ and
‘The Taliban got it wrong: Islam means peace and love’. The demonstration,
however, received hardly any attention from local or national media. The
silencing of Pakistani voices does little to counter the idea that Pakistanis do
not condemn violence.
Violence, unfortunately, is a term that is increasingly associated with
Pakistanis, Muslims, and Islam. To assist readers in understanding the reasons
for this development, I will frequently turn to the concept of Islamophobia,
 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’ 7
which I unpack in detail in Chapter 2. Islamophobia, or ‘fear of Muslims and
Islam’, is more mainstream than ever in ‘Western countries’, with some poli-
ticians and popular pundits making sensational and often hateful comments
about Muslims. Some comments are so inflammatory that many Pakistani
Muslims feel uneasy or even concerned for their safety (Dizard, 2015). In
December 2015, for example, Donald Trump, later to be elected the country’s
president, called for ‘a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the
United States’ (Diamond, 2015), a plan which drew the attention of legal
scholars, who debated whether the move violated the Constitution (Gershman,
2015; Melber, 2015). Before making this statement, Trump had called for the
special registration of Muslims in the United States (Gabriel, 2015), the strict
surveillance of mosques (Diamond, 2015), and the creation of internment
camps for ‘unruly’ Muslims living in the country, though he later ruled out this
plan (Danner, 2016). In the prevailing Islamophobic environment, Awan (2016)
has claimed that Pakistanis ‘feel not only left out from the mainstream but also
have the impression that they have been singled out as a religious/ethnic min-
ority’. These images corroborate with recent poll results (Moore, 2015), which
reveal that 55 per cent of Americans have either a somewhat or very unfa-
vourable view of Islam. Other voices in the public arena insist that there are too
many ‘newcomers’ and too much difference to ensure the successful assimilation
of groups like Pakistanis. Voices are calling for a more definitive response:
closing America’s doors completely (The Pluralism Project, n.d.). Indeed,
Americans have historically responded to the diversification of the country by
‘closing the door’ to minorities (Eck, n.d.). This response has led some
Pakistanis to feel like ‘national outsiders’ or, worse, ‘enemies of the nation’
(Abu el-Haj, 2007, p. 285). Even Pakistanis who were born and bred in the
United States have shared the view that they ‘grow up as strangers in their own
country, forever seen as an alien containment within the true blood of the
nation-state’ (ibid., p. 18). Such sentiments bring into question the very meaning
of American identity. As I elaborate in Chapter 2, the American civic nation is
under threat. In theory, anyone can join this type of nation, irrespective of
religion or ethnic origins; there is no myth of common ancestry as there is in
the Irish ethnic nation.
Pakistani Muslims in the United States have explained why no one should
equate Pakistanis with ‘terrorists’ and ‘radical Muslims’ (Islami Commentary,
2015). Pakistani Americans are a diverse group made up of different ethnicities,
cultures, races, religions, socio-economic backgrounds, and sexual orientations.
While the majority of Pakistanis in Boston identify themselves as Muslim, the
Pakistani Muslim community is by no means homogeneous. Since the 1970s,
Pakistani Muslims have helped build mosques and cultural centres that represent
various strands of Islamic thought. Pakistani Muslims worship today in
numerous spaces, including the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in
Roxbury, the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland, the Islamic Center of
New England in Quincy, and the Islamic Society of Boston in Cambridge.
These four spaces align themselves predominantly with mainstream Sunni
8 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’
Islam, though they identify themselves with no particular stream of Islam. A
small Pakistani mystical community, the Bawa Muhaiyadden, has met regularly
in Cambridge since 1979 (Curtis IV, 2009, p. 90). Pakistani Shia Muslims
have established mosques and Islamic centres around the Boston area, including
the Nizari Ismaili Center, which serves the burgeoning Shia community in the
metropolitan area. Another community – the Islamic Masumeen Center of
New England in Hopkinton – serves the growing Jafar community, a sect of
Shia Islam. The Dawoodi Bohras, another Shia sect, has a mosque – Anjuman-
e-Fazi – in Billerica. And one of the oldest Muslim communities in Boston is
that of Ahmadiyya, which has a mosque, Baitun Nasir, in Sharon (The Pluralism
Project, 2014). Moreover, there are Pakistanis in the Boston area who do not call
themselves Muslim. They worship variously at the Zoroastrian Association of
Greater Boston, the Boston Baha’i Center, and the South Asian Fellowship, a
sect of Christianity. Other Pakistanis in Boston do not identify with any organised
religion. A simple overview of the religious demographics of Pakistanis in Boston
reveals that this ‘community’ cannot be broadly painted as ‘Muslim’, because
such a category overlooks the innate heterogeneity of the population.
Each Pakistani, depending on his or her background, has a unique religious
or non-religious outlook. The importance of the religious heterogeneity of
Pakistani Muslims, in particular, cannot be overlooked. When Muslims are
discussed in the American public sphere, there is a tendency to casually
sleepwalk towards branding all Muslims the same, no matter where or how
they live (Booth, 2014). This dangerous pantomime overlooks the diversity of
religious thought and practice amongst followers of Islam. Nearly all Muslims
can agree on the basic beliefs of the religion: There is one God, Muhammad is
God’s prophet, and Muslims should fast during the holy month of Ramadan
and give alms to the poor (Pew Research Center, 2012). Yet beyond these
pillars of Islam, Muslims in Boston and nearly every social setting differ, since
religious convictions are shaped by cultural and social contexts (ibid.).
Chapter 2 will examine various sects of Islam, and the rest of the book will
analyse these sects further.
No religious community is a monolith, and the same can be said of diasporic
communities around the world. According to the 2010 Census, approximately
370,000 Pakistanis are living in the United States (Asian American Founda-
tion, 2012, p. 1) – about sixty-six times more than live in Ireland. Pakistani
Americans are a rapidly growing ethnic population. Since the 2000 Census,
the population increased by 137 per cent (ibid.). According to recent figures,
65 per cent of Pakistanis in the country were born elsewhere, and 57 per cent
became naturalised citizens (The Migration Policy Institute, 2014, p. 2). In
Boston, approximately 20 per cent of Pakistanis were born in the United States
and 20 per cent became naturalised citizens (Watanabe et al., 2004). The other
60 per cent of Pakistanis in the city are not American citizens (Pew Social
Trends, 2014). A large number of Pakistanis in the United States are con-
sidered ‘higher professionals’ with above-average household incomes (Moore,
2011). The median household income amongst Pakistani families is nearly
 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’ 9
$63,000, while the median for all Americans is $51,369. Roughly 45 per cent
of Pakistanis are employed in management and professional jobs. Levels of
educational attainment are, on average, also higher than the national average
(Migration Policy Institute, 2014, p. 1). Pakistanis are more than twice as likely
to hold advanced degrees compared with non-Pakistanis (ibid.). Furthermore,
Pakistanis in the United States have also established numerous, well-funded
and professionally managed organisations, including business networks, advocacy
groups, philanthropic entities, and organisations that contribute to economic
human development in Pakistan (ibid., pp. 1–2). The emergence of these
associations suggests that the Pakistani American population is well-organised,
politically active, and socially engaged.
These figures also show that Pakistanis are an important part of the
American family and have been giving back to their fellow citizens for decades.
There is no question that Pakistanis have made major contributions to the
United States. There is not a major teaching hospital in Boston that does not
have a Pakistani doctor on staff, and Pakistanis work at the most important
high-tech companies in the city. Pakistanis are the seventh largest and second-
fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States and the single largest
contingent within the Muslim population (Mirza, 2012; Pew Research Center,
2012). Americans cannot remain ignorant of their opinions and experiences.
This book helps fill the gap in our understanding of Pakistani lives as a
counter to the sensationalism we hear about them from politicians and media
outlets.

Before and after the Celtic Tiger

Until the 1990s, Ireland had one of the most homogeneous populations in the
European Union. Some Irish people have perceived the Celtic Tiger – a popular
term used to describe the period between 1994 and 2000 when Ireland
achieved the highest economic growth rates in history (Kirby, 2004) – as
disrupting the ‘purity’ of the Irish nation. The term Celtic Tiger derived from
the success of the ‘Southeast East Asian Tigers’, implying that the intense
economic and social change of the period was a similarly significant devel-
opmental success (ibid., p. 302). Before this period, Ireland had been a rela-
tively poor country on the outskirts of Europe, and its population had been
overwhelmingly white and Catholic. Emigration rather than immigration
summarised the movement of Ireland’s people.
At the height of the Celtic Tiger period, employers throughout the country
eagerly hired ‘non-nationals’ to help fuel Ireland’s economic expansion, particu-
larly in the capital, Dublin. Today, about 21 per cent of the city’s population are
‘non-native’ white Irish (Central Statistics Office, 2011a). This demographic
shift is due to significant levels of immigration spurred by rapid economic
growth and employment opportunities. Pakistani immigrants, in particular,
have filled many crucial vacancies in the medical, transport, hospitality,
construction, and other sectors of Irish society and are very much part of
10 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’
Ireland’s social fabric (Tranum, 2016). However, the ‘immigration issue’ has
been a difficult one for the Irish government and people. Recently introduced
measures – such as increased restrictions on Irish citizenship – have been
called discriminatory and counterproductive to Ireland’s multicultural society.
Irish people have been reported to be ‘nervous’ about immigration and to feel
that immigrants come to Ireland to ‘steal jobs’ from the ‘native’ people.
In light of demographic forecasts, the fears of the Irish people are unlikely
to go away in the near future. Ireland’s Pakistani population is increasing
rapidly. The latest census revealed the population to be about 6,847 (Central
Statistics Office, 2011b, p. 7). In 2006 the Pakistani population was less than
5,000, meaning that the size of the community increased by 37 per cent
between 2006 and 2011 (ibid., p. 89). The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis
live in Dublin, making the total number of Pakistanis in the city around
5,000. Pakistanis are the largest ethnic group within Ireland’s Muslim popu-
lation (Central Statistics Office, 2011c). As in Boston, a higher-than-average
proportion of the Pakistani population is classified as ‘higher professional’
(Central Statistics Office, 2011b). In addition to being financially stable, Ireland’s
Pakistani population is relatively young: about 24 per cent are younger than
14; 13 per cent are between the ages of 15 and 24, and another 42 per cent are
aged between 25 and 34 (ibid., p. 90). Of the roughly 5,000 Pakistani males in
the country, about 43 per cent are single, while 54 per cent are married (ibid.,
p. 37). These statistics provide a snapshot of Ireland’s Pakistani population
but do little to help us grasp complex phenomena or understand the personal
experiences and viewpoints of Pakistanis themselves. This book allows readers
to study dynamic cultural processes on a case-by-case basis as young Pakistani
men are situated and embedded in local and international contexts.
Many Irish people I spoke to during the years I lived in Dublin were surprised
to learn that South Asian Muslims began migrating to Ireland as far back as
the nineteenth century. Mir Aulad Ali, a Muslim scholar, moved to Ireland in
1861 to be a professor of Arabic and Hindustani languages at Trinity College
Dublin (Ibrahim, 2010, p. 153), where I was a Ph.D. student while undertaking
the research for this book. A century later, a small number of South Asian
Muslims operated restaurants around Dublin (Kennedy, 2010; Mac Con
Iomaire, 2006; The Irish Times, 1939). The community during these times was
tiny, but the population started growing in the 1950s, when the first wave of
Pakistanis migrated to Ireland from Britain, primarily England. The majority
of Pakistanis who came to Ireland during this period were from small land-
holding families and biraderis, an Urdu term meaning extended clan or tribal
networks (Akhtar, 2003). These immigrants were largely from northern and
central areas of Pakistan (Shaw, 2006, p. 210). Many of them took low-skilled
jobs in northern industrial English cities, but some enrolled as university students
and worked as doctors and engineers (ibid.). Due to Britain’s ailing post-
World War II economy, young Pakistani men started moving westward to
Irish cities to pursue entrepreneurial activities, particularly to set up niche
businesses such as grocery stores, food trades, restaurants, fabric shops, and
 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’ 11
market stalls. Some Pakistani migrants, such as businessman Sher Mohammad
Rafique, made their way to the rural areas of Ireland. In 1987 Rafique built a
mosque in the small town of Ballyhaunis, County Mayo, which remains one
of the only purpose-built mosques in Ireland outside of Dublin (Scharbrodt
and Sakaranaho, 2011, p. 476). The second wave of Pakistani immigration
occurred during the Celtic Tiger period. Many who came to Ireland at this
time (1994–2008) were young men who took jobs in the high-tech industry or
enrolled in various universities across the country. This book shares their
stories and beliefs and sheds light on how they see themselves in relation to
themes such as ethnicity, race, Irish identity, and ‘homeland’.
The Pakistani population of Ireland, like that of Boston, is far from
monolithic. While the majority of Pakistanis in Dublin associate themselves with
some form of Islam (ibid.), a plethora of communities remain which identify
with various strands of Islamic thought and practice. In his historical overview
of Islam in Ireland, Flynn (2006) noted that Pakistani Muslims in Dublin are
following brands of ‘South Asian Islam’, including Deobandism and Barelvism,
sects which are analysed in Chapter 2. The Blackpitts prayer room in south
Dublin is popular amongst Deobandis, and the Anwar al-Madina mosque is
popular amongst Barlevis. Blackpitts has invited controversy in the Irish
media on account of some of its more reactionary members, who have also
come under state surveillance for their alleged links to ‘radical Islam’ (ibid.,
p. 6). These two communities reflect the emergence of a growing South Asian
Muslim population in Dublin and a desire amongst Pakistanis to form com-
munities based on sectarian rivalries emanating from Pakistan. Pakistanis
also worship at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland in Clonskeagh, currently
Ireland’s largest mosque, and the Islamic Centre, or the ‘Dublin mosque’ on
South Circular Road, in south Dublin. The Islamic Foundation of Ireland,
the oldest Irish Muslim organisation, is also based at the Dublin mosque.
Dublin is also home to a Shia community based primarily in Milltown, an
affluent neighbourhood that includes the Ahlul Bayt Centre. The Shias of
Dublin, largely of Pakistani origin, are mostly professionals whose lifestyles are
culturally Pakistani (Scharbrodt, 2011). They have been described as practising
a ‘moderate Islam’, a term that Chapter 2 problematises in light of the ‘good
Muslim’ versus ‘bad Muslim’ binary. A second Shia community, Azakhanaa-
e-Zahrain in the Stadium Business Park in Blanchardstown, is a meeting
place for Pakistani immigrants (Scharbrodt and Sakaranaho, 2011, p. 476). A
Shia sect, the Dawoodi Bohras, has a small community at Anjuman-e-Burhani
on the outskirts of Dublin. Moreover, a small population of Ahmadis have
settled in Ireland. According to its website, the Ahmadi community of Ireland
‘works hard in promoting [the] true peaceful message of Islam through its
interfaith peace works and conferences’ (Ahmadiyya Muslim Association of
Ireland, 2014). While most Pakistanis in Ireland are Muslim, some identify as
Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, or a member of another Christian sect
(Central Statistics Office, 2011a, p. 105). Chapters 4 and 7 document the
experiences of some of these non-Muslim Pakistanis.
12 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’
Islamophobia, or fear of Muslims and Islam, is also an established reality
in Ireland. Muslims in Ireland have recently fallen victim to verbal abuse; physical
assault; on- and offline harassment; offensive graffiti and other property damage;
discrimination in access to work, schools, and public transport, along with
additional discrimination in these settings; and profiling by the police and
security officials when entering or leaving the country (Carr, 2016, p. 12). The
latest statistics from the Immigrant Council of Ireland reveal that reports of
Islamophobia rose by 35 per cent in 2015 after the council began reaching out
to Ireland’s Muslim communities for more information on racist abuse
(Pollak, 2016). Ireland has seen a number of specific developments in anti-
Muslim campaigns and activities. Groups such as PEGIDA (German for Patri-
otische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes), a trans-nationalist
anti-Islam movement, have organised protests around Ireland against the
alleged ‘Islamification’ of Irish society (Carr, 2016, p. 14). Accounts of individual
Muslim men and women experiencing anti-Muslim hostility have continued to
emerge. In September 2015, a Saudi Arabian postgraduate student of Trinity
College Dublin was assaulted when using public transport by a man who
confronted her with the statement Allahu akbar, Arabic for ‘God is great’, and
then physically assaulted her (Healy, 2015). While Irish media outlets have
noted Pakistanis’ experiences of Islamophobia, there is little known about the
mental health consequences of these attacks, which I examine in Chapter 3
and elsewhere throughout the book.
Anti-Pakistani racism, which overlaps with Islamophobia, is also an estab-
lished reality in Ireland (Fanning et al., 2011, p. 9). Young Pakistani men in
Dublin have been recorded as facing racism, including physical and verbal
abuse (Hosford, 2014; The Irish Independent, 2013; O’Brien, 2012; O’Carroll,
2013; O’Connor, 2012; Tuite, 2013). In March 2015, The Sunday World
reported that a Dublin youth racially abused a Pakistani man in front of his
wife before striking him with a knife (The Sunday World, 2015). It was alleged
that the youth called him a ‘Paki bastard’ and shouted ‘Come out, you Paki
bastard! Come out, you black bastard!’ Another incident entailed a man
painting offensive slogans across the front of a Pakistani-run take-away after
watching beheadings on television by so-called ‘Muslim extremists’ (Raleigh,
2016). The perpetrator admitted having painted the slogans ‘Pakis out now’,
‘perverts’, and ‘cunt’ in white paint. After his arrest, the perpetrator told An
Garda Síochána, the police force of Ireland, that Muslims wanted to ‘take
over and kill’ everyone (ibid.). Several of the young Pakistani men in this
book have faced these kind of encounters, and their stories are discussed in
Chapters 3 and 7.
Pakistanis have also received attention in Irish media for reportedly being
at the centre of ‘sham marriages’, an illegal practice whereby a person marries
an Irish citizen for the sole purpose of gaining citizenship. One top media
outlet described a young Pakistani man as wanting to use a large sum of
money to entice a young European woman to marry so that he could gain
access to Irish and European citizenship (The Irish Independent, 2010). The
 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’ 13
Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service and the Garda created ‘Operation
Charity’ to curb both sham marriages and ‘illegal immigration’ from Pakistan to
Ireland. An aspect of the Operation, the deployment of biometric technology,
has been noted as focusing on Pakistani visa applications (The Irish Times,
2011). These incidents suggest that young Pakistani men are being racially
profiled because of their ethnicity and perceived ‘illegal’ immigrant status. In
light of these arguments, the Irish state has been accused of being in denial of
its own racism (Holland, 2015). The European Network Against Racism Ireland
cited the experiences of abuse against Travellers, Roma, Asian people, Muslims,
black Africans and undocumented migrants (Migrant Rights Centre Ireland,
2011). Pakistanis are also far less likely to be granted citizenship by the Irish
state than by other European countries (Tjaden and Becker, 2013). This claim
is supported further by Mudiwa (2012), who reported that up to 93 per cent
of Pakistani doctors believe the Irish government takes a discriminatory
approach in handling applications for Irish naturalisation, with most doctors
experiencing significant delays. Similarly, the Association of Pakistani Physicians
and Surgeons of Ireland has stated that the Irish state issues visas more
rapidly to non-Pakistanis than to Pakistanis.
Despite these hardships, asylum claims of Pakistanis to Ireland have increased
rapidly. The number of overall asylum applications has recently doubled
nearly every year, with applications from Pakistani nationals accounting for
most of the increase (Lally, 2015). Indeed, as the Department of Justice
noted, applications from Pakistan are increasing faster than those from other
countries, because the Irish system is reportedly being used by young men on
student visas in Britain to prolong their stay in Ireland (ibid.). Single Pakistani
males, the biggest group within the pool of asylum applicants (Brady, 2015),
have been accused of ‘chancing their arms’, while others have been described
as ‘genuine’. Under the Dublin Regulation, a law which determines European
Union state responsibility for processing asylum claims, the Irish state has
deported many Pakistani nationals back to Britain. The closure of Pakistan’s
diplomatic mission in Ireland further complicates work visa, citizenship, and
asylum applications. According to Umar Mehmood Khan, a one-time official
of the Department of Justice, more than 18,000 Pakistanis were stranded in
Ireland following the closure of the Pakistani diplomatic mission (Gishkori,
2014). Current government policy appears to be out of step with the needs of
the diverse society that people in Ireland live in today.

The fieldwork in Boston and Dublin

Young Pakistani men in diaspora are navigating unchartered waters with
creativity and imagination. They are re-engaging with their traditions and
revising their own histories, for there is more than one way of being Pakistani.
This realisation is fundamental to appreciating the different world views that
various Pakistanis can and do take in the American and Irish contexts. This
book elaborates on these issues by drawing on data from fieldwork carried out
14 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’
between 2011 and 2014 which explored how family dynamics, cultural orien-
tations, religious beliefs and practices, race and racism, and national identities
affect the experiences of young Pakistani, Muslim and non-Muslim, men. I
focused on the United States, an old immigrant host country, and Ireland, a
new immigrant host country, for several reasons. Both countries are liberal
democracies, but they have historically put rather different emphases on
immigration policy, religion in the public sphere, and national identity, as
discussed in Chapter 2. Since the United States and Europe are major centres
of the Pakistani diaspora, I selected two cities – Boston and Dublin – whose
Pakistani populations are about the same size. My choices were also driven by
pragmatic considerations, including proximity to Dublin, where I was living
at the time of the fieldwork, and my hometown of Needham, Massachusetts,
which is located twenty-five miles west of Boston.
The first step of the fieldwork entailed approaching gatekeepers and meeting
with leaders of places of worship, student organisations, businesses, and cultural
centres. During this stage, I took into consideration the heterogeneity of
Pakistanis in Boston and Dublin – both populations consist of individuals
with different social backgrounds. Consequently, I had to be especially careful
to select participants that reflected the diversity of Pakistanis in diaspora. I
therefore chose research sites that represented this diversity rather than those
associated with particular cultural backgrounds or religious sects.
My main data-collection tools were participant observation, semi-structured
interviews, and focus group discussions. I met with young Pakistani Muslim
and non-Muslim men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. In choosing
this age range, I followed Erikson (1968), who argued that ‘young adulthood’
is a life-stage in which individuals experience an ‘intimacy versus isolation
conflict’. This period is when people yearn for social acceptance and group
inclusion but fear rejection from others outside their immediate social circles.
The aim of participant observation was to build rapport and trust with potential
participants and obtain insights into the internal dynamics of particular cultural
organisations and places of worship. The semi-structured interviews allowed
for in-depth, one-on-one conversations with a variety of Pakistanis. Focus
group discussions provided opportunities to explore how Pakistanis of various
social backgrounds related to one another, as well as key thematic issues such
as family, culture, religion, racism, nationality, and identity.
I used a snowball sampling technique to allow for the recruitment of men
with a range of identities. In recruiting participants for the semi-structured
interviews and focus group discussions, I used my own discretion to ensure
that participants represented the social, cultural, and religious diversity
amongst the Pakistani populations in Boston and Dublin. I conducted thirty
semi-structured interviews and four focus group discussions. I interviewed fifteen
first-generation and fifteen second-generation Pakistanis individually. The
main reason for interviewing first- and second-generation individuals was that
an analysis of one generation alone would not account for potential genera-
tional differences between young Pakistani men in diaspora. In both cities, the
 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’ 15
first generation included a range of working professionals and students, religious
orientations, and sub-ethnic identities. I carried out two focus group discussions
in Boston and two in Dublin. Each of these four discussions also accounted
for occupational, generational, and religious differences. In designing the
semi-structured interviews, I developed multiple conceptual themes associated
with Pakistanis, including social interactions, familial experiences, religious
views, sense of belonging, and identity construction. All interviews were voice
recorded, transcribed and then analysed using an inductive approach. I used
thematic categories to pinpoint multiple findings that emerged from the
transcripts.
I gradually developed these thematic categories while reading and analysing
the transcripts. My objective was to identify the ways in which young Pakistani
men positioned themselves similarly and differently in relation to particular
thematic categories, including family dynamics, cultural production, religiosity,
experiences of Islamophobia, and senses of belonging to the United States
and Ireland. As I read and analysed the transcripts, I noticed that respondents
tended to explain their experiences using binary oppositions of ‘us’ and
‘them’. MacLure (2013, p. 10) explains that this binary appears when ‘one
side’ becomes meaningful through its difference from a constructed ‘Other’,
which is always lacking or lesser in some respect. This book deconstructs the
ways in which young Pakistani men positioned themselves towards particular
interpretations of culture, religion and nationality. It should be noted that my
personal interpretation of the transcripts is my own account of the data.
Other researchers might reach different conclusions or truths in reading the
transcripts.
I used triangulation to increase the objectivity of the data; specifically, I
used documentary sources to develop my data collection tools. At the
macro-communal level, I analysed documents pertaining to cultural organi-
sations, places of worship, and student-run groups and businesses. This
analysis set the stage for entering into the field and gaining access to parti-
cular communities. Prior to the fieldwork stage, I engaged in ‘population
mapping’, which allowed me to analyse newspapers and websites to gain a
better understanding of the demographic makeup of Pakistani communities
in Boston and Dublin. In mapping these cities, I examined and read The
Boston Globe and The Irish Times, both of which provided invaluable
information about the neighbourhoods, restaurants, cultural centres, places
of worship, and businesses where young Pakistani men might socialise, live,
work, and pray.
This study’s participants were born and raised in Pakistani families in either
Pakistan, the United States, or Europe. Most of the interviewees grew up in
culturally conservative and traditional environments which supposedly origi-
nated in different parts of Pakistan. Yet given the history of conquest, multiple
colonisations, and immigration through the centuries in South Asia, it is
important to remember that there is not and never was a pure Pakistani culture
in any region of Pakistan (Chaudhry, 2002, p. 48). Almost all the respondents
16 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’
were fluent speakers of English. I am also a fluent speaker of English and
relatively young, which resulted in cordial and smooth interviews.
Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that researchers who do not share
ethnic or religious characteristics with their respondents place themselves in
an ‘inferior’ position to unearth the ideas, arguments, and opinions of their
participants, unlike researchers who do share their characteristics. There is,
however, a tendency to oversimplify one’s ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’ status as based
solely on ethnic or religious background. The diversity within social groups
and communities blurs the lines of who can be considered an ‘insider’ or
‘outsider’. To assume that only those from the same background can research
one another ‘ignores the innate heterogeneity of social identities’ (Fletcher
and Spracklen, 2013, p. 8). Despite that innate heterogeneity of identities,
there was a possibility that the interviewees designed their answers to my
questions in response to my own identity as a white, Catholic American of
Irish and Italian descent.
Identities, as the next chapter explains, are constructed through dialectical
processes of negotiation between people and the meanings given to particular
social groups. This book explores how cultural, religious, ethno-racial, and
political contexts shape the experiences of young first- and second-generation
Pakistani Muslim and non-Muslim men in Boston and Dublin. It is especially
important to explore the experiences of Pakistanis during a period when
Pakistan is considered an ‘enemy’ of the so-called ‘Western world’ (Hitchens,
2011; Haniffa, 2015). Young Pakistani men in the United States and Ireland
are often depicted as security threats and as individuals who hold beliefs and
customs that are antithetical to ‘Western values’. Significant research on the
Pakistani diaspora has been carried out in the United Kingdom, especially in
cities such as London, Birmingham, and Bradford, but research on the
experiences of Pakistanis in the United States and Ireland has been limited.
There are also relatively few cross-national comparative studies on Pakistanis
living in diaspora. The need for better understandings of Pakistanis in the
American and Irish contexts is vital as the social, cultural, economic, religious,
and political landscapes are changing in the United States and Ireland. This
book is an attempt to fill these voids.

Glancing forward
The book is divided into eight chapters, including this introduction, an over-
view of ‘Pakphobia’, a presentation of data, and a conclusion. Chapter 2
provides a conceptual and theoretical framework for ‘Pakphobia’, a term that
I am introducing to capture the fear or aversion of Pakistan or Pakistanis.
Pakphobia, a type of Othering, acts as a dividing line that is set up to dis-
tinguish ‘us’ and ‘them’. The chapter further explores the elements of this
process by which young Pakistani men negotiate their ‘inner lives’ in relation
to social forces, power structures, personal improvisations, changes, contra-
dictions, ambiguities, and vulnerabilities. Chapter 3 focuses on discrimination
 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’ 17
and racism towards Pakistanis that stems from two periods: 9/11 and its after-
math, and the fallout from the collapse of the Celtic Tiger economy. An under-
lying theme of Chapter 3 is that fear has infiltrated American and Irish societies,
and Pakistanis have to bear the brunt of unpleasant emotions caused by the
belief that they are dangerous people. I also look at power structures in these
societies and how notions of identity are defined by a nation’s collective identifi-
cation. The young Pakistani men in this chapter adopt inclusive and exclusive
interpretations of ethnic, religious, and national identities. The American context
sheds light on the ‘War on Terror’ narrative, revealing that it treats brown people
as suspected ‘Muslim terrorists’ and that this form of racial profiling positions
participants outside the boundary of the imagined national community. The
Irish context of Chapter 3 examines the often overlooked experiences of ‘non-
Irish migrants’ in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland by considering the implications of the
country’s economic collapse. It focuses on ‘crisis racism’, or what I describe as
‘recession racism’, and the idea that Pakistanis and other immigrants are to
blame for the problems of Irish society.
Cultural production and identity construction in light of diasporic circum-
stances is the primary focus of Chapter 4. This chapter examines how the
‘homeland’ culture transmits to the United States and Ireland and how family
dynamics, notions of shame and honour, and morality contribute to people’s
sense of belonging to these nations. I describe how young Pakistani men
negotiate the complex chains of resistance between the hostland and the
‘homeland’ and how they negotiate the spaces in between various cultures.
Following this discussion of cultural production, I move to ‘culture talk’:
ways of framing Muslims as either the ‘enemy of civilisation’ or, more subtly,
as the ummah, or global Muslim community, divided within itself. Chapter 5
contributes to the discussion of how religion, particularly Salifyya and
Sufism, intersects with national identity. Chapter 5 also examines how first- and
second-generation young Pakistani men understand media buzzwords such as
jihad and ‘radicalisation’. This chapter also pays attention to young gay
Pakistani Muslims, their experiences in conservative families, and their views
on the intersection of Islam and homosexuality.
Recent debates on the configuration of diasporas have focused attention on
the concepts of ethnicity and ethnic group boundaries. Chapter 6 examines
the ethnicity paradigm and focuses on national and transnational processes. The
chapter turns to the idea of young Pakistani men in diaspora detaching
themselves from ethnicity and therefore from particular ethnic bonds to con-
struct new identities based in local cultures. Another area of diaspora studies
that has received considerable attention is the relationship between integration
and national identity, my focus in Chapter 7. This chapter uses the nation-
state as an anchor and looks to different types of nationalist feelings and
sentiments, particularly civic nationalism, which defines the nation in terms of
citizenship rather than ethnicity or religion. Finally, Chapter 8 examines the
impact of what I have called Pakphobia on the lives of young Pakistani men
and the wider American and Irish public and offers recommendations for
18 Pakistanis ‘here’ and Pakistanis ‘there’
meeting the challenges of increasingly diverse societies such as those of the
United States and Ireland.

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2 Theorising Pakphobia

When I first began to interview and observe Pakistanis in Boston and Dublin,
I had some notion of figuring out how they were marginalised as Pakistanis
and often as Muslims. The more I got to know them, the more I realised how
complex their lives were. There was no clear or coherent way I could reduce their
multifaceted everyday realities to tidy analytical categories. Their experiences in
different family, community, and institutional contexts, along with their percep-
tions of these experiences, were interconnected in some ways and yet very
distinctive in others. Ultimately, I became interested in analysing how these
young men forged their identities in the American and Irish contexts. I was
struck by how consistently these men were distancing themselves from the
idea of ‘Pakistan’ as both a territory and an identity. I wanted to understand
more fully how their identities were influenced by ethnicity, cultural symbols,
religion, and current events. I wanted to focus particularly on how, in nego-
tiating their identities, these men were challenging power dynamics in the
United States and in Ireland. Furthermore, I focused on exploring slippery
definitional dilemmas of national and diasporic identities through complex
markers of ethnicity, religion, race, class, sexuality, and culture.
Resistance to power structures in diaspora can take many forms, and this is
reflected in the multiple ways it has been theorised in research. The purpose
of this chapter is to lay out theories to capture the lives of young Pakistani men
in response to their marginalised conditions and their resistance to hegemonic
identity narratives. In examining the lives of my participants, I was especially
influenced by concepts pertaining to identity, religion, race, and diaspora. My
analysis of identity formation processes is grounded in what I am referring to
as ‘Pakphobia’. ‘Pak’ is an abbreviation for Pakistan, while ‘phobia’ means
‘fear of or aversion to something’, so ‘Pakphobia’ means ‘fear of or aversion
to Pakistan or Pakistanis’. In this chapter, I refer to the term Pakphobia in a
general way to circumscribe hostilities towards Pakistanis that are based on
prejudice and stereotypes, but I also use it more specifically to describe how
young Pakistani men themselves distance themselves from characteristics of
Pakistani culture or the ‘homeland’. In one sense, Pakphobia is a type of
Othering of Pakistanis due to perceived religious, racial, cultural, and
national identities. In another way, Pakphobia is a reaction to diasporic
 Theorising Pakphobia 25
conditions. I suggest that Pakohobia behaves as a dividing line that is set up
to define the places that are safe and to distinguish ‘us’ from ‘them’ both within
and between groups of people. It is fuelled by fear which manifests through
signs and images that define, represent, condense, and organise identities
(Hedetoft, 1995, p. 93). These signs and images, which impose mental and
cultural lines of demarcation on reality, are not to be underestimated. Even
more dangerous than these demarcations is the language they are couched
in – the language of fear. It is a language spoken effectively by politicians in
‘the West’ and the ‘Muslim world’, shouted by pundits from their cable tele-
vision pulpits, and codified into law, all of which does little to make the lives
of young Pakistani men safer. This language of fear has given rise to a ‘poli-
tics of fear’ whose only aim is to distract and divide us (Whitehead, 2012). In
this light, we have been discouraged from thinking beyond the binaries of ‘us’
and ‘them’, Muslim and non-Muslim.
Ultimately, the conditions of Pakphobia create a ‘third space’ of hybridity
which offers young Pakistani men resistance and new sites of hope in Boston
and Dublin. These spaces, as Mitchell (1997, p. 533) points out, are important
positions in the tactical struggle against dominant hegemonies. In particular,
they are key sites of intervention and creativity in narratives of race and
nation and are spaces for progressive transnational identities (ibid., pp. 533–534).
I see the implementation of pluralism, both cultural and religious, to be critical
for young Pakistani men in diaspora as they self-consciously take up and
discard various identities in different contexts, as a tactic to oppose power
structures in Pakistan, the United States, and Ireland.
Issues of identity have always taken into account the discourses of nego-
tiation, integration, enforcement, and reaction. Identity is a socio-political
phenomenon that is often defined by social engineers, religious leaders, and
political actors. Instead of discussing the individual, personal identities of
young Pakistani men, which is generally the focus of psychology, I focus
on social identities. Social identities reflect the way individuals and groups
internalise established categories within their societies, such as their ethnicity,
religion, gender, and nationality (Zevallos, 2011). These social constructs
shape how my participants think about who they are, how they want to be
seen by others, and their sense of belonging or not belonging to various
environments.
Social identities are created and shaped by human interaction and individuals’
self-reflection about who they think they are in light of the social exchange.
Mead (1934) shows that social identities are produced through agreement,
disagreement, and negotiation with other people. Ideas of similarity and
difference are therefore central to the ways in which young Pakistani men
achieve a sense of identity and social belonging. Social identities also have
elements of exclusivity in the sense that social groups have perceived criteria
for group membership. This criteria, which is socially constructed and steeped in
historical narratives, creates the binary of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, meaning that people
cannot belong to ‘us’ unless they do not belong to ‘them’. In elaborating on
26 Theorising Pakphobia
this binary, Bauman (1993) argues that binaries cement social order amongst
a society’s power structures and established groups.
Otherness, a theme explored throughout this book, is presumed to be natural,
but in reality social identities are socially constructed. Young Pakistani men
in Dublin and Boston have agency – that is, they can create their identities
according to their own will, in opposition to Otherness. The choice or agency
to create identities is shaped in light of power relationships. As Okolie (2003,
p. 2) notes, ‘social identities are relational; groups typically define themselves
in relation to others’. Definitions of self and others are ultimately tied to
rewards and punishments, which may be material or symbolic, and there is
usually an expectation of gain or loss as a consequence of identity claims
(ibid.). Because groups do not have equal powers to define themselves and
others, notions of superiority and inferiority are embedded in certain social
environments.

Local, national, and international identity challenges

Throughout the fieldwork in Boston, I contemplated the cultural transfor-
mations happening in my home city as well as throughout the United States.
There is no doubt that communities in both settings are heavily influenced by
immigrants with different customs and ideas. But how? During my excursions
into research sites, I asked young Pakistani men, ‘What does it mean to be
American?’, ‘What does the word America, and what does this country, mean
to you?’ and ‘What do you think people need to understand about your views
of this place?’ The responses varied depending on their definition of American
national identity.
The notion of the ‘American Dream’ is often considered uniquely American.
There is no singular definition of this concept. It probably has a different
meaning to every person in the United States. For some people, it is the dream
of freedom and equality; for others it is the dream of a fulfilled life or even
the dream of wealth. Americans are, compared with people in other countries
(Kunovich and Slomczynski, 2007), particularly enthusiastic about the idea of
meritocracy, a system that rewards merit (ability and effort) with success
(Cooper, 2015). The phrase, therefore, can be defined as the opportunity to
achieve one’s goals irrespective of creed, religion, or race. However, the sal-
iency of the ‘American Dream’ today is a matter of intense discussion and
debate. Some think that it is still viable; for others it is only a myth. Blacks
and Native Americans might see it in another way – as the ‘American
Nightmare’ – because their ancestors were enslaved, persecuted, and subject to
genocide. Today, some Muslims are thinking that their group is the latest in a
long string of minority communities to face discrimination and racism, as has
happened throughout the history of the United States.
For other Americans, the ‘American Dream’ is firmly rooted in the idea that
the United States is a country that draws on civic nationalism. Civic nationalism
is a form of nationalism that aims to accept all residents of a nation
 Theorising Pakphobia 27
regardless of their cultural orientation, religion, or race. The civic nation aims
to have free and fair elections, a government that reflects the will of the
people, active citizenship, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and equal
opportunity for all. The United States has been described as a country divided
between civic nationalists on one side and religious and ethno-nationalists on
the other side. Huntington (2005), for example, defines American identity
through the lens of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture. In recent years
religious and ethno-nationalists have supported a vision of American society
that excludes groups like Muslims, atheists, and gays. Nevertheless, to some
Americans it seems self-evident that the United States is a secular country,
because the Constitution does not officially or legally endorse any particular
religion. The term ‘secularisation’ means to separate something from a religious
or spiritual connection and make it worldly or unspiritual. Wilson (1966, p. 14)
defines it as ‘a process whereby religious thinking, practices, and institutions
lose their significance in society’. Secularism manifests in several areas of
society, including declining religious practice and the disengagement of society
from religious institutions. In contrast, ‘non-secularism’ implies the enhance-
ment of religion in the public sphere, especially such that religion is allowed
to generate moral values and legislation. The ‘secularisation thesis’, as touched
upon by Walsh (n.d.), suggests that religion is irreversibly losing its social
force as scientific knowledge takes hold and educated people lose interest in
religious belief and practice. In other words, secularisation is the process of
removing religious and moral influence from society. Despite evidence of
secularisation, the United States remains a robustly religious country. However,
at the same time, the recent trajectory of decline amongst those holding religious
beliefs strongly suggests that the long-term trend in the country is towards a
pervasive secularism.
Many Americans today believe that the United States is passing through a
period during which there is intellectual and political space for the construction
of new models of citizenship that will involve new relationships between indivi-
duals and their governments (Brooks, 2002). In several ways, the resurgence of
ethno-nationalism has challenged the concept of the civic nation, whereby
individual ethnic groups have a right to exist on their own terms within the
larger society while retaining their unique cultural heritages. Proponents of
ethno-nationalism have argued that the United States is, at its core, a ‘Christian
nation’ steeped in English heritage and culture. These kind of interpretations of
American identity directly oppose the civic nation, which also has been dis-
cussed in light of cultural pluralism, an alternative to the ‘melting pot’ view
that immigrants should assimilate American culture by abandoning their own
cultures, languages and other traditions (Haas, n.d.). Ethno-nationalists
oppose not only cultural pluralism, but also religious pluralism, or the view
that one’s religion is not the sole and exclusive source of truth and thus that at
least some truths and ‘true values’ exist in other religions. Religious pluralism is
also often discussed in light of religious tolerance, or the condition of harmo-
nious co-existence between adherents of different religious traditions.
28 Theorising Pakphobia
In terms of religious ecumenicists, religious pluralism is the promotion of
some level of unity, co-operation and improved understanding between different
religious groups in a given society. Despite these high aims, recent research
suggests that anti-Muslim sentiment is widespread across the United States.
One poll indicates that 61 per cent of Americans express unfavourable views
of Islam and 47 per cent of Americans express unfavourable views of Muslims
themselves (Telhami, 2015). This book examines why and how fear of Islam
has become normalised in the United States, and the role that Islamophobia
plays in the lives of young Pakistani Muslim and non-Muslim men in Boston.
It is impossible to understand Boston’s society today without knowing
something about its religious past (Congregational Library and Archives,
n.d.). The city was founded in 1630 by English men and women who wished
to build a ‘model Christian community’. Their ‘city upon a hill’, as former
governor John Winthrop memorably put it, was to be an example to the
world. Central to this goal was the establishment of a ‘Christian community’ with
independent local churches in which all members had a voice and worship
was simple and participatory (ibid.). While the Puritan community of early
Boston identified itself as ‘Christian’, scholars have problematised that char-
acterisation because subsets of Christianity, including Catholicism, were not
tolerated by Puritan leaders. A visitor to Boston today can hardly fail to
notice the presence of Christianity in the city, as represented by its many historic
churches (The Pluralism Project, n.d.). In addition to Protestant and Catholic
churches, Boston is home to a Chinese Evangelical church, a Holy Trinity
Russian Orthodox church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
and an Indian Pentecostal Assembly, amongst many other churches. Chris-
tianity in Greater Boston is now a broad and diverse religious tradition – a
far cry from its early Puritan days.
Immigration patterns of recent decades have brought many Muslims from
all over the world to Boston, a city that has long been a fertile site for Islam.
After the federal immigration reform in 1965, Muslims migrated to Boston
for its leadership in bio-technology, health care, and higher education. Indeed,
Boston’s wealth of academic institutions plays a significant role in shaping the
social landscape of the city. Boston has been described as a powerhouse for
startups, academic institutions, medical centres, and investors. Top-tier edu-
cational institutions such as Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Boston University, Tufts University, and Northeastern University
give Boston the highest student population per capita in the United States
(Solomon, n.d.). The city is also home to some of the best academic medical
centres in the world, including Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham
and Women’s Hospital. Historically, Boston’s universities have long recog-
nised their responsibility to advance the public good, and many of the young
Pakistani men in this book understand the civic role of higher education as
one that is dynamic and reciprocal. In this context, universities are integral to
their sense of self and their desire to develop a sense of belonging to the city
and nation.
 Theorising Pakphobia 29
Political thinkers over the past two centuries have grappled with the questions
of what constitutes a nation and who belongs and does not belong to it (Srebrnik,
2011). It has become particularly common to explain national identity as either
civic or ethnic in nature (Ham, 2001). Ethno-nationalists define the nation in
terms of shared heritage, which can include a common language, faith, and
ancestry (ibid.). Membership in an ethnic nation can also entail common
descent, marriage, blood, and soil, a clearly more restrictive version of
nationalism than the civic version (Wright et al., 2012, p. 470). Kissane (2000)
claims that national identity in Ireland developed an ethnic, exclusive form due
to its emergence under British colonial rule. Beginning in the nineteenth century,
the Irish believed themselves to belong to a distinct ‘race’ – the ‘Celtic race’.
In maintaining the notion of the Irish as a different ‘race’ from the English, as
Garner (2004, p. 31) argued, Irish nationalist mobilisation in the late nine-
teenth century and early twentieth century defined its independence struggle
in terms of ‘Celt-Gael’ versus ‘Anglo-Saxon’.
When Ireland emerged with partial independence in the 1920s, ethnic nation-
alist rhetoric amongst the political elite was commonplace (Leavy, 2012). Early
nationalist leaders referred to Ireland as a ‘natural nation’ and celebrated an Irish
racial identity. Speaking in 1922 at an Irish Race Convention in Paris, France,
Éamon de Valera, the first president of Ireland, claimed that the Irish people were
originally Celts who were conquered by the Normans but nevertheless ‘adhered
to their own way of thought and preserved their original Celticity’ (Davis, 2003).
This racialisation of Irishness is important in the context of Pakistanis because
Irish identities illustrate the limitations of mutually exclusive categories of
‘white’ and ‘non-white’ as explanatory frameworks for people’s lives (Mac an
Ghaill and Haywood, 2003). Put another way, people who live in Pakistan can be
Pakistani whether they are Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtun, or Baloch, but people who
live in Ireland cannot be Irish if they are not white. For people of Pakistani descent
who either settle or were born and raised in Ireland, there is no word that marks
them as part of the community of Ireland. According to Tranum (2016), they can
never be Irish, in the way Irish identity is now understood. But despite the
construction of the Irish nation in racial-historical terms, there were some civic
elements to the early Irish nationalism. The Declaration of Independence of 1919
promised equal rights and opportunities for all citizens regardless of ethnicity
or religion. The 1937 Constitution also recognised four Protestant churches
and Judaism along with Catholicism (O’Reilly, 2010), implying a willingness
to include ethnic-religious minorities in the fabric of Irish social life.
Historically, Catholicism has been widely regarded as a fundamental compo-
nent of Irish national identity (White, 2010, p. 21). During the long period of
British colonial rule, the Irish identified with the Catholic Church, practised
Catholicism, and resisted British efforts to create a national Church of Ireland
that would correspond to the established Church of England (ibid.). Catholicism
became a symbol of Irish national identity and a means of political resistance
to British colonialism. For decades, Ireland was looked upon as one of
the world’s most deeply Catholic countries, but today’s Ireland – along with
30 Theorising Pakphobia
other countries in the European Union – has been classified as ‘post-Catholic’
(Martin, 2013). In 2015 more than 60 per cent of the Irish electorate sup-
ported an amendment to the nation’s constitution recognising same-sex mar-
riage (John, 2015). This amendment to the Constitution has all but ended the
image of Ireland as a bastion of devout Catholicism. In ecclesiastical circles,
increasing secularisation has been blamed for the loss of faith amongst the
Catholics of Ireland. One interpretation of secularisation, as discussed earlier,
is that organised religion loses its power to impose unquestioned rules of
behaviour on its members (Chaves, 1994). In modern-day Ireland, Catholic
leaders have been reduced from commanders who issue orders to teachers
who must listen and try to persuade (Greeley, 2007).
The decline in the power of the Irish Catholic Church in education, social
welfare, public policy, and the media, and the church’s subsequent demise as
the sole arbiter of private morality, have led to new spiritual expressions
(Andersen, 2010). Ireland’s changing religious landscape is due largely to glo-
balisation, in particular increased migration and mobility across and within
European borders. These issues have raised critical questions about citizenship
and community, especially in light of debates about what it means to be Irish
(Montgomery, 2013, p. 434). Gray (2002), for example, claims that white-
oriented cultures of Ireland offer migrants like Pakistanis only ‘white scripts’
which encourage these people to ‘act white’ within the hierarchies of con-
temporary multiculturalism. Equating Irishness with whiteness leaves little to
no room for hybrid identities, a concept I return to later in this chapter. While
some thinkers have argued that Ireland does not have the necessary social or
political language or the imagination to talk about or perceive Irishness outside
of a very narrow definition of whiteness (Tranum, 2016), others claim that Irish
identity is evolving and fading away from ethno-racial underpinnings.
The trend of immigration that accompanied the Celtic Tiger economy resulted
in a newfound emphasis on issues related to interculturalism (Bryan and
Bracken, 2011, p. 105). Interculturalism, as defined by the Irish government, ‘is
essentially about interaction, understanding, and respect. It is about ensuring
that cultural diversity is acknowledged and catered for’ (Social Inclusion Unit,
2009). While the Irish government’s intentions are admirable, Lentin (2004) has
criticised interculturalism because it constructs cultural difference and ethnic
minority communities as ‘static’ and ignores intra-ethnic heterogeneities and
contestations such as class, gender, age, dis/ability, and sexuality. Indeed, Ire-
land’s immigrants have posed a number of challenges for the Irish people, who
have had little prior experience of dealing with ethnic, cultural and religious
diversity. These developments reflect wider debates about the impact of increased
diversity on traditional conceptions of Irish national identity.

The Others within nations

One of the criticisms of nation-states is that they are inherently divisive in that
they define an ‘in-group’ against an ‘out-group’. Scholars differ on the origins
 Theorising Pakphobia 31
and workings of nations, though they all seem to agree that the idea was born
in Europe. Scholars such as Mosse (1978) claim that the dogged pursuit of the
nation-state is intimately connected to the rise of nationalism and thus
racism. Racism may be defined as the attribution of social significance and
meaning to particular patterns of difference, which – along with real or supposed
other characteristics – are linked to people based on descent (Miles, 1993,
p. 350). It can also be viewed as the hatred of one person by another or the
belief that another person is less than human because of skin colour, language,
customs, place of birth, or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature
of that person (Anti-Defamation League, 2001). Hall’s (1997) contributions to
critical race theory undoubtedly changed the way we can conceptualise and
understand race and racism in a so-called post-colonial world (Curved Marginz,
2014). Race, he argued, is not a biological reality but a social construction
developed by historical accounts of racial discourses.
Pakistanis have been represented as a social group that is significantly different
from the American and Irish people. The Othering of Pakistanis is frequently
articulated through ‘Paki’, a racial slur directed at Pakistanis chiefly in Britain,
though it has surfaced in the United States and Ireland. ‘Paki’ has also been
directed at other South Asians who resemble stereotypes of Pakistanis. These
stereotypes generally mean anyone with brown skin, be they Pakistani,
Indian, or Bangladeshi. Even non-South Asians who happen to have a dark
complexion find themselves on the receiving end of ‘Paki’ (Bhatia, 2007). ‘Paki’
can be appropriated by racists and reproduced by white society and media to
demean individuals of Pakistani origin (Manzoor, 2004). Social justice activists
in Britain are currently working to reclassify ‘Paki’ from a class C term such
as ‘Aussie’ or ‘Yank’ to a class A word such as ‘nigger’ (ibid.). To my knowl-
edge, no such social justice movement to reclassify ‘Paki’ exists in the United
States or Ireland.
The representation of Pakistanis as Others can be treated as a form of
racism, because it constructs impassable symbolic boundaries between racially
constituted categories (Hall, 1996, p. 445). Its binary system of representation
also consistently marks and attempts to naturalise the difference between
belongingness and Otherness. As a social phenomenon, Otherness has become
associated with ‘cultural racism’ and widespread acceptance of stereotypes
concerning different ethnic or racial groups (American Psychological Asso-
ciation, 2016). Cultural racism can be viewed as societal beliefs and customs
that promote the assumption that the products of a given culture – such
as language, tradition, and national origin – are superior to those of other
cultures (Helms, 1993). Culture, in this context, ‘is conceived along ethnically
absolute lines, not as something intrinsically fluid, changing, unstable and
dynamic, but as a fixed property of social groups rather than a relational field
in which they encounter one another and live out social historical relation-
ships’ (Gilroy, 1990, p. 266). In many respects, cultural racism is different
from the ‘old’ racisms of slavery, segregation, apartheid, and systematic dis-
crimination (Van Dijk, 2000, pp. 33–34). That is why Hall (1996, p. 249)
32 Theorising Pakphobia
refers to cultural racism as a ‘new racism’. He claims that it reveals itself as a
form of nationalism that associates national belonging with culture, heritage,
and communal identity.
Vilifying, marginalising, or hating people because of their ethnicity or race
is not acceptable, and it is rightfully considered racism. But what about
bigotry motivated by religion or anti-Islam sentiments? Anti-Islam or anti-
Muslim bigots often try to escape accusations of racism by proclaiming that
because Islam is not a race, anti-Muslim sentiments and actions cannot be
racist (Harb, 2015). They see themselves not as racist or xenophobic, but as
defenders of democracy and human rights against the adherents of a religion
they believe is incompatible with both (Musharbash, 2014). Because Muslims
are not a race, the theory goes, their subjugation cannot be seen as racism. In this
context, any and all forms of discrimination and violence disproportionately
directed at them are deemed thinkable and doable. However, as Sayyid (2011,
p. 3) explains, the figure of the Muslim is vital for a ‘racism without racists’.
Themes associated with previous expressions of racism have been brought
back into style in light of ‘Muslim extremists’, who have joined the Black thug,
the Gypsy thief, and the Jewish anarchist as the stars of racism’s narratives
(ibid.). Sayyid continues:

Expertly opined, scientifically classified and institutionally enshrined,

Muslims are inserted into a public discourse as almost isomorphic repla-
cements for arch-villains of racist anxieties and fantasies. The Muslim as
super-villain … can help mend the holes in the tattered fabric of old-style
racism … By relying on Orientalism, in which Islam historically functioned
as a counter-factual paean to What Went Right With the West, the
demonization of Islam and Muslims becomes the implicit valorisation of
everything that is considered to be western. Islamophobia has been
denied as a problem and defended as a practice.
(ibid., p. 3)

Sayyid explains that racism does not depend on the actual existence of races.
Muslims in the United States and Ireland have recently been targeted for
endorsing a set of beliefs or engaging in a set of practices, but it is the Muslims
themselves that are targeted, not the beliefs and practices. The bodies of Muslims
have been marked at the same time as ‘Islam’ and ‘Islamic culture’; these
markings are used to demarcate ‘us’ and ‘them’. These processes suggest that
racist arguments against young Pakistani men in Boston and Dublin are now
more likely to come in the form of abuse based on religion or culture.
Throughout this book I use the term Islamophobia to refer to anti-Islam
and anti-Muslim sentiment. Islamophobia was introduced as a concept in a
1991 Runnymede Trust report. It was defined as ‘unfounded hostility towards
Muslims, and therefore fear or dislike of all or most Muslims’ (University of
California–Berkley, n.d.). The Runnymede report pointed to prevailing attitudes
that incorporate the following beliefs:
 Theorising Pakphobia 33
1) Islam is monolithic and cannot adapt to new realities; 2) Islam does
not share common values with other major faiths; 3) Islam as a religion is
inferior to the West; 4) Islam is archaic, barbaric, and irrational; 5) Islam
is a religion of violence and supports terrorism; 6) Islam is a violent
political ideology.
(Runnymede Trust, n.d.)

