Muslims in America
It's uncertain when the first Muslims arrived in what is now the United States. According to several historians, the first Muslims arrived in the early 14th century from the Senegalese and Gambian areas of Africa. They are said to have been evicted Moors from Spain who fled to the Caribbean and maybe the Gulf of Mexico. Columbus is claimed to have brought a book authored by Portuguese Muslims who had made their way to the New World in the 12th century with him on his expedition to the Americas. Others allege that Muslims, including a man called Istafan, followed the Spanish as a guide to the New World during their conquest of what would become Arizona and New Mexico during the early 16th century.
The composition of the first real wave of Muslims in the United States is quite clear: enslaved Africans, of whom 10 to 15% were claimed to be Muslims. It was difficult for them to keep their religion, and many were forcibly converted to Christianity. Any attempt to practice Islam and preserve traditional clothes and names had to be done behind closed doors. After their arrival, most slaves who attempted to keep their Islamic religious practices were forcibly converted to Christianity.
The story of slaves in America is hard for me to digest as a proud American. Their story, along with the stories of all other enslaved people really shed light on America’s national shame. Our collective shame of having a history where human beings were treated as objects. As I did more research into the experiences of slaves in the United States, a couple of words from the Declaration of Independence stuck out to me like a sore thumb. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson writes “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (“Declaration of Independence: A Transcription”). The existence of the institution of slavery was a direct contradiction to what he writes. The hypocrisy of our founding document is something that we live with to this day and is something that haunts the countless African Americans whose ancestors were the victims of white supremacy and subjugation.
The Muslim slaves in America were quite different than their non-Muslim counterparts. Due to the high emphasis placed on literacy in Islam, Muslim slaves in America were mostly literate and many could read and write in Arabic. Their abilities to do this greatly shattered the stereotype that the white man sought to paint for African slaves which was that they are uneducated which is another support of their claim that black people were inferior to white people. Muslims such as Muhammad Yaro broke that stereotype by being able to read, write and exude a great deal of wisdom and knowledge despite their miserable living conditions. They also stuck to Islamic principles and ideals through their time in captivity. Throughout his long life, Yarrow Mamout [Muhammad Yaro] told people, “it is no good to eat Hog [and] drink whiskey is very bad.” In Mississippi, the son of a prince acknowledged the difficulty of adhering to these rules since slaveholders provided the food. He said “in terms of bitter regret, that his situation as a slave in America, prevents him from obeying the dictates of his religion. He is under the necessity of eating pork but denies ever tasting any kind of spirits” (Diouf).
Ottoman Muslims are known to have immigrated with other Europeans in the mid-seventeenth century. Muslims from the Balkans and Syria immigrated in large numbers to modern-day Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and the Dakotas from 1878 to 1924. Muslims in the United States erected mosques for collective religious practice in the 1930s and 1940s. Experts believe that between four and seven million Muslims live in the United States today.
Famous members of the Muslim community such as Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali helped Islam get American public attention over time. There are around 1500 Islamic institutes and mosques in the nation today and Islam is poised to become America's second most popular religion (“Islam in America”).
However, prejudice toward Muslims has increased dramatically since the 9/11 attacks. Many Muslims have reacted by becoming more involved in American politics and attempting to teach their neighbors about their faith and history. Today, there are prominent Muslim politicians and government leaders. Leaders such as Rashida Talib and Ilhan Omar have opened the door for Muslims and especially Muslim women to enter and make their voices heard in institutions of great power.
The creation of the New Amsterdam colony in the 17th century marked the beginning of Islam in New York City. Anthony Janszoon van Salee, a Dutch North African trader, was most likely the first Muslim settler (known by contemporaries as Anthony the Turk). He was noted for reading his Qur'an on a regular basis (“The Van Salee Family”). Although evidence is anecdotal and based on assumptions about the names and places of origin of specific enslaved persons, it is probable that a tiny minority of enslaved West African and Madagascan Muslims resided in the city until the 19th century (Gomez 131–133).
Small-scale Muslim migration to New York, like in other regions of the United States, began in the 1840s with the entry of Yemenis and Turks, as well as Bengali and Levantine sailors and merchants, and lasted until World War I (Koszegi and Gordon 26–27). The American Mohammedan Society, formed in 1907 by Lipka Tatar immigrants from Poland's Podlasie area, was the first Muslim organization in New York City. They established the Powers Street Mosque in Williamsburg in 1931, making it the city's oldest continually running mosque (Siddiqui).
New York Muslims make up 10% of the medical sector, control 96,000 small businesses and give more than $608 million to charity yearly while accounting for only 9% of the city's population (Haji).
Muslims have also begun taking part in New York City’s government. Just in 2022, Shahana Hanif was elected to the New York City Council making her the first Muslim woman to hold this position. She is also a Bangladeshi woman and I remember an ecstatic mood at the time of her election when pretty much everyone was talking about her. Muslims are an integral part of the fabric of New York City. Muslims help make New York City what it is and they have been doing so for longer than most people think.