Muslim Romans

We hate uncertainty, so rather than live with it, we like to create neat stories that are easy to grasp. The only problem with seeing the world through these stories is that the uncertainty we THOUGHT we managed is still actually there, it's just hidden now.

Consider the story of the Thanksgiving turkey. The farmer begins to fatten it up a year before Thanksgiving. Every day, the farmer comes in, feeds the turkey, keeps it comfortable, and then leaves it to do whatever it wants. The turkey believes life is amazing, and that the farmer is his best friend, until Thanksgiving Day, when the turkey loses his head (literally).

This story of the turkey perfectly captures the concept of the Black Swan. The story goes that it was once believed there were no black swans, and so the worldview centered on white swans was completely shattered the instant a black swan was discovered in Australia. A really good modern example of a Black Swan event was the global shutdown in 2020 during COVID, or the election of Donald Trump. Neither of these events was foreseen by anyone, and their occurrence completely changed the playing field overnight.

For the past 100 years, and arguably longer, the West has managed its deep sense of uncertainty surrounding Islam and Muslims by creating an easy-to-grasp narrative: the West is progressive, liberal, and civilized. We’re the good guys. Muslims are barbaric and bloodthirsty. They want to hurt us and blow us up. They’re the bad guys.

Now, you see how I said “we’re the good guys” up there and not "they're the good guys"? Today, we live in a time where a never-before-seen hybrid has emerged. Historically, there were Muslims and Romans. There was the East, and there was the West. But today, there are Muslim Romans, Muslims who have lived their entire lives in the West and consider the West home.

The emergence of the Muslim Roman is a black swan event that will rapidly change the game.

The era we live in is marked by tectonic shifts. Long-held beliefs are being challenged, and with each passing year, it’s becoming clear that we are moving toward a new way of being. No one can quite articulate where we’re going, but we all feel that the future will be fundamentally different from the past.

Consider the recent resurgence of anti-Muslim propaganda. The grand storytellers who have worked so hard to craft the “West good, Islam bad” narrative recognize that knowledge of Islam is no longer coming through grainy 10 o’clock news clips of bearded men who don’t speak English. Captions are no longer necessary.

They understand that they’re now competing with the Muslim Romans on platforms like TikTok. And they understand, very well, the potency of Islam for a deeply restless mass of people who are now reexamining all of the fundamental stories.

For example, the crumbling Trump coalition feels like the turkey that’s lost its head. The sincere plan-trusters who backed Trump in 2016, trusted him again in 2020, and doubled down in 2024 have lost their bearings. No Epstein files. Another regime-change war. An economy that feels ready to crack. And none of the promises were kept.

Those people who feel like they’ve been taken for a ride are reexamining everything they’ve been told. And in the coming years, they’ll be the most receptive to hearing about Islam from Muslim Romans, because they'll just be listening to a fellow American with a new perspective. And when they hear what Islam actually is, many of them will realize they’ve been misled. They’ll think, “Well, that’s not so bad.”

The grand storytellers’ insistence on doubling down on their worn-out narrative about Islam is already backfiring, and God willing, in the coming years, the enemies of Islam will become the biggest reason that millions become Muslim.

My goal is to add a small voice to this conversation, using my identity as a Muslim Roman to communicate what Islam actually is, in a way Americans & westerners can understand. To communicate to those who are sick of the story they’ve been told and are now looking for the facts from the source.

My intention over the next few months is to cover the core ideas of Islam and present them in an easy-to-digest way. My primary goal is not to convert, but to educate. If you hate Islam, fine, but I want you to understand what you hate. And I believe that once you understand what Islam actually is, you probably won’t hate it.