Transnational Muslims in American Society provides a sophisticated account of some of the complexities, social dilemmas, and multivalent expressions of Islam among various immigrant and indigenous communities in the United States. Given the methodological and theoretical challenges of attempting to make sense of the diverse range of Muslim communities in the United States, Amina McCloud begins by arguing for the necessity of a shift in nomenclature. She draws on recent works in migration and diaspora studies to highlight the utility of terms such as “transnational” for describing “the formation of social, political, and economic relationships among migrants that span several societies” (p. 4). For McCloud, this definition stands in contrast to the notion of immigration as a transitional stage in the movement toward acculturation, particularly in terms of language acquisition and the narrowing of ties with one's country of origin. McCloud's reframed categories of analysis ultimately prove useful for demonstrating the multiple ways in which transnational networks among Muslim communities in the United States often function to preserve cultural and economic ties for mutual advantage and to mitigate some of the social and political challenges of life in new diaspora communities. In addition to drawing categories and vocabulary from sociology, anthropology, history, and religious studies, McCloud's epistemological grounds for her arguments are largely based on empirical observations from interviews and conversations with transnational Muslims.

Having outlined her thesis and methodology in the introduction, McCloud provides elucidation over nine short chapters. Chapter 2 begins by taking up the question of the degree to which immigrants understand and participate in the American system of democratic citizenship. McCloud follows this discussion with a brief historical sketch of debates over citizenship rights, the demands of citizenship, and the subcategories of noncitizens in American legal discourse. The chapter ends with a survey of stereotypes of immigrants in films, literature, and other media from the early 20th century to the present. McCloud provides a straightforward and simple rearticulation of the historical problems associated with American orientalist images, misrepresentations, and tropes.

Chapter 3 provides a short introduction to Islam, focusing on what the author identifies as the core elements of Muslim belief and practice. The discussion is organized chronologically and thematically according to the development of the Islamic textual tradition: a definition of Islam is followed by a brief description of the role and function of the Qurʾan in Muslim social and devotional life and the importance of the Prophet Muhammad's life in Muslim praxis and textual discourses. The author then turns her attention to an explanation of the Qurʾanic concept of tawhīd and its centrality for understanding Muslim conceptions of prophetic history, revelation, and cosmology more generally. This portion of the book is perhaps guilty of obscuring critical contested areas of theology and history for the sake of brevity. For example, the author argues that following the death of ʿUthman, “The horrific murders of ʿAli and, later, one of his sons, Husayn, consolidated his supporters as formal Shiʿat ʿAli (the party of ʿAli, Shiʿi Muslims)” (p. 33). Here McCloud's description moves beyond the general problematic tendency in the book to posit an “authoritative center of Islam” (p. 8) that happens to be organized along the lines of what has become Sunni Islam, to implicitly accepting the contested historical view that proto-Shiʿi communities emerged following the death of Muhammad (and were not consolidated until after the death of Husayn). McCloud's characterization of the Shiʿat ʿAli as “one of the ‘new’ Muslim communities that emerged after the death of the Prophet (pbuh)” (p. 33) and repeated contrasts between this group and the ideas of consensus held by “the majority of Muslims” (p. 33) appears to ignore a range of scholarly work in Islamic studies calling such anachronistic notions of the existence of 1st-century “Sunni” normativity into question, including Patricia Crone's God's Caliph, Wilferd Madelung's Succession to Muhammad, and Maria Dakake's The Charismatic Community: Shi'ite Identity in Early Islam, just to name a few. Greater nuance would have been appreciated throughout Chapter 3, though particularly in the sections providing historical descriptions of the role and development of Islamic law, the influence of Sufism, and the tensions raised by the very assumption of the existence of a transcultural Islamic “orthopraxy.” More historical and anthropological evidence is certainly required to substantiate her claim that “Hindu religion and culture provides much of the basis of tradition in South Asian Muslim life, and it is what is transported as South Asian values to the United States” (p. 53). Moreover, many of her arguments in this chapter are undermined by a lack of statistical information about the occupations and educational backgrounds of South Asian Muslims or transnationals in the United States. Nevertheless, the chapter succeeds in raising critical issues that merit further study and dialogue.

Chapter 4 consists of an overview of South Asian history with particular attention to the development of what the author identifies as three distinct Shiʿi Muslim communities: Ithna-ʿAshari, Ismaʿili, and Daudi Bohra Ismaʿili. Chapter 5 provides discussion of South Asian culture focusing on social and economic class distinctions and the role of the family among Muslim immigrants or transnationals. Further attention is given to examining the cultural liminality and ambivalence associated with negotiating the distinctions between their ethnic and adopted cultures. McCloud asserts, “Many transnational South Asian Muslims are a blend of Hindu cultural artifacts, Islamic knowledge, and British etiquette with American tastes” (p. 57). Although this chapter touches on the challenges Muslim South Asian transnationals face as they attempt to balance the inherited traditions of their root cultures and the complexities of new hybrid identities, it would have been strengthened by closer examination of the forms of ambivalence posed by asymmetries of power between the country of origin and the host country.

Chapters 6 and 7 present a short overview of images of Arabs and Arab Muslims in the United States as represented in scholarship and the media, followed by a brief discussion of distinctions between “American culture” and “Arabic culture” (largely focused on the family, engagement, and marriage). The section concludes with short historical sketches of immigrant Arabic-speaking Muslims: Palestinians, Egyptians, and Sudanese (while acknowledging the tenuous basis for including Sudanese in a category of Arab Americans).

Chapters 8 and 9 focus on Iranian, Chinese, and Somali Muslim immigrants. The cursory historical overview of religion in Persia and Shiʿi beliefs and practices in Chapter 8 elaborate on the standard academic oversimplifications of Shiʿi views on the Qur'an and the use of hadith literature before proceeding to a brief discussion of the Iranian revolution and the emergence of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The chapter concludes with a few short anecdotes that the author treats under the category of “community of exiles,” presumably in order to provide insight into aspects of the lives of Muslim Iranian transnationals (focusing on their views of the Islamic Revolution, Iranian food in diaspora, and Iranian artistic expression). Ultimately, the short descriptions are lacking in substance and perhaps obscure more than they illuminate. Chapter 9 provides what is essentially a short summary of the dearth of material published on Chinese Muslims followed by a three-and-a-half-page discussion of Somali American Muslims.

The final chapter of the book, “Global Islam in America: The Mix and Challenges,” examines issues related to the struggle for self-definition and legitimacy among transnational Muslims in America in speaking on behalf of Islam. McCloud offers useful commentary for beginning to reevaluate some of the static assumptions of current Islamic discourses in order to provide new ways of addressing social and political dilemmas across ethnicities. The author argues that transnational Muslim Americans must engage in forms of democratic participation such as volunteerism as an alternative to ethnocentric modes of organizing. As she puts it, “Volunteerism, as a staple of community life, builds necessary networks across racial boundaries” (p. 131). McCloud later goes on to describe what she identifies as the relegation of African Americans by Muslim transnationals to the status of “new and uncultured mawali.” She states: “In an effort to prevent African Americans from defining Islam, immigrants have declared much of African American culture inappropriate for inclusion in any definition of Islam” (p. 132). However, beyond the obvious political critiques of such a project, much of the vilifying rhetoric directed toward Muslim transnationals in the book and the significant lack of detail and nuance paid to the particularity of their experiences can be used to call into question the potential effectiveness of these multi-ethnic coalitions.