By Zakariya Wright
for Islamamerica.org

 This list represents a work in progress. Please comment with new additions or alternative reviews of what is included here. This list is not meant to be comprehensive, the books that have been included here have something to add to the understanding of Islam in America. I have tried to avoid overly polemical or prescriptive works. The citations are organized alphabetically by author's last name. 

 

Abd-Allah, Umar Faruq, A Muslim in Victorian America: The Life of Alexander Russel Webb. Oxford University Press, 2006. 400 pages.        

Prominent American Muslim scholar Shaykh Umar Abd-Allah examines the life of a late nineteenth-century American intellectual and diplomat who converted to Islam.

 

Abdo, Geneive, Mecca and Main Street: Muslim Life in America after 9/11. Oxford University Press, 2007. 256 pages.

Abdo, who has previously written on Islamism in Egypt and Iran, looks at Muslim struggles to maintain a religious identity and integrate with American society. She attempts to answer the question whether American Muslim communities will produce "home-grown" terrorists as in Europe, but seems to end comparing American Muslim struggles for integration with that of the American Jewish community in the nineteenth century.

 

Abraham, Nabeel and Shycock, Andrew (eds.), Arab Detroit: From Margin to Mainstream. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2000.

Mixing analytical pieces with evocative personal accounts and poetry, Arab Detroit stresses the diversity of Detroit's Arab population, confronting stereotypes about Arabs in general and those in Detroit in particular.

 

Austin, Allen, African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles. New York: Routledge: 1997. 194 pages.

Allan D. Austin is a specialist in antebellum American history. In this work, an update to his groundbreaking work by the same name published in 1984, continues with analysis of the fascinating biographies of numerous West African Muslim slaves who lived in the American South between 1730 and 1860. These men and women, who were 15% of the slave population, were the first Muslims in the United States and established a rich Islamic heritage in antebellum America. Austin's work is based on extensive primary source work, including Arabic slave-narratives.

 

Barbosa, Steven, American Jihad: Islam After Malcolm X. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

With emphasis on Jihad as an internal struggle, American convert to Islam Steven Barbosa uses the voices of both famous and ordinary American Muslims to narrate the diversity of Muslim experience in America. Testimonies in the work include Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Warith Deen Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan, Attallah Shabazz, Jamil al-Amin, Ali Asani and Abd al-Hayy Moore, among others.

 

Barret, Paul, American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion. Picador, 2007. 320 pages.

Barret's main purpose seems to be to familiarize a larger American audience with the humanity of Muslim Americans, arguing that the largely acculturated group of American Muslims can in fact be a great asset in America's "war on terror." The book considers seven case studies of prominent individuals, including Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl, Asra Nomani and Osama Siblani.

 

Benson, Kathleen (ed.), Community of Many Worlds: Arab Americans in New York City. New York: Museum of the City of New York, 2002. 280 pages.

Published in conjunction with an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, this collection of 17 essays ranges from the personal to the academic and covers a wide array of topics, such as Arabic poetry, immigration patterns, community formation and the sustaining of cultural traditions. A big challenge, writes curator Kathleen Benson in her preface, "was encompassing the great heterogeneity of Arab New York", given the multitude of immigrant nationalities that fall under that rubric.

 

Boosahda, Elizabeth, Arab-American Faces and Voices: The Origins of an Immigrant Community. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. 304 pages.

Boosahda focuses on the Arab-American community in Worcester, Massachusetts, a major northeastern center for Arab immigration, and Worcester's links to and similarities with Arab-American communities throughout North and South America. Using the voices of Arab immigrants and their families, she explores their entire experience, from emigration at the turn of the twentieth century to the present-day lives of their descendants.

 

Cooper, John, Mahmoud, Mohamed and Nettler, Ronald (eds.), Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond.

Responding to the challenges brought by colonialism and modernization, the contributors in this collection of essays propose new conceptions and interpretations of Islam they hope to be consonant with the age. Although their specific concerns and emphases vary, they all reconsider the relation between religion and politics and the incorporation of modern Western ideas.

 

Curtis, Edward, Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African American Islamic Thought. State University of New York Press, 2002. 174 pages.

