Two Muslim Communities: Two Disparate Ways of Islamizing Public Spaces

This article clarifies what Hayden has termed “space as a cultural product.” The author discusses the Islamizing of public spaces in two urban Muslim communities. The Salafiyya, a proto-Islamic movement (Community A), is at the center of a heated debate over the control for the soul of the community—the mosque. Normally this would not be a problem, but the Salafiyya heavily rely on the past in interpretating religious texts. In contrast, “Community B” demonstrates how competing visions of public space and religious practice can coexist in urban America. Their goal is to invest the neighborhood with a bona fide religious virtue through activism and social change. More broadly, the worldview of these two communities forces an examination of two disparate ways of Islamizing public spaces. Islamizing exaggerates the problems that both A and B must confront and the kinds of uncertainties that accompany cultural identity, religious legitimacy, and valorization of the word community.