Wandering Worshippers: Mosque Attendance Patterns among First- and Second-Wave Iraqi-Shi'a Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, USA

Abstract

This paper compares the level of religiosity among two different Iraqi-Shi'a Muslim waves by focusing on the role that the mosque plays in the lives of Iraqi-Shi'a Muslims living in Dearborn, Michigan, a city reputed to have one of the largest diasporic Muslim communities in the West. In this paper, several indicators will be explored in order to draw comparisons, including how often the participants attend mosque; which mosque(s) they prefer to attend; how much they donate to their mosque; and the role of the imam in their lives. The paper reveals that both waves of Iraqi-Shi'a Muslims now living in Detroit are “wandering worshippers” that are attracted to various events at different mosques in the city, rather than attending solely one mosque.

Notes

1. “State & County Quick Facts: Dearborn, Michigan”, United States Census Bureau, accessed 8 February 2014, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2621000.html.

2. Sally Howell and Amaney Jamal, “The Aftermath of the 9/11 Attacks”, in Citizenship and Crisis Arab Detroit after 9/11, ed. Detroit Arab American Study Team, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2009, p. 73.

3. This operationalized definition builds on the definition put forward by Ronald L. Johnstone, Religion in Society: A Sociology of Religion, 8th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007, p. 97.

4. Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou, “The New Second Generation: Segmented Assimilation and Its Variants”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 530, No. 1, 1993, p. 82.

5. Charles Y. Glock, Benjamin B. Ringer, and Earl R. Babbie, To Comfort and to Challenge: A Dilemma of the Contemporary Church, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, p. 107.

6. Ibid., pp. 8–9.

7. Ibid., p. 8; http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2621000.html.

8. Ibid., p. 107.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Clemens Kroneberg, “Ethnic Communities and School Performance among the New Second Generation in the United States: Testing the Theory of Segmented Assimilation”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 620, No. 1, 2008, p. 139.

12. Min Zhou, Contemporary Chinese America: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009, p. 6.

13. Ibid.

14. Yu Xie and Emily Greenman, “Segmented Assimilation Theory: A Reformulation and Empirical Test”, Population Studies Center Research Report 05-581, Ann Arbor, MI: Population Studies Center University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, 2005, 4, accessed 11 February 2014, http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/pdf/rr05-581.pdf.

15. Emily Greenman and Yu Xie, “Is Assimilation Theory Dead? The Effect of Assimilation on Adolescent Well-Being”, Social Science Research, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2008, p. 112.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. Portes and Zhou, “The New Second Generation”, op. cit., p. 82.

19. Ibid.

20. Andrew Shryock, Nabeel Abraham, and Sally Howell, “The Terror Decade in Arab Detroit: An Introduction”, in Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the Terror Decade, ed. Nabeel Abraham, Sally Howell, and Andrew Shryock, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2011, p. 7.

21. Liyakat Nathani Takim, Shi'ism in America, New York: New York University Press, 2009, p. 34.

22. Ibid.

23. “Islamic Institute of Knowledge (IIK), About Us”, accessed 29 June 2013, http://iiokonline.org/about-us.html.

24. Islamic House of Wisdom Pamphlet, Dearborn Heights, MI: Islamic House of Wisdom, 2012.

25. Ibid.

26. Takim, Shi'ism in America, op. cit., p. 34.

27. “Ashura in Detroit MI”, YouTube video, 10:00, posted by “ahlubayt4lyfe”, 15 February 2009, accessed 10 February 2014, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcedRub5870&feature=relmfu.

28. Glock, Ringer, and Babbie, To Comfort and to Challenge, op. cit., p. 107.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., p. 198.

32. Edward E. Curtis, IV, “Glossary of Islamic Terms”, in The Columbia Sourcebooks of Muslims in the United States, ed. Edward E. Curtis IV, New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, p. 425.

33. Jane I. Smith, Islam in America, 2nd ed., New York: Columbia University Press, 2010, p. 113.

34. Ibid.

35. Portes and Zhou, “The New Second Generation”, op. cit., p. 82.