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

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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

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

White American Muslims before 1975

Patrick D. Bowen

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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

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To my friends and family

∵

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

Acknowledgements

This project could not have come to fruition without the assistance of numerous individuals who generously donated their time, knowledge, money, energy, and love. While a complete list of people who have aided me in some way during 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 particularly 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 examining 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 parents, 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.

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

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 transformations 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 characteristics 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 numbers 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 discussed. One of the factors contributing to the emphasis on Webb is that there

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. For the most part, scholars have relied on Webb’s accounts from later in his life, most of which are dated from 1892 through 1896 and only vaguely discuss his conversion and his involvement with alternative religious movements. This has made it very easy to see similarities between Webb and later converts without perceiving the numerous differences. At the same time, there has been minimal research on the Theosophical Society in the us in the early 1880s—which was very different from the Theosophical Society of earlier and later periods—and so far no scholar has convincingly demonstrated what being a us member of the Theosophical Society in the early 1880s actually meant. This has led to the proffering of unclear and even somewhat distorted ideas about Theosophy’s own role in the history of conversion to Islam in the us. The view of Webb and the Theosophical Society that this book takes has been significantly shaped by the contents of a little-known cache of letters and documents in the possession of the Johnson Library and Museum. These materials are from the 1880s and concern the Theosophical Society and related groups, including the specific St. Louis Theosophical ‘lodge’ of which Webb was one of the few members. Although Webb’s name is only mentioned once in these letters, they have nevertheless helped shed a great deal of light on Webb’s Theosophy-influenced interest in Islam. As it turns out, Webb’s conversion took place at the precise time that Islam was most influential in American Theosophy—and the St. Louis Theosophists specifically were, in all likelihood, the Theosophists impacted by Islam the most. Furthermore, by being a member of the St. Louis Theosophical lodge, Webb was connected to some of the most organizationally influential and ideology-shaping American Theosophists at the time—several of whom, like Webb, were involved in the publishing industry. Indeed, Webb’s later ability to create an Islamic organization that was very similar to and relied upon the Theosophical Society should not be regarded as a mere ‘borrowing’ from Theosophy generally: it was a direct outcome of his involvement with the St. Louis group. Webb’s particular connection with Theosophy and the history of the development of Theosophy in the us are therefore both of great significance for understanding the first white American Muslim convert movement. As for converts in the twentieth century, we now have a much clearer understanding of the importance of their contact with Muslim immigrants. The available evidence suggests that by the 1930s, there were hundreds more white

300854 Introduction 3

American Muslim converts than there had been in Webb’s day, and the vast majority had little to no interest in esotericism—these were people whose conversions were the direct results of the growing number of relationships between white Americans and immigrant Muslims. Furthermore, we also now know that almost as soon as immigrant Muslims began to establish religious organizations and create a somewhat stable community, a number of white American converts became leaders in this new us Muslim community—a fact that had previously been almost completely ignored in the literature on Islam in America. These converts helped build the national network of us Muslims that began developing in the interwar period and culminated with creation of the first successful national Muslim umbrella organization, the Federation of Islamic Associations of the United States and Canada (fia). Then, after the fia was established in 1952, white converts continued to play important roles in the American Muslim community, serving as early leaders in both the fia and another important national Sunni organization of the postwar period, the Muslim Students’ Association. For these twentieth-century converts, I have relied especially on three types of sources: pre-1975 Islamic periodicals that were popular among immigrants and white converts, several fbi files made during the Second World War when the Bureau was investigating groups and individuals thought to be involved with ‘subversive’ activities, and interviews with Muslims—both converts and immigrants—who were active in the us Islamic community before 1975. Perhaps the single most important issue that comes to light in this volume is the fact that these converts were individuals who, by and large, were interested in cultivating peace, justice, and brotherhood. In the early twenty-first century, there has been a growing fear that people who convert to Islam will become violent, anti-Western radicals. Islam itself is generally blamed for this; today many Westerners assume—as they have for centuries—that Islam is a religion that is inherently violent and intolerant of non-Muslims. It may therefore come as a surprise to some readers that there are no known confirmed instances of religiously-motivated violence perpetrated by white American Muslim converts before 1975. Many, if not most, of the converts studied for this book were in fact both pro-American and deeply concerned with fostering peace on multiple levels: in their own minds and souls, in their homes, in their local communities, in their country, and throughout the world. While the majority of the early white converts primarily used Islam as a tool for cultivating internal and domestic harmony, there were a handful of white Muslim leaders who desired to go beyond this and attempt to facilitate the development of national and international movements and philosophies that would spread brotherhood to all people. Indeed, by embracing and promoting the

300854 4 Introduction religion that was often seen as the West’s greatest enemy, these converts helped teach Americans that violence and hate were not essential to Islam, and that great progress could be made if Americans and all people lived up to the ideals of tolerance and love. With this background in mind, the significance of white American conversions to Islam can only be appreciated by acknowledging the deep roots of anti-Islamic sentiment in the culture out of which they emerged, and the deep historical forces that would eventually begin to weaken the strong hold of Islamophobia on Western Christian culture. At the same time, because the history of these conversions is quite complex, involving numerous cultural changes, individual idiosyncrasies, and multiple waves of immigration, it will also be important to have a framework on which to direct this study. The remainder of this introduction, then, provides an introduction to early American Islamophobia and a concept known as ‘deterritorialization,’ which is at once both an important historical phenomenon and the main theoretical lens through which the history of white American Muslims will be told.

Early Anti-Islamic Sentiment in North America

During the colonial and early independence periods, there was relatively little contact with Muslims who were not enslaved, and most white North Americans understood Islam through a traditional Christian anti-Islamic lens. Generally speaking, early white Americans looked at Islam’s teachings as sinful, its prophet as an ‘impostor,’ and its followers as violent and oppressive brutes. These views had been inherited from their European forebears and were cultivated and reshaped for the American context. Anti-Islamic sentiment among Christians has shown a great deal of continuity since its emergence in the Byzantine Empire during the early years of Islam’s expansion. Since that time, Christian polemicists have, fairly consistently, attacked the character of the Prophet Muhammad, the legitimacy of the Qurʾan, the doctrines of the Islamic faith, the religion’s purported methods of converting people, and the morality of common Muslims.1 The more direct antecedents of early American thought concerning Islam were, however, the polemics that developed in Western Europe starting in the twelfth century after Alfonso vi’s 1085 conquest of Toledo, the northernmost Islamic stronghold

1 Norman Daniel’s book Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: University Press, 1962) remains the authoritative study of pre-modern Western European Christian views of Islam.

300854 Introduction 5 in Western Europe. With Toledo subdued, non-Spanish Christians now had access to the city’s impressive libraries, and knowledge of Islam and its texts began to spread. Arabic, the Qurʾan, and hadith (traditions of Muhammad and early figures in Islamic history) were soon being studied in several places throughout Europe and polemics against the religion of Muslims were refined, now often being backed up with references to particular sections of Islamic works.2 At the same time, battles and growing economic and cultural competition with Muslims began to increase antipathy towards the Muslim people. The Ottoman sack of Constantinople in 1453 had created in Europe a greater fear of Muslim encroachment from the East. In the South, even after the Muslim relinquishment of Granada in 1492, traders who used the Mediterranean were under the constant threat of conflict with North African powers.3 Meanwhile, those same powers were seen as corroding Europe from the inside: Due to their wealth and allowance of relative social freedom, North African kingdoms were attracting tens of thousands of European Christian ‘renegades’ who moved to North Africa and often converted to Islam.4 Even though this phenomenon was not entirely consistent with the old Christian narrative that Islam has mostly been spread ‘by the sword,’5 it was still taken as further evidence of Islam’s corruptive nature. Given this context, then, by the time Europeans began colonizing the land that would become the United States, anti-Islamic sentiment among Europeans was relatively strong. Although largely separated from events overseas, anti-Islamic sentiment persisted—and in some cases intensified—in colonial North America.6 Many of the early colonizers were from a Puritan background, which meant they were involved in religious communities that both saw themselves as especially critical of oppressive religious powers and believed that their journey to America was divinely sanctioned. Early colonists therefore sometimes compared the

2 See, e.g., Thomas E. Burman, “Tafsir and Translation: Traditional Arabic Quran Exegesis and the Latin Qurans of Robert of Ketton and Mark of Toledo,” Speculum 73 (1998): 703–32; Alastair Hamilton, “The Study of Islam in Early Modern Europe,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 3 (2001): 169–82. 3 E.g., see Nabil Matar, Islam in Britain: 1558–1685 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 4 Bartolome Bennassar and Lucile Bennassar, Les Chrestiens d’Allah: L’histoire extraordinaire des renegats xvi–xvii siecles (Paris: Perrin, 1989). 5 The idea that most converts only embraced Islam out of the fear that they would be killed if they did not convert. 6 On early American views of Islam, see Fuad Sha’ban, Islam and Arabs in Early American Thought: The Roots of Orientalism in America (Durham: Acora Press, 1991), 1–19.

300854 6 Introduction

Church of England and Roman Catholicism to Islam, which was considered by Christians to be the penultimate example of an oppressive religion. The Puritan ‘pilgrimage’ to North America, meanwhile, was perceived as an escape not just from oppressive Christians, but also from Muslims, who, according to leading colonial religious figures like Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards, would be wiped out in a coming apocalypse.7 Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the widespread influence of Puritan religion and its notion of American exceptionalism helped to further establish the anti-Islamic current on North American soil.8 The traditional European image of Islam for early colonists, however, was not solely shaped by religious polemic; a number of American colonists had encountered Muslims under violent circumstances abroad, which reinforced the commonly-held image of Muslims as blood-thirsty. One of these was famed Jamestown leader John Smith who had, as a young man, fought against Muslims in Hungary and was for a brief time enslaved by Ottoman Turks.9 Also, by the early 1700s, a few Americans who had personally spent time as captives of ‘Barbary’ (North African) Muslims had begun writing about their experiences and the harsh treatment they endured.10 Occasionally, the American captives observed that even the European ‘renegade’ converts to Islam were similarly subjected to violence.11 All of this was contributing to the increasingly popular American ‘captivity narrative’ literary genre, in which non-Christian, dark- skinned ‘savages’—usually Native Americans—imprisoned and assaulted innocent white Americans. By linking the image of the Native American with the Muslim, white North Americans were not only legitimizing the dehuman- ization of and aggression towards both groups, they were also defining true

7 Timothy Marr, The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 98–114. 8 On the Puritan influence on North American religious culture, also see Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 2–3; Winthrop S. Hudson and John Corrigan, Religion in America: An Historical Account of the Development of American Religious Life, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, nj: Prentice Hall, 1999), 39–44. 9 Marr, Cultural Roots, 2–3. 10 Paul Baepler, “The Barbary Captivity Narrative in Early America,” Early American Literature 30, no. 2 (1995): 95–120; Paul Baepler, ed., White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 11 See, e.g., John Foss, A Journal, of the Captivity and Sufferings of John Foss: Several Years a Prisoner at Algiers: Together with some Account of the Treatment of Christian Slaves when Sick:—and Observations of the Manners and Customs of the Algerines (Newburyport, ma: Angier March, Middle-Street, 1798), 40–41.

300854 Introduction 7 freedom—a core value in the us American12 identity—as something that could only be produced and protected by white Christian Americans. With there being few voices critical of this anti-Islamic perspective, it is little wonder that, even if a white North American had wanted to convert to Islam during the colonial and early independence periods, he or she would generally have chosen not to do so out of fear of the significant social consequences that would accompany rejecting these pervasive views. Almost as soon as the nineteenth century commenced, however, the us would see its first white converts to Islam. Although it would take ninety more years for a full-fledged white Muslim convert movement to emerge, and an additional forty years for a truly national network of white converts to begin to develop, by the time the first reports of us Muslim converts appeared in 1803, the country had already entered a major cultural and religious metamorphosis that would eventually lead to the Islamic conversions of thousands of white Americans. American religious culture was now coming under the influence of the complex historical forces of deterritorialization.

Deterritorialization

The fundamental causes of the us’ dramatic cultural and religious transformations that ultimately produced thousands of white American Muslims are quite complex. They involve advances in communication, travel, and armament technology, political struggles, the emergence of a variety of new philosophical and religious movements, psychological and identity reconfigurations, and numerous other global cultural developments. Together, these various dynamics comprise the historical phenomenon that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari have identified as the ‘deterritorialization’ of the modern world.13 By using the notion of deterritorialization, Deleuze and Guattari conceptualize the modern era as being fundamentally characterized by its relative lack of traditional boundaries or ‘territories’—be they physical, political, cultural,

12 In using the term ‘us American,’ as I do occasionally throughout this book, I am following Malini Johar Schueller (in u.s. Orientalisms: Race, Nation, and Gender in Literature, 1790–1890 [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998]), who resists the tendency to use the terms ‘America’ and ‘American’ as equivalent to ‘United States’ and ‘citizen of the United States,’ as these terms carry with them the connotation that the United States by itself represents all of the Americas, a notion that is completely inaccurate and, in some sense, imperialistic. 13 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (New York: Viking Press, 1977).

300854 8 Introduction intellectual, spiritual, or psychological. Deterritorialization does not imply, of course, that boundaries no longer exist; indeed, Deleuze and Guattari propose that the modern world is constantly undergoing both deterritorialization and reterritorialization. Nevertheless, reterritorialization is itself shaped by the same globalizing historical processes—such as the emergence of both modern commercial markets and print technology—that are responsible for deterritorialization. Deterritorialization and reterritorialization are therefore, to a great extent, the defining forces of the modern world—and it is the interaction of these two forces that led to the development of the white us American Muslim convert community. Building off of the ideas proposed by Deleuze and Guattari and certain related authors,14 the present section provides an introduction to the concept and historical foundations of de- and reterritorialization in order to establish a broad theoretical framework that will be helpful for understanding the deep historical causes of (a) Islamophobia loosening its grip on American religious culture and (b) the resulting conversions of tens of thousands of Americans to Islam.15 When each of the ancient civilizations fell, they left behind both traces of knowledge that they had gained and remnants of the trade, travel, and raiding networks that they had created. As new civilizations rose, they frequently adopted and built on the older knowledge and networks, increasing the chances for intercultural contact and exchange. Slowly over time, as the networks were

14 This section builds primarily off the following works: Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus (trans. Brian Massumi [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987]); Michel Foucault’s History of Madness, ed. J. Khalifa and trans. J. Murphy and J. Khalifa (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2006); The History of Sexuality: Vol. i, trans. R. Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, [1976] 1978); Discipline and Punish (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970); Order of Things, trans. A. Sheridan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977); Birth of the Clinic, trans. A. Smith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1973); “Power/Knowledge,” in Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts, ed. S.M. Cahn (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 511–24; “Truth and Power,” in The Foucault Reader, ed. P. Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), 51–75; The Archaeology of Knowledge, trans. A. Smith (London: Routledge, 2001); Ibn Khaldun’s The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, 2nd ed. (New York: Bollinger Foundation, 1967); and Marshall G.S. Hodgson’s The Venture of Islam, 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). That Ibn Khaldun and Hodgson are ‘related’ authors is an assertion I am making that will be treated directly in a future volume of hctius. I can say here, though, that these authors are used to foster an alternative reading of Foucault, one that resists Said’s reading, which conflates Foucault and Gramsci. 15 It is important to point out here that the concept of deterritorialization will be used as the main historical/theoretical framework for the entire, multi-volume hctius, not just this volume. Its value as a framework should become clearer with each subsequent volume, which will contain further discussions of deterritorialization.

300854 Introduction 9 strengthened, sciences from one region made it to others, leading to improve- ments in technical knowledge, which in turn helped the new societies and their networks develop further. By the eighth century ad, with the emergence of the Islamic empires, a vast network of peoples had been established—both humans and knowledge could now, potentially, transverse the known ‘civilized’ world, from China to the northwestern coast of Africa. The world was becoming globalized. This interconnectivity of people and knowledge had an immense impact on ideas, religions, and identities. In some cases, this impact was fostered by travelers who simply spread religious and philosophical teachings and sects to new regions; travelers could either transmit these ideas and organizations to local teachers, or they could become teachers themselves after settling in the new lands. Sometimes texts alone traveled, and were read and incorporated into the worldviews of discrete communities.16 Religious concepts and practices were also spread through violence. The development of global networks meant an increased ability for invaders who followed one religion to conquer people who followed another, and, although the ways in which this affected religions and identities could vary significantly, it almost always had a profound impact. The most infamous style of religious transmission in these situations was forced conversions of whole societies. In these cases, however, the vanquished populations often found ways to retain their traditional religions, either by practicing them secretly or by blending them with the imposed religion. In many instances, the conquerors did not force conversion, but allowed for conversion as a means for the local people—especially those who had formerly been the community’s elites—to achieve positions of power in the new societal structures that had been instituted.17 In such scenarios, the new elites help popularize or legitimize the doctrines and identities of the conquerors for the masses. Lower classes, on the other hand, particularly if their situations were not improving under the new rulers, might develop new ideas, religions, and identities—which often incorporated elements of the rulers’ own cultures—that were more focused on opposing or rejecting those in power.18 In some cases, though, the invaders themselves decided to adopt the religions and identities of the locals.

16 For a valuable summary of some of the influences of Mesopotamian knowledge on Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and Indian cultures, see Stephanie Dalley, ed., The Legacy of Mesopotamia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 17 This seems to have been the case in the first centuries of Islamic Persia; see Richard W. Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1979). 18 See James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

300854 10 Introduction

As these examples suggest, changes in ideas, religions, and identities always occur within, and are usually significantly shaped by, a context of power. Which ideas and identities are imposed, how freely they circulate, how they are transmitted, how they are understood—all of these factors are intimately tied to the forms of power active in a particular historical context. Power, however, is not limited to military strength and social and economic structures. Sometimes knowledge itself, especially in the form of technology, has the power to shape societies beyond political or economic borders. For instance, the spread of a certain armament technology can give multiple societies the tools necessary to successfully defend themselves and conquer others, but often in the process of maximizing the utilization of that technology, a society’s political, economic, and cultural structures change. In other words, the mere need or desire to use a certain technology can have the power to reshape the very institutions that regulate day-to-day life. When such reshaping happens—because it often involves micro-level changes that are not entirely the outcomes of direct use of military or political power—the masses are often unconscious of the transformations taking place; the individual man or woman has no idea that his or her entire ways of thinking and interacting with the world are being transformed not simply by a cultural or political forces, but also by the profound trans-societal impact of the circulation of knowledge and technology. In the early modern period, the development and spread of armament, long-distance seafaring, and print technologies had this type of profound societal impact, and therefore began fundamentally reshaping religions, identities, and cultures. Gunpowder, a Chinese technology, began traveling westward via cultural transfusion and with the Mongol invasions of the medieval period.19 By the fifteenth century, its use was becoming widespread throughout Islamic and Christian lands, and, as nations competed to create stronger and deadlier armies, many additional technological developments were being made to improve the use of gunpowder in warfare. Because it was very expensive to both develop modern armament technologies and to produce the large quanti- ties of modern firearms needed to equip big armies, the advantage frequently went to those with greater wealth. The timing of this was fortuitous for Western Europe, as this region was making significant developments in long-distance seafaring technology, which gave that region a significant advantage in the acquisition of wealth.

19 Stephen G. Haw, “The Mongol Empire—the First ‘Gunpowder Empire’?,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 23, no. 3 (2013): 441–69; Kenneth Warren Chase, Firearms: A Global History to 1700 (Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

300854 Introduction 11

The ability to transport goods and humans long distances by boat allowed for late medieval and early modern Western European merchants and kingdoms to directly enter commercial markets for which they had previously relied on middlemen. One major result of this was the explosion of the wool market; so much wool was being sold out of Western Europe that the whole system of land management started to be changed in order to increase the number of sheep they could produce. In England, this took the form of the enclosure movement, in which land that was previously left open for communal use by peasants was now closed off and designated as grazing areas for sheep.20 The best land for sheep raising, meanwhile, became increasingly valuable and landowners realized they could make more money by renting or selling this land—with interest, of course. There was so much wealth to be had by participating in this process—wealth that would be invaluable for developing and producing modern armaments, which were in growing demand as the threat of others acquiring more and more advanced arms spread—that English law, which had previously forbidden profiting from interest, began allowing this, as well as other new laws that favored wealth acquisition.21 In doing so, the English government had to find a way to bypass the Christian foundations for its laws, and it increasingly looked toward non-Christian (usually Greek) models of law. At the same time, the desire to increase wealth led to the permitting of both de facto and de jure religious freedom to those Christian sectarian communities that were particularly adept at producing wealth. The wool trade was not the only major source of wealth for Western Europe in the early modern period. Armed with modern weapons, modern boats, and immunity to numerous European diseases, Western Europe reached the Americas and Africa and took what it wanted, while, by and large, rejecting the humanity of the non-Christians of those regions. In pillaging foreign lands, Western Europe was not historically unique or even rare; but, with the particular technological developments it had acquired, its relative strength, and its inability to quickly produce laws and religious movements that might have significantly limited its impact, Western Europe’s ability to exploit its power was unprecedented. The levels of wealth being generated through these activities were also unprecedented—so unprecedented, in fact, that the whole global economy began to change. New companies were constantly springing up with the intention of trying to take for themselves a share of this new influx of wealth, so

20 R.H. Tawney, The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1912). 21 R.H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952).

300854 12 Introduction much so that the traditional, rural, peasant-based social and economic systems were destroyed. Large-scale farming was big business now, and poor ten- ants were increasingly forced off the land so that enclosures and modern mills could be developed. Western European peasants were now moving in droves to the growing urban centers, where they were largely employed by captilistic companies and in trades created specifically for modern capitalistic production. More and more, merchant ships were being sent to foreign lands for new trading opportunities, while at home industries expanded in order to buy and sell goods for the increasingly wealthy Europeans. The impact all of this had on ideas, religions, and identities was tremendous. Modern urbanization, first of all, significantly destabilized traditional cultures and psychologies. Finding a stable life and livelihood in a city was very different from doing so in a rural community. Laborers would have to learn the kinds of skills necessary for commercial employment and be ready to pick up new skills when they needed to find a different job—one’s labor skill knowledge, therefore, had to be more flexible and intellectually-based. Extended family networks, meanwhile, were often broken up, and could no longer provide the social, economic, and emotional safety net that they once had, dramatically reshaping the family relationship and identity. At the same time, immigrants to the cities could now join new churches and trade guilds in an attempt to gain social and financial protection, and this meant exposure to new ideas and social networks. The city also brought people into greater contact with the modern printing press, another technology that had made its way to the West from its Chinese birthplace. Books and tracts—which were primarily for spreading religious ideas—were now increasingly popular, literacy rates began to rise, and professions requiring literacy were more and more in demand to help with the new business- and law-based way of life. To survive and thrive in such an environment, urban residents had to develop a highly technical way thinking about their work, their social networks, the religious ideas they encountered, and their own identities. By the end of the sixteenth century, Shakespeare’s images of modern, urban people, characterized as independent-thinking individuals, were resonating with English audiences. Travel was another key factor in the early modern transformation of ideas, religions, and identities. In Western Europe—as well as in North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and other locations—urbanization meant that modern laborers would be forced to go from city to city and company to company looking for employment. For people whose families had lived in the same town or county for generations, even this relatively local travel had a significant impact on their view of other people and of their own identities, as it exposed them to new ways of life—and the notion that there could be multiple legitimate ways

300854 Introduction 13 of life—even within one’s own broader culture. For those who were aboard the increasing number of ships voyaging to foreign lands, the exposure to other cultures was obviously even more profound. The diversity of the world’s people and their religions and cultures was being observed on unprecedented levels. Old notions about foreigners were not eradicated, but, at the same time, to see in the flesh people who looked and lived very differently caused many to reconsider their own cultures and identities. The growing number of published trav- elogues containing descriptions of exotic peoples and religions helped bring these impressions to those who could not go overseas themselves. With the influx of so much new information, the old symbols that had once represented the things people knew in their lives were no longer sufficient for explaining their new world. Symbols, in fact, were increasingly detached from the things they once represented. Wealth, to take a prominent example, is a very modern notion because it represents an idea that is disconnected from its material source.22 Prior to the early modern period, people rarely thought in terms of ‘wealth’; they tended to think of how much of a certain material resource—such as grains, animals, or gold—that they had. But with the enormous influx of goods and currency in the early modern period, there was soon not even enough gold to back up all of the finances that existed on paper; traditional notions of money based on material resources would therefore not be adequate for expressing the amount of one’s possessions in a clear way. More and more, people turned to the concept of ‘wealth,’ an abstraction of one’s relative number of resources, and conducted business using this concept. The development of the concept of wealth represented a broader transformation in the relation between symbols and the material world.23 In Western Europe’s medieval period, symbols were largely seen as a direct link between the material world and God. With relatively little circulation of ideas, the meaning of a symbol—what it represented in the material world—was relatively stable, and, since it was understood that God created all things in the material world, including symbols, it was believed that a symbol simply represented a material thing that God had created. However, with the influx of new information through travel, books, and the constant development of technical knowledge, and with the increasing desire and ability of people—now armed with literacy and a need to constantly improve their technical knowledge—to manipulate symbols, the meaning of symbols was increasingly detached from its material origins. The notion of a ‘dog’ for a medieval European, for instance, would be far more limited than it would be for an early modern European who

22 This discussion largely draws on Foucault’s Order of Things, 166–198. 23 Ibid., 4–39.

300854 14 Introduction had learned about the huge variety of dog breeds found throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The very symbol or notion of ‘dog,’ had in fact been disconnected from its original meaning; not only did it no longer represent the same material objects, it was recognized that there could possibly be more undiscovered species that would potentially be classed as ‘dog.’ Therefore the category should not be closed and the material basis of the symbol of ‘dog’ was no longer obvious. It was becoming, then, increasingly clear to people that the notion or symbol of ‘dog’—and symbols generally—were not God-given but made and manipulated by humans in order to express a concept. The symbol, which is one of the most important building blocks of thoughts, ideas, religions, and cultures, had become radically destabilized. Like people, goods, and money, in the early modern period, symbols themselves began to lose their ties to a single location. Deleuze and Guattari have introduced the term ‘deterritorialization’ to help conceptualize this destabilized state of modern people, objects/goods, money, and symbols. More so than the word ‘globalization,’ deterritorialization particularly emphasizes the fact that boundaries of all types are now much less restric- tive. Of course, as has been mentioned, Delueze and Guattari recognized the very modern conditions that created deterritorialization, and that these conditions contain within them forces that will inevitably restrict movement, such as economic inequality and cultural domination. To account for this, they introduced the corollary to deterritorialization: reterritorialization, which is the creation of ‘territories’ under modern circumstances. These territories can be material, such as when borders are imposed and protected by modern nation states or when a community must deal with its having limited resources; they can be ideological, such as when ideas about cultural or religious boundaries prevent individuals from exploring certain concepts; and they can be habitual—that is, certain intellectual and physical behaviors can become standard in a community. Territories can also be economic, in both a monetary and non-monetary sense. The relative freedom of movement of all things produces, essentially, a large number of ‘free markets’ in which economic factors play important roles in promoting and restricting the movement of any type of good, whether it is material, behavioral, or ideological.24 This concept of market as territory is particularly important for understanding religious de- and reterritorialization

24 In this, my theoretical approach has been significantly influenced by the sociological work of Rodney Stark, particularly in John Lofland and Rodney Stark, “Becoming a World- Saver,” American Sociological Review 30 (1965): 864–73 and Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Although I by no means agree with all of Stark’s proposals, a number of his

300854 Introduction 15 because it reminds us that, even when it comes to religion, humans generally behave in what they believe are ‘rational’ ways. So, for instance, both consumers and producers of religious ‘goods’—ideas, practices, sects, etc.—desire to maximize profit and minimize loss, and will therefore calculate the risk of their decisions. A person who is considering religious conversion will analyze whether their ‘purchasing’ of this new religious ‘good’ will give them a greater gain than it will cost them—usually, the ‘costs’ in this scenario are associated with losing one’s social position. For this reason, a person thinking about converting to a non-dominant religion—particularly when there are pre-existing prejudices against that religion—will decide not to because the cost will be too great. There will always be a few isolated outliers, people who convert no matter what the cost. But whole conversion movements—which are essentially the creation of new religious markets—tend to grow from within a preexisting market because the ability of a market to thrive means that it has achieved some degree of social legitimization, so new forms of religion that emerge within such a market will to some extent share that legitimization, which thus reduces the risk of social cost for the consumer. Religious markets themselves can develop in a number of ways. Perhaps the simplest way is through the intervention of a powerful institution, such as a government or military group that imposes onto a population a religious market, or at least religious market boundaries. The emergence of new religious markets can also be the result, as mentioned earlier, of oppressed populations inventing new forms of religion to resist their oppressors. Religious producers, however, do not need to be oppressed to produce new religions in a free market system. Since, generally, the most successful producers are those who have the greatest desire, knowledge, and resources to supply goods that are in demand, the advantage in religious production usually goes, just as it does in any free market, to those who already possess these in abundance—i.e., the relatively ‘wealthy.’ So, when demand for certain religious goods increases, those with wealth will tend to be the people who profit most from this emerging market. In fact, on occasion, savy, wealthy producers who have perceived subtle changes in the demands of consumers will intentionally create a whole religious market by investing in a market infrastructure. In the modern period, elements of religious infrastructures can be religious or philosophical publications, supply houses that produce paraphernalia for rituals and clothing worn by religious consumers, and wages for religious leaders. The changes in religious demands, meanwhile, are frequently wrapped up in cultural and psychological currents that are

hypotheses have led to fruitful analyses of the data collected for this study, and those familiar with his work will recognize the influence.

300854 16 Introduction shaped by the impact of de- and reterritorialization. So, for instance, in the modern period there has been a greater demand for religious and philosophical ideas that provide the consumer with justification for capitalistic behavior and the oppression of certain classes; religious producers have responded to this by creating publishing houses and supporting religious leaders that promote such ideas. We also see increased demand for religions and philosophies that address issues related to emotional, social, and intellectual crises experienced by modern people who face alienation as a result of urbanization, immigration, and social change. Hyper-technicalized minds may, for instance, sometimes find little comfort in religions or philosophies that reject science and may seek out religions that embrace it; or, in some cases, contact with new immigrants and social movements destabilizes a consumer’s traditional models of the world and forces him or her to seek out new ways of being that better address their current condition. Countless religious producers have responded to this situation; some have even profited from it. The reterritorialization of religion is therefore often the product of the complex interplay between social change, personal experiences and desires, and the manifold impacts of modern forms of power. At its core, the present volume argues that as the world has become more globalized, the spread of knowledge and technology has created two opposing but corollary forces: a tendency for vitually all human-related things to attempt to expand and circulate without restriction (deterritorialization) and a tendency for modern forms of boundaries to be imposed (reterritorialization). De- and reterritorialization are, therefore, the fundamental modern historical forces that would destabilize the stronghold of traditional European anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States and eventually lead to the emergence of new religious markets through which white us Americans were willing to convert to Islam.25 This book is both an exploration and explanation of that process.

Outline of the Book

Using the concept of de- and reterritorialization as its broad historical and theoretical foundations, the present book examines how traditional cultural,

25 In this book, the concepts of de- and reterritorialization primarily refer to phenomena that produced cultural and religious changes that were directly related to conversion to Islam. Although the history of the United States is intimately tied to numerous events in which physical and political boundaries were de- and reterritorialized—some of which had enormous cultural impacts—only those that played key roles in the history of white American conversion to Islam are discussed in this volume. Other volumes of hctius will address different aspects of American de- and reterritorialization.

300854 Introduction 17 social, religious, and psychological territories in the us were shattered and then reconfigured in ways that produced white American converts to Islam. Despite this general unity in perspective, however, as will become clear in the proceeding chapters, the history of white us Muslims contains a number of significant disjunctions. To help the reader better perceive and understand the relationships between these disjunctions, this book is divided into two parts, each of which deals with a key, and somewhat unified era in this history and applies the particular scholarly techniques that are most appropriate for examining that era. For example, to understand the trends that connect the nineteenth-century era, which saw few significant convert-related events and lacks a large amount of primary source data concerning the converts themselves, it will be necessary to spend a great deal of time examining non-Islamic esoteric communities and the writings they produced, which gave rise to the Islamic conversion movement that appeared in the 1890s. The second era, on the other hand, witnessed a great deal more Islamic activity and has a much larger pool of Muslim primary sources from which to draw, so more time will be spent examining the history of that era’s organizations, activities, and leading figures. Because of these differences in subjects, sources, and techniques, the pac- ing and overall styles of the two parts of this book are themselves very different. It is my hope that the reader will find this approach, if nothing else, at least understandable. Part 1 explores the first era of conversions: that which took place between ca. 1800 and ca. 1910. Here, I argue that while there were many motives for conversion during this period, and while American culture, as it became more and more deterritorialized, was showing increasing sympathy for Islam and Muslims, conversion to Islam only became a notable phenomenon when it was promoted and endorsed by people closely tied with a major reterritorializing current that has been called the ‘occult revival.’ The American occult revival, which began in the mid-1870s, was an eruption of the creation of organizations focused on studying and practicing esoteric and non-Christian religious teachings. The supporters and leaders of the first American Muslim convert movement—including Alexander Webb himself—were closely tied with the us occult revival, and most likely would not have had any success had they not been connected to it. The occult revival not only gave them a solid pool of recruits, but also provided legitimization, models, and inspiration for creating a non-Christian religious movement that was primarily populated by white Americans from Christian backgrounds. This book begins, in Chapter 1, with the earliest known white American converts to Islam: the small number of American sailors who embraced Islam while residing in Muslim-majority regions in the early nineteenth century. Some of these converts were captives of North African Muslims during the

300854 18 Introduction

First Barbary War and were labeled, like their European predecessors, ‘renegades’ for embracing the religion of the enemy, while other ‘renegades’ were apparently either deserters or American spies working undercover in Egypt. Very little is known about most of these early converts—or supposed converts—save for one man, George Bethune English. English, interestingly, is also the only one of the early renegades who can be verifiably shown to have been influenced by the deterritorializing liberal religion currents that were gaining popularity in the us in the early nineteenth century. This chapter concludes, then, with a discussion of importance of the emergence of American liberal religiosity, which by the 1830s was epitomized by Transcendentalism and which produced a space in American religious culture for the serious appreciation of certain religious aspects of Islam. I argue that deterritorialization led to more and more Americans not only traveling to Muslim regions where some converted to Islam, but also to Americans breaking down traditional religious boundaries by publicly criticizing Christianity and identifying with—though not as—Muslims without the fear of being labeled renegades. It should be mentioned here that starting in this chapter I liberally use the words ‘orient’ and ‘oriental.’ These terms, which are often understood today as embedded with many negative stereotypes about non-Christian peoples, are generally considered outdated in contemporary scholarly parlance. However, they were used regularly by nineteenth-century converts and Muslim sympathizers to characterize something similar to what we today sometimes refer to as the ‘East’; that is, the peoples, cultures, and religions of Asia and North Africa. Although I will sometimes highlight the fact that this is now contested language by enclosing these terms in inverted commas, I retain the use of ‘orient’ and ‘oriental’ in order to highlight the distinctiveness of the terms as used in that era as well as the frequency with which they were utilized by converts and sympathizers. The reader will notice that in part 2, with the exception of Chapter 7, which represents a transition from the previous era, these terms are almost never employed. Before the first liberally-motivated movement for full-fledged converts to Islam could emerge, as Chapter 2 shows, American religious culture would have to undergo yet another deterritorializing/reterritorializing transmutation. This was the emergence of the American occult revival. The American occult revival was a movement that, while it had roots in earlier liberal religious currents like Idealism and Transcendentalism, developed more directly out of spiritualism and early occult organizations in the us and England. Starting around the late 1840s, there was a visible growth in the popular interest in examining what were thought to be supernatural occurrences and powers, particularly in the forms of spirit ‘manifestations’ and ‘mediums.’ At least

300854 Introduction 19 hundreds of thousands of Americans would soon be visiting séances and ‘mesmeric’ healers, and a few small groups of spiritualists and mesmerists also began attempting to cultivate additional supernatural—or ‘occult’—powers through the use of magic mirrors or crystals, hashish, and the other tools of the magician. Interestingly, Muslims and other non-Christian communities were increasingly identified with in these supernatural-focused communities, although exclusive commitment to a non-Christian religion was still frowned upon. However, this would all change in the 1870s. After British Freemason esotericists, backed by a shrewd, wealthy businessman, had established—or reterritorialized—a stable market for Anglophone occult and non-Christian religious groups, this market was able to immigrate to America, where it was given life in the form of the Theosophical Society (ts), established in 1875. It would only be in the 1880s, however, after the group had found new ambitious promoters, that the ts would finally be able to achieve true success in the United States. When it did, though, a religious market in which conversion to Islam had the potential to thrive in organizational form had been reterritorialized in the us. Alexander Russell Webb—the first prominent American convert to Islam— was one of the early participants in the American occult revival. Chapter 3 explores how Webb, the son of a Democratic newspaper publisher, made his religious journey from that of a deterritorialized young mind with little interest in religion to become not just a prominent Muslim convert, but the founder of the first relatively successful American movement for conversion to Islam. In this chapter, I look at the major events in Webb’s pre-Islam life, highlighting his tendency for innovation and entrepreneurship. I also show how his background and personality traits were fortuitously fitting for his connecting with one of the most important exponents of the American occult revival: the St. Louis ts. As one of the early members of the St. Louis ts, Webb was exposed to the influence of some of the great early leaders of the early American occult revival, particularly Thomas M. Johnson, a prominent Platonist, a high-ranking Theosophist, and the American president for one of the first competitors of Theosophy, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor. Johnson, who was a member of the St. Louis lodge with Webb, did much to encourage the interest in Islam and Sufism in the ts community. In fact, in March 1887, while Webb was still an active Theosophist, Johnson was responsible for creating the first American Sufi organization, the ‘Sufic Circle.’ Although a direct connection between Webb and the Sufic Circle cannot be firmly established, there is little doubt that Webb’s Theosophical ties played a major role in his taking an interest in Islam around the same time Johnson created his group. Within months, Webb decided to attempt to go to the East to learn Islam directly from knowledgeable

300854 20 Introduction born-Muslims. It was in this de- and reterritorializing context, then, that Webb was molded to become the first true American Muslim convert leader. Neither Thomas M. Johnson nor Alexander Webb, however, were the first people connected to the early occult revival to decide to organize a group for whites interested in embracing an Islamic identity. Chapter 4 discusses the important religious and cultural current of Islamophilic Freemasonry in England and the us, which, starting in the 1870s, began creating para-Masonic organizations that emphasized Islam. I argue that one of the major motives underlying these groups was a desire to foster world peace, and these Masons— or at least one of the most influential ones—recognized that only through embracing an Islamic identity could they help Western Christians overcome one of their greatest obstacles to achieving that peace: their own prejudice against Islam. Although the most well-known of the Islamophilic Masonic groups—the Shriners—would devolve into a mere parody of orientalist stereotypes, early on, all of these groups appear to have taken their Islamic identities seriously. It is necessary to understand these groups for two reasons: (a) Their motivation for organizing may shed some light on the psychology of white American conversion to Islam generally. (b) Some of the prominent members of these groups became Webb’s earliest supporters when he started his own movement. Chapter 5 turns, finally, to the Islamic movement Webb led starting in 1893. Here, in addition to detailing most of the known events that occurred over the three years that the movement was alive, I show how the creation and growth of this movement was dependent on the occult revival for its American support, publicity, and organization. Webb’s movement contained many elements that he had observed in the Theosophical Society and many of the movement’s original supporters had direct ties with the occult revival, some being Islamophilic Masons, others being Theosophists, New Thought followers, or individuals connected to the Rosicrucians. Despite the advantages that these ties with the occult revival brought to Webb’s efforts, however, they were not enough to prevent debilitating schisms and the movement’s eventual death. In the end, Webb’s major failure was his being unable to maintain control of the leading converts who had joined the community. In Chapter 6, I look at the years following the Islamic movement’s collapse to bring to light both its various vestiges and the factors that contributed to its failure. A few Islamic organizations did continue to have a small presence in the years following the collapse of Webb’s movement, and at least one group, composed of people Webb possibly knew from his Theosophical days, had a movement called the Order of Sufis, which was probably a revival of Johnson’s Sufic Circle. In this chapter, I call attention to the previously unknown fact that

300854 Introduction 21 one of the leading members of this organization was, like Webb, involved in the French-based occult movement of Martinism—a movement that had ties to Muslims in America and throughout the world—and that it is likely that he connected his Sufi organization to the Martinist Order. This would make the Order of Sufis an early predecessor to the much more popular Martinist- influenced Sufi movement associated with René Guénon. In this chapter, I also discuss various failed attempts by early twentieth-century immigrant Muslim promoters of Islam, arguing that their failures in converting Americans reflect the fact that they were unable to successfully appeal to the white American population that would be most receptive to conversion: that involved in the occult revival. It seems that to intentionally create religious change in the era before large non-Christian immigration to the us, new ideas had to latch onto preexisting successful reterritorialized markets. I therefore conclude this chapter by examining other turn-of-the-century American movements for Asian- majority religions in order to identify the traits that made some of those movements more successful than those of the Muslims. As it turns out, there were two elements that the more successful movements had that the Muslims’—including Webb’s—lacked: an Eastern-born leader with advanced religious training and the ability to incorporate numerous occult revival movements as legitimate components of the religion. With Chapter 7, I commence part 2 of the book, which looks at conversions between 1910 and 1975. In the twentieth century, the dynamics of white American conversion to Islam changed significantly. As I argue throughout part 2, twentieth-century conversion was characterized by the impact of the deterritorializing current of Muslim immigration to the us and the reterritorializing social bonds the immigrants developed with white Americans. Although some whites who embraced Islamic identities continued to be individuals tied to the esoteric subculture, the vast majority of converts were now average Americans who were not particularly interested in alternative religious views, but became friends and spouses of Muslims simply because they interacted with them in their daily lives. For many, if not most of these converts, embracing Islam was merely a means to improve their relationship or family life—for them, religion itself was not the primary motive of their conversion. For others, though, exposure to Islam through relationships with immigrants gave the future converts unexpected but attractive new options for how to live in the world and cultivate an inner spiritual life. In the nineteenth century, when white Americans sought a new religion to help with personal or spiritual frus- trations or with their desire for greater meaning, since the vast majority only knew other Christians, they almost always joined Christian communities. But in the twentieth century, when there was a growing likelihood that an average

300854 22 Introduction

American had befriended or married a Muslim immigrant, this led to some people considering Islam as a legitimate religious choice. The fact that immigration played a significant role in these conversions also meant that the converts’ backgrounds and views on Islam would be largely determined by the backgrounds and views that predominated in the immigrant community at any given period. This situation helps explain the differences between, for example, the backgrounds and views of converts in the 1930s, when most immigrants were working class and had little concern for Pan-Islamic movements, and those of converts in the 1970s, when a large percentage of immigrants were college-educated and many were supportive of Pan-Islamic ideas. In Chapter 7, I begin by first laying out the general argument that for white American Muslim conversions between 1910 and 1975, Muslim immigration— and not connection to an occult religious market—was the dominant force shaping the dynamics of conversion. This change in conversion dynamics was not a sudden one, however. During the 1910s and 1920s, as this chapter argues, the most prominent Islam and Sufi convert movements, while they were led by immigrant Muslims, had strong ties to occult currents. Indeed, these movements seem to have been successful precisely because they were non-orthodox Islamic movements that were developed with an awareness and adaptation of Theosophy and other Western occult groups. It is a fascinating fact, for instance, that Rabia Martin, the first white convert of the Sufi leader Inayat Khan, was reportedly, like Webb, a Martinist and taught aspects of Martinism to her white Sufi followers. She may have even belonged to the (possibly) Martinism- connected Order of Sufis. Nevertheless, after the 1920s, the relative impact of occult connections on white American converts to Islam and Sufism decreased dramatically, and the white members of these non-orthodox groups would be relatively quiet through the rest of the interwar period. I should comment here about my use of the terms ‘orthodox’ and ‘non-orthodox,’ which I employ on many occasions in this and in subsequent chapters. ‘Orthodox’ is generally understood as meaning mainstream tradition, but it sometimes implies ‘correct’ tradition, as if other traditions are somehow ‘incorrect.’ As I am not a theologian, I do not wish to make such types of normative claims. My use of ‘orthodox,’ then, is simply as a less cumbersome equivalent to ‘mainstream tradition’; whereas ‘non-orthodox’ is used for ‘non-mainstream tradition.’ It was in the late 1920s and 1930s that the immigration—the deterritorialization—of Muslims began to cause a major shift—a major reterritorialization— in white American conversion to Islam. As Chapter 8 shows, the evidence suggests that the principal way through which this happened was marriage. As more and more Muslim immigrants began to settle in the country, the chances increased that some of them—the vast majority of whom were males—would

300854 Introduction 23 start taking American spouses, and that some of these spouses would convert. Here, I examine the available data and conclude that there were probably at least several hundred marriage-converts, making them the largest group of white Muslim converts in the country. I explain, too, that these converts generally showed little evidence of being strongly motivated by religious or spiritual urges; creating a family life with little friction was probably their greatest moti- vator in their embracing of Islam. Nevertheless, there were other individuals who demonstrated a great desire to convert for personal spiritual reasons and to spread Islam. These were, it seems, mostly friends of Muslim immigrants, the most notable of which was Louis Glick, the Chicago-born son of an immigrant Jewish couple. During the interwar period, Glick became the single most active white Muslim convert in the country, establishing a number of Islamic organizations and starting various other Islam-related enterprises, all of which greatly contributed to strengthening the national networks of Muslims. During the war years, as Chapter 9 reveals, Glick continued to play an important role in the uniting of American Muslims, even working closely with the African American Sunnis who were, at the time, establishing their own national Islamic network. Glick, however, was not the only prominent white American Muslim during this period; in fact, it was during the war that two white Muslim women made history with their activities in the name of spreading peace and unity under the banner of Islam. Then, just after the war, white converts began receiving attention for their efforts to bring Muslims closer together—although in some cases these converts were ignored or dismissed by immigrants. In these, as well as in the following chapters, close attention is paid to the development of the immigrant Muslim community, a community for which the details of its pre-1975 history have frequently escaped the gaze of previous historians. By the late 1940s, the history of Islam in America had entered a new phase as changes in postwar immigration began to produce very new kinds of Islamic leadership and institution-building. For the first time, a relatively large number of highly trained Muslim religious leaders began coming to the country, and they were accompanied by a quickly-growing college student and professional wave of Muslim immigration. Being much better educated, wealthier, and having better connections than the first generation immigrants, these individuals started reshaping the face of Islam in America and were soon befriending and marrying converts of their class. Now, a relatively large number of college-educated white converts began to appear, and some were soon even being put in leadership roles in the new Islamic institutions that were springing up across the country. The result of this change, as Chapter 10 shows, was a transformation of the position of white converts in American Islam.

300854 24 Introduction

They now had greater influence in the us Muslim community and they were increasingly influenced by the educated Muslim teachers and international reform movements with which many of the new immigrants were linked. In the final chapter of this book, I demonstrate that after the passing of the 1965 immigration reforms, the tendencies of the early postwar period now became the dominant trends. Fewer and fewer white converts were associated with the old generations of immigrants, most of whom were working class and primarily concerned with securing their livelihoods in America; white converts increasingly came from the educated middle class and were meeting internationally-minded Muslim students, who now had a significant influence on American converts, exposing to them their many global organizational and intellectual movements, including moderate Pan-Islam. However, converts’ lives as Muslims were also being shaped by their own needs and desires. Due to having to negotiate a society undergoing rapid change, white converts tended to be interested in cultivating a new ‘way of life.’ For many, this meant the sacralization of both their interior and exterior lives through taking on new mental habits, clothing, and behaviors. In addition to these converts, most of whom were tied with Sunni and Shiʿi immigrants, there was also a growing population joining the numerous new Sufi communities. By the end of 1974, white American conversion to Islam was a great deal larger, and far more complex—or deterritorialized—than it had been just eighty years earlier. Indeed, the us religious landscape, having undergone numerous deterritorializing and reterritorializing reconfigurations, now looked completely different from how it had appeared when the country first learned about its white Muslim converts in 1803.

300854 part 1 The Years 1800–1910

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chapter 1 From Renegades to Transcendentalists

De- and Reterritorialization and American Religiosity

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the American religious landscape underwent a major transformation. When the 1800s began, public criticism of the Christian religion was very rare and conversion to non-Christian religions was virtually unheard of, but by the end of the century, the criticizing and questioning of Christianity was relatively widespread, and non-Christian religions had been embraced by several thousand white Americans. The fundamental cause of this religious metamorphosis was the spread of two complimentary movements: the deterritorializing current of liberal religion and the reterritorializing occult revival. Liberal religion—particularly in the forms of Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, spiritualism, and the Free Thought movement—was a significant force in the promotion of non-biblically-based religiosity throughout the nineteenth century. It asserted that an individual could identify religious Truth and morality without the use of the Bible, whether through the application of rational thought or from one’s ‘intuition’; it therefore encouraged the study and appreciation of non-Christian religions, which were often assumed to contain clues about morality, Truth, and even intuition itself. Liberal religion, however, did not promote exclusive commitment to a non-Christian religion; thus, for example, while it fostered interest in Islam among nineteenth-century white Americans, it did not, as far as we know, generate a true conversion movement. What was needed for the emergence of a genuine Muslim convert movement on us soil was the creation of a religious market in which this kind of exclusive commitment was seen as a legitimate religious option. In the mid-1870s, such a market appeared in the form of what has been called the occult revival. A product of the confluence of the deterritorializing, liberal religion-influenced movements with the reterritorializing, boundary-enforcing institution of esoteric Freemasonry, the occult revival made exclusive commitment to non-Christian religions a publicly acceptable practice and directly led to the emergence of the first conversion to Islam movement for white Americans. The history of nineteenth-century white American conversion to Islam can be broken down into four periods that roughly correspond with key major historical dynamics connected to the appearance of white American convert movements for non-Christian religions. The first period, lasting from the

28 chapter 1 beginning of the century to the 1850s, coincides with the development of Transcendentalism out of Unitarianism. During this period, conversions to Islam were extremely rare and, as far as the evidence shows, almost all took place in Muslim-majority regions and had almost no connection to liberal religiosity. In fact, most of the few conversions we do know about for this period were done for very pragmatic reasons: either to improve that particular American’s treatment while living under Muslim rule or to enable him or her to marry a Muslim. However, the most famous white American who was believed to have converted during this era was unique because he had actually been influenced by elements of liberal religion while a student at Harvard in the early nineteenth century. Although the authenticity of his conversion is still uncertain, the fact that George Bethune English consciously and verifiably studied Islam and took up practices he knew to be those of Muslims reveals the fundamental importance of liberal religion in beginning to shape white American religious identities in the nineteenth century. During the second period, which lasted from around the 1850s through the 1890s, the us saw a wave of religious movements that would culminate with the appearance of the occult revival. These movements, which were influenced by liberal religion as well as a growing desire amongst common people to apply rational science to religiosity, included spiritualism, mesmerism, an early ‘Rosicrucian’ occult group, and esoteric Freemasonry. In several instances, these movements promoted identification with Islam and Muslims, but at the time they did not produce actual converts in America, nor were they by themselves responsible for the transformation of American religiosity that would legitimize organizations for converts to non-Christian religions. However, in 1875, the key transformative moment finally arrived when these move ments were brought together in the form of a new occult group known as the Theosophical Society (ts), which, despite promoting adherence to non- Christian religious practices, quickly gained a respectable following and significant attention from the wider public. With the ts, then, the American occult revival had finally commenced. Although at first the ts could not maintain its popularity in the us for more than a few years, in the early 1880s the group was revived when it connected with a new batch of liberal religion enthusiasts living across the country who were willing to rebuild the movement. In doing so, these new leaders broadened the reach of organizations promoting adherence to non-Christian teachings and created a national network on which new non-Christian movements were able to form. The first prominent convert to Islam, Alexander Russell Webb, was closely tied to the 1880s rebirth of the ts in America, and it was during the expansion of the occult revival that decade that he embraced Islam. At the time of his

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 29 conversion, however, Webb was living overseas and remained fairly isolated until 1893. That year, he returned to the us, and by gaining the allegiance of several people tied to liberal religion and the occult revival, he was able to lead not just the first conversion to Islam movement for white Americans, but the first movement for white Americans to formally join any Asian-majority religion. The time during which Webb’s movement was organized and active, 1893 to early 1896, is therefore the third important period. The fact that the achievements of this conversion movement are directly attributable to its ties with liberal religion and the occult revival demonstrates the importance of those earlier movements for generating a religious market in which non-Christian religions could be exclusively and publicly adhered to by white Americans. Nevertheless, the cohesiveness of the Muslim convert movement was very short-lived and by 1896, the relatively successful organized efforts to promote Islam had all but disintegrated. The fourth period, then, was the time during which the members of the previous period’s movement continued to attempt to spread Islam but achieved little success, and the results they did achieve had minimal impact. It was also during this period, which lasted from 1896 to circa 1910, that other Muslim proselytizers came to the us but similarly failed to bring Americans to Islam. The key to this failure, it seems, is that none of these post-movement attempts to spread Islam did what was done so well during the movement’s peak: strongly connect their proselytization efforts with the occult revival. Indeed, this was a period in which white Americans started joining several different Asian-majority religious movements, and the evidence suggests that the success of non-Christian religious organizations during this period was proportional to the degree to which they aligned themselves with the occult revival. Part 1 examines these four periods over the course of six chapters. My argument is that nineteenth-century white American conversion to Islam— especially as embodied in Alexander Webb’s movement, which was the first successful conversion to Islam movement for white Americans—was primarily a product of the deterritorializing and reterritorializing forces of liberal religion and the occult revival. The present chapter looks at the first period of this history, which was the period in which the us saw its earliest known white converts to Islam. These converts were primarily sailors who—due to the deterritorializing forces of long-distance seafaring, global trade, and international warfare—were residing in Muslim-majority territory between 1803 and 1823. Some of these sailors converted as captives of Muslims, others willingly embraced Islam as free men, and at least one well-known ‘convert’ from the period may not have actually been a convert at all, but rather a liberal-minded critic of Christianity who simply valued aspects of the religion and culture of

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Muslims. This chapter presents the known details about their conversions and brings to light the ways in which these early converts represent the transition between the traditional ‘renegades’—the European converts who joined up with Mediterranean Muslims—and the new type of American religious liberals, epitomized by the Transcendentalists, who would begin to pronounce their sincere interest in and respect for aspects of Islam. I make the case that the deterritorializing forces of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century liberal religion transformed American religious culture in such a profound way during this period that individuals who publicly criticized Christianity and showed respect for Islam went from being considered traitors and ostracized from American religious life to being regarded as the leaders of a popular mid- century religious and cultural current.

‘Turning Turk’: Barbary Captives

The first reports of white Americans embracing Islam were of individuals who had been taken captive by North African Muslims and, the evidence suggests, converted primarily to ensure their survival during their captivity.1 Such conversions fit nicely into narratives about Islam being a corrupting influence that was spread ‘by the sword’; therefore, these conversions were easily discounted by early Americans and in all likelihood their only influence on subsequent or potential American conversions was as a deterrent. Nevertheless, the circumstances and details of these early conversions are historically valuable because they illustrate some of the extreme conditions necessary for early Americans to embrace Islam prior to the transformation of American religious culture that would enable a whole movement of converts to develop in the 1890s. In 1801, the young United States became embroiled in its first foreign war.2 The Mediterranean had long been an important trade route for American merchants and, during the colonial period, when Americans were still British citizens, they

1 The present chapter argues that the first confirmed American converts to Islam were the five convert sailors on the Philadelphia, which was captured on the Barbary Coast in 1803. None of these individuals, however, was the first white man on an American ship to become a Muslim. In 1796 a Scottish national named Peter Lisle, who had joined the American navy in order to avoid a British court martial, embraced Islam when his American ship, the Betsey, was captured on the North African coast. 2 On the Barbary Wars, see Glenn Tucker, Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the u.s. Navy (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963) and Robert J. Allison, The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World 1776–1815 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 31 were protected there by the British and French navies.3 Upon independence, however, the Americans had to defend themselves. This meant that—because the us did not have a particularly strong navy in its early years—American merchant ships were constantly being seized and their crews were being held hos- tage by various North African pirates attempting to extract ransoms and tributes. To deal with this problem, the us began building up its navy. In 1801, the American government refused to pay an excessive tribute demanded by the Tripolitan Pasha, who responded by declaring war against the us. The us then sent warships to the region to create blockades and perform raids, setting into motion the First Barbary War. On October 31, 1803, the Philadelphia, one of the us warships stationed on the Barbary Coast, hit uncharted rocks near the Tripolitan shore. Separated from the rest of the American navy and lacking the means to ably defend itself, the ship was captured by Tripoli’s Pasha, who subjected its crew to forced labor, beatings, food deprivation, and generally very unpleasant conditions. It was made clear to the captives that they would receive better treatment if they embraced Islam, but the general sentiment among the crew was that conversion would be a cowardly, treacherous act.4 John Wilson was the first to ignore the crew’s opinions and join up with the Muslims. Even before he converted, just days after the crew was taken prisoner, Wilson was already behaving, as the Philadelphia’s Captain Bainbridge put it, “in a most infamous manner.”5 He had told the Tripolitans that Muslim captives on another American ship were being abused, a lie that appears to have caused the Philadelphia’s Muslim guards to flog the Americans even harder and more often.6 Then, barely a week after being captured, attempting to further ingrati- ate himself with the Pasha, Wilson claimed that Captain Bainbridge had thrown gold and American money overboard—another outright falsehood that resulted in further persecution of the Americans and, simultaneously, the elevation of Wilson’s status by his captors: he was made overseer of the captured crew.7 Although Wilson, a Swede by birth, was a naturalized us citizen, his brazen- ness in betraying his crewmates was apparently grounded in his expectation that

3 The latter because of a treaty with Britain. 4 See United States Office of Naval Records and Library, Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers, 6 vols. (Washington: us Govt. Print. Off., 1939–44), esp. volume 3. 5 Naval Documents, 3:223. 6 William Ray, Poems, on Various Subjects, Religious, Moral, Sentimental and Humorous (Auburn, ny: Doubleday, 1821), 234. 7 Naval Documents, 3:530; Ray, Poems, 234.

32 chapter 1 the Swedish government would protect and rescue him.8 This infuriated Bainbridge, who had the fleet’s commodore write to the Swedish consul detailing Wilson’s actions, clarifying his us citizenship status, and threatening to report the consul to the country’s king if he made any attempt to protect the man whom the Americans now considered a deserter.9 Bainbridge also confronted Wilson directly, promising him that he would be hanged for treason if the crewmen were ever freed.10 Wilson’s response was to hedge all bets with his captors and to turn ‘Renegado’ or ‘Turk,’ as conversion to Islam was sometimes termed.11 Bainbridge would soon be calling Wilson “the greatest Villain [he] ever knew.”12 The remaining converts do not seem to have been nearly as unscrupulous as Wilson. At least two of them, in fact, were probably simply trying to negotiate the complex realities of competing ethnic, religious, and national commitments in wartime. Thomas Prince, an ordinary seaman from Rhode Island but of German parentage, was still in his teens or younger when the Philadelphia crew was captured, and apparently was the second to convert, probably after having befriended the German-speaking Wilson.13 Another German-American, Lewis Hacksener,14 also converted soon after Wilson,15 but instead of being remembered for treach- ery, the single known account of Lewis’ actions indicates that in at least one instance he used his conversion and the advantages it gave him to help his former crew. On August 10, 1804, when the crew wrote a petition to the Pasha requesting a reduction in the physical abuse given by the guards, Hacksener, who due to his conversion had been given a position as a messenger between the ship and the Pasha, truthfully explained to the latter the crew’s petition.16 This resulted in the Pasha formally forbidding the guards from striking the Americans.

8 Ibid., 3:224. 9 Ibid., 3:224, 280–81. 10 Ray, Poems, 234–35. 11 Ray, Poems, 235; Naval Documents, 3:185, 409. 12 Naval Documents, 3:409. 13 Ray, Poems, 235; Naval Documents, 3:269, 5: 328, 6:203. Wilson’s ability to speak German can be deduced from three things: (a) his confirmed Swedish background, which— because of Sweden’s proximity to Germany and the Swedish language’s being a Germanic language that shares many words with German—increases the possibility that he had the ability to communicate in German; (b) the fact that at least two of the other converts were German; and (c) the fact that he was misidentified as a German by at least one of his crewmates (see Ray, Poems, 233). 14 In the naval documents, his surname is also spelled Heximer, Hickson, and Hickshaw, while his first name is sometimes spelled Louis. 15 Naval Documents, 3:269. 16 Ibid., 4:63.

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 33

The fact that three of the first converts were of similar minority ethnic backgrounds on the American ship is not particularly surprising. As we will see, throughout the history of religious conversion of Americans to non-Christian religions, it is often the case that ethnic minorities convert in groups. Frequently, this is because ethnic minorities, particularly those who are immigrants or the children of immigrants, tend to rely heavily on social ties based on shared ethnicity and language. When one of these ties is stretched through one of the members of the group changing identities or loyalties, particularly when this is a relatively influential member, other members of the group may follow in order to preserve the valuable ethnically-based social tie.17 In the case of the Philadelphia, John Wilson seems to have been this influential member for the ship’s German speakers. Nevertheless, Thomas Smith and Peter West—the two other Philadelphia crewmen who “turned Mahometants”18—were not, by any accounts, from German backgrounds. Almost nothing is known about seaman Thomas Smith, other than his approximate conversion date of January 15, 1804.19 Peter West, a carpenter and another early convert,20 is only noted for having helped build at least one boat for the Pasha that later attacked an American cruiser.21 It is likely that these men’s primary motive for converting was to reduce their harsh treatment and improve their chances of survival. Despair was in fact quickly spreading through the crew, and by mid-January 1804, Captain Bainbridge was expecting “many more” of the ship’s crew members to follow in Wilson’s footsteps.22 A wave of defections did not occur, however;23 instead, the Americans’

17 For a discussion of this phenomenon, see Stark and Finke, Acts, 125. 18 Naval Documents, 3:329. 19 Ibid., 3:185, 6:203. Although in some instances this specific date was given for Smith’s conversion, we can only consider it approximate, for on January 14—one day before Smith’s supposed conversion—Bainbridge observed that five crew members—which was the total number of crew members that were reported to have converted, so this number included Smith—had already converted; see Naval Documents, 3:329. 20 Ibid., 3:185. 21 Ibid., 5:488. 22 Ibid., 3:329. 23 In February 1804, Bainbridge noted that there were seven total converts, suggesting two additional conversions (see Naval Documents, 3:409). However, given that (a) in all other documents written by the Philadelphia’s crew these two additional converts were never mentioned (although in late December 1803 another American ship heard the probably exaggerated rumor that eight Philadelphia sailors had converted—see Naval Documents, 3:301); (b) in the official reports only five converts were named and all remaining crew members’ fates were accounted for; and (c) the Muslim captors would have punished apostasy from Islam with death and we know that they did not kill more than four of the

34 chapter 1 resolve and their resentment towards their captors and the converts intensified, and they reportedly became eager to lynch the “traitors” if they were ever released.24 After numerous negotiations, and over a year-and-a-half of captivity, a peace treaty and agreement were finally reached. On June 4, 1805, the American crew of the Philadelphia was freed. In converting to Islam, however, the five renegades had effectively renounced their American citizenship, so, on June 3, they were summoned to see the Pasha who gave them the option of staying in Tripoli or leaving the country. Only John Wilson wanted to stay; he would later be captured by the Portuguese while sailing with Tripolitan pirates.25 The other four were escorted away by a guard. They were never mentioned again in any of the American naval correspondence from the period and were presumed to have been either killed or enslaved.26 Once the remaining crew members returned to American soil, word spread about the betrayal of five men on the Philadelphia, and for the rest of the First Barbary War, there were no other American captives positively known to have converted to Islam. Other American sailors possibly ‘turned Turk’ in the early nineteenth century, but not to gain relief from the harsh treatment of Muslims. One man, a native of Baltimore named Walker, had been forced to join the British navy in 1810, and his having to endure his British officers’ “system of cruelty” led him to, when his ship ported in Algiers, abandon the ship, “his country, his family, and religion.”27 It has been suggested too that some of the unaccounted-for American sailors from the period—including perhaps a few African Americans—made similar decisions.28

American converts, there are essentially only two possible conclusions to draw: 1) that these two particular crew members had converted was never made clear in any of the preserved naval documents and that they were among the five supposedly non-convert crew members who died (possibly at the hands of Muslim guards or angry American crewmates), or 2) the more likely scenario, that Bainbridge made a simple mistake when he identified seven converts in this instance. 24 Gary E. Wilson, “American Prisoners in the Barbary Nations, 1784–1816” (PhD diss., North Texas University, 1979), 281n43. 25 Wilson, “American Prisoners,” 274. 26 Ibid., 274. 27 M.M. Noah, Correspondence and Documents Relative to the Attempt to Negotiate for the Release of the American Captives at Algiers Including Remarks on our Relations with that Regency (Washington, dc, 1816), 66–67, quoted in Allison, Crescent, 120. 28 Allison, Crescent, 120–26.

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 35

‘Taking the Turban’: George Bethune English

Out of all of the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century phrases that described British and American conversions to Islam, none captured the ambiguity of the supposed converts’ motives for joining up with Muslims as much as ‘took the turban.’ The meaning of ‘renegade’ and ‘turned Mahometant’ were clear. The ‘Turk’ in the phrase ‘turned Turk,’ meanwhile, could be equivalent for ‘Muslim,’ but it also could signify that the convert took on the appearance and social habits of the North African Ottoman Muslim people without necessarily becoming Muslim, or—more significantly, in times of war—that the way the person was really converting was in terms of national loyalty: ‘Turk’ being a designation of national identity rather than ethnic or religious identity.29 In all these meanings—which could be employed simultaneously—the convert’s social commitments, whether they be religious, secular, or political, were understood as having changed. However, the wording of ‘took the turban,’ although surely understood by many as basically equivalent to the other terms for converting to Islam, was the phrase that was least connected to a person’s social commitments and internal motives. More than the other terms, it could be interpreted as a superficial change only, and perhaps better reflected the mentality of the convert sailors. It is noteworthy, then, that the last and most well-known American to be called a ‘renegade’ in the context of conversion to Islam was also accused of ‘taking the turban,’ and even used the phrase himself to describe another convert sailor. Indeed, despite all the evidence and reports indicating the contrary, George Bethune English made sure that posterity would always have to acknowledge that we cannot say with certainty whether or not he actually converted. The accusations began appearing in January 1819 when American newspapers reported a rumor that an unnamed “American officer of marines had embraced the Mahometan faith at Constantinople.”30 This was undoubtedly English. Through a favor of then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, English—a graduate of Harvard’s law and divinity schools—had joined the American military as a second lieutenant in the Marines in February 1815. English’s early military career was brief. In 1816, he was posted in the

29 The phrase ‘to turn Turk’ was also sometimes used as a derogatory euphemism for prosti- tution; see Warner G. Rice, “‘To Turn Turk,’” Modern Language Notes (March 1931): 153–54. 30 National Advocate (New York), January 26, 1819, 2.

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Mediterranean; in April 1817, he was promoted to first lieutenant; and soon after his promotion, English resigned from the navy and moved to Constantinople.31 The circumstances surrounding English’s resignation and rumored conversion, however, leave many questions. First of all, it is not certain as to what exactly English’s resignation meant; in as late as 1819, his name was still listed in the navy register, although it was crossed out and next to it was simply written “out” and “in Turkey.”32 There is also the question of whether English was involved with state-sponsored covert activities at the time, activities that necessitated that he wear Muslim clothing. There is circumstantial evidence suggesting that Adams had wanted English to work as a spy as early as 1816, and in the 1820s, English was verifiably wearing a robe and turban while working undercover for Adams in Constantinople.33 It is very likely, then, that English’s 1819 taking of the turban was done for the same purpose. Nevertheless, this would certainly not be the last time there would be talk about English’s supposed turn to Islam. By around early 1820, English had made his way to Cairo where he continued to wear Muslim clothing and went by the name Mohamed Effendi.34 Interestingly, despite English’s recent supposed resignation from the American military and his ‘turning Turk,’ the British consul, General Henry Salt, obtained for English a position in the Khedive Mohammed Ali’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force to take control of the Sudan by way of the Nile. English’s account of the expedition, first published in 1822 as A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar: Under the Command of His Excellence Ismael Pasha, Undertaken by Order of His Highness Mehemmed Ali Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt,35 contains one of the first, most well-known, and most detailed descriptions of the Sudanese Nile area made by a Westerner during the period. Just before the expedition departed in the summer of 1820, a white New Yorker living in Cairo asked English if he (the New Yorker)—and apparently his friend—could go along with English on the journey.36 Very little is known about the two men, other than the fact that they had both supposedly converted to Islam prior to the expedition. English later recalled that the New

31 Cassandra Vivian, Americans in Egypt, 1770–1915: Explorers, Consuls, Travelers, Soldiers, Missionaries, Writers and Scientists (Jefferson, nc: McFarland, 2012), 76. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid., 76, 96–97. 34 Ibid., 76. 35 This edition was published in London by John Murray. In 1823, a new edition was published in Boston by Wells and Lilly. Citations here will be from the 1823 edition. 36 English, A Narrative, 158.

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 37

Yorker, known only as Khalil Aga, “took the turban” a few weeks before the forces left for the Sudan. In another account, conveyed by British clergyman George Waddington, both Khalil and his companion, a Swiss-born naturalized American known as Achmed Aga, ‘took the turban’ at that time, apparently following English’s lead.37 Waddington claimed to know an “eye-witness” of their supposed conversions who said that about a week or two prior to the event, the two men were seen walking around Cairo in their American navy uniforms; then they disappeared for eight or ten days, only to reappear in Muslim garb.38 Nothing more is known about their backgrounds, and only a few facts are known about their fates. Achmed would die during the expedition; Khalil would survive, leaving an important unpublished account of the journey,39 and after the expedition he returned to Egypt where even in as late as 1831 he was reportedly “distinguished for his courage and good conduct.”40 With such little information, it is impossible to accurately assess the sincerity and depth of Khalil and Achmed’s conversions. For English, on the other hand, much more evidence exists, although it is still difficult to come to a definitive conclusion. English, first of all, adopted some Muslim customs, such as using the Islamic calendar for dating his account of the expedition, ‘Turkish’ stoic mannerisms, and quoting from the Qurʾan.41 English also later recalled that while in Muslim countries he even participated with Muslims in prayers, although, admittedly, he did the same with Jews and their prayers as well.42 Another suggestive anecdote comes from English’s Narrative. In it, he records that one day during the Nile expedition he stayed for a night at the home of local Muslims who offered their married daughters for him to sleep with. English responded by telling his hosts that “a Mussulman [Muslim] ought to

37 English, A Narrative, 158; George Waddington and Barnard Hanbury, Journal of a Visit to Some Parts of Ethiopia (London: John Murray, 1822), 114–15. 38 Waddington and Hanbury, Journal, 115. This account seemingly eliminates the possibility that the Swiss identity of Achmed was a misidentification of the Swedish John Wilson, who would have long been wearing local clothing, not an American sailor’s uniform, and by this time, seventeen years after his conversion, probably would not be accompanying another American sailor. 39 See Cassandra Vivian, “Khalil Aga: A Lost American on the Nile,” in Saddling the Dogs: Journeys through Egypt and the Near East, eds. Diane Fortenberry and Deborah Manley (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2009), 81–94. 40 James Ellsworth De Kay, Sketches of Turkey in 1831 and 1832. By an American (New York: J. & J. Harper, 1833), 488. 41 De Kay, Sketches, 488; Samuel Knapp, American Biography, or Original Biographical Sketches of Distinguished Americans (New York: C.C. Childs, 1850 [1833]), 96–97. 42 Knapp, American Biography, 96.

38 chapter 1 regard lying with his neighbour’s wife as a crime.”43 This was, most likely, merely a condescending remark on English’s part, and not evidence of him being a “Mussulman” himself. Indeed, English admitted that he gave into temptation and took up the hosts’ offer.44 For the American press, the most persuasive pieces of evidence of English’s conversion were the testimonies of three European Christians. One of these was Waddington, who had traveled with the expedition for a time and quickly came to suspect English of having converted. When English learned that Waddington, another Westerner, was in the entourage, he eagerly went to go see him, but Waddington treated English coolly precisely because he already believed English to be a “renegade.”45 Waddington, in fact, generally had little respect for English, and this showed through in his unfavorable depictions of the man in his journal made during the expedition, which was published in 1822.46 The fact that Waddington put into print his claim that English had converted angered English, who later confronted Waddington, demanding that in the next edition of the book he retract the assertion.47 English’s efforts to quash the rumor, however, would be in vain, as no new edition of Waddington’s book was published and other Europeans who met English in Egypt also identified him as a convert. When English and Khalil returned from the expedition, they stayed with their patron, the British consul Henry Salt, who happened to be hosting at the time various other Western travelers. One of these travelers noted in a letter to a friend that English had “turned Mahomedan and written an exposition of the Koran.”48 Another traveler staying with Salt, one Joseph Wolf, a German Jewish convert to Christianity, wrote in his journal that English confided in him “the history of his turning to Mahomedanism by principles.”49 According to Wolf, after reading Voltaire in college, English supposedly “became a complete infidel,” and extracts from Wolf’s journal indicate that he learned that one of English’s major criticisms of Christianity was that the New

43 English, A Narrative, 93. 44 Ibid., 93n. 45 Waddington and Hanbury, Journal, 117. 46 As Vivian points out, however, Khalil presents English in a more honorable light. See Vivian, Americans, 80–81, 85. 47 Vivian, Americans, 85. 48 “George B. English,” Spectator (New York), July 26, 1822, 3. This exposition of the Qur˒an, like several of English’s unpublished writings, has not yet been found. It may be included in his “Miscellaneous religious instruction,” which is appended to a manuscript copy of A Narrative located at Yeshiva University. 49 Ibid.

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 39 and Old Testaments could not be completely reconciled with each other.50 All of these claims were included in an 1822 syndicated news article about English’s conversion, which helped cement his reputation as a ‘renegade.’51 For the rest of his life, English would repeatedly deny having converted to Islam,52 but at least one of these claims—Wolf’s assertion about English’s criticism of Christianity—was at least partially based in fact. George Bethune English was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1787 to Thomas English, a Boston merchant and Irish immigrant, and Penelope Bethune, an American of Scottish descent.53 A naturally inquisitive young man and member of Harvard College’s Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society, English was said to have devoted twelve to fifteen hours a day to study and was known for both his love of learning and his “lofty and refined sentiments of honor.”54 English’s intellectual interests were wide; as an undergraduate, he investigated metaphysics, church history, biblical criticism, oriental literature, military tactics, and poetry, even becoming the official poet for his school’s famous Hasty Pudding social club.55 After graduating in 1807, English apparently unsuccessfully attempted to join the navy;56 he then turned to law, enrolling in Harvard Law School and practicing as an attorney for a brief period.57 However, English quickly came to dislike working in this field and decided to attend Harvard Divinity School instead. Here, English excelled. He had a gift for learning languages and he began reading medieval and early modern Hebrew texts as well as new works being published on Asian religions. In 1812, English won Harvard’s most prestigious academic honor, the Bowdoin prize, for his dissertation entitled “The Origin of the Masoretic Points, and Their Subserviency to a Thorough Knowledge of the Hebrew Language.”58 During this time, English, now leaning towards the increasingly popular Unitarian

50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Knapp, American Biography, 96. 53 On English’s parents, see Harvard University, Harvard College Class of 1867. Secretary’s Report No. 14 (Boston: Geo. H. Ellis Co., 1918), 62–63. 54 “George B. English,” Spectator, 3; Harvard College, A Catalogue of the Fraternity of ΦBK, Alpha of Massachusetts (Cambridge: Charles W. Sever, 1873), 19; Knapp, American Biography, 92. 55 “George B. English,” 3; Harvard College, A Catalogue of the Members of the Hasty Pudding Club in Harvard University (Cambridge: e.w. Metcalf & Co., 1829), 6. 56 Harvard, A Catalogue of the Fraternity of ΦBK, 19; “George B. English,” Spectator, 3. 57 “George B. English,” Spectator, 3; Knapp, American Biography, 92. 58 Harvard University, A List of the Winners of Academic Distinctions in Harvard College during the Past Year together with Lists of the Scholars of the First Group since 1902 and of the

40 chapter 1 religious perspective, attempted to become a preacher, but despite being widely respected for his vast knowledge of the Bible and religion generally, the controversial and recondite subjects of his sermons made him an unpopular public speaker.59 In any case, reading Jewish and Asian religion literature had fostered in English a critical view of traditional Christianity. In 1813, he self-published the book The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing the New Testament with the Old in which he laid out the conclusions about Christianity he had reached through his years of study and reflection.60 English prefaces his book by proclaiming his belief that free thought and public criticism through rational argumentation are “natural right[s]” and “dut[ies].”61 He then explains how he arrived at his current critical position towards Christianity: When he first read the New Testament as a young man, English was convinced that the Bible had a divine origin. Not even the criticisms of Deists, he felt, were persuasive enough to abandon belief in the book’s having been directed by God. But then English investigated Jewish criticisms of Christianity and, through the influence of these, he became convinced of the idea that there were several inconsistencies between the New Testament and the Old Testament.62 These inconsistencies would thus call into question the Bible’s divine origins. The main purpose of English’s book, then, was, in keeping with his belief in the responsibility of all people to bring rational criticisms to the public sphere, to expose these arguments against Christianity. Much of the book was aimed at showing that Jesus does not possess what the Old Testament says would be the characteristics of the messiah. English also argues that some of the practices and ideas in the Old Testament were not consistent with those in the New Testament or with those used by early Christians—and, in fact, that some of the New Testament concepts appear to have been based on “Oriental” religions. In terms of understanding English’s possible conversion to Islam six years later, there are two sections in Grounds that stand out as particularly important. First is Chapter xiii, whose stated goal is to prove that the Apostle Paul

Winners of the Bowdoin Prizes (Cambridge: [Harvard University], 1905), 21. Masoretic points are the vowel points and accent marks in the Hebrew Bible. 59 “George B. English,” Spectator, 3; Knapp, American Biography, 92. 60 This was originally self-published in Boston. It was republished in 1814 by Cummings and Hilliard and then several times after that. The edition i will cite from is the 1852 reprint of the original, which contains no information about the 1852 publisher. 61 English, Grounds, vi. 62 Ibid., viii.

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 41

“was well versed in Cabalistic learning, and not unacquainted with the principles of the Philosophy styled ‘the Oriental.’”63 English argues that the “mystery” of the marriage of Christ to the church, referred to in Ephesians, is a Kabalistic idea; and that it also reflects a theory in “Oriental” religions in which God is identified as a phallus.64 Another doctrine Paul supposedly derived from “Oriental Philosophy” is a version of Idealism in which “all evil resulted from matter”; in other words, that true good is only immaterial, part of the ‘eternal mind.’65 Finally, English argues that the New Testament’s notion of evil is not based in the Old Testament view, but rather on the Persian notion of a struggle between light and dark on earth.66 Chapter xiii, then, is significant as evidence concerning English’s possible conversion because it proves that English was familiar with and interested in not just non-Christian religions generally, but, perhaps more importantly, the new research on and theories about ‘oriental’ religions that had recently begun circulating in the English-speaking world, and how these religions criticize Christianity.67 Nevertheless, both Chapter xiii and another section in English’s book suggest that he was no Muslim at the time of writing Grounds. At the end of Chapter xiii, English refers to Muhammad as “the imposter.”68 Then, in Chapter xiv, he expresses more disbelief in Islam. The goal of this chapter is to attack the popular claim that miracles supposedly performed by early Christians are proof of the divine truth of Christianity. In a footnote, English argues that, generally, reports of miracles are not good proof for the truth of a religion, as many religions claim witnesses for miracles, and Islam in particular has a relatively large catalog of witnesses and a highly-developed system for grading their reliability69—yet, he points out, most people do not accept witnesses’ accounts for other religions as proof for the truth of those religions’ miracles.70 English is saying, then, that people will always doubt the reliability of witnesses for other religions because those witnesses’ biases and intelligence will always be in question. English himself, therefore, would likely not have fully accepted the Islamic hadith (the collection of reports of early Muslim

63 Ibid., 61. 64 Ibid., 61–62. For an excellent introduction to the phallic and other ‘oriental’ religion theories circulating in the early nineteenth century, see Joscelyn Godwin, The Theosophical Enlightenment (Albany: State University of New York Press 1994). 65 English, Grounds, 63. 66 Ibid., 64–67. 67 Again, see Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment. 68 English, Grounds, 67. 69 English is referring to the Islamic hadith system. 70 English, Grounds, 70.

42 chapter 1 witnesses of Muhammad and the original Muslim community) as proof of early actions of Muhammad. Since he was on the subject of Islam at this point, English decided to add another argument related to the religion. While Christians, English observes, are fond of arguing that Christianity’s current popularity is proof of it being the only true religion, Muslims, he says, can argue that a key aspect of their religion, the rejection of Christ’s divinity, helped make their religion become popular more quickly than Christianity had been able to.71 In fact, English points out, the belief that Islam was primarily spread ‘by the sword’ is incorrect; more people embraced Islam voluntarily than embraced early and medieval Christianity.72 English’s point is simply that it is not a legitimate argument to say that Christianity’s current popularity proves that it is a superior religion. In all this argumentation, meanwhile, English displays that he is not just familiar with the Qurʾan and with several Western scholarly works on Islam, but that he has also integrated what he learned from these texts into his very modern, complex understanding of religion. While the evidence in Grounds points to English not being a convert, it also reveals that English possessed key traits that some of the later prominent American Muslim converts would have: an advanced understanding of various religions of the world and a willingness to use this knowledge to criticize Christianity and find value in other religions. In the early 1800s, however, these were radical, irreverent views—even in Boston—and English’s choice to make them public had significant consequences. He was harshly attacked from the local pulpits, ostracized from the community, and even excommunicated in 1814. His joining the Marines in 1815 was done largely out of a need to secure a livelihood outside of the us, where his views would most likely have followed him no matter where he went. It is somewhat unclear how long this reputation stayed with English. Only a little is known about his life after he returned to the us in 1827, as he only lived a few more months, dying under mysterious circumstances in August 1828. English, however, stuck by his views throughout his life, even composing a response to his critics just before he left on the Sudanese expedition in 1820.73 Whether English actually converted or not is hard to say given the existing, often seemingly contradictory evidence. Even if the hearsay from Wolf seems to have a ring of truth, Wolf may have simply assumed, without definitive evidence, that English, the turban-wearing critic of Christianity, had become a genuine convert. English was undeniably a strong critic of Christianity, but

71 Ibid., 71. 72 Ibid., 71. 73 This was his Five Pebbles from the Brook (Philadelphia, 1824).

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 43 throughout the 1820s he continuously insisted that he remained a believer in Christ and that he had not embraced Islam. More than any of the ‘renegades’ of the early nineteenth century, then, English represented the ambiguity of what it meant to ‘turn Turk’ or ‘take the Turban.’ At the same time, by being significantly shaped by Unitarianism, biblical criticism, notions concerning the “natural right” to free though and its public expression, and ‘oriental’ religious ideas, English stood at the transition between the old, wartime survival-type Euro-American sailor converts to Islam and the emergence of the new cultural current sweeping the West that would later produce several ideologically- or spiritually-driven converts. It would take well over half a century, and a surprisingly complex transformation of Western and us religious culture, for this current to produce a us Muslim convert movement. But its beginnings had already appeared by English’s day, and had even left their mark on English’s own ideas and identity. Indeed, it is very fitting that in concluding his brief biography of the man, Samuel Knapp described the free-thinking, irreverent, Harvard-educated English as a “Transcendent Genius.”74

Ideas, Unity, Transcendence

During the first half of the nineteenth century, the us witnessed the appearance of several new religious movements,75 but for the history of white American conversion to Islam, one of the most important deterritorializing religious currents was that of Idealism-based liberal religiosity. In the early-to- mid nineteenth century, this current would significantly contribute to an increase in American interest in Islam and even, on occasion, led to certain individuals identifying with—but not as—Muslims, seeing themselves as believers in the same spiritual truths. While, as far as the evidence shows, this religious change did not verifiably directly lead to conversions to Islam—even in the case of English—it still helped sow the cultural soil for what was to come later in the century. As pointed out by Foucault and discussed in the introduction to this volume,76 early modern Western Europe experienced a new cultural phenomenon in which the meanings of symbols were destabilized. One can discern

74 Knapp, American Biography, 98. 75 See Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1990). 76 Foucault, Order of Things, 31–34.

44 chapter 1 this in the increased popularity of occult magic at the time, with its practice of manipulating words and images motivated by a revived interest in understanding the relationship between humans and God.77 In the seventeenth century, as technical, scientific knowledge increased and interest in magic declined, Western Europe began to witness a greater interest in more purely philosophical questions concerning the nature of humans and their ability to use symbols. Reflective of both the new spirit and new sources of deterritorialization of the period, men like Descartes and John Locke read from amongst the growing numbers of new and translated books, hoping to solve some of the same questions the Renaissance humanists asked about magic, but now were even more concerned with understanding the human power of thought. Locke, interestingly, seems to have found some of his answers in a medieval philosophical treatise composed by a Sufi-influenced Muslim, Ibn Tufayl, whose Hayy Ibn Yaqzan provided a sophisticated philosophical explanation for human logic and free will.78 Indeed, as the eighteenth century began, philosophical questions were increasingly concerned with the nature of the individual, or the ‘sources of the self,’ as Charles Taylor has termed it.79 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, German philosophical thought in particular became increasingly Idealist, asserting that the only true reality is the world of ideas. This development was partly a reaction to a growing body of scientific and philosophical work that took a strong material- istic perspective, and partly a response to the German Kant’s groundbreaking Critique of Pure Reason (1781).80 Kant had demonstrated, through a long, complex, logical argument, that rational analysis alone could not explain how

77 There is a great deal of literature on early modern occult magic in the West. Some valuable overviews include Brian Vickers, ed., Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Gyorgy E. Szonyi, John Dee’s Occultism: Magical Exaltation through Powerful Signs (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004); Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2002); Frances Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (New York: Routledge, 2002). 78 See G.A. Russell, “The Impact of The Philosophus Autodidactus: Pocockes, John Locke, and the Society of Friends,” in The “Arabick” Interest in Seventeenth-Century England, ed. G.A. Russell (Leiden: e.j. Brill, 1994), 224–65. For more on Hayy’s likely impact on Western culture, see Samar Attar, The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl’s Influence on Modern Western Thought (Plymouth, uk: Lexington Books, 2007). 79 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1989). 80 See Terry Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760–1860: The Legacy of Idealism (Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 45 humans inherently know that objects are separate and not part of a unified whole. The ‘a priori’ mental categories humans have, Kant argued, must come from a power greater than material forces; a power that, Kant reasoned, must be God. Furthermore, since our perceptions and understanding of the material world are only possible because God has provided us with these a priori categories, we cannot be sure that material things actually exist beyond the realm of the ideas God has implanted in us. In other words, the only thing in the world we can be sure of is that humans are a conduit for God’s Ideas. By rejecting the knowability of the reality of the material world and affirming that all known things share a single nature—that they are expressions of God’s Ideas—Kant had unleashed a comparatively deterritorialized conception of the world, ushering in a new era of destruction of old intellectual territories. Given the thoroughly Christian culture of Western Europe at the time of Kant’s writing, as well as the lack of a significant amount of information and quality scholarly research concerning non-Western cultures and religions, it is not surprising that Kant ostensibly assumed that God’s Ideas were those conveyed in the Bible. However, in just a few years, Western intellectual culture was inundated with a wealth of new data about non-Christian religions, and this would have a tremendous impact on philosophers coming from an Idealist perspective. The main source of this data was India, where Sir William Jones, a British lawyer who had taken a job as a judge in the Supreme Court of Calcutta, became the single most important person responsible for generating an appreciation of Asian religions in the West.81 Jones had studied and become fascinated with oriental languages while still in England, and within months after arriving in India in 1783, he established the Asiatic Society for research on topics relating to Asian culture. Jones, and the community of amateur scholars he cultivated and promoted, translated and analyzed numerous religious texts from Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Islamic traditions. These works were published in various books and in the Asiatic Society’s journal, Asiatick Researches, which was well-received in Europe. The reasons for the Western fascination with these texts were multiple: Jones had, first of all, made a convincing argument that there was a relationship between Persian, Arabic, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit—a notion that appealed to people interested in discovering humans’ original language, which they presumed came directly from God. He also revealed to the West the complexity and magnificence of these non-Christian religions and their cultures, which enabled Westerners who had previously

81 For an introduction to Jones and his efforts, see P.J. Marshall, The British Discovery of Hinduism in the 18th Century (Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, 1970).

46 chapter 1 looked down on the East as degenerate to begin to appreciate them. Finally, many of the religious texts he translated were mystically-oriented and some, especially Buddhist works, presented notions similar to those of the Idealists, so these particular works appealed to philosophers already inclined towards Idealism.82 In the early nineteenth century, German Idealists became the Westerners most interested in trying to incorporate Asian religions into their broader philosophical understandings, as they hoped these religions might give more information on God’s true Ideas. Western-based deterritorialization—on both a material and intellectual level—was therefore now, more than ever before, attempting to transcend cultural and religious boundaries. In the United States, meanwhile, Idealism was about to become an influential intellectual current through the increasingly liberal Unitarian movement. Unitarianism originally emerged in the 1740s among New England Congre gationalists in response to the emotionalism of America’s religious Great Awakening.83 They saw the Awakening’s endorsement of a belief in God speaking through one’s emotions as going against the Puritan tradition of sober religiosity based on a rational reading of the Bible. The conservative Congregationalists argued, moreover, that enthusiasm-based religion would lead believers to possibly mistake their own ideas for the word of God, and to feel more morally certain about the truth of their ideas, and therefore become intolerant and uncharitable. In response, the opponents of the Awakening argued that a ‘true religion’ must be based on both a rational approach to the Bible and universal moral principles. This notion of a religiosity that combined rationality with an innate sense of morality would eventually support a number of diverse liberal approaches to religion, such as a growing tendency to affirm the Universalist doctrine that all souls would be saved; an interest in biblical criticism, with the goal of expunging Christianity’s “dogmatic encrus- tations,” especially the concept of the Trinity;84 an embracing of social reform ideas and activities that supported moral principles; and a desire to cultivate science and art as expressions of rational and moralistic thought. By promoting these ideas and practices, Unitarianism had moved from being what was at first accepted as a defender of the ‘Old Guard’ of American Puritanism to being a rather liberal religiosity. It was inevitable, then, that, by

82 See Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘the Mystic East’ (New York: Routledge, 1999) for an extended discussion of this phenomenon and the power dynamics involved. 83 On the history of Unitarianism, see David Robinson, The Unitarians and the Universalists (Westport, ct: Greenwood Press, 1985). 84 Robinson, Unitarians, 22.

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 47 the end of the eighteenth century, Congregationalist churches began splitting over the movement. Then, in 1805, the liberal Congregationalists won a significant coup with the election of the liberal Henry Ware for the Hollis Professorship of Divinity at Harvard College, one of the most influential positions in one of New England’s most influential centers for ministry training. Harvard—which George Bethune English was attending at the time—was now firmly in the hands of the liberals, who soon parleyed this achievement into better establishing the Unitarian movement. Rational, moralistic, liberal religiosity was now becoming a major institutionalized force in New England. In this environment of modern religious liberalism, there were many people like English who began taking an interest in and showing liberal sympathy towards the so-called oriental religions, including Islam. The general American public, for instance, was being entertained by the Arabian Nights’ tales of oriental magic and indulgent wealth; the 1794 Philadelphia edition of Nights sold over forty thousand copies in its first decade.85 Among the better educated classes, there were Islam sympathizers like Thomas Jefferson, a Deist, who had privately studied Islamic history, the Qurʾan, and even some Arabic,86 and would also, in the early years of the country, join with a handful of other Enlightenment- influenced politicians to express their belief that us religious liberty must be applied even to Muslims.87 Those of a more literary bent, meanwhile, might have read in various American journals an occasional translation coming out of India of a poem by one of the famous Persian Muslim poets, usually Hafiz.88 Some writers, such as Royall Tyler in his Algerine Captive (1797), did not display deep knowledge of Islam but presented Muslim characters in favorable light to point out their own criticisms of what they considered problems in American Christianity. Of the Unitarians, perhaps the most well-known sympathizer of Islam was the respected abolitionist Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson.89

85 Susan Nance, How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790–1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 19; Malini Johar Schueller, u.s. Orientalisms: Race, Nation, and Gender in Literature, 1790–1890 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), 26. 86 Kevin J. Haynes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur˒an,” Early American Literature 39, no. 2 (2004): 247–61. 87 Haynes, “How Thomas,” 258–59; Denise A. Spellberg, “Could a Muslim Be President? An Eighteenth-Century Constitutional Debate,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 39, no. 4 (2006): 485–506. 88 John D. Yohannan, Persian Poetry in England and America: A 200-Year History (Delmar, ny: Caravan Books, 1977), 107–108. 89 Leigh Eric Schmidt, Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 2005), 106, 134.

48 chapter 1

Generally, the Unitarians most attracted to oriental religious ideas were, like Higginson, those on the more extreme liberal end, and happened to be the very same people most interested in thinkers like Kant and other German Idealists. These radical Unitarians were in fact becoming an increasingly influential group of preachers and writers that would lay an important foundation for the first Muslim conversion movement in the us. The radically liberal Unitarianism, known as Transcendentalism, originated as a subset of New England Unitarians who were rebelling against a religiosity that they saw as too empirically- and historically-oriented, too church-based, and not reformist enough. The founders were generally men who had grown up during the first generation of institutionalized Unitarianism and by the 1830s were beginning to openly criticize the views of their forefathers. Because Transcendentalism was a radically individualist movement, specific ideas could vary from thinker to thinker, but, since many of the most influential Transcendentalists were themselves influenced by Platonism and Neoplatonism,90 they generally shared the core beliefs of ‘One Mind’ (or, in other words, the notion that all material reality and people are connected to God’s Mind or Idea); individuals having direct access to God and His Mind through ‘intuition’; and the importance of an individual’s moral improvement through increasing contact with God’s Mind. There was also a strong tendency to reject religious creeds and to look for evidence of this non- doctrinal type of religiosity as having been promoted by various religions throughout history. And since they also had been highly influenced by the German Idealists, many Transcendentalists were similarly fascinated with the orientalist work coming out of India and frequently incorporated it into their writings.91 However, like German Idealists, they rejected ‘creedalism’ in favor of a single ‘transcendent’ view of ‘true’ religion. Therefore, while Transcendentalists often identified with Asian-majority religions—particularly Buddhism and Hinduism—they did not, for the most part, convert and identify exclusively as members of a single Asian religious tradition, let alone start a conversion movement for one. Nevertheless, the Transcendentalists, with their tremendous impact on American culture, were the group largely responsible for popularizing a serious appreciation of Asian-majority religions in the United States. Islamic mysticism—Sufism—for instance, received significant exposure in the

90 See Arthur Versluis, American Gurus: From American Transcendentalism to New Age Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 17–78. 91 See Arthur Versluis, American Transcendentalism and Asian Religions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

From Renegades To Transcendentalists 49

1850s, first through the writings of leading Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had been strongly influenced by the German embrace of Islamic poetry, and then in William Rounesville Alger’s popular Poetry of the East (1856), which contained French and German translations of Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit religious poems.92 By the end of the 1850s, Persian Sufi Muslim poetry had become fairly popular in America—having even inspired imitators and plagiarizers—which made the country primed for the 1859 release of Edward FitzGerald’s Romantic rendition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. FitzGerald’s work won wide praise among American and English literary critics, and it rocketed Omar Khayyam to the position of the preeminent Sufi poet in the West. Towards the end of the century, an Omar Khayyam club would even appear in both England and the us, reflecting the poet’s achieved cult status in Anglophone culture.93 However, despite all the praise for Islamic poetry, despite the many Unitarian and Transcendentalist statements showing respect for Islam and Muhammad, and despite the growing attitude of acceptance and interest for oriental religions, as we have seen, in the early nineteenth century, us converts to Islam were extremely rare. There is, furthermore, currently no evidence that more than a fraction of the few people who are known to have actually converted between 1830 and 1885 had been motivated by Transcendentalism or any other philosophically-based liberal religious feeling.94 In fact, the handful of extant reports about converts from the period indicate that these were primarily American men and women living in Islamic countries who had chosen to convert in order to marry a Muslim.95 It seems that neither increasingly widespread sympathy towards, nor intellectual interest in, Islam could be sufficient in

92 Yohannan, Persian Poetry, 115–44. 93 See Chapter 6 for further discussion of these clubs. 94 There are in fact only two known cases of whites who possibly converted on American soil during this period. The first is that of John and Martha Simon, both West European immigrants who, by 1871, had moved from the us to Canada where government documents listed them as “Mahometans.” The second case is that of A.K. Brown, who claimed, in 1893, that he converted to Islam upon reading the Qurʾan in the early 1850s, although he did not give any more details about the conversion, including clarification about where exactly his conversion took place. See Daood Hassan Hamdani, “Canada’s Muslims: An Unnoticed Part of Our History,” Hamdard Islamicus 20, no. 3 (1997): 98; “Converted Years Ago,” Moslem World (July 1893). 95 See, e.g., “Conversion to Mohammedanism,” Cincinnati Daily Press, February 18, 1861, 1; “American Mohammedan Lives Happily with his Four Wives,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 13, 1902, 2. There is also a rumor that prior to Alexander Russell Webb another American consul to a Muslim country converted to Islam; see Howard MacQueary, “American Mohammedanism,” Unitarian 8, no. 3 (1893): 106.

50 chapter 1 themselves to motivate white Americans living on us soil in the nineteenth century to go against American religious convention to the extreme degree of converting to Islam, let alone start a conversion movement. By the 1850s, American critics of Christianity and respecters of Islam were no longer ‘renegades,’ but they were not converts either. Transcendentalist and Unitarian sympathizers of Islam—like English—had opened the door, but more changes in American culture would be necessary to produce a relatively large group of people willing to publicly embrace Islam.

chapter 2 The Occult Revival

Idealism, Unitarianism, and Transcendentalism were movements that had set into motion the broad transformation of us religious culture that would, in the 1890s, produce almost two thousand white people who openly embraced and organized around Islam and other Asian-majority religions. However, by themselves these deterritorializing, liberal religion movements could not generate white Americans who identified their religiosity exclusively with Muslims. Of the handful of reports of American converts from between 1830 and 1885, none can be verifiably tied to liberal religious movements, or even liberal religious ideals. On the contrary, many seem to have been largely motivated by the rather practical desire to marry a Muslim while living on Muslim land.1 The more immediate roots of the wave of conversions at the end of the century were therefore not these deterritorializing liberal currents but rather a new reterritorializing religious development, known as the ‘occult revival,’ which legitimized the creation of religious boundaries for organizations based around non-Christian religions. Especially prior to the twentieth century, the word ‘occult’ has typically been used to describe secret teachings, usually involving some sort of magic and reference to human divinity, that have been passed on since ancient times and are associated with famous sages, such a Plato and Hermes Trismegistus. In the eighteenth century, occult knowledge—or at least that which was purported to be occult knowledge—was primarily imported to North America through European books, as organized groups for studying and practicing occultism were extremely rare in the Enlightenment-era Anglophone world.2 After independence, American publishers began producing their own editions of occult and pseudo-occult works. Titles like The Complete Fortune Teller (1797)—whose publisher dubiously promoted it as being “carefully [translated] from the Arabic Manuscripts” of one Ibraham Ali Mahomed Hafez— became fairly well-known and went through several reprints and editions.3 Francis Barrett’s 1801 compendium of Renaissance occult learning, The Magus, was another one of the more popular works from the period, despite its

1 See the final note for Chapter 1. 2 For a study of eighteenth-century Anglophone occultism, see Marsha Keith Manatt Schuchard, “Freemasonry, Secret Societies, and the Continuity of the Occult Traditions in English Literature” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 1975). 3 I have only been able to look at the 1816 edition, entitled The New and Complete Fortune Teller.

52 chapter 2 relatively high cost as a two-volume set. In fact, for the first several decades after its entrance into the country, occultism—or ‘esotericism,’ as it is sometimes called—was almost exclusively an isolated hobby of members of the literate middle class with disposable income. As the nineteenth century progressed, however, there were several eruptions of increased interest in the occult—what some scholars have labeled as ‘occult revivals’—in both Europe and North America.4 This chapter argues that the us’ own occult revival developed over the course of five stages. It began in the 1840s with the rise of spiritualism out of mesmerism, liberal religious movements that, although they were similar to the century’s earlier liberal currents, more thoroughly established a place in American religious culture for individuals to publicly embrace non-Christian identities. It was through spiritualism, in fact, that Americans seem to have first begun sincerely—if temporarily—taking on Islamic and Islamic-like religious identities, although actual conversion to Islam was still not an accepted practice. However, it was because of the religious lee- way that spiritualism offered that, in stage two, the first known American organized occult group was able to develop. In the late 1850s, the spiritualist medium Paschal Beverly Randolph began initiating people into what he called a ‘Rosicrucian’ occult order, which, significantly, by the early 1870s he was associating with Islam. But despite his innovativeness and his importance as an early American occult leader, Randolph was not able to create a genuine occult movement—let alone an occult market—during his lifetime. As it turns out, what was both the key resource and the third stage of the American occult revival was not to be found either in the us or among spiritualists. It was within England’s Freemasonic community, during the late 1860s and early 1870s, where the infrastructure for a market based around organizations devoted to particular occult and non-Christian religions was first cultivated. For the fourth stage of the occult revival we return to America where, in 1875, a new occult community with ties to both Randolph and spiritualism was developing. Because this community—which would soon be known as the Theosophical Society—also possessed several connections with the British esoteric Freemasonic movement, it was able to exploit these links and eventually firmly establish a strong occult market on us soil. The fifth and final stage of the occult revival, which took place between 1884 and 1889, was when the American market fully came into its own. During this period, individuals linked to the Theosophical Society started breaking away from the main movement

4 For instance, Godwin, in his Theosophical Enlightenment, identifies several occult revivals, such as one in England the 1830s (170), one in France in the 1850s (196), and one in 1870s England (219, 302).

The Occult Revival 53 and using the legitimacy that their occult market connections gave them to begin combining Theosophy with other non-mainstream teachings— particularly Randolph’s ideas, and concepts from Asian-majority religions. In generating this new, wide array of occult, liberal, and non-Christian ideas and organizations, the American occult revival had finally fundamentally reshaped the us religious landscape. The various roots and branches of the American occult revival, which are both numerous and microscopic, must be brought to light here so that a proper historical foundation is laid before we proceed to taking on the Muslim conversion movement itself. As will become clear in the subsequent chapters, many of the little-known themes, organizations, individuals, and patterns of growth that were involved with the occult revival, even when they were not strongly tied to the promotion of Islam or Muslims, would play important roles in preparing the way for the Muslim movement, and sometimes would make important and recurring appearances within the Islamic movement’s own history.5 Admittedly, at some points, the details presented in this chapter will seem to have almost no connection with conversion to Islam and the narrative will take the reader down what will appear to be an unnecessarily long and winding path. Those who choose to do so may in fact pass over this chapter without a significant loss in comprehension of the developments more directly tied to the conversion movement. However, the patient reader who is devoted to understanding the intricate details of what gave rise to conversion to Islam in the United States will gain much from this long chapter, as it was directly out of the Anglophone occult revival—and all its many complex sources and manifestations—that the first us Muslim convert movement emerged.

Spirits and Muslims

The notion that spirits of the dead can inhabit the world has of course existed in many, if not most, human cultures for millennia, as has the corollary belief in humans’ ability to observe or communicate with these spirits either directly or through a human ‘medium.’ Even colonial and early independent America, despite its Puritan anti-witchcraft culture, had small pockets of these beliefs.6 Nineteenth-century American spiritualism, however, was neither relegated to

5 The connections between the occult revival and African American Muslims will be explored in hctius vol. 2. 6 For some examples, see Mitch Horowitz, Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation (New York: Bantam Books, 2009), 42–65.

54 chapter 2 small pockets nor kept secret. After taking the country by storm following the infamous ‘Hydesville rappings’ of 1848, modern American spiritualism was an out-in-the-open, vigorously publicized, enormously popular movement that had the power to transcend denominational, class, and ethnic boundaries. It has been estimated that in the nineteenth century upwards of two million us Americans, from ex-slaves to us presidents and people of practically all varieties of religious and non-religious commitments, attended at least one séance in their lives.7 Spiritualism undoubtedly owed much of its popularity to its séances being fairly enterning events. During its heyday, visitors to the darkened séance room were regularly thrilled by the sudden appearance of floating objects, musical instruments that were seemingly making sounds without human aid, and even spirits themselves, which were eerily draped in flowing sheets or robes. Yet there was more to spiritualism than these superficially exciting phenomena. The movement appealed, for instance, to Americans who, as modern technicalized people, were interested in examining the same issues that Idealists and Transcendentalists had explored—the nature of the human spirit, what happens to the soul after death, the relationship between the material world and God, et cetera. Spiritualism, in fact, was part of a larger cultural response to the country’s growing encounter with science and scientific thinking. Nineteenth- century Americans were constantly being amazed by the developments of technologies like the railroad and the telegraph, which were fostering whole literary themes and genres.8 The spiritualist movement was a religious reaction to these things; those who participated in the movement regularly used words like ‘observation,’ ‘investigation,’ ‘evidence,’ ‘experimentation,’ and even ‘science’ itself to describe how they approached their time in the séance room.9 By insisting that discovery of religious truth was not dependent on revelation, dogma, or faith, but rather on the ability of humans to observe and analyze the material world, spiritualism attempted to put everyone, of all religious backgrounds, on an equal plane. This wave of spiritualism was, then, a thoroughly modern phenomenon; it was a way for the newly deterritorialized, technicalized minds of common Americans to enter a free market of religions in which they could use

7 See David K. Nartonis, “The Rise of 19th-Century American Spiritualism, 1854–1873,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49, no. 2 (2010): 361–73. 8 On the impact of science on nineteenth-century American culture, see Sam Halliday, Science and Technology in the Age of Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and James: Thinking and Writing Electricity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). 9 See Patrick D. Bowen, “Islam and ‘Scientific Religion’ in the United States before 1935,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 22, no. 3 (2011): 311–328.