Curtis, a professor of religious studies at UNC Chapel Hill, considers the thinking among African American Muslim communities within the context of larger streams of Muslim history; using the historical tension between universality and particularity in the faith as a lens to read the alleged unorthodoxy of figures such as Edward Blyden, Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X and Wallace D. Muhammad.

 

Dannin, Robert, Black Pilgrimage to Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Dannin's work is an ethnohistory of African American conversion to mainstream Islam. Drawing on fascinating personal interviews, historical documents, and documentary photography, Dannin analyzes the complex history, politics, spiritual philosophies, and way of life of black women and men who chose Orthodox Islam as their religion in the United States in the 20th century.

 

Diouf, Sylviane, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas. New York University Press:1998.                                                    

Diouf has written one of the few works that not only chronicles the history of Muslim men, women, and children during the Atlantic slave trade and American slavery, but also provides illustrated examples of how African Muslims preserved their faith and maintained their religious lifestyle in the midst of a hostile environment. Diouf asserts that although they left a mark on the religious and cultural landscape of African America, the Muslims have disappeared from the African American collective consciousness and have been overlooked by scholarly research. Replete with examples from the personal narratives and correspondence of the Muslims during this time period, Diouf's study demonstrates how enslaved Muslims served as agents in history, making this work a necessary addition to history and African studies collection.

 

Gehrke-White, Donna, The Face Behind the Veil: The Extraordinary Lives of Muslim Women in America. Citadel, 2006. 320 pages.

Work by prominent journalist celebrating the lives and contributions of American Muslim women; based on forty-eight case studies.

 

Gomez, Michael, The Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas. Cambridge University Press: 2005. 

Beginning with Latin America in the fifteenth century, this book comprises a social history of the experiences of African Muslims and their descendants throughout the Americas, including the Caribbean. The years under slavery are examined, as well as the post-slavery period. The study also analyzes Muslim revolts in Brazil--especially in 1835. The second part of the book traces the emergence of Islam among U.S. African descendants in the twentieth century, featuring chapters on Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X to explain how orthodoxy arose from varied unorthodox roots. Currently Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies at NYU, Michael Gomez has research interests that include Islam in West Africa, the African diaspora and African culture in North America. He has been involved with the launching of a new academic organization, the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD), and has published widely in the field.

 

Haddad ,Yvonne, Islamic Values in the United States.  Oxford University Press: 1987.

Based on sociological research of American Muslims, Georgetown University Professor Yvonne Haddad documents Muslims living in America, providing a quantitative assessment of how Muslims interact with American cultural norms such as dating or drinking.

 

Haddad, Yvonne (ed.), The Muslims of America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

A collection of articles including subjects such Muslim organizations in the United States, demographics, individual case studies (such as on Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Ismael Faruqi and the legacy of Fazlur Rahman), political activity and missionary work, Islam in prisons, Islamic education, women and Islam, and broader questions identity.

 

Haddad, Yvonne and Espisito, John (eds.), Muslims on the Americanization Path? University of South Florida, 1998.

Articles on Muslim identities, Islamic legal discourse, hijab, women converts to Islam, African American Muslims and Americanization. Besides the editors, contributors include Khalil Abu Fadl, Robert Dannin and Muqtader Khan.

 

Haddad, Yvonne and Smith, Jane, Muslim Communities in North America. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994. 545 pages.

This book provides a look at Muslim life and institutions forming in North America. It considers the range of Islamic life in North America with its different racial-ethnic and cultural identities, customs, and religious orientations. Issues of acculturation, ethnicity, orthodoxy, and the changing roles of women are brought into focus.

 

Haddad, Yvonne, Jane Smith and Kathleen Moore, Muslim Women in America: the Challenge of Islamic Identity Today. Oxford University Press, 2006. 208 pages.

Responding to the stereotype of Muslim women as uniformly subjugated by Islam, the authors survey the efforts of Muslim women in America to create new paradigms of Islamic womanhood, often beyond the spheres of official mosque institutions dominated by men.

 

Haddad, Yvonne (ed.), Muslims in the West: From Sojourners to Citizens. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. 336 pages.

