Keeping It Halal: The Everyday Lives of Muslim American Teenage Boys

In this book, you will have a look at the social worlds of a group of young male friends as they go through the complexities of growing up as Muslims in America.

Doing an intensive fieldwork in and around a large urban mosque for about three and a half years, the author provides a compelling portrait about:

• Typical Muslim American teenage boys who remained concerned with typical teenage issues like parents, school, girlfriends, and being cool
• Practicing Muslims who don’t date before marriage, avoid vulgar popular culture, expected to be good and never miss the prayers

Many Americans who are not familiar with Islam or Muslims, see young Muslim teenagers as potential ISIS recruits. But the main focus of these teenagers are to juggle the competing cultural demands, which frame their everyday lives. They don't even pay any attention to militant Islamism or Islamophobia.

The author, in this book, illuminates how they work together to manager their culturally contested lives through innovative and subtle strategies.

Closely following these young teenagers as they move through their teen years together, this book sheds light on their deliberate and unconscious efforts to manage their daily cultural dilemmas as they devise dynamic and novel definitions of Muslim American identity in a new, as well as changing, America.