All-American Islam

Most American mosques import their clerics from overseas
— some who preach extremism, some who cannot speak English, and most
who cannot begin to speak to young American Muslims growing up on
hip-hop and in mixed-sex chat rooms. [Sheik Hamza] Yusuf, 48, and [Imam
Zaid] Shakir, 50, are using their clout to create the first Islamic
seminary in the United States, where they hope to train a new
generation of imams and scholars who can reconcile Islam and American
culture.

The seminary is still in its fledgling stages, but Mr. Yusuf and Mr.
Shakir have gained a large following by being equally at home in
Islamic tradition and modern American culture. Mr. Yusuf dazzles his
audiences by weaving into one of his typical half-hour talks quotations
from St. Augustine, Patton, Eric Erikson, Jung, Solzhenitsyn, Auden,
Robert Bly, Gen. William C. Westmoreland and the Bible. He is the host
of a TV reality show that is popular in the Middle East, in which he
takes a vanload of Arabs on a road trip across the United States to
visit people who might challenge Arab stereotypes about Americans, like
the antiwar protesters demonstrating outside the Republican National
Convention.