A History of Islam in America

458 Pages·2010·6.88 MB·English

by  Kambiz GhaneaBassiri

A History of Islam in America
Muslims began arriving in the New World long before the rise of the
Atlantic slave trade. The first recorded arrival was in the late fifteenth
century when Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic in search of
new horizons and trading routes. Kambiz GhaneaBassiri’s fascinat-
ing book traces the history of Muslims in the United States and their
different waves of immigration and conversion across five centuries,
through colonial and antebellum America, through world wars and
civil rights struggles, to the contemporary era. The book tells the often
deeply moving stories of individual Muslims and their lives as immi-
grants and citizens within the broad context of the American religious
experience, showing how that experience has been integral to the evo-
lution of American Muslim institutions and practices. This is a unique
and intelligent portrayal of a diverse religious community and its rela-
tionship with America. It will serve as a strong antidote to the current
politicized dichotomy between Islam and the West, which has come to
dominate the study of Muslims in America and further afield.
Kambiz GhaneaBassiri is an associate professor of religion and human-
ities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Competing
Visions of Islam in the United States: A Study of Los Angeles (1997)
and has served on the editorial board of The Encyclopedia of Islam in
the United States (2006) and the Encyclopedia of Muslim-American
History (forthcoming).
For
Kamala and Daryush
A History of Islam in America
From the New World to the
New World Order
KAmbIz GHAneAbAssIrI
Reed College, Oregon
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo
Cambridge University Press
32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521614870
© Kambiz GhaneaBassiri 2010
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2010
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
GhaneaBassiri, Kambiz.
A history of Islam in America : from the new world to the new world order /
Kambiz GhaneaBassiri.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-521-84964-7 (hardback)
1. Islam – United States – History. 2. Muslims – United States. I. Title.
bp67.u6g43 2010
297.0973–dc22 2010006223
isbn 978-0-521-84964-7 Hardback
isbn 978-0-521-61487-0 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in
this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
List of Illustrations page vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Islam in the “New World”: The Historical Setting 9
2. Islamic Beliefs and Practice in Colonial and
Antebellum America 59
3. Conflating Race, Religion, and Progress: Social Change,
National Identity, and Islam in the Post–Civil War Era 95
4. Race, Ethnicity, Religion, and Citizenship: Muslim
Immigration at the Turn of the Twentieth Century 135
5. Rooting Islam in America: Community and Institution
Building in the Interwar Period 165
6. Islam and American Civil Religion in the Aftermath of
World War II 228
7. A New Religious America and a Post-Colonial Muslim
World: American Muslim Institution Building and
Activism, 1960s–1980s 272
8. Between Experience and Politics: American Muslims and
the “New World Order,” 1989–2008 327
Epilogue 379
Select Bibliography 383
Index 427
v

Illustrations
1. ‘Umar ibn Said page 19
2. A session of the 1893 World’s Parliament of
Religions 107
3. Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb 114
4. Royal Musicians of Hindustan 127
5. A children’s class at the “Moslem Temple” of
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, circa 1945 186
6. Members of the Moorish Science Temple at a
1928 annual gathering 201
7. Mohamed Duse 205
8. Mufti Muhammad Sadiq 210
9. “Ahmadia Moslem Mosque and Mission House” 211
10. Muhammad Sadiq addressing a gathering at
the Auto-Worker’s Hall in Detroit 214
11. Mirza Ahmad F. L. Andersen 214
12. Sheikh Ahmad Din 215
13. Mrs. Rahatullah Thaha 215
14. Mrs. Khairat Thomas, Mrs. Zeineb Watts,
Mrs. Ahmadia Robinson, and Mrs. Ayesha Clark 216
15. Cartoon by E. Majied in Muhammad Speaks
(16 September 1965) 233
16. Cartoon by E. Majied in Muhammad Speaks
(16 April 1965) 244
vii
viii List of Illustrations
17. “Guide to Peace, Justice” 245
18. Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. 256
19. The Islamic Center of America 299
20. The shrine of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and the
Fellowship Cemetery 302