Abstract:Although Muslims began migrating to America in large numbers only in the nineteenth and particularly, the twentieth centuries, there are sources suggesting that the Muslim presence on the continent even predates Columbus’ famous voyage to the “New World.” This article looks at the community of Muslims in Amer-ica from a demographic, historical, organizational and soci-economic point of view. The author traces the different migra-tion patterns of the Muslims to America as well as their ethnic composition. He surveys some of the important Islamic organi-zations and their mandates. He touches on the Shia pres-ence as well as the African American communities in the United States. The article concludes with a discussion on the socio-economic status of the Muslims residing in America.
Statistical SurveyIn the early 1900’s, Western sociologists and political analysts never reckoned that within a century, Islam would emerge as a formi-dable force in international politics. For this reason, very few studies on the political, economic, cultural and regional influences affecting the Muslim world were conducted. In North America, and in particular, in the United States, Muslims were always marginalized and their ac-tivities came under scrutiny. However, during the past three decades, and particularly in the aftermath of the glorious victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, previously held assumptions and theories became invalidated and were replaced with newer analyses and interpretations about the status of the Muslim world and the religion of Islam.Since religion and beliefs are not accounted for in the U.S. National census—a census conducted once every decade—it is difficult to ascertain the precise population of Muslims in America using these records. Nevertheless, they do identify the ethnic origins of its citizens as well as the former nationalities of its immigrants, and using this data, researches have been able to estimate the number of Muslims in America.Based on U.S. administration statistics, the population of immi-grants from Islamic countries to the United States from its earliest re-cords till 1965 has been relatively low when compared to the number of immigrants from non-Islamic countries. In the period between 1820 and 1965, only 517,367 citizens immigrated from areas which had sizeable Muslim populations, including the Balkans, the former Otto-man Empire (present day Turkey) and the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). However, from 1966 to 1980, the number of immigrants from Islamic countries increased significantly to 865,472. During the 1980’s, the number of immigrants from the Mus-lim world to the United States reached 921,100, and between 1990 and 1997, it increased to 997,000.Of course, not all of these immigrants were Muslims. In fact, be-tween 1820 and 1960, Muslims composed only thirty percent of the Indian immigrants who migrated to the United States. Also, between 1980 and 1990, only one third of the immigrants from Lebanon were Muslims. Similarly, a large number of Iranian migrants to the United States, particularly in the period 1980-1990, were Jews, Christians and members of other non-Islamic ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, when one looks at the total number of people emigrating from Muslim coun-tries to the United States from the early nineteenth century till the present, the majority of them are Muslims. Based on the official U.S. statistics from the year 1820 to 1997, this amounts to 3.3 million im-migrants—a mere five percent of the sixty-four million immigrants to America during the same period. Accounting for birth and conversion, the number of Muslims in America today is estimated to be between six and nine million.The largest number of immigrants to the United States has been from the Arab countries, and is followed by (in descending order): Iran, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Tunisia, North Africa and Europe (particularly from the Balkan countries including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the former Yugoslavia republics). Immigrants from other parts of Africa and Asia, such as the Central Asian republics, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Africa, rank next respectively. There has been a significant number of Afghani immigrants to the United States—30,000 between 1980 and 1990, and 13,600 during the fol-lowing decade.
