A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this timely and engaging book, Umar Abd-Allah brings to life an important, but little-known figure in Victorian America. In an illuminating story of Alexander Webb, Abd-Allah shows how he navigated life as a prominent Muslim and an American with relative ease and without resistance from mainstream society. This work is an important lesson, not only for history buffs but for anyone interested in understanding contemporary times." --Geneive Abdo, author of Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11
"A remarkable biography of the intriguing Alexander Russell Webb, one of the earliest American converts to Islam. Webb's efforts to plant Islam in the United States are placed in the historical context of his New York upbringing, the religious developments in Victorian America, and his travels in the Muslim world." --Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, co-author of Muslim Women in America
"A prodigious study of one of the most important early American Muslims. Webb's tour acoss the Islamic world is captivating, and his interpretation of the faith provides a model for contemporary Islamic thought." --Jane I. Smith, author of Islam in America
"Fascinating for all Muslims and all Americans." --The Muslim World Book Review
"Given our current lack of solid information about the place of Islam in American religious history, Abd-Allah's scholarly work is really quite valuable." --H-Net
"In this timely and engaging book, Umar Abd-Allah brings to life an important, but little-known figure in Victorian America. In an illuminating story of Alexander Webb, Abd-Allah shows how he navigated life as a prominent Muslim and an American with relative ease and without resistance from mainstream society. This work is an important lesson, not only for history buffs but for anyone interested in understanding contemporary times." --Geneive Abdo, author of Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America After 9/11
"A remarkable biography of the intriguing Alexander Russell Webb, one of the earliest American converts to Islam. Webb's efforts to plant Islam in the United States are placed in the historical context of his New York upbringing, the religious developments in Victorian America, and his travels in the Muslim world." --Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, co-author of Muslim Women in America
"A prodigious study of one of the most important early American Muslims. Webb's tour acoss the Islamic world is captivating, and his interpretation of the faith provides a model for contemporary Islamic thought." --Jane I. Smith, author of Islam in America
"Fascinating for all Muslims and all Americans." --The Muslim World Book Review
"Given our current lack of solid information about the place of Islam in American religious history, Abd-Allah's scholarly work is really quite valuable." --H-Net
"An informative biography of an important spiritual figure." --Religious Studies Review

Product Description

Conflicts and controversies at home and abroad have led Americans to focus on Islam more than ever before. In addition, more and more of their neighbors, colleagues, and friends are Muslims. While much has been written about contemporary American Islam and pioneering studies have appeared on Muslim slaves in the antebellum period, comparatively little is known about Islam in Victorian America. This biography of Alexander Russell Webb, one of the earliest American Muslims to achieve public renown, seeks to fill this gap.
Webb was a central figure of American Islam during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A native of the Hudson Valley, he was a journalist, editor, and civil servant. Raised a Presbyterian, Webb early on began to cultivate an interest in other religions and became particularly fascinated by Islam. While serving as U.S. consul to the Philippines in 1887, he took a greater interest in the faith and embraced it in 1888, one of the first Americans known to have done so. Within a few years, he began corresponding with important Muslims in India. Webb became an enthusiastic propagator of the faith, founding the first Islamic institution in the United States: the American Mission. He wrote numerous books intended to introduce Islam to Americans, started the first Islamic press in the United States, published a journal entitled The Moslem World, and served as the representative of Islam at the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. In 1901, he was appointed Honorary Turkish Consul General in New York and was invited to Turkey, where he received two Ottoman medals of merits.
In this first-ever biography of Webb, Umar F. Abd-Allah examines Webb's life and uses it as a window through which to explore the early history of Islam in America. Except for his adopted faith, every aspect of Webb's life was, as Abd-Allah shows, quintessentially characteristic of his place and time. It was because he was so typically American that he was able to serve as Islam's ambassador to America (and vice versa). As America's Muslim community grows and becomes more visible, Webb's life and the virtues he championed - pluralism, liberalism, universal humanity, and a sense of civic and political responsibility - exemplify what it means to be an American Muslim.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 21, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195187288
• ISBN-13: 978-0195187281
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,024,991 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Webb could be called the founder of Amerin Islam, December 1, 2006

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In 1887 Alexander Russell Webb was made the American counsul in the Phillipines, at the time a Spanish colony largely Roman Catholic, but with a Muslim minority. Mr. Webb apparently experenced the Muslim faith at this time and in 1888 he converted. Upon his return to the United States he became active in promoting the Muslim faith including the writing of articles and the creation of study circles in various cities.

