Nabeel Abraham

This is a well put together book about Arabic Detroit. People of Arab ancestry give a texture to ife in the Detroit area unlike other areas in the U.S. Many aspects of Detroit life are explored in this book.

I want to just give a few of my own stories from having lived in Detroit for 18 years. When my wife and I decided to change churches in 1990, we discoverd the diversity of Christ Episcopal Church in downtown Detroit. The bedrock of this parish were the Syrian Arab Christian who came to Detroit around 1912 without a priest. So, they developed a quasi and then a real home at Christ Church. By the time we arrived, we could see that they were the bedrock of this parish who kept it going when other had left.

My wife and I for a short while were part of a lay trialogue group, the Greater Detroit Interfaith Council of Christians, Muslims, and Jews. This was enriching and, in fact,a bit emotional as we observed the falling apart of the former Yugoslavia a it dissolved from an uneasy perhaps cordiality between its religions and nationalities into civil war.

Detroit is evenly divided among its Middles Easter population between Sunnis and Shi'ites, and it was interesting to observe. Detroit does have 3rd generation Muslims, who are very much like other 3rd generation people in the U.S.. Our workplaces always Arab Americans, and we saw marriages and conversions happening.

Detroit needs to be recognized for adapted it has been and this book gives a good look at that story.… (more)