History of Muslims in AmericaMuslims not only accompanied and assisted the Italian-Spanish sailor, Christopher Columbus, during his epic voyage to the American continent in 1492, they also accompanied other Europeans who crossed the ” Since the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain and Portugal, the role of European Muslims in the voyages to the American continent was hardly mentioned in Western literature. “ Atlantic and set foot on what became known as the “New World”. In fact, Columbus’ “historic discovery” took place precisely a few years after the downfall of the last Islamic rule in the Spanish Peninsula, and there is an authentic hypothesis suggesting that Mus-lims residing in the Iberian peninsula two centuries prior to Columbus’ voyage had already dispatched sailors to that part of the world and had even established friendly ties with the original inhabitants in the land (later named “Red Indians” by the Europeans). In 1474, by sow-ing internal discord among the Muslim rulers in Southern Europe, Isabella of Seville and Ferdinand of Aragón, managed to establish their monarchy and began the eventual expulsion of the Muslims from the peninsula. In 1492, the same year that Columbus began his voy-age towards the West, the last Muslim fortress of resistance in Gra-nada fell. Since the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain and Portugal, the role of European Muslims in the voyages to the American continent was hardly mentioned in Western literature. Yet the accumulated knowledge worked on and refined by Muslim scientists during the peak of their civilization—especially in the fields of geography, history, astronomy and mathematics, as well as their broad contribution to the naval sciences—was all transferred to the Christian West and inherited by the Spanish and Portugese explorers.The “discovery” of America by the Europeans took place simulta-neously with two other historic events in the Islamic World: 1) the in-vasion of the Mongols and 2) the emergence of the Ottoman Empire. The coming to power of the Mongols in East Asia was a terrible ca-tastrophe for the Islamic governments of the Iranian Plateau, the Arab countries and Central Asia. As for the emergence of the Turkish Mus-lims and the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, the focus within the Muslim world was shifted away from Western Europe towards the eastern part of the Mediterranean. With the conquest of Constantin-ople and the defeat of the Byzantine Empire, Islamic influence was localized around Eastern Europe.While the Ottoman Empire was politically and militarialy occupied with Eastern Europe on one side and the Safavid dynasty in Iran on the other, Western imperial powers, particularly Spain, France and England, were engaged in occupying and colonizing different parts of the American continent. With the weakening of the Islamic empire over the ensuing centuries, not only in Western Europe, but also on the Indian subcontinent and in Africa, the control of the high seas fell to the Western world, and in particular to Spain, Portugal, England, France and the Netherlands.In the nineteenth century, contact between the Muslims—and more broadly speaking, the Islamic World—and the American continent was quite limited though still existent. The actual migration as well as occasional visits of the Muslims from around the globe to America, took place in various phases. In the nineteenth century, visits and immigration by the Muslims took place on the basis of invitations and employment opportunities available for top experts of the Islamic world. For instance, in 1856, the U.S. army employed a Muslim man by the name of ÍÁjÐ ÝAlÐ to breed camels for the army in Arizona and California. ÝAlÐ was thus invited to America, where he later became a U.S. citizen and perma-nent resident. The first groups of immigrants from Islamic countries entered the United States after the American Civil War from 1875 till about 1912 before the outbreak of World War I. The majority of them were Chris-tians from Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon who had studied at missionary schools in the Middle East and had migrated to America mainly due to economic and religious reasons. Yet there were also Muslims among them, not only from the mainstream Sunni and Shia branches, but also from the ÝAlawÐ community in Syria as well as the Druze in Lebanon.The second wave of migrations from the Islamic world to America took place after the end of World War I, and concurred with the down-fall of the Ottoman Empire. Due to restrictions in numbers imposed by U.S. Immigration laws—which favoured immigrants primarily from Eropean countries—the population of Muslims entering America re-mained small in that period.The third wave of migrations began in the 1930’s. According to the new U.S. immigration laws, Muslims residing in the United State were permitted to sponsor their family members and relatives to become permanent residents. The fourth wave, during which a large and sig-nificant number of Muslims, particularly from the Middle East, immi-grated to America began at the end of World War II and continued till the 1960’s. The majority of them were merchants, university students, tradesmen and technicians in various fields, and their reasons for immigrating varied from economic to socio-cultural to academic.