Islamophobia can be experienced in the form of micro-aggressions, or subtle

and covert manifestations of bias. Research shows that micro-aggressions
towards Muslims emerge through the endorsement of stereotypes of Muslims
as terrorists, the assumption of religious homogeneity amongst Muslims, and
the exoticisation of Islam (Nadal et al., 2012). There is a multitude of ways in
which Muslims have been victims of what the Islamic Human Rights Commis-
sion (2014) calls ‘institutional Islamophobia’. The Commission has claimed that
‘state racism’ and the ‘social engineering of the Muslim community’ at the
institutional level have contributed to prejudice against and hatred of Muslims.
Racial profiling of Muslims and surveillance of Muslim communities have been
identified as two of the most pertinent examples of institutional Islamophobia.
While travelling, Pakistanis, regardless of whether they are Muslim or non-
Muslim, have had to endure humiliating and degrading pre-boarding searches
and interrogations (Chandrasekhar, 2003, p. 26). Moreover, in recent years, the
National Security Agency (NSA) and the FBI have reportedly been overzealous
about preventing ‘terrorist’ attacks to the point that Islamophobia in those
agencies led to the surveillance of prominent Muslims, revealing a culture of
racial profiling and broad latitude for spying on American citizens (Risen, 2014).
Ultimately, the acceptance of religious and racial profiling has created a hostile
environment and a breeding ground for Islamophobic rhetoric and hate.
In Ireland, Islamophobia is a well-known reality (Carr, 2015), but other
forms of racism also affect the lives of Pakistanis. Lentin (2007) claims that
racism in contemporary Ireland is best understood as a type of ‘crisis racism’
that developed after the downfall of the Celtic Tiger economy. According to
her, the Irish state denied Irish citizenship to non-white people and therefore
reinforced the idea of Ireland having an ethnic nation and racial state. For
example, in June 2004, the Irish state asked citizens to vote in a referendum to
amend Article 9 of the Constitution to remove birthright citizenship from
children born in Ireland who do not have at least one parent who is an Irish
citizen or who is entitled to Irish citizenship (ibid., p. 61). Birthright citizenship
had been previously determined by the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act
of 1956, which stated, ‘Every person born in Ireland is an Irish citizen from
birth.’ The amendment did not include the children of the 1.8 million holders
of Irish passports not born in Ireland who have one Irish grandparent and
who are therefore entitled to Irish citizenship without having to set foot in
Ireland (ibid.). Almost 80 per cent of the Irish electorate voted in favour of
the state’s proposal. Bacik (2004, pp. 192–194) argues that the referendum of
2004 was passed hurriedly in response to individual cases and crisis situations.
34 Theorising Pakphobia
At that time, Irish ministers considered immigration to Ireland to be a ‘problem’
and linked social problems – employment, accommodation, social security,
schooling, health services, morals, and criminality – to the presence of ‘immi-
grants’, which served to spread the idea that reducing (or ending) immigration
would solve ‘our’ social problems (Lentin, 2007). After amending the Con-
stitution, the Irish government barred people born in Ireland from citizenship
unless at least one parent had been legally resident in the country for three of
the previous four years.
Reports from European agencies have expressed concern about racial pro-
filing by Irish state agencies and by the Garda Síochána (The Irish Times,
2014). People from sub-Saharan Africa were twice as likely as other members
of the public to be stopped by the police (ibid.). The children of immigrants
have found it difficult to access education, and complaints of discrimination
in the workplace have grown (ibid.). These elements of racial profiling have
real and direct consequences; they are much more than hassles or annoyances.
To argue that racial profiling is harmless, that it only hurts those who break
the law, is to totally ignore the psychological and social damage that can
result from always being considered one of the ‘usual suspects’ (Wortley, n.d.).
Researchers have studied the psychological effects of racial profiling and
found that ‘victim effects’ of racial profiling include post-traumatic stress dis-
order and other stress-related disorders, perceptions of race-related threats,
and failure to use available community resources (American Psychological
Association, 2001).

The Others within religious communities

Islamophobia, and its tendency to promote a monolithic view Islam, represents
a refusal to acknowledge variations within the ummah, or global Muslim com-
munity. Diversity is part of the essence of Islam, and the unity of the ummah
does not imply sameness (Aga Khan, 2010). The ummah is composed of various
individuals and groups that have their own criticisms, approaches, and ideas
about Islam. In the context of this book, not all people of Pakistani descent are
Muslim, and Pakistani Muslims are by no means a monolithic group. None-
theless, one of the contemporary trends affecting the lives of people in the
Pakistani diaspora is the perceived ‘Muslim-ness’ of this population and its links
to wider issues pertaining to the ‘Muslim world’. This mindset leads to ‘Islam-
splaining’ the lives of Pakistanis. In all fairness, we must recognise the many
schools of thought and brands of Islam, not only in Pakistan but worldwide.
Muslim identity is an increasingly salient and contested category of social,
political and religious practice (Brubaker, 2005, p. 2). For many of the young
men in this book, it is a fundamental aspect of their lives. Religious revivalism,
migration, and ‘Westernisation’ have increasingly fragmented Muslim identity.
Bhat (n.d.), for example, argued there is a serious paradigm shift in the ‘narra-
tive’ of ‘identities’ in the post-colonial Muslim world which has dismantled or
corrupted conscious adherence to ‘Islamic identities’.
 Theorising Pakphobia 35
Pakistani Muslims can be divided into several sects. The majority practice
Sunni Islam, while 10–20 per cent are Shias and about 2 per cent are Ahmadis.
Sunnis are Muslims who follow and maintain the teachings and actions (Sunnah)
of Prophet Muhammad. The Sunni branch of Islam has four major schools
of jurisprudence: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafii, and Hanbali. The Hanafi school
(representing reason) is the largest, and most adherents of this school live in
southern Asia (Koening and al Shohaib, 2014, p. 27). Barelvism is a Sunni
movement originating in South Asia; Barelvis practice Sufism. The name Barelvi
derives from the north Indian town of Bareilly, the hometown of the movement’s
founder and main leader, Ahmed Raza Khan. Sufism represents the mystical
and esoteric form of Islam and emphasises relying on the will of God and
focusing attention on purifying the inner self (ibid., p. 27). Sufism has also
been defined as ‘the apprehension of divine realities’ and a Sufi as ‘one who is
pure in heart’ (Nicholson, 1989, pp. 1–3). Like other mystical movements in
Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, ‘the Sufi path is a way of
purification’ (known as tasawwuf in the Islamic tradition) and a discipline of
mind and body whose goal is directly to experience the ‘ultimate reality’
(Esposito, 1998, p. 101). Sufis, as Rahman (1998, p. 31) pointed out, are
known as one of the most tolerant Muslim communities.
A rival group of Barelvis, the Deobandis, follow a revivalist movement
within the Sunni tradition which derives its name from Deoband, India,
where the school known as Darul Uloom is located. Deobandism was
inspired by the scholar Shah Waliullah Dehlawi and was founded in 1867 in the
wake of a failed revolt against British colonialism. Wahhabism, considered an
ultra-conservative stream of Islam, is a small branch of the Hanbali school
that is often associated with Deobandism. In Chapter 5, I describe the trans-
mission of Barelvism and Deobandism from Pakistan into the diaspora and
analyse the comments of participants in Dublin who identify with these
streams of Islamic thought and practice.
Shias and Ahmadis are widely recognised as persecuted minority communities
amongst Pakistanis in the ‘homeland’ and the diaspora. Recent polls have
revealed the sectarian fault lines of Pakistan, where only one in every two Sunnis
accepts Shias as Muslims (Pew Research Center, 2012). The Shia branch
consists of three major schools of jurisprudence: Twelver, Zaidi, and Ismaili.
The Twelver school originated from twelve imams, or supreme religious poli-
tical leaders in early Islam whom adherents believe to have been infallible
(Rahman, 1998, p. 3). Amongst Shias, there are significant minority groups
who practice Ismailism, which is composed of Aga Khanis, Dawoodi Bohras,
Sulaymanis, and other sects.
The Ahmadiyya community, on the other hand, describes itself as ‘a
dynamic, fast growing international revival movement within Islam’ (Al
Islam, n.d.). Founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the reported long-
awaited Messiah, the Ahmadiyya community spans over 206 countries with
membership exceeding tens of millions. Ahmad’s prophecy is controversial in
the ummah because he came after Muhammad, whom most Muslims consider
36 Theorising Pakphobia
the final prophet (The Nation, 2016). Only 7 per cent of Sunnis worldwide
accept Ahmadis as Muslims (Pew Research Center, 2014). In 1974, the
Pakistani state passed the Second Constitutional Amendment, which defines
the country’s Ahmadi community as ‘non-Muslim’ (Sahgal, 2013). Pakistan’s
notorious Second Amendment, created by Zia ul-Haq, sixth president of
Pakistan, slapped several bans on Ahmadis – a blatant violation of human
rights. Under this draconian law, any Pakistani citizen who identified as an
Ahmadi would not be allowed to practice Islam, call a place of worship a
mosque, or even greet people with assalamoalikum, the Islamic greeting of
‘peace be with you’ (The Nation, 2016). The majority of Muslims living in
Pakistan support the country’s blasphemy laws, which carry a potential death
sentence for ‘insulting Islam’ (ibid.). These laws have been frequently invoked
against Ahmadis and other religious minorities; although formal criminal
prosecutions are rare, social discrimination and harassment of Ahmadis is
widespread. As Chapter 3 will show, discrimination against and harassment
of Ahmadis is present in the Pakistani diaspora.
The heterogeneity of Islam, particularly in South Asia, brings us to the
issue of religiosity and the negotiation of Muslim identities. To understand
the degree of commitment to Islam, we need to examine the beliefs, practices,
and values of those who call themselves Muslim. Islamic beliefs and practices
are based on the Quran, the Hadiths (sayings of Prophet Muhammad reported
by others), Sunnah (doings of the Prophet reported by others) and early jurists’
interpretations of the Quran, Hadiths, and Sunnah (Alsharif et al., 2011).
Islamic beliefs and practices are strongly related since ‘devout’ Muslims do
what they think is right and seek to avoid doing what is wrong (Koening and
al Shohaib, 2014, p. 28). The five core beliefs or Pillars of Islam are (1) the
creed of belief (shahada), (2) daily prayers (salah), (3) giving to the poor
(zakat), (4) fasting during Ramadan (sawm), and (5) pilgrimage to Mecca
(hajj). These Pillars influence the formation of Muslim identity. While the
Pillars seem like a logical way of identifying a ‘practising’ Muslim, there is still a
degree of uncertainty about what constitutes the ‘basics’ of Islam. Muslims
worldwide vary in the level of their adherence to the rulings and commands of
Islam, just as they vary in the degree of their faith. In light of these develop-
ments, this book addresses the connection between Islam and the Muslim
diaspora along with diasporic Muslims’ modes of adaptation, to provide
insights into general patterns of Islamic transmission and transformation.
Koening and al Shohaib (2014, p. 38) claimed that Muslims are valued
according to their ethical behaviour and judged by other Muslims as well as
non-Muslims by their relationship to the ‘basic’ values of Islam. According to
Akgunduz (n.d.), these values include (1) life and the protection of the physical
self (al-nafs), (2) religious freedom (al-din), (3) building intellect or knowledge
(al-aql), (4) protection of family life and offspring (al nasab) and (5) honest
accumulation of wealth (al-mal). These values are contained in the shariah
(Islamic law), which dictates both personal piety and societal law. Shariah is a
term that has recently received a considerably amount of media and political
 Theorising Pakphobia 37
attention. Newt Gingrich, a prominent Republican and former speaker of the
House of Representatives in the United States, sparked controversy in July
2016 when he suggested that shariah is a codified religious ideology that is
incompatible with ‘Western civilisation’ (Jenkins 2016). For ‘Westerners’ like
Gingrich, shariah denotes a medieval system that imposes a harsh code of
behaviour sanctioned by draconian punishments (Berger, 2006, p. 334).
Shariah is derived from two primary sources of Islam: the precepts set forth
in the Quran and the example set by Prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah
(Saylor, n.d., p. 2). Muslims worldwide believe that shariah is ‘God’s law’, but
they differ as to what exactly that means (ibid.). Muslims – as well as Islamic
jurists – adhere to different schools of Islamic jurisprudence and philosophy
and do not always agree on the interpretation of the law. Contemporary secular
issues that Islamic law addresses include crime, politics, and economics, as well
as personal matters such as sexuality, hygiene, diet, praying, and fasting.
It is not unusual for Muslims to draw attention to other Muslims whom
they perceive to be acting ‘un-Islamic’, or contrary to their own beliefs and
practices of Islam (Oxford Dictionary, n.d.). Ramadan (2010) highlighted two
distinct categories of Muslim identity: the ‘good’ and ‘bad’, or the moderates/
liberals/secularists versus the fundamentalists/extremists/Islamists. He noted
that ‘good’ Muslims are those who accept the values and customs of the
dominant Western powers, while the rest – the ‘bad’ Muslims – are those who
resist religiously, culturally, or politically, leading to their systematic denigra-
tion and dismissal as dangerous Others. The link between ‘bad’ Muslims and
religious extremism following 9/11 has resulted in rounds of ‘culture talk’,
which occurs when people tend to think of individuals from ‘traditional’ cultures
in authentic and original terms, ‘as if their identities are shaped entirely by
the supposedly unchanging culture into which they are born’ (Mamdani,
2002, p. 766). This culture talk, as Mamdani argued, has turned Muslim
identity into a political classification that differentiates ‘good Muslims’ from
‘bad Muslims’ rather than ‘civilians’ from ‘terrorists’.
The ummah, which transcends national borders, rests on the appealing
possibility of overcoming the binary of ‘good Muslim’ versus ‘bad Muslim’.
The idea of the ummah does not denote an ethnic sectarian or any concrete
group; rather it stands for a virtual-moral community par excellence. On the
one hand, the ummah shares a core of abstract beliefs and agrees on general
meanings of morality and religiosity; on the other hand, Muslims live by
moral mandates negotiated in relation to specific contexts and socio-political
constraints (Hashem, 2010, p. 50). Muslims, both men and women, are as
engaged in the process of negotiating ‘modernity’ as anyone else, often
insisting – against external pressure – on doing so on their own terms
(Afsaruddin, 2015). Sometimes this negotiation entails questioning specific
provisions of shariah or reinterpreting verses of the Quran and passages from
the Hadiths.
Debates around Islamic feminism and homosexuality are consequences of
this engagement with shariah. Muslims today are challenging some of the
38 Theorising Pakphobia
time-bound, culturally inflected, gender-discriminatory regulations that many
male jurists came up with in pre-modern periods (Afsaruddin, 2015). Even
before the shooting rampage by a young Muslim American at a gay nightclub
in Orlando, Florida, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people
were the most common targets of hate crimes in the United States (FBI,
2016). Social reformers and gay Muslims have reshaped their societies in a
number of ways, including by promoting the beliefs that one can be Muslim
and gay, that the sexes can pray shoulder-to-shoulder in mosques, and that
females can preach and serve as imams, the people who lead the prayers in
mosques.
‘Radical Islam’, in various forms, has also been a topic of discussion
amongst Muslims communities worldwide. Radical Islam is generally under-
stood to be a militant and politically activist ideology whose ultimate goal is
to unify the ummah though a caliphate. Radical Islam is characterised by
its contempt for beliefs, practices, and symbols of other religious traditions as
well as other sects of Islam. Also frequently referred to as ‘Islamic funda-
mentalism’, radical Islam is often conflated with Wahhabism, a term with
various connotations. Wahhabism is a Sunni movement that seeks to purge
the ummah of any innovations or practices that allegedly deviate from the
seventh-century teachings of Prophet Muhammad and his companions
(Armanios, 2003, p. 1). The word ‘Wahhabi’ is derived from the name of an
Islamic scholar, Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhabi (1703–1791), who had been
frustrated by the perceived moral decline of his society and denounced many
popular Islamic beliefs and practices as idolatrous (ibid., p. 2). Wahhabism
gained new prominence in 1932 with the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, which used this strand of Islam as the official basis for determining laws
and social conduct in Saudi society.
In day-to-day life, Wahhabism has translated into practices such as the
segregation of the sexes, the absolute prohibition of the sale and consumption
of alcohol, a ban on women driving, and numerous other social restrictions
(ibid., p. 2). These puritanical and iconoclastic philosophies of Wahhabism
have resulted in conflict with other Muslim groups. For example, Wahhabism
opposes Sufi practices such as saint veneration and the celebration of mawlid,
Prophet Muhammad’s birthday. In Saudi Arabia, the heart of Wahhabism, Shias
are the subjects of officially sanctioned political and economic discrimination
(Department of State, 2003). The Saudi state has also officially banned all
non-Muslim public worship and continues to persecute and imprison Muslims
for dissent, apostasy, blasphemy, and sorcery (The United States Commission
on International Religious Freedom, 2016, p. 8). Wahhabism has directly
affected the lives of Pakistanis in both the ‘homeland’ and their hostlands.
Elements of this stream of Islam poured into Pakistan in the 1980s during the
resistance to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. Wahhabism is also
said to have made its imprint on Pakistan when money from Saudi Arabia and
other Gulf countries rushed into madrassas all over Pakistan (Ispahani, 2013).
Furthermore, curriculum changes brought about by proponents of Wahhabism
 Theorising Pakphobia 39
indoctrinated Muslims with fundamentalism and puritanism. Wahhabism was
perceived by some Pakistani Muslims as denouncing Sufi music and poetry –
two pillars of South Asian culture – as decadent and immoral. Both Pabst
(2009) and Pillalamarri (2014) have pointed out that madrassa-inspired and
Saudi-financed Wahhabis have helped destroy indigenous Sufi Islam by impos-
ing a radical creed that represents a distortion and perversion of ‘true Islam’
because it opposes religious and cultural plurality.
The Deobandi movement, as discussed earlier in this chapter, has been
heavily influenced by Wahhabism. Deobandism and Salafiyya, a similar
yet distinct reform movement that originated in the early twentieth cen-
tury, is also often conflated with Wahhabism. In line with puritanical teachings,
Salafists are said to believe that the ultimate religious authority is located
directly in the Quran and Sunnah, and not in commentaries which interpret
these sources (Dallal, 2000, p. 347). The Salafiyya, however, is not a unified
movement, and there exists no single Salafiyya sect; the Salafi interpretation
appeals to a range of Muslims worldwide (Armanios, 2003, p. 3). Although
the use of violent jihad is not inherently associated with Wahhabism or Salafiyya,
amongst certain Muslims it has been deployed as a tactic by groups such as
ISIS and al-Qaeda. In Arabic, jihad literally means ‘striving’ or ‘to struggle’,
but some Muslims also use it to refer to a ‘holy war’ against ‘aggressors’ or
kafirs (non-believers). I compare and contrast two self-identified Salafists in
Chapter 5.

Being ‘here’, ‘there’, and ‘nowhere’

This book evaluates the concept of ‘diaspora’ as another way of thinking about
the experiences of young Pakistani men in Boston and Dublin. Specifically, I
turn to transnationalism and ethnic relations as a way to explore the inter-
sectionality of transnational and trans-ethnic alliances. As use of the term
‘diaspora’ has proliferated in the last few decades, its meaning has been stret-
ched in various directions (Brubaker, 2005, p. 1). Diaspora is often used today
to describe populations which are considered ‘deterritorialised’ or transna-
tional – that is, a group of people that has ‘originated in a land other than
which it currently resides, and whose social, economic, and political networks
cross the borders of nation-states, or, indeed, span the globe’ (Vertovec, 1999).
Cohen (1997) further defines diaspora by pinpointing the following features:

1 Dispersal from an original ‘homeland’, often traumatically, to two or

more foreign regions;
2 Alternatively, the expansion from a ‘homeland’ in search of work, in
pursuit of trade or to further colonial ambitions;
3 A collective memory and myth about the ‘homeland’, including its location,
history and achievements;
4 An idealisation of the putative ancestral home and a collective commitment
to its maintenance, restoration, safety, prosperity, and even creation;
40 Theorising Pakphobia
5 The development of a return movement that gains collective approbation;
6 A strong ethnic group consciousness sustained over a long time and
based on a sense of distinctiveness, a common history, and the belief in a
common fate;
7 A troubled relationship with host societies, suggesting at least a lack of
acceptance or the possibility that another calamity might befall the
group;
8 A sense of empathy and solidarity with co-ethnic members in other
countries of settlement; and
9 The possibility of a distinctive, creative, and enriching life in host countries
that tolerate pluralism.

There are, however, several other concepts not covered by this general
model of diaspora. Vertovec (1999, p. 2) referred to three additional dis-
cernible meanings. These meanings refer to what he called diaspora as social
form, diaspora as a type of consciousness, and diaspora as a mode of cultural
production. Diaspora as social form refers to situations that are largely negative
as they are associated with forced displacement, victimisation, alienation, and
loss (ibid., p. 2). Diaspora as a type of consciousness puts greater emphasis on
describing a variety of experiences, a state of mind, and a sense of identity
(ibid., p. 4). The final meaning – diaspora as cultural production – is usually
conveyed in discussions of globalisation and its world-wide flow of cultural
objects, images, and meanings, resulting in various processes of back-and-forth
transference, mutual influence, new contestations, negotiations, and constant
transformation (ibid., p. 19). My focus in this book is largely on the lives of
young Pakistani men as they produce and reproduce transnational social and
cultural phenomena.
Pakistanis in the United States and Ireland and throughout the world do
not all produce ‘Pakistani culture’ in the same way. Culture, as Hall (2005,
p. 556) posits, ‘is not just a voyage of rediscovery, a return journey. It is not an
“archeology”. Culture is a production’. He continued:

[Culture] has its raw materials, its resources, its ‘work of production’. It
depends on a knowledge of tradition as ‘the changing same’ and an
effective set of genealogies. But what this ‘detour through its pasts’ does is
to enable us, through culture, to produce ourselves a new, as new kinds of
subjects. It is therefore not a question of what our traditions make of us
so much as what we make of our traditions. Paradoxically, our cultural
identities, in any finished form, lie ahead of us … Culture is not a matter
of ontology, of being, but of becoming.
(Hall, 2005, p. 556)

Cultures are never fixed or static, but rather are constantly modified and
redefined according to modern processes and transformations (Eisenstadt,
1973, p. 23). Werbner (2005, p. 763) suggested that producing or reproducing
 Theorising Pakphobia 41
‘Pakistani culture’ involves processes of dislocation, transplantation, and
relocation which may be both painful and joyous as Pakistanis invent and
recreate a local culture and viable community abroad.
The different cultural circumstances that young Pakistani men face in
Boston and Dublin force us to shift our perception of the Pakistani diaspora
from an ‘ethno-cultural fact’ to a diaspora in which individuals and groups
demonstrate multiple cultural orientations, claims, idioms, and practices
(Brubaker, 2005, p. 13). Werbner (2013, p. 410) provides a useful framework
for thinking about the heterogeneity of the Pakistani diaspora, especially in
terms of cultural orientations:

the South Asian, with its aesthetic of fun and laughter, of vivid colours
and fragrances, of music and dance; the Islamic with its utopian vision of
a perfect moral order, and the Pakistani, with its roots in the soil, in
family, community and national loyalties, expressed also in competitive
sports like cricket. The identities evoked in the narratives – of nation,
local community, religion and diaspora – are at times fused, at times kept
strictly apart.

The national population of Pakistan consists of various sub-ethnic groups

and cultures. A sub-ethnic group is a group possessing some degree of
coherence and solidarity and composed of people who are aware of having
common origins and interests (Cashmore, 2004, p. 142). Crystal (1991, p. 421)
broke down ethnic groups even further, defining them as groups whose members
have a self-perceived affinity to a common set of traditions, including religious
beliefs and practices, languages, a sense of historical continuity and common
ancestry, or a place of origin. There are four major sub-ethnic groups in
Pakistan: Punjabis, Sindhis, Baloch, and Pashtuns. These ethnic groups are
generally identified on the basis of territory, language, religion, customs, and
geography.
One of the four administrative units of Pakistan, Punjab, is home to the
Punjabis, the largest sub-ethnic group amongst Pakistanis. Punjabis speak
mainly the language of Punjabi as well as Saraiki. The territory of Punjab is
recognised as the educational and industrial centre of Pakistan. As Shaheed
(2010, p. 853) noted, the Punjabi ‘elite’ historically wielded power over Sindhis,
Baloch, and Pashtuns by virtue of their dominance of the civil and military
bureaucracies and the political system as a whole (Javaid and Hashmi, 2012,
p. 6). Punjabi identity is also said to have a common narrative that is chau-
vinistic, and Punjabis have been accused of always conspiring against the
smaller sub-ethnic groups (ibid.).
The Sindhis, the second largest sub-ethnic group in terms of population
size, are situated predominantly in the unit of Sindh, whose territory stretches
across the border with India. The Government of Sindh (2014) describes the
Sindhi people as ‘a repository of varied cultural values with a rich history in
terms of its unique arts and crafts, music and literature, games and sports, all
42 Theorising Pakphobia
of which have retained their original flavour’. The Sindhi government also
describes Sindhi culture as encompassing love for humanity, big-heartedness,
hospitality, and the Sindhi language.
The Pashtuns, also referred to as Pushtuns, Pathans, or Pakhtuns, are the
third largest sub-ethnic group in Pakistan. The Pashtuns live mainly in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, or what is often identified as the ‘tribal areas’ of
Pakistan. Pashtuns speak several languages, including Pushtu and Hindku.
The ‘Pashtun identity’ is said to be rooted in ancestry and historical events,
especially war battles (Javaid and Hashmi, 2012, p. 6). Pashtuns and Sindhis
are said to share a fierce attachment to their traditions and deep antipathy to
the central role that Punjabis play in the national government.
Finally, the Baloch are the fourth largest sub-ethnic group in Pakistan.
They are concentrated predominantly in the unit of Balochistan on the western
border. Baloch identity is said to be rooted in territorial geography and tribal
culture, as well as dress code and personal up-keeping (Javaid and Hashmi,
2012, p. 6; Dashti, 2012, p. 141). Amongst the values that have been asso-
ciated with Baloch culture are dignity, pride, patience, endurance, and a deep
sense of shame (Dashti, 2012, p. 137). The Baloch have their own language –
Baloch – and share a cultural identity with their co-ethnics in Iran. In addition
to their cultural traditions, the Baloch have been identified as distinct in their
valuing of religious tolerance and their preference for liberal or secular
mindsets compared with other neighbouring nations (ibid.).
The mindset of separating ‘mosque and state’ has led to the perception,
amongst some Muslims, that the Baloch are ‘bad Muslims’ (Redaelli, 2003,
p. 21). Over the last several decades, Balochistan has courted national and
international attention for its independence movement. Balochistan was an
independent tribal union until the nineteenth century (Alamgir, 2012, p. 34),
and its original agreement with the Pakistani state in 1947 was based on
Baloch sovereignty and control over land, resources, and internal political
matters. Since it joined Pakistan in 1947, however, the Pakistani state has
directed numerous political and military efforts aimed at controlling the
Baloch people, efforts that have led to violence between Baloch militants and
the Pakistani army. Mullick and Hraba (2001, p. 167) claim that the dynamics
within and between Pakistan’s sub-ethnic groups have led to an ‘ethnic hier-
archy’ and that this ranking involves discriminating amongst ‘out-groups’
based on social distance. By ethnic hierarchy, Mullick and Hraba mean a
power structure that highlights the relative position of ethnic groups and their
role in the larger system of inter- and intra-ethnic attitudes (ibid.). The rival-
ries between the sub-ethnic groups within the larger grouping of ‘Pakistanis’
also plays out in the diaspora, a tension that I tease out at various points in
the forthcoming chapters.
Discussion of diasporic communities typically roots such communities in
a conceptual ‘homeland’. A diaspora, as Cohen (2007, p. 2) has put it,
means ‘dispersion’, and if people are dispersed, some point of origin (a
‘homeland’) is necessarily implied. Members of a diaspora have been said to
 Theorising Pakphobia 43
retain a collective memory of their ‘original homeland’ and idealise their
‘original homeland’. The concept of ‘home’ or ‘homeland’, however, has been
critiqued by post-modernists, who have argued that identities have become
de-territorialised and affirmed in a flexible manner. Brah (1996), for example,
claimed that ‘home’ is an increasingly vague term. She posited that ‘home-
land’ has become more like a ‘homing desire’. ‘Home’ is a mythic place of desire
in the diasporic imagination, and therefore ‘home’ should be interpreted to
mean an imagined virtual community (ibid., p. 192). The ‘homeland’ can also
be treated as a network of people who share common feelings, interests, and
desires about issues that affect a particular geographic territory, such as
Pakistan.
There is, of course, more that could be said about the dynamics of the
‘homeland’ and the way it operates in the minds of young Pakistani men in
Boston and Dublin. The process of reconstructing and rebuilding a ‘home-
land’ stands in opposition to the expectation that Pakistani migrants would
assimilate into ‘mainstream’ American and Irish societies. Ballard (1994),
however, observed that in Britain, South Asian immigrant families were, in
fact, recreating themselves around familiar Pakistani cultural structures. He
described this process as an ‘adaptive strategy’ born of a need to cope with
the demands of the hostland society (ibid., p. 4). Ballard argued that South
Asian immigrants were creating what he called desh pardesh, an Urdu phrase
that means ‘home from home’ or ‘home abroad’ and that he uses to describe
‘the embodiment of the self-created worlds of Britain’s South Asian settlers’
(ibid., p. 29). The same framework can be applied to Pakistani communities
in Boston and Dublin. Pakistanis in these two cities engage in ‘home-binding’,
a process that signifies ‘the development of cultural belonging by exchanging
symbolic or material belongings’ (Zhou, 1997, p. 37). In essence, as Akenson
(1993) and Sheffer (2003) note, they can be viewed as ‘being towards
someplace else’.
In considering the negotiation of Pakistani identity amongst Pakistanis in
Boston and Dublin, it is useful to consider the concept of ‘doubleness’. The
focal point in negotiating Pakistani identity does not originate simply in the
‘homeland’; it always originates from at least two places. Pakistani identity is
both an expression of affirmation and self-determination and a result of
power structures and domination. The double-edged sword of subjectivity –
Pakistanis are both ‘subject in’ and ‘subject to’ history – is marked by the
body (Pérez-Torres, 2006). The doubleness comes from within. Doubleness, as
conceptualised in this book, follows Boyarin (2015, p. 132) in that it ‘is less a
“both/and” and more a “neither just this/nor just that”’. Considering that
diaspora entails a process of transculturation, Pakistanis in Boston and
Dublin can be viewed as ‘living identity through difference’ (Hall, 1991, p. 58).
Pakistanis in these two cities are located in multiple positions of marginality
and subordination, but also, at times, positions of centrality and power. In
essence, they live their lives according to various perceived social identities,
and not simply one identity.
44 Theorising Pakphobia
The overlap and displacement of domains of difference in diaspora led
Bhabha (1994, p. 2) to conclude that intersubjective and collective experiences
of nationhood, community interest, or cultural value are negotiated ‘in-between’
cultures. These ‘in-between’ spaces give young Pakistani men in diaspora ‘the
terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood – singular or communal – that
initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and con-
testation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself ’ (ibid.). The concepts
of ‘cultural translation’ and ‘intercultural translation’ have been used to situate
the experiences of individuals and groups in diasporic conditions. Cultural
translation can be understood as ‘a process in which there is no start text and
usually no fixed target text. The focus is on cultural processes rather than
products’ (Munday, 2012, p. 138). Cultural translation occurs not simply
through the movement of material objects, but also through the movement of
people.
Bhabha (1994) proposed the concept of the ‘third space’ – a space that
fosters hybridity – to capture the realm in which cultural production takes
place. A diasporic perspective recognises the ways in which identities have
been – and continue to be – transformed through cross-cultural exchanges and
interactions (Gillespie, 1995). That is because diaspora conjures up metaphors
of travel and of identities that are ‘in transition’, with members of diaspora
communities thinking and acting as ‘cross-cultural navigators’ (Parekh, 2000).
Cross-cultural navigators can be viewed as individuals who are capable of
translating identities and cultures across contrasting settings in time and
space. Cross-cultural navigators are individuals who harvest the cultural
resources both from their own ethnic or class heritages and from sociocultural
environments in wider, mainstream society. They possess insight into and an
understanding of the functions and values of both dominant and non-dominant
capital and cultures. For young Pakistani men in Boston and Dublin, it might
be easy to translate between English and Pakistani languages such as Urdu
and Punjabi, but translating between Pakistani culture, American or Irish
culture, and Islamic cultures may be more complex and stressful.
The term ‘borderlands’ shares a good deal with diaspora paradigms. Border-
lands are distinct in that they presuppose a space defined by a geopolitical
line: two sides arbitrarily separated and policed, but also joined by practices of
crossing and communication (Clifford, 1994, p. 304). The term ‘borderland’,
popularised by Anzaldúa (1987), refers to the area that is most susceptible to
hybridity and populated by, in the case of this book, individuals who are
neither ‘fully Pakistani’ nor ‘fully American’ or ‘fully Irish’. Anzaldúa deployed
the term to identify populations that cannot distinguish vague, unnatural, and
invisible ‘borders’ and instead have learned to become a part of multiple cultural
worlds (ibid., p. 3). She also challenged the conception of a ‘border’ as a
simple divide and ultimately called for ‘oppressors’ to nurture active interest
in oppressed populations and to change their attitudes to foster the growth of
local communities and nations. Reflecting on how borderlands operate, Clif-
ford (1997, p. 255) identified the ‘oppressor’ as being ‘national hegemony’
 Theorising Pakphobia 45
which imparts ‘a sense of being a “people” with historical roots and destinies
outside the time/space of the host nation’. In the context of this book, we
might view young Pakistani men in Boston and Dublin in relation to the idea
of being in perpetual transition, in which they constantly negotiate multiple
cultures and value systems that have been constructed by power structures in
American and Irish societies.
Simultaneously, Mignolo (2011) offered the concept of ‘border thinking’ to
refer to a specific response to navigating cultural borderlands and national
hegemonies. He defined border thinking as a form of ‘disassociation’ in which
individuals desire separation from hegemonic identity narratives because they
cultivate exclusivity and oppression by defining who does and does not
belong to the nation. Border thinking is a product of what Mignolo called
‘de-coloniality’ in the sense that people disconnect themselves from territorial
and imperial epistemology. It is ‘the necessary condition for the existence of
de-westernizing and de-colonial projects’ (ibid., p. 277). One example of
border thinking is Muslims identifying with the ummah rather than a particular
nation-state or nationalist form. In this sense we find that Muslims move
between dogmatic territorial nationalism and an enlightened internationalism
interspersed with an emphasis on the possibility and realisation of the universal
Islamic community (Ansari, 2002) or ummah.
Finally, hybridity is another concept to consider in discussions about dia-
spora, because ‘it foregrounds complicated entanglement rather than identity,
togetherness-in-difference rather than separateness and virtual apartheid’
(Ang, 2003, p. 2). The term hybridity originated in biology but was subse-
quently employed in sociological theory in the nineteenth century to describe
a cross between two separate ‘races’ or cultures. It is also a concept that pre-
vents the absorption of all difference into a hegemonic plane of sameness and
homogeneity produced by power structures of nation-states. Claiming one’s
‘difference’ and turning it into symbolic capital is a powerful and attractive
strategy amongst young Pakistani men in diaspora who have been margin-
alised or excluded from white or Western hegemony (Clifford, 1997, p. 255).
Theories of hybridity are crucial for recognising differences within complex
individual identities and between different groups of people. Instead of
endorsing a drift towards a greater atomisation of identity, hybridity allows us
‘to conceive of multiple, interconnecting axes of affiliation and differentiation’
(Felski, 1997, p. 12). The ideas underpinning hybridity move beyond essen-
tialising constructions of identity and draw upon theories emphasising the
exploration of belonging in increasingly fluid and multiple notions of ethnic,
religious, and national identity. Belonging entails a consciousness of and
emotional attachment to commonly claimed origins and cultural attributes
associated with various groups (Yuval-Davis, 2011, p. 10; Vertovec, 2005).
Such origins and attributes for young Pakistani men in Boston and Dublin
may include linguistic competence, inter-ethnic social relations, and partici-
pation in cultural and religious activities. Anthias (2009, p. 8) claimed that
belonging emerges through the construction of ‘we-ness’ to describe those
46 Theorising Pakphobia
who are included as members of the community versus Otherness to describe
those who are not considered part of the community.
With the passing of time, both young Pakistani men and the groups they
associate with are likely to undergo changes. These changes affect their senses
of ‘home’ and belonging, which might have important consequences for their
integration and the question of returning to Pakistan. For Pakistanis residing in
Boston and Dublin, Pakistan may no longer represent ‘home’. New ‘homes’
and new senses of belonging could have been established in diaspora, especially
considering the current social and political climate of Pakistan. Questions
such as ‘Where do I belong?’ and ‘Would I feel at home in Pakistan?’ have
gained importance. Bearing these considerations in mind, this book is another
addition to the body of literature on the experiences and world views of
Pakistanis in diaspora. It nevertheless brings an important and indeed necessary
element to our understanding of diasporic communities and their heterogeneity
of ethnicity, culture, and religion.

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othersociologist.com [Accessed 11 July 2016].
Zhou, M., 1997. Growing up American: The challenge confronting immigrant children
and children of immigrants. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, pp. 63–95.
3 ‘Terrorism’ and the
‘immigration problem’

In October of 2008, I filmed an interview between anthropologist Akbar

Ahmed and the eminent Noam Chomsky at the latter’s office on the campus
of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston. As a young
American growing up during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I had become
interested in Professor Chomsky’s views – usually in relation to his anti-war
dissent. Professor Chomsky presented arguments that made sense to me; he
discussed United States foreign policy from the side of the Other, especially
Muslims living in countries that had been previously invaded by Americans.
Naturally, I found his views on American identity – the topic of conversation
that day – particularly poignant. Where other Americans had defined
‘Americanness’ with terms like freedom, liberty, and the ‘American Dream’,
Professor Chomsky took a more critical approach. He told us, ‘America is a
very frightened country … which is kind of ironic because we’re at a level of
security that nobody’s ever dreamed of ’. With a concerned look on his face,
he added, ‘The theme is we’re about to be destroyed by an enemy … Today
[the enemy] is Muslims … the paranoia is very real’ (Considine, 2012). Surprised
at his definition, I looked at him perplexed. Chomsky, who is famous for his
criticism of United States foreign policy, had seen something I had not. I
walked away from the interview with one idea on my mind: no honest dis-
cussion of American identity can happen unless one takes into consideration
the themes of fear and paranoia.
Fear and paranoia can be defined broadly as suspicion and mistrust of people
or their actions without evidence or justification. Fear and paranoia have been
present in American society since before the United States even existed. During
colonial times, at the Salem Witch Trials, Christian ‘heretics’ were put to death
because they had allegedly deviated from Puritan Christianity. The arrival of
Irish Catholics during the mid-nineteenth century ignited a panic amongst the
largely Anglo-Saxon Protestant population, which feared that the pope would
soon rule over the fledgling country. That panic resulted in the persecution
of Irish Catholics to the degree that signs such as ‘No Irish and No
Dogs Need Apply’ were hung on the doors of stores in Boston and other
cities. In more recent times, Japanese Americans were placed in internment
camps during World War II, and later suspected ‘communists’ were rounded
 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 55
up and imprisoned during the Cold War. The fear and paranoia of these
moments in American history led to the adoption of irrational precautions
and often resulted in chaos that became national panic. Balibar (1991) argued
that ‘crisis racism’ emerges out of social structures and societal complications,
both of which, he argued, are integral to shaping national identity. Building
on Balibar, Lentin (2007) added that crisis racism tends to appear largely as
an ‘immigrant problem’ in which minorities are blamed for social problems
relating to employment, housing, schooling, health services, and morality.
Islamophobia can be viewed as a manifestation of ‘crisis racism’. Muslims
in the context of ‘the West’ are the new ‘bogeymen’ and are used by sectors of
societies to define both ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Suleman: seeing myth and fear in America

Suleman, a thirty-five-year-old naturalised American citizen born in Karachi,
agreed with Chomsky that the United States is a very frightened and paranoid
country. During our interview in the food court of a shopping mall, Suleman,
who was dressed in casual business attire, declared that the United States is
losing power due to the penetration of fear into the hearts and minds of
Americans. Suleman directly referenced Chomsky: ‘When you become fearful,
then obviously, like Chomsky said … your reactions are that much more
abrupt’. In describing the fears of his fellow American citizens, Suleman said
with disgust, ‘It’s the fear of the other … Muslims are seen as a cancer’.
The idea that Muslims are cancerous has played out in the reality of racial
profiling in the United States. In this context, Muslims are an invasive group
who should be treated with suspicion. On a personal level, Suleman felt that
he had been regularly mistreated when passing through airports. We might
refer to his experience in airport screening as ‘flying while Muslim’ (Syed,
2010) or ‘flying while brown’ (Chandrasekhar, 2003). Specifically, he
commented – with an air of frustration in his voice – that he had been pro-
filed on a ‘race basis’ at airports, especially at Logan Airport in Boston.
When I asked him to share his view on why he had been profiled, he said,
‘Americans fear brown people as terrorists because it’s been hyped so much’.
He added, ‘it’s very irrational’. Suleman confirmed the power of media
depictions of Muslims as violent and threatening to American national
security. The media, he argued, is the main tool for proliferating Islamophobia,
because depictions of Muslims as threatening Others tear Americans apart
along racial and religious lines. The prevalent fear and paranoia has betrayed
what Suleman called ‘core values’ of American identity, including freedom,
openness, and friendliness. Furthermore, Suleman felt that America is decaying
morally, and attributed that moral decay to the scapegoating of Muslims.
Until Americans resist the temptation of fear, he argued, they will live in a
weak and closed society.
Suleman came to the United States in the 1990s through the Family
Reunification Act, which granted visas to spouses and minor children of
56 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’
American citizens, as well as parents of adult American citizens, without regard
to numerical quotas (Hatch, n.d., p. 1). Family reunification had long been a
cornerstone of both American law and immigration. Hatch (ibid.) elaborates:

Many early immigrants to America, particularly those fleeing religious or

political persecution in their homelands, migrated to the [United States]
as families. In subsequent centuries, a head of household often came first
to ‘test the waters’ of the new land. Prior to 1965, the timeliness of family
reunification in the United States depended almost entirely on how long
it took for this first family member to secure a job and shelter, and save
funds for passage to the United States for spouse and children.

Suleman moved from Karachi to Boston after his brother-in-law became an

American citizen. Suleman himself was naturalised in the 1990s. Speaking in a
Pakistani accent, he told me that education opportunities, rather than busi-
ness endeavours or employment, played the main role in his migration to the
United States. Suleman understood education as a foundation for creating a
democratic society. As a self-described proud American citizen, he did not
take the education opportunities in the United States for granted, noting that
such opportunities are still far from reality in many parts of the world,
including Pakistan. At that point in the interview, I was reminded of Malala
Yousafzai, a young female Pakistani student and social activist whom the
Pakistani Taliban attempted to assassinate because of her advocacy for the
right of young Pakistani girls to an education. Malala understood the power
of learning as a tool to liberate the voices of women and other minorities in
Pakistan. Suleman, too, believed that education liberates, and this is one of
the reasons why he said proudly that he was ‘as American as Uncle Sam’.
The United States offered Suleman a place to grow intellectually and pro-
fessionally, and for that, he said, he will be forever grateful. In this and in
many ways, Suleman stood in direct opposition to stereotypes of Pakistanis as
potential terrorists. He embodied the ‘American Dream’, or the idea that any-
body can ‘become American’ by participating in American civic life and taking
advantage of the wealth of opportunities that the United States has to offer.
Despite violations to his civil rights when using American airports, Sule-
man did not display bitterness about the fear and paranoia of Muslims and
brown people or about his own experiences of racial profiling. Recently,
however, he had sensed that ‘there is a great deviance or divergence from the
past principles and experiences’. He was referring to American values of the
1960s, when the Civil Rights Movement swept across the United States and
inspired other countries around the world to follow suit. When I asked what
he meant by this statement, he stated:

If I was not an American, I would feel sorry for Americans. Like why are
they drifting away so much? … It’s sort of like a decay … America is so
far ahead in so many things … Soft power was very strong … when I was
 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 57
in Pakistan, we looked up to America for all of the good things – for
freedom, for friendliness. That was the concept of America. Everything
bad was the Soviet Union. Everything good with principles, with openness,
friendliness was America. That’s how we looked at America. You know?
And it could be like that. And it was like that.

After hearing these words, I scribbled down ‘The Declaration of Indepen-

dence!’ on my notepad. No document is more iconic in American history
than the Declaration. Adopted by Congress during the American Revolution
in July 1776, it marked the liberation of the thirteen colonies from the British
Empire and paved the way to sovereignty for the new nation (Chaudry, 2016).
In reflecting on American identity, Suleman touched upon the opening sentence
of the document’s second paragraph: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that amongst these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.’ These words are indelibly etched in the annals of history as
well as Suleman’s mind.
The words of the Declaration, however, also refer to ideals denied to
Muslims and other marginalised groups whose equality and liberty – as
Suleman suggested – is conditional, nominal, or subject to interpretation
(ibid.). Suleman’s views and experiences of Islamophobia are ironic in light of
the fact that the United States was founded by people fleeing religious perse-
cution. Personally, he saw no contradiction between ‘American values’ and
‘Islamic values’. He stressed that ‘the bottom base of American culture is
strong; the morality is strong. It’s about being honest … hard-working …
These are Islamic values too. There’s no tension for me’. These words oppose
the ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative and focus on commonalities between cultural
and religious groups. In effect, Suleman upheld the civic nation, or the idea
that American identity is defined by citizenship rather than ethnic origin or
religious association. Unfortunately, proud Muslim Americans like Suleman
are still subjected to suspicion and scrutiny as potential threats to the United
States. This level of fear is arguably due to 9/11. Before that day, Muslims in
America had cultivated a fairly quiet presence in the country.

Anwar: profiling ‘terrorists’

Muslims across the United States are experiencing an unprecedented increase
in hate crimes and discriminatory incidents amidst the rise in anti-Islamic
rhetoric from media outlets and politicians (Dizard, 2015). These incidents
are motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s prejudice against Islam
and Muslims. Now more than ever, the egalitarian message of the Declara-
tion of Independence – of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – is
being challenged because of fear and paranoia of Muslims. The current
environment suggests that the nation’s commitment to religious freedom and
pluralism is conditional and that the security and protections that the
58 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’
Constitution guarantees to Americans do not apply equally to people who
call themselves Muslim.
The impact of this unfair treatment of Muslim Americans can be seen in
my interview with Anwar, a thirty-year-old Ahmadi who was studying for a
postgraduate degree at a local university at the time of our interview. He was
born and bred in a small, yet reasonably diverse Midwestern city. Growing
up, Anwar had what he described ‘a great childhood’. ‘I did all of the normal
things that anybody would expect to do’, he said. ‘I was a Boy Scout … I
played a ton of sports growing up’. At this point in our interaction, I realised
that Anwar’s childhood had been similar to mine. We both loved basketball,
collected sporting cards, and enjoyed being out in the woods or elsewhere in
nature. We talked about the National Basketball Association (NBA) finals
and debated which college basketball player would be selected first in the
NBA draft. I felt a strong connection to Anwar not only on a cultural level,
but also on a national level. We shared similar interests and hobbies, and we
were both American.
Anwar’s use of the term ‘normal’ is nevertheless interesting and provides an
opportunity to explore how this concept can be operationalised in American
society. In terms of his cultural orientation, Anwar defined himself as
‘normal’, but in terms of his Muslim and brown identities, he stressed that he
was ‘abnormal’, a reminder of the ‘doubleness’ presented by diasporic condi-
tions and the power of hegemonic identity narratives to exclude others based
on racial characteristics. Anwar explained further: ‘I knew I was different not
only as a Pakistani American and not only as a Muslim, but also as an
Ahmadi Muslim.’ Anwar, in effect, is Othered three times – first by Americans
as ‘un-American’, second by non-Muslims as ‘Muslim’, and third by Muslims
themselves as ‘un-Islamic’.
After talking about our common love of basketball, a conversation I
thoroughly enjoyed, I realised that the interview with Anwar was heading
down a darker road. Perhaps we could refer to it as the ‘9/11 narrative’, a term
I use to examine the Islamophobia experiences of Muslim Americans. The
9/11 narrative depicts Muslims through the lens of violence and terrorism.
In the eyes of law enforcement officials, Anwar is worthy of extra attention.
We laughed together at this perception, because Anwar has no criminal
record – no arrests, no felonies. Living a ‘normal life’ after 9/11 has been
difficult for him because of racial profiling, as he explained in the following
story:

So I went to college … and sometimes I would go home by train, by bus,

or sometimes my parents would pick me up. I remember one time I was
coming back … I was doing a summer internship … 9/11 happened for
me at the beginning of my freshman year. So this was post-9/11. It was an
overnight train, and I started to get cold. I didn’t have a blanket. I didn’t
have a jacket. My mom had always told me growing up that you always
have to cover up your chest when you’re cold or else you might get sick.
 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 59
So I’m like … really getting cold on this train, so I started wondering
what I should do. They didn’t give us blankets on this particular train,
but they did give us pillows. So I put the pillow under my shirt thinking
it would keep me warmer, my chest. So I go to sleep and wake up the
next morning. As I said, it was an overnight train, and the train was not
moving. They said they had a mechanical failure and that they were
looking into it. I’m like, ‘Oh great, I’m going to be late for my orientation
now.’ But I was praying that everything was going to work out.
Looking outside the window I see these black SUVs pull up. Right, so
I’m like, ‘Oh God, what is this about?’ I hadn’t done anything wrong. I
don’t do anything wrong. My community isn’t doing anything wrong.
The FBI has checked us out, and they know we’re a peaceful community
through and through. We have nothing to do with terrorism in any form,
either here or abroad, but I’m just like, you know, I was just like, ‘What’s
happening here, and what could this be about?’ I didn’t know what it was
about, but I knew it wasn’t a normal situation.
They take everyone off the train, and they’re like, as people are getting
off the train … they tell everyone to step off to one side, but when I step
off, they ask me to step on the other side. So I’m like, ‘Okay, here we go,
what is this?’ There are only two brown people on the entire train, so we
were both on one side. Everyone else was on the other side. They hand-
cuff us and put us in the back of their car and take us into a local station
and question us. Long story short, they were worried that there was some,
like, terrorist act on the train …
They take that train, and they take it all the way into DC with no
passengers, because they’re worried that there’s an explosive on there.
They had to take all passengers by bus to DC, and they had to collect
their belongings there. The worst part about it was they cuffed us in front
of everyone and put us into the back of the car and then took us to the
station. They waited for some FBI agents to come, and they asked us
questions. I was just like, ‘This is what happened. I think this is a huge
misunderstanding, but I think there was some army veteran on the train,
and he had some suspicions, and you know he just said something’ …
The worst thing that happened was that they cuffed me in front of
everyone and took me away. Even worse than that, rather than dropping
me off at Union Station in DC so I could collect my luggage there, they
drop me off at like a Holiday Inn in DC, where all of the passengers have
been accumulated. It was brought there before Union Station, and then
they were going to be brought to Union Station. They took me back to
where all of the passengers were. I mean these people just saw me get
cuffed! What are they going to be thinking? So that was extremely
uncomfortable for them.

I felt shocked and frustrated while listening to Anwar’s story. I was upset that
an American citizen could be subject to such mistreatment without any due
60 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’
process of law. Anwar, unsurprisingly, felt the same way I did. He accused the
security officials who detained him of having unfairly questioned, searched,
and detained him on the grounds that he looked Muslim. Anwar understood
that his civil rights – granted to him by the Constitution – had been clearly
violated, but he stated that he is not the type of citizen to file a civil rights
violation complaint. Regardless, it was clear that Anwar was saddened by the
pervasive Islamophobia in American society. ‘It’s sad’, he added, ‘that there’s
that level of fear that people have, just because of how people look’.
Anwar was obviously emotional as he related his train experience. He
believed that the FBI had interrogated him even though he was an innocent
student that simply had a pillow under his shirt to keep him warm. In the
back of his mind during the incident, Anwar hoped that he wouldn’t ‘get sent
to Guantanamo or something’ and added, ‘they can do anything with the US
Patriot Act. Who knows what they could’ve done in my situation.’ On one
hand, Anwar felt vulnerable and thought that someone could have talked to
him before engaging FBI agents. On the other hand, he stated that the racial
profiling ‘made me feel good … that’s a matter of our safety’. While passing
through security at airports, Anwar typically notices that Homeland Security
‘scans’ him, as he described it, but he referred to the profiling as ‘okay … let’s
be safe’. Anwar did not harbour ill will towards Americans who have con-
cerns about safety and security; in fact he condoned the US government for
enhancing security measures at airports and other travel venues.
Some Ahmadi Americans like Anwar came out in favour of Representative
Peter King’s insistence in 2011 on holding congressional hearings on ‘Islamic
radicalisation’ with Muslim Americans, even as other Muslim groups blasted
the hearings as Islamophobic (Merica, 2012). In support of King’s hearings, the
director of an Ahmadi youth program wrote a letter to the New York Times in
which he said, ‘If the government thinks that congressional hearings will
improve homeland security and help explore those exploiting Islam, I assure
full cooperation. I, too, aspire to have a more secure America’ (Chaudhry,
2011). These views reflect Anwar’s position that enhanced security and anti-
radicalisation measures are necessary to protect Americans from religiously
motivated violence. None of the other research participants in Boston sup-
ported the ‘radicalisation’ hearings, because they saw them as another means of
exacerbating fear and unfairly targeting the Muslim population. Anwar’s status
as an Ahmadi separated him from other Muslim interviewees. Ahmadis, as dis-
cussed in Chapters 1 and 2, are violently persecuted in Pakistan and subject to
demonisation by the others in the ‘Muslim community’ in Boston and Dublin.
The Pakistani state, meanwhile, has clearly neglected the religious freedom
of all its citizens, particularly Ahmadis (Land, 2004). On 28 May 2010, Sunni
militants attacked an Ahmadiyya mosque in Lahore with guns, grenades, and
suicide bombs, killing ninety-four people and injuring well over a hundred
more (Human Rights Watch, 2010). The attackers have still not been brought
to justice. Over the course of the last decade, governments and human rights
organisations have severely criticised the Pakistani state for not taking the
 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 61
necessary steps to halt violence against religious minorities and bring their
attackers to justice (ibid.). I attribute Anwar’s condoning of racial profiling to
the persecution of Ahmadis who are attacked and murdered in Pakistan
without any due process of law. He showed that he is willing to accept elements
of Islamophobia. Anwar, however, did not see himself ever living in Pakistan,
conscious as he is of the hostility to Ahmadis in the physical ‘homeland’. He
stressed that he will never be truly connected to Pakistan because the country
cannot offer him spiritual growth or religious freedom. Even his parents, who
were born and bred in Karachi and Lahore, have refused to return to Pakistan
out of fear for their safety. The persecution of Ahmadis makes the ‘homeland’
a place of no return. Their persecution has intensified in recent years and has
now reached critical levels (Minority Rights Group International, 2014).
The United States has offered Anwar what Pakistan and Muslim-majority
countries worldwide do not: religious freedom and safety. ‘What makes me
belong here’, he said, ‘is the ability to be who I want to be’. He went on:

I want to study medicine and science and I’m able to do those things
here. I’m able to live myself, so I feel like I belong … It’s such a huge
blessing to be living in this country. That’s something our religious leader
reminds us about. You have blessings in this country that other people
don’t have, and you need to be thankful for those things. I’m thankful, and
I do think that these rights and privileges that we have in this country …
enable you to do what you want to do and enable you to belong.