Webb could well be called the father of the Muslim movement in America and he lived a life that reflected the best of what the Muslim religion could be. After his death in 1916, he was largely forgotten and the center of Muslim religion in the US moved to Noble Drew Ali in Chicago whose early writings implied that he knew or at least had heard of Webb. After Drew Ali's death the Muslim faith in American split into many factions.

This is the first ever biography of Webb.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A timely book, June 20, 2007

By	Raja Sohail Abbas "cafefikr" (Charleston, WV, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This look at the life of Muhammad Alexander Russell Webb, one of the first American converts to Islam, is well researched and written in a language that captivates one and takes you on a journey with Mr. Webb on his many travels. People in the West still view Islam as a late entrant to the scene in the US but as muslims continue to integrate in the American social life, one will read and hear (and see hopefully) more and more stories of how muslims have always been a part of the fabric of America. Some estimates say that almost 30% of the slaves brought over to the US were muslims and we have Alex Kronemer coming up with a documentary on the life a African slave who was a Prince and how he fought for and won his freedom after 40 years of slavery here to go back to Africa (The Prince among slaves). Dr. Abd-Allah is educated from Columbia, Cornell and the Univ. of Chicago and taught at King Abdul Aziz university in Saudia for 18 years. He has been back in the USA since 2000 and is the head of a non-profit organization called the Nawawi foundation based in Chicago which is dedicated to provide relevant, meaningful Islamic teachings to America's growing first and second generation Muslims - teachings firmly rooted in authentic scholarship and taught in a way that is dynamic and applicable to the modern world (See website www.nawawi.org). Dr. Abd-Allah is and has always been a voice of moderation amongst muslims scholars and is dedicated to more interfaith dialogue amongst people of various faiths. He has always been a proponent of peace and he has many Audio CD's out in the market dealing with various issues affecting muslims and has made his feelings on extremism and violence quite clear. Mr. Rubin needs to check his sources (if any) before making comments on Dr. Abd-Allah.



Read the book, you will like it. It is a book about a man of his times, who lived in a time of turmoil and great change in the USA, andshould interest any student of American and Islamic history.

2 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb, May 7, 2007

By	Michael Rubin "Middle East Quarterly" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Abd-Allah, chair of the Chicago-based Nawawi Foundation, an organization promoting education about Islam, explores the life of Alexander Russell Webb (1846-1916), a convert to Islam who started some of the earliest U.S. Muslim periodicals.

Abd-Allah traces Webb's early life to look for his inspirations for his subsequent conversion. He grew up in upstate New York at the time of the Second Great Awakening, exposing him to an active theological discourse. The Civil War dominated his teenage years. Abd-Allah blames the religious establishment for "beat[ing] the drums" of war and suggests that the destruction wrought might have turned Webb against traditional religion. He also grew disillusioned with post-Civil War materialism and sought solace in other spiritual movements, opening the door to his eventual conversion to Islam. After years of activity in Missouri journalism and support for the Democratic Party, Webb received a presidential appointment to be consul in Manila.

While the Catholic church dominated the Philippines, Webb learned about Islam through Indian merchants and the writing of Indian Muslim intellectuals. It was not long before he converted to Islam. In 1891, he entered into correspondence with prominent Indian scholars and, the next year, resigned his post to travel around India to study and raise money to support a proselytizing mission in the United States. In 1893, he returned to the United States and established a mission and publishing center funded first by Indian and later Ottoman patrons. In 1901, he became the honorary Ottoman consul in New York.

Webb submerged himself in his new faith and wrote that, among Indian Muslims, he had found a society superior to Western civilization. Upon his return, he did not shy away from public lectures but found study circles and, especially, publishing a better investment of time. Eventually, though, neither Indian nor Ottoman patronage could keep Webb solvent. His missions collapsed under a mountain of debt.

Webb's story may have resonance with Abd-Allah, who converted to Islam after reading the biography of Malcolm X. Abd-Allah subsequently drifted from the Nation of Islam to radical Saudi interpretations of religion; for more than fifteen years he taught at King Abdul-Aziz University in Saudi Arabia. Like Webb, he is an American convert to Islam who seeks to propagate its spread.

While Abd-Allah produces a well-researched work, making full advantage of Webb's myriad papers and publications (but not State Department or presidential archives mentioning Webb's mission), his sympathy may lead him to avoid critical questions. What does Webb's abandonment of his diplomatic post say about the compatibility of Islam and U.S. government service, especially after his acceptance of work for a foreign government? Is propagation of Islam dependent upon foreign subsidy? How does Webb compare to those today who drift from liberalism to "spiritualism" and, then, immerse themselves in Islam? For this, the reader will have to wait for another author to examine Webb. For those following Abd-Allah's path, though, the narrative will provide solace.

Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2007