I just finished watching the series The Great Muslim American Road Trip on United States's Public Broadcasting System. The series presented vignettes of Muslim life in North America through the lens of Mona Haydar and Sebastian Robins, a married couple, who traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles on the famed Route 66.
I hope that, for Muslims, the series will be another reminder that there's no single way to be Muslim and any attempt to restrict Muslim life to a particular conception is likely to exclude unjustly many other authentic expressions of Muslim life. In fact, maybe we ought to drop the concern about authenticity in Muslim life.
Of course one can nitpick on things here and there in the series. Nevertheless, since the vast majority of us can't do anything better, send some of your money to Unity Productions Foundation so it can continue to tell stories about Muslims which improve the lives of Muslims in North America and open people's minds a bit more.
I also should publicly thank Mona & Sebastian for sticking their necks out and having cameras in their faces for extended periods of time. I don't know them personally, but, assuming their motives are good, I pray that Allah rewards them for sacrificing their privacy for the sake of a production which can do a lot of good.
