Why does a country with religious liberty enmeshed in its legal and social structures produce such overt prejudice and discrimination against Muslims? Sahar Aziz’s groundbreaking book demonstrates how race and religion intersect to create what she calls the Racial Muslim. Comparing discrimination against immigrant Muslims with the prejudicial treatment of Jews, Catholics, Mormons, and African American Muslims during the twentieth century, Aziz explores the gap between America’s aspiration for and fulfillment of religious freedom. With America’s demographics rapidly changing from a majority white Protestant nation to a multiracial, multireligious society, this book is an in dispensable read for understanding how our past continues to shape our present—to the detriment of our nation’s future.

“Thought-provoking.”

* Above the Law *
"The Racial Muslim is an important, timely addition to the literature on anti-Muslim racism. Aziz succinctly compresses a broad, yet relevant, range of topics into a relatively short text, all-the-while interrogating power, White supremacy, structural racism and the intersection of religion and race in racializing processes." * Ethnic and Racial Studies *
"From her law professor perspective with an interdisciplinary approach, Aziz’s work recalls that of Kimberley Crenshaw, in which juridical science is combined with social sciences to achieve change: indeed, her work is not limited to the analysis of society, but seeks as an ultimate goal, social justice." * ReOrient *
"Aziz unravels and then connects America’s torrid history toward religious minorities." * Journal of Church and State *
"The book explicates narratives concerning Muslims’ inability to assimilate or that assert Islam is merely a political ideology and promotes tactics to abrogate religious liberty." 
  * the Journal of Church and State *
"The insights of this work culminate in a powerful analytic for understanding religious discrimination. This book is destined to have a long shelf life and an increase in influence, particularly as its main tenets are deployed to analyze religious repression in contexts beyond the United States." - Spear It, Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly. 

"Professor Sahar Aziz’s book offers an illuminating account of the immigrant Muslim experience in the United States, but it does more than that. It provides readers with an opportunity to reflect on whether a narrative of race and racialization remains the most powerful way to understand proliferating differences in the United States." - Rachel F. Moran, Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly. 

"The Racial Muslim is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the dynamics of race and how they intersect with religion. . . . essential reading for anyone concerned with racial and religious justice in the United States." - Natsu Taylor Saito, Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly. 
* Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly *

Sahar Aziz is Professor of Law, Middle East Legal Scholar, and Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers University Law School and Founding Director of the Center for Security, Race, and Rights.