"All-American Muslims"--They're Just Like You and Me

'Cept for the jihad and sharia and FGM and honour killings, of course, but those, er, novelties don't seem to factor into the new TLC reality show:

Shadia Amen has plenty of piercings, a few on her left eyebrow and 20 on her ears. She says her hair changes color monthly, "anywhere from pink to blue-black to black to whatever tickles my fancy."

And tattoos cover 40 percent of her body, including one that depicts "the rock star sign with the hand" shaped like the devil's horns. Despite that, the 31-year-old Dearborn woman — who calls herself a hillbilly at heart — is a proud Muslim.

Although she has drunk alcohol and once was a single mom, her Islamic faith is still a part of her.

"I've read the Quran three times," says Amen, referring to Islam's holy text. "I know a lot about the religion. I was raised with it, going to all the Islamic Sunday schools growing up. Because I don't follow it to a T, that doesn't make me any less of a Muslim. Because in the end, it's God who's judging us, and I think He and I are cool."

Amen's story will be featured in a new reality-TV show debuting at 10 p.m. Sunday on TLC called All-American Muslim. The eight-part series is the first show on American television that depicts the lives of Muslim Americans, a community that has been in the spotlight for the past decade, but often misunderstood.

Filmed this year, the series looks at five Lebanese-American Shia Muslim families in Dearborn, the city that has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the U.S. Women are a big part of the show, which reflects the community's diversity: The female characters range from a conservative who frowns on bellydancers at Arab weddings, to a woman with an Islamic head scarf who's outspoken and who dances, to a married businesswoman who wears short skirts and tight tops when hitting the city with friends.

The series comes at a time of intense curiosity among Americans about Islam, with some believing that the religion oppresses women and forces them to wear the Islamic head scarf commonly known as hijab. But as many in Dearborn already know, the TV series shows a world of independent women who decide for themselves whether to wear hijab and how to incorporate Islam into their lives...

Sounds riveting--and no less "real" than Little Mosque on the Prairie--but I'm waiting for Keeping Up With Khadrs and Shafia Family Values.