Looking for Leadership: Discovering American Islam in the Muslim Chaplaincy

Abstract

American Muslim chaplains represent a new type of leadership for American Islam and Muslims living in the United States. Through their institutional work and the fundamental aspects of their profession, which emphasizes pastoral care and healing in a variety of forms, these chaplains are engaged in a dynamic process of interpretation, reinterpretation, and negotiation of tradition. Be it the hospitals, universities, military, or prisons, chaplains interact with American Muslims and non-Muslims on diverse issues of concern to the institutions in which they work, the community they serve within those institutions, and the other communities of which they are a part, be they local, national, or global. Through the stories and lives of the American Muslim chaplains contained within its pages, this dissertation examines the ways American Muslim chaplains perform and articulate their engagement with conceptions of leadership and Islamic tradition. Although the American Muslim chaplaincy is a relatively new profession, it is fundamentally built on the assumption that Islam is an American religion, that there is a dialogic translation happening adapting Islam to the chaplaincy, and the chaplaincy to Islam. In this way, while Islamic concepts are being translated in and for an American context, these translations are being used to frame the chaplaincy for Muslim professionals. As a result, the American Muslim chaplaincy connotes a fluid process of interpretation, going beyond questions of identity and inclusion, to inquiries examining the ways that religious leaders understand their roles and develop news tropes in the communication of ideas.