The Occult Revival 55 their spare time and disposable income to ‘scientifically’ study for themselves the nature of humanity and God. Of course, such high intellectual goals were probably not what was driving most people who attended séances. It seems that another part of the draw was the chance to hear something that one would not hear in another context, for, while the presence of spirits in the material world may be debatable, it certainly appears that what many people were ‘observing’ when a medium spoke was that particular medium’s secret or subconscious thoughts. Spiritualism was, if nothing else, a tool for opening up—for deterritorializing—the human mind for the social world. The most radical liberal views of the nineteenth century— from abolitionism and women’s equality, to the concept of ‘free love’—were perhaps more often expressed by the (usually female) spiritualist mediums than they were by non-spiritualists.10 Through the context of the séance, Americans were permitted to speak their most controversial thoughts without being subjected to punishment or ostracism. This not only added to spiritualism’s enter- tainment value, it made spiritualism a psychological and political release valve that was used for the development of new cultural and political movements and identities. Indeed, many political and religious liberals—including some Transcendentalists—happily embraced the world of the spirits.11 Given spiritualism’s ability to create a space in which people were allowed to publicly endorse alternative and controversial ideas, it is understandable that it was spiritualism that laid much of the groundwork for the the reterritorialization of white American religiosity in the late nineteenth century. In fact, it was through spiritualism that sincere religious Islamic and Islamic-like identities seem to have first begun appearing among white Americans living on us soil. The emphasis on ‘religious’ is important here, for this does not include the ‘playing Eastern’—as Susan Nance has termed it—that was increasingly common in nineteenth century America, and included practices like the fashionable trend of donning a Turkish fez and robe while posing for portraits, dressing up as a Muslim for dramas or for tours of the Holy Land, or Herman Melville’s wearing of Turkish slippers in the solitude of his home.12 The white Americans who took on Islamic and Islamic-like identities—if only partially or briefly—from a religious perspective during this period were different, and they represent an

10 For an invaluable introduction to this topic, see Ann Braude, Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989). 11 See Ibid. and Schmidt, Restless Souls. 12 See Carrie Rebora, “Transforming Colonists into Goddesses and Sultans: John Singleton Copley, His Clients, and their Studio Collaboration,” American Art Journal 27, no. 1/2 (1995/1996): 5–37; Marr, Cultural Roots, 219, 262–93; Nance, How, passim., esp. 1–18.

56 chapter 2 important link between Transcendentalism, the occult revival, and the first white American Muslim convert movement. One of spiritualism’s earliest and most influential mediums, Andrew Jackson Davis, helped pave the way for this even before the modern spiritualist movement started in earnest, when he began his career as a mesmeric patient.13 A predecessor to spiritualism, mesmerism was a religio-medical movement that developed in late eighteenth-century France and was imported to the us in the 1830s. Mesmerism posited that through the manipulation of what were theorized to be magnetic forces surrounding a person, a ‘mesmerist’ could put a ‘patient’ in a trance during which that patient could access useful knowledge from the magnetic realm of the universe; generally, the patient discovered the cause of a person’s illness, which was then used to prescribe a remedy.14 Philosophically, it was close to but not quite the same as theories associated with Idealism and Transcendentalism because, although mesmerism accepted the unseen interconnectedness of all things in the world, it maintained a firm belief in the reality of the material world. It was also not quite spiritualist because it did not see the spirits of dead people as the primary conveyors of information to the passive recipient of information from the unseen realm. By 1846, however, mesmerism would open the door for spiritualism, helping to establish it as a legitimate religious market, when nineteen-year-old Andrew Jackson Davis began his mesmeric career. Davis was a unique mesmeric paient as it appeared that while under a mesmeric trance he was communicating with Emmanuel Swedenborg, a prominent eighteenth-century Swedish spiritualist. Because Davis also appeared to have mesmerically dictated in Hebrew, Sanskrit, and, notably, Arabic, a call was made to George Bush, an ancestor of the future us presidents, who was an expert not only on mesmerism and Sweden borgianism, but also on oriental languages and Islam.15 After observing Davis, Bush confirmed the authenticity of both the communication with Swedenborg and Davis’s dictations in oriental languages, announcing Davis as “the most astonishing prodigy the world has ever seen next to Swedenborg’s oracles.”16

13 R.L. Moore, In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology, and American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 10–12. 14 See Robert C. Fuller, Mesmerism and the American Cure of Souls (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982). 15 George Bush was in fact the author of the first American book-length biography of Muhammad: The Life of Mohammed: Founder of the Religion of Islam, and of the Empire of the Saracens (New York, 1830). 16 Quoted in Moore, White Crows, 10. Also see George Bush, Mesmer and Swedenborg: Or, The Relation of the Developments of Mesmerism to the Doctrines and Disclosures of Swedenborg (New York: John Allen, 1847), appendix A, 159–205.

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In a single stroke, Davis had become one of the country’s most prominent spiritualists and one of the country’s most prominent promoters of Islamic topics. Over the next several years, Davis frequently displayed great familiarity and sympathy with Islam and Western scholarship on the religion.17 During spiritualism’s heyday, in his numerous books and speeches Davis praised Muhammad as being a true spirit communicator who “declared many spiritual truths,” and, like earlier liberal religionists, he chastised those whose religious prejudice prevented them from appreciating the truths contained in Islam. Davis’s interest in Islam and the Islamic-oriental world seems to have even taken him beyond mere sympathy. One day, while in meditation, Davis claimed, he heard a voice that identified itself as “Arabula; […] the light of the world; he that followeth me shall have light and life; he that loveth me keepeth my commandments.”18 Davis clarified for his readers that ‘Arabula’ was not Allah, but a distinct, more inclusive figure,19 who communicated that

God includes all, the heathen, they in the wisest way observe the Hebrew, the Mahometan, the innermost activities of the human Atheist, and the Christian; nay, soul.20

Despite his denials, this Arabula revelation represented an unprecedented type of American appropriation of Middle Eastern oriental symbols—which were strongly connected to Islam in Davis’s work and American discourse generally—to express a new liberal religious identity. In keeping with their ‘scientific’ perspective of the universality of spiritualism, spiritualist publications during this period duly mentioned other spirit communications that supported the legitimacy of at least some aspects of Islam, as well as, occasionally, reports concerning Muslim spiritualists in the Middle East and North Africa.21 For the most part, then, these discussions of Islam were not about white Americans taking on an Islamic or Islamic-like identity, but rather were examples that reflected the liberal religious attitude of the movement. Still, there were a handful of Islamic-identity moments. For instance, one well-known spiritualist author and abolitionist, Epes Sargent, included in a spiritualist novel a story about a white daughter of a slaveholder who adopted the spiritualist-like religious ideas of the family’s Arabic-speaking

17 For an extended discussion and citations, see Bowen, “Scientific Religion,” 315–16. 18 Andrew Jackson Davis, Arabula; or, The Divine Guest (Boston: W. White & Company, 1868), 35. 19 Ibid., 206. 20 Ibid., 327. 21 Bowen, “Scientific Religion,” 317.

58 chapter 2

Muslim slave.22 Some mediums, meanwhile, sometimes claimed to be channels for the Prophet Muhammad. Often, Muhammad’s spirit only came to impart the well-known views of Islam’s more progressive aspects—such as its endorsement of equal treatment of women and abstinence from alcohol; in at least one case, though, Muhammad’s spirit announced his rejection of Islam his plan to bring the world’s Muslims to a pure, non-doctrinal form of spiritualism.23 Because of its ‘scientific,’ non-creedal stance, the broader movement of spiritualism was not going to be interested in promoting exclusive conversion to any form of Islam. The only exclusive religious commitment that was acceptable for American white spiritualists was, naturally, Christianity. This resistance to conversion to Islam among American spiritualists—the most deterritorialized, transcendent religious community in the us in the mid- nineteenth century—was in fact made very explicit in 1874, when, in September, a white Muslim convert named Henry L. Norman, “once a Methodist preacher in London,”24 arrived New York City. Norman explained to a reporter that he had been sent to America by

a wealthy Mohammedan of Constantinople, who made his fortune in trading with England and America, and so became somewhat familiar with Christian courtesies. He was struck with the energy of the Christians in spreading their religion, and being intensely devoted to his own faith, he became convinced that counter measures ought to be taken. He formed my acquaintance in London. Much of our leisure for months was spent in discussing Mohammedanism, and the result was that I became a convert to his views. […] I assure you that I am now a firm and conscientious follower of the glorious eastern religion. That religion is not understood in Christian countries. If it was, it would make converts rapidly. As a beginning of the work of spreading its teachings, I have undertaken this mission.25

After a week in New York trying to spread understanding of Islam, apparently having made little headway among the locals, Norman left for Chicago, believing that Americans further west might be more “progressive.” A spiritualist

22 Epes Sargent, Peculiar; a Tale of the Great Transition (New York: Carleton, 1864), 191–99. 23 N.B. Wolfe, Startling Facts in Modern Spiritualism, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Religio-Philosophical Publishing House, 1875), 278–79. 24 “A Mohammedan Missionary,” Sunday Times (Chicago), September 20, 1874, 5. The earliest scholarly mention of Norman was in Thomas Walker Arnold, The Preaching of Islam (Lahore: Shirkat-I-Qualam, [1893] 1956), 458. 25 “A Mohammedan Missionary,” Boston Investigator, September 30, 1874, 4.

The Occult Revival 59 minister, one Rev. A.J. Fishback, essentially agreed, speculating that in Chicago Norman would “very likely join forces with the Spiritualists, who may justly claim that Mohammed, if not the pioneer of their faith, as a ‘medium’ of rare distinction,” echoing Davis’s claims from years before.26 However, even Chicago’s spiritualist community showed little interest in Norman’s message. The editors of the city’s influential and extremely liberal spiritualist newspaper, the Religio-Philosophical Journal, insisted that spiritualism was “far in advance of Mohammedanism,” and seriously doubted that Norman would convert anyone.27 Considering that there is no trace of Norman’s activities in Chicago or anywhere else after he left the East Coast, it seems likely that he found little success and soon abandoned his mission. The radically deterritorialized approach to religion of spiritualism, while immensely important for liberalizing us religious sentiment and allowing Americans to briefly take on non-Christian identities, because it was so strongly committed to the notion that religious truth can be observed in all religions and throughout the world, was necessarily going to preclude conversion to a single non-Christian religion. If conversion to Islam was going to become a true movement in the United States, it needed not just a sympathetic religious environment, but also a religious foundation that accepted new religious boundaries—a religious reterritorialization—to justify exclusive commitment to one non-Christian religion.

Paschal Beverly Randolph’s Rosicrucian ‘Ansaireh’

The key for creating new non-Christian religious boundaries would be organized occultism, a phenomenon that was, not coincidentally, initially brought to the us by a popular spiritualist. In the early 1850s, after spending much of his teenage and young adult life joining various radical religious movements, Paschal Beverly Randolph, the orphaned son of a white father and African American mother, began making a name for himself as a spiritualist medium.28 By mid-decade, Randolph—who was one of the mediums who supposedly channeled Muhammad29—had become one of the most popular spiritualists

26 A.J. Fishback, “Asiatic Missionaries,” Boston Investigator, October 14, 1874, 25. 27 “A Mohammedan Missionary,” Religio-Philosophical Journal, October 3, 1874, 4. 28 The best biography of this figure remains John Patrick Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth Century Black American Spiritualist (Albany: suny Press, 1996). The following is largely a regurgitation of Deveney’s analyses. 29 Deveney, Paschal, 22.

60 chapter 2 in the country. However, after taking trips to Europe and, he claimed, North Africa and the Middle East,30 where he purportedly learned various occult teachings, Randolph’s ideas changed significantly. He, first of all, became convinced that American spiritualism was based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of the human soul. Randolph argued that the soul is not limited to the personality, which the spirits of spiritualism seem to represent, but is rather an infinite element, or ‘monad,’ of the universe, and this monad contains within it an infinite number of universes as well. Each soul also has a single ‘soul mate,’ and finding one’s soul mate while living in one’s physical body on Earth will produce great happiness and allow for the performance of practical occult powers through sexual intercourse. Indeed, Randolph now taught that the notion held by both mesmerists and spiritualists that the only way to contact the infinite universe or spirits was through the passive reception of an entranced subject or medium was incorrect—humans could in fact consciously and intentionally do this, and they would obtain occult powers in the process. Randolph encouraged the use of breathing techniques, hashish, magic mirrors, and sexual discipline to help in this practice, but he emphasized that the key for all of this was to focus on one’s will and to, as he put it, “Try!” The idea that a person could obtain advanced powers from the universe simply through the cultivation of their individual will and the manipulation of their bodies and objects surely resonated with many urbanized, individual- ized, and technicalized minds. In fact, all of Randolph’s concepts had already gained popularity in the various earlier nineteenth-century Western subcultures with which he had come into contact. Randolph’s ideas seem to have been largely a mixture of Andrew Jackson Davis’s spiritualist philosophy, certain Free Love teachings with which Randolph had been affiliated, and nineteenth-century French and English occultism. Nevertheless, Randolph was the first to combine these notions in this particular way, and he gave his teachings a unique identity by labeling them ‘Rosicrucian.’ In doing this, Randolph introduced an important Islam-connected current into America’s religious culture, thus further preparing the culture for non-Christian religious groups generally and the Islamic movement specifically. Rosicrucianism is a European occult movement that dates back to the early seventeenth century, towards the end of the Renaissance-era European fascination with magic.31 It was in fact the first European movement that claimed

30 Although Deveney’s biography of Randolph seems to imply that Randolph did in fact make at least one voyage to North Africa and the Middle East, in my opinion, the evidence leaves much room for doubt. 31 See Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (New York: Routledge, 2002); Christopher McIntosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason (New York: e.j. Brill, 1992);

The Occult Revival 61 to be an occult secret society. Prior to the seventeenth century, European occultists were essentially loners, reading, writing, and practicing their magic without claiming membership in any occult organization. But, beginning in the 1610s, a number of small books were printed that discussed a ‘brotherhood of the Rosy Cross,’ supposedly founded by one Christian Rosenkreutz, who had, it was claimed, traveled to the Near East and North Africa in the four- teenth century to obtain esoteric knowledge. It is likely that both Rosenkreutz and his brotherhood were fabrications. The creators of Rosenkreutz perhaps drew on the tradition of Artephius, a mysterious figure known as a medieval esoteric sage who, it was said in as early as the thirteenth century, gained his knowledge through travel to the orient—though in reality he may have been a Muslim mystic or occult writer.32 And while it is likely that no Rosicrucian brotherhood had actually existed prior to the printing of these books, their publication caused great excitement in Europe. Suddenly, as a result, a number of individual writers began claiming to be members of the brotherhood. The movement was quickly quelled, however, and for the next 200 years it did not have organizational form in the English-speaking world. Nonetheless, the story of the Rosicrucians and their oriental roots persisted and, by Randolph’s day, for Anglophones the Rosicrucians had obtained an almost mythical status, even becoming the subject of a whole subgenre of British novels.33 Perhaps the most important reason that the West maintained an interest in Rosicrucians and the oriental roots of occult knowledge is the fact that, beginning in the twelfth century, the West’s own explorations into esoteric thought were frequently influenced by Muslim writers and Islamic elements. After Alfonso vi’s 1085 conquest of Toledo, Christian intellectuals slowly began traveling to the city, which was well-known as a center of scientific learning.34 There, in the second half of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, a major effort was made to translate Arabic works into Latin, ultimately leading to the production of the vast majority of Arabic translations that would be known to Western Europe for the next four centuries—an event that, as discussed in the

Susanna Akerman, Rose Cross over the Baltic: The Spread of Rosicrucianism in Northern Europe (Boston: Brill, 1998). 32 Nicholas H. Clulee, “At the Crossroads of Magic and Science: John Dee’s Archemastrie,” in Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, ed. Brian Vickers (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 61, 69n30. 33 See Marie Roberts, Gothic Immortals: The Fiction of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross (New York: Routledge, 1990). 34 See Marie-Thérèse d’Alverny, “Translations and Translators,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, eds. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1982), 421–462; Charles Burnett, “The Coherence of the Arabic-Latin Translation Program in Toledo in the Twelfth Century,” Science in Context 14, no. 1/2 (2001): 249–288.

62 chapter 2 introduction, played an important role in the the modern wave of European Islamophobia. While most of the translations made in Spain were of texts dealing with science, mathematics, and Greek philosophy, some of the translations were concerned with occult forms of magic: astrology, alchemy, and divina- tion.35 Copies of these translations, along with translations of other Arabic occult texts from Italy, began spreading throughout Western and Central Europe and played a key role in the flourishing of occult thought during the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Renaissance.36 Already by the thirteenth century, in fact, major Western thinkers, such as Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, had become very familiar with the Arabic occult tradition. This interest was continued by the principal Renaissance theorists of magic—including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, John Dee, and Elias Ashmole—who all had knowledge of a number of magic-related texts translated from Arabic.37 Through these writers and the translated books that they read, the Arabic esoteric writings had a major influence on several key elements of the Western occult tradition. For instance, the Latin version of the Ghayat al-Hakim, known as the Picatrix, was one of the most popular magic books during the Renaissance and served as the primary model of a text that could bring all the various magic sciences together into a somewhat coherent scheme.38 Westerners also relied heavily on Arabic sources dealing with talismans and amulets.39 But the most well- known influence of Arabic occult texts was in the fields of astronomy/astrology and alchemy; many of the most popular sources used in these fields were translations from Arabic,40 and Arabic writers like Abu Maʿshar and Jabir

35 Astrology was sometimes understood, by both early Arabic and medieval Latin writers, as part of astronomy, and, therefore, a legitimate science. 36 David Pingree, “The Diffusion of Arabic Magical Texts in Western Europe,” in La Diffusione delle Scienze Islamiche nel Medio Evo Europeo, ed. B. Scarcia Amoretti (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1987), 57–102; Robert Halleux, “The Reception of Arabic Alchemy in the West,” in Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, ed. Rashdi Raheed, vol. 3 (New York: Routledge, 1996), 963–84. 37 References to the knowledge of translations of Arabic occult texts are dispersed throughout most of the major studies of these authors’ writings. 38 David Pingree, “Some of the Sources of the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 43 (1980): 1–15. 39 See Pingree, “Diffusion.” 40 Halleux; Lee Stavenhagen, trans., A Testament of Alchemy; Being the Revelations of Morienus (Hanover, nh: Brandeis University Press, 1974); Eugenio Garin, Astrology in the Renaissance: The Zodiac of Life, trans. Carolyn Jackson and June Allen (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), passim.

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(Geber) remained icons in their fields through most of the seventeenth century.41 In the eighteenth century, however, there was a tremendous decline in interest in occult knowledge, especially Arabic occult knowledge, which over the years had lost its position of prominence. The rise of modern science and new efforts to suppress potentially subversive groups both pushed occult studies and organizations like the Rosicrucians underground. This was particularly true in England, where Rosicrucianism and occult-based Freemasonry seem to have become nearly non-existent in the eighteenth century; France and Germany, meanwhile, retained a few such orders, although they were still fairly small and secretive. In the nineteenth century, it appears that an eighteenth- century German para-Masonic group called the Gold und Rosenkreutz (Golden and Rosy Cross) may have been brought to Britain where, under the name Societas Rosicruciana, a few small ‘colleges’ began springing up in the 1850s.42 Still, these groups had little impact at the time, and most Britons had no more than vague knowledge of the meaning of the term ‘Rosicrucian,’ even after 1847 when it received greater prominence with the publication of Edward Bulwer Lytton’s popular occult novel Zanoni.43 Randolph’s ideas show almost no connection to any of the known Rosicrucian groups or texts, or their Arabic sources.44 Randolph even admitted to using the Rosicrucian label simply because he found it “suggestive and loved its mysticisms”45—and then discovered that it appealed to others and helped legitimize setting up his occult organization in a way so that members passed through Masonic-like grades, for which Randolph could charge fees. The oriental basis of

41 Garin, Astrology in the Renaissance, 16–21; William Newman, “Arabo-Latin Forgeries: The Case of the Summa Perfectionis (with the Text of Jabir ibn Hayyan’s Liber Regni),” in The “Arabick” Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England, ed. G.A. Russell (Leiden: e.j. Brill, 1994), 278, 286–288. 42 T.M. Greensill, A History of Rosicrucian Thought and of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, 2nd rev. ed. (n.p.: Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia 2003), 65–73. On the Gold und Rosenkreutz, see McIntosh, Rose Cross. 43 On Zanoni, see Roberts, Gothic Immortals, 156–207. 44 Although Deveney, in Paschal, says that he believes Randolph probably did travel to the Near East or North Africa, he admits that, besides a few rare Arabic terms, there is almost nothing in Randolph’s supposedly Eastern-based teachings that cannot be traced to Euro- American ideas or Randolph’s own elaborations, and certainly no evidence of an adaptation of a genuine coherent Islamic teaching. 45 Paschal Beverly Randolph, Eulis! The History of Love: Its Wonderous Magic, Chemistry, Rules, Laws, Modes, Moods and Rationale; Being the Third Revelation of Soul and Sex (Ohio: Randolph Publishing Company, 1874), 15.

64 chapter 2 the Rosicrucianism myth, furthermore, enabled the mixed-blood Randolph to claim he had some connection with the orient, or at least with North Africa and the Levant, where Americans assumed mixed people were far more common, thereby legitimizing for whites his non-white, yet non-enslaved racial identity. Despite Randolph’s superficial motivations for appropriating Rosicrucian occultism and its Arabic-Islamic roots, both would play an important role in his teachings in the early 1870s, when Randolph released two small works exploiting the oriental connections of Rosicrucianism. First was 1871’s The Asiatic Mystery. The Fire Faith!—The Religion of Flame!—The Force of Love!— The Energos of Will!—The Magic of Polar Mentality! First Rosicrucian Manifesto to the World Outside the Order!46 This booklet implied that while Randolph’s teachings were “Asiatic,” they were not Islamic because Islam, according to Randolph, is the type of religion that “allows the utmost limit to lust and license to the elect, and roundly berates all others.” Because Randolph at the time was promoting a form of Rosicrucian/oriental-tinged Free Love-based sexual doctrines, he may have realized that Rosicrucianism’s vague connection with Islam and the liscentiousness associated with it in anti-Islamic rhetoric had the potential to hurt his ability to popularize his teachings. He seems to have therefore felt that it was necessary to employ anti-Islamic themes himself to assuage his readers that his ‘Asiatic’ teachings were distinct from the corrupting teachings of the Muslims. However, Randolph’s views on Islam would soon change—or he would at least strategically reappropriate the assumed connection between Islam and Rosicrucianism. In around 1873, Randolph released “The Ansairetic Mystery, A New Revelation Concerning Sex! A Private Letter, Printed, But Not Published; It Being Sacred and Confidential,” a work that, as the title suggests, was a printed treatise not intended for wide circulation but primarily for members of his Rosicrucian group.47 This work is, as Randolph’s biographer John Patrick Deveney has pointed out, “the fullest expression of the magical powers, many of them trivial, that Randolph believed could be acquired through sexual and mirror magic.”48 It explains that when two people who have found their soul mates have mutual orgasm during sexual intercourse, they can obtain occult

46 There are no known extant copies of the original. Two slightly different versions of the text were reprinted, first by Randolph himself, attached to an 1872 book of his, and then by R.S. Clymer in the 1930s. I would like to thank John Patrick Deveney for providing me with a copy. 47 It has been reprinted in Deveney, Paschal, 311–26. 48 Deveney, Paschal, 361. Randolph had apparently picked up the use of mirror magic from European occultists.

The Occult Revival 65 powers. “Ansairetic Mystery” notably also contains a few references to Islam and Muslims. At one point, Randolph mentions “ALLAH—God himself,” when discussing the creator of all things. The clearest reference, however, is in the title of the work: “Ansairetic” refers to the Ansaireh, a Shiʿi group in the Levant that is today sometimes called the Alawites or Nusaris. In the nineteenth century, a few European writers who discussed esoteric topics, such as Geoffrey Higgins, began promoting the idea that this group (as well as the Isma‘ili Assassins, who where often thought to have either influenced or been identical with the Ansaireh) was the possessor of key secret sexual magic rites.49 Although Randolph makes no mention of the Ansaireh in the body of the text, prior to the work’s appearance Randolph had promised he would “reveal the secret of the Ansairetic Priesthood of Syria,”50 and throughout the text he does state a few times that his magic is from “Oriental” people. Nonetheless, there is no strong evidence that suggests that Randolph was genuinely influenced by the group, whose teachings on sex probably played a minor role in its overall identity anyway.51 As has already been pointed out, Randolph, more than likely, came up with his ideas after working with and reading the writings of other Western writers who discussed esoteric topics, spiritualism, and Free Love, particularly Davis, John Murray Spear, and French mesmerists like Alphonse Cahagnet and Baron Du Potet. The members of Randolph’s occult groups, however, would not have known this. Being vaguely aware of the connection between Islam and Rosicrucianism, they would have most likely believed that their organization was in fact essentially an induction into the Ansaireh’s most important teachings. To a degree, then, they saw themselves as Ansaireh. Randolph’s various orders, however, were never either particularly popular or long-lasting. Although precise numbers are lacking, he probably had no more than one hundred initiated followers over the years, and the majority of these had stopped following him before he released “Ansairetic Mystery.” His organizations, furthermore, were so little known that they did not inspire imitators during his lifetime and, when Randolph committed suicide in July 1875, his remaining Ansairetic group—for which there was no clear and able successor to Randolph—was not able to continue. Randolph, then, was not responsible

49 For a discussion, see Deveney, Paschal, 213–14. 50 Paschal Beverly Randolph, The New Mola (Quakertown, pa: Philosophical Publishing Company, [1873] 2004), 33. 51 Contemporary scholarship still knows almost nothing about what the group taught about sexual magic, and it is appearing likely that the nineteenth-century rumors were baseless; see Meir M. Bar-Asher and Aryeh Kofsky, The Nusayri-Alawi Religion: An Enquiry into its Theology and Liturgy (Boston: Brill, 2002), 154–59.

66 chapter 2 for creating either an occult revival or a us Muslim convert movement. Nevertheless, it was with Randolph that organized occultism had sprouted its first seed in the country, and this would not be forgotten. When the American occult revival and Islamic movement finally emerged, both Randolph and his Rosicrucian Ansaireh would have a lingering presence. Before the American occult revival could grow, however, a much more significant reterritorializing force had to prepare the way. This force, interestingly, was, like Randolph’s order, Rosicrucian, and it similarly had spiritualist and occult roots. However, unlike Randolph’s group, it was not American, and, even more importantly, it had significant financial interests and the power of the press behind it. In fact, it was with these tools that British esoteric Freemasonry was able to develop a genuine occult market infrastructure.

The British Roots: Esoteric Freemasonry

Despite all the elaborate myths and conspiracy theories surrounding the history of the Craft, the beginnings of modern ‘speculative’ Freemasonry (i.e., Freemasonry for people who are not actual stonemasons) appear to date to only the seventeenth century.52 At the time, a small number of Scottish and English gentlemen interested in ancient Greek, Egyptian, and oriental/ Rosicrucian occult knowledge began joining stonemasons’ guilds, which used references to ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Egyptian ideas and figures in the myths about their trade’s origins. By the early seventeenth century, when the deterritorializing force of modern capitalism was dramatically reconfiguring long-established professional markets, stonemasons’ guilds were losing their traditional monopoly on architecture and building, and they agreed to allow in these wealthy non-masons who were willing to pay the requisite dues. However, in the late seventeenth century, as has been mentioned, due to both political repression and the rise of Cartesian science, the study of esoteric traditions was pushed underground, and speculative Freemasonry all but disappeared for a time. In the second and third decades of the eighteenth century, after modern economic structures had further weakened stonemasons’ guilds, speculative

52 See David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland’s Century, 1590–1710 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Margaret C. Jacob, Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Robert Freke Gould, Gould’s History of Freemasonry throughout the World, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1935).

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Freemasonry reemerged, now stronger than ever before. However, while in France and Germany the esoteric tradition seems to have remained fairly prominent in the speculative Masonic lodges, in England, Freemasonry was reestablished on more Deistic and aristocratic bases.53 By the end of the century, rationalistic, politically-focused Freemasonry became the dominant form across Europe and the us, where many of the country’s founding fathers proudly donned Masonic regalia for paintings and public ceremonies.54 It was around the late eighteenth century that Freemasonic lodges—now almost exclusively speculative—began to undergo popularization. The ways this occurred varied significantly between regions. In France, for instance, the revolutionary middle class adopted the Masonic secret lodge system for sur- reptitious organizing, while in America aristocrats and common men united in lodges as a means of fostering a unified, egalitarian, anti-British identity.55 In the mid-nineteenth century, after a few decades of dormancy caused by anti- Masonic fears of a repeat of the political turmoil in France, us Freemasonry underwent new growth, being intimately tied to the expansion of the country’s middle class.56 In England, meanwhile, Masonry did not become affiliated with a significant nationalist revolutionary movement. As a result, its popularization did not begin to take strong root until the second quarter of the nineteenth century when, like in mid-century America, aristocratic dominance began to give way to new sources of capital and power, which allowed for a middle-class appropriation of old aristocratic institutions. The growth of Freemasonry in England was therefore largely a byproduct of the increasing literacy rates and disposable income of Britain’s emerging business and professional classes.57 As these rural folk abandoned their traditional ways and adapted to urban life, they desired new forms of social cohesion, and

53 See Jacob, Living the Enlightenment; Christopher McIntosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason: Eighteenth-Century Rosicrucianism in Central Europe and its Relationship to the Enlightenment (New York: Brill 1992). 54 See Steven C. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730–1840 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). 55 See Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood. 56 Mary Ann Clawson, Constructing Brotherhood: Class, Gender, and Fraternalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); Mark C. Carnes, Secret Ritual and Manhood in Victorian America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989). 57 Because nineteenth-century British Freemasonry is less well-researched than American Masonry from the same period, this section relies on generalizations that I have gleaned from the above-cited sources, various Masonic writings from the period, and two works by Aubrey N. Newman: “Masonic Journals in Mid-Victorian Britain,” Hibiscus Masonic

68 chapter 2 many disovered that Masonry offered not only urban solidarity and entertain- ment, but also access to the aristocratic power brokers. As more and more non- aristocrats joined, ambitious middle-class Masons were able to challenge their group’s established power structures, often employing, as their most effective medium, the press; these new Masons supported the publication of Masonic periodicals that insisted on giving transparency to the Craft’s aristocratic leaders’ actions.58 At the same time, more and more Masons began looking closely at the various lodges and orders’ provenances, questioning their legitimacy, as there was growing evidence that some Masonic orders and histories had been improperly suppressed by the leaders of the more powerful orders.59 The British Masonic environment that ultimately created the occult revival was not British Masonry generally but rather a small subculture within that community that put high stock into research on Masonic history and philosophy. While a number of British Masons had been doing such research independently for most of the first half of the nineteenth century, in June 1867 a handful of young and ambitious London Freemasons came together to formally organize activities along these lines for the first time, calling their group the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (sria).60 The Societas Rosicruciana, as we have seen, was a Masonic research organization that had existed in Scotland and possibly Manchester since at least the 1850s,61 and was most likely based on the German Gold und Rosenkreutz. The founders of England’s sria in 1867—Robert Wentworth Little and William James Hughan—had both been initiated in the Scottish group the previous December, and soon after quickly moved up its grades, enabling them to start their own lodge. Both Little and Hughan were well-connected and high-ranking Masons who were fascinated with uncovering forgotten Masonic knowledge. Little, in particular, desired to start new orders based around supposed ancient Masonic rites. In 1865 he claimed to have “revived” the para-Masonic group called the Military Order of the Knights of the Red Cross of Rome and Constantine, purportedly a medieval order, which immediately became incredibly popular, chartering sixty-two ‘Conclaves’ (branches) by 1871, of which over a dozen were

Review 1 (2008): 59–70 and “Controversy and The Freemasons’ Magazine in Mid-Victorian England,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 122 (2009): 185–205. 58 See the above-cited pieces by Aubrey N. Newman. 59 For a discussion of this trend in nineteenth-century Anglo-American Freemasonry, see Richard Kaczynski, Forgotten Templars: The Untold Origins of Ordo Templi Orientis (n.p.: Richard Kaczynski, 2012). 60 Greensill, A History, 68. 61 Greensill, A History, 65–73.

The Occult Revival 69 in foreign countries.62 Then, in December 1870, after having already established the sria, Little organized what was called the ‘Ancient and Primitive Rite of Misraim,’ a French-based Masonic rite that claimed connections with ancient Egypt.63 The vast majority of members of this group were already members of Little’s Red Cross, and some were also in the sria.64 Misraim and the Red Cross, however, were primarily appealing to Masons interested in partaking in exotic degree systems. Although there was some overlap, for the most part, they were different from the kind of people who joined the sria, which emphasized above all other things the recovery of hidden—esoteric— knowledge. Few could afford the time, money, and social embarrassment that might accompany publicly indulging in this eccentric field, so naturally the sria could not be as popular as Little’s other orders. Nevertheless, the sria’s having as leaders prominent Masons who occasionally also led other para- Masonic orders gave the group enough legitimacy to draw several dozen Masonic esotericists from throughout England in its first few years. One of the prominent Masons the sria attracted was George Kenning. Part of the emerging business class, Kenning, the son of a candle maker and himself a former gold lace maker, had recently made a name for himself in England’s Masonic community by becoming one of the most important Masonic regalia and jewel suppliers in the country.65 Always looking for new clients and opportunities, Kenning surely realized the possibilities that could be had by aligning himself with the likes of Little and the other prominent Masonic esotericists. In October 1867, Kenning was initiated in the sria,66 and he immediately set to work cultivating his clientele. In July 1868, the sria produced the first issue of its journal, the Rosicrucian, and Kenning was its only advertiser; he would, in fact, remain the Rosicrucian’s only advertiser until he took control of the journal in the late 1870s. Undoubtedly, then, Kenning was also the exclusive regalia and jewel supplier for the sria and most likely sold Little and the

62 Ellic Howe, “Fringe Masonry in England 1870–85,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 85 (1972): 249n2. 63 Howe, “Fringe Masonry,” 246–50. 64 “Ancient and Primitive Rite of Misraim,” Freemason, January 14, 1871, 220; Howe, “Fringe Masonry,” 257–58. 65 Library and Museum of Freemasonry, “Biographical History of George Kenning” (which claims his father was an oyster seller), accessed October 8, 2013, http://62.244.182.221/ EOSWeb/OPAC/TitleView/CompleteDisplay.aspx?FromOPAC=true&DbCode=0&Patron Code=0&Language=british&RwSearchCode=0&WordHits=p%7Cgbr%7C1991&BibCo des=27313524; George Kenning baptism record (which indicates his father was a “tallow chandler”), available from Ancestry.com. 66 “Services of Bro. George Kenning,” Freemason, November 2, 1901, 560.

70 chapter 2 group’s other esoteric organizers the regalia they desired to legitimate their own fringe Masonic orders. The uniting of Kenning and the sria was therefore a significant moment in the history of the organizational development of Anglophone esotericism: there was now, for the first time in the modern period, serious financial support and business interest in the development of organizations that promoted alternative histories and sources of knowledge. Like any good businessman, Kenning was not one to be satisfied with yester- day’s accomplishments. In early 1869 he approached the leading members of the sria with yet another business venture: starting a new general Masonic periodical. At the time, the country’s main Freemasonic journal, the Freemasons’ Magazine, was losing popularity,67 and, with the Masonic community continuing to expand, the time was ripe to enter the publication industry. Kenning recruited Little, who was the editor of the Rosicrucian, to be the editor of what would be called the Freemason, along with Hughan and several other sria esotericists as contributors.68 Even sria members’ friends with similar esoteric interests, like Rev. A.F.A. Woodford, who would become the magazine’s longest lasting editor, were brought on board. Backed by a team of intelligent, respected writers who desired to spread their new ideas, and capitalizing on the growth of Masonry outside of London and the concomitant expansion of railroads and steamships, Kenning quickly found sales agents across the uk, and even some in India and the us, to vend his periodical. By August 1869, just five months after the first issue appeared, the Freemason was boasting to advertisers that it had a circulation of “nearly half-a-million,” and the numbers of letters and advertisements it received confirm that the journal had quickly become the most popular and preeminent magazine for British Freemasonry. Kenning was in fact so successful with the Freemason that he soon expanded his publishing efforts to include the monthly Masonic Magazine, an annual Masonic calendar, several books on Masonic history, and an influential Masonic Cyclopaedia, all edited by Woodford. In all of these works, Kenning made sure to advertise his other projects—including his regalia business—which only further cemented his position as one of the most important Masonry suppliers and promoters in the second half of the nineteenth century. The success of the Freemason meant that sria members suddenly had, in addition to a reliable regalia supplier and Little’s example as an inventor of

67 Newman, “Masonic Journals,” 68–70. 68 “Death of Bro. George Kenning,” Masonic Illustrated, December 1, 1901, 49; William J. Hughan, “A Tribute to Bro. Kenning,” Freemason, November 9, 1901, 574; “In Memoriam,” Freemason, April 20, 1878, 202; W.W. Westcott, History of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (London: Privately Printed 1900), 8; Howe, “Fringe Masonry,” 247n3.

The Occult Revival 71 orders, the best possible forum for propagating their other new ideas. Indeed, this seems to have further stimulated their penchant for developing new para- Masonic orders. In addition to Little’s two para-Masonic groups and the sria itself, the Freemason ran numerous articles on sria member John Yarker’s popular Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis (distinct from Little’s similarly- named order), as well as the Hindu-based Sat B’hai order, which was supposedly brought to the West from India by a British soldier, but was soon being led by Yarker and fellow sria member Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie. The sria network, clearly excited by the possibilities that Kenning’s backing offered, was in fact producing so many new and strange groups that not even all of them were featured in the Freemason. Frances George Irwin—who started the first sria ‘college’ (branch) outside of London in 1869 and had been a member of Little’s Misraim group—claimed to have been contacted by spirits who told him about an organization known variously as the ‘Order of 卍,’ the ‘Brotherhood of the Cross of Light,’ the ‘Brothers of Light,’ and ‘Fratres Lucius.’69 Mackenzie was a known member of this order and, like Irwin, also began putting the left- turning swastika on some of writings in the 1870s, a trend apparently started by the mesmerist astrologer and friend of Irwin and Mackenzie, Richard Morrison, when in 1869 he announced the appearance in England of a ‘Most Ancient Order of the Suastica; or; the Brotherhood of the Mystic Cross,’ a supposedly Tibetan order.70 It is therefore the appearance of these orders, along with the several other sria-connected para-Masonic groups that previously had not been known in England,71 that justifies intellectual historian Joscelyn Godwin’s labeling of the period of the late 1860s through the early 1870s as the true beginning of the Anglophone occult revival.72 And it was George Kenning, presumably primarily driven by financial interests, who, by investing in the esoteric Freemasonic infrastructure, was the person largely responsible for ensuring a stable foundation for this creation of a new cultural market interested in groups organized around non-Christian ideas and identities. The known published and unpublished writings of sria members from the early stage of the occult revival suggest that the majority of these men

69 Howe, “Fringe Masonry,” 259–60. 70 Zadkiel [R.J. Morrison], Zadkiel’s Almanac for 1870 (London: Printed by B.D. Cousins and published for the author by J.G. Berger, 1870 [1869]), 68; Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 219. 71 In addition to the six above-mentioned groups, Irwin claimed to have information about an order called the ‘Knight of the Hermetic Cross,’ Mackenzie claimed ties with another order, and there are a few other mentions of new esoteric orders during this period. 72 Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 219.

72 chapter 2 sincerely believed in the authenticity of the esoteric groups they were promoting.73 However, at least one key figure in the sria, Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie, publicly supported the conscious invention of myths to serve as the bases of these groups.74 Mackenzie had a long-time interest in not just esoteric topics but also alternative religions like mesmerism and spiritualism, as well as more mainstream research in history, anthropology, and philosophy. He was in fact particularly influenced by the German philosophers, especially Goethe, an Idealist who was one of the biggest supporters of incorporating oriental and Islamic ideas into European art in the early nineteenth century, and Lessing, a late-eighteenth-century Mason, philosopher, and playwright who was also one of the first modern Westerners to promote tolerance of Muslims.75 This background would make Mackenzie, as we will see, a key figure behind the scenes of both the occult revival and the American Islamic movement. In 1869, using his pseudonym, Cryptonymus, Mackenzie wrote a series of articles for the Freemason arguing that myths are important for inspiring in people the idea that God is in fact an infinite, unifying power.76 If people truly understood this, he argues, they would realize how to create true peace, justice, and unity for all people throughout the world. He explains that in order to accomplish this goal, people should be united around similar myths and join a single universal organization. While he admits that this is precisely what many Masons at the time believed was their order’s purpose, Mackenzie believes that contemporary Masonry is now plagued by disunity. He also points out that non-Christians might not want to join Masonry lodges because of the Judeo-Christian emphasis in the order’s teachings, and forcing them to join would not serve the cause of peace and unity. The solution, then, he suggests, is to unite the knowledge of the East and West, as well as that of the material

73 See Howe, “Fringe Masonry,” passim. and Frederick Hockley, The Rosicrucian Seer: The Magical Writings of Frederick Hockley (Willingborough, uk: Aquarian Press, 1986). 74 For more, see Chapter 4 as well as my “Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie’s ‘Papers on Masonry’ and the Spread of Islamic-Identity Organizations in the us and England in the Late Nineteenth Century” in Con Artists, Enthusiasts and True Believers, ed. Jay Kinney (Forest Grove, or: Typhon Press, 2015). 75 On Mackenzie’s knowledge of Goethe and Lessing, see Chapter 4. On Lessing’s views of Islam, see Mark Sedgwick, “Quelques sources du XVIIe siècle du pluralisme religieux inclusif,” in Études d’histoire de l’ésotérisme : Mélanges offerts à Jean-Pierre Laurant pour son soixante-dixième anniversaire, eds. Jean-Pierre Brach and Jérôme Rousse-Lacordaire (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2007), 50–51. 76 This was “Papers on Masonry,” which was a twenty-seven-part series that appeared on an almost weekly basis between March and October that year. See my “Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie’s ‘Papers on Masonry’” for an extended discussion.

The Occult Revival 73 and spiritual worlds, in a single new organization with new myths. He adds that this kind of new order would be brought forth by a modern-day “prophet”; that is, a person who understands the existing myths and psychology of humankind and could use that knowledge to create effective myths. Towards the end of his series, Mackenzie seems to be trying to take on the prophet role himself when he starts claiming that he is a member of an ancient unnamed order that happened to do the things he was supporting: uniting East and West and material and occult knowledge. Interestingly, although this series garnered a handful of letters to the editor in 1869, there is no evidence that any sria member other than Mackenzie himself was influenced by these ideas. Indeed, the series seems to have had so little clear impact that it has been almost completely ignored by historians of Masonry and esotericism. Nevertheless, Mackenzie held onto these ideas and they would soon play a role in the development of both the American occult revival and the creation of Islam-focused organizations for white men in England and the us (see Chapter 4). The most well-known of Mackenzie’s efforts, however, did have a clear impact, and it was almost certainly motivated by his 1869 ideas. This was Mackenzie’s Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, which was published serially between 1875 and 1877.77 Unlike other Masonic ‘cyclopaedias’ of the period, Mackenzie’s contained numerous entries on esoteric topics and just about every sria-connected para- Masonic order. The likelihood that Mackenzie was writing with his 1869 philosophy on his mind is strengthened by the fact that in this book he did not intimate at all that these groups could possibly have been invented; he treated them and their claimed histories as facts—which suggests that Mackenzie was no longer playing the role of the historian-philosopher but had moved on to being a full- fledged prophet. Most readers, however, had no idea that this was what Mackenzie was up to, and this produced a variety of respsonses. Several Masonic reviewers, for instance, were disgusted by his willingness to uncritically accept fantastic myths, which they dismissed as “aberrations and mystical rubbish.”78 Others, meanwhile, because Mackenzie was a respected Masonic authority by this point, saw the inclusion of these occult groups and ideas in the Cyclopaedia as actual proof of their historical existence. In fact, as was observed over one hundred years later, the Cyclopaedia “announc[ed] the occult revival” to the world, quickly becoming one of the most influential works among Western occultists and playing a major role in the expansion of the esoteric, non-Christian organization

77 Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie, Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia of History, Rites, Symbolism, and Biography (London, 1877; Wellingborough, uk: Aquarian Press, 1987). 78 See R.A. Gilbert and J.M. Hamill, introduction to the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, v.

74 chapter 2 market to non-Masons and Americans.79 Mackenzie had thus become the prophet—the supreme intellectual authority and legitimizer—of the Anglophone occult revival.

Theosophy and the American Occult Revival

As we have seen, esotericism had already made some headway in the us by the time Mackenzie’s Cyclopaedia first appeared in 1875. Transcendentalists, spiritualists, and Freethinkers were increasingly interested in ancient, forgotten, and Eastern knowledge; there were surely more than a few informal circles of Americans studying the ideas of Hermes Trismegistus; and Paschal Beverly Randolph had successfully organized small occult Rosicrucian groups on both American coasts. Still, nothing that could rightly be called a movement had developed and little mainstream media attention was paid to the few organized activities. The direct antecedents to the development of the us’ market for organizations based around non-Christian religions can be traced back to 1874, when the American spiritualist community was first introduced to the Russian medium Helena P. Blavatsky.80 That fall, Blavatsky, who claimed to have traveled throughout Europe, Asia, and Egypt, made her way to the Vermont farm of the Eddy family where the appearance of various spiritual manifestations had recently elicited great interest in the spiritualist community. Soon, however, all attention at the farm was being focused on Blavatsky, when her mediumistic powers purportedly began not only affecting the spirits already there in strange ways, but also began bringing spirit manifestations of a type relatively uncom- mon in the us: Eastern Europeans, Asians, and a Muslim named Hassan Agha, whom Blavatsky claimed to have once known personally in Russia. Persuaded by these and other demonstrations that Blavatsky was special, Henry S. Olcott, a spiritualist journalist who had been reporting on the events at the Eddy farm, befriended Blavatsky and the two returned to his home in New York City.

79 Godwin, Theosophical Enlightenment, 219. 80 For the history of the Theosophical Society, see Bruce F. Campbell, Ancient Wisdom Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); The Theosophical Movement 1875–1950 (Los Angeles: Cunningham Press, 1951); Michael Gomes, The Dawning of the Theosophical Movement (Wheaton, il: Theosophical Publishing House, 1987); John Patrick Deveney, Theosophical History Occasional Paper vi: Astral Projection or Liberation of the Double and the Work of the Early Theosophical Society (Fullerton, ca: Theosophical History, 1997).

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In the spring, Olcott began asserting that he had recently been contacted via visions and handwritten letters by a living adept with the Muslim-sounding name of Tuitt Bey, who claimed to be a member of an unseen ‘Eastern’ occult order known as the Brotherhood of Luxor, which desired to reform spiritualism. Blavatsky, whom many would later suspect of having written these letters, claimed to belong to this Brotherhood, and encouraged Olcott to publish information about it in a spiritualist periodical over which they had gained influence, the Spiritual Scientist. By this time, connections were already being made between this Brotherhood and Rosicrucianism. Olcott believed that one of the early visual manifestations this spirit made had Rosicrucian symbols, and in a long letter to the Spiritual Scientist in July, one writer asserted that all occult groups—implying that the Brotherhood of Luxor was included—were Rosicrucian.81 Blavatsky replied in an article later that month that this Eastern Brotherhood was not itself Rosicrucian, but that it possessed the teachings that the Rosicrucians studied.82 The controversy and Blavatsky and Olcott’s increasing influence over the newspaper helped gain the duo more attention, and by the late summer of 1875, around them had formed a small group of interested esotericists, many of whom were spiritualists and members of the Free Thought movement.83 At the time, this circle had no official name, but, as it was focused around the spirit communication of Tuitt Bey, some people equated it with his and Blavatsky’s organization, the Brotherhood of Luxor. Again, this was not the first American occult group formed around the belief that non-Christian—and possibly Muslim—occult teachers were imparting knowledge in the us; Randolph’s group had preceded it. In fact, Blavatsky seems to have picked up many ideas from Randolph, and the insistence of there being a Muslim-like occult spirit may have been one of these. Nonetheless, it was only her group—which in October 1875 formally organized under the name Theosophical Society and would soon attempt to implement a Masonic- like grade structure—that had direct connections with the sria community, and this meant that the strong British market for reterritorialized groups based around non-Christian religions now had an entrée to the American liberal religion scene.

81 Gomes, Dawning, 68; see the “Rosicrucianism” articles by ‘Hiraf’ in the early July issues of the Spiritual Scientist. 82 Mdme. H.P. Blavatsky, “A Few Questions to Hiraf,” Spiritual Scientist, July 22, 1875, 236–37. 83 See John Patrick Deveney, “Albert Leighton Rawson, Initiate of the Brotherhood of Lebanon, Bigamist, Plagiarist and Felon, and D.M. Bennett, Agent of the Theosophical Masters, ‘Foul-Mouthed Libertine’ and ‘Apostle of Nastiness,’” Theosophical History (forthcoming at the time of writing).

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Although Blavatsky had already rejected the notion that the Brotherhood was Rosicrucian, in early September 1875, Rev. Dr. J.H. Wiggin, a Unitarian minister who was familiar with and would soon join Blavatsky’s circle, published an article that explicitly labeled the ideas of the Brotherhood of Luxor group as “Rosicrucianism.”84 The British bookseller and Freethinker Charles Sotheran, one of the members of the Blavatsky circle at the time, happened to also be a member of the sria, and would have found this and other claims of Rosicrucian identity for the Brotherhood intriguing. It is likely, then, that it was Sotheran who conveyed the claim of the Brotherhood being Rosicrucian back to his sria brethren in England. In October, Kenneth Mackenzie duly included a description of Blavatsky’s Brotherhood of Luxor—complete with the assertion of its Rosicrucian basis—in his soon-to-be popular Cyclopaedia,85 thereby intellectually incorporating the group that would become the Theosophical Society into the Anglophone occult revival. The connection between the British and American esoteric communities was soon further solidified when, almost immediately after the Theosophical Society was formally established, an American member named George H. Felt started promising the group that he would perform for the Society feats of occult magic based on his knowledge of ancient Egyptian occultism. By this time, Felt was already known in the British occult revival due to the fact that in 1872 the sria had printed in the Rosicrucian magazine an excerpt from Felt’s never-to-be-published book concerning his supposed discovery of ancient Egyptian magic.86 Word surely made its way back to England that it was in the Theosophical Society where Felt had finally resurfaced. Mackenzie, meanwhile, was made an honorary member of the ts in 1877,87 the same year that Blavatsky published her most well-known work, Isis Unveiled. This book— which, by drawing from and repurposing much of the recent English-language research on the world’s religions and myths, essentially presented a theory of an orient-emphasized esoteric religious history—contained several citations of Mackenzie’s Cyclopaedia, which Blavatsky used to validate her own esoteric claims, including the claim that the Brotherhood of Luxor was indeed real

84 H.P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings, vol. 1 (Wheaton, il: Theosophical Press, 1966), 121. 85 Mackenzie, Royal Masonic, 461. The October appearance of the Cyclopaedia is inferred by the advertisement for the first part of the book, which appeared that month in the Freemason. 86 The only complete manuscript of Felt’s book, The Egyptian Kaballah, was destroyed in a fire in 1872. 87 See his Theosophical honorary membership, entered December 9, 1877, Theosophical Society General Register Vol. i, 4, accessed February 10, 2014, http://www.theartarchives.org.

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(although Blavatsky still denied its connection to Rosicrucianism). The linking of this American occult group with the British movement legitimized the ts, giving it a far greater potential for serving as the base of an American non- Christian occult market. At least partly due to the legitimization offered by Mackenzie and the sria, during its first year, the ts expanded rapidly, gaining thirty-four American members before the end of 1875 and another 111 during 1876—numbers and rates probably far surpassing anything Randolph had achieved.88 At the time, the group was focused around the achievement of ‘practical occult’ powers— magic—and Randolph’s presence lingered, as Blavatsky, like Randolph, emphasized the cultivation of the will—to “Try!”89 However, by late 1876, perhaps because its leaders had failed to live up to their promises of demonstrat- ing practical occultism, interest started to decline and the Theosophical Society’s only formally organized branch had become inactive.90 At the end of 1878, Blavatsky and Olcott left for India, where they would set up the new headquarters for Theosophy and live for several years. At that point, to many it would have looked as if no non-Christian religious organization would be able to survive in the us. Once in India, Blavatsky and Olcott set about rebuilding their young organization. They had left the us with a distinctly non-Christian religious goal: learning yoga and esoteric religious knowledge from Swami Dayananda, the head of the Hindu revivalist movement Arya Samaj, with whom they had connected through one of his followers, a Hindu Freemason named Hurrychund Chintamon.91 Blavatsky and Olcott quickly established strong ties with the Samaj and gained a wide Indian following of Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims, reaching over one thousand members within a year, largely because the allegiance with the Theosophists was seen by many Indians as a way to help their nationalist movement. Blavatsky and Olcott, with their Indian followers, started a monthly magazine, the Theosophist, which regularly featured Indian writers and discussions of non-Christian topics. The magazine was soon being sold in England and the us, where it commenced to achieve popularity among

88 See Theosophical Society General Register Vol. i, accessed February 10, 2014, http://www .theartarchives.org. 89 See Deveney, Astral Projection. 90 Theosophical Movement, 116. 91 See Har Bilas Sarda, Life of Dayanand Saraswati, World Teacher (Ajmer, India: P. Bhagwan Swarup, Manager, Vedic Yantralaya, 1946), 522–92 and Karl Baier, “Mesmeric Yoga and the Development of Meditation within the Theosophical Society,” Theosophical History 16, nos. 3&4 (2012): 151–61.

78 chapter 2 those who had heard about Blavatsky, particularly those connected to the sria, spiritualism, and the Free Thought movement. The facts that a large proportion of each issue was devoted to Eastern religions, many articles were authored by Indians, and the movement’s large Indian following was often mentioned, all lent Blavatsky and her Eastern-connection claims a great deal of legitimacy in the eyes of white Westerners. As a result, although the organized occult/non-Christian movement in the us was essentially dormant between 1877 and 1881, interest in Blavatsky, her writings, and her order began to be rekindled. In 1881, the history of both Theosophy, and the American occult/non- Christian market generally, reached a major turning point. That year, Thomas Moore Johnson, a lawyer from a small town in western Missouri, sent a copy of the second issue of the Platonist—a Platonism-focused journal he had recently started—to the Theosophical headquarters in India. Johnson, who had been significantly influenced by Transcendentalism and Thomas Taylor’s translations of the Idealist Plato, was not himself a Theosophist, but one of the main contributors to his journal, Alexander Wilder, was, having played a major role in helping to popularize Blavatsky by editing Isis Unveiled. Johnson was of the belief that Platonic philosophy was the one true philosophy, and that there were various manifestations of it throughout the world in esoteric teachings, which should be brought to light. The Theosophical Society saw similarities between theirs and Johnson’s projects and suggested that they advertise in each other’s magazine.92 Johnson agreed, and this new relationship eventually led to him becoming one of the most important figures in the expansion of Theosophy in the us.93 It was at this time that other Americans also started gaining enthusiasm for Theosophy, and organizers—who were almost always strong believers in the idea that American culture needed spiritual reforming—led the reemergence of the American side of Theosophy. In 1882, Rochester was the site of the first branch to be established outside of New York City. Its founder was Josephine Cables, a philanthropist and spiritualist who felt “pity for the world and desire to serve and save it and affection for those holy people [in India].”94 She gathered

92 Damodar Mavalankar to Johnson, May 31, 1881, Thomas M. Johnson Papers (hereafter, tmj Papers), Thomas M. Johnson Library and Museum, Missouri State University Department of Special Collections. 93 Johnson exchanged letters with a number of prominent Theosophists throughout 1882. 94 Cables as quoted by William Q. Judge in his March 8, 1882 letter to her, in Arthur L. Conger, ed., Practical Occultism: From the Private Letters of William Q. Judge (n.p.: Theosophical University Press, 1951).

The Occult Revival 79 around her several friends, who in turn brought their own family members to the small circle. Albert L. Rawson, a Mason and proponent of Free Thought who was one of the early Theosophical Society members, was sent out to Rochester to grant Cables her official charter.95 Meanwhile, in April, in Johnson’s home state, a St. Louis man named Elliott B. Page, a long-time student of philosophy who had recently read Isis Unveiled, came across a copy of the Platonist. The magazine greatly impressed Page, and he wrote to Johnson that very day, expressing his pleasure with the periodical and explaining his own ideological position—which was, essentially, that of a Freethinker—and intellectual activities.96 Judging by the relatively large number of letters exchanged between the two, Page apparently found in Johnson a wise and inspiring teacher and advisor, and Johnson in Page a loyal and eager student and follower. Soon, the two were talking Theosophy and Johnson gave Page the Indian headquarters’ address so that he could communicate directly with the heads. Johnson had already been telling Theosophical leaders his desire for a branch in Missouri, but putting a lodge in his small home town would be a waste of effort because so few people lived there. So in July, Blavatsky and Olcott were encouraging Page—who was not yet even a member of the group—to start a branch in St. Louis, and promising that Johnson would help.97 Just a few months before all of this happened, Page had become interested in St. Louis’ new little Rosicrucian community,98 and he saw the fact that he had come into contact with Rosicrucians, Johnson, and Theosophists within the span of six months as a sign that “the Occultists of both hemispheres, notably of the East, are preparing for some grand movement which cannot fail to leave its mark upon the whole race” and that he had been chosen to play a key role in this important moment in history.99 Page then set about forming the first Theosophical lodge outside of the state of New York. Although he would later claim that he received his charter in September 1882, his letters to Johnson indicate that the first St. Louis branch was not chartered until the spring of 1883 and did not officially open until July. Johnson was one of the group’s five

95 Michael Gomes, “Abner Doubleday and Theosophy in America: 1879–1884,” accessed February 10, 2014, http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sunrise/40-90-1/th-tsgom.htm. 96 Page to Johnson, April 26, 1882, tmj Papers. 97 Page to Johnson, August 3, 1882, tmj Papers. 98 Page to Johnson, May 14, 1882, tmj Papers. On this Rosicrucian community, which possibly had connections to both Randolph and the sria, see Bowen, introduction to Letters to the Sage, eds. Patrick D. Bowen and K. Paul Johnson (Forest Grove, or: Typhon Press, 2015). 99 Page to Johnson, August 3, 1882, tmj Papers.

80 chapter 2 charter members and, largely through Page, the branch’s president, he would have a significant influence over the lodge. The presence of a branch in St. Louis was incredibly valuable for the Theosophical Society’s spread in the country. It proved to observers that the organization could expand outside of the East Coast and attract what were surely seen as average Americans: Midwesterners. It also, by being connected to Johnson’s Platonist, a magazine that had become (through the Theosophist’s co-sign) very popular among American Theosophists, demonstrated to believers that true wisdom could be found throughout America. The establishment of the St. Louis ‘Pioneer’ branch was therefore an invaluable legitimizing event. Moreover, by Johnson becoming connected to the first non-New York lodge, he strengthened his position in the early American organization, and this was reflected in 1884 when both he and Page were made two of the seven members of the Board of Control, the Society’s recently-formed governing body for the us side of the movement. Their presence further strengthened the legitimacy of the movement and new lodges, largely composed of spiritualists, Freethinkers, and people interested in philosophy and Asian religions, slowly began to spring up across the country. By late 1886, there were twelve us branches and 246 members; by April 1888, there were twenty-two branches and 460 members.100 The occult revival, and the legitimization it gave to non- Christian-focused religious organizations, had finally—forty years after the emergence of spiritualism—established a solid market on American soil.

The Market Diversifies

It is important to recognize that the new occult/non-Christian religious market that was developing in the us in the 1880s was not going to be restricted to the Theosophical Society, but was fostering a broader occult revival. There were several reasons for this. First is the fact that the governance and control of the American Theosophical community was fairly weak. Blavatsky and Olcott retained the ultimate power in issuing charters, but their distance from America had meant they had little control over day-to-day activities and ideas in the us branches. Their most loyal American leader, William Q. Judge, who had been with the group from the beginning, went to India for most of 1884

100 The Theosophical Movement 1875–1950, 119. The Theosophical Society’s register lists more us members than this by late 1886, but this may be due to the fact that the register is not clear about which of the 140 American members who had joined before 1880 had with- drawn by 1886.

The Occult Revival 81 and therefore was also not able to fully exert his power in the us during all of the American group’s formative years. It was only in 1884, in fact, that the group gained a governing body, and, with Judge gone, its leaders were mostly people who had never met Blavatsky or Olcott, and therefore were more likely to have different ideas about the group’s purpose. At the same time, clearly-stated and well-developed official teachings—which might have reined in deterritorializing interpretations of the movement—were few. Moreover, the international leaders could not stop their followers from making their own religious innovations and investigations, which sometimes included corresponding with British Masonic esotericists like Mackenzie and John Yarker—which Johnson did.101 Johnson, as it turns out, was particularly resistant to control. He was very well-read, wealthy enough to not rely on Theosophy for books, ambitious enough to reach out to philosophers and writers throughout the world, and prominent enough to get the respect from the people he contacted. It was in fact Johnson who was the American most responsible for ensuring that the occult revival market quickly expanded beyond its Theosophical boundaries and more directly incorporated the British Masonic current. In the 1880s, the American occult revival diversified in numerous ways, but it was through Johnson’s efforts that one of the most important diversifying currents was able to flourish. By the summer of 1884, Johnson had started corresponding with Rev. William Ayton, a British Theosophist and esoteric Freemason.102 Ayton had become involved with a new British occult group that was at that time gaining a public presence: the H.B. of L., or the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor.103 Two of the organization’s three leaders were men who were involved in the British Theosophical and esoteric Masonic community—Peter Davidson and Thomas H. Burgoyne—and they were unapologetically borrowing from esoteric knowledge from the period: they used in their teachings texts and ideas of Paschal Beverly Randolph; their name was clearly derived from two entries in Mackenzie’s Cyclopaedia, most notably the one for Blavatsky’s Brotherhood of Luxor; and they explicitly defined

101 See, e.g., Mackenzie to Johnson, August 30, 1882 and Yarker to Johnson, March 17, 1883, tmj Papers. 102 T.H. Pattinson to Johnson, August 18, 1884, tmj Papers; on Ayton, see Ellic Howe, ed., The Alchemist of the Golden Dawn: The Letters of the Revd W.A. Ayton to F.L. Gardner and Others 1886–1905 (Willingborough, uk: Aquarian Press, 1985). 103 The main scholarly study of the H.B. of L. is Joscelyn Godwin, Christian Chanel, and John P. Deveney. The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor: Initiatic and Historical Documents of an Order of Practical Occultism (York Beach, me: Samuel Weiser, 1995). Also cf. T. Allen Greenfield, The Story of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light (Stockholm; Beverly Hills, ca: Looking Glass Press, 1997).

82 chapter 2 themselves in opposition to Theosophy. What distinguished this group was its focus on using occult texts to perform a form of practical occultism significantly influenced by Randolph, which usually meant using breathing techniques, magic mirrors, sexual intercourse, and the invocation of spirits, all of which was presented as ‘Ansairetic.’ Theosophy was, at the time, moving away from a focus on practical occultism, having failed to live up to its original promises of showing members that practical occultism was possible; it was instead becoming more interested in promoting a philosophical notion of esoteric religious unity, the study of religion, and cultivating brotherhood throughout the world.104 But, lacking the necessary controls to prevent early Theosophists from exploring other topics, many freely pursued the H.B. of L. Not surprisingly, in America at least, where the occult revival market was still largely limited to the Theosophical Society, initially the H.B. of L. found Theosophists to be its most receptive audience. In November 1884 the Theosophist reprinted an H.B. of L. advertisement in an article discussing spec- ulations about the group, and over the next several months, H.B. of L. circulars were read in Theosophical Society meetings.105 Soon, the British H.B. of L. heads were receiving numerous inquiries from American Theosophists who aspired to be H.B. of L. neophytes. Many of the group’s initiates were directed to Johnson to acquire the required teachings, and this revealed to them Johnson’s affiliation, which, due to the Theosophist respect for Johnson, lent the H.B. of L. additional legitimacy. By the end of 1885, the majority of American H.B. of L. members were Theosophists.106 During this same period, other new ts-connected groups began to spring up in what would be an amazingly rapid and complex example of a new religious market undergoing de- and reterritorialization. In 1885, the American ts’s governing body, the Board of Control, expelled the Unitarian-spiritualist- Theosophists George Chainey and Anna Kimball, primarily for attempting to use the ts name for personal profit by retaining new members’ initiation fees and creating competing ts lodges.107 Just prior to their official expulsion, however, Chainey and Kimball had independently formalized their ideas and activities, which ensured their continued institutional presence after their expulsion. They had created in San Francisco a group called the Gnostic Society

104 See Deveney, Astral Projection, 65–84. 105 See, e.g., Throckmorton to Johnson, June 21, 1885, tmj Papers. 106 See the H.B. of L. pledges in the tmj Papers. 107 Page to Board of Control, April 17, 1885, tmj Papers; The American Board of Control of the Theosophical Society Annual Meeting Held at Cincinnati, Ohio, July 4th and 5th, 1885 (Cincinnati: Board of Control, 1885), 3, in the tmj Papers.

The Occult Revival 83 and established a journal, the Gnostic, which included writings by participants in other alternative religions, such as spiritualism, Randolph-influenced Rosicrucianism, and mesmerism.108 With the creation of this organization and its organ, both of which helped give Chainey and Kimball legitimacy even after their expulsion from Theosophy, California now had a new organized link with the occult revival market, one that was even less regulated than the part of the market dominated by Theosophists—and this would have a serious effect on the broader transformation of the occult revival. Another important element in the expansion of the market was the emerging New Thought movement—a religious movement that developed in organized form in the 1880s, but has roots that can be traced back decades before. New Thought can be defined as the adaptation of Idealism for the purpose of healing, or ‘practical Idealism,’109 as it has been called.110 As was discussed in Chapter 1, Idealism asserts that the material world is in fact simply an extension of God’s Thought, and, therefore, true reality is immaterial. Generally, this assertion is accompanied by the concept that humans would benefit greatly by coming to this understanding. Transcendentalism was essentially a form of Idealism, and its incredible influence over New England culture in the mid- nineteenth century seems to have contributed to Maine resident Phineas P. Quimby applying it to his healing practices at the time. Early in his career, Quimby had been a mesmerist, healing individuals’ physical ailments by claiming to manipulate the magnetic forces in the ether around them while they were in a mesmeric trance. Over the years, however, Quimby became convinced that he had the power to cure patients simply by using his mind, without relying on a belief in magnetic force, and he began to consider the possibility that all people were connected by a single mind. Soon he came to the conclusion that physical ailments were caused by nothing but the erroneous belief—promoted by doctors and priests—that physical illness existed and that people were not part of God’s single, omnipresent Mind. In the early 1860s, he achieved regional fame for using this ‘Mind Cure’ approach to healing; some of his students asked him to teach them his concepts and techniques, which they would soon popularize.

108 See Gnostic 1, no. 1 (1885). 109 Horatio W. Dresser, A History of the New Thought Movement (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1919), 129. 110 The following discussion of New Thought is largely derived from Charles S. Braden, Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and Development of New Thought (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963).

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The first of Quimby’s students to create an organization around these concepts was Mary Baker Eddy, who in the 1870s began to call the teaching ‘Christian Science’ and started denying that Quimby—or anyone else—had influenced her ideas, which were outlined in her Science and Health (1875).111 Eddy’s somewhat dogmatic notions were not reflected in Quimby’s other students, such as Warren Felt Evans, who wrote a great deal about New Thought and claimed, in order to prove the universality of Quimby’s concepts, that all religions had taught similar principles, even citing non-Christian writings— including those of the Sufi al-Ghazali—to defend this claim. Meanwhile, Eddy’s tendency towards authoritarianism led to some of her most prominent disciples leaving the movement and spreading less dogmatic versions of Quimby’s ideas. One of these individuals was Miranda Rice, who by the mid- 1880s was living in San Francisco where she apparently influenced one Malinda E. Cramer. In 1885, Cramer became one of Chainey and Kimball’s early followers and commenced practicing and teaching her own liberal version of New Thought.112 Another of Eddy’s ex-disciples was Chicago resident Emma Curtis Hopkins, who had probably started following Eddy upon the latter’s visit to Chicago in 1884. By 1886, though, she and some other local Christian Scientists had become influenced by Theosophy and broke with Eddy.113 Then, in 1887, she established a ‘seminary’ in which the “Bibles of all times and nations” were compared in order to prove the reality of New Thought.114 By this time, Cramer—in San Francisco—was already incorporating, due to the influence of Chainey and Kimball, the comparative religion idea into her teachings, but this would have been greatly reinforced in 1887 when Hopkins came to California where she taught Cramer in a New Thought class.115 By 1888, Cramer, who began calling her more liberal ideas ‘Divine Science,’ had organized her own activities and had gained a prominent position in Chainey and Kimball’s movement.116 Around this time, the Denver H.B. of L. community, which by 1887 could boast that it had not only the largest American H.B. of L. membership but also

111 For Eddy, in addition to Braden’s work, I have relied on Stephen Gottschalk, The Emergence of Christian Science in American Religious Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). 112 Braden, Spirits in Rebellion, 145; “Formation of the Gnostic Society,” Gnostic 1, nos. 3 & 4 (1885): 75. 113 See Amy B. Voorhees, “Understanding the Religious Gulf between Mary Baker Eddy, Ursula N. Gestefeld, and Their Churches,” Church History 80, no. 4 (2011): 798–831. 114 Braden, Spirits in Rebellion, 145. 115 Braden, Spirits in Rebellion, 270. 116 See Gnostic 1, no. 8 (1888): back cover; Gnostic 1, no. 11 (1888).

The Occult Revival 85 almost no Theosophist members, was largely composed of people interested in Mind Cure and New Thought.117 This included the former Christian Scientist Mary D. Fisk,118 one of the most well-known followers of spiritual healing in the American West. At the time, Denver was in fact an important center for a growing New Thought movement led by the Brooks sisters of Pueblo, Colorado (a town one hundred miles south of Denver), who had been influenced, like Cramer, by the teachings of Hopkins. Soon, probably through Fisk, who was in contact with Cramer, the Brooks sisters would unite their Colorado movement with Cramer’s to form a national Divine Science organization. Through Theosophy-influenced New Thought, then, the American occult and non- Christian market had discovered a strong organizational base for promoting diverse religions and occult and non-Christian religious ideas. Meanwhile, as occultism and non-Christian religions were influencing New Thought, New Thought was influencing the American occult and non-Christian religious community. In 1884 another former follower of Eddy, Sarah Stanley Grimké,119 had relocated to California, where she became friendly with Cramer’s friend Miranda Rice as well as the local Theosophists.120 In 1886, Grimké, who had previously published her own New Thought booklets, followed along with several California Theosophists (as well as, probably, Chainey and Kimball) and joined the H.B. of L.121 By 1887, after apparently becoming the mistress of H.B. of L. leader Thomas Burgoyne, who had moved to California, Grimké’s two booklets were made required reading in the occult order,122 and she would eventually have considerable influence over the ideas in the 1889 book attributed to Burgoyne, Light of Egypt, which came to be seen as the main text of the H.B. of L.123

117 See, e.g., Henry Liddell to Johnson, January 14, 1886, and compare with H.B. of L. ‘diplo- mas’ in the tmj Papers. 118 Fisk’s H.B. of L. diploma is dated January 15, 1887, tmj Papers. 119 For more see K. Paul Johnson’s forthcoming book on Grimké. 120 Grimké’s relationship with Theosophists can be inferred from the fact that her H.B. of L. ‘diploma’ in the tmj Papers was signed in Los Angeles and its date is very close to those of the local Theosophist members of the H.B. of L. 121 Her diploma is dated April 3, 1886. 122 See “Circular No i” in the tmj Papers. 123 The H.B. of L.’s later leader—when then group was revived under the name Brotherhood of Light, and, later, Church of Light—Elbert Benjamine, asserted that Grimké wrote half of Light of Egypt. See C.C. Zain [Elbert Benjamine], Laws of Occultism: Inner Plane Theory and the Fundamentals of Psychic Phenomena, Rev. 2nd ed. (Los Angeles: Church of Light, 1994), 156—a claim that had been circulating privately since the 1890s.

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Through Grimké’s influence, the H.B. of L. gained one of the most important concepts necessary for the later explosion of American occult and non- Christian movements: what Horatio Dresser would call ‘mental picture theory.’124 Grimké, it must be understood, was a student of not just Christian Science, but also of Classical and medieval Idealism, liberal political philosophy, and Transcendentalism, particularly as it was transmitted to her via her teacher, the Transcendentalist Unitarian minister Cyrus Bartol. She had also been strongly influenced by abolitionism, having been raised by and friends with several abolitionists—including Parker Pillsbury, a Unitarian Theosophist and spiritualist—and having married the African American lawyer Archibald Grimké, through whom Sarah became friends with his well-known abolitionist half-sisters of the same last name. In the 1880s, Grimké, perhaps partly inspired by a desire to disrupt color-based racism in the us, developed a new theory that could be applied to, at first, New Thought and, later, occultism and non- Christian religions. Grimké’s theory—which was similar to concepts both Bartol and Quimby had taught—was that one way to assist people in coming to the realization of their divine nature is to replace erroneous images in their minds with mental pictures that help them better recognize this ‘truth’ about themselves.125 In her second book, Grimké presents a unique form of an astrology-based way of thinking about the world. This should be regarded not as a medieval-type astrological system in which astronomical bodies are thought to mechanically affect people’s behaviors, but as a system of symbols that could help ‘heal’ people by awakening in them the idea that they are united with an infinite God. Amazingly, although she was coming from a practical healing perspective, this idea of intentionally using symbols to heal people—both socially and physically—on an esoteric basis is very close to what Mackenzie had proposed in his 1869 essays. And, like Mackenzie’s essays, it legitimized employing a wide range of occult and non-Christian symbols in order to help different people who had different symbolic needs. This willingness to commit to a particular set of symbols is in fact what distinguished Grimké’s strain of New Thought from other forms, even the liberal Divine Science. Divine Science, Transcendentalism, and the emerging form of Theosophy, asserted that one should study all religions because they all contained the universal Truth, thus one could gain insight from them all. Grimké’s theory, on the other hand, while relying on a fundamental openness to various religious teachings, emphasizes the use of specific symbols in certain ways with the belief that they will better

124 Dresser, New Thought, 141. 125 See Dresser, History, 137–42 for a discussion.

The Occult Revival 87 help reveal to people their divine nature. And, because it claims to heal people of their illnesses, whether physical, psychological, social, or economic, it is vastly more attractive for the average person than occult teachings that simply promote practical occultism for specific—and what most would consider unbelievable—magical powers. This ‘mental picture theory,’ then—whether derived from Grimké and/or the H.B. of L., independently realized, or subcon- sciously followed—helped further the diversification of the occult revival in the us. Ultimately, what this all meant was that as the result of the connecting of New Thought to the occult/non-Christian market via Theosophy and the H.B. of L., by the late 1880s there was a highly viable and potentially incredibly diverse occult/non-Christian market. It also meant that for the next decade or so—before the American religious market changed again—the style and success of those who wanted to spread non-Christian religions in the us would be greatly dependent on the degree to which they appealed to the core components of the American occult/non-Christian market: Theosophy, the H.B. of L., New Thought, and spiritualism. Indeed, starting in the late 1890s, there were numerous attempts to build off of and further diversify the growing occult revival/non-Christian religion market, but those most successful usually were those able to connect themselves to all of these elements. The development of the American occult revival out of nineteenth-century liberal religion, mesmerism, spiritualism, and esoteric Freemasonry was a complex—if not chaotic—process of de- and reterritorialization. It was the product of numerous interactions between a large number self-interested and altruistic promoters, leaders, and thinkers; the creation and combination of countless theories and organizations; and the constant circulation of people and ideas across time and space. It was indeed a great mess. But this mess had laid the foundation for a real market for organizations based around non- Christian religions, and it was within the early years of this market’s growth that the ideas and resources for the first American Muslim conversion movement were generated and came together.

chapter 3 The Makings of a Muslim Missionary

Many factors contribute to the success of a producer in a deterritorialized, comparatively free market. Circumstances of birth are of course major deter- minants of one’s access to the material, social, and intellectual resources necessary for gaining a competitive market position. Not only does one need to exploit particular resources to enter into a market, but frequently even the knowledge and desire to use these resources is determined by one’s earlier exposure to them. If, for instance, George Bethune English had not been born a white man to well-off parents in Boston, the chances that he would have become an early nineteenth-century student of oriental religions, let alone a published sympathizer of Islam, would have been very small. Still, English, like most individuals, was not a simple product of his environment. Whether because or in spite of their birth, some people are able to transcend their circumstances and innovate, breaking into economic and cultural markets in unforeseen ways. Determining precisely how much of innovators’ actions are indeed attributable to their unique internal qualities is one of the goals of the historian. The story of Alexander Russell Webb’s journey to Islam and his becoming a Muslim missionary is an example of the complex interplay between circumstances and the uniqueness of individuals. Webb was, by all accounts, a creative, ambitious innovator who was rarely satisfied with his circumstances and had the skills to achieve things that no one else in his family had achieved before him. Nevertheless, he benefitted greatly from his birth. Webb was from an educated, skilled, and well-off white family in an America where these traits were virtual necessities to make a name for oneself. He was not required to risk his life in the Civil War, which commenced when he was fifteen years old, and he was permitted to pursue the trades and hobbies of his choice. In terms of his coming to Islam, however, probably the single most important circum- stance was Webb’s involvement with the St. Louis spiritualist newspaper men in the early 1880s. Had Webb lived in any other city, or chosen a different career and pastime, it is unlikely he would have become America’s first leader of a prominent Islamic propaganda movement. Webb was an intelligent man who was not afraid to pursue what he believed in, and he might have even converted to Islam in another environment. But had he not come into contact with the St. Louis Theosophical Society and the occult revival when he did, he most likely would have never left his mark on the history of Islam in America.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 89

Before Islam

Alexander Russell Webb was born in Hudson, New York on November 9, 1846.1 In 1847, his father, Alexander Nelson Webb, purchased the temperance newspaper for which he had worked as a printer, the Columbia Washingtonian, continuing its publication and, at the same time, establishing a secular news- focused newspaper, the Hudson Daily Star. Webb later remembered his father as being “outspoken and fearless,” and his newspapers became the mouth- pieces for expressing his Jeffersonian Democratic views. Alexander Nelson remained in the newspaper industry until his retirement in 1873, at which point Alexander Russell’s brother, Herbert, inherited the business. Alexander Russell, meanwhile, chose to not follow in his father’s footsteps. Webb, it seems, had a rather creative and independent spirit. As a child and young man, for instance, having no interest in religion, he tried to avoid attending his Presbyterian church and Sunday school as often as he could, and instead began attending an Episcopalian Sunday school simply to meet girls. Intellectually, he was similarly independent-minded. Webb reportedly composed essays and shorts stories as a teenager and he attended Claverack College and Hudson River Institute, a school that was known for encouraging intellectual freedom and liberal values. After leaving school and attempting to find a career, instead of apprenticing with his father, he chose to learn the jewelry trade under a jeweler whose shop was in the same building as the office of Alexander Nelson’s newspaper. In 1869, Webb moved to Chicago where he worked as a jeweler, married, and then partnered with his new father-in-law to start a jewelry business. When the business was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of October 1871, he went home to Hudson for a few years, where his father secured a job for him as a jeweler. In 1873 Webb returned to Chicago to be with his wife and newborn son, but by the end of the year, his wife’s father, who had moved to Unionville, Missouri, had purchased interest in a local newspaper and invited his son-in-law to be its assistant editor. Webb, an able writer who surely had learned much about the newspaper editing business during his youth, accepted the offer and moved his family to the northern Missouri town. For the next two-and-a-half years, he faithfully and capably edited the paper. This was not an easy job, however. The

1 The following section draws largely from the two best biographical works on Webb: Umar F. Abd-Allah, A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russell Webb (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) and Brent D. Singleton, introduction to Yankee Muslim: The Asian Travels of Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb ([Maryland]: Borgo Press/Wildside Press, 2007), 9–54.

90 chapter 3 owners required him, as the editor, to regularly write in support of the Republican politics they endorsed; because Webb had Democratic leanings, he sometimes evaded full support of their ideas, and this led to growing tensions. During this period, there was also increasing discord in the Webb household, and in mid- 1876, either Alexander Russell or his wife filed a petition for divorce. Around that same time, the wife’s father sold his share of the newspaper, which meant that the soon-to-be ex-son-in-law now had no choice but to step down from his editorial post. Faced with the loss of his job and family, Webb moved to St. Joseph, where he briefly worked as a reporter for a local newspaper, the Gazette. The Gazette’s city editor at the time was Eugene Field, a respected writer from the period, who just a short while after Webb’s arrival, moved his editorial staff to St. Louis and, apparently, obtained a job for the ex-editor of the Unionville paper. Webb was ready to follow this new opportunity and return to the big city; he packed his things and left for St. Louis in the fall. There, he remarried and worked off and on as a jeweler and reporter for various local newspapers. In addition, from the late 1870s to the early 1880s, Webb, who was known to be a natural showman, also sometimes worked as a theatrical manager and promoter. His productions, however, were generally panned by critics, and he seems to have given up on drama by 1882. Webb’s true forte, the prominent St. Louis newspaper editor William Kelsoe would later recall, was in being a ‘newspaper man,’ as he distinguished himself as a skilled reporter, printer, and editor.2 But being a good newspaper man did not make Webb content; he desired a different kind of outlet for his creative, intellectual, and independent spirit. In previous generations, this would have been difficult to find for any person, and many surely lived very frustrated lives. But Webb was born white, well-off, and educated into an America that was undergoing massive deterritorialization. As a child and young man, he had the luxury of experimenting with creative writing and free thinking. When he chose to pursue his employment, he had the freedom to, while still living under his father’s roof, have a two-year unpaid apprenticeship for a trade that was not practiced by his father. After settling down and marrying, Webb had the connections to start a new business. After that business was destroyed, instead of being financially ruined for the rest of his life, Webb’s connections gave him the opportunity to start his career over. Although for this to happen, Webb had to give in and pursue the career of his

2 William A. Kelsoe, “Kelsoe Authority on Days of Old,” St. Louis Republic, July 12, 1908, 1–2; William A. Kelsoe, St. Louis Reference Record: A Newspaper Man’s Motion-Picture of the City When We Got Our First Bridge, and Many Later Happenings of Local Note (St. Louis: Von Hoffman, 1927), 182.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 91 father, this still was a fortuitous change, as it was in Unionville where Webb initially cultivated his new creative outlet when he joined the local drama club.3 In St. Louis, where he once again had the opportunity to rebuild his life, Webb pursued drama further, now tying it to his business ambitions. After it became clear that his promotional and managerial career might be financially ruinous, in 1882 Webb turned away from that aspect of drama and tried his hand at editing a drama criticism journal, which his new wife apparently purchased for him.4 This effort, however, seems to have quickly failed as well. Webb, who was by now very used to finding means for expressing his artistic spirit, would need something else to fill this void of his.

The Turn

In around 1883, when he could no longer deny that he was not going to have a successful career in drama, Webb chose a new outlet for his personality and ambitions: spiritualism.5 As a young man, Webb’s general impression of Christianity was that it was restraining and dull, and that it had nothing in it “calculated to win [Webb] to it.”6 By the 1870s, Webb had for the most part given up religion altogether. But American spiritualism, unlike ‘orthodox Christianity’ (as Webb called it), was intellectual, liberal, exotic, and potentially—if one was lucky enough to observe a believable spirit manifestation— dramatic and exciting. It was therefore a religion that could ‘win’—or at least entice—a man of Webb’s personality and background. Webb had attended a few séances in Unionville back in 1875, but he did not commit to spiritualism at the time. Perhaps he feared the criticisms he might receive from his in-laws and bosses; perhaps he was simply not ready to devote himself to it, having

3 Singleton, introduction, 18–19. 4 Singleton, introduction, 21–22. 5 For a reporter—and, according to Kelsoe, Webb was a good reporter—Webb was curiously very inconsistent and vague when discussing his 1880s spiritual search and conversion. See Mohammad Alexander Russel [sic] Webb Esq., Lectures on Islam: Delivered at Different Places in India (Lahore: Islamia Press, 1893), 2; Mohammad Alexander Russell Webb, Islam in America: A Brief Statement of Mohammedanism and an Outline of the American Islamic Propaganda (New York: Oriental Publishing Co., 1893), 12; L. Grebsonal, “The Mohammedan Propagandist,” Frank Leslie’s Weekly, March 30, 1893, 204–05; “Hopes to Islamize America,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 21, 1892, 2; H.R.W., “Republic Reviews Alex Webb’s Life: Former Editor of Unionville Republican,” Unionville Republican, January 31, 1917, 12; Singleton, Yankee Muslim, 277. 6 Webb, Lectures on Islam, 2.

92 chapter 3 developed a bug for the more acceptable interest in drama. But by 1883, Webb, now middle-aged and having failed to successfully exploit other outlets for his creative ambitions, turned to the religious movement that had ignited his various sensibilities. Given what is known about Webb, he in all probability thought that, since St. Louis lacked its own spiritualist newspaper,7 he could eventually be the person to start one and, if it were successful, he would get the respect and admiration bestowed on the editors of the major spiritualist papers in Boston and Chicago. Little did he know, however, that pursuing spiritualism in St. Louis in the early-to-mid 1880s would give him unique access to a movement that was in fact even more creative and open—deterritorialized— than spiritualism. It was a movement that, when it appeared, seemed to have limitless room for growth, in which a man like Webb would not have to settle for being a mere newspaper editor—he could be a religious leader and put all his passions, skills, and experiences to work. Webb began by visiting the popular St. Louis medium George V. Cordingley.8 Soon after this, because the local spiritualist community was not particularly large, he would have surely come into contact with the town’s recently-formed spiritualist group known as the Spiritual Association, incorporated in November 1882, which in turn would have put him in touch with even more like-minded people, such as one of the Association’s leaders, William Ferdinand Burrows.9 Through these alternative religion connections, Webb would have also met various mesmerists, homeopaths, and Mind Curers, including Calvin L. Herring and R.A. Campbell, regulars in the St. Louis spiritualist scene.10 Later, in fact, Campbell, Webb, and fellow newspaper editor William Kelsoe become involved with the Society for Psychical Research, an organization dedicated to investigating spiritualist manifestations.11 Interestingly, Webb and Kelsoe were not the only St. Louis newspaper and literary-connected men

7 St. Louis’ first known spiritualist newspaper, the Light in the West, would not be started until 1886. This paper was somewhat Christian-focused and made no mention of Theosophy, although it did regularly feature one of the local ts lodge’s members whom Webb and Kelsoe both knew: the mesmerist R.A. Campbell. There is no indication that Webb had any connection to this newspaper. 8 H.R.W., “Republic Reviews.” 9 John Thomas Scharf, History of Saint Louis City and County from the Earliest Periods to the Present Day Including Biographical Sketches of Representative Men (Philadlephia: L.H. Everts, 1883), 1770. 10 Herring’s profession listed on the 1880 census is inventor; his “magnetic healing” business card is contained in the tmj Papers. Campbell is mentioned in the tmj Papers, and his advertisements appeared in the St. Louis spiritualist newspaper, the Light in the West. 11 “Hopes to Islamize.”

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 93 taking an interest in alternative religions at the time. There was Albert J. Stiles, a detective and favorite of the St. Louis newspapers.12 George Harvey, a retired colonel, was a friend of local literati and an associate of Kelsoe.13 George Hamilton Field, a physician of the ‘eclectic’ approach—meaning he used, in addition to more accepted medical practices, homeopathy, mesmerism, and spiritualism—was an editor of a local eclectic medical journal. Edward Hungerford Gorse had multiple publishing connections: he worked for a mer- cantile agency that published business reports, he lived with his brother who was himself a newspaper man, and he was friends with Kelsoe.14 And Elliott B. Page, who briefly tried his hand in reporting, but gave it up to pursue a steadier job as a clerk, enjoyed, as we have seen, making connections with local followers of alternative religions. By April 1884, every single one of these men—including Webb—would be a Theosophist. Because the St. Louis Theosophical community was the first us Theosophical community to produce a lodge outside of the state of New York, and, once organized, was only one of three active lodges in the country, to examine its early growth is to gain a microscopic-level understanding of one important case of the occult revival spreading and transforming in the us. It is to acquire, furthermore, the context in which Alexander Webb came to take an interest in Islam and develop not only his understanding of the religion, but also the foundations for his future movement. Indeed, Webb’s involvement with the early St. Louis Theosophical lodge was, it seems, crucial for his conversion and later efforts. The first St. Louis resident to become a member of the Theosophical Society was, notably, a spiritualist medium, although it is not clear when exactly Pauline Libert was actually connected to St. Louis. The French spiritualist lived with Blavatsky and Olcott in New York City for eighteen months around 1876, during which time she joined the Society.15 Despite her New York residence, Libert’s entry in the Theosophical register gives a St. Louis address, so it is possible that this was her previous home. St. Louis, at the time, was basically the

12 Kelsoe, St. Louis Reference Record, 90 and 130. 13 Kelsoe, St. Louis Reference Record, 317. 14 Page to Johnson, December 2, 1883, tmj Papers; “Theosophical Movement,” Theosophy 9, no. 4 (1921): 100. 15 William Emmette Coleman, “Spiritualism and the Wisdom Religion,” Carrier Dove 8 (November 1891): 298. The Theosophical Society register currently available online lists her as having joined in 1877, but a different register from Adyar indicates she was entered in 1876; see Theosophical Society General Register Vol. i, accessed February 10, 2014, http:// www.theartarchives.org.

94 chapter 3 last major stop for spiritualists who were traveling west but did not want to go all the way to California, and it had thus produced a respectable, though not large, spiritualist community. Whatever the case was, Libert appears to have defected from Theosophy by 1878, when she was claiming she had learned, while living with Blavatsky, the latter’s tricks for convincing people of her spiritualist powers,16 and she is never mentioned by later St. Louis Theosophists. There would not be another St. Louis member of the Theosophical Society until April 1881, when William Throckmorton, a railroad company clerk, joined, unattached to any lodge.17 Apparently Throckmorton had come to Theosophy entirely on his own—probably through reading the founders’ publications—as there was not another officially registered St. Louis Theosophist until Michael Angelo Lane, a newspaper reporter, enrolled in February 1883.18 The two men soon learned about each other, however, and, sharing a common interest, became good friends for the next several years. As discussed in Chapter 2, by this time, Elliott B. Page, a one-time reporter who was not yet technically a Theosophist, had already set about organizing a lodge with the support of Thomas M. Johnson. In March 1883, two more St. Louisans enrolled in the international organization and were the first locals to join up with Page: Frank Kraft and Edward Hungerford Gorse.19 Like Throckmorton, Kraft was a clerk; Gorse, meanwhile, as has been mentioned, published business reports and had ties to the newspapers through his brother and Kelsoe.20 It is notable that all of these men were in their twenties or thirties and worked in a field in which they wrote for a living; they were, like Webb, relatively young and ambitious middle-class intellectual-types21 interested in joining up with new ideas and new movements. Indeed, it seems that the ability of the St. Louis lodge to recruit from what appears to have been a preexisting network of young, writing-oriented white collar workers significantly contributed to its growth. While some of the other early 1880s American ts communities—such as the ones in New York and Cincinnati—may have had more prominent figures as leading members, their

16 Coleman, “Spiritualism,” 298. 17 Theosophical Society General Register Vol. I, accessed February 10, 2014, http://www .theartarchives.org. 18 Ibid. 19 Theosophical Society General Register Vol. I, accessed February 10, 2014, http://www .theartarchives.org. 20 Kelsoe, St. Louis Reference Record, 194; “Theosophical Movement,” Theosophy 9, no. 4 (1921): 100. 21 The lodge president, Page, judged applicants’ qualifications by looking at, besides their moral uprightness, their intelligence, education, “studious[ness],” and employment in a white collar profession; see Page to ts Board of Control, October 27, 1884, tmj Papers.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 95 inability to tap into a preexisting pool of recruits retarded their ability to expand.22 St. Louis, however, was doing this fairly well and, soon, Johnson and a fellow lawyer from his small western Missouri town became members of both the international movement and Page’s group, as did Throckmorton and Lane. The group received its charter in the late spring of 1883, but Throckmorton and Lane decided they did not want Page as the leader, and it was only after the two resigned from the lodge did it finally officially open in July, just around the time Webb had started pursuing spiritualism.23 The lodge’s internal conflicts put its growth on hold for the first several months. Only after Throckmorton and Lane rejoined in late November did things start to turn around.24 They enrolled one new member in December, and then in the spring of 1884 the St. Louis lodge received its first significant wave of converts, several of whom apparently knew Throckmorton.25 It began in March, when seven men were entered as having joined both the Theosophical Society and the St. Louis lodge:26 Albert J. Stiles (the popular detective who happened to be an old friend of Throckmorton),27 William Ferdinand Burrows (the Spiritual Association leader), Calvin L. Herring (an inventor and ‘magnetic’ healer), Frank E. Dickie (another inventor); George Hamilton Field (the eclectic physician and editor); George Harvey (Kelsoe’s friend); and Alexander Russell Webb. In April, they were joined by R.A. Campbell (the Mind Curer who knew Webb and Kelsoe through spiritualism);28 Julius Henry Weber (occupation unknown); and, finally, the popular newspaper man who was friends with several early St. Louis Theosophists—including Thomas M. Johnson, who himself had been the editor of a St. Louis newspaper in the late 1870s—William Kelsoe.29 The demographic similarities and social ties of these individuals offer further proof that the St. Louis lodge was successful precisely because it was recruiting from a preexisting network of people linked to

22 On New York’s difficulties, see Doubleday to Johnson, June 17, 1882; on Cincinnati’s slow growth, see Randall to Johnson, January 13, 1885 and November 17, 1885, tmj Papers. 23 Page to Johnson, April 6, 1883; May 30, 1883; June 4, 1883; tmj Papers. 24 Page to Johnson, December 2, 1883, tmj Papers. 25 Throckmorton to Johnson, April 23, 1884, tmj Papers. 26 See Theosophical Society General Register Vol. i, accessed February 10, 2014, http://www .theartarchives.org. 27 Throckmorton to Johnson, April 23, 1884, tmj Papers. 28 Campbell is mentioned in the tmj Papers, and his advertisements appeared in the St. Louis spiritualist paper Light in the West. 29 On Kelsoe’s friendship with Johnson, see Kelsoe’s letters in the tmj Papers. On Johnson being a former St. Louis newspaper editor, see Walter B. Stevens, Missouri: The Center State 1821–1915, vol. 3 (Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1915), 211.

96 chapter 3 the occult revival-related movements—in this case, it was a network of local spiritualism- and Mind Cure-connected, literary-oriented young white collar workers—a fact that, as we will see, would not be lost on Webb. At the time, these young Theosophists were among the less than one hundred total active Theosophists in the country. They—and Webb in particular—must have been excited about getting in on the ground floor of this rapidly expanding new religious movement. Webb appears to have fully embraced what the Society had to offer. At the time, as discussed in Chapter 2, this was still primarily the prospect of achieving practical occultism. Since the group’s early days in New York, Madame Blavatsky had encouraged abstaining from alcohol and taking a vegetarian diet as purifying practices to prepare oneself to achieve various magical powers, such as astral travel (whereby a living person can make his or her soul leave the body and travel to other places in the universe), successfully using a magic mirror, and ‘psychically’ communicating with unseen Masters.30 The group’s heads had asserted that these practices—which were being performed in the St. Louis Theosophical lodge as late as November 1886, when Webb was still a regularly-attending member31—were the Western counterparts to yoga, and like yoga were elements of the ancient ‘Wisdom-Religion,’ which they, rather arrogantly, called ‘Buddhism.’32 Webb soon took up these practices himself, abstaining from alcohol and meat, proclaiming himself a ‘Buddhist,’ and devoting many hours a day to religious study.33 Several years later, Webb would even explicitly discuss both his own astral travel experience and the ability of others to achieve psychical communication.34 Although it appears that Webb did not join the occult order known as the H.B. of L., he had been interested in the Rosicrucians since his twenties,35 so he would have undoubtedly been fascinated by the group’s circular that was read

30 See Deveney, Astral Projection, 22, 51–52, 80, and accompanying notes. 31 W.A. Kelsoe to Johnson, November 12, 1886, tmj Papers. On Webb being an active member of the St. Louis ts in late 1886, see Henry Liddell to Johnson, November 4, 1886, tmj Papers. 32 See Sarda, Life, 522–92, esp. 581–82; Baier, “Mesmeric Yoga,” 151–61. 33 H.R.W., “Republic Reviews”; Webb, Lectures on Islam, 2; “Hopes to Islamize.” 34 Webb asserted he had unintentionally astrally traveled years before he took up Theosophy and that Muhammad, the Muslim prophet himself, had achieved a high level of “psychical development”; see Alexander Russell Webb, “Two Remarkable Phenomena,” New Californian 1 (January 1892): 248–51; M’d Alexander Russell Webb, “Criticism on ‘Mohamed’s Place in the Church,’” Miscellaneous Notes and Queries 14, no. 6 (1896): 128¼–128½. 35 Webb had been “excited” by Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni; see Webb, Lectures on Islam, 31–32.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 97 at a St. Louis Theosophical meeting in 1885, and likely would have heard good things about the group from the ts lodge’s president and H.B. of L. supporter, Page.36 Webb was also almost certainly influenced by the H.B. of L. leader and the St. Louis Theosophical lodges’ most prominent member, Thomas M. Johnson. Johnson and Webb shared a mutual friend in Kelsoe, and in 1892, when Webb was describing his journey to Islam for an Indian Muslim audience, he explained that his spiritual exploration at the time was greatly assisted by having “access to a library of 13,000 volumes, covering quite fully the subjects in which [he] was most deeply interested.”37 Johnson’s personal library only had, reportedly, around 10,000 volumes, but it was the region’s largest known collection of the kind of works in which Webb would have been interested.38 Since, as a fellow Missourian, friend of Kelsoe, and member of Johnson’s Theosophical lodge, Webb would have had some of the best access to Johnson and his books, it seems likely that it was Johnson’s library to which Webb was referring.39 Webb had thus found a new home for his creative, intelligent, independent, and ambitious soul, and he had done so during the short period (1880–1886/7) when Theosophy and the American occult revival were still relatively open and deterritorialized. His mind, then, was undoubtedly churning out countless ideas and plans for how he would pursue his ambitions within the movement.40 And it was within this context that he began to take an interest in Islam.

Islamophilic Theosophy

The common narrative in biographies of Webb is that his interest in Islam was initially sparked in late 1886 when he came across an advertisement for a

36 Throckmorton to Johnson, June 21, 1885, tmj Papers. 37 Webb, Lectures on Islam, 19. 38 Stevens (in Center State, 3: 211) says Johnson had “about ten thousand” books, while Paul R. Anderson puts the number at 8,000 in Platonism in the Midwest (New York: Temple University Publications, 1963), 161. 39 The only thing keeping me from more confidently asserting that Webb was referring to Johnson’s library is the fact that in one version of his conversion story, Webb says the books were “at [his] disposal” “from four to seven hours a day” (Webb, Lectures on Islam, 2), which might seem to suggest that this was a physical library in which he spent his time. However, Webb could have simply meant, as the other versions of the story imply, that he studied for four to seven hours a day the books he had at the time. 40 He would later say about the period: “My mind was in a peculiarly receptive yet exacting and analytical condition”; see Webb, Lectures on Islam, 2.

98 chapter 3 recent book written by the Muslim Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.41 However, while this was undoubtedly a major event in Webb’s religious life, being a Theosophist and avid reader of Theosophy-connected writings, particularly in the Johnson- influenced St. Louis lodge, an encounter with Islam would have been practically unavoidable, even if Islam was not particularly emphasized in the larger movement. It is undeniable that in the nineteenth century, the main currents in the Theosophical Society did not show a significant interest in Islam. Although some of its early influencers and members, such as Paschal Beverly Randolph, Emma Hardinge Britten, and Henry Olcott, had discussed Arab and Muslim magicians in some of their pre-Theosophical work, the Theosophical Society proper was much more focused on other religions.42 This is true despite the fact that (a) some of the Islamophilic figures who will be discussed in Chapter 5—including Yarker, Rawson, and Sotheran—were early Theosophists and (b) one of the reasons Blavatsky had been able to make a name for herself in America in the 1870s was that she had claimed connections with Muslims. Even by 1885, after the group’s founders had spent several years working with Muslims in India,43 and their journal, the Theosophist, had run several pieces by and about Muslims and Islam, Olcott could only claim “slight knowledge” of the religion and felt he was not qualified to speak on it.44 Still, Islam was a present factor, and would have been read about and discussed by any Theosophist with an eager intellect. Something that we might call ‘Islamophilic Theosophy,’ however, primarily owes its birth to two men: Thomas M. Johnson and C.H.A. Bjerregaard.45 This

41 However, in one interview Webb says his interest was stimulated in around 1872 after he read Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni; see Webb, Lectures on Islam, 31–32. Abd-Allah points out, though, that this may have merely been when Webb’s interest in the general concept of alternative spirituality was sparked; see Abd-Allah, A Muslim, 54. 42 In fact, it seems that, when the group started in 1875, the movement was more interested in ancient Egypt. After 1878, the focus turned to Indian religions. 43 In addition, in August 1876, thirteen Arab Muslims were stranded in New York, and a member of the Theosophical Society planned on taking them to North Africa and bringing back an Arab or African magician, but the plans fell through. See Coleman, “Spiritualism,” 298; Deveney, Astral, 60. 44 Henry S. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, Third Series (1883–87) (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1904), 285. I would like to thank Kathy Gann for pointing out to me this reference. 45 The following is based on my article “Magicians, Muslims, and Metaphysicians: The American Esoteric Avant-Garde in Missouri, 1880–1889,” Theosophical History 17, no. 2 (2014): 48–70.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 99 minor current within the American occult revival was largely initiated by Johnson, whose tendency to promote what he thought were various examples of Platonism soon led to his embracing of certain exponents of Islamic thought. His interest in Islam-connected metaphysical philosophy—which was encouraged by Johnson’s friend, the Theosophist and eclectic physician, Alexander Wilder—appeared in the very first volume of the Platonist, published from February 1881 to January 1882. In that volume, Johnson ran a collection of selections from the twelfth-century Arab philosopher Ibn Badja’s The Proper Government of Life for the Individual, translated by Wilder.46 Johnson also started publishing in the first volume a new English version of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, the famous Sufi-inspired Islamic philosophical text that he believed reflected Platonic thought.47 However, in volume one, Johnson ran just two parts of the work, and only one in volume two48—suggesting that, although he knew certain Islamic ideas were valuable, he was still uncertain as to how they would be received by his readers. Still, 1884’s volume two contained Richard Monckton Milnes’ 1844 poem concerning the Sufi saint Rabia, reflecting a continuing interest in the topic.49 In volume three, which appeared in 1887—a year during which Johnson, despite having started separating himself from Theosophy, still had a big influence on St. Louis Theosophists—Islam was given a much more prominent role in the journal. That year, Johnson ran five parts of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, and in June commenced publishing parts of a translation, made by the Indian Muslim nov- elist and scholar Ruswa, of the Desatir, which at the time was thought to be an ancient Neoplatonic work by Persian prophets, but would later be discovered to be inauthentic.50 Ruswa sent the journal, in addition, a brief, but useful description of Sufism, which, Johnson commented, had recently become a

46 This ran in the January 1882 issue. 47 This version, which was a revision of Simon Ockley’s translation by one W.H. Steele, who most likely was a Christian missionary in Indonesia, has never been published in another form. Unfortunately, the Johnson papers that have been transcribed as of the summer of 2014 do not provide any information about how Johnson obtained this work. 48 Its appearances in the first two volumes of The Platonist were as follows: 1, nos. 5–7 (1881): 75–80; 1, nos. 11–12 (1882): 162–64; 2, no. 1 (1884): 3–4. 49 “Rabia,” Platonist 2, no. 3 (1884): 33; Richard Monckton Milnes, Palm Leaves (London: Edward Moxon, 1844), 97–100. This was probably provided to Johnson by Wilder, who had the poem published in another journal that year; see Alexander Wilder, “Rabia, the Sufi Saint,” Religio-Philosophical Journal, September 20, 1884, 1. 50 I would like to thank Francesca Chubb-Confer for pointing out that the man I knew as ‘Hadi’ was in fact the same person as Ruswa.

