Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in American Studies
Episode: Zaid Adhami, "Dilemmas of Authenticity: The American Muslim Crisis of Faith" (UNC Press, 2025)
Description: In one of the most important books published in 2025—Dilemmas of Authenticity: The American Muslim Crisis of Faith, published by UNC Press—Zaid Adhami explores questions of religious doubt, authenticity, and crisis of faith. The book examines what many American Muslims describe as a crisis of faith, but Adhami shows that this crisis is less about losing belief and more about the pressures of authenticity. In a cultural moment where people are expected to be true to themselves and to believe sincerely, faith becomes something that must feel emotionally real and personally chosen. Drawing on ethnographic research and intimate conv...