Pakistan today has tens of thousands of Ahmadis who are subject to Pakistan’s
draconian laws. These laws are a source of deep concern to international
human rights organisations, not least because they are sometimes misused to
persecute religious minorities (NPR, 2016). One of the more controversial
cases occurred in 2010 when a Christian woman, Aisa Bibi, was sentenced to
death based on a testimony given by one individual – her co-worker, who
happened to be Muslim. Bibi remains the only woman on Pakistan’s death
row over a blasphemy allegation – a charge she denies. A large majority of
Pakistani citizens support the idea that Ahmadis and other religious minority
communities should be punished for ‘blaspheming’ against Islam (BBC,
2014). The persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan is likely to continue in the
foreseeable future.
Before meeting Anwar, I had become friends with several prominent
Ahmadi Muslims in the United States. My friendship with Qasim Rashid,
author of the critically acclaimed book The Wrong Kind of Muslim: An
Untold Story of Persecution and Perseverance, had brought me much intellectual
and spiritual fulfilment. In socialising with him, I learned that Ahmadis in the
United States are defenders of the American civic nation because this type of
nation offers them religious freedom and freedom of conscience. While
Ahmadis, like other Muslims, are subject to Islamophobia, individuals like
Anwar and Qasim advocate a pluralist vision of American society in which
62 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’
citizenship rights provide security and prosperity even for the most marginalised
communities.
American citizenship was particularly important to Anwar because he saw
it as having given him ‘freedom’ and ‘security’. To him, being American
meant ‘to have freedom of religion … because we don’t have the freedom in
other countries like Pakistan’. He added that being American meant that one
has ‘opportunity, safety, peace’. These values, along with secularisation, are not
socio-political realities in Pakistan. According to their official website, the
Ahmadiyya Muslim community is the only Islamic organisation to endorse a
separation of mosque and state (Al Islam, n.d.). Ahmadiyya is said to teach
its followers to protect the sanctity of both religion and government by
becoming ‘righteous souls as well as loyal citizens’ (ibid.). Today, the caliph of
Ahmadiyya, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, regularly calls for universal human
rights and protections for religious and other minorities (ibid.). Anwar looked
up to him as the quintessential Muslim who champions loyalty, education,
and social engagement by Muslims throughout the world.
Anwar displayed both pride and passion for his American citizenship. His
first loyalty, however, was to the Ahamdi ummah. He commented, ‘One thing
I always focused on was not what was American, not what was Pakistani, but
what was our faith, because there are aspects to American culture and
Pakistani culture that are not part of the faith.’ Anwar spoke passionately
about Islam and the role it played in his everyday life. He referred to it as a
‘complete moral compass’ and ‘a universal religion, which means that it’s for
people of all cultures’. It should be noted here that when Anwar referred to
‘Islam’, he meant his view of Islam through the prism of Ahmadiyya and the
idea that his sect is following ‘true Islam’.
The idea of ‘true Islam’ is certainly open for endless interpretation. Islam is
by no means a monolith. Ahmadiyya is the only sect of Islam that believes that a
second prophet has come, in the form of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed in
1889 to have a mission to revive ‘true Islam’. During our interview, Anwar
explained the theological differences between Ahmadis and other Muslims
and the impact that these differences have had on how he and other Ahmadis
interact with non-Ahmadis. Because they have accepted Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
as the messiah, Ahmadis do not pray behind non-Ahmadis and infrequently
pray or even visit mosques associated with other sects of Islam. Ahmadis,
therefore, tend to keep themselves separate from ‘mainstream Muslims’.
Anwar explained that he did not mix with them because he did not want to
argue about Islamic doctrine or create strife in communities.
Intrafaith relations amongst Muslim Americans is a topic that deserves
more attention from academic researchers. Anwar told me that if he encountered
discrimination in Boston, it typically came from other Muslims, as he
explained in the following passage:

Unfortunately, it has been so bad … Like in college, I had friends that

were Muslim. One person found that I am Ahmadi and stopped talking
 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 63
to me … I would’ve expected that from someone in Pakistan or maybe
someone born and raised in Pakistan, you know, someone who has been
brainwashed by mullahs … about what Ahmadis are and what they are
not. But to see that among the kids of people who were raised in America,
kids like myself who were raised here, that was disheartening to see. You
know, that’s just what it is. That’s their view, and it’s unfortunate.

Anwar’s words reveal that he is Othered by non-Ahmadi Muslims in the

‘homeland’ as well as the hostland and that sectarianism originating in Paki-
stan is extended to the Pakistani diaspora. Ahmadis are treated with open
hostility not only in Pakistan, but also in Indonesia, Britain, and other
countries. In Glasgow, Scotland, for example, an Ahmadi shopkeeper, Asad
Shah, was murdered in what Scottish authorities treated as a crime of ‘religious
prejudice’ (Brooks, 2016). The man charged in the murder, Tanveer Ahmed, is
Muslim and justified the killing by saying that Shah had ‘disrespected’ Islam
by identifying himself as an Ahmadi. While no such event has occurred in the
United States, Ahmadis still fear that ‘radical Islamists’ might eventually lash
out and physically harm members of their community.
Despite facing discrimination on multiple levels in many countries, the
Ahmadiyya community lives by its official motto, ‘Love for all, hatred for
none’. To foster better relations with his neighbours, Anwar engaged in
interfaith dialogue around the city and in his community’s mosque in Sharon.
He told me that the Ahmadi community of Boston regularly invited people of
different religious communities to their mosque to talk about the beauty and
positive attributes of their respective religions. The purpose of these interfaith
events, as Anwar described them, was to ‘build an understanding … so you
break down those walls that might exist between people of one community
and people of another. The lack of understanding can lead to fear. It can lead
to misinterpretation, discrimination, and mischaracterization. It leads to
separation’. According to Anwar, interfaith dialogue is the most effective tool
for building better relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, as well as
amongst Muslims themselves. Notwithstanding the discrimination Ahmadis
face inside and outside of Muslim communities, they maintain their resolve
by promoting tolerance, kindness, and understanding between people of differ-
ent backgrounds and faiths. According to many Ahmadis, that is the best way
to combat fear and paranoia.

Jabar: encountering racist violence in Dublin

Kamran Haider Bukhari, a Pakistani doctor, arrived to Ireland in 2011 as a
recruit of the Health Service Executive (HSE). On a July evening in 2012, the
thirty-two-year-old junior doctor was enjoying a visit to a nightclub when he
suddenly became the victim of a physical attack. A young female, whom
Dr Bukhari described as ‘clearly drunk’, approached him on the dance floor
before shouting racial expressions such as ‘Paki’ and ‘nigger’ (O’Connor,
64 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’
2012). The girl punched, kicked, and slapped Dr Bukhari across the face.
Speaking to the Evening Herald, he said that this was not the first instance of
racial abuse he had experienced since moving to Ireland. On numerous occasions
he had been ‘selected’ as the target of violence not as an individual, but as a
representative of an imagined minority community based on his physical
characteristics or his religious and national origin (Witte, 1996, p. 11). The
racist violence that Dr Bukhari received made him want to leave the country
with his wife and three young children.
The kind of racism and violence that Dr Bukhari experienced is not an
isolated incident: racism is a reality of life for Pakistanis in Ireland. Several of
the men I interviewed shared stories of emotional and physical abuse in
Dublin. Jabar, a thirty-five-year-old small shop owner who migrated to Ireland
in 2004, told me about an experience he had one evening while he was walking
home from work in Dublin’s city centre. He related an altercation that he had
with several younger white Irish men:

You know … I was walking home. One guy came behind of me. They
start speaking with me. So after that I went to the car parking area, like
going to cross it. So he attacked me from the back … [He] just like hit me …
and then I fall down. So I ask him, ‘Why the attack on me?’ He asked me
where am I from, and he didn’t respond back to me. So one other guy
came up and hit me. I pushed them back, and I ran a little bit. So they
followed me again and attacked. So I hit them back instead. So meanwhile,
you know the Garda was just passing there fortunately.

Non-white people like Jabar are the most vulnerable to racist attacks and
harassment in Ireland (European Network Against Racism, 2015). Pakistanis
are part of the non-white population that has also reported a low level of
satisfaction with responses to complaints about abuse and a high level of
confusion among victims about support available from the Garda (Holland,
2015). Thankfully, Jabar did not face such a lack of support. The Garda
arrested his attackers shortly after arriving at the crime scene. Jabar told me
that he was attacked because of his brown skin and ‘native’ Irish people’s
perception of non-white people as ‘foreigners’. He did not see himself as
belonging to Ireland, because he is not protected from violence. Where you
belong, as Ignatieff (1995) notes, is where you are safe, and where you are safe
is where you belong.
Jabar related more experiences of Othering. He told me that whenever he
visited the north side of Dublin, children harassed him and called him names
like ‘Paki’ and ‘nigger’. Jabar claimed these children have been indoctrinated
by their parents and grandparents to think of Pakistanis as unwelcome foreigners
and stressed that these attacks are part of a larger anti-immigrant problem in
Irish society. He spoke in a frustrated tone about the fact that minorities in
Ireland have been linked in the public eye to social problems relating to
employment, accommodation, social security, schooling, health services,
 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 65
morality, and criminality. This depiction of immigrants serves to spread the idea
that reducing or ending immigration would solve Ireland’s social problems.
Ireland is generally regarded as a new host society for immigrants that is
gradually figuring out how to manage its increasing diversity. However, Jabar,
who moved from Islamabad to Ireland during the height of the Celtic Tiger
period, told me, ‘It’s getting tougher and tougher to live in Ireland.’ His small
business, based in Blackrock, had struggled to stay afloat financially, and
Jabar said he had regularly experienced discrimination. ‘The locals’, whom he
described as uneducated, had been hostile to him on numerous occasions. A
week before our interview, a customer had come into Jabar’s store and told
him to ‘go back to your country’. After relating that experience, Jabar told
me, ‘that just like happens all the time’.
The possibility of returning to Pakistan concerned Jabar, however, because
if he were to go back it would be next to impossible for him to find a job and
provide for his biraderi, or family network. Living in Ireland allowed him to
send remittances back home to his ailing mother. For this reason alone, he
said, he felt grateful to Ireland. As we sat in his dark and tiny office in the
basement of his shop, I noticed several pictures on the walls, including an
image of a large family gathering. Jabar constantly pointed to the photograph
when talking about returning home. Next to his family picture were images of
the Irish countryside and his Irish friends. If he were a legal resident of Ireland,
Jabar would most likely choose to live in the Emerald Isle, because the
country offers him the opportunity to make more money than he would make
if he lived in Islamabad. Ultimately, he showed the most concern for
the financial well-being of his biraderi. He had no issue with working abroad
if it meant that he could provide for them.
Out of the hundreds of stories that I heard throughout my fieldwork, perhaps
the most difficult story to absorb came from my conversation with Jabar. At
the time of our interview he was an undocumented migrant, meaning that he
had no official status and was not legally recognised by the Irish state. Many
Pakistanis like Jabar have had difficulty gaining temporary work permits or
visas for Irish residence and pathways to naturalisation for Irish citizenship
(Gilmore, n.d.). Statistics have shown that immigrants in Ireland are far less
likely to be granted citizenship than those in other European countries
(Tjaden and Becker, 2013). Pakistani doctors born in Pakistan also believe
that the Irish state takes a discriminatory approach in handling their appli-
cations for naturalisation, with most experiencing delays. Jabar’s comments
echo these findings. He had been working tirelessly with a lawyer to either
acquire a work visa or land on a path to naturalisation. He had accomplished
neither. After he related his story, I told him that I would be willing to help
him set up a meeting to consult with a more knowledgeable person in regards
to Irish citizenship. On a damp afternoon in the autumn of 2012 he called me
and asked if I would be willing to go with him to meet an employee of a local
immigrant rights centre in Dublin. I can sum up that meeting in one word:
frustration. The employer, whom I had previously met at Trinity College
66 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’
Dublin, said that Jabar was one of hundreds of immigrants stuck with the
‘illegal’ status. On our way home from the meeting, Jabar said, ‘I told you so’,
believing that nothing could be done to secure him any kind of legal residence
in Ireland. Due to his precarious status, Jabar was unable to leave Ireland for
fear of probably being denied re-entry. This predicament was particularly
problematic for him because his mother had recently fallen ill and he had
been unable to visit Islamabad to care for her. Ultimately, he felt increasingly
vulnerable and uncertain in light of the Irish state’s inability to grant him
legal residence.
Living with no official status made Jabar feel that the ‘Irish system’ was
unfair to immigrants and minorities. He demanded that the Irish state
‘change the immigration system, because the people who are getting attacked
are the people who are really working. They’re fair with the Irish state. And
they aren’t getting visas.’ He continued:

I’m paying taxes. I can speak English. I know a little bit about Irish
culture … if anybody knows me from Pakistan or Ireland, every single
person thinks I have an Irish passport. Every single person thinks I’m a
resident … But it’s not only me. So many people are illegal in this country,
and other people don’t know about their status. So it’s just not fair.

This backdrop of perceived discrimination facilitated Jabar’s sense of not

belonging to Ireland. This feeling had only heightened in recent years. Ten
years previously, when he arrived in Ireland, it was easy for him to be a
‘foreigner’, because the economy was doing well and ‘natives’ did not see
‘non-Irish’ residents as a social or economic threat. However, when the Celtic
Tiger collapsed and the economic recession began, Jabar sensed that the Irish
people ‘didn’t want any more foreigners … People just started saying straight
away … like “Paki” or “go back to your country”’. Jabar perceived the post-
Celtic Tiger period as a crisis period that had unleashed racist sentiment
against migrants, Pakistani or otherwise. This type of crisis racism, or reces-
sion racism, is where migrants are used as scapegoats for long-standing social
problems (Balibar, 1991, p. 217). Despite his feelings about the state of Irish
society, Jabar wanted to remain in Ireland for ‘safety and security’ reasons.
Pakistan offered him neither.
The final moments of our interview ended on a heartbreaking note. With
tears in his eyes, Jabar said, ‘My last twelve years here, my best years, I’ve
lost it here. I’ve lost my family … my friends, culture, like everything … You
can’t buy with money everything’. The uncertainty of his immigration status
and his inability to return to his family in Pakistan had left Jabar traumatised.
He seemed depressed and deeply worried about his future. ‘The manly side of
me says I can’t be depressed, but I have a feeling I’ve a bit of it’, he told me.
Without his family around him, Jabar had insufficient emotional and mental
support. Sending weekly remittances to his sick mother was the only
immediate connection that he retained with the ‘homeland’.
 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 67
Wazir: confronting ethnic nations
The stricken Celtic Tiger economy and spiralling unemployment in Ireland
appeared to have prompted a backlash against immigrants from many sectors
of society (O’Regan, 2009). My interview with Jabar is proof that non-
nationals have faced the adverse effects of racism. On numerous occasions
Jabar had been racialised as a Pakistani and, in turn, excluded from the ‘Irish’
in-group. His experiences alert us to the dynamics of ethnic nations.
As discussed in Chapter 2, an ethnic nation displays a form of nationalism
which defines it in terms of descent, marriage, blood, and soil (Wright et al.,
2012, p. 470). According to ethnic nationalists, it is not the state that creates
the nation, but the nation that creates the state. Like Jabar, Wazir, a first-
generation participant whom I interviewed in the basement of a coffee shop
in Dublin’s city centre, discussed being positioned outside the Irish nation
solely due to his ethnicity.
I met Wazir, a twenty-six-year-old, through one of my gatekeepers, an imam
at a mosque in south Dublin. This mosque, which will remain anonymous for
the sake of confidentiality, is a place where I spent many hours discussing
matters of the Islamic faith with congregants. On several occasions I noticed
that worshippers there were more conservative in their beliefs and less opti-
mistic about their place as Muslims in Irish society. On a typical day there, I
would see many Pakistani men wearing shalwar kameez, the traditional South
Asian clothing. I never once saw a woman at the mosque. During one of my
visits I listened to a khutba (Friday sermon) during which one man was openly
anti-Semitic, which became clear to me as he consistently conflated the Jews,
Judaism, Israel, and what he referred to as ‘Zionism’. After the khutba, the
imam introduced me to Wazir, who was dressed in a polo shirt and blue jeans. I
walked with them to Wazir’s new BMW. He agreed to meet me the next day.
As a recent graduate of a master’s degree programme in one of Dublin’s
main universities, Wazir appeared to be well integrated into Irish society. He
told me that his circle of friends was largely composed of Muslims but that he
also had many non-Muslim friends and colleagues. His English was nearly
flawless, and he spoke positively about his experience of living in Ireland since
moving from Balochistan several years previously. Nevertheless, he also
believed that he was being discriminated against by potential employers:

Yes, there is some discrimination … With my own experience, I think it’s

more to do with jobs … Like they will ask me where I’m from, what was
your past like … Like for example, I was applying for a few jobs for
security … so it’s one of those areas where people won’t take me because
of my nationality. I’d be more discriminated against [because of] my
nationality rather than my religion.

According to Wazir, Irish employers discriminated against him because they

associated his Pakistani identity with violence and terrorism, which made it
68 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’
difficult for him to get hired for positions that concerned Ireland’s security.
His treatment raises possible legal issues, because in Ireland it is unlawful to
treat a person less favourably due his or her ‘race’, ethnicity, national origin,
or colour (Social Inclusion Unit, n.d.). Wazir’s experience was not an isolated
case; of the nine criteria covered by recent equality legislation (Russell et al.,
2008, p. ix), race/skin colour/ethnic group/nationality constituted the second
most commonly reported grounds for discrimination. Wazir thought of him-
self as an integrated immigrant, but he also claimed that there were limits to
how closely he could associate with the ‘real Irish’.
The notion of Irish identity carries indeterminate meanings, but Wazir did
not consider himself to be Irish. He offered the following when I asked him to
elaborate on his relationship to Irish identity:

There’s natural attributes that I can’t change about myself … It’s my colour,
my physical appearance, because that will never change. And my ancestral
links. These are things that I can’t change. Like, this one person asked me,
‘How do you feel? Are you Irish totally?’ And I said, ‘No. I can’t feel that’ …
I think it’s the physical way. You can see myself … If you look at me, I’m not
from Ireland. People will say that straight away to you. My family, my
ancestors weren’t born and raised here. I’m not Irish. Maybe in a few years I
will change my accent or learn Gaelic, but I won’t be Irish at the end of the
day. But it’s good that [Irish] people do accept you.

Wazir viewed his skin colour as setting the ultimate parameter of his life in
Ireland, a country where he had lived for eight years. His ethnic identity
seemed to be the first port of call for how both he and others defined Irishness. In
his mind, Irish national identity was synonymous with whiteness and Cath-
olicism, and neither of these two identity types was extended to brown people
like him. My question about the meaning of Irishness reminded him, albeit in
a friendly way, that he was not – and never could be – Irish the way it is
currently defined.
When Wazir first arrived in the country he had lived and worked in Ennis
in County Clare, which he described as having the ‘real Irish identity’. He
referred to Ennis as ‘a lovely town’ that he thought of as ‘home’ despite the
fact that he did not identify himself as Irish. Wazir commented enthusiastically,
‘Ireland is home now. I can … sacrifice my life for this land … That’s what
[Islam] teaches me … You’re practising Islam if you’re in love with Ireland. A
good Muslim will always think this way.’ Like some other Muslims, Wazir, a
Sunni, believes that Islam requires Muslims to be loyal to the country they live
in – regardless of the faith of the rulers. Wazir elaborated on the intersection
between Islam and Irish national identity:

Loyalty is the most important thing in Islam. You should be loyal to

where you’re living. It says [in the Quran that] you should be loyal to your
religion, your wife, your children, so you should also be loyal to your
 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 69
land. That’s a major thing. A lot of people don’t understand these
things … There are a lot of Muslims that think that we cannot be part of
Ireland, so I say, ‘You’re ungrateful of what [God] has given to you. He
has given you the chance to live in this land.’

In this statement, Wazir advocated for patriotism. Loving one’s country and
its people is an important aspect of the Islamic faith for some Muslims
because the Prophet Muhammad said, ‘Love of your country is part of your
faith.’ Muslims who take this position might also point to the Quran (4:60),
which states: ‘O ye who believe, obey Allah and obey the Prophet and obey
those in authority from among you.’ Wazir is unlike some Muslims in this book
who considered nationalism to be haram, or forbidden in Islam. Their stories,
which I share in Chapter 5, reveal opposition to the notion of an autonomous
state and preference for a borderless, transnational ummah. But in Wazir’s
view, Islam does not forbid a Muslim to hold nationalistic or patriotic views,
and he showed love and loyalty to Ireland rather than Pakistan.
Like many of my participants, Wazir, a Baloch, was averse to returning to
Pakistan because of the current state of political affairs there. He viewed Pakistan
as an ethnic nation that was dominated by Punjabis. As the only participant in
this book to identify fervently with his sub-ethnic identity, Wazir is an interesting
case study for evaluating the ethnic hierarchy amongst Pakistanis in diaspora.
He said that he was one of a handful of Pakistanis in Ireland who identified
themselves as Baloch. Speaking adamantly against the Punjabi-dominated
Pakistani state, Wazir rejected the notion of Pakistani identity:

I don’t feel myself to be Pakistani … As a Baloch, we don’t feel, we aren’t

Pakistani, or we aren’t Iranian. Balochistan goes into Iran, but the problem
with that is they don’t understand us now. We don’t have any similarities
to Iran or Pakistan. We have our own dress code … When you live with
someone … you will always be called Pakistani, but when you say
‘Pakistanis’ you will think of Punjabis. I meet a lot of people here in
Dublin who say, ‘Where are you from?’, and I say, ‘Okay, I’m a Pakistani
citizen as a passport, but I’m not Pakistani’ … Our marriages are done
differently; our language is totally different. A lot of people think we
speak Urdu. We are also secular, so people from Afghanistan won’t accept
us … We are secular in the way that we have freedom, music, and a lot of
things … So that’s a few things. That’s why I don’t feel Pakistani … [The
Baloch] used to have our flag. We had our own national anthem. We had
a king, King Khan. He was told to swear to Quran that [the Baloch] will
come down and give him the freedom. They came down from the
mountains because they could not hide there. If you aren’t aware of the
land, you can’t fight somewhere geographically. So they came down …
The [Baloch] Army was put in the jail. They were prosecuted, and then
[the Pakistani government] hanged them. Capital punishment. The entire
family. Fourteen people. Since that the Baloch have started revolutions …
70 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’
[Pakistan] wanted to create a country in the name of Islam … We didn’t
want to join them. We don’t talk about religion [in Balochistan]. We talk
about our way of living. It’s different. If these are different then there will
always be conflict.

As a Baloch, Wazir perceived himself as separate from other Pakistanis

because he identified with practices and values that can be grouped under the
expression rasm-e-Baloch (Baloch custom), which includes the values of
honour, individual autonomy, hospitality, secularism, and the protection of
women in the family (Nematiniya, 2013). Breseeg (2011), on the other hand,
has criticised Baloch nationalists like Wazir who think of forces of unity and
forces of divisiveness as separate and independent, and ignore the dialectical
relationship between them. While the exact meaning and origin of Baloch
identity is cloudy, Wazir appeared to define it in concrete terms. In reality,
however, the Baloch constitute a heterogeneous population, though in some
cases certain tribes have preserved traditions, which is why some Baloch
believe themselves to have a common ancestry (ibid.). Though the ‘Pakistani
nation’ is typically understood to have multiple narratives, the phenomenon
of ethnic return migration has shown that Pakistanis like Wazir can draw
hierarchical distinctions between people in diaspora who claim to be ‘Pakistani’.
The ethnic and political fragmentation of Pakistan adds another element to
the complex task of defining Pakistani identity in diaspora. Wazir claimed that
Punjabis in Ireland have ‘abused the system’, and he criticised them for their
ignorance of other Pakistanis, particularly the Baloch. He referred to Ireland’s
‘immigration problem’ as an example of abusing the system, but he wasn’t
referring to problems like Jabar’s inability to access a work visa or Irish citizen-
ship. Wazir criticised Punjabis for allegedly breaking Irish law. The foundation of
his argument rested on ‘sham marriages’, an issue that has received significant
media attention in recent years (Cahill, 2013; Griffin, 2015; Kelly, 2013;
Minihan, 2015; O’Reilly, 2015). He claimed that Punjabis were entering this
kind of marriage to ‘chase the money’ and added that Punjabis ‘need to
change their brain’ or else return to Pakistan.
Wazir did not think of himself in the same way that other Pakistanis saw
themselves. He claimed that Pakistanis in Dublin, particularly Punjabis, failed
to understand him when he spoke about freedom. On one particular occasion
on Clanbrassil Street, an area where many Pakistani Muslims socialise in
restaurants and small grocery stores, a Punjabi man stood up in a restaurant
and harassed Wazir, accusing him of being ‘anti-Pakistani’. Here is how
Wazir related the experience:

My Irish friend was telling this Pakistani man, ‘Oh, this is my friend from
Balochistan’. And I told the [Pakistani man], ‘You’re patriotic, I under-
stand, but no point for you to live in this country if you don’t want to.
Go back to Pakistan … You spent ten years in this country, and you
abused the system in everything you did. You claim to love this country …
 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’ 71
You’re the biggest hypocrite in the world. He got aggressive and I said,
‘There is no point in being aggressive.’

While much of the attention paid to discrimination faced by Pakistanis in

cities like Dublin has focused specifically on how non-Pakistanis perceive and
interact with them, Wazir is the only participant in this book to claim that
discrimination comes mostly from within the Pakistani community. His
experience with inter-ethnic discrimination is important because it reminds us
not to overlook intra-ethnic conflict amongst Pakistanis in diaspora.
Returning to Pakistan was not a realistic option for Wazir. He claimed that
Punjabis, who dominate Pakistan’s army, work with the country’s intelligence
agencies to kill Baloch separatists and tribesmen who are resisting the
oppression that originates in Islamabad. When I asked Wazir to elaborate on
this he replied, ‘I’m not against Pakistanis. I’m against the country and its
creation. Because of the creation, there’s a conflict.’ He continued:

My forefathers lived in Balochistan. They never believed they were

Pakistani. Yes, I have a Pakistani passport, but that’s a different story … I
don’t believe in it. This game is being played with us since fifty or sixty
years ago. Baloch understand this … I’m very fearful of [Pakistani state]
agencies … Whenever a Baloch is killed, I feel the pain … They’re
humans, not animals. It’s a different side. For me, my own political side is
a bit different. I’m in favour of a free and independent Balochistan.
People don’t accept that. Recently I’ve been stopped at the airport,
interrogated, in Karachi. I went to see my mom. She was seriously ill.
They took my card at the immigration office. They just asked me ques-
tions. There are groups of people fighting the Pakistani military, to get
freedom or whatever. They call them freedom fighters.

This is why Wazir felt ‘unsafe’ as a Baloch in Pakistan. He told me that he

planned to remain in Ireland for the foreseeable future and intended to
‘[build] friendship bridges between different communities’. One of his per-
ceived responsibilities as a resident of Ireland was to ‘build peace’ and
encourage people to ‘interchange their thoughts’ and to ‘know more about
different things’. Ultimately, Wazir aimed to combat discrimination and racism,
a struggle that he expected to inevitably unfold over the next few decades.

The new ‘folk devils’?

Two events – the attacks of 9/11 and the end of the Celtic Tiger economic
boom – changed the United States and Ireland tremendously. In the American
context, Pakistanis have been subjected to intrusive interrogation processes
and other forms of racial profiling. Pakistani Muslims in particular have been
detained and treated with suspicion on the grounds that they pose a threat to
national security. These developments challenge the civic nation and the view
72 ‘Terrorism’ and the ‘immigration problem’
that no person in the United States shall be discriminated against based on
race, religion, or national origin. The volatile situation since the collapse of the
Celtic Tiger economy led the Irish state to concentrate on efforts to recover
from the economic downturn rather than focus on the socio-cultural impli-
cations the recession had for immigrants such as Pakistanis. The presence of
non-white foreign nationals in many ways encouraged the Irish ethnic nation
and the belief that Irish identity is rooted in a shared heritage and a common
ethnic ancestry. In both countries, politicians and media outlets found a new
‘folk devil’ – the brown Pakistani Muslim, who is invading ‘Western civilization’
and behaving in ways antithetical to American and Irish values.
The 9/11 attacks and the downfall of the Celtic Tiger deeply affected
America and Ireland respectively. Fear and anxiety surrounding those perceived
to be ‘national outsiders’ played a significant role in how Americans and Irish
determined who belonged and who did not belong in those countries. Myths
surrounding national identity and theories pertaining to national values and
belief systems ultimately denigrated Pakistanis and Muslims, and consequently
affected their everyday lives. Moreover, the post-9/11 security narrative and
the ‘recession racism’ following the end of the Celtic Tiger increased discussions
of national and religious identity within Pakistani communities in diaspora.
These discussions intensified the meaning of not only Pakistani identity, but
also Muslim identity.
Pakistanis, however, do not speak with one voice. No community does.
Although this fact is self-evident, much of the conversation revolving around
Pakistanis in the United States and Ireland has invoked an image of an ethnic
minority community that is monolithic. This perception is, of course, proble-
matic, because Pakistanis in diaspora are diverse in their cultural traditions
and expressions. In light of this reality, the next chapter gives voice to young
Pakistani men’s experiences in negotiating various cultural worlds.

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4 Cross-cultural navigators and desh
pardesh

I first arrived in Ireland on a chilly and damp Friday morning in September

2010 to start my Ph.D. programme at Trinity College Dublin. I had left my
hometown of Needham, Massachusetts, and landed at Dublin Airport ready
to embark upon my research on the lives of Pakistanis living in Dublin. After
collecting my two suitcases from baggage claim, I ventured out to the taxi
queue, where a taxi driver named Vincent was ready to take me to my new
home in Rathmines, a suburb on the south side of Dublin. Vincent was a
talkative and curious person. He asked me all kinds of questions about my
background and the purpose of my visit to Ireland. After I told him about
my research interests he became a bit wary. Vincent believed that Pakistanis
were ‘foreigners’ who were having a negative effect on Irish society. He
associated Pakistanis with Islam, mostly because of the coverage he had
seen of Pakistan in the news. Our conversation eventually opened up, and
Vincent became genuinely curious about the Pakistani community in
Dublin. When I told him that many Pakistanis lived in Ireland, he was
shocked and asked me, ‘Are you lying?’ I gave him a lot of details, but he
still seemed perplexed and suspicious of my intentions to learn about the
experiences of Pakistanis living in Ireland.
It undoubtedly shocked Vincent to know that Pakistanis had been living in
Ireland for two generations. Sher Mohammed Rafique, an entrepreneur and a
Muslim, was among the earliest Pakistanis in Ireland. In 1974 he opened a
meat-processing plant in County Mayo which he intended to serve as a base
for his meat-export operation. Rafique became one of the biggest exporters of
halal meat to Europe and the Middle East. He expanded the company,
known initially as Halal Meats, by incorporating five slaughterhouses spread
throughout the country in Ballaghadereen, County Roscommon; Ballyhaunis,
County Mayo; Camolin, County Wexford; Charleville, County Cork, and
Sligo, County Sligo. To sustain the operations Rafique recruited a number of
Muslim butchers from abroad who specialised in halal slaughter. In 1986,
Rafique also sponsored the construction of Ireland’s first purpose-built
mosque in Ballyhaunis. He was, in effect, one of ‘founding fathers’ of the
‘Pakistani community’ of Ireland.
76 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
Ayeen, Haneef, and Hamiz: navigating cultural borderlands
Perhaps Vincent would have been even more shocked to meet Ayeen, a burly
thirty-one-year-old native of Ireland who wore a traditional Irish flat cap
during our interview on the campus of Trinity College Dublin. He spoke in
such a thick Dublin accent that I asked him to repeat himself a handful of
times. Ayeen referred to himself as ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’,
which is a phrase used in Irish historiography to describe a phenomenon of
cultural assimilation in late medieval, Norman Ireland (MacLysaght, n.d.).
Ayeen’s father, who was born and raised in Punjab, migrated to Belfast
around the same time that Sher Rafique moved to Ireland. Ayeen described
his father as a hard-working man who laboured diligently to support his
family. He explained, ‘He had a bike, and he used to go around selling used
clothing, used cloth. He used to go door-to-door’. Although he had been born
in Pakistan, Ayeen’s father became ‘more of an Irishman than a Pakistani’, as
Ayeen described his personal evolution. When I asked why his father became
more Irish than Pakistani, he said that he had deliberately changed because of
his children, who he wanted to see become Irish for the sake of ‘successful
integration’.
Ayeen spoke passionately about his sense of Irishness in light of the Celtic
Tiger and other recent social, cultural and political developments in Ireland.
Irish culture, he argued, is ‘losing the love, the unity, the warmth that it had’.
According to him, the ‘real’ Irish people were now only to be found in rural
Ireland, in places like County Kerry: ‘In all of the small villages and towns,
you will see the Irish, the old Irish, the Irish that’s meant to be.’ He proceeded to
juxtapose the ‘real’ Ireland with the ‘new’ Ireland of capitalism and marketing.
For instance, he believed that the Irish are

being captured … we’re being taken away from ourselves through mar-
keting, and that really scares me, to be honest with you. I think the land
of Ireland is no longer going to be the land of Ireland because you can’t
fight capitalism.

Like many other people in his country, Ayeen described himself as a socialist
who supported Sinn Féin, the Irish republican party. Sinn Féin is Irish for
‘ourselves’ or ‘we ourselves’, although it is frequently mistranslated as ‘our-
selves alone’ (Connolly, 1908). Ayeen saw himself as part of the ‘ourselves’
and the ‘we’ and thus unequivocally linked himself to Irish identity, albeit the
‘old’ one.
Of all my Irish participants, Ayeen was the most critical of the Celtic Tiger
economic boom and its impact on Irish culture and society. He thought it had
been ‘the worst fucking thing ever’ because it made Irish people care more
about materialism than religion. An impressive body of psychological
research seems to support his feelings and claims that materialism, a trait that
can afflict both rich and poor and is defined as ‘a value system that is
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 77
preoccupied with possessions and the social image they project’, is both
socially destructive and self-destructive (Bauer et al., 2012). For Ayeen, the
Irish have become too obsessed with ‘money, money, money … People want
the sports car, the big mansion, and they want a jacuzzi. Gadgets and stuff!’
He railed against materialism in Ireland, a topic which had recently caught
the attention of the president, Michael D. Higgins. In a powerful address in
2013, Higgins warned the Irish people of the greed and avarice which he
claimed was threatening the country’s ‘essential sense of community’
(McConnell, 2013). Around the final days of the collapse of the Celtic Tiger,
Higgins argued that the Irish had become too individualistic and that Irish
culture now ‘valued a person in terms of their personal wealth, their ability to
accumulate material goods’. The needs of the collective, he argued, had been
superseded by the needs of the individual. Like Higgins, Ayeen viewed the
Celtic Tiger period as a time when the needs of the economy were given pre-
cedence over something that we can broadly refer to as ‘morality’. Ayeen
wanted the Irish people to return to the ‘older wisdom’ that, while respecting
material comfort and security, also recognised that many of the most valuable
things in life cannot be measured by material gain or individual fame.
As part of our focus on the impact of the Celtic Tiger, the topic of sexual
objectification arose during the interview. Ayeen claimed that women in Ireland
have been treated as if they are a ‘thing’, a reference to the subject–object
dichotomy and the idea that when men objectify women, they remove
women’s ability to act and hence their power (A Voice For Men, 2015). The
increase in ‘sexual openness’ that occurred during the Celtic Tiger was both-
ersome to Ayeen because ‘the real Ireland was all about covering up’. He
again referred to County Kerry where, Ayeen claimed, women still wear the
hijab and care about modesty. While juxtaposing the ‘old’ and ‘real’ Ireland
with the ‘new’ Ireland, he said that the only thing women in Ireland cared
about now was ‘the marketing beauty’, and added: ‘We are forgetting about
the inner beauty … which is a fucking big loss. It’s all fake. It’s horrible.’
Raising ‘good Muslim’ daughters is another issue which came up during
our interview. Family is important to Ayeen, and he worried that his daughter
was being raised in a society that increasingly sexually objectifies women.
According to him, his daughter had been ‘seeing crazy stuff on the television,
crazy stuff on the streets … She sees Playboy accessories. It’s all marketing …
The hobbies for girls today are buying accessories, impressing men, showing
your boobs as much as you can’. With these comments, Ayeen appeared to
suggest that feminism and Islam are incompatible, because he views feminism
as rejecting the Islamic concept of hay’a, or modesty. Islam has been described
as a ‘modest religion’ which teaches moderation in whatever a Muslim does
(Adua, 2013). Islam also teaches Muslim women to dress modestly by covering
certain parts of their body (ibid.) Ayeen’s comments raised the binary of
‘Islamic ideology’ versus ‘secular ideology’; he also insinuated that liberalism
supports the interests of the individual over those of society (The Muslim
Vibe, 2015). This does not mean, however, that Ayeen believed that Muslims
78 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
cannot live in a secular society: Muslims can also see Islam as standing for
civic values, a concept I return to in Chapter 7.
The alleged triumph of materialism and individualism over communalism
during the Celtic Tiger raises the question, what does it mean to be Irish? For
Ayeen, being Irish is linked to cultural activities such as partying and drinking
alcohol, both of which he had engaged in at various times in his teenage and
young-adult years. At the time of our interview, Ayeen was thirty-one years
old and had recently undergone an ‘Islamic awakening’, meaning a returning
or awakening to Islam; an experience of becoming more self-confident as a
Muslim and taking more pride in Islam (Mowlana, 2010). About six years
previously he had fallen into what he described as the ‘trap’ of ‘Western culture’,
which he did not distinguish from ‘Irish culture’. He told me that he used to
love to party and drink alcohol with hip-hop artists and rappers in Dublin.
During this period, he did not care about Islam or the fact that he had been
raised in a Pakistani, Muslim family. After his lifestyle choices started to
upset his family Ayeen ‘snapped out of it’ and realised that partying and
drinking were not supposed to be parts of his life. At this point in the interview,
he added, ‘I’m a Muslim … Muslims tend to forget’.
Being a ‘good Muslim’ – in this context, refraining from alcohol – is a
standard that Ayeen intends to set for his children despite describing himself as
a ‘non-practising Muslim’. While explaining his religiosity, Ayeen commented
in a reluctant tone: ‘I don’t, though I should … follow the Five Pillars of
Islam. I should read my Quran. I should go to hajj. I should give zakat … I
love the Prophet Muhammad … There’s something there, but it’s not coming
out yet.’ He used the ‘good Muslim’ versus ‘bad Muslim’ binary to explain
his identity as well as his intentions for raising his children in a culture that he
perceived to be at odds with Islam. In a sense, Ayeen rejected hybridity, or the
idea that he can be both culturally Irish and Islamic without comprising
either of these ‘value systems’.
Historically, being Irish has been inextricably linked to Catholicism. In
recent years, however, social scientists and intellectuals have noted that Ireland
has grown increasingly secular. The concept of secularisation is underpinned
by a linear concept of ‘progress’ that views modern institutions such as
democracy, capitalism, and science as accompanied by a series of mutually
reinforcing social processes, such as secularisation, rationalisation, and disen-
chantment (Kuhling, 2014, p. 101). Ayeen viewed both materialism and secu-
larisation as destructive forces in contemporary Irish society. He stated that
Irish people are becoming more ‘robotic’ and too individually oriented and
that these developments should be blamed on the Celtic Tiger. Ayeen repeat-
edly denounced ‘secular culture’ because he saw it as running the risk of
bringing immorality to Irish society. The ‘new Ireland’, which Ayeen perceived
as materially prosperous, secular, and even anti-Catholic, focused too much
on ‘personal freedom’ and not enough on the social cohesion of communities.
In reading Ayeen’s anti-secular comments, one might conclude that he is
an ‘Islamic supremacist’. There is little doubt that he did not condone
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 79
secularisation, but it would be a mistake to identify Ayeen as an Islamic
supremacist. He stated:

We’re losing ourselves … Because we’re losing the religion … We’re losing
the Bible, the Torah, the Quran … We aren’t looking at the proper passport.
The proper passport is religion … yet here we’re looking at the fucking
citizenship … Nationalism, I think, is really fucking it up.

Ayeen did not condone Irish nationalism because he saw nationalism as

‘divisive’ and, in his view, the Quran is against such divisions. His religiously
pluralist mindset provided room for various religious truth claims and placed
Islam equally alongside Judaism and Christianity within the larger Abrahamic
tradition. Ayeen’s views on religious pluralism reflect the significant social
changes of Ireland over the last few decades. As a multi-faith society, it is
imperative that Irish people work to strengthen a non-exclusive perspective on
religion.
Thus far, we have seen that Ayeen opposed secularisation and distanced
himself from post-Celtic Tiger nationalist allegiances. He did, however, identify
himself as ‘Irish’, albeit with an ‘older’, more Catholic-oriented version of
national identity. Ayeen also had a varied relationship to Pakistani cultural
production and other links to the ‘homeland’. In Ireland, Ayeen and his
family reproduce elements of Pakistani culture, which is evident in the
following passage:

The mother always gave us the mother tongue. Urdu, Punjabi, Pakistani
culture inside the house, which is ‘Don’t speak English! Speak Urdu or
Punjabi.’ It’s Pakistani food … We cooked Pakistani food to have that
tradition. Also, to be Pakistani is to have that arranged marriage. My
elder brother was arranged … My eldest sister was arranged to a Pakistani
guy, happily married. My other sister, she was arranged with a doctor who
was also Pakistani … [I was] arranged as well.

This interview excerpt provides further insight into Ayeen’s cultural identity, a
term that is traditionally understood to mean a static marker that identifies
the biological and cultural characteristics of a specific ethnic and racial group.
His cultural identity involved belonging, which meant that he shared with
other Pakistanis fixed and collective cultural categories (Chiang, 2010, p. 31)
such as kinship, ‘homeland’, cultural heritage, and sameness. These cultural
categories were crucial to Ayeen’s sense of ‘Pakistaniness’. By rebuilding the
‘homeland’ in Ireland, Ayeen and his family have reclaimed and reprocessed
habits, objects, names, and histories from the immigrant culture.
Displaying aspects of Pakistaniness in Ireland, however, is not the same for
Ayeen as ‘being Pakistani’ in the physical ‘homeland’. He told me that he had
visited Pakistan on several occasions, but that he had always been treated as
an outsider because of his accent. For this reason, and because he saw
80 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
Pakistan as a ‘corrupt country’, Ayeen stated that he could never live in the
‘homeland’. Having Pakistani ancestry did not guarantee that Ayeen thought
and felt as though he belonged to Pakistan. In this sense, he did not display
the diasporic condition of double consciousness (Dayal, 1996), in which an
immigrant relates to two different meanings of belonging.
Despite describing himself early in our interview as ‘more Irish than the
Irish’, Ayeen still experienced Othering in Dublin. By Othering, I mean any
action by which he became classified in somebody’s mind as ‘not one of us’ or
‘not Irish’. The derogatory phrase ‘Pakis out’ had once been spray-painted on
the outside wall of the council estate home where he used to live. On another
occasion he had been ‘jumped by about thirteen guys’. ‘Jumped’ is another
term for being attacked by two or more people. On other occasions, people had
called him ‘Paki’; Ayeen added that people who use that term are ‘fucked in
the head … they’ve no fucking system. They don’t even know … They don’t
have that education.’ When I asked about the significance of these kinds of
experiences, Ayeen responded, ‘It’s not their fault. They learn it, and that’s the
society. That’s what I’m scared of. I don’t want that. If anybody called my
daughter, my sons, or my nieces that, I’d fuck them up, to be honest with you’.
People who use the term ‘Paki’ dismiss citizens like Ayeen as being in some
way ‘less Irish’ and perhaps even less worthy of respect and dignity. This is an
unfortunate development. Ayeen claimed to be ‘more Irish than the Irish’.
While he might reproduce Pakistani culture in diaspora, Ireland is the only
place where he felt that he could truly belong, and returning to Pakistan was
not an ideal move because he had been Othered as an Irishman during several
visits to the subcontinent.

Floating between cultures

Ayeen was not alone in being a second-generation Pakistani in diaspora who
had learned to become part of multiple cultural worlds. Haneef, a twenty-five-
year-old professional who grew up in a working-class Pakistani family in Boston,
told me that he ‘always kept a very Pakistani culture’. He joked that his father ‘is
the stereotypical Pakistani’ because he ran a South Asian restaurant and con-
venience store, drove a taxi, and at the time of our interview worked as a security
guard at a local academic institution. Haneef praised his father for ‘hustling’
and ‘really working his ass off’, both of which can be taken as references to
achieving the ‘American Dream’. Haneef added that his father’s immigrant
experience was ‘a very American story’ because he eventually worked himself out
of the ‘working class’ and into what Haneef called the ‘upper middle class’.
Haneef ’s parents had always been adamant about reproducing aspects of
the migrant culture in Boston. When I asked, ‘What role does Pakistani culture
play in your life?’, Haneef responded in the following way:

I would say that it’s kind of just like traditions, certain ways of doing
things. I’m very much into the music, and I’m into the history. My mom
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 81
was an advanced Urdu major in college, so I got a kind of love of poetry
through her. So I would say, like, literature, music, those sorts of things.
Those are what draw me to Pakistani culture. And the history.

Haneef ’s relationship with Pakistani identity meant being ‘culturally aware’

of having a tie to a country that represented him in some way or another. Yet
Haneef showed no familiarity with Deobandi or Barelvi practices – strands of
South Asian Islam that originated in his ‘homeland’. In fact, he did not reg-
ularly practise any version of Islam. Haneef called himself a ‘fair weather
Muslim’ who practised the faith of his parents in an ‘on and off’ way. In this
sense, he mirrored Ayeen, who had mentioned that he needed to be a ‘better
Muslim’ by following the Five Pillars more strictly. Islam was nonetheless
important to both Ayeen and Haneef. Haneef said that Islam was important
to him ‘in different contexts than what most Muslims would say’. He added,
‘I’m a very spiritual person’.
For Haneef, being Muslim was a personal experience which provided him
with direction in life and a system of moral values. He criticised both his
parents and Muslims in Boston as getting too ‘wrapped up in the details,
trying to follow all the minor little things’ about Islam. In this context he
resembled Sufis, who have typically criticised more conservative Muslims for
stripping away spirituality, focusing too much on rituals, providing sketchy
interpretations of divine laws, and promoting fear of God’s wrath (Faruqui,
2011). Haneef also broke away from the views of ‘normative Islam’ on alco-
hol; he called himself a ‘casual drinker’. Being comfortable in the ‘drinking
scene’, as Haneef called it, was important to him because it helped him
develop a sense of belonging to Boston society. ‘A lot of people associated
drinking with Boston’, he added, with a smile on his face.
Thus far, we have seen the ways in which Haneef navigated in and out of
three realms of ‘culture’: immigrant culture, ‘Islamic culture’ and the local
culture in Boston. But what about the larger American culture? Haneef saw
himself as more American than his four siblings, all of whom had entered
arranged marriages with spouses from Pakistan. He referred to himself as the
‘outlier’ in the family because he is the first child that would ‘marry for love’.
Like other millennials (Ludwig, 2013), he planned on delaying marriage until
midlife, preferring instead to focus on his education and career. He claimed
that the city of Boston represented the best of American culture, which he
linked to academic institutions and open-mindedness. ‘We’ve a lot of smart
people here, a lot of intellectuals’, he said. ‘We’ve such a diverse community.
You’re only hurting yourself if you’re closed-minded.’
Indeed, Boston has been described as a complex metropolis of high intellect
and hard work that is home to excellent hospitals, innovative high-tech com-
panies, and challenging universities (Weeks, 2013). Perhaps more than any
other city in the United States, Boston has ‘been a harbor for American
intelligence and independence. Like a modern-day Athens, it has sent out into
the world some of its greatest thinkers and doers’ (ibid.). These cultural values
82 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
are reasons why Haneef felt as though he belonged to both the city of Boston
and the United States in general. His comments invoked an American identity
that emphasises education and civil society – a space that embraces diverse
groups, associations, organisations, professional bodies, and social movements
(UNESCO, n.d.). Ultimately, he perceived ‘Americanness’ as an identity that
protects civic virtues and rights that derive from ‘natural law’.
But Haneef also discussed coping with the threat of Islamophobia to
Muslim Americans’ civil rights (Khan, 2011). He identified himself as ‘a post-
9/11 kid’, which he described in light of Muslims being labelled as potential
threats to national security. Here is how he reflected on the impact of 9/11
and his sense of self while living in Boston:

There was this scorn, I guess, towards Muslims, and I took that to heart
very easily. And on top of that, Pakistan was in the daily news, so there
was a lot going on there, and there was just this perception of the two
cultures, the Pakistan and Muslim. Part of it was like I just held onto
these more adamantly, so American identity really never resonated with
me. I never took that too hard until I went abroad and I was forced to be
American … Then I actually started thinking, holding to that American
identity.

There is little doubt that the fifteen years or so since 9/11 have been
challenging for Muslim Americans, from the anti-terror surveillance aimed at
mosques, schools, organisations, and individuals to the wave of hostility
encouraged by those who see Islam as fomenting hatred and violence (Huus,
2011). Indeed, Haneef said that he had ‘heard a lot of stories of people just
being picked up’ by FBI agents. He added that two Pakistani families that
had been close to his family ‘just disappeared, and nobody knows [where they
went] because they just took them’. These stories – and his personal experiences
of Islamophobia – have made Haneef more aware of and also more confident
in his own ‘Americanness’. Reflecting on the scrutiny and suspicion directed
at Muslims in the United States, he said that Islamophobia had galvanised a
new generation of more assertive, confident, and politically motivated Muslim
American citizens. According to him, the backlash against Muslims after 9/11
has been ‘part of the narrative that many groups have historically gone
through. I would see it as an era of persecution … that is eventually going to
get better’.
Both Ayeen in Dublin and Haneef in Boston are second-generation parti-
cipants who have reproduced the immigrant culture in diaspora but who also
undeniably identify themselves as Irish and American respectively. There was,
however, one major difference between these two young men. While Ayeen
refused to return to the ‘homeland’, an unhomely place where he had
encountered Othering, Haneef was open to the idea of one day settling in
Pakistan. His career in economic and social development could bring him
professional opportunities to live in the ‘homeland’. ‘It’s hard to say right
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 83
now’, he said, ‘but I think if I were to live there, it wouldn’t be because of my
affinity to it, but it would be because my career requires it of me’. Like Ayeen,
Haneef did not feel an immediate cultural connection to Pakistan, but both
men still related to and reproduced aspects of Pakistani culture in diaspora.
Hamiz, a twenty-six-year-old participant, echoed many of Haneef ’s views
and experiences; both were young, second-generation Pakistani men in the
United States. Growing up in a small town in a mid-Atlantic state, Hamiz
belonged to what he described as a ‘typical immigrant family’ which took on
a ‘very conservative Pakistani cultural thing’. Outside the home environment,
he mirrored the cultural orientations of his largely white, Christian peers: he
enjoyed playing sports, spoke English, and interacted openly with the oppo-
site sex. As he entered his teenage years, he found himself embodying the role
of cross-cultural navigator. As he put it,

I kind of just floated between [Pakistani culture and American culture],

depending on the situation … In school or whatever, I’d fit in there, but if
I was in the mosque, I could speak Urdu really well and got along really
well with the families, so it was a little bit of both, which is interesting
because you don’t really see that a lot. At least I don’t up here [in Boston]
so much.

When Hamiz arrived in Boston as a university student, he made a deliberate

effort to interact with non-Pakistanis and non-Muslims more than he had
done so previously. ‘I wanted to get out there and learn as much as I could’,
he said, ‘otherwise I wouldn’t be successful’. Speaking Urdu, which he had
learned from his parents, and being ‘culturally aware’ of South Asian traditions
allowed Hamiz to ‘[get] along great with the international kids’. In university,
he hung out with ‘both crowds’ – meaning people of South Asian descent as
well as others. As a cross-cultural navigator (Parekh, 2000, p. 29), Hamiz
possessed both dominant and non-dominant cultural capital, and our inter-
view highlighted how adept second-generation Pakistanis in diaspora can be
at navigating various sociocultural environments in which cultural codes and
rules might differ. The complex sociocultural realities of Ayeen, Haneef and
Hamiz enabled them to categorise their own lives in terms of multiple, con-
tingent opinions and combinations (Cressey, 2012, p. 133). Hamiz, for example,
showed that he was sensitive to the backgrounds of students from margin-
alised and disadvantaged communities and that he understood how society
creates social hierarchies.
As a university student, Hamiz had engaged with Muslim students and
joined several Islamic organisations on campus. However, in the six years
since he had graduated with a bachelor’s degree, Hamiz had ‘backed off a
little bit’ from practising Islam and interacting with Muslims. When I asked
him why he had chosen that path, he commented, ‘I think I kind of started
focusing more on my career, focusing on the other things … like trying to be
successful’. He described Muslims in Boston as having a more ‘intellectual
84 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
perspective’ on Islam compared with the Pakistani Muslims back in his
mid-Atlantic hometown. He added,

[Boston is] very progressive. People are accepting a lot more, whereas
when I think about my community back home, they’re kind of traditional
and closed. They just want to do it the way they did it in their village
back home [in Pakistan].

Hamiz had fallen in love with Boston: he appreciated its established institutions,
including Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, and he
applauded the interfaith dialogue between different religious communities in
the city. Basically, he enjoyed living in Boston because he saw the city as
generally having a culture that tolerates difference.
Nevertheless, as a Pakistani Muslim in the United States, Hamiz had also
experienced what Dizard (2015) referred to as ‘Islamophobic fear’. Growing
up, Hamiz’s peers called him ‘the Muslim kid’, a label which clearly Othered
him based on a perceived Islamic background. Days after 9/11, a classmate
had tried to blame Hamiz for the attack on the World Trade Center, but one
of his friends had defended him and squashed the conflict. Hamiz related
another incident in which several FBI agents had contacted him and his
father over ‘some relative that was being, like, a bad leader or something’.
This incident, which had occurred back in Hamiz’s mid-Atlantic home-state,
‘scared the hell’ out of his parents, as he explained:

[My parents] totally flipped out. They were like, ‘Who are you talking
to?’ The [FBI agents] showed up and just left a card for me. They do that
so as to not intimidate … My parents were like, ‘What’s going on?’ You
know, I talked to [the FBI agents] … We got along great. They were just
trying to talk to communities and stuff, and it’s tough because they won’t
open up. There were other times where I thought about calling them up
and telling them to chat about this or chat about that, about what people
actually think as opposed to what you think they might think, but even
that was too much for me … You know, it’s just like you end up taking
certain precautions.

As discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, Muslim Americans like Hamiz have been

subjected to an unprecedented level of law-enforcement attention since 9/11
(Kundani, 2011). In the case of Hamiz, the FBI had wanted him to work in
concert with the authorities to establish a sort of network of informants to
root out ‘bad Muslims’. His parents were fearful of the FBI’s tactics, but
Hamiz told me that he found community-oriented policing to be an attractive
approach to combating ‘extremism’, as long as the authorities protected
the civil rights of American citizens like him. Nevertheless, Hamiz’s use of the
term ‘precaution’ suggested that he cared about actively ensuring other
Americans that he was not a ‘bad Muslim’.
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 85
In summary, I see Ayeen, Haneef and Hamiz as having a diasporic perspec-
tive, in that their identities have been – and continue to be – transformed through
cross-cultural exchanges and interactions (Gillespie, 1995). The transcripts
from my interviews with these second-generation participants conjured up
metaphors of travel and of identities in transition. As I explained in Chapter 2,
cross-cultural navigators carry social resources and connections. For example,
they speak multiple languages and can comfortably move in and out of ethnic
enclaves. Ayeen, Haneef and Hamiz exhibited the ability to discern cultural
rules and expectations within myriad environments. They strategically nego-
tiated norms and practices that ranged from self-presentation – including
dress, tone, and language – to interactional styles with various authorities, to
knowledge about universities, careers, politics, arts, food, and sports.