100 chapter 3 subject of interest among readers of the Platonist.51 These pieces were topped off in that volume with more Sufi poems as well as parts of a series of articles on Sufism by C.H.A. Bjerregaard. A Danish immigrant who had been a librarian at New York’s Astor Library since 1879, Carl Hendrik Andreas Bjerregaard was a longtime student of mysticism and oriental thought, having studied European scholarship on the topic prior to his immigrating, and Transcendentalism and New Thought afterward.52 He had become affiliated with the New York Theosophical branch by early 188653 and began giving the group several lectures on various esoteric topics. Bjerregaard also wrote for Judge’s new journal, The Path, a series of articles on Sufism, which ran from May through October of 1886.54 The last of these articles explained that his work on Sufism was to be continued in a forthcoming issue, but, instead, his next pieces in the journal, which ran in early 1887, were on ‘elementary spirits.’ As it turns out, Bjerregaard, who joined the H.B. of L. in November 1886,55 had started exchanging letters with Johnson,56 and the 1887 issues of The Platonist were where his work on Sufism picked up again. Johnson’s extant letters do not tell us what was behind his increased interest in Islam and Sufism in 1887. One possibility is the influence of the H.B. of L. It

51 [Mirza Mohamed Hadi Ruswa], “An Interesting Letter,” Platonist 3, no. 7 (1887): 391–92. 52 On Bjerregaard’s life, see C.H.A. Bjerregaard, “C.H.A. Bjerregaard’s Auto-Biography— Dictated at Deer Isle, Maine. June-1912” (unpublished manuscript, June 1912), typescript with manuscript notes. 53 This can be surmised from his being mentioned in Judge’s Path magazine. Bjerregaard, however, did not officially join the Theosophical Society until October 1886. His role and activities in the movement are still not fully known. In 1887, Henry Wagner, in a letter to Johnson, said that Bjerregaard “heads a Theosophical Society organized under the Laws of New York as its teacher lecturer Etc”—although I have found no sources to verify this (see Wagner to Johnson, November 12, 1887, tmj Papers). Later in life, Bjerregaard explained the following about his relationship with Theosophy: “I am not a theosophist and never was and never shall be, if by that word is understood a follower of Blavatsky or any of the various faiths which she originated. I will admit that she was a clever, intellectual woman and I will give her full credit for her smart attempt to restore Oriental doctrines of various kinds […] I stand in no personal relationship to her for or against or to any of her followers […] Theosophy has been the cause of the introduction of a great deal that is sound teaching […] At the same time, […] much harm has come by it, not inherent in the doctrines, but from the immature student’s relationship to it.” See Bjerregaard, “Auto-Biography,” 52. 54 See the 1886 and 1887 issues of The Path for his articles and mentions of his lectures. 55 Bjerregaard pledge, November 11, 1886, tmj Papers. 56 Unfortunately, none of Bjerregaard’s exchanges with Johnson are contained in the Johnson papers; their relationship, however, is confirmed in Wagner’s previously cited letter to Johnson.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 101 needs to be pointed out, first, that in 1887, while many of the early Theosophists who had joined up with the H.B. of L. had now, due to pressure from the Theosophical Society leaders, abandoned the Hermetic Brotherhood, Johnson had stayed behind. He was still the head of the American side of the movement, serving as its president, and, as the letters to him indicate, he was still taking its teachings seriously, probably being convinced that this was a possible path to the divine insight he believed Platonism offered. Johnson’s favoring the H.B. of L. over Theosophy in 1887 is reflected in the fact that the Platonist, more so in that year than in any other, published a number of articles with occult themes, several of which were written by H.B. of L. members. There were also more articles that year that dealt with Asian-majority religions, and, again, H.B. of L. members like C.H.A. Bjerregaard seem to have played a role in this. It may not be a coincidence, then, that in 1887, Islam-connected notions were getting more attention within both the Platonist and the H.B. of L. community itself. As will be recalled, the H.B. of L.’s early teachings were largely based on Randolph’s sexual magic, which, as discussed in Chapter 2, Randolph dubiously claimed to have come from the Islamic sectarian group known as the Ansaireh. In early 1887, when the H.B. of L. reformed its secret teachings, it produced a manuscript entitled “The Mysteries of Eros,” which was largely a reworking of Randolph’s sexual magic as explained in his “Mysteries of Eulis” and “The Ansairetic Mystery” teaching documents.57 In the “Mysteries of Eros,” furthermore, the instructions for the H.B. of L.’s second of three degrees was called the “Ansairetic Arcanum.” Also in September of that year, when Johnson was performing the order’s highest ritual in an attempt to obtain his ultimate initiation from the group’s unseen adepts, Johnson’s guru, Thomas Burgoyne, advised him that the spirit Johnson would be communicating with would be that of an Arab.58 Then in December, the group’s true head, Max Theon, moved to Algeria, where he would eventually study under a local spiritual teacher and start a new occult movement.59 According to historian Christian Chanel, this move was precipitated by anti-Semitism in France, where Theon, who was from a Jewish background, had been living. However, Theon had already been living in France for some time, and he had already moved to southern France in early 1887—which suggests that the move to Algeria was not a reaction to certain anti-Semitic events, but part of a pre-planned journey south. The full

57 Godwin et al., Hermetic Brotherhood, 81, 213–79, esp. 234–60; Bowen, introduction to Letters to the Sage vol. 1. 58 Burgoyne to Johnson, September 4, 1887, tmj Papers. 59 Christian Chanel, “De la ‘Fraternite Hermetique de Louxor’ au ‘Mouvement Cosmique’: l’œuvre de Max Theon” (PhD diss., Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, 1992), 337.

102 chapter 3 truth behind Theon’s motives, however, will most likely remain unknown, as will that of the H.B. of L.’s influence on Johnson’s Islamophilia in 1887. Another possible explanation for Johnson’s 1887 Islamophilic Theosophy was that he was influenced by the same material that had supposedly sparked Webb’s interest in Islam. In the fall of 1886, Johnson, like Webb, would have read in the September issue of the Theosophist Henry Olcott’s introduction of one Mirza Ghulam Ahmad.60 Ahmad, a Muslim scholar and mystic from the north Indian city of Qadian, had sent Olcott two circulars concerning his new book, Burahini-i-Ahmadia, which Olcott reprinted in his journal.61 In these circulars, Ahmad claims he was inspired and commanded by God to help humankind achieve salvation by showing them that Islam is the only true religion because it is the only religion through which a person can come to truly know God. The Qurʾan, furthermore, is the only written true word of God. Islam, then, is the only “Truth.” In order to spread this message, Ahmad says he was inspired and directed by God to “compile” the Burahini-i-Ahmadia, which would eventually be, he promises, a 4,800-page book, although only 592 pages were being published at this time. This book contains, Ahmad asserts, two approaches for showing that Islam is the only true religion. The first is to give a set of logical argumentations for which he offers a reward of 10,000 rupees for anyone who can refute them. The second approach is to present discussions of various divine signs. These are the miracles performed by Muhammad, as recorded in hadith; certain “marks” in the Qurʾan; and “marks” in the lives of believing Muslims. To prove the reality of the “marks” in believers’ lives, Ahmad says he will demonstrate miraculous powers—including evoking spirits—in Qadian for those who study under him for a year and promise, through a written contract, that they will convert after witnessing these feats. He invites any and all to come, guaranteeing them free food and

60 H.S. Olcott, “Two Messengers of God,” Theosophist 7 (September 1886): 747–52. Singleton notes in his English translation of an Urdu translation of Webb’s first letter to Ahmad, that the name of the “newspaper” that Webb had first read Ahmad’s circular in was “unclear, however it mentions a Mr. Scott” (see Yankee Muslim, 275). While the presence of the word “newspaper” and a “Mr. Scott” do not seem to reflect the Theosophist, these more than likely came from problems in the original translation into Urdu. However, even if there was indeed a distinct newspaper connected to a “Mr. Scott” that ran Ahmad’s advertisement, if Webb was reading even half as much Theosophical literature as he claimed he was at the time, he would have definitely been reading the Theosophist and would have come across the Ahmad information in that journal as well. 61 For an introduction to Ahmad and his Ahmadiyya movement’s doctrines, see Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous: Aspects of Ahmadi Religious Thought and its Medieval Background (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

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lodging as well as at least 2,400 rupees to those who do not observe any miraculous powers after one year. Olcott explained to the Theosophist’s readers that he personally knew several trustworthy people who had said they had observed Muslim ‘fakirs’ and ‘pirs’—terms generally reserved for Sufi masters—perform feats of magic similar to those claimed by Hindu yogis. As the scholar Carl Ernst has demonstrated, some Indian Sufi groups were in fact highly influenced by yoga, and sometimes even had Hindu followers.62 Olcott, however, indicated he was not going to go to Qadian, primarily because he fundamentally rejected Ahmad’s claim that only one religion and one religious text contained the true path to God. He therefore would not be willing to adhere to Ahmad’s condition that visitors who see miracles must convert to Islam.63 As for Johnson, again, we cannot say with certainty whether he was influenced by this discussion of magic-connected Islam. Nevertheless, given his preexisting interest in Islam, Sufism, and yoga,64 Johnson probably at least found the Muslim’s offer interesting. Indeed, the timing of the appearance of information about Ghulam Ahmad in the ts relative to Johnson’s increased interest in Islam and Sufism is quite suggestive. Learning about Ahmad’s activities may have, therefore, been what motivated Johnson to create in March 1887 his own Islam-connected practical occult organization, the ‘Sufic Circle.’65 On the seventeenth of that month, Johnson, acting in his capacity as president of the H.B. of L.’s American Central Council, sent out an “ordinance” to six leading American members of the occult order, asking them to vote on the establishment of this organization. As the ordinance explained, the objects of the circle were “the systematic study of Sufism, the practical application and realization of its teachings, and the dissemination of its precepts and doctrines.”66 No one, furthermore, was required to convert to Islam—the ideas and practices of Sufism were to be treated in the same ‘scientific,’ experimental way that spiritualism and other practical occult teachings were treated in this community. Indeed, the Sufic Circle’s organization was not based on any one traditional Sufi order, but was instead the product of Johnson’s largely book-based knowl-

62 Ernst has published several essays on the subject, but a good introductory piece is “Situating Sufism and Yoga,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 15, no. 1 (2005): 15–43. 63 Olcott, “Two Messengers,” 749, 752. 64 Yoga was promoted by Theosophists in the early 1880s and the H.B. of L. in 1885; see the tmj Papers. 65 Letter, Johnson to W.W. Allen, March 17, 1887, Jonathan Stickney McDonald Papers, owned by Esther Lloyd-Jones; microfilmed by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, reel 1358. 66 Ibid.

104 chapter 3 edge of Sufism, Western esotericism, and American voluntary associations. The Circle’s “principle officers” were to be master, guide, and secretary, and these officers would be included in the group’s seven-member Executive Council, which would possess the power to pass rules and bylaws. The master—whose job entailed appointing the six other officers,67 among other things, presumably—was an ex officio position that was to go to whomever was the current president of the H.B. of L.’s American Central Council. At the time of the appearance of Johnson’s ordinance, Johnson himself was the Central Council president, as he had been since 1885 and probably expected to continue to be for several more years. Ostensibly, Johnson, who sometimes in his ordinance referred to the circle as “section” and “chapter,” was intending to make the group merely a branch of the American H.B. of L. However, one of the six appointed officers, J.S. McDonald, suspected that Johnson may have ultimately desired for the Sufic Circle to become an independent “school of [Black] Magic, so as to have an inside wheel with himself at the head.”68 At some point soon after receiving the letter, then, McDonald rejected supporting the Sufic Circle as well as all other H.B. of L. activities, and attempted to encourage others to do the same. McDonald seems to have largely failed in this effort, but it appears that, if the group did not die off immediately, it did not have a particularly long lifespan. We have no other information about Johnson’s Sufic Circle in the 1880s— although, as we will see in Chapter 6, in the late 1890s and early 1900s Johnson was connected to a similar group that was functioning under the name of Order of Sufis. At that time, Johnson, Bjerregaard, and one of the other 1887 Sufic Circle officers, S.C. Gould, were its only confirmed members. Given the early dissension in the Sufic Circle, combined with the fact that there is almost no additional information about its activities, it is difficult to even speculate about the possible impact of Johnson’s Sufic Circle on the occult revival community, or even on other H.B. of L. or ts members. Nevertheless, the creation of this Sufic Circle was important for multiple reasons. From a larger historical perspective, it is notable as being perhaps the earliest confirmed Sufi organization to be established in the modern West as well as the first known Western attempt to create a Sufi organization that did not require conversion to Islam. In the twentieth century, such ‘New Age’ or ‘pseudo-Sufi’ groups, as they have been pejoratively branded, would be quite

67 Ibid. The officers were as follows: Thomas Johnson, W.W. Allen, J.S. McDonald, W.S. Mellen, S.C. Gould, Henry Wagner, and W.J.C. Kenyon. For more information on these individuals, see Bowen and Johnson, Letters to the Sage. 68 Ibid.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 105 popular among white Americans. Fascinatingly, as Chapter 7 demonstrates, the single most influential of these movements—that of Inayat Khan— possessed, early on in its development, direct links with Johnson’s Islamophilic community. There is a possibility, then, that the Sufic Circle/Order of Sufis was the primary inspiration behind Khan’s decision to not require his followers to become Muslims. Because there are still numerous followers of Khan in the twenty-first-century United States, this connection would represent the oldest genealogical tree of organized Sufi movements on American soil. Furthermore, by connecting Khan’s movement to Johnson’s Sufic Circle and thus the American occult revival, we can better understand the growth and popularity of non-Islamic Sufism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The fact that Johnson created the Sufic Circle is also important because it confirms the existence of a somewhat cohesive current of Theosophic Islamophilia in the 1880s, a current that produced a concentrated interest in Islam among at least a small group of Theosophists and H.B. of L. members. What is particularly noteworthy about this current, in addition, is that during the 1880s there was almost no trace of a Masonic influence on it. Neither Johnson nor Bjerregaard were Masons, and though they had contact with Masons who were connected with both Islamophilic Masonry and Theosophy, that contact appears to have been minimal and to have had little effect on their ideas about Islam. Although it may be tempting to think that, because Islamophilic Masons and Islamophilic Theosophists shared an interest in esoteric elements of Islam, that the two currents influenced each other a great deal, there is no evidence that they had any significant contact prior to 1893, several years after the birth of Islamophilic Theosophy. Islamophilic Theosophy seems to have largely been a force of its own—a fact that is important to clarify if we are trying to accurately identify possible sources of Webb’s Islamic movement. Still, despite all of the strong circumstantial evidence, Webb cannot be definitively tied to Johnson, Bjerregaard, or the Sufic Circle. No known documents connected to either man discuss a personal relationship with Webb, and in none of Webb’s known writings are their names or influence ever mentioned. While this is not at all proof that Webb did not know them—especially since (a) Johnson’s correspondence with Bjerregaard and others have not yet been found, (b) Webb was notably vague about his time studying religion in St. Louis, and (c) Webb would later have a verifiable Islam-based connection with Sufic Circle member S.C. Gould—it certainly leaves room for questions. Webb can be linked, nevertheless, to Ahmad and his promotional efforts in the Theosophist. By December 1886, Webb had sent a reply to Ahmad concerning his circulars, saying:

106 chapter 3

I found myself interested in this movement. I have studied quite a bit about Buddhism, Brahmanism and also about Confucianism and Zoroastrianism, but not as much about Prophet Muhammad. […] I am basically in search of the Truth and feel sincere toward you.69

Ahmad replied in mid-December, essentially repeating the ideas from his circulars.70 Webb responded this time by explaining that he could not afford to take care of his family if he went to India, but offered to spread “the truth” in America, such as by getting the circulars printed in “leading American newspapers”71—a feat he partly accomplished via the New York Tribune, which Webb had publish one of Ahmad’s circulars in late March.72 He admitted, though, that he still did not know much about Islam, but believed Ahmad to be a follower of Muhammad’s “esoteric teachings”—in other words, the ‘Wisdom Religion,’ which Webb believed underlay all religions. Webb also told Ahmad that he was

seeking for the truth [and was] ready and eager to embrace it wherever I can find it. If you can lead me into its blessed light you will find me not only a willing pupil but an anxious one.73

Ahmad, in his last preserved letter to Webb, replied that he desired to spread Islam in the West and that he would in five months send Webb an outline of the Qurʾan.74 Webb had thus discovered a new outlet for his ambitions. The way Webb had come to understand Islam through Ahmad and Theosophist/Johnson- connected texts (and possibly Johnson’s Sufic Circle) allowed for the acceptance of the exciting and dramatic world of spiritualism and practical occultism as legitimate parts of Islam, and it also incorporated the highly intellectual study of comparative religion and philosophy. All of these were features that appealed to Webb. Islam, furthermore, had no major representatives in the us—or at least no known white Americans. And its exclusive claim—in its exoteric form—to be the sole possessor of the Truth meant that if Webb could

69 Singleton, Yankee Muslim, 275. 70 Ahmad’s response can largely be inferred from Webb’s second letter; see Singleton, Yankee Muslim, 276–78. 71 Singleton, Yankee Muslim, 276–77. 72 See “Religious Jottings,” New York Tribune, March 27, 1887, 11. 73 Singleton, Yankee Muslim, 277. 74 Singleton, Yankee Muslim, 278.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 107 become sincerely convinced of the truth of Islam and obtain advanced teachings from an Eastern teacher, like Theosophy’s founders had done, he could become the religion’s major representative in the country. Webb, however, did not immediately convert to Islam. On March 19, he wrote a letter to the prominent Rochester Theosophist Josephine Cables in which he expressed his belief, which he said he had come to realize “nearly two years ago,” that while

all the great religious teachers taught the same truth […] in keeping with the fitness of things […] a native of Asia should be a Buddhist or a Mohammedan [… and] an American should be a Christian.75

In fact, he continued,

if American Theosophists would teach more Christianity and less of Buddhism, much more good would be accomplished. […] Our St. Louis branch has gone to pieces and its wreck I attribute to too much Orientalism and desire for phenomena and too little Christianity and brotherly love.76

Written just weeks after his last correspondence with Ahmad, but before Webb could have learned about the Sufic Circle,77 the letter reveals Webb’s conflicting feelings on conversion, feelings that were understandable given that there still had never been a single prominent Muslim convert in the us. Converting to Islam would be a much riskier venture than jewelling or managing plays. It seems, though, that Webb could not resist the call. One person who apparently knew Webb would later recall that it was around the springtime of 1887 that Webb had started corresponding with “noted” Muslims, both abroad and in the us, and he speculated that it was these communications that inspired Webb to try to find a way to go to the East .78 Webb himself would later at least

75 Alex. R. Webb, “A Letter from a Friend,” Occult Word 3, nos. 3&4 (1887): 13. 76 On the schism in St. Louis Theosophy, see Bowen, introduction to Letters to the Sage. 77 The Sufic Circle ordinance was originally sent out by Johnson on March 17, and it was to be forwarded by each of the appointed officers of the group to the officer who was listed next on the officer list that was presented in the ordinance. It would have been highly unlikely, then, for anyone but the seven officers to know about the circle prior to April. 78 H.R.W., “Republic Reviews.” Whom this ‘H.R.W.’ was cannot be verified, but it was possibly a nephew of Webb, or some other relation, as this person shared Webb’s brother and Unionville resident Herbert’s first and last initials. It also is unclear if the mention of “noted” Muslims was simply a reference to Ahmad.

108 chapter 3 admit that he desired to go East to study, if not Islam specifically, “Oriental religions and spiritual philosophies.”79 He, therefore, asked his friends to help him obtain an American consul position that was opening up in Manila. The Philippines was not a Muslim-majority country, but it was much closer to Ahmad’s home in India than the us, and Webb could at least be among Asians there. The job offer finally came and Webb accepted it in September 1887— and he immediately put in a request to be transferred to India if an opening ever arose.80 On November 1, 1887, Webb and his family left St. Louis and began their journey to the orient.

Conversion and Obtaining a Mission

It is a strange fact that in all of Webb’s recollections of his spiritual exploration and conversion this skilled reporter was frequently vague and offered contradictory details, particularly when it came to the dates of these important turning points in his life. He sometimes, for example, claimed that his interest in Islam was first sparked when he read Bulwer-Lytton’s Rosicrucian-themed Zanoni in around 1872.81 In another instance Webb said that it was only after a year of being in Manila, when he came into the possession of various “books and documents” by Muslim authors, that he first felt a “most intense interest in the Islamic system.”82 Some reports, however, date his conversion to earlier in 1888,83 one puts it in September 1892,84 and Webb once attributed Ahmad’s influence as the primary cause of his conversion.85 Nevertheless, we do know he had not converted by March 19, 1887, when he sent his letter to Cables emphasizing his Christian identity. Another letter of Webb’s—this one written to his friend Eugene Field in June 1892—tells us that his conversion occurred

79 Grebsonal, “The Mohammedan Propagandist.” 80 Singleton, introduction, 25. 81 Webb, Lectures on Islam, 31–32. Abd-Allah points out, though, that this may have merely been when Webb’s interest in alternative spirituality was sparked; see Abd-Allah, A Muslim, 54. 82 Grebsonal, “The Mohammedan Propagandist.” 83 Abd-Allah, A Muslim, 66. 84 Webb said on September 30, 1892 he was “received in the Moslem fraternity in Rangoon, Burma […] and renamed Mohammed Webb”; see John W. Leonard, ed., Who’s Who in New York City and State: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporaries (New York: L.R. Hamersly Co., 1909), 4: 1352. 85 Singleton, introduction, 24.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 109 sometime between late 1888 and June 1889.86 Ignoring the improvable possibility that Webb was hiding his true motives and the events surrounding his conversion, his failure to give a specific date was probably in large part due to his not performing an official conversion ceremony, which can help strengthen one’s memory about the date. It also could reflect the fact that as he read more, he probably only increasingly felt like he was a Muslim, and later could not pinpoint exactly when these feelings started to occur, or what date would be most appropriate for marking his conversion. From the perspective of the historian, the specific date matters little—it is mere trivia. One wishes, though, that Webb had left a better record of his spiritual transformation. Webb still discussed his conversion, of course, leaving for history at least his more public—or ‘exoteric’—reasons for exclusively choosing Islam. Ghulam Ahmad is, interestingly, almost never brought up in these discussions. When Webb went to India in 1892, he learned that most Muslims looked down on and rejected Ahmad’s claims as heretical, so he steered clear of publicly mentioning him for several years; he did not visit Qadian; and he never officially joined Ahmad’s ‘Ahmadi’ movement.87 Instead, Webb said, after reading a great deal about Islam and comparing it with what he knew about the world’s many other religions and philosophies, he felt that he had come to understand that Islam was the best religion and so, rationally, he chose to adhere to it. If Webb had any other motives or feelings that influenced his conversion, he did not reveal them. Webb offered a public explanation for his conclusions about the supremacy of Islam when compared with other religions. First of all, according to Webb, only Islam fully answered the “mysteries of life and death.”88 Webb attempted to clarify this cryptic expression by explaining that to him only Islam could satisfactorily explain the difference between “a live man and a dead one.”89 Webb claimed that the solution Islam offered for his spiritualism-influenced concern was that the soul is immortal

and that the conditions of the life beyond the grave were regulated by the thoughts, deeds and acts of the earth life; that man was, in a sense, his

86 In a June 21, 1892 letter to Eugene Field, Webb states: “I have been a Moslem for over three years”; see Eugene Field Correspondence, Box 1 Folder 3, University of Chicago Library. For other estimates of the date of his conversion, see Abd-Allah, A Muslim, 66. 87 Singleton, introduction, 24. 88 Webb, Islam in America, 13. 89 Webb, Lectures on Islam, 2.

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own savior and redeemer, and that the intercession of anyone between him and his God could be of no benefit to him.90

Webb of course knew that these ideas were already common in Idealism- influenced movements, such as Theosophy, Randolph’s teachings, the H.B. of L., New Thought, and perhaps even Johnson’s Sufic Circle. Webb’s Islam, in fact, was similar to these movements in other ways as well. For him, Islam was rational and ‘scientific’; it contained the timeless wisdom of the ages; and it offered an effective system of “soul-development” for reaching the true peak of spiritual understanding.91 Indeed, Webb explicitly and publicly asserted that, at its core, Islam was “almost identical” with Theosophy.92 He even came up with a Theosophy- and New Thought-linked term to describe this Theosophy-like aspect of Islam: “esoteric Mohammedanism.”93 In 1883, the Theosophist Alfred P. Sinnett published the extremely popular Esoteric Buddhism, a work that, in a similar fashion to what Blavatsky had already done and what Webb would do later, claimed that the true, inner core of Buddhism—its ‘esoteric’ teachings— was actually essentially the same as Theosophy’s, and only its ‘exoteric’ teachings differed. Then, in 1886, New Thought writer and reader of works on oriental religions, Warren Felt Evans, did a similar thing with Christianity, saying in his Esoteric Christianity and Mental Therapeutics that Christianity’s real teachings were identical with New Thought. Webb, if not building directly off of Sinnett and Evans, was clearly coming from a similar perspective. For Webb, what distinguished Islam from, and made it superior to, all of these other movements was its ‘practical,’ or ‘exoteric,’ aspects.94 Apparently his study of the religion had shown Webb that his March 1887 critique that each of the world’s races had its own proper religion was superseded by the fact that, according to Webb, only Islam had a religious “soul-development” system that was “applicable to all classes of humanity.”95 Or, stated slightly differently, Islam’s

chief beauty […] is its perfect adaptability to the spiritual needs of all classes of humanity, from the humblest laborer to the most advanced thinker and man of letters.96

90 Webb, Islam in America, 14. 91 Webb, Islam in America, 24. 92 “Muhammed Webb’s Mission,” New York Times, February 25, 1893. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Webb, Islam in America, 24. 96 Webb, Islam in America, 28.

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Webb argued that the “universal brotherhood” for which Theosophy strove could not reach the “common folk” through Theosophy’s teachings, particularly after the group had moved away from offering practical instructions and towards an emphasis on reading of what were often very dense philosophical and religious texts.97 It is likely that Webb’s view of Islam’s unique ability to reach all members of society had been influenced by a brief discussion of the religion that appeared in an article in the April 1888 issue of the Theosophical journal Lucifer. This article presents an extended quote from an 1887 paper by Canon Isaac Taylor, a British divine who was attempting to explain Islam’s much greater success in converting Africans than that had by Christianity. In the Lucifer excerpt, Taylor, whose views had been influenced by the writings of Bosworth Smith, Edward Blyden, and Joseph Thomson, argues that

The faith of Islam is spreading over Africa with giant strides. …Christianity is receding before Islam, while attempts to proselytise Mohammedans are notoriously unsuccessful. We not only fail to gain ground, but even fail to hold our own. …An African tribe once converted to Islam never returns to Paganism, and never embraces Christianity. …When Mohammedanism is embraced by a negro tribe devil-worship, cannibalism, human sacrifice, witchcraft, and infanticide disappear. Filth is replaced by cleanliness, and they acquire personal dignity and self-respect. Hospitality becomes a religious duty, drunkenness rare, gambling is forbidden. A feeling of humanity, benevolence, and brotherhood is inculcated. …The strictly-regulated polygamy of Moslem lands is infinitely less degrading to women and less injurious to men than the promiscuous polyandry which is the curse of Christian cities, and which is absolutely unknown in Islam. The polyan- drous English are not entitled to cast stones at polygamous Moslems. … Islam, above all, is the most powerful total abstinence society in the world; whereas the extension of European trade means the extension of drunkenness and vice and the degradation of the people. Islam introduces a knowledge of reading and writing, decent clothes, personal cleanliness, and self-respect. …How little have we to show for the vast sums of money and precious lives lavished upon Africa! Christian converts are reckoned by thousands; Moslem converts by millions…98

97 Alexander Russell Webb, “Islam and Theosophy,” Lucifer 10, no. 59 (July 1892): 425. 98 Canon Isaac Taylor, “Christianity and Mohammedanism” quoted in “Christian Lectures on Buddhism, and Plain Facts about the Same, by Buddhists,” Lucifer 2, no. 8 (April 1888): 142n. The ellipses are those used in the excerpt as it appeared in Lucifer.

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Webb undoubtedly found Islam’s ability to both convert and (what he would have understood as) ‘civilize’ Africans’ society and religiosity—making these, in the process, fertile grounds for spiritualism- and Theosophy-like esotericism—as proof of the religion’s universal usefulness and applicability. In 1892, Webb wrote his own article for Lucifer in which he asserted, quoting Syed Ameer Ali’s The Spirit of Islam (1891), that “common” people need more than “mere philosophy; they require practical rules and positive directions for their daily life,”99 and that only Islam and the Qurʾan adequately offer this. In 1893, Webb further explained—using concepts reminiscent of Taylor—that Islam’s prescriptions for belief in one God, prayer, cleanliness, fasting, alms- giving, and pilgrimage all were ingeniously-inspired practices that would enable anyone, from any social position, to achieve a true knowledge of God. Islam, furthermore, emphasized the concept of fraternity, which Webb innova- tively claimed was one of the five pillars of Islam.100 So, because, at a ‘practical’ level, its instructions reached all classes of people, and because fraternity was one of its core principles, Islam was the religion that could best achieve the ‘universal brotherhood’ that Theosophists promoted; a true Theosophist, then, Webb insisted, would have to be a follower of Islam.101 Reaching these intellectual conclusions was the only motive Webb publicly admitted to having caused his conversion. However, Webb seems to have intentionally framed his ideas in the most appealing way possible, and they appear to have not entirely reflected his true feelings and experiences. For instance, later he would insist that he was not personally interested in helping the ‘common folk’ learn about Islam; and in fact he had a rather low opinion of the uneducated and non-whites.102 Furthermore, in his speeches, writings, and interviews, he never offered a picture of himself in which he was constantly breaking from the practices and ideas of the people around him in order to blaze his own creative, entrepreneurial trail. His conversion narratives almost always presented him as a highly rational person who had been dissatisfied with Christianity since a young age, but had a spiritual thirst that was only quenched when he, almost independently, discovered Islam after years of

99 Webb, “Islam and Theosophy,” 425. 100 Webb, Islam in America, 33. 101 Webb, “Islam and Theosophy,” 421. 102 Singleton, introduction, 47. Also, Webb emphasized the idea that Islam should be approached intellectually; he therefore looked down on the illiterate, lower-classes, which he believed should raise themselves through philosophical study. See Muhammad Webb, “Muhammadan Society and its Pressing Needs,” Moslem Chronicle and the Muhammadan Observer, March 29, 1902, 170.

The Makings Of A Muslim Missionary 113 study. Based on what we know about Webb’s pre-Islamic life, this narrative, while not a lie per se, distorts because it does not reflect either the tremendous importance of the occult revival currents with which he was connected or the ambitiousness and strong desire to break free from convention that seem to have been fundamental to Webb’s character. Indeed, it appears that it was Webb’s ambition—and not his reflective, intellectual side—that motivated him to jump at the first opportunity he was given to lead an Islamic mission when he had only been a Muslim for three years and had met in person only a handful of other Muslims. In 1889, while in Manila, Webb encountered a Muslim businessman from Bombay who put the convert in touch with an Indian named Budruddin Abdallah Kur. The two commenced a correspondence, mostly concerning the Qurʾan, and Kur published several of Webb’s letters in Bombay newspapers. These published letters were read by a wealthy Meccan merchant living in India, Hajee Abdulla Arab, who had already been excited to learn the news that England had a Muslim conversion movement in Liverpool (see Chapter 4). Arab sent a letter off to Webb proposing an Islamic mission to the us and in March 1892 he and another Muslim visited Webb to seal the deal. The three came up with a written contract that included discussions of monies to be paid to both Webb and the missionary effort itself. To help subsidize the movement, Webb appealed to the Ottoman Sultan103 and he agreed to do a major fundraising tour with Arab and his associate to India, Egypt, Turkey, and Liverpool. Webb resigned from his consular post the following September and set out on his three-month tour. Since the planned Egypt and Turkey visits were soon abandoned and there was only a short stop in Liverpool, Webb’s journey ended up being mostly spent in India, where Webb visited numerous Muslim communities and leaders and briefly met with the Theosophical heads.104 Now armed with a symbolic ‘trip to the East’; connections with non-white Muslims who would legitimize his oriental religious knowledge in the eyes of Americans; ties with many American liberal and occult revival-linked movements that might support an Islamic organization; experience as a publisher and promoter; and having witnessed firsthand how Theosophy and possibly Sufism were able to spread in America in the 1880s, Webb must have felt confident that he could lead a successful Islamic movement in the us. In late

103 Emrah Şahin, “Sultan’s America: Lessons from Ottoman Encounters with the United States,” Journal of American Studies of Turkey 39 (2014): 61–62. 104 Webb’s personal journal from the tour was edited by Singleton for the book Yankee Muslim.

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December, he commenced his return journey, arriving in New York City on February 16, 1893. Webb was ready to begin his mission. There was, however, one important additional factor that would be invaluable for whatever success Webb would achieve with this mission. This was another occult revival-connected current, but one that developed somewhat independently of Theosophy and, the evidence suggests, did not have an influence on Webb in the 1880s. This current was Islamophilic Masonry, and in order to understand how and why it played a major role in Webb’s movement, it will be necessary to pause for a chapter to examine its historical and psychological roots, its leading figures, and its organizational development.

chapter 4 Islamophilic Masonry

In the American occult revival there were two main reterritorializing currents of Islamophilia. One was that of the Theosophists, many of whom, like Thomas M. Johnson, had been influenced by the teachings of the H.B. of L. and Paschal Beverly Randolph. Alexander Webb came into direct with this Islamophilic Theosophy at least two years prior to his conversion, and, as we have seen, there is a good possibility that his conversion was deeply influenced by it. The other form of occult revival Islamophilia was that of British and American Masons. Starting in the 1870s, a number of Islamophilic Masonic groups were formed in the us and England. Although there were several ties between these Masonic groups and Theosophists, the evidence shows that the two Islamophilic currents were for the most part distinct and had little influence on each other through the 1880s. In fact, it seems that they only strongly came together in 1893, when Alexander Webb formed his Islamic organization and gained significant support from several influential Islamophilic Masons. In making this union, American conversion to Islam became connected to many elements of the Anglophone occult revival that had not previously influenced Webb, and therefore added several new layers to the early white American Muslims’ identities and social networks. Understanding the history of Anglophone Islamophilic Masonry—and the reasons it would be drawn to Webb’s movement—is therefore important for gaining a solid grasp of America’s first Muslim convert community.

Antecedents

By the start of the nineteenth century—besides the occasional pronounce- ments that Freemasonry was open to members of all religions, including Muslims—Freemasonry had shown almost no interest in Islam.1 And, for the most part, this general disinterest would remain true until the 1860s, even

1 There were some exceptions, of course. For instance, as Susan Nance has pointed out, in 1788, a Pennsylvania Masonic group translated Ignatius Mouradgea d’Ohsson’s Oriental Antiquities and General View of the Othoman [Ottoman] Customs, Laws, and Ceremonies. On the cover of their edition, they indicated that the book discussed “Oriental Freemasons,” although there were no explicit references to any Freemasons within the book. Presumably, the Philadelphia

116 chapter 4 despite a very minor Masonic interest in Sufism2 as well as the appearance of theories that posited an Islamic influence on the development of Freemasonry. The renowned German orientalist and fan of Goethe, Joseph von Hammer- Purgstall, for instance, asserted that Freemasonry had obtained its doctrines and practices from the Isma‘ili Assassins, an idea that gained a little traction among readers of esoteric and religious history works, particularly after it was picked up by Godfrey Higgins.3 Among some Freemasons in Spain, meanwhile, it apparently became common knowledge that the larger Muslim community had, during Europe’s Dark Ages, maintained the ancient secrets of Freemasonry and transported them to North Africa and Spain.4 These interests and theories, however, neither gained wide currency nor directly led to the development of Islam-focused Masonic organizations. In fact, Islamophilic Masonic groups would not emerge until three key developments in the 1860s finally brought Islam and Muslims to the attention of mainstream Freemasons in both Europe and the United States, thereby legitimizing popular Masonic interest in Islam. The first of these was the visit to French Masonic lodges by Abd el-Kader in 1865.5 In the 1830s and early 1840s, the Muslim scholar and Sufi led a successful resistance movement against the French in Algeria. Although Abd el-Kader was ultimately defeated and exiled by 1847, for the rest of his life he was highly

lodge believed that Sufis, who were discussed by d’Ohsson, were the “Oriental Freemasons.” This, then, is the earliest known example of Westerners identifying Sufis as Masons. 2 In addition to d’Ohsson’s work discussed in the previous note, in 1812, an article describing the “Philosophy of the Soufies” ran in two American Masonic journals, The Freemason’s Magazine and General Miscellany and the American Masonic Register, and Ladies and Gentlemen’s Magazine. This article, however, was apparently inspired not by a belief in a historical link between Sufism and Masonry, but by the 1811 publication of Chardin and Langles’ popular travel book Voyages du Chevalier Chardin en Perse et Autres Lieux de L’Orient. 3 Joseph von Hammer, Die Geschichte der Assassinen aus Morgenländischen Quellen (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1818); Godfrey Higgins, The Celtic Druids (London: Rowland Hunter, 1829), 264–65; Higgins, Anacalypsis, An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of Saitic Isis; or, An Inquiry into the Origins of Languages, Nations, and Religions, 2 vols. (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1833–1836), 1:688–723. For the genealogy of this and related theories, see Deveney’s Paschal, 213–14. 4 See the 1858 speech of F.G. Irwin, an English fringe Freemason who had, while stationed in Gibraltar, been a member of a lodge there; in Charles Wallis-Newport, “From County Armagh to the Green Hills of Somerset: The Career of Major Francis George Irwin; (1828–1893),” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 114 (2001): 167. 5 The best English-language source on Abd el-Kader’s Masonic ties remains Rob Morris’ Freemasonry in the Holy Land, which will be discussed below. French-language scholarship on Abd el-Kader, however, provides much more information; cf., e.g., Smaïl Aouli, Ramdane Redjala, and Philippe Zoummeroff, Abd el-Kader ([Paris]: Fayard, 1994), 492–512 and 561–83.

Islamophilic Masonry 117 respected, especially by North Africans and Europeans who saw him as a lib- erator. In 1860, members of the French Masonic lodge Henry iv, who had great respect for both Abd el-Kader’s resistance activities and his Sufi-based tolerant views of religion, began corresponding with him, and invited him to join their lodge. In 1864, Abd el-Kader became a Freemason for the first time when he joined the Lodge of the Pyramids in Egypt and was subsequently initiated by the Henry iv lodge. Then, in 1865, at the invitation of Napoleon iii, Abd el-Kader visited Paris, where a ceremony was held for him by the Henry iv lodge. Whatever the degree of interest that Abd el-Kader personally had in these Masonic activities, this was a notable event, and news of its occurrence made it to the Masonic press in Europe and America.6 The second development had its roots in 1855 when rumors started circulating in English and American Masonic journals that claimed that Sufism, particularly in Turkey, was actually an Islamic form of Masonry.7 Although this story had been present since the late 1700s,8 it only achieved wide circulation in the 1850s, when it was popularized by Richard Francis Burton. The British explorer and occultist, who famously disguised himself so that he could take the hajj in 1853, detailed both his adventure and his claims about Sufis as Masons in his 1855 A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah. Though this rumor was largely put to rest in the winter of 1856–57 in a widely-reprinted letter written by a newspaper correspondent in the Levant, it had still, because of Burton’s fame, piqued the interest of some.9 The seeds were therefore sown for John Porter Brown. In 1868, Brown, an American Mason who had lived in Istanbul since the 1830s, published a highly learned book about Sufism in which he revealed that some Turkish Sufis—particularly the Bektashis—did in fact believe that their religious practices were Masonic.10 Thereafter, Masonic interest in Sufism and Islam began growing even more.

6 See, for instance, the “Masonic Chit-Chat” articles in Freemasons’ Monthly Magazine in October and November 1865. 7 See, for example, “Freemasonry in Turkey,” Freemasons’ Monthly Magazine 14, no. 8 (June 1855): 252. As noted above, this claim had been made since as early as the late eighteenth century—what we see in the 1850s is a revival of the old rumor. 8 See note 1 above. 9 This letter, which frequently appeared under the headline “Freemasonry in Turkey,” originally ran in the New York Tribune and appeared in the Masonic journals Ashlar 2, no. 4 (1856): 156–59; American Freemason 5, no. 3 (1856): 24, and Freemasons’ Monthly Magazine 16, no. 3 (1857): 89–91. 10 John Porter Brown, The Dervishes; or, Oriental Spiritualism (London, 1868). For a more recent study of the connections between Freemasonry and Sufism, particularly in Turkey,

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These two series of events, however, would not have had the impact that they did—at least in the us—without a third development: the Holy Land promotional activities of Rob Morris. Rob Morris was an American school teacher and principal who desired to have a career as an intellectual, and he discovered that the Masonic community was a vast, and relatively reliable, network of consumers of certain intellectual ideas.11 Although he became best known for his Masonic poetry, in the 1860s and 1870s he also capitalized on the growing interest in biblical archeology by promoting the investigation into Masonry’s supposed origins in the Levant. To this end, in the 1860s he established a para- Masonic group known as the Oriental Order of the Palm and Shell, which developed new Masonic rituals to incorporate findings from the Levant that gave insight into what were thought to be the ancient Masonic rituals there.12 He also began raising contributions, which would eventually total nine thousand dollars, for his own exploration of the region—and in the spring of 1868 he set off on a seven-month tour of the Holy Land.13 There he discovered not only what he considered evidence of early Masonry, but also that many Muslims had started becoming Masons. This discovery led Morris to the conclusion that Islam was a religion very much in line with the democratic, rationalistic, universal religion that Masonry idealized. He learned about the recent involvement with French Masonry of prominent Muslims, such as Abd el-Kader and Mohammed Raschid—both of whom he apparently met—and he even came into contact with John Porter Brown, learning more about his background and the Masonic activities in Turkey. Upon Morris’ return to the us, he immediately began a lecture tour, visiting over six hundred Masonic lodges in two-and-a-half years as he raised funds to publish a book about his journey.14 At these lectures, which were often covered in the Masonic press, he made sure to praise Abd el-Kader and give his listeners extensive details about “Oriental Masonry.”15 In 1872, Morris’ Freemasonry in the Holy Land was finally

see Thierry Zarcone, Mystiques, Philosophes et Francs-Macons en Islam (Paris: Institut Francais d’Etudes Anatoliennes d’Istanbul, 1993). 11 On Morris, see Nance, How, 82–91. 12 A.G. Mackey, Robert Ingham Clegg, and H.L. Haywood, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, vol. 2 (Chicago: The Masonic History Co., 1946), 749. 13 See Rob Morris, Freemasonry in the Holy Land. Or, Embracing Notes Made During a Series of Masonic Researches, in 1868, in Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Europe, and the Results of Much Correspondence with Freemasons in those Countries (New York, 1872). 14 Morris, Freemasonry, 4. 15 See, e.g., “A Word from the Holy Land,” Flag of Our Union 23, no. 50 (December 12, 1868): 797; “Masonic Literature,” Freemason, April 17, 1869, 4.

Islamophilic Masonry 119 published and, subsequently, was for many years regarded as the seminal book on the subject. Generally speaking, Masonry, like Idealism, Unitarianism, and spiritualism, had been significantly influenced by the huge influx of knowledge of the oriental world, which appealed to Masons’ belief that their teachings had Eastern origins. As the number of literate Masons increased in the nineteenth century, more and more Masons showed an interest in oriental connections with the Craft.16 It is understandable, then, that the Masonic interest in Muslims could eventually lead to the creation of actual Islam-themed Masonic organizations—and that is precisely what happened. The beginnings of two organizations, the American Ancient Arabic Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (the Shriners) and the British Order of Ishmael, had appeared by 1872, and their official origin stories and doctrines would include obvious connections with the Masonic interest in Islam from the previous decade.

The American Groups: The Shriners and the Sheiks of the Desert

The Islamophilic group to claim the oldest Western beginnings was the Ancient Arabic Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, popularly known as the Shriners. The original members are known: Walter M. Fleming, William J. Florence, Charles T. McClenachan, William S. Paterson, George Millar, and William Fowler—all respected professionals or businessmen and Masons—but how the group actually began is still somewhat uncertain. An 1877 pamphlet for the Shriners stated that their group was established in Mecca, “and” (it is not clear if there was a time lapse) it “became an acknowledged power” in 1698, and after that it thrived in Arabia and Cairo.17 The Nobles of the Mystic Shrine—which, the group claimed, was known as the “Bektashy” in Arabia and for which one of its many offshoots was the “Ab Del Kader El Bagdadi”—had its ritual

brought to America by one of the transient foreign members and representatives with instructions to place it only in the hands of prominent high-grade Masons for establishment and exemplification […] owing to the fact of Masons being regarded as a choice of the best men in the land, and having already passed the ordeal of obligation […]18

16 See Carnes, Secret Ritual. 17 Fred Van Deventer, Parade to Glory: The Story of the Shriners and their Hospitals for Crippled Children (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1959), 35. 18 Van Deventer, Parade to Glory, 37.

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But in another version of the story that had been orally transmitted since at least 1877 and was only made official in the 1880s, the American beginnings were a little different. William J. Florence, a Mason and actor who had been touring Europe, claimed that while in Marseilles, France in 1870 he was invited to view one of the group’s ceremonies, which was being attended by various European diplomats and led by one Sheikh Yusef Churi Bey, who had supposedly been initiated in Bukhara.19 Florence then purportedly traveled to Algeria (the home of Abd el-Kader) where he visited the local version of the Shrine. Despite these claims of international origins, however, contemporary histories tend to say that the group’s founders—but particularly Fleming, who wrote the Shriners’ ritual—invented the idea of the group in 1870 as a way of joining the increasingly popular trend of creating new Masonic orders.20 The Shriners, nevertheless, did not achieve any real success until the 1880s, after they recruited Albert L. Rawson, a man who was respected in the Masonic community for his knowledge of the Holy Land and who would revise the Shriner ritual and provide more supposed evidence that the group had legitimate connections with Islamic orders and with Abd el-Kader.21 Rawson’s knowledge of and interest in Islam went decades back. In 1847, as a nineteen year-old, he demonstrated familiarity with the Qurʾan and traditional Christian polemics against Islam in his book intended for other youths, Evidences of the Truth and Divine Origin of the Christian Revelation, which contained a chapter comparing Islam to Christianity.22 Islam, however, was not Rawson’s main interest for the next three decades. During this period, he studied and published about a variety of non- Islamic topics—law, medicine, biblical studies, ancient religions, geology, and

19 Van Deventer, Parade to Glory, 42. 20 In December 2014, the author talked to current leading members of the New York and national Shriner organizations in an attempt to locate the group’s early unpublished documents. The author was informed that no documents from before the 1930s have survived. 21 On Rawson, see K. Paul Johnson, “Albert Rawson,” Theosophical History 2, no. 7 (1988): 229–51; K. Paul Johnson, The Masters Revealed: Madam Blavatsky And The Myth Of The Great White Lodge (Albany: suny Press, 1994), 25–30; John Patrick Deveney, “Nobles of the Secret Mosque: Albert L. Rawson, Abd al-Kader, George H. Felt and the Mystic Shrine,” Theosophical History 8, no. 9 (2002): 250–61; John Patrick Deveney, “The Travels of H.P. Blavatsky and the Chronology of Albert Leighton Rawson: An Unsatisfying Investigation into H.P.B.’s Whereabouts in the Early 1850s,” Theosophical History 10, no. 4 (2004): 8–30; Nance, How, 92–97; Deveney, “Albert Leighton Rawson.” 22 Albert L. Rawson, Evidences of the Truth and Divine Origin of the Christian Revelation (Auburn, ny, 1847), 43–53.

Islamophilic Masonry 121 languages—and he achieved some recognition as an artist and engraver.23 In fact, Rawson’s earliest verifiable connection with the publishing of an authoritative work dealing with Muslims only appears in the early 1870s when Rob Morris sought out Rawson for help with his Freemasonry in the Holy Land. According to Morris, Rawson at that time was mostly known for his Bible- related work:

‘The Oriental Artist’ [Rawson] […] has given his pencil exclusively, for a number of years, to Biblical illustration […] I am indebted, not only for the maps and engravings in my volume, but for many practical and useful suggestions in the preparation of the work itself. Himself a thorough explorer in Eastern fields, he is giving his mature and experienced judgment to such works as Beecher’s, Deems’s, Crosby’s, and other first-class writers on Biblical themes; his own excellent “Hand-book of Bible Knowledge”24 meanwhile comparing favorably with the best of them.25

It was Rawson’s involvement with Morris’ book that made him a significant figure in Islamophilic Masonry. By the mid-1870s, he was publicly claiming to have traveled to the Near East in the 1850s, where he was purportedly initiated by the Druze and Bektashis and supposedly encountered Blavatsky prior to her founding the Theosophical Society, a group in which Rawson was an early member; in Isis Unveiled, Blavatsky even claimed to have met Rawson while

23 Rawson’s claims for expertise on this wide variety of subjects have been doubted by several contemporary scholars, largely because most of the books he claimed to have written have not been located. However, I have obtained copies of the following books and articles by Rawson that, while not fully verifying, certainly support the possibility that he did indeed have some knowledge of these subjects (note that this list does not include all of all of Rawson’s known writings): Evidences of the Truth; “The Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 34 (December 1, 1866): 681–97; The Bible Hand-Book; for Sunday-Schools and Bible-Readers (New York, 1870); “Archeology in America. The Mound Builders,” The Phrenological Journal and Science of Health 58, no. 3 (1874): 155–60; “Moabite Inscriptions,” The Nation 19 (December 17, 1874): 397–98; “Palestine,” Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York 7 (January 1, 1875): 101–14; Evolution of Israel’s God, Truth Seeker Tracts no. 104 (New York: [Truth Seeker Tracts?], 1877); “The Ancient Inscription on a Wall at Chatata, Tennessee,” New York Academy of Sciences 11 (November 9, 1891): 26–27, which also appeared in The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal 14, no. 1(1892): 221– 24; “The Valley of Roses,” Godey’s Magazine 128, no. 764 (1894): 188–94. 24 This was Rawson’s The Bible Hand-Book, cited above. 25 Morris, Freemasonry, 9.

122 chapter 4 abroad, which she presented as proof of her own travels.26 Later, Rawson also told people that Richard Francis Burton—the man whose account of his sur- reptitious visit to Mecca had initiated a wave of interest in the connection between Freemasonry and Sufism—was a personal acquaintance.27 Despite the fact that all of these claims are highly questionable, Rawson had successfully exploited this reputation as an expert on Islam and in 1877 started working with the Shriners, supposedly translating the Arabic-language documents they possessed describing the workings of their order. He was made an official member in 1878 and thereafter he elaborated the group’s rituals and claimed to receive letters from Abd el-Kader about the world-wide Shrine order. This apparently led to a significant increase in the order’s popularity among Masons, although it does not seem to have led to the Shriners becoming part of the American occult revival—even despite Rawson’s affiliation with Theosophy and the fact that one of the Shriner’s founders, McClenachan, would soon become a leading figure in the Societas Rosicruciana.28 Judging by the dates given later by John Yarker in a 1907 article,29 Rawson’s own Masonic-like organization was probably established in the late 1870s. This group, which was originally known as the ‘Sheiks of the Desert’ and later the ‘Guardians of the Kaaba & Guardians of the Mystic Shrine,’30 most likely developed after Rawson had become involved with Theosophy and the Shriners. Almost nothing is known about it; most of the information we have comes from Yarker’s short article and a slightly different manuscript version of the

26 It is highly unlikely that Rawson had in fact traveled to the Near East in the 1850s. For a fuller discussion of the Rawson-Blavatsky connection, see Deveney, “The Travels of H.P. Blavatsky.” 27 See A.L. Rawson, “Personal Recollections of Sir Richard Francis Burton, k.c.m.g., f.r.s., f.r.g.s.,” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly 34, no. 5 (1892): 565–76. 28 Harold Van Buren Voorhis, A History of Organized Masonic Rosicrucianism (n.p.: Societas Rosicruciana, 1983), 47–49. 29 John Yarker, “The Order of Ishmael or B’nai Ismael,” The Rosicrucian Brotherhood 1, no. 4 (October 1907): 1[5]8-60. 30 See the manuscript “Ancient Oriental Order of Ishmael: history laws etc. from W. Wynn Westcott & J. Yarkers’ mss, [and], Rite of Swedenbourg” (unpublished manuscript, 1907), 1–3; this is in the possession of the library of the United Grand Lodge of England. This version clarifies a confusing issue in Yarker’s 1907 article: the two different names of the group. Yarker’s article states that the group was known as “Sheiks of the Dessert [sic], Guardians of the Kaaba, Guardians of the Mystic Shrine,” and then says that these were two—not three—different names used by the group at different points. In this manuscript version, however, the two versions of the group’s name are made clear; the original name was “Sheikhs [sic] of the Dessert [sic]” and the later name was “Guardians of the Kaaba & Guardians of the Mystic Shrine.”

Islamophilic Masonry 123 same narrative.31 The few traits that we do know about the group seem to be incredibly similar to those of both the Shriners and a British Islamophilic group, which we will discuss shortly, called the Order of Ishmael. The Shriners, because they used Islamic themes and Muslim-sounding titles; and the Order of Ishmael, because, like Rawson’s group, it emphasized the Kaaba, which it referred to as the ‘cubic stone’32 and which was at the time probably seen by the Order’s members as a key link to Ishmael. In fact, as we will see, it seems likely that Rawson had developed his group by drawing directly from works that were connected to the British Islamophilic community, and the Order of Ishmael’s leader in particular. As for the Sheiks’ members, all we know is that its leaders were, for the most part, men like Rawson and John Yarker (who was himself made an honorary member in 1887) in that they showed an interest in ancient history, fringe and oriental Masonry, Theosophy, and esotericism.33 The known leaders for the group were Rawson; Felix de Fontaine,34 a prominent journalist; Charles Sotheran, a prominent Mason, member of Yarker’s Ancient and Primitive Rite, Theosophist, and sria member; John A. Weisse, a professor of English language history who wrote an influential work on the ancient Egyptian use of the obelisk and its influence in Masonry; and Max Scheuer, a leader in both the fringe Cerneau Rite and Yarker’s Ancient and Primitive Rite. The Sheiks of the Desert were relatively quiet for most of the occult revival, but they would, interestingly, briefly make their presence known to the public a few years after the fall of the Muslim convert movement (see Chapter 6).

The Order of Ishmael and the Psychology of Islamophilia

Yarker’s 1907 discussion of the Sheiks of the Desert was given within the context of a larger discussion of three modern Western orders that Yarker claimed to be descended from the “Guardians or Keepers of the Kaaba,” a group that sria member Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie had called, according to Yarker, “the oldest secret society in the world.”35 The Sheiks of the Desert and the Shriners were the two American descendants, while the British descendant was the Order of Ishmael.

31 For a citation of the manuscript, see the previous note. 32 The discussion of the ‘cubic stone’ was left out of Yarker’s article, but appears in the manuscript version. 33 The following list of names comes from the Yarker article and the Order of Ishmael manuscript. 34 His name was misspelled in the Yarker article. 35 Yarker, “The Order of Ishmael,” 1[5]8-60.

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The first known reference to a group called ‘Order of Ishmael’ appeared around 1877 when the group’s founder, Mackenzie, had it included in his new Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia.36 In the entry for this group, it was indicated that the Order of Ishmael did not focus on Islam specifically—Mackenzie implied that most of its members were Christians, though the group also had Jewish and Muslim members. Why the group focused on the figure of Ishmael is not fully explained; Mackenzie only says that Ishmael is important because “he strove to perpetuate [the] happy union of the two principal branches of Abraham’s stock.”37 What Mackenzie was implying here, however, was not simply a reverence for the biblical tradition of Ishmael making peace with Isaac. As the evidence below demonstrates, the greater meaning of this biblical peace-making was the notion that the supposed descendants of Ishmael and Isaac—in other words, Jews, Christians, and Muslims (Islam regards Muhammad, and therefore Muslims, as a descendant of Ishmael)—should establish peaceful relations among themselves. Nevertheless, when Yarker wrote about the group thirty years later, he indicated that the Order had many more direct ties to Islam. According to him, the Order of Ishmael came about in 1872 when Mackenzie, while traveling in Paris, received information about the Order from an Arab, and that he had simply expanded on that information to create the ritual for the British version of the Order.38 It was an origin story curiously similar to the Shriners’, and like the Shriners’ story, probably reflected Masonic interest in Abd el-Kader’s visit to France. However, there is no evidence that this Arab-in-Paris story was actually used by Mackenzie himself. And even if he did tell people this story, the Order had other, more important roots that link it with Mackenzie’s claims of connection with the other strange and supposedly rare and highly advanced orders, including the Brotherhood of Luxor and the Hermetic Brothers of Egypt.39 Most modern scholars have assumed that Mackenzie’s predilection for these fanci- ful orders was basically no more than the product of either a chronic liar or a somewhat unstable mind that could not distinguish reality from fantasy— reflective of Mackenzie’s life-long interest in esoterica, his history of alcohol- ism, and the fact that he was sometimes known to exaggerate or falsely claim to have important titles.40 However, a careful examination of the evidence

36 Mackenzie, Royal Masonic, 344. 37 Mackenzie, Royal Masonic, 344. 38 This story is recorded in the Order of Ishmael manuscript noted above as well as in John Yarker, “Arab Masonry,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 19 (1906): 243. 39 Mackenzie, Royal Masonic, 461 and 309, respectively. 40 See, e.g., A.E. Waite, The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross (New York: University Books, 1961 [1924]), 566 and Gilbert and Hamill, introduction to Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, vi.

Islamophilic Masonry 125 connected to the Order of Ishmael reveals that this Order played an important role in Mackenzie’s level-headed project for fostering world peace, which he had commenced in 1869 with his “Papers on Masonry” series (see Chapter 2). The first clue is that when Mackenzie wrote about the Order of Ishmael in his Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, he actually listed it as “Ishmael, Order of, or of Esau, and Reconciliation.” Yarker’s article did not refer to either Esau or Reconciliation, which suggests that by 1907 the group had lost its original connections to these two terms and had taken on a more Islamic focus. As it turns out, though, these two terms were very important in the original manifestation of this organization, as indicated by a cryptic passage in an article Mackenzie wrote in May 1872 for the influential British Masonic journal The Freemason:41

Freemasonry comes in, with its silent voice, and bids all [that] strife of classes and of races, cease. And although it is certain that the Order exists, and has existed, in the emphatic words of Bro. Lessing, “at all times,” yet I may be permitted to say, that in his day, and following out his own argument, it was not, and cannot be universal. There appears to be, not only an order of expiation, but an order of reconciliation. These two united, as was the meeting of the wily Jacob with the honest Esau, would perfect society. Reconciliation between individuals is the true stability of the State. In the contributions I have before been kindly permitted to make in these pages, I have spoken of such an Order of Reconciliation. It exists but only in Holy Russia, where our Masonic Order does not run as it might. The reason is plain, the pages of Herodotus illustrate it. Wherever the Scythians are, they are moveable; they were cast out and can not return. They seize therefore a vast continent to move in. It has been presumed that their aim is Constantinople. Khef and rest.42 This is not so, it is the everlasting collision occurring between the Occident and the Orient.

God’s is the Orient, God’s is the Occident; True that your countenance In common Ordinance Might turn it here or there, For God is everywhere.

41 Bro. Cryptonymus [Mackenzie], “Bro. Lessing and His Masonic Conversations. By Way of Commentary—Part the First,” Freemason, May 18, 1872, 306–07. 42 ‘Khef’ is probably a transliteration of the Arabic word for ‘stop.’

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But that no precept fail, And that no doubter rail, And that mild peace prevail, With humble pious bow Turn to the Kaaba now.

And what is the Kaaba, but the Conscience[?] [W]hat is Freemasonry, but an adequate outward expression of the Divine powers given us, untrammeled by other adventitious aids?

May I again add a few lines? Surely, What is that, being just to God? Not that you turn you east, Not that you turn you west, It is the Faith in Him, the only One; And in his messengers who leave His throne for every world, and in his prophets, Through whose mild voice he speaks, and in his Holy Book; The doom—and in the great and final day Of general judgment, ending all.

This general judgment, what is it, save the verdict of the conscience? […]

I have sincere hopes that my brethren either born Unitarians—in the sense of Parsees or Mohammedans—will give me the credit of sincerity. If Freemasonry does not include a belief in the unity of the [Grand Architect of the Universe] where can it be?43

Even most of the Masonic readers of this article in 1872—who would have understood that “Bro. Lessing” was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, the eighteenth- century German playwright, Mason, and Muslim sympathizer whose Ernst und Falk was recently translated by Mackenzie and published in the same journal— would have found this passage rather confusing. Mackenzie, first of all, despite his implying it, had not previously explicitly mentioned in print either an “Order of Expiation” or an “Order of Reconciliation.” Second, although he insists that the “reason is plain” for why the latter order exists in Russia, for most readers his explanation obfuscates more than it enlightens. A third reason this passage is confusing is that the “God’s is the Orient” poem, which Mackenzie treats

43 Mackenzie, “Bro. Lessing,” 306.

Islamophilic Masonry 127 as if his Masonic readers should recognize it, was actually something that no one had seen before. It was in fact his interpretation—not a translation—of Goethe’s first “Talisman” in his West-östlicher Divan, Buch des Sängers.44 Goethe’s version did not even mention the Kaaba. And this leads us to the next question: Why is the Kaaba important for Mackenzie? If his goal was simply to promote reconciliation between Muslims, Jews, and Christians, why did he have to incorporate this reference to the Kaaba and equate it with conscience? Before we can answer these questions, it would be helpful to point out here what the existence of this 1872 discussion of the Order of Reconciliation tells us about the 1877 version. Most important is the fact that the group was clearly not originally called the Order of Ishmael. Related to this is that the group originally looked to the relationship between Jacob and Esau—not Ishmael and Isaac—as the preeminent example of reconciliation, even if the interest in promoting peace with Muslims was, admittedly, still there. Finally, Mackenzie’s saying that the group only existed in Russia is in stark contrast to what he claimed in 1877, that

The Chiefs of the Order reside habitually in the East, and two of the three chiefs must always be east of Jerusalem. Branches of this Order, under Arch-Chancellors, exist in Russia, Turkey, Greece, Austria, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France, Spain, Portugal, Africa, and the United Kingdom.45

It is obvious, then, that the group was originally focused much more on reconciliation between enemies (and the implications of this for Masonry) and not on its supposed Islamic origins, which Yarker claimed. Indeed, despite having numerous articles and letters appear in the Freemason in 1872 and 1873, Mackenzie never once mentions either a visit to Paris or an Arab whom he had met. To get to the bottom of this mystery, then, it will necessary to look closely at Mackenzie’s other significant work from the period: his “Papers on Masonry.” “Papers”—Mackenzie’s manifesto for inventing new occult orders—explicitly mentions Islam and Muslims on more than one occasion. In all of these instances, mention of Islam is contextualized within a discussion of the importance of the peaceful coexistence of all religions, which Mackenzie believes is necessary in order for the world to have true peace, harmony, and brotherhood—ideals for which, he believes, God desires humans should strive. Mackenzie explicitly supports the meeting of all religions—even non-Abrahamic religions—“as sons of

44 I would like to thank Dr. Katharina Mommsen and Jesse Goplen for their help identifying what exactly this poem was. 45 Mackenzie, Royal Masonic, 345.

128 chapter 4 one common Creative Cause,”46 and he praises Masonic lodges in India where men of different religions were being united under Masonry’s “mystic tie,” a step towards the “long-desired reign of peace and harmony.”47 The inclusion of Muslims is especially important for Mackenzie. He knows that Islam has long been seen as a religion that is incredibly intolerant of other faiths, but Mackenzie believes this is an unjust stereotype.48 As proof, he offers two examples that are particularly significant for our tracing of his Order of Reconciliation/Ishmael. In an October 1869 article, he claims that he has a young Muslim friend, currently living in India, who once told Mackenzie that he believes that all people are “seeking the same God, but each according to the faith of their fathers”49—a view that Mackenzie finds entirely consistent with his own. Could this be the Arab in Paris Mackenzie supposedly met and who gave him the information on the Order of Ishmael? We may never know.50 The second example Mackenzie presents, however, is clearly tied to his later discussions of his Order of Reconciliation. In a piece that ran in August, Mackenzie shows admiration for Peter the Great of Russia, whom, because he was able to unify his diverse Russian subjects, Mackenzie regards as having acted in a Masonic way, despite Peter not having been initiated as a Mason.51

From a great brute mass of humanity, [Peter] formed a nation […] [W]hoever has seen Tatar [i.e., Russian Muslim] races of our present times can doubt that [Peter], by force of will […] humanized that which was Scythian before his day?52

Here, Mackenzie’s praise of Peter’s “Masonic way” is primarily based on his political inclusion of Muslims, whom Mackenzie equates with the “Scythians.” This term directly connects us to Mackenzie’s 1872 discussion of the Order of Reconciliation, in which he claimed that it

exists but only in Holy Russia, where our Masonic Order does not run as it might. The reason is plain […] [Russia is where] the Scythians are […]

46 Freemason, October 2, 163. 47 Freemason, May 29, 2. 48 Freemason, October 2, 163. 49 Ibid. 50 However, Mackenzie says this Muslim in “now living in India” (emphasis added), which possibly implies that he had previously been residing in England. One wonders whether this was Rev. Henry L. Norman. 51 Freemason, August 7, 62. 52 Ibid.

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it is the everlasting collision occurring between the Occident and the Orient.

In other words, the one place the Order is said to exist is the place where Muslims and Christians live in harmony—and this harmony may in fact be directly attributable to the fact that (a) Peter the Great was motivated by a true Masonic feeling and (b) modern Masonry, which is mired in disunity and degeneration, is not strong in Russia. Nevertheless, in 1869, Mackenzie did not explicitly assert that an Order of Reconciliation existed in Russia. In fact, Mackenzie’s first published use of that term is only in his 1872 article, which suggests that he came up with the idea for it, and thus the Order of Ishmael, after developing his philosophy of creating new fraternal organizations that combined both the East and West and material and occult knowledge. Despite the evolving nature of Mackenzie’s ideas, however, in 1869, 1872, and 1877 Mackenzie consistently emphasizes a particular concept that is extremely important for understanding one reason Islam was attractive to certain Masons and Muslim converts. While it is very likely that Mackenzie’s views on Islam had been influenced by the German philosophers who sympathized with Islam, Goethe and Lessing, and he had probably also been affected by the sympathetic writings of the British esotericist Higgins, it was Mackenzie himself who identified and explicitly expressed a deep cultural-psychological truth. Mackenzie understood that the traditional Christian view of Islam was that Islam was, as the scholar Norman Daniel has observed, “the most powerful instrument for the destruction of the Church”;53 Islam, then, was essentially seen as the Christian West’s greatest enemy. Therefore, as Daniel points out, “a society would have to be remarkably tolerant” if it were to accept and respect such a religion.54 Indeed, to welcome the presence of one’s supposed greatest enemy is perhaps the highest form of tolerance imaginable. Since Mackenzie believed cultivating this high level of tolerance, with the understanding that this would bring peace on Earth, was precisely the true goal of fraternal organizations, he realized the greatest psychological and cultural obstacle for Western Christians to achieve world peace was their own prejudice against Islam. ‘Reconciliation’ with Islam must be achieved for true world peace to come. It was absolutely vital, then, that, in an era of new occult orders for Westerners, Islam was explicitly included. As Mackenzie saw it, if an occult revival lacked Christians embracing brotherhood with Muslims, the whole point of the occult revival was being missed.

53 Daniel, Islam and the West, 245. 54 Ibid., 246.

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Mackenzie, here, had tapped into a realization that a handful of other Westerners have come to before and since. In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for instance, British liberals Henry Stubbe and John Toland held Islam as not just a religion to be respected, but as a model towards which Christianity and Europe should strive.55 Later, Alexander Webb himself would recognize Islam’s unique position in the Western cultural psyche as the great enemy, as would one of the major early African American Muslim leaders, Noble Drew Ali.56 All of these people acknowledged the significant Western prejudice towards Islam and then chose to embrace or idealize Islam as a tech- nique for bringing peace and brotherhood to the world. It seems, therefore, that this strategy—whether consciously realized or not—was what lay behind much of the Islamophilia of the occult revival and perhaps many Muslim converts as well. The embracing of an Islamic identity by a Western Christian can be seen as a metaphor for healing one’s deepest wounds, and can therefore be incredibly psychologically and culturally powerful. Indeed, it seems that for Mackenzie himself the very notion of embracing Islam and Muslims was pro- foundly tied to his creating a philosophy and incredibly influential book (his Cyclopaedia) that would shape the occult revival from the beginning. One might even say that, to the extent that Mackenzie and his Cyclopaedia played key roles spreading the British Freemasonic non-Christian market to the Theosophical Society and from there to countless other movements, the occult revival could not have become the international phenomenon that it did without the belief in the necessity of finding a way for Christians and Muslims to live in peace. Or, to go further, any occult revival-connected movement that emphasizes, in some way, the concept of Christians embracing Islam or Muslims and vice versa is closer to the philosophical and cultural-psychological foundations of the occult revival than any occult revival-connected movement that does not do this. The Islamophilic Freemasons seem to have been especially impacted by this concept. While the Shriners would eventually move away from such elevated ideals and focus more on emphasizing the baser orientalist stereotypes of Muslims as indulgent and irresponsible, it seems likely that they were originally created with this ideal in mind. Evidence of this original intention is the fact that, as we will see in Chapter 5, Shriners—including Rawson, McClenachan, and almost all of the other founders—made up the majority of

55 See P.M. Holt, A Seventeenth-Century Defender of Islam: Henry Stubbe (1632–76) and His Book (London: Dr. William’s Trust, 1972); J.R. Jacob, Henry Stubbe, Radical Protestant and the Early Enlightenment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 56 For Drew Ali’s views on the subject, see hctius vol. 2.

Islamophilic Masonry 131 the original members of Alexander Webb’s Islam-study organization, the American Moslem Brotherhood.

The Kaaba as the ‘Cubic Stone’ and ‘Shrine’

One question remains, however. Why did Mackenzie stress the importance of the Kaaba in the Order of Reconciliation/Ishmael, one of the few original notions that Yarker would retain in 1907? A clue to this answer also lies in “Papers on Masonry,” in its discussion of the ‘cubical stone.’ Mackenzie understood Freemasonry, as did many if not most Masons of his day, as being connected to a tradition that stretched back to at least biblical times. Freemasonry represents, he argues, the wisdom and “purification of the human heart” that God had given to biblical figures who had passed down their knowledge in the form of rituals, symbols, and science.57 The First Temple was built by King Solomon with this process in mind; the ancient king decreed that architecture and its science (Freemasonry) should be the medium through which this knowledge and purification were represented and transmitted. Within the Temple, though, God had also instructed certain builders to construct a “cubical stone” (or “cubic stone”), which was to be kept secret, and the process of its construction and maintenance over the years produced “a principle of Peace and Justice throughout the world.”58 Peace, justice, enlightenment, unity, and freedom for all people throughout the world are therefore, for Mackenzie, ideals that are embedded in the human heart—i.e., the human conscience—but, due to arrogance and indulgence, most humans, including the vast majority of Masons, have departed from this original mission of Masonry and destroyed the “temple”— the God-given institutions—in which these ideals are protected and worshipped. Myths and symbols are necessary tools, he continues, to “reconstruct the temple of the human mind, to revivify the dead bones in the valley of Ezekiel,”59 so that people may have the strength and wisdom to live up to great ideals. “Hence the excellence of the square”— which represents both an important tool for constructing (and reconstructing) buildings and, when equated with a cube, represents the basic and first building block of ancient temples “as a symbolic instrument.” In October 1872, Mackenzie wrote a new short piece on the stone, entitled “Legend of the Cubic Stone,” which gave more details to his version of the story,

57 Freemason, April 3, 6. 58 Ibid. 59 Freemason, May 22, 3.

132 chapter 4 and which would later be included in his Royal Masonic Cyclopeadia.60 According to Mackenzie, who was following previous Masonic writers,61 the cubic stone was a cubic structure, which contained esoteric notions as well as God’s handwriting, that ancient Israelite Masons had built, at the instruction of God, just prior to constructing the First Temple, in which the stone was kept. The stone was, however, destroyed by these early Masons, as they did not understand its “mysteries,” and attempts have been made to rebuild it. Mackenzie adds, at the end of the article, that the stone represents the human brain, a notion that is consistent with his 1869 discussion of the square being an essential component for the reconstruction of “the temple of the human mind.” If Mackenzie wanted to create a new group that incorporated Islam, the cubic stone seems like it would have been an obvious symbol to utilize, as one could easily see the similarities between it and the Kaaba in Mecca. Not only is the Kaaba cubic in structure, but Islamic tradition holds that it was constructed by Abraham and Ishmael; it thus could fit into the pre-existing Masonic mythology that had already been developed for the stone. Given that the Order of Ishmael, as the group’s manuscript reveals, did indeed place value on the cubic stone/square62 and Mackenzie showed in his Cyclopaedia an interest in the Kaaba,63 it seems that Mackenzie realized at some point that the cubic stone would be an important symbol to highlight in his Order. This would explain why the group’s name was changed to the Order of Ishmael, which better reflects this fundamental connection between the ancient Israelite cubic stone and the Kaaba. It is likely that Mackenzie was inspired to make this connection by articles that appeared in the Freemason in the early 1870s. In 1870, an article that was probably written by John Porter Brown—who, as we have seen, had already gained popularity among Masons—appeared under the title “Freemasonry in the East.”64 Here, the author emphasizes the importance of the Kaaba for Muslims, noting about the Kaaba that

60 “Legend of the Cubic Stone,” The Rosicrucian (October 1872): 12. Mackenzie’s authorship of this piece was previously unrecognized, but we can be sure of it because of the fact that it was reprinted, under the heading of “Stone, Cubical,” in his Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia. 61 See, e.g., “Cubical Stone,” Freemason, August 13, 1870, 391. The story of the cubical stone was used in the Royal Arch and Rose Croix high-degree orders at the time. 62 See the Order of Ishmael manuscript. 63 Mackenzie, Royal Masonic, 397–99. 64 Freemason, June 4, 1870, 271–72. No name is given, but it is signed from Constantinople and uses information that Brown had already written about for his book. My theory of Brown’s authorship of this article is strengthened by the fact that a few months later a ‘J.P.B.’ wrote a piece on “Oriental Traditions,” which appears to be coming from a similar

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tradition says [it] originally descended from heaven, to serve as a point of adoration for Adam after he had lost that of Eden. […] Abraham is supposed to have rebuilt it by Divine command, and though it has suffered from various vicissitudes much of the materials used by him, it is fully believed, still exist in its original form, that of a perfect square. Indeed, the Arabic word, Keebah, signifies a square, or a cube, and is regarded as occupying a spot immediately under the great arc or arch of the celestial world […]65

Then, in an article that appeared in August 1873 by W. Viner Bedolfe,66 a Mason whom Mackenzie probably knew as they were two of only a handful of contributors to George Kenning’s new Masonic Magazine, the connections with Mackenzie’s idea about the meeting of religions were linked directly with the symbols of the Kaaba and the square. Bedolfe argues that Masonry’s Roman and Jewish roots were combined when Muslims—who inherited the original Hebrew elements of Masonic knowledge through their descent from various biblical figures, especially Ishmael—came into contact with and enlisted Roman influence in the former Byzantium and southern Spain. Islam, furthermore, Bedolfe implies, is a religion that is very much in line with Freemasonic philosophy because it strongly endorses a belief in a single, unitary God of Abraham and because of its historical tolerance of people of other Abrahamic faiths. Bedolfe then broaches the subject of the Kaaba:

[…] the ancient, as well as the modern religion of these Arabs is inextri- cably mingled with the building of a celebrated Temple called the Kaeeba, or ‘square,’ (hence the word ‘Cabalaistic’,) towards which they turned their faces in prayer, as do the Jews towards the Holy Temple at Jerusalem. To this temple, or its successor, they pay the same devotion as do the Jews to their temple, and tell of it similar fables [i.e., that Adam’s son Seth built the true first temple and that Abraham and his son Ishmael built theirs]. […] Each [temple] had its square. Can we then wonder that in traversing, in common with all the arts and sciences, such a country, Freemasonry should partake of its [Islam’s?] ideas

interest in Islamic connections to Masonry; see J.P.B., “Oriental Traditions—I,” Freemason, 27 August 1870, 409. Unfortunately, although the full title of this piece implied that more essays would be forthcoming, no other parts appeared. 65 Ibid. 66 W. Viner Bedolfe, “The Footsteps of Masonry,” Freemason, August 23, 1873, 548. This was the last installment of a several-part series that ran over three years.

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and by substituting for the Kaeeba as an emblem the far-famed Temple of King Solomon, “which Jews might love, and Infidels adore,” wisely, politically, and for ever attempt to unite all sects and creeds, all tongues and languages under their banner, in the Worship of the God of Abraham. If then, this explanation of the origin of the Hebraistic tradition be accepted, we can see that King Solomon and his Temple are only symbolic, and intended as a sign to embrace all the religions influencing the then known world, viz.:—the Christian, Jewish, and Mohammedan; a most worthy idea, and worthy of the philosophy whence Freemasonry sprung.67

If we are looking for a possible source for Mackenzie’s decision to emphasize ‘Ishmael’ over ‘Reconciliation,’ since there is no evidence that Mackenzie had actually met an Arab in Paris, this article by Bedolfe is currently the best candidate. Not only does it express ideas that were central to Mackenzie’s vision, it strengthens the connection between Islam and Masonry by presenting a version of the Muslim transmission thesis. His connecting the Kaaba to the Kabala would have just sweetened the deal for Mackenzie, who had his own interest in the Kabala.68 It is true that this article appeared a year after Mackenzie ran his Order of Reconciliation piece, which seems to suggest that it was Bedolfe who was influenced by Mackenzie, not the other way around. However, Bedolfe’s piece was only the last installment of a series of articles he wrote, “The Footsteps of Masonry,” that began appearing in 1871, at which point he probably had already completed it and had more than likely begun privately discussing it with other esoterically-leaning Masons. It is significant that Mackenzie’s “Legend of the Cubic Stone” originally appeared in the sria’s journal, The Rosicrucian.69 As has been pointed out, many of leading members of this organization were, like Mackenzie, both frequent contributors to the Freemason as well as interested in esoteric and oriental topics. For instance, William Carpenter, a writer of various articles on Masonic and ancient Hebrew history, in 1870 wrote a piece on the Kabala, which was a topic of particular interest to the Societas members.70 The

67 Ibid. 68 Kenneth Mackenzie, “Philosophical and Cabbalistic Magic,” The Rosicrucian (1873): 27– 34, reprinted in Francis King, Modern Ritual Magic: The Rise of Western Occultism (Bridport, uk: Prism Press, 1989), 28–38. 69 The best introduction to this group and the men it involved is Ellic Howe, “Fringe Masonry in England 1870–85,” Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 85 (1972): 242–95. 70 William Carpenter, “The Cabbala,” Freemason, August 13, 1870, 385. That year he also had an article, which appeared in both the Freemason and Rosicrucian, on the French occultist Eliphas Levi—it was the first time Levi was publicly discussed in print in the British

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Societas’ founder, Robert Wentworth Little, in addition to contributing numerous poems and lectures to the Freemason, in 1869–70 also wrote his own series entitled “Ancient and Modern Mysteries” in which he discussed various Masonic-like organizations in other cultures and historical periods. Several of his articles, in fact, simply reprinted the portion of Thomas Keightley’s Secret Societies of the Middle Ages (1837) that discussed the Isma‘ili Assassins, a group Little did not believe to have a direct connection with Freemasonry but, he felt, still was a good group with which to compare Masonry.71 John Yarker, a frequent letter and article writer for the Freemason, prior to joining the Societas,72 demonstrated his own interest in Islam when in 1869 he explained that he believed, based on his study of the “runic marks” on various old buildings, that Muslims had introduced Masonry to France.73 Another important early member of the Societas, F.G. Irwin, did not publish much in the Freemason but was a practitioner of crystal-gazing and spiritualism and had been telling English Masons about the theory of Muslim Masonic transmission to Europe via Spain, which he learned during his time stationed in Gibraltar.74 It should also be noted that over the 1870s, the Rosicrucian ran three Islam-themed articles; while not a significant number, the presence of anything related to Islam in this small journal reflects the interest that its incredibly minute readership took in the religion. The Societas community, then, was the community that would have been the one most receptive to Mackenzie’s ideas. It should therefore come as little surprise that the Order of Ishmael’s leading officers over the years—Mackenzie, Irwin, Yarker, W.W. Westcott, and R.S. Brown—were all Societas members, a fact that suggests that Islamophilia was significant in shaping the mentality of these important early figures in the occult revival.75 To conclude this section it would be useful to point out that Mackenzie’s ideas may have influenced the American Islamophilic groups. As noted above, Rawson’s American group, the Sheiks of the Desert, referred to the Kaaba as the ‘cubic stone.’ It also, like the Order of Ishmael, gave special emphasis to the Egyptian ankh symbol.76 We do not know precisely how this transmission of ideas

fringe Mason community; see William Carpenter, “Occult Science,” Freemason, January 29, 1870, 57 and The Rosicrucian (1870): 83. 71 See Robert Wentworth Little, “Ancient and Modern Mysteries,” Freemason, February 26, 1870, 98. 72 In fact, in July 1869, he clearly had almost no knowledge of the organization; cf. John Yarker, “The Rosicrucians,” Freemason, July 31, 1869, 55. 73 John Yarker, “Chair Degree, Operative Lodges, and Templary,” Freemason, April 24, 1869, 9. 74 Wallis-Newport, “From County Armagh,” 167. 75 These officers are listed in the Order of Ishmael manuscript. 76 See the Order of Ishmael manuscript.

136 chapter 4 happened, though we do know that, in addition to the fact that the Freemason was fairly popular in the us, there were several connections between Mackenzie’s writing, the sria, and the Theosophical Society to which Rawson belonged. Any link between Mackenzie and the Shriners, however, would be significantly less strong. While the term ‘Shrine’ may have implied the Kaaba, the Shriners themselves almost never referred to the ‘Shrine’ as either the Kaaba or the cubic stone, and the writings connected to the Order of Ishmael and the cubic stone generally did not use the word ‘Shrine.’ Still, (a) the timing of the appearance of the Shriners; (b) the fact that McClenachan, a Shriner founder, was also a founding member of New York’s Societas group in 1880; and (c) the facts that not only did Rawson shape the group’s claimed history, he also clearly emphasized a connection between the Kaaba and a ‘shrine’ in the second name of his own Islamophilic organization (Guardians of the Kaaba & Guardians of the Mystic Shrine), all suggest that it is possible that the Shriners were at least indirectly influenced by Mackenzie via Rawson, McClenachan, or both. In the end, however, the fact that Rawson, McClenachan, and several other leading Shriners and Sheiks of the Desert members would join up with Webb’s group at least suggests that the various British Masonic-esoteric liberal notions about Islam—including the idea that to embrace an Islamic identity is an important tool for achieving world peace—had connected with the first Muslim convert group in America.

William Henry Abdullah Quilliam

Before turning to the story of the American converts to Islam, one last Masonic Islamophile needs to be briefly mentioned. While we have no evidence that he was a member of either the Societas or any Islamophilic Masonic group, the Liverpool native William Henry Quilliam knew Mackenzie and was an important member of John Yarker’s para-Masonic Sat B’hai and Ancient and Primitive Rite groups.77 He was also in communication with Muslim Masons from around the world, and was perhaps the first white Western Mason to identify exclusively as a Muslim. Quilliam began joining Masonic organizations in the late 1870s,78 and by the early 1880s was heading the Liverpool-based Ancient Order of

77 On his Sat B’hai connection, see “Further Masonic Honour for the Sheikh,” Crescent, October 16, 1901, 250 and “Masonic and General Tidings,” Freemason, November 16, 1901, 14. Quilliam joined the Ancient and Primitive Rite in 1880; see “Antient and Primitive Rite,” Freemasons Chronicle, September 25, 1880, 9. 78 Quilliam’s Masonic ties are relatively well documented in his journal, Crescent, and additional information was provided to me by Martin Cherry.

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Zuzimites, a fringe group that was featured in The Kneph, Yarker’s Ancient and Primitive Rite journal edited by Mackenzie.79 The circumstances of Quilliam’s late 1880s conversion to Islam are rather vague, but it was probably influenced by the various Muslim-Masonic theories as well as Quilliam’s 1880s travels in North Africa,80 a region that would have been both familiar with and interested in Abd el-Kader’s Masonic ties and the Masonic theories popular in southern Spain that posited that Muslims had transmitted Masonry to Europe. Quilliam later implied belief in the Muslim transmission theory; in 1901 one of his Islamic publications ran a piece, written by either him or Yarker, discussing the various ways Muslims supposedly brought Masonry to Europeans; the author also implied a connection between Islam and the Ancient and Primitive Rite.81 Upon returning to Liverpool from North Africa, in the late 1880s he established the Liverpool Moslem Institute (lmi), the most successful Islamic proselytizing group in England in the nineteenth century. Many of the lmi’s converts had been Masons, and while Quilliam was not known to have started or joined an overtly Islam-themed Masonic group, beginning around 1901, in the Islamic periodicals that he published, he began frequently discussing various Masonic topics, including the Masonic-like honors he received from Ottoman officials. Many of his Muslim convert followers also joined his para- Masonic Zuzimites order. Likely due to his involvements in a few minor con- troversies, in 1908 Quilliam fled England and, as is now well known, reappeared in London, where he began, in 1914, using the name Henri de Leon. However, various documents from 1913 show that that year he was living in London and, while still using the name William Quilliam, was a leading figure in the Ancient and Primitive Rite. Through this position, he worked with the famous occultist Aleister Crowley to help determine, after Yarker died that year, who would take over as the group’s head.82

79 See The Kneph 1, no. 6 (1881): 47 and 48. The Zuzimites were likely an invention of Quilliam, perhaps with the help of Yarker. There is no evidence of their existence prior to 1881, and 1881 is the year the group “issued” its ritual; see “Ancient Order of Zuzimites,” Collectanea 3 (1947): 123. 80 Ron Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain: The Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam (Leicestershire, England: Kube Publishing, 2010), 60; “Islam in Britain,” Moslem Chronicle and Muhammadan Observer, January 23, 1904, 55; Jamie Gilham, Loyal Enemies: British Converts to Islam, 1850–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 52–57. 81 “Freemasonry and Islam,” Islamic World 6, no. 68 (1901): 208–211. The author here com- bines the thesis that Islam in general brought Masonry to the West with theories of early Sufi Masons, Hammer-Purgstall’s theory about the Isma‘ilis being the principal carriers of the Craft, along with other stories. 82 See Aleister Crowley, “In Memoriam—John Yarker,” Equinox 1, no. 10 (1913): xxiv–xxvi and the 1913 letters from Crowley to Quilliam and Quilliam’s son in the Gerald Yorke Collection

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Quilliam would become an important figure in the history of the first American Muslim convert community. He apparently met and corresponded with Webb on a few occasions, but, more importantly, he supported Webb’s detractors—including Rawson—when they rebelled against Webb, even setting up an American branch of the lmi. Quilliam thus served as an additional important link between Islamophilic Masonry and American conversion to Islam. In fact, as we will see, the emergence of the first white American convert movement was not the product of isolated, unconnected individuals who had an interest in Islam and somehow serendipitously found each other. On the contrary, its creation came about by the linking of several sub-subcultures that were all connected to the larger Anglophone occult revival religious market. Indeed, without the occult revival and groups like those of the Islamophilic Masons, early American converts to Islam might never have even formed communities in the nineteenth century, and Webb’s efforts would have likely failed before they had started.

(ns 12). Unfortunately, these documents tell us basically nothing about Quilliam beyond the fact that he was a leading Ancient and Primitive Rite member and sided with Crowley about Yarker’s successor.

chapter 5 The Rise and Fall of a Brotherhood

During the years Alexander Webb was living overseas, the recent connecting of the occult revival with New Thought (see Chapter 2) had grown from a trickle of innovative religious ideas and organizations in the mid-1880s into a verita- ble deterritorializing tide of new religious movements. By 1893, Malinda Cramer and Nona Brooks’ Divine Science had started spreading throughout the country. The H.B. of L. had been reborn as a New Thought-based occult group with the publication of the Grimké co-authored Light of Egypt (1889). Some astrologers, such as H.B. of L. member James D. Keifer, had begun incorporating a New Thought influence into their teachings. Randolph’s Rosicrucian movement had been revived on a more New Thought basis by a former Randolph follower, Freeman B. Dowd, an old correspondent of Thomas M. Johnson who had joined the H.B. of L. and aligned with Cramer, Chainey, and Kimball in California. Another former follower of Randolph, Thomas Docking, had become a Theosophy lodge leader in the Bay Area. California was also home to a prominent but isolated convert to Buddhism, Philangi Dasa (Carl Herman Vetterling), who in 1887, after a time as a Swedenborgian and an independent Theosophist, started a Buddhist magazine, the Buddhist Ray, and came into contact with the state’s New Thought-influenced Theosophists.1 Meanwhile, various spiritualists and eclectic physicians, such as W.J. Colville and Hiram E. Butler, had aligned with occultists and New Thought thinkers to produce new groups stretching from Boston to San Francisco. Chicago, meanwhile, was an especially important center for this new wave of New Thought- influenced occultism. Besides hosting the influential Theosophist-leaning New Thought teachers Emma Curtis Hopkins and Ursula Gestefeld, the city was home to a Christian Scientist-Theosophist-H.B. of L. follower, William Phelon, who had broken off from the latter group to form his own New Thought-based organization, the Hermetic Brotherhood of Atlantis, Luxor, and Elephante. One could also find in Chicago Olney L. Richmond and his Oriental Order of the Magi, perhaps the fastest-growing occult movement in the country (see Chapter 6).

1 See, for instance, Louise A. Off to Thomas M. Johnson, October 22, 1887, tmj Papers. Vetterling became a member of the Theosophical Society (but without joining a specific lodge) on September 2, 1884, just a few months after Webb; see Theosophical Society General Register Vol. I, accessed February 10, 2014, http://www.theartarchives.org.

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Without having planned for it, then, Webb had returned to the us at an ideal moment in history, and—as a member of the early Johnson-influenced Theosophical Society—in an ideal position for taking advantage of this expanding occult revival. Had he, like Henry L. Norman, tried to start his mission at an earlier period in American religious history, Webb probably would have been completely shunned and mocked. Had he joined Theosophy later in its existence and in a lodge other than St. Louis’, even with his creative, ambitious spirit, Webb probably would not have felt the freedom and confidence to explore and commit exclusively to Islam. Due to historical forces beyond his control or knowledge, Webb and his Islamic mission were poised for success. For the first nine months of the mission, in fact, Webb’s achievements were unprecedented, and it appeared as if he were about to lead the first truly successful us movement for conversion to a non-Christian, widely-practiced religious tradition. But, just as it was beginning to take off, the movement’s growth was cut short by significant leadership and financial problems. By early 1896, the first Islamic conversion movement in the us was dead, and a new one would not appear for several more years.2

The Mission Begins

When Hajee Abdulla Arab visited Webb in Manila in the spring of 1892, the two men, in the presence of a Muslim witness, created a contract for Webb’s future mission, which would be called the ‘American Islamic Propaganda.’3 Initially, Arab “agree[d] to advance $13,500 for the American Propaganda, for the establishment and maintenance of its publication department and lecture course for one year and, if necessary, $10,000 for each of two subsequent years for the maintenance of the same.”4 The length of the subsequent payment was then expanded to four years, and Arab also agreed to pay Webb a salary of $2,000 per month, starting in September of 1892. That was, basically, it. Webb was, it appears, confident that he had the knowledge, skills, and connections to make this skeleton of a plan successful. Initially, however, Webb had a somewhat rough going. When he arrived in New York City in mid-February 1893, he had not yet received his money from

2 Again, for this chapter I am indebted a great deal to the previous research of Singleton and Abd-Allah, as well as to the help of Muhammed al-Ahari. 3 MD. Alexander Russell Webb, “To My Oriental Brothers,” Moslem World and the Voice of Islam (January 1895). 4 Ibid.

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Arab, and would not get any until April.5 Nevertheless, the press got wind of the consul-turned-Muslim missionary story and, before the end of the month, began spreading the rumor that he had anywhere from $150,000 to “millions” of dollars from rich foreign Muslims backing him.6 Webb may have been claiming that he was planning on establishing a mosque in the us, which would have added fuel to the press’s fire.7 All of this caused a great deal of interest in the movement, but also required Webb to have to disabuse many disappointed inquirers, and the lack of money was no doubt frustrating the ambitious Webb. Still, Webb was heartily welcomed into New York’s progressive scene. Two receptions were held for him in late February, the second of which reportedly had several well-known journalists and literary figures—including Mark Twain—in attendance.8 Then, in early March, he gave an invited lecture for the New York Theosophical Society.9 Although Webb had been a Theosophist for nearly nine years by that point, he had not been particularly prominent in the movement until 1892. That year, he published two articles in Theosophical journals,10 and in December he visited the Theosophical headquarters in India, where Olcott observed that Webb’s understanding of Islam “was that of the Sufis,” a comment that was consistent with Webb’s emphasis on esotericism and possibly reflected an influence from Johnson’s Sufic Circle.11 All of this, in any case, earned Webb a great deal of respect from Theosophists and other liberals. On March 11, the New York-based Free Thought journal, The Truth Seeker, discussed Webb’s ideas and, although the editor did not agree with Webb’s Theosophy-tinged notion of “esoteric Mohammedanism,” or with his goal of converting Americans to Islam, he wished Webb “huge luck […] in lac- erating, dilapidating, deracinating, and otherwise making away with the doc- trins [sic] and usages of Christianity.”12

5 Ibid. 6 “Muhammed Webb’s Mission”; Singleton, introduction, 32. 7 Singleton (in introduction, 32) rejects this as a reporter’s invention, but I have seen no evidence that shows Webb explicitly denied this. 8 “Muhammed Webb’s Mission.” However, at least some of the people reported to have come did not; see “Not a Follower of Islam,” Moslem World (May 1893). 9 The date of this lecture is somewhat unsure; although it probably took place on March 9; see “To Talk on Islamism and Theosophy,” New York Tribune, March 7, 1893, 12; Singleton, introduction, 37. 10 “Two Remarkable Phenomena” and “Islam and Theosophy.” 11 Singleton, Yankee Muslim, 197–99; Henry S. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, Fourth Series (1887– 92) (Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1975), 522–23. 12 “Mohammedanism vs. Christianity,” Truth Seeker, March 11, 1893, 147–48.

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In April, the pace of activities started picking up even more. Webb finished his book Islam in America—in which he discussed his conversion, outlined his views on Islam, and announced his plans for the mission—and had it published by his recently-created New York-based Oriental Publishing Company.13 That same month, some money from Arab and the Ottoman Sultan came in,14 so Webb could now set about establishing the lecture course and publication department for which they had planned. He started by setting up the Moslem World Publishing Company at 458 West 20th Street, from where he would run an Islamic newspaper, the Moslem World. Meanwhile, he continued to be noted by New York’s progressive scene when the Truth Seeker discussed his April 7 lecture at the city’s Liberal Club.15 Then, later in the month, the same journal showed sympathy for Webb having said that Islam supported temperance and the equal treatment of women:

If religion we must hav [sic], let it be of Mohammedan, Buddhistic, and every kind possible. […] Evil is the predominance of one sole religion— especially of that most tyrannical of all, Christianity.16

Webb now had a strong contingent of anti-Christian supporters—times had indeed changed since the days of George Bethune English’s ostracism from Boston. May was marked by even more progress for Webb’s mission. He, first of all, commenced working on a project that had been developed with various Indians he had met in the fall of the previous year. This was to establish colonies for Muslim immigrants—businessmen and laborers, not missionaries— in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.17 Webb, who told landowners in the region that it would be economically beneficial for all parties involved, soon secured an option on a 25,000-acre tract of land in Georgia. However, this project fell through when the Indian backers failed to produce the money for the purchase.18

13 Webb, Islam in America, 10. 14 On Ottoman support in 1893, see Şahin, “Sultan’s America,” 62. 15 “Liberal Societies,” Truth Seeker, April 15, 1893, 232; “Men of All Views,” St. Louis Post- Dispatch, April 9, 1893, 8. 16 “Mohammedan Nibblings at Christianity,” Truth Seeker, April 22, 1893, 244. 17 For a fuller discussion of this scheme, see Brent D. Singleton, “Minarets in Dixie: Proposals to Introduce Islam in the American South,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 26, no. 3 (2006): 433–44. 18 Singleton, “Minarets in Dixie,” 436–37.

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Webb’s biggest accomplishment in May was the publication of the first issue of his Islamic newspaper.19 The Moslem World was a sixteen-page monthly that contained news items concerning Muslims from around the Islamic world; pieces by Muslim and Western scholars discussing Islam and its history; us news stories concerning what Webb’s liberal readership would consider Christians’ harsh and unfair treatment of people; occasional discussions of the Propaganda effort by both Webb and the secular press; and advertisements for his and his associates’ various businesses, lectures, and writings—even the Buddhist Ray appeared in a few issues.20 Each issue, furthermore, was printed on high-quality paper and had on its cover page, in addition to a very elaborate masthead, a large picture of a different mosque in India.21 Finally, May was the month that Webb announced the creation of yet another branch of the American Islamic Propaganda: the American Moslem Brotherhood. By this time, Webb had already defined the American Islamic Propaganda as a “purely educational” movement designed to

teach the intelligent masses who and what Mohammed was and what he really taught, and to overturn the fabric of falsehood and error that preju- diced and ignorant writers have been constructing and supporting for centuries against Islam.22

Muslim missionaries would come when needed, and converts would be hoped for, but the present goal of the aip was to till the American religious soil in order to improve relations with Muslims and Islam on a broad plane. The American Moslem Brotherhood, then, was the main outreach aspect of this effort. Those interested in learning about Muslims and Islam were encouraged to independently form study circles,23 for which Webb would provide literature. They could then officially register and become chartered with the movement’s backers in India, and through this correspond with “learned Mussulmans

19 A useful introduction to Webb’s Islamic newspapers is Brent D. Singleton, “The Moslem World: A History of America’s Earliest Islamic Newspaper and Its Successors,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 27, no. 2 (2007): 297–307. 20 See “Do Not Convert Him” in the September issue and the small quote from the Ray in the October issue. 21 For many, Webb’s paper was the most impressive aspect of his Islamic efforts; see, e.g., “Mohammed Webb,” Hartford Courant, October 26, 1900, 14. 22 Webb, Islam in America, 67. 23 Webb would later explicitly suggest that the circles be limited to five people each (see “For the Faith of Islam,” New York Times, October 8, 1893) and this seems to have been generally followed early on, as indicated by the lists of members given (see below).

144 chapter 5 in India, Turkey or Egypt.”24 Potential circle members were reminded that they were not required to subscribe to any religious doctrine

nor accept any creed or tenet that is not in harmony with his or her reason and common sense; [and] that each will be absolutely free to accept or reject anything or everything that may appear from the studies and discussions of the societies.25

In their setup, in their fundamental philosophy, and even in their names (which invoked the Theosophist ‘universal brotherhood’ concept), the aip and American Moslem Brotherhood seem to have been modeled primarily on the Theosophical Society, and perhaps the Sufic Circle to a lesser extent. This should come as little surprise. Webb had witnessed firsthand the rapid expansion—from almost nothing—of Theosophy in the us in the 1880s. He saw how having loose restrictions on the local groups, avoidance of requirements for adhering to religious creeds, and encouraging the creation of groups based on personal social networks were tools that could draw in religiously- curious intellectual liberals. He had observed the important role played by the Theosophist and Johnson’s Platonist in terms of helping like-minded people across the us connect with each other and build up a community. He had seen how presenting the movement’s authority as being based in the East—in India—could be a benefit because it could reduce the ability of the rank-and- file to attack international, supposedly official, leaders. Theosophy had given Webb the blueprint; all that was left to do, then, was to start recruiting.

Expanding with Islamophilic Freethinkers

The two most important Americans who would align themselves with Webb in the first months of his movement, Albert L. Rawson and John A. Lant, were both strongly connected to New York’s Free Thought community that used the Truth Seeker as its main organ.26 In fact, Rawson and Lant shared a deep bond

24 “The Moslem Brotherhood,” Moslem World (May 1893). 25 Ibid. 26 Over the last twenty-five years, Albert Leighton Rawson has received attention from researchers who have primarily looked into his early involvement with the Theosophical Society, the Shriners, and the Sheiks of the Desert (see Johnson, “Albert Rawson”; Johnson, Masters Revealed, 25–30; Deveney, “Nobles of the Secret Mosque”; Deveney, “Travels of H.P. Blavatsky”; Nance, How the Arabian Nights, 92–97). While these ties are certainly very

The Rise And Fall Of A Brotherhood 145 in the Free Thought movement, having struggled and suffered over many years in American Free Thought’s conflict with its great nemesis, Anthony Comstock. Beyond the realm of Free Thought, though, the connections continued. Both men had been professional writers for several years prior to Webb’s becoming a professional newspaper man himself; both had ties to American occult movements that dated back from years before Webb had ever joined up with Theosophy; and both even had connections with Islamic identities that, again, predated Webb’s conversion. Webb, therefore, had gained two very valuable assets to his movement and, although it was their strengths that later made them powerful opponents, during the aip’s first nine months they would significantly help in its growth. Free Thought was a movement that, even more so than Unitarianism and spiritualism, strongly endorsed unlimited access to ideas and the use of rational thought, particularly for matters of religion and morality. By the mid-1870s, as we have seen, Rawson was very much involved with non-mainstream religious ideas, so it would have been natural for him to be drawn to the growing Free Thought community in his region. He joined up with the movement by 1875, and between that year and the early 1890s, Rawson spent a large amount of his time actively involved with the group, which revolved around D.M. Bennett and the Truth Seeker, a journal Bennett had founded in 1873.27 In January 1876, Rawson even became the president of the community’s newly- formed National Defense Association, which the Freethinkers had organized to investigate and defend victims of questionable persecutions that came out of the creation of the Comstock Laws, the cumulative body of federal and state laws that prohibited sending ‘obscene’ materials through the mail.28 It was in fact this affiliation in particular that brought Rawson and Lant together. The Comstock Laws were the brainchild of Anthony Comstock, whose relentless censoring activities dated to early 1873, when, with the backing of the Young Men’s Christian Association and New York’s courts and law enforce- ment community, he created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. This organization, in addition to monitoring and persecuting local violations

important for understanding his relationship with Webb, it was most likely through Free Thought that Rawson, Lant, and Webb initially found common ground. Rawson’s relationship with the Free Thought movement has recently been discussed in Deveney, “Albert Leighton Rawson, Initiate.” 27 For an overview of Bennett’s life, and several discussions of his relationship with Rawson, see Roderick Bradford, D.M. Bennett: The Truth Seeker (Amherst, ny: Prometheus Books, 2006). 28 Bradford, D.M. Bennett, 114.

146 chapter 5 of vice laws, pushed for new and harsher laws concerning moral conduct. In March of that year, Comstock and his Society successfully lobbied for the passing of the Comstock Act, which was the first federal Constock Law. Comstock then parlayed this recently-acquired influence to obtain the position of us postal inspector and, with this new power, led a censorship movement that is today best known for its objections to literary works. Works that discussed birth control and Free Love, and those that were perceived as anti-Christian— all topics popular among Free Thought writers—were also targeted. An early victim of Comstock’s attacks was a newspaper editor from Toledo, Ohio, John A. Lant. After serving in the Civil War, Lant had found his way into both spiritualism and the publishing industry in Ohio,29 and it was especially through the latter that Lant was able to make his liberal views public. By 1873, Lant had started the Liberal Printing House, which published his new newspaper, the Toledo Sun, and printed, sometime around late 1873 or early 1874, Paschal Beverly Randolph’s Islam-themed sexual magic document, “The Ansairetic Mystery.”30 The extent of Lant’s affiliation with Randolph and his Ansaireh teachings is, unfornately, not fully known, but, in any case, Randolph’s document was not what led to Comstock’s attack on Lant in 1875. The Comstock Laws were created for items being sent in the mail, so it was Lant’s Toledo Sun—which published a piece by the influential Freethinker agnostic Robert G. Ingersoll, verses from a “Jewish-Christian Bible,” and “criticisms of clerical sensualisms”31—that was the source of Comstock’s antagonism. When the thirty-two-year-old Lant was arrested and sentenced to prison for two years hard labor for his ‘crimes,’ the Truth Seeker and the leading spiritualist newspapers came to his support, and the Free Thought community viewed him as a martyr for many years afterwards.32 After his release from prison in 1877, Lant returned to the newspaper editing industry but moved to New York, where he

29 In 1873, at the Tenth Annual Convention of the American Association of Spiritualists, Lant attended as a delegate for Ohio, and it may have been here where Lant first met Randolph, who spoke at the Convention; see Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Convention of the American Association of Spiritualists (Chicago: [American Association of Spiritualists], 1873), 32, 33, 66–73, 220–27. 30 Deveney, Paschal, 361. 31 Bradford, D.M. Bennett, 110; “Sectarian Intolerance,” Truth Seeker, August 15, 1875, 9; “Liberal League,” Truth Seeker, October 26, 1878, 677; “Demonetizing Liberty,” Truth Seeker, February 9, 1876, 90. 32 Bradford, D.M. Bennett, 110; “Sectarian Intolerance”; “The Case of John A. Lant,” Banner of Light, February 12, 1876, 4; A.S. Davis, “A Martyr out of Prison,” Truth Seeker, March 17, 1877, 86.

The Rise And Fall Of A Brotherhood 147 joined Rawson and Bennett in the National Defense Association.33 In 1892, Comstock reappeared in Lant’s life when he attempted but failed to have Lant convicted again on obscenity charges.34 Rawson, meanwhile, was very close to D.M. Bennett, who was one of the leading proponents of Free Thought in post-Civil War United States.35 The creation of the National Defense Association was in fact largely a response to Comstock’s attacks on Bennett himself, and Rawson’s serving as its president reflected the strong loyalty he had to the man. By taking on this public position, however, Rawson made himself a major target for Comstock, who publicized accounts of Rawson’s old legal troubles.36 Rawson recovered from the attack and remained a leading figure of several of the Bennett-connected Free Thought groups, such as the National Liberal League and Manhattan’s Liberal Club. Bennett, in turn, seems to have been influenced by Rawson’s penchant for the occult. Starting in the late 1870s, the Truth Seeker would sometimes discuss spiritualism, Randolph, and the Theosophical Society, and in January 1882, while visiting India, Bennett joined the Society and met its heads.37 After Bennett’s death in December 1882, New York’s Free Thought community and the Truth Seeker lived on, and Rawson maintained a presence in both, frequently serving in leadership roles and giving lectures for its followers on the world’s religious traditions. Rawson appears to have abandoned Theosophy after 1886,38 so, from then on, Masonry and Free Thought were his main organizational commitments. With this background in mind, it is easy to see how Rawson, Lant, and Webb would have come together. The process seems to have started in the late spring of 1893, around the time that Webb announced the formation of his American Moslem Brotherhood. On May 7—as later reported in the Truth Seeker—the liberal American Labor Reform League held its second annual conference in New York City; Rawson and Lant were in attendance and both were elected to be officers of the organization.39 By this time, Rawson and Lant, if they had not met Webb personally at some progressive-community gathering, had surely

33 “Honor to Mr. Bennett,” Truth Seeker, March 13, 1880, 168; Elmina Drake Slenker, “Lewis Masquerier,” Truth Seeker, February 4, 1888, 71. 34 Truth Seeker, April 16, 1892, 244. 35 See Bradford, D.M. Bennett, passim and Deveney, “‘Foul-Mouthed Libertine.’” 36 T.B. Wakeman, “Liberty and Purity: How to Secure Both Safely, Effectively, and Impartially,” Truth Seeker, April 30, 1881, 274; Deveney, “‘Foul-Mouthed Libertine.’” 37 Bradford, D.M. Bennett, 297–322. 38 Johnson, “Albert Rawson,” 238. 39 “Rational Labor Reform,” Truth Seeker, May 27, 1893, 327.

