On the other hand, in 1654, twenty four unwelcome Jews arrived in Peter Stuyvesant's Dutch colony in New Amsterdam, and were eventually allowed to remain (p. 161, The Course of Modern Jewish History, Howard M. Sachar). The presence of a Jewish community pre-dated the founding of America but the claim that somehow Muslim presence means the existence of a Muslim community, or that Muslims are part and parcel of Revolutionary America is simply a fairy tale. Thereafter, both in New England and in the South a Jewish community existed, to the extent that Sachar can state: "On the eve of the Revolution, the American Jewish community was comparatively secure" (p. 162).
To wit, there is a credible scholarly account for one 19th Century figure.
Abd-Allah, Umar Faruq, A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russel Webb. Oxford University Press, 2006. 400 pages.
Prominent American Muslim scholar Shaykh Umar Abd-Allah examines the life of a late nineteenth-century American intellectual and diplomat who converted to Islam.
A key work produces evidence of Muslims among slaves which hardly is documentation of a thriving community. This is akin to claiming that since bananas exist in the United States they must be a native plant.
Austin, Allen, African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles. New York: Routledge: 1997. 194 pages.
An analysis of biographies of numerous West African Muslim slaves who lived in the American South between 1730 and 1860. These men and women, who were 15% of the slave population, were the first Muslims in the United States.
Posts