Nadeem, Ali, and Muhammed: desh pardesh (or living at home abroad)
I turn now to the experiences of first-generation Pakistanis in Boston and
Dublin. To understand the diasporic experience of desh pardesh – or living at
home abroad – it is useful to begin with an essay published in 1983 by
Salman Rushdie, a British Indian novelist and essayist. In the essay, Rushdie
encapsulated the agony of being a migrant in the following quote: ‘Exiles or
immigrants or expatriates are haunted by some sense of loss, some urge to
reclaim, to look back, even at the risk of being mutated into pillars of salt’
(Rushdie, 1983, p. 83). Nadeem, a twenty-eight-year-old I had met at a halal
restaurant on South George’s Street in Dublin, is one participant who fitted
Rushdie’s description. While our discussion showed that he was able to success-
fully traverse two geographical and cultural spaces – Ireland and Pakistan –
Nadeem made it clear that he yearned for Pakistan and purposely tried to
recreate Pakistani culture in his new home in Dublin. He identified himself as
‘a top-to-bottom Pakistani’ and ‘a hard-core Pakistani’. With a sense of pride
in his voice, Nadeem stated that whatever he has achieved in life was strictly due
to the opportunities given to him by Pakistan. He attributed his professional
success to Pakistani culture: ‘I’m successful due to a culture, the cultural
aspects, the cultural attributes. So whatever I am – my character, my knowl-
edge, my professional credibility – I owe to Pakistan.’ In Dublin, he opted for
a life that mirrored the life that he had lived in Lahore, his native city.
Of all the people I interviewed, Nadeem was the only one who insisted that
we meet at a halal restaurant. He described himself as a ‘devout Muslim’ who
did not like being around alcohol. Early in our interview, he said with a very
serious tone that Americans like me had to understand that Pakistanis are
traditionally conservative and passionate about Islam. He claimed that ideo-
logically, Pakistan was an ‘Islamic state’ and that Pakistani culture and Islam
were inseparable. Indeed, throughout our interview, he often conflated the two
concepts, even though scholars have rightly pointed out that Islam is not a
culture and that Pakistani identity encompasses multiple strands of religion
beyond Islam (Ramadan, 2004, p. 214). Nadeem found Dublin, where he had
86 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
recently arrived after having lived in Germany, to be unconducive to his goal
of being a ‘good Muslim’. Creating an ‘Islamic lifestyle’, as he put it, is no
easy feat in Dublin. He observed that beyond his home there were significant
challenges to being ‘a good Muslim’:

Outside of the house, there are massive, massive, I would say environ-
mental challenges, an air that actually has very strong elements to go
against what Islam is teaching. I think it’s very, very hard to raise kids
who actually grow up and then follow Islam in a proper way. There are a
few cases where it has been done, but most of the cases are very bad
examples … It’s just the way that people live here.

Nadeem clearly drew upon the ‘good Muslim’ versus ‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
by referring to the idea of ‘proper Islam’. He perceived Dublin as an ‘un-
Islamic’ environment due to the plethora of pubs, the widespread alcohol
consumption, and the ‘uncleanliness’ of the city, as he described it. Following
up on these comments, I asked him to compare and contrast life in Ireland
with life in Germany. He said that Germany’s culture and overall environ-
ment made it a much better place for a Sunni like him to practise ‘proper’
Islam. Specifically, he applauded the healthcare system and transportation
model in Germany, a country he called ‘efficient and clean’. Dublin, Nadeem
claimed, was ‘nowhere near Germany’ in terms of upholding values that he
claimed best represented Islam. Nadeem also found it easier to practise Islam
in Germany because it is home to many mosques and halal shops, which
made it easier for him to meet his prayer and dietary obligations. Further-
more, he claimed that the Germans ‘actually respect minorities’ and that he
had never experienced verbal or physical abuse while living there. In the few
months that he had been living in Dublin, Nadeem had been called ‘Osama
bin Laden’ and told to ‘go back to his country’ because ‘Pakis’ were not
welcome in Ireland.
One explanation for why Nadeem struggled while living in Ireland is his
desire to return to the ‘homeland’. In theory, he cared little about integrating
into Irish society, because he knew that he had to return to Pakistan. He was
one of a handful of first-generation participants who wished to return to
Pakistan due to nationalist and patriotic sentiments. As mentioned earlier, he
called himself a ‘top-to-bottom Pakistani’. When I asked, ‘Where do you feel
like you belong to?’ he did not hesitate: ‘Pakistan. I will go back! I will surely
go back!’
Though he was grateful for the educational opportunities that living in
Germany had given him and the professional experience in the hi-tech field
that he had gained in Ireland, Nadeem felt homesick at the time of our
interview. He yearned for Pakistan:

You have to go back, because this is where you belong. This is where
your roots are. So my roots are in Pakistan. It really doesn’t matter where
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 87
I stay or how long I stay. I have to go back. I will eventually go back.
This is really where I belong. I have a lot of friends, lots of friends in
Germany who are staying there and actually want to get their nationality
and want to raise kids there. On Facebook, every other day I see them,
you know, ranting about how bad things are in Pakistan, and I just go to
them, ‘You’re thirty years old, and Pakistan is the one who actually
brought you up. It gave you a good education so that you can call
home … They have a home there. It’s really your home. You’re the king
of that place …

Nadeem agreed with the overwhelming majority of the participants that the
overall condition of Pakistan was bleak, but he believed that it was his
responsibility as a native and citizen of that country to improve its living
conditions. While he saw nothing wrong with working for a multinational
company and living in Europe temporarily, he also strongly believed that all
Pakistanis are duty-bound to their ‘true home’, a place where they can ‘truly
belong’.

Hoping for a ‘better Pakistan’

Ali, a thirty-two-year-old, working-class immigrant whom I met for lunch in
a suburb of Boston, told me that he feels total loyalty to Pakistan and that he
is obliged to return there to improve living conditions for Pakistanis. To help
build a stronger educational system in the ‘homeland’, Ali planned on using
the money that he had been earning as a semi-professional athlete living in
Boston. He had come to the United States in 2006 to participate in athletic
tournaments. To facilitate his move, a wealthy Pakistani businessman in
Boston had helped fund his travel, training, and competitions. Ali described
himself as an immigrant living the ‘American Dream’, but like Nadeem in
Dublin, he made it clear that moving back to Pakistan is one of his ultimate
goals, though his circumstances were different from Nadeem’s.
Growing up in a small village in Peshawar, Ali had had a ‘rough and poor’
childhood, but he added that his family had always been filled with love and
happiness. The latter two familial features came across during the interview:
Ali constantly smiled and warmly embraced me, a ‘stranger’. Peshawar is an
underdeveloped area of Pakistan and the capital of Khyber Puktunkhwa, one
of the country’s four provinces. At the time of our meeting, Ali viewed Boston
as a ‘temporary home’. He showed a keen interest in returning to Pakistan to
help educate children in Peshawar. Poverty has played an especially significant
role in keeping those children out of school, and 41 per cent are unable to
attend classes (Zia, 2015). Ali viewed education as a basic human right of
every child and as important for ‘progress’ in Pakistan.
Reproducing elements of the immigrant culture had also been a top priority
for Ali and his wife, who wore the burqa and served as a ‘stay at home’ wife.
The young couple had also recently had a baby girl. One of the reasons why
88 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
Ali and his wife wanted to return to Pakistan was their concern about raising a
daughter in American culture, which they believed had little sense of shame
and honour. During our discussion Ali recounted several experiences he had
had while coaching American youth. He claimed that American youth – and
Americans in general – lacked an understanding and appreciation of modesty
and respect for elders. With a facial expression that showed both surprise and
disgust, Ali commented, ‘I think American parents are pretty good with kids,
but the kids are rude with their parents … Like, if you do like that in Pakistan,
it’s not a good thing. You can’t be disrespectful with your mom and dad’. His
story exemplified how the traditional Pakistani code of conduct can unfold in
the lives of migrants in diaspora.
Honour is a key component of Ali’s world view and identity. He called it an
‘an invisible code of conduct’ and stressed that it provides value in his home.
Islam, too, played an important role as this young family confronted American
culture. Ali differentiated the ‘homeland’ and hostland by claiming that the
latter’s environment was in tune with ‘true Islam’. He commented, ‘Every
religion is very important … Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, says
that you have to respect every religion. That’s how you get respect for your
religions too.’ After making this comment, Ali criticised his elders in Pakistan,
a move that is arguably in breach of cultural codes of shame and honour. Ali
believed that elders in his native village had weakened Islam by enforcing
strict practices and narrow interpretations of the Quran. He felt that the
elders were intolerant of other religious communities and traditions. He
appreciated living in the United States because he viewed it as a religiously
tolerant setting that gave him and his family the tools to be ‘good Muslims’.
In this sense, he differed from Nadeem in Dublin, who felt that Irish society
was not able to sufficiently accommodate Islam.
Ali planned on returning home despite his harsh criticism of the state.
While he declared that he loved his country, he added, ‘I hate the politicians
over there. They are selfish, and they don’t do anything for the country. They
are all just filling their bank accounts, and that is just shameful.’ His com-
ments stand in striking contrast to those of Nadeem, who did not offer any
such criticism and called himself a ‘top-to-bottom Pakistani’. Ali had a
slightly more flexible view of Pakistani identity and his relationship with the
‘homeland’. Unlike Nadeem, he did not view Islam as a necessary part of
the definition of ‘Pakistaniness’. Ali also appeared to view his family’s return
to the ‘homeland’ as ‘conditional’, whereas Nadeem planned on returning
regardless of the social or political circumstances in the ‘homeland’. Ali had
cynical views of Pakistan and referred to it as a ‘hopeless state’.

Muhammad – Processing the hostland

Understanding the experiences of first-generation Pakistanis requires recognising
the ways in which they position themselves differently towards perceived ethnic,
cultural, religious, and national group boundaries. Some first-generation
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 89
participants such as Nadeem and Ali focused on reproducing aspects of the
immigrant culture in diaspora. Muhammad, on the other hand, offered com-
ments at his personally owned business which suggest that he positioned
himself more ‘in between’ the ‘homeland’ and hostland cultures. Unlike
Nadeem and Ali, Muhammad, a thirty-five-year-old, had come from an
upper middle class family in Karachi, one of Pakistan’s more liberal cities.
Educational achievement and traditional family values were ingrained in him
from childhood. His family had historically followed the Shia tradition and
the examples of the prodigy of Prophet Muhammad. He traced his ethnicity
back to the Mughal Empire, a period in South Asian history when his
ancestors were allegedly jurists and educators. Muhammad moved to the
United States based on the single decision to pursue higher education,
whereas Nadeem and Ali moved to Dublin and Boston for employment
opportunities.
Having an upper middle class and educated family background did not
guarantee a smooth transition for Muhammad as he resettled in a Western
metropolis. He said that the first few years in the United States had been
difficult because he ‘didn’t have a frame of reference’ or ‘community or
family’ to lean on. American culture ‘was a complete cut-off’ from his lifestyle
in Karachi, so he became an active member of a small but cohesive South
Asian community composed largely of Indians and Pakistanis. At this time in
his life, Muhammad worked hard to preserve and protect his honour. He
explained the importance of izzat in more detail:

You always run the risk of seeing how far you can go to the other side at
the expense of losing what you have. What I gain is whether the valuable
outweighs what I’m willing to give up because there are conflicts along
the way and you constantly have to make those decisions. So that’s a
challenge that any immigrant faces. I was faced with the same challenges
also, but I think you sort of find your way. It’s a process.

Izzat, as discussed in Chapter 2, refers to respect, honour, reputation, or

prestige that guides social relationships through a set of societal and personal
conduct rules (Baig et al., 2014). The aim in upholding izzat is to protect the
family honour and one’s reputation within the community. Living in the
United States forced Muhammad to re-evaluate what is right and wrong and
what is acceptable ‘here’ versus a way of life that is not acceptable back in
Karachi. Our interview demonstrated that he had to pick and choose certain
aspects of the hostland culture in light of his views on ‘morality’ originating
in the ‘homeland’. He described his newfound opportunities as a college stu-
dent in the United States as ‘a classic example of ‘“poor liberty, what crimes
are committed in thy name”’. These were the last words pronounced by
Madame Roland, a vital participant in the French Revolution. The phrase
became legendary for expressing how certain aspects of culture are subject to
manipulation, for Roland had been condemned in the name of the same ‘false
90 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
ideals’ of liberty, equality, and fraternity that she had formerly defended. In
the case of Muhammad, he appreciated the ‘freedom’ in the United States, but
he also believed that some of the ‘freedoms’ – such as sex outside of marriage
and gender desegregation – are not conducive to upholding morality.
Living between two different cultures – Pakistani and American – had been
both beneficial and challenging for Muhammad. At his home in suburban
Boston, which I visited twice, I observed that he retained many customs and
traditions from the ‘homeland’, including Urdu, South Asian food and music,
and ‘Pakistani clothing’. Around his home were cultural artifacts and sym-
bols from the ‘homeland’, but the home also had a distinctly American feel.
Elements of South Asian culture had also been passed on to Muhammad’s
children, whom he saw as ‘more American than Pakistani, but still a little
Pakistani’. After meeting with his family members and spending time in their
home, I imagined their family environment as a kind of ‘third space’ in itself. The
interaction and combination of cultures signalled a new kind of identity, a hybrid
identity that acted as a connective tissue between South Asia and America.
In terms of his professional life, Muhammad did not shy away from
revealing his ‘Pakistaniness’. He commented, ‘I feel that people need to have
a good understanding of who I am and what I’m all about’. At the same time,
Muhammad spoke English fluently, celebrated American holidays, and ate
‘American food’. His identity can be viewed as hybrid in the sense that he was
no longer either solely Pakistani or solely American, but rather a mixture of
the two forms.
Another diasporic condition – doubleness – arises out of my interview with
Muhammad. He discussed having two circles of friends in America: his ‘inner
friends’, who were Pakistanis, and the ‘second tier’, or those who were not.
Muhammad added, ‘I’ve maintained that kind of balance. There are almost
two parallel systems in place, but they’re in harmony’. By this we can see
Muhammad demonstrating doubleness in the sense that he is less a ‘both/and’
individual and more a ‘neither just this/nor just that’ individual (Boyarin,
2015, p. 132). Being ‘in between’ cultures provided him with the flexibility
to form and express a hybrid identity. This process entailed both cultural
collaboration and contestation as he defined himself anew in Boston.
Not many of the first-generation participants demonstrated passion for
localised identities, but Muhammad was an exception. By localised identity, I
mean an identity that is restricted to particular cities such as Boston or Dublin.
Muhammad considered himself a proud Bostonian. He spoke adamantly about
‘community’ and ‘unity’ as the defining features of what it means to live in
Boston. He observed:

I find Boston accepts people based on perhaps education, intellect, per-

haps their values and the class they represent … It doesn’t matter what
part of the world you’re from. If you’re sort of a similar class, you’re
accepted. So in that respect, I’ve decided to make Boston my home and
established my roots here.
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 91
Muhammad referred to ‘colour blindness’ as a characteristic of Boston identity,
but he also raised the role played by educational attainment and socio-economic
background. One could argue that Muhammad has developed a sense of
belonging to Boston because he is educated (he holds a master’s degree) and
can be considered by most measures to be upper middle class. While Jabar,
like other first-generation participants, felt excluded from the Irish in-group
because of his ethnicity, Muhammad suggested that Boston had in place a
system of beliefs and attitudes that ranked people according to level of education,
economic status, and job status.
Muhammad himself had adopted certain aspects of the prevailing culture’s
customs and attitudes, which had given him a sense of belonging to the city.
Moreover, he spoke and acted as though he belonged to Boston. Several
weeks before our interview, two young men had set off bombs at the finish
line of the Boston Marathon in what politicians and news outlets referred to
as an ‘act of terrorism’ (CNN, 2016; MacAskill, 2013). Muhammad stated,
‘This tragedy proved to the world who we are’. By using the term ‘we’, he
declared that he was a member of the wider community of Boston. Following
the attack, Muhammad helped strengthen and heal his community by galva-
nising support for the victims of the bombing. With help from his professional
contacts, he held a fundraiser because he felt obligated to help Bostonians
and all people affected by the bombing. Participating in civic life – for
example, by attending town meetings and engaging in grassroots political
activities – has helped him feel that he is a stakeholder within his community.
Muhammad’s experience highlights how first-generation Pakistani migrants
might be able to ‘put down roots’ in the hostland whilst maintaining aspects
of the ‘homeland’ culture. Regardless, his roots in Boston were strong, and the
idea of returning to Pakistan drew little interest from him. When I asked him
about the meaning of Pakistani identity, Muhammad became impassioned
and gave the following statement:

What is happening today is a big tragedy, all the way from not quite
having a democratic, civil, pluralistic, and functioning society to an out-
right state or failed state that we are facing today. There’s plenty to go
around for blame, with the shortsightedness of the leadership which has
been there all along, the military rule that never allowed civil institutions
to develop … and then the interference of the foreign powers to control
that region.

Muhammad used the term ‘we’ and thus referred to himself as still being a
member of the ‘Pakistani nation’. However, he distinguished himself from the
‘homeland’ by showing an affinity for features of secularism, including free-
dom of religion and citizenship rights. Muhammad observed that Pakistan is
a country plagued by religious intolerance and corruption. He blamed this
relatively recent development on Saudi Arabia and the rise of Wahhabism in
Pakistan. Muhammad viewed the Wahhabi school of Islamic thought as
92 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
‘taking away the civil liberties of Pakistanis and giving the power and deci-
sion making to the Saudi royal family’. He continued, ‘Wherever there is …
[Wahhabism], that’s where you’ll find the violence, and that’s where you’ll find
fundamentalism. That’s where you’ll find lack of tolerance’.
Muhammad is correct: since the emergence of Wahhabi ideologies in Islamic
schools in Pakistan, there has been a steady decline in religious tolerance
(Ispahani, 2013). After talking about the rise of Wahhabism there, Muhammad
reflected on Pakistani history. He imagined the country as a place that would
accommodate and tolerate Buddhism and Islamic mysticism and as a county
with a vibrant democracy that would protect human rights. Pakistan had too
many ‘problems’ for him to ever settle down again in the ‘homeland’, but
Muhammad nonetheless idealised his native country as a country that mirrored
the pluralism that he saw around him in Boston.

Ahmed: belonging nowhere

Back in the fall of 2010, I sat in the Lecky Library on the campus of Trinity
College Dublin and carried out research during the early stages of the literature
review for my doctoral dissertation. I had recently been introduced to the
ideas of Zygmunt Bauman, a Polish sociologist, and my goal on that day was
to read some of his books. I ended up stumbling upon Liquid Modernity. For
Bauman, liquidity is a successor term for the era of postmodernity that refers
to the uncertainty and slipperiness of everyday individual life (Bauman,
2000). Liquidity, he argued, is the opposite of stability or fixity in the sense
that it is constantly flowing; liquids do not conform to any concrete shape. He
therefore introduced the idea that individuals today can be mobile, ever-
changing, and highly adaptable. Someone that possesses a ‘liquid identity’ is
not tied to history, culture, or countries and is ready and willing to change
and adapt to transforming environments.
Another book by Bauman, Liquid Life, made me think even more deeply.
In this text Bauman states that postmodern identity is tied to the idea that
one can belong everywhere and yet nowhere (Bauman, 2005). In belonging
nowhere, individuals are like a liquid substance in that they exhibit loose
attachments to identity constructs. Ahmed, a thirty-year-old first-generation
participant living in Dublin, reminded me of liquidity. Of all the first-generation
interviewees discussed in this book, he was the one who had totally accepted
disorientation, adapted easily to his new environment, tolerated the absence
of direction, and desired freedom to defy and neglect boundaries which
bound him to history and the local environment (Bauman, 2005, p. 4). On
several occasions during our discussion, Ahmed told me that he had never
‘fitted’ anywhere.
Growing up as the youngest son of an upper middle class family in Lahore,
Ahmed had been a ‘troublemaker’ at school. Acting up in the classroom,
disrespecting his teachers, and teasing his classmates had led his father to
accuse him of insubordinate behaviour. When Ahmed entered his teenage
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 93
years, his father – a wealthy businessman – had had enough of his son’s antics
and decided to send Ahmed abroad so that he could ‘learn a lesson’. Gone
were the days of ‘money, cars, servants, everything’, as Ahmed told me. His
father gave him two options: either go to Britain and live with members of the
biraderi (extended family) or move to Ireland. Ahmed chose the latter, so that
he would be further away from his relatives. He added, ‘England is like full of
my fucking relatives … If I’m going 16,000 miles from my house, I might as
well go somewhere where like nobody knows me.’
Ahmed had arrived in Dublin in the summer of 2005. A connection of his
father’s had arranged a meeting with professors at the Royal College of
Surgeons so that Ahmed might consider enrolling as a medical student.
Ahmed did not even show up for the meeting, which enraged his parents. He
wanted to pursue his own career, free from the interests and expectations of
his mother and father. The pressure placed upon him by his parents pushed
him even further away from the career path of a medical professional. Within
his first week of living in Dublin, he took a job in a used clothing store on
Talbot Street, in a working-class area on the north side of the River Liffey.
On his first day, he experienced something that he had never encountered
while growing up in Lahore. Ahmed’s boss came up to him, handed him a
broom, and yelled, ‘Go outside and sweep up the cigarettes’. Ahmed recollected
this moment:

I’m standing over there and going like, ‘What the fuck? Me? Doing this
shit?’ … It was very hard ’cause like, you see, I grew up with around
five servants at home, so it was actually quite hard. But the thing is, I
got over that initial thing. I was like, you know, fuck this. If dad sent
me, you know, he thinks like I’m going to waste my life. No, screw
him, I’ll do it.

These comments highlight a rebellious streak in Ahmed. The expectations

and pressure that his parents put on him had an adverse effect. Instead of
taking up an ‘honourable’ job by working to become a doctor, Ahmed chose
his own path to becoming financially independent of his parents. The process
of disentangling from his history and expected cultural norms had started in
the ‘homeland’ but became even more pronounced upon Ahmed’s arrival in
Ireland.
Yet living in Ireland did not mean that Ahmed was totally free from the
hierarchical pressures forced upon him by his parents. On several occasions
during our interview in a bar by the Liffey, he complained about the pressure
that his parents put on him to marry a Pakistani woman from the family’s
home village on the outskirts of Lahore. Like many participants, Ahmed
described his parents as ‘old school’, meaning that they held conservative
family values. Ahmed, however, had decided to break from the family tradi-
tion and marry for love. He distanced himself from the idea of arranged
marriages and even marriage altogether:
94 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
You wouldn’t believe how many arguments I have gotten in with my
parents about this stuff. They keep going on about ‘you have to get married’,
and I am just like ‘why?’ I don’t feel like it. I don’t want kids … I want
my freedom,’ cause you know if I have a responsibility, I take care of it …
I’m not the kind of person who would run away from it … Sometimes I
can’t stand [my parents].

Ahmed did not show hatred of his parents by any stretch of the imagination,
but he felt that they were too controlling, especially in relation to the most
important decisions of his life, such as marriage. Fully aware that his decisions
did not comply with family norms, Ahmed sacrificed his familial relationships
for his own greater good. Freedom – not approval from his elders – was ulti-
mately what he yearned for. In Dublin, he declared, ‘I’m my own man. I can
do what I like. There’s no family pressure or anything.’
Readers might wonder, ‘What does Ahmed do with his newfound freedom
in Dublin?’ He told me that he liked to have ‘the craic’, an Irish word refer-
ring to having fun and enjoying conversation in a lively atmosphere. Ahmed
had cultivated many friendships with white Irish as well as immigrants from
countries such as Brazil and Germany. Together, they partied at music venues,
because these settings ‘allow people to experience the same kind of ideas and
emotions’. On weekend nights, Ahmed and his friends enjoyed visiting various
pubs around the city. There were no Pakistanis in his circle of friends. When
he first arrived in Dublin he tried making friends with other young Pakistani
men, but he had found them too focused on earning money and too intense,
which had made him drift away from his co-ethnics.
Dressed in a Metallica shirt, ripped jeans, and a slight Mohawk, Ahmed
reminded me of Taqwacore, a documentary about the birth of ‘punk Islam’.
While Ahmed did not identify himself as a Muslim, he looked the part of the
main characters. The film is based on Boston’s The Kominas, a band of
Muslim American punkers who see themselves as ‘Islamic misfits’. According
to the Taqwacore website, The Kominas and friends were stoking a revolution
against the traditionalists in their own communities and against the clichés
forced upon them from the outside (Taqwacore, n.d.). They gave ‘the [middle]
finger to both sides’, said one Taqwacore member, ‘Fuck you and fuck you’.
Ahmed was acutely aware that he was not white, ethnically ‘Irish’, or
Catholic – all defining features in his understanding of Irish identity.
According to him, Irish identity is – and always will be – exclusive in the
sense that an individual cannot simply become Irish by participating in popular
cultural activities such as drinking alcohol and playing Gaelic sports. He
explained his opinion: ‘People can be Irish on paper, on their passport, but
they will never be Irish.’ Interestingly, Ahmed contrasted Ireland and the
United States by claiming that Ireland ‘doesn’t work like it does in America …
It’s like equality and freedom … The American way is like ‘if you make it,
you belong’. Ahmed’s comments about Irish identity recall the dichotomy
between the ethnic nation and civic nation, an issue to which I return in
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 95
Chapter 7. He viewed America as a nation that defined itself based on equal
and shared citizenship rights rather than ancestry or bloodline, as preferred
by ethnic nationalists. Ahmed’s interpretation of Irish identity as based on
hereditary features excluded him, along with any other individual or group
who was not perceived as ethnically Irish, from national group membership.
While Ahmed said he loved to travel, he made it clear that he had no
intention of visiting Pakistan. When I asked him why he did not want to
travel back ‘home’, he commented, ‘I can’t return because of my ideas and
everything, dude.’ By ‘ideas and everything’, he meant his atheist beliefs,
which are obviously disapproved of by the mullahs in Pakistan. Ahmed con-
trasted Irish society and Pakistani society by turning to issues of freedom of
speech and freedom of conscience. He felt that in Ireland he could say nearly
anything, regardless of how inflammatory it might be, without any serious
consequences. He claimed that in Pakistan, however, he would be persecuted
if he openly identified with or spread ideas pertaining to atheism. He added:

Saying I’m an atheist to one guy [in Ireland] is one thing. Saying it to a
room full of mullahs is a completely different. You know? They get
offended. They’ve the power over there. Next thing you know, you’re in a
ditch or something …

Ahmed positioned himself outside the Pakistani national boundary because

he was an atheist who directly opposed power structures in Pakistani society.
His anti-mullah position, which directly challenged the social hierarchy of
Pakistan, stemmed from his views on organised religion. Ahmed claimed that
religion, especially in his native country, ‘is used as an excuse to do horrible
things to people, and it’s justified in the name of God.’ Religion, he added, ‘is
all about money, power, land, and politics. Christians and Muslims use religion,
and that’s my problem with organised religion.’ Ahmed viewed Pakistanis in
Ireland similarly to how he viewed them in the physical ‘homeland’. Pakistanis
in Dublin, he argued, needed to be ‘a bit more open-minded about other
people, about other cultures.’
Ahmed’s sense of un-belongingness to Pakistan was also a consequence of
his feelings about the country’s politics and business culture. With an obvious
sense of frustration, he told me, ‘I won’t go back, because I’d have to be
professionally involved. That would piss me off … There’s a lot of corrup-
tion … I don’t think it would be easy for me to live there, and I don’t think I
belong there’. His views reflected recent polls in Pakistan. About one in five
Pakistanis would like to move permanently to another country if they had the
opportunity (Gallup Poll, 2011). Fewer than one-third have confidence in
the national government, local police, and the honesty of elections, and the
ratings for these institutions have declined in recent years (ibid.). Approxi-
mately one in three Pakistanis approve of the leaders of the city or area where
they live, and only about one in five approve of the country’s national leaders
(ibid.). Gallup also found that Pakistan’s military is the only institution that
96 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh
has retained the confidence of a majority of the population. If belonging is
linked to a sense of security and freedom, it is easy to understand why Ahmed
did not consider Pakistan a place that he could consider ‘home’.
The only way that Ahmed would ever return ‘home’ is if Pakistan embraced
cultural and religious pluralism. Ahmed pointed to Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s
lofty vision of Pakistan as a country that would not discriminate against people
on the basis of their ethnicity, cultural orientation, or religion. Himself a Shia,
Jinnah had nominated an Ahmadi, a Hindu, and several Shias to the cabinet of
a predominantly Sunni nation (Ispahani, 2013). Jinnah’s secular vision ensured
that all citizens of Pakistan would enjoy equal rights. Ahmed shared his
vision and hoped that every person in Pakistan might be treated as a citizen,
irrespective of his or her community, caste, colour, or creed.
As a brown man of Pakistani heritage, Ahmed positioned himself outside
of the Irish ethnic nation, and as an atheist, he positioned himself outside of
the ‘Islamic state’ of Pakistan. He felt that he did not belong to the hostland
or ‘homeland’. I could not help but sense that Ahmed felt marginalised under
the weight of various ethnic and religious power structures relating to Irish
and Pakistani identities. Though my observations are certainly subjective,
other people who have known Ahmed also might have considered him to be
at risk of a number of negative outcomes in domains ranging from mental
health to work adjustment.
To speak of a sense of belonging involves concepts of cultural memory,
identity and difference, and empathy and reciprocity. Ahmed felt that members
of minorities like him do not fit into narratives of Irish history and definitions
of Irish identity. At times during his years living in Ireland, he had felt
dejected, lonely, and inferior. Unfortunately, he viewed Irish society as incap-
able of changing to make more space for brown people in discussions of
belonging and national identity. He viewed Pakistan in a similar manner,
except the problem for him there was Otherness based on his atheist beliefs.

Identities in transition
This chapter examined the movements of Pakistanis living abroad in diaspora
and explored ways in which they expressed and configured their identities.
The word ‘diaspora’ conjures up metaphors of travel and of identities in a
process of transition, with second-generation members of the ‘Pakistani
community’ in Boston and Dublin engaged as ‘cross cultural navigators’
(Parekh, 2000) or translators translating identities and cultures across con-
trasting settings in time and space (Cressey, 2012, p. 133). The first-generation
participants described in this chapter maintained cultural and religious tradi-
tions rooted in the ‘homeland’, both of which are critical to their sense of
identity. Traditions of the ‘homeland’ were particularly strong in familial,
personal, domestic, and religious contexts and spaces.
To understand the cultural production of diasporic Pakistanis, we have to
understand two simultaneous processes: (1) how members of the Pakistani
 Cross-cultural navigators and desh pardesh 97
diasporic community preserve their culture and (2) how they relate with both
the hostland and ‘homeland’. The identities of young Pakistani men in Boston
and Dublin are influenced by several characteristics – for example, being
Pakistani American/Irish, being a Pakistani-born Muslim, being member of a
certain sect of Islam, and even ‘belonging nowhere’. The young Pakistani
men addressed in this chapter have integrated several ‘cultures’ because their
lives develop in real synchronised time in different cultural worlds, and all
these cultural worlds play vital roles in their identity-construction processes. This
level of simultaneous integration across cultures is a necessary part of these
young men’s efforts to create more conducive, rewarding, and harmonious
lives in Boston and Dublin. In some cases, their cultural production involves
ruptures of existing familial bonds, social norms and roles, and activity
arrangements.

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5 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’
dichotomy

Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were Pakistani Muslims who lived in
California. Farook, a second-generation immigrant born in the United States,
had chosen to marry Malik, a native of Pakistan who shared his commitment
to Islam. On a sunny afternoon in San Bernardino in December 2015, Farook
and Malik opened fire on his co-workers in what the FBI treated as an ‘act of
terror’. Fourteen American citizens were killed in the precision attack, and
more than a dozen were wounded. Dawn (2015) stated that Farook and Malik
acted ‘as if they were on a mission’. Malik had allegedly pledged allegiance to
the militant group ISIS while living in Pakistan, and she had convinced
Farook to do the same. Media outlets linked their attack to ‘Islamic radicalism’,
which ultimately helped set the stage for how citizens perceive, describe, feel,
judge, remember, make sense of, and talk about both Pakistanis and Muslims.
In the aftermath of San Bernardino, Muslim Americans felt frustrated at
being held responsible for the actions of other Muslims. One Muslim Amer-
ican stated, ‘It’s getting to a point where you have to hide who you are …
Seven-year-old kids cannot say they’re Muslims because of the bad atmo-
sphere we have’ (Reuters, 2015). Days after the incident, in the Coachella
Valley of southern California, a twenty-three-year-old man was arrested on
suspicion of arson and for committing a hate crime after he allegedly burned
the entrance to a mosque (ibid.). Other Americans – such as a Texas group
known as the ‘Three Percenters’ – confronted Muslim Americans after San
Bernardino, with one group member commenting to a journalist, ‘We will
interfere with every move [Muslims] make towards taking over our country’
(Arab Times Online, 2015).
Yet, to many Muslims in the United States and around the world, the
beliefs and actions of ‘radical Muslims’ are false and absurd. Muslims who
oppose groups like ISIS see the militant group as exploiting Islamic doctrine
to further its own self-fulfilling prophecies. To counteract ‘radical Islam’,
Muslims in the United States and Ireland are working to define Islam to the
broader public, rather than simply allowing extremist groups to represent
their faith. Young Muslims in Boston and Dublin have been living amidst the
fight against ‘terrorism’ in countries where Islamophobia, by many measures,
has been historically high (Semple, 2015). The participants in this chapter
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 101
have been forced to grapple with questions of identity, society, and politics in
religion in the United States and Ireland, countries that have had a historically
ambivalent relationship to Islam.

Haq and Omar: understanding Salafiyya

In Chapter 2, I noted that Salafiyya is a strand of contemporary Islamic
thought that is often linked to extremist groups like ISIS. In traditional Islamic
scholarship, a salaf is someone who died within 400 years of Prophet
Muhammad’s death. Salafists are said to believe that Muslims – and human
beings in general – need to return to the ways of the first Muslim community
and must literally emulate the character and conduct of Prophet Muhammad.
A salaf, in short, is someone who might look back nostalgically to the time of
the first generations of Muslims as the ideal time of human history (Taylor,
2016).
Today, the Salafiyya movement is a pivotal Islamic revivalist movement
that has grown to prominence around the ‘Muslim world’. As an orthodox
doctrine of Islam, Salafiyya has been accused of spreading extremism and
sectarianism, with scholars citing their intolerance of Shia and Sufi Muslims
as well as Christians and other religious minorities. Due to the rise of militant
groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, Salifiyya has been associated with litera-
lism and puritanical approaches to Islamic practice. Scholars who have
observed these groups have noticed certain trends and have divided Salafists
into various groups, including purists, activists, and jihadists. Purists focus on
education and missionary work to bring people back to ‘the oneness of God’.
Activists focus on political reform and re-establishing a caliphate. The goals of
jihadist Salafists are similar; however, jihadists engage in violence to reinstitute
the caliphate.
At the time of my fieldwork, the ‘Muslim community’ of Ireland reportedly
contained a smattering of young men who adhered to Salafiyya. Small in
number, the Salafists in Dublin were not organised around any particular
mosque or cultural centre (Fitzgerald, 2006). Muslim leaders in Ireland have
more recently raised concerns about ‘extremist’ Salafi scholars lecturing at
Muslim student conferences in the country. One Sunni leader, Umar al-Qadri,
called for a debate about allowing Salafiyya speakers to address young Mus-
lims in Ireland, while another Shia leader, Ali al-Saleh, raised concerns about
Salafiyya speakers to the Garda (O’Keeffe, 2016).
In the spring of 2013 I met a Salafist at a mosque in Dublin. Haq, a twenty-
two-year-old with a thick beard, loved the idea that Islam was ‘spreading like
wildfire’ in Ireland. Within five minutes of our discussion he had asked me to
convert to Islam, but I said politely that I was not interested. As we sipped
coffee in a shop outside the walls of Trinity College Dublin, Haq said to me in
a relatively aggressive tone, ‘There’s nothing stopping you from being a
Muslim … You just need to obey the syllabus’. I asked him to explain what he
had meant by syllabus, and he responded by providing the following analogy:
102 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
Say you have a car and a better car. You take that car and that will take
you so far because that certain road has complications. But if you want to
take the car, you’re welcome to take it… but if you get hurt, you don’t
know your way around, and you’re lost, all we can say as Muslims is ‘we
told you’.

One way to interpret these words is that Haq intended to ‘purify’ me by

bringing me into the fold of Islam. He believed that if I converted to Islam, I
would be protected from harm and would be given the ‘right direction’ in life.
These comments made me feel as though Haq looked down upon me for
being a Catholic and not a Muslim, let alone a Salafist. Nevertheless, I listened
attentively to his remarks and casually switched topics when he asked questions
such as, ‘Why should you have your Catholic way?’
When I first met Haq at the mosque, the ‘Muslim community’ was cele-
brating mawlid, a period when Muslims gather to celebrate the birthday of
Prophet Muhammad. Haq commented on the Prophet: ‘He was the best, and
his way was the best. If we follow it, we are the best, but we don’t.’ Haq held
the view that the ummah was in the midst of ‘darkness’ and that Muslims are
veering further and further away from Islam, to their detriment. He criticised
sectarianism amongst Muslims and believed that only one ‘true Islam’ should
exist. Although Salafiyya is not a united Islamic movement, there is a
common understanding amongst scholars that Salafists seek to return to the
norms, customs, behaviours, and mindsets of Muslims of the time of Prophet
Muhammad and the centuries after his death. In the quote above, Haq shared
his belief in ‘Islamic supremacy’ when he said ‘we are the best’, but he added
that Muslims have deviated from the ‘straight path’ exhibited by Muhammad.
Like other Salafists, Haq believed that he followed ‘true Islam’ and that the
Salafiyya did not even constitute a sect of Islam.
Haq’s embrace of Salafiyya came about because of his immersion in Irish
culture. Growing up in Dublin, he used to have close contact with many girls and
used to listen to hip-hop music and go to parties (though he never drank
alcohol). Over time, however, he began to feel that Irish culture was ‘degrading’
and ‘backward’ and that he had fallen off the ‘straight path’, a phrase that
some Muslims use to refer to the path which God summons Muslims to
follow. Rather than remain in the ‘darkness’ of Irish culture, as Haq referred
to it, this young Salafist separated himself from all non-Muslims and all ‘non-
Islamic’ activities. He did so because he was concerned about the purity of his
soul. From the beginning of our interview, Haq spoke through the prism of
his Islamic world view. According to him, Irish people need to embrace Islam
to save their own souls and to save Irish society. Haq also spoke frequently
about women and sexuality in Ireland. Young Irish women, he argued, behave
like ‘sluts’ and ‘prostitutes’ by wearing short skirts and flirting with men. Fur-
thermore, he had found it frustrating to forge relationships with non-Muslim
women. He noted, ‘We have this thing called love today, but it’s not really
love… We have love and lust. Lust ends, but love never really ends.’ Haq
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 103
believed that Prophet Muhammad had predicted this type of ‘immoral beha-
viour’ in what Haq referred to as ‘the last stage’ and ‘the last generation’ of
humanity. According to him, ‘In the last stage, it’s said that women will
be dressed half-naked. We’re living in this culture now.’ When asked why else
he thought humanity was living in the ‘last stage’, Haq replied, ‘[People] are
being wronged in business, wronged in their families, wronged in everything.
You’ve homosexuality. We’re being destroyed. We allow all of it … This
comes at the last stage.’ Some Salafists are said to believe that modern social
and political conditions fulfil the Islamic version of an ‘end-times prophecy’.
Part of the reason why Haq had decided go back to his ‘roots’ of practising
Islam was due to his fear of the Day of Judgment and the wrath of God, who
will allegedly judge his previous sins and might condemn him to eternal hellfire.
Returning to his ‘Islamic roots’ came at a certain cost. Haq said that he
and his wife, a white European convert to Islam, rarely left the house and
lived a very boring life together. He elaborated in the following passage:

Just think about it. It’s [more fun] to be Christian. Look at Islam. If you
understand Islam, you look at the world through it … Let’s say it’s a
Friday night and I want to do something. What can I do? You can’t do
anything. You can’t go out. Even if I go out to town, what the hell is
going on? You understand me? I’m looking around, and the younger the
kids, the smaller the clothes are. It’s like that term ‘paedophile’. You
look … Now how do I live with my eyes like that? What do I do? I stay
at home.

The ‘openness’ of Irish culture, Haq argued, is destroying Irish society. This
openness, as he viewed it, had been driven by television, media, and enter-
tainment, which he claimed ‘makes you feel anything you need to feel’ and
allows people ‘to choose whatever you want to choose’. To cure Ireland of its
ills, Haq believed that Irish people must turn to shariah and the will of God
instead of their own individual preferences and desires. On the matter of
homosexuality, recently a hot topic in Ireland, he was particularly critical.
Haq claimed that it ‘destroys people’ and that implementing shariah is the
only way to ‘cure’ Irish people of this perceived ‘evil’. He justified these
positions based on the Hadiths. In one sense, Haq can be seen as someone who
seeks to put the tools and interpretation of Islamic scripture, and primarily the
Hadiths, in the hands of everyone (Taylor, 2016).
Salafists like Haq have been described as sympathisers and even advocates
of ‘radical Islam’. In the context of discussing events in Pakistan, he expressed
sympathy for a group of Muslims who had destroyed a Christian-majority
neighbourhood in Joseph Colony, Punjab (Dawn, 2013). While we discussed
this event, Haq changed the tone of his voice. He started speaking in a softer
tone, as if he wanted nobody to hear him. According to Haq, ‘Islamic extre-
mists’ are defending Islam and Muslims, whom he described as ‘the most
humiliated people in the world’. He would not condemn the use of violence to
104 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
achieve the aim of implementing Islamic political systems. He commented,
‘Oftentimes the only solution to problems for Muslims is to act out physically’,
and added, ‘some people say [violence] is bad. Some people say it’s cruel. But
somebody has a plan … Everybody has a reason for something’.
On the topic of violence, I found it difficult to understand Haq. Earlier, he
had stated that Islam stands for peace and that Muslims are obliged to spread
peace around the world. On the other hand, he did not condemn violent
assaults on religious minority communities in Pakistan. Although he hoped to
one day live in an ‘Islamic country’, Haq showed no interest in moving to the
‘homeland’. According to him, Pakistanis there ‘try to live an Islamic lifestyle,
but they’re ruled by people who aren’t really Muslim’. Pakistani Muslims, as
he described them, ‘might pray five times per day and wear Muslim clothes,
but they’re led by all the powers of the West’. Haq would rather remain in
Ireland, the only home he had ever known, but under one condition: that it
become increasingly ‘Islamic’.

The other Salafi

Salafiyya, to be clear, is not a homogeneous movement. There are many
peace-loving and even ‘quietist’ Salafists around the world (Taylor, 2016). I
had an opportunity to meet with one in 2014 on a summer afternoon in a
suburb of Boston. At the time of our interview, Omar was twenty-eight years
old and studying for a medical degree so he could become a surgeon. While it
is tempting to throw out blanket statements that conflate different Salafists,
my interview with Omar showed that he and Haq held different views on
issues pertaining to identity, society, politics, and faith. Unlike Haq, Omar
did not try to convert me to Islam. He stressed that conversion to Islam is a
process that should happen organically within an individual’s heart and mind.
Omar was also not as forthright about ‘Islamic supremacy’ as Haq, who had
claimed that Islam is the only ‘true religion’. The different approaches that
Omar and Haq had adopted to converting non-believers and engaging in civic
life reminds us that self-described Salafists can differ on issues such as social
engagement and Muslim identity.
The diversity of Islam is something that Omar acknowledged from the
outset of our interview. Indeed, he noted that divisions and differences in the
ummah are inevitable, though he added that they are by no means ideal in
terms of harmony and unity. Omar saw disunity as the biggest threat to the
Muslim American community. Specifically, he discussed the divide between
Sufis and Salafists and turned to the leadership of Hamza Yusuf and Yasir
Qadhi to shed light on the ‘competing sections’ of the ummah. Yusuf is generally
recognised as a Sufi, whereas Qadhi is popularly associated with Salafists.
Omar preferred the teachings of Qadhi, who, despite having abandoned the
title ‘Salafi’ years ago, continues to be a popular teacher amongst Salafists in
the United States (Taylor, 2016). When I asked him why he preferred Qadhi
to Yusuf, Omar replied, ‘Because he practises aqida’. Muslims use the Arabic
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 105
word aqida to mean worshipping God alone and rejecting any intercessors.
Salafists generally agree that calling on an intercessor, especially at the
intercessor’s grave, is major shirk, an Arabic term meaning ‘the practice of
polytheism’, which puts a person beyond the pale of Islam. Essentially, Omar
accused Sufis of engaging in ‘un-Islamic’ acts of worshiping someone other
than God.
Salafiyya had not always been a primary part of Omar’s identity. In this
regard, he displayed similar characteristics to Haq, who had also ‘found
Salafiyya’ after years of ‘deviating from Islam’. Omar had grown up in what
he described as a ‘mainstream Sunni family’ that was not particularly
devout, but that ‘definitely took faith seriously’. Islam had always been an
important frame of reference for Omar, but in different ways and at various
points in his life. On reaching the age of sixteen he had started to read the
Quran independently of any teacher or imam. Some Salafists, like Omar,
develop their understanding of Islam by being ‘self-taught’. After studying
the Quran alone, Omar had felt ‘a direct connection with God’. Moreover,
when he entered young adulthood, he started identifying more closely with
the ummah rather than with any particular ethnicity or nationality. Omar
referenced a Hadith which declared that the global Muslim community must
conceive of itself as ‘one body’. His understanding of Muslims as a trans-
national body transcended the national hegemony of the United States and
Pakistan. Ultimately, he positioned his own sense of self outside the time
and space of the ‘hostland’.
Yet, like all the second-generation interviewees in Boston, Omar described
himself as more ‘culturally American’ than ‘culturally Pakistani’. He attributed
this orientation to having been born and bred in the United States, the only
country that he had ever called ‘home’. Omar, however, added that he did not
‘accept everything’ about American culture, especially when certain norms
conflict with his Islamic faith. For example, during our interview at his home
in a suburb, I kept hearing footsteps in the room above us. I asked Omar if
someone else was in the house, and he explained that it was his wife and
mother-in-law. He added, ‘They separate themselves, so you won’t be seeing
them.’ Laughing after having said this, Omar made it clear that the mixing of
men and women in social settings was not something that he condoned.
The interview with Omar reminded me of the different ways of looking at
American identity. He distanced himself from ‘American culture’, but certainly
not American citizenship. He understood ‘Americanness’ through the lens of
the country’s founding documents and summarised it as a person’s obligation
to follow national rules and regulations and accept the ‘ideals’ of the United
States. One example that he gave particularly struck me. Omar told me personal
stories about the importance of fulfilling ‘civic duties’ to enact political
change in American society. In 2004, after America had invaded Iraq, Omar
had attended an ‘anti-war’ peace rally on Boston Common. He had seen the
rally as an opportunity to participate in civil society and ultimately to bring
‘positive change’ to American society. The United States’ recent wars, in
106 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
Omar’s mind, had only benefited ‘certain industries’ and did not reflect the
will of the ‘American people’. While Omar operationalised his civil rights,
including freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, he still preferred to see
himself primarily as a ‘Muslim citizen’ belonging to an Islamic community that
is not bounded by national borders. Like some Salafists, he saw nationalism as
‘un-Islamic’, but he still exercised his constitutional rights.
On a more personal level, maintaining a beard is an important part of
Omar’s Salafist identity. Beards have attracted significant attention as symbols
of Muslim identities. According to De Sondy (2016), facial hair has long been
a defining visual aspect of Islam, but in recent years other sectors of society
have co-opted the look. De Sondy added that association between beards and
Islam goes back to Muhammad himself, who is said to have sported a beard,
although the Quran says nothing about facial hair specifically.
Since 9/11, movies, media outlets, and newspaper headlines have associated
bearded Muslim men with words like ‘fanatic’, ‘fundamentalist’, ‘militant’,
‘terrorist’, and ‘violent’. According to Ghosh (2011), Hollywood depicts the
‘typical’ Muslim male as:

a Middle Easterner or South Asian with a skin complexion ranging from

olive to dark brown (plus the obligatory moustache and beard), dark
brown/black hair and dark brown/black eyes. Also, he wears a ‘typical’
Muslim headdress, ranging from anything from a turban to a Mufti. He
also speaks in a funny foreign accent. The typical Muslim woman wears
a hijab or perhaps a veil covering her entire body and shuns anything too
Western or liberating.

While many Muslims worldwide might fit these descriptions, they are hardly
exclusive to the followers of Islam. Thus, the very notion that ‘Muslim identity’
is defined by physical characteristics seems to be ludicrous. Nonetheless,
Omar referred to his beard as a reminder of his relationship with God, yet it
also reminded him of being Othered. One day during his years in college, he
was praying in a small vacant room on campus, and a woman approached
him and started talking to him about his beard and Osama bin Laden. Omar
thought to himself, ‘Who is this lady and why is she talking to me?’ Omar
claimed that she followed him for about twenty minutes as he drove away in
his car. He believed that the woman was an FBI or CIA agent.
Omar related other experiences in which he had felt ‘paranoid’. After the
Boston Marathon bombing, which happened a few weeks before our interview,
Omar felt that his beard reminded people of ‘Islamic terrorism’, which made
him feel ‘sketchy’ and ‘unwelcomed’. On the day of the bombing, he and his
wife – who was wearing a burqa – went to a local grocery store and felt sin-
gled out for their appearance. ‘It was like people don’t want me to be [in
Boston] or something like that’, he said, ‘It made me feel very insignificant,
like I’m the one who did it or something.’ He felt as though he was being
judged guilty by association. Listening to his stories reminded me that some
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 107
Muslim Americans feel that they cannot safely practise their religion – not
even in an Islamic prayer space. Towards the end of our interview, Omar said
that he only wanted to live a simple life, a life without any problems. His life
goals included having a job, raising a family, and owning a home. More than
anything, he wanted to live in safety and peace.
The assumption that ‘Islam’ encourages violence – an assumption that is
exacerbated to a significant degree by media outlets and their sensationalist
coverage of world events – inevitably shapes how Americans interact with and
treat Muslims. Religiously motivated violence, however, is totally unac-
ceptable to Omar. On this issue, he differed from Haq, who had justified
violence in the name of Islam and condoned the use of violence to ‘liberate’
Muslims from ‘oppressors’. While Omar and Haq both wanted more ‘Islamic’
principles and practices in their hostlands, Omar rejected all forms of violence.
He used the term ‘un-Islamic’ to refer to ‘Muslim terrorists’ and viewed Pro-
phet Muhammad as having unequivocally condemned the killing of civilians,
who are popular targets of ‘terrorists’.
Not only did Omar criticise ‘radical Islamic groups’, but he also mentioned
that the threat of ‘Muslim terrorists’ is overanalysed and overhyped. He
commented, ‘I don’t know anyone like that. I’ve never even met anyone like
that … [They are] a fringe group … who’ve come into religion but don’t
practise it … They get angry over their political defences and stuff like that.’
Omar identified the two young men who had carried out the Boston Marathon
bombing as ‘Kharjites’. This small group of seventh-century Muslims had
earned their nickname (kh-ra-ja means ‘to go out’ in Arabic) because they
had abandoned Islam and the Muslim community due to ‘heretical innovations’
(Elias, 2014). The Kharjite ideology is said to be based on declaring Muslims
to be ‘unbelievers’, rejecting lawful obedience to national rulers, and justifying
violence against Muslims and civilians (ibid.). Omar further distanced himself
from Muslims who condone violence because, in his view, ‘extremists aren’t
praying all night and reading Quran everyday … What they’re interested in is
doing shariah… They just want their own government. It’s really strange.’
These comments suggest that Omar was not an ‘activist Salafist’ who wanted
to transform political systems. He appeared to be content with secular law as
found in the United States. The implementation of an all-encompassing form
of shariah and an ‘Islamic government’ did not appear to be key factors in his
Islamic belief system.
The interviews with Haq and Omar shed more light on Salafiyya, a modern
Islamic revivalist movement that should be viewed as a heterogeneous
grouping. Both of these young men hoped to see more ‘Islamic values’ in
American and Irish society, but they had different opinions on how best to
bring about societal change. Yet, despite their opposing views on conversion
to Islam and religiously motivated violence, Haq and Omar shared a similar
position on Pakistani culture and the ‘homeland’. Both of these young men
were not interested in moving back to Pakistan, a country that they had visited
but had not felt comfortable in. They also criticised Pakistan for having an
108 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
unacceptable level of corruption. Their relationships to the hostland and
‘homeland’ are significant, because they suggest that Salafiyya will continue
to have a presence in the United States and Ireland in the coming years.