148 chapter 5 read about his activities and ideas, and were probably discussing them with each other. Then, in June, the newest issue of the Moslem World gave an update on the progress of the Moslem Brotherhood:

To A.L. Rawson, Esq., of Woodcliff, n.j., belongs the credit of having organized the first Circle of the Moslem Brotherhood in America, to which has been given the name of Mecca Circle No. 1, of New York City. The charter members are: A.L. Rawson, Walter M. Fleming, m.d., Charles T. McClenachan, J.B. Eakins, and W.S. Paterson. […] Mr. Rawson has also organized two more Circles composed of the following gentlemen: A.W. Peters, Chas. H. Heyzer, Geo. W. Mill[a]r, James McGee, Wm. D. May, Saram R. Ellison, m.d., Robert P. Lyon, James V. Kirby, Edgar M. Ayers, and Edward S. Ismet, all residents of New York City.40

There are several points worth noting here, beyond the fact that Rawson was the person responsible for organizing the first three circles for Webb’s Brotherhood. First of all, every single one of these men was a Shriner and belonged to the ‘Mecca’ Temple—the first Shriner temple—in New York.41 Moreover, the men who were in Mecca Circle No. 1 were all—with the exception of Rawson—founding members of the Shriners,42 and most of the men in the other two circles were at that time officers in the Mecca Temple.43 The fact that not just Rawson and a few friends, but the founders and leaders of the New York and national Shriner organizations were the first members of Webb’s very serious movement casts much doubt on the persistent academic characteriza- tion of the Shriners as people who simply made a joke of Arabic and Islamic culture. The fact that Charles T. McClenachan, a founding member of the Shriners who was also in the first Moslem Brotherhood study circle, was also a founding member of New York’s Societas Rosicruciana and Rawson’s Sheiks of the Desert should lend even further support the idea that the Shriners—or at least some of its leading figures at the time—were serious about Islam.

40 “The Moslem Brotherhood,” Moslem World (June 1893). 41 See Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Mecca Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Its History and Pleasures, together with the Origin and History of the Order (New York: Press of A. H. Kellogg, 1894), passim. 42 Rawson did not become affiliated with the Shriners until 1877, but after that point Shriner histories started referring to him a founder. 43 “Mecca Temple Officers,” New York Times, January 14, 1893.

The Rise And Fall Of A Brotherhood 149

However, the founder of the fourth study circle—which was announced in the June issue of the Moslem World—was not a Shriner. Elliott Coues was, though, like Rawson, a former Theosophist.44 Coues was a Washington, dc ornithologist who had gained a passion for alternative theories about religion and, after joining the Theosophical Society in July 1884, quickly established a lodge, which had many politicians and government employees as members.45 He soon navigated his way into replacing Page as the president of the Board of Control, but, because Judge did not like his actions as president, the former convinced Olcott to disband the Board and create a new governing body for the us, the American Section, in which Judge, not Coues, was the head.46 Then, after a public falling out with other Theosophy leaders, in 1889 Coues was completely expelled from the organization for “untheosophical conduct.” Coues, however, remained active in his investigations into the occult and oriental religious thought, and was able to recruit a few other Washington residents who had similar interests to study Islam with him.47 As for Lant, by July he had come on as an employee for the Moslem World, and his letters to Webb from that summer indicate they had a good relationship.48 Lant, who would soon convert to Islam, added to Webb’s movement not only a stalwart defender of both liberal thought and Islamic-influenced esotericism, but also an experienced editor. Although the Moslem World was starting to struggle—it had to double its price in July—Lant helped keep the content strong and things were looking up for the movement, which continued to receive positive coverage in the Truth Seeker and in Judge’s New York Theosophical publication, The Path.49 For the next few months, Webb’s movement continued to grow. That summer, an Egyptian Muslim missionary, Abdurrahim Effendi, had come to join

44 “The Moslem Brotherhood,” Moslem World (June 1893). 45 Coues’ Theosophical and religious life is outlined in Paul Russell Cutright and Michael J. Brodhead, Elliott Coues: Naturalist and Frontier Historian (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 292–308. 46 See Arthur L. Conger, ed., Practical Occultism: From the Private Letters of William Q. Judge (n.p.: Theosophical University Press, 1951). 47 The other charter members of Coues’ Capital Circle No. 4 were W. R. Singleton, Charlotte Smith, E. E. Conant, m.d. and C. B. Winslow, m.p.; see “The Moslem Brotherhood,” Moslem World (June 1893). 48 “Some Personal Matters that May Prove Interesting,” American Moslem (April, May, June 1894): 1; Lant to Webb, July 25, 1893 and August 1, 1893, in the John A. Lant Papers at the Missouri History Museum. 49 See The Path for June and July 1893, and the Truth Seeker’s June 24 and July 1 issues.

150 chapter 5 the Muslim efforts50 as did Emin L. Nabakoff, a Russian convert to Islam who had been an active member of Quilliam’s Liverpool Moslem Institute.51 By early August, two new study circles had been started, including ‘Khadijah No. 6’ in Brooklyn, which had as a member John H. Russell, a future leader of Rawson’s Sheiks of the Desert.52 By late September, there were eight study circles: four in New York City; one in Baltimore (which was presumably the group led by Coues from Washington); one in Woodcliffe, New Jersey (where Rawson lived); and one in Pueblo, Colorado—and one was expected to be open soon in Chicago.53 Out of all of these study circles, the one in Pueblo, Colorado stands out the most. Pueblo, unlike New York, Baltimore, and Chicago, did not have strong— if any—Free Thought, Shriner, or Theosophical groups, and it could in no way be considered a major metropolitan center. In fact, at the time, Pueblo, a trading town one hundred miles south of Denver, had a population of only about thirty thousand, less than a third of Denver’s. One would think that in a town of that size, having one of the country’s first Islam study circles would have been discussed in the local newspaper, the Chieftain—but that was not the case. And, unfortunately, the available documents connected to Webb give no other helpful information about this circle. The most likely explanation for its existence, then, is that it was created by a Pueblo group that similarly received very little local press coverage but had an interest in studying esoteric and non- Christian religions: Nona L. Brooks’ Theosophy-influenced Divine Science. Webb had, it seems, finally connected himself with the New Thought community, an important achievement if he was going to ride the main wave of the deterritorializing New Thought-esoteric American occult revival. In the fall, Webb punctuated a successful summer with two significant events. First was speaking at the World’s Parliament of Religions, a branch of

50 “Islam’s Propagandist,” Press (ny), July 4, 1893, 5. 51 Singleton, “Brothers at Odds,” 474. 52 “To Be Called Khadijah,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 6, 1893, 20. The other members were Dr. Louis Barkan, David M. Drury, James Rodgers, H.C. Van Vechten, W.A. Marinus, William Carmichael, Robert Ross, and Waters B. Klopp. This was the sixth circle; the name and location of the fifth is uncertain—it was either in the New York City area, Woodcliffe, nj (Rawson’s home), or Pueblo, Colorado; see “Missions of Islam,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 20, 1893, 1. 53 “Missions of Islam”; “More Light is Needed,” Moslem World (September 1893). Abd-Allah points out (in A Muslim, 324 n124) that a Turkish-language document from the Ottoman Archives indicates that this Pueblo was in California; however, given that the state is explicitly listed as Colorado in multiple English accounts, we can surmise that this was probably a mistake on the part of the Turkish transcriber.

The Rise And Fall Of A Brotherhood 151 the World’s Fair being held in Chicago.54 That year’s World’s Fair was a particularly important one for Islam in America for reasons besides Webb’s appearance there. The directors had called for the building of mock cities representing various world cultures, and dozens—probably hundreds—of Muslims came from overseas to construct and fill these ‘towns,’ give performances, observe, and sell goods to the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visited the Fair.55 The Fair’s orientalism left a lasting impact on us culture, and many of the Muslims who had come for it returned to their homelands conveying their excitement for the America they had seen. Some even stayed behind, often performing in imitation ‘Streets of Cairo’ scenes attached to the new small local fairs that started springing up throughout the country.56 The Parliament branch of the Fair, meanwhile, added the elements of intel- lectuality and liberal religion. It had been designed by and for Protestant liberals interested in learning about the various religions of the world. Perhaps the most notable representative of a non-Christian religion was Swami Vivekenanda, whose appearance at the Parliament eventually led to the formation of his Vedanta movement in 1895 (see Chapter 6). However, not all religions discussed at the Parliament were represented by members of their faiths. Several Christian scholars and missionaries, for instance, spoke on various Asian-majority religions, such as the Baha’i faith and Islam. Webb, who gave two speeches on September 20 and 21, was in fact the only Muslim to give an official speech for the event. In his speeches, Webb outlined his basic views about Islam and he briefly touched on polygamy, which sparked a small but negative reaction in the crowd and in the press.57 The second important event to occur in the fall was the official opening of the American Islamic Propaganda headquarters and lecture room at the Moslem World’s 20th Street offices on October 6.58 Along with Webb, both Nabakoff and Lant—who had recently converted—spoke at the ceremony. Webb explained that the headquarters, which had a library that was open to the public, was intended to essentially be a “school of morality, free to all who

54 For an extended discussion of the Parliament and Webb’s speeches, see Abd-Allah, A Muslim, 211–44. 55 See Nance, How the Arabian Nights, 137–63. 56 See Nance, How the Arabian Nights, passim. 57 Transcriptions of Webb’s speeches are contained in John Henry Barrows, ed., The Word’s Parliament of Religions; An Illustrated and Popular Story of the World’s First Parliament of Religions, Held in Chicago in Connection with the Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Chicago: The Parliament Publishing Company, 1893), 989–96 and 1046–52. 58 “For the Faith of Islam,” New York Times, October 8, 1893; “Headquarters Opened,” Moslem World (October 1893).

152 chapter 5 may attend,” in which Webb would “present the merits of [the Islamic] social system […] and […] encourage students of religious philosophy to examine carefully the principles of [Islam].”59 Meetings were planned to be held on Friday evenings and informal talks would be given on Sunday afternoons, and Webb again encouraged the forming of American Moslem Brotherhood circles.60 Then, over the next week, a Syrian Christian immigrant and follower of the Baha’i faith, Anton Haddad, gave at the lecture hall a number of speeches sympathetic towards Muslims.61 Spirits were running high. The first Islamic movement in the us now had an official headquarters, school, newspaper, and several study circles throughout the country. It was getting strong support from the liberal community and converts were being made. Muslims from around the world, furthermore, were aware of and supporting Webb’s efforts, and some had even come to the us to join up with it. In October, Webb announced a forty-lecture, nineteen-state, five-month tour of the us, and he began visiting Midwestern cities.62

Schisms and Decline63

Just as their prospects were starting to look very good, however, money problems began piling up. Hajee Abdulla Arab and other Muslims had sent some money over in November, but it was too little, too late. The nineteen-state lecture tour was cancelled and the last issue of the Moslem World appeared in November. Financial problems were also starting to affect the cohesiveness of Webb’s New York following. In the summer of 1894, Lant printed a letter supposedly written by Webb on November 11, 1893 that indicated that Lant had worked for Webb since July, lending the movement $472 of his own money, and receiving an iou from Webb for $30, neither of which had yet been paid back.64 Webb, however, claimed that Lant’s interest in Islam was purely money-driven, and that when Webb refused Lant’s request to be paid $25 per week to run the Moslem World, Lant began to lose interest in the movement.65 Lant, furthermore, Webb claimed, had begun contacting Indian Muslims about creating an

59 “For the Faith of Islam.” 60 “For the Faith of Islam.” 61 “Headquarters Opened.” 62 Singleton, introduction, 39–40. 63 See Singleton, “Brothers at Odds,” for a more complete discussion of these schisms. 64 “Some Personal Matters.” 65 “Islam in Union Square,” New York Sun, December 11, 1893, 1.

The Rise And Fall Of A Brotherhood 153

Indian-American trade bureau, which Webb supposedly disapproved of; he would later tell reporters that he felt it “was not within the line of missionary work.”66 Finally, Webb insisted that Lant had been “prying in [Webb’s] desk,” a statement implying the Lant was an immoral thief.67 For these reasons, Webb said, he asked Lant to leave the movement.68 It does not seem, though, that Webb had accurately depicted Lant’s supposed wickedness. While the fact that Lant was attempting to form a Muslim- American trade bureau is confirmed by numerous letters preserved in the Missouri History Museum, one of the letters in this collection, dated October 21, 1893, was written by Webb and indicates that the trade bureau plans were being initiated not by Lant but by Webb’s Moslem World Publishing Company.69 In fact, in this letter to potential clients, Webb wrote that he considered Lant to be “reliable and trustworthy in every respect.”70 Lant also later responded to the accusation of him “prying,” saying he used that desk, which contained his own private papers, every day while working for the Moslem World.71 Lant, however, was not the only Muslim with whom Webb had a problem. Webb claimed that upon Emin Nabakoff’s arrival in the us, he had received letters warning him about the Russian.72 Webb said he ignored these rumors at the time, but when he returned from a short lecture tour, there were several complaints made against Nabakoff—Webb did not say from whom.73 Webb then asked Nabakoff to leave the movement as well, and Nabakoff complied. Again, the letters contained in the Missouri History Museum suggest that Webb might not have been telling the whole truth: Quilliam himself told Lant that he (Quilliam) had nothing but good things to say about Nabakoff, and an Indian Muslim who had communicated with Quilliam about the issue in early 1893 confirmed that the Liverpudlian had consistently stood by this position when communicating with others.74 Nabakoff, meanwhile, was critical of Webb for not having instituted the formal aspects of the Islamic prayer ritual;

66 “Scoffed at the Christian Faith,” New York Herald, December 11, 1893, 11. 67 “Far India Wants to Know,” New York World, May 17, 1894, 8. 68 “Scoffed at the Christian Faith.” 69 Webb to Messrs. Strong & Trowbridge, October 21, 1893, John A. Lant Papers. 70 Ibid. 71 Singleton, “Brothers at Odds,” 475. 72 “Islam in Union Square.” 73 Ibid. 74 Quilliam to Lant, September 26, 1894; Mirza Birjis Kader to Lant, March 16, 1894, John A. Lant Papers.

154 chapter 5

Webb responded by dismissing Nabakoff as a “fakir,” a fake Muslim spiritual leader, who had never read the Qurʾan.75 After the expulsions of Lant and Nabakoff from the movement, the next time Webb had heard about either of them was on Sunday, December 10, when reporters went to his house to try to get an interview after the estranged pair performed in Manhattan a public Islamic call to prayer, made ablutions, and held the first meeting of their new First Society for the Study of Islam.76 About forty people, including several Muslims who were in the country for the World’s Fair, appeared for the call and the first meeting; and the next week, when Nabakoff performed another call to prayer and held a second meeting, seventy-five people were present.77 Then in January, the group launched its own Islamic newspaper under Lant’s editorship, the American Moslem. It was in this context—in which Lant and Nabakoff had taken without warning much of the prestige Webb had gained as the only American Muslim leader—that Webb started publicly unleashing his harsh, and possibly inaccurate, words against the two men. At first, both Rawson and Arab counseled Lant to end the feud.78 Webb, however, was not interested.79 By early January, he had apparently reached out to Anthony Comstock—a person Webb had previously criticized in the Moslem World80—to write a statement against Lant, which Webb then sent a copy of to the movement’s Indian backers.81 Lant, for his part, aligned with the Eurasian (mixed British and Indian) Theosophist and convert to Islam Urban Hamid Snow, who already disliked Webb after the latter offended Snow while on his Indian tour in 1892.82 Snow, who led the independent ‘Church of Islam’ and published multiple English-language Islamic journals and small books in India, contributed several pieces to the American Moslem and wrote a letter critical

75 “Islam in Union Square”; “Scoffed at the Christian Faith”; “Far India Wants to Know.” 76 “Islam in Union Square”; “Scoffed at the Christian Faith”; “New York’s First Muezzin Call,” New York Times, December 11, 1893. 77 “Islam in Union Square”; “New York’s First Muezzin Call”; “At the Union Square Mosque,” New York Sun, December 18, 1893, 1. 78 Rawson to Lant, January 15, 1894; Arab to Lant, January 25, 1894, John A. Lant Papers. 79 “Islam in Union Square”; “Scoffed at the Christian Faith.” 80 “Unjust Discrimination,” Moslem World (September 1893). 81 Riazuddin Ahmed to Hamid Snow, March 20, 1894, John A. Lant Papers. 82 The exact offense is unknown; all that is known is that Webb says it was unintentional on his part; see M’d Alexander Russell Webb, “Explanatory Letter from Mr. Webb,” Moslem Chronicle and the Muhammadan Observer, January 10, 1895, 3. Snow joined the Theosophical Society in India on December 21, 1892; see Theosophical Society General Register Vol. I, accessed February 10, 2014, http://www.theartarchives.org.

The Rise And Fall Of A Brotherhood 155 of Webb to a New York newspaper, claiming Webb misused funds and intimat- ing that Webb had lied about hearing bad rumors concerning Nabakoff.83 By late January, Rawson had aligned with Lant as well,84 as did—possibly— Webb’s old backer, Arab, and several other Muslims and non-Muslims within and without the country.85 Lant would soon publish in his paper the purported Webb iou and letters to and from Comstock,86 which Webb surely included among the “false documents” he claimed others were using against him.87 The sides were thus increasingly solidified. Although this growing antagonism towards Webb was helping unite Webb’s critics, the First Society for the Study of Islam was not able to survive. A major factor was the fact that already by late December 1893, a number of anti-Islamic Armenian Christians had started attending the group’s Sunday meetings where they would challenge Nabakoff to explain controversial ideas held by some Muslims—which they presented, of course, as universally adhered to.88 When Nabakoff resisted indulging their aggressions and asked that they leave the meeting, they yelled and challenged him even more. The uncomfortable situation discouraged attendance, and at the January 7 meeting, there were only about twenty people present, including the Christians, Nabakoff, and Lant.89 The group started running low on funds, and by April the First Society was no longer active.90 Webb, meanwhile, struggled to keep his own organization alive. He continued to take speaking engagements, lecturing in various states and for Theosophists and spiritualists in New York,91 but by the spring he had accepted that Arab was no longer going to support the movement, and he was sending

83 “Far India Wants to Know.” 84 Rawson to Lant, January 21, 1894, John A. Lant Papers. 85 See the various letters in the John A. Lant Papers. 86 American Moslem (April, May, June 1894): 1. 87 M’d Alexander Russell Webb, “To the Editor of the ‘Moslem Chronicle,’” Moslem Chronicle and the Muhammadan Observer, May 23, 1895, 224. While we cannot be certain the Comstock letter was a forgery, Webb did—despite having criticized Comstock in the past—continue to use Lant’s run-ins with Comstock as evidence of Lant’s bad character; see “Far India Wants to Know.” 88 “Islamism in New York,” New York Herald, December 25, 1893, 9; “Discord Enters Islam’s Church,” New York Herald, January 8, 1894, 4. 89 “Discord Enters Islam’s Church.” 90 “Far India Wants to Know.” 91 Singleton, introduction, 42; Path (March 1894): 394; “The New York Psychical Society,” Banner of Light, April 28, 1894, 8.

156 chapter 5 out fundraising form letters to various Muslims.92 With no steady income, Webb had to give up the 20th Street office; in May he moved his family to a small home in Ulster Park purchased by his wife, and he began living part-time in New York City with another male convert. In June, Webb started a new scaled-down paper, the Voice of Islam, out of a new office on East 23rd Street. The subtitle of this paper, “Journal of the American Moslem Brotherhood,” confirmed that the American Islamic Propaganda effort had come to an end, and all that was left was the Brotherhood. On the 25th of May, the Brotherhood held its first annual election for its officers, none of whom were people who had been named as Brotherhood members in previous public mentions of the group.93 Then, in July, the secretary of both the Brotherhood and the Voice, Nafeesa M.T. Keep, initiated a small sensation in the local newspapers when she locked Webb and all other employees of the Voice out of the journal’s office. Keep—whose interest in Islam was sparked by hearing discussions about the religion at the World’s Fair, which led to her becoming perhaps the first white American woman to convert to Islam without marrying a Muslim94—claimed that Webb had taken monies that were to go to rent and salaries and demanded not only that Webb resign from his position, but also that she get possession of the company. Her charges, however, apparently lacked any foundation, and Webb was able to retain the company, which he moved to his home in Ulster Park. But Webb continued to lose friends. Back in May, when Snow’s letter to the press led to a reporter asking for Webb’s response, Webb reportedly called Quilliam “a charletan [sic] of the worst possible character.”95 Webb later denied saying this,96 but the damage was done. In late September, Quilliam, who had been communicating with Keep, suggested to Lant that he, Nabakoff, Keep, and whomever else they could gather up, form a single group that could be recognized as an affiliate of the Liverpool Moslem Institute.97 The Americans thus created the American Moslem Institute, which held in the old Voice office on December 3, 1894 its first meeting, in which Lant was elected president

92 See Webb’s May 1, 1894 form letter contained in the John A. Lant Papers. 93 “Annual Elections,” Voice of Islam (June 1894). The officers were as follows: President— Mohammed Alex. R. Webb; Vice-President—C. Omar McCoun; Secretary—Nafeesa M.T. Keep; Treasurer—H. Ali Lewis; Librarian—Ahmed Hamouda (an Egyptian immigrant); Assistant Librarian—R. Othman White; Advisory Board—E.A. Arnold, H. Fatima Peabody, Khaled D. Hutchins; Board of Publication—Nafeesa M.T. Keep, H. Ali Lewis, R. Othman White, C. Omar McCoun. 94 “A Moslem Crusade in Free America,” Utica Sunday Journal, February 11, 1900, 15. 95 “Far India Wants to Know.” 96 “Explanatory Letter from Mr. Webb.” 97 Quilliam to Lant, September 26, 1894, John A. Lant Papers.

The Rise And Fall Of A Brotherhood 157 and Keep secretary.98 On December 10, the group celebrated the anniversary of the First Society’s call to prayer, and Nabakoff performed the call again.99 At this meeting, Keep—who had brought police officers with her for protection in case Webb or his friends tried to attack her—claimed that while on a trip to Cincinnati, Webb listed among his expenses “Bar expenses $3,” which she interpreted as him having indulged in liquor.100 She made a motion to have the Institute repudiate Webb; Rawson, who was in attendance, seconded it; and then it was voted for unanimously.101 The attendees also proposed officers for their group—among which were, notably, three women—and signed by-laws.102 On December 15, however, even this new organization lost its cohesion. Lant, Theodore F. Price (a supporter of the First Society and the American Moslem newspaper), and another friend, William McNair, resigned from their positions in the organization.103 Lant explained that after the December 10 meeting, he had expressed to Keep his displeasure with her actions that night, and she responded by telling him to resign. Nabakoff was then elected to replace Lant. This led to bad feelings between Lant and Nabakoff and the latter left the Institute to start what was an American branch of a Turkish movement, the International Moslem Union.104 Keep then decided to move to Liverpool, so Lant retook charge of the American Moslem Institute, and Quilliam, desper- ately trying to keep the peace, treated both Lant and Nabakoff’s organizations as affiliates of his Liverpool mosque. By April, the Institute was still active

98 “Moslems Unite,” New York World, December 7, 1894, 8; “Mrs. Keep at the Front Again,” New York Herald, December 12, 1894, 12. 99 “Webb Falls from Grace,” New York World, December 11, 1894, 11. 100 Ibid. 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid. The officers were as follows: Lant as president; Lant’s First Society supporter Theodore F. Price as vice-president; Mrs. E.A. Arnold as treasurer; Lant’s wife, Anna, as librarian; Lant’s daughter, Janet, as recording secretary; Keep as secretary. Quilliam was named honorary president; Arab, honorary president for Arabia; Nabakoff, honorary president for Russia; Rawson, honorary president for America; Joseph M. Wade (another First Society supporter), honorary vice-president for America; Snow, honorary secretary; Prof. H.H. Wilde [?] from Liverpool, honorary secretary. The patrons were listed as the Sultan of Turkey, the Ameer of Kabul, the Nyzam of Hyderabad, the Sultan of Morocco, the Begum of Bhopal, the Sultan of Selangor, and the Sheikh Ul-Islam of Turkey. 103 “The Moslems Lose a President,” New York World, December 16, 1894, 16. 104 Singleton, “Brothers at Odds,” 481–82; “Mohammedanism and Romanism in Manila,” Christian Advocate, November 14, 1901, 1808. The latter article says that group was alterna- tively known as the ‘Young Turks,’ which possibly indicates that this was an early incarna- tion of the movement that would gain prominence in the twentieth century.

158 chapter 5 and—according to Rawson, who was by this time signing his letters “Yours in faith/ in Allah”—the members hoped that they would soon build a mosque with the support of an Indian Muslim from England.105 This Indian, however, would not come for a few more years (see Chapter 6). In the meantime, Lant had reunited with Nabakoff and his Union, but even this recombined group began to slowly die out; its December 1895 call to prayer anniversary meeting seems to have been its last.106 Webb, meanwhile, was also able to hang on through 1895, having found new international Muslim support. In January that year, he started a new paper, the Moslem World and the Voice of Islam, and held the second annual elections for the American Moslem Brotherhood in May.107 He also attempted to reconcile with the other groups, showing support for their movements in his newspaper and publishing pieces by and about Rawson.108 Money, though, apparently continued to be a problem. There is no trace of the Moslem Brotherhood after May 1895 and Webb published no more issues of his newspaper after February 1896. After only three years, the first Islamic movement in the United States was effectively dead. It is difficult to say, given the existing evidence, how much of this collapse was due to Webb’s mismanagement or any less-than-honest actions committed by Webb or his followers. Without doubt, though, the failure of backers to come through with the money they promised put an enormous strain on the group, which could not but have exacerbated interprersonal tensions. For all of his connections with the occult revival and background in business and promotional activities, Webb did not have the resources to overcome this unforeseen difficulty. He also appears to have failed to earn the true loyalty of many of his leading followers, which might have held the group together through the lean times. Perhaps he overestimated his own skills, connections, and appearance of authority; perhaps he let his ambitiousness and arrogance cloud his judgments; perhaps he simply made poor choices for the aip leadership—or, as in most cases of organizational failure, perhaps it was a combination of factors. It is worth mentioning, though, that Webb did not hold a leadership position in an occult revival-connected group prior to taking on

105 Rawson to Lant, April 19, 1895, John A. Lant Papers. 106 Singleton, “Brothers at Odds,” 481–83. 107 “Annual Election,” Moslem World and the Voice of Islam (June 1895). The officers elected were President—Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb; Vice-President—R. Othman White; Treasurer—C. Omar McCoun; Librarian—Ahmed Hamouda; and Board of Directors—Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb, R. Othman White, H. Ali Lewis, C.O. McCoun, Ahmed Hamouda, Khaled D. Hutchins, Fatima Peabody, and August Berg. 108 Singleton, “Brothers at Odds,” 482.

The Rise And Fall Of A Brotherhood 159 this Islamic mission. It is often the case that before a person can become a good leader, she or he must learn through failure the many skills and numerous difficulties that make a person a good leader in a particular community, and rank-and-file members—like Webb had been—frequently cannot appreciate all that goes into this. As a person well-connected with the occult revival, Webb was surely far more successful than a complete outsider would have been, but he was not truly prepared for the task he took on when he had only been a Muslim for three years. Despite all of this, however, Webb and his movement had made history. They had successfully introduced into the white American religious market the possibility of publicly embracing and organizing around something undeniably understood as Islam—not ‘Ansairetic’ Rosicrucianism, not Islamophilic Theosophy, not non-Islamic Sufism, and not Islamophilic Masonry. Because of Webb, from 1893 on, Islam would have a permanent place in the white American religious landscape.

chapter 6 The Post-Movement Years

In the fourteen years that followed the folding of Webb’s third Islamic newspa per, while a few Muslim and Sufi groups for white Americans appeared, nothing that could be considered an actual conversion movement existed in the us. This was not due to a lack of effort, however. Several of the people who had been directly and indirectly connected to Webb’s Islamic movement— including Webb himself—continued to attempt to persuade white Amer icans to embrace Islam, or at least Islamic and Sufi teachings. Some of these individuals—including, again, Webb—tied themselves directly to a new Western occult organization, Papus’ Martinist Order. But even this was not sufficient for reviving the Islamic movement. Meanwhile, there were a number of interna tional Muslim missionary efforts in the country, and at least a few people con verted to Islam on an individual basis. Still, no one had the ability to create a movement anywhere close to what Webb had fostered between 1893 and 1896. Overall, these were quiet years for conversion to Islam. Interestingly, though, these were not quiet years for conversion to other non-Christian religions. Particularly after 1894, the turn-of-the-century us wit nessed a sudden, major wave of Americans embracing Asian-majority reli gions, such as the Baha’i faith, Buddhism, and Vedantic Hinduism. It is not at all a coincidence that the us movements connected with these religions were tied to some of the very same organizations, religious currents, events, and people with which Webb had been affiliated. Indeed, several of these move ments were able to thrive precisely because they were better at the very things Webb had attempted to do, such as convincingly presenting their religion as the true version of America’s esoteric and New Thought teachings, and per suading prominent members of those groups to join their religion. Their rela tive success in these activities was so significant that by the beginning of the twentieth century, the American religious landscape had come to look very different than it had in the mid-1870s when Rev. Norman had failed in his attempt to spread Islam. The country would now be peppered with numerous non-Christian religious organizations and teachers, a situation that generated even more competition and, as a result, the expansion of the non-Christian religious market. These conditions would make conversion to Islam after 1910 something very different than it had been in the 1890s. The emergence and success of these other non-Christian groups in the years following the collapse

The Post-movement Years 161 of Webb’s movement are therefore instructive not only for understanding the relative failure of Islamic groups during this period, but also for revealing fac tors contributing to the changes in Islamic conversion that would appear in the twentieth century.

Vestiges

Keep, Nabakoff, and Lant probably did not have the backgrounds—in terms of either experience or connections—that would have been necessary for start ing new successful Islamic movements. Out of the three, only Lant had strong ties to the kind of movements—spiritualist and Free Thought groups1—that would show an interest in Islam, but the people in these movements were not the type to convert exclusively, as they would be primarily interested in Islam from a liberal, inclusivistic perspective. Lant, furthermore, does not appear to have maintained ties with the old Randolph-influenced Rosicrucians, who would have been much more receptive to the notion of exclusive conversion to a non-Christian religion, particularly Islam. Still, it was probably Lant’s back ground in liberal movements and his abilities as an editor that led him to be, out of the three dissenters, probably the most active in working for Islam in the us after 1896. In 1897, for instance, Lant attempted to help secure the release of detained Muslim immigrants.2 Then, in 1900, Hamid Snow’s Church of Islam permitted Lant to start an American branch of the group and to be its first ‘pastor.’3 Nothing is known about the Church of Islam activities in the us, but, about a year later, Lant had appeared with Nabakoff and Theodore Price, one of Lant’s convert supporters since the First Society days, in Manila where they were working with Snow to spread Islam.4 Interestingly, while Snow was said to be the Indian director of the effort, the organization sponsoring their work was not the Church of Islam, but rather Nabakoff’s old International Moslem Union, and Nabakoff, not Lant, was head of the Manila mission.5 At some

1 Lant was speaking in front of spiritualists even as late as April 1894; see “The Anniversary,” Banner of Light, April 14, 1894, 6. 2 Lant to unnamed recipient, March 24, 1897, John A. Lant Papers. 3 Hamid Snow, “A Voice from India,” Crescent 16, no. 415 (1900): 407. 4 “Mohammedanism and Romanism in Manila.” This convert was Theodore F. Price, now known as Mohammed Price. 5 Ibid. In early 1896, Lant and Snow had joined with several other Indian and British Muslims in supporting the expansion of the Union into India; see “‘The International Moslem Union.’ A Suggestion,” Crescent 7, no. 158 (1896): 469–70.

162 chapter 6 point, Lant moved back to the us, and at least through 1905 occasionally pub lished pieces on Islam.6 He died at his home in Florrisant, Missouri on January 17, 1913.7 Nabakoff’s post-1896 activities, meanwhile, are less well known; he partici pated in at least one ecumenical event, but there is no other information on any Islamic missionary work he may have done in the us.8 Keep, for her part, did attempt to start a new us mission. After moving to Liverpool in early 1895, Keep relocated to London where she met a pair of wealthy Egyptians with whom she moved to Egypt, living there for a few years.9 By late 1899 she had returned to London, where she connected with the local Muslim community. There she learned about an American Muslim who wanted to donate fifty acres of land to form a Muslim colony in the us and promote conversion to Islam.10 Keep announced her plans to lead this mission in a widely circulated news article. However, it seems that nothing ever came of it and Keep faded into obscurity. Somewhat surprisingly, Quilliam’s Institute continued to have a small American presence for a few years, even after the departure of Lant, Nabakoff, and Keep. It seems, judging by the number of appearances of Americans in Quilliam’s journal, the Crescent, by 1895 it had become the main competitor for Webb’s Islamic newspaper. That year, Quilliam’s magazine published numerous stories and news briefs concerning Nabakoff, Lant, and Keep, as well as several letters from Americans—including converts, Muslim immi grants, and non-Muslim sympathizers—known to be associates of the three Webb dissenters.11 One of these people was Dr. C.F. Elsner, a Chicago pharma cist, who in early 1895 donated money to Lant’s American Moslem Institute.12 Soon after this, Elsner joined the Institute community, and, at least through 1899, helped keep the American branch of Quilliam’s organization alive.13 In July 1898, Quilliam’s Islamic publication made the announcement that

6 Lant had a piece published in Quilliam’s second Islamic journal, the Islamic World, in August 1905. 7 “Editor John A. Lant Dead,” Dobbs Ferry Register (New York), January 24, 1913, 1. 8 Singleton, “Brothers at Odds,” 483–84. 9 “A Moslem Crusade in Free America,” Utica Sunday Journal, February 11, 1900, 15. 10 Ibid. 11 E.g., Joseph M. Wade and Muhammad Najb. 12 See Carl Stephens, The Alumni Record of the University of Illinois, Chicago Departments, Colleges of Medicine and Dentistry, School of Pharmacy (Chicago: University of Illinois, 1921), 336; “Editorial Notes,” Crescent 5, no. 111 (1895): 89. 13 “Answers to Correspondents,” Crescent 7, no. 159 (1896): 488; “Answers to Correspondents,” Crescent 13, no. 336 (1899): 392.

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Dr. Elsner was one of two American honorary presidents for the Liverpool Muslim14 Institute.15 The other American honorary president in 1898 was Dr. Edouard Blizt from Nevada, Missouri. Unlike Elsner, Blizt almost certainly had come into the international Muslim convert community via Webb. Blizt was a Belgian Mason who had studied Theosophy and had been initiated into both the Yarker- and Quilliam-connected Memphis-Misraim Rite16 as well as a new occult group called the Martinist Order.17 Martinism was an eighteenth- century French Masonic movement that followed the esoteric teachings of Martinez de Pasqually. Although it had lost much of its following by the early nineteenth century, in the late 1880s the movement was revived and popular ized as the Martinist Order by Papus (Gerard Encausse), the single most influ ential French esotericist of the late nineteenth century.18 Starting in the mid-1880s, when barely twenty years old, Papus joined and helped start numerous esoteric groups in France, including the Theosophical Society and the H.B. of L. He hoped to connect all these organizations as part of a larger program to promote both interfaith cooperation and the notion of the essen tial unity of all traditional religions.19 Some of the organizations he started, such as Groupe Indépendent d’Etudes Esotériques and l’Union Idéaliste Universelle, were ostensibly designed to meet these specific goals, yet they, like many of Papus’ other groups, were also gateways for joining what were thought to be superior organizations, one of which was the Martinist Order. The Martinist Order itself, meanwhile, was used to prepare people for the H.B. of L., as Papus was convinced that the highest form of spirituality was the type of occult initiation promoted by the latter group.20 Indeed, when Blitz came to the us in 1894 with the intention of spreading Martinism, he was instructed

14 They had changed the spelling of this word in the organization’s name from ‘Moslem.’ 15 “Annual Meeting of the Liverpool Muslim Institute,” Crescent 11, no. 286 (1898): 421. 16 This was another name for Yarker’s Ancient and Primitive Rite. 17 On Blitz, see Edouard Blitz, Ritual and Monitor of the Martinist Order (Nevada, mo: E. Blitz, 1896); Chanel, “‘Fraternite Hermetique.’” 315; Edouard Blizt letters, Fonds Papus, MS 5489, Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon (henceforth, fp); Milko Bogaard, “The Martinist Order,” accessed May 9, 2014, http://www.hermetics.org/Martinism.html, accessed April 14, 2014; http://kg.vkk.nl/french/organisations.f/om.f/blitz/blitzbio.html. 18 On Papus, see Marie-Sophie André and Christophe Beaufils, Papus, biographie: la Belle Epoque de l’occultisme (Paris: Berg International Éditeurs, 1995). 19 André and Beaufils, Papus, 54–58. 20 René Guénon, “F.-Ch. Barlet et les sociétés initiatiques,” La Voile d’Isis, April 20, 1925, reprinted in Godwin et al., Hermetic Brotherhood, 434.

164 chapter 6 to keep in touch and work with the Georgia-based H.B. of L. leader Peter Davidson.21 In a project similar to what Mackenzie had proposed in 1869, the Martinist Order presented itself as the only Masonic movement that taught true “tradi tional” symbols, as opposed to “synthetic” ones, which were, according to Papus, permeating and dividing Masonry. Because he was working from this belief, in establishing the Martinist Order in the us, Blitz began with Masons, although he soon reached out to Theosophists and other esotericists as well.22 Blitz was relatively successful in this effort; between August 1894 and November 1895, Martinist groups had been established in over a dozen states and Blitz had started communicating with influential people in the American esoteric scene, such as the H.B. of L. and Sufic Circle member, S.C. Gould, who joined the movement and helped promote it in the esotericist magazine he edited and published.23 By early 1896, when the growth of us Martinism apparently reached a pla teau, Blizt also began working on spreading the newly-created Union Idéaliste Universelle, the Papus group that, more than any of his other ones, sought to establish good relations among different religions.24 This may have been what initially led to Blitz’s connection with Muslim converts, since Islam was one of the religions that was prominent on the radar of the ecumenical side of the Papus community. In 1892, Papus created a short-lived journal, the La Lumière d’Orient: Revue Bi-Mensuelle de L’Islam, whose objectives were to “approach Islam through philosophical and social terms rather than political ones” and to correct prevalent misconceptions about the religion of Muslims.25 To this effect, the journal included articles on cultural institutions in Turkey, news from the Muslim world, a serialized French translation of the Qurʾan, and brief introductions to important elements of Islam—which included, interestingly, two essays by Quilliam.26 Despite only producing two issues, the creation of such a journal apparently led, in January 1893, to the Ottoman Sultan awarding Papus the fourth class of the Ottoman Imperial Order of the Mejidieh, a medal

21 Chanel, “ ‘Fraternite Hermetique,’” 310 ff. 22 The spread of the Martinist Order under Blitz is well-documented in his dozens of letters to Papus in fp. 23 See letter, Blizt to Papus, undated, fp. 24 André and Beaufils, Papus, 156–59; in the fp, see the “Union Idéaliste Universelle” flyer and Blitz to Papus, 1886 (month and date are in a cipher, but they are filed before a March 1886 letter). 25 André and Beaufils, Papus, 102. 26 Copies of the two known issues of the journal are held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

The Post-movement Years 165 given in honor of services to the Ottoman government.27 This was followed by the opening of Martinist Order lodges in both Egypt and Tunisia.28 Connecting with Muslims, then, was not a new idea for Martinists by the time Blitz came to the us, and these experiences of the Order surely embolded him. Blitz, in fact, showed no hesitancy, in an early 1896 letter, in discussing with Papus his desire to form alliances with “the Arab, the Persian, or the Turk” to obtain for Martinism “the glory of having established silently a wide com mittee of peace and of universal alliance.”29 Of course, persuading Muslims to become actual Martinists, and not just join the Union, would be an even bigger coup, and Blitz was up to challenge. In early March, Blizt was proud to announce to Papus that he had brought into the Martinist Order Alexander Webb, the most famous Muslim in the country.30 Webb was at that time also still a Theosophist as well as a confirmed believer in Islam’s having esoteric origins through Muhammad’s ‘psychical’ divine communications—he even publicly expressed the latter view that year in S.C. Gould’s magazine.31 Martinism’s strong commitment to religious cooperation and unity, along with its promotion of occult initiation, would have been particularly appealing to Webb, who surely valued the practical occultism of his early days in the St. Louis Theosophical Society and his communications with men like Gould. There are, however, no known confirmed connections between Martinism and Webb after March 1896. For this reason, it is difficult to say how important Martinism actually was for the convert. Nevertheless, Martinist connections to both Islam and the broader white Muslim convert community continued to appear for the next few years. In March 1896, the same month Blizt announced his initiation of Webb, Blitz wrote to Quilliam’s Crescent requesting materials on Islam.32 Two years later, Blizt established ties with various Muslims in Tunisia, convincing a person named, simply, Bey to join the Union, and coming to an agreement with the editors of the reformist Tunisian paper El-Hadira to promote the Union.33 By

27 André and Beaufils, Papus, 103–04. 28 André and Beaufils, Papus, 105. 29 Blitz to Papus, 1886 (month and date are in a cipher, but they are filed before a March 1886 letter), fp. 30 Chanel, “ ‘Fraternite Hermetique,’” 315; Blitz to Papus, March 3, 1896, fp. 31 M’d Alexander Russell Webb, “Criticism on ‘Mohamed’s Place in the Church,’” Miscellaneous Notes and Queries 14, no. 6 (1896): 128¼–128½. 32 “Answers to Correspondents,” Crescent 7, no. 168 (1896): 632. 33 Blitz to Papus, undated and August 30, 1897, fp. On El-Hadira, see Arnold H. Green, The Tunisian Ulama 1873–1915: Social Structure and Response to Ideological Currents (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 165–67.

166 chapter 6 early 1898, Martinists had initiated a few Egyptian residents, including one Si Ali Ben Ahmed Nourisson Bey,34 and by mid-year, Blitz—just before he was named honorary president in Quilliam’s group—was communicating to Quilliam in language that suggested either that he had converted to Islam or that he saw Islam as one of the few traditional “True Faith[s]” in the world.35 It appears, though, that 1898 was the end of Blitz’s public engagement with Muslims. After he was announced as one of the vice presidents of Quilliam’s group in July, he was never mentioned again in the Crescent or in any known documents connected to Webb or other American Muslims. There would be other lingering effects of Blizt’s efforts to unite American esotericists with Islam, as we will see, but from 1898 on Blitz was at best in the background of these activities. Besides Blitz, meanwhile, there were a few other lmi-linked American con verts mentioned in the Crescent,36 but there is neither information about any post-1896 organized Islamic activities they may have participated in, nor any evidence that anyone else served as an official representative of Quilliam’s group after 1900.37 In fact, out of all the old leaders from the movement years, the evidence suggests that Webb was probably the most active in Islamic pro motional efforts after 1895, and he certainly received the most attention from the press. After his last Islamic newspaper stopped production in February 1896, for the rest of the year Webb still wrote articles on Islamic topics, continued to attempt to lecture, and publicly invited Muslims to visit him at his home.38 In 1898 he moved to Rutherford, New Jersey, where he worked in the newspaper industry again for at least a few years and became involved in civic life.39 Then, in late 1900, Webb left on a several month-long journey to Constantinople (and possibly Mecca), during which the Sultan of Turkey gave Webb medals for both

34 André and Beaufils, Papus, 157; Blitz to Papus, March 12, 1898, fp. It is likely that he was the same person as the Swiss man named Nourisson Bey who was living in Egypt at the time. 35 Dr. Edouard Blitz, “Kind Letter from America,” Crescent 11, no. 285 (1898): 413. Blitz praises Quilliam’s “noble efforts in [sic] behalf of the True Faith.” 36 For instance, Dr. Hazzard of New York, who converted under Lant, and J. Lecky McGregor Gough of Hamilton, Ohio. 37 This is true despite the fact that some British converts—but particularly Louise Hanifa Jones—moved to the us and continued to correspond with the Muslims in Liverpool. 38 “Mohammed Webb’s Account,” New York Times, March 27, 1896, 3; M’d Alexander Russell Webb, “Criticism on ‘Mohamed’s Place in the Church,’” Miscellaneous Notes and Queries 14, no. 6 (1896): 128¼–128½; “News of the Week,” Moslem Chronicle and the Muhammadan Observer, October 31, 1896, 483. 39 Singleton, introduction, 47; “Mr. Alexander R. Webb, Friend of Commuters, Dead at Seventy,” New York Herald, October 3, 1916, 8.

The Post-movement Years 167 the Order of Merit and the Order of the Mejidieh and appointed him as the Honorary Consul General of the Turkish Government in New York.40 According to Webb, at this time he was also named Sheikh-ul-Islam—religious head—for America.41 Whether or not this was true, the fact remains that until his death on October 1, 1916, Webb continued to write and speak in promotion and defense of Islam. He even did so with organizations from which he had previously disas sociated himself, such as Theosophical Society, from which he had resigned in 1897, and Ghulam Ahmad’s Ahmadiyya movement, for which in 1910 he assisted in revising Ahmad’s The Teachings of Islam.42 Webb also kept in touch with at least some American converts, although how many is uncertain.43 Throughout the active years of his movement,

40 “Rejoicings in the New World in Honour of the Sultan,” Crescent 16, no. 404 (1900): 229–30; “Editorial Notes,” Crescent 16, no. 410 (1900): 329; “Sultan Honors Alex. R. Webb,” New York Sun, September 29, 1901, 6; Leonard, Who’s Who, 4:1352. Webb had been defending the Sultan since the days of the movement, when he received support from the Ottoman gov ernment; see Singleton, introduction, 47–48 and Şahin, “Sultan’s America,” 62. It might be pointed that the Order of the Mejidieh honor was the same thing given to Papus, who merely created an Islam-themed journal that lasted for two issues. Quilliam also received a medal from the Sultan, but one for the Order of the Osmanieh, which was a higher honor, being reserved for “Muslims who rendered great service to the Ottoman Empire.” On these medals, see “Turkish Orders of Knighthood and Honour,” Crescent 11, n. 281 (1898): 346. 41 Leonard, Who’s Who, 4:1352. 42 Singleton, introduction, 48. See also M’d Alex. R. Webb, “A Letter from Muhammad A. Russel Webb,” Moslem Chronicle and the Muhammadan Observer, February 15, 1902, 89– 90; Muhammad Webb, “Muhammadan Society and its Pressing Needs,” Moslem Chronicle and the Muhammadan Observer, March 29, 1902, 170; “Miscellaneous,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 25, 1905, 12; “Religion of Mohammed,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 20, 1911, 4; Maulana Dost Muhammad Shahid, “Review of Religions: A 100 Year History of the Magazine,” Review of Religions 97, no. 11 (2002): 21–23; Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, The Teachings of Islam: A Solution of Five Fundamental Religious Problems from the Muslim Point of View (London: Luzac & Co., 1910), ix. 43 In 2014, five letters written by Webb in 1907 and 1909 to what appears to be a convert living in Ohio went up for auction on Ebay. The seller put excerpts from the letters online, and they contain a few interesting bits of information. One thing revealed in these letters is Webb’s aversion to politics and anything that creates divisiveness, particularly among Muslims. He says, in fact, that he “will gladly join any association of men which has for its real object the spiritual up-building of humanity.” Furthermore, Webb remarks that he does not believe Islam opposes Freemasonry, although he feels that he has never met a Mason “who was seriously religious”—which perhaps gives insight into the friction he experienced with Rawson and the other Shriners in the 1890s. Webb also comments on women: “I believe that as a rule they are superior in spiritual susceptibility to men. When they are convinced of the truth of Islam they are more earnest and indefatigable in their efforts to guide others

168 chapter 6 despite occasionally publicly naming the original members of the American Moslem Brotherhood’s study circles, the majority of whom were not converts, Webb rarely discussed actual converts by name, and never publicly announced how many individuals had joined Islam in the us. The most likely reason for this was that there were simply not many converts to talk about. This would help explain why throughout the three years of the movement, the same con vert names were brought up over and over, and why none of the Islamic orga nizations created by Webb, Lant, or Nabakoff had any staying power. In 1902 Webb did claim that Islam had made, over the previous decade, a “steady silent advancement” in the us.44 But in September 1893, which was probably the peak of Webb’s movement, an Indian Muslim visiting the World’s Fair met Webb, who told him that the movement had so far only generated thirty-nine converts.45 In 1895, Webb suggested that this lack of success in converting was due to potential converts’ fears of becoming social outcasts: Webb asserted

into the true faith than are men.” This surely reflects Webb’s experience with the active female converts in his movement in the 1890s, and perhaps also his time in spiritualism, in which women were the majority of the mediums. Finally, a large part of the letters seems to have been devoted to counseling and encouraging this convert in his effort to spread Islam, which Webb of course regards as a great challenge in the us. Webb, however, is hopeful; he had recently “been invited to occupy the pulpit of the Unitarian Church at Montclair, n.j.,” and “this, and other similar evidences of interest, shows, at least, that there is less violent prejudice among church-going people against Islam than there was a few years ago.” Here, Webb reveals that he believed deeply that the failure of his movement was due to prejudice against Islam, and not his inability to successfully navigate a religious market, which, like any market, was composed of pre-existing consumer baises. While it is true that anti-Islam sentiment shaped religious consumers’ tastes, as the last sections in this chapter demon strate, Asian-majority religions towards which Westerners had less antipathy, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Baha’i faith, also failed to gain many converts—and in some cases got fewer converts than Webb—when they did not successfully appeal to the religious tastes of the individuals most likely to convert. In other words, anti-Islam sentiment cannot singularly explain the failure of Islam to spread on American soil in the 1890s and early 1900s. “1907 MOHAMMED ALEXANDER RUSSELL WEBB—FIVE HANDWRITTEN LETTERS re ISLAM KORAN,” accessed January 13, 2015, http://www.ebay.com/ itm/1907-MOHAMMED-ALEXANDER-RUSSELL-WEBB-FIVE-HANDWRITTEN-LETTERS- re-ISLAM-KORAN-/400702561026. 44 “A Letter from Muhammad A. Russel Webb,” 89. Webb explained that the majority of these were liberal Christians, particularly Unitarians, who are “practically Moslems in everything but name.” Webb’s wife, however, did not see it that way, and reverted from Islam to her Unitarian faith later in life (see Singleton, introduction, 50). 45 However, it is not known if Webb was actually discussing the number of members of the American Moslem Brotherhood, which probably came to about thirty-five at that time.

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that there are hundreds of Americans who have accepted the truths of Islam but who will not acknowledge the fact even to the Moslem for fear that in some unforeseen [w]ay, it will become known.46

Specifically, they feared ostracism and financial difficulties.47 Given what we know about earlier efforts to spread non-Christian religions in the country, even if Webb was overestimating the number of closeted Muslim converts, this is probably a fairly accurate assessment of one of the main reasons people resisted converting. Indeed, it is precisely this reasoning that, as has been dis cussed, explains why organized esoteric and non-Christian groups did not start growing until the 1870s and 1880s, when their markets were finally legitimized by various entities. In any case, there were undoubtedly at least a few converts with whom Webb had contact who were willing to make their conversions public. One of these was Rev. James Laurie Rodgers, a Scottish resident of Santa Cruz, California.48 In 1902, Rodgers was featured in a story that received wide circulation in us papers when he, days after announcing his conversion to Islam, set fire to a number of buildings on the dairy farm on which he was working.49 The first part of the story initially broke on Saturday, May 31. The newspaper for Gonzales, California, a town fifty-five miles southeast of Santa Cruz, reported that Rodgers, who a year before was a pastor of Gonzales Baptist Church, had “after much study and correspondence with learned Moslems,” embraced Islam.50 The day before, May 30, an acquaintance of Rodgers had received a letter from him pro claiming his conversion and adding the suspiciously prophetic assertion that

I have got sense to know I will received no material benefits from my religion, but instead may be killed or allowed to starve to death.51

Sayyid `Abid `Ali Vajdi al-Husaini, Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali: Inqilabi Savanih (Bhopal: Madhyah Pradesh Urdu Akademi, 1986), 107. 46 Alexander Russell Webb, “Mr. Md. Alexander Russell Webb Writes to Us the Following, on Islam in America,” Moslem Chronicle and the Muhammadan Observer, December 7, 1895, 521. 47 Ibid. 48 Interestingly, a James Rodgers is listed as a member of the Brooklyn Islam study circle in 1893; however this was almost certainly not James Laurie, as the latter makes no mention of New York in his discussion of his earlier life in the us; see “Rev. James Laurie Rodgers in Jail,” Santa Cruz Morning Sentinel, June 4, 1902, 1. 49 “Preacher Confesses Arson,” Sun (Baltimore), June 5, 1902, 1. 50 “Changes His Faith,” Gonzales Tribune, May 31, 1902, 3. 51 “Rev. J.L. Rodgers Found,” Santa Cruz Morning Sentinel, June 3, 1902, 1; “Parson Goes Wrong,” Gonzales Tribune, June 7, 1902, 3.

170 chapter 6

In the letter, Rodgers goes on to make a series of requests concerning the proper performance of religious rites at his burial “if such a thing happens any where near Santa Cruz.” Finally, he asks, in the event of his death, for his friend to contact Webb,

who is the Sheikh-al-Islam (head) of the Religion of Islam in this country and he will communicate with such friends or relatives as I may wish him to correspond with and tell them all I wish to know.52

With these curious preparations for death clarified, on the afternoon of June 1, the convert committed his act of arson.53 Rodgers, who had a grievance with his employer but was also generally considered mentally unstable, was quickly jailed, and he appears to have died in prison the follow April without the press ever learning more about his conversion.54 Another notable post-movement convert with whom Webb had contact was Dr. Anthony George Baker. After graduating from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1887, the thirty-year-old Baker began practicing both stan dard and homeopathic medicine.55 Fascinated by history, languages, and the religions of the East, in his spare time he also studied various European lan guages, Arabic, and Chinese, and published and presented historical papers on the cultures and religions of the native speakers of these languages.56 It was in

52 Ibid. The only other evidence I have been able to find concerning Webb using the Sheikh- al-Islam title is in a Who’s Who entry, presumably written by Webb (see Leonard, Who’s Who, 4:1352). I would like to thank Brent Singleton for this entry to my attention. 53 “Rev. J.L. Rodgers Found,” Santa Cruz Morning Sentinel, June 3, 1902, 1. 54 A twenty-six-year-old James Rodgers from Scotland is listed as having died in Sacramento (where California Supreme Court trials were held, and near the Bay Area’s famous pris ons) on April 3, 1903; see California, San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1835–1979, accessed April 15, 2014, https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JNJZ-VY7. The only age the convert James Laurie Rodgers was ever given in the press was twenty-nine in 1902 (see “Rev. Rodgers is Crazy,” Salinas Daily Index, June 4, 1902, 1); while not a precise match, the Sacramento James Rodgers’ biographical data is closer to that of the convert than the data in records for other known James Rodgers from the period. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate any police, trial, or prison records for James Laurie. I would like to thank the Genealogical Society of Santa Cruz County for their help in trying to find out the fate of Mr. Rodgers. 55 See his records on Ancestry.com. 56 Lewis R. Hamersly, ed., Who’s Who in Pennsylvania; Containing Authentic Biographies of Pennsylvanians Who Are Leaders and Representatives in Various Departments of Worthy Human Achievement (New York: L.R. Hamersly Company, 1904), 28; Journal of the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of

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August 1893 when Baker had his first known public connection with Muslim converts; that month, Webb ran in the Moslem World a section of a piece Baker had recently published concerning the relationship between medieval Christians and Muslims in Jerusalem.57 However, Webb’s frustrating tendency to not say much about American converts leaves one to wonder about their relationship. Baker was one of the few known Webb affiliates from Philadelphia, so it is possible that he ran that city’s Oriental Publishing Company. This was the name of the company Webb had set up in New York to publish Islam in America, but in 1892 and 1894 the company used a Philadelphia post office box and published a spiritualist work—which was the only other book the company published, and which Webb himself advertised in his Muslim newspapers—in which it was claimed that Christianity was derived from Asian religions.58 Despite these connections with Webb, other Muslim contacts may have been more important for Baker. In January 1896, when he was explicitly identi fying as a Muslim in a letter to the Crescent, Baker expressed his belief that Quilliam’s magazine was the only English-language Islamic journal available, even though Webb’s Moslem World and the Voice of Islam was still being printed.59 He also appears to have early ties with the Ahmadis, who claim that Baker accepted Islam through correspondence with Ghulam Ahmad.60 In as late as 1913, in fact, one of Baker’s speeches appeared in the English-language Ahmadi journal, Review of Religions, a journal with which Webb had corresponded in the early 1900s.61 Another Islamic organization with which Baker was probably associated was the group of about twenty converts in Philadelphia who were meeting secretively in 1907. Almost nothing is known about the community; in the only known newspaper article about the group, its meeting place is not

Pennsylvania Held in the Church of St. Luke and the Epiphany, Philadelphia May 5 and 6, 1908, with Appendices (Philadelphia: John C. Winston Company, 1908), 277. 57 “A Moslem Hero,” Moslem World (August 1893). 58 This was Jonathan M. Roberts, Antiquity Unveiled: Ancient Voices from the Spirit Realm Disclose the Most Startling Revelation Proving Christianity to be of Heathen Origin. The first edition appeared in 1892 and a second edition in 1894. 59 A. Geo. Baker, m.d., “Encouraging Letter from America,” Crescent 7, no. 160 (1896): 509. 60 Mubasher Ahmad, Approaching the West (Silver Spring, md: Majlis Ansarullah usa, 2008), 7–8. It is likely, however, that Baker’s embracing of Islam through Ghulam Ahmad came after 1901, and thus after his 1896 pronouncement of having converted, as the Ahmadis typically recognize F.L. Anderson, who converted in 1901, as the first American Ahmadi (see below). 61 Dr. A. Geo. Baker, “The One God and Islam is the Religion of All Men,” Review of Religions 12, no. 8 (1913): 327–40; Shahid, “Review of Religions: A 100 Year History,” 21–23.

172 chapter 6 disclosed and none of the members are named.62 The article does contain a brief description of the group’s “proselyter”—who was said to have once lived in Turkey and was responsible for translating and commenting on the Qurʾan— but his identity remains uncertain.63 Although during this period Baker was also acting as an Episcopalian preacher,64 given the fact that he identified as a Muslim in the 1890s and as late as 1913, and that he was probably the most well- known lecturer on Islam in Philadelphia at the time, it seems probable that Baker was secretly a Muslim and a member of this group.

Islamophilic Organizations

In addition to impacting actual converts to Islam, the first Islamic movement and its leaders left a legacy in organizations that supported the study and sometimes practice of both Islam and Sufism. Whatever their original purpose was, in 1900 Rawson’s Islamophilic Sheiks of the Desert—now called ‘Sheikhs of the Kaaba, Defenders of the Mystic Shrine’—wrote a new “manifesto” and were declaring that the group was founded for “the purposes of social inter course and intellectual culture, but more particularly for the study of the tradi tions and literature of the Orient.”65 In 1902, the year of Rawson’s death, many of its original members were still involved in the group, which had also gained John H. Russell, one of the American Moslem Brotherhood study circle mem bers from Brooklyn.66 The Sheikhs of the Kaaba appear to have still been active as of 1907,67 but nothing is heard from them after that date. The original Islamophilic Theosophists, meanwhile, possessed their own organization, in which they promoted the reading of Sufi poets as well as the orientalist E.H. Palmer’s Oriental Mysticism (1867), which they declared to be the best exposition of Sufi doctrines. In November 1896, Thomas M. Johnson’s occult correspondent and fellow H.B. of L. and Sufic Circle member, S.C. Gould, discussed in his esotericist magazine Miscellaneous Notes and Queries

62 “Mohammedans in Philadelphia,” Daily Review (Decatur, il), October 23, 1907, 6. I have not been able to locate the original article for this story, which appeared in the Philadelphia Record. 63 Ibid. If this was an English translation of the Qurʾan, it would be a previously unknown work. 64 Journal of the One Hundred and Twenty-fourth Convention, 277. 65 Order of Ishmael manuscript, 1; Freemasons Chronicle, August 10, 1901, 1. 66 The World Almanac and Encyclopedia 1902 (New York: Press Publishing Co., 1902), 326. 67 Yarker, “The Order of Ishmael.”

The Post-movement Years 173 an organization identified as the Order of Sufis.68 In his brief description of the group, Gould explains that this para-Masonic order, which possesses three degrees and eight “stages,”69 represents “the Sufistic and Unitarian Theosophy of the Persians” and it “consists in endeavoring to reconcile Philosophy with revealed Religion, and in assigning a mystical and allegorical interpretation to all doctrines and precepts.”70 Its “first principle” is “I am the Truth”; the group also values a quote from Palmer, who was himself quoting George Sale’s ren dering of a notion from the Qurʾan: “I am a hidden treasure, and I would fain be known.”71 This all, unsurprisingly, was very close to the ideas promoted by the various esotericist and New Thought communities with which Johnson was connected. It is probably significant that earlier in 1896, Gould ran in his magazine a few discussions of Islamic topics, including a letter from Webb, and it was around that same time that both Gould and Webb were initiated into Edouard Blitz’s Martinist Order.72 Given this timing, it is likely that the Order of Sufis was being linked to Papus’ Martinist Order in the spirit of unifying ‘traditional’ reli gions. This would make the Order of Sufis an important predecessor to the Traditionalist Shadhiliyya Sufi order of Ivan Aguéli and René Guénon, which was itself significantly influenced by Papus’ Martinist movement.73 Again, though, lacking other evidence, this cannot be confidently confirmed. Like with many of the esoteric orders he discussed, Gould was fairly reticent about the Order of Sufis. In 1896, he did not even publicly reveal the identity of any of its members, saying only that its us representatives resided in New York and Missouri. Twelve years later, however, when Gould next publicly discussed the order (which had been renamed the ‘Persian Order of the Sufis’), he revealed that Thomas M. Johnson, C.H.A. Bjerregaard, and Gould himself were

68 S.C. Gould, “Masonic and Arcane Societies in the u.s.,” Miscellaneous Notes and Queries 14, no. 11 (1896): 274. 69 The description of these were as follows: “The Ascent. 1. A Talib, or search after God. 2. A Murid, or One who inclines. 3. Salik, or Traveller. There are eight stages: Worship, Love, Seclusion, Knowledge, Ecstacy [sic], Truth, Union, Extinction, or absoption [sic] into Deity—The Light”; Gould, “Masonic and Arcane Societies in the u.s.” 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 See above. 73 See Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); for a summary of this history, see Mark Sedgwick, “The ‘Traditionalist’ Shadhiliyya in the West: Guénonians and Schuonians,” in Une voie soufie dans le monde: la Shâdhiliyya, ed. Eric Geoffroy (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 2006), 453–71.

174 chapter 6 members.74 The naming of these three—and the fact that their residences cor responded with the residences listed in 1896—suggests that the group had grown out of the Johnson-Bjerregaard Islamophilic Theosophy and Johnson’s Sufic Circle of 1887, and it therefore strengthens the possibility that Webb may have in fact been involved with it. Unfortunately, none of Johnson’s extant letters discuss these manifestations of the Sufi-focused group. Indeed, a 1906 letter from Gould to Johnson indicates that they had not spoken for several years, so it seems that the order was not particularly active.75 Still, it seems that either Gould or Johnson had attempted to make the order more than a paper organization. In his 1912 autobiography, Bjerregaard revealed his contempt for the group—an emotion that does not seem to be proportional for a group that never actually produced any activities.76 It is noteworthy that in between the first and last announcement of the Order of Sufis, Bjerregaard’s interest in Sufism was revived, and its manifesta tion revealed a significant clue about his—and possibly the other order mem bers’—concept of Sufism. In 1902, Bjerregaard wrote a book critiquing FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam from the viewpoint of what Bjerregaard presents as a true Sufi, which, for him, is “not always a […] Mohammedan […,

74 S.C. Gould, “Arcane Societies in the United States,” The Rosicrucian Brotherhood 2, no. 3 (1908): 113. It may be worth noting, too, that in the January 1909 issue of Gould’s journal, he ran a piece by Quilliam (under a pseudonym), reprinted from one of Quilliam’s journals. 75 Gould to Johnson, December 18, 1906, tmj Papers. 76 Bjerregaard writes: “An attempt was made some years ago to introduce what was called Esoteric Mohammedansim, but Esoteric Mohammedanism is not Sufiism [sic] proper. And that brand which was offered presented the grossest form of the Koran and did not contain any of[?] the beauty or the philosophy which has come into Sufiism [sic] from her Platonic sources. Esoteric Mohammedanism was only an attempt to introduce Mohammedanism. It failed on account of the utter incapacity of the missionaries who seemed to be men without any impulse, without any proselyting disposition, without any fire or intensity. When I think of Mohammed, pictures immediately arise of Desert-life, Arabs kneeling in the burning sun saying prayers or camel-camps at night or the Muezzin’s everlasting call to prayer, and over all the thoughts which rise is spread and furore and a fanaticism; but all these things were missing in these fat-bellied Americans, who couldn’t even pronounce Arabic nor Persian correctly and had neither linguistic nor ethnological knowledge” (Bjerregaard, “Auto-Biography,” 54). Interestingly, while Bjerregaard is clearly discussing Johnson and Gould—as Webb certainly had a “proselyting disposition”—as I have shown above, Webb did sometimes claim to be promoting “Esoteric Mohammedanism.” This, then, is further evidence that there was some link between the Sufic Circle/Order of Sufis and Webb.

The Post-movement Years 175 but] simply a Mystic in Mohammedan garb.”77 This notion that beneath the Islamic elements of Sufism was a universal mystical spirituality is consistent with Theosophy, with Johnson’s view that all occult teachings were manifesta tions of Platonism, and with the Martinist view that ‘traditional’ religions were simply exterior forms of an esoteric spirituality, such as that practiced in the H.B. of L. It was also similar to the approach to Sufism taken by Aguéli and Guénon as well as (as will be shown in Chapter 7) another Sufi teacher popular in the West named Inayat Khan, a figure with whom Bjerregaard would later work. It is undoubtedly significant that the ideas of Sufism promoted by all of these men share a fundamental influence from both Theosophy and the Western occult initiatory movements that broke off from Theosophy—the Martinist Order and the H.B. of L.78 These direct ties between, on the one hand, the first known modern Western Sufi groups and, on the other, Theosophy and related initiatory occult orders, reaffirm the importance of the historical devel opment of the Western esoteric and non-Christian religious markets for shaping—reterritorializing—early expressions of Islam and Sufism in America. A final Sufi study organization from the period most likely did not have, as far as is known, any ties to Webb’s movement, but its appearance at the time reflects the environment that his movement helped cultivate. The Omar Khayyam Club was originally formed in England in 1892.79 Its purpose was to preserve the memory and appreciation of FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat through host ing quarterly dinners at which the fifty-nine members of the club could cele brate and discuss the work. Although the club was primarily social, not literary, members often wrote poems to present at its meetings, and its mere existence helped solidify literary appreciation of Muslim mystical writings in England and abroad, particularly when it invited American guests like Charles Scribner and Henry James.80 The American club, meanwhile, held its first meeting in Boston in 1900, and among its attendees was the old Unitarian spiritualist and sympathizer of Islam, Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson.81 Like its British counterpart, members were people who wanted to encourage the cultivation of appreciation of Muslim mystical writings and frequently composed their own Omar Khayyam-inspired poems.

77 Sufi Interpretations of the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald (New York: J.F. Taylor & Co., 1902), preface (unpaginated). 78 For Inayat Khan’s ties to the Martinist Order, see Chapter 8. 79 Yohannan, Persian Poetry, 202–03. 80 Ibid. 81 Charles Dana Burrage, Twenty Years of the Omar Khayyam Club in America ([Boston]: Rosemary Press, 1921), 7, 9.

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Independent Converts and New Muslim Proselytizers

Just as some Islam-focused clubs were not directly connected to Webb’s move ment, not every turn-of-the-century us Muslim convert had ties to him either. These independent converts, however, were relatively few, and seem to have been individuals less motivated by ideological reasons than their Webb- connected counterparts. The dozen or so converts of this type who appeared in newspaper articles at the time can be grouped into three camps: (1) women who married wealthy Muslim visitors to the us who, soon after the marriage, returned to their homeland with their new wives;82 (2) American visitors— usually missionaries, teachers, soldiers, or families of diplomats—to Muslim countries (often it was Turkey) who married local Muslims and then stayed in the country;83 and (3) women who married Muslim immigrants.84 Although very little is known about these individuals, it is clear that the deterritorializing force of modern travel was a major component in these conversions, as was the desire to marry, which appears to have been for these people a motivation so powerful that it superseded reservations about religious differences and social consequences. Travel and marriage would, in fact, only continue to increase the numbers of us Muslim converts—particularly non-ideologically- motivated Muslim converts—in the years to come.

82 In the early 1900s, there was a small rash of newspaper reports of wealthy Muslims marry ing American women, and some of these women were said to have converted. See “Weds Mahometan,” Boston Daily Globe, December 1, 1904, 5; “Actress Weds a Prince,” New York Times, August 16, 1911; “The Smart Set,” San Francisco Call, April 23, 1912, 11; “Weds a Mahommedan, and Adopts His Faith,” Los Angeles Times, August 13, 1912, 11; “Abandons the Cross for the Crescent,” Los Angeles Times, August 13, 1912, 11; “One American Girl’s Oriental Marriage,” The Milwaukee Sentinel, September 14, 1919; “American Girl Gives up Faith to Marry Turk,” Evening Independent, August 18, 1926, 1; “Rajah Wants Bride—or Death,” Los Angeles Times, February 3, 1928, 7. 83 George Horton, The Blight of Asia (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1926), 244–45; “He Traveled in Turkey,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 25, 1895, 3; “Brides of… Turkish Beys,” The Saint Paul Globe, July 1, 1900, 19; “A Convert to Islam,” Indiana Progress, July 16, 1902, 3; “How Gray Became a Datto,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 27, 1902, 33; “American Officer a Datto,” New York Times, February 19, 1903; Philadelphia Inquirer, February 20, 1903, 8; “U.S. Bluejackets Wed Turkish Girls and Stay in Turkey,” Atlanta Constitution, February 18, 1919, 1 (the last of these does not mention conversion, but con version would have been very much encouraged for these men who had taken Turkish wives). 84 “New York Mohammedans,” Hartford Courant, September 9, 1889, 2; “With Moslem Rites,” Daily Inter Ocean, September 7, 1893, 1; “Alice Noonan, Mohammedan,” New York Times, March 31, 1895.

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Interestingly, the one seemingly independent turn-of-the-century convert for whom we have a little more information did not marry a Muslim woman and, unlike most independent converts, appears to have been motivated by ideology. It is not surprising, then, that there is some evidence suggesting that he may have been indirectly connected to Webb, although all indications point to his conversion and life as a Muslim as being for the most part independent of American ties. On October 27, 1907 a story filed by an American newspaper correspondent stationed in Tangier revealed that local resident George Knox MacIlwain was an American Muslim convert with a Roman Catholic Mexican wife.85 The red-bearded, thirty-one-year-old “son of a wealthy American” was from Philadelphia and therefore had possibly been involved with the city’s small secret convert community.86 MacIlwain, however, appears to have sev ered ties with Philadelphia, leaving a white American wife behind when he moved to Tangier in about 1905. Once in Morocco, he traveled to Fez where he met with the sultan, and, after purchasing many goods from the ruler and mak ing donations to a mosque and to poor locals, he “read the Koran in translation through an interpreter” and formally converted to Islam.87 At that point, MacIlwain, now known as Hadj Omar, left for England for six weeks to have, as one reported explained, “one of the ironclad rules of Islam complied with in London”—perhaps referring to a Muslim marriage ceremony.88 Next, he returned to Morocco to live in the northern town of Tetouan where he report edly “began observing the rules of Mohammedanism with more punctuality than most of the Moors themselves,” giving generously to street beggars, per forming his five daily prayers, and regularly practicing Arabic presumably to help him read the Qurʾan.89 MacIlwain attempted to take the hajj in 1908— which, if he succeeded, would have made him the first known American con vert to have performed this pillar of Islam—and then he returned to Morocco, where he lived until his death in March 1910.90

85 R.W. Emerson, “Thirstier’n Suez; Worse’n Portsaid,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 27, 1907, 4. 86 Emerson’s “Thirstier’n Suez” says MacIlwaine’s family was from “one of the New England states,” but MacIlwaine was actually from Philadelphia; see “Wife, in u.s., Gets $100,” Special to the Washington Post, February 4, 1911, 1. 87 Emerson, “Thirstier’n Suez”; “American Risks Life for Mecca,” Chicago Daily Tribune, January 19, 1908, A1. 88 “American Risks Life for Mecca.” MacIlwaine later showed people his Islamic marriage certificate. 89 “American Risks Life for Mecca.” 90 “American Risks Life for Mecca”; “American Mohammedan,” New York Times, December 17, 1907; “Wife, in u.s.”

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There were undoubtedly at least some additional ideologically-motivated converts who were living in the us and who were not directly connected to Webb. One was possibly F.L. Andersen who, after beginning to correspond with Ghulam Ahmad in 1901, became the first official us Ahmadi Muslim91 and remained an active member of the Qadiani movement at least through the early 1920s.92 Still, these people must have been rare; without the presence of American Islamic organizations, the looming fear of ostracism had to have been a serious concern for those considering converting. As long as promoters of Islam failed to concentrate their efforts on drawing converts from among those already involved with the New Thought-influenced occult revival— and therefore individuals already socially connected to, and psychologi cally adjusted for, an exclusive commitment to a non-Christian religion— ideologically-motivated converts would not be numerous. This situation, however, does not appear to have been appreciated by the various international Muslim proselytizers who came to the us between 1893 and the early 1910s. Despite the suspicions many Indian and Arab Muslims had of Webb’s motives, his multiple successes in generating a good deal of press attention for his movement, publicly explaining and defending Islam, publish ing books and newspapers, organizing study groups, and even in converting people, all convinced many Muslims that spreading Islam in the us was not an impossible task. Webb and other converts had in fact been eager for more international Muslim propaganda and missionaries to be sent to the country, and publicly supported the idea.93 Indeed, as has been mentioned, Webb wel comed an Egyptian Muslim missionary who came to help the movement in July 1893. Then, in the following fall, during his visit to America to attend the World’s Fair, the Nawab of Rampur met with Webb and discussed the preach ing of Islam in the country.94 Based on this conversation the Nawab decided to appoint a highly respected Indian Muslim teacher living in England, Mohammad Barakatullah, to be his ambassador to the us,95 although it would

91 Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 1 (1921): 13; ibid. 1, no. 2 (1921): cover; Ahmad, Approaching the West, 8. The Ahmadis report that Anderson was “in the First Scientific Station, New York City.” After extensive searching, the only entity that I have found with such a name is a brewery college in New York from that period. 92 Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 2 (1921): 39. 93 Webb, “Mr. Md. Alexander Russell Webb”; Rawson to Lant, April 19, 1895, John A. Lant Papers; J. Le Roy MacGregor Gough, “Interesting Letter from America,” Crescent 9, no. 212 (1897): 77. 94 Al-Husaini, Maulana Barkatullah, 170; “Personal,” Moslem World (August 1893). 95 Al-Husaini, Maulana Barkatullah, 170.

The Post-movement Years 179 take another six years and an additional failed international Muslim propa ganda effort for Barakatullah to finally make his way across the ocean. This additional failed international propaganda effort was the creation of another Muslim who had visited the 1893 World’s Fair: a North African named Hassan Ben Ali, one of the many Muslims who had traveled to the us since the 1870s to perform in Arabian troupe shows.96 Since the 1870s, Arabian troupes had been successfully incorporated into the expanding American entertain ment industry, as they—dressed in their robes and turbans and performing exotic rituals, dances, and acrobatics—were understood by common Americans as real-life representatives of the Arabian Nights-like East. Ben Ali was one of the handful of immigrant Muslim recruiters and managers who had discovered that the best way to convince Arab and North African tribes to allow their best acrobats to join him was by telling tribal leaders and local rul ers that he was going to use these people to spread Islam in the us.97 After arriving around 1885, Ben Ali became the head of one of the most popular and largest troupes of Arab performers in the country, a troupe that was often being replenished during his frequent trips to North Africa for training and recruitment.98 Probably in around 1894, after the World’s Fair had ended, Ben Ali began attempting to secure further support for his business from Muslims around the world by telling potential backers that, after being inspired by the mosque con structed at the World’s Fair, he was preparing to build a real mosque in New York, primarily for the 600-odd Muslims he believed were living there.99 Ultimately, seven international Muslim societies pledged support, and England’s Mohammad Barakatullah—probably because of his having been appointed the Nawab of Rampur’s American ambassador—was invited to help

96 See Nance, How, 115–35. 97 “Mission of Muley Ali,” Philadelphia Times, December 4, 1898, 15. 98 See, e.g., “The Ramadan,” The Standard (Brooklyn), April 29, 1892, 5; “Hassan Ben Ali, Manager,” New York Sun, May 28, 1911, 3; “Hassan Ben Ali Dies,” Variety, July 24, 1914, 8. Unfortunately, the us consulate dispatches from before 1907, while they confirm that Ben Ali maintained business activities in Morocco, reveal very little other information about his activities. The only report concerning Ben Ali that I have found deals with his Moroccan brother-in-law who, it appears, stole Ben Ali’s money that was sent to the brother-in-law for business purposes; see Report of Consular Agent at Mogador, May 4, 1903, United States Consulate, Despatches from United States Consuls in Tangier 1797–1906 (Washington: The National Archives, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1959). 99 “Mosque for New York,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 17, 1896, 5.

180 chapter 6 with the effort.100 By April 1895, Barakatullah, who was an important member of both the London Muslim community and the Liverpool mosque, was telling the American converts affiliated with Webb of these plans and his intentions of coming to the us.101 However, because Ben Ali’s intentions were not sincere, progress was extremely slow. In late 1896, he made a big announcement of the project for the press, but he never followed through with the plans.102 Ben Ali, nevertheless, continued to exploit religious themes to promote his troupe, such as by labeling members of his troupe ‘sheikhs’ and ‘whirling dervishes,’ and quoting from the Qurʾan in his advertisements.103 He also, by 1895, joined the white Shriners’ Mecca Temple in New York, and frequently promoted his affiliation with the organization as a means of drawing on the popularity of the Shriners’ connections with oriental themes.104 Through these efforts, Ben Ali became perhaps the us’ single most successful Muslim performance manager during the period, spawning many imitators who, because of their sheer num bers, helped to establish a new genre of for-profit Muslim performer: the Muslim mystical ‘professor,’ who claimed that he could share his advanced oriental esoteric knowledge with paying customers (see Chapter 7).105 Barakatullah, meanwhile, would, after finally arriving in the country in 1899, promote Islam in the us for over decade.106 Here, he wrote numerous articles

100 “Mosque for New York”; M. Irfan, Barkatullah Bhopali, [‘liberal’] trans. S. Iftikhar Ali (Bhopal, India: Babul Ilm Publications, 2003), 41. 101 Rawson to Lant, April 19, 1895, John A. Lant Papers. 102 “Mission of Muley Ali.” 103 See, e.g., his many advertisements in the New York Clipper in 1913–15. 104 Ibid. Given this and what we know about Noble Drew Ali, who would later lead the Moorish Science Temple, an important early African American Islamic organization, it seems very likely that it would have been Hassan Ben Ali’s troupe that was the Arab ‘circus’ Drew Ali was rumored to have joined in the early 1900s. For further discussion, see hctius vol. 2. 105 Hassan Ben Ali seems to have influenced this wave by occasionally employing such types in his troupe. For more on the topic, see chapter 7 in this volume as well as hctius vol. 2. 106 There are only a few English-language in-depth discussions of Barakatullah’s life, and we still know very little about his time in the u.s. See Charles Brodie Patterson, “Mohammad Barakatullah: A Biographical Sketch,” Mind (October 1903): 493–95; Shafqat Razvi, “Mawli Barkatullah Bhopali (A Revolutionary Freedom Fighter in the Early 20th Century),” Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 37, no. 2 (1989): 139–58; Irfan, Barkatullah Bhopali; al-Husaini, Maulana Barkatullah; Juhi Aslam, “Life History of Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali,” in The Contribution of Raja Mahendra Pratap and Prof. Barkatullah Bhopali in Freedom Struggle and Its Importance in Contemporary Society, eds. M. Hassan Khan & Ayisha Rais Kamal (Calcutta: M.K. Bagchi, 2008), 36–46; Mohammed Ayub Khan, “Universal Islam: The faith and political ideologies of Maulana Barakatullah ‘Bhopali,’” Sikh Formations 10, no. 1 (2014): 57–67; Humayun Ansari, “Maulana Barkatullah Bhopali’s

The Post-movement Years 181 and lectured on Islam and Sufism for many people across the us—including the New Thought community in 1903 and attendees of a 1908 interreligious conference that also hosted Webb.107 During the early twentieth century, how ever, the evidence suggests that the only people he explicitly urged to convert to Islam were African Americans, and this call seems to have been either ignored or rejected in the black community at the time.108 There were, of course, other missionaries who, like Barakatullah, appear to have been sincere in their efforts but failed to bring Americans to Islam. In September 1905, a North African named Hadji Ali arrived in Boston with two purposes: to attend Harvard as a student and to propagate Islam through build ing a mosque in the city and promoting the religion.109 Ali was in fact being backed by the Moroccan sultan, who was, despite Hassan Ben Ali’s plans falling through, continuing to make a strong effort to spread Islam abroad in order to generate support against European colonialism.110 Once again, though, nothing is known to have come out of this effort. Ten years later, in 1914, throughout the country there were various reports of Muslim missionaries, including a Turkish missionary in Kentucky in early January and another one of unknown ethnicity reportedly on his way to Portland in March.111 The latter may have been Harry Dean, a black American of non-slave ancestry who was a great-grandson of Paul Cuffe, a noted American captain and African nationalist of Ghanese descent.112 Like his famous ancestor, Harry Dean became a ship captain and

Transnationalism: Pan-islamism, Colonialism, and Radical Politics,” in Transnational Islam in Interwar Europe: Muslim Activists and Thinkers, eds. Götz Norbruch and Umar Ryad (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 181–210. 107 On Barakatullah’s New Thought ties, see “Summer School of the New Thought,” Arena (June 1903): inside cover. His lecture for their community was titled, notably, “Esoteric Mohammedanism.” An article he wrote on Sufism and a short biography were also fea tured in the October 1903 issue of the popular New Thought journal, Mind, and were reprinted in many other periodicals. On the 1908 interreligious conference, see “Church and Religious News and Notes,” New York Tribune, July 4, 1908, 8. 108 Mohammad Barakatullah Maulavie, “‘White and Black in the South,’” New York Tribune, May 3, 1903, 11; Colored American, November 28, 1903, 6. For more on this subject, see hctius vol. 2. 109 “Bits from Boston,” Washington Post, February 5, 1906, 6; “Editorial Notes,” Crescent 27, no. 699 (1906): 361. 110 “Moorish Awakening,” Moslem Chronicle and the Muhammadan Observer, September 28, 1901, 2075. 111 Hartford Herald, January 28, 1914, 1; Walter B. Hinson, “A Challenge and a Defense,” Oregonian, March 22, 1914, 12. 112 Captain Harry Dean with Sterling North, The Pedro Gorino: The Adventures of a Negro Sea Captain in Africa and on the Seven Seas in his Attempts to Found an Ethiopian Empire (Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1929), 3–13.

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African nationalist, and his vigorous efforts to build an empire in southern Africa eventually earned him the epithet of “the most dangerous colored man on the face of the earth.”113 In addition to all of this, currently circulating in us Muslim circles is a report that Dean was associated with the Muslim Mosque of London and “distributed Islamic literature in Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Washington State” in the early twentieth century.114 By this time, there were reportedly several Ottoman Muslim sheikhs coming to the us; they apparently had been attracted by the work done by an imam connected to the Ottoman ambassador in Washington, dc, one Shaykh Mehmed Ali.115 Mehmed, in addition to being the imam for the Ottoman Embassy, led religious worship at one of the earliest immigrant mosques in the us. The Ottoman consulate, beginning in 1910, paid the rent for an apartment on the third floor of 17 Rector Street in lower Manhattan so that it would be used as a mosque.116 The building at this address, in fact, had been, at least since the early 1890s, a popular destination for immigrant Muslims; many resided there, and several also ran oriental wares businesses out of the bottom floors—all of which apparently earned the building its nickname, which appeared on the front doors, ‘The Oriental.’117 From this building, Mehmed was a very influential Muslim leader in the city. It was reported in 1912 that, as a result of Mehmed becoming the imam two years earlier, local Muslims had begun more closely adhering to Islamic practices, and as many as seventy-five to one hundred Muslims “often” visited the Manhattan mosque for prayer. Mehmed, who claimed that the Turkish government had named him head “of the spiritual affairs of the Mohammedans in this part of the world,” even had

113 “‘Most Dangerous Colored Man in the World’ Dead at Age 72,” Afro-American, August 3, 1935, 12. 114 Amir Nashid Ali Muhammad, Muslims in America: Seven Centuries of History (1312–2000) (Beltsville, md: Amana Publications, 2001), 45. The apparent source of this rumor is Dean’s unpublished diaries, which I have not been able to examine, but are housed at the DuSable Museum of African American History in Chicago. 115 See Ahmed I. Abu Shouk, J.O. Hunwick & R.S. O’Fahey, “A Sudanese Missionary to the United States,” Sudanic Africa 8 (1997): 141–42. I would like to thank Abdullahi Gallab for pointing this fact out to me. 116 “Mohammedans Now Have a Place of Worship Here,” The Sun (New York), February 25, 1912, 15. This article gives extensive biographical details for Mehmed Ali. 117 “Mohammedans Now Have.” This is confirmed by the fact that searches for 17 Rector Street in New York newspapers often reveal Muslim surnames affiliated with this address, at least until the early 1920s. It seems that these Muslims represented a wide variety of ethnicities and nationalities.

The Post-movement Years 183 an influence that went beyond New York.118 He regularly traveled to and was the religious leader for Muslims in various New England cities, including Lowell, Boston, Worcester, and Providence. News of Mehmed’s religious work had made its way back to Muslim-majority lands where it attracted several Syrian sheikhs to come to the us, and may have been part of what drew the more well-known Sudanese proselytizer Satti Majid to New York.119 Majid, after spending perhaps a few years under Mehmed, went to Detroit, from where he began working with immigrants and African American converts across the eastern half of the country.120 On August 12, 1915, yet another Ottoman sheikh arrived in the us. This man, however, was distinguished by his verifiably holding the title of Sheikh al-Islam, a title given by Ottomans to the highest religious official in a region.121 Sayid Muhammad Wajih Gilani Effendi had been the ‘Imperial Ottoman Religious Commissioner’ (apparently his English interpretation of the position of Sheikh al-Islam) for the Philippines, which was still under us control at the time,122 though, due to conflicting reports, it is not known exactly how long he had acted in this capacity.123 Upon his arrival in New York, Gilani, who was accompanied by his secretary and a servant, announced that he had

come to tell the American people that there are half a million [Muslims] in the Philippines […] and they will become citizens of whom the United States will not be ashamed.124

118 “Mohammedans Now Have.” 119 Abu Shouk et al., “Sudanese Missionary,” 141–42. 120 See Abu Shouk et al., “Sudanese Missionary,” passim; Patrick D. Bowen, “Satti Majid: A Sudanese Founder of American Islam,” Journal of Africana Religions 1, no. 2 (2013): 194–209. For more, see hctius vol. 2. 121 There is in fact a long history of this title being used by Muslims, but the Ottomans employed it a unique way. See Richard W. Bulliet, “The Shaikh al-Islam and the Evolution of Islamic Society,” Studia Islamica no. 35 (1972): 53–67. It is not clear if Webb, as he and James L. Rodgers claimed, had officially received this title (Mehmed’s being named the head “of the spiritual affairs of the Mohammedans in this part of the world” would have conflicted with this); Quilliam, however, did receive the title for Britain. 122 “Sheikh here to Lecture,” New York Times, August 13, 1915. 123 In one report, he claimed to “have spent several years in the Philippines”—see “Skyscrapers as Prayer Towers,” Miami Herald, August 28, 1915, 10. In a later article, however, he is said to have only served as Sheikh al-Islam there for a “few months.” See “Descendant of Mohammed,” Le Grand Reporter, November 12, 1915, 6. There are also discrepancies in his reported age. While most newspaper articles at the time said he was forty, his ship’s mani fest lists him as thirty-three. 124 “Sheikh here to Lecture.”

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Gilani carried with him a book entitled What Sayeth the Sheikh ul-Islam,125 and over the next several months apparently gave a number of lectures, “promot ing good will of all Moslems toward the government of the United States,” encouraging Muslims to have “religious and racial tolerance,” and teaching “a new Mohammedan creed of the brotherhood of man.”126 Gilani’s us impact extended beyond promoting better relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. While in the us, he corresponded with at least one convert to Islam, Ella May Garber, a white woman originally from Indiana, who had first converted to Sufism in 1911 after reading Sufi poets (see Chapter 7).127 In Sufism, however, she felt she had only

first beg[u]n to see Islam’s light, not in a very serious way. I was only grop ing… A glorious teacher of light came into my life in 1915, the late Sheik […] Gilani […] He lifted me far above this world, so it seemed to me […] In one letter he said to me: “Your salvation now depends upon your actions towards those who see the light of faith through you.” […] I lived only for him [for over two years] after his departure.128

Gilani died in Richmond, Virginia on May 6, 1916, so it was only with the 1920 arrival of an Ahmadi missionary that Garber would feel that her soul was “lifted” again. In spite of his success in having redirected the faith of Garber, however, as far as is known, Gilani, like the other Sunni Muslim proselytizers in the us before 1920, could not generate a conversion movement.

Asian-Majority Religions in Turn-of-the-Century America: A Comparison

As we have seen, in 1895, Webb attributed Islam’s relative failure at gaining large numbers of converts during the turn of the century largely to anti-Islamic sentiment, which he asserted made potential converts fear ostracism that they

125 “Skyscrapers as Prayer Towers.” 126 “Descendant of Mohammed.” 127 See Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 6 (1922): 147. I am dating her conversion based on comments made in this source, as well as one found in Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 1 (1921): 13. Garber appears to have been in San Francisco at the time of her introduction to Islam, and so may have been an original follower of Inayat Khan, who is recognized as being the first Sufi proselytizer in the us, or his first American follower, Rabia Martin (see Chapter 7). 128 Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 6 (1922): 147.

The Post-movement Years 185 might face if they were to convert.129 There is undoubtedly some truth to this, but, it is rather difficult to demonstrate, as there are almost no known exam ples of direct suppression of or retaliation from non-Muslims against the turn- of-the-century converts. This theory also does not explain why before the 1890s no other Asian-majority religion had succeeded in starting a movement in the us. Therefore, in the interest of better understanding the relative failure of the various Islamic proselytization efforts of the period, it would be helpful to examine the increase in us conversions to other Asian-majority religions— Buddhism, Hinduism/Vedantism, and the Baha’i faith—in the 1890s and early 1900s.130 In doing so, we will take what will at first appear to be an unrelated divagation, an examination of the rise of yet another esoteric organization, called the Oriental Order of the Magi. This discussion will be necessary to understand how the Baha’i faith—a new and relatively small religious sect— generated far and away the single most popular Asian-majority religious move ment in the turn-of-the-century us.

Buddhists and Vedantists Out of all the Asian-majority religions to have claimed converts in the late 1800s and early 1900s, perhaps the most difficult for distinguishing between who was and was not a convert is Buddhism.131 Hundreds, possibly thousands, of late nineteenth-century Americans at some point claimed to be Buddhists without having made a formal commitment to the religion and, in many cases, without identifying exclusively as Buddhists.132 Frequently, these people saw Buddhism as representing a pure, ancient type of Idealist philosophy—a notion that had been popularized by the Transcendentalists—and, like the Transcendentalists, the Buddhistic Idealism of these new ‘converts’ undergirded and reinforced their liberal belief in the truths of other religions

129 Webb, “A Letter from Muhammad A. Russel Webb,” 89. 130 There is, admittedly, an important difficulty with this approach: particularly with the Buddhists and Vedantists, there is not a great deal of available information on the early converts. Often, the leaders of early Asian-majority religion organizations did not publi cize membership details and scholars apparently have not found many relevant unpub lished records. Nevertheless, there have been respectable attempts to sift through the available data and some valuable—if sometimes tentative—conclusions have been arrived at. The available data and these conclusions, as well as the other known facts about the history of the spread of the various Asian-majority religions in the us between 1890 and 1910, help put the Islam movement’s failure into better perspective. 131 See Thomas A. Tweed, The American Encounter with Buddhism 1844–1912 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), esp. 39 ff. 132 Tweed, American Encounter, 46.

186 chapter 6 as well. If we consider these people converts—which is a somewhat difficult proposition to accept, especially for those who did not commit exclusively to Buddhism—the trend that emerges is that many of these people were already committed to liberal religion and Free Thought groups. Since the time of the Transcendentalists, Buddhism had been much more popular among such people than Islam or Sufism, which may explain the preference for Buddhism towards the end of the century—although, again, it is difficult to consider these individuals true converts. A similar, but perhaps slightly more widely accepted type of Buddhist con vert was the Buddhist Theosophist, which included Alexander Webb at one point in the early religious exploration stage of his life. In the 1880s, many Western Theosophists began regarding themselves as Buddhists, especially after the publication of Alfred P. Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism in 1883, which asserted that Theosophical teachings were the true essence of Buddhism. While some of these Buddhist Theosophists, such as Marie de Souza Canavarro, after identifying as Buddhist, abandoned Theosophy to pursue an exclusive commitment to Buddhism, for the most part Buddhist Theosophists contin ued to accept Theosophical doctrines. Although this meant that many Buddhists who followed more traditional Buddhist teachings would not embrace Theosophists as true Buddhists, the fact that Buddhist Theosophists exclusively chose Buddhism and not another traditional religion with which to identify makes them Buddhist converts on at least a superficial level. As long as one acknowledges this caveat, it would therefore be legitimate to count the over three thousand turn-of-the-century American Theosophists as Buddhists. The major factors contributing to these people’s ‘conversions’ to Buddhism, then, as we have seen, came in a two-stage process: first, joining spiritualism, Free Thought, or another esoteric or New Thought-based movement, and then joining Theosophy, which claimed to be a legitimate representative of Buddhism. In addition to these more questionable conversions to Buddhism, there were others who made exclusive commitments to what they regarded as tradi tional Buddhist teachings. Prior to 1897, these were largely, like many early Muslim converts, isolated individuals with liberal religious, and sometimes esoteric backgrounds. They were not many in number, perhaps fewer than a dozen.133 Starting in 1897, though, conversion to non-Theosophical Buddhism increased when the religion began to be promoted by organizations interested in spreading non-Theosophical Buddhism in the us. The main organization doing this at the turn of the century was the Maha Bodhi Society, a South Asian

133 Tweed, American Encounter, 39–40.

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Buddhist group formed in 1891 by Anagarika Dharmapala—one of the speak ers at the World’s Parliament of Religions—and British author Sir Edwin Arnold to encourage a revival of Buddhism in response to what was perceived as the encroachment of other religions.134 By the early 1890s, the group had gained a single American Buddhist convert and an additional sympathizer as the organization’s ‘representatives,’ but when Dharmapala returned to the country in 1897, he was able to gather a small core of followers in Chicago who would establish, within a few more years, additional groups in New York and San Francisco. Those few convert followers about whom we have some infor mation were, notably, either Theosophists or active in other liberal move ments.135 Unfortunately, there is very little additional data about the early us Maha Bodhi Society groups; however, since they allowed as members (and were in fact started by) sympathizers in addition to converts, the Society prob ably could claim only a handful of—perhaps less than twenty—converts by 1910, given their apparently minor growth. Similarly, the Dharma Sangha of Buddha, established in 1900 by Japanese Buddhists in San Francisco, only had seven original members and apparently never obtained more than twenty-five members who were American-born.136 It seems, then, that Webb’s organiza tion was perhaps more successful in the short term than either of these, which suggests that, since Buddhism was much more popular than Islam in main stream American thought, public appreciation of a religion was not a direct determinant for the success of particular organizations. There were, nevertheless, some non-Theosophist movements for Asian- majority religions that were verifiably more successful than Webb’s. Protap Chunder Mozoomdar was perhaps the first Hindu missionary in the us; how ever, he appears to have primarily intended to spread information about Hinduism, not to make converts, in his three visits to the country between 1883 and 1900.137 A more clearly conversion-focused movement was brought by the famous Swami Vivekenanda. After traveling to the country for the World’s Parliament of Religions, Vivekenanda established in the us his Vedanta Society, which by 1906 had four American groups and 340 members.138 Again, data on

134 Tweed, American Encounter, 31. 135 Edgar A. Weir, Jr., “The Whiter Lotus: Asian Religions and Reform Movements in America, 1836-1933” (PhD diss., University of Nevada, 2011), 208–17. 136 Weir, Jr., “Whiter Lotus,” 217. 137 See Sunrit Mullick, The First Hindu Missionary to America: The Pioneering Visits of Protap Chunder Mozoomdar (New Delhi: Northern Book Centre, 2010). 138 Carl T. Jackson, Vedanta for the West: The Ramakrishna Movement in the United States (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 108.

188 chapter 6 the early followers is very limited, but Carl T. Jackson has examined existing biographical information of early leading members as well as other clues to offer some generalizations.139 Every early prominent leader Jackson looked at was either in Theosophy, New Thought/Christian Science, esoteric, or liberal/ left-wing communities prior to joining Vivekenanda’s movement, with Theosophy and New Thought being most common. With these types of people as leaders, it is highly likely that they were able to bring in other former follow ers of esoteric and New Thought groups. The two other patterns Jackson noticed in the Vedanta Society were that there were more women than men and that there was a larger proportion of European immigrants than there was in the us overall.140 Vivekenanda’s relative success in gaining converts, then, seems to reflect his greater ability to recruit more from groups that were of the type predisposed to generate people exclusively committed to esoteric and non-Christian religions, and there also may have been something to his group’s gaining numerous women and immigrants, neither of which, as far as the evi dence shows, were significant in Webb’s organization.

The Baha’i Faith In terms of enrolling official members in an organization, the most successful us conversion movement for what was understood to be an authentic Asian- majority religion was that led by America’s early Baha’is. The story of the Baha’is’ impressive expansion in the 1890s puts into relief the benefits that could be had by early us Asian-majority religion movements if they success fully attached themselves to New Thought/esoteric organizations, which the early Baha’is did exceedingly well. The early American Baha’i movement also had several direct and thematic connections with Webb’s movement, which makes it particularly useful for comparison. In the 1890s, the American Baha’i movement was led by Ibrahim George Kheiralla, a Lebanese Christian and graduate of the Syrian Protestant College (now known as the American University at Beirut),141 who first encountered the Baha’i faith in the late 1880s while living in Cairo.142 Prior to learning about

139 See Jackson, Vedanta, 89 ff. 140 Jackson, Vedanta, 93. 141 Kheiralla was in fact part of the school’s first graduating class. 142 The most valuable works on the early Baha’i movement in the us are Robert H. Stockman, The Baha’i Faith in America Volume 1: Origins 1892–1900 (Wilmette, il: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1985); Richard Hollinger, “Ibrahim George Kheiralla and the Baha’i Faith in America,” in Studies in Babi and Baha’i History Volume Two: From Iran East and West, eds. Juan R. Cole and Moojan Momen (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1982), 95–133; Richard Hollinger, “‘Wonderful True Visions’: Magic, Mysticism, and Millennialism in the Making

The Post-movement Years 189 the Baha’is, Kheiralla had taken an interest in the rational study of religion, occult knowledge, and, reportedly, Egyptian Masonry,143 and it was through his research into the latter topics that he was put in touch with a Persian Baha’i merchant living in Cairo, ‘Abdul’l-Karim-i Tihrani. For about two years, Tihrani taught Kheiralla, introducing him to the idea that spiritual powers could be obtained “only through a process of moral and spiritual development,” and interspersed through these lessons were ideas about the Baha’i faith, which were presented as important for this occult teaching.144 The Baha’i movement had emerged as an outgrowth of the mid-nineteenth-century Persian Shiʿi- connected ‘Babi’ movement, in which in 1844 one Siyyid `Alí-Muhammad began proclaiming himself to be the ‘Bab’ (gate), meaning the foretold mes siah. After the Bab was executed in 1850, in 1853 one of his followers, Mírzá Husayn-`Alí Núrí, took the title of Bahá’u’lláh, and claimed that he was the true messiah for which all the world’s religions had been waiting. He soon amassed a large following in Persia, which he maintained even after his suppression and exile to Palestine. At the most basic level, Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings emphasized three main ideas: that all humanity was a single race and should unite; that all religions come from the same source, God; and that there is only one God, who is the source of all creation—all of which were notions that were popular among Western esotericists, as we have seen. Bahá’u’lláh’s full teachings were, of course, a great deal more complex than this, but Kheiralla apparently only learned the very basics from Tihrani, as he was probably mostly interested in Tihrani’s promises of occult powers. Nevertheless, in 1889, Kheiralla, who reportedly understood the Baha’i faith as a global occult, Masonic-like order that allowed in members of different faiths, formally joined the movement. Kheiralla came to the us in December 1892 in order attempt to market inventions he had come up with while living in Cairo. At first, he resided in New York with his Syrian Christian friend, Anton Haddad, who had also been introduced to the Baha’i faith in Cairo, and who had arrived several months earlier to promote one of Kheiralla’s inventions. Practically as soon as he gained his bearings, Kheiralla began trying to spread the Baha’i faith to the

of the American Bahai Community, 1892–1895,” in Search for Values: Ethics in Bahá’í Thought, eds. John Danesh and Seena Fazel (Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 2004–05), 207–39. I would also like to thank Dr. Stockman, Mr. Hollinger, and Dr. Cole for answering my many inquiries on the topic. The following account of the Baha’is’ early us growth—with the exception of the discussions of the Order of the Magi—is derived almost exclusively from these sources. 143 “Abdel Karim Effendi,” Star of the Magi (July 1900): 9. 144 Hollinger, “Wonderful True Visions,” 210–11.

190 chapter 6 various people he encountered in New York, which were primarily Syrian and liberal white American Christians. It appears that at the time Kheiralla had little to no success in converting others, but through his efforts he was able to make many new friends and business connections. In the summer of 1893, just as Webb’s Islamic movement was getting off the ground, Kheiralla entered into a partnership with a local Syrian merchant with whom he would, for the remainder of the year, travel throughout Michigan selling various oriental wares. Haddad stayed behind in New York, where, as mentioned in Chapter 5, he became involved with Webb’s group, giving speeches at the American Islamic Propaganda’s lecture hall and even working with Lant on the Muslim- American trade bureau.145 When Kheiralla went to Michigan, he gave a number of public lectures on Middle Eastern religions, possibly as a way of generating interest in the goods he was selling. He also continued a practice he had started in New York of talk ing with people privately about religion. This was done with both members of the general public and local Protestant religious leaders, for whom Kheiralla carried letters of introduction that he obtained from the religious leaders he had befriended in New York. The existing evidence suggests that while Kheiralla’s public lectures did not address the Baha’i faith, he did speak about it in these informal conversations, and some of those whom he met in Michigan were possibly among his first converts. Grand Rapids, in particular, seems to have been especially warm to Kheiralla, and in Kalamazoo, Kheiralla report edly became involved with a group that practiced “healing the sick by meta physics, by laying on of hands.”146 In early February 1894, Kheiralla arrived in Chicago accompanied by friends he had made in Michigan who were plugged into the region’s New Thought and esoteric community. Kheiralla’s friends began introducing him to various groups and leaders. In less than two weeks, he obtained an l.l.d. degree issued by the New Thought-based American Health University. One of the ‘doctors’ who signed his certificate would eventually play a leading role in his Baha’i organization, as would another New Thought/homeopathic doctor whom Kheiralla met in his first few months in the city.147 Kheiralla’s connections also gained him entrée with some of Chicago’s lead ing liberal religion writers, spiritualists, astrologers, and esotericist figures, such as the popular medium Cora L.V. Richmond and William Phelon, the

145 “Headquarters Opened”; Kuddus Badsha and Hadi Badsha to Lant, November 2, 1893, John A. Lant Papers. 146 Hollinger, “Wonderful True Visions,” 217. 147 Hollinger, “Wonderful True Visions,” 220.

The Post-movement Years 191 head of both Chicago’s Theosophical community and of an offshoot of the H.B. of L., known as the Hermetic Brotherhood of Atlantis, Luxor, and Elephante. With their help, Kheiralla spoke before many Chicago groups and made a host of new friends, including J.R. Francis, a prominent spiritualist who had started a popular spiritualist newspaper, the Progressive Thinker.148 Just a few years before Kheiralla’s arrival, Francis had become involved with another emerging esoteric organization, the Grand Rapids-based Oriental Order of the Magi, which Francis had convinced to move to Chicago where he made the Progressive Thinker the group’s official organ. This was to later become an important con nection for Kheiralla. In June 1894, Kheiralla taught his first class on the Baha’i faith and, report edly, every person who attended was involved with New Thought, esoteric, or non-Christian religion studies, and many were interested in all three of these topics.149 Kheiralla, believing his faith’s teachings to be from a secret order, did not reveal all he knew to his students, and, as was his modus operandi later, probably interviewed them before deciding which of his students was permit ted to be taught what he believed were the most secret instructions of the faith. His students, however, also introduced Kheiralla to new ideas, encourag ing him to read New Thought and Western esoteric writings, which Kheiralla, not having a strong understanding of the intricacies of Baha’i thought to begin with, began incorporating into his teachings.150 Progress was slow at first. By the end of 1894, Kheiralla probably had only about four converts; by January of 1896, probably around a dozen.151 To support himself in these early years, Kheiralla started charging people who came to him for his healing powers.152 In the meantime, he began corresponding with inquirers from throughout the us, and, as word got out about Kheiralla, more people attended his classes. By late 1896, there were around thirty American Baha’is, most of whom were people already involved in alternative religions; by April 1897, about sixty, and financial contributions to the group had apparently become so numerous that they were now being recorded.153 Eighteen ninety- seven was in fact the year the us Baha’i movement went from being one of the several small new Asian-religion groups in the us to the first truly major one.

148 Hollinger, “Wonderful True Visions,” 221; Richard Hollinger, email message to the author, February 8, 2014. 149 Hollinger, “Wonderful True Visions,” 223. 150 Stockman, The Baha’i Faith in America Volume 1, 37. 151 Ibid., 33–39. 152 Ibid., 30–31. 153 Ibid., 40, 85, 102–03.

192 chapter 6

This achievement was not made simply by Kheiralla becoming increasingly well-known in the Chicago area; a significant factor in this transformation was the movement’s establishing a connection with the esoteric group known as the Oriental Order of the Magi.

