Writing Islam in Contemporary American Poetry: On Mohja Kahf, Daniel Moore, and Agha Shahid Ali

Extract

Who would want to read an essay titled “Writing Christianity”? “Writing Judaism” might by now sound a bit dated, given that Jewish subject matter is the domain of some of this country's greatest novelists and poets. “Writing Buddhism” still has an appealing ring to it. “Writing Islam” as a topic would not sound interesting to most Muslim authors in Muslim societies. In fact, “Writing Islam” could sound like a fundamentalist ploy to corrupt the thoroughly secular world of literature in contemporary Muslim societies. A more appealing angle might be to focus on writing Islam in the West, or on the global stage, where a growing body of Muslim literature written in European languages is emerging. The authors of this body of literature are outside two folds: Western literature per se and the literatures of their Muslim societies of origin. How do Muslim authors, specifically poets, fashion a voice when they are writing mostly to outsiders? What subject matter will they treat and in what manner? This essay explores these questions by examining how writing Islam is exercised differently by three American Muslim poets, Mohja Kahf, Daniel Moore, and the late Agha Shahid Ali.