The “Islams” of Muslims in Post-9/11 Fiction: Ayad Akhtar’s American Dervish

The attacks on the Twin Towers have politically categorized Muslims as “good,” “bad,” or “moderate” in post-9/11 United States. These categories are reductive when it comes to understanding complex Muslim formations in a post-9/11 world as they impose a politicized ideal of what it means to be a Muslim. The “ideal” American Muslim is supposedly an American first and a Muslim second. While there is significant scholarship against such reductive categorizations, what remains largely unnoticed is a Muslim’s subjectivity in relation to Islam in everyday life: the ways in which a Muslim interacts with Islam on a day-to-day basis are often idiosyncratic in nature. This paper introduces the concept of “everyday Islam” as a key tool to resist Muslim essentialism. Drawing on the works of Saba Mahmood, Santiago Sia, and Nadia Fadil among others, it analyzes Ayad Akhtar’s American Dervish (2013) and argues that the novel displays different sensibilities that Muslims bring to their interactions with Islam on a daily basis. By focusing on the character of Mina, Akhtar’s female protagonist, this paper examines how an interplay of moments, situations, and contexts shapes her day-to-day practices of Islam. In doing so, it challenges the reductive political categorizations of Muslims as “good,” “bad,” or “moderate,” and expands our understanding of the diverse ways in which Muslims make sense of Islam in often incongruous ways. (PG)