The Oriental Order of the Magi In the 1890s, no organization brought together the various elements circulating in the occult revival more completely than the Oriental Order of the Magi (also referred to as the Order of the Magi, oom, or om).154 While the oom may have been another offshoot of the H.B. of L.,155 it was without doubt a very different organization. It explicitly incorporated New Thought, homeopathy, spiritual ism, astrology, Kabala, tarot, belief in Atlantis, magnetism, pyramidism and Eyptology, interest in ancient (especially oriental) religions, magic mirrors, psy chic and magical powers, messianism, hidden superiors, reincarnation, an emphasis on science terminology, Freemasonry, and other ideas popular in the alternative religion milieu. It was, moreover, the first to popularize in an orga nized esoteric group other much rarer notions, such the claim that the fifty-two- card playing card deck has astrological significance and powers, an astrology that was heliocentric and emphasized knowing the distance of planets from the sun, the belief in life on other planets in our solar system, and the idea that all these types of esoteric teachings should be called ‘mathematics.’ (Not coinci dentally, a number of the oom’s unique notions and practices would reappear in an African American Islamic sect, the Nation of Islam, as will be discussed in hctius volume two.) Much like the Theosophical Society’s American growth in the 1880s, the oom’s ability to bring together the many alternative religious ideas present in American religious culture at the time appears to have been one of the keys to its success: the majority of its members had often, prior to joining, participated in one or more groups focused around the above concepts, and they believed that the oom, because it incorporated these teachings along with many others, possessed a higher level of spiritual knowledge. The oom had other factors contributing to its success that were similar to those that helped Theosophy spread in America. For instance, the order’s

154 As has been mentioned, there has been almost no scholarly work on this group. However, some non-academic researchers have compiled and analyzed documents concerning the group’s history; Arline L. Richmond’s Yenlo and the Mystic Brotherhood ([Chicago]: n.p., 1946) was the first, and it was significantly improved upon by Iain McLaren-Owens, ed., Articles on the Order of the Magi & Its History, 3rd ed. (Scottsdale, az: Astro-Cards Enterprises, 2007). The following is largely based on their research. 155 For a discussion, see Bowen, introduction to Letters to the Sage.

The Post-movement Years 193 founder and leader, Olney H. Richmond, early on obtained a core group of loyal followers who served as the organization’s initial leaders. When Richmond started the oom in Grand Rapids in 1889, he was the owner of a drug store that sold ‘magnetic’ and homeopathic products, and his business partner—Louis Judd Shafer—became a head in the occult group, as did Richmond’s then-wife Cornelia.156 Then, Richmond, who was also a widely respected chess and checkers player, had fellow chess and checkers enthusiast E.E. Burlingame establish an early branch of the oom in Rochester.157 Richmond even, after a few years of running his order, divorced his first wife and married another early leader in the organization, a follower of numerous alternative religions named Verona Doane.158 In addition to having these close social bonds among the early leaders, the oom, like Theosophy, also greatly benefitted from the sup port of a periodical; in the oom’s case, this was, as noted above, J.R. Francis’ Progressive Thinker. Lastly, for the oom, like for Theosophy and Martinism, Masonry was a crucial element in its development. Richmond was himself a Mason and he used the Craft as a foundation upon which he would erect an occult organization that could both incorporate many ideas and, at the same time, emphasize exclusive commitment to particular ones. In early 1890, Richmond started gaining attention from the Grand Rapids press after telling several locals that he had special insights into the nature and history of the universe, the planet earth, and occult knowledge.159 By late February, when a reporter visited Richmond’s ‘temple,’ the group supposedly had thirty members, several of whom were Masons, and many of whom lived in different Michigan cities.160 Richmond explained to the reporter that he was

156 Richmond, Yenlo, 71; McLaren-Owens, Articles, 2, 3, 112, 205; New York State Association of School Commissioners and Superintendents, Proceedings of the Thirty-Forth Annual Meeting of the New York State Association of School Commissioners and Superintendents (Albany: James B. Lyon, 1889), [262]; Order of the Magi certificate for John Osenbaugh, dated July 22, 1882, John Osenbaugh Papers, National Baha’i Archives (this document is signed by Cornelia and Shafer). Shafer sold a book by Richmond for which no copy has been located: Astropathy, which in an advertisement claimed to give information on “Astro Magnetic Treatment”; see McLaren-Owens, Articles, 2, 3. 157 McLaren-Owens, Articles, 1, 95–99; “Syracuse,” Columbia Chess Chronicle, January 10, 1889, 13; “Mysteries of the Magi,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, February 1, 1886, 14. 158 McLaren-Owens, Articles, 163–64; “Mysteries of the Magi.” At least two of the names listed by McLaren-Owens as Doane’s contacts in Boston—Hulse and Miller—were well-docu mented as members of the alternative religion community. 159 “A Mysterious Tale,” Grand Rapids Daily Democrat, March 2, 1890. This article was reprinted in both Richmond, Yenlo and McLaren-Owens, Articles. 160 Ibid.

194 chapter 6 first introduced to this esoteric knowledge in 1864 in Nashville, where Richmond, who was serving as a Union soldier, was approached by an unnamed stranger.161 This stranger—who was said to be a Frenchman—knew Richmond’s name and birth date, and explained that he had gained his knowledge through his membership in the ancient order of the Magi, a group that had “flourished in Egypt thousands of years ago,” but into which he had been initiated in India. The stranger then told Richmond that he (the stranger) was about to die, and that “the powers that rule [him]” had instructed him to convey the magis’ secrets to Richmond—who was to be his successor—before this happened. Seven years after his initiation, while Richmond was visiting Chicago, he befriended a Dr. Hamilton from Charleston, South Carolina who gave him an old book that contained “some of the mysterious words which the Frenchman had given [him].”162 The book “cast a flood of light on [his] studies,” and Richmond spent the next eighteen years engaging in deep study of esoteric and historical knowledge. He purportedly learned, among other things, that this order was the true Freemasonry, that it was the true Christianity (believing that Christ was a Magi), that it was based on heliocentric astrology, and that its religion requires no faith because all of its principles would be shown through mathematics and ‘proof.’ In 1889, “the powers who rule [him]” instructed Richmond to communicate his knowledge to others and form the Oriental Order of the Magi. By May 1890, Richmond’s story had caught the attention of the Progressive Thinker, which sent a reporter to visit the Grand Rapids temple two times in May, where the reporter witnessed Richmond perform feats of magic.163 Soon, not only were more and more readers interested in the order, but so was the magazine’s editor, Francis, who, after meeting converted followers in Chicago and seeing some of Richmond’s powers for himself, asked Richmond to bring his group to Chicago where the Progressive Thinker would become its official organ.164 Richmond left for Chicago in mid-October and by January the group apparently had over one hundred members, many of which were Masons,

161 Ibid. The following narrative is taken from this article. 162 There is of course no evidence corroborating Richmond’s claim of meeting these men. Researcher McLaren-Owens, however, has pointed out that it is possible that one of Richmond’s distant cousins who was (a) very well versed in religious and Masonic litera ture and (b) was working at the same hospital Richmond was staying at in the Nashville during the Civil War, may have been the source of Richmond’s occult education; see McLaren-Owens, Articles, 206–07. 163 McLaren-Owens, Articles, 9–16. 164 Ibid., 16–26, esp. 21; “Order of the Magi,” Pittsburgh Dispatch, January 4, 1891, 2.

The Post-movement Years 195 although a wide variety of alternative religion followers were present as well.165 The group began receiving a decent amount of attention in the local secular press and, perhaps more importantly, it started attracting a significant follow ing of Scandinavian immigrants. Being part of a minority group—like the German-speaking converts to Islam on the Philadelphia in the early 1800s and the immigrants in Vivekenanda’s Vedanta Society—meant that the Scandinavians had comparatively strong social bonds, which produced a chain reaction of conversions. The initial impetus was probably the conversion of Bernard C. Petersen, a prominent Norwegian immigrant businessman who since a young age had studied various religious histories, theories, and prac tices, both popular and obscure.166 When the World’s Parliament of Religions came to town in 1893, Petersen made an effort to learn all he could from the representatives of various beliefs (including Alexander Webb, whom Petersen would still remember in 1897), and he felt confident enough to conclude that only one religion contained the essence of the wisdom of all the others: the oom.167 Petersen joined the group, almost immediately becoming a leader and paying for the construction for a new temple for the order.168 Soon, Scandinavians made up a strong core of the order in Chicago and had spread the group to Scandinavian-heavy cities like Minneapolis and St. Paul, and, evi dence suggests, other cities as well.169 By the end of 1894, in addition to the probably at least 150 members in its several small groups that were spread across the northern part of the country, the Chicago temple now reportedly had over 400 Magi; two years later, the group claimed that one thousand people had been initiated in Chicago and nationwide there were “several thousand” Magi.170 In late 1896, however, something had changed in the group. The Magi had begun to proclaim that Chicago was built directly over an ancient city known

165 Inter Ocean, January 20, 1894, 4; “Temple of the Magi,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 4, 1892, 44. 166 “Order of the Magi,” Inter Ocean, January 10, 1897, 24. 167 Ibid. 168 Ibid.; “Order of the Magi,” Inter Ocean, December 13, 1896, 16. 169 For Chicago Scandinavian members, see, e.g., A.E. Strand, A History of the Norwegians of Illinois (Chicago: John Anderson Publishing Co., 1905), 179. Later, in the early 1930s, there was even a portion of the community that held its Sunday worship rituals in the Norwegian language; see “Welcome to the Magi!,” Magi Star, June 22, 1931, contained in the A Century of Progress Records, Box 30 Folder 1–729, University of Illinois at Chicago. 170 “He Reads the Stars,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 29, 1894, 4; McLaren-Owens, Articles, 44; “Order of the Magi,” Inter Ocean, December 13, 1896, 16.

196 chapter 6 as ‘Bab.’171 The Magi, it seems, had begun incorporating the Baha’i teachings of Kheiralla.

Siphoning Recruits The precise circumstances and date of the Baha’is’ coming into contact with the oom is unknown. It is possible—and perhaps even likely—that Kheiralla had been encountering members since the fall and winter of 1893, when he was meeting esotericists during his tour of Michigan; the oom’s home, Grand Rapids, as pointed out above, was in fact the city in which he originally had wanted to settle. By 1895, Kheiralla must have at least met, through his healing activities, Dr. Chester Ira Thacher, a magnetic healer and homeopath who kept an office at Chicago’s Masonic temple and who was an early important leader for the oom.172 Thacher would join the Baha’is in 1897 and by 1900 Kheiralla had moved his own office into the same Masonic temple.173 The earliest period for which we can confidently connect the Baha’is to the oom is February 1896, when Sarah G. Herron, who was probably still a member of the oom at the time, began Kheiralla’s Baha’i class, officially converting in May.174 On October 8, 1896, John Osenbaugh, a former Christian mystic, spiri tualist, and oom member, accepted the Baha’i faith.175 Both were part of the group of the first thirty American converts, and it is likely that other oom members were also among the early followers. Then, in 1897, several more oom members joined, probably making up a significant part of the huge rush of converts that year.176 The American Baha’is had apparently even success fully tapped into an important well for oom recruitment: Scandinavian immi grants. Scandinavians, in fact, ended up making up a significant percentage of the early Baha’i community in Chicago and other Midwestern towns.177 The evidence therefore strongly suggests that Kheiralla’s success in spreading the

171 “Order of the Magi,” Inter Ocean, December 13, 1896, 16. 172 Inter Ocean, January 20, 1894, 4; McLaren-Owens, Articles, 2, 20; 173 Stockman, The Baha’i Faith in America Volume 1, 89–90, 213n2. 174 Stockman, The Baha’i Faith in America Volume 1, 39; “Order of the Magi,” Inter Ocean, December 13, 1896, 16. 175 Handwritten biographical questionnaire, 2, contained in the Osenbaugh Papers. 176 Stockman, The Baha’i Faith in America Volume 1, 89–90, 93; Typewritten letter of life events, sections 7–11, contained in the Osenbaugh Papers. Since we do not have a full list of members from each movement to make a comparison, we cannot be sure at this point as to how many early members of the oom joined up with Kheiralla, but the evidence suggests that it was a significant number. 177 Ibid., 94, 100, 113–14.

The Post-movement Years 197

Baha’i faith was largely due to this ability to, in his early years, siphon off many people from the large oom following. Given Kheiralla’s background in esotericism, the study of religion, New Thought, and Freemasonry—plus the oom’s emphasis on the ‘orient’—it is easy to see how a connection between his teachings could have been made by the followers of the oom. The oom even had millennial and messianic aspects, which were often not present in other esoteric groups but were present in the Baha’i faith. It was likely due to seeing these links, then, that Richmond, ever ready to incorporate anyone else’s doctrines into those of the oom, added the notion of Chicago being the ‘Bab.’ Kheiralla, on the other hand, may have borrowed—or may have been inspired by—some of the more Masonic ele ments in the oom, such as keeping the teachings secret, teaching only in stages, and having the highest stage of instruction be for the purpose of telling the initiate the true name of God.178 Kheiralla also probably exploited the tendency for the oom to claim to incorporate almost all other religious ideas; justified by the Baha’i teaching on the unity of all religions, and using his background in the rational study of religion, Kheiralla would have been prepared to build off of this theme. There was one additional element that Kheiralla had that Richmond did not, however: being from the East himself. Kheiralla was an actual ‘oriental’; so, for a religion that stressed authenticity of religious truth, as well as the idea that the orient was where that religious truth was born, by being a Middle Easterner, Kheiralla had a significant advantage vis-à-vis Richmond. Gaining the oom members was not the only reason for Kheiralla’s success. His followers were amazingly successful at recruiting esotericists and New Thought believers who were not in the oom in other cities—even connecting with prominent Martinists.179 Still, the recruitment of the oom people gave the Baha’is an established philosophical foundation that justified the inclusion of all alternative religious beliefs, permitting proselytizers to confidently claim to almost any potential recruit that their religion subsumed the religion of the recruit. The absorption of a large number of oom people in a short period was probably exhilarating for the members; generally, rapid growth of a religious organization can create significant emotional excitement, which in turn can spill out in the form of increased proselytization work form existing members, which then grows the group more and thus restarts the cycle.180 By January

178 Ibid., 52. 179 The relationship between the Baha’is and Martinists is mentioned in Stockman, The Baha’i Faith in America Volume 1, 156, but is described more completely in the letters from Blitz to Papus in the fp. 180 See Stark and Finke, Acts, 151–55.

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1898, the American Baha’is had shot up from sixty members in the previous April to around 300; by September 1898 there were around 700; by May 1899, perhaps 1,100; and by the beginning of 1900, 1,500.181 No other turn-of-the- century organized movement to promote an Asian-majority religion in the us (if we exclude Theosophy, which many would) had success anywhere close to what the Baha’is had during that period. Within months, however, it all came crashing down. In 1899, after the Baha’i heads in Persia learned that Kheiralla had invented most of the concepts he had taught his students, they attempted to end the spread of his incorrect views and have Kheiralla give up his position so other teachers—who had technical knowledge of Bahá’u’lláh’s doctrines—could correct the errors. Kheiralla, however, ultimately refused to give up his power. He broke off from the main movement, taking a few followers with him; meanwhile, about half of the original converts eventually left the faith, many surely disillusioned and embarrassed by their having believed completely invented information.182 Recruitment for both factions, meanwhile, briefly came to a virtual standstill and never resumed the conversion rates of the earlier years. Kheiralla had lost a great deal of the respect and legitimacy he had once had and the reformed faction, without being able to make the strong, multiple connections with all the various alternative religion groups, did not have the appeal the earlier movement had. They could no longer hope for waves of converts; at best the occasional small group of friends who were Theosophists, esotericists, or New Thought followers would join independently. The Baha’is had now become like all the other Asian religion conversion groups.

Conclusion

Kheiralla’s background and skills that made him knowledgeable and flexible enough to appeal to a wide variety of Americans were rare, and his coming into contact with the young oom—which was at the same time both one of the most popular esoteric groups of the 1890s and a perfect fit for Kheiralla’s occult- influenced notions about the Baha’i faith—was for him an incredible stroke of luck. Neither Webb, nor any other promoter of a non-Christian religion in the 1890s and early 1900s, had been so fortunate. In fact, nothing like it would be repeated for several years because most of the foreign proselytizers for non- Christian religions were relatively well-trained in and committed to their

181 Stockman, The Baha’i Faith in America Volume 1, 104, 158, xiii. 182 Ibid., 158–84, 191.

The Post-movement Years 199 groups’ teachings, and were only minimally familiar with American esoteri cism. Even most American promoters of non-Christian religions, meanwhile, did not have the knowledge and skills to reach the variety of people that Olney Richmond could, and they certainly did not have the ‘oriental’ appeal of the Eastern immigrants. While American notions and prejudices about Asian- majority religions probably played some role in the growth of those religions in the turn-of-the-century us, the ability to recruit directly from other similar religious movements and immigrant communities was the key for success in drawing converts at the time. The relative failure of Webb and other Muslim proselytizers reflects their relative inability to recruit successfully and incorpo rate multiple occult revival movements. Although great success could be had only under very rare conditions, the fact that it was even possible, and that smaller groups could still thrive as well, reflects the major religious metamorphosis that the United States had gone through since the early 1800s. The de- and reterritorialization of American religiosity—through international contacts, the spread of Transcendentalism, the emergence of spiritualism, and the creation of organized occult groups— transformed the country from a land in which converts to Asian-majority reli gions were virtually unheard of and where those who embraced Islam were labeled as traitorous ‘renegades,’ to a place where perhaps thousands of whites freely criticized the Christianity of their parents and identified themselves as followers as Buddhists, Hindus, Baha’is, and Muslims. A real non-Christian reli gious market had finally been established. The implications of this transition were immediately felt. Self-proclaimed oriental masters, prophets, messiahs, Rosicrucians, swamis, astrologers, healers, clairvoyants, and fakirs began springing up left and right. Competition for the attention and money of the liberal, radically deterritorialized American reli gious public was now intense. Success would go to those who did not just inno vate, but offered something extremely rare and valuable, and did it in a refined way. The winners in this new religious market would still often have to appeal to American religious tastes and cultures, but this was becoming easier as those tastes expanded. As the Civil War generation died off and the us prepared to enter the First World War, the country would see a brand new wave of non- Christian identities and movements that were both much better prepared for and welcomed by the country’s deterritorializing culture. Beginning in the sec ond and third decades of the twentieth century, Islam and Sufism would finally take root and create, for the first time, lasting movements and communities.

part 2 The Years 1910–1974

∵

chapter 7 The Non-Orthodox Transition

Deterritorialization and the Impact of Non-Christian Immigration

Within three generations after Webb’s death, the traits and positions of white American Muslims had change dramatically. By 1975, the typical white convert in the us was a female who had married a college-educated Muslim immigrant. She, furthermore, was frequently college-educated herself and was almost never interested in Western esotericism. Dozens of white Muslims, moreover, had become leaders within immigrant-majority Islamic organizations, and a small number of converts had even gained international respect and acclaim for their efforts as Muslim intellectuals. By 1975, in fact, white converts had produced at least three near-translations of the Qurʾan—one of which received wide praise from highly-trained Muslim religious leaders. Beginning as early as the 1920s, several white Americans also became important participants in the still-ongoing effort to unite Muslims of all races and sectarian affiliations. These individuals, even more so than their nineteenth- century predecessors, were committed to the cultivation of peace, justice, and brotherhood. Indeed, when the 1970s reached its midpoint, us whites were frequently joining multiethnic Islamic communities and were notable for their public involvement with a wide variety of Islamic and Sufi movements, including some in which African Americans and women played leading roles. In the fifty-nine years that had passed since 1916, the American religious landscape— and white Muslims’ position in it—had undergone yet another tremendous transmutation. It was a change that, at its core, was a product of a new era of deterritorialization. There were two principal reasons for deterritorialization having such an enormous impact on American religious life in the twentieth century. First is the fact that the occult revival was no longer a new, emerging market—it was now a well-developed, increasingly accepted part of the country’s religious culture. By the turn of the century, there were dozens, possibly hundreds, of esoteric, New Thought, and non-Christian groups, and their mere presence ensured that the numbers of new groups and converts would continue to mul- tiply exponentially. Average Americans, who in the 1880s would have shown little interest in or even awareness of esoteric and non-Christian movements, were now increasingly cognizant that many such groups had a presence on American soil—and that, if one were so inclined, he or she could seek them

204 chapter 7 out and join them. Some of the fear of ostracism associated with following these groups had thus begun to melt away. As a result, commitment to a fringe religious movement was no longer going to be a necessary precondition to becoming a Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim. The second and most important reason deterritorialization caused incredible changes in twentieth-century American religion is that immigration—the physical deterritorialization of people—was dramatically increasing the numbers of us residents from non-Christian backgrounds. This meant that more and more mixed friendships and romantic relationships were developing within the borders of the country. These social ties with people of different faiths would have a huge impact on religious conversion because, for one, they had even greater power than the growing esoteric and non-Christian movements to significantly ease the sense of insecurity about non-Christian conversion. The social, psychological, and financial benefits of friendship and marriage can be so valuable for those involved that they can overcome fears around going against cultural norms, particularly when such relationships are not prevented by de jure or de facto law, or violent suppression.1 The increase of mixed relationships between white Christian Americans and non-Christian immigrants was also important for shaping the trajectory of American religious conversion because, initially, these relationships were much more likely to occur among the larger lower-middle and working classes than were conversions to esoteric or New Thought groups, which tended to be dominated by the smaller middle and upper-middle classes. Even after World War ii, though, when middle-class Muslim immigration began increasing, many of the whites these immigrants came into contact with were usually not from the small subcultures that had an interest in esotericism. Ultimately, this meant that, as time went on and immigrant communities grew larger and more stable, social ties with immigrants would begin to replace involvement with esoteric and New Thought groups as the primary gateway to conversion to non-Christian religions for white Americans. While the presence of non-Christian immigrants did not mean that the old esoteric-type converts simply vanished—on the contrary, they proliferated, particularly when some of the immigrants themselves began participating in, and occasionally leading, various esoteric movements—the immigrants’ non-esoteric orthodox practices started pre- dominating in the convert communities. The present chapter examines a phenomenon primarily related to the first of these two factors of twentieth-century religious deterritorialization: the emergence of pre-1950 forms of white American Islamic mysticism, Sufism,

1 See Lofland and Stark, “Becoming a World-Saver”; Stark and Finke, Acts, 117–35.

The Non-orthodox Transition 205 and ‘Qadiani’ Ahmadiyya Islam. All of these movements, notably, shared several distinct characteristics. One is that none them could be legitimately labeled ‘orthodox’2 or ‘Sunni.’ Even if they claimed, as some did, to be following Eastern traditions, these groups were in fact unique in the Islamic world and were often criticized and shunned by more orthodox Muslims. Another shared trait is that these were the first known Islam-connected movements in the twentieth century to obtain several American followers. Organizations that could be more accurately described as ‘orthodox’ or ‘Sunni’ did not gain noteworthy numbers of white American converts until the 1930s, after Muslim immigration had created relatively stable and strong Muslim communities in the us. The Muslim mystics, Sufis, and Qadiani Ahmadis, on the other hand, had all started obtaining followers by the 1910s and 1920s. This earlier popularity of the non-orthodox groups reflects the fact that in certain aspects they were similar to the convert movements that were common in the nineteenth century. Indeed, in the early twentieth century, non- orthodox groups represented, in many ways, the transition between the late nineteenth- and mid-twentieth-century white Muslim convert communities. Like their nineteenth-century predecessors, for instance, these non-orthodox movements connected themselves to the kinds of Western organizations and philosophies that were sympathetic to exclusive adherence to a non-Christian religion. There were in fact even a handful of direct links between important nineteenth-century esoteric and non-Christian movements, including some of the period’s Islamic and Sufi groups, and the twentieth-century non-orthodox ones. And, just as it was for the nineteenth-century organizations, the non-orthodox groups’ connections with esotericism were almost certainly the key to their success. As was pointed out in Chapter 6, in the first few decades of the twentieth century, there were several proselytization attempts by foreign orthodox Muslims who presumably did not reach out to the esoteric and non-Christian communities—as far as is known, that approach failed to win them white converts. Indeed, the only convert we can confidently tie to these particular orthodox proselytizers is a woman who most likely had already been exposed to the non-orthodox Sufism of the period. Meanwhile, combined, the non-orthodox groups made hundreds of converts,

2 In this chapter, I use the terms ‘orthodox’ and ‘non-orthodox.’ While, in a strict technical sense ‘orthodox’ means ‘right doctrine’ (ortho = right, dox = doctrine), a notion that implies a judgment of which forms of a religion are better or worse than others, the term is also often understood as roughly equivalent to ‘mainstream tradition.’ I am using the term in the latter sense to avoid repeatedly utilizing the much longer equivalent.

206 chapter 7 several of whom—particularly the leading converts—were verifiably former members of esoteric communities. Despite this similarity, there was a major difference between the non-orthodox convert movements of the early twentieth century and the convert movements of the nineteenth: the fact that the former were created and led by foreigners. The Sufis, Ahmadis, and even some of the mystic groups were often directed by people not born in the United States and who, like Kheiralla and Vivekenanda before them, were able to take advantage of the stereotype that non-Westerners and non-whites possessed more authentic spiritual knowledge. Still, unlike in the mid-twentieth-century groups, which often had numerous immigrant members, the foreigner presence in the non-orthodox groups was typically numerically minimal—usually limited to the groups’ leaders, who were rarely in the us for more than a few years. The level of presence of foreign Muslims in these early twentieth-century groups, then, reflected the relative growth of Muslim immigration at the time: it had increased significantly since the 1890s, but was still not yet close to the levels of the mid- twentieth century. Another shared transitional characteristic of the mystic, Sufi, and Ahmadi groups of the early twentieth century was that several were able to avoid—just as many immigrant organizations would later—the rapid disintegration that earlier groups experienced. Instead, these new communities remained in existence, in some form or another, for sometimes over one hundred years. Because of this, and because the non-orthodox groups were the closest that the us would ever have to heirs of the nineteenth-century movements, it was through them that the religious currents connected to the early occult revival would finally take root in Islamic and Sufi forms and therefore be able to continue to have a presence in America’s Islamic culture. This would play a particularly important role in African American conversion, but it would also later be influential among white Muslims and Sufis, especially when Sufism became popular in the 1960s. Finally, the early twentieth-century non-orthodox groups represent a transition in terms of Islamic identity. While among the Sufis there was an awareness that many if not most of the world’s Muslims did not believe in or practice the same doctrines or rituals as them, the Qadiani Ahmadi converts believed they were joining the same Islam that was being followed by millions of people of all races and classes across the globe. This notion that the convert was joining a religion practiced by millions of non-whites had been present to an extent in Webb’s movement, but it was not emphasized to nearly the same degree. Part of this stemmed from the fact that Webb, who sometimes looked down on the lower classes, occasionally privately expressed racist sentiments, despite

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praising exoteric Islam precisely for its ability to unite all people.3 In the twentieth century, however, the feeling of multiracial and multiclass brotherhood was much stronger, particularly among the white Ahmadis and friend converts who joined more orthodox communities—both groups that, in many instances, happily united with Muslims of all races, including African Americans. This fuller sense of a truly global Islamic identity was, to a great extent, then, a new phenomenon in the twentieth century, and it would be an increasingly dominant theme as the century progressed. The deterritorialization of religion through immigration therefore had a profound effect on not just the American religious landscape, but, by transforming race and even class relationships within these new religious communities, deterritorialization was even beginning to reshape the larger American culture.

The Tide of the Turbans4

One of the earliest-developing elements of the non-orthodox transitional current was the appearance of a relatively large number of men who claimed to be oriental mystics.5 We have seen how the 1893 World’s Fair brought both educated and uneducated mystics to lecture and perform for an American audience that had already been introduced to images of oriental mystics through Transcendentalism, the Arabian Nights-connected stories of the magical East, spiritualism, Rosicrucian literature, and Theosophy. There had even been, prior to the rush for the 1893 Fair, a handful of little-known performers and proselytizers who helped sow the American religious soil for their successors.6 But starting in the 1890s, it was increasingly common to see an array of ‘swamis,’ ‘fakirs,’ ‘yogis,’ ‘Hindoos,’ and even occasionally ‘Sufis,’ ‘dervishes,’ and ‘Mohammedan High Priests’ advertised in the newspapers of big cities.

3 See Chapter 3 and Singleton, introduction, 47. 4 This quote is taken from Herman Scheffauer, “The Tide of the Turbans,” Forum (June 1910): 616, quoted in Nance, How, 212. 5 See Nance, How, 205–29; Jamie J. Wilson, Building a Healthy Black Harlem (Amherst, ny: Cambria Press, 2009), Chapter 2, 31–58; Jacob S. Dorman, “The Black Israelites of Harlem and the Professors of Oriental and African Mystic Science in the 1920’s” (PhD diss., University of California-Los Angeles, 2004), esp. 174–93; Wendell Thomas, Hinduism Invades America (New York: Beacon Press, 1930). 6 E.g., the Arab performers managed by Professor James Rosedale in the early 1880s. Another troupe leader, Hadji Cheriff, first came to America for the 1876 World’s Fair in Philadelphia, but he would remain in America for several more years, becoming one of the more prominent troupe leaders of the nineteenth century.

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Frequently, these mystics were Fair performers who remained behind after 1893 and populated the various Streets of Cairo-like exhibits that were popular across the country, and who sometimes worked at the later World’s Fairs in Buffalo (1901), St. Louis (1904), and San Francisco (1915).7 More often, however, particularly in the years between the Fairs, these mystics worked independently, serving the role of a new, exotic form of spiritualist medium or fortune teller, and frequently also claiming—taking advantage of the emerging homeopathic and New Thought currents—to be able to heal either through mystical powers or herbal remedies, similar to what Kheiralla had done in Chicago. These types of independent mystics were so popular that competition almost immediately created a whole, largely mail-based industry—often dominated by whites and African Americans posing as Eastern immigrants—for selling magical herbs, dream books, and other oriental curios.8 These mystics, then, were primarily interested in selling their goods and services and not religious propagation; they rarely sought, and probably were not skilled enough to obtain, devoted converts, and those who posed as mystics most likely did not view themselves as genuine converts. Perhaps because they were not particularly knowledgeable about the oriental religious themes they appropriated, the vast majority of these mystics presented themselves as Indian but not attached to any particular religion, relying on Americans’ only vague awareness of the diversity of ‘Eastern spirituality.’ Typically, those who obtained a more definite Muslim or Sufi identity were connected to a performance troupe or Streets of Cairo exhibit, both of which were frequently managed and populated by real immigrant Muslims who were capable of confidently distinguishing their performers from the ambiguous ‘oriental’ fray. Only on occasion, then, were independent oriental mystics explicitly identified as Muslims or Sufis, and when these types did appear, they were often notable for two other reasons. First, starting in the 1920s, they seem to have been much more popular among African Americans than whites, for reasons tied up with African Americans’ much greater interest in Islamic identities.9 Second, even when these mystics emphasized their affiliation with

7 For more on this topic, see Adele Linda Younis, “The Coming of the Arabic-Speaking People to the United States” (PhD diss., Boston University, 1961), 182–215, esp. 208 and hctius vol. 2. 8 See Carolyn Morrow Long, Spiritual Merchants: Religion, Magic, and Commerce (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2001) and Mary Schaeffer Conroy, The Cosmetics Baron You’ve Never Heard of: E. Virgil Neal and Tokalon (Englewood, co: Altus History llc, 2009). 9 For an introduction to Muslim mystics in the African American community and its relation to African American interest in Islamic identities, see Nance, How, 231–54; Dorman, “The Black Israelites,” 174–93. Also see hctius vol. 2.

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Islam or Sufism, they were often still labeled ‘Hindoo,’ which at the time was a generic term that could mean either ‘Indian’ or, occasionally, ‘mystic.’ The loose application of this term could produce somewhat strange, mixed public identities, like people presenting themselves as ‘Hindu Sufis’ or ‘Hindoos’ named Mohammed. One of the earliest known independent, distinctly Muslim mystic-like figures was the Indian Moula Bakhsh, a New York ‘physician,’ ‘herb doctor,’ and ‘Mohammedan priest,’ who had immigrated in 1884.10 Although Bakhsh’s white American wife had converted to Islam, Bakhsh did not actively proselytize; he acted as a religious authority only for the local immigrant Muslim community, and his healing and herbal remedies were sold purely to make a living—not to win converts. It appears that the same can be said—at least concerning their professional activities—for many of those who came after Bakhsh in the 1890s and early 1900s. There was the purported physician, Professor Mohammed Green, who was in Kentucky in 1892; the astrologer and clairvoyant Prof. Abdul stopped by Syracuse in 1900; and in the 1910s, a Prof. Mohammed read palms and minds in New York while an Abdul Mohammed Berrkut cast spells and told fortunes in San Francisco.11 By the 1920s, Muslim mystics were extremely common: Billboard magazine’s “Magic and Magicians” section listed names like Abdul Hamid, Alla Rageb, and Khyam (a name undoubtedly being a reference to Omar Khayyam);12 and in just one popular esoteric journal from the decade, Chicago’s Occult Digest, among the regular contributors were Ali Ben Raben, Haasan Osiris, and ‘the Cabir, Premel el Adaros.’ And these were just some of the men featured in the white press; there were many others, and the black press had an even greater supply of such figures. Not all of these mystics, however, were mere independent salesmen. When Chicago’s ‘Cabir, Premel el Adaros’ was not writing articles for the Occult Digest about Hinduism’s secret powers and the esoteric knowledge of ‘adepts’ like the Sufi Rumi, he served as president of the city’s Society of Transcendent Science.13 Judging by his advertisements, the program of el Adaros’ organization was basically set up as a correspondence course through which those interested

10 “New York Mohammedans,” Hartford Courant, September 9, 1889, 2; “A Mohammedan Missionary,” Amsterdam Daily Democrat, March 4, 1893, 2. 11 “It Didn’t Go,” Cincinnati Enquirer, February 2, 1892, 4; “Clairvoyant,” Post-Standard (Syracuse), April 8, 1900, 5; “Fears the Roses Were Not Burned,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 1912; “Engineer Pays $400 to Cast Spell on Girl,” San Francisco Call, October 25, 1912, 14. 12 Billboard, November 18, 1916, 35; Billboard, July 8, 1922, 43; Billboard, November 18, 1922, 46. 13 See his numerous advertisements and articles in the 1924 volume of Occult Digest.

210 chapter 7 would buy each of his pamphlets on various esoteric topics. Still, people did apparently come to his Chicago ‘studio,’ where he reportedly hosted Sufi whirling Dervish performances.14 Interestingly, while in 1924 el Adaros emphasized his affiliation with Hindu and Egyptian themes, by 1927, after moving to New York and reaching out to the black community, he now used a more Muslim- sounding name, ‘Abd-el Rahman El Adaros, Effendi,’ and was depicted in his advertisements wearing both turbans and an Arab-style scarf (keffiyeh).15 Just how organized or successful his efforts were, however, is unknown. Perhaps one of the more successful of the interwar ‘Muslim’ mystics was Hazrat Ismet Ali. In 1926, advertisements for the long-haired, beard- and turban-wearing, self-proclaimed “oriental mystic” began appearing in Mid west newspapers announcing his lectures on “New Revelations That Will Revolutionize Your Whole Existence!”16 By early 1927, Ali had established in Chicago an organization known as the Himayat Society, which quickly made it to New England where it claimed as followers a black reverend, one Rev. Father Hollinsed, and a black poet, George Reginald Margetson.17 Ali was one of the mystics who capitalized on having an ambiguous religious identity: although he told people he was an Indian and sometimes added that he was Hindu, he also on occasion promoted himself as a “Sufi Mystic,” and at other times appears to have insisted that the topics of his teachings would not conflict with any religious creed—a theme that was becoming increasingly popular among self-proclaimed Sufis probably partly due to, as we will see, the popularity of Inayat Khan.18 Ali developed followings in New York, Buffalo, and Detroit, and by 1928 was calling his organization the Islam-themed name the Kaaba Alif

14 The Cabir, Premel el Adaros, “The Acts of the Eastern Adepts,” Occult Digest 3 (May 1924): 21. 15 See his advertisements in the New York Amsterdam News in August and September of that year. He also appeared in Los Angeles the previous May, all while keeping his Chicago address. 16 The earliest advertisement I have found was in the Milwaukee Sentinel, July 28, 1926, 7. 17 J.W. Youngblood, “Boston,” New York Amsterdam News, May 18, 1927, 14; “Hazrat Ismet Ali to Lecture Here,” Hartford Courant, May 7, 1927, 7; “Hasret Ismet Ali Will Lecture Here Monday,” Hartford Courant, May 8, 1927, C5. The latter article indicates that he had recently come from Minneapolis. In 1927, the Himayat Society published in Chicago a book called Power of Silence by Madame Corinne Ali (Hazrat Ismet Ali’s wife, Cazjorin Ali, aka Amber Corinne Steen/Stein); unfortunately I was not able to locate a copy of this book. 18 “Sufi Mystic to Give Oriental Interpretation of ‘Bible’” (advertisement), Detroit Free Press, September 22, 1928, 8; “Hasret Ismet Ali Will Lecture Here Monday.”

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Society (which probably also had an Inayat Khan influence).19 Things seem to have been going fairly well for Ali until the summer of 1929 when his white wife, Cazjorin Ali (born Amber Corinne Steen)20 purportedly went missing, and Ali said he thought she had been murdered by an enemy of the Society.21 As it turned out, although Steen had only gone into hiding, probably as part of new scheme planned by Ali, there was indeed an enemy trying to destroy the group. One S.Z. Abedin, a “young Hindu” with a Muslim surname who was a former secretary of the Kaaba Alif Society, claimed that Ali was a fraud and did not follow the true “Hindu” ritual. Ali, it was soon learned, was a Trinidadian immigrant who, after coming to the us in 1925 as a valet, used his knowledge of Indians—presumably acquired in Trinidad, which had a fairly large Indian immigrant population—in order put on this charade with his wife for financial gain.22 For the deception, Ali was sentenced to one to five years in prison, while his white wife was acquitted. Prior to Ali’s immigration, another mysterious figure laced his idiosyncratic ‘Eastern’ teachings with references to Sufis and Islamic themes, but this person would have a much longer-lasting influence on American culture. In January of 1924, George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, along with thirty guests, arrived in New York on the SS Paris. An Armenian-born mystic who incorporated a wide variety of Central Asian religious traditions into his teachings, Gurdjieff had, over the previous eleven years, become something of a sensation in Europe, and was now attempting to spread his ideas across the Atlantic. During the December before his arrival, A.R. Orage, a British editor, had been building American anticipation for Gurdjieff by contacting many influential figures in New York’s literary scene. Orage also apparently sent out a prospectus for the dance performances Gurdjieff directed, in which it was indicated that Gurdjieff’s work was inspired by various Sufi sources.23 By the time of his ship’s mooring, Gurdjieff had an intrigued audience waiting, and he quickly gained a large American following. The question of whether Gurdjieff’s ideas were essentially Sufistic has been a rather contentious one, as his more orthodox followers have denied it due to

19 “Ali’s Mysticism Didn’t Foretell Prison Term,” Chicago Defender (City ed.), January 11, 1930, 11. His New York headquarters at Steinway Hall were known as the Kaaba Alif Center; see “Religious Services,” New York Times, February 27, 1929, 19. 20 Her last name was possibly spelled ‘Stein.’ 21 “Wife Lost in Cult Mystery,” Dubois Courier (Pennsylvania), July 31, 1929, 6. 22 “Cult Leader’s Nationality Puzzles New Yorkers; Claim Man A Fakir,” New Journal and Guide, August 3, 1929, 12; “Ali’s Mysticism.” 23 Anna Terri Challenger, “An Introduction to Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi Teaching Tale” (PhD diss., Kent State University, 1990), 13.

212 chapter 7 the fact that the original promoter of this theory, John G. Bennett, was himself a Sufi follower of Idries Shah (see Chapter 11).24 Still, textual analysis of Gurdjieff’s writings reveal a strong presence of Sufi and Islamic elements. In his 1995 dissertation that critically examines Bennett’s analysis of Gurdjieff, William James Thompson shows that Gurdjieff consistently used in his various writings (and presumably the speeches that his writings were based on) references to well-known Islamic figures and locations, especially Mecca, Afghanistan, and Naqshbandi Sufis in Bukhara.25 Anna Challenger, in her dissertation, identifies other references to Islam and Sufism (especially the Sufi figure Nasreddin) and sees a Sufi influence in Gurdjieff’s storytelling style.26 In addition to all of this, Gurdjieff was known to employ Sufi spiritual practices as well as Mevlevi Dervish dancing in his organization.27 Indeed, the Sufi elements in Gurdjieff’s writing and practices are so prevalent that some researchers have included Gurdjieff in their overviews of Sufism in the West and the us.28 While the majority of Gurdjieff’s American followers regard his teachings as distinct from Sufism, and they themselves usually have not seen themselves as Sufis or Muslims, the presence of Sufi themes in the advertisements, teachings, and practices of Gurdjieff’s movement reflect the growing interest in mystical Muslim themes as presented by immigrants to the United States in the first half of the twentieth century.

24 Bennett writes that “Gurdjieff was, more than anything else, a Sufi”; see his Gurdjieff: Making a New World (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 278. 25 William James Thompson, “J.G. Bennett’s Interpretation of the Teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff: A Study of Transmission in the Fourth Way” (PhD diss., University of Lancaster, 1995), Chapter 4, 291–348. 26 Challenger, “An Introduction,” 11–38. Michael Scott Pittman, in his own dissertation (“G.I. Gurdjieff: Textualization of Medieval Storytelling and Modern Teachings on the Soul” [PhD diss., Stony Brook University, 2005]), for the most part follows Challenger’s analysis on the topic of Sufi influences. 27 Mark Sedgwick, “European Neo-Sufi Movements in the Inter-War Period,” in Islam in Inter-War Europe, eds. Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 210–12. 28 See, for example, Jay Kinney, “Sufism Comes to America,” Gnosis 30 (Winter 1994): 18; Peter Wilson, “The Strange Fate of Sufism in the New Age,” in New Trends and Developments in the World of Islam, ed. Peter Clarke (London: Luzac Oriental, 1997), 180–81; David Westerlund, “The Contextualisation of Sufism in Europe,” in Sufism in Europe and North America, ed. David Westerlund (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 20; Sedgwick, “European Neo-Sufi,” 207–13; William Rory Dickson, “Living Sufism in North America: Between Tradition and Transformation” (PhD diss., Wilfrid Laurier University, 2012), 92–96.

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Hazrat Inayat Khan and the ‘Sufic Order in America’

Without question, during the first half of the twentieth century, the single most important transitional Sufi figure in the white American religious landscape was Hazrat Inayat Khan. Although Khan is primarily known for spreading a non-Islamic form of Sufism, he was important for the history of conversion to Islam in the us for several reasons. First of all, because Sufism was, for the most part, at the time still regarded by Westerners as a religious current that was connected to Islam, his success in popularizing Sufism helped increase awareness of and interest in Islam generally. Second, Khan was himself a Muslim and in the early years of his effort he incorporated numerous Islamic elements into his teachings and practices, particularly for his American followers. To this extent, then, these early followers, while not fully Muslim, adhered to a hybrid, Islam-like system. Interestingly, Khan developed many of the elements of his non-Islamic, ‘universalist’ Sufism only after having won Western followers and having gained a strong understanding of the movements with which many of them had previously been allied, especially Theosophy. Indeed, like the us’ other successful oriental religion teachers before him, Khan’s ability to build a movement consisting of hundreds of Westerners—including nearly 250 Americans29—seems to have been largely due to his skill in recruiting Theosophists and other esotericists and aligning his teachings with what they had already adhered to. The growth of Khan’s movement therefore confirms the trend—particularly in the years before conversion through immigrant-majority organizations started becoming common—of non-Christian groups finding the most success when they connected with pre-existing popular esoteric and New Thought currents. Finally, Khan’s movement is important for understanding conversion to Islam because some of the influential white American Sufis who followed Khan had ties—if only indirect—with other more orthodox Muslims, including nineteenth-century converts and immigrants as well as converts from the twentieth century. In fact, at least one possible former follower of Khan completely abandoned Sufism and eventually converted to orthodox Islam. Khan and his ‘Sufic Order’ were therefore, in many ways, highly representative of the transition from the nineteenth-century esoteric- based conversions to the mid-twentieth-century immigrant-based orthodox conversions.

29 Zia Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order at the Crossroads of Modernity” (PhD diss., Duke University, 2006), 226.

214 chapter 7

Inayat Khan was born in western India in 1882 to a family of mystically- inclined professional musicians.30 As a young adult, he followed his family’s trade, teaching and writing music and music theory, which earned him praise in various parts of Muslim India. Khan, however, had other interests and influences. He had, for example, gained from his maternal relatives a passion for Muslim reform and sympathy for Hindu and European thought, and he had even briefly come into contact with Theosophy. Khan also trained in Sufism under Sayyid Abu Hashim Madani of Hyderabad, who besides having Khan study the Qurʾan, hadith, and Persian mystical literature, gave him instruction in four types of Sufi orders: Chisti, Naqshbandi, Qadiri, and Suhrawardi.31 Khan’s training, notably, also included the development of occult powers, such as communicating with the dead and living through psychic forces as well as cultivating clairvoyance and intuition.32 As a young adult, Khan desired to integrate his various influences and create “a universal system of Music”33 that united the East and West, but after Madani’s death in 1907, he apparently decided to dedicate his life to spirituality, and his career as a musician would merely be the guise he would use while pursuing this endeavor.34 Khan would later say—in what has become part of the standard narrative of his spiritual activities—that Madani, before his death, had given Khan an “injunction” to bring Sufism to the West. Although the precise circumstances and authenticity of this injunction have been called into question,35 when Khan first traveled west, arriving in New York in the fall of 1910, he did almost immediately begin spreading religious knowledge. Khan left India with a brother and cousin—both musicians, like Khan—who together billed themselves as ‘The Royal Musicians of Hindustan’ and gave performances that included both the playing of music and explanations of the spiritual aspects of their music and religion. The trio quickly joined up with the performance troupe of Ruth St. Denis, a dancer who specialized in what was presented as Eastern-style dance. With St. Denis, the Sufis traveled across the country, visiting performance halls and, occasionally, the meeting places of various religious and esoteric groups.

30 The following history of Khan’s movement is drawn primarily from Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order” and Inayat Khan, Biography of Pir-O-Mushrid Inayat Khan (London: East–west Publications, 1979). 31 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 62. 32 Ibid. 33 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 57. 34 Ibid., 63; Khan, Biography, 89. 35 For discussions of the contradictions and difficulties concerning this topic, see Inayat- Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 64–67 and Sedgwick, “European Neo-Sufi,” 191.

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Six months into his American tour, Khan’s spiritual career reached a major turning point. On April 16, 1911, the Royal Musicians gave a presentation at San Francisco’s Vedanta Society temple,36 and in attendance was the person who would become Khan’s first and most important American disciple: Ada Martin. Born Ada Ginsberg in San Francisco in 1871,37 Ada’s parents—both of whom were Russian Jewish immigrants—were of the intellectual type; her father was an artist and her mother, who came from a family of rabbis and Jewish mystics, a scholar. Ada herself, by her late teens, had begun studying religion, philosophy, and mysticism, and after marrying and bearing a daughter, the young mother also dedicated much of her free time to philanthropic activities. In the early 1900s, Ada’s interest in religion and mysticism intensified; she read more, sought out spiritual teachers, and, according to Samuel Lewis, her most well known follower, even joined Edouard Blitz’s Martinist Order, presumably by way of the Groupe Indépendent d’Etudes Esotériques (g.i.e.e.).38 In France the g.i.e.e., an organization in which members studied the various religions of the world, was frequently used as a gateway organization to bring people to Martinism. However Blitz, who was essentially the only official promoter of Martinism in the us in the late nineteenth century, usually had people join Martinism directly, and did not establish a branch of the g.i.e.e. in America until 1899.39 The branch he established that year, however, happened to be located in San Francisco, where a Martinist Order branch was also opened and no doubt received the Groupe’s students who were most interested in esotericism.40 This connection between Ada Martin and the Martinist Order community—particularly the g.i.e.e.—is significant for several reasons. First is the fact that it demonstrates that Ada, who would become the most important American Sufi in the first half of the twentieth century, came to Sufism out of the same movement as René Guénon, whose own introduction to esotericism

36 Murshida Carol Weyland Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” Glow International (November 2004): 7. I would like to thank Ira Deitrick, president of Sufism Reoriented, for providing me with a copy of this article and for answering my many inquiries. 37 Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” 6. The following biographical information is derived largely from Conner’s article. 38 Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” 6; Andrew Rawlinson, The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions (Chicago: Open Court, 1997), 436; Murshid Samuel L. Lewis, Six Interviews with Hazrat Inayat Khan (Eugene, or: Sufi Ruhaniat International, 1978), 5. 39 Blizt to Papus, April 3, 1899, fp. 40 Blizt to Papus, undated, fp.

216 chapter 7 was through the g.i.e.e., which duly led him to Martinism.41 But the connection also raises the possibility that Martin was in communication with one of the most prominent American Martinists of the period, S.C. Gould, who was at that time a member and leading promoter of what was a continuation of the first Sufi group for white Americans, the Order of Sufis/Sufic Circle.42 This may explain why it is, in 1915, in one of the earliest known newspaper articles to mention Ada as a Sufi, she is identified as the us representative of ‘the Order of Sufis’43 and why, later, another Order of Sufis member, C.H.A. Bejerregaard, was also linked to Khan’s ‘Sufic Order.’44 To connect Ada with Gould’s group would thus tie her, and even Khan himself, to the earlier Theosophical and H.B. of L. Islamophilia to which Alexander Webb was linked. This is a tantalizing genealogy, as it would help explain how it was that Khan decided to add an element to his movement that would become one of its hallmarks and lasting legacies: not requiring his followers to convert to Islam. This feature, which reflected the experimental, scientific mentality of the early American occult revival, could be found in the Theo sophical Society, H.B. of L., the Sufic Circle, and even Webb’s American Moslem Brotherhood. Since Khan’s movement eventually gained significant popularity in the us and even seems to have inspired a number of imitators, to connect this feature of Khan’s movement to Johnson’s Islamophilic Theosophy and the occult revival that bore it suggests that the occult revival of the 1870s and 1880s was indeed the genesis of some of the most important currents of Islam and Sufism in us religious history. A connection between the occult revival and Khan would, furthermore, help to put in perspective the significant appeal of non-Islamic Sufi movements for white Americans: to an extent, this seems to be a legacy of Islamophilic Theosophy and the occult revival. In the end, however, even if Ada—and therefore Khan—was not in fact directly tied to the Order of Sufis, her background in Blitz’s Islamophilic Martinism and (probably) the g.i.e.e. made her particularly receptive to

41 Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 47–48. When Guénon joined the Groupe Indépendent in 1906, it had been renamed the Free School of Hermetic Sciences. 42 Further circumstantial evidence is that in 1900, there were only six Martinist branches in the us, and San Francisco and Gould’s branch in Manchester, New Hampshire were two of these (see Blizt to Papus, undated, fp). In such a small national community, it is very likely that the members would have all known each other through correspondence, and Gould would have been one of the most popular because of his publishing an esotericist journal. 43 “Harem a Shelter for Women, not Place to Keep Them Ignorant,” Morning Echo (Bakersfield, ca), August 11, 1915, 1. 44 See below.

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Inayat Khan’s esoteric Sufi teachings. By 1911—two years after Gould’s death, which presumably also meant the end of any activities the Order of Sufis may have done—Ada had herself become a teacher of Martinism and comparative religions (most likely through the g.i.e.e.), and when she learned about Khan’s Vedanta Society performance, she decided to have her comparative religion students attend.45 When Ada first caught a glimpse of Khan at the performance, she immediately felt that she recognized him.46 Then, when she heard his voice, Ada— who by then must have been very familiar with occult experiences—went into an ecstatic state and believed she could understand the true, profound meaning behind all of Khan’s words. Khan himself would seemingly verify this, claiming that during the presentation Ada appeared to be—far more than anyone else in attendance—absorbing all that he was saying. After the presentation, Ada approached Khan and asked for spiritual guidance. Khan, however, was about to leave for Seattle, so he advised Ada that if she wanted time for a serious meeting, she would have to follow him. Confident that she had discovered a true spiritual teacher, Ada made arrangements for the journey, and on May 11, 1911 she arrived in Washington. There, Khan visited Ada at her hotel, where he initiated her as his first Sufi student, giving her the spiritual name of Rabia, after the Muslim saint.47 For three days, Khan instructed Rabia on meditation and spiritual study, and over the next several months, while Khan was touring the country, the two corresponded regularly so that Khan could continue to instruct her.48 Rabia was encouraged to perform Sufi prayers (dhikrs) every night; meditate in Chisti fashion; learn Arabic; and read Rumi’s Masnavi, Hafiz’s Divan, and Sa‘di’s Gulistan and Bustan.49 It is unclear if at this time Khan introduced Rabia to what would eventually be called the ‘Esoteric School’ in Khan’s movement. This esoteric initiatory system of Khan’s—which may have been developed after 1912—contained twelve grades and four ‘Circles of Initiation.’50 At some point, however, Khan did provide Rabia with a set of instructions entitled “Book of Instructions for the Murshid,” which presented a system of seven stages of Sufic training that was

45 Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” 7. 46 Ibid., 7. 47 Ibid., 8. 48 Ibid., 8. 49 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 73; Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” 8. 50 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 175–77. The Order of Sufis, as will be recalled, had three degrees and eight ‘stages.’

218 chapter 7 very close to what was practiced by Chistiyyas in India.51 Later students of Khan would not receive these instructions, reflecting Khan’s increasing tendency to move away from the Islamic Sufism he had been taught in India and towards a simplified, universalist form. Although in 1911 Khan was insisting to Rabia that he did not teach “Islamic mysticism,” it appears that at this early stage, Khan’s teachings were still not as non-Islamic and Theosophically- influenced as they would be at the height of his activity in Europe.52 Khan spent the remainder of his first journey to America in New York City. In early 1912, Rabia joined him on the East Coast, serving as his secretary and observing his practices and actions as a murshid (teacher) and representative of Sufism.53 Khan told her that his goal was to fulfill Madani’s injunction by establishing a “Sufic Order in America,” and that she should be his “successor in America” to continue his mission, appointing her as murshid and his khalifat (official representative/deputy) for his Sufic Order.54 Before Khan left the country in the spring, he had made other significant ties with Americans. One was with C.H.A. Bjerregaard, the old correspondent of Gould and Johnson and member of the Order of Sufis, whom Khan described as “the only student of Sufism known in New York.”55 Khan made Bjerregaard an honorary member of his Sufic Order and in 1915 had his group publish a revised version of Bjerregaard’s 1902 critique of FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat, which now contained a strong influence from Khan.56 Soon after, however, Bjerregaard and Rabia—who had apparently been in contact at least through Khan’s group—had a falling out and it appears Bjerregaard gave up his connection with the movement.57 The visit to New York was not made in vain, however. Khan’s New York address was circulated in the New Thought press and this surely attracted

51 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 76–78. 52 Khan, Biography, 97, 107; Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” 8. Khan’s non-Islamic, universalist Sufism had some non-Theosophical sources; see Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 137–45. 53 Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” 9–10. 54 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 74–76. 55 Shaikh al-Mashaik Mahmood Khan, “Hazrat Inayat Khan: A Biographical Perspective,” in A Pearl in Wine: Essays on the Life, Music and Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan, ed. Pirzade Zia Inayat Khan (New Lebanon, ny: Omega Publications, 2001), 88; Khan, Biography, 125. 56 Elisabeth de Jong-Keesing, Inayat Khan: A Biography (London: Luzac & Co., 1974), 103; Khan, “Hazrat Inayat Khan,” 88; C.H.A. Bjerregaard, Sufism: Omar Khayyam and E. Fitzgerald (London: Sufi Publishing Society, 1915). 57 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 79n44.

The Non-orthodox Transition 219 numerous visitors.58 In fact, Khan verifiably converted a few people in New York, some of whom would prove to be long-lasting Sufis.59 It was in New York, too, where Khan met Ora Ray Baker, second cousin to Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy and half-sister to Pierre Bernard, the founder of the oriental-themed occult group called the Tantrik Order of America. It was Bernard who originally arranged for Ora Ray to study with Khan,60 and soon after meeting, both Ora Ray and Khan came to believe that they had previously seen each other in visions, so Khan proposed marriage. Then, against Bernard’s wishes, Ora Ray joined Khan and his entourage when they left for London in the spring.61 Khan spent the majority of the remainder of his life in Europe. At first, he lived in London and cultivated friendships within the local Muslim community,62 but he also started developing strong ties with the Theosophical Society, which increasingly influenced his teachings to make them less Islamic and therefore less attractive for the Muslims.63 Khan found in Theosophy a movement whose universalist message was close to that which Khan was himself drawn,64 plus its followers were the people most interested in and supportive of his teachings. His European presentations were often arranged by Theosophists, and many of his leading followers were former Theosophists who were perhaps seeking something that they felt the Society lacked. Since the 1880s, Theosophy had not maintained a strong, consistently-respected esoteric initiatory order. The H.B. of L. was the first to take advantage of this lacuna, followed by the Martinist Order, the Order of the Magi, and other New Thought-influenced esoteric groups. What made Khan’s movement stand out from all of these was, first of all, that he was an authentic Eastern adept, which

58 See “Metaphysicians and Teachers,” Bulletin Board 1, no. 6 (March 1912): 13 in J. Gordon Melton and University of California, Santa Barbara Library, American Religions Collection, American Religion Collection Series 1: Nontraditional American Religions: Western Esotericism from Witchcraft to the New Age (Woodbridge, ct: Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of Thomson Gale, 2005), reel 91. 59 Khan, Biography, 126, 169. 60 De Jong-Keesing, Inayat Khan, 106–07. 61 Ora Ray—who took the name of Ameena Begum—would write numerous poems, several of which were published in Rosary of a Hundred Beads: By “Sharda” to “Daya” (Zurich: Edition Petama Project, 2007). 62 Including Quilliam, who by this time was using the name Henri de Leon; see Khan, Biography, 147. 63 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 101–17. 64 For a technical discussion of the Khan’s thought, and its relationship with Theosophy, see Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 277ff.

220 chapter 7 immediately gave him an authoritative status in the eyes of Theosophists and other esotericists. Furthermore, Khan’s authentic and sophisticated religious knowledge, as well as his embracing of Theosophy’s teachings, put him at an advantage vis-à-vis the numerous turbaned fakirs who hoped to sell religious oriental goods to Western consumers without significant training in the ideas that would appeal to Americans interested in Eastern esotericism. After settling in in Europe and formally establishing his community as the Sufi Order (1915), Khan helped create a universalist ‘exoteric’ religion and ‘church’ for his movement—known as Universal Worship and the Church of All, respectively—which appear to have been significantly influenced by Theosophy- connected movements.65 His initiatory, esoteric teachings—now called the Esoteric School—were considered separate. The conglomerate of these institutions was formalized in 1923 as the Sufi Movement. In the us, meanwhile, Rabia attempted to fulfill her duty of spreading the Sufism she had been taught by Khan. Before she had even left San Francisco for New York in January 1912, Rabia was already connecting with Theosophists, lecturing at a local lodge in December 1911.66 The following summer, after Khan had left for London, Rabia formally established the Sufic Order at 1504 O’Farrell Street in San Francisco, complete with a ‘School of Philosophy’ that held lectures every Wednesday and Friday.67 According to Samuel Lewis, Rabia was, at the time, teaching her students an understanding of Sufism that integrated knowledge gained from her study of comparative religions and Martinism.68 By December, she was calling the group’s meeting place a ‘Sufic Temple’ (later, ‘Sufi Temple’), promoting it as a “school of religious philosophy, mental and moral culture, [and] elementary and advanced instruction in metaphysics,” and offering, in addition to the weekly lecture, a “devotional service.”69 Although it is not quite clear what took place at the devotional service, and it may very well have been a time for practicing dhikr prayers, the name suggests that it may have been a more church-like activity, similar to what would take place in Khan’s Church of All. By 1915, however, ‘devotional service’ no longer appeared in advertisements for the Sufi Temple, although the temple itself was

65 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 125–32. 66 “Theosophical Meetings,” San Francisco Call, December 3, 1911, 68. 67 “Sunday Meetings,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 4, 1912, 49 68 Lewis, Six Interviews, 5. 69 “Sufic Temple,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 1, 1912, 55; “Sufi Temple,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 16, 1913, 54; “Sufi Temple,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 11, 1913, 43. By May 1913 she had moved the temple to 1333 California Street.

The Non-orthodox Transition 221 to stay active for several more years.70 Rabia remained active as well, struggling to build and maintain a stable Sufi community and occasionally making appearances at interfaith events, such as at the Congress of Religious Philosophies, an auxiliary to the 1915 World’s Fair that was being held in San Francisco.71 In 1918, she expanded the American activities of the movement by establishing in the town of Fairfax, California a communal home known as Kaaba Allah,72 and in the following year, she gained what was to be her most loyal follower for the next two decades, Samuel Lewis (later known as Sufi Sam or Murshid Sam).73 Unfortunately, there is not much known about the early American Sufi community and why Rabia did not quickly gain a strong following. As we have seen, popularizing a new religion was no easy task and even some of the more successful turn-of-the-century non-Christian movements had only a few hundred members. Rabia would also face the challenge of attempting to recruit people during the First World War, when generating interest in an Islam-connected movement might have been especially difficult, given the political climate. Further insight into Rabia’s difficulties in winning loyal converts may be gleaned from a person who was—in all likelihood—briefly one of Rabia’s earliest followers. After coming into contact with the Ahmadiyya movement in the 1920s (see below), Ella May Garber explained that her journey to Islam began when she converted to Sufism in San Francisco around 1911.74 In Sufism, however, Ella May felt she had only “first beg[u]n to see Islam’s light, [and] not

70 “Sufi Temple,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 12, 1915, 52; “Sufi Temple,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 18, 1921, C1; In 1915, the temple was located on Leavenworth Street and in 1918 it moved to Sutter Street, where it remained at least through late 1921. 71 Murshid Wali Ali Meyer, “A Sunrise in the West: Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Legacy in California,” in A Pearl in Wine: Essays on the Life, Music and Sufism of Hazrat Inayat Khan, ed. Pirzade Zia Inayat Khan (New Lebanon, ny: Omega Publications, 2001), 396–97; Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 120; “Harem a Shelter for Women, Not Place to Keep Them Ignorant,” Morning Echo (Bakersfield, ca), August 1, 1915, 1; Khan, Biography, 575. At the Congress, Islam was apparently represented by one Mrs. Sidney Sprague, a native of Persia, who gave a speech correcting the stereotype of harems as places of oppression. 72 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 110. “Kaaba Allah” was probably the inspiration for Hazrat Ismet Ali’s Kaaba Alif Center. 73 Meyer, “A Sunrise in the West,” 398. 74 See Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 6 (1922): 147. I am dating her conversion based on comments made in this source, as well as one found in Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 1 (1921): 13. While Ella May makes no mention of either Rabia or Khan, she claimed that what initially converted her was reading Sufi poets, which Rabia—following Khan’s instructions to read Rumi, Hafiz, and Sa’di—would have had her do. This, plus the timing and location of her conversion, make it extremely likely, then, that she converted through the influence of Rabia.

222 chapter 7 in a very serious way.”75 As mentioned in Chapter 6, in 1915, she began corresponding with, Sayid Muhammad Wajih Gilani, the Sheikh al-Islam for the Philippines who was visiting the us at the time, and this led her to convert to Sunni Islam prior to her joining the Ahmadiyya movement.76 Ella May’s perception that the Sufism she was exposed to in the early 1910s was not “very serious” may reflect the fact that Rabia had only recently become a Sufi leader and therefore may not have had the knowledge and experience needed to win the confidence of many converts.77 Along these same lines, while Rabia had ties to various esoteric communities, including the Martinists and the Theosophical Society,78 as far as the evidence shows, she—like Webb—was not a widely-respected leader and therefore had a difficult time convincing a significant number of people from those groups to convert en masse.79 Judging by the available evidence, it seems that the creation of new American Sufi Order groups did not really start to pick up until the 1920s, and perhaps 1923, when Khan, after an eleven-year absence, finally returned to the us. Khan’s success in Europe over the preceding decade, along with his ability to draw American converts to visit him from across the Atlantic, had greatly increased his reputation in America,80 and he seems to have received more attention than he had in 1910–12 from both the media and converts. The Sufi communities in New York and San Francisco were greatly revitalized by Khan’s visit. The local Sufi centers (as they were now typically called) were becoming more active, running numerous advertisements and instituting Universal

75 Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 6 (1922): 147. 76 Ibid. 77 However, Rabia did win the confidence of one early convert, Rebecca C. Hepburn-Miller, who is today remembered as being Rabia’s first student, converting in 1912 (she may have been Rabia’s first student who remained loyal to her, unlike Ella May, who apparently quickly left the Sufic Order). Miller stayed with the movement at least through the late 1920s. See Khan, Biography, 523. 78 In the 1930s, apparently Rabia’s students frequently consulted with Theosophical Society members; see Mu’min Nurah Haq, “Biography,” accessed May 7, 2014, http://veracorda .com/MVC_Biography.html. 79 Unfortunately, my searches for information about the pre-Sufi religious activities of the people who were verifiably involved with the movement in the 1910s through 1930s have so far produced very little information. I did discover, however, that one of her later followers from New York, Marya Cushing, was an active member of the ts break-off, the Temple of the People. On this group, see Paul Eli Ivey, Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013). 80 Khan, Biography, 494, 524.

The Non-orthodox Transition 223

Worship—all of which appears to have led to an increase in membership.81 After Khan’s tour, in fact, several American converts either accompanied him to Europe or went there later to see him.82 The American community was also growing organizationally: Khan was able to start a new group in Los Angeles,83 and by 1925, there were additional new groups in Detroit, Michigan and in Santa Barbara and San Fernando, California.84 When Khan returned again to the us in late 1925, his popularity had increased further, with more and more people joining the movement and his lectures even better attended than they were in the past—he even gained the attention of New York’s Jewish and black nationalist communities.85 Khan left the States for a final time in June 1926, but in 1928, when the Movement was perhaps at its pre-World War ii peak in the us, there were at least 236 American members and thriving Sufi centers in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.86 Khan died on February 5, 1927 without having ensured that there would be a widely-accepted successor. He had personally told Rabia on several occasions that she was to assume the role, but—as Zia Inayat-Khan has pointed out— anti-Semitism appears to have turned many among the group’s international leadership in Geneva against Rabia, and it was decided that the successor should be Inayat’s brother, Maheboob.87 By 1930, this had caused a schism

81 See, e.g., the “Sufi Movement” advertisements that ran in the New York Sun’s religion section from late 1923 through 1924. In 1924, advertisements were also run in the American New Thought press; see, e.g., the advertisement in Herald of Light 6, no. 11 (November 1924): 4 in Melton, American Religion Collection Series 1, reel 101. 82 Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” 10; Khan, Biography, 502–04, 524. 83 Khan, Biography, 172. 84 William C. Hartmann, ed., Hartmann’s Who’s Who in Occult, Psychic and Spiritual Realms (Jamaica, ny: Occult Press, 1925), 154. The list of Sufi groups given in this 1925 book does not mention the Los Angeles group, which was verifiably active, but struggling, in 1925 (see Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 181). However, since the Los Angeles group had been started by E.P.A. Connaughton, who was listed as the head of the Santa Barbara group for 1925 (and this group was confirmed to exist in 1930—see Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 226), it seems that the Los Angeles group had already grown enough for Connaughton to appoint a successor—although leadership problems in the group would soon rear their heads; see Khan, Biography, 172, 181, 494. 85 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 182–87; “Indian Philosopher Here with Message,” Negro World, December 19, 1925, [3?]. 86 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 226. I have deduced that these three cities were the locations of the group’s major centers from the fact that it was only these locations, and not the other centers, that were being listed as the American distributors for the organization’s materials in its 1920s journal, Sufi Quarterly. 87 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 194–96, 204–13, esp. 213.

224 chapter 7 among American members, with the New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara communities affiliating with the group’s headquarters in Geneva, and the rest staying with Rabia.88 American membership in the Geneva-based Sufi Movement thus dipped down to 141, but soon it was reportedly experiencing renewed growth, particularly in Indianapolis, Cleveland, New York, and possibly Philadelphia.89 Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, interestingly, some of the Sufis began to take an increased interest in Islam and reached out to local and international Muslims (see Chapter 8). With the advent of the Second World War, however, the Sufi Movement, being primarily based in Europe, began to face many challenges in the effort to maintain stability. The difficulties were further exacerbated by internecine squabbles and growing factionalism. As a result, the us community began to decline.90 After the war, particularly following the death of Maheboob, the infighting continued, and one of Inayat’s sons, Vilayat, began to gain an independent following that would only several years later gain traction in the us (see Chapter 11). Rabia, meanwhile, continued to lead her small American following. Having become an independent leader, she began modifying the subject matter and literature that was being used for spiritual instruction, introducing the Kabala, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead.91 In the late 1930s, after she was initiated by a prominent Indian Chisti leader who claimed that Khan had previously told him that Rabia would be Khan’s successor,92 Rabia increasingly believed that Sufism needed revitalization and a new direction.93 In 1942, she was introduced to the movement of Meher Baba, an Indian spiritual teacher who had been influenced by Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Sufism. Rabia became convinced that she should integrate her movement with his, and in 1945, she formally dedicated to Meher Baba her group and its resources, creating what would eventually be called Sufism Reoriented. Just before her death in 1947, Rabia initiated one Ivy Duce as her successor and the American movement’s new leader, despite the fact that Samuel Lewis, Rabia’s long-time follower, had expected to be named successor. In the late 1940s, Lewis broke with Sufism Reoriented and in the ensuing decades become one of the many new American Sufi leaders (see Chapter 11).

88 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 217; “New Cult Seeks to Unite All Faiths,” Dunkirk Evening Observer (ny), December 1, 1934, 9. 89 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 226–27; “New Cult Seeks to Unite All Faiths.” 90 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 255. 91 Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” 11; Mu’min Nurah Haq, “Biography.” 92 Conner, “Recognize the True Teacher,” 12–13. 93 Ibid., 15–17.

The Non-orthodox Transition 225

The ‘Qadiani’ Ahmadis

The movement that most represents the transition from the late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century converts is that of the Qadiani Ahmadis. As discussed in Chapter 3, the Ahmadi movement was thoroughly connected with both the nineteenth-century converts and the occult revival out of which they emerged. Through its founder, Ghulam Ahmad, the movement had developed direct contacts with both the Theosophical Society and Alexander Webb as early as 1886, and throughout the 1890s and early 1900s, it maintained ties with other early American Muslim converts. Then, in the early 1920s, after the community underwent a schism that resulted in those who believed Ahmad was a messiah being popularly labeled ‘Qadianis’ and those who believed Ahmad was merely a divinely sanctioned reformer being labeled ‘Lahoris,’ a new era of the movement was launched by the Qadianis, which better linked the faction to the orthodox converts of the period. During this phase, although esotericism was still important, there was a much greater attempt to unite under the name of Islam all Muslims and converts, no matter their background, foreshadowing what would become more common in the immigrant-majority communities. And, like those communities, during the interwar period the Qadianis were able to establish a stable institutional basis in the United States. The transitional character of the Qadiani movement in the us owes a great deal to the selection of the person who would be its first proselytizer. In a decision that would have enormous consequences for the direction of conversion to Islam in the United States—particularly for African Americans—the Qadianis sent a dark-skinned, highly educated Indian named Mufti Muhammad Sadiq to be their official missionary for the us. Prior to his arrival in New York in early 1920, Sadiq has spent the previous three years living in London where he was attending medical school and working with the Ahmadis who were very influential in the Muslim community in London and the surrounding counties.94 It is significant that Sadiq had been a member of this particular community. Islam in the London area at the time was characterized by a great deal of Muslim intermixing; in fact, after Quilliam left England in 1908, many of his followers moved to the London area and joined that community, as did Quilliam himself upon his return.95 Also, starting in 1912, the mosque in Woking

94 On Sadiq and his time in America, see Richard Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 116–18. On the Qadianis in England, see Gilham, Loyal Enemies, 138–40. 95 Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain, 263–69; Ali Köse, Conversion to Islam: A Study of Native British Converts (New York: Kegan Paul International, 1996), 14–16.

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(about thirty miles outside of London) became an important hub for Indian Muslims and was at the time strongly influenced by both factions of the Ahmadis, who were making great strides in converting several local whites, including Lord Headley, who, with Quilliam, established the British Muslim Society in London. Having been plugged into this mixed Muslim community, Sadiq would have heard about the American Muslims with Ahmadi ties: Webb, Baker, and F.L. Andersen. He would have presumably also learned of the esoteric interests of many of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century white Anglo converts to Islam, several of whom—including, again, Quilliam—had taken an interest in Inayat Khan’s Sufism during that decade. Sadiq would skill- fully use this knowledge to his advantage in the United States. Sadiq left for America in January 1920, but, upon his arrival, he was detained for about seven weeks due to immigration officers believing Islam required polygamy, which was against the law in the us. During this period, Sadiq began making converts of other immigrants who had been detained with him, many of whom, however, would have to return to their home countries. In April, after convincing authorities that polygamy was not required by Islam, Sadiq went to New York City where he set up an office on Madison Avenue, began lecturing, and, while wearing a black robe and green turban, walked along the city’s streets handing out large cards containing, on one side, his photograph and, on the other, a condensed lesson in basic Islamic principles.96 Sadiq converted a few white residents—such as Harold Johnson and Sadiq’s first American female convert, S.W. Sobolewski—and he connected with converts who had been Muslim for several years, F.L. Andersen and Ella May Garber.97 Having established a small community with committed converts as leaders, in October he left for Chicago, giving lectures along the way, and converting a few more people. An articulate and thoughtful speaker, Sadiq made a strong impression wherever he went, which garnered him attention in the press and led to him having numerous correspondence with Americans from throughout the country, of whom a handful converted without even meeting Sadiq in person.98 Although Sadiq was a Qadiani, in an effort to avoid confusing Americans, who largely did not even know the basics about Islam, let alone the differences between factions of an Indian Muslim sect, he chose to downplay this association and to not emphasize Ghulam Ahmad’s prophethood. He even did this with other Muslim immigrants, many of whom never realized that Sadiq was

96 This description is given in M[uhammad] Yusof Khan, “Some of our Missionaries,” Muslim Sunrise 42, no. 4 (1975): 14. 97 Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 1 (1921): 13. 98 Ibid., 13–14.

The Non-orthodox Transition 227 an Ahmadi. In early 1921, in fact, Sadiq was warmly welcomed by the large immigrant Muslim community in Highland Park, Michigan, near Detroit, where he began to teach Islam, convert locals, and assist with the building of the city’s first mosque. After his sectarian affiliations were discovered, however, he was persuaded to leave and, at the request of Muhammad Yaqoob, an African American convert, Sadiq returned to Chicago, where he established the Qadianis’ national headquarters.99 Over the years, other immigrant Muslims would occasionally join Sadiq’s movement, praying and studying alongside converts from various backgrounds, but the widespread Muslim unity Sadiq had briefly achieved in Highland Park would never be seen again in the American Qadiani movement. Nevertheless, it was only after his departure from Michigan that Sadiq was able to make his movement a truly effective one. He started a monthly magazine, the Moslem Sunrise; he continued responding to the now thousands of letters he was receiving; and he used Chicago as a base from which he lectured across the Midwest. During this time, Sadiq also began emphasizing Islamic mysticism and started building connections with the country’s esoteric and liberal religion communities. He lectured, for instance, for spiritualist groups, Unitarians, and the Theosophical Society; he sent out over 500 letters to apparently both white and black Masons; and he obtained cheap degrees for esoteric knowledge from organizations like St. Louis’ College of Divine Metaphysics and Washington, dc’s Oriental University.100 The evidence suggests that Sadiq’s movement did indeed benefit from this connection with esotericism. One of the few advertisements his magazine ran was for a non-creedal ‘Occult Circle’ located in Tampa—Sadiq’s only other known connection to Tampa was with two Latina/o converts there who were actively converting others to Islam, so it is likely that they ran this Occult Circle.101 Another important convert who apparently had esoteric connections was the white Joseph Livingston Mott, Sadiq’s “esteemed friend.”102 Mott’s background remains somewhat uncertain: In the Moslem Sunrise, on more than one occasion, he is explicitly associated with New Orleans—where he ran an ‘Ahmadia American Asiatic agency (export and import)’ and planned to build a mosque.103 But on one occasion he also is ambiguously said to be residing “in the city,” suggesting the city of the

99 Khan, “Some of our Missionaries,” 14. 100 In the first volume of Moslem Sunrise, see no. 2: 35, 37, 39; no. 3: 54; no. 4: 95, back page; no. 5: back page. 101 Ibid., no. 2: 36, 39; no. 3: 61, 66, 74; no. 4: 82. 102 “Mr. J.L. Mott,” Moslem Sunrise 2, no. 5 (1922): 111; Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 1 (1921): 13, 14. 103 “Mr. J.L. Mott”; Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 1 (1921): 13; Ibid. 1, no. 2 (1921): 36.

228 chapter 7 magazine’s publication, Chicago, and he is reported as helping Sadiq with his correspondence—which would, logically, be done primarily in Chicago, where Sadiq received his letters.104 Establishing his location may be of some value because Mott, who was said to belong to the Masons “and several other fraternal organizations,”105 if he can be connected to Chicago, can be linked to one of the important early esoteric groups: the Hermetic Brotherhood. In the early 1900s, a J.L. Mott was the head of the Chicago branch of Phelon’s Hermetic Brotherhood of Atlantis, Luxor, and Elephante, a break-off from the H.B. of L.106 In Chicago, Sadiq’s American mission had one important additional development. During his first stay there, he converted an African American man named Andrew Jacob, renamed by Sadiq Muhammad Yaqoob, who became the city’s most active proselytizer when Sadiq left a few months later.107 Sadiq’s Ahmadi movement was therefore now a religious organization that had both black and white members—an extremely rare occurrence in early twentieth- century America. Nineteen-twenty was the tail end of what has been identified as the ‘nadir of race relations’ in the us. Oppression of and violence towards African Americans had recently reached its post-slavery peak, with hundreds of lynchings and countless acts of overt racism appearing throughout the country, but particularly in the South. Partly in response to this, but also due to the increased demand for labor during the First World War, tens of thousands of American blacks had migrated northward where, after the war, racial tensions intensified. In the summer of 1919—the ‘Red Summer,’ as it has been called—numerous violent race riots erupted in the North, further deteriorat- ing race relations. Since, even prior to this period, integrated American religious communities were extremely rare, the fact that Sadiq had started converting both whites and blacks was a significant achievement. It was also one that would redefine the importance of his movement, as over his first two years promoting Islam, Sadiq began to see that African Americans were much more interested in the religion than whites. There were multiple reasons for this phenomenon,108 but a major one was the presence of the relatively widespread notion—at least in that racially-polarizing period of us history—that

104 “Mr. J.L. Mott”; Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 1 (1921): 14. 105 “Mr. J.L. Mott.” 106 [Hermetic Brotherhood of Atlantis, Luxor, and Elephante], Proceedings of the Annual Convocation H.B. of A.L. and E. ([San Francisco]: Hermetic Brotherhood of Atlantis, Luxor, and Elephante, [1900–04]), 1902 proceedings, page 5. 107 Moslem Sunrise 1, no. 1 (1921): 13; Ibid. 1, no. 2 (1921): 36–37; Khan, “Some of our Missionaries,” 14. 108 See hctius vol. 2.

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Islam was a ‘non-white’ religion. Sadiq therefore began asserting that Islam— unlike Christianity—had no color line and he began to make an effort to connect his group with Marcus Garvey’s popular black nationalist movement, the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Soon, African American Ahmadis would outnumber whites perhaps nearly seven to one. The evidence suggests, then, that whites who joined after this transition were often people intensely committed to the idea of racial equality.109 The Qadiani movement was by far the most successful Islamic movement in the us up to that point; Sadiq converted around 700 by the time of his departure in the fall of 1923 and his successor and the converts they promoted to the level of proselytizer converted that same number over the next two years—by all accounts, the vast majority of these converts were African American.110 Between 1925 and 1928, however, the country had no official missionary, and interest in the movement declined significantly, with active members drop- ping down to about 400 by 1927.111 Nevertheless, there may havebeen some active proselytization among whites during the period. A 1927 report claimed that the group had converted the family of one Mr. Lewis, “the famous lawyer, and a man of wealth,” who declared “that he will spend a great part of his remaining years in the study and propagation of his new faith.”112 The same report also relayed that another (presumably white) convert named

Prof. Smithen (?) who specialized in theology, […] [had been] planning on going to Africa as a Christian missionary. While in Rochester College he had studied Islamic lore, and his heart “had become emptied of his Christian convictions,” but […] he continued to live like a hypocrite until the hour came when his conscience blamed him, and he renounced Christianity.113

When the new missionary, Sufi Bengalee—whose very name reflected the mysticism emphasis in his teachings—arrived in 1928, he devoted his efforts to converting whites, leaving African Americans to Muhammad Yusuf Khan, an

109 The author has been told a rumor by contemporary American Qadianis that many early white members refused to interact with black members. However, I was unable to verify this and the available documentary evidence does not suggest this. 110 See, e.g., John Van Ess, “A Moslem Mosque in Chicago,” Neglected Arabia 141 (1927): 13–15; “Moslem Religious Influence in the United States,” Moslem World 25, no. 1 (1935): 42. 111 A.T. Hoffert, “Moslem Propaganda,” The Messenger 9 (May 1927): 141; Van Ess, “A Moslem Mosque in Chicago,” 13. 112 “Mohammedan Converts in America,” Syrian World (April 1927): 57–58. 113 Ibid.

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Indian immigrant who had worked with Sadiq since 1921.114 After two years there were eighty to ninety white Qadianis and by early 1934, when the group was claiming the vastly exaggerated number of 3,000 converts, the total number of white converts may have been close to 200.115 In 1934, after several of Yusuf Khan’s followers became convinced that he was exploiting them for personal profit, many African Americans left the Qadiani sect and joined the Lahoris and Sunnis, significantly reducing membership again.116 By the commencement of the war, there were probably at most one hundred white Qadianis in the us; unfortunately, very little is known about their lives and activities during the interwar and wartime periods other than the fact that Islamic mysticism does not appear to have been a central concern for these later converts. Despite the many ups and downs in the growth of the Qadiani movement in the us, and despite the fact that most of its followers were African Americans, the Qadiani movement was significant in the history of white American conversion to Islam. It was through the Qadiani movement that white American conversion first underwent the type of changes that were to characterize later periods. Far more than ever before, white converts were joining up and identifying with immigrant and African American Muslims. This reflected the shift- ing demographic composition of the country as more and more non-Christian immigrants arrived and more and more blacks fled the South. As whites’ social bonds changed, so did the appearance of their religions. And, as time went on, esotericism became less and less important for white converts who identified as Muslim, especially as non-Islamic Sufism was emerging as the primary location for esoterically-inclined whites who sought Islamic religious themes. It was a divide that would widen much more over the years to come.

114 Andrew T. Hoffert, “The Moslem Movement in America,” Moslem World 20 (1930): 309. 115 Hoffert, “The Moslem Movement in America,” 309; Moslem World 7, nos. 1 & 2 (1934): 30. The number of whites and total Qadianis in 1934 has been deduced based on the known locations of American Qadianis centers at the time and knowledge of which locations were primarily African American, and which left from the movement later that year (see below); for more on African American Qadianis in the 1930s, see hctius vol. 2. 116 See hctius vol. 2.

chapter 8 New Bonds

Before 1975, no manifestation of deterritorialization would have a greater impact on white American conversion to Islam than immigration. It is a testament to both the power of personal relationships and the relative social freedom that the us granted many non-Christian immigrants that, within a generation of Webb’s passing, most white converts were from completely different backgrounds than those of Webb’s era. Even the twentieth century’s new ‘friend converts’—many of whom, like those of the 1890s, had intellectual inclinations and strong commitments to liberal principles—had generally not passed through involvement with esotericism before embracing Islam. Deterritorializing immigration had therefore, basically, made it easier for common white Americans to become Muslims—and they did so by the hundreds. While it would take over thirty years, a second world war, and the passing of new federal laws before the white American Muslim community could arrive at its late-twentieth-century identity, many of the essential shapers and patterns of that identity were making their mark in the era of the Great Depression. During this period, both friend converts and converts through marriage laid much of the groundwork and built several of the structures on which future converts would thrive. It was in fact within this process of attempting to reterritorialize Islam that many of the elements of the modern white Muslim identity were born.

The Immigration Impact: Conversion through Relationships

It is, frankly, impossible to give an accurate number of how many Muslims voluntarily came to the United States before World War ii.1 Due to various factors—such as religion not being recorded on us censuses, inconsistencies in immigration record-keeping, bureaucrats’ failure to note or distinguish immigrants’ ethnicities, immigrants hiding their religious backgrounds, and Muslim immigrants coming illegally or via European or South American countries— the best we can hope to achieve is a very rough estimate. The data presented in one of the most thorough and recent analyses of the subject suggests that there

1 For a more thorough introduction to this topic, see Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, A History of Islam in America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 135–150.

232 chapter 8 were probably over 70,000 Muslim immigrants during this period.2 This number may be deceiving, however, as a large percentage of these immigrants returned to their country of birth after having worked and saved for several years.3 It is likely, then, that perhaps only thirty percent of the estimated seventy thousand (about 23,000) permanently settled in the us—which is consistent with known estimates of us Muslim community sizes from the period.4 Most of the immigrants who came were uneducated, unskilled laborers who spoke little to no English. These Muslims, especially those who returned to their home country, rarely interacted with Americans, spending most of their free time with immigrants of the same ethnicity. Therefore, it was primarily the permanently settled immigrants and their children who would bring in converts. The only white converts (besides Alexander Webb) mentioned in studies of pre-World War ii us Muslim immigrant communities are those who converted before or soon after marrying a first- or second-generation Muslim immigrant. Unfortunately, given the lack of data on pre-World War ii Muslims generally, it should come as no surprise that we also lack a large amount of good data on these Muslims’ marriages and the converts they produced. Nevertheless, some studies have made a few detailed observations that can be used to give us a general picture. First of all, in terms of marriages, it has often been observed that first-generation Muslims—particularly Arabs, who were the majority of

2 See GhaneaBassiri, History, 143–149. There is much more work to be done on this subject; as GhaneaBassiri points out in his discussion of the topic, a great deal of new information will likely be found through study of American and foreign embassy records. 3 Among Turks, perhaps up to eighty-six percent returned, and among Arabs—who represented the majority of Muslim immigrants—the percent was not as high but probably well over fifty. 4 The largest Muslim community at the time, the Detroit metropolitan area, probably had around 10–15,000 Muslims in the 1920s and 1930s; see Sarah F. Howell, “Inventing the American Mosque: Early Muslims and Their Institutions in Detroit, 1910–1980” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2009), 48. For New York City, perhaps the second largest Muslim community during that period, estimates from the 1920s through 1940s vary widely, from as little as 500 to as many as 18,000, and a few estimates from the 1940s and 1950s place the number in New York City only at a few thousand; see H.J. Katibah, “Moslems of City Celebrating Pious Feast of Ramazan,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 18, 1926, 10C; Mary Caroline Holmes, “Islam in America,” Moslem World 16 (1926): 265; “Moslems Observe Bairam Fete Here” New York Times May 10, 1930, 6; “First u.s. Moslem Mosque Planned,” Bighamtom Press (New York), June 6, 1933, 17; “Arab-World in New York,” Moslem World 37 (1947): 81; “u.s. Tour Shows Ties of 2 Faiths,” New York Times, April 5, 1956, 34. For estimates for other communities—which generally had only a few hundred at most—see GhaneaBassiri, History, 145–149.

New Bonds 233 the Muslim immigrants—were fairly resistant to intermarriage with non- Muslim Americans. A 1947 study of Chicago Palestinians found that only seven out of 128 married exogamously; in Springfield, Massachusetts, none of the Muslim immigrants in the first generation did, and only about ten percent of all married men did so in the next generations; in Ross, North Dakota, only three out of thirty families were mixed; and in the Detroit metropolitan area, for the first generation the rate was about eleven percent.5 Among Indian Muslims and in a few other Arab Muslim communities—such as those in Toledo, Ohio and Cedar Rapids, Iowa—the rate for the first generation was slightly higher, closer to twenty to twenty-five percent, and overall the rate seems to have increased to nearly forty percent for the second generation of all us Muslim immigrants.6 On average, then, we could estimate that about fifteen to twenty percent of the settled, pre-World War ii Muslims—or about 3,450–4,600 people—married Americans. The available evidence suggests that these American spouses were, for the most part, white Christian females. This generalization is based on several clues. First is the fact that at least three studies noted that in some of the larger Arab communities there were no cases of pre-1965 Arab Muslims marrying African Americans (although Indians did on some occasions) and there were only a few known instances of marriages to Latinos and Jews—the rest were to Christian whites of various ethnicities.7 As far as gender is concerned, there are three reasons few of the non-Muslim spouses were male, particular early on. First, the majority of Muslim immigrants were male and either did not already

5 E.g., Lawrence Oschinsky, “Islam in Chicago: Being a Study of the Acculturation of a Muslim Palestinian Community in that City” (ma thesis, University of Chicago, 1947), 27; Ibrahim Othman, Arabs in the United States: A Study of an Arab-American Community (Amman: Sha‘sha‘a, 1974), 64, 97; Alixa Naff, Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993), 243; Atif Amin Wasfi, “Dearborn Arab- Moslem Community: A Study of Acculturation” (PhD diss., Michigan State University, 1964), 253; Abdo A. Elkholy, The Arab Moslems in the United States (New Haven: College and University Press, 1966), 30–31 (Elkholy’s numbers were readjusted for percent of married people—as opposed to percent out of the total population—in Jen Cloyd Swanson, “Mate Selection and Intermarriage in an American Arab Moslem Community” [ma thesis, University of Iowa, 1970], 27). 6 Karen Leonard, Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992), 67–69; Vivek Bald, “Hands Across the Water: Indian Sailors, Peddlers, and Radicals in the u.s. 1890–1965” (PhD diss., New York University, 2009), 151–57; Swanson, “Mate Selection,” 27; Wasfi, “Dearborn,” 253. 7 Elkholy, Arab Moslems, 31; Swanson, “Mate Selection,” 49; Wasfi, “Dearborn,” 177, 290; Leonard, Making Ethnic Choices, passim.; Bald, “Hands Across the Water,” passim.; Oschinsky, “Islam in Chicago,” 35.

234 chapter 8 have wives or could not afford to bring Muslim wives to the us. Therefore, most Muslim mixed marriages would have been with female Americans. Second, even for the few females who either immigrated without a husband or who were born in the us, Islamic tradition holds that a Muslim woman should not marry a non-Muslim man, so a female follower of Islam would generally be reluctant to consider marrying a non-Muslim.8 Third, frequently when a young adult female Muslim expressed interest in marrying a non-Muslim, her family and community put a great deal of pressure on her to prevent her from doing this.9 Parents would sometimes go to the extreme length of disowning the daughter so that none of her siblings would imitate this behavior. In at least one instance, a whole mosque community openly shunned the woman and her husband because, although he had converted, he was not an Arab Muslim, and families and imams frequently would talk to her directly in an attempt to persuade her to reconsider her choice. Nevertheless, in later generations, the gender distribution of non-Muslim American spouses may have begun to balance out somewhat, most likely due to those generations being more Americanized.10 There is little data on how many of these American spouses converted to Islam. Generally, spouse converts appear to have been fairly rare.11 Some studies have suggested that, because Sunni tradition prohibits only female Muslims from marrying a non-Muslim, in the pre-World War ii period, the percentage of conversion was higher among non-Muslim males than among non-Muslim females; indeed, in Dearborn, seventy-five percent of the known non-Muslim males who wanted to marry Muslim women converted to Islam.12 Despite this

8 For introductions to Islamic traditions concerning mixed marriages, see Abdullahi A. An-Na’im, ed., Inter-Religious Marriages among Muslims: Negotiating Religious and Social Identity in Family and Community (New Delhi: Global Media Publications, 2005); Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 160–193. 9 See Naff, Becoming American, 242–243, 245–246; Swanson, “Mate Selection,” 74–75; Wasfi, “Dearborn,” 256, 289; Elkholy, Arab Moslems, 30. 10 I am making this claim based purely on the fact that in Swanson’s study there were seven female and six male second-generation Muslims who married non-Muslims. However, as Swanson points out, her research population was atypical in terms of exogamous marriage, and this trend was not explicitly observed in other studies. See Swanson, “Mate Selection,” 18, 75. 11 E.g., in two studies of early Indian Muslim immigrants who intermarried, there are no explicit mentions of converts, and only two intimations; see Leonard, Making Ethnic Choices, 130n36; Bald, “Hands Across the Water,” 357. 12 Naff, Becoming American, 245–46; Wasfi, “Dearborn,” 288–289; Elkholy, Arab Moslems, 30–31.

New Bonds 235 high percentage, though, since male non-Muslim spouses were far less common than female ones—a reality exacerbated by the fact that in Shiʿi communities all women were required to be at least nominally Muslim in order to marry a born-Muslim male13—this phenomenon presumably did not have a tremendous impact on the overall percentage of non-Muslim spouses who converted. Only one study—that based on the Cedar Rapids community, which had higher-than-average rates of exogamous marriage—gave an overall percentage of non-Muslim spouses who converted: thirty-eight percent of Cedar Rapids’ second-generation non-Muslim spouses (gender was not identified) converted, while sixty-two remained Christian.14 It is reasonable to estimate, then, that, on average, about thirty percent of all non-Muslim spouses of the first and second generation immigrants converted, which would be—given the estimate above of 3,450–4,600 total non-Muslim spouses—about 1,200 total converts through marriage in the pre-World War ii period. While we can confidently say that these converts through marriage were almost all white (at least among the dominant Arab population), at this point we cannot be as sure about the gender distribution. It should also be pointed out that although this is little more than a highly tentative, very rough estimate, interestingly, in 1933, Ahmad Nadji, one of the few American Muslim proselytizers at the time, claimed that there were in fact 1,000 white converts to Islam in the us.15 These converts’ sincerity and commitment to Islam might not have been particularly strong. In almost every discussion of early American males who converted through marriage it is pointed out that the man converted specifically for the purpose of marrying; there is almost no indication that these men had an independent desire to follow Islam. Other anecdotal evidence suggests that the same was true for women as well—at least the wives of Shiʿi Muslims, who were also expected to convert.16 For female Sunnis, while there was no religious legal reason why they had to convert, conflicts over how to raise children, the studies suggest, may have led Christian females to convert to Islam for the sake of family stability—a phenomenon similar to what has been

13 See Liyakat Nathani Takim, Shi‘ism in America (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 22, 241n51. 14 Swanson, “Mate Selection,” 75. Interestingly, this was the only study in which informants indicated that convert spouses were made to feel unwelcomed, which, one might assume, would inhibit conversion. 15 “Contemporary Thought and Life,” Muslim Revival 2, no. 2 (1933): 170. It is unclear if Nadji was including Qadianis in this number, but he almost certainly was not including Sufis. 16 Eide Alawan a prominent member of the pre-1975 Detroit Shi‘i community, phone interview with the author, May 21, 2014.

236 chapter 8 observed in other types of religiously mixed marriages in the us.17 Perhaps reflective of the pragmatic nature of the Muslim marriage conversions, one imam noted that about half of all those he knew who had converted for marriage later reverted to Christianity and even tried to impose that religion on their families.18 There are, furthermore, very few testaments to the sincerity of converts and only a very small number were known to volunteer for leadership positions in their communities—although this can partially be explained by the fact that in some communities there was probably resistance to converts taking on such roles.19 Indeed, usually the immigrant communities only begrudgingly accepted new converts, as they did not think a person who was willing to convert for marriage had strong religious faith.20 It is likely, then, that the typical pre-World War ii white convert was not particularly interested in religious matters; while their conversion was not necessarily insincere, it was done less for a personal religious desire and more to either enable a person to marry a Muslim or create a stable community and family life. These individuals would have participated in the personal and community rituals only to the extent that they were expected to by the rest of the community. Indeed, family and community life were, presumably, what the typical white American convert at the time was focused on—she or he was almost never interested in esotericism and probably at best only mildly interested in political or philosophical issues as they related to Islam.21 These converts were therefore very different from the types of people who had converted either in the 1890s or into the non-orthodox groups of the early 1900s. Interestingly, in no study of pre-World War ii us immigrant Muslims is there any mention of either immigrant Muslims trying to convert non-married white Americans or white Americans who converted to Islam through Muslim immigrant communities without marrying a Muslim. Muslim immigrants at

17 Marc Musick and John Wilson, “Religious Switching for Marriage Reasons,” Sociology of Religion 56, no. 3 (1995): 257–70. 18 Wasfi, “Dearborn,” 288. 19 Swanson, “Mate Selection,” 74–75; Elkholy, Arab Moslems, 30. One convert became a leader in the Cedar Rapids community; one Latina convert in Arizona helped run an Arabic class; and one convert-through-marriage became a prominent figure in New York’s Muslim community in the 1940s (see Chapter 9). 20 Wasfi, “Dearborn,” 288–89; Elkholy, Arab Moslems, 30; Yvonne Haddad, “Arab Muslims and Islamic Institutions in America: Adaptation and Reform,” in Arabs in the New World: Studies on Arab-American Communities, eds. Sameer Y. Abraham and Nabeel Abraham (Detroit: Wayne State University Center for Urban Studies, 1983), 79. 21 In fact, I have been told by some white Muslims who converted in the late twentieth century that this was true even for them.

New Bonds 237 the time, as we have seen, were very isolationist, and generally did not desire to bring white American Christians into their communities. Although we know from other sources that there were at least a few converts who were not married (see below), the fact that they are not mentioned at all in the studies of early immigrant communities suggests that these types of converts were extremely rare. However, at the same time, they were also highly important, both in terms of the historical dynamics they reflected and their roles in the Muslim communities. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of these ‘friend converts’ was that, while a few of them—we know of at least two—had been interested in esoterica or alternative religious ideas prior to conversion, evidence suggests that most others had not. This makes sense, considering that Muslim immigrants, including their imams and others who proselytized, generally were neither interested in such topics nor knowledgeable enough to discuss them with potential converts. Ultimately, this characteristic suggests that, like their married counterparts, even these friend converts were different from previous Muslim converts in this important respect. It is true that friend converts, like their nineteenth-century predecessors, seem to have been people who had a desire to join non-mainstream religious communities, perhaps due to unhappiness in mainstream society or due to a religious or psychological need to look at the world from an alternative perspective, common motivations for white American religious converts.22 Indeed, it is suggestive that some of the most prominent Muslim and Sufi friend converts of the 1910–75 era came from Jewish backgrounds. Whether they faced anti-Semitism or simply felt ‘out of place’ in the United States, it is understandable that they and similarly marginalized whites might have sought out new identities to better adjust to their social and psychological situations. It is likely, though, that if these twentieth-century converts were living in the 1890s, they would have been committed spiritualists or esotericists, and not necessarily Muslims. Going from those ‘gateway’ groups to Islam was an extremely rare phenomenon—one that often had personal contact with Webb as a prerequi- site; and it would have been especially rare for American Jews, as none are known to have become Muslims during that period. Other twentieth-century

22 See, e.g., Lofland and Stark, “Becoming a World-Saver,” 864; William James, Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1902), “Lecture ix—Conversion,” accessed February 18, 2009, http://www.psychwww.com/ psyrelig/james/james8.htm#205; Lewis Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 46; John B. Holt, “Holiness Religion: Culture Shock and Social Reorganization,” American Sociological Review 5, no. 5 (1940): 740–747.

238 chapter 8 friend converts would have been reluctant to convert to Islam in the 1890s because, for whatever reason, they would not have joined a ‘gateway’ esoteric group and therefore would have, like the closeted converts Webb claimed to know, feared ostracism. For these people, having real Muslim friends gave them the courage to follow the faith they presumably secretly desired. This, however, brings up another important issue. It is of course possible that only Islam, and no other religion, can appeal to certain people. Never theless, particularly for the interwar period, it is extremely difficult to say, since we have very few testimonies from white Americans from the period, what unique aspect of Islam had attracted these converts. Access to Qurʾan translations and other resources about Islam was very limited, and immigrants’ understandings of Islam generally was not only weak, but often incorporated the assumption that many cultural practices from their homelands were universally adhered to by Muslims. These converts were thus exposed to a variety of ideas about Islam, many of which were not particularly nuanced. We might, then, look to the better-studied converts of the late twentieth and early twenty- first centuries for some clues about their predecessors.23 These later converts, like many of those who wrote about their conversion in the pre-1975 period,24 tend to point to Islam’s rejection of the trinity and the moral uprightness of the Muslims they personally know as key factors in their deciding to convert. However, a nineteenth-century American might have given the same reasons for joining a Unitarian community or many other Protestant groups. There are, in other words, few American converts who find in Islam something that cannot also be found in various small Christian communities. Contact with immigrant Muslims therefore often simply increases the likelihood that the convert becomes satisfied that only Islam possesses these particular traits—or, at least, that Islam possesses these traits more completely than other religions. Furthermore, because through conversion the convert has gained the benefits of relationships with immigrant Muslims, he or she has little incentive to continue seeking. In these situations, it can be easy to rationalize, become convinced, or jump to the romantic conclusion that the behavior of the entire Islamic world is the same as the behavior in the small Muslim community with which they have come into contact, or that certain appealing ideas in Islam are objectively more fundamental to the religion than they are to other religions. Many twentieth- and twenty-first-century American converts, for instance, have argued that Islam is objectively more accepting of racial differences, but

23 On contemporary converts, see hctius vol. 3. 24 A handful of American convert writings about their conversions appeared in Muslim periodicals, such as the Light and Yaqeen International.

New Bonds 239 their evidence, typically, is primarily what they have observed or heard in immigrant communities and read about in contemporary news reports or short Islamic propaganda works—they almost never make a case based on highly technical comparisons of scriptures or on in-depth research on the history of race relations in the Islamic and Christian worlds.25 Similar intellectual patterns can be observed in individuals committed to the religion of their birth—whether it be Christianity, Islam, or another tradition—the only difference being that they have accepted the relationships or other benefits that come from being a member of their parents’ religion. Often, in these situations, the individual will justify their staying in the religion of their birth by arguing that the particular Christian or Muslim denomination or sect they belong to—the one to which they have ascribed romantic ideals—is the only ‘true’ version of their religion, while other denominations or sects are dismissed as deviations. A final important dynamic revealed by the phenomenon of friend converts is it seems that by these new converts not having a background in esotericism, they did not have the experiences and connections that would help spread Islam to other white Americans who were predisposed to conversion to Islam. As we have seen, those who joined Islam after being in esoteric groups had gained in those groups (which were typically led by people who already had experience in spiritualism and/or Masonry) a good deal of knowledge about religious topics and practical knowledge of how alternative religions could successfully survive in the us. Therefore, these groups often provided a valuable training ground for future converts, who, when they finally converted to Islam, were fairly religiously mature. With the esoteric ‘gateway’ bypassed due to immigration, the chances were good that the friend converts would be relatively less knowledgeable of both intellectual arguments in support of their religion as well as of practical activities to effectively enable their non-Chris- tian religion to thrive in the us. Because of this, converts often, for instance, relied on appealing to Americans’ general moral sense in arguing that Islam rejects social distinctions and encourages peace, but they did so without cultivating strong relationships with secular or other non-Christian peace-focused communities that would have been valuable pools of potential converts. Without having previously been involved with such communities, building these types of strong relationships would have been difficult for interwar

25 The notion that Islam lacks racism became particularly prominent for converts after African American Muslim groups started gaining significant press coverage in the late 1950s. For examples of this argument being used by white converts, see the numerous conversion stories published in Yaqeen International between 1966 and 1971.

240 chapter 8 convert proselytizers; not only would they have lacked any strong social entrée, they would also not have had good insight into the subtle values, knowledge, and habits that might be used to appeal to and give them authority among these groups. This characteristic of the converts would be exacerbated by the fact that the vast majority of pre-World War ii Muslim immigrants lacked both secular and religious education, so they could neither (a) effectively communicate advanced philosophical or organizational knowledge to these converts nor (b) attract many people who were themselves well-educated. There thus does not seem to have been an equivalent of Webb or Rabia Martin among the interwar orthodox converts. Early friend converts, then, while they were often passionate and active in their communities, and frequently attempted to promote Islam and organize Muslims, did not necessarily make the best leaders. However, this meant that these passionate converts would try their own unique strategies for calling others to Islam, creating new types of institutions and propaganda efforts. Muslim immigration had therefore not only created a whole new group of converts that was completely different from, and far larger than, anything the us had seen before, it had also set into motion a number of new attempts by converts to shape Islam in America.

Convert Propagandists in the Great Depression

A New York Friend of Pan-Islam Louis Glick was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 2, 1891.26 Both of his parents were Jewish immigrants: his father, Max, was a Yiddish-speaking Russian and his mother, Fanny, was a German-speaking Austrian. Although he never became fluent in either of his parents’ native tongues, their influence on Glick was strong, and he identified as a Jew for most of his early adult life. In terms of personality, as a young man, Glick was of an intellectual bent. He only

26 Numerous genealogical records for Louis Glick and his family still exist, and many, such as birth and death certificates as well as census records, are available through Ancestry. com. In addition to these, I have relied on Glick’s Official Military Personnel File from the National Personnel Records Center (hereafter, Glick ompf) as well as Glick’s fbi file. It might be worthwhile to state here, for the record, that after careful examination of Louis Glick’s biographical information and activities, it is my opinion that, although he shared many similarities with the founder of the Nation of Islam, Wallace Fard, the two men were without a doubt two distinct individuals.

