The Book Act of Faith - Essay Example

The book, Act of Faith, is about the story of an American Muslim who struggles the discovery the mindset that shapes religious emotions in the minds of people living in the United States of America. Ebook Patel who is a Muslim activist has written this book. This book is about second-generation Muslim immigrants living in the United States. The main areas that the book covers include religious pluralism, identity politics, identity crises, real-world activism, and the building up of an interfaith youth core. It is a fact that many immigrants face difficulties with competing claims of adopted and intrinsic identities. In this book, the author talks about various identity-related issues that the young Muslim immigrant generation faces in America. The author tries to find a perfect balance between the life of a Muslim and a fully American person.
A person taking birth in America comes usually faces an identity crisis because he/she has to cope with the challenge of finding a real identity out of the pool of incomplete identities. In this book, the author has mentioned that in the process of finding his true self, he experienced different aspects of a mixed culture. For example, the author was taking inspiration from people from other religions and had relations with Mormon and Jewish women. Practicing a different religion (Buddhism), having parents from some other religion (Islam), and discovering roots in some other culture (Indian Culture) are the basic elements of this book. This book is mainly for such immigrants who are in despair or feel alienated about their future. In a world full of fundamentalist aggression and noticeable religious division, this book provides a way and hope for people to find their real selves, as well as a direction toward their future.
Opinion about the Book
I think this book is a good source of hope for people taking birth and growing up in America as Muslim immigrants. In general, such people face difficulty in finding their origin in terms of culture and region because they live in a Western culture that does not hold the same cultural or religious values as their real cultures and religions. In some cases, they face an identity crisis their whole lives. This book provides them with some hope to find their identities while living in a different society. Read More