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Islam in America The history of Islam in the United States starts in the early 16th century, with Estevánico of Azamor being the first Muslim to enter the historical record in North America. Once very small, the Muslim population of the US increased greatly in the twentieth century, with much of the growth driven by rising immigration and widespread conversion. In 2005, more people from Islamic countries became legal permanent United States residents — nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades. In fiscal year 2006 just 202 refugees from Iraq were allowed to resettle in the United States. Up to one-third of American Muslims are African Americans who have converted to Islam during the last seventy years. Conversion to Islam in prison, and in large urban areas has also contributed to its growth over the years. American Muslims come from various backgrounds, and are one of the most racially diverse religious group in the United States according to a 2009 Gallup poll. History The history of Islam in the United States can be divided into three periods: the colonization period, post World War I period, and the last few decades. Muslims in early United States Estevánico of Azamor may have been the first Muslim to enter the historical record in North America. Estevánico was a Berber originally from North Africa who explored the future states of Arizona and New Mexico for the Spanish Empire. Estevánico came to the Americas as a slave of the 16th-century Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. After joining the ill-fated Narváez expedition in 1527, Cabeza de Vaca and Estevánico were captured and enslaved by Indians, escaping to make an arduous journey along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. In 1539 Estevánico guided the first Spanish explorations of what is now the American Southwest. Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow, a Senegalese educator and former UNESCO director, has speculated that in 1587 a shipload of Moriscos landed and settled in the coastal towns of South Carolina, reaching the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, but the claim is not widely accepted. In 1790, the South Carolina legislative body granted special legal status to a community of Moroccans, twelve years after the Sultan of Morocco became the first foreign head of state to formally recognize the United States. In 1796, then president John Adams signed a treaty declaring the United States had no "character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen". Alexander Russell Webb is considered by historians to be the earliest prominent Anglo-American convert to Islam in 1888. In 1893 he was the only person representing Islam at the first Parliament for the World's Religions. Webb’s appointment by President Harrison was the first appointment of a Muslim American to government when he was appointed US Counsel to Philippines. There is limited academic research regarding African Muslims transported to North America as slaves. Historical records provide sparse information regarding both ethnic origins and cultural differences. However, some contemporary authors and historians speculate a sizable percentage of slaves possessed at least some knowledge of Islam. Estimates on the percentage of Muslim slaves purchased from Arab slave traders range from 10 to 20%.[ Slaves began arriving in North America during the 1520s. By 1900 roughly 500,000 Africans were sent to this area, representing 4.4% of the 11,328,000 slaves imported worldwide. It is estimated that over 50 percent of the slaves imported to North America came from areas where Islam was followed by at least a minority population. Thus, no less than 200,000 came from regions influenced by Islam. Substantial numbers originated from Senegambia, a region with an established community of Muslim inhabitants extending to the 11th century. Michael A. Gomez theorized that Muslim slaves may have accounted for "thousands, if not tens of thousands," but does not offer a precise estimate. He also suggests many non-Muslim slaves were acquainted with some tenets of Islam, due to Muslim trading and proselytizing activities. Historical records indicate many enslaved Muslims conversed in the Arabic language. Some even composed literature (such as autobiographies) and commentaries on the Quran. Despite living in a hostile environment, there is evidence that early Muslim slaves assembled for communal prayers. In limited cases some were occasionally provided a private praying area by their owner. Two of the most widely known examples of Muslim slaves in North America are Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Omar ibn Said. Suleiman was brought to America in 1731 and returned to Africa in 1734. Like many Muslim slaves, he often encountered impediments when attempting to perform religious rituals. For example, it is said that a white child threw dirt at Suleiman’s face after catching him praying. However, Suleiman was eventually allotted a private location for prayer by his master. Omar Ibn Said (ca. 1770 –1864) is among the best documented examples of a practicing-Muslim slave. He lived on a colonial North Carolina plantation and wrote many Arabic texts while enslaved. Born in the kingdom of Futa Tooro (modern Senegal), he arrived in America on December 27, 1807 aboard the ship Heart of Oak, one month before the US abolished importation of slaves. Some of his works include the Lords Prayer, the Bismillah, this is How You Pray, Quranic phases, the 23rd Psalm and an autobiography. In 1857, he produced his last known writing on Surah 110 of the Quran. In 1819, Omar received an Arabic translation of the Christian Bible from his master, James Owen. This Bible is housed at Davidson College in North Carolina since being donated by Ellen Guion in 1871. Although Omar converted to Christianity on December 3, 1820, many modern scholars believe he continued to be a practicing Muslim, based on dedications to Muhammad written in his Bible. In 1991 a masjid in Fayetteville, North Carolina renamed itself Masjid Omar Ibn Said in his honor. Another example is Bilali (Ben Ali) Muhammad, a Fula Muslim from Timbo Futa-Jallon in present day Guinea-Conakry who arrived to Sapelo Island during 1803. While enslaved, he became the religious leader and Imam for a slave community numbering approximately eighty Muslim men residing on his plantation. He is known to have fasted during the month of Ramadan, worn a fez and kaftan and observed the Muslim feasts, in addition to consistently performing the five obligatory prayers. In 1829, Bilali authored a thirteen page Arabic Risala on Islamic law and conduct. Known as the Bilali Document, it is currently housed at the University of Georgia in Athens. Small-scale migration to the U.S. by Muslims began in 1840, with the arrival of Yemenites and Turks, and lasted until World War I. Most of the immigrants, from Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire, came with the purpose of making money and returning to their homeland. However, the economic hardships of 19th-Century America prevented them from prospering, and as a result the immigrants settled in the United States permanently. These immigrants settled primarily in Dearborn, Michigan; Quincy, Massachusetts; and Ross, North Dakota. Ross, North Dakota is the site of the first documented mosque and Muslim Cemetery, but it was abandoned and later torn down in the mid 1970s. A new mosque was built in its place in 2005. In 1915, what is most likely the first American mosque was founded by Albanian Muslims in Biddeford, Maine. A Muslim cemetery still exists there. Construction of mosques sped up in the 1920s and 1930s, and by 1952, there were over 20 mosques.