New Bonds 241 attended two years of high school, but in his mid-twenties he boasted of being well-read enough in history, philosophy, psychology, economics, and journalism that he would have been happy to take university-level tests to prove his mastery of these subjects.27 He also claimed to have worked as a journalist and copy editor for several newspapers in the Chicago area, though he was frequently unemployed.28 Hoping to find more job security in the us military, in April 1917 Glick signed up for the Naval Reserves, with which he spent the next two-and-a-half years of his life, being stationed in Des Moines, Iowa for most of this period. Glick was sent to New York in 1919, and in November that year was honorably discharged after becoming a conscientious objector due to the fact that he believed the military’s practice of giving a privileged status to Christianity violated the First Amendment.29 At some point around the mid- 1920s, Glick—who began using the names Lincoln and Selim—came into contact with Muslims and converted to Islam. In the 1920s, there would have been no city more likely to bring in friend converts than New York City. This was due to a number of factors. First of all, halfway through the 1920s, New York City was home to probably a few thousand Muslim immigrants. This made it one of the larger Muslim communities in the country, which meant there was a good chance for contact between Muslims and non-Muslims.30 Also, unlike in the Detroit area, New York’s Muslim community was extremely ethnically diverse, which meant (a) that there was relatively weaker community identity, which created less pressure

27 Louis Glick Experience Report, 2/5/1918, Glick ompf; Glick fbi file, Report, 2/5/1940, Los Angeles file 65–321, 5. 28 Louis Glick Experience Report, 2/5/1918, Glick ompf; Letter, Louis Glick to Commandant, February 8, 1918, Glick ompf. I have been able to locate a handful of newspaper articles from the 1910s written by an ‘L. Glick,’ including at least two from the Chicago Tribune, but I cannot say for certain whether these were penned by our Louis. 29 See the copy of letter, Louis Glick to Secretary of the Navy, May 5, 1920 (originally written November 18, 1919), Glick ompf; Glick to Secretary of the Navy, November 18, 1919, Glick ompf. 30 Unfortunately, estimates from the period vary widely, from as little as 500 to as many as 18,000. In 1926, one observer estimated there to be around 900 Muslims in Yonkers alone. But a few estimates from the 1940s and 1950s place the number in New York City only at a few thousand. See H.J. Katibah, “Moslems of City Celebrating Pious Feast of Ramazan,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 18, 1926, 10C; Mary Caroline Holmes, “Islam in America,” Moslem World 16 (1926): 265; “Moslems Observe Bairam Fete Here” New York Times May 10, 1930, 6; “First u.s. Moslem Mosque Planned,” Bighamtom Press (New York), June 6, 1933, 17; “Arab-World in New York,” Moslem World 37 (1947): 81; “u.s. Tour Shows Ties of 2 Faiths,” New York Times, April 5, 1956, 34.

242 chapter 8 for endogamy,31 and (b) since different Muslim ethnic groups would have befriended and lived close to different American ethnic groups (e.g., Indians tended to live closer to Latina/os and African Americans, while Arabs tended to live closer to Poles and Italians), there were greater possibilities of contact with diverse types of Americans. Lastly, as we will see, New York was home to the most active orthodox Muslim proselytizers in the period. Although it is not entirely clear to what degree and where exactly all the New York Muslims were congregating in the mid-1920s, it seems that there were four main immigrant communities: the Brooklyn Tartar community, which had maintained a consistent presence since it established a religious organization in 1907 and whose religious leader in the 1920s was the itinerant imam Mullah Hussain Rafikoff;32 a fairly well-established Turkish community that was able to produce two Turkish-language newspapers;33 an ethnically mixed group called the Moslem Unity Association;34 and the Arab-majority immigrant community that had developed around Rector and Washington Streets in Lower Manhattan—an area known as ‘Little Syria’35— since the 1890s. The post-war fate of the Rector Street Ottoman-funded mosque at ‘The Oriental’ apartment building is not known, but it almost certainly lost Ottoman support upon the commencement of the First World War and the Empire’s aligning with Germany, which led to the Turkish embassy being closed. It is possible that a new Ottoman mosque was reopened in the 1920s, as in early 1923 it was reported that an unnamed Turk had been dispatched from Constantinople and was leading the Muslims in New York.36

31 As Swanson points out, exogamy was apparently inversely proportional to the size of the Arab Muslim communities she compared; see Swanson, “Mate Selection,” 24–27. 32 The earliest reports identifying Mullah Hussain that I have found are various New York newspaper articles from September 23, 1926 in which the funeral of Jacob Islamoff, a Tartar Muslim, is discussed. 33 M.M. Aijian, “The Mohammedans in the United States,” Moslem World 10 (1920): 30. 34 My claim that this was an ethnically mixed group is based on the names of its incorporators, which appear to be from different ethnic backgrounds: Edhem Shukri, Zahy Agisheff, Alex Wilson, Sam Yakubowsky, Mohomed Abdul. The 1927 incorporation form for this group, on file with the state of New York, indicates that they were originally based in Brooklyn, but by 1930 their headquarters were in Harlem (see Richard Dunlap, “City’s Moslems Meet at Feast of Sacrifice,” New York Herald Tribune, May 10, 1930, 13). The use of the word “unity,” and the fact that this was a mixed group with, apparently, a convert (Alex Wilson), raises the possibility that this group was affiliated with the United Moslem Society umbrella organization started by Satti Majid, a Sudanese Muslim missionary; see Bowen, “Satti Majid,” 194–209, esp. 200 ff. 35 Dorothy Dayton, “Ameen Rihani Back from East,” New York Sun, January 26, 1929, 32. 36 Clair Price, “The New Era in Islam,” Forum (February 1923): 1208.

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However, it is uncertain as to what part of the city this imam went. In any case, by 1925 the most influential Muslim religious figure in Little Syria was not a Turk but an Arab. Sheikh Salih Ahmad al-Kateeb, an imam from Jerusalem who was living in an apartment above a Syrian café at 65 Washington Street, claimed to be the religious leader of all Muslims in New York and throughout the us.37 Al-Kateeb, who was most likely a member of one of Jerusalem’s traditional imam families,38 had been appointed to this position by the Supreme Muslim Council,39 Mandatory Palestine’s governing religious institution for Muslims, which had been established by the British in 1921.40 Although officially the Council was designed only for control over pious endowments (waq fs) and religious law (sharia) in Palestine, in reality its administration attempted to oversee all Palestinian Muslim religious places and activities, including preaching and Islamic education. In addition, its first president, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, occasionally said that the Council should also “represent the Muslims of this country honourably and properly inside and outside the country.”41 For the Council, representing Palestinians “honourably and properly” frequently meant promoting political and religious propaganda intended to rally both support for Palestinian Muslims and criticism of the Jewish presence in the region. It was probably primarily with this latter goal in mind that al-Kateeb was sent to the us. By 1925, in addition to his regular duties as the local imam, al-Kateeb had become involved with—and most likely led—an American organization that worked to promote Palestinian independence as well as other politically- and socially-oriented groups that provided support for Muslims in various regions dealing with colonialism, such as Syria and North Africa.42 He also promoted Islam itself through the printing of English tracts about the religion, encouraging Muslims of various ethnicities to gather for

37 “Islam in New York City,” Moslem World 17 (1927): 199; “Riff Sympathizers Petition Coolidge,” Sunday Oregonian, September 27, 1925, 2. Al-Kateeb may have actually been the person described in 1923 as the “Turk […] dispatched from Constantinople,” since al- Kateeb’s sponsor, the Supreme Muslim Council, was actually largely funded by the Ottomans at the time. See Uri M. Kupferschmidt, The Supreme Muslim Council: Islam under the British Mandate for Palestine (New York: Brill, 1987), 61. 38 See Kupferschmidt, Supreme Muslim, 62. 39 Katibah, “Moslems of City.” 40 See Kupferschmidt, Supreme Muslim. 41 Kupferschmidt, Supreme Muslim, 57. 42 “Riff Sympathizers.”

244 chapter 8 religious holidays, and establishing a Pan-Islamic organization called the Young Moslem Society of America.43 Proselytizing and supporting Pan-Islam, however, were not activities restricted to Palestinians. Particularly after World War I and the dismantling of Ottoman power, the desire to cultivate Muslim unity with the hope of pushing back European colonialism was spreading rapidly across Muslim lands. Among Indians, one of the most popular forms of Pan-Islam was known as the Khilafat movement, which aimed to preserve the Islamic caliphate in Turkey. This movement both supported and was supported by the broader Indian nationalist movement, which found common cause in the groups’ anti-colonial stance. In the us during the 1920s a handful of independence-minded Indian Muslims based in New York began encouraging Pan-Islamic cooperation and by 1930 they had established an organization in Harlem known as the Moslem Brotherhood of the u.s.a. (mbusa) (no relation to the Hassan al-Banna’s similarly named Egyptian organization). Through this group they explicitly backed the Khilafat head and friend of the Supreme Muslim Council, Shawkat Ali; encouraged Pan-Islamic activities in New York; and proselytized to local African Americans and West Indian immigrants.44 Glick had probably come into contact with more than one group of New York Muslims by the mid-1920s. He definitely had contact with Turks; he began using the name ‘Selim’ and its English spelling that was common for Turks and he would later be known to affiliate with Turks in New York. However, there is evidence he may have also had ties with Indians during the mid-1920s in New York—and he certainly did while living in California in 1928. Records of Glick during that decade show that he moved back and forth between New York and southern California, where his brother, Edward, had achieved a successful career in real estate and his sister, Ann, had married a wealthy businessman. In April

43 “Islam in New York City”; “Riff Sympathizers.” This group, which would later be known as the Young Men’s Moslem Association (and presumably connected with the Egyptian- based organization of the same name), was established in 1924 with the help of the Palestinian immigrant Akel Allie; see “A Brief Biography of Akel Allie,” Muslim Star 6, no. 22 (1966): 6, imjc Papers, Box 8, bhl. 44 Its original address was 9 West 111th Street and soon after it moved to 58 La Salle Street, both in Harlem, a borough where many Indian immigrants settled in New York. The leaders of this group were all fairly well-known in New York for being exponents of Indian independence and interfaith dialogue the 1920s and 1930s, including Syud Hossain and Tafazzul Hussain Khan (T.H.K.) Rezmie. See V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche degli Stati Uniti d’America,” Oriente Moderne 12, no. 11 (1932): 524; “What Is Going on this Week,” New York Times, April 19, 1931, 52; “Moslems Hold Annual Rally,” Brooklyn Standard Union, May 9, 1930, 18; Dunlap, “City’s Moslems.”

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1926 Glick used a Los Angeles address; in June 1927 he gave a New York address; and in 1928 he resided in a place he called Lyons Valley, in the town of Jamul near San Diego, California.45 From Lyons Valley, Glick wrote letters to various Muslims in and out of the us telling them that he had established a college called the ‘Shieka Selim Institute,’ and he attempted to bring in several Muslims from India to be its teachers.46 Glick, however, had, as far as can be determined, no formal religious training that might justify his taking the title of ‘Shieka,’ and his ‘Institute’ was nothing but a small shack that he lived in by himself.47 When the State Department investigated Glick’s college at the time, it discovered that, while some Indians were interested, Glick had not enrolled anyone.48 Glick would not be discouraged, however. He returned to New York, moving into a Harlem apartment with several immigrant Indian Muslims, and in the spring of 1929 he organized at his apartment what he called the American Islamic Social Centre and Library.49 The primary purpose of this explicitly “non-sectarian, non-political” organization was to support Muslim immigrants in their “Americanization.”50 The Centre provided lodging to Muslim students and welfare support for Muslims living in the us and in colonized countries, and it helped with finding employment. The Centre also offered a library/reading room that was open three nights a week as well as a ‘Muslim News Bureau,’ which, presumably, collected and disseminated news from the Islamic world.51 It is not known how Glick was able to fund this organization, but it is telling that two of the three men listed as being on the Centre’s advisory board were Greek Turks and the other was a Russian Tartar—so Glick may have found backing from the local Turkish and Tartar communities.52 In an attempt to

45 Letters, Glick to Board of Navigation, Navy Department, April 16, 1926 and June 4, 1927, Glick ompf; Glick fbi file, Report, 6/25/1940, Los Angeles file 65–205, 1–3. 46 Glick fbi file, Report, 6/25/1940, Los Angeles file 65–205, 2–3. 47 Letter, Clara I. Bisbee to Inspector in Charge, Post Office Department, San Francisco, June 27, 1939, Glick fbi file. 48 Glick fbi file, Report, 6/25/1940, Los Angeles file 65–205, 2–3. Upon my request in the spring of 2014, the National Archives attempted to locate records concerning this State Department investigation; they were, unfortunately, unable to find any. 49 See Glick’s housemates in his 1930 Census on Ancestry.com; V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche”; L. Lincoln Glick to E.A. Ross, May 22, 1929, Edward Alsworth Ross Papers, University of Wisconsin. 50 Glick to Ross, May 22, 1929. 51 Glick to Ross, May 22, 1929; L. Lincoln Glick to W. Ernest Hocking, April 20, 1931, ms Am 2375 (6489), Houghton Library, Harvard University. 52 The names of the advisory board members are listed in the Centre’s letterhead in Glick to Ross, May 22, 1929: Hasbey Abdullah, Mouhtar Abedin, and Eredjeb Muhtarem Chinghis. I have determined their homelands based on genealogy records for these men found on Ancestry.com.

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garner more support and attention for both the difficulties Muslim immigrants faced and for the organization itself, Glick wrote letters to prominent intellectuals who had shown an interest in the lives of Muslims.53 The timing of Glick’s late 1920s return to New York was beneficial for his efforts in the name of Islam. By 1929, one additional international Pan-Islamic organization with ties to both the Khilafat movement and the Supreme Muslim Council had become an important part of the New York Muslim community: the Young Men’s Moslem Association (ymma). The ymma was organized in Cairo in 1927 for the purpose of countering Christian missionary efforts in Muslim-majority lands.54 It had four principal aims: teaching Islamic morals and ethics; spreading knowledge suited to the modern way of life; discouraging dissensions and abuses among Muslims; and using the best of both Eastern and Western cultures, while rejecting that which was considered bad in each. Led by ambitious, influential men from a variety of professions, the ymma had immediate success. By 1928, it was being praised and promoted by Khilafat leaders as well as the president of the Supreme Muslim Council. In fact, at the time, the two communities were already talking with each other about using the ymma as the main international organization for fostering Pan-Islamic unity.55 As far as is currently known, nothing directly came of these talks other than an increased desire for Pan-Islamic unity. Nevertheless, the Egyptian ymma was so popular that it was still able to start expanding to non-Muslim-majority countries. Unfortunately, we do not know how exactly the ymma was brought to the us, nor the exact relationship between this organization and the known New York-based ymmas. In 1929, al-Kateeb’s group, which at the time was involved in pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist efforts, was variously referred to in local newspapers as the Young Men’s Moslem Association of America and the Young Men’s Moslem Society.56 And in April that year, a ‘Moslem Yong Men’s Society of New York City’ hosted a meeting, which was attended by many Muslim delegates from other American cities, during which the group made

53 E.g., Glick to Ross, May 22, 1929 and Glick to W. Ernest Hocking, April 20, 1931. 54 On the international ymma, see J. Heyworth-Dunne, Religious and Political Trends in Modern Egypt (Washington: J. Heyworth-Dunne, 1950), 11–14; Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, “Muhibb Al-Din Al-Khatib: A Portrait of a Salafi-Arabist (1886–1969)” (ma thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1991), esp. 74–82; G. Kampffmeyer, “Egypt and Western Asia,” in Whither Islam?: A Survey of Modern Movements in the Moslem World, ed. H.A.R. Gibb (New York: ams Press, [1932] 1973), 101–170. 55 Kupferschmidt, Supreme Muslim, 193; Rizvi, “Muhibb Al-Din Al-Khatib,” 76–78. 56 “Arabs Here Assail Jewish Riot Views,” New York Times, August 29, 1929, 2; “Arabs Ask Stimson to Aid in Palestine,” New York Times, September 7, 1929, 3. At the time, the group’s secretary’s name was Abd M. Kateeb.

New Bonds 247 plans for improving Muslim unity, both in the us and worldwide—a goal that would be consistent with those of both al-Kateeb’s group and the Cairo ymma.57 However, in the early 1930s, additional reports clarified that the group in New York that went as the ymma was set up in Midtown, not Little Syria; it was Cairo-based and not Jerusalem-based; and while it had an imam named Kateeb, this was Khateeb Moulana Abd-el-Muttalib, apparently an Egyptian immigrant, and not a Palestinian.58 If it is the case that the Cairo ymma had indeed connected at first with al-Kateeb’s group, by the 1930s its characteristics were now very different. Nonetheless, with several Islamic organizations in the city and Pan-Islamic feeling running high, it is unsurprising that at some point around late 1929/ early 1930, several—the ymma, the mbusa, the Muslim Unity Association, the Brooklyn Tartar group, and Glick’s American Islamic Social Centre (but not al-Khateeb’s Washington Street mosque)—came together to form what was named the United Moslem Council of Greater New York (umcgny).59 This umbrella organization planned to meet on a weekly basis for discussing local issues, biannually for a national meeting, and annually for an international Muslim ‘conference.’60 It was, essentially, the organizational base for a coordi- nated American Pan-Islamic movement. For a 1930 eid (Islamic holiday), the umcgny hosted, in addition to over 200 New York Muslims, a number of international Muslim figures, including a Saudi prince61 and two leaders of the Syrian nationalist movement. It is understandable that the Pan-Islamic ymma and the mbusa—and possibly the Supreme Muslim Council and the Khilafat movement—were behind an international Muslim gathering of this sort. Since the 1880s, the idea of having an international Muslim conference—or ‘congress,’ as it was frequently called— had become a popular topic in Pan-Islam circles.62 In the 1920s, in the wake of the establishment of European mandates in the Middle East, at least five separate Pan-Islamic congresses were held across the Muslim world. Then, in 1931, the Supreme Muslim Council would host in Jerusalem—with the strong support of the ymma and the Khilafat movement—the most well-known, most

57 “Moslems in America,” Syrian World (May 1929): 55. 58 Dunlap, “City’s Moslems”; “Contemporary Thought and Life,” Muslim Revival 2, no. 2 (1933): 170. 59 “Moslems Hold Annual Rally”; “Moslems Observe Bairam.” 60 “Moslems Observe Bairam.” 61 This was Prince Mohiuddin, who had been living in the us since the early 1920s, after coming to the country to follow his interest in music. 62 See Martin Kramer, Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congresses (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).

248 chapter 8 well-attended, and most influential Muslim congress of the interwar period.63 At this conference, notably, one man served as a representative of the Muslims in the United States: Muhammad Ali al-Humani, a prominent Lebanese poet who had become very involved with pan-Arab politics.64 It is unclear how precisely al-Humani was connected to the us. Currently, it is only known that at some point in the decade following the congress, he moved to Chile, which served as his base of operations for several years.65 Whatever his connection to the us, though, the congress had an impact on Islamic propaganda in the country. Glick wrote in 1932 that “After the Congress of Muslim Jerusalem many people have turned to Islamic missionary propaganda in the United States, especially in Detroit, Michigan.”66 Unfortunately, almost nothing is known about the propaganda and proselytization efforts that were being made in Detroit at the time, although it seems possible that these activities contributed to the Sunni-Shi‘i split in the community by 1935.67 We have only slightly better information about what took place in New York. In spite of the congress fever and the increased desire for missionary work, given that there is no evidence that the umcgny ever met or even functioned after the 1930 eid, it seems that the city’s Pan-Islamic unifying organization failed to stay afloat. There are probably several reasons for this. A primary one that all the Muslim congresses faced was difficultly in obtaining sufficient funding. Most Muslims and Muslim countries at the time were very poor, and efforts to raise money to support Muslim congresses often failed, even in places where Muslims might have a greater desire to unite for resistance purposes, such as in countries under European occupation. In the us, Muslim immigrants were not just poor, but were also having to contend with the difficulties of navigating life in a completely foreign nation; survival and saving money for their families were their most immediate concerns, and the effort, time, and money necessary to support Pan-Islamic activities may have been too costly for the average immigrant. There had been a short-lived national Islamic umbrella organization in the 1920s—the United Moslem Society, led by the Sudanese Muslim Missionary Satti Majid—but Pan-Islam was only secondary

63 See Kupferschmidt, Supreme Muslim, 187–220, 267–271; Kramer, Islam Assembled, 123–141; Basheer M. Nafi, “The General Islamic Congress of Jerusalem Reconsidered,” Muslim World 86, no. 3–4 (1996): 243–272. 64 Kupferschmidt, Supreme Muslim, 271. 65 “Politica y economia: Mohamed Ali Al Humani nos habla del movimiento Pan-Arabigo,” Hoy 8 (1939): 67–70. 66 V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche.” 67 See Howell, “Inventing,” 146–58.

New Bonds 249 in this group, with the emphasis being placed on helping immigrants adjust to American society.68 There were, basically, simply not enough well-off and educated immigrant Muslims who were interested in and able to work together to support the Pan-Islamic effort at that moment. In any case, the failure of the New York community in generating a strong Pan-Islamic movement disappointed Glick. The friend convert was highly dedicated to uniting and supporting the Muslim community in the us and internationally, but his failure in establishing his ‘Institute’ had taught him that he could not do this without significant Muslim backing. If the umcgny was not going to be of use, he would have to seek help from elsewhere.

The American Islamic Association Nineteen thirty was an important year for Glick. His Centre had just become a founding member of the umcgny, and at its large eid gathering in May, although he had already been a convert for several years, Glick performed a Muslim conversion ceremony, pronouncing a belief in one God and His messenger, Muhammad.69 Later that year, in what would be a major turning point in Glick’s career as a Muslim leader, he, probably motivated by the recent Islamic activity—or lack of activity—in New York, joined an international Islamic organization: the Western Islamic Association (wia).70 The wia had been founded by Dr. Khalid Sheldrake, a prominent British Muslim convert. Born to a wealthy pickle manufacturer in 1888, Bertram William Sheldrake converted to Islam in London in 1903 and soon after took a leading role in a local Muslim organization known as the Pan-Islamic Society.71 As we have seen, England at the time had a relatively active and well-connected Muslim community and Sheldrake, a learned man from a wealthy background, was able to become one of the community’s leading figures, writing and speaking through the several British Muslim forums and obtaining leadership and supporting roles in a variety of Muslim organizations; he even converted his basement into a mosque so that London Muslims might have a place to pray together.72 Like many white Western converts, Sheldrake felt that Islam was the solution to world’s problems, and he believed strongly in Muslim unity, freely associating with Sunnis and Shi‘is of all ethnicities, and both Lahori and

68 See Bowen, “Satti Majid.” 69 Dunlap, “City’s Moslems.” 70 V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche.” 71 Dr. Khalid Sheldrake, “The Pioneers of Islam in England, Germany, France, and America,” Genuine Islam (January 1936): 26. 72 Max Everest-Phillips, “The Suburban Kind of Tartary,” Asian Affairs 21, no. 3 (1990): 325.

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Qadiani Ahmadis.73 Sheldrake, however, found disturbing the frequent Muslim emphasis on sectarian differences, as well as the condescending attitude of certain leading immigrant Muslims towards converts, so in 1926 he attempted to establish with other converts a new Islamic group, called the United Muslim League, which he hoped would counter these trends.74 When this new League failed to get off the ground, Sheldrake obtained funding from the Aga Khan, the head of the Naziri Isma‘ilis,75 to establish a new organization that would soon be called the Western Islamic Association. Sheldrake then set about gaining allegiances from various Islamic organizations both within and without England. By 1929, he was even in contact with the Supreme Muslim Council and, in a widely circulated news story, was propagating its pro-Palestinian message.76 There was more than one possible source for Glick’s initial contact with Sheldrake and the wia: the local ymma and mbusa would have probably heard stories about the English convert via the Supreme Muslim Council and Glick’s Muslim News Bureau undoubtedly had Sheldrake on its radar. Whatever the initial contact was, however, Glick seems to have found the wia to be both a comfortable fit and a tool that would better allow him to pursue that for which he was really striving: Islamic unity and world peace. Glick continued to perform his duties with the Centre—which he now promoted as an affiliate of the wia—but he also began to take on new projects as the American representative of the wia, creating an American branch of the group, which he called the American Islamic Association (aia). One of the aia’s main goals was the raising of funds to establish an American Islamic Centre (a name borrowed from Glick’s New York group) in Washington, dc, which would have a mosque, a library, offices, classrooms, and conference and press rooms, as well as a distinct Islamic design that could be viewed from the air.77 Accompanying this would be an aia umbrella organization that would start branches across the country, provide Muslim-born imams for those branches, help establish

73 On his Qadiani connections, see Eric Germain, “The First Muslim Missions on a European Scale: Ahmadi-Lahori Networks in the Inter-War Period,” in Islam in Interwar Europe, eds. Nathalie Clayer and Eric Germain (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 106; Gilham, Loyal Enemies, 200–201. 74 Khalid Sheldrake, “Muhammad and World Unity,” Islamic Review 15, nos. 3&4 (1926): 148–153; Germain, “First Muslim,” 106; Gilham, Loyal Enemies, 200–201. 75 On the Aga Khan, see Malise Ruthven, “Aga Khan iii and the Isma‘ili Renaissance,” in New Trends and Developments in the World of Islam, ed. Peter Clarke (London: Luzac Oriental, 1998), 371–395. 76 See, e.g., “Holy Land Rioting Inquiry Ordered,” Washington Post, September 4, 1929, 1, 3. 77 V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche.”

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Muslim cemeteries, and create a propaganda department that would be responsible for publishing an Islamic magazine and defending Islam in the press.78 In the meantime, Glick—who, like many Muslims across the world at the time, was inspired by the 1931 congress in Jerusalem to establish both new propaganda efforts as well as a future congress—would lead the aia in conducting small-scale propaganda activities. Glick used his background in journalism to attempt to start a magazine called the Congress Advocate, for which he sent out many advanced copies in order to try to obtain subscriptions. In the Advocate, which had received the moral and some financial support from the Egyptian consulate, Glick explained that an annual Muslim congress should be held in Jeddah, the coastal entrance to the Muslim pilgrimage region—the Hijaz—in Saudi Arabia.79 Glick praised this “City of Destiny” for its magnificent size and he discussed his hope that that it would continue to expand and attract new pilgrims. The congress, he argued (using language similar to what he had been using with his Centre), would be the “practical means of accomplishing most under modern conditions […] on a non-sectarian and non-political basis.”80 To Glick’s disappointment, his efforts were generally ignored by American immigrant Muslims, who, he believed, were neither particularly motivated to support Pan-Islam nor willing to accept a convert as a leading advocate for Muslims.81 Frustrated by the lack of interest in his organization and perhaps realizing that immigrants would make better leaders for such a group, sometime around late 1931, Glick resigned from his post as president of the aia in order to allow two immigrant Muslims to fill the group’s leadership roles. The men who would come in to help further the aia cause were Muharrem Nadji, who served as the Association’s president, and Ahmad Nadji, the aia’s secretary and probably a cousin of Muharrem.82 Both lived in cities with small Muslim populations—Muharrem in Mansfield, Ohio and Ahmad in Holyoke, Massachusetts83—which appears to have largely freed them from the immigrant-focused concerns of Muslims who lived in larger immigrant enclaves.

78 Ibid. 79 “E 4944/1197/25,” in British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, ed. Robin Bidwell ([Frederick, md]: University Publications of America, 1983), 8:177. The conference was not planned for Mecca because the Saud family, which controlled Mecca, had prohibited talk of politics in the holy city. 80 Islamic Review 21, no. 1 (1933): 391. 81 V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche.” 82 V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche.” 83 Holyoke is north of Springfield, and it had a small, but long-lasting Albanian Muslim enclave.

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Of the two Nadjis, Muharrem would have the greater impact on American Muslim converts. Born in Albania in 1891, the same year as Glick, Muharrem immigrated to the us in 1917, living in various small towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania before choosing Mansfield, a middle-sized community with almost no other Muslim residents.84 At some point after his initial arrival in the country, during a period in which he was considering returning to his homeland, Muharrem, a practicing Sufi, received a vision of Muhammad in which Muharrem was, as he later explained, “reminded” that Muslims had never attempted to teach Islam in America and that he was needed in the us for that purpose.85 Once settled, he immediately commenced his own Islamic propaganda campaign. Originally calling it the Islamic Mission, and later the Islamic Center of America—perhaps as an homage to both Glick’s New York group and the aia’s hoped-for national institution—Muharrem wrote and published several pamphlets and books, sent letters to various Islamic magazines, and took out full-page advertisements promoting Islam in the local newspaper.86 Through these efforts, he became the central figure in the aia community. Muharrem’s propaganda efforts were significantly aided by the Lahori- influenced Sunni Muslims in Woking, England who distributed his books and published his letters in their English-language magazine, the Islamic Review, the most popular Sunni magazine in the us during the Great Depression.87 Judging by the correspondence published in the Islamic Review, it seems that, starting in the early 1930s, the Woking mission had instituted a new push to spread information about Islam in the us. Letters began pouring into the magazine from cities and small towns across the country, sent by either librarians, who were happy to receive the Islamic Review and the mission’s other Islamic literature, or readers, who had run across a copy of the magazine and found its contents so interesting that they felt compelled to compliment the editors and request more information about Islam. Through these efforts, the Islamic Review became the century’s first successful English-language Sunni publication in the us, creating the first truly nationwide reader-based community of

84 Bob Liston, “He Wants People to ‘Know’ Mohammed,” Mansfield News Journal, June 8, 1954, 1, 11. 85 Ibid. As an Albanian, Muharrem was probably either an Alevi or a Bektashi Sufi. 86 I have only been able to locate three of Muharrem’s books so far: Muhammad and Other Prophets/Islam and Modern Christianity (Mansfield: Islamic Mission, 1937); The Islamic Faith and the Institution of Prayer (Mansfield: Islamic Mission, 1941); and Islam or Christianity (Mansfield: Islamic Centre of America, 1956). 87 V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche.”

New Bonds 253 non-Muslim and convert Americans who were interested in Sunni Islam. However, Woking had no official representatives in the us, so, like the readers of Webb’s newspapers, without face-to-face contact with Muslims, or at least a feeling that such contact would be possible, many of the Review’s readers who became interested in Islam felt reluctant to convert. The timing was therefore perfect for the aia to come in and capitalize on the religious market the British Muslims had created. Without doubt, this would be the principal reason that Glick’s early efforts were able to eventually spread nationally and have a real historical impact. The main events that led to the aia becoming a truly national organization unfolded right in front of the eyes of the Review’s readers. It began in late summer 1931 when Harry E. Heinkel, a white man living in Los Angeles, California, came across a copy of the Islamic Review in his local library.88 At the time, Harry was losing his faith in God, and was teetering on the edge of agnosticism and atheism. He had found the Bible’s stories so incredibly unbelievable and obscene, and Christians’ inability to live up to the principle of “Brotherhood of Man” so disappointing, that he was no longer able to bring himself to adhere to the Christian religion of his childhood.89 The discussions of Islam in the Review, however, piqued his curiosity, and he wrote to the editors to ask for more literature.90 By early November, after receiving a package of materials from Woking, he became very interested in the religion’s principles, and he sent to the magazine a letter expressing as much, which was later published in the magazine’s correspondence pages.91 By late November 1931, Harry explained in another published letter, he had come to believe—after re-reading the literature Woking had sent, which included a translation of the Qurʾan by London convert Marmaduke Pickthall—in Islam’s five pillars and he wanted to adopt the faith, though he knew of no Islamic mission in Los Angeles that he might join.92 In July and August 1932, Harry had more letters appear in the magazine’s pages, explaining his conversion in more detail and thanking Woking for sending him additional literature.93 Harry had become so popular in the Review that other Americans were contacting him via the magazine. In the summer of 1932, another Los Angeles reader of the magazine, one George Bohn, wrote to Harry, in a letter published in the Review, telling him that Bohn

88 Islamic Review 20, no. 5 (1932): 163. 89 Ibid. 20, no. 5 (1932): 164; ibid. 20, nos. 2–3 (1932): 74. 90 Ibid. 20, nos. 2–3 (1932): 73. 91 Ibid. 20, nos. 2–3 (1932): 73–74. 92 Ibid. 20, no. 5 (1932): 164; ibid. 20, nos. 2–3 (1932): 74. 93 Ibid. 20, nos. 6–7 (1932): 213; ibid. 30, no. 8 (1932): 257–259.

254 chapter 8 was part of a small group of Muslim converts in the city who wanted to get together with Harry to start an Islamic mission.94 Harry of course replied—in a letter that was, again, published in the Review—that he was eager to do this; and a Los Angeles Sunni Muslim convert community began to blossom.95 At the time, Glick and the Nadjis were avid readers of the Review, and by late 1932 they had apparently already recruited some of its correspondents into the aia, which was now headquartered at Ahmad’s home in Holyoke.96 The wia’s head, Sheldrake, had been involved with the Woking mosque practically since the beginning of its revival in 1912 (led by the Lahori Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din), and Glick would have surely come across its publications anyway, either through his Muslim News Bureau activities or due to the fact that by the early 1930s Lahori-influenced publications were the main type of Islamic publications being read by practically all the American Muslims with whom he had contact.97 The aia, then, was fully aware of Harry and the Los Angeles Muslims, and in June 1933 Ahmad Nadji, writing from the aia’s new base in Massachusetts, encouraged Harry to do Islamic propaganda and sent him an advanced copy of Glick’s Congress Advocate, for which Harry praised its creator.98 Subsequently, Harry and Glick began exchanging letters. By this point, Harry had had, just as had Glick and Sheldrake before him, disheartening experiences in trying to gain support and cooperation from the local immigrant Muslims for Islamic propaganda work—so he was happy to join up with the convert-heavy aia, taking the position of secretary.99 Around this same time, another white convert living in Utah by the name of H.C. Stevens was made the wia’s official us representative,100 thereby ensuring that the aia would both be fairly evenly distributed throughout the country and have strong white convert representation outside of New York State—two important accomplishments that Webb himself had failed to achieve. The aia had therefore developed the rudiments

94 Ibid. 21, no. 7 (1933): 240. 95 Ibid. 21, no. 7 (1933): 240–241. 96 I am making these claims based on three pieces of evidence: (1) Glick’s claim, which was published in 1932 (in V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche”), that the group was mostly composed of converts who were living in various states—the Review would be the most likely candidate for how whites from different states were able to have first learned about and contacted the aia; (2) the same 1932 article, which indicated that Glick was aware that most American Islamic groups (including his own) used English-language Lahori (-influenced) publications as their primary Islamic reading materials; and (3) Muharrem’s claim that he began reading the Review shortly after moving to Mansfield in 1927 (Islamic Review 44, no. 7 [1956]: 35). 97 V.V., “Le associazioni islamiche.” 98 Islamic Review 21, no. 7 (1933): 241–242. 99 Ibid. 21, n. 11 (1933): 391–392. 100 Khalid Sheldrake, “The Muslim Creed,” Japan Times, September 15, 1933.

New Bonds 255 of what might have possibly become the first successful Sunni organization with multiple white convert leaders. However, just as the foundations were solidifying on both the national and international fronts, the wia and aia began experiencing difficulties. The breakdown began at the international level, shortly after making what at first appeared to be a positive accomplishment. In April 1932, news reports were indicating that there were plans for a full-fledged wia mission in the us. Earlier in the year, Gladys Palmer, a wealthy British former Christian Scientist who was at that time the Dayang Muda of Sarawak in Malaysia,101 converted to Islam in a ceremony conducted by Sheldrake while flying over the English Channel. As reported in the New York Times, she announced that her plan was to set sail

for the United States in August with Dr. Khalid Sheldrake, president of the Western Islamic Association, and Michael Peltov, editor of Moslem Information, a magazine which she supports. Her aim [was] the spread of Mohammedanism, which she hail[ed] as “the only religion I’ve found which allows me to have a mind of my own.”102

Palmer, however, never started this mission, and by the next year was announcing in a popular Lahori magazine that she had never intended to travel with Sheldrake and preferred to dissociate her name from his activities.103 Sheldrake responded by pointing out that she had never actually helped the wia in any way.104 In the us, meanwhile, Glick moved back to Lyons Valley, apparently after suffering a nervous breakdown.105 The dates are somewhat hazy in Glick’s fbi file, but it seems he stayed in his shack—receiving no visitors, but frequent letters from East and South Asians and various Muslim organizations—for a brief period, and then opened a post office box in order to have all his mail forwarded to his new home in Los Angeles.106 For the next few years he lived

101 “People,” Time, February 29, 1932, accessed July 13, 2014, http://www.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,882099,00.html. 102 “Englishwoman to Seek Moslem Converts Here; Bringing Tunic Reported Worn by Mohammed,” New York Times, April 2, 1932. 103 “Princess Sarawak’s Disclaimer,” Light, July 16, 1933, 4. 104 “Dr. Sheldrake’s Letter,” Light, October 8, 1933, 7. 105 Glick fbi file, Report, 6/25/1940, Los Angeles file 65–205, 2. It is not clear when exactly Glick moved back to California, several dates between 1931 and 1934 are given in his fbi file, but he is listed in a New York City directory in 1933 (see Ancestry.com). 106 Letter, Clara I. Bisbee to Inspector in Charge, Post Office Department, San Francisco, June 27, 1939, Glick fbi file; Glick fbi file, Report, 2/5/1940, Los Angeles file 65–321, 1–5; Glick fbi file, Report, 6/25/1940, Los Angeles file 65–205, 1–3.

256 chapter 8 alone in a poor, Japanese-majority section of the city, being sustained by government relief and a short-term job with the Works Progress Administration.107 He also apparently occasionally asked his wealthy brother, Edward, for money.108 While Edward gave it to Glick, he thought little of him, as did many others who encountered Glick in California. When the fbi investigated Glick in the 1940s and 1950s, Edward and the other people they interviewed—none of whom were Muslim—frequently characterized Glick as an extreme eccentric, a possibly mentally-imbalanced “crackpot” and “religious fanatic.”109 The only evidence these respondents presented for this, however, was that Glick was singularly focused on Islam; there is no indication of other unusual behavior. In any case, however, for the rest of the 1930s, Glick seems to not have had a particularly successful time in helping the aia, or in securing the respect of the non-Muslim community. Nevertheless, during this period Glick reestablished his efforts to start a college, now calling it the ‘Selim Institute’; it was to offer correspondence courses on law and engineering and Glick planned to put out for it an Institute bulletin.110 Islam, of course, was not to be ignored. Glick reportedly had several letters and articles published in various overseas Muslim periodicals during this period and in June 1936 he revived his publishing and congress efforts by printing—still using the Lyons Valley address while living in Los Angeles—a magazine called The Mirror of Islam, whose main purpose was to promote Islamic congresses.111 Expanding on his earlier ideas, Glick was encouraging the creation of an international organization to unite Muslims and facilitate not just his, but all proposed Muslim congresses; he suggested that this should be a world association of mosque societies, that it should meet annually at Jeddah and twice a decade at Jerusalem, and that it should serve as a modern caliphate.112 Glick also seems to have become more concerned with international political and economic issues affecting Muslims. In his writings from that time, for example, he criticized the British government’s treatment of Muslims and discussed the lack of Muslims in Arab oil companies’ technical and

107 Glick fbi file, Report, 2/5/1940, Los Angeles file 65–321, 1–5. 108 Glick fbi file, Memorandum, sac Los Angeles to Director, fbi, 2/9/1950, 2. 109 Report, 2/23/1940, Los Angeles file 65–761, 2; Report, 6/25/1940, Los Angeles file 65–205, 2; Report, 10/14/1942, San Diego file 65–205, 1, 7; Memorandum, sac Los Angeles to Director, fbi, 2/9/1950, 1–2. 110 Revue des etudes islamiques no. 2 (1936): 191; V.V., “‘The Mirror of Islam’, periodic musulmano della California,” Oriente Moderno 17, no. 8 (1937): 372–373. 111 Ibid. 112 V.V., “‘The Mirror of Islam’”; Louis Glick (Selim), “A Caliphate for Islam,” Great Britain and the East 51, no. 1 (1938): 417.

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administrative staffs. Interestingly, in none of the extant information about Glick’s writings and activities in this period is there mention of either the aia or wia, suggesting that Glick had given up on using Sheldrake’s organization to help support his vision of creating true Muslim unity. This, however, does not mean that the community of Muslims that the wia and aia had helped foster was no longer active. Throughout the 1930s, other former aia leaders continued to strengthen their network and their Islamic propaganda efforts. Beginning in 1933, Muharrem collaborated with the Qadianis after their official representative, Sufi Bengalee, arrived in Mansfield in order to organize a Qadiani chapter.113 While it does not appear that Muharrem actually led a local Qadiani-influenced group, he frequently used Qadiani writings—though only those that made no mention of Ghulam Ahmad and his supposed prophethood—when he reprinted various Islamic texts and took out large Islamic advertisements in the local newspaper.114 His efforts produced at least one local white convert and, as we will see, helped to solidify ties with numerous white and African American Muslims.115 The Lahoris, of course, had not lost the attention of the aia community either. Harry and the Nadjis, for instance, all stayed in constant communication with the Lahoris in India, who had a representative in the us doing proselytization work among African Americans in 1935.116 Meanwhile, the Los Angeles convert community began to grow117 and it is likely that in 1936 Harry and Muharrem, a practicing Sufi, came into touch with some of the Los Angeles members of the Geneva-based faction of followers of Inayat Khan. That year, one of the Sufi community’s members, Ilain Savage, wrote to the Islamic Review expressing her desire to contact Muslims in her area.118 Harry and the other Los Angeles converts, which would by that point include Glick, probably like most white American converts to Islam at that time, did not fully grasp that some forms of

113 “Offers Doctrines of Islam as Cure for Economic Ills,” Mansfield News, May 18, 1933, 10. 114 Muharrem printed these texts under the organization name Islamic Centre of America—a title that surely was based on Glick’s New York group. His advertisements ran for several decades in the Mansfield News. 115 The only known Mansfield convert was Thelma Selman, a white woman (her race is noted in census and other genealogy records) who apparently married a Muslim immigrant and converted under Muharrem in 1933. See “Muharrem Nadji,” Islamic Review 49, no. 1 (1961): 37. 116 K.S. Chaudhri Manzur Ilahi, “The Ahmadiyya Movement Day by Day,” Young Islam 3, no. 4 (1936): 6. For more on the Lahori effort among African Americans in the 1930s, see hctius volume 2. 117 Islamic Review 26, no. 1 (1938): 455–456. 118 Ibid. 24, no. 3 (1936): 112–113.

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Islam and Sufism were not accepted by all Muslims as Islamic, and they most likely happily welcomed the Los Angeles Sufis into their community.119 It is clear, then, that while the aia as an organized entity seems to have failed to remain intact, by using its Ahmadi and Sunni connections, the network it had fostered was continuing to expand. The aia had ultimately linked and united Muslims across the country and internationally, and cultivated a type and level of outreach to white converts that had no parallel in the orthodox American Muslim community at the time. As the decade drew to a close, the country witnessed the eruption of a new world war that would have a significant impact on the future of not just the aia–connected community, but also that of American conversion to Islam more broadly. Even before the war started, however, inklings of this new transformation could be seen in a few peculiar events. Towards the end of 1938 someone posted an unusual sign at a Los Angeles train depot:

kalifat—nebi jefferson. Yearly pilgrimage of muslims of Kalifat No. 5, known as North American Kalifat, shall be concluded in Civic Center, Los Angeles, during the 30 days of the month of Muaram. The purpose shall be educational. This pilgrimage should particularly remind muslims of the teachings of America’s first Karajite leader, Thomas Jefferson, loyal successor of George Washington, tried-and-true founder of the Republic. Terminating the pilgrimage, muslims should make the circuit of the Los Angeles Federal Building which is situated in what is henceforth to be known by muslims as Jefferson Square. They may make the circuit as many as seven times, but it is not their duty to make it even once, since they should make it only of their own free will and according to their ability. Muslims who make the pilgrimage to Mecca should make that to Los Angeles also. Muslims who make the pilgrimage to Los Angeles should also make that to Mecca. bismila120

119 Ibid. 26, no. 1 (1938): 455–456. 120 “Los Angeles as Pilgrim Center,” Moslem World 29 (January 1939): 97.

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The peculiar content, the emphasis on the caliphate, the promotion of Los Angeles, and the general strangeness of the poster all are suggestive of Glick, as are clues that would appear when Kalifat No. 5 resurfaced a few more times over the next dozen years. Unfortunately, the fbi file on Kalifat No. 5 has been destroyed, and there is no mention of it in Glick’s file, so we may never know with certainty whom the creator was. Glick’s verifiable actions at that time, meanwhile, were also hinting that many things were about to change in the American convert community, and that he was going to be involved. It appears, first of all, that Glick had stopped printing the Mirror of Islam sometime in 1938. Then, in July 1939, Glick suddenly moved out of the room he had been renting for the past three years in Los Angeles.121 The Works Project Administration records for Glick indicated that, at least in September and October, he was visiting Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and San Diego—all places that had significant immigrant Muslim communities, and all but San Diego had strong African American Muslim communities as well.122 What Glick was doing in these cities is unknown. Perhaps he was involved with an organization known as the Islamic League, an apparently Pan-Islamic organization that appeared in Detroit in 1939 and attempted to run its newly-constructed Sunni mosque.123 All that can be stated with confidence, however, is that by the end of the decade Glick had established himself as a well-known figure in Muslim communities throughout the country. In the 1940s he and Muharrem maintained a quiet presence as the country’s various Muslim communities began developing stronger bonds between each other, particularly among the converts. Towards the end of the Great Depression, the majority of white American converts were of the type that married Muslim immigrants and, because they focused on family life, followed their immigrant spouses’ communities and did little to alter the direction of Islam in America. But there were a few converts—most of whom were friends who did not marry a Muslim—who were especially active in their communities. While they did not achieve many of their goals, these converts led organizations and propaganda efforts and, in doing so, they created a new national network that laid an important foundation for what would develop in the ensuing wartime and postwar years.

121 Glick fbi file, Report, 2/5/1940, Los Angeles file 65–321, 3. 122 Ibid., 6. 123 See Howell, “Inventing,” 156–58.

chapter 9 Uniting Muslim Communities

By continuing to actively promote Islam and connect us Muslims, even though they were no longer formally organized, Louis Glick and the former aia community were laying an important foundation. As the 1940s began, several emerging Muslim communities would link up with and strengthen the national network that the aia had been establishing, helping to ensure that white converts would play a role in the increasingly interconnected community of us Muslims. The particular Muslim organizations that were most likely to affiliate with the former aia network were those that shared many of the same ideals of the aia—so they were often groups led by converts, second-generation Muslims, and international proselytizers, all of whom were less concerned with the difficulties of immigrating than they were with improving Muslim unity. It was through their efforts, then, that white Sunnis began to interact and work with both the increasingly influential groups of Arab and Indian Muslims as well as the growing African American Sunni and Ahmadi communities. The 1940s therefore saw the development of a new multi-racial national Islamic network, one that was fostering more ties and a greater sense of national solidarity than any previous effort, and one that further prepared the us Muslim community for the changes that were to come in the postwar years. The former aia network, however, was not the only avenue for Pan-Islamic efforts of white Muslims. The international connections of other white American promoters of Muslim unity, such as Nilla Cram Cook and William Lutz, are testaments to the growing deterritorialization of Islam as the twentieth century progressed. Cook, in particular, stands out as an example of the diversity of conversions taking place by the 1930s. A product of both nineteenth-century esoterica and twentieth-century contact with immigrants, her boldness in spreading innovative views about Islam reflects the fact that as contact between white Americans and Muslims increased, new notions about Islam and about what makes a convert leader would continue to spring up. Indeed, both Cook and another leading white female convert from this period, Nadirah Osman, would prove that many Islamic approaches and identities— including that of a white Muslim female leader—could be both valid and valued expressions of Islam. The activities of the leading converts of the 1940s were therefore important predecessors to the various convert men and women who, while holding a variety of Islamic perspectives, became influential figures in the us Muslim community in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

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Nadirah’s New York

By the late 1930s, the Pan-Islamic spirit was being revived in New York City. This owed a great deal to the efforts of Dr. George Ibrahim Kheirallah, the Egyptian- born son of the first Baha’i missionary in the us, Ibrahim George Kheiralla.1 At some point in the early 1930s, George converted to Islam and became extremely active in New York’s Muslim and Arab organizations. That he would soon become more successful than Glick in helping to unite New York’s Muslims was the result of him having several traits Glick lacked. He was, for instance, more educated in both a secular Western sense, being a medical doctor, and in an Islamic sense, as he would give many speeches and later publish numerous well-written works about Islam and its history, including a book that was widely read by us Muslims.2 Furthermore, although born a Christian and raised as a Baha’i, George was still an Arab who had immigrated at a young age; he could therefore relate and speak to many of the city’s Muslim immigrants— of both the first and second generations—in ways Glick could never have. Finally, having grown up around one of the most successful non-Christian proselytization movements in the us, George possessed first-hand knowledge of what it took to lead a non-Christian community in a us context. In the second half of the 1930s, he began putting his background to use, becoming the president of the Indian-majority mbusa by 1935,3 the leading lecturer for a group called the Islamic Society of New York by 1938,4 and an outspoken opponent of Zionism by 1939. In the 1940s, he continued to be very active in the local Muslim and Arab communities. He remained president of the mbusa for much of the decade; he edited the popular high-quality English-language magazine The Arab World, which often ran stories about Muslims; and he gave speeches for a multiethnic organization known as the New York Islamic Center.5 Through George’s efforts, the New York Islamic community was increasingly influenced by the multiethnic, Pan-Islamic ideal. One of the places where George had an influential forum, the New York Islamic Center, was, it seems, the organizational hub of New York’s multiethnic,

1 The father’s name was typically spelled without an ‛h’ at the end, unlike the son’s. 2 This was his 1938 Islam and the Arabian Prophet. For a brief introduction to Kheirallah and his writings, see George Ibrahim Kheirallah, Islam and the Arabian Prophet: The First American Sirah, ed. Muhammed Abdullah al-Ahari (Chicago: Magribine Press, 2011), 1–4. 3 “Synagogues Mark Maimonides Day,” New York Times, April 1, 1935, 22. 4 See the classified advertisements for this group in the New York Sun on April 30 and June 11, 1938. 5 The Islamic Center had its meetings frequently listed in the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune during the early 1940s.

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Pan-Islamic current in the 1940s. Numerous Muslims of various ethnicities— including white and black converts and international proselytizers—would be associated with the Center and its leaders, and several would eventually play a role in the national Pan-Islamic efforts of the decade. The origins of this important Center are, unfortunately, still somewhat unclear. It is possible that it was a reorganizing of George’s old affiliate, the Islamic Society of New York, whose advertisements stopped running in New York newspapers in the late 1930s, just before the New York Islamic Center’s advertisements began appearing in 1940.6 Currently, the only information about its creation that we have is a white female convert’s claim that she was one of the Center’s three founders. This convert, Nadirah Florence Ives Osman, would be an important player not only in New York’s multiethnic Islamic community, but also in the connecting and uniting of that community with the former aia network. Born in Union County, New Jersey in 1895,7 Nadirah embraced Islam in 1926, apparently through the influence of her one-time husband, an Egyptian of a mixed Arab and Turkish background.8 Nadirah—who saw her choosing Islam as “a continuation and logical development” of the beliefs of her English, French, German, and Dutch ancestors—was proud to affiliate with different races through a shared belief.9 She must have been elated, then, to discover the emphasis on unity and equality prevalent in Ahmadi literature, which she had acquired by 1931 while living in Turkey.10 Armed with a strong faith in the truth of Islam, even after divorcing her husband, Nadirah was committed to promoting her religion, and in 1939 and 1940 had several essays published in Woking’s Lahori-influenced Islamic Review magazine.11 In the latter year, she officially joined the Lahori movement, and it is likely that it was through this connection that she came in touch with Muharrem Nadji, who published several of her essays in the early 1940s.12 In New York, meanwhile, she and two associates—one of which was probably Kheirallah—founded the Islamic Center,

6 However, these two organizations were associated with different addresses. 7 While her census, ship manifest, and Social Security Death Index documents have her as born in 1896, the New Jersey, Births and Christenings Index, 1660–1931 records 1895; see Ancestry.com. 8 Letter, Nadirah Fines [sic] Osman to [Wali Akram] [the latter was an important African American Muslim leader at the time; his name has been redacted but it is obvious from the contents of the letter], December 4, 1943, 1, fbi record. 9 Ibid. 10 “The Story of the First American Convert to Islam,” Light, April 16, 1944, 7. 11 Her articles appeared in several issues in 1939 and 1940; they were on the topics of “Islam and the Bible,” “Islam and the Covenant of Abraham,” and “Islam and Jesus.” 12 Osman to Akram, 1.

Uniting Muslim Communities 263 and Nadirah maintained a strong connection to at least two other Islamic groups in the city: Kheirallah’s mbusa and an organization known as the Moorish National Islamic Center (mnic), for which Nadirah frequently lectured.13 The mnic, located at 1 East 125th Street and led by Grand Sheik Walter Price Bey, was originally part of an African American Islamic sectarian movement, the Moorish Science Temple (mst).14 According to the group’s literature, the mst was “founded” in 1913 in Newark, but it only “organized” while in Chicago in 1925, in the wake of the Qadianis’ successful wave of proselytization. Its leader and prophet, Noble Drew Ali, published a “Holy Koran” that was largely composed of uncredited excerpts from two popular esoteric texts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Perhaps because it more thoroughly aligned itself with Marcus Garvey’s black nationalism and African American religious currents, Ali’s movement was even more successful than the Qadianis’ in convincing African Americans to take on an Islamic identity. However, in early 1929, a debilitating schism developed. The mst’s leader in Detroit, James Lomax (later, Muhammad Ezaldeen), apparently became influenced by immigrant Muslims and broke away from Drew Ali, taking several mst temples with him. The split led to violence erupting in mulitple temples across the country, so, fearing for his life, Lomax eventually went to Egypt where he connected with the ymma before returning to the us in December 1936. Meanwhile, Drew Ali died in July 1929, leading to even more schisms. The mnic was originally part of the dominant post-Drew Ali faction of the mst, the Moorish Science Temple of America, Inc., which was led C. Kirkman Bey. But beginning at least as early as 1935, a number of immigrant Muslims joined and sometimes acted as teachers for the New York group, which had about fifty to sixty regularly-attending members.15 One Egyptian immigrant laborer later told the fbi that when he was a member, from 1935 to 1941, he “taught a class of approximately fifty children the Arabic language and Moslem religion.” By 1940, the mnic was leaning even more towards international Islam. It appears that, for example, sometime during that year Walter Price Bey adopted the Arabic name of Abdul Wadood Bey,16 probably under the influence

13 Osman to Akram, 1, 4. 14 On the mnic and mst, see Bowen, “Search for ‘Islam’,” 275–276 and hctius vol. 2. 15 See Bowen, “Search for ‘Islam’,” 275–276; and hctius vol. 2. 16 In a 2012 article (Bowen, “Search for ‘Islam’,” 275), the relationship between Walter and Abdul Wadood Bey was not fully understood. However, the existing evidence tells us that (1) Wadood Bey was a convert (and the ‘Bey’ in his name suggests he was from the mst); (2) Wadood Bey’s wife was known as Rezkah; (3) Walter also had a wife known as Rezkah;

264 chapter 9 of Lomax/Ezaldeen, who was extremely influential among former mst members in New York.17 In September 1940, the group hosted an address by Hans Stefan Santesson, a white book editor who was not only an associate of Louis Glick, but also a strong supporter of India’s independence and programs to aid Indian immigrants in New York.18 In November of that same year, the mnic held an Eid ul-Fitr celebration for both its members, which included its Arabic- speaking imam, Si Abdesalaam Sied, and its Muslim visitors, including some from South Asia and Sheikh Daoud Faisal, a Grenadan immigrant who, although he may have also once been in the mst, by 1938 was leading a Sunni mosque in Brooklyn.19 Nineteen-forty also seems to be the year that Wadood Bey became involved with an interfaith organization known as the World Fellowship of Faiths, which over the next few years would put him in touch with several other Muslims in New York.20 In addition to the mbusa and mnic, the New York Islamic Center was also affiliated with another multiracial group that had several converts and

(4) Beginning in 1940 Walter no longer appears in newspaper or fbi accounts connected to Islam in New York, while Rezkah continued to and Wadood Bey suddenly appears; (5) In December 1939, Walter hosted a dinner with Si Abdesalaam Sied, who would later be associated with Wadood Bey and the mnic, as a guest at his home (see T.E.B., “Chatter and Chimes,” New York Amsterdam News, December 16, 1939, 16); and (6) A caption for a photograph of African American Muslims in Harlem in 1942 identifies one of the men in the picture as ‘Abdul Wadood Price Bey’ (the other identified man in the picture is Sheikh Daoud Faisal). The above evidence very much supports the theory that Walter was the same person as Wadood Bey, and perhaps changed his name due to the influence of Ezaldeen, with whom Wadood Bey had a verified connection. 17 aauaa fbi file, letter, E.E. Conroy, sac, to Director, fbi, July 30, 1943. 18 “Events Today,” New York Times September 11, 1940, 33. On Santesson’s relation to Louis Glick, see Glick Military Intelligence Division file, Report, 4/6/1943, 2–3. On Santesson’s life, see T Byro, October 14, 2008 (4:12 p.m.), “Hans Stefan Santesson, Etc.,” Dispatch from New York, accessed October 8, 2012, http://dispatchfromnewyork.blogspot.com/2008/10/ hand-stefan-santesson-etc.html. Also see Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization; Committee on the Judiciary, “To Permit All People from India Residing in the u.s. To Be Naturalized,” hrg-1947-sjs-0023. 19 “Moslems of the Moorish Center break 30-Day Fast,” New York Age, November [16?], 1940, 2. This article mentions that in attendance was one “Daud Fathel”—presumably Sheikh Daoud Faisal. It is noteworthy that in a 1942 newspaper article, Price Bey was reported to have recently attended an eid celebration at Faisal’s mosque; see “Moslems: New York City’s 5000 Pray for Democracy,” P.M.’s Weekly, January 18, 1942, 49. 20 See “Religious Parliament Holds Session in Boro,” Brooklyn Eagle, November 4, 1940, 4; “Events Today,” New York Times, September 23, 1941, 27; “Many Faiths Join in a Prayer for Peace,” New York Times January 2, 1942, 13; “Meetings and Lectures,” New York Times, December 8, 1945, 12; “Interdenominational,” New York Times, April 17, 1948, 16.

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immigrants: the Academy of Islam (aoi).21 This international Pan-Islamic organization was originally founded in 1938 in England by a female Muslim reformer from India, Atiya Begum Rahamin. In the fall of the next year, she opened up a branch in New York, leaving it in the hands of local immigrants, mostly Indians. By 1943 the group was very multiethnic: it had several African American converts, some of whom were aoi leaders;22 its president, Sheikh Omar Ali, was a man of mixed Arab, French, and Assyrian blood with Catholic roots;23 its vice president was an Indian named Mukhtar Ahmad; and its assistant treasurer was a Saudi member of the ymma named Sheik Khalil al- Rawaf.24 In December 1944, al-Rawaf—who, as we will see, was one of the most influential figures in New York and the national Pan-Islamic scenes—lectured at the Islamic Center alongside George Kheirallah.25 The Pan-Islamic, multiethnic attitude being fostered in New York fit per- fectly with the project of the former aia network, and they would soon be brought together. For scholars, one of the more well-known examples of the connection between the two communities appeared in 1945, when George Kheirallah published in his Arab World magazine an article based on a speech about Alexander Webb that was given by the white convert Emory Howard Tunison, secretary for the New York Islamic Center.26 Tunison’s speech was originally presented at the Islamic Center in November 1943 for “a fiftieth anniversary celebration in honor of the memory of this truly great American Muslim.”27 The event, held under the auspices of the ‘Webb Memorial

21 See hctius vol. 2. Interestingly, one of the founding members was a Palestinian immigrant who had also been a founding member of New York’s ymma in 1924, Akel Allie; see “A Brief Biography of Akel Allie,” Muslim Star 6, no. 22 (1966): 6, imjc Papers, Box 8, bhl. 22 The incorporation records for one of its auxiliary groups, the Young Women’s Moslem Association, shows that all the incorporators had non-Muslim names, which is strong evidence not only that these were converts, but that the aoi did indeed have several converts and that they were taking leadership positions in the group. 23 aauaa fbi file, Report, 10/9/43, Philadelphia, No. 100–19940, 15–16. 24 aauaa fbi file, Report, 2/[8?]/44, Philadelphia, No. 100–19940, 6. 25 See “Program of the new york islamic center,” New York Times, December 12, 1944, 11. 26 Emory H. Tunison, “Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb: First American Muslim,” Arab World 1, no. 3 [1945]: 13–18. 27 Osman to Akram, 4; “The Story of the First American Convert to Islam,” Light, April 8, 1944, 6. I am assuming this was the Islamic Center for two reasons: (a) in the 1944 article just cited the speech is said to have been given at a meeting of Muslims at Steinway Hall, which throughout the early 1940s was the same building used by the New York Islamic Center (see the group’s numerous listings in the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune during that time period) and (b) in 1945, Tunison was the Islamic Center’s secretary (see Tunison, “Mohammed Alexander Russell Webb,” 13).

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Committee’ and sponsored by the Islamic Center, the mbusa, and the mnic,28 was led by Nadirah. Nadirah had first learned about Webb in 1931 while reading the preface to Ahmad’s The Teachings of Islam, which Webb had helped edit,29 and in the early 1940s, after meeting Tunison, a chiropractor and homeopathic doctor who had recently converted to Islam,30 the two began researching Webb’s life, even going as far as contacting his daughter.31 Tunison was in fact the only white convert Nadirah knew in New York during the war, so it was only the two converts and Webb’s daughter who presented at the meeting in November.32 Essays based on the speeches of Tunison and Nadirah were both soon published and have, since that time, served as the main shapers of the popular narrative of Webb’s life, which tends to paint him in a rather romantic light that is attractive to many middle-class converts.33 Webb is presented as an intelligent, capable religious seeker who simply—if not innocently—concludes that Islam is the most rational religion. Webb’s ambition is downplayed; his connection with esotericism is briefly acknowledged, as are Rawson’s ties to Masonry, but neither subject is thoroughly investigated; and larger questions about the ability of a non-Christian religious organization to succeed in the 1890s us are simply not considered, outside of somewhat superficial discussions of the significance of Theosophy and the World’s Parliament of Religions. Interestingly, Nadirah’s November 1943 meeting was not the first time a ‘Webb Memorial’ project was being discussed in the network of white Muslims in wartime America. In December 1942, Louis Glick had published a new periodical called Moslem American—Chaplain Letters, which stated that the paper was issued in order to promote the “Muhammed Webb Memorial Mafjid [mas- jid, mosque], Lyons Valley, California.”34 In fact, Glick was probably the person who had initially come up with the idea for ‘Webb Memorial’ projects. In 1950, a writer named Jermoe Kearful reported that in 1933 a “Mohammed Webb

28 “The Story of the First American Convert to Islam,” Light, April 8, 1944, 6; Osman to Akram, 4. 29 “The Story of the First American Convert to Islam,” Light, April 16, 1944, 7–8. 30 On his professional background, see his advertisement in the New York Call, May 26, 1922, sect. 2 p. 12 and Benedict Lust, ed., Universal Naturopathic Encyclopedia, Directory and Buyers’ Guide: Year Book of Drugless Therapy for 1918–19 (Butler, nj: Benedict Lust, 1918), 909. That Tunison was a recent convert is attested to by Nadirah in Osman to Akram, 2. 31 “The Story of the First American Convert to Islam,” Light, April 16, 1944, 8. 32 See the program for the meeting in Osman to Akram, 4. 33 Nadirah’s speech was published as “The Story of the First American Convert to Islam,” in the Lahori journal The Light on April 8, 1944, 6–7 and April 16, 1944, 5–8. 34 moa fbi file, Report, 1/15/1944, Pittsburgh file 100–6685, 3. Unfortunately, only short excerpts from this newspaper were reprinted in this file—we do not have a complete copy.

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Memorial Hanifah Mazjid [sic]” was established by American Muslims “under the aegis of an impassioned, respected and high-minded, if somewhat eccentric man”—a description that suggests Glick.35 This organization was reportedly formed “particularly for the purpose of arranging for the observance of ‘high holy days’” and “Webb’s name was used in tribute to his leadership.” There is even some reason to believe that in 1933, the fortieth anniversary of Webb’s movement, Glick put on a ‘Webb Memorial’ meeting similar to the one held in 1943.36 In addition, according to Kearful, in 1938 the Webb Memorial Mazjid set up a mosque and ‘promotional committee.’ This mosque, of course, was never actually built, but Glick presumably did do work for the ‘promotional committee’ when he traveled to various cities with strong Muslim communities in 1939. Nadirah, being connected to the Lahoris, immigrants, and Muharrem, would have undoubtedly learned about Glick’s efforts at the time. Her establishing the New York Islamic Center and helping to foster multiethnic Muslim unity may therefore have been inspired and perhaps facilitated by Glick’s 1930s activities and the network he cultivated.

American Muslim Rights in Wartime

A Glick-Nadirah connection would help explain an additional important aspect of Nadirah’s position in the American Muslim community. In a December 1943 letter, Nadirah wrote that she knew several Muslims of a variety of races in the military—including both white and black converts.37 Since it is unlikely that Nadirah could have known many Muslim soldiers through just the handful of groups with which she had contact in New York, it is likely that she was linked to a larger network of people who were connected to American Muslim soldiers—and Glick’s new journal was probably an important resource for them. Chaplain Letters—which was produced under the auspices of not the aia but an organization with a slightly different name: the

35 Jerome Kearful, “The Saga of Consul Mohammed Webb,” American Foreign Service Journal (January 1950): 34. I am grateful to Brent Singleton for bringing this article to my attention. 36 Akbar Muhammad writes: “At least two memorial meetings have been organized in [Webb’s] honor, the last being as late as 1943”; see Akbar Muhammad, “Muslims in the United States: An Overview of Organizations, Doctrines, and Problems,” in The Islamic Impact, eds. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Byron Haines, and Ellison Findly (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1984), 199. 37 Osman to Akram, 2–3.

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Islam Association of America (iaa)38—stated on its cover page that it was “For Moslems in the United States Armed services, but free to all who request.”39 This emphasis on the military was reinforced by Glick’s use of the word ‘chaplain’ to describe American Muslim religious leaders. Early American Muslim imams did sometimes use English Christian terms, such as ‘reverend’ and ‘priest,’ to describe their position in the Muslim community, but ‘chaplain’ had probably never been used before. And, unlike the other two words, ‘chaplain’ is a term that implies the specific role of a religious leader who serves a more or less secular organization, such as the military. The creation of this journal sprang out of an earlier related effort. In 1941, the Webb Memorial Mazjid—in other words, Glick—had established what he called the American Moslem Committee for Defense, an organization designed specifically to address American Muslim issues related to the war.40 Perhaps in an attempt to protect the practice of Islam in America during wartime, when the religion might have been perceived as a threat, Glick, as Kearful reported,

drew up a constitution requiring that all American Moslem officials be American citizens, that American Moslems refrain from “gambling, selling liquor, and similar enterprises,” and that a finance committee be set up to administer the organization’s funds.41

Then, in 1943, Glick—presumably through his Committee for Defense—was initiating a campaign to try to make the us military recognize and provide support for the religious beliefs and requirements of Muslim soldiers. Besides his Chaplain Letters propaganda, there are two known aspects of Glick’s campaign. First, he had the iaa issue medallions, to be worn with Muslim soldiers’ dog

38 There are only two pieces of evidence that the aia—under that specific name—continued to function after 1933, and they are both rather weak, as evidence goes. The first is a 1943 reference made in an Indian Muslim journal that sometimes reworded English- language phrases (“Islam Mission for America,” Light, May 16, 1943, 3) and the second is a mention of the aia, wia, and the New York American Islamic Social Centre located in single paragraph giving an overview of Islam in the us, published in an Italian-authored book in 1942 without citation, so it is not certain as to whether the author was relying on new or old information (Carlo Gasbarri, La via di Allah: origini, storia, sviluppi, istituzioni del mondo islamico e la sua posizione di fronte al Cristianesimo [Milano: Ulrico Hoepli, 1942], 279–80). 39 moa fbi file, Report, 1/15/1944, Pittsburgh file 100–6685, 3. 40 Kearful, “The Saga.” 41 Ibid.

Uniting Muslim Communities 269 tags, which contained the shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith.42 He also had drafted a proposed bill for Congress “to correct existing injustice” and provide equal privileges to “certain minority religious groups.”43 The iaa’s bill stated that members of minority religious groups should be

assigned to special units on the basis of their religious preference so that their spiritual needs may be cared for by their respective leaders, who shall in every case be recognized as ministers of religion [i.e., ‘chaplains’], and that members of any group for whose religious interests it is imprac- ticable to provide ministry shall be exempted from service or, if already inducted, shall be honorably discharged.44

This ambitious project, which may have been the first of its kind in the us, was almost certainly born out of Glick’s own experiences of feelings of religious rejection in the military in the 1910s.45 In the end, however, the proposed bill was a losing cause from the start. Its bold proposition of discharging Muslim soldiers who had no chaplains would of course not be taken seriously by Congress. Still, it at least alerted some us politicians to the concerns of their Muslim constituencies and perhaps paved the way for a similar bill—one that would allow for Muslims’ religious identities to be indicated on their dog tags—that would be proposed a decade later and achieved much greater Muslim support.46 In the later part of 1943, Nadirah also became involved with the issue of the relations between American Muslims and the us military.47 It began in October when Muharrem forwarded Nadirah a letter from a twenty-one-year-old white

42 “Moslem Medallions,” Hobbies (May 1943): 23. 43 “Chaplain or Exemption for Religious Minorities,” Christian Century, December 1, 1943, 1389–90. 44 Ibid. 45 Glick’s 1919 criticisms of what he believed were the military’s violations of the First Amendment included the point that the government paid Christian chaplains. While Glick was ostensibly critiquing this practice for violating the First Amendment, it is likely that, being a Jew who did not want to out his religious identity, this was his way of trying to obtain equal religious treatment; see the copy of letter, Louis Glick to Secretary of the Navy, May 5, 1920 (originally written November 18, 1919), Glick ompf. 46 See Chapter 10. 47 The following information was extracted from three sources: Nadirah’s December 1943 letter to Wali Akram (cited above) and Civilian Public Service (cps) files of Nazeer Aleem (Holman Whitson) and Marshall Hodgson, from the Civilian Public Service Personal Papers and Collected Materials, Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

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Quaker and conscientious objector named Marshall G.S. Hodgson. Hodgson was friendly with Nazeer Aleem (née Holman Whitson), a black Muslim—and the only Muslim—in the country’s conscientious objector camps during the war.48 Nazeer had been a leading member in the Qadiani- and Sunni-influenced African American mosque led by Wali Akram in Cleveland, Ohio.49 At some point in 1943, Hodgson learned through a published report that was circulating in conscientious objector camps that other African American Muslims who refused to fight in the war were not being held as conscientious objectors but were being imprisoned. He was aware that Aleem’s religious leader, Akram, was himself not a pacifist, so Hodgson assumed that Aleem was not connected to these groups. Hodgson was at least partially right: the Muslims who were imprisoned for draft evasion were members of the sectarian Moorish Science Temple and Nation of Islam, and the particular people imprisoned were from specific sub-sects of these groups that rejected American citizenship. However, Aleem was possibly a former member of one of these movements, as before he joined the Cleveland group he had first come to Islam in 1930 while living in Detroit, which was where the mst and Nation were strongest at the time—and this could explain why he is the only known Ahmadi or Sunni to become an official conscientious objector.50 In any case, Hodgson, not knowing the complexity of African American Islam at the time, assumed that all the imprisoned Muslims might need for obtaining conscientious objector status was help, especially from a white person, who might have more sway among authorities due to the prevalence of

48 For more on Aleem, see hctius vol. 2. 49 Robert Dannin’s research into Wali Akram’s mosque (for his Black Pilgrimage to Islam [New York: Oxford University Press, 2002]) inaccurately suggested that in 1937 Akram rejected all Ahmadi groups and turned to Sunni Islam. This is contradicted by three facts. First is that, while in 1937 Akram did change the direction of his mosque and renamed his organization the Moslem Ten Year Plan, incorporation records from Ohio indicate that it was officially called The Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam, & Moslem Ten Year Plan, Inc., and this reference to Ahmadiyya Islam was not changed even in 1942 when the records were amended. Second, when Aleem applied for conscientious objector status in 1941, he provided the us government the group’s ‘articles of faith’ and ‘initiation’ forms, which explicitly stated that the group believed Ghulam Ahmad was a messiah (see Aleem’s cps file). Finally, Akram proposed using a bay’at (pledge of loyalty)—an Ahmadi practice—at the Uniting Islamic Societies (see below); Dannin was unable to explain this because he assumed Akram was Sunni at the time. In the mid to late 1940s, however, Akram did move towards Sunni Islam. 50 Aleem’s conversion in 1930 is implied in his April 13, 1941 letter to the National Service Board for Religious Objectors, contained in his cps file; his living in Detroit at that time is indicated in the 1930 census.

Uniting Muslim Communities 271 racist feelings towards blacks.51 He first wrote a letter to Muharrem, whose literature Aleem had probably shown him. Then after Muharrem forwarded the letter to Nadirah, Hodgson gave Nadirah Wali Akram’s name and address (provided, again, by Aleem), for Nadirah to contact him to ask for advice. Nadirah introduced herself to Akram by mentioning her essays in Muharrem’s publications, which she assumed Akram had read, and she expressed her hope that Cleveland and New York’s Muslim communities would develop a relationship. Akram’s reply is not known, but he would have been far more familiar with the mst and the Nation than Nadirah, who was apparently as clueless as Hodgson (her contact with the mst being only with the Sunni-influenced mnic). But, whether from Akram or one of the former Moors of New York, Nadirah would have probably eventually learned the political positions of the mst and the Nation, and it seems the matter was dropped by mid-1944. In the end, there were two important lasting legacies of this episode. The first was that it apparently sparked an interest in Islam and its multiethnic dimensions for the Quaker Hodgson. After the war, he would go on to graduate school and specialize in Islamic studies. He then obtained a position at the University of Chicago from where he became an acquaintance of the Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and wrote two major works: one dealing with the Isma‘ili Assassins and the other, the posthumously-published and highly revered Venture of Islam, examining in three volumes the history of Islamicate world. The second legacy of this incident was it further connected the Muslims of New York, particularly its Muslim unity-focused white convert leader, with the former aia network and with the black converts in Cleveland. Although Nadirah’s influence in this community was limited—she failed even to enlist a single person into a new group she created, the Muslim-American Citizens Society—the making of these connections further linked Muslims across the country and helped reinforce the multiethnic Islamic unity that the former aia network had been fostering.52

Uniting Islamic Societies of America

Another project that Glick’s Chaplain Letters endorsed was one that he had been working on for over a decade. Glick was now proposing an organization called the ‘Committee for the American National Congress of Mafjids and Moslem Societies’ whose purpose was “to serve all national interests of

51 Osman to Akram, 2; Hodgson cps file, Letter, Hodgson to Huldah W. Randell, Advisory Section, February 3, 1944. 52 Osman to Akram, 1.

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Moslems; particularly to foster American representation in all international Islam conferences and affairs.”53 This, then, combined Glick’s old desires for a national umbrella organization and an international association of mosque societies that would meet at international congresses and represent a new Muslim caliphate. It was probably this American National Congress, or something similar, that Glick was promoting during his 1939 visits to Buffalo, Detroit, and Cleveland. It was possibly also what was behind the North American Kalifat that first appeared in Los Angeles that year and would reappear on posters posted around Washington, dc in the spring of 1944.54 Interestingly, the majority of the extant documents that reference this Congress are the fbi files for African American Muslim groups from the early 1940s. At the time, the fbi, concerned with draft evasion and the presence of anti-American views as the us entered the Second World War, began investigating various African American Islamic organizations across the country after hearing rumors about such sentiments being expressed in some of their meetings.55 In Pennsylvania, as a result of learning that some of the rumors pointed to a number of African American-majority Sunni communities in the state, the fbi started investigating the Pittsburgh-based Moslems of America (moa) and Muhammed Ezaldeen’s Philadelphia/Camden-based Addeynu Allahe Universal Arabic Association (aauaa). While examining the mail of the leaders of these organizations, the fbi found copies of Glick’s Moslem American—Chaplain Letters,56 which endorsed the moa’s head, the Palestinian immigrant and gro- cery store owner Mohammed Jalajel, as a recognized and respected Muslim ‘chaplain.’57 The fbi also learned that African American Sunnis had several books and pamphlets published by Muharrem Nadji, and, in fact, one particular unnamed book published by Nadji was used at every moa meeting.58

53 Ibid. 54 Willard Edwards, “Seeing Flashes of Green? It’s 4th Term Omen!” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 1, 1944, 11. In this instance, the Kalifat revealed the formation of “a Moslem party for political action” that would work to support President Roosevelt’s reelection. The poster also indicated that the group was headquartered in Los Angeles and its leader went by the name Savinien, a figure who would appear again several years later. 55 For more on this topic, see hctius vol. 2. 56 Moslems of America (moa) fbi file, Report, 1/15/1944, Pittsburgh file 100–6685, 3–4; Addeynu Allahe Universal Arabic Association (aauaa) fbi file, Report, 2/8/1944, Philadelphia file 100–19940, 9. 57 moa fbi file, Report, 1/15/1944, Pittsburgh file 100–6685, 3. 58 Unfortunately which book this was was not noted in the reports. See aauaa fbi file, Report, 2/8/1944, Philadelphia file, 100–19940, 9; aauaa fbi file, Report, 3/24/1944, Newark file 100–18924, 39; moa fbi file, Report, 9/5/1944, Pittsburgh file, 100–6685, 3.

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It does not seem to be a coincidence, then, that it was around the time that the fbi discovered Glick and Muharrem’s materials in the African American Sunni community that that same community had established its own national organization to unite Muslim organizations throughout the country. The Uniting Islamic Societies of America (uisa) was established in 1943 and would hold four annual meetings before its dissolution in 1947.59 The man who had reportedly originally come up with the idea of the uisa was Nasir Ahmad, an African American Muslim whose first exposure to Islam was in Pittsburgh in the late 1920s when he joined the mst. Soon, however, several people in his mst branch were upset with what they believed were the exploitive practices of the branch’s head, and so, particularly after the mst’s prophet died, many quit the Pittsburgh temple. In 1930, Muhammad Yusuf Khan, the Qadiani missionary who had spent years converting African Americans, arrived in town, came into contact with former mst members, and made Nasir Ahmad (formerly Walter Smith Bey) the head black Qadiani in the Ohio River Valley region. Building off the remains of the fractured mst, Ahmad quickly established several mosques and connected himself to the other existing Muslim communities in the region. It seems, however, that Khan was threatened by Ahmad’s power, and in 1934, out of a desire to see Ahmad’s influence reduced, decided to send him to Philadelphia, which would have been too far away from Pittsburgh for Ahmad to maintain a real effect on the Ohio River Valley Muslims. This would prove to be a poor decision for Khan, however, as in Philadelphia Ahmad became affiliated with a well-connected Egyptian Muslim who was possibly associated with the Supreme Muslim Council. Within just a few months, the Egyptian helped Ahmad lead a revolt against Khan and convert most of the Pennsylvania Qadianis to Sunni Islam. Before full stability could be achieved, however, in the fall of 1935 yet another split occurred in the community when a Yemeni proselytizer was able to convince a small contingent to break away and incorporate as the Moslems of America. Soon after, another group of Pittsburgh Muslims joined up with the Indian Lahoris with whom Harry and the Nadjis had been corresponding. Then, to make matters more complicated, in late 1936, Ezaldeen, the former Moor who had spent several years training with the ymma in Egypt, returned to the country, connected with various Islamic organizations in New York City, and subsequently joined up with Ahmad to create the aauaa in Camden, to which Ahmad helped convert several moa members in various cities. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, Wali

59 Dannin claims that the group did not hold a meeting in 1945, but this is inaccurate; see “Honoring Mohammed,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 3, 1945, 10. The uisa will be discussed in much greater detail in hctius vol. 2.

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Akram, who had been part of Ahmad’s group, split from everyone in 1937, running his mosque as an independent Qadiani community for the next several years, although he also maintained numerous ties with Sunnis.60 By the early 1940s, probably exhausted and disappointed by the sectarian chaos, and probably at least partially influenced by Glick’s efforts to unite American Muslim ‘societies,’ Nasir Ahmad decided to work towards reconciliation and unification among all the different Muslim communities with which he had contact.61 He organized the Uniting Islamic Societies of America and at its first meeting in August 1943 appeared both African American-majority organizations and a number of New York multiethnic groups that were tied to the former aia network: (1) the moa; (2) the aauaa; (3) Akram’s Cleveland community; (4) Muhammad Yusuf Khan’s Cincinnati-based Qadiani group known as the Universal Muslim League of the Ahmadia Muslim Missionary; (5) a group known as the Temple of Islam;62 (6) the New York-based multiethnic Academy of Islam; (7) Sheikh Daoud Faisal’s own New York-based multi-ethnic group, called the Islamic Mission of America; (8) the mnic; and (9) an organization referred to in the convention’s paperwork as the Islamic Association of Muslims.63 It is possible that last of these groups was in fact Glick’s iaa. An fbi report shows that by the fall of 1943 Glick had developed connections with the aauaa in Philadelphia and possibly Detroit, where he was now living.64 During the 1944 uisa meeting, furthermore, Glick’s presence was explicitly recorded.65 At

60 For a much more detailed account of these events, see hctius vol. 2. 61 Dannin, Pilgrimage, 51; aauaa fbi file, Report, 10/9/1943, Philadelphia file 100–19940, 2. 62 It is not clear if this was the name of another known group, or an as yet undocumented organization. In the fbi report on the Convention, it is mentioned that an Islam Temple of New York City attended, but it is not known if these were the same organizations. See aauaa fbi file, Philadelphia, No. 100–19940. It is possible that this group was a faction of the Allah Temple of Islam, the original name of the Nation of Islam. However, we have no other direct evidence to verify this; and, in any case, it is highly unlikely that this was the faction led by Elijah Muhammad, as his group, at the time, had neither a New York nor a Philadelphia branch; plus, most of its leaders were incarcerated in 1943. 63 aauaa fbi file, 10/9/1943, Philadelphia file 100–19940, 17. 64 In the fall of 1943, Glick had a letter of unknown content sent from the Philadelphia aauaa headquarters to the moa head Jalajel, and in that letter Glick indicates that he is living in Detroit, which happened to be the location of an Ezaldeen-led branch of the uisa. This was probably the local aauaa, which was locally led by one Karma Jee Karachi, who would soon break from Ezaldeen. See Mohamad Salem Jalajel fbi file, Report, 11/20/1943, Pittsburgh file 100–5711, 6; Development of Our Own fbi file, Report, 8/1/1944, Detroit file 100–5209, 2. 65 uisa fbi file, Report, 9/12/1944, Cleveland file 100–14077, 2.

Uniting Muslim Communities 275 that time, he was said to be representing the Islamic Association of California— the fact that he used the term ‘Islamic Association’ for this group is consistent with both his iaa and the uisa’s ‘Islamic Association of Muslims.’ Interestingly, however, at the 1943 convention, a flyer that was passed out mentioned the Islamic Association of Muslims, but the only group associated with it on the flyer was Sheikh Daoud’s Brooklyn group.66 Also, Nasir Ahmad, whose Philadelphia community sometimes went by the name of the Islamic Association of Philadelphia,67 gave a speech in which he said that the Convention was “a meeting of the Koranic faith and that the Koran was the Bible of the Islamic Association of Muslims.”68 The widespread presence of the ‘Islamic Association’ name—a name that Glick had been using for his organizations since the early 1930s—may therefore indicate a common influence from Glick. Nevertheless, we should not jump to the conclusion that Glick had been the person responsible for either popularizing this name or creating the national organization that would later become the uisa. The greatest evidence against this is the fact that when Glick attended the 1944 Convention, he came only as a visitor—not as a delegate—and when given the opportunity to speak to the uisa, he had very little to say, other than to compliment the uisa for its organization efforts.69 One would imagine that if Glick had in fact been originally responsible for organizing these groups, he would have had a more significant presence at the Conventions. The most likely scenario, then, is that Glick had succeeded in attracting a few of the members of the African American Sunni community to his iaa/societies idea, but that they had only used this as inspiration to create a new organization that Glick—not being African American himself, and not being nearly as well-connected to these black Sunni and Lahori communities as Nasir Ahmad was—could not have established on his own. Still, through his various efforts, Glick seems to have contributed to these Muslims’ organizing, and appears to have even influenced their political thinking by introducing the concept of arguing for Muslim chaplains.70 More importantly for Glick, he had finally achieved a goal for which he had striven for

66 aauaa fbi file, Report, 10/9/1943, Philadelphia file 100–19940. 67 It also used the name Islamic Center of Philadelphia. 68 aauaa fbi file, Report, 10/9/1943, Philadelphia file 100–19940. 69 uisa fbi file, Report, 9/12/1944, Cleveland file 100–14077, 2. 70 In 1951, the fbi learned that some of the members of Nasir Ahmad’s new group, the International Muslim Brotherhood, resisted registering for the draft, and one of the arguments they used to support their stance was that “the Armed Forces provide no Moslem chaplains”—the critique Glick had apparently invented and popularized. See the Elijah Muhammad fbi file, Report, 2/1/1952, Philadelphia file 25–26094, 4.

276 chapter 9 many years: helping to unify a large, multiethnic American Muslim community.71 The ability of the former aia network to connect with African Americans was partially due to their sharing mixed influences from Ahmadis and Sunnis, but also the fact that, like Glick’s aia network, the African American groups were mostly populated by converts. Unlike most Muslim immigrants of the period, these converts had concerns that were reflective of a people thoroughly familiar with American society. There was one important additional connection between the uisa and the now enlarged former aia network. New York’s Saudi Sheik al-Rawaf was appointed to be the uisa’s “liaison officer to maintain relations with foreign- born Muslims.”72 The wealthy son of a governor in southern Saudi Arabia, al- Rawaf first came to the us in 1935 to pursue various business and educational ventures.73 However, during his fifteen-year stay, al-Rawaf did not limit his activities to worldly ones; he visited several us Muslim communities, including those in Detroit and California,74 and in 1936–37, he was the imam for the Cedar Rapids mosque, one of the oldest mosques still in use in the us.75 Then, in 1943–44, after briefly joining the us Army, he served as an assistant treasurer and Arabic instructor at the Academy of Islam and interacted with many

71 However, the desire to work with whites was not at all unanimous among African American Sunnis and Lahoris. Indeed, this was a topic of much tension during the 1940s. For more on this topic, see hctius vol. 2. 72 aauaa fbi file, Report, 10/9/43, Philadelphia file 100–19940, 21; “Moslems Chant Prayers”; Dannin, Pilgrimage, 52. Dannin incorrectly identifies al-Rawaf as an “Indian immigrant who operated a trading concern in midtown Manhattan.” 73 Al-Rawaf’s time in the us has yet to be fully documented. The following are sources that I have collected on his stay: Philip Harsham, “Islam in Iowa,” Aramco World Magazine 27, no. 6 (1976): 30–36; Yahya Aossey Jr., “Fifty Years of Islam in Iowa,” Muslim World League Journal (August 1982): 50–54; “He’s a Sheik,” Nevada State Journal, April 6, 1937, 8; Joplin News Herald (mo), February 26, 1940, 10; Carol Bird, “Debunking Sheik Lore,” Springfield Sunday Union and Republican (Mass.), March 8, 1940, 3D (this story ran in several papers throughout the country); “Arabian Sheik Visits Valley,” Charleston Daily Mail (wv), October 22, 1941, 15; “Sheik Visits City,” Charleston Daily Mail, October 23, 1941, 14; “Sheik’s a Private,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 20, 1943, 4; “Genuine Arabian Sheik Serves as Army Private at Camp Lee,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 3, 1943, 6; Norton Webb, “Professor ‘un the Wide Horizon’,” Christian Science Monitor, December 27, 1946; “Emir Saud to Fly on Truman Plane,” New York Times, February 17, 1947, 2; “Public Notices,” New York Times, September 22, 1947, 3; Constance Wellman, “I Married a Sheik,” San Antonio Light, August 15, 1948, 9 (this story ran in several papers); “Wife Shuns Sheik’s Name,” New York Times, July 3, 1951, 31. 74 “Emir Saud to Fly.” 75 See Harsham, “Islam in Iowa,” and Aossey, “Fifty Years.”

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Muslims in different New York organizations.76 In 1946, al-Rawaf also became the imam of a Manhattan mosque run by the local ymma.77 All the while, he supported the growing us Muslim unification efforts by publishing several Islam-themed works, which were almost always widely circulated among the uisa and New York Muslim communities. In addition to authoring a beginning Arabic pamphlet in 1943 as well as a 1944 booklet discussing basic Islamic ideas and how to perform prayers,78 in 1947 al-Rawaf published an edition of Ahmad Ahmad Galwas’s popular The Religion of Islam, a 200-page introduction to Islam, which was fairly influential for African American Sunnis.79 Al-Rawaf’s most significant publishing contribution, however, was the 1946 publication of Yusuf Ali’s English translation of the Qurʾan.80 This was the first twentieth- century us printing of a non-Ahmadi-influenced English translation of the Qurʾan and it became relatively popular among American readers throughout the country.81 Through these various activities and his using the national Muslim networks that the aia and uisa had created, al-Rawaf supplied the growing us Sunni-Ahmadi community with important intellectual tools that would further increase their unification, even after the uisa fell apart in 1947. The ties with New York immigrant Muslims remained important for African Americans, and in 1949 apparently two new groups were created to institutional- ize these connections, both of which appear to have been either revivals of or

76 aauaa fbi file, Report, 2/[8?]/44, Philadelphia, No. 100–19940, 6. For more on the aoi see hctius vol. 2. 77 This is listed on the advertisements for his edition of the Qurʾan; see below. 78 aauaa fbi file, Report, 2/[8?]/44, Philadelphia file 100–19940, 6; aauaa fbi file, Report, 10/9/43, Philadelphia file 100–19940, 20; Sheikh Khalil Al Rawaf, A Brief Resumé of the Principles of Al-Islam and Pillars of Faith (New York: Tobia Press, 1944). 79 Ahmad Ahmad Galwas, The Religion of Islam ([New York]: [Sheikh Khalil al-Rawaf], 1947). PhD candidate Donna Auston has informed me that during the 1950s this book was the most important study-text for the African American Muslims in Philadelphia, where it was referred to as “The Ghalwash.” Email message to the author, March 28, 2013. 80 Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Quran (New York: Hafner, 1946). On al-Rawaf’s involvement, see Stechert-Hafner Book News 1, no. 2 (1946): 1 and the “The Holy Al-Quran in Arabic and English” and “The Holy Al-Quran” advertisements that ran in the New York Times between the fall of 1946 and the spring of 1947. In 1950, the Saudi government donated an additional 4,385 copies of this version of the Qurʾan, along with numerous copies of Galwas’ book, to the Mosque Foundation, which had been established for building a mosque in Washington, dc, for both Muslims at the mosque and so that the books could be sold to help raise money for constructing the mosque. See Muhammad Abdul-Rauf, History of the Islamic Center: From Dream to Reality (Washington, dc: Islamic Center, 1978), 25. 81 See, for example, two letters on his edition in “Letters to the Editor,” New York Times, November 22, 1953, BR49.

278 chapter 9 splinters from the mbusa. Nasir Ahmad led a small number of aauaa members in establishing what was sometimes called the International Muslim Brotherhood (imb), to teach Islam in Philadelphia, and, perhaps, Harlem.82 Around that same time, Ahmad’s protégé, Talib Dawud, along with the former mbusa leader Ibrahim Choudry, created a national umbrella organization group known as the Moslem Brotherhood of America, Inc. (and later known as the Moslem Brotherhood, u.s.a.), which, like the imb, had connections to both Harlem and Philadelphia, as well as other cities, such as Detroit and Youngstown.83 Characteristic of the diversity of Islamic views within the community, although the Philadelphia-based groups remained connected to the New York community and used Galwas’s The Religion of Islam, they also maintained ties with the Qadianis through the late 1950s.84 The national Islamic network that Glick and other white Muslims had helped create was therefore finally becoming solidified.

Nilla Cram Cook

The goal of uniting Muslims was not limited to American converts living on United States soil. In a February 1942 dispatch, the us minister to Iran, Louis G. Dreyfus, Jr., described the recent Pan-Islamic activities in Tehran of the American, and “apparently devout Moslem,” Nilla Cram Cook:85

Miss Cook has been frequenting mosques, discussing theology with religious leaders, [and] working for return to purer Islamic concepts […] She is interested in a Pan-Islam movement […]86

82 “History,” Quba Institute, accessed August 31, 2012, http://www.qubainstitute,com/about/ history/; Dannin, Pilgrimage, 61. 83 E.U. Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism: A Search for an Identity in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 313; Paul Tobenkin, “Moslems Here Meet at Hall to Mark Holy Day,” New York Herald Tribune, October 3, 1949, 7; John Reynolds, “Foto Facts,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 23, 1950, 9. The relationship between these two “Moslem Brotherhood” groups remains unclear. 84 “Three Hundred Attend Meeting of Islamites,” Cleveland Call and Post, September 8, 1951, 3A; Essien-Udom, Black, 313; Report, Aliya Hassen, “Muslim Organizations in New York Area,” Aliya Hassen Papers, Malcolm X folder, bhl. Dawud was expelled from the Qadianis in 1958; he will be discussed more in hcti vol. 2. 85 Mohammad Gholi Majd, August 1941: The Anglo-Russian Occupation of Iran and Change of Shahs (Lanham: University Press of America, 2012), 386–88. I am, again, indebted to Brent Singleton for bringing this important figure to my attention. 86 Majd, August 1941, 387–88.

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According to the minister, the charming and intelligent Cook had recently “caused something of a stir in religious circles.” When visiting mosques with a Qurʾan that she had personally translated into English, Muslim women reportedly fell onto Cook, kissing both her clothing and her translation of the holy book. “Speakers in the mosques,” Dreyfus reported, “refer to her openly in their talks as one who brings the true word from across the seas and teaches a purer Islamic ideal.”87 By March 1945, before the war had reached its conclusion, news of Nilla’s conversion, her liberal views, and her translation of the Qurʾan had made their way to the American press, cementing her legacy in the history of American converts to Islam.88 Unlike the other prominent friend converts of the 1940s, Nilla Cram Cook and her views of Islam were strongly connected to the alternative religious currents that had developed in the nineteenth century. Born in 1910 to the theater producer and author George Cram Cook, Nilla was exposed early on to the well-educated, liberal religious views of her free thinking family.89 George shared with his daughter his deep interest in ancient Indian culture and language and their theorized connections with the ancient Greek world.90 Nilla’s paternal grandmother, meanwhile, was a Theosophist who believed in reincarnation, owned books on Eastern philosophy, and took a six-year-old Nilla to see a Theosophical Society dramatization of Edwin Arnold’s Light of Asia.91 Throughout her childhood, in fact, Nilla—who was raised with little knowledge of Christianity—was frequently drawn to the many oriental-themed religious and cultural elements that permeated her privileged upbringing. Visions of Hindu temples, fascination with the Buddha, and fantasies of medieval caliphs dominated her young imagination. At eight, Nilla even read for herself the Arabian Nights, whose stories would long stay with her and later shape her adult experiences.92 No single religion could retain Nilla, however; from her childhood through at least her early adult life, she possessed a strong belief in

87 Ibid. 88 C.L. Sulzberger, “The Female ‘Luther of Islam,’” Milwaukee Journal, March 14, 1945, 12. 89 On George Cram Cook, see Susan Glaspell, The Road to the Temple (New York: Frederick A. Stokes and Company, 1927). For Nilla’s own accounts of her childhood, see her My Road to India (New York: Lee Furman, 1939), 3–16 and “What Religion Means to Me,” Forum and Century 95, no. 2 (February 1936): 69–75. 90 Cook, “What Religion,” 71. 91 Cook, My Road, 4; Cook, “What Religion,” 69. In the latter work, which was published in 1936, Cook denies that her grandmother was in the ts; however, this was changed in 1939’s My Road. 92 Cook, My Road, 6. Nilla makes frequent reference to the Arabian Nights throughout My Road.

280 chapter 9 the idea that all religions were manifestations of the same eternal, natural religion.93 Nilla was at heart a theosophical perennialist, like many of the esotericist converts of the previous century. As a theosophist, though, Nilla placed great value in studying the world’s various religions, and desired to pursue her own unique religious journey. And, like for so many other theosophists, Nilla’s religious journey eventually led her, in 1931, to India, the land of the Hindu temples that she believed she had envi- sioned as a toddler.94 Here, she traveled widely, visiting numerous towns, religious leaders, and political figures—Hindu, Muslim, and Theosophical. After brief stints as a teacher and student of ancient Greek and Indian thought, Nilla also became the first American to join Gandhi’s movement, being deeply attracted to the ascetic’s work with and for India’s untouchables. Her religious yearnings were still not fully quenched, however, and she continued to explore. It was in India, in fact, where Nilla first read the Qurʾan, which revitalized her spirits when both she and her young son became ill.95 Still, Nilla was not yet a Muslim. It seems that Nilla’s turn to Islam, like many of the other friend converts of the period, was largely born out of an interest in spreading love and humanity to non-white people. Gandhi’s greatest impact on Nilla, she would later recall, was in his influencing her development of a deeper commitment to devoting her activities to helping the world’s various untouchables.96 However, unlike Gandhi, Nilla believed that such work was being done best by the Muslims. While in India, before she had read the Qurʾan, Nilla had been impressed by what she believed was the lack of racism in the local Muslim community. She later wrote that “in Islam […] there were no distinctions. People as far apart and racially different as the Moors and the Javanese were one and the same […]”97 Still, ever the religious universalist, after returning to New York in March 1934, Nilla came to the conclusion that her true church was not a mosque but perhaps the New York Public Library, where she could saturate herself in the texts of the East. Naturally, though, her interest in Islam combined with her Theosophical-esoteric background, and Nilla was soon poring over the works of the Sufis.98

93 Cook, My Road, 7, 45, 137; Cook, “What Religion,” 70–71. 94 Nilla’s time in India is thoroughly discussed in My Road. 95 Cook, My Road, 371, 374. 96 E.g., Cook, My Road, 437–40; Cook, “What Religion,” 75. 97 Cook, My Road, 279. 98 Ibid., 454.

Uniting Muslim Communities 281

Soon, Nilla became convinced that the Sufis taught the notion, as she put it, that the “Spirit of Humanity” should be a person’s highest goal—and with this, Islam had once again set Nilla’s mind and spirit ablaze.99 She commenced studying both Persian and Arabic in order for her to vigorously consume a wide swath of Islamic literature and begin translating the Qurʾan for herself. She would also soon attend at least one lecture on Islam by the prominent Muslim Indian nationalist Syud Hossain, through whose words, Nilla wrote, “the world became an alabaster palace, lighted from within by golden flames.”100 Besides being a respected nationalist and well-connected editor of the New Orient magazine, Hossain was also regarded as a religious leader and was affiliated with the mbusa.101 One wonders, then, if Nilla had visited or even joined the mbusa, in which several “American Untouchables”—as she called African Americans—were members.102 It seems that by the late 1930s, in fact, if Nilla had not yet become a convert, investigating Islam was the primary focus of her spiritual journey. After the war began, Nilla, now employed as a magazine writer, traveled to Turkey, from where she reported to Gandhi that she had participated in the Ramadan fast.103 From Turkey, Nilla left for Iran, where she created the minor religious revival that the us minister would report on in February 1942. Part of what made Nilla interesting to the Iranian Muslims was her innovative, if highly unorthodox, vision for revising the Qurʾan. Nilla had come to the conclusion that the holy book’s “objectionable features” should be removed “in favor of a more poetic concept.”104 In 1945, when her English translation of the book was announced to the international public, Nilla’s ideas were revealed to be highly influenced by the Theosophic-universalistic notions that she had held since her childhood. Nilla felt, first of all, that the “purely mundane and frequently political” elements of the Qurʾan “have no true place in religious interpretation,” and were therefore the parts that should be removed, leaving only the sections that reflect Muhammad’s “inspired thoughts.”105 According to a news report, she argued that Islam has

99 Ibid. 100 Ibid., 462. 101 “What Is Going on this Week,” New York Times, April 19, 1931, 52. 102 Cook, My Road, 346. 103 While the precise circumstances that led to Nilla’s journey to Turkey are still not yet known, in My Road she describes developing contacts with members of the Turkish elite while in India; see My Road, 252–55. Indian journalist Mohan Tikku is currently (2014) working on a biography of Nilla, which will, ideally, thoroughly document her travels. 104 Majd, August 1941, 388. 105 See Sulzberger, “The Female.”

282 chapter 9 long been misinterpreted by Muslims, which has led to intolerance and sec- tarianism. Moreover, Nilla was of the opinion that Muslim prophet believed that all religions are valid—a claim, she said, that is made in the Qurʾan twenty-eight times—“and that no distinction should be made if members of various faiths believe in God and do good.”106 Along these same lines, she argued that “the Koran itself contains all religions”; therefore, the commentary to her text would have “the opinions of all religions on all basic subjects mentioned in the Koran.” Nilla’s non-orthodoxy went even further than this: it was revealed that she “considers herself to be, and claims to be accepted by the Mohammedan community as, a Moslem who believes in the oneness of Hinduism and Islam.”107 Amazingly, according to the 1945 report, Nilla’s highly unorthodox views were respected by government figures from Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan, and plans were being made to translate her book into both Persian and Turkish. There is, however, currently no evidence that Nilla’s Qurʾan translation was ever officially released. What became of the manuscript and any published versions is unknown.108 Nilla, nevertheless, continued to have an impact on Muslims. After spending a short time studying Islamic art in Afghanistan in 1942, Nilla returned to Iran where she was able to secure a position with the Iranian Ministry of the Interior.109 Then, in October 1943, having long been interested in drama, music, and dance and their relationship to religion and culture, Nilla proposed to the rebuilding Iranian government that they establish a Theater Bureau to foster national unity.110 As she was widely considered to be “better informed as to [Iranian] tastes than any other American in Iran,”111 Nilla’s plan was taken seriously and she was quickly made the director of the bureau. Nilla immediately set to work creating what was originally called the Persian Royal Theatre (later

106 Ibid. 107 Ibid. 108 Nilla’s views of the Qurʾan and Islam are further discussed one her recently published novel, The Bridge of Isfahan: A Persian Love Story, ed. Valentia Cook (Ft. Collins, co: Burning Daylight, 2013). Nilla’s granddaughter informed the author that the family has no information concerning the fate of Nilla’s Qurʾan translation. 109 Nilla Cram Cook, “The Theater and Ballet Arts of Iran,” Middle East Journal 3 (1949): 406–07. 110 Nilla Cram Cook, “Memo from Nilla Cram Cook, Director of Theatre Bureau of Iran to H. Peters, O.W.I. Tehran,” November 1943, in us Department of State, Confidential, roll 6. 111 Letter, Richard Ford, First Secretary, to Secretary of State, September 23, 1944, in us Department of State, Confidential u.s. Diplomatic Post Records, Iran, 1942–1944 (Frederick, md: University Publications of America, 1984), roll 13.

Uniting Muslim Communities 283 renamed the National Opera and Ballet).112 After over three years working in these positions, Nilla resigned from them all and founded the independent Studio for the Revival of the Classical Arts of Iran, in which she taught and trained numerous Iranian dancers. After receiving funding from the Iranian government, the studio commenced a tour of Middle Eastern and eastern Mediterranean countries.113 Nilla’s impact on her dancers was itself significant; her studio had in fact initiated an important movement within Iran’s postwar cultural revival.114 After 1950, Nilla’s interest in Islam seems to have waned, as there is little evidence that she continued to consider herself a Muslim beyond that date. Even during the 1940s, though, Nilla’s Muslim identity was highly unorthodox and was, it seems, a practical, temporary manipulation of her universalistic views. Not being a religious leader, Nilla, furthermore, left little-to-no lasting religious impact. It appears, in fact, that her Islamic religious influence peaked with promises of the publication of her Qurʾan translation just prior to the end of the war.

After War

As soon as the Second World War came to an end in 1945, the us saw the reap- pearance of two Islamic organizations that had had a presence during the Great Depression and were attempting to once again to both unite Muslim immigrants and converts. Although during the interwar period both groups had focused their proselytization efforts on African Americans, now white converts played important, if sometimes small roles. The first of these was an organization whose name had appeared repeatedly in the context of American Muslim converts in the 1930s and 1940s: the ymma. There was the early branch in New York that Glick had ties to, Ezaldeen had been trained by it in Cairo, and through al-Rawaf it was linked to various elements in the multiethnic Islamic network of the 1940s. As far as is currently known, the group also made at least one additional significant attempt in the

112 Cook, “Memo from Nilla Cram Cook”; Cook, “The Theater,” 406. For more on Nilla’s activities with the Theater Bureau, see the us State Department records from 1943 through 1946 as well as Hamid Naficy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 1941–1978 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 4–9. 113 Cook, “The Theater,” 406. 114 Nilla and her studio are discussed in detail in the memoir of Nesta Ramazani, The Dance of the Rose and the Nightingale (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002), passim.

284 chapter 9 mid-to-late 1940s to spread its Islamic reformist ideas to the us. This time it was with a white American convert named William Lutz. Lutz was a former Marine, Sunday school teacher, and trained singer who converted to Islam in the late spring of 1944 while working in Saudi Arabia with the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco).115 Soon after starting with the company in December 1943, Lutz befriended local Muslims and began learning Arabic. He would later explain that through discussing religion with these Muslims and seeing how they treated each other, he became convinced that Islam “properly represented […] the human brotherhood” and was the religion that best promoted justice, compassion, and equality.116 Lutz converted and became so enamored with his new faith that he neglected his work duties and was, as a result, fired from Aramco in June 1944. Lutz, however, had apparently made arrangements with Saudi patrons and immediately returned to the us and set to work promoting Islam. From his home in California’s Bay Area, Lutz organized what was intended to be a national organization for American Muslims, the American Moslem Congress; he became a prominent member of an Oakland mosque; and he wrote a handful of booklets and periodical articles.117 Through these efforts he frequently criticized racism and tried “to edify the American public as to the lofty ideals of Islamic thought and to rectify wherever possible flagrantly false ideas regarding Islam.”118 In early 1947, Lutz was invited by Egypt’s ymma—a group that, as al-Rawaf’s activities revealed, was working with Saudis to promote Islam—to spend one month studying religion and Islamic history at the renowned Azhar University in Cairo.119 There, the ymma brought together several influential Islamic figures and organizations to honor Lutz, and they bestowed upon him the prestigious title of Grand Mufti of the Western United States.120 Lutz then returned to the

115 On Lutz’s conversion, see esp. us Embassy in Saudi Arabia State Department dispatch 257, 5/21/1947; Robert Vitalis, “Aramco World: Business and Culture on the Arabian Oil Frontier” in Counter-Narratives: History, Contemporary Society, and Politics in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, ed. Madawi Al-Rasheed and Robert Vitalis (Gordonsville, va: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 163, 178n46; John Roy Carlson [Avedis Derounian], Cairo to Damascus (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1951), 82; “Lutz, William Edward AbdurRahman,” The Monthly Supplement 7, no. 2 (November 1946): 241. 116 us Embassy in Saudi Arabia 257; Carlson, Cairo, 82. 117 “Lutz, William Edward AbdurRahman,” 241; W.E.A. Frr. Lutz, “Lauds Suspended Girl Editor,” Chicago Defender, March 3, 1945, 10; “Bay Area Muslims to Hold Banquet,” Oakland Tribune, August 28, 1946, 5; [Photo with no headline], Oakland Tribune, September 1, 1946, A-11. 118 us Embassy in Saudi Arabia 257; Lutz, “Lauds Suspended Girl Editor,” 10. 119 us Embassy in Saudi Arabia 257. 120 us Embassy in Saudi Arabia 257; “‘Grand Mufti’ Spars Skeptics,” Oakland Tribune, August 14, 1947, 9.

