Muslims in America

Abstract

To date, most of the literature on Muslims in the United States has discussed the formation and growth of this population from a national perspective. Few studies, however, examine the dynamics of specific Muslim communities from a local, city-specific context. Mbaye Lo attempts to fill this gap through his research on the history of Muslims in Cleveland, Ohio, in his book Muslims in America: Race, Politics, and Community Building. This book aims to present a “comprehensive historical assessment of Muslim communities in Cleveland” by providing a detailed examination of “their history, their faith and the challenges they face as they establish mosques, develop Islamic centers, and create a multiethnic community” (p. 2). Using various sources of data, such as oral histories of influential figures in the Cleveland area and local and national surveys conducted on Muslims in the United States, Lo discovers that “the history of Islam in Cleveland is a local phenomenon with both national and global derivations” (p. 3). American immigration policies, the civil rights movement, and new interpretations of Islam are some of the factors that affected the growth of Muslim populations throughout the nation and in Cleveland. Lo traces the genesis of the Muslim community to Ahmadi missionaries who arrived in the city from India in the early 1900s. Shortly after their arrival, Ahmadis found great success in inviting African Americans to convert to Islam, creating the foundation for what was to become a burgeoning Muslim community. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the arrival of immigrant Muslims and members of the Nation of Islam to Cleveland helped the community expand, while also introducing new versions of Islam to the city’s resident Muslims. Ironically, this influx of Muslim outsiders to Cleveland resulted in both the growth and the division of its Muslim population ...