Maliq: bridging Irishness and Sufism

What do we know of Sufism (Islamic mysticism) and its links to Irish mysticism?
To put it simply, not much. ‘Mysticism’ is a type of spirituality aimed at
union with the divine through deep meditation or contemplation. Mystics
believe in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehen-
sion that are central to being and directly accessible by intuition (American
Heritage Dictionary, 1980). Sufism can be viewed as ‘the esoteric or inward
aspect of Islam in which direct contemplation of spiritual or divine realities
provides individuals a connection to a particular phase of humanity’ (Burc-
khardt, 2008, p. 3). While there is disagreement amongst religious scholars
and Sufis themselves about the origins of Sufism, the traditional view is that it
had its beginnings in the first centuries following the life of the Prophet
Muhammad. In her comprehensive book on the mystical dimensions of Islam,
Schimmel (2011) describes Muhammad as a deeply pious and spiritually earnest
man, a man who not only desired union with God, but also experienced a
direct connection to a higher power.
Around the same time that Prophet Muhammad received his revelations,
Celtic Christians in Ireland were practising their own form of mysticism.
Beginning in the late fourth century, the Celts had developed their own unique
style of Christianity, which praised mysticism and poetry and promoted a deep
respect for the feminine. Irish mythology reveals that the ancient people of
Ireland believed in a spiritual and invisible world and that these beliefs had
been brought to the island long before the coming of Jesus Christ (Wilde,
1888). Christian mysticism in the Irish context has been explained as ‘the
instinctive belief in the existence of certain unseen agencies that influence all
human life’ (ibid.). While Christianity and Islam are typically known for
focusing on the external practice of religion through rituals and adherence to
strict observations in everyday life, both these religions have strong traditions
of ‘internal experience’ which is more personal and devoted to the soul.
Despite the basic similarities between Sufism and Irish Christian mysticism,
few scholars have examined what these two realms of religious belief and
practice might further have in common. While a thorough analysis of the
links between them is beyond the scope of this book, we can nevertheless
explore the connection through Maliq, a thirty-five-year-old, second-generation
Sufi that I interviewed in Dublin.
Born and raised in Ireland, Maliq had grown up in a working-class neigh-
bourhood. Urdu had been his first language, because his parents and grand-
parents had not been able to speak English or Irish upon arriving in Ireland
in the 1960s. At primary school he had found it difficult to learn English.
Subsequently, he’d had even more difficulty learning Irish. When Maliq and I
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 109
met in a cafe on the campus of Trinity College Dublin, his speech often
alternated between English and Urdu. He also used Arabic words when
speaking about his experience as a Muslim living in Ireland. This made me
think about the concept of mixture, and that Maliq had used the ‘third space’
to form a hybrid identity that combined Irish mysticism and Sufism.
At the time of our interview in the autumn of 2013, Maliq was operating
both a restaurant and a small shop in Dublin’s city centre. I met him at his
restaurant and immediately observed his elaborate clothing, which was dotted
with silver, gems and elaborate Islamic calligraphy. Classical Sufis have been
characterised as ascetic, and Maliq is no different. From the restaurant we
went to his mosque, where we were to attend a dhikr, a devotional act during
which worshipers absorb themselves in the rhythmic repetition of the name of
God or God’s attributes (Oxford Dictionary, n.d.). Upon entering the prayer
space, I quickly noticed that the Sufis around me were preparing for a spiritual
experience. The room was very quiet, and the lights were turned off. Men
were greeting each other with the sign of peace. One young Sufi was sitting
cross-legged in the middle of the prayer area, meditating in total silence. This
type of dhikr is identified as ‘silent’, or dhikr khafi. When the communal dhikr
started, all the Sufis came together and formed a big circle. Drums started
beating, and participants began chanting in Arabic in unison. This type of
dhikr is called dhikr jail (vocal). All the men present started swaying back and
forth, from left to right, as if they were one entity. Meditation turned into
prayer. The chants, singing, and use of musical instruments were unlike any-
thing I had ever seen in a mosque. After all, in Muslim circles, Sufi practices
are controversial, and indigenous Sufism in Pakistan is being supplanted by
the more intolerant and outlandish Wahhabism.
Participation in the dhikr was personally rewarding for me. This ritual
engendered a state of spiritual experience and brought me closer to my own
beliefs in divine power and the unity of our existence as human beings. The
making of music and the aesthetic practice of performing dhikr created a
space where I could relate to my higher sense of self. I left this ritual with a
sense of having been spiritually cleansed, a topic which Maliq spoke about
passionately during our subsequent discussion over chai tea, a popular drink
amongst Pakistanis and other South Asians.
Rehmat, an Urdu word meaning ‘blessing’, is a term that Maliq used fre-
quently, especially when our conversation turned to the topic of Irish identity.
According to him, being Irish was a ‘blessing’, and he added that the word
‘Irish’ alone is a ‘special word’ with ‘mystical powers’. However, like several
other participants in Ireland, Maliq used the ‘old Irish’/‘new Irish’ binary to
explain his definition of Irish national identity. According to him, Irishness ‘is
not what it used to be’, and he identified the Celtic Tiger as having funda-
mentally changed the ‘heart’ of Irish society. Maliq proceeded to define ‘old
Irishness’ by using words like ‘mystical fairies’ and ‘mystical stories’. Ireland,
he posited, used to be ‘a very poetic country’ whose people created ‘other-
worldly’ music. Maliq remembered his childhood days, when Catholic women
110 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
had worn veils, and seemed to yearn for more modesty in Ireland. ‘Sex is an
open market’, he stated. ‘It’s ruthless. Where has it come from, this evil thing?’
Like other interviewees in Dublin, Maliq viewed the Celtic Tiger as having had
a negative influence on Irish society. In ecclesiastical circles, these developments
are attributed to secularisation and the Irish people’s loss of faith.
Yet Maliq saw himself as a Muslim who could reinvigorate the faith of
Christians by encouraging people to care more for their souls. Nourishing
souls, in his mind, started with renouncing material comforts and selfish
desires for the sake of God. Maliq did not want Irish Christians to convert to
Islam. Despite what people often mistakenly believe, Islam does not demand
the conversion of non-Muslims. Sufis, meanwhile, are called to love and
respect the dignity and integrity of others. Maliq’s selfless love of humanity in
all its manifestations led him to build a bridge between Irishness and Sufism.
For Sufis, music has historically been a popular means of spiritual devel-
opment (Khan, 2011, p. 32). The Irish too have used music as a way to define
their nation. From traditional folk tunes to modern rock, Irish musicians have
always drawn on the spirit, culture, and history of Ireland. The harp, in
particular, is a symbol of Irish identity dating back to ancient times when
chieftains employed harpists. According to Maliq, the harp is a ‘holy instru-
ment’. Maliq also employed mythology when he explained how the bodhrán,
or Irish drum, had come to Ireland when Muslims had arrived in Europe in
the eighth century:

About a thousand years ago, Irish music came out of Arabic music. Like
the bodhrán drum … it came from a tribe in North Africa … Cork was a
major city and stop for the Muslim spice traders and other labourers.
That’s how the music came. They travelled from North Africa and
evolved into the culture … You can see that in the kind of dark features
of the Irish in the West … That music is soothing for the soul. Just listen
to it. It’s so nice. It feels nice. That is the integration of the Celtic, Irish,
and Arabic music.

Whether there is any historical evidence linking Irish music with Arabic music
is beside the point. The important point is that Maliq imagines a certain kind
of synergy between Irish identity and Islam. In effect, he made a bridge
between cultural worlds not only through music, but also through the concept
of the soul. ‘Music dances inside of you’, Maliq commented passionately.
‘Every one of us … needs some source of food. The soul needs food!’ At this
point in our discussion, he claimed that Wahhabis, Salafists, and Deobandis
are un-Islamic because they consider music to be haram, or forbidden. ‘Music
comes from the heart’, said Maliq. Pakistani Sufi music, in particular, had
deep meaning for him because it had helped him erase his ego. Sufi singers
like Fateh Ali Khan and Abida Parvin, he noted, ‘sing from the heart. It’s out
of this world.’ Maliq’s love for qawwali, a form of Sufi devotional music
popular in South Asia, particularly in the Punjab and Sindh regions, linked
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 111
him culturally and spiritually to the ‘homeland’, but he had no desire to live
in Pakistan due to its political corruption.
Maliq believed that Irish people had recently had their ‘souls damaged’ due
to the Celtic Tiger’s embrace of materialism. His views are supported by a
series of psychological studies which showed that as people become more
materialistic, their well-being (including good relationships, autonomy, and a
sense of purpose) diminishes (Kasser et al., 2014). Specifically, he hoped that
people in Ireland would return to the ‘older ways’, which to him meant Irish
mysticism. Maliq offered a fable which provided more insight into his views
on the connection between Irish identity and religion:

As we go back in the Dark Ages, there was a plague in Ireland. There

was a snake in Ireland, the plague. The snake was inside the heart. The
snake was a demon. God sent the shepherd, Saint Patrick, over from
Wales … God has mentioned in the Quran and the Bible that people will
face dangers and threats and that he could choose anyone. Irish people
were idol worshipping, evil worshipping. They were pagans, worshipping
statues … When Saint Patrick came and cleaned this plague, he changed
the holy culture of the Catholics, and today, after 1,700 years, half of the
world celebrates the day.

Maliq also referred to Saint Patrick as a ‘friend of Allah’. He had visited

Cruach Phádraig (Patrick’s Stack), on several occasions. This mountain is an
important site of pilgrimage for Christians and served as a symbol to Maliq
of the ‘old Irish’ identity based in spirituality. He continued, ‘[The Irish] are
really, really losing the religion … They need soul, the guidance. They either
become a sick man, a drunk man, or a pornographic man. Otherwise, you
find the spiritual side.’
My interview with Maliq shed light on not only his Sufi heart and mind,
but also the internal religious dynamics of the ‘Pakistani Muslim community’
in Ireland. He recollected an experience when he had visited a mosque run by
the Tablighi Jamaat, an international Islamic movement widely considered to
be ‘ultra orthodox’. At the time of his visit, Maliq was a teenager who had
recently fallen in love with the life and legacy of Prophet Muhammad. The
Tablighis, he soon found out, had a different perspective on how Muslims
should relate to Muhammad. Out of curiosity, Maliq asked an elder Tablighi
man, ‘Why don’t you pray to Prophet Muhammad?’ The man responded by
claiming that ‘worshipping’ the prophet is forbidden by the Quran. After
listening to Maliq talk about his devotion to Prophet Muhammad, the elder
man slapped his face. He also stated that listening to qawwali is haram. Aside
from being physically harmed by the assault, Maliq told me, he had been
upset that the Tablighis ‘hate music’, because music had inspired him and
‘converted many people to the religion of Islam’.
Maliq’s encounter with the Tablighi Jamaat is important because it reveals
how sectarian rivalries based in the ‘homeland’ can be transmitted to
112 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
diasporic communities. Relations between Sufis and more ‘orthodox’ Muslims
such as the Tablighi Jamaat and the Deobandis are particularly strained in
Pakistan, where the spread of such ‘hard-line’ versions of Islam has resulted in
attacks on Sufis (BBC, 2014). In speaking of the Sufi–Deobandi dichotomy
in Ireland, Maliq claimed that Pakistani Deobandi leaders had been a negative
influence on the lives of young Irish Muslims. He accused them of ‘minimising
Islam’ and ‘dumbing it down’ to make it more accessible to potential converts.
He referred to Deobandi leaders as mullahs who tell people to only ‘read and
pray’. Maliq, who is more inclined to Islamic spirituality, believed that
Deobandism puts ‘fear’ into people and discourages them from embracing the
peaceful example of Prophet Muhammad, who, he argued, displayed
‘humanity’ and turned Arabs away from ‘the plague to the blessing’.
After we finished our interview, Maliq embraced me with a long and firm
hug. He called me his brother and referred to me as a ‘kindred spirit’. Unlike
Haq, the Salafist in Dublin whom I had met a few weeks earlier, Maliq never
once tried to convert me to Islam. Maliq simply hoped that more Irish people
would embrace mysticism and spirituality. Towards the end of the interview,
he commented, ‘I’m not asking anyone to convert to Islam. All I’m asking is
to sit down and do meditation for Allah. See the heart. Talk to it.’
Maliq himself had tried to touch the hearts and minds of Irish people
through compassion and good deeds. For the last three years he had worked
with a Sufi mosque to feed the homeless during Ramadan, Islam’s holy
month. ‘Allah has given us that ability to be good and kind to everyone … I
think that is something that Sufism … [and] the Prophet has given us’. These
words have a poignancy, considering that Islamophobia is on the rise in
Ireland.

Baraq: surveilling American society

During the 2016 Republican presidential campaign, Senator Ted Cruz of
Texas, an evangelical Christian, was attacked by conservative Republicans for
not being ‘conservative enough’. In a defiant response to the attack, Cruz told
the media that he was ‘a Christian first, American second, conservative third,
and Republican fourth … I’ll tell ya, there are a whole lot of people in this
country that feel exactly the same way’ (Meadors, 2016). I shared Cruz’s
quote with students in my sociology of religion class at Rice University in
Houston, Texas. One student raised her hand and, with a concerned look on
her face, asked, ‘Would a Muslim get away with saying, “I’m a Muslim first,
American second”?’ All the students agreed that a Muslim would not ‘get
away’ with such a comment without having his or her loyalty to the United
States questioned.
The ‘debate’ about whether a Muslim can be an American patriot or loyal
citizen is centred on the perceived incompatibility between Islamic values
and American values. Some Americans claim that ‘Muslim American’ is an
oxymoron (Abdullah, n.d.). These Americans argue that Muslims are loyal
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 113
only to Allah and Mecca and that Islam forbids them to make friends with
non-Muslims (ibid.). In essence, the argument goes, Muslims cannot be ‘good
Muslims’ and ‘good Americans’ at the same time.
Baraq, a bearded Sunni who was twenty-six at the time of our interview,
was unapologetic in stating that he was ‘a Muslim first and an American
second’. He made it clear to me that, while he appreciated the religious free-
dom granted to him by the Constitution of the United States, ‘First and
foremost my loyalty is to God.’ Many Americans, he argued, have a double
standard when it comes to judging whether self-identified Muslims who
happen to be brown can legitimately identify with their religion more than
their nationality:

Being a white male American is very different. If you say loyalty to God,
they will think of church, faith, God, and kneeling, but if I say loyalty to
God, that means terrorism, blowing things up, martyrdom and things
that are completely antithetical to my religion, to any religion.

He believed that a double standard exists in terms of freedom of speech and

freedom of religion in the United States. According to Baraq, Christian
Americans can openly practice their faith and openly express their
‘Christianness’, but Muslim Americans are restricted from doing so because
of Islamophobia and the negative media connotations surrounding terms
such as Allah and jihad. With a defiant look on his face, Baraq declared that
it was his right – as an American citizen – to dissent against double standards
and to practise Islam in accordance with his own conscience.
Baraq was the only participant in Boston or Dublin who was serving as a
religious leader at the time of my interviews. We sat down after jummah
(Friday prayers) in one of the more liberal mosques of suburban Boston.
Earlier that day, Baraq had spent time at a local university and hospital,
where he served as a Muslim chaplain. His training as a Muslim chaplain had
entailed studying under imams and Islamic scholars around the city. Baraq
was also teaching classes on Islam at his local mosque. He was particularly
interested in learning and teaching about the subjects of Islamic jurisprudence
(fiqh), Islamic finance, and what he referred to as ‘Islamic health’. Building
interfaith bridges with his Jewish and Christian neighbours was also important
to him. Baraq described himself as a ‘devout Muslim’, but he saw himself as
part of a larger community of ‘believers’ in God.
Baraq commented that as a teacher of Islam, he aims to help young Muslims
learn more about ‘true Islamic principles’. He believed that young Muslims
should be encouraged to integrate into American society, but he also believed
that they should not compromise their Islamic beliefs and practices to ‘fit in’
and please non-Muslim Americans. While Baraq saw no contradiction
between American identity and Islam, he differentiated between nationality
and culture. To him, nationality meant loyalty to one’s country, whereas culture
meant how an individual lives and acts. Among his students, dating and
114 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
alcohol had been topics of conversation in his recent classes, as Baraq
explained in the following passage:

Muslim kids are drinking much earlier … Over like the last ten years,
they’ve also been a lot more involved in like instant gratification. It’s like
video games and sex. Everything is on demand … My students have a
heightened sense of drinking, smoke, and people just kind of going
through their lives letting a small number of people control them … Too
many Muslim Americans are living as drones.

In a calm and collected manner, Baraq told me that second- and third-generation
Muslim Americans should engage in jihad. While some Americans might
grow suspicious of Muslims who advocate for jihad, I had already learnt that
the literal meaning of the word is ‘striving, struggling, or effort’. Jihad, in
short, is a concept with many layers (Sidahmed, 2010, p. 113). Some scholars
have claimed that there are thirteen types of jihad (Al-Munajjid, n.d.). For
example, Muslims can engage in jihad an-nafs, or struggle against one’s self or
ego. In this context, they might strive to learn the teachings of Islam or strive
to bear patiently the difficulties of life. On the other hand, Muslims might
engage in jihad ash-shaytan, or fighting against spirits that attempt to undermine
the Islamic faith (ibid.). While jihad is a disputed concept amongst scholars,
there is a general consensus that violence is permitted only in self-defence
(Sidahmed, 2010, p. 113).
Baraq himself did not view jihad in terms of ‘holy war’. Rather, he defined
it in a purely linguistic sense to mean ‘struggle’, and he encouraged his students
to struggle against ‘immoral’ social norms in American society such as sex
outside of marriage and going to parties that serve alcohol. While he showed
obvious familiarity with American culture and an ability to navigate the
‘codes’ of American society, Baraq also empowered youth to locate and
appreciate the values embedded within their own ‘Islamic culture’. He, too,
could be viewed as a cross-cultural navigator who could move fluently across
cultures.
As an emerging leader in the Boston ‘Muslim community’, Baraq felt
obliged to steer other young Muslims away from un-Islamic practices. For
Baraq and other ‘practising Muslims’ like him, this is a perfectly acceptable
jihad. According to him, young Muslim Americans are afraid to say the word
jihad, or any variation of it. He commented, in a frustrated tone, that Muslims
in the United States cannot even say ‘fight’ when they mean ‘fighting the
basic desires’. As an imam-in-training, he was particularly conscious of saying
the word jihad at the pulpit because it is easily taken out of context. Baraq
shared a story to highlight his point. Several months before our interview, he
had given a sermon on jummah (Friday prayer) during which a non-Muslim
guest recorded his speech. After the sermon, Baraq’s brother convinced him that
he had to take extra care because people who record him might misinterpret his
discussion on jihad to mean ‘holy war’ or ‘fight the non-believers’. Like other
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 115
Muslim Americans that I met during my fieldwork, Baraq felt that he and his
community had been under constant ‘watch and surveillance’. He mentioned
a constant ‘threat’ of FBI agents infiltrating his local mosque or spying on
members of the community beyond the mosque setting. Ultimately, these
perceived threats have had an emotional toll on Baraq and other Muslim
Americans who feel that law enforcement officials are biased against Muslims.
These instances of profiling have made him feel like a second-class citizen.
Baraq further distanced himself from ‘violent jihad’ when our discussion
turned to the Boston Marathon bombing. He believed that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,
one of the bombers, had completely failed at practising Islam and being a
‘good Muslim’. Baraq criticised Tsarnaev for believing that jihad means vio-
lence and that suicide bombers are ‘martyrs’ who enter jannah, the Arabic
term for paradise. Despite his unequivocal condemnation of ‘radical Muslims’
like Tsarnaev, Baraq still had to deal with the consequences of the Boston
Marathon attack. Hours after the initial explosion on Boylston Street in
downtown Boston, Baraq had visited a local grocery store to pick up some
fresh vegetables. Dressed in a shalwar kameez, a traditional Pakistani outfit,
he felt like a stranger in his own home:

It was just a terrible feeling of being targeted. I don’t know if I was

thinking in my mind if I was projecting other peoples’ stereotypes or not
because I look a certain way. I look like your classic like Muslim man
with a larger beard and brown skin. That’s also something I’ve struggled
with. I look like someone people are told on the TV to avoid … So
whenever I encounter someone, whether it be on the street or in the store
or whatever, I go beyond just getting whatever I’m getting at the grocery
store. You know. Like I talk to the teller and the cashier and whatnot and
remark on something … I always just try to smile at people just so that
they might feel a bit more comfortable. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing.
It’s also partially that I want to see myself as approachable … So it’s kind
of weird.

Baraq’s comments reflect recent studies that have shown that Muslims not
only experience discrimination in their daily lives, but also are fully aware of
their ‘devalued’ position in society (Kunst et al., 2012). In effect, Islamophobia
has had a distinct effect on the health and identity construction process of
Muslims. Other types of real and perceived discrimination – including work-
place discrimination and chronic daily hassles such as insults or ‘weird
looks’ – have also increased the risk of mental disorders amongst young
Muslims (Laird et al., 2007). According to Baraq, the best ways to combat
discrimination against Muslims are for the media to increase exposure of ‘true
Islam’ and for Muslims to have more interactions with Americans and
‘people who look differently’. In essence, he encouraged pluralism and cross-
cultural communication as useful tools in the fight against Islamophobia and
other forms of racism.
116 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
One of the more striking stories to come out of my fieldwork in Boston
related to one of Baraq’s friends. The story sheds light upon the intersection
between the law, surveillance, and Muslim American identity. His friend – I
will call him Akbar – had recently been tried and convicted in a Massachusetts
court. Baraq claimed that he had been tried for translating ‘Salafi Arabic
books to English’. Reflecting on the day that he and his parents had attended
the trial, Baraq claimed that the prosecution lawyers had brought in so-called
‘experts’ on radical Islam who had read through Akbar’s messages and online
conversations. In anger, Baraq asked me, ‘How can you even do that and use
that as evidence?’ Akbar’s trial made Baraq feel that Islam itself is under
attack, because ‘you can’t even turn to the authorities or legal system’ with
any trust. He believed that these powers in the United States have created an
unjust system which can lead to feelings of marginalisation and insecurity
amongst Muslims.
Despite feeling like a second-class citizen, Baraq didn’t want to live in any
country other than the United States. He showed no interest in visiting or
moving to Pakistan. ‘Pakistaniness’ did not resonate with him. Baraq stated
that his ‘ethnic heritage is distracting’ and that he had a problem with saying
‘I’m Pakistani’. He defined himself first and foremost as a Muslim and second
as an American who appreciated the rights granted to him by the Constitution.
Today, however, Muslim Americans are living in a disturbing climate of
discrimination. Violence, harassment, and political oppression are happening
across the country. Baraq thought that the current period is a time of ‘reflect
and respect’ for Muslims, whose civil rights are being overlooked in a manner
similar to how black Americans’ rights were overlooked during the 1960s.
Baraq viewed the work of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X as still a
work in progress. He even called for another movement for social justice.
While he was vocal and active in fighting Islamophobia in his community,
Baraq also understood that some young Muslim Americans are scared to
demand fair treatment or indifferent to the problem. The ‘Muslim community’
in the United States, as he made clear, can be silenced both externally and
internally.

Humayun and Yasir: gay Muslims ‘treading on thin ice’

A tragic event in June 2016 put the spotlight on the relationship between Islam
and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. On 12 June, Omar
Mateen, a twenty-nine-year-old Muslim American security guard, killed
49 people and wounded 53 others inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando,
Florida. The ‘Orlando massacre’, as the media called it, was said to be the
deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter in the history of the United States.
It was certainly the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people.
The ‘Orlando massacre’ brought to the forefront Muslim attitudes to
homosexuality and the experiences of LGBT Muslims (Zoll and Hajela,
2016). Young Muslims in the United States have gone on record stating that
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 117
LGBT Muslims are ‘invisible Muslims’ who are often ‘erased’ as equal
members of the ‘Islamic community’ (ibid.). After the incident in Orlando,
LGBT Muslims said that the shooting sparked a complex set of emotions. As
Zoll and Hajela (2016) found out, LGBT Muslims ‘were devastated for their
fellow gays and lesbians, while deeply concerned about anti-Muslim bias the
shooting would generate’. LGBT Muslims were caught between, on one
hand, individuals and groups claiming that Islam is inherently ‘anti-gay’ and,
on the other hand, Muslims who consider homosexuality ‘un-Islamic’.
I had the opportunity to meet with two gay first-generation Pakistani
Muslims in Boston. While I attempted to meet with gay Pakistani Muslims in
Dublin, I unfortunately came up short in this endeavour. Nevertheless, the
interviews with Humayun and Yasir, both of whom were born in Karachi,
shed light on issues that affect gay Pakistani Muslims. Humayun and Yasir
come from a country, Pakistan, where gays are often violently persecuted and
where many Muslims harbour a deep antipathy to LGBT people. Living in
the United States, a country whose Supreme Court ruled in favour of same-
sex marriage in 2015, has provided them with more security and peace of
mind, but both men are still pushing for more acceptance of homosexuality
within Muslim American communities. They face both Islamophobia and
homophobia nearly every day.
Humayun, a twenty-year-old college student, was born in the United States
but spent his first fourteen years in Pakistan. I considered him to be a first-
generation participant because he spent his formative years in the ‘homeland’.
A self-described ‘fair weather Sunni’, Humayun did not have a beard and told
me that it was actually impossible for him to grow one. He joked, ‘I can never
be a good Muslim because of that.’ Dressed in beige khakis and a collared
polo shirt, Humayun had the appearance of a politician on the campaign
trail, which is fitting considering that he was politically active. He had
recently served as an intern for several politicians and political organisations
in Boston. One of the biggest concerns for Humayun, an aspiring lawyer and
politician, was the rights of LGBT people in the United States and beyond.
His goal in the foreseeable future was to earn a law degree from a top law
school somewhere in the United States. I asked him why he wanted to be a
lawyer, to which he replied, ‘I just really want to make a difference, to just use
the tools to help people, minorities especially.’
American identity is an issue that Humayun felt strongly about because, in
his view, the United States is the best country in the world for LGBT Muslims.
He defined American identity as a ‘universal come as you are’, and added
that any person – regardless of sexual orientation – can be part of the
‘American community’. To him, the United States passport is a particularly
important symbol of American identity, which he stressed is ‘very much being
defined by that little document which can get you anywhere’. In sharp con-
trast to his feelings about the United States passport, Humayun declared that
the Pakistani passport is ‘useless’ and that Pakistan is ‘a hot mess’ and a place
of ‘non-belonging’ for him as an LGBT Muslim. The US passport had
118 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
liberated him, to a certain degree, and had allowed him to feel that he
belonged to the nation: ‘It doesn’t matter what your original national origin
is … If you’re an American, and you’ve a passport, you’re American … Case
closed!’ Essentially, Humayun advocated for a civic culture whereby the rights
and freedoms granted by the Constitution are enjoyed by every American. It
was the exact opposite of how he viewed Pakistan.
It was clear to me at the onset of my interview with Humayun that he
viewed the United States as a safer space for gay people compared with
Pakistan. Freedom of individual expression and people’s ability to ‘be them-
selves’ were reasons why he was passionate about being an American citizen.
Pakistani citizenship had not given him an opportunity to be openly gay in
the ‘homeland’. Indeed, Humayun said that when he visits Pakistan, he ‘acts
straight’ in front of family and friends, most of whom are Muslims, because
he knows that they will denounce him and his homosexuality on ‘Islamic
grounds’. Humayun went on to say, ‘I think America is much more accepting
than other countries like Pakistan, which are very much either you’re a con-
servative Muslim or not … and that’s a problem’. He also claimed that
Pakistan is one of the most homophobic countries in the world. According to
the Pew Research Center (2013), he is correct. A Pew survey found that 87
per cent of the population of Pakistan opposes the legalisation of homo-
sexuality. This figure is one of the highest rates in the world, but ‘normal’ for
the ‘Muslim world’.
Another space where Humayun felt ‘safe’ was his university. He perked up
and became more enthusiastic when our discussion turned to his group of
friends, many of whom were gay or transgender. He described them as being
‘on the fringes’ of society, and he linked their position ‘on the fringe’ to their
sexual orientation. Humayun greatly valued his LGBT friendships because
they had helped him process similar experiences and viewpoints, especially
relating to coming out.
Coming out is a risky proposition for many gay Muslims. Consider the
story of Omar Sarwar, a Muslim American writer with the Muslim Alliance
for Sexual and Gender Diversity. At one point in his life, Sarwar had believed
that if he prayed, went to ‘ex-gay’ therapy, and dated women, then he would
be able to ‘cure’ himself of his ‘problem’ of homosexuality (Gebreyes, 2016).
Five years later, Sarwar realised that the ‘therapy’, which his parents helped
fund, was futile and decided to come out (ibid.). Initially, his family did not
take the news well, but they eventually ‘came around’ and tolerated his
identity.
Humayun had also been challenged by family when he came out. He
told me, ‘I’ve had some challenges with my parents over [being gay]. They
want me to marry a woman, and they think I’m still going to get an arranged
marriage to some woman in Pakistan. That’s not going to happen!’ Humayun
had little doubt in his voice when he offered his opinion on why his parents
opposed his sexuality: he blamed their anti-gay position on Islamic teachings.
They had pitted Islam and queerness against each other in a sort of battle
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 119
that made it impossible to be both gay and Muslim. Essentially, Humayun’s
parents considered him a ‘bad Muslim’.
The pushback that Humayun had received from his parents and family
members had not deterred him from practising Islam or identifying himself to
others as a Muslim. Indeed, he stated, ‘Islam is important to me, but in a
different way’. When I asked him to clarify his comment, he said, ‘A lot of it is
dealing with the sexuality angle of my life. It has really changed the religion
angle. It’s something that I’ve to grapple with in a different way.’ He continued:

The religion made the sexuality harder for me. My sexuality didn’t make
my religion harder, because the religion is so much a part of me. There’s
no doubt ever on that angle … For me there was a lot of issues, like
dealing with the parents thing. You know, like how do I navigate through
this? It wasn’t pretty, but I made it through.

Humayun is one of countless Muslims who have managed to reconcile their

sexual orientation and faith and moved beyond seeing the two identities as
conflicting. Humayun had been able to transcend the ‘conflict’ between
homosexuality and Islam by turning to academic books written by scholars
who have challenged the preconceived notion that homosexuality and Muslim
identity are mutually exclusive. Humayun went against the religious norms of
his parents, which he claimed were integral to their honour as both Pakistanis
and Muslims. As a gay son of a conservative family, he essentially violated
the family honour by identifying himself as gay but did so for the sake of his
own happiness and peace of mind.
Not all the Muslims in Humayun’s midst shared his belief that homo-
sexuality and Islamic teachings are compatible. He told me that he was not
involved with the Muslim Students Association (MSA) on campus, because
he believed that ‘their brand of Islam is a stricter version’ than his own and
that members took themselves ‘a bit too seriously’. He used the Sufi–Salafist
binary to contrast himself with other Muslims on campus. According to him,
Salafists have not carved any intellectual or physical space for gay people
within Muslim communities. Sufis, on the other hand, are more tolerant of
homosexuality. He added, ‘I’m probably just not very rigid. I’m more spiritual.’
Yet, Humayun had also faced discrimination outside of Muslim communities.
He jokingly laughed when he explained the ‘double whammy’ – or being
discriminated against as a gay person by Muslims and as a Muslim by non-
Muslim Americans. After using the term ‘double whammy’, he threw his
arms up over his head and waved them around in a sign of frustration and
disgust. He was obviously joking, but it was clear that he viewed himself as
having a two-part difficulty, of having the dual disadvantage of being both
gay and Muslim.
Although he was too young to remember the events of 9/11, Humayun
claimed that this day forever changed the experiences of Muslims in the
United States. When I asked how the attack had affected him, he again waved
120 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
his arms in a clear sign of frustration. He noted, ‘Things like airport security.
It’s unreal being regularly profiled. I’m sure that’s not a thing that happened
before. It just doesn’t feel right.’ On one occasion at Logan airport in Boston,
he had been ‘patted down’ and taken aside by an official of the Department
of Homeland Security, who proceeded to ask him ‘twenty or thirty questions’.
The situation made Humayun ‘feel weird’, like he was being connected with
‘radical Islam’ and ‘terrorism’. The official from Homeland Security, in
Humayun’s view, was not sure whether Humayun should be allowed to board
the plane. Humayun used the words ‘hot mess’ and ‘confused’ to explain the
emotions that were running through him while being ‘interrogated’. Being
racially profiled at airports is something that is experienced by ‘brown
people’, particularly South Asians, who are perceived to share racial, ethnic,
and religious similarities with the hijackers of 9/11 (Chandrasekhar, 2003). In
this particular case, Humayun believed that he had been targeted and victimised
because he is a Pakistani Muslim. He was not only profiled at the airport for
his ‘Muslim appearance’, but was also excluded from local Muslim communities,
which he wanted to hold dear to his heart.
Humayun saw little to no chance of ever returning to Pakistan, a country
that he described as ‘blatantly homophobic’ and ‘full of crazy Muslims’. When
I asked him to comment on the present state of Pakistani society, he said, ‘It’s a
hot mess. I just want to push all the religious extremists back to Saudi where
they belong so they can stop ruining things.’ The only way he would live in
Pakistan, he said, was if ‘in sixty or so years it is suddenly a much better place
than it is right now as far as the security goes or as far as tolerance for
minorities goes. It’s such a problem.’ Indeed, Pakistan’s politicians and religious
leaders have consistently condemned homosexuality, seeing it as ‘immoral’
under the constitution of Islam. Homosexual acts are arguably illegal in
Pakistan (United States Department of State, 2007). Section 377 of the country’s
Penal Code does not explicitly mention homosexuality but states that ‘carnal
intercourse against the order of nature’ is punishable by a fine and/or impri-
sonment for a period of two years to life (Government of Pakistan, 2014).
Furthermore, under shariah, introduced to Pakistan in 1990, homosexual acts
are punishable by corporal punishment, imprisonment, or death (BBC, 2007).
These anti-LGBT laws in Pakistan are why Humayun felt that he belonged in
the United States. Specifically, he described his ‘new home’ as ‘the land of the
free, home of the brave’. He described Pakistan as the exact opposite – a
country of ‘oppression’ and ‘hypocrisy’.
Fixing Pakistan, in Humayun’s opinion, is a ‘monumental task’. When I
asked him how he would change the ‘homeland’, he commented:

Personally, I would drop the Islamic rule and the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan. I would actually make it entirely secular. I would try to install a
bill of rights, like something in America where you have freedom of
speech and freedom of religion, which even if it might be on paper in
Pakistan, it’s not!
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 121
Humayun clearly supports a secular world view, because he regards secular-
isation as the best way to guarantee equality for minority communities in
Pakistan and beyond. On several occasions during our discussion he made
reference – both direct and perhaps inadvertent – to America’s civil religion.
He believed that Pakistan and every country in the world must be secular to
the extent that racial, religious, ethnic, and sexual identities do not determine
an individual’s or group’s status in society. At one point in the interview he
explicitly referenced America’s civil religion by saying, ‘In America and
American civil religion, you could say it’s interesting to see how the generic
God plays a role, but it’s not like one brand of religion.’ Despite his preference
for secularisation, constitutional rights, and American civil religion, Humayun
also raised issue with the role that race and ethnicity play in American society.
‘In America’, he commented, ‘you will always be brown, you will always be
Muslim, you will always have a funny name, you will always be profiled in
airports until they realise they can stop doing that. So that comes with being
American.’ These comments suggest that American civil religion is an ideal
that Americans strive for and that it is not in fact a concrete reality.
The concept of civil religion is one that I often refer to while teaching. In
February 2015, in my sociology of religion course at Rice University, I shared
with students an Al Jazeera video about America’s ‘first gay imam’ (Khan and
Waheed, n.d.). Daayiee Abdullah, an American citizen and black convert to
Islam, has been roundly condemned by other Muslim leaders in the United
States because of his homosexual identity. My students showed signs of shock
that there exists such a thing as a ‘gay imam’, but more importantly, they
were upset that he had faced discrimination because of his sexual orientation.
The first act that Abdullah carried out as an imam was to perform funeral
rites for a gay Muslim who had died of complications resulting from the
AIDS virus. My students were moved by his story. At the Light of Reform
Mosque in Washington, DC, where Abdullah is based, Muslims are not singled
out for their gender, their sexual orientation, or a particular aspect of being
Muslim, or even for being non-Muslim.
After reading about Abdullah and the Light of Reform Mosque, I thought
of Yasir, a flamboyant, thirty-four-year-old gay Muslim who was born in
Karachi, but spent a considerable amount of his childhood in English cities,
including Manchester, Birmingham, and London. At the time of our interview,
Yasir worked as a medical research scientist. In his spare time he enjoyed
musicals, concerts, movies, and hanging out with members of Boston’s LGBT
community. We met for dinner in an Afghan restaurant in Brookline Village,
Boston. He loved this particular area not only for its excellent Middle Eastern
restaurants, but also because it is located in a predominantly Jewish neigh-
bourhood. ‘I love the Jews’, he said. ‘It’s obligatory for me to do so as a good
Muslim.’
Yasir was an active member of the mosque that he attended in Boston. The
mosque had recently been in the headlines for its alleged links to ‘Islamic
extremism’, an accusation that Yasir emphatically denied:
122 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
[The accusations have] been around ever since the mosque opened, really.
[The mosque] was ready for such a long time, but there was the Islamo-
phobic thing going on for a while. They said al-Qaeda might have links
with it or what the funding is. There was a stupid stop order. Once the
imam came, he just energized the mosque. He said it would be a center of
learning, a place to have Arabic classes, a place to start interfaith dialo-
gue … [On the opening day], we had my favorite reverend, two rabbis,
and the imam [who] delivered this thundering speech.

It is ironic that people have accused the leadership of this mosque of having
ties to ‘radical Islam’. The imam, whom I met several times during the field-
work, is a fierce critic of groups like al-Qaeda and their allies. Several of his
Friday sermons, which I listened to, condemned these Muslim groups for
being ‘un-Islamic’ and for contradicting the example and teachings of Prophet
Muhammad. In total, I visited this community six times, and on several
occasions I witnessed small interfaith dialogue groups consisting of Muslims,
Christians, Jews, agnostics, and atheists. My fieldwork suggested that the
baseless accusations of ‘radical Islam’ are simply that – without foundation.
Yasir called the mosque an ‘all-welcoming’ space, yet he also believed that
he was ‘sort of treading on thin ice’ as a gay Muslim. His being gay had been
a matter of ‘great concern’ to his parents, who were still uncomfortable with
his homosexuality even though it had been years since he had revealed it. He
believed that his parents would never accept his homosexuality. The leader-
ship of his local mosque, he said, ‘is not raveningly against homosexuals, but
it has more conservative elements’ that object to homosexuality as being
against the will of God – in other words, it is held to be ‘un-Islamic’. When I
visited his mosque, I observed a diverse range of congregants who represented
a wide range of cultures and religious denominations. But Yasir said that he
had hidden his gay identity from other Muslims.
Being a gay Muslim had forced Yasir to ‘sidestep’ people or groups that he
perceived to be ‘anti-gay’. With some people and in some social situations,
he tried to conceal his sexuality because he feared for his safety. Specifically,
he feared for his safety in certain mosques around Boston that are more
fervently ‘anti-gay’, as he described them. Rather than possibly subjecting
himself to shame and ridicule, Yasir ‘kept quiet’ about being a gay Muslim. In
effect, the power of the ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy had silenced
him and prevented him from being his ‘true self ’ around his peers, especially
Muslims.
Yet, despite not feeling entirely comfortable at his local mosque, Yasir
declared his Muslim identity with a passion that few participants matched.
He is one of countless LGBT Muslims who stand proud in their under-
standing that they have a God-given right to claim their gender and sexuality
as well as their Muslim identity (De Sondy, 2016). He commented with a big
smile on his face, ‘My faith in Islam is strong!’ Like Humayun, Yasir had also
done research on homosexuality and Islam. He had reached the conclusion
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 123
that there is ‘space’ for gays within Muslim communities and, broadly
speaking, Islamic doctrine.
For about ten minutes during our interview, I listened to Yasir as he criticised
the Old Testament, especially the book of Leviticus, which he claimed ‘has really
damaged’ the acceptance of gay Muslims within Islamic communities. He said
that Islamic and Jewish texts were ‘virtually identical’. He added that too
many Muslims interpret anti-gay verses of the Quran literally, and that this is
‘very problematic because in the Islamic culture [homosexuality] is so rife’.
According to Yasir, Rumi, the twelfth-century Sufi poet, condoned homo-
sexuality and may have been gay himself. Unlike many Muslims, Yasir did
not find it difficult to ‘find the rainbow’ within historical, rigid understandings
of the Islamic tradition (De Sondy, 2016). He believed that it is possible to
find different colours of the Quran or shariah, if only Muslims start recognis-
ing gay Muslims as people who uphold ‘Islamic values’.
Though Yasir called for greater acceptance of LGBT rights in Muslim
communities and the broader American society, he also called for less accep-
tance of what he described as ‘female liberation’. He stated that there is an
‘utter lack of virtue’ amongst many non-Muslim women in Boston. The views
that he shared on sexuality and women undoubtedly had ‘Islamic’ under-
pinnings. According to Yasir, ‘the Quran says that one of the cardinal reasons
for the downfall of society is when women become shameless’. With a dis-
gusted look upon his face, Yasir criticised non-Muslim women in the city for
‘basically leaving nothing to the imagination … Girls have become beyond
unvirtuous.’ While he denounced ‘Islamic countries’ worldwide for not being
more accepting of gay Muslims, Yasir praised the same countries because
their societies ‘have not come around to where girls can openly talk about
their vagina and that they’re going to do whatever they want with it’. What
Yasir called for is a sense of virtue and more modesty amongst non-Muslim
women. He viewed the issue of sexuality and women in binary terms; Yasir
spoke in terms of ‘Western women’ and ‘Muslim women’ as if the two terms
were mutually exclusive. According to him, ‘Western women’ talk dirty and
have ‘toxic’ personalities, whereas Muslim women – whom he said ‘might be
Neanderthal in some of their ways’ – nonetheless ‘lay great emphasis on
virtue because the woman’s virtue is the beginning of the Muslim family; she
has to be a mother, a wife’. He added, ‘the whole society will crumble down
when she becomes ultra-feminist’.
Considering that Yasir experienced discrimination as a gay Muslim, it
might come as a surprise that he also discriminated against other minority
communities that do not fit easily into hegemonic narratives of Muslim
identity. He considered Ahmadis to be ‘non-Muslims’ because ‘they don’t see
the finality of the Prophet. That’s one of the testaments of Islam.’ Ahmadis,
as discussed in previous chapters, believe that the messiah has come and that
he is a prophet with divine claims. Yasir called this belief ‘grotesque’, but he
stated that he would never ‘directly discriminate against them’. He added,
‘The notion in Pakistan that you should hunt and kill them is just
124 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
ridiculous.’ There appears to be an inherent contradiction in Yasir’s com-
ments about Ahmadiyya. He did not think that anyone who calls themselves
a Muslim is a Muslim, yet he is also labelled as a ‘non-Muslim’ because of
his gay identity.
An increasing number of Americans are adopting atheism and openly
questioning the existence of God, a development which greatly concerned
Yasir. He was equally passionate in speaking against atheism as he was in
speaking about Ahmadiyya. He claimed that atheists are leading humanity
down an ‘earth-shattering road’. According to him, the growth of atheism
meant that humanity would feel God’s wrath, after which human beings
‘will go back to being religious’. He stressed that without belief in God,
there would be no ‘beauty’ or ‘majesty’ in the world. He even considered
atheism to be a form of blasphemy that had only spread hatred of religious
people.
Interestingly, Yasir’s aversion to Ahmadis and atheists was not extended
to Jews. ‘I can’t be anti-Semitic’, he said, ‘because the Quran claims legiti-
macy of Moses as a prophet, and there’s a whole chapter that talks about the
Israelites, the Beni Israel … So I’m not authorised to speak ill of the religion.’
On the matter of Israel, however, Yasir argued that Judaism and the Israeli
state are two separate entities that should never be conflated, and also that
Israel should not be exempt from criticism. In his opinion, Israel is a ‘Zionist’
state and Zionism is racism. He explained his position as follows:

This belief that because this is the Jewish land that the Palestinian people
must suffer. The way that [Palestinians’] lands are constricting over the
years is just awful. These people are not refugees. They are masters and
mistresses of their land. Suddenly, for an Arab woman to just go out of
her home and to pluck a few lemons from her grove to make lemon juice,
now she is a terrorist for even coming out of the house? [The Palestinians]
deserve a homeland. Nobody has a problem with the Jewish homeland,
but you cannot have it at the expense of others. You’d imagine that
people persecuted would be sympathetic to the plight of others … You
know, religiously, most Muslims feel close to Jews … It’s a big irony. The
Israeli government has really messed up the relations, but the Quran says
explicitly that the God of Moses is the God of Muhammad. The Jews,
like us believe that there is one god … So religiously, Muslims and Jews
should be the best of friends.

After listening to Yasir speak about Israel, I did not think to myself, ‘He is
anti-Semitic’ or ‘anti-Jewish’. As the Anti-Defamation League (n.d.) has
pointed out, ‘The State of Israel and its government can be legitimately criti-
cized just like any other country or government in the world.’ Yasir did not
cross into anti-Semitism – defined by the European Parliament Working
Group on Antisemitism (n.d.) as hatred of Jews based on perceived rhetorical
and physical manifestations of Jewish people and communities.
 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy 125
Since moving to Boston, Yasir had developed several friendships with
Jewish Americans with whom he shared a passion for faith and God. In
developing these friendships, he started to build bridges of understanding,
leading to hope and peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Jews.
Through dialogue and a connection to the Abrahamic tradition, he and his
friends were able to transcend the toxic political climate.
Yet, contemporary media bombard viewers with implicit and explicit
images of the supposedly hateful relationship between Muslims and Jews. For
example, a Pakistani religious leader, Pirzada Muhammad Raza Saqib, made
news in 2012 when he said, ‘When the Jews are wiped out … the sun of peace
[will] begin to rise on the entire world’ (Weinthall, 2016). Saqib’s views
are not an isolated case. That Pakistan is not friendly towards Jews will not
surprise many Pakistanis. Anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment is rampant in
the country. Though he showed no interest in returning to Pakistan, Yasir
nevertheless embodied Pakistan’s tolerant and welcoming vision of Jinnah.
At the end of the interview, I asked Yasir, ‘Where do you feel like you
belong to?’ He answered: ‘The West … I couldn’t go back to Pakistan’. Yasir
called Boston ‘home’ because, in his view, ‘it is a thinking and intellectual
society’ that was ‘the first state that pioneered gay marriages’. In the larger
context of the United States, Muslim advocacy groups such as the Council on
American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) have started to recognise – and even
express unequivocal support for – the civil rights of LGBT Muslims. After the
Orlando massacre, Nihad Awad of CAIR stated that members of the LGBT
community had stood ‘shoulder to shoulder with the Muslim community
against any acts of hate crimes, Islamophobia, marginalisation and dis-
crimination’ (Zoll and Hajela, 2016). Awad added, ‘We cannot fight injustice
against some groups and not against others.’ I can envision Yasir applauding
Awad’s statement. As a gay Muslim he probably rarely, if ever, has heard
those kind of words publicly within the Muslim American community. He
most certainly would never hear them in Pakistan, a country with one of the
world’s least tolerant governments when it comes to homosexuality.

The importance of interfaith and intrafaith dialogue

A generation of Muslims is now coming of age in the United States and Ireland.
They still live in the shadows of 9/11 and the alleged links between Islam and
radicalisation, violence, and anti-American sentiments. They also live in an era
when various Muslim groups are trying to usurp the definition of ‘Muslim’.
Of all the minority communities in the United States and Ireland, the Muslim
one is emerging as the greatest ‘threat’ in the public imagination. The American
civic nation, steeped in religious pluralism and multiculturalism, now treats
Pakistani Muslims with distaste and indifference. In Ireland, white and
Catholic citizens cannot accept the notion that Pakistani Muslims can be ‘as
Irish’ as the so-called natives. This has resulted in a range of emotions and
opinions, including uncertainty and anger but also resistance.
126 The ‘good Muslim’/‘bad Muslim’ dichotomy
The Muslims discussed in this chapter are driven by both a desire to inte-
grate and a desire to preserve and promote a particular expression of Islam.
The young men draw on several sources of Islam when making sense of their
worlds and negotiating their identities in Boston and Dublin. These identities
also shed light on the interplay between national and religious identities that
arise in relation to local and global events. Participants discussed being per-
ceived as both national outsiders and ‘un-Islamic’, primarily because of their
faith, cultural orientation, or lifestyle. Cases of Otherness or Islamophobia
raise an important question that Americans, the Irish, and Pakistanis often
overlook: How can communities deal with internal diversity?
As someone who practises Catholicism personally and studies Islam acade-
mically, I am acutely aware of the importance of efforts to achieve interfaith
dialogue which emphasises bonds between religious traditions. However, I
think that intrafaith dialogue can also play an important role in better con-
necting Muslims in the United States and Ireland. Majority groups within
Muslim communities will be wise to remember the principle of ‘no compulsion
in matters of faith’ (Quran, 2:256). This Quranic passage is not limited to
Muslim–non-Muslim relations. It applies to Muslim interpretations as well.
All Muslims – whether Salafis, Sufis, or LGBTs – can be involved in intrafaith
dialogue with the goal of developing an agenda of common concerns; identi-
fying issues of conflict, isolating ‘extremists’, preventing potential conflict,
educating to clarify stereotypes, and incorporating the lifestyles and views of
individuals on the periphery of Muslim communities. Interfaith and intrafaith
dialogue are about building healthier relationships among people of different
and similar faiths in order to work together for the common good. By turning
to meaningful dialogue, Muslims and non-Muslims in the United States, Ireland,
and Pakistan can begin the process of mutual empowerment in the pursuit of
social justice and dignity.

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6 New Pakistani ethnicities

When I started the research for this book in September 2010, I was under the
impression that Islam had a significant role to play in the lives of all Pakistani
men in Boston and Dublin. My understanding of their lives – and, indeed, of
my entire project – changed drastically when I had a meeting in April 2011
with several professors of the Department of Sociology at Trinity College
Dublin. One professor, Dr James Wickham, shook up the way I thought
about the potential participants in this research. After reading my research
proposal, Dr Wickham told me that I had focused too much on Muslim
identities and that I had to ‘open up’ the research to other sociological concepts
outside of the religious realm. This meeting represented a significant shift on
how I was conceptualising Pakistanis in Boston and Dublin. I left the meeting
on College Green thinking about how religion, particularly Islam, might
overlap and interweave with other identities such as ethnicity and nationality.
In reflecting on the meeting, I think of it as the moment when the term
‘Pakistani’ no longer simply referenced ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’ in my mind. Dr
Wickham helped me realise that the term ‘Pakistani’ also can be viewed as a
political identity of resistance.
This chapter focuses on the marginalisation of the ‘Pakistani experience’ in
American and Irish culture. The participants reviewed here are positioned at
the margins as the consequence of a set of quite specific political and cultural
practices which have regulated, governed, and normalised the representational
and discursive spaces of Pakistani communities in diaspora (Hall, 1996,
p. 442). One of the main themes in this chapter is that young Pakistani men
resist cultural politics and challenge, resist, and even transform hegemonic
representations of what it means to ‘be Pakistani’. My analysis follows Hall
(1996) in that it largely centres on questions of access to the rights to repre-
sentation by young Pakistani men and contestation of the marginality or the
stereotypical quality of ‘Pakistani identity’. The young men’s stories about
and strategies for living in Boston and Dublin highlight counter-positions on
ethnicity and culture, which ultimately bring us to a discussion of ‘new eth-
nicities’ (Hall, 1996). Pakistani heritage makes up a fundamental piece of
some interviewees’ sense of self, yet arguably not the most definitive one. The
participants in this chapter tend to define themselves in hybrid ways, namely
130 New Pakistani ethnicities
as ‘individuals’ rather than as Pakistanis belonging to a specific ethnic com-
munity. The views of the men documented here create a cultural belonging
that works for them. They have adopted and adapted to new environments,
finding freedom in hyphenated identities as well as liquid identities.

Nabeel: avoiding the ethnic enclave

‘Meet me at the bar near Beacon Hill’. Those were the words in a text sent to my
cell phone by Nabeel, a twenty-six-year-old professional working in the high-
tech marketing industry in Boston. Nabeel is the younger brother of a friend of
mine whom I met while pursuing a master’s degree at Royal Holloway, Uni-
versity of London. ‘Meet me at the bar’ is not a phrase I heard frequently during
fieldwork. In total, approximately 20 per cent of the participants either regularly
consumed alcohol or had consumed it at some point in their lives. Nabeel was
open and unashamed about this aspect of his social life. Of all the interviewees,
he was the most adamant about distancing himself from rigid constructs of what
it means to be Pakistani. To me, he showed few, if any, signs of wanting to
reclaim or reprocess the habits, objects, names, and histories of the ‘homeland’.
Nabeel moved to Boston from Karachi to pursue a bachelor’s degree at a
prominent university. He referred to himself as lucky because moving to the
United States for an education is not something that all Pakistanis are able to
do. Nabeel attributed his educational opportunity to his family’s upper middle
class background. Born and raised in an affluent suburb of Karachi, Nabeel
said that his parents provided him with opportunities that a large majority of
the Pakistani population does not receive: ‘access to one of the top schools,
access to coming abroad’.
A significant portion of my interview with Nabeel centred upon Pakistani
identity, which he called a ‘complex issue’. For starters, he criticised the
media’s role in portraying a certain image of Pakistan and Pakistanis. I
noticed that Nabeel became animated when our conversation turned to media
stereotypes. He seemed to be somewhat ashamed of having the term ‘Pakistani’
attached to his interactions with other Bostonians.
Writing in light of the ‘black experience’ in Britain, Hall (1996) used the
term ‘the burden of representation’ to shed light on how black artists had to
struggle to replace hegemonic identity narratives with new forms of black
identity. Nabeel can be viewed as someone who had also dealt with the
‘burden of representation’. He told me that he had struggled with revealing
his Pakistani identity to ‘strangers’ because ‘they instantly think that I’m
ready to cause mass-scale damage to society’. Nabeel believed that he always
had to ‘do work’ when interacting with Bostonians to convince them that he
did not reflect or represent the ‘radical’ and ‘violent’ image of Pakistanis as
depicted in media. He explained:

maybe it’s a subconscious thing that happens because it’s natural … but I
think I sort of end up trying to work a little bit harder to prove to people
 New Pakistani ethnicities 131
that ‘hey, look, I may be from there, but I’m not at all what you think
someone from there is like’. And it usually takes anywhere from between
five to ten minutes for someone to figure that out.

Nabeel, in effect, struggled on two fronts of representation: his relations with

others and his relationship with his native country. In terms of his social
relations in Boston, he had to deal with media depictions which produce and
disseminate negative representations via images and portrayals of Pakistanis
as violent and anti-Western. This manufactures a network of understanding of
the social world. Hall might assert that ideologies or representations of
Pakistanis have become ‘naturalised’ and accepted as ‘common sense’.
Nabeel’s aversion to Pakistan is much deeper than media depictions and
stereotypes. Of all the participants, he was the most adamant about seculari-
sation in Pakistan and beyond. As an atheist, Nabeel viewed Pakistan’s
‘increasing Islamisation’ as a threat to all minority communities that did not
adhere to hardline interpretations of Islamic traditions. In short, he wanted a
complete separation between ‘mosque and state’, a shift that would help him
gain a stronger sense of belonging to the ‘homeland’.
The problem with Pakistan, Nabeel claimed, is that it is ‘a land for the
Muslims of South Asia. Nothing more’. To him, this meant that ‘being
Pakistani’ is automatically associated with Islam. Hence, I was not surprised
when he told me, ‘I’m the proponent of exactly the opposite.’ I interpreted
‘the opposite’ to mean a preference for secularisation and a Pakistani identity
rooted in South Asian culture, broadly speaking. Ideally, to Nabeel, a true
Pakistani would be someone from the South Asian subcontinent who is part
of a rich tradition and vibrant culture famous for its food and celebrations.
This South Asian cultural identity ‘gets overshadowed by people assuming
that you are some kind of religious person’.
Perhaps the reader might conclude that Nabeel is ‘anti-Pakistan’. That is
not the case, but he did raise several issues that he had with the ‘homeland’.
Nabeel wanted a new kind of Pakistan that moved towards secularisation and
democratic principles such as civil rights and religious tolerance. He also
wanted the international image and reputation of Pakistan to change from
‘radical’ and ‘corrupt’ to that of a country known for its ability to produce
medical professionals, scientists, technological innovators, and world leaders.
Even if that changed were to occur, Nabeel was unsure whether he would ever
return to Pakistan. He appeared to be in the process of putting down roots in
Boston.
The encounters that Nabeel has had with other Bostonians are a result of
a theoretical encounter between Pakistani identity and the discourses sur-
rounding Pakistan – largely that it is represented mostly as a ‘radical’ and
‘Islamic’ country. This is a problematic, if not dangerous, representation. It
marks Pakistanis as dangerous Muslims, even though Nabeel told me that
he is ‘trying to form this globalised, international perspective of being
Pakistani’. What is at issue here with Nabeel is the recognition of the
132 New Pakistani ethnicities
extraordinary diversity of subjective positions from which people can define
Pakistani identity.
Nabeel stated that ‘Pakistani culture’ had a ‘very minimal role’ to play in
his life in Boston. ‘I’m not very much part of it, and this has been an active
decision that I’ve made.’ Since taking up his job after graduating from college,
he had had very little, if any, exposure or connection to the ‘Pakistani com-
munity’. I could sense a bit of frustration in his demeanor when he stated, ‘I
don’t actively join it. I don’t actively go to those events … I don’t necessarily
like what many of the Pakistanis I’ve encountered here try and promote.’
Once again, the issue of Islam came up in our discussion. According to
Nabeel, too many Pakistanis in Boston think that being Pakistani means
being a Muslim. Once the conflation between ‘Pakistani’ and ‘Islam’ occurs,
people might develop an essentialist, static, and guaranteed concept, one that
homogenises Pakistanis despite their diversity. Even the formulation of
‘Muslim identity’ is ambiguous. Nabeel’s personal history is a case in point.
His views on Islam had changed considerably since leaving Pakistan.
Growing up in Karachi, he had been taught and followed Islam ‘because
that’s kind of what everyone does’. Living in the secular society of Boston,
however, had given Nabeel the space to define himself and live his everyday
life beyond the realm of Islam. At the time of our interview, he had never
visited a mosque in the city because mosques had ‘too much of an overtly
religious tone’. He proceeded to criticise mosques as too sectarian and as
spaces that only advertise certain Islamic views that he cannot agree with.
Furthermore, he assumed that the khutbahs (sermons), which are delivered by
imams, would be irrelevant to his social life. Nabeel made it clear – he had
stopped searching for answers in religion and instead defaulted to creating a
cultural orientation and sense of belonging that worked for him.
Living in Boston had allowed Nabeel to open himself up to people of different
social backgrounds. The United States, to him, was a city with a culture of open
inquiry and intellectual conversation. He noted, ‘the United States is a country
where academics are all about question, question, question, find the answers.
[In Pakistan] it’s not like that, especially in matters of religion’. These com-
ments suggest that Nabeel’s view of Pakistan was of a country underpinned
by a stifling of debate and interreligious dialogue. For this reason he showed
no interest in returning to the ‘homeland’.
Being an ‘intellectual’ had been an important component of Nabeel’s personal
project of developing new ways to think about Pakistani identity. To me, it
seemed that Nabeel wanted to distance himself from other Pakistanis, whom
he perceived as narrow-minded and intolerant, by trying to forge a new
Pakistani identity from the margins of the ‘ethnic community’. The workplace
environment was a particular setting that had provided him with the space to
contest what it meant to be Pakistani. Interacting with his colleagues, a diverse
group who identified with ethnicities from around the world, had helped him
express and represent himself outside of the political category of ‘radical
Muslim’. He described his workplace environment as a ‘very collaborative
 New Pakistani ethnicities 133
community’ that had done a ‘great job’ of ensuring that his Pakistani
background did not lead to his being perceived as different or threatening.
When I asked where Nabeel felt ‘at home’, he told me that Boston is home
because Bostonians ‘really put the emphasis on the education, living for
yourself, being liberal, standing up for your views, fighting for what you
believe in’. Since he identified himself as a Bostonian, I asked Nabeel, ‘To what
extent do you feel like you belong to Boston?’ He responded, ‘I absolutely
belong. I have a real sense of belonging here.’
When I look back on the interview with Nabeel, he appears to me as the
strongest advocate for ‘immersion’ into the hostland society amongst the first-
generation interviewees. Whilst some participants, such as Ali and Nadeem in
Chapter 4, talked about maintaining a Pakistani cultural orientation in dia-
spora, Nabeel appeared to prefer the opposite. To me, he viewed isolation
within the ‘Pakistani community’ as a threat to his personal growth and sense
of self. I sensed that he genuinely enjoyed the diversity that Boston offered.
Several weeks after our interview in the bar, Nabeel invited me to play
soccer with his friends. Playing soccer with them was symbolic to me, as it
represented a mechanism for building bonds across ethnic divides. On another
occasion I joined them for dinner and drinks. Personally, at that stage in our
relationship, I did not view Nabeel as a ‘Pakistani participant’, but as a
friend. I never told him that, but I am sure that he would be happy if I did.
Nabeel constantly disassociated Pakistani identity from Islam, and this
disassociation makes for problematic categories of ‘Pakistaniness’. He
brought to the surface the idea that Pakistani identity has been typically
based on the assumption that all Pakistanis are Muslims and that their
Muslim identities are fixed and non-malleable. Nabeel struggled against the
‘burden of representation’, but he has tried to break the stereotypes and
highlighted the development of new ethnicities and hybridity.

