Customer Reviews

Muslims in America: A Short History (Religion in American Life)

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In the last 10 years, Muslims in the United States have largely been perceived as a foreign, "fifth column" community. For right-wing talk radio hosts, they are convenient cannon fodder. For the mainstream media and politicians, with some exceptions, they are largely the same, an inconvenient community to skirt around.

What is largely unknown is that Muslims have deep roots in the United States. Starting from West African slaves brought here through the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 1700s, to modern-day figures like Malcolm X and W.D. Mohammed, Curtis offers readers a brief, but eye-opening introduction to the history of Muslims in America.

While this slim volume is meant to be, as its subtitle notes, a short history, it is a concise, well-written one. The book is factual, well-researched and presents an inside look at this religious community. By weaving facts with real stories of American Muslims of the past and present, Curtis successfully retains the reader's interest until the end.

He also discusses how other movements have influenced the American Muslim community, ranging from the Ahmadiyya to the Druze and the Nation of Islam.

However, this book should primarily be used as a starting point to learn more about American Muslims. It is not exhaustive or comprehensive. But it whets a reader's appetite enough to want to know more.

Muslims in America: A Short History should be required reading for any "Islam 101" type class in high school or college. It should be on the bookshelf of every library in the United States and on the desk of every AM radio talk show host.

The author of this book, Edward E. Curtis IV, Millennium Chair of the Liberal Arts and Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), has dedicated his recent academic study and research to Muslim Americans; this is substantiated by his editing of the Columbia Sourcebook of Muslims in the United States (Columbia University Press, 2009), the Encyclopedia of Muslim-Americans in History (Facts on File, 2010), his studies in African-Americans and religion, and the current book under review. To compose a short history of any topic entails on the part of the author the challenging task of selection and at times to generalize, but Curtis appears to grapple with both of these challenges admirably; he includes all the significant personalities and particular issues faced by Muslim Americans at various points in history with little to no editorializing, unless it is to provide context. Curtis's Muslim in America: A Short History (Oxford University Press, 2009) provides a brief synopsis of an important minority of Americans with deep historical ties to their land since the 16th century up and through the tragic events of 9/11.

Muslim Americans, whether as explorers as Estevanico; slaves who transcribed the Koran by heart like Job Ben Solomon; converts, like Alexander Russell Webb, a U.S. Consulate to the Philippines near the end of the 19th century; immigrants, like sodbusters Mary and Hassin Juma that raised their family in North Dakota at the turn of the 20th century; African American social reformers, like Malcom X; or academics that are revolutionizing the horizon of their discipline like Amina Wadud, all indicate that Muslims have been and are a vital thread to America's heritage, and consequently dispels any notion that Muslims are a recent addition to the landscape of America.
Curtis's book is well organized into five chapters covering both indigenous and immigrant Muslim Americans, including pictures of Muslim Americans through the centuries, and with primary source selections from various points in history that provide intriguing insights in the words of Muslim Americans themselves. The book ends with a chronology of Muslim Americans--events and personalities that were fleshed-out in the text--a comprehensive listing of references for further readings, and an index. For non-Muslim Americans and Muslim Americans this accessible history portrays Muslims in a sympathetic light as a collective of peoples that have sought at various times and in various ways better understanding and respect in their particular American context. Hence, Curtis includes and mentions the narratives of a spectrum of Muslim American communities from the Sunni, Sufi, Shi'i, Ismaili, Ahmadiyya, Nation of Islam, and Moorish Science Temple members as perspectives within the diaspora of Islam in America and thereby contradicting any assertion that Islam is monolithic.

Curtis mentions in his preface that he desires to portray a "sobering and well rounded" view of Muslim Americans--this is in contrast to the Islamophobic works that litter the bookshelves--and though he achieves this objective in content and tone, he seems to side-step the Salafi/Wahhabi perspective which despite not considered mainstream has still played an important role in American Islam in the past decades with the rise of Political Islam. Curtis's overview also ignores the efforts of Mark Hanson's grassroots efforts to revitalize and engage a traditional Islamic discourse with contemporary American society by establishing a higher learning institution in the United States. Aside from these two oversights, Curtis's book is a welcome addition and should probably be considered the first reference for those interested in an introduction to the diverse and historically rooted community of Muslim Americans. In a succinct and accessible narrative Curtis's Muslims in America will aid in assuaging the deplorable misunderstanding surrounding Islam, especially as it pertains to Muslim Americans, and cause Muslim Americans, who largely do not know the history of Islam in America, to reflect carefully on their identity as being Muslim and American, and assist in overcoming any apparent paradoxes between the two.

