Op-Ed in the CS Monitor

A topic near and dear to me is the relationship between religion and culture. I wrote an article about this, pertaining to Muslims in America. I elaborate (op-ed elaboration) in the piece.

It's an issue getting serious among Muslim Americans lately. The conversation is not entirely a high-minded affair, a heady discussion about sacred art and religious truths unchained to discursive expressions, and about the genius of Islamic civilization’s reception of indigenous cultures. Many Muslims are worried of the potential of terrorism, and the murky "war" regarding it, permanently consigning the long and varied Muslim experience in America to a monolith, an effigy of a threat dangling before the public eye. Hence, the feeling that barriers cordoning off a people and their spiritual tradition from society at large cannot be easily scaled when these people struggle with cultural anonymity.