With new amendments in U.S. immigration laws in 1965, race and nationality lost their predominance as criteria in the immigration selec-tion process; instead what was considered was the country’s need for different technical skills and managerial expertise, as well as its eco-nomic and developmental requirements. Such amendments provided an opportunity for skilled Muslims around the world to immigrate to the United States.This led to the fifth and final phase of Muslim immigration to Amer-ica, beginning in the mid 1960’s until the present, where the greatest wave of Muslims from the Islamic world migrated to the United States, particularly from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, the Arab countries, Palestine, Turkey and parts of North Africa. It was not only the economic opportunities available in America that encouraged many Muslims to move, but also the internal developments within the Muslim world itself. The wars between the Arab countries and Israel in 1967 and 1973, the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s, and the occupation of various Islamic countries by European powers, such as the occupation of Afghanistan by the Red Army of the former Soviet Union, played a major role in accelerating the trend of Muslims migrating to America. More recently, other world events have had an impact on Muslim migration patterns including Israel’s invasions of Lebanon and Pales-tine and its occupation of those two countries, the two recent wars in Iraq, the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the sudden independence of the former Soviet Republics from the hegemony of Kremlin, and the po-litical developments in Africa, particularly in Morocco. For instance, in the mid 1970’s, and before the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the number of Iranians that lived in America for various reasons was no more than 70,000 out of which over 50,000 were university students. During the three decades that has passed since the estab-lishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the number of Iranians living in the United States has reached some one million, only a small frac-tion of which are Iranian Jews.Other factors, including the rapid growth of tele-communication and transportation means as well as the growing job market in the academic and university sectors have also contributed to the large numbers of Muslims moving to America, despite the negative after-math of the tragic events of 9-11.The Shia Presence in AmericaIt is estimated that twenty percent of the Muslim population of America belong to the Shia Ithna-Asheri school of thought. The majority of these are Iranians, whose numbers are estimated at one million. Others are from Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Syria, while a small fraction are from other Islamic countries. The population of Shias in America drastically increased be-tween 1950 and 1970 due the the large numbers of university students from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq. However, it was only after the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran that their presence as a separate entity within the folds of Islam was noted. Of course, the success of the Islamic Revolution also created an awakenng within the Muslim world and played an important role in furthering the Islamic revival movement in other parts of the world. During this period, the Shias in America were politically active and groups such as the Association of Muslim Students, headed largely by Iranian immigrants, played a very important role in mobilizing the Muslims and in enlightening the U.S. public during the course of the Islamic Revolution.Islam within the Afro-American CommunitiesThe history of Muslim Africans in America dates back to the early seventeenth century, when Africans would be forcibly uprooted from their homeland and shipped to the American colonies in what became known as the “Atlantic Slave Trade.” Many of them were originally Muslims, but were forced to hide their faith or convert to Christianity, adopting a new name in the process. Alex Haley, in his famous novel Roots, traces the story of an African Muslim slave named Kunta Kinte and his forced relocation from Gambia to America. The strenuous and heart-rending journeys of other Muslim slaves, such as Muhammad Yeylani, are documented and preserved in various libraries including the Central Library of Georgia State University. Due to their conver-sions and the Christianization of their names, their Islamic heritage is often forgotten.It is only in the early twentieth century that Islam as a social phe-nomenon among the Afro-American population entered the public arena when it was coupled with ideas of “Black nationalism” and the civil-rights movement in America. This was perhaps first publicized by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930 who ” Other Islamic organizations, working parallel with CAIR, include the Council for General Islamic Affairs and the Union of U.S. Muslims, whose activities attempt to promote Islamic solidarity and to improve public awareness regarding the Muslims in America. “ established an organization for Afro-American Muslims in Detroit, Michigan called ‘the Nation of Islam’ (NOI). From 1935 to 1975, the NOI was led by Elijah Muham-mad who was responsible for turning it into a national organization with 75 different centers across the country. Although initially part of the movement, Malcolm X (an initial chosen by him to refer to the fact that most Afro-Americans were unaware of their own heritage) later separated himself from NOI after a trip to Saudi Arabia to perform the Îajj where he realized that the “Black separatist” vision and theology of the Nation of Islam was quite different from that of mainstream Sunni Islam. Instead, he formed the Afro-American Unity Organzation but was assisinated soon after in 1965.As for the NOI, it continued until Elijah Muhammad’s own death in 1975, whereupon his son, Warith Deen Muhammad, attempted to steer it away from his father’s theology and black separatist views and renamed the organization ‘Muslim American Society’. In 1978, Louis Farrakhan revived a reconstituted Nation of Islam based on the original theology of Wallace Fard Muhammad and his o