Sahir: adapting to ‘Irish life’

My interview with Nabeel shows how some young Pakistani men in diaspora
disentangle themselves from certain ethnic confines that have been con-
structed through hegemonic narratives of nationality. Nabeel appeared to
have adopted and adapted to life in Boston, finding freedom in cross-cultural
communication and intellectualism. He had consciously decided to strip
himself of ‘baggage’ that he had brought with him to the United States. Sahir,
another first-generation participant, was similar to Nabeel in some ways but
noticeably different in others. Sahir reproduced elements of his ethnic back-
ground and ‘homeland’ that worked for him but also showed a willingness to
discard parts of his past in order to integrate with Irish society.
Instead of living with one cultural orientation over another, as Nabeel did,
Sahir opted for a mixed cultural orientation that balanced elements of the
hostland and ‘homeland’ cultures. He and I met over dinner at a halal res-
taurant on George’s Street in Dublin city centre. At the time of our interview,
134 New Pakistani ethnicities
Sahir was thirty-five years old and owned a small business. Dressed sharply in
business attire, he greeted me with a warm handshake and said he was happy
that a Catholic American such as myself was researching the lives of Pakistanis
in the diaspora.
Sahir is a unique case, because he is the only participant in Ireland to have
spent a portion of his life in the United States. He described both Ireland and
the United States as a ‘land of opportunity’ where ‘you can be anyone or
anything’. Yet Sahir also contrasted the two countries’ migration histories.
The main difference, in his opinion, was that the United States is well known
as an immigrant host country, whereas Ireland has only emerged as such in
recent decades. As a result of this difference, Sahir believed that the United
States is better equipped to ‘incorporate’ immigrants into the fabric of social
life, because Americans are more familiar with ethnic and religious diversity.
He also stated that Ireland is a much smaller country and that the Pakistani
Irish community is more tight-knit than its American counterpart. According
to Sahir, professional and business opportunities are ‘everywhere’ in the
United States, whereas in Ireland these opportunities are only available within
the Pakistani community.
Growing up in an upper middle class family in Karachi, Sahir never imagined
himself living in Ireland. In 2004, a family friend who happened to be Pakistani
contacted him with an offer to enter into a joint business. Sahir, who was
living in the United States at the time, accepted the offer and made the move
across the Atlantic Ocean. Within a few years of his arrival he fell in love
with an Irish Catholic woman, whom he later married. She converted to
Islam before their wedding, on his request, and the couple had three young
children at the time of our interview.
Both Sahir and his wife possessed cultural capital to pass onto their children.
Cultural capital is a term used to define a set of dispositions, ways of being,
and cultural resources that dominant social groups use to reproduce their
economic and social status. By contrast, non-dominant cultural capital – in
this case, norms and values of the ‘homeland’ – is a set of cultural practices,
resources, and tools that socially marginalised groups use to garner social
prestige and esteem within their own families and ethnic communities. In
observing Sahir over our kebabs, it became clear to me that he had mastered
the English language and preferred to dress in a ‘Western style’. He seemed
conscious of the famous saying, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’. But
Sahir is no mere visitor to Ireland. He has settled and put down roots with his
family.
Yet, it would be a mistake to conclude that Sahir cared little about repro-
ducing aspects of Pakistani culture in diaspora. Certain things came up
during our interview that showed his interest in combining ‘ethnic values’
with ‘Irish norms’. Family, for example, was a frequent topic of conversation
with him. One of the biggest concerns that he had as a parent was raising ‘good
Pakistani’ and ‘good Muslim’ children. In terms of being ‘good Pakistanis’,
he wanted his children to ‘respect the elders’ and call them ‘uncle and auntie’,
 New Pakistani ethnicities 135
as this tradition is ‘normal’ amongst Pakistanis. Sahir related one story which
shed light on how he tried to instil values of the immigrant culture in his
children. On one occasion, his seven-year-old son referred to an elder Pakistani
family friend by his first name, Ijaz, and Sahir responded to his son, ‘Can you
not call him uncle?’ Sahir’s wife, laughing at their son’s subsequent question,
told him that referring to elders as ‘uncles and aunties’ is not the social norm
in Ireland. Over the years, Sahir has had to gradually accept that his children
were not born in Pakistan and thus are not familiar with the culture of the
‘homeland’. This realisation has forced him to ‘take a step back’ from enforcing
his Pakistani identity on his children. At this point in the interview, Sahir
remarked, ‘When in Rome, do what the Romans do.’ Nevertheless, he added,
‘It’s very difficult times’, which suggests that he was not entirely comfortable
with letting go of his notions of shame and honour.
Teaching ‘Islamic values’ to his children was another priority as Sahir
navigated his way across cultural borders. He considered it important to pass
on Sunni Islam because it would give his children a set of moral values and
standards to live by. Since moving to Ireland, Sahir had witnessed the waning
influence of the Catholic Church, which bothered him because he thought of
religion as the ultimate source of morality. To be clear, Sahir did not believe
that Islam had a monopoly on morality, but he did claim that some form of
religious teaching – such as Catholicism – should serve as the basis of a
nation’s ‘moral values’.
With a worried look on his face and concern in his voice, Sahir addressed
the growing secularisation of Irish society and the impact that the Celtic Tiger
had had on his children. He claimed that Ireland’s economic boom period
had been ‘quite bad’ because ‘now there’s no more religion’. Irish children,
Sahir argued, were now being taught to focus on materialism and money
rather than family values and religion. He voiced his concern that his children
would grow up to be ‘bad Muslims’.
Concern about secularisation in Ireland was a theme that I picked up on
numerous occasions during the fieldwork. I spoke with several imams around
Dublin, many of whom thought that the Irish needed more religion. On one
occasion, at one of the more conservative mosques I visited, an imam told me
that ‘true Catholicism’ would be a sufficient political system and moral base even
for Muslims in Dublin. Many of the Muslims I met appeared to be yearning for
religion – any religion – to have a bigger role in how people behaved in
Ireland.
For Sahir, moving to Ireland had not come without its difficulties. He
reflected on Ireland’s status as a new immigrant host society and referred to
Irish society as ‘growing … it’s an evolution’. As Irish society grew, he
argued, the nation would go through phases over decades, and as that pro-
ceeded, immigrants would eventually have a higher standard of living. On a
personal level, Sahir stated that his experience was hardly different from the
experiences of other immigrants. His main focus in Ireland had been earning a
living and improving his and his family’s quality of life. He mentioned that he
136 New Pakistani ethnicities
perceived other Pakistanis living in Ireland to be mainly focused on money.
He claimed that once Pakistani migrants become financially stable, ‘they can
think of other things … They can have cultural centres, Islamic cultural
centres’. According to Sahir, building these cultural and religious centres will
help Pakistanis integrate with Irish society, but he added that Pakistanis need
to retain ‘those values brought in … those things that they care about back
home’. In this sense, the ‘homeland’ is something that needs to be recreated in
Ireland. The ‘homing desire’, in this context, is not the desire to return to the
physical territory of Pakistan, but rather to recreate a certain cultural dis-
course that reminded Pakistanis of their cultural identification with the Asian
subcontinent.
Sahir told me of a conversation that he had recently had with one of his
cousins in Pakistan that shed light on his views of the state of Pakistani
society and governance. His cousin had asked him over a Skype call, ‘Do you
ever see yourself going back to Pakistan?’ and he had laughed at the question
and replied, ‘Hell, no!’ When I asked him why he felt so strongly, Sahir
responded:

First of all, I can’t do business there … Even in moving to Ireland,

everything is laid-back. It’s a take an easy kind of approach … Com-
paratively to Pakistan, unless you have money, things are done in an
enormously slow manner. That’s the way the culture is. I think that would
just annoy the hell out of me … You have to bribe there. It’s corruption. I
can’t stand that … That’s one of the reasons why I’d hate to move there.
I’d hate to be living in that kind of environment. I despise the fact that
you can’t do anything.

Pakistan is a place of ‘no return’ for Sahir. The ‘homeland’ is a problematic

physical space because of rampant corruption, which is not conducive to
Sahir’s profession as a businessman. His comments on corruption in Pakistan
reflect data from the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitive Index
(GCI). The GCI report for 2015–2016 revealed that corruption is the most
problematic factor for doing business in Pakistan (Schwab, 2015, p. 289).
Corruption had also been revealed as the most problematic issue for doing
business in Pakistan in 2013–2014 (Dawn, 2015).
Because of the rampant corruption in Pakistan, Sahir did not have a
‘homing desire’ in the sense of actually returning to that country. However,
while he distanced himself from Pakistani identity as rooted in the ‘homeland’,
he did not distance himself from Pakistani identity as manifested in Ireland.
He differentiated Pakistan as a nation-state and political entity from the
people and culture of Pakistan. His views are important because they reveal
the ambiguity of the term ‘Pakistani’ and show that, as an identity type, it
should not be treated as a homogeneous concept.
Without a doubt, Sahir considered Ireland to be ‘home’, and he wanted
his children to recognise it in the same way. Sahir related an exchange he
 New Pakistani ethnicities 137
had had with his son which demonstrated his approach to raising Pakistani
Irish children. About a year before our interview, he and his family had
visited relatives in the United States. On the day of their departure from
the US, he had told his son, ‘We’re going home’, at which his son replied,
‘Are we going to Pakistan?’ and Sahir responded emphatically: ‘No! We are
going to Ireland.’ His son looked confused and said, ‘But daddy, your home
is in Pakistan.’
At this point in the interview, Sahir told me, ‘It’s funny enough, but I don’t
feel like I belong [in Pakistan]’. Here is how he reflected on the notions of
‘belonging’ and ‘home’:

I think home is where the heart is … Obviously, I’m living here [in Ire-
land]; my kids are here. I feel like this is home … Much more so than
Pakistan … Yes, I was brought up there, but I think it would be true for
most of the people who immigrated … when you move from one place to
another place, depending on the age that you move, especially when you
move from the culture of Asia to Western world, you tend to pick up a
lot of things. My personality certainly changed from what it was before
to what it is now. So I think in that whole process, when you have to like
and dislike certain things that you didn’t like before and that you like now
and vice versa, so in that whole process, everything changes.

Sahir had the cultural capital to integrate into Irish society, but as we saw in
his stories about his sons, he wanted to transmit Pakistani cultural capital in
diaspora. After Sahir shared this particular set of views, I wrote down on my
notepad, ‘diaspora’. I did so to remind myself that some young Pakistani
men in diaspora, particularly first-generation individuals, may experience
ongoing or reawakened attachments and loyalty to the immigrant culture,
including its languages, ideas, beliefs, values, and behavioural patterns (Zhou
and Bankston III, 1994, p. 822). As such, in following Levitt (2001, p. 21), I
view Sahir as being a young Pakistani man who viewed his ethnic background
as a kind of mechanism that he could activate and deactivate at different
stages of his life.
One of the highlights of my fieldwork occurred when I went to Sahir’s
home to have dinner with his family and friends. He showed me his vast book
collection and several old Islamic manuscripts that he had collected over the
years. One book in his library – Americanah, by Chimamanda Adichie – I
had never read before, but Sahir told me: ‘you’ve got to read this’. A few days
later I got myself a copy and finished it in three days. Adichie’s book concerns
the ‘culture shock’ experience of a Nigerian immigrant in the United States.
She deals with hardship and racism, but she ultimately endures as though she
has ‘cement in her soul’. Ultimately, Adichie warns the reader to not look at
immigrants as having a ‘single story’. Like the Nigerian immigrant, Sahir did
not want to be trapped inside any single identity. He preferred instead to find
freedom in multiple belongings.
138 New Pakistani ethnicities
Jasir: avoiding ‘pigeonholes’
One of the aims of this book is to analyse how young Pakistani Muslim and
non-Muslim men forge their identities in diaspora. As I carried out the field-
work in Boston and Dublin, I – like Chaudhry (2002) – became interested in
how their identities were socially constituted by their individual responses to
cultural symbols, power relations, and material conditions that limited and
shaped opportunities in particular social contexts (ibid., p. 47). The case of
Jasir, a thirty-year-old professional in Boston, enables us to grasp more
clearly the relationship between a multiplicity of identities and the concept of
hybrid identities.
The Oxford Dictionary defines hybridity as the offspring of two different
varieties and as ‘a thing made by combining two different elements; a mix-
ture’ (Oxford Dictionary, n.d.). Pieterse (1994) argued that globalisation and
‘Westernisation’ have sparked different types of hybridisation, including
structural hybridisation, or the emergence of new, mixed forms of coopera-
tion, and cultural hybridisation, or the development of translocal mélange
cultures. Theorising hybridity and reflecting on the politics of hybridity in this
manner show the variety of forms of hybridity, from mimicry to counter-
hegemony. The concept of hybridity helps us understand Jasir’s life, which can
be viewed as a fluid state of shifting identities which he has negotiated in
response to contextual demands for alienation and allegiance.
Jasir was born and raised in a predominantly white suburb populated
mostly by Catholics. At the time of our interview he worked in the food and
entertainment industry. I could tell that he loved his job by the passion with
which he talked about his favourite bands and music venues around Boston.
Jasir is a unique case amongst the participants in both Boston and Dublin
because he came from a mixed race background. His father, a brown Sunni
Muslim, had migrated to the United States from Karachi in the early 1970s,
and his mother, a white Catholic, had grown up in a conservative town in a
mid-Atlantic state. Reflecting on his mixed race suburban family, he said, ‘I
was the only guy who wasn’t white, but I wasn’t fully Pakistani.’ Clearly, Jasir
did not see himself as fitting in neatly with identity constructs such as ‘white’ or
‘Pakistani’. His childhood friends had been perplexed by his appearance and
had asked questions like ‘What are you?’ and ‘Are you black or something?’
Other classmates, Jasir noted, had seen him only as ‘the tannish white dude’.
Despite the problematic views of his classmates, Jasir had, always seen
himself primarily as an ‘American’. In fact, he described himself as living ‘the
typical American life’. He told me that he met with friends at bars or restaurants
four or five nights per week. Together, they also attended various music venues
around the city. Jasir’s friends were a diverse group. Indeed, he stated that he
preferred diversity in his life, especially amongst those closest to him.
Jasir showed an aversion to Pakistan, but this had less to do with ‘radical
Islam’ and corruption and more to do with an unfamiliarity with the culture
of the ‘homeland’. He told me that he had never had a strong connection
 New Pakistani ethnicities 139
with his Pakistani side. ‘It’s not like I was walking into the lunchroom with
chicken tikka’, Jasir added. ‘I didn’t have an accent. It’s not like I spoke Urdu
or Punjabi.’ Jasir’s mother never cooked South Asian food and had little to
no familiarity with South Asian cultural traditions. Jasir’s father, upon arriving
in America, had ‘left Pakistan behind’, as Jasir described it. The only time
Jasir had been exposed to South Asian culture while growing up was when his
father had brought him to Pakistani gatherings or to a mosque, which he said
had happened only a few times throughout his life. His father was ‘Muslim in
name only’ and cared more about exposing his son to different cultures rather
than simply Islam or ‘Pakistan’. While Jasir’s mother was Catholic, he said
that she did not actively practise Catholicism and had never encouraged him
or his sister to. Basically, both of Jasir’s parents were ‘non-practising’ members
of their respective faiths. He even referred to them as agnostics, like himself.
Agnosticism is the tradition that Jasir and his wife, who had also been raised
as a Christian, had chosen for their young son. He commented, ‘I want him to
make up his own mind’. In considering the influence that his parents had on his
(non)religious orientation, Ja sir explained, ‘I actually enjoyed my upbringing
without any type of religion, because I feel like I wasn’t pigeonholed’.
In thinking about his use of the term ‘pigeonholed’, I am reminded again
of Bauman’s (2000) concept of liquidity. Liquidity, as he described it, is the
opposite of fixity. Jasir has been able to slip by as both American and Pakistani
as well as white and brown, rather than either one or the other. His ability to
do so reminds us of the ambiguity of ethnic and national identities. It also
reminds us of the ability of some young Pakistani men in diaspora to transcend
the rigid narratives of identity shaped by nation-states.
Nevertheless, Jasir’s mixed background meant that he got ‘sized up’ by
people who were confused about his identity. By ‘sized up’, he is referring to
being Othered, or people’s tendency to observe him and collect information
about him. Jasir felt that people ‘checked him out’ even more than brown
Pakistanis because he broke the boundaries around white, brown, and Pakistani
identities. His sense of being ‘checked out’ was heightened following the
events of 9/11. He described 9/11 as ‘the day that everything changed … I
went from being just a Pakistani, being from that region of the world, to
now that region of the world that we’re totally focused on’. In essence,
before 9/11, Jasir had been labelled as Pakistani rather than American,
despite the fact that he had lived his entire life in the Boston area. After
9/11, perceptions of him shifted from being a member of an ethnic minority
to being a potential ‘Muslim terrorist’. Several of his friends even poked fun
at him by calling him a ‘terrorist’. While he did not think that his friends
had genuinely believed what they were saying, Jasir thought that their confla-
tion of Islam and violence ‘is coming from somewhere … they kind of agree
with that’. In this sense, Jasir had experienced the opposite of liquidity in
that he had been placed into a fixed category that had been largely created
by the American government’s response to 9/11 and the media’s sensational
coverage of that day’s events.
140 New Pakistani ethnicities
The power balance in Jasir’s friendship could easily have tilted in his
friends’ favour. They were not only white, but also Christian. Jasir, however,
asserted his own terms, and despite occasional friction, his friendships sur-
vived because of a mutual empathy deriving to a large extent from local and
national affiliations. They fondness they all exhibited for Boston as ‘local
Bostonians’ also helped.
The Boston Marathon bombing, which had occurred several weeks before
our interview, also came up as a topic of conversation. Jasir commented that
after the bombing, the media exacerbated xenophobia and particularly Isla-
mophobia. He recalled hearing a radio talk show host talk about closing the
national borders and not letting Muslim students into the United States. Jasir
was clearly bothered by these remarks. He called them ‘ridiculous’ and used
his father as an example to counter the anti-immigrant narrative that he
had heard in the media. Jasir called his father a ‘hardcore American’ who
‘likes throwing on Bruce Springsteen and draping an American flag over his
shoulder. He is so proud to be American.’ The negative portrayal of Muslims
and Pakistanis that Jasir had heard was ‘anti-American’ in his view. He
believed that the United States is ‘a nation of immigrants’ and that Americans
must do more to respect and honour the dignity of newcomers. ‘The country
has always been a little xenophobic’, he added. ‘I think the country has to do
a better job of integrating all these different cultures into the American culture.’
When I asked about his own definition of American identity, he replied ‘It’s
just to live here and to be able to call yourself a citizen.’ He described himself
as ‘just American’, a label that avoids the ethnic or religious designation of terms
such as Pakistani American and Muslim American.
The entire world has come to be familiar with Pakistanis through the images
the media spreads. During our interview, Jasir spoke about the misconceptions
of Pakistan portrayed by news outlets and the impact that media-driven
images of and narratives about Pakistanis have on his identity-construction
process. He claimed that news outlets ‘kind of just lump Pakistanis together’.
In Jasir’s view, news entities such as CNN and Fox have depicted all Pakistanis
as violent, radicalised Muslims. With signs of frustration in his facial expression
and voice, he said he was tired of being portrayed as ‘potentially dangerous’.
He referred to violent and radicalised depictions of Pakistanis as totally
absurd and false.
After Jasir shared his views with me, I remembered encountering three
young Pakistani Muslim teenagers after jummah prayer in the spring of 2011.
One of them, probably around sixteen years old, told me that I should watch
a National Geographic programme titled Don’t Tell My Mother I’m in Pakistan.
Although the title may come across as insulting, the programme reveals a side
of Pakistan that the media rarely show. The producer, Diego Bunuel, used to
serve as a foreign correspondent for French Television. Every time he left
France, he would say to his crew, ‘Don’t tell my mother I am in Pakistan; it
makes her really nervous.’ After spending several years in countries around
the world, Bunuel realised that the international coverage of countries such as
 New Pakistani ethnicities 141
Afghanistan and Pakistan only focused on the worst headlines. In the case of
Pakistan, that meant ‘radical Islam’ and ‘terrorism’. In short, Bunuel broke
many of the stereotypes that have plagued the country by showing its diversity
and devotion to hospitality. I mention Bunuel’s National Geographic pro-
gramme in connection with my interview with Jasir because both illustrate the
media’s failure to capture the experiences of all Pakistanis, especially those of
mixed-race backgrounds in diaspora.

Babar: leaving options open

I consider myself an open-minded person, but as I mentioned early in this
book, I did not always have open views about other ethnicities, religions, and
cultures. Being open-minded can be difficult for some people. Most, if not all,
of us are raised with a certain set of beliefs and values which inevitably
influence how we see and interpret the environment around us. As we grow
older, we tend to surround ourselves with others who share those beliefs and
values. Therefore, it can be challenging to face new ideas, cultures, and
environments that are different from those we are accustomed to. Though we
may wish to be open-minded, some of us struggle with it from time to time.
In the case of perceptions of Pakistanis, the media conjures up the idea that
they tend to be closed-minded people who are stuck in their ‘Islamic’ ways.
Babar, a thirty-five-year-old, first-generation, Sufi participant whom I inter-
viewed in Dublin’s Temple Bar district, also challenged media narratives and
depictions of Pakistanis. At the time of our interview, he was in the process of
starting his own information technology business. Every weekend he travelled
to London to coordinate business plans. London was also where Babar had
earned his master’s degree in computer networking. When he moved to
Dublin from London in 2006 he took several jobs, including one at McDonald’s
on Grafton Street. He and his wife now lived in a small house in ‘a kind of
rough area’ of south Dublin. There were few Pakistanis or Muslims living
near his home, but he preferred it that way. When I asked if he spent time
with them, he said, ‘It’s nothing against my community, but I tend to stay
away from them.’ When living in or travelling to a new city or country, Babar
preferred to ‘mingle and get used to the new place and people’, and he added, ‘If
you only like to stay in your own community, why are you coming out, then?’
Leaving Rawalpindi, Peshawar, where Babar was born and bred, had been
a goal of his from the age of fifteen. ‘It’s not to disrespect the country’, he
said. ‘It’s just because there are so many problems in the country.’ At the time
of our interview, Pakistan was a place of ‘no return’ for Babar. Instead, he was
focused on building his business in Ireland and continuing to ‘grow as a
person who embraces humanity’. Babar is one of several first-generation
participants in this research who, I thought, had a ‘love–hate’ relationship
with the ‘homeland’. This kind of relationship involves simultaneous or
alternating emotions of fondness and enmity and is particularly common
when emotions are intense. Babar was a passionate and energetic man and
142 New Pakistani ethnicities
did not hold back in describing his feelings about his native country. He
wanted Pakistanis to have more self-respect and Pakistan to become more
innovative and industrious so citizens would not be forced to leave to find job
opportunities. The ‘crisis’ that Pakistan was facing, he posited, was the diasporic
community itself, because Pakistanis abroad were ‘highly educated, highly
paid, highly skilled … highly professional. They are the experts.’ What Babar
was referring to rather than the Pakistani expats themselves was the ‘brain
drain’, Pakistan’s main problem. According to Malik (2015) and Nawaz (2013),
the ‘brain drain’ has deprived Pakistan of its most talented young citizens. Per-
haps we could view Babar and first-generation migrants like him as a segment
within the Pakistani diaspora, namely the ‘brain drain’ group. These educated
and skilled people left Pakistan to pursue more promising career opportunities
than what was offered in the ‘homeland’.
With enthusiasm in his voice, Babar told me that he was passionate about
actively engaging with people outside of the ‘Pakistani community’. As we
sipped tea in his modern office building, Babar claimed to be one of the only
first-generation Pakistanis to have integrated into Irish society. When I asked
him why this was he replied ‘Because I’ve left my options open. Whenever it
comes, I take it. I haven’t limited myself.’ Babar believed that the ‘Pakistani
community’ in Dublin had a ‘big problem’, because too many young men did
not leave their ethnic enclaves or care about integrating into Irish society.
Babar blamed this perceived situation on the idea that many Pakistanis in
Dublin work blue-collar jobs and so simply do not have the time or resources
to branch out into the wider community.
Babar explained his position:

When you don’t have a white collar job like me, you tend to hang out
with a certain kind … like Pakistani guys, they’re restricted still to their
own community … they haven’t had the opportunity to mix with others
and understand others. There’s a need of dialogue. There’s a need of
understanding. There’s a need of integration. There’s a need of explaining
both sides.

Babar’s comments remind me of the importance of cultural pluralism as a

resource for creating unity and common ground amidst increasing diversity in
Ireland. He called on Irish institutions to initiate policies that would help
Pakistanis feel less marginalised and oppressed, an issue I discuss further in
the next chapter.
Cross-cultural communication was clearly instrumentally valuable to
Babar, for several reasons. First, it enabled him to create his own identity. One
important condition of his autonomy was having a range of options from
which to choose. Exploring different cultures provided Babar with meaningful
experiences and narratives from which he fashioned his own life and world
view. When he was not working, he involved himself with the activities of
intercultural organisations, which he believed helped him develop a sense of
 New Pakistani ethnicities 143
belonging to Ireland. Specifically, he worked to raise money for African
refugees in Dublin and helped run what he described as an ‘Asian women’s
support group’. Drawing on Kymlicka (1995), I can say that Babar appeared
to recognise a deep and general connection between his own identity and the
respect accorded to the larger cultural group of which he is a part (ibid.,
p. 109). Simply preserving his culture was not enough for him to be happy; he
wanted membership in the Irish nation and was willing to distance himself
from ‘Pakistani culture’ to obtain this membership.
Babar offered one of the more powerful stories that emerged from my
interviews and group discussions. The story centres on a friendship that Babar
had recently forged with a white, ‘native’ Irish, Catholic man. Babar and
Patrick (a pseudonym) each owned their own company. They had come
across each other’s businesses through LinkedIn, the social media networking
website for professionals. Thinking that they might be able to collaborate,
they agreed upon a business deal in writing. Five or so weeks after finalising
the paperwork, the two men decided to bring their partnership to what Babar
described as ‘a different level’. Patrick said to Babar, ‘You’re a religious
person, and I’m a religious person … You trust in God, and I trust God. We
have the same God. I’m going to offer partnership in my company in good
faith and keeping God as a witness.’
Babar liked the way that Patrick framed their business agreement and
newfound friendship in terms of religion and being witness to God. The two
men then visited a mosque and a church. The mosque was their first stop.
Babar told Patrick that he did not have to do the ablution (the act of washing
oneself) or pray, but Patrick replied, ‘When I’m with you, I will do what
you’re doing.’ Patrick did the ablution and called it ‘very refreshing’, but he
refrained from engaging in prayer. Babar told me that Patrick ‘stood in the
back out of respect’. After visiting the mosque, Patrick brought Babar to his
parish church. It was not the first time that Babar had entered a Christian
church. He had frequented St. Paul’s Cathedral when he lived in London, and
he even attended Mass there. On this occasion Babar did not pray with
Patrick; he explained to me, ‘I don’t need to repeat what they’re saying. It’s
important to just be part of them. Out of respect.’
I am adamant about building stronger bridges of understanding between
Christians and Muslims, and so I got goose bumps on my arms as I listened
to Babar’s story. He reminded me that simple friendships between people of
different faiths can shatter the ‘clash of civilisations’ narrative. By building
and maintaining an Islamic–Catholic friendship, Babar and Patrick went
beyond the cultural and religious barriers enacted by power centres to oppose
the idea that mutual coexistence amongst Muslims and Christians is impos-
sible. The two men, while acknowledging their religious differences, displayed
a willingness to explore each other’s world views by learning about each
other’s realities. Their friendship challenged power structures that sanction
Othering processes which have historically been used to exclude people from
national group membership.
144 New Pakistani ethnicities
Living in Ireland had been a transformative experience for Babar. He
considered himself ‘fully Irish’ and described the Irish as some of the most
welcoming and accepting people in the world. Unlike other participants in
Dublin (described in detail in Chapter 3) Babar said that he did not face dis-
crimination or racism. He attributed this avoidance to a racial aspect of his
identity, saying, ‘It’s because I don’t look much darker. I’m quite white. It’s
the skin colour.’ This comment reiterates the idea that the Irish ethnic nation
plays a significant role in how young Pakistani men are perceived and how
they might relate to the notion of Irish identity. In the future, Babar hoped
that the Irish state and the Irish people would embrace a civic interpretation
of Irish nationhood. He imagined Ireland as a place where all people –
regardless of ethnic or religious background – could easily integrate into
society and call Ireland home without any hesitation.

Awad: walking the path of ‘social nomadism’

Changez, a bearded Pakistani, sat at a table of an outdoor cafe in Lahore. He
spoke with a nervous American stranger about his love affair with an American
woman and his eventual abandonment of the United States, where he had
earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from Princeton University. Changez had
also worked as an analyst for a successful Wall Street consultancy firm. He
had impressed his business peers and developed a good rapport with them.
When 9/11 happened, Changez was surprised and disgusted by the thought of
Muslims killing innocent people. He started to observe an air of suspicion
towards Pakistanis amongst Americans and noticed a change in his treatment
in public, especially after he grew a beard in solidarity with the Muslim civilians
who died as a result of America’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Dis-
mayed by American society, Changez had returned to Lahore and had
become a professor of finance at a university. He and his students actively
participated in demonstrations against global militarism and United States
foreign policy.
You might be thinking that I interviewed Changez, but he is actually the
main character of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a thriller movie directed by
Mira Nair (The Reluctant Fundamentalist, n.d.). Awad, a twenty-six-year-old
professional, described Changez as a Pakistani facing an ‘identity crisis’. Here
is how Awad described his connection to Changez:

Part of the identity crisis that he faces is that he was born in Pakistan …
but he comes to America, and he holds a lot of American ideals very
dear to him. He’s also a Pakistani and so, with Pakistani people, they
look at him and they think he’s just a corporate whore who cares about
money. So he’s an American, and he’s abandoned them. So he goes back
to Pakistanis. In a lot of his personal relationships, he’s identified with …
being brown and being a Muslim. At one point he just decided … to keep
a small beard, not like a full-on beard, and one of his friends was like,
 New Pakistani ethnicities 145
‘You’re scaring people with this jihadist thing.’ So he seemed to be
someone who was walking a fine line of not really being allowed to be either
one and not even if it was an active decision or not, having chosen both
worlds because you enjoy both worlds. I’m very similar in that regard.

Unlike Changez, Awad was a second-generation Pakistani American, yet he

told me that he felt like he had been raised in Pakistan because his parents
had held conservative Pakistani cultural values. Awad saw himself as being
Othered as both an outsider to American society and as a Pakistani, because
he had virtually abandoned the immigrant culture. He had recently grown out
his beard, but not for religious purposes. He described himself many times
during our interview as an agnostic. His reference to ‘walking the fine line’
between multiple cultural group boundaries suggests that he saw himself as
wandering in the cultural borderlands.
One way in which Awad experienced Othering is through racial profiling.
He showed clear signs of frustration when our discussion turned to dis-
criminatory practices by law enforcement officials who had targeted him on
suspicion of being a potential threat. When he was fourteen, Awad and his
family had left their home in a mid-Atlantic state for a summer vacation in
Sweden. When they arrived at the airport, he walked through the security
line, and immediately security guards had pulled him and the rest of his
family aside to an ‘interrogation room’, as Awad called it. Here is how he
recollected the experience:

Each of us was separated for a while and interrogated by the FBI. We

were held at the airport for over eight hours. We missed our flight. We
stayed there almost overnight. When they were completely done with all
of it, when they had gone through all of our bags … They had literally
interrogated a ten-year-old girl separately while her father wasn’t there.
After all of that, they got done, and my dad asked, ‘What the fuck was
this for?’ And they were like looking for a terrorist named Ahmad … My
dad’s name is Ahmad.

Chandrasekhar (2003) describes this kind of experience as ‘flying while

brown’. Awad and his family had been targets of racial profiling. They had
been treated as potential threats based on perceived racial, ethnic, and reli-
gious similarities to the hijackers of 9/11. These kinds of experiences of racial
profiling have led to feelings of victimisation and degradation amongst young
Pakistani Americans like Awad. He is just one of hundreds of South Asians
that law enforcement officials have detained without due process, encroaching
on their civil rights. Arguably, Awad and his family would not have been
detained if they had not had ‘Muslim-sounding names’. The difficulty of
‘flying while Muslim’ (Gharib, 2015) is something that Awad has had to deal
with on a regular basis despite the fact that he did not even define himself as
Muslim. He is agnostic.
146 New Pakistani ethnicities
Awad had been born and raised in a Sunni family that had lived in a
‘pretty ghetto area’ of a major mid-Atlantic city. Due to gang violence in the
family’s neighbourhood, his parents had sent him to a private Catholic
school. He continued to attend Catholic schools until he moved to Boston to
attend college. He claimed that his Catholic educational background, which
had led him to read the Bible cover-to-cover many times, had moulded him to
be a Muslim ‘heretic’. Being a non-Catholic student forced him ‘not to just
look at one religion growing up’. When Awad was younger he had compared
and contrasted the Bible and the Quran and memorised Christian hymns and
songs. The only strange thing for him was ‘feeling left out when everyone
did communion and when all of the stuff started going on’. Because he was
not Catholic, he had to ‘just sit on the side in church’ as his classmates took
part in the service. ‘It was weird’, he told me, ‘it was just, like, a sense that I
was left out’. Engaging in inter religious studies had opened Awad’s mind to
different religious, spiritual, and humanistic perspectives which inevitably
shaped his personal beliefs, but his ‘Muslimness’ remained an obstacle to
‘truly belonging’ to this particular community.
Awad’s curiosity about Christianity and other religions had greatly worried
his mother. She had feared that he would become a ‘bad Muslim’ or, worse, a
‘non-Muslim’. When he was between the ages of eight and fifteen, his mother
would sit him down and teach him the Quran to make sure he and his siblings
did not become Christians. Awad’s father, on the other hand, was not a ‘religious
Muslim’. His father had arrived in the United States in the early 1970s and
‘sort of did everything you would imagine of someone who comes here. He
was a taxi driver … he worked at convenience stores’.
In the early 1980s Awad’s father had bought a deli; a few months later he
sold the deli to invest in a dry-cleaning shop. I could tell that Awad greatly
admired his father, who had given him a sense of independence from the time
he was a child. He observed that ‘There’s sort of the focus on the individual,
whereas the Pakistani and Islamic culture is more community-based.’ His
father had encouraged him to be independent and to think outside of the
perceived boundaries of ‘Pakistani culture’ and ‘Islam’, whereas his mother
had tended to do the opposite: she had wanted Awad and his siblings to be
culturally conservative Pakistanis and pious Muslims. Ultimately, Awad opted
for an individualist rather than a collectivist lifestyle; he personally evaluated
the aspects of various cultural and religious traditions and determined which
of these aspects were most useful to him as a young man navigating the cultural
borderlands.
One theme that stood out in my interview with Awad was his preference for
‘all things American’, as he described his identity. Growing up as the only
South Asian in his Catholic school, he had been ‘really embarrassed about
being Pakistani’. He reflected on his childhood and teenage years, noting that
he never wore ‘Pakistani clothes’ and never spoke Urdu or other ‘Pakistani
languages’. His aversion to Pakistani culture appeared to stem from negative
depictions of Pakistanis and stereotypes surrounding South Asians. ‘The only
 New Pakistani ethnicities 147
thing in the media that you saw about being brown was Apu on the television
show The Simpsons. He literally was the only thing we had, and it was
embarrassing.’
As a young boy and teenager, he had strayed from his Pakistani identity.
He did not want to reveal his ethnic identity to his friends or strangers out of
fear of being teased or harassed. Moreover, Awad told me that he had always
made a conscious effort to live ‘in a really American way’. The combination
of his ethnicity and his cultural orientation meant that he was often called a
‘coconut’, a term used to refer to South Asians who have assimilated with
Western cultures (‘brown on the outside, white on the inside’). He did not
consider ‘coconut’ to be a derogatory term, and he even seemed to have a bit
of pride in being more ‘white’ than ‘Pakistani’. When I asked him why his
friends referred to him as a ‘coconut’, he said, ‘Because I don’t watch South
Asian movies. I don’t understand all the brown jokes … Pakistani identity has
eluded me for a long time’. But while he did not identify with these cultural
markers of South Asia, Awad still possessed the skills to be a cross-cultural
navigator: he could speak Urdu fluently.
Part of Awad’s definition of American identity stemmed from his beliefs
about the ‘American Dream’. In simple terms, this phrase refers to the idea that
all Americans can be whoever they want to be and can better themselves if
they make the effort. In Awad’s opinion, Jay-Z, the hip-hop artist and entre-
preneur formerly known as Sean Carter, embodied the ‘American Dream’.
Awad said that Jay-Z was a role model because his life trajectory showed that
people in the United States ‘can go from having absolutely nothing, coming
from a fatherless home, selling crack on the corners of Brooklyn, to being on a
good friend basis with the president [of the United States]’. He added:

If you want it, you can have it in this country. That’s what it is, whereas if
you moved to Sweden or Argentina or Peru, you can’t climb the social
hierarchy, even England. There’s just no moving [in those countries].
Where you’re born is usually where you stay.

After he said this, I wrote down the word ‘meritocracy’ on my notepad. I

thought of Awad as a young man who believed in his own abilities and
talents. Since our interview, he has become a prominent figure in the hip-hop
industry, as I consistently see from his Facebook page. Awad frequently posts
pictures of himself alongside rap artists in recording studios.
Living in the United States provided Awad with the opportunity to do
anything that he wished. Nevertheless, he also showed that he is an American
dissident, a person who opposes or objects to ‘official policies’ of govern-
ments. Because religious freedom is an important component of his definition
of American identity, Awad harshly criticised Republicans for ‘forgetting that
religion and the state are not the same in this country’. According to him,
merging Christianity with official state policy ‘goes completely against what
the forefathers once said. People came to this country for this separation.’
148 New Pakistani ethnicities
The concept of hybridity helps us understand Awad’s experience of having
multiple, shifting identities which he constructs differently in response to social
demands. Throughout his life, he has tried to find ways to empower himself in his
community and in life as a whole. During the interview, I was struck by how
consistently he talked about embracing difference and confronting cultures that
he was not entirely familiar with. Mixing with and learning from people of dif-
ferent backgrounds was important to him, hence he identified himself as a ‘social
nomad.’ He did not like the idea of staying within the confines of one group or
community. Instead, Awad preferred to migrate from one group to another,
often losing touch with members of Pakistani, South Asian, and Muslim com-
munities. He criticised Muslim Americans for isolating themselves from the
wider community. But despite criticising them and no longer identifying himself
as Muslim, Awad was passionate about social justice issues. He thought that
Muslim Americans should ‘go out there and make it heard what Muslims are
saying’. He wanted Muslims to be unafraid of retribution from the government.

Meaning-making and Pakistani identities

The participants described in this chapter challenge the claim that Pakistanis
do not integrate with American and Irish communities. Their experiences are
characterised by agency, choice, and flexible cultural orientations. A cosmo-
politan sensibility among these young Pakistani men indicates a combination
of self-awareness and empowerment that opposes the idea that men like them
solely immerse themselves in the immigrant culture and the ways of the
‘homeland’. Their experience implies that young Pakistani men’s sense of
belonging is not anchored to rigid interpretations of ethnic or cultural groups.
Their identities are a complex combination of racial, cultural, religious, poli-
tical, and historical characteristics by which they differentiate themselves
from other Pakistanis as well as non-Pakistanis.
The cultural politics and strategies deployed by the young men in this
chapter have two primary facets. The first is the issue of representation, or
who speaks for Pakistanis and what kind of symbols represent ethnic and
national identities. The second facet is boundary maintenance and construction
and how young Pakistani men contest their relationship with these perceived
boundaries, which demarcate senses of belonging. Young Pakistani men in
diaspora are striving to reposition themselves in relation to problematic cate-
gories that contextualise their ethnic, religious, and national identities. This
complexity inevitably shifts how we understand ‘Pakistani identity’, as well as
American and Irish national identities.

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7 Why civic values and pluralism matter

‘Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims

entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure
out what is going on.’ These words were proclaimed to the American
public by the then Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in
December 2015. To support his proposed ban, Trump cited a controversial
survey from the right-wing Center for Security Policy, which claimed that
one-quarter of Muslim Americans believed that violence against Americans
was justified as part of global jihad and that a slim majority ‘agreed that
Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according
to shariah’ (Center For Security Policy, 2015). Months after his statement
on immigration, Trump reiterated his call to ban Muslims by arguing that
even second- and third-generation Muslims have largely failed to assim-
ilate into American society (Jacobsen, 2016). Trump’s words were hotly
contested, and several major academic studies in the past decade have
demonstrated that Muslims do indeed want to become integrated into
mainstream American life (Pew Research Center, 2011). But political
rhetoric such as Trump’s is common amongst politicians in Western
countries. Like other American politicians before him, Trump built his
presidential campaign on his willingness to draw the support of citizens
who are fearful of minorities.
As a Catholic American who strives to do everything I can for the better-
ment of relations between Christians and Muslims, it is deeply troubling to
see this type of anti-immigrant and anti-minority rhetoric. Yet over the course
of my research, I have realised that much of the hysteria surrounding Muslims
stems from ignorance of them. One of the contributions of this research is
that it gives first- and second-generation Pakistanis in the United States and
Ireland an opportunity to speak on their own behalf – as immigrants and
members of an ethnic minority – about their own views and experiences. Far
from being ‘unassimilable’ and ‘isolated’, the interviewees discussed in this
chapter demonstrate that immigrants opt for integration in American and
Irish societies through education, civic participation, and pluralist world
views.
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 151
Sohail: moving towards interculturalism and cosmopolitanism
Pakistan was created in 1947 after being carved out of India’s mainly Muslim
regions. A huge migration of Hindus and Muslims took place during the
partition, which was often bloody. Today, Muslims constitute approximately
14 per cent of India’s population, while in Pakistan, Hindus are said to com-
prise just over 2 per cent (BBC, 2015). Sohail, a thirty-year-old postgraduate
student at the time of our interview, is the only Hindu participant in this
research. His grandparents were migrants who had experienced the clashes
between Hindus and Muslims when they moved to the newly created India.
We met in the Porterhouse Central pub in Dublin city centre. Sohail was
born and raised in a ‘Western country’ and praised his parents because they
had ‘faced a lot of adversity, living as minorities’. Although he said he was
not a ‘devout Hindu or anything’, he told me that Hinduism had provided
him with direction in terms of his interactions with others. He said that
Mahatma Gandhi was one of his role models because Gandhi ‘went to South
Africa [as a lawyer] and fought for minorities and everything’. Sohail took
after Gandhi in the sense that he had been training to become a lawyer who
would work for social justice and equality. His background challenges not
only the assumption that all Pakistanis are Muslims, but also that they do not
absorb into the wider society or culture of ‘the West’.
The interview with Sohail revealed a level of tolerance and acceptance of
minorities in Ireland. As such, his story challenges recent findings that show a
spike in Irish opposition to the presence of minorities since the end of the
Celtic Tiger. Sohail spoke proudly about his diverse group of friends ‘who
don’t have predetermined conceptions of others’. He described his friends
using terms such as ‘mutual respect’ and ‘open mindedness’. Sohail attributed
these features to their status as law students at a university and their course
work, which focuses on legal rights and issues of equality. According to him,
those enrolled in the law programme were:

a very collegiate group and a very understanding group as well. The kind
of cases that we do, it’s all basically predicated on equality and rights of
people as opposed to specific types of persons, whether its male or what
the religion is or what the sex is … It doesn’t matter what kind of back-
ground you’re from or what you really do … as long as you’re a good
person, a respectful person, then that’s what really matters … I don’t have
one person who I could say is genuinely … discriminatory in any shape
or form. That’s all part of the new Ireland.

With these words he highlighted a strand of civic nationalism in Ireland.

This kind of nationalism is non-xenophobic and stresses tolerance, equality,
and individual rights. The relationship that Sohail had with his fellow law
students crossed racial, ethnic, and cultural borders. Furthermore, his
experiences suggest that there is a contingent of Irish society that favours
152 Why civic values and pluralism matter
participation in a liberal democracy and expresses ‘shared values’ as the
product of integration.
Sohail’s experience as a law student also shows that immigrants branch out
of their ethnic communities in order to broaden their opportunities and cultural
horizons. Since moving to Dublin in 2010, he had never met another person
of Pakistani descent. When I asked why he didn’t get together with other
Pakistanis in the city, he replied ‘I came here for a specific reason: to study …
So for me to come across [Pakistanis], I’d have to make an active decision to
go out to that community … That didn’t seem like something I wanted to do.’
One of the reasons why he had no interested in socialising with Pakistanis
is that many of them do not drink alcohol. Because he liked a beer, Sohail
described himself as ‘not your normal Pakistani’. Engaging with Pakistanis in
Dublin is ‘too different’ for him because he ‘can’t sit down with them’. He
explained:

I don’t live or do anything that a normal person from Pakistan would

do … I regularly have girlfriends. I drink. I go out. I listen to different
types of music, read different literature … and everything else. So I don’t
know if I could relate to that country [Pakistan] more or less, other than
the fact that it’s my heritage basically.

To a certain degree, Sohail reinforced certain stereotypes of Pakistanis and

the ‘homeland’. He suggested that he could not interact with other Pakistanis
because they don’t speak English, as he did. There are no reliable figures on
the number of English speakers in Pakistan, but English is needed if an indi-
vidual seeks employment in the state apparatus or private sector (Rahman,
n.d.). As noted in Chapter 1, all the participants in this research had either
moderate or proficient skills in speaking and understanding the English lan-
guage. Essentially, Sohail did not feel that he shared enough commonalities
with other Pakistanis to relate to them on a ‘cultural level’.
Ireland’s increasingly diverse society in terms of ethnic and religious com-
position reminded Sohail of the United States. He claimed that Irish society
was becoming like the American ‘melting pot’ where ‘a lot of these different
groups of people are living together, engaging together, socialising together.
It’s very cosmopolitan, and it’s kind of playing out in people’s views. It’s like
I’m cosmopolitan.’ The word ‘cosmopolitan’ comes from the Greek kosmos,
or world. It dates back to the Greek philosopher Diogenes, who, upon being
asked to give the name of the city-state in which he had been brought up,
responded with the remark that he was a ‘citizen of the world’ (Education for
Global Interdependence (E4GI), n.d.). Cosmopolitans have been said to be
ready ‘to immerse themselves in other cultures, engage with difference, and
acquire diverse cultural competence’ (ibid.). Sohail viewed Irish institutions as
‘very much open to, like, diverse backgrounds … They realise that because
they’re now in this international global economy that is something they need.’
He added, ‘[Irish institutions] are very much based not just on gender
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 153
equality, but now it’s getting more towards now what your sexual status is,
not what your background is or anything. So they’ve opened it up.’ Sohail
viewed Irish society as open to people of all religions and cultures and the
Irish state as one that promoted equality. In this sense, he favoured a civic
nation in that protection or promotion of one religious group or national
culture over others is not the goal of the state.
And yet, despite his seemingly positive social experiences and interactions
amidst the diversity of Dublin, Sohail shared stories of discrimination. This is
relatively common amongst non-Irish nationals, 24 per cent of whom feel they
have been discriminated against in recent years in shops, pubs, restaurants,
financial services, housing and transport (Russell et al., 2008). On occasion,
while out with his friends, Sohail has sensed that people look at him differ-
ently because of his skin colour. While he referred to his overall experience in
terms of equality as ‘generally okay’, he added that there is a sense of ‘always
standing out in the crowd’ and that sometimes he felt ‘isolated a little bit’.
Sohail’s perceived discrimination highlights group boundaries between
‘native Irish’ and ‘non-Irish’. He believed that some ‘native Irish’ included
him in the ‘in-group’ but that some ‘natives’ excluded him from the national
group. Sohail differentiated these moments of discrimination from what he
referred to as ‘outright racism’. While there have been many reports of racism
and racist attacks against people of Pakistani descent living in Dublin, Sohail
said that he had never experienced racism, but rather discrimination of ‘a
more indirect nature’. Overall, he did not feel excluded from social life in
Ireland. He also believed that he could be Irish, because ‘the way society and
culture … is going towards, it’s going to lead to an event like the U.S. ….
where you wouldn’t be able to say that only a white person is American. You
could come across any person.’ Sohail continued, ‘Ireland is very welcom-
ing … It’s open to business. It’s open to society … It’s not a closed society.
You will feel welcomed in any place you go.’
Sohail can be viewed as having a cosmopolitan identity in the sense that he
moves beyond his specific political, territorial, and cultural attachments to
give allegiance to the wider human community. Throughout the interview, he
called for cultural diversity and openness not only in Ireland, but also in the
rest of the world. Our conversation ended with Sohail talking about Ireland’s
future. ‘It’s in the process, it’s a developing society’, he said, and went on:

One of the things you have to remember is that while [Ireland is] old, the
independent state is not that old. In that sense, it’s very young. People are
still coming to grips with who they are as a society, with their
independence.

To date, various public bodies and government departments have produced

diversity and intercultural strategies in the areas of education and health, as
well as a diversity strategy for the Garda Síochána (Murphy, 2015). However,
there has been a lack of progress in the field of integration, mainly due to the
154 Why civic values and pluralism matter
financial crisis and the dramatic rise in unemployment (ibid.). These devel-
opments have meant that integration is no longer as immediate an issue as it
was between 2000 and 2007 (ibid.). Nevertheless, Sohail appeared to agree
with the intercultural strategies that the Irish government was enacting in the
name of fostering social inclusion and equality.