The essays in this collection look both at the impact of the growing Muslim population on Western societies, and how Muslims are adapting to life in the West. Part I looks at the Muslim diaspora in Europe, comprising essays on Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, and the Netherlands. Part II turns to the Western Hemisphere and Muslims in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Throughout, the authors contend with such questions as: Can Muslims retain their faith and identity and at the same time accept and function within the secular and pluralistic traditions of Europe and America? What are the limits of Western pluralism? Will Muslims come to be fully accepted as fellow citizens with equal rights?

 

Haddad, Yvonne, Not Quite American? The Shaping of Arab and Muslim Identity in the United States. Texas: Baylor University Press, 2004. 58 pages.

In this essay Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad explores the history of immigration and integration of Arab Muslims in the United States and their struggle to legitimate their presence in the face of continuing exclusion based on race, nationalist identity, and religion.

 

Hagopian, Elaine (ed.), Civil Rights In Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims. Pluto Press, 2004. 320 pages.

Civil Rights in Peril seeks to expose the impact of increased U.S. governmental powers on Muslims and Arabs, as well as other groups and individuals targeted as a part of the Bush administration's "war on terror," and to show how ordinary people can resist attacks on fundamental civil rights. Activist and scholar Hagopian includes in this anthology essays by authors such Samih Farsoun, Naseer Aruri, Susan Akram, Nancy Murray, Robert Morlino, and William Youmans.

 

Hailey, Alex and Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (As told to Alex Hailey). Ballantine Books:1992.

Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. The reasons are many: the blistering honesty with which he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist, the continued relevance of his militant analysis of white racism, and his emphasis on self-respect and self-help for African Americans. And there's the vividness with which he depicts black popular culture--try as he might to criticize those lindy hops at Boston's Roseland dance hall from the perspective of his Muslim faith, he can't help but make them sound pretty wonderful. These are but a few examples. The Autobiography of Malcolm X limns an archetypal journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual awakening. When Malcolm tells coauthor Alex Haley, "People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book," he voices the central belief underpinning every attempt to set down a personal story as an example for others.

 

Hassan, Asma Gull, American Muslims: The New Generation. Continuum International Publishing Group. 2002. 204 pages.

A self-described "Muslim feminist cowgirl," Hasan writes to help Americans overcome anti-Muslim stereotypes and to learn something about America's fastest growing religion. At the same time, she gives a first-person account of what Islam may become as the American-born children of immigrants adapt their faith to American culture: a "de facto Reform Islam."

 

Jackson, Sherman, Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 256 pages.

University of Michigan Professor Sherman (Abd al-Hakim) Jackson notes that no one has offered a convincing explanation of why Islam spread among Blackamericans (a coinage he explains and defends) but not among white Americans or Hispanics. The assumption has been that there is an African connection. In fact, Jackson shows, none of the distinctive features of African Islam appear in the proto-Islamic, black nationalist movements of the early 20th century. Instead, he argues, Islam owes its momentum to the distinctively American phenomenon of "Black Religion," a God-centered holy protest against anti-black racism. Islam in Black America begins as part of a communal search for tools with which to combat racism and redefine American blackness. Jackson argues that Muslim tradition itself contains the resources to reconcile blackness, American-ness, and adherence to Islam. It is essential, he contends, to preserve within Islam the legitimate aspects of Black Religion, in order to avoid what Stephen Carter calls the domestication of religion, whereby religion is rendered incapable of resisting the state and the dominant culture. At the same time, Jackson says, it is essential for Blackamerican Muslims to reject an exclusive focus on the public square and the secular goal of subverting white supremacy (and Arab/immigrant supremacy) and to develop a tradition of personal piety and spirituality attuned to distinctive Blackamerican needs and idiosyncrasies.

 

Khan, Muqtedar, American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom. Amana Publications, 2002. 170 pages.

Khan's central thesis is Muslims in the West, "not only have to understand the modern west in a more balanced way [but] also develop a discourse for the reconstruction of (an) Islamic identity that is neither weakened nor distracted by the enormous shadow of the West. Until we as Muslims can go beyond blind imitation of the West or outright rejection of its values, we will not be able to construct an Islamic self, independent of western influence. It is essential that we develop a positive and constructive understanding of the 'other'. Only through such a positive and creative act will we be able to reconstruct a vibrant and meaningful self."