Although the first mosque was established in the U.S. in 1915, relatively few mosques were founded before the 1960s. Eighty-seven percent of mosques in the U.S. were founded within the last three decades according to the Faith Communities Today (FACT) survey. California has more mosques than any other state. The Nation of Islam (NOI) was organized in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad. Fard drew inspiration for NOI doctrines from those of Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science Temple of America. He provided three main principles which serve as the foundation of the NOI: "Allah is God, the white man is the devil and the so called Negroes are the Asiatic Black People, the cream of the planet earth". Fard also taught a separatist and nationalist ideology. In 1934 Elijah Muhammad became the leader of the NOI. Muhammad deified Wallace Fard, saying that he was an incarnation of God, and taught that he was a prophet who had been taught directly by God in the form of Wallace Fard. After the death of Elijah Muhammad, he was succeeded by his son, Warith Deen Mohammed. Warith Deen Mohammed rejected many beliefs of NOI such as the divinity of Fard Muhammad and saw a white person as also a worshipper. He renamed it as the, World Community of al-Islam in the West, later it became the American Society of Muslims and reorganized as an orthodox Sunni organization. The new organization under Imam Mohammed promoted teachings and beliefs based on mainstream Islam, such as the observation of Ramadan, pilgrimage to Mecca and the five daily prayers. The new movements led up to an estimated 2 million accepting Islam mainstream, which is the largest Muslim organization in the country today. A few numbers of Black Muslims however rejected these new reforms brought by Imam Mohammed, Louis Farrakhan who broke away from the organization, re-established the Nation of Islam under the original Fardian doctrines, who is the current leader today. The numbers of people following the Nation of Islam ranges from 30,000 to 70,000 as of 2002. Today the group has a wide influence in the African American community. The Million Man March in 1994 remains the largest organized march in Washington, D.C.[citation needed] The group sponsors cultural and academic education, economic independence, and personal and social responsibility. Mosques (masjid in Arabic) are usually explicitly Sunni or Shia. There are 1,209 mosques in the United States and the nation's largest mosque, the Islamic Center of America, is in Dearborn, Michigan. It was rebuilt in 2005 to accommodate over 3,000 people for the increasing Muslim population in the region.[29] There is no accurate count of the number of Muslims in the United States, as the U.S. Census Bureau does not collect data on religious identification. However, it is estimated that there are between 7 – 8 million Muslims in the United States. The 2007 Pew survey of Muslim Americans finds two-thirds of the Muslim Americans are foreign-born. Among the foreign-born, most have immigrated since 1990. Of the roughly one-third of Muslim Americans who are native-born, the majority are converts and African American. In 2005, according to the New York Times, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent United States residents — nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades. According to a CAIR survey, regular Sunnimosque attendees come from the following backgrounds: South Asian (33%), Black (30%), Arab (25%), African (3.4%), European (2.1%), Southeast Asian (1.3%), Caribbean (1.2%), Turkish (1.1%), Iranian (0.7%), White (0.7%), and Hispanic/Latino (0.6%). However, when Muslim respondents were asked about their race in a recent Pew Research Center survey, 37% answered White, 24% answered Black, 20% answered Asian, 15% answered "other/mixed race," and 4% answered Latino. A map prepared by the Harvard Pluralism Project, shows the distribution of mosques/masjids in the United States. Another map from Valparaiso University shows an estimation of the Muslim populations per county, noting heavy concentrations of Muslim Americans in the Washington-Boston corridor, Houston, and southern California. According to the PEW Forum on Religion & Public Life, based on the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 82% said they are absolutely certain that they believe in God and 9% fairly certain. The Importance of Religion in One's Life was another important question raised among Muslims, overall in the United States 59% believe it is important, whereas a high proportion of Muslims believed religion is very important (72%), and 18% said religion is somewhat important. The frequency of receiving answers to prayers among Muslims was, 31% at least once a week and 12% once or twice a month. In addition to immigration, the state, federal and local prisons of the United States may be a contributor to the growth of Islam in the country. J. Michael Waller claims that Muslim inmates comprise 17-20% of the prison population, or roughly 350,000 inmates in 2003. He also claims that 80% of the prisoners who "find faith" while in prison convert to Islam. These converted inmates are mostly African American, with a small but growing Hispanic minority. Waller also asserts that many converts are radicalized by outside Islamist groups linked to terrorism, but other experts suggest that when radicalization does occur it has little to no connection with these outside interests. Muslims in the United States have increasingly contributed to American culture; there are various Muslim comedy groups, rap