Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism

Journalists, theater directors, doctors, musicians, museum curators, lawyers, comics, street vendors, educators, and women's rights activists-these are some of the people Karima Bennoune interviewed in her three-year investigation of grassroots opposition to the rising tide of fundamentalism in Muslim populations from Lahore, Pakistan, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her subjects' own religious views range from the wholly secular to the deeply devout, yet all bear painful witness to the brutal effects of fundamentalist violence and oppression. True defenders of freedom, they struggle to foster creativity, compassion, discussion, and diversity even sometimes in the face of death threats (and more than threats) from armed religious militants. Yet, some of these vibrant, engaging, and heroic people also suffer from the consequences of counterterrorism. Abroad, they are abandoned, as the political right resorts to anti-Muslim prejudice while the left defends Muslim fundamentalism as an authentic expression of cultural tradition, even as a "democratic" force.