Dartmouth Events

How to Be a Muslim: An American Story, A Conversation with author Haroon Moghul

Haroon Moghul, Fellow in Jewish-Muslim Relations, The Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and author of "How to Be a Muslim: An American Story."

Thursday, February 22, 2018
5:00pm – 6:00pm
Room 003, Rockefeller Center
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Lectures & Seminars

Visit by Haroon Moghul is co-sponsored by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences and the William Jewett Tucker Center.

Event Description:

A conversation with Haroon Moghul, author of the book How to Be a Muslim: An American Story: Coming of age, struggling with your sexuality, your identity, who your parents want you to be – and who you want to be, those are all normal enough. But against the backdrop of a clash of civilizations, growing up American and Muslim is a really complicated place to be.

Book Description:

A young Muslim leader’s memoir of his struggles to forge an American Muslim identity

Haroon Moghul was thrust into the spotlight after 9/11, becoming an undergraduate leader at New York University’s Islamic Center forced into appearances everywhere: on TV, before interfaith audiences, in print. Moghul was becoming a prominent voice for American Muslims even as he struggled with his relationship to Islam. In high school he was barely a believer and entirely convinced he was going to hell. He sometimes drank. He didn’t pray regularly. All he wanted was a girlfriend.

But as he discovered, it wasn’t so easy to leave religion behind. To be true to himself, he needed to forge a unique American Muslim identity that reflected his beliefs and personality. How to Be a Muslim reveals a young man coping with the crushing pressure of a world that fears Muslims, struggling with his faith and searching for intellectual forebears, and suffering the onset of bipolar disorder. This is the story of the second-generation immigrant, of what it’s like to lose yourself between cultures and how to pick up the pieces.

Speaker Bio:

Haroon Moghul is the Fellow in Jewish-Muslim Relations at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He's appeared on all major U.S. media networks, and has been published at the Washington Post, TIME, CNN, and Foreign Policy. In 2016, he was honored with the Religion News Writer's Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence. Haroon is the author of three books, including How to be a Muslim: An American Story, which the Washington Post called "an extraordinary gift," and "an authentic portrayal of a vastly misunderstood community." He was a Fellow at Fordham Law School's Center on National Security and with the National Security Studies Program at New America Foundation. Haroon is also on the Multicultural Audience Development Initiative at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He graduated from Columbia University with an M.A. in Middle East, South Asian and African Studies.

For more information, contact:
Joanne Needham
603-646-2207

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.