Being Muslim in the Face of Doubt

ACGIS Guest Lecture with Dr. Zaid Adhami (Williams College)

Thursday, October 9, 2025 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM EDT
Merten Hall, 1203

The past two decades have witnessed pervasive anxieties in US Muslim communities around a perceived crisis of faith. From the individuals who express disillusionment in relation to their religious belief, to the communal authorities who warn of an epidemic of Muslims losing their faith, we are surrounded by the pressures of doubt. In this talk, I unpack some of the social conditions at the heart of this phenomenon, in particular the convergence of the American ethos of personal authenticity with a revivalist mode of Islamic piety. Through a few stories from my book, Dilemmas of Authenticity, I highlight what it is like to experience doubt and crisis in this context. Rather than offering a recipe for how to dispel doubts about Islam or arrive at complete certainty, these reflections instead shed light on what it takes to maintain faith commitment and religious belonging while grappling with ambivalence and uncertainty. I thus share some of the lessons I have taken from the process of researching and writing this book, regarding not only living a life of faith but more broadly sustaining our moral and political commitments.

About the Author

Zaid Adhami is Associate Professor of Religion at Williams College. His scholarship and teaching lie at the intersection of Islamic studies, the study of contemporary American religion and culture, and the anthropology of religion. He is the author of Dilemmas of Authenticity: The American Muslim Crisis of Faith (UNC Press, 2025). He recieved his PhD from Duke University in 2018.