Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

Moustafa Bayoumi

Moustafa Bayoumi is professor of English at Brooklyn College and author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America (Penguin, 2008).

MER Article

Being Muslim in the Trump Era

Moustafa Bayoumi is author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America (2009) and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches From the War on Terror (2015). He is professor of English at Brooklyn College. In this interview with MERIP editorial committee me

Moustafa Bayoumi • 6 min read

Current Analysis

Men Behaving Badly

Here we go again. A preposterous provocation easily manages to ignite fevered protests in Muslim-majority countries around the world, and everyone is worse off as a result. The episode is playing like a sequel to the 2005 Danish cartoon controversy, but with bigger and better explosions than the ori

Moustafa Bayoumi • 8 min read

Current Analysis

The Rites and Rights of Citizenship

On Tuesday I became a citizen of the United States. Almost ten years ago, I was granted permanent residency. Between my Green Card and my naturalization certificate lies the seemingly endless decade of the “war on terror.”

Moustafa Bayoumi • 8 min read

Current Analysis

Sects and the City

I had almost forgotten I’d sent in an application when the e-mail message appeared, like Mr. Big, out of nowhere. “Hi, Moustafa,” it began, as if we were old friends. “Thank you for e-mailing us regarding your interest in working on ‘Sex and the City 2.’ ”

Moustafa Bayoumi • 3 min read

Current Analysis

The Race Is On

“We are so racially profiled now, as a group,” the Arab-American comedian Dean Obeidallah says in his routine, “that I heard a correspondent on CNN not too long ago say the expression, ‘Arabs are the new blacks.’ That Arabs are the new blacks.” Obeidallah continues:

Moustafa Bayoumi • 32 min read

Current Analysis

Fort Hood Shootings: Again We Will Be Judged for Acts We Didn't Commit

So much is still unknown about the shooting at Fort Hood Army base and the motives of the alleged shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, but still I have that same queasy feeling in my stomach that I've had before: this will not be good for Muslims. First things first. Major Nidal Malik Hasan is in custody. W

Moustafa Bayoumi • 2 min read

Current Analysis

Court Wrongly OKs Profiling

Should the police be able to arrest you based on your religion and then imprison you indefinitely while they search for a crime to charge you with? Of course not. The very idea flies in the face of American jurisprudence, whose traditions guarantee due process, equal protection and the presumption

Moustafa Bayoumi • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Vilifying Muslims Is Un-American

Muslim-bashing has become socially acceptable in the United States. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 46 percent of Americans hold negative perceptions of Islam, 7 percentage points higher than after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The poll also discovered that a third of the

Moustafa Bayoumi • 2 min read

MER Article

A Bloody Stupid War

When a war breaks out people say, “It’s too stupid; it can’t last long.” But though a war may well be “too stupid,” that doesn’t prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves. -- Albert Camus, The Plague

Moustafa Bayoumi • 27 min read