“Muslims and America,” the third episode of Morgan Spurlock’s documentary series “30 Days,” aired almost 10 years ago. (As of this writing, all three seasons of the show were available to stream on Netflix.) The creator of the popular and controversial film “Super Size Me,” Spurlock used “30 Days” to revisit that movie’s basic premise: real people engaging in provocative 30-day experiments that take them far outside their comfort zones.
“Muslims and America” is especially striking because it could have been filmed last week instead of a decade ago. Post-9/11 Islamophobia rears its ugly head throughout the episode. Yet I’ve observed the same thing happening on Facebook and in conservative media during the past few weeks, presumably due to the escalation of ISIS attacks.
IMDb sums up the episode as follows: “David Stacy is a West Virginian Christian [who] moved to Dearborn, Michigan to live for 30 days in a large Muslim community.” Stacy is initially reluctant to engage in Muslim prayer rituals, particularly because he doesn’t know Arabic and worries he’ll say something that will contradict his Christian faith. He awkwardly remains standing at a mosque while every other congregant bows and kneels. He finds conversations with the imam frustrating, likely because the cleric doesn’t provide black-and-white answers.
Fortunately, Stacy later finds some Muslim mentors who are easier for him to relate to. As a result, he is able to spend time actually learning about Islam. He gains some insight into the experiences of people who are openly Muslim in our decidedly Islamophobic country.
What I see in social and conventional media these days is a combination of sweeping generalization and calls for a violent response to ISIS. Moody Radio routinely characterizes Islam as an inherently violent religion. Christian films like “God’s Not Dead” imply it. I hear the message that ISIS is not “perverting” Islam but merely following it more rigorously than most Muslims. The implication is that Islam, at its core, encourages hatred of the West (read: Christians) and the brutal dispatching of “infidels.”
That’s not the Islam David Stacy finds. He emerges from his odyssey a seemingly changed man. He puts a copy of the Quran on a bookshelf in his West Virginia home. He talks, with ostensible sincerity, about wanting to defend Islam against those in his faith community who would slander it. He explains the term “jihad” based on what it actually means. He even reflects on his privilege as a white, male Christian, and how unsettling it was to sacrifice even one of these factors (by dressing in traditional Muslim garments) for a month. As much as a Christian can, Stacy experiences a tiny taste of what countless Muslim Americans have to deal with on a daily basis.
Obviously, “30 Days” is conceived and edited for maximum dramatic (and sometimes comic) effect. Still, it’s hard to get Stacy’s journey out of my head. Despite all the cultural and religious faux pas he commits during his 30 days, at least Stacy sticks with it. In the process, he learns things about Islam that go deeper than most Americans’ knowledge, mine included. I only wish millions more in America could have their own 30 days — or, better yet, 300 — to live in a Muslim community and learn by experience what Islam is actually about.
