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xxii Preface how would Osama Bin Laden’s targeting of Americans impact the relationship be- tween American identity and Muslim Americans? Would the perceived threat of Islamic Jihad block Muslims from entering the fragile religious and cultural plu- ralism that is the mythos and reality of American identity? Conversely, Americans might recognize the uniquely difficult situation that Islamic terrorists created for Muslim Americans, creating an empathetic connection to Muslims in the United States and opening the social space enabling Islam to take a seat at the multicul- tural table. More than ten years later the prospects for an “assimilated” Islam to inform and shape the American mosaic are fraught with problems and possibilities, signal- ing the ongoing and deep-rooted tensions around religious diversity. On the one hand, one of the most extreme charges against President Obama is that he is se- cretly a Muslim, an accusation leveled as an insult by those who make it, suggest- ing that the religion of Islam and the American presidency are incompatible, that Islam is somehow un-American. This brand of ignorance and hatred now has its own name, “Islamophobia,” a neologism that emerged only after the tragic events of 9/11. It was Islamophobia that prevented the building of a mosque and Islamic cultural center three blocks from the site of the Twin Trade Towers, in a space that once housed a Burlington Coat Factory store. This volatile argument held that “Ground Zero” was now American sacred territory, and to place a mosque within its proximity would defile the hallowed ground. On the other hand, Islam in the United States has witnessed the steady creep of Americanization, finding particular purchase among disenfranchised Americans, especially blacks and Latina/os, but others as well. A documentary released in 2010, New Muslim Cool, follows the lives of two Puerto Rican brothers who were raised Catholic but who convert to Islam. They are residents of an intentional Muslim community that has grown up around a mosque in Pittsburgh. The broth- ers produce hip-hop records identified as Muslim rap, which combines Quranic lyrics with contemporary black sonics. These Islamic musical aesthetics enjoy a huge following, especially among young American urbanites, thus demonstrat- ing how Islam is entering and intermixing with popular culture and adding a new menu item to the ever-growing cafeteria of identity plates. Also on the minds of concerned Americans in 2003 was the freshly minted Patriot Act, which gave the president and the National Security Administration extraordinary powers to detain even American citizens indefinitely on the suspi- cion of terrorism alone, without the additional burden of leveling formal charges. How do we understand the powers and reach of the state? What are the proper responses by the government to national threats by unseen, globally dispersed, “evil” enemies? Can the sacred values established in the aftermath of the Revo- lutionary War continue to be relevant in a post-9/11 America? Certainly the re- cent uproar around government spying has rent the spiritual fabric that cloaks national leadership in an aura of the sacred, the lynchpin of civil religion. Both sides of the political spectrum distrust the government’s policies and couch their own vision of America’s true identity in religious rhetoric about national ideals and purpose.