How to Be a Muslim: An American Story

In sometimes heartbreaking and staggering prose laced with subtle and sardonic humor, Moghul (The Order of Light) shares what it looks like to hammer out an American Muslim identity. Amid depression and bipolarity, between being Pakistani and American, Moghul discovers that Islam is not a straitjacket but a free-flowing wardrobe of expression and being in which he lives as he moves through the modern world. The narrative, rife with pop-culture references and Qur’anic reflections, follows the author through adolescence and adulthood as he struggles to understand his intellectual heritage and the sometimes debilitating stress of being Muslim in a country where Muslims are always considered suspect. As Moghul loses himself and seeks himself, readers will appreciate his story as a second-generation Muslim immigrant, but also as a representative of the modern man: searching, groping, discovering, losing, loving, hoping, dreaming, and suffering. Highly recommended for its candor and relatability, this book will invite readers to fathom what it means to grasp Islam—and religion and spirituality in general. (June)