groups, Scout troops and magazines, and Muslims have been vocal in other forms of media as well. Within the Muslim community in the United States there exist a number of different traditions. As in the rest of the world, the Sunni Muslims are in the majority. Shia Muslims, especially those in the Iranian immigrant community, are also active in community affairs. All four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) are found among the Sunni community. According to a 2004 telephone survey of a sample of 1846 Muslims conducted by the polling organization Zogby, the respondents were more educated and affluent than the national average, with 59% of them holding at least an undergraduate college degree. Citing the Zogby survey, a 2005 Wall Street Journal editorial by Bret Stephens and Joseph Rago expressed the tendency of American Muslims to report employment in professional fields, with one in three having an income over $75,000 a year. The editorial also characterized American Muslims as "role models both as Americans and as Muslims". Unlike many Muslims in Europe, American Muslims do not tend to feel marginalized or isolated from political participation. Several organizations were formed by the American Muslim community to serve as 'critical consultants' on U.S. policy regarding Iraq and Afghanistan. Other groups have worked with law enforcement agencies to point out Muslims within the United States that they suspect of fostering 'intolerant attitudes'. Still others have worked to invite interfaith dialogue and improved relations between Muslim and non-Muslim Americans. Growing Muslim populations have caused public agencies to adapt to their religious practices. Airports such as the Indianapolis International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport as well as the Kansas City International Airport have installed foot-baths to allow Muslims, particularly taxicab drivers who service the airports, to perform their religious ablutions in a safe and sanitary manner. In addition, Denver International Airport included a masjid as part of its Interfaith Chapel when opened in 1996. American Muslims' views of the United States
In a 2007 survey titled Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream, the Pew Research Center found Muslim Americans to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world. 47% of respondents said they considered themselves Muslims first and Americans second. However, this was compared to 81% of British Muslims and 69% of German Muslims, when asked the equivalent question. A similar disparity exists in income, the percentage of American Muslims living in poverty is 2% higher than the general population, compared to an 18% disparity for French Muslims and 29% difference for Spanish Muslims. Politically, American Muslims were both pro-larger government and socially conservative. For example, 70% of respondents preferred a bigger government providing more services, while 61% stated that homosexuality should be discouraged by society. Despite their social conservatism, 71% of American Muslims expressed a preference for the Democratic Party. The Pew Research survey also showed that nearly three quarters of respondents believed that American society rewards them for hard work regardless of their religious background. The same poll also reported that only 40 percent of U.S. Muslims believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks. Another 28 percent don't believe it and 32 percent said they had no view. Among 28 percent who doubted that Arabs were behind the conspiracy, one-fourth of those claim the U.S. government or President George W. Bush was responsible. Only 26 percent of American Muslims believe the U.S.-led war on terror is a sincere effort to root out international terrorism. Only 5% of those surveyed had a "very favorable" or "somewhat favorable" view of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Only 35% of American Muslims stated that the decision for military action in Afghanistan was the right one and just 12% supported the use of military force in Iraq. American Muslim life after the September 11, 2001 attacks After the September 11, 2001 attacks, there were occasional attacks on some Muslims living in the U.S., although this was restricted to a small minority. In a 2007 survey, 53% of American Muslims reported that it was more difficult to be a Muslim after the 9/11 attacks. Asked to name the most important problem facing them, the options named by more than ten percent of American Muslims were discrimination (19%), being viewed as a terrorist (15%), public's ignorance about Islam (13%), and stereotyping (12%). 54% believe that the U.S. government's anti-terrorism activities single out Muslims. 76% of surveyed Muslim Americans stated that they are very or somewhat concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism around the world, while 61% express a similar concern about the possibility of Islamic extremism in the United States. On a small number of occasions Muslim women who wore distinctive hijab were harassed, causing some Muslim women to stay at home, while others temporarily abandoned the practice. In 2006, one California woman was shot dead as she walked her child to school; she was wearing a headscarf and relatives and Muslim leaders believe that the killing was religiously motivated. While 51% of American Muslims express worry that women wearing hijab will be treated poorly, 44% of American Muslim women who always wear hijab express a similar concern. |
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