Christian Science Monitor~Backstory: A country-western Muslim

Very interesting....

Kareem Salama – the main act on this evening's Muslim Student Association program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – nervously sips a bottle of water backstage as his guitarist/producer tunes a 12-string guitar.

The crowd buzz softens to a deferential hush as a bearded student takes the stage to start the evening with readings from the Koran in an Arabic melody that sounds like a medieval hymn.

It's Koranic recitations like these that inspired Mr. Salama, the son of Eygptian immigrants, to become a musician. But it's the peculiarly American circumstances of his life that drove this devout Muslim with a Southern drawl to his musical passion – country..........

.........Despite stereotypes of the South as a region struggling with race issues, the Salama family experienced limited discrimination. Salama remembers only a few incidents when people shouted ethnic slurs and believes they were isolated occurrences. His mother, who wears hijab, once joined a women's painting group and initially experienced friction from suspicious members. However, once they got to know her, they became close friends.

"The South embodies so many Islamic values," says Salama. As an example, he cites the prophet Muhammad's command that good Muslims must greet their neighbors, also a common Southern practice, he says...............READ ON