Fahid: embracing the ‘Athens of America’

The ‘Athens of America’ is how some people described the city of Boston in
the early to mid- nineteenth century. Like Athens in the days of Plato and
Socrates, Boston became famous in the United States for its exceptional writers,
poets and thinkers who gave the city a reputation for literature and learning.
In his book The Athens of America: Boston 1825–1845, O’Connor (2006) says
that Bostonians saw their city not only as the ‘cradle of liberty’, but also as
the world’s ‘cradle of civilisation’. According to O’Connor, a select group of
‘elite’ Boston men from prominent families created a society based on love of
humanity, liberal education, and social progress. The goal of the ‘elitists’, as
he calls them, was to cleanse Boston of what they felt were generations of
accumulated social stains and human failures, and then to create new pro-
grammes and more efficient institutions that would raise the cultural and
intellectual standards of all its citizens (University of Massachusetts, n.d.).
Like ancient Athens, Boston would be a city of statesmen, artists, and pro-
found thinkers who would assume responsibility for the welfare and education
of the entire community (ibid.). At the heart of this mission was the idea of a
civic nation that could awaken the intellectual spirits of all Bostonians,
regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion.
O’Connor’s book reminded me of my discussion with Fahid, a thirty-two-
year-old graduate student at a prominent university in Boston. Fahid had a
hint of genius in him, which became evident to me early in our interview
when he shared his passion for numerology. People have long equated genius
with intelligence, but it is more aptly characterised by creative productivity
(Wickelgreen, 2012). At the time of our meeting Fahid was engaged in various
intellectual projects involving technology, entrepreneurship, and interfaith
dialogue. He referred to himself as first and foremost an educator, but also an
entrepreneur and activist for social justice.
Fahid moved from Karachi to Boston in search of ideas, as he described it.
This journey had reinforced his unfiltered view of the world, one – he stated –
that was unconstrained by preconceptions or stereotypes. One of the things
that I noticed about him was the love he had for academia, particularly the
role that universities play in Boston’s civic life. At the time of our interview
he was regularly reaching out to scholars at major academic institutions, and
he participated in various seminars around the city.
In meeting Fahid, I again realised that Pakistanis are astoundingly different
from one another and that some identify themselves with humanity rather
than any particular religion or form of nationalism. Fahid told me that he
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 155
liked to engage in cross-cultural exchange and appreciates people who work
for scientific and technological advancement. Of all the participants, he was
the most adamant about the importance of higher education. Throughout my
fieldwork, he and I stayed in touch by e-mail. We sent one another interesting
news stories relating to space exploration and technological developments,
especially those pertaining to social media. As an international student in
Boston, he held a central aim of becoming a global citizen who would benefit
from international mobility and intercultural understanding.
Fahid not only shared his love of science and technology, but also discussed
his goal of working for the betterment of humanity. ‘The only way you can
really adapt and sort of integrate and understand people’, he said, ‘is actually
by participating with them socially’. Fahid chose to reach out to ‘others’ in
Boston because he needed ‘to understand their perspective, and they need to
understand where I’m coming from’. For the first time in his life, he believed
that people did not see him as ‘insane’ because of his views on equality and
women’s rights.
The freedom to openly express his beliefs was important to Fahid, and
Boston – unlike Pakistan – provided him with a ‘safe space’ to do so. Fahid
saw Pakistani society as too patriarchal and Pakistan as too influenced by
Wahhabism and Arab culture, which he claimed was infiltrating all sectors of
Pakistan. He added, ‘It’s very discomfiting for me back in Pakistan.’ He was
very critical of many sectors of Pakistani society, from government institu-
tions to the mosques to Pakistanis themselves. Indeed, Pakistan has faced
many challenges in recent years, including poverty, illiteracy, corruption,
gender inequality, and ‘terrorism’. Perhaps more striking is that Pakistan has
appeared on the Failed States Index, an annual ranking compiled by the
Fund for Peace, a non-profit research institution, and Foreign Policy magazine
(Foreign Policy, 2015). The compilers use several factors determine whether a
country is a ‘failed state’, including severe economic decline, deterioration of
public services, and a country’s security apparatuses operating as a state
within a state (Gallup, n.d.).
As with all the participants, I asked Fahid about his identity. When I asked,
‘How do you explain your identity?’ he looked at me with wide open eyes and
appeared to be unsure how to answer the question. After pausing for a
moment, he said he had a complex identity. ‘I am not like other Pakistanis’,
he said, and thought that ‘Pakistan is a prehistoric concept’ that had little
relevance to his everyday life in Boston. What mattered to him was not ethnicity
or nationality, but humanity. He defined his identity as ‘not Pakistani at all …
I’ve never identified myself as being Pakistani or of a certain race or religion’.
If there was one thing Fahid feared, it was returning to Pakistan, a country
that he criticised for lacking scientific and educational advancement as well as
tolerance for minorities.
The term ‘anti-nationalism’ came to mind during my interview with Fahid.
He described ‘being Pakistani’ as ‘pretty much nonsense’ and ‘a form of
slavery’. Since moving to Boston, he had tried to hide the fact that he was
156 Why civic values and pluralism matter
Pakistani, introducing himself instead as a scholar or intellectual. He said that
when some of his fellow students found out where he was from he received
‘weird looks … because it was their impression of what they’ve seen [of Pakistan]
in the media’. He added, ‘a lot of crazy stuff [about Pakistan] is shown’.
Fahid thought of religion – in particular, Islam – as stifling knowledge and
personal growth. ‘There’s the problem of Saudi Arabia’, he said. ‘A lot of
those sermons that you hear on Friday … They are talking about Saudi
stuff … We aren’t Arabs.’ To be clear, Fahid is neither Arab nor Muslim.
While he was raised in a Sunni family, he no longer identified himself as a
Muslim. Instead, he saw himself as a Jew descended from the Beni Israel.
According to legend, this Jewish tribe’s migration to the South Asian sub-
continent occurred about 2,500 years ago. Here is how Fahid described his
connection to Judaism:

I started searching on Google for people who were sort of looking for us.
I think they call us the Lost Tribe or something. And I found people all
over the world – people from India, people in Israel, people across the
world – and there were like fifteen organisations … Between the Pathan
people or the so-called Pathan people; that’s where we are descended
from, the so-called Lost Tribe people. And it’s not just language but
coincidences, too many coincidences. So I think until about ten years ago,
I started literally identifying myself with them. You know, so personally,
my identity is not Muslim, but being a part of their people … And I
believe that I was born in Pakistan, but I will not die in Pakistan. I will
die in Jerusalem, in Israel.

Fahid identified with the doctrine of Kaballah, an ancient Jewish tradition of

mystical biblical interpretation that attempts to reveal how the universe and
life work (The Kaballah Centre, n.d.). The word Kabbalah literally means ‘to
receive’. Essentially, it is the study of how individuals can experience fulfilment
in their lives. The history of Jews in Pakistan dates at least as far back as 1839
(Tahir, 2016). A substantial community lived in cities such as Karachi and
Rawalpindi, but according to the state’s election commission, there were only
800 registered Jewish voters in Pakistan as of April 2013 (Leibovitz, 2013).
Interviewing a Jewish Pakistani is something that I had never imagined
doing before undertaking this field research. When Fahid revealed his religious
background to me, I was initially shocked, but I quickly became intensely
curious about the ‘Jewish experience’ in Pakistan. Pakistan, he said, had not
been friendly to Jews, and anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiments were rampant.
In Pakistan, Fahid did not openly profess his Jewish identity out of fear of
anti-Semitism. Boston, on the other hand, had been a place where he could
publicly declare his Jewish identity without fear of persecution.
Perhaps one day the Jews of Pakistan will feel safer in the ‘homeland’, but
Fahid did not think that discrimination against them would end anytime
soon. He seemed genuinely upset by the prospect of returning to Pakistan, but
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 157
he nevertheless hoped to bring change to Pakistani society by improving
education and engaging in social justice activism and interfaith dialogue.
When I asked him what needed to change, he answered, ‘less religious extre-
mism’ and ‘more education, science, creativity, liberal ideas, and acceptance
of others’ opinions’. And he added, ‘Human rights, man!’ As discussed in
Chapter 2, religious minorities are persecuted in Pakistan, which bothered
Fahid because he considered religious freedom to be a human right.
Fahid blamed religious intolerance on biased teachings in Pakistani
schools. A study released in 2016 found that Pakistan’s public school textbooks
portrayed the country’s religious minorities, including Hindus, Christians, and
Ahmadis, as ‘untrustworthy, religiously inferior and ideologically scheming’
(Brown, 2016). The seeds of sectarian and religious extremism had been sown
by the Zia-ul-Haq regime’s Second Constitutional Amendment, and are now
bearing fruit in Pakistan (Haider, 2012). Ahmadis, in particular, have faced
hatred and insults in their everyday lives. According to an annual report on
the persecution of Ahmadis, in one year 1,570 news items and more than 334
articles in Urdu spewed hatred against the Ahmadiyya community (Ali,
2016). Other Muslim minorities, such as Shias, and non-Muslim minorities
such as Christians, Hindus and Sikhs, have been targets of suicide bomb
attacks. These minorities have also had members converted to Islam against
their will (Javaid, 2014; Lodge, 2015; Yusufzai, 2014) and have had their places
of worship attacked and bombed while worshippers were inside (Ispahani,
2013). These social and political realities are some of the reasons why Fahid
wanted to remain in the diaspora and why he saw Pakistani as a hostile
environment or a place of ‘no return’.
Fahid did not match the image or the views of the uneducated and intolerant
Pakistani that have appeared in the media. Pakistanis have been portrayed as
backward, violent, and corrupt religious fanatics. Pakistanis are also depicted
in the media as ‘anti-American’, but Fahid said he preferred living in
the United States rather than Pakistan because America stands for ‘people
power’. He described Pakistan, on the other hand, as being ‘enslaved’ because
of ‘too much foreign influence’, a reference to Wahhabism and Saudi culture.
In his view, these problems have developed because ‘Pakistanis aren’t edu-
cated … You know, education is a serious issue. You need to educate them.’
He believed that education is the key to building a civic nation.
Statistics on the level of educational attainment in Pakistan, however, paint a
grim picture – only 60 per cent of children finish primary school (UNESCO,
n.d.). Fahid wanted to see all Pakistani children finish primary school. He
claimed that for this aim to become a reality, the government would need to
intervene by building more schools and providing extra funding to support
research at universities. The only problem with this plan, he argued, is that
Pakistanis ‘don’t really trust the government’ and that citizens would not
approve of any measure put forth by politicians.
Living in Boston had been ‘mind-blowing’ for Fahid. In a sense, he was
living his dream. He was experiencing the ‘new Athens’. Like Bostonians
158 Why civic values and pluralism matter
before him, he enjoyed contemplating how a range of people can draw
on their diverse backgrounds to develop ingenuity within multicultural
environments.

Azum: questioning Irish interculturalism

In the early 2000s, interculturalism had emerged as the de facto policy of the
Irish state. Interculturalism is an increasingly poignant topic, since Ireland’s
population of ‘non-Irish’ nationals has increased rapidly over the last twenty
years (Office for the Promotion of Migrant Integration, n.d.). The Irish gov-
ernment has taken measures in recent years to encourage the inclusion of
ethnic minorities by designing and planning programmes that foster interac-
tion, understanding, and respect (Social Inclusion Unit, 2009). The aim of
interculturalism is to build relationships that enhance knowledge of differences
in beliefs and practices.
There is little doubt that Ireland will remain a diverse society for the forseeable
future, and it is now more important than ever to celebrate and harness this
diversity and ensure that all communities are included in the fabric of social
life (Social Inclusion Unit, 2009). One might surmise that young, second-
generation Pakistani Irish are beyond the scope of discussions of integration
because they were born and raised in Ireland. Moreover, one might presume
that because of this they feel more integrated into Irish society.
Sohail, discussed earlier in this chapter, is a first-generation immigrant who
saw himself as integrated. He claimed that Ireland was moving towards
interculturalism and towards a state that would mirror the American idea of
the ‘melting pot’. His immigrant status and his beliefs about Irish identity and
belonging to Ireland are interesting in light of my interview with Azum, a
second-generation participant. I met Azum, a twenty-seven-year-old, in the
basement of a coffee shop near Trinity College Dublin. Dressed in blue jeans,
Nike sneakers, and a T-shirt showing the face of Tupac Shakur, he made it
clear that hip-hop was a significant part of his identity. Early in our interview, he
told me that he loved the movie The Godfather and enjoyed listening to rap music.
His physical appearance alone countered the assumption that all Pakistanis in
diaspora mimic the culture of their ‘homeland’ in their daily lives.
Azum came from a conservative family that had operated several small
businesses over the last thirty or so years. Upon his arrival in Ireland from a
rural village in East Punjab, Azum’s father opened a Pakistani restaurant and
a halal butcher’s, followed some years later by several convenience stores. As
the family businesses became more and more successful his father decided to
help build one of Dublin’s first mosques. Islam, particularly Sufism, was still
important to his family.
Azum told me that during his childhood years, his family was ‘probably
one of the only families around that was even coloured’. They lived in what
he described as a ‘rough area’ that had not been particularly welcoming to
non-Irish nationals. When Azum was a young teenager, his parents, dismayed
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 159
by the Catholic-biased education system, pulled him out of primary school
and sent him to a city in northern England to become a hafiz, a Muslim who
memorises the Quran. Specifically, he was sent to a madrassa in a pre-
dominantly Pakistani neighborhood. He studied for about a year under what
he referred to as a ‘group of mean mullahs’. Azum tried his best to perform
well, but he thought it was a ‘very, very tough’ experience that he ‘could only
hack for a little bit’. The main challenge for him was memorising the Quran
in Arabic, a language that he had no prior experience of writing, reading or
speaking. He further attributed his unhappiness at the madrassa to ‘not really
being into [Islam]’, and he added that he only went to make his parents
proud.
After leaving the English madrassa he didn’t return to an Irish secondary
school. He was about fifteen when he came back to Ireland. While his father
was unhappy with his decision to leave England, he nevertheless welcomed
Azum into the family business. At the time of our interview, Azum was an
important member of that business. Family was especially important to him;
as he explained, ‘Work is family, and home is family. That’s my life, basically,
since a young age.’ He lived with his brothers and their families in the same
home. He said, ‘I don’t think I have many friends … Family is very close, so if
I want to chill out, it’s usually with my brothers … That’s basically it.’ In
essence, Azum was part of a tight-knit Pakistani family in which immigrant
culture played a significant role in everyday life.
Being raised in a conservative Pakistani family in Ireland had been hard for
Azum, because he perceived Pakistani culture and Irish culture as mutually
exclusive. The issue of marriage was particularly problematic. His parents
wanted him to marry a girl from their village in East Punjab. All of his sib-
lings and cousins had entered arranged marriages, which put pressure on him
to conform to family expectations and traditions. But he felt uncomfortable
with the idea of marrying a woman he’d never met who lived thousands of
miles away. He described his situation by saying that he had a ‘double-
minded’ orientation towards Pakistani culture and Irish culture. He related
his predicament as follows:

I’m double-minded about [marriage] … Even now I talk to my parents

who are in Pakistan. They said that we have a girl for you and she’s very
nice and you should come over and have a look … Even now I’m think-
ing, okay, I’ll go over and have a look. That’s why I’m double minded,
but then at times, I think what if we don’t understand each other? … You
know, it’s pretty hard … Because at the end of the day I do have to get an
arranged marriage … Otherwise … I’d upset my mother and father. I
don’t really want to do that, you know? It’s in our culture … Even our
generation is coming around to that.

Azum positioned himself on the border of Pakistani and Irish culture. He felt
pressure to conform to Pakistani norms, but entering into an arranged
160 Why civic values and pluralism matter
marriage seemed too ‘foreign’ to him. The Irish norm of marrying for love
appeared to be one that resonated with Azum. Perhaps the most significant
element of his ‘double-mindedness’ was his feeling of being disconnected from
the ‘homeland’ and its cultural traditions. He had visited Pakistan on several
occasions, but he could not see himself ever living there. ‘It’s pretty hard for
me to change my lifestyle’, he said.
Azum appeared to me to have wrestled with his lifestyle in recent years. He
stressed that it was difficult being a second-generation Pakistani in Ireland,
‘because the big socialising activity here is to go out to pubs, clubs, which is
really … a bit outside my comfort zone’. As a result of his perception of Irish
culture, he did not spend much time with ‘Irish people’ and preferred instead
the company of his family. It appeared that he had not yet come to terms with
the duality of diasporic experiences.
Alcohol consumption is one issue which allows us to further explore
Azum’s position of being between two cultures. About a year before our inter-
view, Azum had started drinking with a group of Pakistani immigrants who had
come to Dublin to work in the business sector. He started drinking because he
felt that ‘there’s just nothing here else to do. It’s like you drink; you go out … I
think it was just boredom’. But after regularly consuming alcohol for about two
years he decided to stop drinking entirely, because he came to the conclusion
that alcohol consumption is not ‘allowed’ in Pakistani culture or in Islam, the
faith that he was raised in. In reaching this conclusion, Azum drew a boundary
of sorts around both Irish identity and Pakistani identity. Alcohol, to him, was
a variable that distinguished ‘us’ from ‘them’ in terms of ethnicity, religion,
and nationality. He saw white Irish people as including or excluding Pakistanis
from the national in-group on the basis of whether they drank alcohol.
Azum claimed that his ethnic and cultural background had bothered Irish
people, particularly the working-class people of his neighbourhood. He believed
that his neighbours saw him as a foreigner who had no right to be in Ireland. His
relations with his neighbours were troubling to me. Weeks before our interview,
one of the windows of his home had been smashed. On a separate recent occa-
sion, someone had thrown a beer bottle against his car, causing significant
damage. He referred to those who had verbally and physically abused him as
‘uneducated scumbags’, and related another experience as follows:

Little kids will call you ‘Paki’, which you don’t need … Who needs that?
Who wants to start their day like that? Plus, I’ve lived here my whole
life … They judge you by the colour. They take you for your colour, and
that’s it. Sometimes I get ‘Go back to your country’. I try to explain to
them that this is my country, but they just don’t care. This is my country.
What am I supposed to do? You know? But they just say ‘Your coloured;
you’re brown’.

Azum saw little space for him or other brown people in Ireland to live or fit
comfortably within the borders of their ‘homeland’. The way Irish identity is
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 161
currently defined, in his mind, meant that he saw himself as a foreigner in his
own land. Unsurprisingly, being told that he did not belong in Ireland
because of his skin colour had had an effect on his engagement as citizen and
the contributions that he was willing to make to his fellow Irish citizens. In
short, he did not feel quite at home in Ireland. ‘Estranged’ was one of the
words that I wrote down on my notepad during this interview. As I observed
him and the way that he spoke, Azum appeared to be suffering from lone-
liness and disillusionment.
Azum also touched upon the concept of second-class citizenship, or the
state of belonging to a social group but not being accorded a fair share of
respect, recognition, or consideration. He commented, ‘The Irish way of
thinking is very narrow-minded.’ Every time he met someone new, he had to
explain himself, which he said ‘gets a bit old’. ‘They won’t believe I was born
here’, he added. Sometimes people asked him, ‘Do you speak English?’ Or, as
an extension, ‘But do you speak clear English?’ Azum thought that because
of the colour of his skin, ‘Irish people’ would ask him to repeat himself and
convince them that he was ‘normal’.
Azum was clearly frustrated as he explained these kind of experiences. His
body appeared to tighten up, and his facial expression gave an impression of
doom and gloom. The slurs ‘Paki’ and ‘terrorist’ were often lobbed at him,
and he added that he felt ‘under the spotlight’ because he was both brown
and Muslim. In this light, he had experienced the ‘double whammy’, like
Humayun and Yasir, the two gay Muslim interviewees discussed in Chapter 5.
Irish nationalism did not resonate with Azum because this concept has
‘brought a lot of war, a lot of bad things’ to the world. Although he literally
called himself a ‘bad Muslim’ because of his lacklustre commitment to
‘Islamic practice’, Azum supported political Islam. Shariah, he argued, is a
tool that the Irish state should use to bring about more social equality. In
his opinion, one way that the country could foster greater inclusion of Irish
Muslims would be to incorporate aspects of Islamic law. Azum wanted to
see the Irish government do more to promote charity and compassion
towards vulnerable members of society. He stated that charity and compas-
sion were two fundamental components of Islam that should be emphasised
more in Ireland.
When I asked how shariah could benefit Irish society, Azum replied, ‘The
redistribution of wealth … Not for me, but people who are below the poverty
line. I don’t think they should have to go to the dole.’ He differentiated shariah
from capitalism, which he called ‘unjust’. ‘Shariah is old compared to some of
these historic laws’, he said. ‘It’s not like democracy or some of these new
laws now. When you see shariah in comparison to democracy, you see that it’s
much, much fairer.’ In Azum’s opinion, the blueprint for a more balanced
and equal Irish society would be for the state to adopt ‘Islamic values’. He
wanted to see a future in which Irish laws would be based on the underlying
assumption that sovereignty rests with God, rather than people, and that the
government’s sole purpose was to administer Islamic law.
162 Why civic values and pluralism matter
Ireland’s Muslim population has grown tenfold over the last twenty years,
but the Irish state and its citizens have reportedly failed to engage with the
increasing Islamic presence (Fitzgerald, 2011). In terms of building a stronger
society based on interculturalism and intercultural policies, the Irish state
could reach out to Pakistani Irish citizens like Azum to find broader
commonalities between citizens.

Azmat: guarding the American civic nation

I had the honour of visiting Arlington National Cemetery in Washington,
DC, in the spring of 2008. Before my visit, I had no idea that Muslims had
died fighting for the United States military (Considine, 2015). Colonel Martinez
of Washington’s Old Guard showed us the resting place of Captain Humayun
Khan, a second-generation Pakistani American who was awarded the Purple
Heart for his bravery in Iraq (Considine, 2012). How humbling it was to find out
that Muslim Americans, a population demonised as ‘extremists’ and ‘terrorists’,
had made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
Captain Khan virtually came back to life in July 2016 when his father,
Khizr Khan, lashed out at Donald Trump and his proposed plan to ban all
Muslims from entering the United States. Khan’s speech at the Democratic
National Convention in Philadelphia criticised Trump for smearing the char-
acter of Muslims and for having made no significant sacrifice for the United
States. The Khan family and Donald Trump’s antics raised the issue of
Muslim American patriotism and Muslims’ experiences in a country that had
been founded on the idea of civil rights for all citizens.
One thing to emerge from my data is that first- and second-generation
Pakistanis disagreed with US foreign policy towards majority Muslim countries
worldwide. This finding, however, does not mean that some participants were
not patriotic citizens. Azmat, a twenty-seven-year-old postgraduate student, was
a case in point. He and I met in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University in the spring of 2013. The Kennedy School is a public policy and
public administration school that conducts research in subjects relating to poli-
tics, government, international affairs and economics. Over the years, Kennedy
has produced many heads of state, military leaders, academics, and journalists.
Azmat was born and raised in a ‘well-to-do [suburban] town that is very
different than someone who grew up in Boston’. Reflecting on his own back-
ground, he stated that he was ‘the Massachusetts liberal, academic type’ that
fell squarely into the category of ‘liberal American’. While joining the US
military like Captain Khan was not part of Azmat’s future, he made it clear
that he saw himself as a ‘thought leader’ in the days ahead. He hoped to
achieve this goal by ‘writing and influencing, and contributing to media and
the way we think about political issues’.
Azmat is an especially pertinent interviewee, because he challenged the
assumption that Muslims cannot be patriotic Americans. With confidence in
his voice, he described himself as ‘fully American’. The United States, he said,
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 163
was the only place that he would ever belong to. Azmat was my only Boston
participant to explicitly describe himself as ‘patriotic’; his patriotism, how-
ever, was not centred on rituals such as saluting the star-spangled banner or
defending the United States military. He defined an American patriot as
someone whose political and social life was guided by common values and a
sense of common identity.
The common identity which Azmat raised can be explored through the lens
of the civic nation, a type of nation-state that emphasises citizenship rights
rather than ethnicity or religion as the defining features of nationality.
According to Azmat, American identity should have ‘very little qualifications.
It’s not being like this white, Anglo-Saxon person. It’s not being conservative.’
He distanced himself from the idea that being a ‘real American’ meant having
a certain ethnic or racial background, and elaborated on this:

Being American is subscribing to this idea that you are a unique member
of a nation. I am whoever I am, and I have access to this collective that I
subscribe to be a part of … We share some ideals, be it the pursuit of
happiness, equality – in certain respects; obviously not in all. It’s living,
being happy … Obviously, I believe in life and liberty, but looking at
history, different circumstances, not everybody has these things, even in
America. Not everybody has the pursuit of happiness … [but] anybody
has the right to participate. Anybody can participate, and people should
as well … America is uniquely situated … If I lived in another country, I
would only be able to participate if my grandfather was a certain kind of
Arab or something … [There] it’s all hereditary.

Azmat clearly supported civic nationalism: he saw American identity as

stemming from constitutional rights and a particular liberal and tolerant
vision of American society. Civic nations are distinguished from ethnic nations
in that the former do not rely on shared social customs, habits, or ways of
thinking; rather, rationality is common to citizens in the way a table is to a
group of diners (Parekh, 1994). For Azmat, America stands for democracy,
citizenship, and a political community in which all people can share in govern-
ance. These views contrast with Ali’s view of the Irish nation, which he
defined as having underlying ethnic and racial requisites.
A civic nation needs to promote understanding of the ideals of pluralism
and reasoned commitment to the values and principles of democracy (Branson,
1998). While the civic nation is generally understood to be a political concept,
it can be seen in a different way: as a principle of social interaction. In recent
years, Azmat had tried to be more ‘open’ in terms of socialising with people of
different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Though he had never drunk
alcohol, he had been ‘more open to being in that scene, whereas before I
wasn’t’. He told me that he did not introduce himself as Pakistani, because he
had been born and raised in the United States. He identified himself as American
because he did not want to be Othered as an outsider.
164 Why civic values and pluralism matter
Azmat was aware that not all American citizens shared his views of a
political community. One issue that he consistently faced was being ‘foreignised’,
as he called it. He explained his experience of being Othered:

I mean, you look at me. You hear my name. It’s something foreign; it’s
not American. I guess it’s just a product of the experience of Pakistani
Americans in the past couple of decades. It’s just how it is, and I feel like
I just have to constantly battle that.

This particular comment suggests that he also recognised the opposition to

the civic nation model. If one takes his statement at face value, then it is evident
that he saw multiple branches of American nationalism. If ‘American’ is
defined by ethnicity, Azmat was not part of the nation, but if American
identity is defined by citizenship, then he was part of the nation. Azmat made
sense of himself by using a hyphenated identity, which suggests that his ethnic
distinction was always a factor in how people viewed his position in American
society. He appeared to recognise that ethnicity was used to refer to ‘other
Americans’, but he sought to transcend this distinction. When he participated
in civic life, he moved beyond the ethnic boundary of American identity. He
suggested that America was hardly ethnically homogeneous.
We can learn more about Azmat’s views of American identity by turning to
his stance on politics. The Tea Party, a grassroots political movement that
‘calls awareness to any issues which challenge the security, sovereignty or
domestic tranquility of America’ (Tea Party, n.d.), had been in the news at the
time of our interview. This movement, which has reawakened conservative voters
in the United States, is widely recognised as ‘anti-Muslim’. Seventy-seven per
cent of those who considered themselves part of the Tea Party agreed with
Trump’s call for ‘a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the
United States’ (Bacon Jr, 2015). Such anti-Muslim sentiments can lead to
stigmatisation and social isolation rather than expression of civic values and
mindsets. Azmat considered that the Tea Party movement and politicians like
Trump who sympathised with it, blatantly degraded Muslim Americans. And
he explained how Islamophobia operated in his life:

I feel it. I’m aware of it … The opportunities are limited … You’re going
to be discriminated against, and your political axis is limited … I think
that it’s not ideal. I think that that’s poor overall. I think individually …
as communities, I think there are a lot of strengths that American Muslims
have … There are a lot of unique pressures that many young American
Muslims feel of being part of this community … I believe that I face
unwitting discrimination.

After making this comment he laughed, because he did not share any of the
characteristics that one might identify with ‘radical Islam’. In essence, he
thought it was ridiculous that he faced Islamophobia even though Islam had
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 165
had varying degrees of importance throughout his life. When I asked whether
he practised Islam, he stated with a bit of reluctance, ‘I can be flaky at times.’
Azmat was a reminder that regardless of their commitment to Islamic practice or
expression of Muslim identity, Muslim Americans are likely to face some form
of discrimination, which challenges the ideals of the civic nation to the core.
One of the things that struck me about Azmat was his commitment to and
pride in ‘being American’. In the face of Islamophobia, he maintained that
‘everybody has a chance to participate [in American society], and that’s
something unique to the US that makes it truly special’. Many Muslim
Americans like him see themselves primarily as part of an American collec-
tive rather than an ethnic or Muslim collective. The importance of these kinds
of citizens is more than symbolic. I titled this section ‘guarding the American
civic nation’ because, more than any other interviewee in Boston, Azmat
defended American nationalism as a collective enterprise based on common
values, institutions, and patterns of social interaction (Christie, 1998, p. 36).
In thinking back on the time I spent with Azmat, I wondered whether my
own trajectory would have been different if I had known him in 2001. When
9/11 happened, I was a junior at Needham High School in Massachusetts,
in a town overwhelmingly populated by Christians and Jews. I remember
when Mr Walker, who taught in the classroom next to us, came bursting into
our ‘American legal system’ class. In a state of panic, he told us that a second
plane had hit the World Trade Center towers and that America was under
attack by ‘terrorists’. Our class went over to Mr. Walker’s room, and we all
watched as the towers came tumbling down. School was cancelled for the day.
What sticks out most in my memory from 9/11 is students chanting ‘USA,
USA!’ and saying things like ‘fuck Islam’. I was only fifteen at the time; I was
an impressionable teenager and, unfortunately, I bought the story that ‘Islam
attacked us’. It took me a few years to disassemble the idea that Muslims
were a threat to American society, but I am glad that I finally saw the light. If
I had known Azmat back in 2001, I would have certainly thought differently
about my fellow American citizens who happen to be Muslim.

Azmi: being the ‘new Irish’

Almost all nations and people have their own language. The French speak
French, Turks speak Turkish, and Malays speak Malaysian. Yet the Irish are
one of the few nations whose language very few of its people can speak
fluently.
In recent years, the Irish have scrambled to save arguably the most prized
part of their culture. Considered ‘definitely endangered’ by the Atlas of the
World’s Languages in Danger, the Irish language is in a dire state (UNESCO,
n.d.). Even though learning Irish is required in all schools across the nation,
only 1.8 per cent of the population speak Irish daily (Central Statistics Office,
2011, p. 27), although 40.6 per cent say they can speak the language (ibid.).
Irish is accorded the status of the first and official language by the Irish
166 Why civic values and pluralism matter
Constitution, yet nearly a century after the signing of this document, English
is clearly still the country’s dominant language (Hoffman, 2015).
My own experience of moving to Ireland in 2010 attests to this situation. I
soon realised that English was the primary language of everyday social
interaction. A neighbour told me that he had often been criticised for studying
a ‘dead language’, but he added that the language was alive in the Gaeltacht,
i.e. the Irish-speaking areas, mainly in the far west of the country. To save
Irish is no simple task, and it will require the efforts of all Irish citizens,
Pakistanis and Muslims included.
Imam Muhammad Al-Hussaini stood in a white-painted room in the
London Irish Centre singing the slow sean nós air, Caoineadh na dTrí Muire,
the keening of the three Marys at the foot of the cross (Hennessy, 2015).
Sean-nós singing is a highly ornamented style of solo, unaccompanied singing
defined by Ó‘Canainn (1978, p. 49) as ‘a rather complex way of singing in
Gaelic’, confined mainly to some areas in the west and south of Ireland.
Al-Hussaini is a second-generation British Muslim who grew up in London
during the 1970s (Hennessy, 2015). By day, he served as a fellow in Islamic
studies at the Westminster Institute; by night, he sang songs like Boys of Barr
Na Sráide. His voice has been described as ‘beautiful’ within Irish social
circles. Al-Hussaini said that singing sean nós made him feel as if he was
reciting ‘sacred verses’ in Irish. He added, ‘It really feels like that. In our
hearts, we are all Irish’ (ibid.).
I first read about Al-Hussaini after meeting Azmi, a thirty-five-year-old
Pakistani Sunni Muslim. Azmi’s own proficiency in Irish made me wonder
whether other Muslims or Pakistanis could speak the language. While he was
unable to sing sean nós, Azmi had been the first member of his family to earn
a leaving certificate in the Irish language. This was no small feat, since his first
language was Urdu, which he had learned from his parents, who had migrated
from a rural village in East Punjab in the 1970s.
Born and bred in a small town on the outskirts of Dublin, Azmi was the
youngest of five children. His parents had operated several small businesses,
which he described as having been able to ‘keep the family afloat’. The family
lived on a housing estate and had been the only non-white, non-Catholic
family in their area. Azmi said that despite their minority status his family
had not faced any discrimination from locals. Once his parents had saved
enough money to purchase more land, they moved to a big house closer to
Dublin, where Azmi eventually enrolled in a Catholic primary school. It was
there that he had started to learn both English and Irish.
After spending years as an astute student, Azmi became a fluent speaker of
Irish and the only person in his family to complete honours Irish on the leaving
certificate, which is the final examination in the country’s secondary school
system. As a university student in Dublin, he continued his Irish language stu-
dies by taking two courses on the subject, but since graduating he had rarely had
the opportunity to use Irish in everyday social interactions. He did, however,
relate the following exchange he had recently had with an Irish woman:
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 167
This morning I went to the post office, and I was just posting a box of
chocolates … When I was there, I said to a lady, ‘Thank you very much’
in Irish, and she said, ‘Oh, very good!’ She was surprised because she saw
an Asian person speaking Irish, and then I started saying a few more
words to her and she was like … ‘Oh my God, you know so much more
Irish than I do!’ I said back, ‘That’s okay’. When I was leaving, I said,
‘Goodbye’ and she said back in Irish, ‘Come back again!’

Impressed by this story, I asked Azmi if he would teach me a few words or

sentences of Irish. Both of us laughed at my inability to grasp even the simplest
terms. But people at nearby tables stared at us, clearly intrigued and awe-
struck by Azmi’s proficiency in Irish. I had a feeling that their surprise was
due to the colour of his skin and the Otherness that they attributed to him.
‘How could this brown man know more Irish than me?’ That is the kind of
question that popped into my head as I observed white Irish men and women
looking at Azmi with astonishment.
While Azmi spoke Irish fluently, English was the language that he and his
wife used with their children. Azmi and his wife, who had been born in Punjab,
had an arranged marriage, ordered by family tradition. When I met her she
was wearing a hijab, but also blue jeans and sneakers, a sign to me that she
might prefer Western attire to traditional South Asian garments. Reading my
thoughts, Azmi remarked ‘From one generation to the next, it’s getting more
away from the roots, more and more away from the Pakistani culture.’
Azmi had no interest in taking his children to Pakistan: ‘I can’t for the life
of me think about why they’d want to go there for anything!’ he said. He
viewed the ‘homeland’ as offering little to nothing of value to his children’s
development, whom he described as ‘fully Irish’ because they spoke English
and Irish, because they played Gaelic sports, and because their hobbies
included Irish dancing as well as Celtic arts and crafts. Reflecting on his parents’
lifestyle and his own family’s trajectory in relation to culture and identity,
Azmi commented, ‘We’ve become sort of more Western because we’re here …
It’s just all about Ireland … it’s about social media, Facebook, Twitter. It’s
just sort of like taken over.’ After our interview, I wrote down on my notepad,
‘There is little doubt in my mind that Azmi sees himself as fully integrated
into Irish society.’
Considering how strongly Azmi identified himself with traditional Irish
culture and ‘Irishness’, it is clear why ‘What does it mean to be Irish?’ is such
a contentious question in modern Ireland. Although he defined himself as
Irish, Azmi still had the cultural skills to navigate his way in and out of
Pakistani communities. Half his friends were ‘Irish’ (meaning native white
Catholics), while the other half were Pakistanis, most of whom were first-
generation migrants. He was used to interacting with these two sets of friends
on different levels. With his Irish friends he typically visited pubs to watch
English Premier League soccer matches. He said that he did not drink alcohol
on these occasions due to his Islamic obligations but added that he had no
168 Why civic values and pluralism matter
problem being around ‘booze’ in social settings. ‘There are just some things
that you can’t avoid if you want to integrate’, he said. He typically met his
Pakistani friends at halal restaurants. Islam is perhaps the primary bond
among this circle of friends. Meeting with Azmi on several occasions showed
me that being Muslim was undoubtedly important to his sense of self. Islam
provided him with a moral framework, and he also taught his children ‘Islamic
values’ to train them to be ‘good Muslims’. None of the Islamic values that he
spoke of contradicted Irish identity. In essence, he saw these two concepts –
Islam and Irishness – as totally harmonious.
Unlike some first-generation participants who sought a return to the
‘homeland’, Azmi had no desire to return: ‘We’re here to stay!’ he said
emphatically. He pointed to the Irish passport as an asset and symbol of the
‘new Irish’. He said he had never questioned about whether or not he was
‘truly Irish’. ‘Ireland is my home … My parents were born in Pakistan … but
this is my home, and I count this as my home … I don’t know anything else’.
This powerful comment reminded me of a set of stories I had read about
young Muslims living in ‘Western countries’; these young Muslims were
sometimes told to ‘pack your bags and go home’ (Staufenberg, 2016). Second-
generation Muslims in the United States and Ireland perceive such comments
as ridiculous because the United States or Ireland has always been ‘home’.

Promoting inclusive nations

The views expressed by the young men in this chapter show that nations are
complex entities in which group membership is continually contested by indivi-
duals and groups within the population (Vadher and Barrett, 2009, p. 443). The
American and Irish nations have many, often contradictory components,
including shared histories, myths of common ancestry, mass public cultures,
and cultural traditions and practices (Smith, 1991; 1998; 2001). Evident in the
interviews was the civic versus ethnic nation dichotomy, in which social inclusion
and social exclusion ensure equal and unequal conditions of belonging in the
lives of young Pakistani men. Civic interpretations of American identity
ensured that participants believed in the idea of equal opportunities for all
citizens, regardless of background. This understanding enabled them to fully
and actively participate in American life. In the Irish context, participants
noted Ireland’s transition from a monocultural to intercultural society, but
they also noted that young Pakistani men in Dublin might still, due to social
identities such as race, ethnicity, culture, or language, lack a voice and the
recognition required to actively participate in civil society.
The United States and Ireland have made strides in developing and imple-
menting inclusivity, but more can be done to foster religious pluralism and
interculturalism as means of countering religion-based discrimination and
ethnocentrism. Religious pluralism and interculturalism can help address the
needs of all citizens, especially those who are vulnerable to social exclusion.
Even as the United States and Ireland appear to be making efforts to combat
 Why civic values and pluralism matter 169
Islamophobia and other forms of racism, the lives of Pakistanis and Muslims
generally tell a different story. Hate crimes, discrimination, racial profiling,
mosque surveillance, and vandalism have all been documented in both Boston
and Dublin in recent years. American and Irish citizens must earnestly uphold
their core egalitarian principles, including freedom of religion, freedom of
assembly, and freedom of conscience. When the rights of Pakistanis are violated,
all citizens’ liberties are at stake.

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8 Dousing Pakphobia

The Pakistanis I met during my fieldwork in Boston and Dublin reveal a ple-
thora of experiences, both resistant and harmonised. As the stories in this book
highlight, the differences amongst Pakistanis in diaspora occur between and
within hegemonic identity constructs which at times puts pressure on the lives of
these young men. Of interest today are the ‘threats’ that have arisen in the United
States and Ireland and these countries’ negative relationships with Pakistan and
Islam. Recognising the heterogeneity of Pakistanis in both countries seems the
ideal route to understanding their predicaments and offering solutions to what I
have called Pakphobia: the fear of or aversion to Pakistanis or Pakistan. Reli-
gious pluralism and interculturalism are political tools to strengthen the civil
societies of the United States, Ireland, and Pakistan. While they would certainly
not solve all of these countries’ troubles, they can nevertheless yield superior
results compared with ethnocentrism and religious discrimination.
Identity is a fundamental issue in the lives of first- and second-generation
Pakistanis in Boston and Dublin. Each one of them is a complex collection of
loyalties, relationships, values, and personal perspectives. For many of them,
questions of identity can cause personal conflict or anxiety; for some, these
questions will follow them all their lives. Being Pakistani in diaspora presents
challenges which unavoidably reflect particular choices about what it means to
be Pakistani and what is significant or unworthy about this identity. Without a
doubt, the identities and value systems of Pakistanis living in the United States
and Ireland continue to be ruptured and hybridised by processes of ‘Wester-
nisation’ and ‘Islamification’. To thrive in these countries, Pakistanis have to
continue modifying their systems of meaning in accordance with various power
relations in American and Irish communities. The lives of young Pakistani
men in Boston and Dublin are also dynamic and always transforming in
response to changing social, cultural, religious, and political realities. Identity
construction, systems of meaning, memories of past experiences, and power
relations intersect in complex ways and produce particular lifestyles and
world views, as the preceding chapters have demonstrated.
The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis documented in this book dis-
tanced themselves from interpretations of ‘Pakistani’, however varied. Their
conceptions of what this identity symbolised were contingent upon their
 Dousing Pakphobia 173
experiences and encounters in their host countries. Social interactions in diaspora
made possible different kinds of identification and distancing processes. Their
identities depended on social and cultural contexts, as well as power relations
in the hostland. Their resistance to hegemonic narratives of ethnicity, religion,
and nationality was sometimes a reaction to perceived threats to identities or
values. When these men felt, for instance, that Pakistani Muslims, either
individually or as a group, were being attacked, they engaged in behaviours
which they said were true to their faith and heritage. At other times, their
resistance was a strategy to satisfy personal needs or desires arising from their
hybrid realities in the face of power structures that were attempting to suppress
these needs and desires. Resistance took on a variety of forms. For example, the
men carried out behaviours in certain contexts where they appeared anomalous
as a challenge to Islamophobia or the notion of an ethnic nation. They drew
these behaviours from their ability to navigate different social and cultural
circumstances. Moreover, the need and demand for cross-cultural navigators
has implications for diversely populated communities and cities such as
Boston and Dublin and for diverse countries such as the United States and
Ireland. With the assistance of these navigators, more Pakistanis can learn to
effectively manoeuvre through the various social worlds that they experience
in diaspora.

Instigators of Pakphobia
It was very important to the young Pakistani men to be recognised as American
or Irish. Some of them asserted their ‘Americanness’ or Irishness in contexts
where it was overlooked and stressed their Muslim and Pakistani origins
when these identities were negated. In spite of the notion of citizenship, it
appears that some American and Irish citizens are not inspired by the idea
that any person can be part of the nation. Their preference is to exclude the
Other, and that has caused distraction and unrest in Pakistani, American, and
Irish communities.
One such individual was Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential
campaign. I was personally struck by his anti-immigrant rhetoric, which often
targeted Muslims and other minority communities such as Mexicans, blacks,
and women. Trump’s policy positions baffled me. His tone confirmed what I
feared – that some Americans want to exclude ‘them’ on the grounds that
‘they’ are potentially dangerous ‘newcomers’. Here was a presidential candi-
date calling for the closing of mosques, extreme vetting of Muslim migrants,
and a special database to monitor Muslim citizens. The debate about Islam
has gone on since 9/11, yet Trump’s rise – eventually to the presidency itself –
proved that Americans were nowhere close to welcoming or understanding
Pakistanis or Muslims.
Consider two other groups, Identity Ireland and PEGIDA. Identity Ireland,
an anti-immigration party, was launched on 22 July 2013, the anniversary of
the murders of seventy-seven people by the far-right Norwegian terrorist
174 Dousing Pakphobia
Anders Behring Breivik. In 2011, Breivik set off a car bomb outside govern-
ment buildings in Oslo, killing eight people. He then travelled – disguised as a
policeman – to Utoya Island, where he shot dead sixty-nine young people
(O’Keeffe, 2015). Breivik’s manifesto, a massive 1,516-page document titled
‘2083: A European Declaration of Independence’, is ‘something of a template
for right-wing terrorism, a rambling manifesto that at times rails at “cultural
Marxists” and “multiculturalism” and blames them for the destruction of
Western culture’ (Boston, 2011). At the launch of their movement, Identity
Ireland’s leader claimed that it is possible to tell ‘in some cases’ if a person is
Irish merely by looking at them (O’Keeffe, 2015). The recurring theme at the
launch was the evil of ‘mass immigration’ and the importance of ‘putting the
Irish citizen first’. Identity Ireland’s mission to save the ‘purity’ of the ‘Irish
race’ suggested that people of non-white ancestry or mixed-race background
cannot be Irish. In the eyes of these white Irish citizens, Pakistanis are not –
and can never be – Irish.
Building on Identity Ireland, PEGIDA Ireland, a nationalist, anti-Islam,
far right political movement founded in Dresden, Germany in October 2014,
officially emerged on Irish soil on 6 February 2016. At the launch of PEGIDA
in Dublin, Tommy Robinson, founder of the former English Defence League,
warned a crowd about the dangers of ‘radical Islam’ and added that Ireland
should look to Britain to see the ‘mistakes’ that result from allowing in large
numbers of Muslims, whom he accused of failing to integrate (Roche, 2016a).
Anti-racism campaigners and immigrant support groups held a rally to pro-
test the establishment of PEGIDA (Roche, 2016b). These campaigners viewed
PEGIDA as not only anti-Islamic, but also anti-immigrant. The organisa-
tion’s rise led to concerns that newcomers and ‘foreigners’ would be targeted
by ‘native’ Irish.
Ethnic and religious minorities are also living under constant threat in
Pakistan, a country that is increasingly becoming synonymous with human
rights abuses. Religious minorities in Pakistan face multiple types of dis-
crimination at all levels: social, religious, institutional, and legal (Swarajya,
2014). Mullahs, political leaders and media outlets regularly denounce and
persecute minority communities such as Ahmadis, Shias, Christians, Hindus,
and LGBT people. The notorious Sunni mullah Israr Ahmad, for example,
has publicly admitted that Ahmadiyya is spreading far and wide despite all
measures the Pakistani mullahs haven taken against them. He further stated that
the only way to control the spread of Ahmadiyya Islam is to kill the Ahmadis
(Chaudhry, 2015). Pakistan is too diverse a society with far too many different
ethnic and religious communities to afford such blatant persecution.
Pakistan also cannot afford to have a theocracy as currently constructed
(Hamdani, 2016). I stand with critics who argue that the separation of religion
from government is a matter of life and death for Pakistan as a society,
nation, and state. Several first-generation men in Boston and Dublin agreed
that Pakistan is an intolerant country that stifles freedom of religion and
freedom of speech. The exodus of young Pakistani men and other highly
 Dousing Pakphobia 175
skilled people is robbing that country of a brighter future; it is why critics
have used the term ‘brain drain’ to refer to the mass migration from the
country. Young men are going abroad for education and business opportu-
nities and are choosing to live an expatriate life for the foreseeable future.
Some of these men have been said to disappear into the diaspora with no
intention of ever returning to the ‘homeland’.

Religious pluralism, interculturalism, and civic nations

These developments confront the United States, Ireland, and Pakistan with
the reality of their deepest fear: how to embrace the Other, the individuals or
groups that do not fit easily into hegemonic identity narratives or who ruffle
power structures. These three countries are becoming uneasily aware that fear
and intolerance is creating social problems at home and abroad, yet leaders
remain in a state of denial about the severity of the issues faced by Pakistanis
and other minority communities. Nevertheless I am aware how challenging it
is for citizens to discern what is happening in their minority communities.
While stories linking Pakistanis to ‘terrorism’ or ‘corruption’ frequently
appear in the media, there have been few acceptable answers to questions
about what these stories meant.
Why have some citizens of the United States, Ireland, and Pakistan opted
to exclude Others from national group inclusion? There are plenty of reasons,
the combined effect of which drives young Pakistanis into the ambiguous
cultural borderlands, or no-man’s land. The Pakistani diaspora, while cate-
gorically a heterogeneous entity, has often been depicted as a static and
unchanging body, one that is fundamentally opposed to ‘Western’ or liberal
values. This is one of the many reasons why young Pakistani men actively
work to redefine their own sense of self, outside of narrow categorisations of
who they are and what they believe in. Young Pakistani Muslims and non-
Muslims in Boston and Dublin uniformly position themselves next to power
structures in the United States and Ireland as well as in Pakistani diasporic
communities. This has reinforced the sense of being Othered on several fronts.
Politicians, religious figures, and media outlets have typically fed into the
stereotypical depiction of Pakistanis as illiberal, backward, violent Muslims
and potential ‘terrorists’.
What can bind diverse groups to national identity so that minorities can
engage in civil society? Recent commentary by academics and intellectuals has
encouraged an active engagement with diversity, and not simply tolerance of
Others. Accepting the reality of religious diversity in society ‘is merely the
acknowledgement that a multitude of choices exist’ (Crawford, n.d.). The Har-
vard University Pluralism Project points out that pluralism – the engagement
with diversity that can weave together a coherent society in the presence of dif-
ferences – goes beyond mere acknowledgement of various points of view and
spiritual beliefs (Eck, 2006). Religious pluralism entails learning about other
religious traditions, actively reaching out to form bonds with religious
176 Dousing Pakphobia
communities, accepting that differences between religious groups exist, and the
believing that mutual respect and ongoing dialogue can produce a more harmo-
nious society (ibid.). Lasting, structural change in the United States, Ireland, and
Pakistan requires reframing ‘religious pluralism’ to affirm both the honour of
diverse commitments and society’s interest in the development of the next gen-
eration. While religious pluralism might not solve all of these countries’ pro-
blems, it nevertheless offers an honest acknowledgement of the myriad value
judgments inherent in any religious tradition (Berner, 2012). People might fear
religious pluralism on the assumption that it could produce division and more
harm, but evidence suggests, in fact, that religious pluralism often yields superior
civic results (ibid.). It can open the door to solidarity and eliminate the negative
consequences of fear and discrimination.
The United States – and Bostonians in particular – has not always pro-
moted religious pluralism as an ideal. The Puritans long controlled the social
and political life of Massachusetts, and other religious practices were not
tolerated (The Boisi Center, n.d.). The island of Ireland, historically a place of
religious persecution, particularly against Catholics, is still struggling to
deepen understanding between members of religious traditions (McGarry,
2015). And Pakistan, a country that officially proclaims itself an ‘Islamic
nation’, is failing to uphold religious freedom as a human right. All three
countries need to focus on creating a unity of purpose in the minds of their
people. This means that room needs to be made by people and not just for
people. There is a desperate need to promote and advance an environment of
coexistence and harmony.
Creating intercultural communities is a step in the right direction for the
Irish. The whole question of interculturalism has become a question of native
Irish versus guests, integration versus segregation, West versus Islam, and
democracy versus extremism (Quraishy, 2008, p. 15). In increasingly diverse
countries such as Ireland, it is not feasible to strive for cultural absolutism
and parallel societies. In light of Ireland’s demographic shift from a relatively
homogeneous to a heterogeneous population, it no longer makes sense for
majority groups to define the discourse and dictate the terms of Irish identity.
Pakistanis and members of other minority communities must have more
power to protest these practices and mindsets. If interculturalism is to succeed
in today’s Ireland, local and national governments should do more to encourage
a common vision, a sense of belonging and collective ownership, a level
playing field, and an equal position at the same table (Quraishy, 2008, p. 17).
With open minds and cross-cultural interactions, Ireland can move forward in
a manner that builds bridges over troubled waters.
Nations can also engage with religious and cultural diversity on cultural
and political levels. The American, Irish, and Pakistani governments can do
more to ensure that every human being receives equal treatment under the
constitutional principle of legally protected rights. Promoting civic national
principles such as citizenship is a fertile, responsible, and caring way of
building bridges between ethnic and religious groups. Composed of actions
 Dousing Pakphobia 177
and attitudes associated with democracy, civic national identities encourage
minority participation in politics and voluntary associations that contribute to
the greater good of the nation. By focusing on citizenship rights, regardless of
citizens’ ethnic or religious affiliations, the United States, Ireland, and Pakistan
can ensure that they uphold the democratic heritage given to them by
Washington, Collins, and Jinnah.
Effective civic nations cultivate the knowledge, ability, and character that
citizens need to engage peacefully and constructively across cultural differences
and achieve sustainable human interactions (Usman, 2015). Effective American,
Irish, and Pakistani citizenship can integrate identities in mutually reinforcing
ways without dismissing the unique actions, attitudes, and decision-making
processes of ethnic and religious minorities. Leaders in these three countries
can strengthen civic national principles by developing intellectual and social
skills that enable diverse groups of people to meet on common ground. To
begin this process of civic engagement, Americans, Irish, and Pakistanis should
be aware of their neighbours’ pain and agony. This awareness will provide
individuals and groups with the drive, firmness, and foundation they need to
complete the epic of construction and development initiated by previous
generations (bin Zayed, 2015). In conjunction with religious pluralism, civic
nation building can positively enhance and develop democratic attitudes. This
is imperative as we all look to the future and set sail on a journey of social
justice at all levels of society.
This discussion raises a question about not only minorities, but also ‘new
Bostonians’ and ‘new Dubliners’: How can Pakistanis happily integrate in
these cities in such a way that they become not only participants in civic life,
but also feel themselves to be a part of these cities? Measures must be adopted
to make integration of minorities in Boston and Dublin a two-way street. The
best approach is not ‘Welcome to Boston/Dublin: Now become a Bostonian/
Dubliner!’ but rather ‘Welcome to Boston/Dublin. How can you participate in
this city’s life?’

‘Deuce’
I believe one answer lies in the idea and practice of what I am calling ‘deuce’,
which stands for dialogue, education, understanding, commitment, and
engagement. ‘Deuce’ can be the first step towards fostering religious pluralism
and interculturalism in the United States, Ireland, and Pakistan. It can serve
as a check to ethnic or religious nations which measure belonging by heredi-
tary and religious beliefs. These three nations need to build dialogue between
and within social groups. This dialogue requires inter- and intra-faith mea-
sures to build bridges and not bombs and to hold constructive dialogues and
not hateful denunciations. Surely this is not an impractical undertaking; after all,
inter- and intra-faith dialogue are preferred paths for the overwhelming
majority of the young Pakistani men who have shared their views in the pre-
vious chapters.
178 Dousing Pakphobia
The phrase ‘dialogue of civilisations’ is pertinent to this analysis. Many
academics and politicians worldwide have considered this phrase, developed
by a former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Khatami
(2000), to be a powerful rhetorical tool and the antithesis of the so-called
‘clash of civilisations’ theory. Khatami noted:

In order to provide a natural unity and harmony in form and content for
global culture and to prevent anarchy and chaos, all concerned parties
should engage in a dialogue in which they can exchange knowledge,
experience and understanding in diverse areas of culture and civilisation.
Today it is impossible to bar ideas from freely travelling between cultures
and civilisations in disparate parts of the world. However, in the absence
of dialogue amongst thinkers, scholars, intellectuals and artists from
various culture and civilisations, the danger of cultural homelessness
seems imminent. Such a state of cultural homelessness would deprive
people of solace both in their own culture and in the vast open horizon of
global culture.

Khatami continued by stating that the paradigm of dialogue requires dominant

groups to give up the will to power and instead appeal to the will for empathy
and compassion. He added, ‘Without the will for empathy, compassion and
understanding, there would be no hope for the prevalence of order in our
world.’ This kind of dialogue requires a deliberate act by Americans, Irish,
and Pakistanis to openly and honestly discuss what is truly fundamental to
the well-being of their societies. Embarking on a ‘dialogue of civilisations’,
underpinned by intercultural, inter- and intra-faith frameworks, will enable us
to rediscover educational tools that can help us better understand the ‘Other’.
Citizens of the United States, Ireland, and Pakistan also need to understand
one another outside of media narratives. These citizens need to understand
one another on the higher level of spirituality, which joins all groups of
people, particularly minority groups.
We also need to commit ourselves to rediscovering the pluralistic roots of
the three countries considered in this study, through a unity in faith that
transcends ideas of rigid group boundaries and identity constructs. Through this
endeavour, we can then engage each other on a public level for the betterment
of our communities and nations. ‘Deuce’ is possible. Let me cite a few examples.
I saw the components of ‘deuce’ during a visit to Al-Mustafa Islamic Centre
Ireland, a mosque in the Dublin suburb of Blanchardstown. My visit occurred
during the fourth annual Peace Walk and Peace Conference to celebrate
mawlid, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. This event brought together
people from all walks of life, including a diverse set of Muslim men and
women, youth and adults, Catholic leaders, Gardai, and other non-Muslims.
To me the sight of such a heterogeneous group coming together in the spirit
of peace summed up my hope – and the possibility – for religious cultural
harmony in Ireland and beyond. My attendance at the Ahmadiyya Muslim
 Dousing Pakphobia 179
Community’s annual gathering is another example of the possibility of
‘deuce’. I was invited to speak about the legacy of Prophet Muhammad and
his vision of religious pluralism in Islam. I used the example of Muhammad
allowing the Christian Najrans, of modern day Yemen, to use his mosque in
order to pray. This was an act of religious pluralism, and the Ahmadi community
was offering a similar token of gratitude by making me one of their speakers
and honoured guests. Qasim Rashid, the national spokesperson for Ahmadiyya
USA, and several of his friends welcomed me with open arms. For several
days, I learned about their ‘True Islam’ campaign to defeat religious extremism.
This inclusivist approach of inviting a Catholic like me created a closeness
that is both heartening and encouraging.
I have pointed out two personal experiences of religious pluralism and
interculturalism that can serve as a kind of formula for the twenty-first cen-
tury. If integration and tolerance of minority communities is to flourish in the
United States, Ireland, and Pakistan, political leaders must resist attempts to
squash the identities and honour of minorities.

