I am an American citizen born in Kuwait of Egyptian parents. I grew up in Great Britain, Malaysia, and Egypt and have lived in the United States since 1965, when I was seventeen.
When I arrived in America, I experienced serious culture shock. For someone with a religious upbringing, the 1960s were an extremely difficult time. Even though religion was a big part of the civil rights and peace movements, in my college religion was treated as irrelevant, hopelessly stodgy, and behind the times. This was the heyday of the “God is dead” movement. Islam was almost always portrayed negatively in the media and larger culture. Most American Muslims were Black Muslims, members of the separatist Nation of Islam headed by Elijah Muhammad, of which most white Americans were terrified. Arabs were then considered uncouth, dirty, and uncivilized.
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