96 MUSLIMS IN THE UNITED STATES
go for worship only. These are places where they serve on committees, teach
if they are qualified, hold symposia and panel discussions, exchange informa-
tion, and selectively cultivate relations with one another. Whether or not they
have jobs or they are going to college, these activities help them in creating
their own   primary groups,  which provide them informal social circles, help
resolve a great many problems in their lives, and provide desirable company
for their children. This partly explains the active, although often unrecognized,
contribution that Muslim women are making to the stability and growth of Is-
lamic structure in the United States.
In short, Muslim women in the United States have made some gains while
having to put up with some unforeseen and traumatic circumstances. In many
cases, far from compromising their religious beliefs, they are making their reli-
gion into a social factor in their neighborhoods. They are making contributions
to a non-Muslim society by playing traditional roles as homemakers, mothers,
or babysitters as well as in their capacity as post-modern professionals.
While working on Project MAPS, we randomly chose two hundred Muslim
women and requested them to briefly write about their life experiences. These
women were chosen from five major cities and five smaller cities and towns.
They were contacted through telephone directories, through their family mem-
bers at different occasions, or through the snowball technique as often used in
the social sciences. Out of these, we received life accounts from 113 women.
Going through their accounts, we divided them roughly into five major catego-
ries. Subsequently, we randomly picked one autobiographical account from
each category. Following McCloud (1991), we named these categories after
the main character in each category Aisha, Sara, Naima, Sahr, and Meryam.
These categories do not exhaust all types among Muslim women in the United
States. However, we believe they do give us a glimpse into the spectrum of
important kinds in this population.
Aisha
In her late teens, Aisha graduated with honors from a suburban high school
close to New York City. She was born in Queens, New York, where her father,
an immigrant from Syria, ran a grocery store serving a growing Middle Eastern
population. She has two elder brothers and a younger sister, who is in junior
high. Her father now owns two more grocery stores. Her oldest brother is a
medical doctor while the other one has an export-import business. Both are
married and live close to where their father lives. Their mother, in her late for-
ties, takes care of the family. Both their parents were going to college in Syria
before her father came to the United States as a graduate student in 1965.
Aisha hopes to become a medical doctor following in her brother s footsteps.
The Osman family has been quite active in Islamic activity in Queens. Her fa-
ther, other than contributing generously to the establishment of a mosque and a
weekend school, has also served as the imam of the mosque leading Juma
congregation on Fridays from time to time. From the moment of her birth,