 

Leonard, Karen Isaksen, Muslims in the U.S: The State of Research. Russel Sage Foundation Publications, 2003. 199 pages.

Leonard argues that Islam has inevitably been shaped by its experience on American soil, due to Islam's status as a minority religion operating within the framework of America's secular social and legal codes, while coping with the ethnic differences among Muslim groups that have long divided their communities. Arab Muslims tend to dominate mosque functions and teaching Arabic and the Qur'an, the author contends, whereas South Asian Muslims have often focused on the regional and national mobilization of Muslims around religious and political issues. Consonant with the book's underlying message of triumphant American culture, American citizenship and prolonged stay in America prompts greater interchange among diverse groups.

 

Malik, Jamal, and John Hinnels (eds.), Sufism in the West. Routledge, 2006. 240 pages.

This edited work by a pair of Religious Studies Professors in Germany and England documents the rising importance of Sufism in the Western Muslim community. The articles mostly focus on the legacy of Idries Shah, the Naqshbandiyya and the Bawa Muhaiyaddeen fellowship and primarily relate to Europe.

 

Mamdani, Mahmood, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror. Three Leaves, 2005. 320 pages.

Osama bin Laden's pronouncements are rarely published in full in the United States, but transcripts of his messages-often available overseas-provide startling insight into the political, rather than religious, nature of his thinking. "Labeling us, and our acts, as terrorism is also a description of you and your acts," bin Laden said recently. "Our acts are a reaction to your acts." Columbian University Professor Mahmood Mamdani takes a controversial step by agreeing with bin Laden, at least on this point; he argues that groups like al-Qaeda are generally motivated by legitimate political grievances with U.S. foreign policy. "In a nutshell," Mamdani writes, "the U.S. government decided to harness and even to cultivate terrorists" during the latter half of the Cold War as it sought to roll back the Soviet Union's global influence. Now, with that legacy coming back to haunt its creators, Mamdani concludes that "no Chinese wall divides 'our' terrorism from 'their' terrorism. Each tends to feed the other."

 

McCloud, Aminah Beverly, African American Islam. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Depaul University Religious Studies Professor McCloud takes a closer look at the emergence of Islam in the African American community through pointed analysis of specific communities, past and present, and cathartic events of recent memory. She also treats larger thematic issues such as women in Islam and Muslims living with non-Muslims.

 

Metcalf, Barbara Daly, Making Muslim Space in North America and Europe. University of California Press, 1996. 263 pages.

This work focuses on the everyday practices of Muslim immigrants in the West, rather than the political issues of headline news. Metcalf, a History Professor at the University of California, Davis, uses the idea of separation of public and private space as a key analytical tool.

 

Mohammed-Arif, Aminah, Salaam America: South Asian Muslims in New York. Anthem Press, 2002.

A work by a social anthropologist at the Centre d'Etudes de l'Inde et de l'Asie de Sud in Paris, this study focuses on Muslim immigrants from the Indian sub-continent as a case study in successful integration.

 

Nyang, Sulayman and Rashad, Adib, Islam, Black Nationalism and Slavery: A Detailed History.  Writers Inc. Intl: 1995. 

Beginning with the origins of Islam in Arabia and continuing to the African empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai, the authors examine the influence the religion had on the peoples of that continent and the impact of slavery on African Muslims brought to the Americas. After offering several biographical sketches of pre-Civil War Muslim slaves and how Islam was reintroduced into the United States at the turn of the century, the authors describe the rise of Islamic and Black Power movements in urban areas of the U.S., presenting vivid portraits of such powerful historical figures as Marcus Garvey, Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X; as well as more contemporary leaders.

 

Nyang, Sulayman, Islam in the United States of America. Chicago: ABC International Group, 1999. 165 pages.

This work is an important introductory work discussing the diverse experiences of Muslims in America, demonstrating that Muslims are "not a monolithic group; ... [various communities] respond differently to some challenges facing Muslims; ... and [have adopted] different degrees of assimilation to American culture and society." His original documentation of the establishment of American Muslim schools and civil rights organizations, the Islamic press, and Darul Islam, the most influential African-American Sunni community, provides a dynamic view of the culture of Muslims in the United States.

