Good Muslims are validated through demonstrable entrepreneurial values.
Evidence
Leonie Sandercock, Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities of the 21st Century (London: Continuum, 2003), 102. This view ties in with the analysis offered by Katherine E. Brown, who has noted an alternative to the securitized Muslim of the war-on-terror years in the validated figure of the Muslim who is normalized via participation in sanctioned economic activities. Citing examples such as James Caan, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and television celebrity on the BBC show Dragon’s Den; Emel, the Muslim lifestyle magazine; and the women featured in the Times magazine “Muslim Women Power List” for 2009, Brown argues that the “good Muslim” is the one who can be demonstrated to share the values of entrepreneurialism. Their philanthropy and quality as community role models are commensurate with their embodiment of the lesson that self-help and hard work are more laudable than collective lobbying. Brown describes this combination as “meritocratic materialism,” pointing out that the good Muslim, “the “normal Muslim,” is the one we can do business with — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 686
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Coins the concept of the good Muslim defined by entrepreneurialism and business compatibility.
- XREF: Directly testable against Naqvi and Hamid characters who are normalized through economic participation versus securitized suspicion.
Related
Broader Connections
- Muslim women treat public behavior as a duty to represent Islam favorably.
#expands(0.60) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 353 - Muslim inclusion in American civic life comes at the price of disciplined loyalty
#expands(0.55) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 717 - The good Muslim bar rises so acceptance perpetually recedes
#qualifies(0.50) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 55