A well-written concise introduction to the topic. Curtis does a good job of providing enough context to appreciate the significance of developments. Includes a useful timeline of key events. Could be useful for book clubs and short courses.

"Muslims in America" is the "first single-author history of Muslims in America from colonial times to the present", which is what the back cover proclaims. I have no reason to doubt that this sad statement is true and for that reason this book is a welcome addition to the shelf of any serious student of American history.

That being said, this book is not perfect. Since it tries to cover the entire spread of American history the first pages are about isolated Muslim individuals that were brought over as slaves, continued to follow their faith and were noted for doing so. It turns out that only a few people fit all those criteria so we end up with extended biographies of these people. This is not bad, per se, but it does make the last half of the book seemed rushed in comparison. The slow, extended style is put aside for a quicker, less detailed style.

That less detailed style in the latter half of the book was frustrating for me. I am not a Muslim but I am fairly well read on the religion. I can speak intelligently on the main teachings of mainstream Islam, but I will not claim to be an expert on the topic. Groups like the Nation of Islam fascinate me precisely because some of their teachings have differed radically from any other teachings in the "mainstream" , especially with the Nation of Islam's heavy emphasis on race and different stories about how each racial group was formed. I would have appreciated more discussion of how Muslims outside of the Nation of Islam view the Nation of Islam and their teachings, and vice-versa. I would have also enjoyed a more robust discussion of the origins of these "non-traditional" Muslim groups - which Muslim traditions did they draw from, which did they modify, etc.?

What the book does well is detail how Muslim slaves came into America (although actual numbers will have to remain guesswork) and tell how some completely maintained their faith while others saved just parts of it. Curtis also examines the multiple waves of Muslim immigration that have come into the United States. It is tempting to think that this is a relatively new phenomenon, but it is not. I was especially fascintated by the Muslim settlers in rural North Dakota. Can you imagine a place you would be less likely to find a mosque than in rural North Dakota in the 1880s?

Of course 9/11 and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq need to be addressed and Curtis covers them well. He includes a fatwa against terrorism on pages 117-8. He also chronicles the challenges of being Muslim in America in a post-9/11 world and some data on Muslim Americans opinions.

I give this book a four star rating, ignoring the preface, which I will comment on below:

For me the entire book was marred by an unfortunate Preface that was intended to show the level of misunderstanding that the greater American public has about Islam. The controversy cited was the installation of footbaths at the new billion dollar Indianapolis International Airport. These baths cost about $2,000 and Curtis comments on those that protested against it. He notes one pastor was against it because it would forward "Islam's desired goal, which is to thrust the entire world under one single Islamic caliphate under sharia law." (p. x) I do not know about this pastor, but I did pay particular attention to these protests because I live near the airport and I live near the Halal markets and coffee houses these taxi drivers frequent on West Washington Street - their cabs are a constant part of the landscape of my neighborhood.

It seemed to me that most of the protesters were upset that the government was paying to install foot baths to facilitate one religion's practices (although it was noted that anyone can use them, will they? What other group engages in ritual footbathing?). Indiana has gone through a whole round of lawsuits to prevent prayers at graduations and to remove 10 Commandment displays on public grounds that were installed at no public expense. To many, it seemed mighty two-faced to have a government entity (the Airport Authority) play favorites by accomodating the wishes of one religion while other branches of government frustrate the wishes of others.

Curtis goes on to make comments about the pastor and how his deep prejudices would impair his ability to see his Muslim friends as people or even really knowing them - an ironic comment. Curtis shows his own prejudices in this snarky comment that is so unlike the rest of the book.

This whole preface left a bad taste in my mouth. It really is a pretty good book, but I had to force myself to look past this unfortunate part of the introduction.

Curtis' info regarding the so called immigrant Muslim Bilali is well researched. But once again I think Curtis seems to believe the MST began 1925-26 and reached its zenith 1929. But I staunchly believe it originated as the Canaanite Temple in 1913, and evolved into the MST of America. Curtis mentions the use of Turkish Fezzes but in actuality the fezzes worn by the MST were Egyptian or Moroccan not Turkish. He also insists on relating MST dress to "Black Shriners" instead of the true Moors which dressed exactly like this in the past. He also recycles Arthur Faust's account of MST from get this "one" meeting. He gives decent info on James Lomax/Muhammad Ezaldeen former mst member turned orthodox.The biographies throughout the book were a pretty nice change. The rest of the book is pretty basic info nothing really new.