A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1

A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1 <UN> Muslim Minorities Editorial Board JØrgen S. Nielsen (University of Copenhagen) Aminah McCloud (DePaul University, Chicago) Jörn Thielmann (Erlangen University) VOLUME 18 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mumi <UN> A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Volume 1 White American Muslims before 1975 By Patrick D. Bowen LEIDEN | BOSTON <UN> Cover illustration: Mosque on New York City’s Upper East Side. ©iStock.com/flexidan Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bowen, Patrick D. A history of conversion to islam in the United States, volume 1 / Patrick D. Bowen. pages cm. -- (Muslim minorities ; v. 18) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-29994-8 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-30069-9 (e-book) 1. Muslim converts--United States. 2. Islam--United States--History. 3. Muslims--United States. I. Title. BP170.5.B68 2015 297.5’740973--dc23 2015026091 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1570–7571 isbn 978-90-04-29994-8 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-30069-9 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. <UN> To my friends and family ∵ <UN> Contents Acknowledgements ix List of Abbreviations x Introduction 1 PART 1 The Years 1800–1910 1 From Renegades to Transcendentalists 27 2 The Occult Revival 51 3 The Makings of a Muslim Missionary 88 4 Islamophilic Masonry 115 5 The Rise and Fall of a Brotherhood 139 6 The Post-Movement Years 160 PART 2 The Years 1910–1974 7 The Non-Orthodox Transition 203 8 New Bonds 231 9 Uniting Muslim Communities 260 10 The Postwar Shift 290 11 Reorientation 322 Conclusion 361 Bibliography 365 Index 396 <UN> Acknowledgements This project could not have come to fruition without the assistance of numer- ous individuals who generously donated their time, knowledge, money, energy, and love. While a complete list of people who have aided me in some way dur- ing these past eight years would be far too large for me to include here (or to fully remember), I would like to identify a few individuals who have been par- ticularly helpful in this project, providing both invaluable guidance and, in some cases, access to extremely important documents. Perhaps the single most important set of documents that I was able to look at for this project was the correspondence of Thomas M. Johnson, and I am greatly indebted to the Johnson family for allowing me the privilege of examin- ing these fascinating letters. The Special Collections and Archives Department at Missouri State University was in charge of cataloging and preserving the Johnson correspondence, and David E. Richards, Anne M. Baker, and the rest of the staff at msu were gracious hosts when I visited them in March 2013. Sally Howell and the Bentley Historical Library were my sources for another incredible set of rare documents concerning Islam in America and similarly welcolmed me to Ann Arbor in May 2014. Thanks are due to Brent Singleton, Muhammed Al-Ahari, Marc Demarest, and Dr. Omar Dahbour, all of whom shared copies of several items related to Islam in America. I also cannot forget Sharif Anael Bey of ali’s men and K. Paul Johnson, whose willingness to guide me as I left my intellectual comfort zones has proved invaluable. From the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology, where I did my graduate studies, I would especially like to mention Ginni Ishimatsu, Liyakat Takim (now at McMaster), Tink Tinker, Carl Raschke, Michelle Kyner and du’s Interlibrary Loan Department, du’s Acquisitions Department, Eliana Schonberg, Antony Alumkal, Nader Hashemi, Andrea Stanton, and Catherine Alber. Lastly, this project could not have become what it is without the dozens of American Muslims who over the years shared with me the stories of their religious journeys and communities. Of course, any errors or flaws in this book are entirely my own. Funding for research and materials used in this volume was provided by the University of Denver Humanities Institute Student Travel and Research Grant, the Charles Redd Center Independent Research and Creative Works Grant, and the Bentley Historical Library Research Grant. Finally, I would like to thank all my friends and family, especially my par- ents, John and Lorraine; my grandmothers, Emily and Mary; my brother, David; the Quintanas—Antonio, Becca, and Lily; Luis Esparza and family; W.W. and friends; the c-krs; and my wife, Michelle. <UN> List of Abbreviations aauaa Addeynu Allahe Universal Arabic Association aia American Islamic Association aip American Islamic Propaganda aoi Academy of Islam bhl Bentley Historical Library cps Civilian Public Service fbi Federal Bureau of Investigation fia Federation of Islamic Associations of the United States and Canada fp Fonds Papus g.i.e.e. Groupe Indépendent d’Etudes Esotériques hctius A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States iaa Islamic Association of America iam Islamic Association of Muslims ima Islamic Mission of America imb International Muslim Brotherhood imjc Imam Mohamad Jawad Chirri ims International Moslem Society isna Islamic Society of North America itc Islamic Teaching Center mbusa Moslem Brotherhood of the u.s.a. mnic Moorish National Islamic Center moa Moslems of America msa Muslim Students’ Association of United States and Canada mst Moorish Science Temple mwl Muslim World League noi Nation of Islam ompf Official Military Personnel File oom Oriental Order of the Magi sria Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia tmj Thomas M. Johnson ts Theosophical Society umcgny United Moslem Council of Greater New York uisa Uniting Islamic Societies of America wia Western Islamic Association wmc World Muslim Congress ymma Young Men’s Moslem Association <UN> Introduction The present book, which is the first academic work to thoroughly examine the history of white American conversion to Islam before 1975, is a study of both the history of the conversions themselves and of the social and religious trans- formations that led to and shaped the phenomenon of white Americans becoming Muslims. While there have been a handful of books and articles on the most well-known early white American convert, Alexander Russell Webb; a book chapter and a non-scholarly biography on a prominent later female convert, Maryam Jameelah; and one study of white conversion narratives that were written before 1990, research on other pre-1975 converts and on the specific historical changes that led to their emergence and molded their charac- teristics has been practically nil. The primary reason for this scholarly silence is that there was little information on the subject available to researchers prior to the twenty-first century. Few early white converts besides Webb had ever been notable enough to earn mention in early scholarly studies of American Islam, and for the most part their impact on the American Muslim community was forgotten after that community went through its significant post-immigration reform transformation starting in the mid-1960s. But today, with growing num- bers of old periodicals, books, and government records being made available through interlibrary loan and digitization, and unpublished and rare documents concerning early American Muslims being collected and made public, researchers have been able to uncover much of what was previously hidden, and, as a result, we now have access to a fairly detailed picture of the early history of this important development in the us religious landscape. The picture that emerges is one that both challenges and refines earlier views. It has become apparent, for instance, that the role that Alexander Webb played in the history of Islam in America has been somewhat distorted in the literature. Given the previous lack of information on early white American converts, it is understandable that the vast majority of scholarly discussions of this group of Muslims have focused on Webb. Nevertheless, this tendency downplays the important activities of other converts before and after Webb, and it frequently ignores the variety of ideological, social, and organizational forces at work in the development of the white American conversion community. Webb and the Muslim convert movement he started, for instance, were intimately connected to a specific nineteenth-century subculture that had a minimal role in the conversions of white Americans in the twentieth century— a fact that can be easily overlooked when no other white converts are dis- cussed. One of the factors contributing to the emphasis on Webb is that there © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, �� | doi �0.��63/9789004300699_00� 300854 2 Introduction was very little known about Webb’s religious transformation in the 1880s. No one has yet uncovered any extant private papers of Webb from the period, and his known writings from the 1880s and earlier reveal little about his thoughts on either Islam or the Theosophical Society—an esoteric religious movement with which he was connected.

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