Uniting Muslim Communities 285 us and began attempting to help get mosques built across the country, promote Islam and Pan-Islamic unity locally and internationally,121 and create both an American Islamic university and a new national umbrella organization called the American Mission Communities.122 Lutz’s Islamic propaganda efforts during this period emphasized countering racism, encouraging the just and caring treatment of all people, and spreading education about Islam to all Americans— goals that reflected a very liberal vision of Islam, which was, as we have seen, common among friend converts like Glick, Nadirah, and Nilla. Despite Lutz’s obvious passion for spreading his new religion, however, a number of American Muslims, both immigrants and converts, resented the fact that Lutz—who had minimal Islamic training and was only twenty-eight years old—had been given such a high level of religious authority.123 Many resisted listening to him, and by the mid-1950s, after the establishment of the country’s first successful Islamic umbrella organization, the Federation of Islamic Associations of the United States and Canada (which apparently did not count Lutz as a member), Lutz’s presence as an active promoter of Islam had become significantly reduced.124 Meanwhile, just as the American Sunni-Ahmadi network had started creating a stable community through the uisa, Glick and Nadirah played small but

121 In 1948, Lutz returned to Cairo, where he met with Islamic reformists, presumably people in the ymma and an affiliated group, Hassan al-Banna’s Muslim Brotherhood. An American reporter who happened to be in the city at the time learned that someone associated with the Brotherhood claimed that “we”—without clarifying if he meant the Brotherhood, the ymma, or Egyptian Muslims generally—gave Lutz his Muslim name; see Carlson, Cairo to Damascus, 86–87. 122 Lutz’s return to the us as a Grand Mufti was a news story that circulated throughout the country, though the first version was published in Oakland, his current home: “Oakland Man Named Mufti,” Oakland Tribune, August 13, 1947, 1. Lutz’s Islamic articles appeared in a South Africa-based Islamic journal, Ramadan Annual, and he published as a stand- alone book a poem in praise of the Prophet Muhammad, Mohammed upon Whom Be Peace (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1949)—see chapter 10 for more on these works. During this time, Lutz also wrote to the British government asking for permission “to establish a ‘semi-independent Amirate’ in which to form a Moslem Colony” on the Kuria Muria islands off the coast of Oman. See British Foreign Office file 372 820 44, 4/13/1950. Also see “Grand Cup for the Quaid-i-Azam—a Medal for Dawn,” Dawn, July 19, 1948, 3. 123 “‘Grand Mufti’ Spars Skeptics”; Saad Ullah Khan, “A Self-Made Grand Mufti,” Light, September 24, 1948, 8 (Khan is referring to the Dawn article cited above); Letter, Samuel Lewis to Abdul Rahman, February 7, 1961, Diaries, accessed August 1, 2013, http:// murshidsam.org/Documents/Diaries/1961.pdf. Also, Lutz’s name was rarely mentioned in American newspaper and Islamic periodical articles at the time, even those in discussing Islamic groups in California, where Lutz was based. 124 He would, however, appear in a few Islamic magazines into the 1960s.

286 chapter 9 important roles in strengthening and expanding the community even further by motivating Indian Lahoris to start a new us mission. By 1943, the mid-1930s efforts by Indian Lahoris to spread Islam among black Americans had been all but forgotten in India. In fact, the us generally was almost completely off the group’s radar, as at that time the Lahori Ahmadis were much more concerned with more pressing issues, such as India’s looming independence and the idea, which had been gaining steam since the late 1930s, of an independent state for Muslims in South Asia.125 When William Phillips, President Roosevelt’s personal representative, visited Lahori representatives in Lahore in February 1943, he was informed that the group currently had no mission in the us nor planned for one in the immediate future.126 International proselytization, however, had not been completely eradicated from the Lahoris’ program. So, when the story of William Phillips’ visit ran in a March issue of the Lahori magazine The Light, it had the unintended effect of stimulating a new discussion about starting a mission for the us. Muslim India’s current political circumstances, the Light’s editor argued in the April 16 issue, “have made the need of cultural contact with the outside world […] imperative,” and the Lahori movement “should address itself to this task.”127 The Lahoris of the 1940s, then, were motivated by the same political goal that had driven Arab groups to send proselytizers to the us in the 1920s and 1930s: gaining new pro-Muslim allies in the West who would support us international political actions that favored Muslims. A chain reaction had thus been initiated. Almost immediately after the Light’s editorial came out, an American, whose identity is unknown, wrote a letter—which was published in the Light—to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of Pakistan’s independence movement, asking that he send a mission to the United States.128 Jinnah immediately agreed to do so, and began making arrangements for the mission.129 At almost the same time, another anonymous reader sent to the Light a copy of an issue of Glick’s Moslem America—Chaplain Letters, which the editors reviewed in their May issue.130 In the opinion of the editors, while the existence of such a periodical showed that there was a growing demand for Islamic knowledge in the us, they felt that Glick’s paper was a “feeble and faulty” “indigenous”

125 See the early 1940s issues of the Lahori magazine The Light. 126 “Mr Phillips Sees Anjuman’s Representatives,” Light, March 1, 1943, 8. 127 “Islamic Mission for America,” Light, April 16, 1943, 3. 128 “Islam Mission for America,” Light, May 16, 1943, 3. 129 Ibid. 130 Ibid.

Uniting Muslim Communities 287 attempt to spread Islamic knowledge and unify Islam. Even part of the magazine’s very title, “Chaplain Letters,” confused and disappointed them, as they had no background information on Glick’s efforts to have the us military start providing its Muslim soldiers their own chaplains. Instead, this was evidence, they implied, that Islam could not properly be spread by those of the “plain working and business classes” of America. They felt that the Lahoris themselves should be responsible for taking care “that the supply of this demand [for Islamic literature in America] is not left to any but competent hands,” and that this would require “men of very tall stature having the necessary mental as well as moral equipment for the great task and worthy in every way of that high role.”131 By 1944, plans were being worked out for a mission and the Lahori editors were, along with other members of the pro-Pakistan community, also encouraging Indian Muslims to disseminate Islamic literature to American troops stationed in the country.132 Lahori confidence in the mission was growing quickly; by late 1946 the movement had established good relations with the Lahori Nadirah—who may have been the person responsible for sending the earlier letters to the Light—who reported to the the Light’s editors the encouraging news that in 1945 or 1946 international Egyptian students had helped her organize a Muslim women’s society, which might serve as a base for spreading the Lahori movement in the country.133 The new Lahori mission to the us was not to be headquartered in New York, however. The mission officially commenced in the fall of 1947, when the group’s chosen representative, Bashir Ahmad Minto, arrived in San Francisco, California and incorporated the Moslem Society of the u.s.a., Inc.134 Minto quickly went to work, sending out hundreds of advertisements and letters to local and national periodicals, giving dozens of lectures across the state, distributing Islamic publications to all who were interested, raising money

131 Ibid. 132 “American Forces & Islam,” Light, June 19, 1944, 3; Raghib Ahsan, “Foreign Tabligh: Urgent,” Light, June 19, 1944, 4. 133 (Mrs.) Nadira Usman, “The ‘Light’ in New York,” Light, April 8, 1947, 2. 134 See Bashir Ahmad Minto, “Muslim in America in Danger of Conversion,” Light, July 24, 1949, 8; The Secretary, “Annual Report of the Muslim Society of u.s.a.,” Light, January 24, 1951, 7; incorporation records of the Moslem Society of the u.s.a., Inc., dated October 28, 1947, on file with the State of California. Interestingly, Minto was not the first Ahmadi to come to California. A newspaper article from 1930 indicates that an Indian Ahmadi named Mohammed Basheer was living in Los Angeles and desired to build a mosque there to serve the immigrant Muslim community. His views on converting non-Muslims are not mentioned, nor is his Ahmadi sectarian affiliation (Qadiani or Lahori). See “Mosque of Islam May Rise Here,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1930, A3.

288 chapter 9 to purchase a building, and corresponding and meeting with hundreds of Muslims and potential converts. However, despite all this activity, Minto’s success in conversion was minimal. After two years of work, he had only converted forty-three people.135 Most were white Californians with at least some college education—the latter being a trait the Lahoris valued—none came from especially prominent backgrounds and, the evidence suggests, few if any had strong ties to other non-Christian communities. They were therefore individuals who were unable to bring in many other converts, and none would rise to significant leadership positions in the national us Muslim community. Some, nevertheless, did have a modest amount of local influence. A handful of the early white Lahori converts, for instance, wrote articles and booklets about Islam and took on official positions in the San Francisco group,136 some converted a small number of whites in nearby cities and states, and one, a resident of Los Angeles who was currently a student at the University of Chicago, in 1950 helped establish and lead an Islamic Cultural Association at his school after reading in the Islamic Review about the existence of a similarly named organization at the University of Wisconsin.137 This convert, Thomas Muhammad Clayton, was one of the rare passionate friend converts. Having initially discovered Islam in the mid-1940s through reading, Clayton became desirous to convert only after befriending Muslims at an international Boy Scout Jamboree, an event that motivated him to seek out and work with Muslims in the us.138 For the most part, however, during this period white Lahori converts were relatively rare and white Lahori leaders were even rarer. Undoubtedly, part of the reason for this was that Minto did not know to try to appeal to the esoterically- inclined, and, as we have seen, friend converts were inevitably going to be few and far in between, particularly for a sectarian movement that was not driven by immigration. The most active and influential American Lahori-affiliated convert leaders at the time were black Americans, for whom Islam was perhaps more attractive than it was for whites because it represented freedom

135 The Secretary, “Annual Report.” 136 For instance Tracey Cromwell Dudley; see Tracey Cromwell Dudley, “What’s in a Name,” Light, December 1, 1948, 10–12; ibid., What’s in a Name? (San Francisco: Muslem [sic] Society of u.s.a., [1948]); “Former Student Turns to Islamic Sect, Writes Pamphlet after Conversion,” Oregon Daily Emerald, May 21, 1952, 3; “From Our San Francisco Missionary’s Mail Bag,” Light, October 1, 1952, 7. 137 “Correspondence,” Light, July 16, 1948, 11; “Islam in America,” Islamic Review 37, no. 9 (1949): 42; Bashir Ahmad Minto, “Muslims in America,” Light, October 1, 1949, 4; Thomas Muhammad Clayton, “Islam in America,” Islamic Review 38, no. 6 (1950): 52. 138 Thomas M. Clayton, “Why I Embraced Islam,” Yaqeen International, December 22, 1968, 143.

Uniting Muslim Communities 289 from prejudice. And for the Lahori-influenced African Americans, Minto and the Indian Lahoris were only a secondary resource, as, like for the New York Muslims, their strongest Lahori ties were through the Woking mission and its Islamic Review magazine.139 Still, the new Lahori presence in the us was helping to improve us orthodox Muslim unity, which in turn strengthened American Muslim identity and, ultimately, weakened the power of Sunni convert leaders who lacked either significant religious training or highly respectable backgrounds. As the national community became increasingly unified and connected to strong international missions and trained religious leaders, relatively uneducated white convert leaders were valued less and less. The Light even published a letter by an immigrant Muslim openly criticizing and rejecting William Lutz,140 and later, in the late 1950s, when the Lahoris chose an American to be their main representative in the us, they picked an immigrant—Muharrem Nadji—and not a convert.141 This avoidance of uneducated white convert leaders would in fact become a widespread trend in the American Muslim community in the 1950s, as would be the other growing trends, such as connecting with new international missionary efforts, following trained Muslim religious leaders, and fur- thering unite American Muslims. Indeed, the Lahoris’ renewed efforts in the early postwar period were indicative of a major reterritorializing transformation beginning to take place in the us Muslim community.

139 It should be pointed out, though, that since the 1930s the Woking mission had been trying to downplay and even dissociate itself from its Lahori ties. For a further discussion, see hctius vol. 2. 140 Khan, “A Self-Made Grand Mufti.” 141 Beginning in 1956, Muharrem had several of his correspondences appear in the Light— far more than any other resident of the us—and by 1958 (after the group apparently failed to resupply a new missionary when the last one left in 1957), he was elevated to the position of the group’s us representative. See “Our Representatives,” Light, June 1, 1958, 9.

chapter 10 The Postwar Shift

If one were to judge by the American press’ coverage of white Muslim converts between the late 1940s and early 1960s, the typical white American Muslim during this period would be presumed to be a man who converted to appease the family and culture of a Muslim woman he met while living in a foreign country.1 Although these types of conversions were indeed now more common than they ever were before—being largely dependent on postwar changes in international military and business relations, which led to more and more Americans living in Muslim-majority regions—they received a disproportion- ate amount of press, largely because they were so unique when they occurred. The reality is that the postwar increase of instances of Americans converting to Islam while living abroad only partially reflected the trends developing on American soil. In the borders of the United States, white American conversion was undergoing a much more significant kind of change, one that was deeply connected to the broader us Muslim community’s transformation at the time. Unlike in the first half of the twentieth century, when the greatest changes in the us Muslim community were primarily due to the immigration of tens of thousands of blue-collar Muslim men, between 1946 and 1964 the major developments in the us Muslim community were largely the result of increasing numbers of, on the one hand, second- and third-generation immigrant Muslims and, on the other, the new class of immigrants, which included numerous visiting Muslim professionals, diplomats, college students, and trained religious leaders. Not only were these people whose backgrounds differed significantly from the previous eras’ Muslims, they were also people who were both extremely interested in and highly capable of expanding and uniting Islamic institutions in the us. These individuals would quickly begin reshaping the country’s Muslim community and, in the process, they transformed the types and roles of white American converts.

1 “Won’t Give up Iran Princess, Says American,” New London Evening Day (Connecticut), April 17, 1950, 12; “Texan Will Become Moslem to Marry Egyptian Dancer,” Milwaukee Journal, October 4, 1951, 14; “Princess Who Married American Expects Baby,” Reading Eagle, January 24, 1952, 32; “Not Happy in Marriage, Samia Says,” Hartford Courant, May 19, 1953, 13; “Yank to Wed Moslem and Become One,” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 1955, 12; “Yank Finds Oil Basin in Syria,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 8, 1958, A2; “New Moslem Settles for One Bride,” Pacific Stars and Stripes, December 19, 1963, 30.

The Postwar Shift 291

By late 1964, while the typical white convert was still a middle- or working- class spouse of an immigrant, he or she was more likely to be college eduated and there were now many other types of converts out there—and the most prominent ones were very different from the leading white converts of previous eras. These new prominent converts were neither particularly esoterically inclined (like the converts of Webb’s day) nor propped up by a somewhat questionable claim to authority (like Glick and Lutz). They had at least some college education and often had doctorates; they were writers of widely-read books and articles on Islam; several were now connected with respected international Islamic organizations; and they were among the most influential figures in many of the new local and national immigrant-majority Islamic organizations. It was in this period, then, that white conversion to Islam entered a new, more intense phase of reterritorialization, one in which some converts became, for the first time, true leaders in a large, multiracial, interconnected, and increasingly diverse American Muslim community. It was in the postwar era, then, that the convert types and positions that would be common by the mid-1970s started to become mainstream. The present chapter closely examines how this transformation took place by looking at the many ways in which the American Muslim community changed in the 1950s and early 1960s. I focus primarily on three aspects of this change: the development of new influential us Muslim institutions, the influx of trained religious leaders, and the growth of the international Muslim student population. I argue that it was due largely to the reterritorialization that these three changes brought to the us that white American conversion to Islam underwent its significant postwar shift. Deterritorialization, however, did not cease during this period. Some attention will therefore also be paid to the various unique converts and their efforts in the 1950s and early 1960s that fell outside of the bounds of the mainstream trends.

The Nation’s New Builders

The emergence of this new era for white American converts was not of their own making. To a great extent, it was dependent on the creation of something that the us still did not have when the 1950s began: a truly popular and stable national organization for the multiracial American Muslim community. People like Satti Majid, Louis Glick, Muharrem Nadji, Nasir Ahmad, and Khalil al-Rawaf had cultivated relationships and networks between Muslims living across the country, but they had failed to successfully formalize a strong national network. The reasons for their failures were complex, but it seems that, generally, the

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difficulty of strongly uniting interwar immigrant Muslims—by far the largest part of the American Muslim population at the time—was at the heart of the problem. These were people who were primarily concerned with their families’ own survival and prosperity, so convincing them to (a) sacrifice time and money for a sustained national project for Muslims who were often not even of the same ethnicity and (b) follow and join with converts, was extremely challenging. It took a world war and its aftermath, as well as the growing presence of second- generation and professional immigrants, for this goal to finally be achieved. The ability of the second-generation immigrants to succeed where converts and the uneducated members of the first generation had failed was already being demonstrated on a small scale by Dr. George Kheirallah in New York. Although technically born in Egypt, because he came to the us as a child to join a father who had already spent several prosperous years in the country, and because he received an advanced Western education through earning a medical degree, George’s background was similar to many of the second- generation Muslims who would take the lead in the post-World War ii period. He had the skills and knowledge to understand and work with both immigrants and Americans, he was adept at navigating and using us institutions for the benefit of non-Protestant religious groups, and he had confidence that his visions of Muslim and Arab unity within and without the us were worth striving for. Before and during the war, then, as we have seen, he became an important leader for Muslims in New York and Arabs throughout the country, heading or serving as the main lecturer for several Islamic organizations and editing the Arab World magazine. After the war, and until his death in 1959, while he seems to have decreased his penchant for lecturing, he remained an important figure in the unification of American Muslims. By 1952, after al-Rawaf’s departure, George, who by that time had taken the hajj pilgrimage,2 had become the director of the local ymma, and was undoubtedly a member of the city’s Muslim Council that was organized a few years later.3 He also continued to write both books and articles in international English-language journals, such as Woking’s Lahori-influenced Islamic Review and Pakistan’s new Voice of Islam and The Islamic Literature.4 As we will see, the last two of these journals, and

2 “Between Ourselves,” Islamic Review (June 1949): 3. 3 “y.m.m.a. Leader to Speak,” Long Island Star-Journal, May 19, 1952, 28; Nadim al-Maqdissi, “The Muslims of America,” Islamic Review 43 (June 1955): 31. 4 “The Oldest University in the World,” Voice of Islam 1 (1952): 108 and “The Najd: Mother of the Sa‘uds,” Islamic Literature 4, no. 2 (1952): 35–40. For a partial list of Kheirallah’s writings, see George Ibrahim Kheirallah, Islam and the Arabian Prophet: The First American Sirah, ed. Muhammed Abdullah al-Ahari (Chicago: Magribine Press, 2011), 1–4.

The Postwar Shift 293 the international Muslim communities they connected Americans to, would become increasingly important for educated white converts as the years went by and the Lahori influence began to fade. George, it seems, was one of the first Americans to ensure that these magazines, and the Pan-Islamic communities they connected Muslims around the world to, would have us ties. Despite Kheirallah’s continuing influence, however the most important second-generation American Muslim was probably Abdullah Igram, an Iowa- born Muslim of Lebanese descent and a veteran of the Second World War. In 1951, Igram brought together several Midwestern Muslims to discuss an issue that had been bothering him since the war. At the time, us military dog tags did not permit Muslims to identify their religion, which meant that they would not receive Islamic rites when buried. Since numerous Muslims had served in the us military during the war, Igram wanted American Muslims to organize to effect a change in this rule.5 It was a project very similar to—and was perhaps inspired by—Glick’s efforts in 1943, but now it was being led by a second- generation Muslim from a respected and well-connected immigrant family. Despite Igram’s better position vis-à-vis us Muslims, however, this proposal for a national Islamic organization might not have bore fruit had it not benefitted from the presence of other growing concerns shared by Muslims across the country. Having established several communities and mosques during the first half of the century, by the end of the war, like many Americans at the time, us Muslims were increasingly stable and were more and more concerned about the religious lives of their children born in the us. As the postwar baby boom began, there was a strong desire to ensure that these children would retain Islamic culture, and this in turn produced the idea of establishing more institutions to both teach that culture and secure a national network of potential Muslim spouses to prevent exogamous marriage.6 At the same time, in the wake of the creation of the state of Israel, there was also a widespread feeling that Muslims should organize to encourage us support of Arab nationalist efforts to counterbalance Zionism.7 The result of these mutually reinforcing desires was the creation of what would later be called the Federation of Islamic Associations of the United

5 Howell, “Inventing,” 193. 6 Elkholy, Arab Moslems, 46–47; Howell, “Inventing,” 193. The organization would indeed serve as a valuable meeting place for future spouses through at least the early 1970s; see Emily Kalled Lovell, “A Survey of the Arab-Muslims in the United States and Canada,” Muslim World 63, no. 2 (1973): 148; Eide Alawan (prominent member of the fia since the early 1960s), phone interview with the author, May 21, 2014. 7 Ibid.; Elkholy, Arab Moslems, 46–47.

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States and Canada (fia). The fia held its first convention in Cedar Rapids in 1952, and over 400 Muslims attended; at its second convention, held the following year in Toledo, one thousand people came.8 Igram was elected the organization’s first president, and would serve in that role until 1955; he was succeeded that year by Hassan Ibrahim, then Qasim Olwan in 1957, and then Muhammad Khalil in 1959—all second-generation Muslims. Second-generation Muslims were reportedly also very well-represented among the conventions’ attendees.9 The fia had therefore become, to a large extent, the voice of the second generation, a group that represented the negotiation between the desire to maintain a connection with their families’ Muslim homelands and the desire and ability to prosper in Western society. Second-generation Muslims grew up as Americans, often being able to speak only English; while they valued their Islamic faith and culture, they felt pride for their nation of birth, and several had risked and sacrificed their lives for that country during the war. In many ways, then, they were the group the most capable of establishing a strong link between secular American society and American Muslims. It was through the second generation finding this common ground that the fia was able to achieve what was perhaps its most important accomplishment: providing the first stable popular network of American Muslims. The strong attendance at their early conventions reflected the fact that the group’s efforts for national unity were being eagerly welcomed by many Muslim communities throughout the country. In fact, the conventions drew several representatives of uisa groups—including Sheikh Daoud’s ima, the aoi, the aauaa, and Nasir Ahmad’s Philadelphia community—a fact that shows that the national networks fostered by converts in the interwar and wartime periods had contributed to the success of the fia.10 Still, organizationally, the fia was slow to grow at first, not even officially becoming a federation until 1954. But unlike previous unification efforts, the fia was able to continue to grow and expand its influence for many years. It appears, for instance, that the fia was the inspiration behind the New York Muslim community’s new attempt to create a Muslim Council, a formal city-wide Muslim organization designed to coordinate local groups—a type of organization that the city had not had since

8 Elkholy, Arab Moslems, 46–47; Emily Kalled Lovell, “Islam in the United States: Past and Present,” in The Muslim Community in North America, eds. Earle H. Waugh et al. (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1983), 104. 9 Herman Meredith Bowers, “A Phenomenological Study of the Islamic Society of North America” (PhD diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1989), 98. 10 See, e.g., “Moslem Unity Advanced,” New York Times, July 5, 1953, 36; “Islam Crisis Discussed,” New York Times, July 6, 1953, 3; Al-Maqdissi, “Muslims of America,” 31.

The Postwar Shift 295 the early 1930s.11 The fia also created its own national youth auxiliary, the Islamic Youth Association, and it began producing several periodicals—the scholarly-type journal, The Moslem Life, which the group had started to run by 1957;12 the Muslim Star, which starting in 1960 updated American Muslims on local and national activities and achievements of both individual Muslims and Islamic organizations; and the f.i.a. Journal, which began appearing in 1965. All of these were very useful tools for establishing the fia’s position as one of the preeminent national Muslim organizations through the early 1980s. As we will see, the fia would even provide a valuable base for a new generation convert leaders. The fia, however, lacked one key element that might have made it even more influential: a national Islamic center. Had the single most successful Islamic umbrella organization (up to that point in history) possessed a nationally- recognized Islamic center—an institution that contains a mosque as well as space for cultural and auxiliary organization activities—the fia might have become even more well-known among the wider American public and therefore been able to establish even stronger ties between the Islamic world and the us. However, by the time the fia was conceived, plans for a separate major American Islamic Center were well underway and were widely known to American Muslims.13 The people behind this plan were part of a new wave of immigrants who were often successful and well-educated, and like their second-generation coreligionists, these new immigrants had the means to make a significant impact on the American Muslims community. Many of these individuals were diplomats and professionals who had the explicit support of their home nations, which, having been recently liberated from colonial control, were interested in expanding their influence and allies internationally. It seems in fact that the international ties of these savvy Muslims were very important for the creation of the Washington, dc Islamic Center— these new professional immigrants’ first major project. After the idea for the Islamic Center was conceived by the Egyptian ambassador and a prominent immigrant Muslim businessman in 1945, fundraising efforts were set into motion and the project quickly gained the support of both American Muslims and several governments of Muslim-majority countries.

11 Al-Maqdissi, “Muslims of America,” 31. 12 This journal was originally established by Detroit’s Albanian Muslim community, but control was given to the fia by 1957; see Howell, “Inventing,” 195; “Coming Events,” Moslem World & the u.s.a. (May–June 1957): 31, 34. 13 The Islamic Center’s creation is discussed in detail in Muhammad Abdul-Rauf, History of the Islamic Center: From Dream to Reality (Washington, dc: Islamic Center, 1978).

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By late 1953, nearly four years before the building itself was even completed, the Islamic Center had achieved an important feat when it established an ‘Islamic Institute’ that supported study of issues related to Islam and the Muslim world.14 Despite what was an apparently short life span, this Institute far surpassed Glick’s failed ‘Shieka Selim Institute’ and it may have even been the first functioning national Islamic institution of its kind in the country. Then, in 1957, after years of strenuous planning, construction, and fundraising, the Center had its official opening, complete with major fanfare and invita- tions to virtually all Muslim organizations in the us. The current us president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, gave a speech at the occasion, as did several Muslim ambassadors. The ornately-decorated Center, which immediately became a popular tourist attraction, was an immense source of pride for American Muslims, many of whom had donated their own money to the project in the first years of its development. But it was not just the Center itself that had influence—so did several of its leaders, particularly when they were able to connect with the fia network. For example, one of the early members of the Center’s board of directors was Dr. Mahmoud Youssef Shawarbi. A figure who was well-known in the New York Islamic community and later became president of the fia–influenced New York Muslim Council, Shawarbi was a frequent guest of the fia conventions until he was made its permanent director in 1964.15 The Center’s imam-directors, meanwhile, were respected Muslim scholars from the Azhar University who made numerous efforts to connect with the various us Muslim communities and organizations, including the fia. Through these educated figures and their ties to the fia, the Islamic Center became an important source of religious authority in the country, further establishing a sense of unity and adaptation for American Muslims of different generations and ethnic backgrounds.

14 This has been inferred from clues in Robert F. Ogden, The Place of Sufism in Islam ([Washington, dc]: Islamic Center, January 12, 1954). 15 “Moslems Celebrate Festival of Sacrifice, Holiest of Year,” Brooklyn Eagle, August 10, 1954, 7; Marc Ferris, “‘To Achieve the Pleasure of Allah’: Immigrant Muslim Communities in New York City 1893–1991” in Muslim Communities in North America, eds. Yvonne Y. Haddad and Jane I. Smith (Albany: State University of New York, 1994), 219; Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1965), 324; Jay Walz, “Pianist-Investor is a Hit in Cairo,” New York Times November 20, 1959, 14; Charles Igram, “Letter from f.i.a. President,” Muslim Star 5, no. 1 (1964): 1, 2, imjc Papers, Box 8, bhl; “Federation of Islamic Associations in the u.s.a. and Canada,” Muslim World 54 (1964): 218–219; “Muslims List Lectures by Shawarbi,” New York Amsterdam News, November 16, 1963, 9.

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While the Islamic Center’s gaining of respected religious scholars from the Azhar was without doubt a significant event for the development of the us Muslim community, it was in fact only part of a broader change taking place at the time. Starting in the late 1940s, several trained religious leaders began arriving in the us where they led and influenced the growing Muslim communities. In the previous decades, combined there were probably fewer than half a dozen or so Muslim leaders in the country who had either graduated from Islamic colleges or had spent several years of religious training with respected teachers.16 In the postwar period, with Muslim religious institutions and governments desiring to have an influence within the most powerful country in the world, there were nearly a dozen. And, because by this time the American Muslim community was much more developed, these new leaders had far better American institutional and communication resources and support than their predecessors and were therefore able to have a greater impact on American Muslims. For the first time, then, a relatively large number of Muslims around the country—including white American converts—had direct access to the broad world of advanced Islamic knowledge and connections to several international Islamic institutions and movements, resources that facilitated converts’ growing involvement with the expanding us Muslim community. One of the first to arrive after the war was Maulana Azad Subhani Rabbani, a South Asian Muslim mystic, poet, philosopher, and Indian nationalist, who came as a guest of the multiethnic International Moslem Society (ims) in New York.17 While in the country, Subhani promoted what was being called “Islamic Culture and Unity,”18 but his main reason for coming was to collect, in his words, “further data” for a philosophy he had invented called Rabbaniyyat.19 Over the next three or four months, Subhani, who reportedly had never studied English before coming to the us, wrote in English the booklet Teachings of Islam in Light of the Philosophy of Rabbaniyyat, published by the Academy of

16 In fact, we can only confidently identify three who spent any significant time in the country: the Ottoman imam Mehmed Ali, New York’s al-Kateeb from Jerusalem, and the Sudanese Satti Majid, who, while he did not graduate from the Azhar as he claimed, as a child and young man was trained by the religious leaders in his family. 17 On this organization, see Bowen, “Search for Islam,” 268–70. 18 “Muslim Society to Hear Moulana Azad Subhani,” New York Amsterdam News, November 9, 1946, 25; Nabi Bakhshu Khanu Balocu [Baloch], World of Work: Predicament of a Scholar (Jamshoro: Institute of Sindhology, University of Sindh, 2007), 92. 19 Abdullah Uthman Al-Sindi [Nabi Bakhshu Khanu Baloch], introduction to The Teachings of Islam in Light of the Philosophy of Rabbaniyyat, for Beginners, by Subhani Rabbani (New York: Academy of Islam International, Inc., 1947), 2.

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Islam in 1947.20 This thirty-two page work argues that it is humans’ responsibility to develop their closeness to Divine Will through religion and, especially, Sufism, as long as their Sufi practices do not deny the value of ordinary life.21 The greatest achievement a human can have is becoming a “man,” which for Subhani means developing the correct balance between focus on the material world and focus on God.22 The only things that can slow people in the process of becoming a “man” are “calamities which beset the way.”23 Because of this, Subhani argues, capable humans should ensure that human institutions are set up so that people encounter few “calamities”; and for Subhani, this means that people need to strive to achieve economic justice for all.24 In a commu nity in which many if not most of the members had come from places of oppression—whether immigrants from formerly colonized countries or African Americans—Subhani’s message was an attractive one, and he had a real impact at the time. In late February, he was invited to speak on the topic “Freedom of the Common Man” at Liberty Hall, the former headquarters of the black nationalist Universal Negro Improve Association (unia), under the auspices of the pro-Muslim unia break-off group called the Universal African Nationalist Movement.25 And in 1949, an aoi leader was noting the significant influence that Subhani Rabbani and his reformist-Sufi message had had on his own organization.26 In fact, it appears to have been largely due to Subhani’s influence that the aoi reportedly became dedicated to the Hanafi legal school (madhab) and gave special prominence to Huseyn Hilmi Isik’s Se’adet’i’Ebediyye (Endless Bliss), which was comprised of the letters of Hadrat Imam’i Rabbani. Later, one of Huysen Hilmi Isik’s students, Sheikh Beya-din-Gechi, served for a time as the aoi’s teacher.27 Although there has been some awareness of the fact that, starting in 1952, the quietest Indian revival movement, the Tablighi Jama’at, began sending

20 Subhani Rabbani, The Teachings of Islam in Light of the Philosophy of Rabbaniyyat, for Beginners (New York: Academy of Islam International, Inc., 1947). 21 Ibid., 24. 22 Ibid., 30–31. 23 Ibid., 23. 24 Syed Abu Ahmad Akif, A Conversation Unfinished, unpublished manuscript, Microsoft Word File, 2010. 25 “African Group Airs ‘Freedom of the Common Man’,” New York Amsterdam News, February 22, 1947, 4. 26 M[huktar] A[hmad] M[huktar], “Cultural Activities,” Islamic Culture 23, no. 1–2 (1949): 111. 27 Accessed on July 17, 2012, http://www.cmac.fcwcenter.org/index.php?option=com_conte nt&view=article&id=62&Itemid=71.

The Postwar Shift 299 what was probably a small number of missionaries to the us,28 one of the most influential South Asians for postwar American Muslims probably never set foot in the us. This was Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf, a Lahore-based scholar affiliated with the Deobandi movement, who was one of the biggest producers of English-language Islamic literature at the time. In 1938, his company was the first to publish in book form Yusuf Ali’s massively popular English translation of the Qurʾan. Then, after Pakistan’s gaining independence in 1947, Ashraf believed that there would be a great revival of Pan-Islam and Islamic reform, so he set about publishing a large number of English-language Islamic books and a journal to help facilitate the international revival.29 Through these efforts, he quickly came into contact with American Muslims; in 1949 and 1952 he published a book-length poem about Muhammad by William Lutz,30 and in the latter year his journal The Islamic Literature ran a piece by George Kheirallah. Ashraf’s publications had therefore started to receive some circulation in the country and would retain a noteworthy presence for the next few decades. There were in fact at least three South Asian reformist Sunni scholars who began making an impact on American Muslims starting in the early 1950s. However, when Maulana Muhammad Abdel Aleem Siddiqui came to the us in 1950, instead of only being welcomed by Muslims in New York, as Subhani was, he was a guest of several Muslim communities throughout the country and he would ultimately have a much more widespread impact. Siddiqui was revivalist scholar, Sufi leader (of the Qadiri-Barkati order), and promoter of modern Western education.31 In the 1920s, he began traveling across the world in an attempt to foster universal peace and encourage reform of both education and spirituality. Before his death in 1954, Siddiqui was one of the most popular Islamic revivalist figures on Earth, having helped established new missionary organizations in lands as disparate as the Philippines, South Africa, and Trinidad. Prior to his coming to the us, in fact, there was already a connection between American Muslims and Siddiqui’s movement, as in 1949–50 William Lutz, while still using the Grand Mufti title, wrote articles for an English-language South

28 Barbara D. Metcalf, “New Medinas: The Tablighi Jama‘at in America and Europe,” in Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe, ed. Barbara D. Metcalf (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 110–30, esp. 111; Dannin, Pilgrimage, 66; Howell, “Inventing,” 223. 29 See “About Ourselves,” Islamic Literature 4, no. 1 (1952): 3–4; “About Ourselves,” ibid. 6, no. 7 (1954): 3–4; Alfred Guillaume, Islam, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1956), 163–69. 30 Mohammed Upon Whom Be Peace (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1949). 31 See Yasien Mohamed, introduction to The Roving Ambassador of Peace, by Moulana Abdul Aleem Siddqui, ed. Yasien Mohamed (Cape Town: iqra Publishers, 2006), ix–xxvii.

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African journal Siddiqui had founded, Ramadan Annual.32 In the late summer of 1950, Siddiqui toured the us, visiting not only Lutz in Sacramento, but also many other Muslims in Chicago, Youngstown, and New York, including members of the ims, aoi, ima, and ymma, all the while encouraging them “to unite and establish a powerful movement of enlightenment on Islam.”33 It was likely during this tour that George Kheirallah became connected with Siddiqui’s successor, Dr. Hafiz Mohammed Fazlur-Rahman Ansari, who was accompanying Siddiqui in the us and who, in 1952, established the English-language journal, the Voice of Islam, which published one of Kheirallah’s articles that year. Siddiqui would be an important influence for American Muslims through the rest of the 1950s, during which he would be promoted by not only an influential Islamic magazine publisher from Pakistan, Abdul Basit Naeem, whose efforts will be discussed below, but also one of the country’s trained imams, Detroit’s Sunni Albanian leader, Vehbi Ismail.34 Despite their prominence, South Asia’s trained Muslim leaders did not hold a monopoly on Islamic instruction in the country. Imam Vehbi Ismail, for instance, was influential in his own right.35 As the son of the Grand Mufti of Albania and a former student of the Azhar, Detroit’s Albanian community was very grateful that Ismail accepted their 1948 invitation to come to America to teach and lead them. Ismail set to work right away. He helped prepare the local Albanians to purchase a building to serve as a mosque; in 1949 he established an Albanian-American Muslim academic journal, the Albanian Muslim Life, in which he published his own writings to help introduce Albanian immigrants to Islamic knowledge and principles; and he began visiting Albanian communities throughout the country. Being fluent in Arabic, Imam Vehbi was also able to, despite initial resistance from Detroit’s old Sunni imam, Hussein Karoub, become a well-respected leader among Arab immigrants in the area. By the mid-1950s, his journal, in which he promoted the teachings of Siddiqui,

32 Sheikh Abdur Rahman Lutz, “Traditions,” Ramadan Annual (July 1949): 33–35 and “The Third Pillar of Islam,” ibid. (June/July 1950): 69–71. On Siddiqui founding the Ramadan Annual, see Mohamed, introduction to The Roving Ambassador of Peace, ix. 33 Publisher [Abdul Basit Naeem], “His Eminence Maulana Siddiqui Passes Away,” Moslem World & the u.s.a. (January 1955): 41; Zainudin Mohd Ismail, “Footprints on the Journey of Human Fellowship: The Early History of Jamiyah,” accessed June 10, 2014, http://arabic .jamiyah.org.sg/sharing%20file/footprint.pdf, p. 61; “His Eminence, Siddiqui To Be Honored Sunday,” New York Amsterdam News, August 12, 1950, 16; “Moslem Leader Honored at Dinner, Urges Unity,” New York Amsterdam News, August 19, 1950, 13. 34 In 1958, Ismail was publishing one of Siddiqui’s books; see “Read a Masterpiece!” (advertisement), Moslem Life 6, no. 3 (1958): 32, Karoub Family Papers, bhl. 35 For more on Ismail, see Howell, “Inventing,” 184–92.

The Postwar Shift 301 was even repurposed to serve a multiethnic audience and was published in collaboration with the fia under the name Muslim Life. Many of the Albanian immigrants to Detroit, however, were not followers of Sunni Islam, but were instead practitioners of Bektashi Sufism. Unlike Inayat Khan’s Theosophy-influenced universalistic Sufism, Bektashi Sufism is explicitly Islamic, although it is an order that contains elements of Shi‘ism and Christianity, and therefore has typically been seen by Sunnis as lying outside the boundaries of orthodox Islam. So, while Imam Vehbi and his followers maintained a cordial relationship with the Bektashis, the latter group followed their own Azhar-educated Albanian religious leader, Baba Rexheb.36 Rexheb, like Ismail, initially came to Detroit by the late 1940s;37 in 1953 his community established a Sufi center (tekke) in the town of Taylor, just south of Detroit. Through the 1980s, the vast majority of Detroit’s Bektashi initiates were people who were born in the Balkans; only two were white Americans.38 Despite this small number, however, the Bektashi tekke in Michigan is probably technically the us’ first Muslim Sufi center to have white American converts. The third influential trained religious leader in postwar Detroit was Shaykh Mohammad Jawad Chirri, a Shi‘i scholar from South Lebanon.39 Chirri had graduated from the Islamic Institute at Najaf, Iraq and afterwards worked alongside Shaykh Mughniyya, a highly influential Lebanese Shi‘i cleric. At the time, the Shi‘ah of greater Detroit had a religious leader—Shaykh Khalil Bazzy—who had been serving the community since the late 1910s. Shaykh Bazzy, however, had almost no formal religious training, and the new generation of Shi‘i immigrants—many of whom were the children or grandchildren of earlier immigrants, and, like many of the other second-generation Muslims, frequently had college educations—desired to have a more educated religious leader who might be able to better mobilize and connect their community to Muslims both in America and internationally. Almost immediately after his arrival in 1949, then, Chirri was able to win the confidence of many of the community’s younger Sunni and Shi‘i Muslims, who were all drawn to his modernist views. Chirri soon announced ambitious plans to initiate reforms for

36 For more on Baba Rexheb, see Howell, “Inventing,” 180, 186–88 and the following works by Frances Trix: “The Bektashi Tekke and the Sunni Mosque of Albanian Muslims in America,” in Muslim Communities in North America, eds. Yvonne Haddad and Jane Smith (New York: State University of New York, 1994), 359–80; The Sufi Journey of Baba Rexheb (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2009). 37 Howell, “Inventing,” 180. 38 Trix, “The Bektashi Tekke,” 374. 39 See Howell, “Inventing,” 172–84.

302 chapter 10 religious education and practice for American Muslims, publishing his ideas through a regular column in the Arab-American journal, the Nahdat al-Arab, which helped him quickly gain a national reputation. Chirri could not stay in Detroit, however. The city’s older imams, Bazzy and Karoub, had not relinquished leadership of most of the city’s Muslims, so, in the later part of 1949, when Chirri was invited to lead the Muslim community in Michigan City, Indiana, needing a stable home community from which to do his work, he accepted. Over the next six years, Chirri continued to promote his progressive views and his national reputation only grew. Eventually, he, along with Imam Vehbi (who was also regularly featured in Nahdat al-Arab) and Imam Hobbollah of the Washington Islamic Center, was being invited to visit various mosques and speak at fia conventions. Then, in 1955, a number of Detroit’s Shi‘ah, who had concluded that following Chirri would be the best way to ensure growth for the community, pledged their allegiance to the teacher and convinced him to return to their city, where he stayed until his death over thirty years later. During the postwar period, other trained religious leader began appearing, serving diverse Muslim communities throughout the country. Among the Qadianis, four trained missionaries from India were sent to the us in 1946.40 Each was made head of one of the group’s larger mosques and Sufi Bengalee, who by that time had been the sect’s head us missionary for eighteen years, traveled across the country to visit and help train these new missionaries until 1948 when he left America for the final time. Dr. Khalil Ahmad Nasir was left in charge of the us mission and in 1950 moved the headquarters from Chicago to Washington, dc. From the latter city, he was eventually able to increase membership numbers, but primarily among African Americans.41 Whites would remain only a small percentage of the us community even after 1955 when the white German convert, Abdul Shakoor Kunze, was made the official missionary for the Chicago branch.42

40 Rashid Ahmad American, “A Brief Summary of the Ahmadiyya Movement in America,” Muslim Sunrise 42, no. 4 (1975): 13; Munawar Ahmad Anees, “Ahmadiyyat in America,” Muslim Sunrise 43, no. 1 & 2 (1976): 12–13. 41 In 1950, the group had five branches (Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Washington, dc), and its largest, the Chicago branch, had at most fifty members, only five of which attended on a regular basis. This suggests that the Qadianis at this time had at most 200 members, perhaps fifty of whom were regularly active. See Hatim A. Sahib, “The Nation of Islam” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1951), 54. 42 “leads chicago moslems,” Odessa American (Texas), May 1, 1955, 8; Tony Poon-Chiang Chi, “A Case Study of the Missionary Stance of the Ahmadiyya Movement in North America” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1973), 110; Nusrat Bashir, phone interview with the author, August 28, 2014.

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Sunni Muslims from the Balkans, meanwhile, were getting new religious leaders as well. Starting in 1954, for instance, Toledo and Chicago’s Bosnian communities were led by Kamil Avdich, who had earned his doctorate from the Azhar in 1951.43 In 1959, Avdich wrote The Outline of Islam, a seventy-five page book to be used by children at the Islamic Sunday schools he ran in his two communities. In Philadelphia, Imam Mohamed S. Egra, who had been sent by the Azhar, was working primarily with the local Albanian community, but was also affiliated with Louis Glick and presumably the other converts associated with him.44 Glick had apparently moved to Philadelphia by the mid-1940s and in the early 1950s began promoting two new organizations, the Moslem Younger Brothers Council of Philadelphia and the Moslem American Citizen’s Union.45 In 1952, the aims of the latter group—which was most likely a revival of the similarly-named organization Nadirah Osman had created but failed to popularize in 194346—were

to watchfully serve in defense of the American Constitution and American world prestige, particularly in Islamite matters, and to defend and promote the religion of Islam and the welfare of Moslems under the principle of freedom and equality for all religious denominations.47

In addition, it was intended to have this group form a formal ‘union’ with an organization known as the Moslem American Chamber of Congress, a local Quaker group, and a Rosicrucian organization.48 Through this Union, Glick also, consistent with his efforts in the 1940s, and perhaps in cooperation with

43 Muhammed al-Ahari, “Editor’s Preface,” in The Outline of Islam: A Textbook for Islamic Weekend Schools, by Kamil Yusuf Avdich (Chicago: Magrabine Press, 2011), 5. 44 “in philadelphia,” Moslem Citizens Letter no. 13 (October-December 1956), [1]. 45 Letter, Glick to William G. Stigler, [December 1951], William G. Stigler Collection, box 10, folder 48, Carl Albert Center, University of Oklahoma; United States Congress, Congressional Record, vol. 98 (Washington: United States Congress, 1952), 5749–50; Moslem Citizens Letter (1956). 46 Letter, Nadirah Fines [sic] Osman to [Wali Akram], December 4, 1943, 1, fbi record. 47 United States Congress, Congressional Record, 5749–50. 48 “to brothers offering,” Moslem Citizens Letter no. 13 (October-December 1956), [1]. The Quaker group was the World’s Friendship Study Circle and the Rosicrucian group was the Inner Circle of the Mystic Rose. It is possible that this Rosicrucian group was affiliated in some way with the following of R.S. Clymer in Quakertown, Pennsylvania; however, interestingly, in the 1950s the California-based Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, led by H. Spencer Lewis, was one of the few American companies to run an advertisement in Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf’s Islamic Literature magazine; see, e.g., vol. 4, no. 5 (1952): 46.

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Abdullah Igram, encouraged the us Congress to pass “a religious equality bill for the drafted personnel of the Armed forces.”49 It is unclear, however, as to how involved Egra—or any other trained Muslim leader, for that matter—was with Glick’s activities. In the 1950s, at least one other Sunni Muslim with religious training was providing religious leadership to various American Muslim groups throughout the country. The Lebanese Sheikh Hussein Dahbour, a former teacher and supervisor for Lebanese schools, was reportedly trained and “ordained specifically for the service of Moslems in America” after the Muslim community in Cedar Rapids asked the Mufti of Lebanon to send them a religious leader.50 Although based in Cedar Rapids, upon his arrival in the us in 1948,51 Dahbour also began working with Muslim communities in Youngstown, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, dc, and possibly other cities.52 In 1950, his influence was expanded further when he started recording a regular radio program for the New York-based, us government-run Voice of America, an international radio broadcast,53 and he was given a prominent position at that year’s convention for the Moslem Brotherhood of America, Inc., a revival of the mbusa.54 What made Dahbour particularly unique, however, was that, unlike the other trained religious leaders from the period, one of the reasons he had come to

49 United States Congress, Congressional Record, 5749–50. 50 Paul Tobenkin, “Moslems Here Meet at Hall to Mark Holy Day,” New York Herald Tribune, October 3, 1949, 7; John Reynolds, “Foto Facts,” Cedar Rapids Gazette, June 23, 1950, 9; “Hussein Dahbour Transfers to Engineers in Saudi Arabia,” topocomments 8, no. 13 (June 25, 1976): n.p., copy provided by Hussein Dahbour’s son, Dr. Omar Dahbour. In 2014, Dr. Dahbour graciously answered several of the author’s questions and provided him with copies of two articles about Hussein as well as one of Hussein’s resumes. 51 While 1947 is given in “Dahbour, Hussein A.” (obituary), Blade (Toledo), February 14, 2009, copy provided by Dr. Omar Dahbour, 1948 is indicated in both Reynolds, “Foto Facts” and Dahbour’s own resume, provided by Dr. Omar Dahbour. 52 Reynolds, “Foto Facts”; “Hussein Dahbour Transfers.” 53 Reynolds, “Foto Facts.” 54 Reynolds, “Foto Facts” refers to the group as simply “the Moslem Brotherhood,” but in Tobenkin, “Moslems Here,” Dahbour was shown to be affiliated with Ibrahim Choudry’s Moslem Brotherhood organization, which was called in this article the Moslem Brotherhood of America, Inc., and which may have either been a revival or splinter group of the mbusa, perhaps created in opposition to Nasir Ahmad’s International Muslim Brotherhood, which was also established around the same time. The 1950 Moslem Brotherhood of America, Inc. convention was being held in Youngstown, Ohio. It is likely that the Moslem Brotherhood of America, Inc. had branches in several cities in the late 1940s and 1950s—at least enough to justify a convention in 1950.

The Postwar Shift 305 the United States was to obtain a degree from a Western university.55 In fact, after graduating from the University of Iowa in 1952, Dahbour ended his activities as a religious leader for us Muslims, and moved to Washington where he earned a master’s degree from George Washington University and commenced a long career as a language specialist and political liaison for the us government. In his focus on college education and employment, then, Dahbour was a link between the new influx of trained religious leaders and the postwar development that had the most direct impact on white American converts: the international Muslim student boom.

A Key Change: International Students

The postwar period’s trained religious leaders and new national institutions were primarily focused on serving the us’ first and second generation immigrants Muslims. This essentially meant that their emphasis was on ensuring that Islam was practiced in, and adapted to, an American setting without becoming too watered down by us culture. Most of these new religious leaders and groups, then, were not particularly interested in converting Americans, who, through marrying Muslims, were often thought to be a major source of the dilution of Islam in the country. It was partly for this reason, in fact, that at least some imams, including the very influential Imam Chirri, refused to marry a Muslim with any American—male or female—unless that person at least nominally converted to Islam.56 Nevertheless, the intermarriage rate increased with the second and third generations,57 and a new cohort of Muslims was significantly contributing to the transformation of the character of the white convert community in the 1950s and early 1960s: international Muslim college students. Prior to 1945, no Muslim-majority country sent more than 138 students to the us in any one year, and most typically sent fewer than fifty.58 As soon as the

55 Reynolds, “Foto Facts”; Tobenkin, “Moslems Here.” 56 Eide Alawan (a prominent member of Imam Chirri’s Dearborn community since the early 1960s), phone interview with the author, May 21, 2014. Of course, in not marrying women who did not convert, Chirri was following standard Shi‘i practice, as was noted above. Imam Karoub, meanwhile, only refused to marry men—not women—who did not convert; see Naff, Becoming American, 245–46. 57 See the discussions of mixed marriages in Chapters 8 and 11. 58 Herbert H. Williams, Syrians Studying Abroad: A Comparison of Factors Influencing the Numbers of Syrians Studying in the United States and Other Countries, Occasional Paper Number 2 ([New York]: Institute of International Education, 1952), 4. For figures by year, see the Institute of International Education’s annual reports for 1926 to 1949.

306 chapter 10 war ended, however, in an attempt to both foster better relations with the us and provide their newly liberated nations with an educated leadership, Muslim-majority countries rapidly increased the number of students they sent to American colleges. In 1945, students from Near Eastern countries studying in the us numbered 371; by 1950, the number reached 2,544, and by 1962, there were over 11,000 students from Muslim-majority counties as well as, presumably, a few thousand more Muslims from Muslim-minority countries.59 For the most part, these were individuals from the middle and upper classes and, while many had some difficulty in adjusting to American social life, their class and their tendency to identity as ‘white’ allowed for regular interaction with their white American classmates.60 For the first time, then, thousands of young, college-educated Americans were meeting Muslims, and they were doing so while living free from the restricting gaze of their families and in the relatively liberal setting of college campuses. The impact of the postwar Muslim student boom was immediate and would eventually have profound implications for white American conversion to Islam. As with the previous generations of Muslim immigrants, evidence suggests that the largest proportion of white Americans who converted through ties to the postwar students were the students’ new American spouses, who were usually women.61 This is true despite the fact that the vast majority of the us’ Muslim students—who were almost all men—did not marry Americans; many were already married when they came to the country, and most others planned on marrying a Muslim once they returned home, even if they dated while staying in the us.62 While we lack an abundance of solid data on these postwar student intermarriages, some clues to exist. A 1973 study, for instance,

59 Williams, Syrians Studying Abroad, 4; “Muslim Students in the United States,” Muslim World 52 (1962): 263–64. 60 Valuable studies on early Muslim students in the us include Williams, Syrians Studying Abroad; Khalil Ismail Gezi, “The Acculturation of Middle Eastern Arab Students in Selected American Colleges and Universities” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1959); Iihan I. Akhun, “Turkish Engineering Students Studying in the United States” (PhD diss., University of Missouri, 1961); Abdulrahman I. Jammaz, “Saudi Students in the United States: A Study of Their Adjustment Problems” (PhD diss., Michigan State University, 1972). 61 There were, of course, some women who converted through marriage to Muslim students before World War ii; see, e.g., John Sibley, “Al-Jamali Slain by Baghdad Mob,” New York Times, July 16, 1958, 7. 62 See the previously-cited studies as well as Robert O. Blood and Samuel O. Nicholson, “The Experiences of Foreign Students in Dating American Women,” Marriage and Family Living 24, no. 3 (1962): 241–48.

The Postwar Shift 307 estimated that only about two percent of all international students married Americans, and half of those returned to their homelands with their new American wives.63 However, anecdotal evidence from some of the early American wives of Muslim students suggests that the percentage for Muslims in particular may have been closer to fifteen.64 Despite the significant difference between these figures, they both indicate that only a relatively small number of Muslim students—probably fewer than 2,000—married Americans in the 1950s and early 1960s. Furthermore, since many of those Americans were women and were not expected to convert, the total number of converts from these marriages was much smaller than this number, probably less than 500; also, a large percentage of these converts, like many of the non-convet wives, moved out of the us to their husbands’ home countries.65 In fact, by 1956, in Baghdad alone there were fifty American wives of Muslims, although the vast majority of these did not convert.66 Therefore, the total number of us residents who converted through marriage to a Muslim student in the 1950s and early 1960s may have been less than 300. In comparison with the total American Muslim population at the time, 300 additional converts was not particularly significant. However, compared to the size of the existing white convert community, this was a major addition, as it increased that community’s size by

63 Lovell, “A Survey,” 151. 64 In early 2015, the author was able to talk with a few women who married Muslim students in the 1950s. These women, who have asked to remain anonymous, estimated that the percentage of Muslim students who either stayed in the country or returned with an American wife was between ten and twenty, with about half of these Muslims staying and half leaving with their wives. It is worth mentioning here too that in 1979 the scholar Yvonne Haddad claimed that in the 1950s two-thirds of international Muslim students married Americans and tried to settle in the us. This, as far as the evidence from the previously-cited studies and anecdotes suggests, is completely inaccurate. Nevertheless, Haddad’s claiming such a large proportion suggests that perhaps the percentage was closer to fifteen than two. See Yvonne Y. Haddad, “The Muslim Experience in the United States,” Link 2, no. 4 (1979): 2. 65 The early American wives with whom the author talked in 2015 estimated that the number of converts among the wives of Muslims in the 1950s was very small, perhaps only only one or two out of fifty. 66 This appears to have been true even despite the fact that many of the Iraqi Muslim spouses were Shi‘i, and, as we have seen, many Shi‘i clerics required women to convert. See “Southland Girl Makes Good as Spouse of Iraqi,” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1956, B1, B2; author’s 2015 conversation with American women who married Muslim students in the 1950s. For an example of one of the earliest college-educated female converts who returned with her husband to Iraq, see Alice Mehdy, “An American Woman’s Life and Marriage in an Iraqi Muslim Family,” Islamic Review 43, no. 2 (1955): 16–18.

308 chapter 10 roughly thirty percent. College-educated converts who had embraced Islam through marriage to international Muslim students had therefore quickly become an important element in the white American convert community. But people who came to Islam through marriage were not the only converts generated by the arrival of international Muslim students, however. The esti- mation of the number of convert spouses points to the likelihood that there were, by the early 1960s, at least a few dozen individuals who, through meeting international Muslim students, became the rare, but comparatively influential, ‘friend convert.’ As the examples of Louis Glick, William Lutz, and other pre- 1950 converts have demonstrated, friend converts were more likely to attempt to become a leader or representative for Muslims than those who converted for marriage. In the post-1950 period, due to the change in the demographics of Muslim immigrants, the new friend converts were different from those of previous eras, often having college educations and tending to be from wealthier and better-connected families. Because of this, and because of the changes in the us Muslim community that were making it give greater value to education and adaptation to American society, instead of being ignored and resented, many of these new college-educated friend converts were more often being warmly embraced by the increasingly influential us Muslim institutions. The coming of thousands of college-educated Muslim students had therefore initiated an important transition in white American convert history. Indeed, it should not be surprising at all that several of the most prominent pre-1975 white American converts were individuals who had embraced Islam after befriending international Muslim students and before—or without— marrying a Muslim. Michael E. Jansen, who in 1974 became perhaps the first white American female convert to perform the hajj, first gained an interest in Islam when she met Iraqi students while attending the University of Michigan in the 1950s.67 Similarly, Wilson Guertin, who in 1954 was elected to be the fia’s first convert vice president, originally became curious about Islam in graduate school in the early 1950s when his Iraqi student roommates started attending Imam Chirri’s Michigan City’s mosque.68 Wilson, who had grown up with a very weak religious identity but had recently taken an interest in religion,69 began visiting the mosque and having one-on-one meetings with the imam.

67 Michael E. Jansen, “An American Girl on the Hajj,” Aramco World Magazine 26, no. 6 (1974): 30–39. 68 “Iowan Joins Moslem Faith,” Waterloo Daily Courier, July 12, 1954, 1; Wilson Guertin phone interview with the author, February 18, 2014. 69 Guertin’s spiritual search was pointed out in Mohamad Jawad Chirri, Inquiries about Islam (Beirut: Dar Lubnan Press, 1965), 10.

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Through these conversations, which were later published in a book that would become popular among American Muslims,70 Wilson became Chirri’s first convert and joined the emerging national Muslim community in which Chirri was taking an increasingly larger role. Wilson served as an fia vice president for at least two years, wrote letters and articles for various Muslim journals, and briefly moved to Baghdad before returning to the us and settling in Florida in the 1960s.71 The path to conversion of Maryam Jameelah (born Margaret Marcus)—the most well-known white American convert in the 1960s and 1970s—reveals a similar, if more complex, connection between interaction with Muslim students and an involvement with the growing us Muslim community. Indeed, Jameelah’s journey to Islam epitomizes the multiple ways in which the numerous developments of the us Muslim community influenced converts. Like Wilson, Maryam had felt only nominal identification with the religion of her family (which, in her case, was Reform Judaism) and as a child took an interest in various faiths and cultures.72 Then, in 1953, when Maryam was nineteen years old, she received a copy of Marmaduke Pickthall’s translation of the Qurʾan. Similar to the experience of Nilla Cram Cook, Maryam had been particularly ill and low in spirits at the time, but upon reading the holy book she suddenly felt an amazing spiritual revitalization.73 Maryam believed she had

70 Chirri, Inquiries, was first published in 1965, but the book’s popularity would increase especially after 1975. 71 Wilson H. Guertin, “Freud’s Psycho-Analysis and Islam,” Islamic Review 42, no. 2 (1954): 37–38; “Programme” in Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada, Fourth Annual Convention, July 22-23-24th, London, Ontario ([London, Ontario]: Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada, 1955), unpaginated, bhl. In his interview with the author, Guertin conveyed that, despite his contacts with Muslims from across the country, he did not know of any other white converts in the 1950s. This confirms the theory that people who converted through marriage at the time—the vast majority of converts—were not particularly organizationally active or prominent Muslims. 72 Although Jameelah published an official explanation of her conversion (Why I Embraced Islam: How I Discovered the Holy Quran and Its Impact on My Life, The Holy Prophet and His Impact on My Life [Lahore: Muhammad Yusuf Khan, 1976]), the best resource for the historical circumstances of her journey to Islam is her Quest for the Truth: Memoirs of Childhood and Youth in America (1945–1962) (Delhi: Aakif Book Depot, [1989] 1992). There has been one chapter-length biography on Jameelah and one recent book-length biography: John Esposito and John O. Voll, Makers of Contemporary Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 54–67; Deborah Baker, The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2011). 73 Jameelah, Quest, 90.

310 chapter 10 discovered the one true religion, but knowing no Muslims, she was not yet prepared to convert. She commenced to investigate Islam further, however, reading the conversion narrative of the Austrian Muhammad Asad as well as other writings by prominent Muslims from the period. Soon after this, while she was attending college in New York, Maryam befriended a white teenage convert who was plugged into New York’s diverse Muslim community. Before she even decided to embrace Islam, Maryam had become friends with not only immigrants and other white and black converts, but also a number of international Muslim students who frequently congregated at the home of a popular local white convert named Halimah.74 By 1956, five years before she would take her shahada, Maryam had already begun reading and writing to Islamic journals, including Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf’s Islamic Literature.75 By 1959, she had commenced visiting the various imams in New York and Washington, dc, corresponding with popular international Muslim thinkers, and regularly visiting the Muslim student group at Columbia University. In May 1961, she formally converted at Sheikh Daoud Faisal’s ima in Brooklyn. A year later, after having been invited to live in Pakistan by prominent Muslim reformist Abdul A‘la Mawdudi, Maryam was on a ship heading to her new home in South Asia, from where she would become an internationally recognized figure (see Chapter 11). That Jameelah had begun visiting a Muslim student group just prior to conversion reflects the importance for converts of this additional network of postwar Islam institutions. Almost as soon as the postwar Muslim students started arriving in the us, they began to organize. In September 1946, several Indian students in San Francisco created what became known as the Association of Muslim Students in America, possibly the first such postwar organization.76 The Association’s stated purpose was to promote “an understanding between the Muslim world and the people of America,” and several of the members endeav- ored to reach out to Americans through lectures, radio appearances, newspaper articles, and the group’s bulletin, which was published in Canada in 1947. The fate of this organization is unknown, but soon similar groups were springing up.77 Perhaps inspired by the Association’s efforts, in 1948 Muslim students at

74 Jameelah, Quest, 121. 75 See, e.g., “Readers’ Forum,” Islamic Literature 8, no. 12 (1956): 59. Jameelah’s 1960s writings will be discussed more in Chapter 11. 76 “Muslim Students in America,” Muslim World 37 (1947): 314–16. 77 A group called the Moslem Students’ Association was started at the University of Southern California by 1949, and though it focused on serving Muslim students in Los Angeles, it claimed members from all over the world; see Mahmoud Awad, “A Proposed Convention of Muslim Students in London,” Islamic Review 37, no. 6 (1949): 57.

The Postwar Shift 311 the University of Minnesota organized for the same purpose that the Association had, but called their group the Islamic Cultural Society.78 In 1954, Khurram Jah Murad, a follower of Mawdudi, began leading prayers for the community.79 Soon Murad and the Islamic Cultural Society’s efforts were being supported and presumably joined by a professor at the school named Thomas Ballantine Irving, a white Canadian who had converted to Islam in the 1930s while living in Toronto.80 In a short time, both the Society and Irving—who was one of the first white Americans confirmed to have taken the hajj, having done so in 1957— were affiliated with the fia.81 Irving became a highly active member of the Federation, serving as a vice president starting in 1963 and taking on the editor position of its Muslim Life journal by 1964, in which he published his translations of sections from the Qurʾan.82 At the University of Wisconsin, meanwhile, an Islamic Cultural Association had been formed by 1949, and, after reading about this event in the Islamic Review, Thomas Muhammad Clayton, the white convert affiliated with the Lahoris, established another branch with Muslim students at the University of Chicago.83 In 1956, Columbia University’s Muslims formed the organization Maryam Jameelah would later join—what they called the Muslim Students’ Association—with twenty-five Muslims, and within two years it had over one hundred members, including two American converts.84 This trend of white converts joining Muslim student organizations included the most influential Muslim student group in American history, the Muslim

78 “Islamic Culture Now on American Campus,” Tuscaloosa News, October 16, 1948, 4. 79 Ghulam M. Haniff, “Twinned with Faith,” Islamic Horizons 42, no. 5 (September/October 2013): 52–53. 80 Haniff, “Twinned,” 52; Sheila Musaji, “Interview with Prof. T.B. Irving,” American Muslim, September 29, 2002, accessed June 10, 2014, http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/ features/articles/profile_professor_thomas_ballantine_tb_irving. 81 Thomas Ballantine Irving, Selections from the Noble Reading: An Anthology of Passages from the Qur˒an (Cedar Rapids: Unity Publishing Company, 1968), [172]. 82 Haniff, “Twinned,” 53; Washington d.c. 1958, Seventh Annual Convention, The Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada ([Washington, dc]: Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada, 1958), [20], bhl; “f.i.a. Officers for’63-’64,” Muslim Star 5, no. 1 (January & February 1964): 1, imjc Papers, Box 8, bhl; Muslim Life 11, no. 2 (spring 1964), imjc Papers, Box 9, Misc. Islam Organizations’ Newsletters, 1964–1990, bhl. 83 “Correspondence,” Light, July 16, 1948, 11; “Islam in America,” Islamic Review 37, no. 9 (1949): 42; Bashir Ahmad Minto, “Muslims in America,” Light, October 1, 1949, 4; Thomas Muhammad Clayton, “Islam in America,” Islamic Review 38, no. 6 (1950): 52. 84 “Moslem Students at Columbia University Receive Prayer Rug from His Majesty King Saud,” Moslem World & the u.s.a. (October-December 1956): 55–56; “Muslim Students’ Association at Columbia University,” Light, October 16, 1958, 1, 8.

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Students’ Association of United States and Canada (msa). The msa developed out of a fall 1961 meeting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign between Muslim students from various schools who desired to establish a central meeting place so that they could, as the researcher Herman Bowers put it, “gather, become acquainted, and learn of the customs of each other’s country.”85 Discovering how other Muslim students successfully navigated life in America was an important need for these international students, many of whom were not only the first people in their families to attend college, but sometimes the first to leave their homelands. About 75 students, representing 10 Muslim college organizations, met again in December 1962, and officially organized as the msa on January 1, 1963.86 Word about the organization spread quickly; by 1964, 38 student groups had joined; 58 had joined by 1965, and in 1968, there were 105 Muslim college groups and 1,000 dues-paying members in the msa.87 With its significant size and reach, it was inevitable that some of the white converts affiliated with local Muslim student groups would join the msa. By 1964, in fact—just 1 year after its founding—the msa had gained several white members, and at least 2 of which served in official roles within either their local or the national msa.88 After 1964, as we will see in Chapter 11, white converts would only become more prominent in the msa, reflecting the growing importance of the connection between international Muslim students and American converts.

From Unity to Division: The Efforts of Abdul Basit Naeem

Some international Muslim students, meanwhile, were organizing and connecting with American Muslims outside of the college setting. This was the case with the Pakistani Abdul Basit Naeem, who briefly became one of the

85 Bowers, “A Phenomenological Study,” 108. 86 Bowers, “A Phenomenological Study,” 108; Larry Poston, Islamic Daʻwah in the West: Muslim Missionary Activity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 102. 87 Muslim Students’ Association, msa Handbook (Ann Arbor: Muslim Students’ Association of the us and Canada, [1968]), 28, 35. 88 Astrid-Herma Smart became a prominent member in the University of Illinois’ group (see her “How and Why I Adopted Islam,” Al-Ittihad 2, no. 1 [1965]: 8–11), Linda Clark was made secretary of the msa of Southern Illinois University (see her “How I Became a Muslim and Embraced Islam,” Al-Ittihad 2, no. 1 [1965]: 41), and Omar Theodore Kilgore of the University of Michigan was made head of the national msa’s committee on Education, Libraries and Lecturing (see “Resolutions Passed at the Convention of Muslim Students’ Associations of the United States & Canada,” Al-Ittihad 2, no. 1 [1965]: 14).

The Postwar Shift 313 leading figures in American Islam in the 1950s. Naeem first arrived in the us in 1948, and by 1950 was attending graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,89 where he married an immigrant from the Caribbean.90 It was during his stay in Philadelphia that Naeem first encountered American Muslims, and in early 1951 he assisted an African American convert named Abdul Rahman in founding an organization called the Moslem League of Philadelphia.91 This League was apparently created for the purpose of uniting local Muslims; it held its first meeting at the aauaa headquarters where an Iraqi immigrant recited a section of the Qurʾan and the walls were decorated with a us flag, a Saudi flag, and a poster of Maulana Siddiqui.92 Although the group also promoted the ideas of Mawdudi,93 the connection between Naeem and Siddiqui would in fact become very important. In June, one of the Siddiqui-created South African Muslim journals, the Muslim’s Digest, ran a story obviously written by Naeem about the League’s first meeting, and in the following year it published another Naeem article concerning American views of Islam.94 The most important connection, though, as Naeem would later claim, occurred when Siddiqui wrote to Naeem in 1952, encouraging him to start a periodical for Muslims in the United States.95 After receiving the letter, Naeem left Philadelphia and, apparently in preparation for this project, spent the next two years familiarizing himself as best he could with the us’ emerging Muslim community and its history. In January 1955, the fruits of Naeem’s efforts were revealed when he published out of Iowa City the first issue of his Moslem World & the u.s.a. Naeem’s magazine was impressive on multiple fronts. It was the first American Muslim periodical that truly had a contemporary magazine feel, complete with professional-type lay- outs, well-written short articles, numerous photographs, and magazine-quality glossy paper. More importantly, it featured several influential Muslim figures

89 New York Passenger List, Pan American Airways, 2/4/1948, Ancestry.com; Abdul Basit Naeem, “Islam in Philadelphia,” Moslem World & the u.s.a. (January-February 1957): 14. 90 Naeem, “Islam in Philadelphia”; Abdul Basit Naeem, “Islam and the United States: Religion of the Year!,” Muslim’s Digest (June 1952): 123. 91 Our Special Correspondent, “Muslim Activities in Philadelphia,” Muslim’s Digest (June 1951): 85. 92 Our Special Correspondent, “Muslim.” 93 Asad Gilani, Maududi: Thought and Movement, trans. Hasan Muizuddin Qazi, 5th ed. (Lahore: Farooq Hasan Gilani, 1978), 164. 94 Our Special Correspondent, “Muslim”; Naeem, “Islam and the United States.” 95 Publisher [Naeem], “His Eminence Maulana Siddiqui Passes Away,” Moslem World & the u.s.a. (January 1955): 41; Abdul Basit Naeem, “The Late Maulana Siddiqui Al-Qaderi,” Moslem World & the u.s.a. (August-September 1956): 39.

314 chapter 10 from both the pre- and postwar periods, including the imam of the Washington Islamic Center, the Moslem League of Philadelphia founder Abdul Rahman, the old Mansfield propagandist Muharrem Nadji, Sacramento’s white Grand Mufti William Lutz, and Naeem’s Iowa neighbor and founder of the fia, Abdullah Igram—and the issue’s last page even promised that the following number would contain an article about Alexander Webb to be entitled the “First American Moslem.”96 The other contents of the magazine were similarly diverse, Naeem printed articles by scholars concerned with Middle East affairs, discussions of current events related to the Muslim communities within the us and worldwide, and a brief statement informing readers about both Siddiqui’s 1950 us tour and his influence on the creation of the magazine. Appearing just as the us Muslim community was finally generating true national unity, the Moslem World & the u.s.a. thus offered an appealing vision for American Muslims by suggesting that the us had a real potential for fostering the world’s first truly modern—but still religiously genuine—Islamic community. It was a community in which Muslims of all backgrounds—including black and white converts—could be on an even level with other Muslims, and ‘modern’ approaches to Islam (most of the Muslims pictured wore, notably, suits and dresses) could be combined with classical Islamic knowledge and training. Naeem’s choices of which Muslims to feature in the magazine suggested to readers that American Muslims should acknowledge and respect the efforts of all early Muslim leaders, convert and immigrant, and build on them while embracing the new institutions and their approaches. This was a message very much in line with what Siddiqui—who had died in 1954—had preached, and would have resonated well with many white converts. In late 1955 or early 1956, Naeem moved to New York and was now more than ever claiming affiliation with the followers of Siddiqui. His magazine began giving a significant amount of attention to Sheikh Daoud’s ima and as well as New York’s ims—both groups that had contact with Siddiqui in 1950—and he announced that Siddiqui’s disciple, Dr. Fazlur-Rahman Ansari, was the magazine’s main advisor.97 At the same time, Naeem provided more demonstration of his ability to connect with many facets of the us Muslim community, noting several Muslim subscribers and publishing articles and letters concerning a variety of Muslims—including Wilson Guertin and Thomas Irving—from all across the country. In the April-May 1956 issue, there was even a story about the Nation of Islam, with which Naeem had recently come into contact through a

96 This article was never published. 97 See page 3 of the April–May 1956 issue.

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Palestinian immigrant who taught Arabic to the Nation.98 With this Pan-Islamic approach, Naeem’s magazine and the community it fostered looked to be the closest thing to the ideal Islamic forum and community that twentieth-century white converts—particularly the liberal friend converts—had ever seen.99 In the next issue, however, instead of maintaining a spirit of universality and optimistic hope for the us Muslim community, Naeem began to tie himself and his magazine to two particular and potentially divisive movements. The least divisive was Fazlur-Rahman Ansari’s Jam’iat-ul Falah, a South Asian- based organization that aimed to perpetuate the principles promoted by Siddiqui. Naeem announced himself as the Jam’iat’s us representative and he reminded his readers about the availability of the group’s magazine, the Voice of Islam, for which George Kheirallah had already written.100 The Voice was, in fact, an increasingly popular magazine for American Muslims, particularly those in New York, and in 1962, it also became one of the first English-language Islamic magazines to publish several of Maryam Jameelah’s essays.101 It is likely, then, that it was partly thanks to Naeem that Siddiqui and the Pan-Islamic movements and magazines he inspired continued to play a role in the American Muslim community for over a decade after his visit in 1950. Naeem’s own commitments, however, were increasingly political. His magazine also began giving much more preference to stories concerning Muslim nationalist movements, both those outside the us and the Nation of Islam’s movement within the country. Starting with the July 1956 issue, in fact, the Moslem World & the u.s.a. regularly devoted a great deal of text and photo space to the Nation of Islam, which Naeem adamantly supported. It is not entirely clear as to why Naeem seemingly abandoned the tolerant, unity, and West-embracing vision of Siddiqui for the incredibly divisive Nation. Perhaps Naeem believed that because the noi was the most mobilized us Muslim movement at the time, an alliance with it might unite the us Muslim community and through this better support international anticolonial efforts. Perhaps, too, the dark-skinned Naeem had come to appreciate the breadth

98 This was Jamil Diab, who was featured in the first issue of Naeem’s magazine. See “Moslems in the u.s.a.,” Moslem World & the u.s.a. (January 1955): 25–26; Abdul B. Naeem, “The South Chicago Moslems,” Moslem World & the u.s.a. (April–May 1956): 22–23. 99 Guertin, however, expressed displeasure with Naeem’s tendency to highlight political issues; see his letter in the April–May 1956 issue. 100 See page 3 of the June–July 1956 issue. 101 A Jameelah essay ran in almost every issue between April 1962 and April 1964.

316 chapter 10 and wickedness of American racism, and saw the noi’s separatist message as a practical response for not only African Americans, but also for many—if not all—Muslims who were similarly victimized by racial prejudice. Whatever the reasons, it was a fateful decision. At the time, the Nation was gaining a significant amount of press coverage in the secular media, much of which led to the popular perception that the group’s rather militant racial views were antagonistic to liberal dreams of multiracial unity in America. Not desiring to be affiliated with such controversial views, many immigrant Muslims and African American Sunnis began to publicly denounce the Nation as ‘phony’ Islam.102 By not immediately severing ties, then, Naeem quickly lost his initial popularity with the broader Muslim community and his claims of adherence to the inclusivist Siddiqui movement were not going to be accepted at face value. In the May-June 1957 issue, Naeem ran articles announcing Fazlur-Rahman Ansari’s planned 1958 visit to the country and the latter’s recent establishing of a new international Islamic organization, the World Federation of Islamic Missions. But this turned out to be the Moslem World & the u.s.a.’s final issue and there is currently no evidence that Ansari came in 1958 or that Naeem continued to be a propagandist for Ansari’s movement after the summer of 1957. The World Federation—or at least its journal, the Minaret—would end up becoming somewhat well-known among American Muslims, particularly white and black Sunni converts who had contact with Sheikh Daoud,103 but Naeem had lost much of his influence among the Minaret’s readers by alien- ating the immigrant Muslim community. Naeem, nevertheless, seems to have felt that his position was the correct one, and he spent the next twenty years working as columnist for the Nation of Islam’s newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, while running the small, Brooklyn-based American Islamic Educational Society, from which he taught Arabic and attempted to create new journals, none of which ever achieved anything close to the popularity that the Moslem World & the u.s.a. had obtained. With Naeem’s transformation, then, white convert hopes of finding a highly ethnically-mixed and liberal American Muslim forum and community would not be realized for many more years.

102 Essien-Udom, Black, 310–19. 103 Maryam Jameelah had several articles published in the magazine in 1965 and a few more during the rest of the decade. In 1969, the Minaret noted two American converts to the World Federation and five in 1971. Ansari’s group, in fact, became an important influence for the black Sunni Dar ul-Islam movement, which formed in Brooklyn in the 1960s as a splinter from Sheikh Daoud’s State Street Mosque.

The Postwar Shift 317

On the Frontiers of Deterritorialization

The fact that the Nation of Islam became a major point of contention for the larger us Muslim community reflected the fact that as members of that community, white converts would have to make a serious evaluation of their own relationship with African American Muslim sectarian groups. For some, since white Americans were historically, socially, and psychologically much more closely connected to the oppression of African Americans than Muslim immigrants were, it would not always be sufficient to take the same dismissive view of the noi. This feeling represented a larger cultural division between white converts and immigrants: No matter how much both groups would attempt to stress unity with all Muslims, because of their distinct cultural histories, immigrant and white convert Muslims had different cultural and psychological needs and desires, and these sometimes led to white converts taking different religious paths than their immigrant coreligionists. In the postwar era, with contact with new ideas and religions increasing exponentially, the distinctiveness of white Muslim identity would begin to manifest itself in several, sometimes surprising new ways. There were of course a few predictable outliers: individuals who, like Louis Glick and William Lutz, wanted to be leaders shortly after converting, despite apparently not being well-connected or well-trained in Islam. Two of these figures appeared in California. In 1955, the Islamic Review reported that a mosque in Los Angeles had been founded by a convert named Muhammad Abdullah Reynolds.104 Unfortunately, there is almost nothing known about this man or his mosque. He was probably the same person as the Boyd Reynolds of Los Angeles who subscribed to Naeem’s magazine in 1956,105 but it is possible too that he was the Los Angeles resident going by the name of ‘Savinien’ who wrote to the Islamic Review in 1950, claiming he had a lot on which he hoped to build a mosque.106 Curiously, Savinien is the same name that was signed at the bottom of some of the wartime flyers for the Kalifat No. 5, a group that seemed to be something that Louis Glick might have produced; unfortunately, we may never know if there was indeed a connection between Glick, Reynolds, and Kalifat No. 5. Further north, in San Francisco, a medical doctor who had converted in 1952 while serving in the us Army Medical Corps in the Korean War, Joseph DiCaprio, returned to the us where he was soon leading the Islamic

104 Al-Maqdissi, “Muslims of America,” 31. 105 “On to Madinat-Assalam,” Moslem World & the u.s.a. (April–May 1956): 2. 106 Savinien, “Islam in America,” Islamic Review (December 1950): 47.

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Center of San Francisco.107 According to the Bay Area’s famous Sufi, Samuel Lewis, DiCaprio’s Center was primarily made up of converts who rejected both William Lutz and the Ahmadis,108 although by 1964, a Lahori missionary named Muhammad Abdullah had become the group’s imam.109 Samuel Lewis, meanwhile, had broken from Rabia Martin’s Meher Baba group and, after taking two trips to the East where he studied under Sufi teachers, would begin creating a new Sufi following that would flourish in the mid-to-late 1960s (see Chapter 11). When it came to African American Muslims, most white Muslims simply followed the lead of their immigrant coreligionists, whom they understood as possessing ‘authentic’ Islam. The immigrants, although they frequently avoided African Americans socially, tended to at least accept as religiously legitimate most who claimed to be Sunni, while rejecting the Nation of Islam as ‘phony.’ Their tendency to dismiss the Nation was helped by the fact that some Sunni- leaning African Americans, such as Sheikh Daoud and Talib Dawud of Philadelphia, also publicly spoke out against the Nation of Islam. However, some white American converts—particularly friend converts, who, by and large, seem to have been very liberal and anti-racist in their leanings—were sympathetic to the black sectarian movements, even despite some of the movements’ highly racialized worldviews. In the interwar period, as we have seen, when much of the immigrant community ignored them, a number of the leading white converts happily collaborated with African American Sunnis, Ahmadis, and Moors (mst members) connected to the uisa. People like Louis Glick and Nadirah Osman followed these black Muslims’ tendency to look past, and sometimes blend, sectarian ideas. Other whites, meanwhile, had come to Islam in black-majority Muslim communities where the sectarian influence of the Ahmadis was felt strongly. There were, for instance, still a

107 Joseph DiCaprio, “Prayer Urged,” Oakland Tribune, November 12, 1956, 48. 108 Letters, Samuel Lewis to Abdul Rahman, February 7, 1961; to Bashir Ahmed Minto, July 24, 1956; to Florie, December 16, 1960, Diaries, accessed August 1, 2013, http://murshidsam.org/. 109 The earliest mention I have found of Abdullah leading the icsf is “Israeli Officer Speaks Tomorrow,” San Mateo Times, November 7, 1964, 7. After that date, Abdullah was frequently mentioned as a leading member of the organization through the early 1970s in both the secular press and the Islamic press. This was the same Muhammad Abdullah who had briefly worked with the San Francisco Lahoris in the mid-1950s, Nasir Ahmad’s imb in Philadelphia in the early 1960s, and the noi in the 1950s and early 1960s; see “Some Impressions about the United States,” Light, May 24, 1957, 5–6; Turner, Islam in the, 194–95; Muhammad Abdullah, ed. Religion and Society (Hayward, ca: Muslim Society of u.s.a., Inc., [1972]), 4.

The Postwar Shift 319 small number of white followers of the Qadiani movement110 as well as, undoubtedly, a few others who embraced Islam among the Sunni-leaning blacks, such as Maryam Jameelah’s friend, Halimah, and Ella May Garber, whose tortuous Islamic journey eventually led her to follow the Sudanese Sunni leader Satti Majid.111 Indeed, reflective of the liberalizing cultural transformations that were simmering at the time, there seems to have been a rare, but somewhat consistent urge among young, liberal whites to seek out and embrace African American Muslims. A handful of non-Muslim whites even attended Nation of Islam meetings in the early 1960s.112 Of course, not even all immigrant Sunnis rejected African American Muslim sectarian movements. In fact, a few immigrants supported and worked for the noi, and, despite the fact that the group generally did not allow non-black immigrants to become full members, at least one third- or fourth-generation immigrant Muslim went against his family’s wishes and successfully joined the group in the early 1960s.113 The Moors in particular had a history of at least partial acceptance from the immigrant community that dated, as we have seen, back to at least the 1930s. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Naeem’s Moslem World & the u.s.a. published a number of letters and news briefs about mst members, Hameed Wahab Bey’s Philadelphia-based Moorish American Islamic Society appeared in more than one fia convention program,114 letters from Moors frequently ran in the Islamic Review without any apparent criticism, and the Lahori Muhammad Abdullah worked with, in addition to the noi, Nasir Ahmad’s Qadiani- and mst-influenced imb.115 Although it is not

110 Chi, “A Case Study,” 110; Bashir interview. 111 Jameelah, Quest, 121–22; Bowen, “Satti Majid,” 198. 112 “Muslims Invited Whites to Hear Muhammad at Huge Armory Rally[.] How Did They React?,” Mr. Muhammad Speaks 1, no. 3 (September 1960): 16–17; “They Came to Hear the Messenger,” Muhammad Speaks 1, no. 9 (July 1962): 18–19. Elijah Muhammad would ban whites from meetings in late 1963. 113 Essien-Udom, Black, 184–85; Hazel Wanner Howell, “Black Muslim Affiliation as Reflected in Attitudes and Behavior of Negro Adolescents with Its Effect on Policies and Administrative Procedures in Schools of Two Easter Cities, 1961-64” (PhD diss., Teachers College, Columbia University, 1966), 122–23. 114 Washington d.c. 1958, Seventh Annual Convention, The Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada ([Washington, dc]: Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada, 1958), [24], bhl; The Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada, 11th Annual Convention, August 10th, 11th, & 12th, 1962, Philadelphia, Penna. ([Philadelphia]: Federation of Islamic Associations in the United States and Canada, 1962), [17], bhl. 115 Turner, Islam in the, 194–95.

320 chapter 10 clear as to what extent immigrant Muslims knew the doctrines of these sectarian Muslims, these examples demonstrate that at least some were welcomed in the immigrant communities and would have therefore been accepted by many of the white converts in those communities. In addition, a handful of whites who generally had little to no connection with the immigrant community independently discovered that a few mst factions allowed them to join their groups. The faction led by Frederick Turner-El sometimes made whites who worked with his organization honorary members, and in the mid-1950s the Baltimore faction led by the Dingle-El brothers gave a true initiation to Yahya Rafi Sharif (Yale Jean Singer), a Jewish convert to Islam whom, after meeting him at a local mosque, they authorized to spread the teachings to other whites.116 In 1957 or 1958, Sharif and three friends— apparently after having taken an interest in Sufi thought and the mythical stories of the marijuana-smoking medieval Isma‘ili Assassins—established the Noble Order of Moorish Science (later, the Noble Order of Mystic Sufis). Then, in the early 1960s, the group began to expand. In 1961, Sharif moved with his future wife to California, where they became involved with the immigrant and Qadiani communities, and continued to promote the mst before moving to York, Pennsylvania where they worked to establish a popular Qadiani community and school.117 Then, in 1962 one of the Baltimore group’s young members, Warren Tartaglia, left the city to attend New York University, where he introduced the organization to Manhattan’s white hipsters, including the man who would become one of the us’ most influential non-orthodox Muslims: Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey). The New York group, which was named the Moorish Orthodox Church, would soon adapt other elements of Sufism, including symbols and ideas from Inayat Khan’s teachings and the Guénon-influenced Traditionalist school (see Chapter 11). This, then, was a significant development in American Islamic history. By connecting the race-consciousness and teachings of African American Islam with the Sufi movements that had developed out of the nineteenth-century Western esoteric Islamophilia, although small and lacking significant influence, the Moorish Orthodox Church represented a

116 Michael Muhammad Knight, William S. Burroughs vs. The Qur˒an (Berkeley: Soft Skull Press, 2012), 20–23; Ustad Selim, Arif Hussein al-Camaysar, Hakim Bey, Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey, Peter Lamborn Wilson, and Muhammed Abullah al-Ahari (Ahari El), eds., History & Catechism of the Moorish Orthodox Church of America (Chicago: Magribine Press, 2011); Sultan Rafi Sharif Ali Shah Bey, “History and Works of the Noble Order Moorish Science Temple Moors,” accessed July 18, 2014, http://moorishleague.webs.com/nobleorderhistory.htm. 117 Bashir interview.

The Postwar Shift 321 wholly new and important current in American Islam. They had institutionalized in America what Nilla Cram Cook was striving for abroad in the 1940s: The combining of modern esotericism with the liberal desire to create justice in the world by intentionally focusing on affiliation identifying with the ‘untouch- able’ castes. The emergence of these independent converts and movements reveals that something new was taking place in the postwar period. What was, for the most part, a simple bifurcation of white Muslims and Sufis in the early twentieth century was becoming much more complex. Now, Sufism, which was coming from a variety of sources and levels of religious training, was making contact with white Muslims in religiously and ethnically diverse settings, producing a wide variety of views on what it meant to be both a Muslim and a Sufi. As this was happening, the numbers of conversions through marriage continued to increase and the demographics of spouses and friends were more and more leaning towards the college-educated. This, in turn, was leading to some white converts taking leadership roles in the growing, modernist-leaning us and global Muslim communities. And, in addition to all of this, although there had already been white Sunnis who tried to lead independent Islamic groups, some were now, it seems, actually able to lead and occasionally found real and somewhat long-lasting Islamic institutions. Ironically, then, the significant reterritorialization of the us Muslim community in the postwar period had created the conditions necessary for allowing white conversion to Islam to deterritorialize at a tremendous rate. It needs to be clear, however, that this religious deterritorialization was primarily taking place on the fringes of the United States Muslim community. The main trends were in fact showing increasing prominence and consistency. Although it is true that this period saw the emergence of more varieties of white Islamic identities than there had been before, more and more, growing numbers of white converts were affiliating with a particular type of Muslim. By 1965, in fact, a trend that had emerged in the postwar period would come to dominate and define the white convert community: contact with college- educated immigrants.

chapter 11 Reorientation

In the 1960s, white American religious culture underwent a metamophosis.1 To a great extent this transformation was the product of a growing sense of alienation among America’s youth as cultural and political changes destabilized traditional moral and psychological frameworks. There was, for instance, a growing fear that death was imminent, that it was going to come either from a Cold War nuclear holocaust or being drafted to Vietnam. Meanwhile, confidence in traditional us social and religious values was being eroded by the rise of protest and counterculture movements, the increased awareness of the suffering of non-white people in the us and beyond, and unhappiness with the new cultural emphasis on conformity and material consumption as the country became wealthier and more suburbanized. Artistic and literary currents also played a part. The spread of abstract, non-Western, and existential works helped both challenge and reframe popular aesthetics, while the seemingly innocuous rise of middle-class book clubs fostered the appreciation of all religious traditions as legitimate sources of spiritual knowledge.2 In terms of the history of white American conversion to Islam, one particular year from the 1960s stands out as especially important. In 1965, while there was not a significant increase in conversion to Islam that year, racial and social justice issues were coming to the forefront in white American culture, which would have indirect but important impacts on us conversion to Islam for several decades to come. The figure most associated with that year’s struggles in race relations was Malcolm X, the former Nation of Islam minister who by that time had become an internationally-recognized symbol of non-white resistance to white oppression. His assassination on February 21 shocked the country, and his Autobiography, released later that year, quickly became a best-seller and one of the most influential non-fiction books in American history.

1 On this topic, see, e.g., Robert S. Ellwood, The Sixties Spiritual Awakening: American Religion Moving from Modern to Postmodern (New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press, 1994); Charles Y. Glock and Robert N. Bellah, eds., The New Religious Consciousness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976); Robert Wuthnow, The Consciousness Reformation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976); Joseph Needleman, The New Religions (Garden City, ny: Doubleday & Co., 1970); Peter Rowley, New Gods in America: An Informal Investigation into the New Religions of American Youth Today (New York: David McKay Company, 1971). 2 On the latter point, see Matthew S. Hedstrom, The Rise of Liberal Religion: Book Culture and American Spirituality in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).

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Malcolm’s murder, however, was not the only major episode of race-related violence in 1965. On March 7, what became known as ‘Bloody Sunday,’ American television audiences witnessed Alabama State Troopers attacking the over 500 nonviolent protesters attempting to bring attention to the suppression of African American voter registration. Then, in August, less than a week after President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act partly in response to the March protests, a six-day race riot erupted in Los Angeles’ African American neigh- borhood of Watts, further energizing the Civil Right Movement and the accompanying desire for a reconfiguration of race and class relations in the us. In October, just as the country was beginning to come to terms with the significance of these history-transforming events, President Johnson signed into law the Immigration and Nationality Act, which replaced the nation quota immigration system that had been instituted in 1924 with much more welcoming criteria. This modification of immigration rules would lead to a huge rise in the numbers of Muslim immigrants from all parts of the world, many of whom were college-educated, middle-class individuals who were influenced by the various Pan-Islamic revivalist movements that were popular at the time. The timing of this change in immigration would mean that white Americans, who were increasingly sympathetic to struggles for justice and equal rights of all peoples and often disillusioned by the flaws they observed in their own society, were being introduced to a major new wave of people and ideas to which they might look for spiritual, social, and political guidance. This would prove to have enormous consequences for the the direction of American religious history. With these issues in mind, this chapter makes four arguments. The first and most obvious is that it was in fact largely due to the contact between post-1964 immigrants and young white Americans that the country began producing a new era of conversion to Islam. With hundreds of thousands of Muslims enter- ing American workplaces, enrolling in American schools, and moving into American neighborhoods, it was almost inevitable that at least some white Americans would begin embracing the religion of their new coworkers, classmates, and neighbors. Although completely accurate numbers are not available, the existing evidence points to there being several thousand—possibly upwards of 10,000—new white converts during this period, a number that represents a tremendous increase from earlier eras. Since a large percentage of these converts were known to have married immigrants, there should be little doubt that it was primarily post-1964 immigration that caused this enormous change in white American conversion to Islam. However, these numbers alone do not adequately explain the nature of white American Islamic conversion during this period. The second argument

324 chapter 11 this chapter makes, then, addresses the issue of what conversion actually meant at the ground level for the thousands who became Muslim. I make the case that, generally, white conversions to Islam between 1965 and 1975 shared the characteristic of being focused on creating a new ‘way of life’ for the convert. The period’s numerous social upheavals and destabilizing intellectual climate produced a strong desire among many Americans to seek out new, potentially better ways of living in the world. This was especially true of young middle-class, college-educated whites, who were, because of their education, social status, and relative wealth, the Americans most free to explore the many new cultural currents circulating in us society. After they began befriending, dating, and marrying Muslims, many whites grew attracted to what they understood as Islam’s emphasis on social justice and morality as well as the prescriptions, embodied in Islam’s five pillars, for living a spiritual life on a day-to-day basis. It was on these foundations that deterritorialized white Americans were able to build new ways of living that helped them reorient—reterritorialize— their lives so that they could successfully and satisfactorily live in the new world in which they found themselves. Still, the knowledge that converts acquired about Islam came through particular filters, and the models they had of proper Islamic living were necessarily going to be restricted to the types of models they encountered. Furthermore, because the immigrant community was undergoing such a significant transformation at the time, many of the institutions and trained religious leaders that converts had relied on in earlier periods were no longer going to be the central loci for convert knowledge. The third argument made in this chapter, then, is that between 1965 and 1975 the Muslim Students’ Association and the various currents of Pan-Islam that it connected its members to became key sources for Islamic knowledge and models. The success of the msa in becoming a principal Islamic organization for that generation’s converts is reflected in the fact that many of the period’s leading converts who were not even college students, such as Maryam Jameelah, William Lutz, and Thomas Irving, were frequently featured in the msa’s journal while they were increasingly ignored by the fia. Of course, many converts continued to join fia-affiliated mosques, some of which remained among the most influential Islamic institutions in the the country, but these mosques too were increasingly influenced by Pan-Islam. Therefore, it was through both the fia and the msa that the country’s converts were exposed to the moderate Pan-Islamic notions of groups like the World Muslim Congress and Muslim World League, and prominent thinkers like Mawdudi and even Thomas Irving. This of course did not mean that converts would march in lockstep with whatever ideas they read— indeed, a number of converts were intellectual and artistic trailblazers in the

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American Muslim community—but an examination of the Pan-Islamic concepts they were introduced to provides a useful overview of some of the ideas that shaped their views of Islam. The final argument that this chapter—and book—makes is that during the late 1960s and early 1970s, while many white Americans accepted Islam after contact with Muslim immigrants, many others discovered various forms of Sufism that were not immigrant-driven. From the universalistic mysticism of Inayat Khan to the more traditional Muslim Habibiyya order, a relatively large number of white Americans—many of whom happened to be living in ground zero of America’s counterculture movement: the Bay Area—began embracing a wide variety of Islam-related spiritualities. Although the more Islam-focused Sufi groups did not gain large followings during this period, their appearance helped lay the groundwork for much of what was to come after 1974.

By the Numbers

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the 1924 quota of one hundred immigrants for most Muslim-majority countries, making the new limits 170,000 and 120,000 official immigrants from the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, respectively, with a 20,000-person limit for any one country. Special preference was given to professionals, people who worked in fields in which there was a labor shortage, and refugees. In addition, neither international students nor Muslim us citizens’ immediate relatives, who were allowed to join their family members in America, were counted in these numbers, which meant that the actual numbers of Muslims coming to the us were going to be much larger than what the immigration act alone could produce. The results were clear and immediate. By 1970, us residents from Muslim- majority countries numbered 174,223, an increase of 40,000 since 1960; by 1980 there would be 493,904.3 Of those who came between 1966 and 1982, twenty percent immigrated as professional or technical workers and fifty-six percent were these immigrants’ dependents.4 The remaining percentage was largely composed of refugees and many former students and their families who stayed in the us after first coming to attend college. Although we lack full data on Muslim students in the 1970s, by 1978, the number of students just from Iran,

3 GhaneaBassiri, History, 294. 4 GhaneaBassiri, History, 293.

326 chapter 11 the Levant, North Africa, and Saudi Arabia was estimated to be 64,400.5 The postwar demographic change that in the 1950s had slowly begun to bring in more college-educated Muslims was now greatly intensified. The early effects of this new wave of immigration on conversion were complex, affecting the paths to, motives of, and activities after conversion in multiple ways. First of all, because new immigrants were allowed to bring their families, proportionally not as many were intermarrying with non-Muslim Americans as were in earlier periods. However, because so many more Muslims were allowed to enter the country, the actual numbers of intermarriages increased. At, for example, Imam Chirri’s Shiʿi Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan—one of the few mosques whose marriage records from the period have been preserved and made public—from 1966 to 1968, there were on average only 5 intermarriages per year; from 1969 to 1971, the average increased to 7; from 1972 to 1974, it was 8.3, and from 1975 to 1977, 10.7.6 Due to a dearth of studies on 1970s us Muslim communities, the precise relationship between post-1965 immigration, intermarriage, and conversion in the broader us Muslim community is not fully understood. We do not know, for example, what percentage of either adult or child immigrants intermarried and when exactly those marriages took place, so it is extremely difficult to make even a rough estimate of overall intermarriage rates, without which it is difficult to estimate rates of conversion through intermarriage. Complicating the matter further is the fact that different Muslim communities had different cultures and expectations concerning conversion, and we know only a little about these. At best, we can say that while almost all Sunni imams permitted Christian wives to maintain their faith, many American Shiʿi religious leaders, like Imam Chirri, followed Shiʿi jurists who required both male and female non-Muslims to at least nominally convert before the leader would marry them to an immigrant.7 Ratios of male-to-female converts are only slightly easier to determine. We know that at Imam Chirri’s mosque, 12.6 percent (13 out of 103) of its intermarriages from 1966 to 1977 were of male converts to female born-Muslims.

5 James W. Cowan, “Factors Influencing Arab and Iranian Students In-Country and in the United States,” in Studies from the Arab World and Iran, ed. Gary L. Althen (Washington, dc: National Association for Foreign Student Affairs, 1978), 5. 6 These numbers, which include five Latina spouses, are based off of the marriage records that have been preserved in the imjc Papers, Box 6, Marriage Contracts, English, bhl. 7 See Takim, Shi‘ism in America, 22, 241n51. Chirri’s requirement of conversion for both males and females is attested to in the wording of the Islamic Center of America’s preserved marriage contracts and was confirmed by Eide Alawan, a prominent member of the Center since the early 1960s, in a phone interview with the author, May 21, 2014.

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Interestingly, although as a Shiʿi mosque, Chirri’s Islamic Center of America was not typical in its requiring all female non-Muslims to convert for marriage, the only serious attempt to count white American converts around that time found this proportion to be fairly consistent for Muslim converts throughout the country. M. Arif Ghayur’s 1981 study determined that about 15 percent of white American converts were male,8 and that of the 85 percent who were female, most “apparently converted at the time of marriage to Muslim professionals.”9 As was pointed out in Chapter 10 and as will be discussed below, there is good evidence that by the early 1970s the population of unmar- ried friend converts, especially college-educated types, was also increasing. Ghayur estimated the combined number of male and female white American converts came to 3 percent of the total us Muslim population in 1980.10 Since he believed that the total population at the time was 1.2 million, he put white converts as coming to about 40,000. However, this estimate seems high for two reasons. First is that, while Ghayur’s total population number is consistent with the early 1970s findings of the Washington, dc Islamic Center,11 this number is not consistent with the data concerning Muslim immigration cited above and in previous chapters nor is it consistent with high quality studies of the us Muslim population conducted twenty years or more after Ghayur’s, all of which suggest that the estimate of 1.2 million for 1980 was probably too high.12 Second, at least two other studies of the us Muslim community from the 1970s through the early 1980s suggested that the white convert population was significantly smaller than 40,000 people.13 However, the

8 M. Arif Ghayur, “Muslims in the United States: Settlers and Visitors,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 454 (March 1981): 153, 158. 9 Ghayur, “Muslims,” 155, 151–52. 10 Ghayur, “Muslims,” 158. 11 Lovell, “A Survey,” 140. 12 See, e.g., Ihsan Bagby, Paul M. Perl, & Bryan T. Froehle, The Mosque in America: A National Portrait (Washington, dc: Council on American-Islamic Relations, 2001), 3, 12; Pew Research Center, Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream (Washington, dc: Pew Research Center, 2007), 3, 9–10; Ihsan Bagby, The American Mosque 2011: Basic Characteristics of the American Mosque Attitudes of Mosque Leaders (Washington, dc: Council on American-Islamic Relations, 2012), 4, 9. 13 The Muslim World League conducted a study in late 1973 and their published report did not include any mention of white Muslims, and in fact said that the us Muslim community “may be roughly divided into two groups, one consisting of the immigrants and the other of the […] Afro-Americans”—a rather surprising statement if there were truly tens of thousands of white converts. However, as pointed out in the following note, their methodology was more than lacking; see “Muslims in America,” Al-Ittihad 11, no. 3 (1974): 15–16. In 1982, Yvonne Haddad reported that throughout history there had been only an

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methodologies for these two studies were far less rigorous than Ghayur’s, and their conclusions were based on much weaker evidence.14 If we assume, then, that (a) the total us Muslim population was just 75 percent of Ghayur’s estimate, or 900,000, but also that (b) Ghayur’s reasonable estimate of the percentage of white converts (3 percent) was roughly accurate, then the total white convert population by 1980 would be closer to 27,000. Even if the correct number was less than half of this—say, 13,000—this would still have been an enormous jump from the likely size of the white convert population in the early 1960s, which probably did not exceed two or three thousand. And because all but a handful of these white converts were affiliated with immigrant-majority Sunni and Shiʿi mosques,15 it is clear that this explosion of conversion was correlated with—and almost certainly caused by—post-1964 Muslim immigration.

Islam as a ‘Way of Life’

Contact with the post-1964 wave of immigrats and other societal changes during that period led to white Americans having very new types of social and spiritual experiences. The white person who met a Muslim, for instance, had to decide how to associate with this Muslim—a decision that his or her parents

estimated 5,000 white converts in “America,” but, again, see the following note for a criticism of her methodology; see Y.Y. Haddad, “Islam in America: A Growing Religious Movement,” Muslim World League Journal (July 1982): 31. 14 Ghayur, for his study, “contacted over 300 community leaders, several embassies, visited over 100 metropolitan areas and towns, corresponded with Muslims, and referred to the us Census volumes, the Annual Report of the ins, and estimates of the Muslim population by other writers” (see Ghayur, “Muslims,” 155). The Muslim World League study, meanwhile, was conducted by representatives of the League as part of a large, but quickly- done study of Islam in the West. Over the course of only seventy-eight days, these foreign representatives visited a total of sixty cities in thirteen countries in Europe and the Americas (see “Muslims in America,” 15). They based their generalizations of the state of the us’ Muslim community on evidence derived from this obviously superficial approach. Haddad, on the other hand, provides absolutely no information about her methodology, and her assertion of 5,000 white converts appears to have been no more than an educated guess based off of her familiarity with the us Muslim community and its history. 15 Later large studies of Muslims in the us, such as those conducted by Bagby (cited above), as well as in-depth studies of African American Muslim communities, have revealed that few whites ever joined African American-majority Muslim groups. There were of course a handful of exceptions, but these represented a tiny fraction of the white Muslim population.