 

Orfalea, Gregory and Elmusa, Sharif (eds), Grape Leaves: A Century of Arab-American Poetry. Interlink Publishing Group, 1999. 336 pages.

A significant introduction to a community of poets seldom acknowledged in America, with effort to include authors outside of the mainstream (although Kahlil Gibran is represented) who avoid the "longing-for-home" and other sentimental clichés.

 

Ramadan, Tariq, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 288 pages.

In a Western world suddenly acutely interested in Islam, one question has been repeatedly heard above the din: where are the Muslim reformers? While the media remains focused on radical Islam, Ramadan claims, a silent revolution is sweeping Islamic communities in the West, as Muslims actively seek ways to live in harmony with their faith within a Western context. Ramadan argues for the creation an independent Western Islam, anchored not in the traditions of Islamic countries but in the cultural reality of the West. He begins by offering a fresh reading of Islamic sources, interpreting them for a Western context and demonstrating how a new understanding of universal Islamic principles can open the door to integration into Western societies. He then shows how these principles can be put to practical use. Ramadan contends that Muslims can-indeed must-be faithful to their principles while participating fully in the civic life of Western secular societies.

 

Rouse, Carolyn Moxley, Engaged Surrender: African-American Women and Islam. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004. 271 pages.

Princeton University Anthropologist Carolyn Rouse bases this book on field research on two Los Angeles mosques. Rouse questions assumptions about the supposed oppressive nature of Islam to women in an attempt to explain why African American women continue to convert to Islam. Muslim women are able to empower themselves, she argues, "by situating a discourse of liberation within the authorized discourse of Islam."

 

Roy, Olivier, Globalized Islam. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

A noted French scholar of modern Islamic movements, Roy examines the phenomenon of one third of the world's Muslims living as a minority, mostly in Western societies, and thus the reactionary strains of assimilation and fundamentalism, and the emergence of new forms of radicalism such as al-Qaeda.

 

Sedgwick, Mark, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press, 2004. 384 pages.

Accomplished Middle East History Professor Mark (Abd al-Azim) Sedgwick focuses here on the legacy of René Guénon (d. 1951), the French intellectual and Muslim convert who considered modernity a dark age and tried to reconstruct the perennial philosophy. Western Muslim writers who have been influenced by Guénon include Martin Lings, Frithjof Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Huston Smith. To be fair, this work is probably best read alongside the influential works of the research subjects themselves. For starters, see Harry Oldmeadow (ed.), The Betrayal of Tradition: Essays on the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity (World Wisdom, 2005; containing contributions from Schuon, Titus Burckhardt and Karen Armstrong); or René Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World (Sophia Perennis, 2004).

               

Smith, Jane, Islam in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

The book includes a brief survey of Islamic doctrine and practice, then moves on to give a broad overview of Islam in America, from historical trajectories to contemporary social issues such as women and Muslim interface with American society. Smith is a professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary (Connecticut).

 

Suleiman, Michael (ed.), Arabs in America: Building a New Future. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000.

Suleiman brings together 21 prominent scholars from a wide range of perspectives; including anthropology, economics, history, law, literature and culture, political science, and sociology; to take a close look at the status of Arabs in North America. More broadly, they examine Arabs in the legal system, youth and family, health and welfare, as well as Arab-American identity, political activism, and attempts by Arab immigrants to achieve respect and recognition in their new homes.

 

Turner, Richard Brent, Islam in the African American Experience. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana UP, 2003. 336 pages.

Beginning with the Islamic tradition in West Africa more than a thousand years ago and tracing its transmission to the New World through slaves and, later, Indian missionaries, Richard Brent Turner documents the historical and political circumstances that fueled Islam's growth among African Americans. These circumstances, Turner argues, still inform the activities of its two most prominent American leaders, Warith Deen Mohammed and Louis Farrakhan.

 

Van Nieuwkerk, Karin, Women Embracing Islam: Gender and Conversion in the West. University of Texas Press, 2006. 308 pages.

Work by Dutch social anthropologist examining the surprising number of Western women converting to Islam.

 

Wormser, Robert, American Islam: Growing Up Muslim in America. Diane Publishing Company, 2002. 130 pages.

This book focuses primary on American Muslim youth, with field research conducted among immigrants from the Middle East and the African American community.