Is It a Culture of Sham or Putting on an Act?

Back from a holiday and COVID hiatus...I had the opportunity to facilitate a conversation between Umar Lee and Ubaydullah Evans on the state of American Muslims.

Ubaydullah Evans is the Scholar-in-Residence at ALIM (American Learning Initiative for Muslims). He converted to Islam in high school and went on to obtain his degree in Shariah from Al-Azhar University in Egypt. He is also active with the Inner City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) and Ta'leef Collective in Chicago.

Umar Lee is a writer, media personality and political activist from St. Louis, Missouri. He converted to Islam 30 years ago in 1992. He is a previous guest on the podcast.

The topics we discussed are:

-The ethics of accepting converts into a dysfunctional community

-Are most white converts identity seekers?

-The decline of Black American Islam

-Racism and Classism amongst South Asians and Arabs

-When piety becomes extremism

-When pushing a fake image of religiosity leads to mental health problems

-Muslims proclivity to conspiracy theories

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