Suggestions for the future

The data from my study present both an unpleasant story and a promising
story. The unpleasant story is that members of almost all the major
identity groups – Muslim, non-Muslim, first-generation, second-generation,
brown, white, gay, and straight – have experienced some kind of dis-
crimination and racism in their host countries. In light of the continued
‘War on Terror’ and the ongoing recovery from the collapse of the Celtic
Tiger, it is not difficult to imagine that discrimination and racism against
Pakistanis will increase in the coming years. The promising story is that
young Pakistani Muslim and non-Muslim men in Boston and Dublin are
confronting their oppressed positions at the local, national, and interna-
tional levels.
The Pakistanis I interviewed in Boston want to be Americans. Their
understanding of American national identity is based on civic nationalism.
These young men identify themselves as members of a community of
citizens – unified by a set of democratic ideals – who share citizenship rights
and values driven by a liberal political system. Representatives of American
power structures – politicians, religious leaders, media outlets, and promi-
nent organisations – must be careful in how they use terms like ‘us’ and
‘them’. They are the two most important of all political words. As Reich
noted:

They demarcate who’s within the sphere of mutual responsibility and

who’s not. Someone within that sphere who’s needy is one of ‘us’ – an
extension of our family, friends, community, tribe – and deserving of help.
But needy people outside that sphere are ‘them’, presumed underserving
unless provided otherwise.
180 Dousing Pakphobia
The central question facing America is where the borders of this sphere of
mutual responsibility are drawn. Are Pakistanis included in ‘us’? What
about Muslims? To widen the sphere of national belonging, Americans can
focus on civic nationalism as a form of social cohesion that encourages
inclusivity instead of insisting on certain racial or religious requisites. A
pluralist America – one that is diverse yet still unified around egalitarian
ideals – could well serve as a model for future generations of Americans
(Reifowitz, 2014).
Minority integration also should be a pressing policy concern for the Irish
government. The perception that newcomers are not integrating with Irish
society has led to a backlash against Pakistanis and other immigrant and
minority groups. To remedy this problem, the Irish government and public
bodies should push harder for civic integration, a kind of integration that
emphasises respect for the principles of liberty, democracy, human rights, and
the rule of law (Larin, 2015). Addressing Ireland’s social inequalities is
essential to ensuring the security of the country’s minority communities.
Furthermore, the Irish government has a particular obligation to prepare the
country for the increasing multicultural nature of Irish society. Intercultural
studies and research should be prioritised, while care needs to be taken to
ensure that the ‘new Irish’ gain access to higher education (Downes, 2005).
The Irish government needs to do more to promote integration to ensure that
Pakistanis and members of other minority groups are not kept out of discussions
and dialogues in the public sphere.
In Pakistan, ethnic and religious minority communities must be granted
full citizenship rights and included in policy-making circles. The Constitution
of Pakistan (The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 2012)
grants fundamental rights to protect all citizens from abuses of power and
unfair damages. But since Zia’s 1973 Constitutional Amendment, non-Sunni
Muslims and other minorities have been restricted from openly practising
their religion and identifying themselves according to their own will. Corruption
in Pakistan, ranked as one of the worst countries by Transparency Interna-
tional in its annual survey of corruption across the world (Mashru, 2014), has
also created distrust between the public and political elites. To uphold the rule
of law and create a better living environment for all citizens, the Pakistani
government must protect the rights of all Pakistanis and eliminate any
wrongdoing at the government level. After all, Chapter 1 of the Pakistani
Constitution grants all Pakistani citizens fundamental rights, including pro-
tection against self-incrimination, freedom of movement, freedom of assem-
bly, freedom of association, freedom of speech, protection of property rights,
and equality of citizens (The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Paki-
stan, 2012). The conditions prevailing today in Pakistan affect every individual
life but particularly members of ethnic and religious minorities. If the country
is to improve the conditions of its citizens, it must uphold the law and bring
peace and security (International Human Rights Observer, n.d.) so all Pakis-
tanis can build lives of dignity and respect.
 Dousing Pakphobia 181
The turning point
The United States, Ireland, and Pakistan are all at a turning point. One road
can lead them down the path to incorporation and involvement of minorities;
the other road leads to exclusion and separation of minorities. Will these
countries continue on the road they have taken in light of international crises,
or will they alter course and seek brighter pastures? Will they be able to resolve
their internal headaches without ostracising diasporic Pakistanis and other
minority communities? Ultimately, these three countries need to look to the
ideal of the civic nation for guidance and leadership. That vision is universal
in character and therefore accommodates all people, regardless of ethnic,
cultural, or religious backgrounds. Recall George Washington, a founding
father of the United States, who welcomed all Muslims and all oppressed
people into the ‘bosom’ of America (Considine, 2013). Consider Irish repub-
lican hero Michael Collins, who, along with his fellow Free-Staters, represented
a political subculture that assured Protestants, the longstanding enemies of
Ireland’s Catholics, full citizenship rights in the Republic of Ireland (Hono-
han, 2001). Notice, too, the views of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Qaid-e-
Azam or ‘great leader’ of Pakistan, who, in accordance with the Constitution
of Pakistan, guaranteed religious minorities the freedom to practise their reli-
gion according to their own will (Mahmood, 2002). Unlike Trump, PEGIDA,
or radical mullahs, these figures evoke more comprehensive and reasonable
versions of their respective countries.
The only way to resolve Otherness is to forge new national identities from
the old (Ahmed, 2010). All three countries need to work on re-imagining
themselves by rekindling the project of civic nationalism. Without that effort,
minority groups will continue to live in a state of hardship and anxiety,
floundering towards seclusion and animosity towards the majority popula-
tion, which has taken foothold in the power structures of the United States,
Ireland, and Pakistan.
Americans need to make a decision. It must support either the pluralist
vision of the founding fathers or Donald Trump, who has encouraged
hatred, violence, and hostility towards Muslim Americans (Abdelkader,
2016). The Irish need to make a decision. The choice is either the reli-
giously tolerant vision of Michael Collins or the anti-Islam rhetoric of
PEGIDA and Identity Ireland. Pakistanis also need to make a decision. It
is either the democratic vision of Muhammad Ali Jinnah or the xenopho-
bia of the late General Zia ul-Haq. There is nothing dubious or equivocal
about these either/or binaries (Ahmed, 2010). It is one or the other. It
cannot be both.
Thankfully, the United States, Ireland, and Pakistan are all democracies. They
are by no means perfect democracies, but in representative democracies, every
vote has equal weight (ibid.). Americans, Irish, and Pakistanis can and should
vote for a different future. The ‘new America’, the ‘new Ireland’, and the ‘new
Pakistan’ must take a determined and bold position. They can only begin to
182 Dousing Pakphobia
do so when Americans, Irish, and Pakistanis embrace the Other and defend their
pluralist traditions, which can help end their concerning relations with vulner-
able communities.

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Glossary

al-aql an Arabic word meaning ‘intellect’; used in

Islamic philosophy to describe the rational faculty
of the soul or mind
al-din an Arabic word used to refer to Islamic creeds or
Islam as a religion
al-mal the Arabic word for ‘money’
al-nafs an Arabic word that occurs in the Quran and
means ‘self ’ or ‘soul’
Allah the Arabic word referring to the god of
Abrahamic religions
Allahu akbar an Arabic phrase meaning ‘God is greater’ or
‘God is greatest’
An Garda Síochána Irish for ‘the Guardian of the police’; the national
police force of Ireland
aqida an Arabic word meaning ‘creed’
Assalamoalikum an Arabic word and Muslim greeting that means
‘peace be upon you’; a standard salutation among
Muslims
biraderi an Urdu word meaning ‘brotherhood’; in Pakistan
and India it is used to denote a number of social
strata among Muslims
bodhrán an Irish frame drum
burqa an Arabic word referring to a long, loose article of
clothing that covers the whole body from head to
feet; worn in public by Muslim women
caliphate an Arabic word used by Sunni Muslims to refer to
the successor of Muhammad as leader of the
Islamic community
chai a Hindi word meaning ‘tea’; made especially in
South Asia by boiling tea leaves with milk, sugar,
and cardamom
Cruach Phádraig an Irish phrase meaning ‘Saint Patrick’s
Mountain’
 Glossary 185
desh pardesh an Urdu phrase that means ‘living at home
abroad’
dhikr an Arabic term meaning ‘remembrance’; the Sufi
practice of repeating or remembering God’s name
to become more conscious of God’s presence
fiqh an Arabic word meaning ‘understanding’; Islamic
jurisprudence, religious law
hadith an Arabic word that refers to a narrative report of
the Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and actions
hafiz the Arabic word for people who have memorized
the Quran
hajj an Arabic word referring to the annual pilgrimage
to Mecca required of all Muslims at least once in
their lifetime
halal an Arabic word meaning ‘permitted’, lawful
activities
haram an Arabic word meaning ‘prohibited’, unlawful
activities
hay’a an Arabic word derived from the word hayat,
which means life; it may be literally translated as
modesty, self-respect, or honour
hijab the Arabic word for the head-covering veil worn
by Muslim women in public
imam an Arabic word meaning ‘leader’, prayer leader.
Shia Muslims use this word to refer to Ali, a
descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who
governs as a divinely inspired religio-political
leader of the Islamic community
izzat an Urdu word referring to the concept of honour
prevalent in the culture of Pakistan and North
India; applies universally across religions
Jannah an Arabic word referring to the eternal resting
place for Muslims; the Islamic conception of
heaven or paradise
jihad an Arabic word that means ‘striving’, ‘effort’, or
‘struggle’ and refers specifically to the striving,
effort, or struggle involved in following Islam; can
include defense of the faith, armed struggle, or
holy war
jihad an-nafs an Arabic phrase referring to the struggle against evil
ideas, desires, lust, anger, and insatiable imagination
jihad ash-shaytan an Arabic phrase referring to the struggle against
Satan
jummah an Arabic word referring to a congregational
prayer that Muslims hold every Friday
186 Glossary
kafir an Arabic word meaning ‘unbeliever’ or infidel,
one who is ‘ungrateful’ and rejects the message of
Islam
Kharjite an Arabic word referring to a member of a group
that appeared in the first century of Islam and was
a source of insurrection against the caliphate
khutba an Arabic word meaning ‘sermon’; delivered in a
mosque during the Friday congregational prayer
kosmos the Greek word for ‘world’
madrassa an Arabic word referring to a religious college,
university, or seminary
mawlid an Arabic word referring to a Muslim holiday
celebrating the birth of Muhammad
mufti an Arabic word referring to a specialist in Islamic
law who is qualified to deliver a religious
interpretation or legal brief
mullah an Arabic word referring to a local Muslim leader
qawwali an Urdu word referring to the form of Sufi
devotional music popular in South Asia,
particularly in the Punjab and Sindh regions of
Pakistan, as well as Hyderabad and Delhi in India
Quadi-e-Azam an Urdu phrase that means ‘Great Leader’
Quran an Arabic word that refers to the holy book of Islam
rasm-e-Baloch an Urdu phrase that means ‘Baloch customs’;
includes the values of honour, individual
autonomy, hospitality, secularism and the
protection of women in the family
rehmat an Urdu word meaning ‘blessing’
salaf an Arabic word meaning ‘ancestors’, used to
describe the first generation of the Muslim
community; their beliefs and practices are
considered authoritative because of their
direct connection with Muhammad
sawm an Arabic word meaning ‘fasting’, the fourth pillar
of Islam, which requires abstention from food and
drink from dawn to sunset during the Islamic holy
month of Ramadan
sean-nós an Irish phrase meaning ‘old style’; a highly
ornamented style of unaccompanied traditional
Irish singing
shahada an Arabic word meaning ‘confession’ or
‘profession of faith’: ‘There is no god but Allah,
and Muhammad is his Prophet/Messenger.’
shalwar kameez an Urdu word referring to a traditional Indian
outfit originating in the subcontinent; a generic
 Glossary 187
term used to describe different styles of men’s and
women’s clothing
shariah the Arabic word for ‘path’; Islamic law
shirk an Arabic word meaning ‘idolatry’; polytheism or
the association of any other deity, person,
or object with God
sunnah an Arabic word referring to the normative practice
of the exemplary behaviour of Muhammad
tasawwuf an Arabic word referring to the Sufi way or ‘path’
Tehrik-e-Taliban an Urdu phrase referring to a militant group
known as the Pakistani Taliban; based in the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the
Afghan border in Pakistan
ummah an Arabic term referring to Islamic community,
refers to the worldwide Muslim community
zakat an Arabic word referring to the annual alms tax
or tithe levied on the wealthy and distributed
to the poor
Appendix 1: Interviewees

Table A1.1 Profiles of first-generation semi-structured interview participants

Pseudonym Age Job Arrival Religion Place of birth Citizenship Sub-ethnic
group
Ahmed 30 Working 2002 Atheist Lahore Pakistani Punjabi
(Dublin)
Akbar 27 Working 2011 Sunni Khyber Pakistani Pashtun
(Dublin) Muslim Pakhtunkhwa
Babar 35 Working 2011 Sufi Rawalpindi Pakistani Pashtun
(Dublin) Muslim
Nadeem 28 Working 2013 Sunni Lahore Pakistani Punjabi
(Dublin) Muslim
Sahir 35 Working 2005 Sunni Lahore Pakistani/ Punjabi
(Dublin) Muslim Irish
Sohail 30 Student 2009 Hindu Karachi Pakistani/ Sindhi
(Dublin) Irish
Wazir 26 Student 2008 Deobandi Quetta Pakistani Baloch
(Dublin) Muslim
Ali (Boston) 32 Working 2006 Sunni Peshawar Pakistani Khyber
Muslim Paktunkhwa
Fahid 32 Student 2012 Jewish Karachi Pakistani Bene Israel
(Boston)
Hasan 26 Student 2012 Sufi Islamabad Pakistani Punjabi
(Boston) Muslim
Humayun 20 Student 2012 Sunni Karachi Pakistani/ Sindhi
(Boston) Muslim US
Jabar 35 Working 2002 Sunni Islamabad Pakistani Punjabi
(Boston) Muslim
Muhammed 35 Working 1998 Shia Karachi Pakistani/ Sindhi
(Boston) Muslim US
Nabeel 26 Working 2004 Atheist Karachi Pakistani Sindhi
(Boston)
Suleman 35 Working 1998 Sunni Islamabad Pakistani/ Punjabi
(Boston) Muslim US
Yasir 34 Working 2000 Sunni Karachi Pakistani/ Sindhi
(Boston) Muslim US
Table A1.2 Profiles of second-generation semi-structured interview participants
Pseudonym Age Job Parents’ arrival Religion Place of Sub-ethnic
birth group
Ayeen 33 Working Mid-1950s/ Sufi Limerick Punjabi
(Dublin) Ireland Muslim
Azmi 35 Working Mid-1950s/ Sunni Dublin Punjabi
(Dublin) Ireland Muslim
Azum 24 Working Mid-1950s/ Sunni Dublin Punjabi
(Dublin) Ireland Muslim
Haq (Dublin) 22 Student Mid-1950s/ Deobandi Dublin Punjabi
Ireland Muslim
Maliq 35 Working Mid-1950s/ Sufi Dublin Punjabi
(Dublin) Ireland Muslim
Marooh 35 Working Mid-1950s/ Sunni Holland Sindhi
(Dublin) Holland Muslim
Anwar 30 Student Mid-1960s/USA Ahmadi Midwest Sindhi
(Boston) Muslim US
Awad 26 Working Late 1980s/USA Sunni Mid- Punjabi
(Boston) Muslim Atlantic
US
Azmat 27 Student Mid-1960s/USA Sunni Boston Punjabi
(Boston) Muslim
Baraq 26 Working Mid-1960s/USA Sunni Boston Punjabi
(Boston) Muslim
Fahid 22 Working Mid-1960s/USA Sufi Boston Sindhi
(Boston) Muslim
Hamiz 26 Working Mid-1960s/USA Sunni Mid- Punjabi
(Boston) Muslim Atlantic
US
Haneef 25 Working Late 1980s/USA Sunni Karachi Sindhi
(Boston) Muslim
Jasir (Boston) 30 Working Mid-1960s/USA Atheist Boston Sindhi
Omar 28 Student Late 1980s/USA Deobandi Boston Punjabi
(Boston) Muslim
Appendix 2: Semi-structured interview guide

Social interactions
1 What are some of the things that are important in your life?
2 What do you like to do with your free time?
3 What does your typical weekend night look like?
4 What is life like for you as a Pakistani in Dublin/Boston?
5 Can you tell me a bit about your workplace/university experience?

Familial experiences
6 Can you tell me a bit about your life at home?
7 How would you describe your relationship with your parents?
8 What role does Pakistani culture play in your life?
9 How strong are your connections to Pakistan?
10 How closely do you follow current events in Pakistan?

Religious experiences
11 How important is religion to you?
12 What role does your religion play in your life?
13 What role should religion play in Irish/American society?
14 What do you think of religious law?

Sense of belonging and identity

15 Where do you feel like you belong to?
16 What do you think it means to be Pakistani?
17 What do you think it means to be [a follower of your religion]?
18 What do you think it means to be Irish/American?
19 Have you ever experienced racism or discrimination?
20 How welcoming do you think the Irish/American government is to Pakistanis?
21 If you could change a few things about Dublin/Boston, what would they be?
22 Is there anything you would like to add to our discussion?
Appendix 3: Streams of Islam
Table A3.1 Streams of Islam
Stream Adherents Origins
Ahmadiyya Ahmadis Founded in the town of
Qadian, India, by Mirzam
Ghulam Ahmad in 1889.
Barelvism Barelvis Founded by Ahmed Raza
Khan in the north Indian
town of Bareilly around
1893.
Deobandism Deobandis Founded by a group of
conservative Islamic scholars
(ulama) in the city of
Deoband, India, around
1867; Deobandi scholars
wanted Islam to be
completely separated from
local Hindu practices and
especially British colonial
interference.
Beliefs
Subscribes to the same
beliefs as most Muslims,
including the Five Pillars of
Islam and the Six Articles
of Faith, which are based
on the Quran and hadiths.
Branch of Sunni Islam;
emphasises devotion to
Prophet Muhammad and
fuses Islamic law and
Sufism, for example in the
veneration of saints.
Branch of Sunni Islam;
strong proponents of
distinguishing between
‘sacred’ Islamic knowledge
and ‘human’ secular
knowledge; embrace taqlid
(acceptance of old
interpretations) and
reject ijtihad, or the
reinterpretation of Islamic
concepts to accommodate
changing times.
Presence Beliefs distinguishing this stream
from others
South Asian Considered by many Muslims to
subcontinent; also be ‘heretical’ because adherents
spans over 206 do not believe that Muhammad
countries with was the final prophet; they
membership believe that Mirza Ghulam
exceeding tens of Ahmad was the Promised
millions; current Messiah and Mahdi prophesied
headquarters is in by Prophet Muhammad.
the UK.
South Asian sub- Differentiates itself largely from
continent, where it Deobandism, which it sees as
has over 200 having been heavily influenced
million followers; by the Wahhabi movement in
significant Saudi Arabia.
presence in the
UK.
South Asian Generally forbids Western-style
subcontinent, education and the study of
Afghanistan, and scholarly subjects not directly
the UK. related to the Quran or hadiths;
emphasises jihad less than
Salafism and Wahhabism do.
Stream Adherents Origins
Salafism Salafis/Salafists Founded in the late
nineteenth century in Egypt;
Salafis relate to historic
scholars such as Ahmad ibn
Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyyah and
Ibn al-Qayyim as the
founders of the movement.
Shiism Shias Emerged in Najaf, Iraq,
after the death of Ali, the
Prophet Muhammad’s
son-in-law, in 661.
Sufism Sufis Claimed to have emerged in
the first centuries following
the life of Prophet Muham-
mad; some scholars claim
that Sufism developed later,
during the ‘golden age’ of
Islam, from about the ninth
and tenth centuries.
Beliefs
Branch of Sunni Islam;
derives its name from the
Arabic term salaf, or
‘predecessors’; linked to the
ways of life of the earliest
Muslim community;
described as ‘literalist’,
‘strict’, and ‘puritanical’.
Based on the Quran and
the Hadiths as taught by
Shia imams; adherents
believe that their supreme
imam (local Islamic leader)
is a spiritual guide who has
inherited some of Prophet
Muhammad’s inspiration;
imams are believed to be
inerrant interpreters of law
and tradition.
The inner, mystical
dimension of Islam;
adherents are characterised
by their asceticism and
especially their attachment
to dhikr (a form of
rhythmic devotion) and
other performances of
prayer.
Presence Beliefs distinguishing this stream
from others
Saudi Arabia, the Criticised for stifling religious
South Asian innovation (bida) and enforcing
subcontinent, Islamic law in communities;
Egypt, France, emphasises jihad.
and Germany.
Iran, Iraq, Contrasts primarily with
Bahrain, Sunnism over the succession of
Azerbaijan, and Prophet Muhammad; Shias
parts of the South believe that Ali is the rightful
Asian caliph, whereas Sunnis believe
subcontinent. that Abu Bakr is Muhammad’s
rightful successor; Shias believe
in a line of 12 imams, the last of
whom is believed to have been
banished but is anticipated to
return as the Mahdi, a spiritual
and temporal leader who will
rule before the end of the world
and restore religion and justice.
Turkey, Iran, the According to Sufism, emulation
Balkans, the USA. of Prophet Muhammad and
obedience to Islamic law do not
necessarily guarantee closeness
to God; Sufis believe that
individuals can attain closeness
to God in the physical realm by
engaging in dhikr.
Table A3.1 (continued)
Stream Adherents Origins
Sunnism Sunnis Emerged in seventh-century
Arabia and the Middle East
through the first four caliphs,
known among Sunnis as the
Rashidun or ‘Rightly-
Guided Ones’.
Wahhabism Wahhabis; often used Founded by Mohammad ibn
interchangeably with Abd-al-Wahhab in what is
Salafis now Saudi Arabia around
the end of the eighteenth
century; the foundations of
this sect are based largely on
the scholarship of a
fourteenth-century scholar
named Ibn Tamiyyah.
Beliefs
Based primarily on six
articles of faith including
the oneness of God
(tawhid); the existence of
angels, the authority of the
Torah, Gospels, and
Quran; following the
Abrahamic prophets;
preparing for the Day of
Judgment; and the
supremacy of God’s will.
Branch of Sunnism;
described as
‘ultraconservative’,
‘fundamentalist’, or
‘puritanical’; adherents
believe that the Prophet
Muhammad should be
praised as an exemplary
human being; based on the
Quran and hadiths.
Presence Beliefs distinguishing this stream
from others
The Middle East, Differs primarily with Shiism
Pakistan, Egypt, over the rightful succession of
Bangladesh, Prophet Muhammad; accuses
Indonesia, Turkey. Shiism of elevating Ali to the
level of Prophet Muhammad;
Sunnis emphasise God’s power
in the material world, sometimes
including the public and political
realm, whereas Shias value
martyrdom and sacrifice.
Saudi Arabia and Do not believe in celebrating
Qatar. events such as the birthday
(mawlid) of the Prophet
Muhammad; reject Islamic
mysticism (Sufism), intercession,
and prostration; criticise
Muslims for showing extra
special respect for Prophet
Muhammad; criticised for
inspiring the ideology of ISIS
and ignoring the spiritual side
of Islam.
Index
9/11 attacks ix, xi, xiii, 2, 4, 5, 17, 37, 57,
58, 71–2, 82–4, 106, 119–20, 125, 139,
144–5, 165, 173
Abdullah, Daayiee (imam of Light of
Reform Mosque, Washington, DC)
121; see also Light of Reform
(mosque)
Abrahamic tradition 79, 125, 184; see
also God
Adichie, Chimamanda (author of
Americanah) 137
Afghanistan 4, 14, 38, 54, 69, 141, 144;
see also Taliban
Africa 6, 12, 34, 110, 143, 150
agency (sociological concept)
26, 148
Ahmad, Israr (prominent Pakistani
theologian) 174
Ahmad, Mirza Ghulam (first leader of
the Ahmadiyya movement) 35, 62;
see also Ahmadis
Ahmad, Mirza Masroor (current leader
of the Ahmadiyya movement) 62;
see also Ahmadis
Ahmadis 35–6, 58–63, 96, 123–4, 157,
174, 179
Ahmed, Akbar (professor of Islamic
studies at American University,
Washington, DC) xiii, 54
Ahmed, Tanveer (Muslim who killed
Asad Shah, an Ahmadi living in
Glasgow) 63
airport 4, 55–6, 60, 71, 75, 120–21, 145;
see also racial profiling
Al Jazeera 121
Allahu Akbar 12, 184; see also God
Al-Mustafa Islamic Centre Ireland
(mosque in Dublin) 178–9
al-Qadri, Umar (theologian based at
Al-Mustafa Islamic Centre Ireland)
xiii, 101
al-Qaeda 39, 101, 122
al-Saleh, Ali 101 (imam based at Ahlul
Bayt Islamic Centre in Dublin)
al-Wahhabi, Muhammad bin Abd
(founder of the Wahabi movement) 38;
see also Wahhabism
alcohol 38, 78, 81, 85–6, 94, 102, 114,
130, 152, 160, 163, 167
Ali, Mir Aulad (nineteenth century
professor at Trinity College Dublin) 10
American Declaration of Independence 57
‘American Dream’ 26, 54, 56, 80, 87, 147
‘American Nightmare’ 26
American Revolution 57
American national identity 26, 179
‘Americanness’ 54, 82, 106, 173
An Garda Síochána (national police force
of Ireland) 12–3, 34, 64, 101, 153, 178
ancestry 7, 29, 41–2, 70, 72, 80, 95,
168, 174
Anglican (sect of Christianity) 11; see
also Church of England
Anglo-Saxon (ethnic group) 27, 29,
54, 163
Anjuman-e-Burhani (mosque in Boston) 11
Anjuman-e-Fazi 8 (mosque in Boston)
Anti-Defamation League (civil rights
organisation in the US) 31, 124
anti-Islam 12, 32, 57, 174, 181
anti-Muslim xii, 5, 12, 28, 32, 117, 164
anti-Pakistan 12, 70, 131
anti-Western 1, 4, 131
Anwar al-Medina (mosque in Dublin) 11
Arlington National Cemetery (US
military cemetery in Virginia) 162
apostasy 38
196 Index
Arabic language xii–iii, 10, 12, 39, 104–5,
107, 109, 115, 122, 159
Arabs 112, 124, 155–6, 163; see also
Middle East
arranged marriages 79, 81, 93, 118,
159–60, 167
Asian American Foundation (awareness
organisation in the US) 8
assimilation 7, 76
asylum 13
atheism 95, 124
atheists 27, 122
Baitun Nasir (Ahmadi mosque in
Boston) 8
Baloch (ethnic group) 29, 41–2, 69–71,
186
Barelvism (sect of Islam) 11, 35
Bauman, Zygmunt (sociologist) 26, 92,
139; see also liquidity
Bawa Muhaiyadden (Muslim community
in Boston) 8
Beacon Hill (neighbourhood of Boston)
130
beards 4, 102, 106, 113, 115, 117, 144–5
Belfast (capital of Northern Ireland) 76
belonging xii, 2, 15, 17, 25, 28–9, 31–2,
43, 45–6, 59, 61, 64, 66, 72, 79–83,
86–7, 91–2, 94–7, 106, 117–18, 120,
125, 130–33, 137, 143, 146, 148, 158,
161, 163, 168, 176–7, 180
Beni Israel (historic community of Jews
in India) 156, 124; see also Jewish
Bible (Christian holy book) 79, 111, 146;
see also Christianity
Bibi, Aisa (Pakistani Christian woman
accused of blasphemy) 61
bin Laden, Osama (former leader of
al-Qaeda) 2, 86, 106; see also al-Qaeda
binaries 11, 15, 25–6, 31, 37, 77–8, 109,
119, 123, 182
biometric technology (used by Irish
technology in immigration
screenings) 13
biraderi (Urdu term for ‘extended family
network’) 10, 65, 93
Birmingham (England) 16, 121
Blackpitts (mosque in Dublin) 11
Blanchardstown (neigbourhood of
Dublin) 11, 178
blasphemy; 36, 38, 61, 124
bodhrán (Irish musical instrument) 110
borderland (sociological concept) 44–5,
76, 145–6, 175
‘border thinking’ (sociological
concept) 45
Boston Baha’i Center 8
Boston Logan airport 5, 55–6, 120–21
Boston Marathon bombing 6, 91,
115, 140
boundaries (sociological concept) 17, 31,
81, 88, 95, 139, 145–6, 148, 153, 160,
164, 178
Boylston Street (Boston) 6, 115
Bradford (England) 16
‘brain drain’ of Pakistan 142, 175
Breivik, Anders Behring (far-right mass
murderer of Norway) 174
British 29
Brookline Village (neighbourhood of
Boston) 122
Buddhism 35, 92
Bunuel, Diego (filmmaker) 140–1
Bureau of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement 4
burqa 87, 106, 184
business 9, 10–11, 14–5, 55–6, 65, 87, 89,
93, 95, 103, 134, 136, 141, 143–4, 153,
158, 159–60, 166, 175
California 5, 32, 100
caliphate 38, 62, 101, 184
Cambridge (city bordering Boston) 7
capitalism 76, 78, 161
Catholic Church 28–30, 135
Catholicism xi, xiii, 9, 11, 16, 28–30, 54,
78–9, 94, 102, 111, 125–6, 134–5,
138–9, 143, 146, 150, 159, 166–7, 176,
178–9, 181
‘Celtic race’ 29
Celtic Tiger (period of Irish history) 9,
11, 17, 30, 33, 65–7, 72–3, 76–9,
109–11, 135, 151, 179
Center for Security Policy 150
charity 13, 161; see also zakat
Chomsky, Noam (political philosopher)
54–5
‘Christian nation’ (theory of American
identity) 27
Christianity 3, 8, 11, 27–8, 35, 54, 61,
79, 83, 95, 101, 103, 108, 110–13, 122,
139–40, 143, 146–7, 150, 157, 165,
174, 179
Church of England 29; see also Anglican
civilians 37, 107, 144
Clanbrassil Street (Dublin) 70
‘clash of civilisations’ (political science
theory) 2, 57, 143, 178

citizenship 10, 12–13, 17, 27, 30, 33–4,
57, 62, 65, 70, 79, 91, 95, 105, 118,
161, 163–4, 173, 176–7, 179–81
civic nationalism 17, 26–7, 151, 163,
179–81
civil religion 121
civil rights 56, 60, 82, 84, 106, 116, 125,
131, 145, 148, 162
Clonskeagh (area of Dublin) 11
CNN 91, 140
cohesion 78, 180
Cold War 55; see also Soviet Union
Collins, Michael (Irish revolutionary)
177, 181
colonialism 6, 29, 31, 34–5, 39, 45, 55
‘colour blindness’ 91
Congress 4, 6, 57
Considine, Craig 162
constitutions 2, 5, 7, 27, 29–30, 33–4, 36,
58, 60, 106, 113, 116, 118, 120–21,
157, 163, 166, 176, 180–81
conversion 104, 107, 110
Copley Square (area of Boston) 6
cosmopolitan 148, 151–3
Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR; civil rights organisation in
Boston) 125
County Clare (Ireland) 68
County Cork (Ireland) 75
County Kerry (Ireland) 76–7
County Mayo (Ireland) 11, 75
County Sligo (Ireland) 75
County Wexford (Ireland) 75
corruption 91, 95, 108, 111, 136, 138,
155, 175, 180
cricket 41
‘crisis racism’ 17, 33, 55, 66
cross-cultural navigators 44, 75–97
Cruz, Ted (politician in the US) 112
cultural capital (sociological concept) 174
cultural orientation (sociological
concept) (sociological concept) 15, 17,
40–4, 79, 97
‘culture talk’ (sociological concept) 17, 37
Dawoodi Bohras (sect of Shia Islam) 8,
11, 35
de-coloniality (sociological concept) 45
Dehlawi, Waliullah (scholar of Islam) 35
democracy xi, 1–2, 14, 32, 56, 78, 91–2,
131, 152, 161, 163, 176–7, 179, 180–81
Democratic National Convention 162
Deobandism (sect of Islam) 11, 35, 39,
81, 110, 112
Index 197
Department of Homeland Security 4, 120
desh pardesh (sociological concept) 43,
75–97
‘deuce’ 177–9
dhikr (Sufi practise) 109, 185
‘dialogue of civilisations’ (political
science theory) 178; see also
Huntington, Samuel
Diogenes (Greek philosopher) 152
discrimination 12, 16, 26, 31–2, 34, 36,
38, 62–3, 65–8, 71, 115–6, 119, 121,
123, 125, 144, 153, 156, 164–5, 166,
168–9, 172, 174, 176, 179
diversity ix, 3, 8, 14, 16, 30, 34, 65, 104,
118, 126, 132–4, 138, 141–2, 153, 158,
175–6
doctors xiii, xiv, 9, 10, 13, 63, 65, 79,
92, 93
doubleness (sociological concept) 43, 58, 90
Eck, Diana (scholar at Harvard
University) 7, 175; see also The
Pluralism Project
education 9, 28, 30, 34, 41, 56, 62, 80–81,
82, 86–7, 89–91, 101, 130, 133, 146,
150, 152–7, 159, 175, 177–8, 180
English Defence League (far-right group
in England) 174
English language 16, 27, 44, 66, 67, 79,
83, 90, 108–9, 116, 134, 152, 161,
166–7
English Premier League 167
Enhanced Border Security and Visa
Entry Reform Act 4
entrepreneur 10, 75, 147, 154
ethnic boundary 164 (sociological
concept)
ethnic hierarchy 42, 69 (sociological
concept)
ethnic nation (political science theory) 7,
29, 33, 67, 69, 72, 94–6, 144, 163,
168, 173
ethnicity 4, 11, 13, 17, 24–5, 29, 32, 46,
67–8, 89, 91, 96, 105, 121, 129, 147,
154–5, 160, 163–4, 168, 173
European xiii, 1–2, 4, 6, 9, 12–4, 30–31,
34, 64–5, 75, 87, 103, 110, 124, 174
European Network Against Racism
13, 64
European Parliament Working Group on
Antisemitism 4, 124
evangelical 28, 112
extremism 1, 5–6, 37, 84, 101, 121, 157,
176, 179
198 Index
Facebook 87, 147, 167 haram 69, 110, 111, 185
Family Reunification Act 6, 55–6 Harvard University x, 28, 84, 162, 175;
Farook, Rizwan (shooter in San see also The Pluralism Project
Berardino)100 hate crimes 38, 57, 125, 169
FBI 33, 38, 59–60, 82, 84, 100, 106, hegemony (sociological concept) 44–5,
115, 145 105, 138
fear ix, xi, 1, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, 24–5, hierarchy 30, 42, 69–70, 83, 93, 95, 147
28, 32, 54–7, 60–63, 66, 71–2, 81, 84, Higgins, Michael D. (current President of
103, 112, 122, 146–7, 150, 155–6, 172, Ireland) 77
174–6 hijab 77, 106, 167, 185
feminist 123 Hindus 10, 151, 157, 174
fieldwork 13–5, 26, 65, 101, 115–16, 122, hip-hop 78, 102, 147, 158
130, 135, 137, 138, 155, 172 ‘homeland’ (sociological concept) 2, 4, 6,
fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) 113, 185 11, 17, 24, 35, 38–9, 42–3, 79–82,
Five Pillars of Islam 36, 78, 81 86–8, 90–93, 95–6, 104 (sociological
‘flying while brown’ 55, 145; see also concept) 43, 136
racial profiling homosexuality 17, 37, 103, 116–25
‘flying while Muslim’ 55, 145; see also honour 17, 70, 88–9, 93, 119, 135, 140,
racial profiling 176, 179, 185, 186
foreign policy 54, 144, 155, 162 hospitality 9, 42, 70, 141, 186
Fox News 140 hostland (sociological concept) 6, 17, 38,
freedom of conscience 27, 61, 95, 43, 63, 88, 89, 91, 96–7, 105, 107–8,
113, 169 133, 173
freedom of speech 1, 106, 113, 120, Houston (Texas) xiv, 112
174, 180 human rights 2, 5, 32, 36, 60–62, 92, 157,
French Revolution 89 174, 180, and Human Rights Watch
fundamentalism 38–9, 92 60; and Human Rights Observer 180;
and Islamic Human Rights
Gaelic sports 94, 167 Commission 33
Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking areas of Huntington, Samuel (former scholar at
Ireland) 166 Harvard University) 27; see also ‘clash
Gallup Poll 95, 155 of civilisations’
Gandhi, Mahatma 151 hybridisation (sociological concept) 138
gatekeepers 14, 67 hybridity (sociological concept) 25, 44–5,
gender 25, 30, 38, 90, 109, 116, 118, 121, 78, 133, 138, 148
122, 152, 155
Germany 86–7, 94, 174 identity xi–ii, xiv, 3–4, 7, 11, 14–17,
Gingrich, Newt (politician in the US) 37 24–7, 29–30, 32, 34, 36–7, 40–5, 54–8,
Glasgow (major city in Scotland) 63 67–70, 72, 76, 78–9, 81–2, 85, 88,
globalisation 30, 40, 138 90–2, 94–7, 101, 104–6, 109–11, 113,
God 8, 12, 35, 37, 59, 69, 81, 95, 101, 115–19, 121–4, 129–33, 135–40, 142–
103, 105–6, 108–10, 111, 113, 121–2, 4, 146–8, 153, 155–6, 158, 160, 163–5,
124–5, 143, 161, 167, 184, 186, 187 167–8, 172–6, 178–9, 181
graffiti 12 Identity Ireland (political organisation in
Grafton Street (Dublin) 141 Ireland) 173–4, 181
grassroots 91, 164 idolatry 187
Greek philosophy 152 illiteracy 155
Green Card System 6 imams (Muslim community leader) 35,
38, 113, 132, 135
Hadiths 2, 36, 37, 103, 105, 185 Immigrant Council of Ireland 12
hafiz 159, 185 immigration 3–4, 6, 9–11, 13–5, 28, 30,
halal 75, 85, 86, 133, 158, 168, 185 34, 54–74, 150, 173–4
Hanafi (school of Islamic ‘illegal immigration’ 13
jurisprudence) 35 Immigration Nationality Act 6

in-between cultures 44
inclusion 14, 30, 68, 154, 158, 161,
168, 175
income 6, 8
India 5, 28, 31, 35, 41, 84, 89, 151, 156,
184, 185, 186
integration 17, 25, 46, 76, 97, 110,
142, 150, 152–4, 158, 176–7,
179, 180
interculturalism (sociological concept)
30, 151, 157–8, 162, 168, 172,
175–7, 179
interfaith ix, 11, 63, 84, 113, 122, 125–6,
154, 157
interreligious dialogue xiv, 132
intersectionality 39
intolerance ix–x, 91, 101, 157, 175
intrafaith 62, 125–6
Iran 42, 69, 178
Iraq 54, 105, 144, 162
Irish Catholics 54
Irish Declaration of Independence 29
Irish language (Gaelic) 68, 165–6
Irish identity 11, 29–30, 68, 72, 76, 94–6,
109–11, 144, 158, 160, 168, 176
Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 33
ISIS 39
Islam ix–xiii, 1–8, 11–12, 15, 17, 28,
32–39, 41, 44–5, 55, 57–8, 60–63,
65–9, 70–71, 75, 77–9, 81–6, 88, 91–2,
94, 96–7, 100–123, 125–6, 129–41,
143, 146, 156–62, 164–9, 172–4, 176,
178–81, 184–7
Islam-splaining (sociological concept) 34
Islamabad (capital of Pakistan) 65–6, 71
Islamic Foundation of Ireland (mosque
in Dublin) 11
Islamic Center of Boston (mosque in
Boston) 7
Islamic Center of New England (mosque
in the suburbs of Boston) 7
Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland
(mosque in Dublin) 11
Islamic Masumeen Center of New
England (mosque in the suburbs of
Boston) 11
Islamic Society of Boston (mosque in
Cambridge) 7
Islamic Society of Boston Cultural
Center (mosque in Boston) 7
‘Islamification’ (sociological concept)
12, 172
Islamisation (sociological concept) 2, 131
‘Islamic extremism’ 1, 5, 121
Index 199
Islamophobia ix, 6–7, 12, 15, 28, 32–4,
55, 57–8, 60–61, 82, 100, 112–13,
115–17, 125–6, 140, 164–5, 169, 173
Ismailis (sect of Islam) 35
Israel 67, 124–5, 156; see also Jewish
izzat 89, 185
Jay-Z 147; see also hip-hop
Jerusalem 156
Jesus Christ 28, 108; see also Christianity
Jewish 32, 113, 121, 123–5, 156; see also
Beni Israel; Jews; Zionism
jihad x, 1, 17, 39, 101, 113–15, 145,
150, 185
Jinnah, Mohammed Ali (founder of
Pakistan) 2, 96, 177, 181–2; see also
Quaid-e Azam (‘Great leader’)
Joseph Colony (area of Lahore,
Pakistan) 103
Judaism 29, 35, 67, 79, 124, 156
jummah (Friday prayer at mosques)
113–14, 140, 185
Kaballah (mystical branch of
Judaism) 156
kafirs 39
Karachi (Pakistan) 55–6, 61, 71, 89, 117,
121, 130, 132, 134, 138, 154, 156
Khan, Aga (leader of the Ismaili
community) 34, 35
Khan, Ahmad Raza (scholar of
Barelvism) 35
Khan, Captain Humayun 162; see also
Arlington National Cemetery
Khan, Fateh Ali (singer) 110; see also
qawwali
Khan, Khizr (public figure in the
US) 162
Khan, Umar Mehmood 13
Kharjites 107
Khatami, Mohammad (Shia scholar and
fifth president of Iran) 178
khutbah 132
King, Peter (politician in the US) 60
King Jr., Martin Luther 116; see also
civil rights
Khyber Puktunkhwa (region of Pakistan)
42, 87; see also Pashtuns
Lahore (major city in Pakistan) 60–61,
85, 92–3, 144
language 2, 10, 25, 27, 29–31, 41–2, 44,
69, 85, 108, 134, 137, 146, 152, 156,
159, 165–6, 168
200 Index
Latin America 6
LGBT (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender) 38, 116–26, 174
Lentin, Ronit (former scholar of Trinity
College Dublin) xiii, 4, 30, 33–4, 55;
see also ‘crisis racism’
liberalism 77
Light of Reform Mosque (Washington
DC) 121
‘Little Pakistan’ (neighbourhood of New
York City) 4
liquidity (sociological concept) 92, 139
London (England) xi, xii, 16, 121, 130,
141, 143, 166
loyalty 62, 68–9, 87, 112–13, 137
madrassas (Islamic schools) 1, 38, 186
Malik, Tashfeen100; see also San
Berardino (California)
marketing 76, 77, 130
marriage 12–13, 29, 30, 67, 69, 70, 79,
81, 90, 93–4, 114, 117, 118, 125, 159,
160, 167
Massachusetts xiii, 3, 14, 28, 54, 75, 84,
116, 154, 162, 165, 176
Mateen, Omar (American mass
murderer) 116
materialism 76–8, 111, 135
mawlid (celebration of Prophet
Muhammad’s birth) 38, 102, 178, 186
media 1–5, 7, 9, 11–2, 17, 30–31, 36, 55,
57, 66, 70, 72, 100, 103, 106, 107,
112–13, 115–16, 125, 130–31, 139–41,
143, 147, 155–7, 162, 167, 174–5,
178–9
melting pot (sociological concept) 27,
152, 158
meritocracy 26, 147
Mexicans 173
Middle East 6, 75, 106, 121
military 5, 41, 42, 71, 91, 95, 144,
162–3
minority communities 3, 26, 30, 35, 61,
104, 121, 123, 125, 131, 173–4, 175–6,
179–82
militants 5, 42, 61
modesty 77, 88, 110, 123, 185
Moses (prophet of the Abrahamic
tradition) 124
mosques 7–8, 11, 36, 38, 42, 60, 62–3, 67,
75, 82–3, 86, 100–102, 109, 111–13,
115, 121–2, 131–2, 135, 139, 143, 155,
158, 169, 173, 178–9, 186
mufti (Muslim legal expert) 106, 186
mullahs (scholar of Islam) 63, 95, 112,
159, 174, 186
multiculturalism 30, 125, 174
music 39, 41, 69, 80–81, 90, 94, 102,
109–11, 121, 138, 152, 158, 186
Muslims xi, xii, xiii, 1–3, 5–8, 10–13, 17,
24, 26–8, 32–4, 36–9, 42, 45, 54–5,
57–8, 61–3, 67–9, 71–2, 77–8, 81–4,
88, 95, 100, 101–7, 110–26, 131, 133,
135, 140–41, 143–5, 147–8, 150–51,
161–2, 164–5, 166, 168–9, 173–5, 178,
180–81, 184–5
Muslims Alliance for Sexual and Gender
Diversity 118
Muslims Student Association (MSA;
national student organisation in the
US) 119
mysticism 8, 35, 92, 108–12, 156; see also
Sufism
nationalism 17, 26–7, 29, 31–2, 39, 45,
67, 69, 79, 106, 151, 154–5, 161,
163–5, 179–81
National Security Agency (NSA) 33
National Security Entry Exit
Registration System (NSEERS) 4
Native Americans 26
Needham (suburb of Boston) xiii, 14,
75, 165
‘new ethnicities’ (sociological concept)
129–49
new racism (sociological concept) 32
New York City 4–5, 60
Nigeria (African county) 137
Nizari Ismaili Center (Shia mosque in
Boston) 8, 35
non-Muslim xi, xiii, 2–3, 11, 14, 16, 25,
28, 33, 36, 38, 58, 63, 67, 83, 102, 110,
113–14, 119, 121, 123–4, 126, 138,
146, 157, 175, 178–9
Normans 29
Obama, Barack 1
Office for the Promotion of Migrant
Integration 158
Old Testament 123
‘Operation Charity’ 13
Otherness 96, 126, 167
‘Paki’ (racial slur) 31, 63, 64, 80,
160, 161
‘Pakistaniness’ 79, 88, 90, 116, 133
Pakphobia (sociological concept) xi,
16–17, 24–53, 172–82

Palestinians 124
Parvin, Abida (singer) 110; see also
qawwali
Pashtuns (ethnic group) 29, 41–2
Patriot Act 4, 60; see also 9/11
patriotism 69–70, 86, 112, 162–3
peace 6, 11, 36, 59, 62, 71, 88, 104–5,
107, 109, 112, 117, 119, 125, 155,
177–8, 184
PEGIDA (far-right political organisation
across Europe 12, 173–4, 181
Penal Code (laws of Pakistan) 2, 120
Peshawar (major city in Pakistan) 87, 141
Pew Research Center 8–9, 35–6, 118, 150
Plato (Greek philosopher) 154
Playboy (magazine) 77
pluralism (sociological concept) ix–x,
xii, 3, 7–8, 25, 27–8, 40, 57, 79, 92,
96, 115, 125, 142, 163, 168, 172,
174–9
politics 25, 37, 85, 95, 101, 104, 129, 138,
148, 162, 164, 177
political Islam 161
post-colonialism 31, 34
poverty 87, 155, 161
Presbyterian (sect of Christianity) 11
Princeton University 144
Prophet Muhammad xiii, 35–8, 69, 78,
88–9, 101–3, 107–8, 111–12, 122,
178–9, 185; see also Abrahamid
tradition
Protestants (sect of Christianity) 27–9,
54, 181
Punjab/Punjabi (region of Pakistan and
ethnic group) 6, 29, 41–2, 44, 69–71, 76,
79, 103, 110, 139, 158–9, 166–7, 186
Puritans (sect of Christianity) 176
Qadhi, Yasir (scholar of Islam based in
US) 104
qawwali (music) 110, 111, 186
Quaid-e Azam (‘Great leader’) 2, 181, 186
Quran xiii, 2, 36–7, 39, 68–9, 78–9, 88,
105–7, 111–12, 123–4, 126, 146, 159,
184–6
race ix, 3, 7, 11, 14, 24–5, 27, 29, 31–2,
34, 45, 55, 68, 72, 121, 138, 141,
154–5, 168, 174
racial profiling 5, 17, 33–4, 55–6, 58,
60–61, 71, 145, 169
racism ix, 4, 12–14, 17, 26, 31–3, 55, 64,
66–7, 71–2, 115, 124, 137, 144, 153,
169, 174, 179
Index 201
‘radical Islam’ 2, 11, 38, 63, 100, 103,
107, 116, 120, 122, 138, 141, 164,
174; see also al-Qaeda; bin Laden,
Osama; ISIS
radicalisation 17, 60, 125
Rafique, Sher Mohammed (businessman
of Ireland) 11, 75–6
Ramadan (holy month of Islam) 8, 36,
112, 186; see also Five Pillars of Islam
Rashid, Qasim (American attorney) ix–x,
61, 179
Rathmines (neighbourhood in Dublin) 75
Rawalpindi (major city in Pakistan)
141, 156
rehmat 109, 186
religiosity 15, 36–7, 78
religious freedom 2, 36, 38, 57, 60–61,
113, 147, 157, 176
religious minorities 29, 36, 61, 101, 157,
174, 177, 180–81
religious pluralism (sociological concept)
27–8, 79, 96, 125, 168, 172, 175–7, 179
religious practice 27, 34, 176
religious tolerance 27, 42, 92, 131
resistance 3, 17, 24–5, 29, 38, 125,
129, 173
Republicans (political party in the US)
112, 147
Rice University xiv, 112, 121
Robinson, Tommy (far-right political
commentator in England) 174
Roma (ethnic group) 13
Royal College of Surgeons (Dublin) 93
Royal Holloway, University of
London 130
Rumi, Jalaluddin (thirteen century poet
and philosopher) 123
Runnymede Trust 32–3; see also
Islamophobia
Rushdie, Salman (author) 85
Saint Patrick 111, 184
Salafiyya (sect of Islam) 39, 101–8, 110,
112, 116, 119, 126
salah 36
Salem Witch Trials (seventeenth century
historical event in Massachusetts) 54
same-sex marriage 30
San Berardino (California) 5, 100
Saqib, Pirzada Muhammad Raza 125
Sarwar, Omar 118
Saudi Arabia 12, 38–9, 91–2, 120, 156–7
scapegoat 55, 66
science ix, 61, 78, 155, 157
202 Index
sean nós (singer) 166, 186
secular 2, 27, 30, 37, 42, 62, 69–70,
77–9, 91, 96, 107, 110, 120–21, 131–2,
135, 186
sectarianism 63, 101–2
segregation 31, 38, 90, 176
sexuality 7, 17, 24, 30, 37–8, 77, 83, 90,
102–3, 110, 114, 116–23, 125, 151, 153
Shah, Asad (Ahmadi Muslim
shopkeeper) 63; see also Glasgow
(Scotland)
shahada 36, 186
shariah (Islamic law) 36–7, 103, 107, 120,
123, 150, 161, 187
Shahzad, Faisal 5; see also New York
City
Shakur, Tupac (hip-hop artist) 158; see
also hip-hop
shalwar kameez (article of clothing) 67,
115, 186
sham marriages 12–13, 70
shame 17, 42, 88, 122–3, 130, 135
Shias (sect of Islam) 2, 8, 11, 35, 38, 89,
96, 101, 157, 174, 185
shirk 105, 187
Sikhs (religious community) 157
Sindh (region of Pakistan) 29, 41–2,
110 186
Sinn Féin (political party in Ireland) 76
slavery 31, 155
Social Inclusion Unit 68, 158
social justice 31, 116, 126, 148, 151,
154, 157
social media 143, 155, 167
Socrates (Greek philosopher) 154
South Asian 2, 5–6, 8, 10–11, 31, 39, 41,
43, 67, 80–81, 83, 89–90, 106, 109,
120, 131, 139, 145–8, 156, 167
South Asian Fellowship (organisation) 8
Soviet Union 38, 57; see also Cold War
Springsteen, Bruce (singer) 140
stereotypes 1, 24, 31, 33, 56, 115, 126,
130–31, 133, 141, 146, 152, 154
strangers 4, 7, 87, 115, 130, 144, 147
students xi, xiii, 10, 15, 83, 112–14, 119,
121, 140, 144, 151, 156, 165
Sufism (sect of Islam) 17, 35, 38–9, 81,
100, 104–5, 108–112, 158
Sunnah 35–7, 39, 187
Sunni (sect of Islam) 2, 7, 34–6,
38, 60, 68, 86, 96, 101, 105, 113,
117, 135, 138, 146, 156, 166, 174,
180, 184
surveillance 4–5, 7, 11, 33, 82, 115–16, 169
Tablighi Jamaat (political organisation)
111–12
Taliban 6; see also Afghanistan; al-Qaeda
Taqwacore (music) 94; see also The
Kominas
technology 13, 28, 54, 141, 154–5
Temple Bar (area of Dublin) 141
‘terrorists’ xi, 1, 4, 6, 7, 17, 33, 37, 55–7,
107, 162, 165, 175
The Boston Globe 6
The Irish Times 10, 13, 15, 34
The Kominas (music band) 94
The New York Times 60
The Pluralism Project (Harvard
University) 7, 8, 28, 175
The Reluctant Fundamentalist 144
The Simpsons 147
The Tea Party (far-right political
organisation in the US) 164
‘third space’ 25, 44, 90, 109
Torah (Jewish holy book) 79; see also
Jewish
transgender 38, 116, 118
transnationalism (sociological concept) 39
Travellers (ethnic group) 13
tribal culture 42
Trinity College Dublin xiii, xiv, 10, 12,
75, 76, 92, 101, 109, 129, 158
‘true Islam’ 39, 62, 88, 102, 115, 179
Trump, Donald xii, 7, 150, 162, 164
Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar 115; see also Boston
Marathon bombing; Boylston Street
(Boston)
Twitter 167
ul-Haq, Zia (former president of
Pakistan) 2, 36, 157, 181
ummah 17, 34, 35–38, 45, 62, 69, 102,
104–5, 113, 187
‘un-Islamic’ 37, 58, 86, 105–7, 110, 114,
117, 122, 126
United States Commission on
International Religious Freedom 38
United States Immigration Service 6
university 58, 83–4, 112, 113, 118, 121,
130, 144, 151, 154, 162, 166, 175, 186
Urdu language xii, 2, 10, 43, 44, 69, 79,
81, 83, 90, 108–9, 139, 146–7, 157,
166, 184–7
violence 4, 6, 32–3, 42, 58, 60–61, 63–4,
67, 82, 92, 101, 103–4, 107, 114–16,
125, 139, 146, 150, 180
visas 4, 13, 55, 65–6
 Index 203
Wahhabism (sect of Islam) 35, 38–9, World Economic Forum’s Global
91–2, 109–10, 155, 157 Competitive Index 136
Wales (country) 111 World Trade Center 84, 165; see also 9/11
Wall Street (area of New York World War II 10, 54
City) 144
‘War on Terror’ 1, 4, 17, 179 X, Malcolm (American civil rights
Washington, DC xiii, 1, 121, 162 leader) 116
Washington, George 181; see also xenophobia 140, 181
American Revolution
Western world 16, 137 Yemen 179,
Westernisation (sociological concept) 34, Yousafzai, Malala (human rights activist)
138, 172 56
Wickham, James (former scholar at Yusuf, Hamza (American scholar of
Trinity College Dublin) 129 Islam) 104
Winthrop, John (seventeenth century
religious leader of Boston) 28 zakat 36, 78, 187
women 12, 28, 37, 38, 56, 70, 77, Zionism 67, 124; see also Jewish
102–3, 105, 109, 118, 123, 143, Zoroastrian (religion) 8
155, 167, 173, 178, 184, 185, Zoroastrian Association of Greater
186, 187 Boston 8