Reorientation 329 had probably not had to make. In many if not most cases, of course, Muslim immigrants and white Americans decided to become nothing more than acquaintances, and the personal impact of encountering a Muslim was minimal. However, as the numbers of Muslims in the country increased and cultural changes made appreciation of different religions and ethnicities more acceptable, the chances that some whites would chose to befriend, date, or marry a Muslim rose—particularly when the ecounter happened in a college setting or in another context in which the person was separated from his or her family. Once such affective bonds between people from different backgrounds are created, then each person is faced with many other new decisions about how to navigate not only their own relationship, but also their relationships with people and cultural and religious institutions that might resist such types of bonds. For many, this process of making new social and spiritual negotiations becomes, if not all-encompassing, the central focus of their lives, at least for a few years. For those who developed relationships with Muslims, this tendency to constantly examine one’s relationships with all people and institutions was often reinforced by, on the one hand, their own internal negotiations with the rapidly transforming society in which they lived and, on the other, the religion of the Muslim to whom they had grown close. As has been mentioned, because the period’s dramatic societal change was so widespread, many people—not just the marginalized—were questioning various aspects of their lives and beliefs. One could not but help to ask oneself where he or she stood on issues like drug use, the Vietname War, and race relations. For some, these questions gave way to major self-evaluations through which people began to reexamine even small elements of their daily lives. For those who encountered Muslims, then, it must have been a relief to discover that Islam not only apparently supported social justice and worldwide brotherhood (see below), but also offered guidelines for daily life through its nearly universal ‘five pillars’: (1) saying the declaration of faith; (2) performing the obligatory daily prayers; (3) giving to charity; (4) fasting during the holy month of Ramadan; and (5) making the pilgrimage to Mecca. Along with these, there are several other daily practices that friends and spouses of Muslims came upon and had to consider as their relationship with the Muslim grew. It is at least partly understandable, then, that, particularly for post-1964 converts to Islam, their conversion and the process that led up to it was far more than a simple change in their religious ideas. It was a change in their way of life. The experience of Lisa Alfassi16 was probably fairly typical during the 1965– 74 period. In the late 1960s, Lisa had moved from her East Coast home to attend

16 This is a pseudonym for a pre-1975 convert with whom I conducted a phone interview on July 22, 2014.

330 chapter 11 a state university in the Western us. She had been raised as a Christian and lived a faithful and, in her words, “good, pure life.” However, when she went to college, Lisa not only stopped attending church regularly, she also befriended a number of convert and immigrant Muslims with whom she began spending some of her free time. Prior to ever converting, in fact, Lisa even joined the local msa and participated in the group’s activities, which included regular meetings and holiday celebrations. She did not, however, read the msa’s journal or any other literature about Islam during her college days. The social and spiritual aspects of the student Muslim community—not the intellectual or ideological currents—were what had attracted her. Still, Lisa remained reluctant to convert. Upon graduation, she returned to her home town where she remained a Christian for a number of months. One day, though, Lisa suddenly possessed a deep conviction that conversion to Islam was the correct path for her life. She felt that the religion brought her to a higher level of spiritual awareness, especially through its prescriptions for prayer, meditation, and intellectual study. Lisa thus decided to convert, marry a Muslim she had known in college, and begin to study her new religion. She later pursued a PhD, became a professor, and published various works on Islam-related topics. Richard and Najiba Moats’ experience, while undoubtedly less typical than Lisa’s, similarly demonstrates that developing informal relationships with international Muslim students as well as an appreciation for Islamic spirituality were important pathways to conversion.17 In 1946, when Richard was eight years old, his family moved from Missouri to Cairo, Egypt where Richard’s father, who was in the us Air Force, had recently been stationed. After graduating from the American University of Beirut and spending a year with his family in Ethiopia, Richard joined the Air Force himself and was eventually stationed at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, just outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming. While in Cheyenne, Richard began frequently traveling to nearby Greeley, Colorado, where a friend from Ethiopia was attending Colorado State University. Richard, who spoke Arabic fluently, was soon welcomed into the school’s Middle Eastern and Muslim student community. Through these acquaintances, in January of 1970, Richard met Najiba, an Afghan who had come to csu through a usaid scholarship after being the top student at Kabul University. Najiba was an intelligent and highly focused woman who appreciated the respect Richard showed her in their early interactions; however, hoping to eventually return to Afghanistan, she was not willing to marry a non-Muslim American. In fact, she told Richard, who was openly pursuing her by this point, that she did not want

17 The following is based on a phone interview with Richard and Najiba Moats conducted by the author on June 16, 2014.

Reorientation 331 him to become Muslim purely for her sake, although she did encourage him to study Islam for his own personal benefit. Having been raised in a Muslim- majority country and in a home without a strong commitment to religion, Richard was willing to take Najiba’s advice and he soon became convinced in the truth and simplicity of the message of the Qurʾan. He converted, wrote to Najiba’s family asking for permission to marry her, and arranged a civil ceremony in December 1970.18 Since that time, Richard, while not always praying five times a day, has regularly fasted for Ramadan; when living in locations near mosques, he has participated in and led many Muslim community activities; and, with Najiba, raised his children as Muslims. Of course, not all white college-educated converts from this period married immigrants. The societal transformations of the 1960s were producing other types of new paths to Islam, which the conversion story of Nusrat Bashir exemplifies. The Florida native had originally first come into personal contact with Islam while attending the University of Wisconsin in the late 1960s.19 Although Nusrat had been raised in a very liberal Jewish environment, the social upheavals of the period had caused her to question many of her values. During the year 1969, she began dating an African American man who was similarly disillusioned with the religion of his upbringing. When, a year later, Nusrat’s boyfriend learned that a friend in Milwaukee had joined the Qadiani Ahmadis, he and Nusrat began to read the literature of the movement.20 Within months, the two were regularly praying and studying Islam, and by mid-1971 they had converted and married. Nusrat, like many Ahmadis, was not aware of a distinction between her religious community and those of other Muslims. Having been drawn especially to the Ahmadi message of inclusiveness of all people within Islam, she was of the understanding that she was following the same religion as all other Muslims, and it would only be years later that she would learn about the Sunni rejection of the Qadiani movement. When that time finally came, however, she chose not to leave the Ahmadi community that had welcomed her and provided a rare example of a successful multiracial religious life. She, in fact, remained firm in her belief that, beneath the exterior differences, all Muslims essentially followed the same religion.

18 Two years later, the couple traveled to Washington to perform an Islamic wedding ceremony at the Islamic Center. 19 Nusrat Bashir, phone interview with the author, August 28, 2014. 20 The first book they read, which had a tremendous impact on their spiritual journey, was Ghulam Ahmad’s The Philosophy and Teachings of Islam, originally written in Urdu in 1896.

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Abedi Shepardson’s interracial marriage, meanwhile, represents yet another path to Islam that was surely increasingly common during this period.21 Abedi was born Kenneth Shepardson to Methodist parents in a small Missouri town. Like many white converts of his generation, Kenneth was college-educated and fairly liberal; upon graduation in the late 1960s, he joined the Peace Corps with which he traveled to Kenya to serve as a teacher for two years. There, Kenneth was drawn to the Swahili language and culture and he also began to take an interest in the locals’ Islamic faith. Three aspects of the religion—at least as it appeared in Kenya—were especially attractive to him: the concept of a unitary God, Islam being “quite pragmatic and concrete,” and what he believed was the Islamic principle that

men are the basis of Islam. Christianity always seemed to me to be something for women. In Islam, if the men fall behind, then there is nothing left.22

In 1971, Kenneth converted; he then took an Islamic name and began performing the Islamic practices that were followed by the Muslim Kenyans he knew, such as praying five times a day, growing a beard, wearing a fez, and abstaining from pork and alcohol. A year later, Kenneth—now Abedi—even performed the hajj with a Muslim friend. After fulfilling this important pillar of his new religion, Abedi, at the suggestion of his friend, took a Kenyan Muslim wife and moved to Nairobi where he obtained a position with the city’s Islamic Foundation. For all of these individuals and numerous other white Americans who embraced Islam after 1964, conversion meant more than simply joining a new religious community. Above anything else, Islam became a ‘way of life.’23 It is

21 The following is based on Edward B. Fiske, “He Converted to Islam and Took a Wife,” New York Times, September 13, 1974, 47. 22 Ibid. 23 I am basing this statement and the following discussion primarily on my many interviews with white American Muslim converts throughout the country—some of whom converted before 1975 and some of whom converted after—conducted over the past seven years. Because I could find no previous research on the use of the term ‘way of life’ in a religious context, on October 2, 2014, I used Google’s Ngram Viewer to do a search for the terms ‘way of life,’ ‘is a way of life,’ ‘as a way of life,’ ‘Islam is a way of,’ ‘Islam as a way of,’ ‘Buddhism is a way of,’ ‘Buddhism as a way of,’ ‘Hinduism is a way of,’ ‘Hinduism as a way of,’ ‘Christianity is a way of,’ and ‘Christianity as a way of’ (Ngram Viewer limits a search to five words), and interesting results appeared. First of all, the term ‘way of life’ only started to gain popularity in the 1920s; it then made a huge jump in the late 1930s and early 1940s,

Reorientation 333 common for post-1964 white converts—both marriage-converts and friend converts, especially those with college educations—to primarily equate following Islam with religious practice and discipline in their personal lives, as opposed to seeing Islam exclusively as a private, internal spirituality. For these new Muslims, conversion meant using religious discipline to sacralize both their internal and physical behaviors. Since there is little information about pre-1965 convert practices to compare with,24 it is hard to know to what extent that this emphasis on daily religious discipline and sacralization was influenced by the converts’ own struggles in negotiating what for them were unprecedented encounters with social change and foreign cultures, and to what extent this was influenced by the different types of religious patterns their Muslim spouses and friends brought with them to the us. Undoubtedly, the influence of post-1964 immigrants was stronger for those converts who

and, after a brief lull in use, it peaked in the early 1960s. When looking at how this term was used with different religions (e.g., ‘Christianity is a way of,’ ‘Buddhism as a way of’), it appears that the peak of the use of the term for Christianity was during the Great Depression and early postwar years; it has not been used in any significant amount for Hinduism; and the use of the term for both Islam and Buddhism increased significantly in the late 1950s and early 1960s—corresponding to the rise of white conversion into these two religions. Out of all of these religions, it is only with Islam that the use of the term has continued to increase since the 1960s, a phenomenon that I cannot fully explain. It might also be important to point out that since the 1950s, ‘way of life’ has also been commonly used for political and lifestyle types that are not typically considered religious. So, for example, there are several results for ‘democracy as a way of life,’ ‘communism as a way of life,’ and ‘sobriety as a way of life.’ Unfortunately, at this point, it is unclear how and why the use of the term ‘way of life’ became associated with particular religions, ideologies, and lifestyles at certain times. It seems, though, that there may be a correlation with both the general cultural exposure of different generations, and the associating of the ‘way of life’ concept with what were seen as legitimate countercultural movements. This suggests that the concept of ‘way of life’ and its corollary of changing one’s daily thoughts and behaviors was at least partly used by individuals to address their individual sense of alienation, as I discuss below. 24 Because I was only able to interview one white convert who embraced Islam before 1965, and because the available evidence on other early white converts rarely if ever addresses this issue, I cannot say with certainty whether this emphasis on personal discipline existed widely before 1965. I would assume that it must have existed to some degree, particularly in mixed marriages, where conversions were often made to create peace in the home—a change that, at least in some homes, must have entailed the convert following a new religious discipline. We also know, of course, that Webb himself emphasized daily practices, and that most friend converts joined immigrant-majority mosques where they would have been expected to follow the religious codes of their new communities. Beyond these observations, however, I can say little more.

334 chapter 11 joined new immigrant-heavy Islamic organizations in which there was a strong commitment to movements that encouraged daily practice of spiritual discipline. However, it must be remembered that not every new Muslim associated with groups like the msa made these changes, whereas others who had neither contact with college students nor regular organizational affiliation still sometimes followed these practices on their own. Indeed, although the concept of Islam as a ‘way of life’ was a fairly common one, there were a number of ways that it was understood and enacted. To outsiders, the convert’s external changes were the most obvious signs of Islam guiding that person’s day-to-day living. Most converts took Muslim names at the time of their conversion; some were given them by their local imam and others were able to choose their own. Once taken, if the convert did not change his or her name legally, it was still common to use the new name at home and in Islamic settings. Most converts also began abstaining from pork and alcohol, which are forbidden by Islamic law. At least one convert is also reported to having given up what she considered nonessential material objects, her television and telephone, in an attempt to live more religion-focused existence.25 Sometimes converts—particularly those, like Nusrat and Abedi, who joined communities that placed strong emphasis on gender difference— committed themselves to performing new gender roles, which could include attempting to follow gender separation in public settings, having the wife not work, and/or allowing the husband to be the primary director of family life. A related external act of religious practice included altering dress and physical appearance to conform to what was understood as proper in Islam for each gender. Because this usually meant imitating the clothing styles of the family and community with which their immigrant spouse and friends were connected, dress and other aspects of appearance could differ greatly between converts. Some female converts, for instance, made few changes. Typically, if any changes were made at all, it was usually by wearing a headscarf and clothing that covered one’s arms and legs. Some, however, stopped wearing pants and applying makeup; others wore a hijab, a larger scarf that covers both the head and neck. A few women, such as post-emigration Maryam Jameelah and those in the Qadiani movement, went even further when they began wearing full-body niqabs or burqas. Men, on the other hand, frequently grew beards or goatees and often wore robes and kufis while at home and at their mosque. Of course, from the converts’ perspective, the changes associated with embracing Islam were primarily internal. Constantly cultivating peace in one’s

25 Lucy Acton, “Baltimore’s Muslim Community,” Baltimore Magazine, reprinted in Criterion (Karachi) 8, no. 5 (May 1973): 39.

Reorientation 335 behavior, thoughts, and emotions through submission of the ego and body to God’s teachings was the true essence of Islam for many new Muslims. What this ultimately meant, in practical terms, was spending a great deal of mental energy throughout the day observing their own thoughts and behavior and contemplating God and Islamic teachings—and how these were reflected in and could be applied to their own lives. This internal spiritual practice was frequently enhanced and assisted by regularly praying the required five times a day. Although this was often a challenge in the working atmosphere of the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, the effort was frequently made. For some, especially those for whom performing the formal five prayers proved to be impossible, they made sure to silently say prayers throughout the day. Many if not most converts also began inserting Arabic-Islamic expressions into their daily discourse. ‘Alhamdulillah’ (‘Praise to God’), ‘inshallah,’ (‘God willing’), ‘mashallah’ (‘God has willed it’), and the greeting ‘as-salamu alaykum’ (‘peace be upon you’) became regular parts of their vocabulary. The use of such expressions served several functions simultaneously. It reminded the speakers, first of all, of both their commitment to God and of God’s ultimate power in the universe, thereby assisting the converts in their inner spiritual discipline. Like their other actions, the production of these sounds also helped sacralize the converts’ external environment, which for the convert reinforced the sense that their religion and God permeated every aspect of human life throughout time and space. Uttering Arabic phrases was particularly important for converts in this regard; since Arabic is understood by many Muslims as a God- given language, the act of vocalizing Arabic words provided a sense of connection with the divine throughout the convert’s day. Lastly, saying these phrases gave the converts a sense of connection with the greater Muslim community throughout the world and throughout history as these expressions were regarded as terms that have been used nearly universally among Muslims of all periods. Similar motivations appear to have also been involved with converts’ creation and promotion of Islamic poetic, visual, and musical arts. William Lutz’s 1949 poem, for instance, was in fact one of the earliest examples, if not the first, of na‘tiyya poetry—a traditional Islamic poetic genre in which the Prophet Muhammad is honored—to be published by an American Muslim.26 Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Lutz would continue to write poetry that would be shared with the new generation of American Muslims by way of the

26 For a discussion of na’ityya poetry, see Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad Is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 176–215.

336 chapter 11 msa’s magazine Al-Ittihad.27 Islamic calligraphy, meanwhile, is claimed by contemporary American Muslims to have been first brought to the us around the 1960s by another white convert, Mohamed Zakariya, a California native who had studied the art in Morocco under an Egyptian calligrapher, Abdussalam Ali-Nour.28 Calligraphy and other forms of Islamic art were also promoted by Dr. Lamya Lois Isben al-Faruqi, the convert wife of the prominent immigrant Muslim scholar Dr. Isma‘il al-Faruqi.29 Like her husband, Lamya was a long- time intellectual, and was even a published advocate for women’s rights prior to her receiving her PhD in 1974.30 The arts, however, were her main passion. Lamya had begun studying music at the college level in the 1940s, and after finishing her doctoral dissertation on music in Islamic culture, she wrote a number of scholarly works and taught courses concerning music in Islam in both secular and Islamic settings. Lamya served, in addition, on multiple boards for nonprofits that worked towards the preservation and education of Islamic arts. Lamya of course was not alone in her valuing education as it related to Islam. As it was for Lisa, Richard, and Nusrat, studying Islam and its traditions was an important component to the ‘way of life’ of many converts. Although few pre-1975 converts learned Arabic—the resources for which were extremely rare—many obtained copies of English translations of the Qurʾan, usually Yusuf Ali’s. Since probably a large percentage of 1965–74 converts were not affiliated with a mosque, and since, even for those who were, most American mosques at the time did not have, as many do today, courses for converts to study the Qurʾan and Islamic history, converts typically developed their understanding of their religion through discussion with their spouses, Muslim in- laws, and convert friends, and occasionally by reading scholarly works on Islam. Still, during the 1965–74 period, Islamic instruction was slowly developing; the msa commenced distributing English-language teaching materials as did the Islamic Center in Washington, dc and a few other small American mosques and international Islamic organizations. Converts, then, occasionally had access to more well-developed Islamic knowledge. Some white Muslims,

27 See below for more on Lutz’s poems. 28 Steven Barboza, American Jihad: Islam after Malcolm X (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 64–69. 29 For a brief introduction to the writing and lives of both, see “Notes of the Quarter,” Muslim World 76 (1986): 251–52 and Charles D. Fletcher, “Isma’il al-Faruqi (1921–1986) and Inter- Faith Dialogue: The Man, the Scholar, the Participant” (PhD diss., McGill University, 2008). For more on Lamya, see the November 1986 issue of Islamic Horizons. 30 See, e.g., her “Women’s Rights and the Muslim Women,” Islam and the Modern Age 3, no. 2 (May 1972): 76–99.

Reorientation 337 like Richard Moats and Rashida James of Baltimore, even became teachers for Muslim children’s schools at their local mosques.31 One of the most historically significant Islamic teaching works to be produced in the us during this period was, notably, the work of a convert: Thomas Irving’s abridged and reformatted translation of the Qurʾan, published under the title Selections from the Noble Reading in 1968.32 Although at least two previous American converts may have had already translated the Qurʾan, Irving’s version is distinct for having verifiably gone to press and for being the first published Qurʾan translation made by any American, not just a convert. Selections is also important because its creation represented the coming together of several of the country’s Muslims and prominent Islamic organizations of the 1960s. Both the fia and msa sponsored and helped distribute copies and the book was endorsed by Abdil Moti Al-Aseer, the Azhar-trained imam of the Islamic Center of Toledo, as well as Dr. Abdul Sahib Hashim, the director of Washington, dc’s Islamic Center and former dean of the Faculty of Law at al-Azhar.33 In addition, Muslims from around the us donated money to assist the Cedar Rapids Muslim community in the printing of the translation.34 Although written primarily for second- and third-generation immigrants,35 because Irving had arranged Qurʾanic excerpts in a way that would help those with little to no knowledge of the Qurʾan begin to understand its various dimensions, it would have also been of great use for many converts, and it was probably somewhat popular among those converts affiliated with either the fia or msa.36 After the book’s publication, Irving would continue to work on the Qurʾan and in 1985 he would produce a full translation. Although increasing one’s religious study, sacralizing one’s body and environment, and disciplining one’s thoughts and behavior are practices enjoined by countless religious communities—including numerous Christian ones— many white converts to Islam after the Second World War felt strongly that such spiritual discipline was not being widely cultivated in the religion or society of their upbringing. At the same time, there was a sense that this important aspect of religion was more fundamental to Islam and Islamic culture than it

31 Acton, “Baltimore’s,” 37. 32 Thomas Ballantine Irving, Selections from the Noble Reading: An Anthology of Passages from the Qur˒an (Cedar Rapids: Unity Publishing Company, 1968). 33 Irving, Selections, 1–7. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., 5. 36 Instead of being a straightforward translation, this book arranges Qurʾanic excerpts by topic, of which there are five: the introduction, divine principles, belief and practice, aspects of morality, and prophethood.

338 chapter 11 was to other religions. Islam, it was often believed, was the only religion that clearly contained a God-given set of instructions for religious life that could be followed by any person. Because this does not seem to have been the view of most of the early American wives of Muslims—as most did not convert to Islam—such an attitude suggests that embracing Islam was at least partly a response to the converts’ own anxieties or alienation from the world in which they found themselves as young adults. So, while white American conversion to Islam in the late 1960s and early 1970s was primarily a function of immigration and surely reflected, to some extent, the ideas and practices imported by immigrant Muslims, the challenge of negotiating the transforming American society was without doubt at least one factor in generating this emerging view of Islam as a ‘way of life.’ Interestingly, this view held by 1960s/1970s converts is curiously similar to the view to which Alexander Webb had adhered. Webb, who, like many post- 1964 converts, was well-educated and exposed to a world of increasing cultural and religious diversity, had identified Islam’s having these ‘practical’ rules as one of the religion’s most important traits. It seems, then, that the desire for and valuing of an all-encompassing ‘way of life’ among the post-1964 non-esoterically-inclined converts connected them with those converts who had been esoterically-inclined in the nineteenth century and after. This may partly explain why, as we will see, Sufism began to increase popularity in this period even when immigrant Muslims showed little interest in it, and why Alexander Webb has remained for many converts an inspiring figure. Indeed, this desire for a ‘way of life,’ as well as the tendency to emphasize the cultivation of peaceful relations between all people, seem to have been somewhat consistent elements in white American Muslims’ views of Islam over the generations.

The msa and Moderate Pan-Islam

Despite the importance of converts’ own personal- and cultural-based yearnings for sacralization, religious discipline in their daily lives, and peaceful relations between all people, the role of Muslim immigration in shaping converts’ lives was still very significant, and perhaps grew in importance after 1964. An obvious place to look for evidence of the particular types of influence that immigrants had on American Muslims would therefore be within the institution that played a significant role in the lives of many of the generation’s immigrants and the college-educated converts with whom they were in contact: the msa. Although some converts from the period, like Nusrat, Richard, and Abedi, never joined the msa, dozens, possibly hundreds, of others did. Many of these

Reorientation 339 individuals were probably like Lisa in that they were primarily drawn to the social and spiritual aspects of the community; intellectual religious development and participation in the organization’s leadership were at best secondary issues for them. Nevertheless, some converts regularly read the group’s publications and were highly involved with its administrative activities. Converts, in fact, began to take on an increasingly prominent role in the msa community during this period, reflecting both their growing contact with international students and the changes in the ways white Muslims were impacted by immigration over the years. One can easily observe the post-1964 transformation in white convert demographics and social networks by looking at trends in the presence of white converts in national Islamic organizations since the interwar period. The interwar network of Louis Glick and Muharrem Nadji had put moderately-educated, immigrant-connected white Muslims to the forefront, but this network had begun disintegrating prior to the Second World War and had all but disappeared by 1961, the year both Glick and Nadji died. In the postwar period, highly educated white converts connected to Muslim college students, like Guertin and Irving, served as fia vice presidents and were prominent figures at national fia-connected gatherings.37 However, between 1965 and 1974 no white American convert served as an officer in the national fia. Moreover, despite facing declining membership and support from immigrant Muslims,38 white converts were rarely mentioned in the fia’s magazine, the Muslim Star, and they were no longer featured speakers at the organization’s conventions.39

37 Guertin, as was pointed out in chapter 10, presented at multiple conventions and Irving lectured at least for the fia’s Islamic Youth Association’s conclave in 1963, during the his term as fia first vice president; see “Report on November: i.y.a. Youth Conclave,” Muslim Star 5, no. 1 (January and February 1964): 3, imjc Papers, Box 8, bhl. 38 The fia’s declining membership and support is suggested two things: First, the decrease in density of articles in the Muslim Star, which suggests few contributions were being made. Second, the 1972 urging for increased membership and complaints of financial difficulties; see “Increase in Membership Mandatory,” Muslim Star 13, no. 84 (1972): 1, imjc Papers, Box 8, bhl. 39 I have found no post-1965 issues of the Muslim Life, the journal that Irving had started editing by 1964. Irving does, however, have a book review that appeared in one of the last known extant issues of the f.i.a. Journal (1, no. 2 [January-March 1965]:26–28, imjc Papers, Box 9, Misc. Islam Organizations’ Newsletters, bhl). In late 1967, the Muslim Star also ran a few advertisements for Irving’s partial translation of the Qurʾan, which he had published by the Cedar Rapids mosque in 1968 (see above for a discussion). For the most part, though, mentions of white converts were extremely rare in the Star during this period, and they were almost never featured in a prominent story in the magazine.

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Meanwhile, during this same period, the msa was experiencing exponential growth,40 and not only were multiple local branches and the national organization giving its college-educated white converts leadership and support roles,41 the association’s journal, Al-Ittihad, published several white convert- written pieces—many more than had been published by the fia, even during the time of Guertin and Irving. At one level, this increased prominence of white Muslims in the msa simply reflected the demographic differences of these new Muslims: being middle class and college-educated, these converts presumably had more experience in voluntary organizations and better command of the written word than the typical white convert who had been involved with fia-affiliated mosques. Since the new immigrants who led the msa, being college-educated themselves, were in favor of promoting intelligent written discussions of Islamic topics, it was almost natural that they would embrace the converts’ writings. But there were other elements at play as well. There seems to have been, first of all, at least a minor desire among the international students and immigrants to emphasize for other Muslims their welcoming of college-educated American whites. This desire was almost certainly born out of a feeling, held by many Muslims around the world, that if Islam could convert even those who represented the elite of what was seen as the oppressive and largely anti-Muslim Euro-American culture, the religion stood a good chance of ushering in an era of worldwide peace and justice.42 This was a theme that had perhaps been present in the American convert community since Alexander Webb was

40 msa, The msa Handbook, 28, 35. 41 E.g., Astrid-Herma Smart became a prominent member in the University of Illinois’ group (see her “How and Why I Adopted Islam,” Al-Ittihad 2, no. 1 [1965]: 8–11), Linda Clark was made secretary of the msa of Southern Illinois University (see her “How I Became a Muslim and Embraced Islam,” Al-Ittihad 2, no. 1 [1965]: 41), Omar Theodore Kilgore of the University of Michigan was made head of the national msa’s committee on Education, Libraries and Lecturing (see “Resolutions Passed at the Convention of Muslim Students’ Associations of the United States & Canada,” Al-Ittihad 2, no. 1 [1965]: 14), and in Iowa State University’s msa, a Keith Johnson was president and a W. Bowels was vice president during the 1971–72 school year (see “msa—Iowa State University Ames, Iowa,” Al-Ittihad 9, no. 1 [1972]: 26). 42 Several older immigrant and convert Muslims, both white and African American, have suggested to me that this was a motivation for favoring white converts. In addition, several white Muslims I have talked to who have converted since the 1970s have told me that they believed that their Muslim communities sometimes have attempted to make them tokens for this reason; and this has been confirmed for me by a number of African American and immigrant Muslims.

Reorientation 341 enlisted by Indian and Arab Muslims to run an Islamic mission, and seems to have been partially behind the early promoting of people like William Lutz, Wilson Guertin, and Maryam Jameelah, none of whom had much traditional Islamic religious training or were even scholars of Islamic history like Thomas Irving. They were, instead, largely serving as tokens of the white Western elite: they came from educated, middle-class families, they had at least some college education themselves, and they were relatively well-spoken. Now, having much more access to college-educated white converts than previous American Muslim communities, the msa was able to show them off fairly easily. And, since the msa was quickly developing ties to the larger American and international Muslim communities, they were also able to bring in prominent converts who were no longer even students. Both Thomas Irving and Maryam Jameelah, for instance, were mentioned and had articles published a number of times in Al-Ittihad, while William Lutz—who, like Jameelah, had been ignored by the fia—had several of his new poems showcased for the msa readers.43 Another important function of this promoting of educated, articulate whites was it helped establish for other new white converts and potential converts ideal images of white converts and their conversions. It is noteworthy that almost all of the white converts who were mentioned and whose writings were published in Al-Ittihad between 1965 and 1974 were regarded as leaders, or at least very active participants, in their Muslim communities. This surely shaped the idea of conversion to Islam for the growing population of college-educated friends and spouses of Muslims, as it suggested that through conversion they would be supported in actively participating in the creation of an improved society. Many of the convert writers, furthermore, were women, confirming for the majority gender of the new white convert community that their voices were going to be respected and heard. Finally, the conversion narratives that were promoted by the msa tended to emphasize two elements that would be important for the msa approach to accepting white converts: the converts’ reliance on the immigrant/student Muslim community for friendship and knowledge about Islam and the converts’ choosing Islam after a process of rational evaluation. These elements helped reinforce the social and religious necessity (and therefore authority) of immigrant Muslims while also implying that Islam itself was rational and therefore compatible with modern life, an important concept needed for overcoming white prejudices concerning Islam’s supposed

43 Irving: 2, no. 2 (1965): 14, 22; 3, no. 1 (1966): 14; 3, no. 2 (1966): 7; 8, no. 1 (1971): 7; 9, no. 2 (1972): 7; 10, no. 2 (1973): 4. Jameelah: 3, no. 2 (1966): 23; 9, no. 1 (1972): 24; 9, no. 2 (1972): 20; 11, no. 1 (1974): 13; 11, no. 3 (1974): 6, 27. Lutz: 2, no. 2 (1965): 8; 3, no. 2 (1966): 13; 4, no. 1 (1967): 47, 48; 7, no. 2 (1970): 32.

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intellectual backwardness. In the years to come, these themes would be repeated over and over throughout the community of white converts. Of course, the msa was not solely responsible for the popularization of this view of Islam, which had been present to some extent since Webb’s day. And, as Lisa Alfassi’s conversion story demonstrates, not all potential converts—not even all of those who were members of the msa—were directly influenced by this intellectual model. Nevertheless, the group’s significant influence on the very immigrant populations that were most likely to be interacting with white converts during and after college undoubtedly served to strengthen this view’s popularity. An additional reason for publishing the writings of white converts in Al-Ittihad was that in some cases—most notably with Jameelah and Irving— the white converts were known and respected in both the broader us Muslim community and international Pan-Islamic circles, which therefore lent the msa greater legitimacy amongst its readership. Due to her earlier articles in Islamic periodicals and her moving to Pakistan with the support of Mawdudi, by 1962, Jameelah had already become the most famous living white American convert in the world. She would hold this position for several years by producing an enormous output of published writings on Islamic topics. Besides her many books, in the early 1960s, Jameelah appeared in numerous issues of the Siddiqui-influenced Voice of Islam as well as the London- (and, later, Pakistan-) based Muslimnews International. Starting in 1965 she was also featured regularly in the South Asian English-language journals Yaqeen International and the Minaret—another Siddiqui-influenced periodical—and in the early 1970s, her work frequently appeared in the Mawdudi-affiliated Criterion. Most of Jameelah’s writings conveyed a very conservative Islamic view strongly influenced by Mawdudi and other conservative Muslim thinkers of the period.44

44 In researching this topic, I consulted the following works by Jameelah: Quest for the Truth; Why I Embraced Islam; At Home in Pakistan (1962–1989) (Lahore: Muhammad Yusuf Khan and Sons, 1990); Islam and Modern Man (Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1976); Islam and Modernism (Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1966); Islam and Orientalism (Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1971); Islam and the Muslim Woman Today (Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1976); Islam in Theory and Practice (Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1967); Islam versus Ahl al-Kitab: Past and Present, 2nd rev. ed. (Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan and Sons, 1978); Islam versus the West, 4th ed. (Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1971 [1962]); “An Appraisal of Some Aspects of Maulana Sayyid Ala Maudoodi’s Life and Thought,” Islamic Quarterly 31, no. 2 (1987): 116–30; [with Mawdudi] Correspondence between Maulana Maudoodi and Maryam Jameelah, 3rd ed. (Lahore: Mohammad Yusuf Khan, 1978); and her articles in the Minaret, The Islamic Literature, Voice of Islam, Muslimnews International, Criterion (Karachi), and Yaqeen International. For an accurate summary of Jameelah’s views, see Esposito and Voll, in Makers of Contemporary Islam, 54–67.

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She, for instance, follows the modern Salafi approach in defining ‘true’ Islam as not only that which is recorded in the Qurʾan and hadith, but also only that which existed in the early Muslim centuries—prior to the ‘corruption’ of Islamic civilization by the West. According to Jameelah, furthermore, Islam is the only truly ‘spiritual’ religion that enables humans to love and care for each other in a complete way by providing clear codes for behavior. This is radically different from and superior to Western ‘materialist’ culture, which, she claims, promotes the destructive concepts of individualism, feminism, progress, and hyper-rationality. All pain and suffering in the world is attributable to following these non-Islamic values; therefore, there can be no compromise between Islam and the West. Irving, meanwhile, was far more liberal, and was in any case much less interested in theology-type writing, focusing more on Islamic history and the adjustment of immigrant Muslims and their families to living in the West. He was often featured in the Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf publication Islamic Literature, a journal that sometimes exchanged articles for reprinting with Al-Ittihad. Other less popular white converts also made occasional appearances in these journals as well: Joseph DiCaprio and the msa’s Linda Clark had articles reprinted in the Islamic Literature;45 William Lutz showed up on occasion in Yaqeen International, Muslimnews International, and possibly the Criterion;46 and a handful of other converts wrote their conversion stories for Yaqeen International between 1966 and 1971.47 The presence of these converts in Al-Ittihad helped the msa in two ways. On the one hand, it further connected and legitimized the msa for its readership already familiar with these converts (especially Jameelah and Irving). On the other, it helped broaden notions about Pan-Islam for the magazine’s Muslim readers who were not familiar with these converts. Pan-Islam was in fact a very

45 DiCaprio: 7, no. 10 (1966): 37; Clark: 7, no. 1 (1966): 43. 46 Lutz is identified in the first two of these journals by his Muslim name: Abder Rahman. Yaqeen International: November 7 & 22, 1966, 84; October 7, 1967, 81; Muslimnews International: August 1963, 29. In the Muslimnews International piece, which was a letter written to the magazine, Lutz identifies himself as a representative of an “International Council of Islamic Minorities” based in Berkeley, California. This, and the fact that Lutz was a known affiliate of the msa, suggests that Lutz is the author of a 1974 piece about the Philippines, which appeared in the Criterion, was distributed by the msa at Berkeley, and used a Berkeley address for a Philippines relief fund; “The Philippines: A Rebellion that Won’t Go Away,” Criterion (Karachi) 9, no. 4 (April 1974): 32–34. 47 Between 1967 and 1971, Yaqeen International published over a dozen pieces written by white converts to Islam explaining their conversions. The majority of these were by Europeans, but at least a few were written by Americans.

344 chapter 11 attractive movement for both convert and immigrant college students. Many white American Muslims were drawn to Pan-Islam’s romantic messages of Muslim unity, working towards worldwide peace and justice, and the use of what was often presented as a pure form of Islam as a ‘way of life.’ International students also appreciated these aspects of Pan-Islam, but they had additional motivations for taking an interest in the movement. Islam, first of all, was the common ground many had used to befriend other Muslim international students as they adjusted to living in the us, so finding an expression of Islam that could overcome cultural and even sectarian differences was incredibly useful. Perhaps more importantly, however, many students—particularly early members of the msa—saw Islam and Pan-Islam as the key tools for Muslims to resist oppressive Arab social regimes and Western imperialism in the Middle East.48 As was discussed in earlier chapters, by the Second World War, Pan-Islamic efforts had failed to take a strong hold both in the us and internationally.49 Internationally, Pan-Islamic efforts had tended to fail due to lack of funds and mistrust of the personal motives of those who had initiated Pan-Islamic activities. In the early postwar period, despite an increased desire for Pan-Islam, the prospects for a Pan-Islamic movement to gain true international prominence were not particularly good, largely because for most Muslims the interwar factors inhibiting its growth were only exacerbated. Several Muslim-majority nations had gained independence during and soon after the war, and they now, as young and often fairly poor countries, had to focus on addressing their national needs, which sometimes conflicted with those of other Muslim- majority nations. An additional source of tension was the question of whether each country’s nationalism should be Arab- or Islam-based, an issue that often deeply divided Muslims following the rise of Nasser’s socialist Arabist government in Egypt in 1956. In this context, numerous Pan-Islamic movements emerged—particularly out of Pakistan, the only modern country created specifically for Muslims—but the vast majority either collapsed completely or failed to gain widespread acceptance.50 In the us, the first generation of immigrants, having few skills and little education, were primarily concerned with survival and establishing homes

48 Bowers, “A Phenomenological Study,” 103–06. 49 The following discussion of postwar Pan-Islam is drawn largely from Abdullah Mohamed Sindi, “The Muslim World and Its Efforts in Pan-Islamism” (PhD diss., University of Southern California, 1978) and Jacob M. Landau, The Politics of Pan-Islam: Ideology and Organization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). 50 Landau, Politics, 276–79.

Reorientation 345 for their families, and they typically did so around ethnic lines. Ad hoc Pan- Islamic efforts, such as fundraisers for victims of war, had occasionally gained their support, but generally early immigrants were unable to maintain a consistent Pan-Islamic movement. During the first two decades after the war, several of the Pan-Islamic movements that had influenced Muslim Americans—such as those of Subhani, Siddiqui, Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf, the ymma, and even Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood—while important for both having gained widespread Muslim respect and having connected Americans to each other and to international Pan-Islam, were among the many movements that had failed to achieve truly widespread adherence. They were therefore, despite their supporters in the country, unable to generate anything like a strong, organized movement in the us. Even Abdul A’la Mawdudi, who was one of the most respected Pan-Islamic thinkers the world at the time, was unable to have a stable and consistent influence. The circulation of Pan- Islamic notions in the us before the 1960s had helped shape American Muslim thought to some extent, but without influential organizations, when differences emerged, it was relatively easy to fall back on ethnic, national, and even local loyalties. There were in fact only two international Pan-Islamic organizations to gain widespread support by non-politician Muslims before 1975, and one had a much greater influence on us Muslim thought and activities than the other.51 The less-influential of the two was the Motamar al-Alam al-Islami, or World Muslim Congress (wmc).52 The wmc was not formally established until 1949, but it claimed to be the continuation of the congresses of the interwar period, particularly the Meccan congress of 1926 and the Jerusalem congress of 1931, neither of which had successfully established a lasting organization.53 However, because of Pakistan’s recently gaining independence as a Muslim country, the holding of the 1949 congress there allowed the wmc to benefit from both international Muslim pride in Pakistan and a highly-motivated core of local promoters. At the two-day event in Karachi, the congress adopted a statute making the wmc a permanent body that would meet at regular intervals.54 This was followed in 1951 by another congress in Karachi, which was attended by representatives from thirty-one Muslim-majority and non-Muslim-majority

51 That the World Muslim Congress and the Muslim World League were the only two truly influential international Pan-Islamic organizations before 1975 is the assessment of both Sindi and Landau. 52 See Sindi, “Muslim World,” 106–36 and Landau, Politics, 280–83. 53 For more on the interwar congresses, see Kramer, Islam Assembled. 54 Sindi, “Muslim World,” 122.

346 chapter 11 countries. For the rest of the 1950s, however, the wmc was relatively quiet, and it would not be until 1962 that another congress was held. This time, though, the congress, which met in June in Baghdad, achieved relatively significant results by writing a constitution and generating plans to start a news agency and establish wmc offices throughout the world.55 Before the end of the year, an English-language journal, The Muslim World: A Weekly Review of the Motamar, had been created and wmc offices were being set up in several countries.56 The 1962 congress was particularly important for American Muslims not only because it was attended by a representative from the us,57 but it was also due primarily to the resolutions of that congress that us Muslim institutions formally established ties with the wmc. A wmc office was set up in New York by early 1965,58 and by 1967, the group’s journal was receiving regular updates on the activities of both the msa and fia and frequently heard from various local us Muslim communities.59 Indeed, out of all the international English- language Muslim journals, the wmc’s Muslim World showed the most interest in the activities of American Muslims, and was probably the most popular Pan- Islamic journal in the country, especially among converts. The New York Muslim community, the fia, and the Muslim ambassador-heavy Washington Islamic Center—which were linked in the 1960s by Egyptian government support as well as the direct influence of the prominent Egyptian immigrant Dr. Shawarbi—were the American groups most strongly affiliated with the wmc.60 These American organizations shared the wmc’s comparatively tolerant view of Nasser and Arab nationalism as well as the desire to maintain good relations with the West—that is, aside from Israel, which was strongly

55 Sindi, “Muslim World,” 128–29. 56 By April 1965, there were offices in Karachi, Beirut, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Dakar, Mogadishu, and New York; see “Motamar Al-Alam Al-Islami,” Muslimnews International 3 (April 1965): 37. 57 Sindi, “Muslim World,” 125. 58 “Motamar Al-Alam Al-Islami,” Muslimnews International 3 (April 1965): 37. At the time, the office’s director was presumably Omar Assouni; see “Our New York Office,” Muslim World (wmc), June 21, 1969, 5. 59 I was unable to look at issues from before 1967. 60 For comparison, between 1967 and 1971, the Muslim World ran 20 news briefs on the fia and fia-connected organizations, and only 13 on the msa. During this same time period, it ran 13 (combined) briefs on New York and dc Islamic activities, and only 7 (combined) briefs on other us Islamic communities. Finally, it should be pointed out that in 1969, when the office of director of the New York office was filled, it was by Dr. M.A. Rauf, the director of the Washington Islamic Center; see “Our New York Office.”

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criticized, particularly after the Six-Day War in 1967.61 After 1967, however, the influence of the wmc began to wane, partly due to its having such an open- minded stance during a period in which another form of Pan-Islam that was less tolerant of Arab nationalism had started dominating international Pan- Islamic discourse.62 The organization that had risen to overtake the wmc as the most influential Pan-Islamic movement was the Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami, or Muslim World League (mwl).63 Although less interested in political issues than that wmc, the mwl was a more conservative Pan-Islamic group and therefore was strongly opposed socialist and Arabist movements. The primary cause of the mwl being able to rise to its high position in the Islamic world was that it had considerable religious and financial influences from Saudi Arabia, a country that possessed multiple reasons for opposing revolutionary and non-Islamic forms of governance in Muslim-majority regions. As rulers of the country in which resided Muslims’ two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, Saudis felt a special responsibility for protecting and preserving their religion—a feeling that was amplified by the ruling family’s 200-year association with one of the oldest and most influential modern Islamic reformist movements: Wahhabism.64 A conservative theology that rejected medieval Islamic religious scholarship as corrupted by foreign influences, Wahhabism was adopted as the official ideology of the Saud family in the mid-eighteenth century. The Saudis, at the time, had commenced a long-lasting military campaign to seize control of Arabia, culminating in 1925, with their conquering of Mecca. Their international influence might have been minimal, however, had they not discovered oil in 1938 and soon learned that they possessed the world’s largest known oil reserve, which, almost overnight, made Saudi Arabia the wealthiest Arab country. Even before coming into this immense wealth, though, the Saudis had set to work attempting to win the allegiance of Muslims throughout the world. They hosted the 1926 Meccan congress and promoted their ideology to Muslim pilgrims during the hajj and through international outreach. For several years, however, there was resistance to the Saudis’ Pan-Islamic proposals, just as there was resistance to other forms of Pan-Islam in the interwar and postwar

61 The fia’s pro-American stance was discussed in chapter 10. For a clear view of the fia’s position vis-à-vis Nasser, see the various writings on him that appeared in the September 1970 issue of the Muslim Star. 62 Sindi, “Muslim World,” 135–36. 63 See Sindi, “Muslim World,” 140–47; Landau, Politics, 283–87. 64 See Natana J. Delong-Bas, Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

348 chapter 11 periods. But with the 1950s rise of socialist Arab nationalism and the accompanying suppression of Islamic practices and movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Muslim resentment towards and fear of non-Islamic governments grew stronger, and the Saudis were poised to take the reins of the emerging current. In 1962, the Saudi government sponsored an international Muslim conference at Mecca with the purpose of formulating methods to fight both secularism and radicalism in Muslim countries—the latter because Saudi dependence on the sale of oil demanded that they support the stability of states who would consume their natural resource. The attendees decided to establish the mwl, a religious organization that would be predominantly funded and influenced by the Saudis. The mwl quickly proceeded to consoli- date its power by beginning to support and coordinate the efforts of other Pan- Islamic organizations, largely through offering financial and ideological support. By 1963, the mwl had the allegiance of many of Siddiqui’s followers,65 and by 1968, after creating the World Islamic Organizations, a subsidiary body established to coordinate the activities of the groups it supported, the mwl had even gained the formal alliance of the wmc.66 Propelled by the deep Saudi pockets, within just a few years, the mwl had rocketed itself to the position of far and away the most influential Pan-Islamic organization in the world, and, in the process, gained some influence over international Muslim students in the us and the converts who affiliated with them. Many of the original members of the msa, like many of their post-1964 immigrant coreligionists, had Pan-Islamic leanings, and some had even been members of international Pan-Islamic organizations, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Jamaat-i-Islami.67 Meanwhile, a few Pan-Islamic reform- minded immigrant Islamic Studies scholars who had jobs at major American universities, like Fazlur Rahman and Isma‘il al-Faruqi, were also supportive of the growing Muslim student community.68 The msa and Al-Ittihad were therefore predisposed to being influenced by various Pan-Islamic currents, and the mwl in particular. Over the years, the journal avoided any positive mentions of Nasser and instead published numerous essays by Syyed Qutb, the leading

65 See throughout volume 1 of World Muslim League Magazine (Singapore). 66 Sindi, “Muslim World,” 145; “First Conference of World Islamic Organizations Held at Mecca,” Islamic Review & Arab Affairs 56, nos. 11–12 (1968): 28. 67 Haddad, “Arab Muslims,” 70. 68 On al-Faruqi’s influence, see Fletcher, “Isma‘il al-Faruqi,” 22–23, 57–58. Fazlur Rahman’s connection with the msa has been less well-documented by scholars, but he wrote at least one article for Al-Ittihad (published in January 1978) and some of his students— most notably, perhaps, the white convert Umar F. Abdullah—wrote pieces for Al-Ittihad prominent figures in the community.

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Muslim Brotherhood intellectual, Mawdudi, and other prominent international Pan-Islamic writers. In 1965, the msa’s publications committee chair- man and Al-Ittihad editor, Ahmad Totonji, attended that year’s mwl conference, enthusiastically reporting for the journal’s readers that “a wave of Islamic reju- venation [was] sweeping across the Muslim countries,” and that the international Muslims studying in the us “will be called upon to lead, on [their] return home.”69 mwl-leaning Pan-Islam had thus obtained a strong influence on the msa and the people to which it was connected. Still, this is not to say that the msa was exclusively committed to the mwl’s comparatively conservative views. In fact, through the late 1960s and early 1970s, the msa maintained good relations with more liberal organizations, such as the fia and the wmc.70 However, by the early 1970s the msa and fia began working together less and less and were moving apart politically.71 Interest in the new Pan-Islamic perspective was in fact becoming so strong within the msa community that in 1972, the msa announced that it had changed its focus from uniting just Muslim students in America to calling all Muslims to join together to become a van- guard that would lead a worldwide unification of Muslims and revival of Islam.72 This revival was primarily understood as a peaceful one that would develop partly within, and partly in collaboration with the Christian West. It was hoped that this revival would ultimately lead to world peace and prosperity. One indicator of the msa’s peaceful and moderate approach to Islam is its connection with the post-hajj Malcolm X. When the noi began to obtain worldwide attention in the late 1950s, a number of international Muslim political and religious leaders, including Egypt’s Nasser, sought to gain affiliation with the Nation, even despite knowing that its doctrines were far from orthodox Islam. But after Malcolm performed the hajj in 1964 and subsequently— partly due to the influence of prominent fia members like Dr. Shawarbi and Aliya Hassen as well as the mwl, which began giving him funding73— converted to Sunni Islam and adopted a relatively tolerant attitude towards whites, his status as an internationally-respected opponent of Western racism

69 [Ahmad Totonji], “Editor’s Note,” Al-Ittihad 2, no. 2 (1965): 3. 70 See the various issues of the Muslim Star and Muslim World (wmc) from during this period. 71 Howell, “Inventing,” 254–57; Bowers, “A Phenomenological Study,” 122–23. 72 “Editorial: Redefinition of the Objectives of msa,” Al-Ittihad 9, no. 2 (1972): 1. 73 Shawarbi’s influence is noted in Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1965), 324, and Hassen’s influence is attested to in the Aliya Hassen Papers at bhl. For more on this topic, see hctius vol. 2.

350 chapter 11 and imperialism made him an extremely attractive symbol for Sunni Muslims with reformist goals. Then, when he was assassinated in 1965, many prominent Sunni figures and organizations—particularly American ones, including Maryam Jameelah—rushed to emphasize their social, spiritual, and intellectual connections with the charismatic black Muslim.74 The msa, for its part, had already been taking an interest in noi members-turned-Sunni by late 1964, when it received word that Elijah Muhammad’s son, Wallace, had rejected noi doctrines.75 As soon as news of Malcolm’s death got out, then, the national and numerous local msa branches began to take up collections for Malcolm’s widow and children. Several msa representatives also attended his funeral, at which University of Illinois msa member Gulzar Haider gave a speech.76 Then, in 1970, Al-Ittihad ran a brief didactic biography of Malcolm.77 The embracing of Malcolm X by the msa was undoubtedly important for many white converts. Due partly to the Nation and Malcolm’s influence and partly to the spread of Ahmadi literature, many non-Muslim white Americans had begun to consider the idealized notion—long appreciated in the white and black American Muslim convert communities—that Islam could serve as a tool for overcoming the scourge of racism.78 As we have seen, this feeling, which was being reinforced by the postwar counterculture and the Civil Rights Movement, had already led figures like Nadirah Osman and Nilla Cram Cook to join with Muslims on an international scale and white hipsters to embrace the mst teachings during the late 1950s and 1960s. Malcolm’s death, however, gave it an even greater purchase. For the white convert Umar F. Abdullah, reading Malcolm’s Autobiography in early 1970 was in fact what had inspired the English PhD student at Cornell to embrace Islam.79 Two years later, Abdullah changed his degree to Islamic Studies, and enrolled at the

74 See, e.g., Muslim Herald: A Bi-Monthly Journal Dedicated to the Cause of Islam (Philadelphia) 5, no. 3 (March 1965), Aliya Hassen Papers, bhl; Voice of Islam: The Islamic Society of Greater Houston 4, no. 1 (January 1973), Labadie Collection, University of Michigan; Baker, Convert, 26. I should point out that I found very little evidence showing fia interest in Malcolm X after his death, although this may be partially due to the fact that the bhl’s Muslim Star holdings do not include issues from early 1965. 75 “A Letter from Mr. Wallace D. Muhamad,” Al-Ittihad 2, no. 1 (1965): 13. 76 Al-Ittihad 2, no. 2 (1965): 12, 13, 47. 77 Sahir Sudad, “Malcolm X,” Al-Ittihad 7, no. 2 (1970): 25–29. 78 This theme appears in many writings of white converts from the period. I would like to thank Nusrat Bashir for pointing out the importance of Ahmadi writings during this period. 79 “Umar F. Abdullah,” Lamppost Productions, accessed June 18, 2014, http://www .lamppostproductions.com/umar-f-abdullah/.

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University of Chicago to study under the Muslim immigrant teacher Fazlur Rahman, and from there he contributed to Al-Ittihad.80 Abdullah, however, was not alone in coming to Sunni Islam through the influence of Malcolm. In 1977, Al-Ittihad published a study of twenty-five us Muslim converts— presumably mostly of white converts connected to the msa—and while eleven of them said they first came into contact with Islam through “friends and or Muslim students,” two indicated that Malcolm’s Autobiography was their first connection.81 The Pan-Islamic feeling continued to be nurtured as the msa community grew. On several occasions, after earning graduate degrees in us colleges, former msa leaders remained in the country and continued to affiliate with the msa, but now as influential professionals. Notable among these individuals was Dr. Ilyas Ba-Yunus, one of the msa’s first presidents; there was also the early msa leaders Dr. Eltigani Abdelrahman Abugideiri and Dr. Mahboob Khan.82 Other former Association members, upon graduation, found jobs in the us, and, while remaining affiliated with the msa, often promoted the Pan- Islamic message in the Islamic institutions they joined and helped establish outside of the college setting.83 Several recent graduates formed, for instance, American Muslim professional associations, such as the Islamic Medical Association (est. 1967), the Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers (est. 1969), and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (est. 1972). Ahmad Totonji, the former editor of Al-Ittihad, after earning his doctorate, by 1970 had become the secretary general of the International Islamic Federation of Student Organizations, which he connected with the msa and the fia.84 Several of the other former Association members who remained in the us after college in 1975 would become the people behind the creation of other important Islamic outreach and propaganda groups, such as the public institutional outgrowths of the msa, the Islamic Teaching Center and the Islamic Society of North America, further establishing the influence of reformist, but moderate Pan-Islam in America.85

80 See his articles “Sabr” in vol. 10, no. 2 (1973) and “Progress” in vol. 11, no. 2 (1974). 81 Nafees-el-Batool Khan, “A Study on Conversion,” Al-Ittihad 14, nos. 3–4 (1977): 42–43. 82 Islamic Horizons Staff, “Those Who Served,” Islamic Horizons 42, no. 5 (2013): 44–47; “A Scholar Activist,” Islamic Horizons 36, no. 6 (2007): 14. 83 Bowers, “A Phenomenological Study,” 116, 122, 125 ff. 84 “International Islamic Federation Secretary Reports on World Tour,” Muslim Star 11, no. 61 (1970): 4, imjc Papers, Box 8, bhl. 85 Bowers, “A Phenomenological Study,” passim., esp. 116, 122.

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The Sufi Spiritual Awakening

The fact that during the 1965–74 period, there were many converts like Umar F. Abdullah who were interested in the Qurʾan and the classical Islamic tradition but also looked to African American Muslims was reflective of another related religious current developing at the time. Increasingly, white Americans were seeking to challenge traditional white religious sensibilities and embrace ideas and practices that were not only considered foreign, but were also sometimes viewed as the complete antithesis of the white Western religious tradition. While this may have been partly the result of the psychology of Islamophilia, as discussed in Chapter 4, it also seems to have come out of the larger response to the social transformations of the period, which had led to thousands of white Americans joining mystical groups based on Eastern religions during the 1960s and 1970s, in what became known as the country’s ‘spiritual awakening.’86 It was almost inevitable, then, that in this era of spiritual awakening a new wave of white Americans would suddenly begin embracing Sufism. Although this revival of interest in Sufism would not hit its full stride until after 1974, it is nevertheless valuable to look at the initial stages. Important changes had been developing in American Sufism since the early postwar period. As was discussed in Chapter 10, in the 1950s new immigrant promoters of Sufism, such as Rabbani, Siddiqui, and Baba Rexheb, had started visiting—and sometimes remaining in—the us. While these teachers produced very few white converts, their presence nevertheless helped spread an interest in Islamic mysticism. Meanwhile, one of the older movements, Sufism Reoriented, which was composed of former followers of Rabia Martin who now looked to Meher Baba as their spiritual leader, after achieving very little growth in the 1950s, underwent an explosion in the next decade, gaining an estimated 7,000 followers.87 There were several reasons for this membership surge, but, as pointed out by scholars who worked closely with the group in the 1960s, Sufism Reoriented held a strong appeal for the period’s new population of ex-hippies and former drug users.88 During that decade, white American

86 See Ellwood, Sixties Spiritual Awakening; Glock and Bellah, New Religious Consciousness; Wuthnow, Consciousness Reformation; Needleman, New Religions; Rowley, New Gods. 87 For overviews of the Meher Baba movement in the us, see, e.g., Sufism Speaks Out: Sufism Reoriented Replies to Attacks from India (Walnut Creek, ca: Sufism Reoriented, 1981); Needleman, New Religions, 76–104; Rowley, New Gods, 120–34. 88 Thomas Robbins, “Eastern Mysticism and the Resocialization of Drug Users: The Meher Baba Cult,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 8, no. 2 (1969): 308–17; Thomas Robbins and Dick Anthony, “Getting Straight with Meher Baba: A Study of Mysticism, Drug Rehabilitation and Postadolescent Role Conflict,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 11, no. 2 (1972): 122–40.

Reorientation 353 drug culture showed significant interest in Eastern mysticism largely because both drug use and Eastern mysticism were seen as resources for expanding one’s consciousness, which many young whites were desiring due to their growing feeling of alienation.89 Because of the Eastern influence, several white drug users gravitated towards Eastern-oriented religious groups, and some, like Sufism Reoriented, encouraged the converts to give up drugs and actively par- ticipate in society. Such mystical organizations therefore allowed these individuals to express their alienation, but through the relatively socially-safe medium of private spirituality instead of the potentially dangerous drug culture, which meant they could also now have access to a stable middle-class life. Once clean, the Sufism Reoriented converts were able to draw in other whites with alternative spiritual leanings, which helped the movement become especially popular on college campuses. Samuel Lewis, meanwhile, who broke away from the Meher Baba community in the late 1940s, became involved with various Asian religion communities in the Bay Area, including the Lahori and the Sunni communities, through which he knew both Joseph DiCaprio and William Lutz.90 In 1956, he traveled throughout East and South Asia, studying various religious teachings, being initiated in the Naqshbandi and Chisti Sufi orders, and visiting with Bashir Minto, the former Lahori missionary to the us.91 In 1960–62, Samuel went on yet another journey, traveling to South Asia and Egypt, where he was initiated into more Sufi orders and made a full master in the Chisti order.92 Four years later, he re-established an old San Francisco Zen center, called Mentorgarden, as a center for his universalistic Sufism and he, for the first time, attracted a few of his own disciples, whom he duly initiated.93 By 1968 Lewis had gained around thirty followers.94

89 See, e.g., William Braden, The Private Sea: lsd and the Search for God (Chicago: Qadrangle Books, 1967); Rasa Gustiaitis, Turning On (New York: Macmillan Company, 1969); Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, phone interview with the author, September 19, 2014. 90 See Samuel Lewis, Diaries, esp. letters, Samuel Lewis to Abdul Rahman, February 7, 1961; to Bashir Ahmed Minto, July 24, 1956; to Florie, December 16, 1960, accessed August 1, 2013, http://murshidsam.org/; Samuel L. Lewis, In the Garden (New York: Harmony Books; San Cristobal, nm: Lama Foundation, 1975), 54. Lewis’ followers give the date of his separation from the Meher Baba community as 1946, but the Meher Baba community (Sufism Reoriented) gives the date of 1949. 91 See his Diaries as well as Andrew Rawlinson, “A History of Western Sufism,” Diskus 1, no. 1 (1993): 45–83 and Lewis, In the Garden, 52–57. 92 See Lewis, Diaries; Rawlinson, “A History.” 93 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 263–64. 94 Ibid., 264–65.

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In the latter year, one of Inayat Khan’s sons, Vilayat—who in 1956 had started a new movement based on Inayat’s teachings, called the Sufi Order International, and had begun establishing various new Sufi communities in the us95—met Samuel and publicly recognized him an authorized teacher of Inayat Khan’s Sufi Order. The two began to work together and the number of Samuel’s followers quickly doubled.96 Over the next few years, Lewis began writing down instructions for his Sufi-inspired ‘Dances of the Universal Peace,’ which became quite popular among his followers and sympathizers. In November 1970, Samuel did two more significant actions: he named one of his initiates, Carl Moineddin Jablonski, as his successor and he established a new religious organization, called the Sufi Islamia Rhaniat Society, which his one hundred followers joined. After Samuel died the following January, his followers stayed affiliated with Vilayat’s organization for a few years, but in 1977 broke off on their own, looking to Samuel Lewis—not Inayat Khan—as their main source of inspiration. Vilayat’s Sufi Order, meanwhile, grew rapidly, quickly gaining reportedly 6,000 followers and establishing American meditation camps near Taos, New Mexico and in Woodstock, New York.97 In 1974, in Boston the group started a popular ‘Cosmic Celebration’ performance that they would soon be giving throughout the country,98 and they also began looking for a property to buy on which they would build a spiritual community, which was obtained the next year in New Lebanon, New York.99 During this period, another pre-1965 Sufi-influenced group was undergoing its own transformation. In the mid-1960s, several of the members of the Moorish Orthodox Church began publishing non-conformist poetry, some became regulars at Timothy Leary’s Millbrook mansion, and some had, after reading writings of Inayat Khan, adopted his Sufi Order’s symbol of the winged heart.100 By 1968, though, the motivation to keep the small group alive had begun to wane, so one of its members, Peter Lamborn Wilson, decided to leave the country on a spiritual quest, traveling first to Lebanon, and then to India. In the latter country, Peter met with Vilayat, who encouraged him to study Sufism

95 Rowley, New Gods, 87–88. 96 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 264–65. 97 “Sufis Bring Religion Back to Shaker Site,” Chicago Tribune, August 13, 1975, sect. 1 p. 19; Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 268. Unfortunately, I was unable to find much information concerning the activities and growth of this community in the 1960s and early 1970s, so I cannot explain (or verify) its rapid growth at the time. 98 James L. Franklin, “Cosmic Celebration Keeps the Faith,” Boston Globe, March 26, 1977, 8. 99 Inayat-Khan, “A Hybrid Sufi Order,” 267. 100 Knight, William S. Burroughs, 39–43. For examples of their poetry from this period, see Mike Maggid, ed., The Destruction of Philadelphia (Madison, wi: Quixote Magazine, 1966).

Reorientation 355 in Iran under a branch of the Nimatullahi order.101 Peter then slowly made his way northwest, through Pakistan and Central Asia, frequently stopping to meet with various Sufis and smoking opium and marijuana along the way, apparently as part of a small movement of drug-using Western hippies who were alarming Pakistan’s cultural and religious authorities at the time.102 After making it to Iran, he encountered members of Frithjof Schuon’s Maryamiyya order, a group that had splintered from Guénon’s Traditionalist Sufism because it encouraged the embracing of some Christian images. In Tehran, the country’s leading follower of the order, the American-educated Seyyed Hossein Nasr, invited Peter to join the group’s philosophical academy.103 Wilson, who sometimes now used the name Hakim Bey, returned to the us and by the mid-1970s had begun to publish poetry and host a New York radio show.104 Both he and Nasr—who would later also return to the us—would have an enormous impact on America’s religious and countercultural currents. Other Sufis emerged on the American religious scene—both through texts and in person—during this early period of the revival of Sufism. The 1960s and 1970s were in fact decades that witnessed a significant rise in English-language literature related to Sufism, and this directly contributed to growing knowledge of the Islamic mystical tradition. In addition to the several works published by Inayat Khan, Samuel Lewis, and their respective followers, the New York publisher Samuel Weiser released three translations of Rumi, in 1971 Berkeley’s Shambhala Publications reprinted a 1954 edition of Attar of Nishapur’s Conference of the Birds, the Pakistani publisher Sheikh Muhammad Ashraf produced multiple Sufism-related works, and a number of academic presses published scholarly works dealing with Sufism, several of which were written by European Traditionalists.105 Perhaps the most popular writer on Sufi ideas at

101 Knight, William S. Burroughs, 46–47. 102 Knight, William S. Burroughs, 46–47; “Hippies in Pakistan,” Yaqeen International, March 22, 1970, 1, 192. This alarm was partly fed by a general increased concern over drug use by Pakistani youths around this time; for more, see Yaqeen International issues for 1969 through 1971. 103 Knight, William S. Burroughs, 60–61. 104 Wilson’s return to the us by 1973 and his activities after are implied by the mention—in the acknowledgements in his book The Winter Calligraphy of Ustad Selim & Other Poems (Ipswich: Golgonooza Press, 1975)—that some of his poems that were published in 1975 were performed on New York radio and in New York theaters in 1973–74. It should be pointed out that this date of 1973 is contradicted by what was recorded by Michael Knight, who interviewed Wilson. Knight puts Wilson in Iran until 1975 and does not have Wilson returning to the us between the late 1960s and 1975. 105 These works were often cited in the books by Inayat Khan and Samuel Lewis.

356 chapter 11 the time was Idries Shah, a figure who was even more universalistic than Inayat Khan.106 Born in India to an Indian-Afghan father and Scottish mother, the London-raised writer combined his interest in Islamic mysticism with a passion for the occult and other forms of ‘oriental magic.’ In the early 1960s, however, his Octagon Press began publishing a variety of works on traditional Sufism that became popular in the us—particularly among the followers of Inayat Khan and Samuel Lewis—and Shah even became one of the major proponents of the theory that Gurdjieff’s ideas were derived from Sufism.107 René Guénon’s following, meanwhile, gained a small number of American Muslim and Sufi converts at this time. Although some Traditionalist works had been translated into English and distributed in the us since the 1920s—and a piece by Frithjof Schuon had even run in Kheirallah’s Arab World magazine in 1945—because Traditionalists were not required to embrace Islam and the American followers were for a long time not formally organized, it is not particularly surprising that we do not see American Traditionalist Muslims before the 1960s. Indeed, even the early American Traditionalist Joseph Epes Brown, who gained an interest in the movement only after meeting and observing Sufis on New York docks in the 1940s and who later moved to Morocco where he studied Islam, was not willing to exclusively commit himself to the religion.108 However, in 1967 Victor Danner, a correspondent of Brown and a professor at the University of Indiana Bloomington, not only became a Muslim and Sufi, that year he also established in Bloomington a small Sufi circle.109 Starting in 1980, this group would serve as the base for Schuon’s Maryamiyya Traditionalist faction when Schuon moved to the us. During this period, the country also saw the arrival of new teachers of more traditional (small ‘t’) Islamic Sufi knowledge. The Sri Lankan Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, for instance, came to Philadelphia to teach a growing interracial community of people interested in Eastern spirituality. However, after he arrived in 1971, for the first five years Muhaiyaddeen only lectured on general spiritual topics; it would not be until 1976 that he would begin to teach distinctly

106 Rawlinson, “A History”; Rawlinson, The Book of Enlightened Masters, 524–27. 107 See, e.g., the bibliographies in Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Toward the One (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1974), 662; Lewis, In the Garden, 286. Both of these bibliographies also reveal their respective groups’ awareness of John P. Brown’s book on Sufis, various writers from the Traditionalist school, and several other English-language writings on Islam and Sufism. 108 I am making this claim based on my phone conversation with the daughter of Joseph Epes Brown on November 8, 2014. 109 David Bisson, René Guénon: Une politique de l’esprit (Paris: Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, 2013), 346–47.

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Sufi ideas.110 On the West Coast, meanwhile, another traditional Sufi movement gained multiple American converts to Islam: the Darqawi-Shadhili- Qadiri tariqa (Sufi order), known as the Habibiyya.111 This tariqa followed the teachings of the Moroccan sheikh Sayyidi Muhammad ibn al-Habib ibn as- Siddiq al-Amghari al-Idrisi al-Hasani (1876-January 10, 1972), and was brought to the English-speaking world by the Scotsman Ian Dallas (Abd al-Qadir as- Sufi). Dallas was a writer who had been a popular figure in Britain’s drama community during the 1960s and had entered the Habibiyya tariqa in Morocco in 1967. Sometime around early 1970, while passing through Tangier, Abd al-Qadir met an American artist to whom he recounted his recent conversion and meeting with the sheikh. The artist explained that although he was not personally interested in Sufism, he had artist friends back in Berkeley, California who had studied it as part of their larger interest in Eastern mysticism, and that they had even created a sacred theater troupe based on Tibetan Buddhist mystical themes, called the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company. Coincidentally, Abd al-Qadir, who was planning to go to Los Angeles to work on a film project, had already heard about the Floating Lotus in a recent feature story in Rolling Stone magazine,112 so after arriving in Los Angeles, he contacted Daniel Moore, the writer and director of the troupe. A poet since his youth in Oakland,113 after attending university in Berkeley in the early 1960s, Daniel became actively involved with the flourishing countercultural poetry and art scene in the Bay Area. His book of poetry, Dawn Visions, was published in 1964 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s popular City Lights Books, and he quickly accumulated a slew of artist friends, which included fellow City Lights Books writers and famous beat poets Allen Ginsberg and

110 For an example of his teachings in the early 1970s, see M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, Lex Hixon, and Will Noffke, Truth & Light: Brief Explanations (Philadelphia: Guru Bawa Fellowship of Philadelphia, 1974). 111 For a brief introduction, see Marcia Hermansen, “Hybrid Identity Formations in Muslim America: The Case of American Sufi Movements,” Muslim World 90 (spring 2000): 170; Kinney, “Sufism Comes to America,” 19–20. The following account, however, is based primarily on my phone interviews with Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, September 19, 21, and 24, 2014 and with Hakim Archuletta, September 29, 2014. 112 Charles Perry, “The Lotus & the Toad,” Rolling Stone, February 21, 1970, 34–35. This article incorrectly states that the group used the teachings of Gurdjieff. 113 In his phone interview with the author, Moore explained that while he was in high school, his English teachers encouraged his taking an interest in poetry. Also at that time, Moore, who came from an upper-middle class background, began listening to jazz and befriended “broken or damaged” white youths who introduced him to counterculture literature and poetry.

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Michael McClure. At the time, in the Bay Area, Eastern mysticism was becoming very popular. Much of this enthusiasm was due to local bookstores, particularly Berkeley’s Shambhala Bookstore, starting to sell and publish works concerning Asian-majority religions. Also, several Eastern religious leaders, such as Zen Master Shrunryu Suzuki, whom Daniel studied under for a period,114 began teaching in the region, which fostered an atmosphere in which Eastern religions were highly valued. Daniel and many other Bay Area artists were drawn to this spiritual side of the counterculture largely because they felt that these religions would both validate their drug-induced psychedelic experiences and naturally establish the consciousness-expansion that they sought. After their initial exposure to Eastern teachers and works, then, they began looking for more books on Asian religious teachings and at one point discovered a number of works on Sufism, including the writings of Idries Shah as well as translations of Attar of Nishapur and Rumi. One of the artists who would later convert, Hakim Archuletta, began using the poetry of Rumi in his musical street performances; others read Sufi poems aloud while sitting in a meditation circle and taking peyote or smoking marijuana. Around 1966, Daniel had an inspiration that began with appearance of the name ‘Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company.’ Finding deep significance in this experience, he set about gathering several of the artists in his community to form a sacred ‘ritual theater’ to protest the Vietnam War. The creation of such a theater was fostered by the community’s involvement in the larger ‘happenings’ movement of the 1960s, in which artists put on highly eccentric, unadver- tised, and sometimes unplanned guerilla public art performances in order to disrupt people’s consciousness.115 With the Floating Lotus, signs, themes, and practices of Eastern religions—particularly Buddhism—were employed, as Daniel later recalled, “with the naively ambitious intention of transforming evil to good in the heart of humankind.”116 Through this sacred theater, the taking on of an Eastern religious identity gained for its participants a social—if not political—significance, and it was a significance that linked the artists to many of the earlier white American Muslims and Islamophilic Freemasons who had similar goals in their embracing of Islamic identities. For the next few years, the troupe performed its operas throughout the summers, becoming a popular attraction in the counterculture scene until it disbanded in 1970.

114 At whose lectures Daniel encountered Samuel Lewis, though he did not become a follower of Lewis. 115 Archuletta interview. For more on happenings, see Michael Kirby, Happenings: An Illustrated Anthology (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1965). 116 Moore interview.

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When Abd al-Qadir contacted Daniel that year, Daniel and his friend Robert Luongo brought Abd al-Qadir to their communal house in Berkeley. There, the white Sufi impressed the residents with his impressive intellect and artistic and counterculture background, and shared his understanding of Islam as a revelation of true enlightenment. After just a few days in the presence of Abd al-Qadir, three California hippies embraced Islam. Hakim felt that the Scottsman’s appearance in Berkeley was an answer to a recent spiritual sup- plication for a true path; whereas Daniel, while listening to the visitor, came to believe that the answer to seeking God did not require, as he had thought, traveling great distances—the answer, he now believed, was right in front of him in the person of Abd al-Qadir as deputy of Sheikh ibn al-Habib. Daniel, Hakim, and Robert Luongo performed their shahadas and took Muslim names— Abdal-Hayy, Abdal-Kabir, and Abdallah. After some months in which the Floating Lotus became a puppet theater to raise travel fare, Abdal-Hayy, Hakim, and Hakim’s wife Suzy—who did not commit to Islam until later, when she met the Moroccan sheikh—set off to London from San Francisco, while Abdallah went to Boston before meeting his coreligionists in England. In London, the Berkeley group joined with nine British converts and together they traveled by land to Morocco for the Mawlid (birthday celebration of the Prophet) and Moussem (celebration of the sheikh). After visiting with the sheikh, who gave each convert a copy of his diwan (collection) of spiritual poems that are sung all over the Muslim world, they returned with Abd al- Qadir to England where they helped establish and expand the Habibiyya community he had already begun to gather there. Starting around 1971, every summer for the next few years, a group of the American and English Habibiyya Sufis would come to the us where they would publicize and hold meetings, prayers, and meals that were all open to the public.117 At least two of these summers were spent in Berkeley, but during one summer the group made teepees and traveled across the western us, inviting people at various stops along the way to visit their camps. The dozen or so Americans who joined the community during these summer excursions

117 In his 1975 dissertation, J. Gordon Melton reports that the Habibiyya community was established in the us in 1973—a date that he has retained in his writings and that others have used because of Melton’s authority as a scholar of American religions. However, in their interviews with the author, both Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore and Hakim Archuletta indicated that the group definitely started coming to the us in either 1971 or 1972, and that nothing new or official was established in 1973. See John Gordon Melton, “The Shape and Structure of the American Religious Experience: A Definition and Classification of Primary Religious Bodies in the United States” (PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1975), 245.

360 chapter 11 returned with Abdal-Hayy, Hakim, Suzy, Abdallah, and the other disciples who had come to America, back to England. Like the post-1965 immigrant-influenced conversion community, American Sufism was only in its initial stage of growth by 1975. Yet, at the same time, both communities had developed the fundamental elements of their identities. The immigrant-influenced converts, who now dominated the white American Muslim convert community, were frequently college-educated, connected to several postwar Islamic institutions and movements, interested in cultivating Islam as a ‘way of life,’ and aware of Pan-Islamic ideologies and their own potential to be leaders. The American Sufis, on the other hand, tended to be more from the counterculture movement and spent most of their religious lives around other converts in their communities that were dedicated to spiritual devotion. The traits of these communities—and the deterritorializing conditions that produced them—would endure for many years, their persis- tence revealing the significance of the changes in the us religious landscape that came about after 1964.

Conclusion

From the Philadelphia’s sailors ‘turning Turk’ to the Berkeley hippies taking a Sufi master, the history of white American conversion to Islam before 1975 is one filled with hundreds of episodes of religious change. But, despite all of the many examples of individual and cultural metamorphoses examined in this book, the history of white American conversion to Islam is, at its core, the history of a single event. It is the story of how the world-historical transformation caused by de- and reterritorialization simultaneously affected the us and the global Islamic community in one small, particular way. With the emergence of the relatively free circulation of ideas, goods, and people, traditional religious boundaries were broken and new boundaries—which were often shaped by market forces—formed. In the case of white American conversion to Islam, this was a process that commenced very slowly, but its pace would pick up rapidly as de- and reterritorialization spread and more thoroughly penetrated the us religious landscape. In the nineteenth century, Idealism, Transcendentalism, and spiritualism were the main deterritorializing cultural forces that made Islam and Muslims objects of curiosity and sympathy for white Americans, but for seventy years these currents could produce no true Muslim converts on American soil. It was only with of the emergence of non-Christian religious markets—driven by the desire of their Masonic and esotericist creators for influence, profit, and world peace—that Islam and Sufism were finally successfully reterritorialized in white American culture. No longer was religious adherence going to be almost entirely dictated by tradition, families, or ethnicities. It was now up to the market, its consumers and its producers. Even in the twentieth century, when the American religious community experienced yet another dramatic shift with the influx of non-Christian immigrants, the market rules still applied. Now, however, the desire for non-Christian religions was not limited to the small consumer base of white esotericists, but included the thousands of spouses and friends of the recent non-Christian arrivals. In an era of relatively free intercultural interaction, the simple feelings of interpersonal love and desire for peace in one’s family and community were themselves reterritorializing, market forces. Occasionally, particularly passionate individuals rose to lead and shape the markets. Alexander Webb, Louis Glick, Nilla Cram Cook, Thomas Irving, and Maryam Jameelah all played important roles in molding how both Muslims and non-Muslims understood and interacted with Islam. Deeply committed to their idealistic—if not romantic—visions for global peace and

362 Conclusion harmony, these and many other Muslims helped ensure that there would long be a place for white Americans in Islam and that they would have strong, reterritorialized voices in a still-deterritorializing world. By the mid-1970s, white American Muslim converts were respected leaders and intellectuals both at home and abroad—no longer were they simply ridiculed or ostracized ‘renegades’ at the fringes of the American and Islamic communities. The story of white American conversion to Islam before 1975 is in fact one of significant religious change. As 1974 drew to a close, however, the American white Muslim and Sufi communities stood at a precipice. A virtual tidal wave of Sufism was about to hit the American religious market, led by the growth of already-present groups like those of Inayat Khan, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, and Abd al-Qadir as-Sufi, as well as the movements of new figures like Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh and Suleyman Dede. Several of the numerous white college Sunni converts, meanwhile, would finish or start PhDs in topics dealing with Islam, and would soon become some of the most influential thinkers, not just among American Muslims, but among Muslims worldwide. In 1975, the grounds would be purchased for the msa’s new offshoot, the Islamic Society of North America—a group that would have a tremendous influence on Islam in the coming years. Also that year, a msa- and isna-connected organization, called the Islamic Teaching Center, would be established and would serve as the first msa-connected group devoted solely to converting Americans. While the majority of its workers and potential converts were African Americans, the itc had one educated white convert member, John Sullivan, a therapist who would publish several articles on proselytization in Al-Ittihad. He and the other itc workers would soon col- laborate with Thomas Irving and other converts interested in spreading Islam to America’s diverse populations. Sullivan, meanwhile, was not the only white convert to join a black-majority Islamic organization in 1975. After the death of Elijah Muhammad that February and the taking of leadership by his son, Wallace, the noi was being quickly restructured, and Dr. Dorothy Blake Fardan, a white wife of a former Black Panther, would become the first white American to join the movement that had been famous for calling Euro-Americans ‘devils.’1 Meanwhile, in New York that same year, the first us Latina/o Muslim organization, the Alianza Islamica, would be formed. Latina/o Muslims, who had since the 1920s been

1 Fardan had been involved in black protest movements in the 1960s and, when she learned about the noi in 1970, she was immediately drawn to it; see Dorothy Blake Fardan, Yakub and the Origins of White Supremacy: Message to the Whiteman & Woman in America (Chicago: Lushena Books, 2001), 12, 141–43.

Conclusion 363 frequently regarded by immigrant Muslims as whites,2 but had also often identified with African American Muslims, were now asserting a unique identity, one that Thomas Irving—an expert in Islamic Spain—fully supported. Finally, as Lebanon entered its civil war that year, uneducated Muslim refugees would start flocking to the us, changing, once again, the demographics of the social bonds that would be formed between Muslim immigrants and non-Muslims in the country. By 1976, there were already nearly 120 mosques and Islamic centers in the us,3 but within fifteen years, that number would swell to well over 500, which meant that the us Muslim institutional landscape had been once again significantly reshaped. White American conversion to Islam was therefore about to undergo yet another dramatic transformation.

2 This was more true with Arab immigrants, who, as several early ethnographies attest to, tended to prefer whites over blacks, than it was with South Asians, who were often prevented from marrying pale-skinned people due to anti-miscegenation laws. 3 I am basing this number off of mosques noted in Lovell, “A Survey”; Ecumenism Research Agency, The State of the Churches in the u.s.a. and Canada, 1976: As Shown in Their Own Official Yearbooks and Other Reports: A Study Resource (Peoria, az: Ecumenism Research Agency, [1977]), roll 6; and the handful of other mosques mentioned in the various documents obtained for the present volume.

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Index

Abdullah, Muhammad 318, 319 Akram, Wali 269–271, 273–274 Abdullah, Umar F. 350–351 Aleem, Nazir 270–271 Academy of Islam 264–265, 274, 276, 294, Alfassi, Lisa (pseud.) 329–330, 336, 339, 342 297–298, 300 Ali, Hadji 181 Adaros, Cabir, Premel el- 209–210 Ali, Hazrat Ismet 210–211 Addeynu Allahe Universal Arabic Ali, Noble Drew 130, 263 Association 272, 273, 278, 294, 313 Ali, Shaykh Mehmed 182–183 See also Ezaldeen, Muhammad Al-Ittihad 335–336, 340–344, 348–349, 350, 351 African Americans Ali, Yusuf 277, 299, 336 Ahmadiyya Movement and 225, 227, American Islamic Association 249–258 228–30, 257, 263, 270, 273–74, 278, 286, American Islamic Propaganda 139–156 288–89, 302, 331 See also American Moslem Brotherhood; Civil Rights Movement and 323, 350 Webb, Alexander Russell connections with Glick and Nadji 257, American Islamic Social Centre and 259, 260, 272, 274–276 Library 245, 247, 249, 250, 251 Inayat Khan and 223 American Moslem 154 Mohammad Barakatullah and 181 American Moslem Brotherhood Moslem Brotherhood of the u.s.a. and 244 creation of 143–144 Muslim immigrant marriage with 233 end of 158 Muslim mystics and 208, 210–211 expansion of 148–150 Muslims 57–58, 130, 206, 257, 259, 260, Islamophilic Mason involvement 262, 263–265, 270–271, 272–278, 281, with 130–131, 136, 144–148, 172 294, 297–298, 300, 310, 313–316, not requiring conversion to Islam 317–320, 322–323, 349–351 143–144, 216 See also Akram, Wali; Aleem, Nazir; Bey, outliving American Islamic Abdul Wadood; Blyden, Edward; Propaganda 156 Dawud, Talib; Dean, Harry; Ezaldeen, See also American Islamic Propaganda; Muhammad; Grimké, Archibald; Webb, Alexander Russell Moorish Science Temple; Moslems of American Moslem Congress 284 America; Nation of Islam; Randolph; American Moslem Institute 156–158, 162 Paschal Beverly; X, Malcolm Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis/ Aga, Achmed 36–37 Memphis-Misraim Aga, Khalil 36–37 See Yarker, John Ahmad, Ghulam 98, 102–103, 105–106, 108, Ancient and Primitive Rite of Misraim 109, 167, 178, 225–226 See Freemasonry Ahmad, Nasir 273, 275, 278, 294, 319 Ancient Arabic Nobles of the Mystic Shrine Ahmadiyya Movement (Shriners) 119–122, 136, 144–148 early contact with Americans 109, 167, Andersen, F.L. 178, 226 171, 178 Ansaireh ‘Lahori’ movement 225–226, 230, H.B. of L.’s references to 82, 101 249–250, 252, 257, 262, 273, 285–289, Lant’s connections to 146 311, 318, 319, 353 Randolph’s reference to 64–66, 101, 146 ‘Qadiani’ movement 178, 184, 203–207, See also Isma‘ili Assassins; Shi‘i Muslims 221–222, 225–230, 249–250, 257, 263, Ansari, Mohammed Fazlur-Rahman 300, 270, 273–274, 278, 302, 319, 331, 334 314–316

Index 397 anti-Islamic sentiment Clayton, Thomas Muhammad 288, 311 See Islamophobia Comstock, Anthony 145–147, 154–155 Arab, Hajee Abdulla 113, 140–141, 142, 152, Cook, Nilla Cram 260, 278–283 154–155 Coues, Elliott 149 Archuletta, Hakim 358–360 Cramer, Malinda E. Asad, Muhammad 310 See Divine Science Ashraf, Sheikh Muhammad 299, 310, 343, cubic stone 123, 131–136 355 Attar of Nishapur 355, 358 Dahbour, Sheikh Hussein 304–305 Avdich, Kamil 303 Dasa, Philangi (Carl Herman Vetterling) 139, 143 Baha’i faith 188–199, 261 Davidson, Peter 81, 164 Baker, Dr. Anthony George 170–172, 226 Davis, Andrew Jackson 56–57, 60 Baker, Ora Ray 219 Dawud, Talib 278, 318 Barakatullah, Mohammad 158, 178–181 Dean, Harry 181–182 Barbary Wars conversions 30–34 de- and reterritorialization 4, 7–16, 27–30, See also renegades 43–47, 51, 55, 69, 87, 88, 92, 115, 176, 199, Bashir, Nusrat 331, 334, 336 203–204, 207, 231, 290–291, 321, 324, Bazzy, Shaykh Khalil 301–302 361–362 Bedolfe, W. Viner 133–134 DiCaprio, Joseph 317–318, 343, 353 Bektashis 117, 119, 121 Divine Science See also Sufism Brooks sisters 85, 139, 150 Ben Ali, Hassan 179–180 Cramer, Malinda E. 84, 139 Bengalee, Sufi 229–230, 257, 302 movement 84–86, 139 Bey, Abdul Wadood (Walter Price) 263 possible connections with Webb 150 Bjerregaard, C.H.A. 98, 100–101, 104, 105, Dudley, Tracey Cromwell 288n136 172–175, 216, 218 Blavatsky, Helena P. 74–81, 121–122 Eddy, Mary Baker Blizt, Edouard 163–166, 215 See Christian Science Blyden, Edward 111 Egra, Imam Mohamed S. 303–304 Brooks sisters Elsner, Dr. C.F. 162–63 See Divine Science English, George Bethune 18, 28, 35–43, 47, Brotherhood of Luxor 75–77, 81, 124 88, 142 See also Theosophical Society; Hermetic ‘Esoteric Mohammedanism’ 110, 141, 174n76, Brotherhood of Luxor 181n107 Brown, John Porter 117, 118, 132–133 Evans, Warren Felt 84, 110 Buddhism 96, 106, 107, 110, 139, 185–187 Ezaldeen, Muhammad (James Lomax) Burgoyne, Thomas H. 81, 85 263–264, 272, 283 Burton, Richard Francis 117, 122 Bush, George (Swedenborgian) 56–57 Faisal, Sheikh Daoud 264, 274, 275, 294, 300, 310, 314, 316, 318 Cables, Josephine 78–79, 107, 108 Faruqi, Isma‘il 336, 348 Chainey, George Faruqi, Lamya Lois Isben al- 336 See Gnostic Society Federal Bureau of Investigation 3, 256, Chirri, Imam Mohamad Jawad 301–302, 305, 272–273 308–309, 326–327 Federation of Islamic Associations of the Christian Science 84, 86, 219, 255 United States and Canada 285, 293–295, Church of Islam (Snow) 154, 161 296, 301, 302, 308–309, 311, 314, 319, 324, Clark, Linda 340n41, 343 337, 339–341, 346, 349, 351

398 Index

Field, Eugene 90, 108 Glick, Louis First Society for the Study of Islam American Islamic Association and 154–155, 157 249–251, 254–255 Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company 357 as a friend convert 23, 240–249 Freemasonry Committee for the American National Abd el-Kader and 116–119, 120, 122, 124 Congress of Mafjids and Moslem Ahmadiyya Movement and 227–228 Societies 271–272 Ancient and Primitive Rite of Misraim criticisms of American military 241, 269, (Little) 69 275n70 esoteric 19, 27–28, 52, 63, 66–74, 76–77, death 339 81, 87 early activities in New York 240–249 Freemason 70–73, 125, 134–135, 136 influence on Lahori missionary history of 66–68 revival 285–287 in Egypt 189 Islamic publications of 251, 254, 256–257, Islamic transmission theory of 116, 259, 261, 267–268, 272, 286–287 133–134, 135, 137 late 1930s activities 258–259, 272 Islamophilia in 20, 115–138 Lyons Valley activities 245, 255–257, 266 John Porter Brown and 117, 118, 132–133 Muslim soldier projects 267–269, Military Order of the Knights of the Red 275n70, 287, 293, 304 Cross of Rome and Philadelphia activities in 1950s 303–304 Constantine 68–69 possible connections with Kalifat No. 5 Oriental Order of the Magi and 192, 193, 258–259, 272, 317 196, 197 pre-Islam life of 240–241 Richard Morris and 118–119, 121 Shieka Selim Institute 245, 296 See also Ancient Arabic Nobles of the Uniting Islamic Societies of America Mystic Shrine; Hughan, William James; connections 274–276, 318 Kenning, George; Little, Robert ‘Webb Memorial’ projects 265–267, 268 Wentworth; Mackenzie, Kenneth R.H.; See also American Islamic Association; Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Societas American Islamic Social Centre and Rosicruciana; Yarker, John Library; Islam Association of Free Thought movement America; Western Islamic Association New York (Manhattan) Liberal Club Gnostic Society 82, 84 142, 147 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 72, 116, Rawson’s connections with 144–48 126–127, 129 Theosophy’s connections with 75, 78, Gould, S.C. 104, 105, 164, 165, 172–75, 216–217 79, 147 Grimké, Archibald 86 Webb’s connections with 141, 142, Grimké, Sarah Stanley 85–87, 139 144–148 Grimké sisters 86 See also Comstock, Anthony; Lant, John Groupe Indépendent d’Etudes Esotériques A.; Rawson, Albert L.; Webb, Alexander 163, 215, 217 Russell See also Papus friend converts 23, 231, 236–240, 308, 324, 327 Guardians or Keepers of the Kaaba 123 See also Glick, Louis; immigration Guénon, René 21, 173, 175, 215–216, 320, 355, 356 Galwas, Ahmad Ahmad 277, 278 Guertin, Wilson 308–309, 314, 339, 341 Garber, Ella May 184, 221–222, 226, 319 Gurdjieff, George Ivanovich 211–212, 356 Ghazali, al- 84 Gilani, Sayid Muhammad Wajih 183–184, Habibiyya Sufi order 325, 357–360 222 Hacksener, Lewis 32–34

Index 399

Haddad, Anton 152, 189–190 Islamic Association of Muslims 274–275 Hafiz 47, 217 Islamic identification (non-conversion) Hajj 117, 177, 243, 292, 308, 311, 332, 349 55–59, 64–65 Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von 116 Islamic Mission of America Harvard University 28, 35, 39, 47 See Faisal, Sheikh Daoud Heinkel, Harry E. 253–254, 257 Islamic Review 252–254, 262, 288, 289, 292, Hermetic Brotherhood of Atlantis, Luxor, and 317, 319 Elephante 139, 190–191, 228 Islamophilia Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor 19, 81–82, conversion to Islam and 130, 352 84–87, 96–97, 100–102, 103–104, 139, See also Freemasonry; Theosophical Society 163–164, 216 Islamophobia (anti-Islamic sentiment) See also Burgoyne, Thomas H.; Davidson, before the nineteenth century 4–7, Peter; Grimké, Sarah Stanley; Johnson, 129–130 Thomas M.; Martinism in the nineteenth century 64, 120, 128, Higgins, Geoffrey 65, 116, 129 129–130, 168n43, 168–169, 184–185 Higginson, Thomas Wentworth 47–48, 175 in the twentieth century 341–342 Hinduism 187–188 Isma‘ili Assassins 65, 116, 135, 271, 320 Hobollah, Imam 302 See also Ansaireh; Shi‘i Muslims Hodgson, Marshall G.S. 269–271 Ismail, Imam Vehbi 300–301, 302 Hopkins, Emma Curtis 84, 85, 139 Hossain, Syud 244n44, 281 Jameelah, Maryam Hughan, William James 68, 70 as a token 341 Humani, Muhammad Ali al- 248 research on 1 connections with msa 324, 341, 342 Ibn Tufayl (Hayy Ibn Yaqzan) 44, 99 conversion of 309–310, 319 Idealism 18, 43–50, 72, 78, 83, 86, 110, 185 dress 334 Igram, Abdullah 293–294, 304, 314 published writings of 315, 341, 342–343 immigration reference to Malcolm X of 350 1965 u.s. reform of 24, 323, 325 James, Rashida 334, 337 Muslims, pre-World War ii 176, 179–180, Jam’iat-ul Falah 315 182–183, 203–207, 225–227, 231–249, Jansen, Michael E. 308 263–264 Jefferson, Thomas 47 Muslims, post-World War ii 290–316, Johnson Library and Museum 2 323, 325–328 Johnson, Thomas M. marriage and 22–23, 176, 232–236, contact with British esotericists 81 241–242, 293, 305–308, 323–324, Hermetic Brotherhood involvement 326–328, 330–334 19, 81–82, 97 Muslim students 290–291, 304–316, 323, Theosophical involvement 19, 78–81, 325–326, 330 95, 97 Muslim trained religious leaders 296–305 Sufi interest and organizations 19–21, See also friend converts 97–105, 172–175, 216 International Moslem Society 297–298, 300 Judge, William Q. 80–81, 149 International Moslem Union 157–158, 161 International Muslim Brotherhood 278, 319 Kader, Abd el- 116–117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 124 Irving, Thomas B. 311, 314, 324, 337, 339, 341, Kalifat No. 5 258–59, 272, 317 342, 343 Kant, Immanuel 44–45, 48 Islam Association of America 267–268 Karoub, Hussein 300, 302, 305n56 See also American Islamic Association; Kateeb, Sheikh Salih Ahmad al- 243, Glick, Louis 246–247

400 Index

Keep, Nafeesa M.T. 156–158, 161–162 Majid, Satti 183, 242n34, 248–249, 319 See also American Moslem Institute; marriage conversions 22–23, 49, 176, Webb, Alexander Russell 232–236, 241–242, 262, 290, 305–308, Kelsoe, William 90, 92, 93, 95, 97 323–324, 326–328, 329–334 Kenning, George 69–71 See also immigration Khan, Inayat 22, 105, 175, 210–211, 213–224, Martin, Rabia 22, 215–224, 318 226, 320, 325, 354, 355–356 Martinism 21, 22, 160, 163–166, 197, Khan, Muhammad Yusuf 229–230, 273, 274 215–217, 220 Khan, Vilayat 224, 354 See also Blitz, Edouard; Groupe Khayyam, Omar 49, 174–175, 209, 218 Indépendent d’Etudes Esotériques; See also Omar Khayyam clubs Martin, Rabia; Papus; Union Idéaliste Kheirallah, George Ibrahim 261–263, 265 , Universelle 292–293, 299, 300, 315, 356 Mawdudi, Abdul A‘la 310, 311, 313, 324, 342, Kheiralla, Ibrahim George 188–199, 261 345, 349 Khilafat movement 244–248 McClenachan, Charles T. 119, 122, 130, Kimball, Anna 136, 148 See Gnostic Society mental picture theory 86–87 Kunze, Abdul Shakoor 302 See also Grimké, Sarah Stanley mesmerism 18, 52, 53, 56, 60, 65, 83 Lant, John A. 144–147, 149, 151–158, 161–162, 190 Mind Cure See also American Moslem; American See New Thought Moslem Institute; First Society for the Minto, Bashir Ahmad 287–289, 353 Study of Islam; Webb, Alexander Russell Moats, Richard and Najiba 330–331, 336, 337 Latina/os 227, 233, 236n19, 242, 326n6, 362 Moore, Daneil Abdal-Hayy 357–360 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 72, 125–126, 129 Moorish National Islamic Center 263–264, Lewis, Samuel 215, 220, 221, 224, 318, 266, 274 353–354, 355–356 Moorish Orthodox Church 320–321, 350, liberal religion 27–30, 43–50, 52–53, 55–59 354–355 See also Harvard University; spiritualism; Moorish Science Temple 263, 270–271, 273, Transcendentalism; Unitarianism 318–321 Little, Robert Wentworth 68–74, 135 See also Ali, Noble Drew Liverpool Moslem Institute 137, 150, 156, 157, Morris, Richard 118–119, 121 162–166 Moslem American Citizen’s Union 303 See also Quilliam, William Henry Moslem Brotherhood of America, Inc. Los Angeles early 1930s convert 278, 304 community 253–254 Moslem Brotherhood of the u.s.a. 244, 247, Lutz, William 260, 283–285, 289, 299–300, 250, 261–63, 264, 266, 278, 281, 304 314, 318, 335–336, 341, 343, 353 Moslem League of Philadelphia 313, 314 Moslems of America 272, 274 MacIlwain, George Knox 177 Mott, Joseph Livingston 227–228 Mackenzie, Kenneth R.H. Muhaiyaddeen, Bawa 356–57 connections with Theosophy 76–77, 81, 136 Muhammad, Elijah 271, 319n112 connections with William Henry Muslim-American Citizens Society 271, 303 Quilliam 136–137 Muslim missionaries (non-American) in in sria 71–73, 134–35 the u.s. 178–184, 243–244, 248, 251–259 Order of Ishmael and 123–136 Muslim mystics (independent) 199, 207–12 “Papers on Masonry” 72–73, 86, 125, 127–130 Muslim student organizations Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia 73–74, 76–77, convert members of 310–312, 330 81, 124, 125, 127, 130, 132 creation of 288, 310–312

Index 401

Muslim Students’ Association Oriental Publishing Company 142, 171 converts involved with 311–312, 330, 334, See also Baker, Dr. Anthony George; Webb, 336, 337, 338–351 Alexander Russell creation of 311–312 ‘The Oriental’ (building) 182, 242 Muslim World League 324, 347–349 Osman, Nadirah 260, 262–266, 267, 269–271, 285–287, 303, 318 Nabakoff, Emin L. 150, 151–152, 153–158, 161–162 Page, Elliott B. 79, 93, 94, 149 See also First Society for the Study of Palmer, Gladys 255 Islam; International Moslem Union; Pan-Islam 24, 243–259, 260–287, 297–305, Webb, Alexander Russell 314–315, 323, 324–325, 338–351 Nadji, Ahmad 251, 254–255, 257–258 Papus (Gerald Encausse) Nadji, Muharrem 251–255, 257–259, 262, Groupe Indépendent d’Etudes Esotériques 269, 271, 272–273, 289, 314, 339 and 163 Naeem, Abdul Basit 300, 312–316, 317, 319 H.B. of L. and 163–164 Nasr, Seyyed Hossein 355 Islam connections of 164–165 Nation of Islam 270–271, 314–316, 317, Martinism and 160, 163–165 318–319, 322, 349–350 Union Idéaliste Universelle and 163 New Thought 53, 83–87, 100, 110, 139, 150, 181, Phelon, William 139, 190, 228 190, 191 Philadelphia 1907 convert community See also Christian Science; Divine Science; 171–172, 177 Evans, Warren Felt; Grimké, Sarah Pickthall, Marmaduke 253, 309 Stanley Prince, Thomas 32–34 New York Islamic Center 261–266 Pueblo, Colorado 85, 150 non-Islamic conversions 184–199 Norman, Henry L. 58–59, 140, 160 Quilliam, William Henry 136–138, 150, 153, 156–157, 162–166, 171, 174n74, 225–226 occult Ahmadiyya Movement’s American Rabbani, Azad Subhani 297–298, 352 connections with 227 Rahman, Fazlur 348, 351 Arabic sources for the 61–63 Randolph, Paschal Beverly definition 51 Ansaireh/Ansairetic and 64–66, 82, powers (practical occultism) 60, 101, 146 64–65, 77, 82, 96, 102, 103, 189, 192, connections with John A. Lant 146 194, 214, 217 death 65 revival 17–20, 27–30, 51–87, 129–130, 138, early life 59–60 139–140, 174–175, 216 H.B. of L’s use of 82, 101 See also Freemasonry; Randolph, Paschal Influence on later esoteric figures 139 Beverly; Rosicrucians; Theosophical references to Islam of 64 Society Rosicrucianism and 52, 60 Olcott, Henry S. 74–78, 98, 102–103 Theosophy’s use of 75, 77 Omar Khayyam clubs 49, 175 Rawaf, Sheik Khalil al- 265, 276–277, Order of Ishmael 123–136 283, 292 Order of Sufis 20–21, 22, 104, 105, 172–175, Rawson, Albert L. 79, 120–123, 130, 135–136, 216–217 138, 144–148, 150, 154–158, 172 See also Sufic Order See also American Islamic Propaganda; Oriental Order of the Magi 139, 191, 192–198 Ancient Arabic Nobles of the Mystic Oriental Order of the Palm and the Shell 118 Shrine; Sheiks of the Desert; See also Morris, Richard Theosophical Society

402 Index religious markets 14–16, 27–30, 52, 54–55, Shriners 67–71, 80, 87, 88, 138, 160, 169, 175, 253, See Ancient Arabic Nobles of the Mystic 361–362 Shrine renegades 5, 6, 18, 30–43 Siddiqui, Muhammad Abdel Aleem 299– Rexheb, Baba 301 300, 313–316, 342, 348, 352 Reynolds, Boyd 317 Smart, Astrid-Herma 340n41 Reynolds, Muhammad Abdullah 317 Smith, Thomas 33–34 Rice, Miranda 84 Snow, Urban Hamid 154–155, 161 Richmond, Olney L. See also Church of Islam See Oriental Order of the Magi Societas Rosicruciana Rodgers, James Laurie 169–170 in America 76, 122, 123, 136, 148 Rosicrucians in Anglia (England) (sria) 63, 68–74, 76, British Freemasons and 68–74 134–135 early modern history 60–63 connections with Islamophilia 134–135 Glick and 303–304 connections with Theosophy 76 Gold und Rosenkreutz 63, 68 spiritualism 18, 52, 53–60, 74–75, 88, 91–94, in Gnostic Society 83 146, 155, 161n1, 191 in literature 61, 63, 96n35, 108 See also Davis, Andrew Jackson; Lant, John in Theosophy 75–76 A.; Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Sargent, Randolph’s use of 52, 60–66 Epes; Theosophical Society; Webb, St. Louis community 79 Alexander Russell Webb’s interest in 96, 108 Stubbe, Henry 130 See also Hughan, William James; Little, Sufi, Abd al-Qadir as- 357–360 Robert Wentworth; Mackenzie, Sufic Circle 19, 103–105, 144, 172–175, 216 Kenneth R.H.; Randolph, Paschal See also Order of Sufis Beverly; Societas Rosicruciana Sufism Rumi 209, 217, 358 Bektashis 301 Russell, John H. 150, 172 Bjerregaard and 100–05, 172–175 Ruswa, Mohamed Hadi 99–100 Freemasonry and 115–117 increased popularity after 1965 325, 338, Sa‘di 217 352–360 Sadiq, Muhammad 225–29 independent Muslim mystics Salt, Henry 36, 38 and 207–212 Sargent, Epes 57–58 Moorish Orthodox Church connections Schuon, Frithjof 355, 356 with 320 Shadhilliyya order Muharrem Nadji and 252 See Guénon, René Rabbani and 298, 352 Shah, Idries 212, 355–356, 358 Siddiqui and 299, 352 Sharif, Yahya Rafi 320 Thomas M. Johnson and 99–105, 172–175 Shawarbi, Mahmoud Youssef 296, 346, 349 Transcendentalists and 48–49 Sheiks of the Desert 122, 135–136, 148, 150, 172 See also Attar of Nishapur; Brown, John Sheldrake, Khalid 249–250, 254–255 Porter; Burton, Richard Francis; See also American Islamic Association; Freemasonry; Guénon, René; Habibiyya Western Islamic Association Sufi order; Hafiz; Ibn Tufayl; Khan, Shepardson, Abedi 332, 334 Inayat; Martin, Rabia; Order of Sufis; Shi‘i Muslims 24, 65, 235, 250, 301–302, 305, Rumi; Schuon, Frithjof; Shadhiliyya 307n66, 326–327, 328 order; Sufic Circle; Sufism Reoriented See also Ansaireh; Chirri, Imam Mohamad Sufism Reoriented 224, 318, 352–353 Jawad; Isma‘ili Assassins Supreme Muslim Council 243–248, 250, 273

Index 403

Tablighi Jama’at 298–299 Waddington, George 37, 38 Taylor, Isaac 111–112 Washington, dc Islamic Center 295–296, Theosophical Society 302, 314, 327, 336, 337, 346 as a source for other esoteric ‘way of life’ 24, 324, 328–338 groups 81–87, 174–175 Webb, Alexander Russell connections with Freemasonry 75–77, activities after movement’s collapse 79, 81, 121–122 160, 165–171 connections with Webb’s Islamic Ahmadis, Ghulam Ahmad, and 105–106, movement 141–144, 155 108, 167, 171, 224, 266 establishment 19, 28, 52, 74–77 anniversary celebrations for 265–267 Gnostic Society and 82–83 as a token 341 Inayat Khan’s movement and 213–223 becoming a missionary 113–114 Islamophilia in 19, 97–105, 115, 174–175, 216 bigotry of 112, 206–207 Nilla Cram Cook’s connections compares Theosophy to Islam 110–111 with 279–280 contact with S.C. Gould 165, 173 Randolph’s influence on 75, 77 contact with international Muslim research on 2 proselytizers 149–150, 178, 180, 181 rebirth and spread of 52–53, 77–81, 139 conversion of 108–113 St. Louis community 2, 19, 79–80, 88, 93–97 converts possibly in contact with Tuitt Bey 75 167–171, 177–78 See also Bjerregaard, C.H.A.; Blavatsky, ‘Esoteric Mohammedanism’ and 110, 141, Helena P.; Cables, Josephine; Coues, 174n76 Elliott; Johnson, Thomas M.; Judge, explanations for failure of his William Q.; Kelsoe, William; Olcott, movement 158–159, 187–199 Henry S.; Page, Elliott B. interest in Rosicrucianism 96, 108 tokens, White converts as 340–341 Islamophilic Masons and 114, 115, 144–148 Toland, John 130 Islamic publications of 142, 143, 156, 158 Toledo, Spain Islamophilic Theosophy and 97–105, 1085 conquest of 4–5, 61 174–175 translations of Arabic texts in 5, 61–63 Martinist connections 165, 173 Totonji, Ahmad 349, 351 Muslim colonies in America plan 142 Traditionalism Naeem’s planned article on 314 See Guénon, René; Schuon, Frithjof on Islamophobia 130 Transcendentalism 18, 27–28, 48–50, 55, 78, pre-conversion life 88–108 83, 86, 100, 185 research on 1–2, 89n1, 140n2 See also Idealism; Unitarianism Sheikh-ul-Islam title claim 167, 170 Tunison, Emory Howard 265 speeches at 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions 150–151, 156, 195 Union Idéaliste Universelle 163, 164, 165 spiritualism interest of 88, 91–93, 155 See also Blizt, Edouard; Papus Theosophical Society contact of 19–21, Unitarianism 27–28, 39–40, 43, 46–48 88, 93–108, 141–144, 155 See also Transcendentalism views on the superiority of Islam United Moslem Council of Greater 109–112, 338 New York 247–249 William Henry Quilliam connections Uniting Islamic Societies of America with 138, 150, 153 271–278, 318 See also American Islamic Propaganda; American Moslem Brotherhood; Arab, Vedanta Society 187–188, 215, 217 Hajee Abdulla; Keep, Nafeesa M.T.; Vivekenanda, Swami 151, 187–188 Lant, John A.; Nabakoff, Emin L.

404 Index

‘Webb Memorial’ projects 265–267, 268 X, Malcolm 322–323, 349–350 West, Peter 33–34 Western Islamic Association 249–255 Yarker, John Wilson, John 31–34 Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis/ Wilson, Peter Lamborn 320–321, 354–355 Memphis-Misraim 71, 123, 136–137, Woking mosque 225–226, 252, 289, 292 163 World Federation of Islamic Missions 316 connections with Islamophilic World Islamic Organizations 348 Freemasonry 122–125, 135, 136 World Muslim Congress 324, 345–347, connections with William Henry 348, 349 Quilliam 136–137 World’s Fair contact with Americans 81 in 1893 150–151, 154, 156, 168, 178, 179, 187, in sria 71 195, 207–208 See also Freemasonry; Societas in 1901 208 Rosicruciana in 1904 208 Young Men’s Moslem Association in 1915 208, 221 246–248, 250, 263, 265, 277, 283–284, World’s Parliament of Religions 150–151, 292, 300 156, 195 See also World’s Fair Zakariya, Mohamed 336